DON VINCENZO writes:

If the politics of Virginia grow increasingly unrecognizable to its residents, I can’t begin to imagine what the residents of our neighboring state of Maryland think of the actions of Governor Martin O’Malley. Since his election in 2006, O’Malley has taken that state into the outer fringes of the Far Left. There exists in embryonic form groups in the western portion (read: white) of the state that are considering secession, which may be just as zany as O’Malley’s policies.

O’Malley promoted and then signed the law allowing homosexual couples to marry despite the warnings of the then Archbishop of Baltimore, Edwin O’Brien. Read More »

SO MANY decent people have had their lives cut short by black criminals. Every one of these murders heightens the fear that reigns in American cities and causes millions of people to limit their daily activities out of fear of becoming victims too. Here are two recent examples.

Amber Long, a 26-year-old architecture student, right, was killed in January in front of her mother, left, during a purse snatching in Philadelphia. She held onto a $14 purse she had bought earlier in the day and was shot in the chest.

James Vester, a 32-year-old Iraq war veteran, was killed in December in Indianapolis while seeking to buy an iPad advertised on Craigslist. He was lured by two teenagers to a parking lot and was also shot in the chest. “Vester told cops before he died at a local hospital that the suspects took the keys to his vehicle, his cellphone, his wallet and $250 in cash…”

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MISS FOX writes:

The Daily Mail reports that homosexuals live shorter lives due to prejudice and intolerance. Much like the racial studies that purport the same idea, so too does this study suggest that people be ever more tolerant of a clearly disastrous lifestyle.

In societies such as Sweden and the Netherlands, where homosexuality is supported, homosexuals live shorter lives. Though this is no surprise.

The article is here. There is no mention of AIDS, drug abuse, or the many other physical maladies that are associated with this lifestyle. In the progressive point of view, it boasts a “How-can-you-possibly-do-this, you-evil-haters?” tone.

A good debunking of this silly study can be found here.

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MARGERY EAGAN, a columnist with The Boston Herald, offers a painfully glaring example of feminist dementia. She complains that the mayor told women to take precautions against a rapist:

After three attacks on women in East Boston, women there should stay alert and walk in pairs, police said.

After an attack on a woman in the North End, said Mayor Marty Walsh, “I’d just ask women — if you’re walking, you know, walk in pairs, don’t walk around alone, particularly at night.”

I read this advice, well-meaning and well-intentioned, no doubt. It made me nuts. Read More »

THE Pizza-Industrial Complex has pulled a fast one on the residents of Bobtown, Pa. After a natural gas well exploded in the town, leaving one worker presumed dead and a fire that burned intensely for five days, what did Chevron give residents as an expression of concern and sympathy? Gift certificates for pizza at Bobtown Pizzeria.

This is ominous — especially for those of us in the sensitive field of Pizza Analysis and Forecasting (PAF).

I’m not sure where this will lead but I foresee pizza becoming a form of currency for corporate and government “outreach” offices. For instance, one day you might get a notice in the mail saying your property, which is is good condition, has been condemned. You have one month to pack your bags and move out. Inside the envelope will be $1,000 worth of coupons for Domino’s triple-stuffed, double-crust pies with bacon and green peppers (soda included).

I’m sorry to report that there are a few Americans, even some with decent homes, who would consider this a great deal.

 BERT PERRY writes:

It’s worth noting that when the women’s Olympic hockey team prepares for the Olympics, they do not play women’s’ college teams.  Not quite good enough.  That said, neither do they play teams from the NHL or its minor leagues, or college teams at any level.  They are too good.

Just right? They play good boys’ high school hockey teams from northern Minnesota, but make sure that checking is not part of the game. In the same way, the best competition for elite women in running is good high school athletes.  The women’s world record in the mile run would place decently at most state meets for the boys, but would not win. Except for the fact that the jostling that happens in any high school boys’ race might not be exactly welcomed by elite women runners, of course.

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KAREN I. writes:

Today, I saw “death with dignity” being advertised on the website of my small local paper. There was a banner ad at the top of the page and the woman in the ad looked pretty happy, considering. 

When I clicked on the ad, it went to the following website for Compassion and Choices, [the national pro-suicide organization.]

My grandfather went through one of these so-called “dignified deaths.”He was denied food and water in a hospital, which acted under the orders of relatives who “knew” it was what he would have wanted. I could not be there as he was 2,000 miles from me, but I was not spared the details of his suffering, which included being denied food and water. He was “allowed” to suck on a wet rag to ease his suffering when he started begging for water. A dying old man begging for water and sucking on a rag in a hospital bed isn’t my idea of a dignified death. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking of it.

