Universal Abortion Background Check

On February 1st the president's executive orders go into effect, assuring all citizens are safe from the dangers of unregulated abortions.

All women who desire an abortion will be entered into a national registry. The government has decided that women will only be allowed to have one abortion per year, and no more than seven in a lifetime. “Women have a right to choose in the constitution...er...somewhere, but we do need to make sure they know that their government is best at distributing those rights.”

All women who wish to have an abortion must produce references from a close friend or relative who will certify their need for abortion is absolutely necessary. “We support a woman’s right to choose” said Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs, “but think these regulations are necessary to protect the public from the violence associated with unrestricted access to abortions.”

Those seeking abortion must now undergo a background check, where financial records will be obtained to determine whether she can truly support a child. Those found able to do so will not be allowed to terminate the life of another human being. (Tip from Planned Parenthood: Leave the iPhone at home when pleading economic hardship!)

Further, if the background check reveals mental illness or demonstrates reasonable doubt as to the carefulness with which the woman is exercising her reproductive rights, the decision to abort will be placed in the hands of an arbitrator.  “While due regard must be maintained for a woman's privacy, stemming human-on-human violence for the public good outweighs the risks,” said legislators.

There will be mandatory counseling from an authorized counselor, psychiatrist, or clergyperson coupled with a three day “cooling off” waiting period.

Small rural clinics will be replaced with satellite abortion operating rooms attached to major hospitals in large cities where federally licensed and properly supervised abortion providers will ensure documentary compliance.

In attempt to close the “private practice loophole” only federally licensed abortion providers will be able to prescribe Mifepristone (RU-486, aka “the morning after pill”).

No one under the age of eighteen will be allowed to have an abortion without the supervision of their parents.

Finally, all non-medically necessary abortions must take place within the first trimester. “No one really needs more than three months to decide on something like taking a human life. High Capacity Waiting Periods - those consisting of more than three months for choosing termination - are really only needed by medical professionals and law enforcement agencies...and eugenicists,” quipped someone in a rather dashing vest.

Abortion Extremist™ Terry O'Neil, President of The National Organization For Women (NOW) disagrees. “These regulations are nothing more than a draconian curtailment of the God given freedoms that established this country and made it the beacon of hope it has become for people around the world. We will fight this by any means necessary.”

Further legislation will seek to reinstate and strengthen the late-term abortion ban; give law enforcement additional tools to prevent and prosecute unlawful abortions; and end the media silence on abortion violence research.

Happy Bonfire Day 2011

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everybody!

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holla boys, Holla boys, God save the King! (Queen)

(Now that's some parliament funk!)

Here's to 494 years of the Gospel recovered, and 406 years of the Gospel in England providentially defended!

What was left out of the SOTU?

Apparently, a lot.

Alfred the Great

When the Gospel was first preached in Britain, the island was inhabited by Celtic peoples. In the 400's, pagan Germanic tribes, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, invaded Britain and drove the Christian Celts out of what is now England into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The new arrivals (called collectively the Anglo-Saxons) were then converted by Celtic missionaries moving in from the one side and Roman missionaries moving in from the other. (They then sent missionaries of their own, such as Boniface, to their pagan relatives on the Continent.)

In the 800's the cycle partly repeated itself, as the Christian Anglo-Saxons were invaded by the Danes, pagan raiders, who rapidly conquered the northeast portion of England. They seemed about to conquer the entire country and eliminate all resistance when they were turned back by Alfred, King of the West Saxons.

Alfred was born in 849 at Wantage, Berkshire, youngest of five sons of King Aethelwulf. He wished to become a monk, but after the deaths (all in battle, I think) of his father and his four older brothers, he was made king in 871. He proved to be skilled at military tactics, and devised a defensive formation which the Danish charge was unable to break. After a decisive victory at Edington in 878, he reached an agreement with the Danish leader Guthrum, by which the Danes would retain a portion of northeastern England and be given other concessions in return for their agreement to accept baptism and Christian instruction.

From a later point of view, it seems obvious that such a promise could not involve a genuine change of heart, and was therefore meaningless (and indeed, one Dane complained that the white robe that he was given after his baptism was not nearly so fine as the two that he had received after the two previous times that he had been defeated and baptized). However, Alfred's judgement proved sound. Guthrum, from his point of view, agreed to become a vassal of Christ. His nobles and chief warriors, being his vassals, were thereby obligated to give their feudal allegiance to Christ as well. They accepted baptism and the presence among them of Christian priests and missionaries to instruct them. The door was opened for conversions on a more personal level in that and succeeding generations.

