The Universe Might Be a Giant Loop

From Live Science.com (Nov. 4):

Everything we think we know about the shape of the universe could be wrong. Instead of being flat like a bedsheet, our universe may be curved, like a massive, inflated balloon, according to a new study.

That's the upshot of a new paper published today (Nov. 4) in the journal Nature Astronomy, which looks at data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the faint echo of the Big Bang. But not everyone is convinced; the new findings, based on data released in 2018, contradict both years of conventional wisdom and another recent study based on that same CMB data set.

If the universe is curved, according to the new paper, it curves gently. That slow bending isn't important for moving around our lives, or solar system, or even our galaxy. But travel beyond all of that, outside our galactic neighborhood, far into the deep blackness, and eventually — moving in a straight line — you'll loop around and end up right back where you started. Cosmologists call this idea the "closed universe." It's been around for a while, but it doesn't fit with existing theories of how the universe works. So it's been largely rejected in favor of a "flat universe" that extends without boundary in every direction and doesn't loop around on itself. Now, an anomaly in data from the best-ever measurement of the CMB offers solid (but not absolutely conclusive) evidence that the universe is closed after all, according to the authors: University of Manchester cosmologist Eleonora Di Valentino, Sapienza University of Rome cosmologist Alessandro Melchiorri and Johns Hopkins University cosmologist Joseph Silk. [read more]

DEMOCRATS TRY TO PULL A FAST ONE AFTER LOSING IMPEACHMENT, REPUBLICANS SHUTS IT DOWN IMMEDIATELY

From Think America.com (Feb. 7):

After the pitiful failure of the Democrats’ impeachment sham, they tried to pull a last-ditch effort to punish President Trump.

Senator Joe Manchin proposed the idea of censuring President Trump since they failed to convict him in the impeachment trial.

Manchin truly believed that a “bipartisan majority of this body would vote to censure President Trump.” Get real. The Republicans hold firm that President Trump didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no way they’re going to vote to censure him.

Manchin proposed, “Censure would allow this body to unite across party lines and as an equal branch of government to formally denounce the President’s actions and hold him accountable. The most dangerous, the most troubling to me, is the false claim that the President can do no wrong, that he is above the law and if it’s good for the reelection of the President that it’s good for our country. That is simply preposterous.”

…………….

Schumer continued, “I think the reason McConnell doesn’t want to bring it on the floor is our Republican colleagues — so many of them — are so afraid of even saying he was wrong that they don’t want to have a vote on it.”

That is not true Senators Lamar Alexander, Collins, and Murkowski have all said they didn’t agree with how the President handled the situation with Ukraine.

…………….

Republicans have made it clear that there is ZERO chance that the Senate will censure President Trump and therefore this ridiculous last-ditch effort from the Democrats has failed miserably. [read more]

Just like the Dems. I think Pelosi should be censored for ripping up the state of the union speech. That is against House rules specifically 18 USC 2071 rule. According to the rule she should be fined or serve some time which probably won’t happen since the Dems are above the law and they are the House majority.

Nation’s Report Card ‘Must Be America’s Wake-Up Call,’ Betsy DeVos Says

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 30):

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized the state of American students’ education Wednesday, saying the United States is in a “student achievement crisis.”

DeVos referred to the 2019 Nation’s Report Card, a national assessment of U.S. students’ academic understandings and abilities released Wednesday. The report found that between 2017 and 2019, reading and mathematics scores lowered for all students, except for mathematics scores for fourth-graders.

“Every American family needs to open the Nation’s Report Card this year and think about what it means for their child and for our country’s future,” DeVos said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The results are, frankly, devastating. This country is in a student achievement crisis, and over the past decade it has continued to worsen, especially for our most vulnerable students.”

DeVos warned that “this must be America’s wake-up call.”

“We cannot abide these poor results any longer,” the secretary of education said. “We can neither excuse them away nor simply throw more money at the problem.”

