CHINA- Harvesting Organs from Prisoners

I have been keeping my lips shut on an issue burning inside of me. Normally when injustice boils my blood I can do nothing but shout it from the proverbial rooftops. But this… this has been so hard to digest.

I’m not sure why I have been clueless. After I learned of it, I brought it up on seperate occasions to both my father and brother and they both knew about it. I can not fathom why this isn’t on MSM (main stream media) and why there isn’t total OUTCRY about it! Please Media don’t tell me for the one MILLIONTH time what Paris Hilton is up to and not report what may possibly be one of the biggest human rights violations of our time!

It isn’t bad enough that China forces abortions on women about to give birth. And repetitively commits religious persecution by imprisoning people for their faith. But what do they do with these prisoners???

THEY FREAKING HARVEST THEIR ORGANS TO MAKE MONEY FROM RICH FORIEGNERS DESPERATE TO LIVE!

This has been on my mind for awhile now, unable to imagine the depths of depravity one must be in to be able to kill a person, even 5 people at times, for the possibility of finding 1 kidney for well funded person.

Of course, China denies this. Hard proof of the practice is difficult to find, but I have been reading incredible research on the topic and believe there is more than enough convincing evidence This Report on Organ Harvesting takes an investment of time to read… but if this issue breaks your heart the way it has mine you need to schedule the time and read it.

I have not been able to figure out how to sum up my thoughts on the process, or how to appropriately compile talking points from the report… I have not attempted discussing it on Mommyzabs previously. I wanted to do this topic justice. But all I can do now is pray and beg people to listen, even if my writing can appropriately reflect the urgency. My influence in this world is completely minute. However, I’m compelled to do whatever I can.

I’m not typically a boycotter. Mostly because Christians seem to take boycotting to a ridiculous extreme. It takes A LOT to make me boycott. I’m just not sure I can give another penny to support China knowingly. The more I talk to others, the more insight I gain… the more I have to speak with my money. Sometimes it is the only language people listen too.

My Boycott won’t be able to be 100%. Sometimes it just is not feasible (like when my child gets a McD’s kids meal with his friends and there is a made in China toy with it, It is hard to tell a 3 year old they can’t have it when all their kids have their kids meal toys at the table…) But I have already begun looking at labels on everything and staying away from China.

On that tangent… since boycotting China makes it quite difficult to buy toys for your children, I found a helpful link for finding products (including toys and toy brands) that are not made in China.

I am going to publish the following article in my blog in full and I do hope that isn’t inappropriate. I want you to read it as it is a better summation than I can do. Please do take the time to read the Full Report. There is more information than could ever justly be summarized.

Organs harvested from live prisoners
Allison Hanes, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, May 18, 2007

TORONTO — Foreign patients who travel to China for transplants are likely receiving organs culled from political prisoners who are alive when their corneas, kidneys and livers are harvested, then left to die, an international group of doctors armed with a chilling Canadian report is warning.

In a new twist on an old practice of using organs from executed criminals, China has since 2000 turned to living donors and outlawed Falun Gong members to supply a growing trade in medical transplants, Doctors Against Organ Harvesting said Thursday during a public forum held at the University of Toronto.

With increasing numbers of Canadians on long waiting lists turning to China to save their own lives, the newly formed organization is seeking to warn patients that someone else’s life is likely being sacrificed in the process of obtaining organs.

“Each person who travels to China for an organ causes the death of another human,” said Dr. Torsten Trey, a Washington, D.C.-based physician and founding member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting.

The group is sounding the alarm in the medical community about mounting evidence of unethical transplants in China. They want doctors to impress the information upon their patients. They want hospitals and universities to close their doors to visiting Chinese physicians and scholars looking to hone their techniques. And they want medical journals to reject research on transplants conducted in China.

“Medical science cannot build up any knowledge which is based on inhuman and unethical procedures,” said Trey, who compared China’s pilfering of organs from Falun Gong practitioners to Nazi medical experimentation during the Holocaust.

Doctors Against Organ Harvesting was formed in the wake of a Canadian investigation first released last year.

Authored by former Liberal MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, the report claims there is a widespread and systematic policy in China of selling organs from living donors to a growing clientele of desperate patients.

Kilgour said Thursday it is clear Falun Gong members are being targeted over other ethnic groups and religions, as a part of a campaign to villainize their spiritual practice since it fell out of favour with the government in 2000.

