Considerettes

Take a look up and check out the slippery slope from the bottom. From virtual “no-fault” abortions to this:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.

The announcement by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives - a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates.

Secular humanist radicals have been calling for this for a long time. In fact, the like-minded Dr. Joseph Mengele was doing it 60 years ago. And here we are, killing live babies after birth. Dr. Henk Jochemsen, who studies medical ethics, puts it well.

“Applying euthanasia to children is another step down the slope in this debate,” said Henk Jochemsen, the director of Holland’s Lindeboom Institute, which studies medical ethics. “Not everybody agrees, obviously, but when we broaden the application from those who actively and repeatedly seek to end their lives to those for whom someone else determines death is a better option, we are treading in dangerous territory.”

Today, the terminally ill. Tomorrow…?

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This week’s “Best of Homespun Bloggers” is up (well, it was up yesterday), as well as this week’s Symposium question. I’m going to try and tackle that in the next couple of days. It’s a toughie.

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Sometimes it’s very interesting to find out how folks find this blog via search engines; the terms they used that brought this site up. As I see them, I’ll mention them here.

Today’s “Considerettes” Search Phrase - “Low carb Snickers bars” (top result from Excite).

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My blogger-in-law Jim Jewell has written a lengthy post about the confusion, misunderstanding and fear that is typically rampant this time of year. From lawsuits over the words “Merry Christmas” to “separation” confusion to making the Declaration of Independence unconstitutional, he discusses what the trends are and what possible answers we can come up with. Answers are necessary, and soon, otherwise, as Jim points out, historic speeches by John F. Kennedy may become outlawed.

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He’s shocked–SHOCKED!

The United Nations has revealed that the son of the secretary general, Kofi Annan, worked for a company being investigated in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal for four years longer than he first admitted.

Mr Annan said last night he was “very disappointed and surprised” that his son Kojo had not told him the full story of his links to Cotecna in Geneva.

How this apple did not fall far from the tree is the subject of an ongoing UN investigation. Expect an answer…someday.

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One of my good blog buddies has moved domains. “Marcland” is no more. Long live “Hubs and Spokes”!

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You will watch those movie previews on your DVD, understand?

Since the advent of the VCR, and with the arrival of DVD players, those who want to get to the movie have been free to skip past the coming attractions.

The entertainment industry, however, is exerting pressure in Congress with the hope of making it impossible to skip past previews and advertisements at the opening of DVDs.

Legislative language that would have done just that — make it illegal for DVDs to allow fast-forwarding — was struck at the last minute from a copyright bill that passed the Senate late Nov. 20.

The legislation, however, is headed for an uncertain fate in the House, which could reconvene Dec. 6 and 7 to consider, among other things, stalled intelligence reform legislation.

Yup, 3 years from now, when the movies that those previews are for have themselves come and gone on DVD, you will still have to watch the trailers. You want a good example of “too much government”? There’s a good one.

The entertainment industry asserts that revenue from the advertisements and publicity from the previews is central to its business plans, while opponents note that millions of VCR owners have been fast-forwarding past ads and coming attractions for nearly two decades.

The issue grew out of the proposed Family Movie Act, introduced this year by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. The bill would have exploited technology developed by ClearPlay, Inc., allowing families to skip past explicit sex and violence on DVDs.

The film industry, however, balked, arguing that the use of such technology would compromise filmmakers’ intended product.

I’ve discussed ClearPlay before; a technology that you employ by your own choice and to your own standards. Yet the Directors Guild of America was suing them. Seems the DGA thought that the only way to see a movie was their way, and we should have no choice in the matter. From that we now get really picky and suggest that the only way to watch a movie is to ensure we see the advertising that comes with it. Pathetic.

This has nothing to do with artistic intent, and everything to do with money. The rest is smokescreen.

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This may sound like a disclaimer from a movie, but it’s for real. “No babies were killed in the repairing of this spinal cord.”

A South Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is walking again after scientists say they repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood.

Hwang Mi-Soon, 37, had been bedridden since damaging her back in an accident two decades ago.

Last week her eyes glistened with tears as she walked again with the help of a walking frame at a press conference where South Korea researchers went public for the first time with the results of their stem-cell therapy.

They said it was the world’s first published case in which a patient with spinal cord injuries had been successfully treated with stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

There are already many success stories using adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood, but the big push you keep hearing about is how only destroying embryos are we going to make advances. Well that’s just plain wrong.

So-called “multipotent” stem cells — those found in cord blood — are capable of forming a limited number of specialised cell types, unlike the more versatile “undifferentiated” cells that are derived from embroyos.

However, these stem cells isolated from umbilical cord blood have emerged as an ethical and safe alternative to embryonic stem cells.

Clinical trials with embryonic stem cells are believed to be years away because of the risks and ethical problems involved in the production of embryos — regarded as living humans by some people — for scientific use.

In contrast, there is no ethical dimension when stem cells from umbilical cord blood are obtained, according to researchers.

Additionally, umbilical cord blood stem cells trigger little immune response in the recipient as embryonic stem cells have a tendency to form tumors when injected into animals or human beings.

