A last minute effort to soften legislation concerning gay adoption in Virginia failed Wednesday.
Under the approved bill, private adoption agencies can prevent an adoption because of the parents' religious beliefs or sexual orientation.
The Senate voted 22-18 Tuesday to pass legislation allowing private agencies to deny placements that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs, including opposition to homosexuality. The House had already passed the bill, which only needs Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature to take effect July 1.
North Dakota is the only other state with such a law.
Democrats Charles Colgan and Phillip Puckett joined all 20 Senate Republicans in voting for the so-called "conscience clause" legislation.
Proponents say the measure protects the religious rights of agencies that contract with the state to provide child placement services. Opponents say the state should not sanction discrimination and that it will ruin some residents' plans to build a family.
Daniel Gri considers himself to be like any other Virginian. A conservative Republican who prays and sits down to dinner with his spouse and two kids every night.
But as a gay man he said he realizes soon he won't be able to do what many others can--expand his family.
uhhh... who exactly is this guy praying to?
The State has 77 private agencies, 16 of which are faith-based.
Supporters say the new bill, which the governor is expected to sign soon, will protect religious freedom.
But with nearly 1600 children in Virginia waiting to be adopted, many say it's the kids who will lose out in the end.
"This is a bad thing for the kids here," Gri said. "There are a lot of kids here in Virginia waiting to be adopted and probably now reduced the number of kids who'll be able to adopt here in Virginia."
The Virginia Catholic Conference released a statement saying the passage of the bill safeguards religious liberty.
i agree. and how is protecting religious liberty a bad thing, mr praying gay guy?
We all get headaches from time to time, and for the most part they are easily treatable and short-lived. But for migraine sufferers, the onset of an episode can mean a debilitating headache that can disrupt life for hours or even days. Many medications are available for the treatment of migraines, but if you are seeking a more natural alternative to pharmaceuticals, taurine may hold some promise.
Migraine Headaches
The Mayo Clinic describes migraine headaches as a throbbing or pulsing pain in the head that is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Migraine sufferers often experience sensory warning signals, referred to as "auras," that indicate an impending migraine. Flashes of light, blind spots and tingling in the arms or legs can all spell trouble. A migraine can last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours and can vary in frequency from one individual to another. The cause of migraines is uncertain, but both genetics and environmental factors appear to play a role.
Taurine
Taurine is an amino acid that is made in your body from two other amino acids, cysteine and methionine. Taurine is found naturally in food sources such as animal and fish protein, eggs and brewer's yeast. According to Mayo Clinic nutritionist Katherine Zeratsky, taurine works in the body to support neurological function and helps regulate water and mineral salt levels in the blood. Taurine is thought to have antioxidant properties and appears to improve athletic performance. Consuming up to 3,000 mg of supplemental taurine daily is thought to be safe. Taurine supplements are often used to treat migraines, seizure disorders and depression.
Taurine and Migraines
Taurine may be an effective treatment for migraines associated with epilepsy. A 1999 study of 420 epileptic subjects published in the international headache journal "Cephalalgia" found that 14 percent of them suffered migraines as well as seizures. The researchers were able to identify a direct link between seizures and migraines in seven of the subjects. A 2003 study published in "Advances in Experimental and Medical Biology" found taurine injections reduced the frequency and intensity of epileptic seizures and diminished seizure-associated brain damage in laboratory mice.
Pregnancy and Migraines
The March 2011 issue of the "American Academy of Pediatrics News" published new FDA data showing an increased risk of cleft lip and cleft palate in infants born to women who took Topamax during pregnancy, a drug commonly used to treat migraines. According to surgeon and nutrition expert Leonard Smith, taurine is an important amino acid for developing fetuses and newborns. Dr. Smith cites a study that found 62 percent of autistic children to be taurine deficient. Taurine may be a viable alternative treatment for expectant mothers who experience migraines. However, it is important to consult with your health care provider before ingesting taurine supplements.
whoaaa.. and this whole time ive been avoiding energy drinks thinking that taurine is not actually good for you. and there ya have it folks.. even for depression. time to hook myself up with some energy drinks for those days i feel down. need to try it out. and for migraines!! imagine!
"When these assumptions are valid, risk is usually low, because large stock market fluctuations should be extremely rare. But on 19 October 1987, Black Monday, the world's stock markets lost more than 20% of their value within a few hours. An event this extreme is virtually impossible under the model's assumptions. In his bestseller The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an expert in mathematical finance, calls extreme events of this kind black swans. In ancient times, all known swans were white and "black swan" was widely used in the same way we now refer to a flying pig. But in 1697, the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh found masses of black swans on what became known as the Swan River in Australia. So the phrase now refers to an assumption that appears to be grounded in fact, but might at any moment turn out to be wildly mistaken."
so, new term:
"black swan"
"an assumption that appears to be grounded in fact, but might at any moment turn out to be wildly mistaken"
and then there was this too:
"But the main way to make money on derivatives is to win your bet – to buy a derivative that can later be sold at a higher price, or matures with a higher value than predicted. The winners get their profit from the losers. In any given year, between 75% and 90% of all options traders lose money. "
The Bible is a gritty book. Very raw. Very real. It deals with people just like us, just as needy and screwed up as we are, encountering a God who would rather die than spend eternity without them.
Yet despite that, it seems like Christians are uncomfortable with how earthy the Bible really is. They feel the need to tidy up God.
For example, look in any modern translation of Isaiah 64:6, and you’ll find that, to a holy God, even our most righteous acts are like “filthy rags.” The original language doesn’t say “filthy rags”; it says “menstrual rags.” But that sounds a little too crass, so let’s just call them filthy instead.
And let’s not talk so much about Jesus being naked on the cross, and let’s pretend Paul said that he considered his good deeds “a pile of garbage” in Philippians 3:8 rather than a pile of crap, as the Greek would more accurately be translated.
And let’s definitely not mention the six times in the Old Testament that the Jewish writers referred to Gentile men as those who “pisseth against the wall.” (At least the King James Version got that one right.)
The point?
God’s message was not meant to be run through some arbitrary, holier-than-thou politeness filter. He intended the Bible to speak to people where they’re at, caught up in the stark reality of life on a fractured planet.
Dozens of Psalms are complaints and heart-wrenching cries of despair to God, not holy-sounding, reverently worded soliloquies. Take Psalm 77:1-3: “I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh, that God would listen to me! When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted. I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help” (New Living Translation).
And rather than shy away from difficult and painful topics, the Old Testament includes vivid descriptions of murder, cannibalism, witchcraft, dismemberment, torture, rape, idolatry, erotic sex and animal sacrifice. According to St. Paul, those stories were written as examples and warnings for us (1 Corinthians 10:11). So obviously they were meant to be retold without editing out all the things we don’t consider nice or agreeable.
I believe that Scripture includes such graphic material to show how far we, as a race, have fallen and how far God was willing to come to rescue us from ourselves.
God is much more interested in honesty than pietism.
And that’s what he gives us throughout Scripture, telling the stories of people who struggled with the same issues, questions and temptations we face today.
Peter struggled with doubt, and we hear all about it.
Elijah dealt with depression; Naomi raged with bitterness against God; Hannah struggled for years under the burden of her unanswered prayers.