The report’s conclusions were drawn from interviews with a handful of eyewitnesses from the medical side, recipients of organs harvested in China, official government pronouncements, statistics showing a sudden explosion in the number of transplants performed, marketing Web sites and undercover inquiries to hospital.

In one instance, an Asian patient recounted that after rifling through a list of potential donors, a military doctor departed and returned to the hospital several times, bringing back a total of eight different kidneys before finally settling on a match.

In another, a sick patient found out one day he needed a transplant and had an organ within 24 hours.

Web sites market transplants in China in five different languages and in some cases guarantee availability of a matching organ within two weeks. The average wait time for a kidney in Canada is 32.5 months, while in British Columbia it is 52.5 months.

In surreptitious phone calls to Chinese transplant hospitals by Mandarin-speaking investigators, medical staff admitted organs came from Falun Gong prisoners.

While he is sympathetic to the plight of ailing Canadians who wait years for a transplant and face the prospect of dying before a match comes along, Kilgour said patients and doctors cannot turn a blind eye.

“Medicine cannot be practised by killing innocent people like chickens,” he said.

Gerry Koffman, a Toronto general practitioner and member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting, said there are about 100 confirmed cases of Canadian patients from Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver having transplants done in China.

original report from Leader-Post (Regina)
(hat tip: ChinaView)

I wrote the author of the China View Blog a couple times to gain further perspective on what we can do. He is busy but has been very helpful. His 2 pieces of advice on what to do were the following:

A. as an individual, for our safety reason, buy as less Chinese products as we can. The bottom line is do not make our own life difficult, if the Chinese product is the only choice.

B. Urge/push the government/trade companies take action to boycott
until the situation is changed. Government action is the most effective way,
because for business companies profit is always their first choice and
they seldom really care about human rights.

To make it happen, we need to raise awareness and educate the officals,
NGOs, trade companies,etc, by make appointment/writing letter/email/fax,
and also the most important thing we are doing now, blogging.

I would like to add… If boycotting China gained enough buzz… like THE ONE campaign has, I do think it could be possible to effect the commerce world. If awareness was raised to the point that people were boycotting en masse and deciding to live with less in order to come against China’s human rights violations, some businesses would take the hint.

You may think, “this republican has fallen off her rocker” 🙂 But realize that I serve Jesus Christ before any political party. And though Republicans have more the reputation of ruthless capitalists, and though I do believe capitalism is the less of evils in economic systems, ethics are not to be forsaken. We must always respect human life because God created it. Innocents must always be protected. Always.

PLEASE bookmark the China View Blog and stay up to date on the CONSTANT human rights violations by the Chinese government. We as a nation have got to stop turning a blind eye toward what they are doing.

War on the View

Oh Boy!

I can not even remember the last time I watched the view… but I just saw this video over on Hot Air, and I am not sure I have seen anything like it on the daily talk shows since that creep Parsons (who claimed to killing Jon Benet) on That one show (don’t even remember the name?) or maybe back to Geraldo getting his nose broken! Looks like the 2 are getting super real with each other since Rosie is on her way out anyway. Check it out.

When is War Okay?

I’m going to open a can of worms with this one.

Let’s take the War in Iraq out of the equation… And the “war on terror” is such a difficult one to define that we should be careful on discussing that one as well.

What I want to know your thoughts on is,When is war okay?

Was World War 1 justified?

World War 2?

Many Christians are against the Iraq war… And I see some of their points, though I haven’t come to a personal conclusion. I know we (US) are there and can’t just run out right now. I don’t know what specific decisions could have been made better. I know that it is good Saddam is gone. Beyond that, we need to defeat the terrorists that are there… but I have no answers.

What about situations like Darfur? What if Iran or N. Korea get Nukes and are determined to use them? What wars were worth it in the past? In both world wars, the death-tolls were incredible!

Check out these Estimates via Wikipedia: (they seem unreal to me!)

World War 1 between 15 million and 66 million (larger number includes Spainish Flu deaths.)

World War 2 between 60 million and 72 million (the deadliest war ever) Included in these casualties is an estimated 50% civilian casualty!

Korean War between 2.5 million and 3.5 million

Vietnam War between 2.3 million and 3.8 million

American Civil War est. 970,000 (including 350,000 from disease)

Current War in Iraq between 214,000 and 655,000 and counting

I could go on….

Every casualty sucks.