Laura writes:

There are important parallels between the “aid-in-dying movement,” which is mounting every single day and will grow so strong that in a few years many more people will bewilderingly look back and wonder how it all began, and the movement for same-sex “marriage.” Both are in favor of things that were not generally desired by the public when the campaign for their enactment began. The people were not clamoring for help in dying. The people were not clamoring for a redefinition of marriage. These innovations are the work of a determined minority.

Both movements are propelled by the activism and funding of a relatively small number of influential individuals, such as George Soros who funds the euphemistically named “Compassion and Choices,” which is a rebranding of its predecessor, the Hemlock Society. (Wealthy Jews appear to be especially numerous among the “aid-in-dying” movement’s supporters.) Here is a brief piece from The Washington Examiner about Soros’ finding of Compassion and Choices. Wesley Smith of the Center for Bioethics and Culture writes about this obsession of the “relatively few” here. In the case of same-sex “marriage,” well-off, childless homosexuals have contributed substantially to its lawsuits and publicity.

The other factor common to both movements is their appeal to the media and its love of highly emotional, disorienting and divisive stories, which keep readers coming back for more.

The media blitzkrieg is fed not only by the conviction of those in the media that these issues are open for debate, but by the widespread belief by the American public that any and all ideas should be entertained and given equal airing. We live in a society that does not say, “Stop, we should not even be talking about this,” or recognize the authority of anyone who would say such a thing, because it has believed so highly in a false freedom and has worshipped freedom-for-freedom’s-sake for so long.

Freedom, as we see again and again, becomes synonymous with aiding and abetting extreme nihilism. That nihilism is now manifesting itself as an actual love of death — and it is presented in the most sunny and smiley terms. Freedom has become another word for enslavement to those with a hatred for life and for everything good.

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SHE was an Army sergeant. Tragically, despite her military training, her own boyfriend strangled her. In her honor, her family erected two SpongeBob monuments at the Spring Grove cemetery in Cincinnati. Both SpongeBobs were in uniform.

“I thought it was the greatest thing in the cemetery,” Deborah Walker, the soldier’s mother, told a local radio station. “I even told the people there that I think this is the best monument I’ve ever seen. It’s the best headstone in the cemetery and they all agreed. It came out really nice.”

The cemetery of the future is coming into view.

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IN an apparent response to multiple protests that drew tens of thousands of protesters to the streets of Paris and other cities, French President François Hollande recently withdrew the family law reform bill that would have legalized surrogate motherhood and “assisted procreation for lesbian couples.” I had read about this last week, but had put it aside in the hope of finding more information about it. Unsurprisingly, it has been under-reported in the press. Galliawatch reported it on February 4th.

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KARL D. writes:

I learned something today that I wish I hadn’t. “Microaggression” is a new term for anything that a white male does that makes nonwhites, homosexuals or women feel even mildly uncomfortable. It seems to be arbitrary and up to the “victim” as to what constitutes a micro-aggression.

Many universities now have microaggression policies whereby a student can be hauled before university administrators if another student accuses him of a micro-aggression. Read More »

LAST WEEK, Judge Arenda Wright Allen, an Obama appointee to federal district court, struck down Virginia’s constitutional marriage amendment, passed by voters in 2006. She thus cleared the way for homosexual “marriage” in Virginia. Altogether, this was not a surprising development. Indeed, it would have been very surprising if it had turned out otherwise.

Wright Allen, a black woman who was educated at Kutztown University and North Carolina Central University, took just over one week after hearing oral arguments to deliver her 41-page decision. It is not unreasonable to assume that she had made up her mind well in advance.

Wright Allen opened her decision with a strong hint at its conclusion. She quoted from Mildred Loving, in her book Loving All:

“I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government should have no business imposing some person’s religious beliefs over others. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

Loving and her husband, Richard, were the plaintiffs in the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia, in which they successfully challenged the state’s law against interracial marriage and effectively ended all regulation of interracial marriage, which the court declared as unconstitutional.

Mildred and Richard Loving

Wright Allen argues that morality changes and the history of interracial marriage, which is no longer considered unacceptable, is proof of this. Most Virginians would probably agree that interracial marriage laws were deeply wrong. The fact that Virginians themselves cannot martial any defense of laws against interracial marriage (to defend these laws is not necessarily to argue that they should still be in effect) makes Wright Allen’s point an especially effective argument.

In reminding Virginians of this history, Wright Allen is saying in so many words, “You were bigots once and thus it is not unreasonable to claim that you are bigots now.”

Wright Allen’s ruling essentially asserts that the citizens of Virginia have no good reason to define marriage as it has always been defined everywhere on earth. The grandiosity and hubris that underlies this claim is nothing short of breathtaking. With two bits of legal training, Wright Allen confidently asserts that the parameters of the most fundamental human relationship in history have been irrational and an expression of animus toward an oppressed minority.