In his later years, having secured a large degree of military security for his people, Alfred devoted his energies to repairing the damage that war had done to the cultural life of his people. He translated Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy into Old English, and brought in scholars from Wales and the Continent with whose help various writings of Bede, Augustine of Canterbury, and Gregory the Great were likewise translated. He was much impressed by the provisions in the Law of Moses for the protection of the rights of ordinary citizens, and gave order that similar provisions should be made part of English law. He promoted the education of the parish clergy. In one of his treatises, he wrote:

"He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his
understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that
endless life where all shall be made clear."

He died on 26 October 899, and was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester. Alone among English monarchs, he is known as "the Great."

The writer G K Chesterton has written a long narrative poem about Alfred, called, "The Ballad of the White Horse." In my view, it would be improved by abridgement (I would, for example, terminate the prologue after the line "And laid peace on the sea"), but I think it well worth reading as it stands, both for the history and (with minor reservations) for the theology.

by James Kiefer

Collect and propers here.

Joe Friday and Obama

Yes we can

But should we?

From politics to science to economics to religion, the ability to do something doesn't mean that it is right for us to do something. To often, drunk with our own power, we rush to do something simply because we can - rather than thinking through why the limitation was there in the first place. Chesterton put it this way:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

-- The Thing, in "The Drift from Domesticity" (1929)

California, I'm looking at you.

Why we need vouchers

I'm a homeschooler. Our current tax code doesn't let me deduct a single penny for educational expenses; nor is there a penny of help. (And obviously, we don't get a child care deduction or credit because my wife is home.)

How much education could YOU buy in your area if you had even $5000 to spend per child?e

"Plug the damn hole"

Yes, Obama said it. What you don't know is that he was actually talking about Biden's mouth.

TRUTH!

Taxman

Obama mashup to the Beatle's "The Taxman."

Look MA, no Dems!

It's probably the best thing that could happen to the Dems. Now they can bail on this Obamacare disaster, blame it on the Republicans, and get on track with addressing the problems we face while redirecting the ire of their extremist constituents back on the conservatives.

Hope and Change on Healthcare

Do you still have the candidate you'd hoped for? Or did things change?

Missed opportunity

Apparently it was more important to seem like you're addressing the problem by getting something (anything) done by Christmas recess than it was to actually put the country on the road to healthcare reform.

Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's Senate floor speech, given about 1a EST this morning right before the vote is a sobering must read....

Tonight marks the culmination of a long national debate. Passions have run high. And, that's appropriate because the bill we are voting on tonight will impact the life of every American. It will shape the future of our country. It will determine whether our children can afford the nation they inherit. It is one of the most consequential votes any of us will ever take. And none of us take it lightly....

But make no mistake: if the people who wrote this bill were proud of it, they wouldn't be forcing this vote in the dead of night.

Here are just some of the deals we've noticed:

$100 million for an unnamed health care facility at an unnamed university somewhere in the United States - the bill doesn't say where - and no one will even step forward to claim it.

One state out of 50 gets to expand Medicaid at no cost to itself - while taxpayers in the other 49 states pick up the tab.

The same Senator who cut that deal secured another one that benefits a single insurance company - just one insurance company - based in his state.

Do the supporters of this bill know all this? Do they think it's a fair deal for their states, for the rest of the country?

The fact is, a year after this debate started few people could have imagined that this is how it would end - with a couple of cheap deals and a rushed vote at one o'clock in the morning. But that's where we are.

And Americans are wondering tonight: How did this happen?

So I'd like to take a moment to explain to the American people how we got here, to explain what happened - and what's happening now.

Everyone in this chamber agrees we need health care reform. The question is how?

Some of us have taken the view that the American people want us to tackle the cost issue, and we've proposed targeted steps to do it. Our friends on the other side have taken the opposite approach.

And the result has been just what you'd expect.

The final product is a mess - and so is the process that's brought us here to vote on a bill that the American people overwhelmingly oppose.

Any challenge of this size and scope has always been dealt with on a bipartisan basis. The senior Senator from Maine made that point at the outset of the debate, and reminded us all how these things have been handled throughout history.

The Social Security Act of 1935 was approved by all but 6 members of the Senate. The Medicare and Medicaid Acts of 1965 were approved by all but 21. All but 8 senators voted for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Americans believe that on issues of this importance, one party should never be allowed to force its will on the other half of the nation. The proponents of this bill felt differently.