So what makes it worth it? At what point is the cause great enough? Was stopping Hitler from taking over the world to form his Arian nation enough?

What constitues a “just war”. I have no clue.

Not

one

clue.

I know that it is a decision you should make with fear and trembling before the Lord, but that’s about all I know.

So for all those Christians that aren’t total pacificts, but are only for “A JUST WAR”, What does a just war look like?

Are Evangelicals Evolving?

I just read an article on Hot Air entitled NYT Studies Evangelicals in the Mist. The article is referring and commentating on this article written in the New York Times. I encourage you to read both articles in full. I want to point out some specific points of interest to me and add my own commentary. I would love to hear your thoughts as well.

First off, to sum up the articles (though I do believe that you should read them for yourself,) They are discussin the shift in Evangelical Christianity from the Falwell and Robertson days in politics to the more centrist view of emerging leaders like Bill Hybels (Willow Creek, Chicago) and Rick Warren (Saddleback, California).

I agree with this. Evangelicals are moving increasingly toward the center rather than the rigid right.

According to the following quote one thing that evangelicals have not ditched is the pro-life movement. Thank GOD! This after all was the very same movement that pulled Fawell into the political scene to begin with.

“The abortion issue is going to continue to be a unifying factor among evangelicals and Catholics,” said the Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who is often held up as an example of the new model of conservative Christian leaders. “That’s not going to go away.”

They go on to question the electability of Guiliani with this “new generation” of evangelicals.

The persistence of abortion as a core concern for evangelical voters, who continue to represent a broad swath of the Republican base, could complicate efforts by Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has been leading the Republican presidential field in nationwide polls, to get primary voters to move past the issue and accept his support for abortion rights.

I have speculated before that I don’t know if Guliani is truly electable if the religious right can’t get past his abortion status (of which I am one,) and the Times seems to agree. I have many friends who vote independently and one of the only things that keeps them voting republican IS the abortion issue.

If Guiliani loses a large part of these independent voters can he win? Will those people just not vote at all because they don’t like any of their choices? Right or wrong, I could see that happening among many people I know. They are fiscally democrats, but morally republicans…I could see them either not voting or voting democrat for the sake of social programs.

Evangelicals also seem quite split on the idea of Climate Change. Hybels and Warren signed a call to action on climate change last year. The former head of the Christian Coalition even stepped down last year for his signing of this same document. As the Times points out, this has unified some typically conservative christian groups a long with the more liberal groups headed by Jim Wallace and Ronald Sider (Evangelicals for Social Action). On the other end of the Climate Change debate you have (had) Fawell, Robertson, and Dobson.

The Times also point out,

Another evangelical standard-bearer who did not sign the statement was Charles W. Colson, 75, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, who said in an interview that there were many environmental groups behind the statement that were hostile to evangelical causes. Nevertheless, he said he appreciated the direction that younger evangelical leaders are taking the movement.

As you can see, Evangelical leaders are both united and divided on the topic of climate change.

The former Christian Coalition Leader, Joel Hunter stated,

Mr. Giuliani would not garner much of the evangelical vote because of his liberal views on social issues.

“There always will be in the evangelical movement a strong identification with what we call the traditional moral issues — abortion, marriage between a man and a woman, addiction to pornography,” he said.

A 2004 survey by John C Green attempted to quantify the traditional Christian right evangelical against the newer centrist politically un-involved evangelical,

The two camps are roughly the same size, each representing 40 to 50 percent of the total.

It is estimated that since that survey the number of centrists has grown considerably.

What I am personally noticing is a move toward evangelicals influencing culture change outside politics. The times also points this movement out.

Gabe Lyons, 32, is emblematic of the transformation among many younger evangelicals. He grew up in Lynchburg, Va., attending Mr. Falwell’s church. But he has shied away from politics. Instead, he heads the Fermi Project, a loose “collective” dedicated to teaching evangelicals to shape culture through other means, including media and the arts.

While I think this is crucial… I also believe that we can not at the same time totally neglect politics. It is part and parcel to culture change as much as it is a reflection of culture. I don’t believe we should back out of it completely in our attempts to influence culture through social action, media, arts, etc.

The Hot Air Article commentary on this evangelical evolution points this out from a round-table interview with Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life, Saddleback Church, California) that Rick had said this to Jaun Williams,

Now the word “fundamentalist” actually comes from a document in the 1920s called the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. And it is a very legalistic, narrow view of Christianity, and when I say there are very few fundamentalists, I mean in the sense that they are all actually called fundamentalist churches, and those would be quite small. There are no large ones.

