April 2013 Archives

Even if you support at-will abortion you must be horrified by the casual attitude of abortionists towards infanticide, right? Details of what goes on in abortion clinics continues to emerge from hidden camera sting operations.

In an exchange laden with euphemisms on both sides to conceal the gruesome nature of the discussion, the pregnant woman wondered aloud what would happen if "it" (her fetus) emerged from her intact and alive.

The employee assigned to take note of medical history reassured the woman, "We never had that for ages" (a seeming admission that a baby did survive abortion at the clinic at least once) but that should "it" "survive this," "They would still have to put it in like a jar, a container, with solution, and send it to the lab. . . . We don't just throw it out in the garbage."

Oh, and this innocuous-sounding "solution" was, of course, a toxic substance suitable for killing an infant.

"Like, what if it was twitching?" asked the pregnant woman.

"The solution will make it stop," said the clinic employee. "That's the whole purpose of the solution . . . It will automatically stop. It won't be able to breathe anymore."

As for any qualms a woman might have about seeing her newborn child being poisoned and drowned in a jar, the employee advised her "patient" not to worry: She'd be under sedation, and the murder would take place in another room anyway.

It's outrageous that the Marathon Bombers received over $100,000 in taxpayer-funded benefits, but doesn't it amaze you that anyone can get that much "help" over a 10-year span? It's no wonder that our country is practically bankrupt.

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance -- a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

"The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning," said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

Being of Croatian descent myself it's cool to read that the Qarth scenes from Game of Thrones are filmed in Dubrovnik! I'd love to visit Croatia sometime.

If you've watched the show and wondered where all the exotic, arid, desert footage was shot for the 'Qarth' kingdom scenes, HBO said they are mostly filmed in Croatia.

The premium cable channel works with a production company called Embassy Films, based in Croatia, for the scenes shot there. About 170 local crew were employed for shooting in Dubrovnik, according to the production company.

"This was very good for Croatian, Dubrovnik economy, starting from crew and people directly involved, to hotels, transportation, etc.," said Erika Milutin, executive producer working on the show with Embassy Films.

But... but... Obamacare is such a great law! Why would Congressmen and their aides want to be exempt?

There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn't revised, could lead to a "brain drain" on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.

The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer -- in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers -- especially low-paid junior aides -- could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere. Older, more senior staffers could also retire or jump to the private sector rather than face a big financial penalty.

Plus, lawmakers -- especially those with long careers in public service and smaller bank accounts -- are also concerned about the hit to their own wallets.

Uh, "regular" Americans who don't work in/for Congress are concerned about these same problems. Can we all be exempted please?

It's completely absurd and disgusting that Congress is considering exempting themselves and their henchmen from the effects of their idiotic lawmaking. Are we a Republic or an aristocracy?

Most parents I know use some form of "time-out" as a part of their discipline repertoire. However, many parents don't use time-outs the correct and most effective way. (The article starts on page 8 of that PDF.)

So just what are the key behavioral factors of time-out that help it succeed as a discipline strategy with children and, when absent, doom it to fail? The discussion below highlights the main components that influence the effectiveness of time-out for behavior change in children. These components are based on the initial behavioral underpinnings of Ferster,the behavioral literature in general, as well as on the clinical experience of the present authors.

Two things I learned:

• Warnings are very counter-productive. I need to stop warning my kids and simply put them in time-out as soon as they begin misbehaving.
• Don't lecture. The point of the time-out is to withhold attention, not deliver a lecture. The punishment should be as close in proximity as possible to the misbehavior.

Time travel in the movies.

(HT: GeekPress.)

Here are some pictures taken by a nearby resident of the shootout between Boston police and the marathon bomber suspects.

Is anyone surprised that internet behemoth Amazon now supports an internet sales tax? Why would they do such a thing? The explanation is simple: the new law will be complex and difficult to comply with, which will shut down a lot of Amazon's online competitors.

The bill pits brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart against online services such as eBay. Amazon.com, which initially fought efforts in some states to make it collect sales taxes, supports it too. Amazon and Best Buy have joined a group of retailers called the Marketplace Fairness Coalition to lobby on behalf of the bill.

"Amazon.com has long supported a simplified nationwide approach that is evenhandedly applied and applicable to all but the smallest-volume sellers," Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, said in a recent letter to senators.

Many people mistakenly believe that large companies generally resist regulation. In reality, large companies often lobby in favor of complex and expensive regulations because the compliance cost prevents smaller companies from competing.

Here's a collection of environmental predictions from 1970, the year of the first Earth Day.

"...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind," biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.