David had an affair and then arranged to have his lover’s husband killed. Noah was a drunk, Abraham a liar, Moses a murderer. Job came to a place where he found it necessary to make a covenant with his eyes not to lust after young girls (Job 31:1).
It’s easy to make “Bible heroes” (as Protestants might say) or “saints” (as Catholics might refer to them) out to be bigger than life, immune from the temptations that everyone faces.
I find it encouraging that Jesus never came across as pietistic. In fact, he was never accused of being too religious; instead he partied so much that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton (Matthew 11:19).
Jesus never said, “The Kingdom of God is like a church service that goes on and on forever and never ends.” He said the kingdom was like a homecoming celebration, a wedding, a party, a feast to which all are invited.
This idea was too radical for the religious leaders of his day. They were more concerned about etiquette, manners, traditions and religious rituals than about partying with Jesus. And that’s why they missed out.
That’s why we miss out.
According to Jesus, the truly spiritual life is one marked by freedom rather than compulsion (John 8:36), love rather than ritual (Mark 12:30-33) and peace rather than guilt (John 14:27). Jesus saves us from the dry, dusty duties of religion and frees us to cut loose and celebrate.
I don’t believe we’ll ever recognize our need for the light until we’ve seen the depth of the darkness. So God wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty with us about life and temptation and forgiveness. And grace.
Only when the Bible seems relevant to us (which it is), only when the characters seem real to us (which they were), only then will the message of redemption become personal for us (which it was always meant to be).
We don’t need to edit God. We need to let him be the author of our new lives.
incredible photo gallery showing photos of japan, before and after the tsunami (reconstruction efforts). each photo is taken at the same location around a year apart. the difference is incredible and shows how an organized reconstruction effort can yield enormous results.
Every time you go shopping, you share intimate details about your consumption patterns with retailers. And many of those retailers are studying those details to figure out what you like, what you need, and which coupons are most likely to make you happy. Target, for example, has figured out how to data-mine its way into your womb, to figure out whether you have a baby on the way long before you need to start buying diapers.
Charles Duhigg outlines in the New York Times how Target tries to hook parents-to-be at that crucial moment before they turn into rampant — and loyal — buyers of all things pastel, plastic, and miniature. He talked to Target statistician Andrew Pole — before Target freaked out and cut off all communications — about the clues to a customer’s impending bundle of joy. Target assigns every customer a Guest ID number, tied to their credit card, name, or email address that becomes a bucket that stores a history of everything they’ve bought and any demographic information Target has collected from them or bought from other sources. Using that, Pole looked at historical buying data for all the ladies who had signed up for Target baby registries in the past. From the NYT:
[Pole] ran test after test, analyzing the data, and before long some useful patterns emerged. Lotions, for example. Lots of people buy lotion, but one of Pole’s colleagues noticed that women on the baby registry were buying larger quantities of unscented lotion around the beginning of their second trimester. Another analyst noted that sometime in the first 20 weeks, pregnant women loaded up on supplements like calcium, magnesium and zinc. Many shoppers purchase soap and cotton balls, but when someone suddenly starts buying lots of scent-free soap and extra-big bags of cotton balls, in addition to hand sanitizers and washcloths, it signals they could be getting close to their delivery date.
[...]
As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy.
One Target employee I spoke to provided a hypothetical example. Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August.
[...]
So Target started sending coupons for baby items to customers according to their pregnancy scores. Duhigg shares an anecdote — so good that it sounds made up — that conveys how eerily accurate the targeting is. An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis, demanding to talk to a manager:
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.
(Nice customer service, Target.)
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.
“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”
Bold is mine. That’s a quote for our times.
So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. The company can create personalized booklets; instead of sending people with high pregnancy scores books o’ coupons solely for diapers, rattles, strollers, and the “Go the F*** to Sleep” book, they more subtly spread them about:
“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.
“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”
this process, by the way, is called data-mining. finding useful information by interpreting large sets of data.
At five foot, six inches, Apotheosis was shorter than the average American male and very unhappy about it.
So he did something other men who feel short might consider unthinkable: he opted for costly, painful surgeries to make himself "grow" a total of six inches.
[...]
Apotheosis is one of a "growing" number of men pursuing limb-lengthening procedures for cosmetic reasons.
Dr. Dror Paley, a renowned osteopathic surgeon at the Paley Institute at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., performed 650 leg-lengthening surgeries last year.
Most of Paley's patients have severe deformities or dwarfism, but he also sees cosmetic patients.
"The majority who come for cosmetic limb lengthening have what we call, height dysphoria. They're unhappy with their height," said Paley, adding that therapy has little effect on changing a patient's views. "It's one of the few psychologic-psychiatric disorders that you can actually cure with the knife."
That is precisely the reason why Akash Shukla, 25, decided to undergo the procedure. At age 18, the New Jersey man was devastated to find out that his final height would be 4'11 ½.
"I felt like my short stature was kind of causing a void inside me- an emptiness in my heart, if you will," he said.
And not everyone was encouraging.
"There are people that have said, 'just accept what God gave you. But, in some way, shape or form everybody is trying to alter what god gave them. If God gave kids crooked teeth, they get braces," said Shukla, who is now almost 5'2" thanks to the surgery.
interesting point
But limb lengthening is certainly not like straightening teeth.
Only a few doctors, including Paley, perform the procedure in the United States.
Surgeons break the leg bone in two and implant a state-of-the-art telescopic rod into the middle of the broken bones which then pulls the bone apart very slowly, about one millimeter a day.
New bone grows around it and tissues like the muscle, the nerves, the arteries, and the skin, regenerate as well.
At about $85,000, the procedure is expensive and the process lengthy. It takes at least three months to complete it and it requires demanding and excruciating physical therapy.
[...]
Despite the pain and financial burden, patients like Apotheosis say those few more inches of height can make a big difference.
"When I walk down the street a different person perceived differently by the world for the rest of my life, you know, I am who I want to be now," he said.
whoa, just learned that in the original story of the wizard of oz, the cowardly lion was given (literally) "liquid" courage to drink (not a medal as in the movie).. crazy eh?
Man Predicts Future in 1906. Time Travel? Inventor/Visionary invents cellphone over 100 years ago. This is an article that appeared in the New York World, April 29, 1906. I found it while researching my book on James E. Kelly (Tell Me of Lincoln).
Kelly was friends with Inventor Charles E. Alden who invented the "Vest Pocket Telephone." He envisioned the modern Cell Phone in 1906--104 years ago!!!
Sorry for the all the movement--it was shot on my cellphone...
a guy on my facebook friends list posted this, i thought id share with you:
I mentioned in an earlier post that most Baptist I have encountered on the internet, in chat rooms, and who cannot tell me why they are Baptist and cannot name the Baptist Distinctives. Below is what I believe are the Baptist Distinctives.
Jesus Christ Alone is the head of the Church.
The Bible is our sole authority concerning matters of faith and doctrine
The autonomy of the local church.
There are two church offices pastor/elder and deacons
The priesthood of all believers.
There are two church ordinances baptism and the Lord's supper.
Baptism by emersion after a profession of faith.
A believing & baptized by emersion local church membership.
Individual sole liberty - the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of a person's own conscience.
