Health

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - History - Nancy Salvato - News - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

What If the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Was Relative?

December 12, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Nancy Salvato

For thousands of years, people have pondered the age old question, why I am here and what happens when I die. Depending on the answers a person hears during this time on earth, there can be a variety of different explanations. For many of us, there is the notion that we are here to serve a higher purpose. For others, life is simply what we make of it and it’s over when our bodies cease to function. Which answer is correct and how do we know?

The secular position on this question could be summed up by saying that, “the human race [is] an accidental by-product of blind material forces.” [1] The secularists come to such a conclusion by employing scientific reasoning to prove what is knowable and justify their position by saying that there is no evidence to believe in what is unknowable. Non secularists use scientific reasoning to argue that there is a God which began the whole chain of events which resulted in the human race.

Stephen Barr, in Anthropic Coincidences suggests because, ìlife depends on a delicate balance among the various fundamental forces of nature,î [2] the seemingly random chain of events which led up to our existence were perhaps not so random and were only possible if there was some catalyst for our coming into being. “The laws of nature did not have to be as they are; and the laws of nature had to be very special in form if life were to be possible.” [3]
Continue reading “What If the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Was Relative?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Technology - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

The Dangers of DNA Research

November 19, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The fields of DNA and gene manipulation research are incredibly exciting for the good that it can offer mankind. Imagine a day when the results of such research can assist mankind to treat previously untreatable diseases, maybe even prevent them? Wouldn’t it be tremendous to be able to alter the DNA of an unborn fetus to prevent its developing spina bifida or Down’s syndrome? Wouldn’t it be a Godsend if we could manipulate our genes in order to shut off the cancer cells that ravage us or rebuild broken spinal chords? Who would stand against such worthwhile gains in health, medicine and science? Of course, no caring human could oppose such work.

But that same work has its dark side and this is a subject that medical science is doing its level best to pretend does not exist. That dark side is not getting its due in the debate of the future of mankind through science. Unfortunately, it is not merely something to scoff at as unlikely because, for all our scientific knowledge, we are still, after all, men. Evil, selfishness, hatred and ignorance will remain with us whether we are free of cancer or know our full DNA sequence or not and those innate flaws inherent in man has, can and will corrupt the good that his science can do. The potential for evil is there no matter how wondrous that science can be.

The New York Times recently published a story about this very topic. Naturally, to further their own agenda, they only discussed a small portion of the potential evil that could result in the misuse of DNA research and left an awful lot of the debate unaddressed. In a story by Amy Harmon, the Times worried only abut racial prejudices being revived by DNA research (“In DNA Era, Worries About Revival of Prejudice”) as that research begins to decode the small differences that accounts for skin color or other things that denote racial groups. From physical characteristics to propensity for race specific disease, DNA research is beginning to map these differences giving hope that, at least in the case of disease, those differences might lead to treatments and prevention. But, the Times worries that this research might also revive discrimination based on those differences. “The notion that race is more than skin deep,” the Times reports, “could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal.”

Sadly, The Times also used its piece as an excuse to attack conservatives and push for more welfare spending. Claiming that conservatives would use DNA research to discriminate against blacks and, conversely, claiming that liberals could use that same research to demand more spending to “close the achievement gap,” the Times crudely used its article as an effort to demonize opponents instead of to truly address the real problems that the future could bring.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Health - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Oprah finds answers aren’t so simple

November 6, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Oprah Winfrey’s heart was in the right place. She used a significant portion of her abundant wealth to start the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa earlier this year.

The $40 million facility would give about 150 students from disadvantaged families a quality education and, ultimately, a better life. Unpretentious as always, Ms. Winfrey expressed the hope her academy will help change the face of a nation.

Oprah is as big an alarmist on the topic of AIDS as Al Gore is on global warming. So she identified another reason for establishing the school: “Girls who are educated are less likely to get HIV/AIDS, and in this country which has such a pandemic, we have to begin to change the pandemic.”