In a departure from history, Democrat leaders put together a bill so heavy with tax hikes, Medicare cuts and government intrusion, that, in the end their biggest problem wasn't convincing Republicans to support it, it was convincing the Democrats.

In the end, the price of passing this bill wasn't achieving the reforms Americans were promised.

It was a blind call to make history, even if it was a historical mistake - which is exactly what this bill will be if it's passed. Because, in the end, this debate isn't about differences between two parties, it's about a $2.3 trillion dollar, 2,733-page health care reform bill that does not reform health care and, in fact, makes its price go up.

"The plan I'm announcing tonight," the President said on September 9th, "will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government."

"My plan," the President said, "would bring down premiums by $2500 for the typical family..."

"I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficit," the President said, "either now or in the future."

And, on taxes? "No family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase," he said.

He said he wouldn't cut Medicare.

People who like the plans they have wouldn't lose their coverage.

And, Americans were promised an open, honest debate. "That's what I will do in bringing all parties together," then-Senator Obama said on the campaign trail, "not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN."

That was then, and this is now.

But here's the reality: the Democrat bill we're voting on tonight raises health care costs. That's not me talking -- that's the administration's own budget scorekeeper.

It raises premiums -- that's the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office talking. It raises taxes on tens of millions of middle class Americans.

And, it plunders Medicare by half a trillion dollars It forces people off the plans they have -- including millions of seniors.

It allows the federal government for the first time in our history to use taxpayer dollars for abortions.

So a President who was voted into office on the promise of change said he wanted lower premiums. That changed. He said he wouldn't raise taxes. That changed. He said he wanted lower costs. That changed. He said he wouldn't cut Medicare. And, that changed too.

And, twelve months and $2.3 trillion later, lawmakers who made these same promises to their constituents are poised to vote for a bill that won't bend the cost curve, that won't make health care more affordable and that will make real reform even harder to achieve down the road.

Now, I understand the pressure our friends on the other side are feeling, and, I don't doubt for a moment their sincerity.

But, my message tonight is this: the impact of this vote will long outlive this one frantic, snowy weekend in Washington. Mark my words: this legislation will reshape our nation.

And, Americans have already issued their verdict: they don't want it. They don't like this bill -- and they don't like lawmakers playing games with their health care to secure the votes they need to pass it.

Let's think about that for a moment. We know the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to this bill.

And yet, the people who wrote it won't give the 300 million Americans whose lives will be profoundly affected by it so much as 72 hours to study the details.

Imagine that: when we all woke up yesterday morning, we still hadn't seen the details of the bill we're being asked to vote on before we go to sleep tonight.

How can anyone justify this approach? Particularly in the face of such widespread and intense public opposition.

Can all of these Americans be wrong? Don't their concerns count? Party loyalty can be a powerful force. We all know that.

But Americans are asking Democrats to put party loyalty aside tonight -- to put the interests of small business owners, taxpayers, and seniors first.

And there's good news -- it's not too late.

All it takes is one. Just one. One can stop it -- or every one will own it.

My colleagues: it is not too late.

Public Option for kids

This is a youtube video - you'll have to come to the blog or go to the host.
Because some people still don't understand basic economics.

If your healthcare reform doesn't deal with the rising cost of healthcare by opening the path to private competition, then you're just shuffling money around.

More Climategate

It looks like the only thing man-made (anthropogenic) about climate change is the hysteria.

Via James Delingpole at the Telegraph:

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)

A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.

The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.

Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

As Richard North says: This is serial.

UPDATE: As Steve McIntyre reports at ClimateAudit, it has long been suspected that the CRU had been playing especially fast and loose with Russian – more particularly Siberian – temperature records. Here from March 2004, is an email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann.

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears
I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
Phil

And here at Watts Up With That is a guest post by Jeff Id of the Air Vent

And here is what one of the commenters has to say about the way the data has been cherry-picked and skewed for political ends:

The crux of the argument is that the CRU cherry picked data following the same methods that have been done everywhere else. They ignored data covering 40% of Russia and chose data that showed a warming trend over statistically preferable alternatives when available. They ignored completeness of data, preferred urban data, strongly preferred data from stations that relocated, ignored length of data set.

One the final page, there is a chart that shows that CRU’s selective use of 25% of the data created 0.64C more warming than simply using all of the raw data would have done. The complete set of data show 1.4C rise since 1860, the CRU set shows 2.06C rise over the same period.

Not, of course, dear readers that I’m in any way tempted to crow about these latest revelations. After all, so many of my colleagues, junior and senior, have been backing me on this one to the hilt….