The separation of church and state
My hope that this may be read by my Baptist friends and especially those who would call themselves Independent Fundamental Baptist. "S" SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE - Matthew 22:15-22 The church and state are two separate spheres, and the one should never control the other.
aaaand if you are using a new enough browser (i think firefox 4 and under dont work.. it doesnt work on my 3.6 for example) go to google (yeah, first go to the site) and then type in the search bar "do a barrel roll" or "z or r twice" (reference to firefox)
now this, THIS is music i can listen to. if there was some station on the radio that played this stuff, i might be more inclined to turn the radio on.. like, ever
Meet Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher of North Carolina. They have been married 85 years (86 in May) and hold the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage of a living couple and get this…. Zelmyra is 101 years old and Herbert is 104.
i obviously especially liked this part:
14. What’s the one thing you have in common that transcends everything else?
We are both Christians & believe in God. Marriage is a commitment to the Lord. We pray with & for each other every day.
Jack Mord is asking for $1million for a photo of a man, believed to have lived in Tennessee around the time of the American Civil War, who has a resemblance to the Hollywood star.
Mr Mord, a dealer in antique images, believes the photo is of Nicolas Cage himself and proves the actor is a member of the 'walking undead'.
The eBay listing for the photo reads: 'Original c.1870 carte de visite [a type of small photograph] showing a man who looks exactly like Nick Cage.
'Personally, I believe it’s him and that he is some sort of walking undead / vampire... who quickens / reinvents himself once every 75 years or so.
'150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a talk show host.'
The seller claims he found the photo at the back of an album of Civil War-era portraits, but he noticed there was something inconsistent with the other pictures.
He said: 'All of the other people in the album, living and dead, were identified by name - this man was not.'
Fellow eBay members have left ridiculing messages on the page for Mr Mord's listing, questioning why Nicolas Cage has aged so much over the past decade if he really is immortal.
The seller responded: 'My theory is that he allows himself to age to a certain point, maybe 70, 80 or so, then the actor "Nicolas Cage" will "die" ... but in reality, the undead vampire "Nicolas Cage" will have rejuvenated himself and appeared in some other part of the world, young again, and ready to start all over.'
Mr Mord says the photo was taken by Professor GB Smith, a confederate Civil War prisoner of war photographer, and he has promised to allow the person who buys it to authenticate its age before the sale goes through.
hilarious..
hmm.. and i seem to have just found a way to make this kind of post muuuch faster, all thanks to firefox's awesome handling of drag and drop
A netizen recently shared the above photo on an online community site, which compiled the faces of the top celebrities from Korea, China, and Japan.
The images on the left are collections of some of the most beautiful faces in Hallyu, while the middle boasts the best masterpiece faces of China, and on the right are the faces of Japan’s famous celebrities.
The end result of the Korean women compilation photo (seen previously here) was a woman boasting milky smooth skin and a chic yet innocent image, while the Chinese female compilation possessed sharp facial features and an overall sexy appeal. The Japanese compilation had a more child like face, with plump cheeks and round eyes.
In the case of the male celebrities, the Korean compilation result was a man with soft eyes and stocky lips for a masculine feel, while the Chinese compilation resulted in a youthful and charming man with an intense gaze and a subtle smile. Finally, the Japanese photo boasted an elegant and classic look, yet still fierce and masculine as well.
Netizens who saw the photos remarked, “You can clearly see the styles that the three different countries prefer“, “Korean compilation photo looks like Kim Tae Hee“, “Everyone is so good-looking“, and more.
A trial court in Iran has issued its final verdict, ordering a Christian pastor to be put to death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, according to sources close to the pastor and his legal team.
Supporters fear Youcef Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old father of two who was arrested over two years ago on charges of apostasy, may now be executed at any time without prior warning, as death sentences in Iran may be carried out immediately or dragged out for years.
It is unclear whether Nadarkhani can appeal the execution order.
“The world needs to stand up and say that a man cannot be put to death because of his faith,” said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).
“This one case is not just about one execution. We have been able to expose the system instead of just letting one man disappear, like so many other Christians have in the past.”
It is also feared that Nadarkhani will be executed in retaliation as Iran endures crippling sanctions and international pressure in response to its nuclear agenda and rogue rhetoric. The number of executions in Iran has increased significantly in the last month.
“This is defiance,” Sekulow said. “They want to say they will carry out what they say they will do.”
The order to execute Nadarkhani came only days after lawmakers in Congress supported a resolution sponsored by Pennsylvania Rep. Joseph Pitts denouncing the apostasy charge and calling for his immediate release.
“Iran has become more isolated because of their drive for nuclear weapons, and the fundamentalist government has stepped up persecution of religious minorities to deflect criticism,” Pitts, a Republican, told FoxNews.com. “The persecuted are their own citizens, whose only crime is practicing their faith.”
The ACLJ has been a major driving force in keeping Nadarkhani’s case in the international spotlight. Many other advocacy groups and human rights organizations also have mounted global campaigns and petitions against the Iranian government, and experts credit Nadarkhani’s international support for keeping him alive.
[...]
Nadarkhani was arrested in October 2009 and was tried and found guilty of apostasy by a lower court in Gilan, a province in Rasht. He was then given verbal notification of an impending death-by-hanging sentence.
His lawyers appealed the decision under the premise that Nadarkhani was never a Muslim at the age of majority, and the case was sent to Iran’s Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s decision of execution, provided it could be proven that he had been a practicing Muslim from the age of adulthood, 15 in Islamic law, to age 19, which was when he converted.
The lower court then ruled that Nadarkhani had not practiced Islam during his adult life but still upheld the apostasy charge because he was born into a Muslim family.
The court then gave Nadarkhani the opportunity to recant, as the law requires a man to be given three chances to recant his beliefs and return to Islam.
His first option was to convert back to Islam. When he refused, he was asked to declare Muhammad a prophet, and still he declined.
Iran’s judiciary had delayed in issuing a final verdict, fearing the decision would have far-reaching political implications.
Sources say Nadarkhani has been advised by family members, lawyers and members of his church to remain silent throughout his ordeal, out of fear that authorities may use his statements against him, a strategy commonly employed by the regime.
tertullian said it best:
"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."
Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 AD)
"There is no compulsion in religion, for the right way is clearly from the wrong way."
Surah 2:256 (the Quran)
the religion of peace, eh?
and you should see the barrage of almost immediate comments i got for posting that (the link, the two quotes, and the above comment).. from defense of islam to saying that this is what religion does, cuz atheism is so great. not one of these said anything about how terrible this is or showed any compassion.. so for your edification, heres what i wrote:
[msulim person's name], sorry for the inflammatory comment, but i would also like to point out your response to this post was one of defense of islam, and not of condemnation for what is happening. you said nothing of the man who is being put to death for leaving islam, nor for his family who, if the punishment is carried out, will be left without a father.
"The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I (Muhammad) am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims." Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17
[...]