Whether or not her assumptions on changing South Africa and reducing HIV/AIDS are true, Ms. Winfrey was trying to help. When targeted for criticism by those who thought she should have set up the academy in her own country, her response was starkly direct. “If you ask the kids (in our inner-city schools) what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers,” she told Newsweek. “In South Africa, they . . . ask for (school) uniforms.”
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Health - Media Bias - News - Science - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Is Pedophilia a Mental Disorder?

November 5, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The website ScienceDaily.com posted a short story claiming that researchers may have discovered that there is a correlation between a man’s height — or rather his lack thereof — and a predisposition toward pedophilia. Now, the science of this is not the issue that immediately popped into my mind when I read this. No, what struck me as interesting was the social aspect of this study when contrasted with the newfound favorability that homosexuality has seen since the 1970s. After reading this report on pedophilia, I found myself wondering how long it would be before pedophiles would protest this characterization of their predilection as as a mental disorder? I wondered how long it would be before their condition was deemed a “natural” one by someone and I wondered how long before they would advocate for the determination that they had some sort of mental defect to be reversed mirroring the same success homosexuality had in getting that mental disorder sanctioned as “normal” by the mental health profession?

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a series of teaching and research facilities in Toronto, Canada, has apparently found that pedophilic males are shorter than average, non-pedolhilic males. Their study was recently published in Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment and suggested that pedophiles may have been “exposed to pre-birth conditions that affected their physical development.” The study observed this difference by analyzing the files of over 1,000 men in Toronto who were assessed for pedophilia or other sexual disorders between 1995 and 2006.

“A difference in average height is a trait found in other illnesses with biological links. The average difference in height was two centimeters, which is similar to the shorter height associated with schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease,” says the report on ScienceDaily.com. The report also suggests that pedophilia might, then, be caused by biological factors and if that’s true, “the discovery of biological markers for pedophilia has important implications for future study and possibly treatment.”

That’s not all. The study also found that pedophiles seem to have lower IQs, are three times more likely to be left-handed, have repeatedly failed grades in school, and strangely, had more head injuries as children.

Naturally, they claim that more study is required to solidify these findings.

But, here is the question that struck me: if pedophilia is found to have “biological” causes and might be treatable should these “markers” be discovered, what does that say about homosexuality? Why should homosexuality be considered “normal” and not open for treatment while pedophilia should be considered a treatable mental disorder? What is the difference between the two conditions? After all, they are both considered aberrant behavior by most people even today, and they both certainly have been considered “sick” behavior throughout history.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - News - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

A biting assessment of socialized medicine

October 22, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Historian Will Durant wrote that first century Romans had access to dentistry, including “gold teeth, wired teeth, false teeth, bridgework, and plates.” Many 21st century Englishmen probably wish they had it so good.

CNN earlier this week reported some English citizens have resorted to pulling out their own teeth. In the land of the National Health Service aka socialized medicine, six percent of 5,000 people surveyed confessed to using pliers and glue to treat their own dental needs. Another three-quarters of those polled said they had been forced to opt for more expensive private treatment. A culprit is the rapidly decreasing number of dentists willing to participate in the assembly-line mechanism of the NHS.

According to an article in the New York Times last year, 2,000 dentists left for private practice in just one month of 2006. That might be expected in a system in which providers are required to perform in terms of “units of dental activity.” A former NHS nurse noted she’d worked with a dentist who completed cleanings in five minutes flat.

A problem for the British, as for almost everyone everywhere, is how expensive a dentist is. Rising to meet a need are companies that offer treatment packages overseas. One enterprise advertises that a patient, by going to Budapest or Prague, can save up to 70 percent on United Kingdom prices.
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00Publius Contributor - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Health - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Reuters: Dems Love the Kids, GOP Hates Them

October 17, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The SCHIP Federal healthcare program debate is based on quite serious and substantive issues. The GOP doesn’t want this Federal welfare program to be expanded to include families that can easily afford their own health insurance (families earning $83,000 a year for instance) and Democrats want to expand this program to include far more families than the legislation ever covered previously. But, if one were to read Reuters coverage of this Congressional fight, one would come away imagining that the only issue is that the Dems want to “back kids’ health care” and Republicans don’t.

