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Friday, September 26, 2003

California Politics is a Different Game

Mark Shea has got it right on a lot of things when it comes to religion and the Church, but when it comes to the California recall election, he suffers from the same misunderstanding that a lot of well-meaning pro-life conservatives who support Tom McClintock have been effectively presuming: that the Oct. 7 election is a primary leading to a general election. It's not. As such, given the various poll numbers which consistently show that Tom McClintock will, at best, finish in a distant third, I think Shea is way off base to chastise the California GOP as the Stupid Party for its de facto endorsement of Ahnuld. At this stage of the game, and given everything that is stake, the powers that be in the state GOP would be stupid if they didn't unite behind muscle head.
The Death Pill

Stuff you'll never see in the promotional materials for RU-486.

...when taken alone, RU-486 causes a complete abortion only about 60 percent of the time, leaving a patient vulnerable to serious infection and hemorrhaging. For this reason, a second drug (Cytotec in the U.S.) must be taken about 48 hours after RU-486 to cause uterine contractions, which help expel the embryo. (...)

Under the protocol approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Cytotec is supposed to be given orally and under medical supervision. But some Planned Parenthood clinics and abortionists, who apparently can't be bothered with multiple visits and monitoring women onsite, tell patients like Holly to administer the drug vaginally, at home, with no medical supervision. (...)

A major World Health Organization (WHO) study documented the infection risk associated with RU-486 abortions: 30 percent of women who had incomplete RU-486 abortions developed pelvic/genital-tract infections. The reason for this high infection rate: One side effect of the RU-486 drug combination is immune-system suppression. For this reason, the WHO study calls for women to receive antibiotics for six weeks following an RU-486 abortion.

In April 2002, Danco sent an FDA-approved "dear doctor" letter warning of safety issues associated with prescribing RU-486, i.e., undetected ectopic pregnancies and bacterial infections which had resulted in patient deaths, and informing them of a 21-year-old woman who died of a heart attack three days after taking RU-486.

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Paging Richard Gere

A Taiwan professor is sued and faces possible criminal charges for including a link on her university department's website to a site that promotes bestiality.

"The link to the `Beast Love' Web site was merely an issue of academic research. In the West, people began to study the intercourse relationship between humans and animals in the 19th century. However, in Taiwan, it is still considered pornography even today."

Note: This incredibly deluded professor is not related to yours truly.
Alan Keyes: Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil

And this is why he endorses Tom McClintock in the California governor recall election . Based on what I read here, however, it appears as though Keyes is overlooking the fact that a vote for McClintock strengthens any vote that is cast for Cruz "MEChA"mante, who is leading in several polls and is even more egregiously pro-abortion than Ahnuld.

As much as I hate to admit it, it does seem that as long as McClintock stays in the race, the only thing he will succeed in doing is preventing Ahnuld from becoming governor.
Sad and Old Actor Rants

Not only does he talk to his six year old daughter about death all the time, 83 year old Tony Randall has fantasies about relatives turning President Bush and Vice-President Cheney away from his funeral. What a wierd, self-absorbed old fart.
Another 10 Commandments Monument Removed

This time in Montana.

The Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the stone to Custer County in 1968. In 1997, several people complained about the monument and a nearby Nativity scene.

Two years later, the ACLU sued. In 2000, a consent decree was signed that offered the county the options of removing the monument, or making it part of a display at the courthouse on the evolution of law. However, commissioners decided such a display would be too expensive.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Fat Boy Disses Bush and Texas

Sen. Ted ("anyone seen my drink!") Kennedy makes charges that the war in Iraq is a fraud made up in Texas and that Bush is breaking all kinds of laws.

Three words in response Blimpo: Mary Jo Kopechne
Abortion Pimps

Doing what they can to save face, medical "experts" for Planned Parenthood are unsurprisingly reluctant to say that a pregnant teenage girl's death resulted from her using the abortion pill RU-486.

"It's really safer than carrying a pregnancy to term," [Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America national headquarters in New York] said. "I hope that the media attention around this tragic situation does not scare other women from opting to have a termination procedure through mifepristone medical abortion if that's something the woman wants to do."

This woman must really hate children.

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" Would be Sued Today

The Iowa Supreme Court rules that a woman who was apparently called the "spirit of Satan" by a church minister may sue for defamation. The case has been appealed to the SCOTUS.

The controversy began in March 1999 at the United Methodist Church of Shell Rock. In an attempt to resolve problems within the church, the Rev. Jerrold Swinton, a former district superintendent of the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, visited Shell Rock.

After Swinton's visit, a letter from him was circulated to both members and non-members of the church. Swinton said in the letter he was in despair when Jane Kliebenstein told him the current pastor must leave the community.

In the letter, Swinton said a church conference should be called to "propose that Jane Kliebenstein be stripped of church offices. It is understood that if she continues to cause dissension, she will next be asked to leave the Shell Rock UMC."

The letter also said the congregation had "allowed the spirit of Satan to work in their midst."


Update: Here's the full decision if you're interested in reading it. Although it was handed down in June, it was only recently appealed to the SCOTUS (as mentioned in the linked article above).

Monday, September 22, 2003

Our Quirky Protestant Friends

I picked up the revised edition of Separated Brethren over the weekend, and I've already run across several interesting things about our Protestant friends. For instance, the American Episcopal Church, aside from their recent and well-publicized harangues over homosexual marriages and the ordaining of homosexual bishops, believe in the existence of a Church Expectant, which we Catholics generally understand to be Purgatory (or the Church Suffering). Even more fascinating, and somewhat bizarre, is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's opposition to any church member being associated with the Boy Scouts of America. Apparently, the WELS believe that the Boy Scouts, at best, adhere to a watered-down Christian value system, and have an equivalence to secret societies like the Freemasons (which, of course, the Catholic Church prohibits its members from joining).
Exposing Absurdity with Absurdity

Triggered by the class action lawsuit filed against McDonald's for allegedly making people fat, a restaurant in Seattle decides to require its patrons to sign a waiver before it will serve them dessert.

After a diner signs it, a waiter hauls out a sugarcoated, deep-fried, ice cream-swaddled, caramel-drizzled, whipped-cream- anointed banana.

"We thought, what can we do to illustrate how stupid it is to make restaurants responsible for monitoring the eating habits of Americans?" 5 Spot co-owner Peter Levy said. "We came up with the most fattening and delicious dessert we could think of."