[atheist guy's name], soviet russia had atheist doctrine and put millions to death.. more so than hitler. and yes over religion. same in france (though the numbers were much lower) during the age of reason
they responded and heres my answer (what they said should be clear from my answer):
yeah [muslim person's name], the thing is this was a story many of us christians have been following.. not that many of these make it to the mainstream media.. in any case, he is not the first nor the last christian to die honoring the Savior who died for him.
in all instances it is worthy of note that we condemn an action. i disagree that it goes without saying, since clearly there are people willing to not just approve, but commit these actions.
you are right, i was making an example out of islam (given the news article), but thats because you dont hear these kinds of stories coming from buddhist, hindu, or other nations to the same extent (i would be inclined to say "at all" but thats obviously just not true). especially since its not prescribed by their belief systems. whereas, the quran and the hadiths (as quoted above) do. i dont want to start a "your religion vs my religion" discussion, because that is not edifying or productive and will only lead to bitter feelings. but we do need to acknowledge these facts.
and [atheist person's name], its fallacious to say that atheism doesnt but other religions do. especially since not believing in a final judge to whom you will answer after death, leads people to manifest their evil in all sorts of ways (notice i didnt say it "causes" people to be evil) including mass atrocities often followed by suicide.. cuz, "hey, theres nothing after death anyways!" -- thus, from an atheist perspective, escaping justice. if there is no God, then there is no absolute source of morality, then morality is relative. ie, whatever we define (or "agree") as "good" therefore /is/ good. easy as that. convince the masses, and you got yourself stalin's soviet union, or a north korea, or mao's china, or pol pot's cambodia... etc.
its interesting also to note that the most extensive mass exterminations of ones own people have occurred in exactly atheistic regimes, all in the name of cleansing the motherland of the cancer of religion. hmm.. sounds an awful lot like present day western atheist rhetoric-- didnt dawkins, the atheist pope, even say so in such words himself?
but its interesting to note how little compassion has been shown for this man and his family. way to turn a tragic bit of news into a religious debate (and dont say it was me, because the point is that the man is being executed for leaving islam in favor of christianity.)
the other day firefox died, well, technically it was a series of added things, probably ran out of disk space on the partition where firefox keeps its cache among other things (yeah, ive tried to change it before, but for whatever reason it didnt work and i didnt try properly again).. in any case, i lost all my tabs, and i do mean lost (firefox saves a session in case of crash.. so it generally doesnt matter if i kill it or it crashes, it always brings my tabs back.. well, i guess not always..) soo.. 300+ tabs all gone into the ether. dee eeh dee, ded. i tried a futile attempt to recover some of them via the history.. but even that was being stupid. and then it hit me, like a brick made out of epiphany: "i am free". yes, clean slate.. and i can even savor the pun. i can now start fresh, keep close to no tabs open. im even attempting to create some new browsing rules, which i will try to enforce. this means, try to have less than 5 windows, with less than 5 tabs each (as opposed to the 30x10+ that i had just 7 days ago). and if i open a new tab for reading something, then i must finish reading it in one go, and if i want to blog it, i must do so right away, instead of "saving it for later".. so i can close the tab quick... you know, all the stuff normal people already do by default without even having to think about it.. but if you read your address bar right now, you will know why this would be an issue for me.
so, in any case.. expect lots of blog posts i guess. a lot more links. hopefully this will be a step in the direction of organizing myself and my time.. and bah brain! (i got a stuffy dose for that last wad)
I remember the Girl Scouts being flakey way back in the early 1970s, long before their formal association with Planned Parenthood and their penchant for showing girls sex brochures.
Even as a Brownie I had my doubts. When I was told to look in a mirror on the floor, recite some chant, and step over the mirror, it seemed so meaningless, and even a bit wrong. If I had had the vocabulary, I would have called it pagan. It may be some small proof that the Truth is indeed written on every human heart that a tiny un-churched girl of seven could smell a rat.
And now the Girl Scouts want to admit boys who dress as girls. (See here.) It may be their undoing.
When the Colorado troop leader initially disallowed the boy’s admittance on the grounds that he had “boy parts” — she was later overruled by the Girl Scout top brass — his mother and grandmother were outraged, saying such talk “devastated” the seven-year old and made him cry. (They refer to him as “him.”)
“I really got upset because my grandson is himself,” said the grandmother. “We’ve all accepted Bobby as he is, and for this lady to talk to him that way, it was just awful. This lady shouldn’t be working with kids.”
The Girl Scouts of Colorado responded to it all with lefty platitudes that it is “an inclusive organization” and supports “transgender children.” And in a statement, it said, “If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”
Ah, how welcoming and inclusive of them. No thought what it might do to the boy himself, or to the girls in the troop who really are girls.
Author and educator Dr. Judith Reisman, who never minces words, said this policy amounts to “child sexual abuse, the violation of children’s genetic reality.”
Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and Fox News medical expert, said, “On the face of it, it seems to be expecting far too much psychologically of young girls to ignore the anatomy of a boy and act as though he is a girl. . . . The girls are just developing comfort with their own bodies, after all.”
Dr. Ablow added, “We’re conducting social, cultural, sexual experiments on the fly, using our own kids as guinea pigs, without the necessary research to guide us.”
I think it’s safe to say that most parents did not enlist their young daughters in Girl Scouts to be part of any cultural sexual experiment. And if the Girl Scouts persist, they will lose families in droves, and they will also lose money. They’ve already lost respect.
And one final thought: No mention is made anywhere of the boy’s father, and his utter absence from news stories strikes me as a classic “elephant in the room,” or in this case, not in the room. Dare I state the obvious, unspoken truth? This poor little boy desperately needs a father.
as a friend commented (the guy i got this link from)
"What if a 30 yr old man "self-identifies" as a little girl, can he join?"
We know that before Paul was born God had set him apart for his apostleship.
He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. (Galatians 1:15–16).
And we know that Paul became a Christian-hating (Acts 9:1), Christ-persecuting (Acts 9:5), zealot (Philippians 3:6; Galatians 1:14) before he was converted. Forever after he would call himself “the chief of sinners” because of these wicked days (1 Timothy 1:15; 1 Corinthians 15:9).
We also know that God broke into Paul’s life dramatically and decisively to bring him to faith (Acts 9:3–19). Which means that he could have planned the Damascus Road encounter before Paul imprisoned and murdered Christians. But he didn’t.
His purpose, therefore, was to allow Paul to become the “chief of sinners” and then save him, and make him the apostle who would write thirteen books of the New Testament.
Why? Why do it this way? Why choose him before birth to be an apostle? Then let him sink into wicked and violent opposition to Christ? And then save him dramatically and decisively on the Damascus road? Why.
Here are six reasons. The first two are explicit in the biblical text. The last four are clear inferences from the first two. God did it this way . . .
1. To put the perfect patience of Christ on display.
“I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience.” (1 Timothy 1:16)
2. To encourage those who think they are too sinful to have hope.
“I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:16)
3. To show that God saves hardened haters of Christ, who have even murdered Christians.
4. To show that God permits his much-loved elect to sink into flagrant wickedness.
5. To show that God can make the chief of sinners the chief of missionaries.
6. To show a powerless, persecuted, marginalized church that they can triumph by the supernatural conversion of their most powerful foes.
no, its not that you are less evil than those other people you mention, its that your evil is less outrageous to those who surround you, and you feel justified by that. do not be deceived.. you ARE just as evil as they are.. only that God has restrained you more than He has restrained them.
wow, was reading up on the rothschilds cuz some guy i know was posting some kind of crazy stuff on my wall (like that this family controls the world, and that nathan rothschild is the "lord of israel" and he invented israel, and named it after 3 egyptian gods: isis, ra, and elohim.. not even joking).. which led to me read up on mary queen of scots (which btw, is NOT "bloody mary"), which somehow led me to read up on cousins for some reason, and hence the actual reason for this post: i finally learned what it means when people say "mah first cousin twice removed". i always thought that was the weirdest expression, but now i finally know.. thanks to some crazy guy posting crazy things on my wall..
oh, so you want to know what it means do ya? ok ill tell ya:
In kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom a person shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in an immediate family in which there is a more specific term (e.g., mother, father, sister, brother, etc.). The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of a genetic link. Systems of "degrees" and "removals" are used in the English speaking world to describe the relationship between two cousins and the ancestor they have in common. Various governmental entities have established systems for legal use that can handle kinships with common ancestors existing any number of generations in the past, though common usage often eliminates the degrees and removals and refers to people with common ancestry as simply "cousins" or "distant cousin".