What does their headline say to you? “Democrats dare Republicans to back kids’ health.” It certainly sets the debate on the Democrat’s terms, doesn’t it? Those mean ‘ol Republicans hate the kids, it screams! The GOP wants kids to get sick and have no doctor’s care it seems to say.

And as you read Reuters’ coverage, you come away not really knowing what the Republicans have against the bill, but you sure get it that they want to keep poor kids from getting health care coverage. And you sure get that those loving Dems are all about helping poor kids.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Backers of a bill expanding a popular children’s health care program on Tuesday turned up the heat on House Republicans to break ranks with President George W. Bush and overturn his veto.

How is this the “popular children’s health care program,” anyway? Popular with whom? And, calling it “popular” further places the GOP on the rhetorically wrong side of the issue for readers of Reuters.

Naturally, Reuters falls all over itself to utilize another whiney rock star to flog those eeeevil Republicans, too.
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00Publius Contributor - Health - Nancy Salvato - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Doctor Shortage, the Next Pandemic

October 6, 2007 by

-By Nancy Salvato

According to the AMA, in many communities around the United States, there is a physician shortage, which presents a serious health care problem. For a host of reasons, more than twenty million people are affected by the inability to access quality medical services. While the premise of a popular television show, “Northern Exposure,” alluded to this very predicament some time ago, most viewers were likelier caught up in the relationships between the quirky inhabitants of Cicely, Alaska instead of pondering the very real implications for those without access to a qualified doctor.1

Similar to the circumstances in which the main character, Dr. Joel Fleischman, upon graduating from Columbia University medical school (which he attended on a scholarship from the state of Alaska), finds himself assigned to be the General Practitioner of a tiny Alaskan town in order to pay for his education, “medical schools have adopted a selective medical school admission policy to enhance a primary care choice in underserved communities.”2 The reality, though, is that while some students eventually practice in underserved communities, others do not.

Limited access to medical care is not always because doctors are unavailable. When ill, people who live in urban areas are sometimes unable to travel on a crowded bus or take other forms of mass transit in order to receive medical care.3
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00Publius Contributor - Abortion - Democrats/Leftists - Health - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Chicago Columnist: Tobacco Bad, Abortion Good

September 25, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

A columnist from a Chicago suburban paper has equated smoking to abortion in order to explain away her support of an abortion mill struggling to open in Aurora, Illinois. Saying that since smoking is legal, and it “kills” people, why shouldn’t abortion be legal, we find her reasoning is strained and absurd. If there’s a more ridiculous comparison out there, I’d like to see it. Following her tortured logic, we should outlaw everything that might kill someone if we also outlaw abortion — which WILL kill someone.

There are so many specious arguments that this supporter of infanticide tries to use in this article to support abortion that it must spin the head of most readers. The whole thing has a feel like the author of the column, Joni Hirsch-Blackman, is throwing just about everything she can think of against a wall to see what sticks quite regardless of any logic or sense to it all.

After simple-mindedly explaining that “Tobacco kills,” which in reality is not a literal truth because often times it does not, Hirsch-Blackman explains that, while she “sneers” at smokers, she would never protest against it because it is legal.

It’s tempting, but I’d never harass the people who go in there or try to have the store shut down — even though the whole purpose for the place being there is to sell something that eventually will kill whoever is using it.

Tobacco is legal and the store has a right to be there. So instead, I, and others who feel the way I do, try to educate people about the dangers of tobacco.

Really? She and her fellows would never harass smokers and try to get their right to smoke taken away from them? Odd, since she and like-minded friends in the state have succeeded in getting the State of Illinois to pass a smoking ban in public places that starts just this year.

Why is it OK to protest and use the courts and the coercion endemic with the law to ban smoking which only might cause varied health problems yet we should leave the faux right of abortion alone merely because it is “legal?”

Talk about tortured logic. And her lack of sense gets worse as the article progresses.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Health - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Don’t ask, don’t tell, just pander

August 17, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Somewhere, Walter Jenkins is smiling.