Oh, if anyone speaks Russian, here’s the full report.

Anybody remember this oldie but goodie:

John Stuart Mill on war & cowardice

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
“The Contest in America.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 24, Issue 143, page 683-684. Harper & Bros., New York, April 1862.

The Wisdom of a Constitutionally Limited Government

I can't for the life of me see any justification for the massive private-sector take over that is happening at the hands of President Obama. Maybe right now you think that only a firm and wise government (such as is reigning under The One) is the only way to fix our multiple conundra. (Which means you've lost faith in people to be solid individuals, but are curiously trusting an individual to fix our mess.)

If you still have warm feelings toward Obama and his good intentions, ask yourself this: Will you feel comfortable one day when the appointees of President Romney or President Palin are exercising unconstitutional, unauthorized, unreviewable authority to restructure the economy the way they see fit?

Because I can tell you that I'm pretty upset that when the Republicans were in power, they brushed aside reminders that some day a Democratic president would be exercising the vast unconstitutional powers that Bush was accumulating in the White House.

Democrat friends, please don't ignore the risks of giving more power to a federal government that will one day be run by conservatives. Because eventually both sides will be appalled by the uses that are made of those powers when that day comes.

Obama's Hypocrisy on Censorship

President Obama began his visit to China with an exhortation to free up censorship and allow the citizenry to question and criticize their government without fear of reprisal.

President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

Yeah. Ask Fox News how well Obama takes a little criticism. Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, was interviewed last month and said: “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” (Source: NYT)

It was a delicately balanced message and Obama couched his admonitions with words calling for cooperation, heavy with praise and American humility.

Our country needs to apologize to China? When did that happen? We've stood up for their freedom for 70 years! And our economies energize each other, raising the standard of living for both countries.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. "They can begin to think for themselves."

I'm in a conundrum. I have no idea which government snitch line I should report this to. - should I report this quote to fishy@whitehouse.gov or flag@whitehouse.gov? I just can't decide which one best holds the populace accountable to the government. OOOPS! I meant that the government is accountable to the people.

Exactly

Jail Time If You Don't Buy Health Insurance

Wow. There is now proof that the 1098 page bill (which none of these starry-eyed legislators have actually read) contains a provision to SEND YOU TO JAIL IF YOU DON'T BUY HEALTH INSURANCE.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

What is this? Does anybody remember the STAMP ACT??? Let's not lose sight of the fact that Congress has no constitutional authority to make us buy their program. Government intervention is one of the biggest aggravating factors in this crisis, and more government intervention is not going to help.

The current health care disaster in America is not simply a problem of people refusing to buy health insurance; it's an issue of people not being able to afford to buy health insurance. When the annual insurance premium for a family of four is something above $13,000, that's a terrible financial burden that many Americans simply can't afford to pay -- especially when so many people have lost their jobs due to the faltering economy. Worse, the government says that health insurance companies can't compete across state lines for your business (and we all know that the best way to reign in costs while maintaining quality, is through market competition).

The brutal facts of the matter are inescapable: The American people are too broke to buy their own health insurance, and the American government is too broke to buy it for them. The whole nation is going bankrupt over runaway health care COSTS. Any measure claiming to be healthcare reform that does nothing to address the COSTS is completely bogus.

Still Waiting

AIM recently reported that "Catholic Bishops Help Pass Pelosicare."

On Saturday, after Catholic lobbyists had finalized a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent Catholic in the U.S. Government, the Politico reported that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had "delivered a critical endorsement" to Pelosi "by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions."

The Hill newspaper reported that Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) had been trying to broker a deal and appealed to the Catholic Bishops. "I would like the [U.S. Conference of Catholic] Bishops, who as I understand it want a bill, to help us work out a plan where we don't have winners and losers," Waxman was quoted as saying. "Because the losers will make us lose the bill and the winners won't have won anything."

NBC's Doug Adams reported that the Catholic Bishops were "lobbying hard."

The shocking turn of events once again demonstrates the extreme left-wing drift of the Catholic Church, which is the nation's largest religious denomination with 67 million members and run by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But their role in passing Pelosicare is not the only evidence of such a turn. The Bishops poured more than $7.3 million of parishioners' money into the corrupt left-wing organization ACORN over the last decade before publicity over the organization's scandals forced suspension of the funding.

Anybody taking bets on whether or not Barry Lynn and the folks at Americans United for Separation of Church & State are going to sue? Or is their defamation only when they also politically oppose the "meddling"?