[...]
Additional modifying words are used to clarify the exact degree of relatedness between the two people. Ordinal numbers are used to specify the number of generations between individuals and a common ancestor, and further clarification of exact cousinship is made by specifying the difference in generational level between the two cousins, if any, by using degrees of removal. For example, "first cousins once removed" describes two individuals with the common ancestor being the grandparent of one cousin (one "degree") and the great-grandparent of the other cousin (two "degrees"). The degree of lowest number is considered the degree. The cousins themselves are one generation apart from each other (one "remove"). So, the difference between the degrees is the "removed" part of the equation in this example.
There is a mathematical way to identify the degree of cousinship shared by two individuals. Each "great" or "grand" in the description of one individual's relationship to the common ancestor has a numerical value of 1. For example, if person one's great-great-great-grandfather is person two's grandfather, then person one's "number" is 4 (great + great + great + grand = 4) and person two's "number" is 1 (grand = 1). The smaller of the two numbers is the degree of cousinship. The two people in this example are first cousins. The difference between the two people's "numbers" is the degree of removal. In this case, the two people are thrice (4 − 1 = 3) removed, making them first cousins thrice removed.
Example 2: If someone's great-great-great-grandparent (great + great + great + grand = 4) is another person's great-great-great-grandparent (great + great + great + grand = 4), then the two people are 4th cousins. There is no degree of removal, because they are on the same generational level (4 − 4 = 0).
Example 3: If one person's great-grandparent (great + grand = 2) is a second person's great-great-great-great-great-grandparent (great + great + great + great + great + grand = 6), then the two are second cousins four times removed. The first person's "number" (2) is the lower, making them second cousins. The difference between the two numbers is 4 (6 − 2 = 4), which is the degree of removal (generational difference).
confused? yeah.. good thing they offer a super useful table to illustrate the idea.. which ive conveniently trimmed to just the first 3 layers (they go to like 6).. but this should give you a good enough idea:
If one person's →
Grandparent
Great-grandparent
Great-great-grandparent
is the other person's ↓
then they are ↘
Grandparent
1st cousins
1st cousins once removed
1st cousins twice removed
Great-grandparent
1st cousins once removed
2nd cousins
2nd cousins once removed
Great-great-grandparent
1st cousins twice removed
2nd cousins once removed
3rd cousins
and now you know.. cool ah? we learn some' every day, huh, paw? i guess mah sister is also mah cuzin.. ah done knew that ah deed
From a snarling Saddam Hussein, to a grinning Hulk Hogan, to a sultry Marilyn Monroe, students across the nation have waved all sorts of giant celebrity heads this season in an effort to distract opposing free-throw shooters.
Alabama freshman Jack Blankenship thought those big heads were a fun idea, but he wanted to add his own clever twist to the trend. As a result, the Tuscaloosa native has begun showing up to Crimson Tide basketball games this month with a giant picture of his own contorted face in tow.
"I never really saw the relevance of having pictures of celebrities, so I figured why not have a picture of me," Blankenship said. "I thought it would be something a little different."
The unusual sight of a student waving a giant picture of his own face has drawn far more attention than Blankenship ever expected.
ESPN2 cameras caught him with the sign during Alabama's 69-67 overtime victory over Ole Miss on Feb. 4, prompting announcer Pam Ward to remark, "This guy ... who does that? I mean, who makes a picture of themselves?" Birmingham News photographer Hal Yeager also captured Blankenship making the same unusual facial expression as he is in the picture during Tuesday's loss to Florida.
The spread of that photo and video via social media has turned Blankenship into a mini-campus celebrity. He has gained 200 Twitter followers the past 24 hours and fellow students now recognize him on campus.
"I was walking to class today, and two strangers came up to me and said, 'Oh, you're the guy with the face,'" Blankenship said. "Pretty wild to say the least."
hahah this was soo funny, i was laughing pretty hard at one point:
Library Ghost Pepper
I've been asked by so many people to do the ghost pepper challenge. So I did 2 of them...and handled them...okay I guess. But remember this is the hottest commercial pepper in the world according to Guinness World Records. There are hotter ones that I am going to attempt as well...stay tuned!
As the age of sexual consent is 16, what are state employees doing fitting contraceptive implants in 13-year-old girls? Aren’t they colluding in a criminal act?
These sinister devices are a clear admission by the Government. It actually expects these children to have unlawful sexual intercourse, and wants to make it easy for them.
How strange, given that the one crime we all disapprove of utterly and completely is paedophilia. Even convicted gangsters, rapists, burglars and muggers look down on the paedophiles in their midst (they have another word for them, as they cannot spell or pronounce the official term).
Those who engage in paedophilia are often also accused of ‘grooming’, preparing their victims for violation and abuse.
Yet here we have a policy that directly condones and encourages the sexualisation of children, and is at the very least comparable to the ‘grooming’ we are all so shocked by.
What child, equipped with this rather revolting chemical lump or dose, would not grasp that she was expected by the authorities to act accordingly? I would be very interested to know exactly what the victims of this scheme are told, and how they are chosen.
This thing is done by doctors and nurses, supposedly symbols of rectitude and mercy. It often takes place in schools, where our children are meant to be safe from molesters. It is protected by law. It is paid for by your taxes and mine, extracted under the threat of prison.
Perhaps most sinister of all, it is – like all child-molesting – ‘our little secret’. The girls’ parents are not asked their permission beforehand for their daughters to be corrupted by our sick state. Nor are they told afterwards. This is both totalitarian and evil.
The judges are always ready to confirm that this is no longer a Christian country in anything but name, and did so again on Friday – though I do wonder where they think our laws and their powers come from.
But it is much worse than that. We are turning into a sort of Babylon, only with drizzle and sleet. Almost every sexual practice and habit – with the single exception of faithful marriage – is now encouraged by the state.
First, the state poisons young minds with so-called sex-education, which is now unleashed in primary schools. Then, when the poor things act on what they have been told, doctors push chemical anti-baby capsules under their skin. I believe this sort of thing is known as ‘harm reduction’.