Mr. Jenkins was at the center of a 1964 White House scandal. A close personal advisor to President Lyndon Johnson for 25 years, he was arrested in the men’s room of a Washington YMCA for what in those innocent days was termed disorderly conduct. This wasn’t Mr. Jenkins’ first encounter with the law. On a previous arrest, he’d been charged as a “pervert.”

LBJ didn’t want Republicans exploiting the incident. An October 28 United Press International article reported Mr. Johnson claimed former President Eisenhower had “the same type of problems” with one of his aids. The story continued:

“In his comment on the problem, the President said: ‘The only difference is we Democrats felt sorry for him and felt it was a case of sickness or disease. . .’”

Sickness or disease? With thinking like that, LBJ wouldn’t have gone over too well at last week’s Democratic forum, the first one ever, dedicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. LGBT is the politically correct shorthand for this special interest group.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - Marie Jon - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Just Say No To Socialized Hillary Care

August 13, 2007 by

-By Marie Jon’

In today’s world perception is everything. Why would that old adage not apply to one seeking the Oval Office?

Whether you like his politics or not, President Bush works out daily to stay in good health. He is fit and trim and robust at the age of sixty-one. A healthy body is an adjunct to a healthy, clear mind. We know where Bush stands on Iraq. He is committed to win the war. Many are beginning to think he just might be able to do it. All good Americans want us to succeed in winning the peace for a fledgling democracy. If you doubt what is being accomplished in Iraq, you’ll need to read “A War We Just Might Win” written by Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, published: July 30, 2007 in The New York Times.

Robin Givhan, a fashion editor for The Washington Post, wrote an op-ed on Senator Hillary Clinton’s revealing neckline displayed during a July 18 speech on the Senate floor. Givhans is a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. She has critiqued the fashion statements of the likes of Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney.

“Commanding Clothes” was an extremely well written opinion piece referencing Dr. Rice’s wardrobe. “Dressing Down,” on Dick Cheney, was right on target. Givhan takes no political sides. Cheney was dressed inappropriately while attending the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In her op-ed, Givhan gives Vice president Cheney very bad marks for looking tacky. He wore a knit ski cap. She rightfully criticized him for not wearing a Fedora or a fur hat.

Does it matter if a presidential candidate wears a shell top with a pantsuit, designed not to show cleavage, but does nonetheless? Probably not. Perhaps the reason for the numerous articles on her appearance is that the liberal media wants to cast Hillary as a more sensual woman. As her husband would say, “You don’t want to go there.” Hillary Clinton is a very attractive woman.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

AP: Sells Moore’s/Cuba’s Propaganda, 8 Americans Graduate from Cuban Med School

July 29, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The AP did a fine job for Cuba’s ministry of propaganda the other day by highlighting the 8 Americans who broke U.S. law and traveled to Cuba to attend a medical school, free of charge to the students. Castro offered this free medical training as a propaganda tool to create good PR for his oppressive regime and the AP is more than willing to help him advertise it. In the same story, they also gave free advertising for the newest Michael Moore leftsploitation flick, “Sicko.” So we get a double whammy of leftist agitprop in one story.

In a story filled with kind words to Cuba’s murderous dictator of 45 years, the AP finds not one line to waste on any such thing as his political gulags, the many thousands who have precipitously fled his country or the many thousands who have died at his hands since his successful Marxist coup overtook the island nation.

Not only is the AP story filled with wide-eyed wonder at how nice Castro is to give these students of “minority backgrounds” a free medical education, AP helps them give voice against capitalism, too.

“I’ve learned that medicine is not a business, it’s social, it’s humane,” said Toussaint Reynolds, a graduate from Massapequa, New York. “I will be a better doctor in the United States for it.”

And, after we are regaled on how great the schooling was and how the students will have a “great advantage over American students” we are told that the mean, mean US government won’t guarantee that these propagandists will be allowed to practice in the USA.
Continue reading “AP: Sells Moore’s/Cuba’s Propaganda, 8 Americans Graduate from Cuban Med School”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Health - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

If You’re Fat, So are Your Friends?