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APPARENTLY, my posting of a video about the military’s development of ready-to-eat pizza for soldiers in the field appeared on my screen, but did not appear on yours. I don’t know why. I have removed the entry and will post a link to it when I can.

RITA JANE writes:

People who are advocates of euthanasia ignore something fundamental: those of us who are in pain hear a lot that our lives have no value. I have lost count of how many times people have told me that in my situation (chronic, intractable pain), they’d just kill themselves. Of course, before I got sick, I’d have thought the same thing. We humans are woefully incapable of imagining lives other than our own. And yet, despite my illness, I have a good life. My husband adores me; I’m close to family and friends, and I do interesting and socially productive work within my limitations, even if I’m never going to be fit enough to make a huge impact on society.

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“BREEDERS,” a movie about surrogate motherhood has been released by the Center for Bioethics and Culture. I have not yet watched the movie, which can be rented online for $3.99, but I am certain it is a departure from the extreme shallowness and sentimentality with which the American media addresses this issue. Many countries outlaw surrogacy, even altruistic surrogacy. In America, there are relatively few restrictions and they are at the state level, so they are easy to evade by arranging surrogacy in a friendly state.

Here is a description of the movie:

Surrogacy is fast becoming one of the major issues of the 21st century—celebrities and everyday people are increasingly using surrogates to build their families. But the practice is fraught with complex implications for women, children, and families. What is the impact on the women who serve as surrogates and on the children who are born from surrogacy? In what ways might money complicate things? What about altruistic surrogacy done for a family member or close friend? Is surrogacy a beautiful, loving act or does it simply degrade pregnancy to a service and a baby to a product? Can we find a middle ground? Should we even look for one?

From The Center for Bioethics and Culture, producers of the award-winning Eggsploitation (2010, 2013), and Anonymous Father’s Day (2011), Breeders: A Subclass of Women? explores this important issue, talking with surrogates, physicians, psychologists, and activists across the political and ideological spectrum.

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The Belgium Parliament building

YESTERDAY, as has been widely reported, Belgium became the first nation in the world to allow euthanasia for terminally ill children of any age. Children, who aren’t typically trusted with decisions on far less weighty matters,, are expected to be fully cognizant of what they are requesting in approved cases. The law is the latest measure advanced by the aggressive right-to-die movement in the formerly Roman Catholic country. Western society is so saturated with a death wish that even little children under expert care with all kinds of pain medications are not exempt. As Wesley Smith of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, remarked, “Treating a child like a sick horse is what passes for ‘compassion’ these days.”  Smith has documented some of the abuses of “euthanasia” in Belgium. He said the child euthanasia bill was unsurprising: “Once killing is accepted as an answer to human difficulty and suffering, the power of sheer logic dictates that there is no bottom.”

The measure has deflected attention from the more pressing issue — and one can’t help but suspect that distraction is intentional. Most often euthanasia does not concern the young. It concerns the old. With this type of decline in the abhorrence toward voluntary death, the old are the ones most likely to feel the pressures to end their lives.

Here is an interview at CNN with a Belgium woman who supported the new law, and it gives a powerful glimpse into the Belgium people, whose problem appears to be not too much suffering but too little:

Mother Linda van Roy, from Schilde, Belgium, [was] among those backing the bill.

She could do nothing to help her terminally ill baby, Ella-Louise, in the last hours of her life.

Ella-Louise, who was 10 months old when she died just over two years ago, would never have qualified for euthanasia.

But her mother had to watch as her baby — who had Krabbe disease, a rare and terminal genetic mutation that damages the nervous system — slowly faded away under palliative sedation, food and liquid withheld so her suffering was not further prolonged. Read More »

Woody Allen with Dylan Farrow, when she was a child. A family friend has said he was obsessed with the child.

CATHY YOUNG in Time magazine, of all places, has a good piece on the accusations of child abuse by Dylan Farrow against Woody Allen. Mr. Allen strikes me as an intensely creepy and sick man. His relationship with the adopted daughter of the mother of his son and his taking of pornographic pictures of her when she was probably still a teenager makes me inclined to believe that he was capable of molesting a girl and likely did molest her — and the now-28-year-old Dylan’s account was compelling. But the truth will never be known and Young’s points about the feminist witch hunt are sound.

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AT World Net Daily, Colin Flaherty looks at the reaction to an online article about black crime. He writes:

Black History Month in Baltimore is a busy, busy time. Every aspect of black life in this city is remembered and celebrated: Black schools. Black music. Black movies. Black churches. Black literature. Black clothing. Black politicians. Even black trains.

Then Tracey Halvorsen had to go and spoil it all: She wrote an article about crime in Baltimore. How she and her mostly white neighbors live in fear. And no one seems to care. Or worse, lots of people think it is normal. “Baltimore City,You Are Breaking My Heart,” is going viral for an on-line magazine called Medium.com. A few quotes: Read More »