By 1995, "...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct." Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.

Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor "...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born," Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.

The world will be "...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age," Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.

"We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journalEnvironment, April 1970.

"Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction," The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.

"By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..." Life magazine, January 1970.

"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

"...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone," Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.

"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation," Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.

"By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine," Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.

Walter Russell Mead is surprised the earth is still around! I hope we can hang on for a few more years.

James Taranto -- one of my favorite thinkers and writers -- has published a long and compelling explanation of how the Gosnell infanticide atrocity could fundamentally shift the public's view on abortion.

Welcome to the mushy middle, Roger. This columnist has been here for quite some time, as you can see from this 1999 piece. But we too, when we were very young, were a "pro-choice" libertarian. We came to question, and ultimately rejected, that position, although fully accepting the "pro-life" side of the argument remains a bridge too far for us. ...

The reductio ad absurdum of the pro-abortion side is Kermit Gosnell. That is why the Gosnell case has crystallized our view that the current regime of abortion on demand in America is a grave evil that ought to be abolished. It is murderous, if not categorically then at least in its extreme manifestations. Maintaining it requires an assault on language and logic that has taken on a totalitarian character. And it is politically poisonous.

He also points to recent testimony by Planned Parenthood which believes that doctors should be allowed to murder "abortion survivors".

The "Roger" that Taranto refers to is Roger Simon, who is also in the midst of re-evaluating his previous support for abortion.

I can give you two guinea pigs to prove this point -- my wife Sheryl and me. We were in the kitchen last night, preparing dinner, when we saw a short report of this story on the countertop TV.

Both lifelong "pro-choice" people, after watching only seconds, we embarked in an immediate discussion of whether it was time to reconsider that view. (Didn't human life really begin at the moment of conception? What other time?) Neither of us was comfortable as a "pro-choice" advocate in the face of these horrifying revelations. How could we be?

Yes, Dr. Gosnell was exceptional (thank God for that!), but a dead fetus was a dead fetus, even if incinerated in some supposedly humane fashion rather than left crying out in blind agony on the operating room floor, as was reportedly the case with one of Gosnell's victims. I say blind because this second-trimester fetus did not yet have fully formed eyes. (Think about that one.)

So I don't think I'm "pro-choice" anymore, but I'm not really "pro-life" either. I would feel like a hypocrite. I don't want to pretend to ideals I have serious doubts I would be able to uphold in a real-world situation. If a woman in my family, or a close friend, were (Heaven forbid) impregnated through rape, I would undoubtedly support her right to abortion. I might even advocate it. I also have no idea how I would react if confronted by having to make a choice between the life of a fetus and his/her mother. Just the thought makes my head spin.

This position isn't difficult to understand. The important fact to grasp from Simon's narrative is that he and his wife now concede the evil of abortion. It's no surprise that he -- like many people -- would find it hard to willingly suffer for this new-found principle. Despite this understandable reluctance, the shift in principle that Simon describes is significant. We can only pray that a similar shift will develop in the larger population.

A team from the University of Illinois has created a super-battery that could revolutionize the ongoing consumer electronic explosion.

The University of Illinois team says its use of 3D-electrodes allows it to build "microbatteries" that are many times smaller than commercially available options, or the same size and many times more powerful.

It adds they can be recharged 1,000 times faster than competing tech. ...

"You could replace your car battery with one of our batteries and it would be 10 times smaller, or 10 times more powerful. With that in mind you could jumpstart a car with the battery in your cell phone."

Better batteries will lead to much more powerful portable electronics. One of the chief complaints about the recently unveiled Google Glass is that the power consumption is high and battery life is low.

The battery should last about a day during "typical use" however features like Google Hangouts and video recording will drain the battery more quickly.

Super-batteries could also completely change the economics of electric vehicles. No one wants them because their ranges are too low, but what if you could get 500 miles from a charge instead of 50? Sign me up.

I was surprised to read that the Senate will actually hold a vote on a bill that would force states to reciprocate recognition of concealed carry permits.

In a climactic day, the Senate planned to hold eight other votes Wednesday besides the one on background checks, all of them amendments to a broad gun control measure.

They included Democratic proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, which are expected to lose; a Republican proposal requiring states to honor other states' permits allowing concealed weapons, which faces a close vote; and a GOP substitute for the overall gun measure.

If this bill passes the Senate it would certainly pass the House and would be a major civil rights victory. States like California, New York, and Illinois would finally be required to fully recognize the self-defense rights of their citizens.

Today's plunge in gold prices reinforces my broad, long-term investment strategy.