July 26, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here is another reason why people look askance at University “researchers” and wonder why for smart guys they seem so stupid? Reuters passed on some stupid smart guy “research” that posits that if someone is fat, so will their friends and family become fat just the by association with that fat person.

Your best friend can make you fat: researchers

“This is the first (study) to show how obesity spreads through the social network from person to person to person,” James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, who worked on the study, told a telephone briefing.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers said their findings show that obesity is contagious — not like a virus is contagious, but in a social sense.

Maybe it’s the “first study” because it is so stupid that no one else would have bothered with it before?

So what is the idiocy they have miraculously “discovered”?
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press Says America has ‘Faded’ Since WWII

July 23, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The AP will use just about any excuse to say that the USA isn’t what it used to be, or what it should be. Yes, they will use any excuse to tear down this great country. Today’s example is predicated on the dodgy research of another America bashing “economist” who is saying Americans are too short — as in too short in actual, physical height — because we are “gradually falling behind the rest of the world” in everything.

Lamenting that in the 1850’s the people of the USA averaged 2 and 1/2 inches taller than folks in western Europe, the AP goes on to rip the USA because other nations have caught up to us and, in some cases, surpassed us in height. But it isn’t just height that the AP says makes us losers.

Without explaining, the AP says that we have faded in “so many other arenas.”
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Health - Media Bias - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Dr. Death

June 15, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s recent release from prison prompts a couple of thoughts.

Dr. Kervorkian became known as “Dr. Death” by assisting suicides of more than 100 people. In all such cases, we are given to understand, the suicides were at the request of the people committing suicide, people who may have been in pain from incurable cancer and similar maladies.

Nonetheless, under the law of the state of Michigan, Dr. Kevorkian was convicted and imprisoned in 1999 on the charge of second-degree murder for the crime of assisting suicide.

The first and most obvious aspect of Dr. Kevorkian’s case is its contrast with the so-called Constitutional “right” to abortion (found by the Supreme Court in the shadows of the penumbras of the Constitution, which is to say, in the personal ideas of the Supreme Court majority about what the law ought to be).
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Health - Media Bias - Science - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Why Did Dental Students Cheat on Exam? It’s All Bush’s Fault!

May 10, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bush derangement syndrome strikes again, this time in Indianapolis, Indiana where the Indianapolis Star reports that students of the U of Indiana’s Dentistry class have been caught in a massive cheating scandal. Naturally, it’s all Bush’s fault according to one of the so-called experts the paper interviewed for their article.

Apparently 16 students were suspended because they hacked their school computer system to get passwords that would open electronic teaching materials that contained the answers to upcoming tests. An additional 21 were given letters of reprimand for knowing of the cheating and not saying anything to school officials, a breach of the school’s code of professional conduct.

So how is this all Bush’s fault?

Because there are no WMDs in Iraq says Dr. Anne Koerber, an associate professor of dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Health - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Packing heat can save lives

May 3, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Michael M. Bates

If only Virginia Tech’s mass murderer had read the school’s policy handbook. He would have learned the college was a gun-free zone. So then he wouldn’t have brought any guns on campus and the tragedy could have been averted.

That’s roughly the logic used by many proponents of gun control. Adding more laws, rules and regulations to the thousands already on the books will somehow stop the violence.

A sad irony is a statement made last year when the state legislature let die a bill permitting licensed students and employees to carry handguns at public colleges. A Virginia Tech vice president applauded the development, saying it “will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.” Regrettably, feeling safe isn’t the same as being safe. One must speculate if an armed student or college employee could have ended the murder spree.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Health - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

God, Golf and Gratitude

April 19, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

Major issues can rise from minor things, and so it is with the Masters golf tournament of a week and a half ago. The winner, unheralded Zach Johnson, stood down blustery winds, benumbing temperatures and the closest thing to a force of nature in golf, Tiger Woods, to win the first major tournament of the year. What raised both my estimation of him and the eyebrows of some ever-offended secularists, however, was his mention of Jesus’ name during his post-event remarks. Said an exuberant Johnson,

“Being Easter, my faith is very important to me. I felt Jesus, I felt my grandfather, my family, everybody. So it was awesome.”