The article then maps out these 5 fundamentals Warren is speaking of:

1. The inerrancy of the autographs (or original writings) of scripture.
2. The virgin birth and deity of Christ.
3. The substitutionary view of the atonement.
4. The bodily resurrection of Christ.
5. The imminent return of Christ.

I don’t know about you… But these aren’t super legalistic in my opinion, and I have seen my share of legalism. These fundamentals seem rather sound. I am surprised that Warren said this.

I know for a fact that my “Large” church adhere’s to these 5 “fundamentals” even though it is a rather centerist church. In fact, every “large” church I have been a part in my life adheres to those fundamentals.

Hot Air pointed this out, saying

A savvy reporter at that Pew forum would have asked Warren, “Which of those five fundamentals represent a ‘very legalistic, narrow’ view of Christianity?” No one thought to ask him that.

And also going on to say,

The answer, by the way, is none of the fundamentals represent a “narrow, legalistic” view of Christianity.

They’re all essential beliefs. Believing in the fundamentals doesn’t make you a fundamentalist. It just makes you a Christian. The fundamentals were put together to unify Christians of all stripes on the basics that unite us. They’re not just fundamentalist in design or intent. So Warren either has his fundamentalism taxonomy wrong, or he has his theology wrong.

I definitely agree with him (Bryan the author) on that.

So what do you think? New Generation? Or is this a generation *trying* to look different? Are we just finding that *the church* can’t be boxed as easily as many would like to think? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? In accepting this are we really *divided* as a church and thus less influential? I don’t know? I really don’t. I am interested to hear others’ thoughts though. Try to maintain a considerate, respectful tone please.

Addition: I would like to add the very obvious, that the war in Iraq has also been a major split amoung evangelicals.

A Paris Bashing Party Anyone?

I’m not a big Paris Hilton fan. I’m also not a Paris Hilton hater. I’m actually rather indifferent to her. The only occassions she comes to my mind is when I see her on t.v. or in a magazine. Other than that, I don’t think about Paris Hilton.

Today I was forced to think about her as my friend over at Non Sequitor sent me a link to this article.

Most of you know who Paris Hilton is so I won’t be pasting that part. What some of you may or may not know is that she is headed for Jail time for driving on a D.U.I. suspended license. She has appealed this sentence and will likely be unsuccessful. The diva better get used to bright orange (isn’t that what they wear these days?).

All of that really doesn’t matter to me. She broke the law and will be punished like anyone else. Seems fair right? What DOES annoy me however is what the author of the article says some Christians are doing in response. Read on…

A Christian group are planning to celebrate Paris’ jail sentence by trashing her CDs at US Hilton hotels. Mark Dice – founder of The Resistance, who have previously criticised 50 Cent and Jessica Simpson for being bad role models – will speak at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton on June 5 – the day Paris is due to begin her sentence. He said: “The kinds of role models that have come to light recently in America are horrible. “She is an extremely materialistic, uneducated person who rose to prominence because of a homemade sex video. Now we have all these young, preteen and teenage girls who really look up to her. “We’re going to be throwing her CDs in huge trash cans and getting them off the face of the Earth.”

COME ON PEOPLE!
Look, I think she dresses inappropriately. I don’t like the idea of her leaked sex video. Many of the things I have seen her in seem anything but edifying let alone an example to our young women. HOWEVER, the girl is making her bed and will sleep in it. I do not think she is constructing a whole agenda for our generation to lead it into complete depravity. I think she wants to be beautiful, rich, and famous… and in doing so may not have the best of morals.

To hold Paris CD trashing parties at her family’s hotel chain seems absurd. Aren’t there more time-worthy causes to fight? I get overwhelmed sometimes of the mere thought of all the sad, awful things going on in the world. All the people being sold in sex trade, children being taken advantage of, babies being aborted, mass genocide in africa, abuse, the plight of the poor…etc. As Christians if we are going to advocate for something, don’t those causes seem more valid?

I guess I’m treading on the line of being judgemental and I really do not want to be like that. Maybe these people have this bizarre calling? I just don’t remember Jesus talking about rejoicing when lost people get what’s coming to them. Anyone have thoughts on this?

Children Environmentally Unfriendly? What next?