Gold plunged for the second straight day Monday, dropping more than 8% at midday in what was shaping up as the metal's biggest one-day percentage decline in 30 years. ...

"Everybody that's bought for the past two years, since April 2011, is losing money," said Ira Epstein, director of the Ira Epstein division at the Linn Group futures brokerage. "It's a sea of red," he said.

There's nothing magical about gold, but the fact that so many people treat it like a magic totem is enough to scare me away. Gold's movement is almost entirely irrational, so why would you want to play that game?

At least if you buy actual gold and maintain physical possession you can theoretically use it to buy things after the total collapse of global civilization, but what's the point in buying pieces of paper that say you own gold in someone else's vault? It's voodoo.

If Kermit Gosnell had killed hundreds of dogs or murdered children at school with a gun then you know this would be national news. But since these murders lie so closely to legal abortion the Gosnell murder trial is being buried by the media.

The grand jury report in the case of Kermit Gosnell, 72, is among the most horrifying I've read. "This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy - and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors," it states. "The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels - and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."

Charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, Gosnell is now standing trial in a Philadelphia courtroom. An NBC affiliate's coverage includes testimony as grisly as you'd expect. "An unlicensed medical school graduate delivered graphic testimony about the chaos at a Philadelphia clinic where he helped perform late-term abortions," the channel reports. "Stephen Massof described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, 'literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.' He testified that at times, when women were given medicine to speed up their deliveries, 'it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.'"

Why does the left not care about these murdered children? Because what Gosnell did is basically the same thing that Planned Parenthood and every other abortion provider does every day.

From the grand jury report:

When you perform late-term "abortions" by inducing labor, you get babies. Live, breathing, squirming babies. By 24 weeks, most babies born prematurely will survive if they receive appropriate medical care. But that was not what the Women's Medical Society was about. Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them. He didn't call it that. He called it "ensuring fetal demise." The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that "snipping."

Over the years, there were hundreds of "snippings." Sometimes, if Gosnell was unavailable, the "snipping" was done by one of his fake doctors, or even by one of the administrative staff.

But all the employees of the Women's Medical Society knew. Everyone there acted as if it wasn't murder at all. Most of these acts cannot be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files. Among the relatively few cases that could be specifically documented, one was Baby Boy A. His 17-year-old mother was almost 30 weeks pregnant -- seven and a half months -- when labor was induced. An employee estimated his birth weight as approaching six pounds. He was breathing and moving when Gosnell severed his spine and put the body in a plastic shoebox for disposal. The doctor joked that this baby was so big he could "walk me to the bus stop." Another, Baby Boy B, whose body was found at the clinic frozen in a one-gallon spring-water bottle, was at least 28 weeks of gestational age when he was killed. Baby C was moving and breathing for 20 minutes before an assistant came in and cut the spinal cord, just the way she had seen Gosnell do it so many times. And these were not even the worst cases.

How can these atrocities be allowed in the United States of America? Only under the cover of legalized abortion. It's inhuman and repugnant to God and man.

Too late for Easter, but here is an interesting medical advance towards resurrection. When I die, please make sure that they cool me off and get me on an ECMO machine as soon as possible.

Sam Parnia MD has a highly sought after medical specialty: resurrection. His patients can be dead for several hours before they are restored to their former selves, with decades of life ahead of them.

Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book
Parnia is head of intensive care at the Stony Brook University Hospital in New York. If you'd had a cardiac arrest at Parnia's hospital last year and undergone resuscitation, you would have had a 33% chance of being brought back from death. In an average American hospital, that figure would have fallen to 16% and (though the data is patchy) roughly the same, or less, if your heart were to have stopped beating in a British hospital.

By a conservative extrapolation, Parnia believes the relatively cheap and straightforward methods he uses to restore vital processes could save up to 40,000 American lives a year and maybe 10,000 British ones. Not surprisingly Parnia, who was trained in the UK and moved to the US in 2005, is frustrated that the medical establishment seems slow and reluctant to listen to these figures. He has written a book in the hope of spreading the word.

I get excited whenever I see Vladimir Putin in the news. Check out his expression when he's confronted by this topless protester.

Speaking at a press conference afterwards, Mr Putin said: "As for the protest, I liked it. In principle, we knew that such a protest was being prepared."

He said the organisers of the Hanover event should "say thank you to the Ukrainian girls, they helped you promote the trade fair."

Mr Putin appeared to show a flash of his well-known salty humour, adding: "I didn't make out whether they were blondes, chestnut-haired or brunettes."

Shouldn't be too complex for our legislators, right?

(HT: KR.)