And,

“Regardless of what happened today, my responsibility was to glorify God. Hopefully I did.”

It’s not unusual for athletes to credit God after victories. It’s always fitting to credit your Maker, but it seems as if flowing adrenaline and perhaps endorphins contribute to a spontaneity that makes one more likely to bear his soul.
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00Publius Contributor - Health - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Does Violence Have to Be Taught?

April 13, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

It seems that the more we come to believe that “Violence has to be taught,” the more our children learn to be violent. It’s a strange, Jean-Jacques Rousseau-like fantasy, this fancy that a child sports a halo until some neanderthal adult knocks it off with a five-finger attention-getter. “Don’t you dare spank your kids!” say those schooled in the fictions of sickology, “It’ll teach them to be violent.” I wonder, does crying in their presence teach them how to bawl, too?

I would ask if the people who espouse this belief have ever had any experience with babies, since the latter get angry quite often and, when they do, will sometimes instinctively slap the object of their displeasure. Oh, their strikes aren’t delivered with the accuracy and power of a George Foreman right hand, but in the baby world they embody true violent intent.

The idea that violence has to be taught appeals to many and is parroted by them mainly because it serves to demonize corporal punishment, something you only eschew if you’re taught to do so. It’s not something they think deeply about; rather, it’s a knee jerk reaction, an idea that can make those whose lips it passes feel like desert mystics rendering a sage pronouncement. It’s nothing more than philoso-babble.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Health - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Leftist Mantra of the Week Award Goes to…

April 4, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

“Dr.” Joshua D. Sparrow got his feathers ruffled by the claims of another writer who is positing we overindulge our children these days to the point where they are narcissistic little brats.

His reply to this claim is typical of the leftist mantra that driving an SUV is somehow “self-centered” in and of itself.(Are we raising a nation of little egomaniacs?)

Sparrow says one of the big problems is that Twenge makes a claim that kids are more narcissistic these days but she doesn’t account for the possibility that our culture as a whole may be more self-centered than it was 20 years ago. “Look at all the people driving gas-guzzling SUVs. They are not all 35 and under,” he says.

Now, after such a ridiculous comparison off parenting to driving an SUV, how can ANYONE take this “Dr.” seriously?

So, I give Joshua D. Sparrow, birdbrain at large, the Leftist Mantra of the week award!
Continue reading “Leftist Mantra of the Week Award Goes to…”

00Publius Contributor - Health - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

AP Misleads With Headline About Rhode Island Recognizing Gay Unions

February 24, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Talk about a blatant attempt to mislead with a headline! We have no better example of such an effort than one by the AP today. It is a textbook case of a headline that does not fit the facts of the story.

Here is the headline:

R.I. to recognize gay unions performed in Mass.

Wow! It would be big news, indeed, if legislation had been passed wherein Gay Unions from Massachusetts were to be officially recognized by Rhode Island. And, if one were to read this AP headline and move on, one would be left with the impression that it had. Even the sub head doesn’t really tell the whole truth.

State’s attorney general says there’s no reason to deny them recognition

But upon reading the story it is revealed that there has been no ruling, no law, and no such recognition of Mass. Gay Unions by Rhode Island at all. Instead, it was just the empty words of Rhode Island’s Attorney General. Just his speculation that it could happen if the issue were to be pressed.
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00Publius Contributor - Economy/Finances - Education - Family - Health - Science - Security/Safety - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The Temperature Also Rises

February 16, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

With the issuing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on February 2, waxing climactic about the climatic is the order of the day. The esteemed, government-funded scientists with no agenda who rendered the study inform us that man is almost certainly responsible for rising temperatures and, furthermore, that dramatic climate change is unstoppable. But, after seeing various luminaries sound the alarm, I think I can confidently say that, hell’s bells, we’re darn well gonna try anyway.

And it’s about time. We’ve long known we were going to die unless we stopped spewing that plant-sustaining CO2 into the air. The thing is, though, my botanical sources tell me the plants are fearful that they’ll die if they don’t stop spewing that human-sustaining oxygen into the air. So our task is clear.