It all depends what you mean by harm. Having privatised the telephones, electricity and the railways, we have nationalised paedophilia.
hmm.. i had another strange dream today.. or was it yesterday? ok, actually it was two strange dreams, one of which for sure was today, and the other mightve been today or yesterday. in summary, the first one was about a serial killer who killed women.. he looked a bit like anthony hopkins if i remember correctly. it was strange, took place in an old 3 story wood house.. but it had a pool with i think a wet bar (seating on the pool that led to the edge) the storyline of this dream is fuzzy, but i was trying to either arrest or get the guy arrested. cant remember too well.. but certain flashes of the dream are pretty clear. i think ive had it before.
the second dream was with joelie, his mom, and me.. in korea! haha.. and we were in some electronics store that had an ice skating rink in the aisles.. so we were skating around. and there was some korean girl there that i befriended (i think i was teaching her to skate). and then suddenly the place turned into an auditorium and something had happened because people were sad. and we lined up and walked to the front where they had food. i think some sort of natural destructive event had occurred, like a snow-in, or flood. i cant really remember. it was just interesting that joelie and his mom were there, and we were in korea.. if i remember anything else, ill make sure to post (unless i foooorget!).
contrition: feeling heavy hearted for an offense you committed
confession: admission of what you did to those affected by it
repentance: turning away from what you did, with confession and contrition, making amends where necessary for what you did (ie, correcting what is correctable)
but its funny how we always think of someone else as the one needing to do this and not ourselves. ah pride, you are the insurmountable mountain.
"I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don't say that disrespectfully, but they've been shown a God that you can't measure up to, and so, my goal is to make God good and let them know, hey, I tell them all the time, God's smiling down on you right now. You're his child. He's got a great plan for your life. "
- Joel Osteen
this guy needs to Bible up a bit, someone should read him his namesake's book in the Bible. the whole point is that we cannot measure up to the holiness of God, and that is why we need His grace!!!!! and not everyone is His child, Jesus Himself said some of those pharisees there were sons of the devil! Lord have mercy on osteen and his followers.
every day im shufflin' shufflin'.. we should play rook again. and ps, i got milk sickness yesterday, couldnt eat the whole day cuz of the stomach pain.. stupid delicious banana bread.
"James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher" is an English sentence used to demonstrate lexical ambiguity and the necessity of punctuation,[1] which serves as a substitute for the intonation,[2] stress, and pauses found in human speech.[3] In human information processing research, the sentence has been used to show how readers depend on punctuation to give sentences meaning, especially in the context of scanning across lines of text.[4]
The example refers to two students, James and John, who are required by an English test to describe a man who, in the past, had had a cold. John writes "The man had a cold" which is incorrect grammatically in this case, while James writes the correct "The man had had a cold". Since James' answer was right, it had had a better effect on the teacher.
The sentence can be understood more clearly by adding punctuation and quotation marks:
James, while John had had "had," had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.[5]
In IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California Andreas Heinrich gets to explore. His quest: Demonstrate that very few atoms are needed to store information. Why would anyone care? Because size matters.
Today, to store a single bit — the most basic piece of information a computer understands – a disk drive needs one million atoms. Heinrich and his team have successfully shown that data can be stored in as few as 12 magnetic atoms. That’s 12 versus 1 million and it means a hundred times more information can be stored in the same space.
The way it works it? By using a different magnetic structure called antiferromagnetism, Heinrich explains. Instead of atoms pointing (or spinning) in the same direction, Heinrich and his team arranged atoms so they alternately point in different directions.
The result is that “they don’t talk to each other as much…they can be parked closer together”‘ Heinrich said.
In physics parlance that would be: “Taking advantage of their inherent alternating magnetic spin directions, they demonstrated the ability to pack adjacent magnetic bits much closer together than was previously possible.”
Heinrich, a German who received his Ph.D. from University of Goettingen, showed that this can be done at low temperature and by that we’re talking about 10 Kelvin which translates into about -260 degrees Celsius.
“I think 150 atoms should be stable at room temperature,” Heinrich said.
A Knoxville, Tenn., restaurant owner has drawn cheers and jeers for refusing to serve a state senator whose beliefs she viewed as homophobic.
Republican state Sen. Stacey Campfield told ABC News he went out to brunch at The Bistro at Bijou restaurant on Sunday with some friends after doing a radio show, but the owner of the restaurant quickly approached him, refusing service.
“We were just standing there waiting for a table, and this woman came up to me saying ‘I’m not serving you, I’m not serving you, you hate gay people,’” Campfield said. “‘I said ma’am I’m not a homophobe,’ and I offered to send her links from the CDC website to back up what I said about homosexuality being a dangerous lifestyle, and being a risky behavior.”
Martha Boggs, the owner of the Bistro at Bijou, located on Gay Street, said that she saw Campfield walk in and thought immediately that he was not welcome in her restaurant because of his comments on homosexuality.
“It was one of those spur of the moment things. I didn’t think about what I was doing, but all I did was look at his smug face, and told myself I do not want to serve him. His comments have gone from stupid to dangerous and I think someone needs to stand up to him,” Boggs said.
At the heart of the spat between Boggs and Campfield were the senator’s recent comments that heterosexual sex was safer than homosexual sex and and recently proposed legislation that K-8 schools should only teach about heterosexual sex to students. Boggs said his comments were inappropriate, while Campfield, who is straight, said today that his opinion is backed up by research from the Center for Disease Control.
“I was talking last week on a radio show and I said the homosexual lifestyle is a dangerous lifestyle. There are heterosexuals in Africa that do have it (AIDS), but the odds of a person getting AIDS in America is much less unless you’re having sex with a high risk group,” Campfield said.
Campfield referred to CDC statistics, which according to data from 2008, show that 54 percent of HIV cases diagnosed that year were from same sex contact among males, while 32 percent was contracted from heterosexual sexual contact. Neither the CDC nor Campfield addressed female homosexual behavior.
On the radio show, however, Campfield said that it was “virtually impossible” to contract HIV/AIDS through heterosexual sex.
“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted],” he said.
Boggs said she was happy to stand up to him.
“The most dangerous statements he made was that it’s virtually impossible for people to get AIDS through heterosexual sex, and I told him to leave because I was defending the rights of the community and pointing out to an elected official how inappropriate his opinion was. I think Mr. Campfield is a bully so I just stood up to a bully.”
Campfield said he didn’t take the incident too seriously and wouldn’t file any discrimination copmlaint, but thought it illustrated a problem with the other political party.
“I sort of laugh about that kind of stuff, and view it as another example of the left saying they’re open to people with divergent points of view until someone has a different point of view,” he said.
Following the confrontation, Boggs took Facebook, writing, “I hope Stacy (sic) Campfield now knows what it feels like to be discriminated against.”
hmm.. i had fallen out of the practice of looking words up in the thesaurus.. although, i dont remember having the practice, i do am aware (hehe.. like mah grammah?) that my vocabulary, or at least the speed at which i can find the right word has been failing me lately.. in any case, i am re-entering the wonderful world of the thesaurus!
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.
a few things on abortion and the recent news on the whole susan g. komen debacle. but before, a couple of things you should know, in case you didnt already. "susan g. komen foundation for the cure" is the biggest breast cancer charity in the US. planned parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the US (the world?) and does NOT provide mammograms. susan g komen used to provide funds to planned parenthood.. then suddenly announced that it wouldnt, since it was employing a policy whereby they would not fund organizations currently under investigation (under which planned parenthood finds itself right now). public outcry over this (oh yeah, the pro-aborts went nuts when they heard this PP-leaked story.. whoa, pardon the pun, didnt even see that one coming.. yet it somehow seems apropos) caused its VP to resign
I have a source who reaches into the SGK board of directors. My source told me in December this split was in the works but that SGK did not want to make a big splash about it. Their plan was to disentangle from Planned Parenthood quietly and move on.