No ethical issue and safer; a win-win for everyone. Let’s keep this in mind.

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I asked my “Considerettes” corespondent in Russia what the word on the “Muscovite street” was about the Ukrainian election situation. Here’s his response, with a note about how the news is being reported there and insight into the Russian political mindset in general.

The Russian reaction to the Ukrainian election is complicated.

This election stinks with the same odor as the recent Chechen ‘election’. No one in Russia is fooled by this but their attitude is markedly different than one might expect. If you recall, just a few months ago was a very under-reported Russian presidential election. Putin won without a fight.

Russians idealize Putin to a degree that would be very uncomfortable to Westerners. When it comes to freedom of expression issues he is a tyrant, but in bread and butter issues he is a savior. After the fall of the Soviet Union things got desperate quickly. Hyperinflation turned the life-savings of a whole generation into pennies. No one living today in the West (not even Westerners living in Russia today) will ever appreciate the psychological effect this had on the society. To make matters much worse, those coming into their pension that they had been promised all their back-breaking lives got little more than $20 a month to live on (and it’s not much better than that even today). Now that real economic change for the better is being felt almost nationwide, all other issues pale by comparison. No one objects to the lack of freedom of the press; Not a ripple of disturbance anywhere. “Show me da money”, is the only relevant mantra.

I read a story in the (English) newspaper in Moscow about a Ukrainian prostitute working in Moscow. She came from Ukraine to Russia to take advantage of the new economic prosperity that she heard about. And unlike some others who migrate for financial reasons, she harbored no illusions about what she would have to do to get her piece of the pie. She was a prostitute in Ukraine before she even came to Russia. Her complaint was that the ‘customers’ in Ukraine were so poor that it made prostitution a bad living. So she came to where her practice would pay off. She credits Putin for the improvements and idolizes him as much as the Russians do.

It is true that Ukraine has been run by thugs for the past several years. Corruption rate there (according to Transparency International) is one of the worst in the world. The thought of some real prosperity coming to Ukraine as it has come to Russia is a tantalizing thought. This explains the showing, to whatever percentage, for the current Ukraine pro-Russian president.

I heard on the BBC that the several thousand election inspectors who witnessed the election process are unanimous in their opinion that there were serious-to-fatal flaws in the electoral process rendering it a political ‘false-positive’ outcome for the president. This news is not as aggressively reported in Russia. The Russian people despise these protests currently taking place in the cities of Ukraine. As always, Russians fear the West encroaching on their borders. If Ukraine had a Western loving president that would be a real threat to Russia. Xenophobia is not cured in one (nor two) generations. There are 1000 years of fear, loathing, and sometimes both for the West. The fact that we’re on the same side now won’t be discovered at any level of depth anytime soon. Also keep in mind the recent pro-Western president elected in Georgia. That did not go down too well in Russia. The West is fine as long as they stay in the west!

So,
* Since ethics and the various ‘fringe’ freedoms we enjoy in the West are NOT seen as essential;
* Since a pro-Western Ukrainian administration IS seen as a threat (They don’t want to see another Georgia);
* Since the economic benefits that Putin has brought to Russia COULD spread to Ukraine;
all other reasoning disappears into insignificance for Russians.

I’ve seen it before so I don’t care to see it again. If you tried to debate with the average Russian about this you would hear the most righteous defense of the Ukrainian election and how it was administered. If you protested you would be condemned for trusting your Western news sources and given a lecture of how controlled by their governments and unreliable they are.

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Brother-in-law Jim Jewell has some cautions for values voters.

This article by Bill Carter at the NY Times points out that “in interviews, representatives of the four big broadcast networks as well as Hollywood production studios said the nightly television ratings bore little relation to the message apparently sent by a significant percentage of voters.

The choices of viewers, whether in Los Angeles or Salt Lake City, New York or Birmingham, Ala., are remarkably similar. And that means the election will have little impact on which shows they decide to put on television, these executives say.”

Indeed choosing your entertainment should be motivated by some of the same things you used to choose your President, if you really value your values.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston of Junkyard Blog weighs in on this. His impression is that the hypocrisy rate is lower that a surface reading of the stats would show.

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And this is why we need more tax cuts.

Austerity in big-ticket government programs hasn’t dulled lawmakers’ appetite for special interest spending items that curry favor back home.

The spending plan awaiting President Bush’s signature is packed with them, doling out $4 million for an Alabama fertilizer development center, $1 million each for a Norwegian American Foundation in Seattle and a “Wild American Shrimp Initiative,” and more, much more.

Despite soaring deficits, lawmakers from both parties who approved the $388 billion package last weekend set plenty of money aside for home-district projects like these, knowing they sow goodwill among special interests and voters.

They also raised the ire of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a pork-barrel critic who took to the Senate floor to ask whether shrimp are so unruly and lacking initiative that the government must spend $1 million on them.

“Why does the U.S. taxpayer need to fund this `no shrimp left behind’ act?” he asked.

Among items in the package: $335,000 to protect North Dakota’s sunflowers from blackbirds, $2.3 million for an animal waste management research lab in Bowling Green, Ky., $50,000 to control wild hogs in Missouri, and $443,000 to develop salmon-fortified baby food.

Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, won dozens of special items for his state — enough to fill 20 press releases.

In one aimed at northern Alabama, Shelby took credit for the $4 million budgeted for the International Fertilizer Development Center. “In addition to the important research conducted at this facility, the facility employs numerous Muscle Shoals-area residents,” he noted.

While there’s plenty of pork being doled out on both sides of the aisle, I’m especially disheartened to see that the victories handed to Republicans are being so ill-spent (pun intended) on this sort of business-as-usual waste. If the citizens of Alabama don’t want to fund fertilizer, why should I? If the taxpayers of Bowling Green are too stingy to research their own animal waste, why are they asking me to pay for it?

Ladies and gentlemen, you have the power of the majority. Use your power for good; for long term good. Tom Daschle, as minority leader, had quite the power for pulling pork, yet the voters there tossed him out in favor of better ideas. That’s what will bring change to Washington; ideas, not a larger share of the pork pie.

The solution is still, and has always been, smaller government.

(Cross-posted at Redstate.org. Comments welcome.)

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So then, will my HMO pay for it?

LONDON (Reuters) - An ingredient in chocolate could be used to stop persistent coughs and lead to more effective medicines, researchers say.

The study found that theobromine, found in cocoa, was nearly a third more effective in stopping persistent coughs than codeine, currently considered the best cough medicine.

The researchers, from Imperial College London (ICL), said the discovery could lead to more effective cough treatments.

I mean, they sell chocolate a pharmacies, right?

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A man who has come to personify the fabrication of facts to support a news story is finally doing the right thing.

Dan Rather announced today he will step down as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News” on March 9, 2005 � 24 years to the day after his first broadcast as the network’s anchor.

Actually, just sort of the “right thing”. He may be leaving the news anchor desk, but he’s going to stick around on the show that made him infamous.

Rather will stay with CBS News, working full time as a correspondent for both editions of “60 Minutes,” and taking on other assignments as well.

Here’s hoping that this change portends good news at CBS, and that they can find someone willing to check their bias at the door.

More details here.

And >chuckle< even more >snicker< here.

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This week’s Homespun Symposium poses this question:

Is the division in America important to you? What will be necessary to heal it? What part do you see Bloggers playing in that discussion and how will you personally contribute to it?

If you look at the answers from Homespunners who’ve already posted on this question, you note that this country has been divided for a good long time. The Civil War is typically mentioned, as well as quotes from a few other Presidential campaigns, showing how bitterly divided we’ve been before, more so than now. To these examples I’d add that there was quite a division in this country over whether or not we should even be our own country. Not everyone was in favor of the Revolutionary War. After the revolution, not everyone was in favor of a national government. The Federalist Papers were, in part, an attempt at convincing those people.

So division in this country is nothing new. What is relatively new is that this division is being portrayed as a Bad Thing. When Bill Clinton couldn’t muster 50% of the popular vote, the MSM said little to nothing about how Clinton would have to reach out to Republicans and compromise with them, or about how “bitterly divided” the country was. Division then wasn’t reported on much. Division today is the above-the-fold front-page headline. Division, according to liberals and the MSM, is bad and it’s destroying the country, or so they’d want you to believe.

Well, except that within a Republican administration, division is good. When Colin Powell resigned, Democrats and the media started the hand wringing over a lack of diversity of opinion within the Bush administration, while they were silent over a similar situation under Clinton (and remain consistently silent over the huge diversity problem in universities today, which slant heavily liberal, which explains why they’re silent).

The way I see it, a healthy division is good. It keeps both sides from falling off their respective extremes. Too much division can be bad and can simply paralyze us. The division in the country is good, the debate is good, we need it. Division within an administration is less good and can keep it from doing what it was elected to do. Leadership means making decisions, not bickering until we all agree, because we won’t.

So is the division important to me? I think the “division”, as currently defined (red state / blue state), is important to me, but not in the sense that it needs “healing”. I think that division is good for our republic. I do believe that the way some folks express that division needs “healing”, but that’s beyond my power. The best way I can keep the division healthy is to express the truth as I see it, exposing lies I come across, and doing this in a civil way. One of the other respondents referred to individual blogs as “gnats” in regard to how bloggers will contribute to the discussion. He has a point, but at the same time a swarm of gnats can alter the direction of a person. So I’ll continue to buzz.

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First, a rehash of charges from a discredited “documentary”:

Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign this year accusing President Bush of improperly close ties to Saudi Arabia. The case was made in Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” in a bestselling book by Craig Unger titled “House of Bush, House of Saud,” and by the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Kerry.”This administration delayed pressuring the Saudis,” Mr. Kerry said on October 20. “I will insist that the Saudis crack down on charities that funnel funds to terrorists… and on anti-American and anti-Israel hate speech.”The Media Fund, a Democratic group whose president is a former Clinton White House aide, Harold Ickes, spent millions airing television commercials in swing states with scripts such as, “The Saudi royal family…wealthy…powerful…corrupt. And close Bush family friends.”

So now, consider this:

President Clinton’s new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen.

The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week.

Who was in bed with whom? They certainly seem to be very friendly with the Clintons.

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