We must beat the plants.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Health - History - Religion - Society/Culture - The Law - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

The Importance of Families

February 2, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Why is preservation of traditional marriage, between a man and a woman, vital to preservation of a good political society?

Malachi, a prophet who probably ministered in the 60 years after the first groups of Israelites returned to Jerusalem from Babylon, gives us God’s Word on the subject.

Having endured the Babylonian captivity for 70 sears, few of the returning Israelites had ever experienced the proper religious life of the pre-captivity period. Moreover, the Jerusalem to which they returned was a desolate ruin that had been destroyed and plundered by Judah’s enemies.
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00Publius Contributor - Congress - Economy/Finances - GOP - Health - Military - Patriotism - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Karl Rove briefing on Bush’s State of the Union Speech- Jan 22, 2007

January 23, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

I just finished a conference call with Karl Rove from the White House and thought I’d pass on the most pertinent points Rove revealed about the president’s upcoming speech.

The president will inform us that he will not bring us most of his economic news until next week in two different speeches. but he will mention that we are in the 41st month of uninterrupted growth.

He will also call for a balance budget in 5 yrs without raising taxes and discuss the wild spending in Congress called earmarks.

But, Rove gave us much of nothing about the economy, so it is apparent that Bush won’t focus on it during his speech.
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00Publius Contributor - Economy/Finances - Health - Media Bias - Science - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

More Globaloney — Al Gore Skips Agreed to Newspaper Interview With Danish Skeptic

January 21, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Proving that Al Gore isn’t interested in any dispassionate investigation or debate about global Warming, Gore perpetrated a last minute disappearing act and skipped an interview with the biggest Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, that was set up months in advance.

Flemming Rose, the Jyllands-Posten culture editor, penned an interesting expose of Gore’s ducking out on the Wall Street journal’s Opinion Journal site today taking the former VP to task. How many other papers do you think will mention Gore’s cowardice?

Bet, few… if not no… others do.

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Last week he was in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore’s tune.

Gee, Al. If you are so sure of your “facts” what is so outrageous with a little adult debate in front of a newspaper editor? It isn’t like you were invited onto the Jerry Springer show or some other lowgrade venue, after all.
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00Publius Contributor - Health - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

AP: Making McDonald’s A Chinese Fat Kid’s Paradise?

January 21, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The AP has published a story today about the grand opening of the first McDonald’s outlet with a drive-through window in China. It opened yesterday in Beijing to rave reviews from its first customers.

Apparently, the fast food chain is growing by leaps and bounds in the communist enslaved nation. McDonald’s China CEO, Jeffery Schwartz is quoted in the AP piece about the company’s growth in the Red Nation. “It’s huge. It’s a real priority for the global company because of the potential growth in China…We think drive-throughs are a big part of this.”

And, when you read the AP’s story everything seems upbeat and glowing about McDonald’s growth and future opportunities in China.” It’s all good”, as they say. And, it is no surprise that the AP’s business writer, amusingly named Joe McDonald — no I am serious, that IS his name– was so aglow over the heightened business opportunities for the McDonald’s chain.

Then you look at the picture supplied with the story…
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Health - Media Bias - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

ABC News: It’s ‘OK For Girls To Go Wild’– Our Teens and Sex

January 19, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

ABC News is trying to assure us that young girls who have a “fascination with itsy-bitsy clothing, misogynistic hip hop music and porn star-esque celebrities ” is just behavior that “isn’t cause for alarm”.

Some Say It’s OK for Girls to Go Wild — Though Teens Are Expressing Their Sexuality More Than Ever, Some Say It’s Just Part of Growing Up, Not Cause for Alarm

Gee, I feel better already.

Wearing short-shorts and belly shirts, grinding to hip-hop hits, and posting provocative pictures of themselves on the Internet — the behavior of many teen and tween girls has parents wondering if their daughters are bound for a lifetime of promiscuity and loose morals.

But some psychologists and child-development specialists believe nothing about the teenage drama has really changed. While young women may express their sexuality more overtly than they have in the past, for the most part, their behavior isn’t cause for alarm. It’s a necessary step in growing up.

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