THIS article from The Sunday Times in London absolutely infuriates me. (hat tip Brit and Grit for linking to this)

Children ‘bad for planet’
By Sarah-Kate Templeton in London
May 07, 2007 12:00am

Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

“The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”

In his latest comments, the academic says that when couples are planning a family they should be encouraged to think about the environmental consequences.

“The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account,” he added.

Professor Guillebaud says that, as a general guideline, couples should produce no more than two offspring.

The world’s population is expected to increase by 2.5 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050. Almost all the growth will take place in developing countries.

The population of developed nations is expected to remain unchanged and would have declined but for migration.

The British fertility rate is 1.7. The EU average is 1.5. Despite this, Professor Guillebaud says rich countries should be the most concerned about family size as their children have higher per capita carbon dioxide emissions.

This article addresses large families, and although I do not know that I will be having one of those, I sure would like to reserve the right to. Some of the most amazing parents I know are ones that have 3+ kids.

I am seeing more movement toward this ‘Politically Correct’ attitude that having children is environmentally unfriendly and downright irresponsible. The increasing global awareness seems to have caused some nutso extremests to think that because people are concerned about global warming it will make their child-hating acceptable. It may work for parts of the European Union right now… but not in the heartland of the United States. I hope that doesn’t change.

If you read here even semi-regularly you know I’m a Bible Believing Christian. This is what Jesus had to say about children:

Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

Matthew 18:3
He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:13-14
Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Mark 10:15,16
I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Mark 18:5-7
“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!”

The fact is, God values children. That doesn’t mean everyone that believes in God should have children. It does however mean that children should never be seen as a mere pollution factor or addition to our carbon footprint. Call me an alarmist, but to me that seems like a baby step toward China where babies are murdered via infantacide everyday in attempts to control population.

Political Quiz & Second String.

Voice of Reason posted a political quiz where you can find out your “political definition”. I thought it look interesting so I took it. My results are posted above. I’m not exactly shocked by them 🙂

On this same site you can compare your results with different politicians view-points. It’s a useful link in a crowded political areana!

Voice of Reason also posted info on what he calls the Second String in the political race (those running that don’t have a huge chance.) I found this post interesting because it is sometimes difficult to learn about these candidates view points since main-stream media does not cover them much.

I would love it if you took the quiz if you could come back and report what you got. I think it would be interesting to see what we get. No judgement, just curiuos.

Designer Babies Discussion

I wanted to open up a little bit of a discussion on the topic of choosing your embryo. This is now being done in Britain, and while it is a process that I am not sure I am at all comfortable with, the reasons for doing so are noble. I thought it would be interesting to see what you guys thought of it. I will copy excerpts from the Fox News story on it. But for full length article please see

Britain Clears Way for ‘Designer Baby’ Free of Breast Cancer Gene

And original article from the London post:
First Designer Babies to Beat Breast Cancer

Most of the Fox Article:

Tests will allow the couples to take the unprecedented step of selecting embryos free from a gene that carries a heightened risk, but does not necessarily cause, the cancer. The move will reignite controversy over the ethics of embryo screening.
An application to test for the BRCA1 gene was submitted yesterday by Dr. Paul Serhal of London’s University College Hospital. It is expected to be approved within months as the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has already agreed in principle.

Opponents say that the test is unethical because it involves destroying some embryos that would never contract these conditions if allowed to develop into children. Even those that did become ill could expect many years of healthy life first.

Some critics fear that the tests move society farther down a slope that will lead ultimately to the creation of “designer babies” chosen for looks or intelligence.

However, the first patients say that the technology will allow them to spare their children a devastating genetic inheritance. One couple in their 20s, who would only be named as Matthew and Helen, have lost three generations to breast cancer.
Last May, the watchdog ruled it acceptable for doctors to screen embryos for genes such as BRCA1, which raise the risk of cancer in adulthood by between 60 and 80 percent. Embryo screening was previously restricted to genes that carry a 90 to 100 percent chance of causing disease.
The application is the first to be made under the new regime after a year of research to identify the precise mutations that affect Serhal’s patients. Approval is likely in three to four months, once the HFEA has confirmed that the tests are reliable.