It was Planned Parenthood, not SGK, that tipped off the Associated Press with the news of the break, just as it was Planned Parenthood that tipped off the AP about Live Action’s sex trafficking sting, and Planned Parenthood that tipped off Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff about Congressman Cliff Stearns’ investigation.
Planned Parenthood’s modus operandi is to try to destroy its enemy first. Planned Parenthood does this to try to manage the messaging and ameliorate the damage. Note from the AP article:
Komen, while not publicly announcing its decision to halt the grants, has conveyed the news to its 100-plus U.S. affiliates. Richards said she was informed via a phone call from Komen’s president, Elizabeth Thompson, in December.
My source said Planned Parenthood broke the story for an additional reason: to frighten other corporations from trying to do what SGK did. See what will happen to you if you dare, is Planned Parenthood’s underlying warning. My source said this will not work. Other organizations are anticipated to follow SGK’s lead.
People are speculating whether SGK will begin funding PP again if the Stearns’ investigation goes nowhere. The answer is no. Two reasons, according to my source.
First, PP burned a bridge by breaking the story. Second, note SGK’s new criteria that stipulates it will give no grant money to “organizations that are under local, state or federal investigations.” Aside from the federal investigation, Planned Parenthood is currently being investigated in several states. Those will never end. There will always be another. SGK does not plan to fund PP ever again.
SGK’s back-up plan is to initiate another new policy that will only allow grants to go to organizations that focus on breast health.
The biggest reason SGK stopped funding Planned Parenthood? “Nancy Brinker [SGK chairwoman, pictured right] said she was spending nearly half her time dealing with the Planned Parenthood issue,” said my source. “She decided she just couldn’t do it any longer.”
Quite simply, Planned Parenthood is poison.
According to my source, there are still five SGK affiliates that have contractual agreements with Planned Parenthood thru 2012, made before the new policy was enacted. The Denver SGK affiliate says its agreement with PP runs through March 2013.
Nevertheless, I think pro-lifers should start donating to SGK now to show our appreciation. And we should also thank SGK for doing the right thing. You can do both here. At present pro-aborts are pummeling SGK. As we all know, they excel at bullying.
yep, they are.. and quite good at it, like the whole liberal left wing crowd.
Planned Parenthood, a leading provider of birth control, abortion and other women’s health services in the U.S., had no comment. The organization receives about $700,000 a year in Komen donations for breast cancer exams and mammography referrals for poor women.
Last week Komen cut the funding, citing a new policy to avoid funding organizations under investigation by authorities. Planned Parenthood is the subject of an investigation by Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns, who hopes to determine whether federal tax money funds Planned Parenthood abortions.
But the move caused a public uproar, with many accusing Komen of bowing to political pressure from anti-abortion groups who want to cut off all funds to Planned Parenthood. The funding was quickly restored following the outcry.
[...]
which of course is highly ironic when placed against her earlier quote:
In a 3-1/2 minute video statement posted on its website and the video site YouTube, the Komen foundation said critics have mischaracterized its decision to deny new money to Planned Parenthood and warned the controversy could distract attention from the struggle against breast cancer.
“We will never bow to political pressure,” Komen founder Nancy Brinker said in the video.
mmhmm.. suuuure.
the article continues:
The Komen foundation, known for its pink ribbon symbol and Race for the Cure fundraisers, has collected more than $1.9-billion for breast cancer research and programs. It has affiliates in more than 100 U.S. cities and 50 countries.
Planned Parenthood provides abortion, birth control and other health services to women. It had received about $700,000 annually from Komen to provide access to mammograms for low income women.
[...]
nevermind of course, that that is completely false.
Several years ago, some friends of mine wrote, produced, and directed a movie. One of the stars of that movie was Kate Walsh. I’m pretty sure this was right around the time “Grey’s Anatomy” kicked off. These friends of mine, who must remain anonymous, told me a little secret about Kate Walsh. Here it is. I hope you’re ready:
Kate Walsh is really nice.
Seriously, my friends found Kate delightful. I, on the other hand, find her vile. I bet you’d like to know why. Here is a quick rundown of the various ways in which Ms. Walsh is the enemy:
1. Walsh is on the Board of Advisors for Planned Parenthood and loves to help them make money. In 2010, she tweeted to her followers that if they donated to PP they could win an autographed DVD of “Private Practice.” Here is the tweet:
Hey, followers! Support baby-killing and get a DVD of a crappy show no one watches autographed by your favorite C-list actress, me!
I’m just kidding. That wasn’t the tweet. But it should have been.
2. Her “Grey’s Anatomy” spin-off “Private Practice” did an episode on partial birth abortion in which she, the late-term abortionist, was portrayed as a noble hero helping a woman out of a horrible situation, and the pro-lifer in the episode was awful for telling the woman to consider keeping the baby.
Now that's what I call women's rights!
3. She urged Washington University students to boycott a speech by Bristol Palin on abstinence. “What does she know about college or abstaining?” she tweeted. I think Bristol Palin might know a little something about what happens when you don’t abstain. I’m pretty sure it’s the lack of abstaining that led to the birth of her son. But don’t quote me on that; I’m not clear on the science.
What could she possibly know about the consequences of teen sex?
Kate Walsh and her fellow Planned Parenthood drones can’t stand abstinence education because abstinence doesn’t cost anything.
Let me make that clear: Planned Parenthood makes its money selling abortions, oral contraception, emergency contraception, long-term contraception, condoms, STD treatments, and the like. When young people abstain from sex, Planned Parenthood doesn’t make any money. Like, at all.
Think about it: why else would Kate Walsh or Planned Parenthood care what Bristol Palin has to say? What business is it of theirs?
Abstinence is the only form of birth control that is 100% effective and 100% free. So, if the whole world listened to Bristol Palin and didn’t have sex until they were married and ready to procreate, Planned Parenthood would go out of business. They don’t offer obstetric care if you’re pregnant. All they can do is make you un-pregnant. They don’t treat infertility. They treat fertility.
People who abstain don’t get pregnant, so they can’t have abortions. And they don’t need contraception, so you can’t sell them birth control pills. And they don’t get STDs, so you can’t sell them cures. Basically, abstinent young people are Planned Parenthood’s worst nightmare. Cue Kate Walsh!
Abstinence: yet another “choice” Planned Parenthood is not too “pro” about.
[...]
yep.. nailed it right on the head
and heres another blood boiling article on abortion. just so you can shake your head some more:
Ok, here’s something I’ve never quite figured out (maybe you can help me). Why is it that so many people who support abortion also support the right of baby animals to live? I personally believe that people are created in the Image of God and, therefore, their lives are the most important to protect. (I also believe we shouldn’t needlessly kill animals.) However, I get how people who believe in evolution and think that we are all animals could equate killing an animal baby to killing a human baby. But what I don’t understand is how one can be so wrong and the other so right…
For example, I was at a hearing yesterday where legal advisors for the pro-life side and the abortion industry were discussing their positions on the proposed Colorado Personhood Amendment. The abortion advocate’s attorney, Lila Bateman, attempted to answer a hypothetical question.
If, instead of the Personhood Amendment being about giving the full protections of life to the unborn, it was about giving all constitutional rights to animals, would this be ok? Ms. Bateman concluded that the amendment concerning animals would be perfectly fine. The difference? Well, an amendment for animals would be granting already recognized rights to an already recognized class. But, horror of horrors, the Personhood Amendment would be granting a completely new right to an unrecognized class. (You can hear the recording of this meeting here.)
I simply don’t understand that kind of inconsistency. Why is it perfectly ok to give ALL constitutional rights—including the right to life—to animals, but not at all ok to give one basic constitutional right to unborn children? Well, ok, maybe two rights to unborn children if you want to say that the right to life and the right not to be killed are two different rights, but I digress.
Another example: Father Frank Pavone has brought attention to a sign he once saw at a Florida beach after giving a pro-life sermon. The sign said: “Attention Beach Users. Help protect endangered sea turtles. Avoid disturbing nesting females. Leave eggs, nests, and hatchlings undisturbed….Sea turtles are protected by county, state, and federal law. Fines up to $20,000.”
Great, so let’s fine people thousands of dollars for even daring to disturb a baby sea turtle, but let’s freely let mothers kill their human children any time they want. The blatant inconsistency is what disturbs me.
Finally, get this: Federal law provides that people can actually go to prison for taking (this includes pursuing, shooting, shooting at, poisoning, wounding, killing, capturing, trapping, collecting, molesting or disturbing) a bald or golden eagle egg. Concerning the penalties, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports:
The 1972 amendments increased civil penalties for violating provisions of the Act to a maximum fine of $5,000 or one year imprisonment with $10,000 or not more than two years in prison for a second conviction. Felony convictions carry a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment. The fine doubles for an organization.
Please note that these amendments to the federal law protecting eagle eggs were passed the year before Roe v. Wade was decided and the Supreme Court made it legal to kill all unborn children. I’d really like to know why an eagle egg is treated the same as an adult eagle (isn’t it only a “potential eagle”) when an unborn child is treated like a non-human.
Afghans are liberal with hand gestures and facial expressions during discussions. The sooner Westerners can acquaint themselves with some of the gestures, mannerisms, and taboos of the region, the less likely negative social situations will arise. Vulgar American hand gestures are understood and should not be used. Do not burp or spit in public; both are considered rude and insulting. Pounding the fist into the palm and stroking the beard of chin signals revenge.
Likewise, many facial expressions and body movements are universal. For instance, a scowl, grimace or frown means the same thing in Afghanistan as in the U.S. As in Western cultures, Afghans nod the head up and down for “yes” and left and right for “no.” Winking always has sexual connotations and should be avoided.
To beckon someone, one motions downward with the palm of the hand facing the ground. Avoid pointing a finger at objects or at a person to whom you wish to speak. To point at or beckon others with the fingers is extremely rude and can be construed as a sexual advance.
The thumbs-up gesture traditionally is an offensive Muslim insult. It is equivalent to using the middle finger in the Western world. Some more media savvy Afghans may understand the Western meaning of an upturned thumb and intend for the gesture to mean just that. Other Afghans may use the gesture in its traditional sense.
The OK sign, a circle made with the thumb and index finger, takes on different cultural meanings worldwide. Although in the United States it is generally accepted to mean all is well, in other cultures it can symbolize the evil eye, suggest a person or thing is worthless (0-value), or act as a lewd reference to a part of a woman's body. As with thumbs up, many Afghans have come to accept this symbol to mean all
The amazingly accurate predictions of Ron Paul..listen 'till the end and you'll be shocked! This video reveals Ron Paul's opinion about the "housing bubble" in 2002 and 2007, his opinion of the rationale and threat from Iraq in 2002, his amazing statement in 2007 at a presidential debate that Osama bin Ladin was hiding in Pakistan, and additional predictions that are coming true today.
trying to form a better, more informed opinion on the guy.. ive noticed that some of what formed my opinion mightve been a severe media slant. on both sides. this might be quite telling.
British Nmachi Ihegboro has amazed genetics experts who say the little girl is NOT an albino.
Blue-eyed blonde Nmachi, whose name means "Beauty of God" in the Nigerian couple's homeland, has baffled genetics experts because neither Ben nor wife Angela have ANY mixed-race family history.
Pale genes skipping generations before cropping up again could have explained the baby's appearance.
Ben also stressed: "My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn't been, the baby still wouldn't look like that.
"We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages — not saying anything."
Doctors at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup — where Angela, from nearby Woolwich, gave birth — have told the parents Nmachi is definitely no albino.
Ben, who came to Britain with his wife five years ago and works for South Eastern Trains, said: "She doesn't look like an albino child anyway — not like the ones I've seen back in Nigeria or in books. She just looks like a healthy white baby."
He went on: "My mum is a black Nigerian although she has a bit fairer skin than mine.
"But we don't know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist.
"But even then, what is with the long curly blonde hair?"
Professor Bryan Sykes, head of Human Genetics at Oxford University and Britain's leading expert, yesterday called the birth "extraordinary".
He said: "In mixed race humans, the lighter variant of skin tone may come out in a child — and this can sometimes be startlingly different to the skin of the parents.
"This might be the case where there is a lot of genetic mixing, as in Afro-Caribbean populations. But in Nigeria there is little mixing."
Prof Sykes said BOTH parents would have needed "some form of white ancestry" for a pale version of their genes to be passed on.
But he added: "The hair is extremely unusual. Even many blonde children don't have blonde hair like this at birth."
The expert said some unknown mutation was the most likely explanation.
He admitted: "The rules of genetics are complex and we still don't understand what happens in many cases."
well, just goes to show how the Lord every day tells us that adam and eve, and the people in noah's ark, wouldve had no problem spawning all the different races from just themselves. crazy eh?
some guy was posting some weird stuff (pantheistic, nature is God, weirdness) amongst other stuff, so i replied to some of it (we are on good terms, so dont expect something controversial) and i figured i would share it with you in the hopes that it will be edifying to you too:
youre absolutely right, God doesnt make mistakes. however Jesus was not "just a man". He Himself is the essence and source of life, in whom and for whom all things were created. and again, you are 100% correct in saying God doesnt need worship, or anything else. yet, He is worthy, He is 100% worthy, as the source and definition of what is good, and perfect, He is worthy of worship, glory and honor. however, He is not just the source of life and existence, but He is also infinitely righteous and the source of the moral law we are to be bound by. we live in His creation, we are bound by His laws. just like if we live in canada, we are bound by the laws of canada. this is bad news. if God is righteous and just, and has given us His moral law to follow.. and we break it, that means He must dole out the justice we deserve. the problem? He is infinitely righteous, and an offense against Him, is an infinite offense. im sure you can guess what an infinite offense deserves in terms of punishment.
we can be philosophical all we want about God, nature and so on, but thats all it will ever be: us being philosophical about it. the fact is we exist, and nothing comes from nothing. there is a Creator, and He must be infinite (not bound by space or time), personal (since He is also creative), and almighty (given His ability to create out of nothing). the same Creator who gave us the laws by which nature operates, the physical laws, (the "laws of nature", if you will) also gave us His moral law. and there is none who can say they have not transgressed it. again, this is bad news. and only someone who is totally depraved could have a "so what?" response to the matter.
i figure you dont really need to read what he wrote to understand the post.
get your own ads on insaner.com for just $1