Women with a defective BRCA1 gene also have a 40 percent risk of ovarian cancer. It is linked to prostate and breast cancer in men, who can also inherit it benignly and pass it on to their daughters.
Serhal said that objections to screening ignored the harrowing family histories of the patients he is seeking to help, who have a chance to ensure their children avoid similar experiences.
“We are talking about a killer that wipes out generation after generation of women,” Serhal said. “You can have a preventive mastectomy, but this is traumatic and mutilating surgery that does not eliminate the risk.
“What we are trying to do here is to prevent this inherited disease from being a possibility in the first place. At least with these people’s children, we can annihilate the gene from the family tree.”
Supporters of screening point out that patients must use IVF even if fertile and many couples carrying defective genes will not choose this option. The HFEA code of practice also makes it clear that screening is allowed only for serious conditions.
When the license is awarded, the couples will have IVF. This will allow a single cell to be removed from the embryo at the eight-cell stage and be tested for the defective BRCA1 gene. Only unaffected embryos will then be transferred to the womb.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the embryo rights group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: “There has to be a better way of curing disease than this. It is very likely that in the not-too-distant future there will be a way of treating breast cancer that doesn’t rely on eliminating the carrier instead of curing the disease.”
Last year, the Times revealed the conception of Britain’s first “designer baby,” who was screened as an embryo for inherited cancer. The baby has since been born healthy and free from the gene carried by her mother that would have given her a 90 percent chance of developing retinoblastoma, an eye tumor.

Please comment freely and if you disagree with a fellow commenter please use respect while doing so.

Week News Cap (for my friends who don’t watch the news)

It seems Micheal Moore has been up to another one of his mockumenteries.
Shortly after JJ returned from his missions trip to Cuba, I mentioned in a post that Michael Moore had been there 2 weeks previous. This article from the NY Post covers it here Thanks 4simpsons and Verum Serum for tipping me to this.

The Supreme Court of the U.S. has decided to uphold the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act! Pro-Lifers are counting it as a victory! Presidential Candidates for 2008 Praising this decision are, Mccain, Juliani and Romny. Barack Obama has strongly critisized the decision, while Hillary Clinton has proclaimed it an “erosion of our contitutional right” (Tip to Stevereenie for the quote.)
update: I found this post on The Voice Of Reason blog that quotes most of the candidates response to this supreme court decision. Please give it a read. Quotes more of the Candidates than I have listed.

I find it pretty impossible you do not know what happened at Virginia Tech this week, so I will not re-cap it. But I do want to say something about is how insane it is that threats of copy-cats have happened popped around the Nation. Reportedly, 15 schools shut-down with with these threats. Are there really that many crazies running around? I guess so. Its rather un-nerving. It makes me believe we have been very blessed to not have it happen before.
Debates spawning from this story include:
1. Gun Control Laws
2. Campus Security
3. Laws regarding involuntary commiting of crazy people to mental health facilities.
4. What colleges and/or students have the right to know about the history of a student vs. privacy laws.
5. On what grounds public colleges are allowed to refuse enrollment to a mentally ill student.
6. Campus mass-communication methods.
7. Our we teaching our students to be too tolerant?
8. Whether or not NBC should have shown Killer’s manifesto.
9. Effects of Anti-depressants (I just heard this one, and am somewhat surprised by it.)
I’m sure the list will continue to grow.

People are doing the normal finger-pointing that follows tragedies like this. Some of the fingers are pointing in understandable directions… but let’s not forget that the truest blame lays on this mass murderer. (forgive me for not even wanting to use his name, and you will find no picture of him on this blog.)

Senator Harry Reid (d) in a speech this week proclaimed that the war in Iraq is lost. Excuse me? Excuse me? Is he the one with the authority to proclaim this? How does this effect morale over in the mid-east? How could you possibly speak something like this when we have soldiers on the field? Popular political blogger Michelle Malkin has had an open invite for soldiers to write in responses to Harry Reid. Check them out on starting here.

Actor, Alec Baldwin left a voicemail on his daughter’s cell phone that should make any parent cringe. TMZ aired it here. Alec has now tried to go to court to pull the plug on it and has issued an apology.
As a mom, on one hand I don’t want to be judgemental because I know I have lost my patience and wished I could take words or tones back. However, the excessive nature of this rant places it in the emotionally abusive catagory. My hope is that the complete embarassment of this causes this man to get some help, change, and restore relationship with his daughter.

Mass Murder in Virginia

I wasn’t sure If I’d say anything on my blog about this. I mean after all, everyone else is. But I still need to say that my thoughts, prayers, and tears are going out to those friends and families and the campus in general for experiencing this horrific thing. There are no words.