DeVos said the Trump administration has “a transformational plan” that aims to expand education freedom and help students “break out of the one-size-fits-all system” and “unlock their full potential.”

“They deserve it. Parents demand it. And, it’s the only way to bring about the change our country desperately needs,” she said. [source]

Other articles on education:

• Trump's order limits Washington 'dictates' on K-12 schools
• SCHOOL TEACHER UNDER INVESTIGATION AFTER WHAT SHE TOLD HER STUDENTS
• School Choice Lets Parents Pick Safer Schools

Pelosi Rips Trump’s State of the Union Address

From The Daily Signal.com (Feb. 5):

Immediately after President Donald Trump finished his State of the Union address, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, standing behind him, tore his speech in half while the eyes of the nation watched.

In four separate motions Tuesday night as lawmakers applauded the president, Pelosi tore the pages of her copy of the speech in two.

“Speaker Pelosi just ripped up: One of our last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. The survival of a child born at 21 weeks. The mourning families of Rocky Jones and Kayla Mueller. A service member’s reunion with his family. That’s her legacy,” the White House tweeted.

Pelosi’s demonstration followed Trump’s ignoring her outstretched hand after giving her a copy of his speech as he arrived at the podium in the House chamber about an hour and a half earlier. The speaker, who led House Democrats in impeaching the president, grimaced at this. [read more]

I think her ripping of the speech was a petty and classless act. I also think it was staged for far-Left loonies of her party. She did it slowly and one page at a time. If she was really mad she would have done it quick and ripped all the pages at one time. She might have also ripped the pages again. Asked why she did it Pelosi said “it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternatives.” The alternatives? Hmmm. I think the secret service might want to investigate that remark because that sounds like a threat.

As for President Trump ignoring her outstretched hand, I am not sure he seen it because he was turning around already when she outstretched it. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

More articles about the state of the union speech:

• Pelosi Rips Up Her Party’s Chances – Lunch Alert!
• ‘Ripped Our Hearts Out’: SOTU Guest Whose Brother Was Murdered Reacts to Pelosi Ripping Up Speech
• Guests at State of the Union Showcase Americans Behind Policy Debates
• Read Trump’s Full State of the Union Speech
• What You Need to Know About Trump’s Policy Proposals in State of the Union
• Fact-Checking 11 of Trump’s Claims in State of the Union
• Rush Limbaugh Receives The Medal of Freedom And Why That Matters
• Limbaugh: A Genius at Radio
• President Trump’s State of the Union Speech Was Definitely Bold Colors and Not Pale Pastels and Drew Lots of Lines in the Sand
• Trump’s State of the Union Address Affirms Americanism as Nation’s Guiding Ethos

Myths of Serial Killers

Myth: Serial killers are only motivated by sex.

All serial killers are not sexually-based. There are many other motivations for serial killers including anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking. For example, Kermit Gosnell was hugely motivated by financial gain.

Myth: Serial killers are all white male.

Serial killers are from all ethnic groups. For instance, Gosnell is black. Charles Ng is Chinese. He was convicted of killing six men, three women, and two babies in Northern California with his partner, Leonard Lake. Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, also known as the Railroad Killer is a Latino. Was an illegal alien from Mexico and killed at least nine and as many as fifteen people in Kentucky, Texas, Florida and Illinois. There are also female serial killers. For example, Nannie Doss was a black widow who went through five husbands before being caught and charged with a slew of murders including those of her five husbands, a mother-in-law, her sisters, two of their children, and her own mother.

Myth: Serial killers are all dysfunctional loners.

Dr. Elizabeth Yardley, director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University in the UK, explained in a July 2015 article in Real Crime magazine that “many serial killers look like a pillar of the community on first sight,” something she described as “possibly the scariest trait of all“ among the murderers she has studied. Many people described Gosnell as being nice. Ted Bundy was described as being normal.

Myth: All serial killers are either insane or evil geniuses.

Gosnell is sane but a narcist.

Myth: Serial killers want to be caught.

According to the FBI, “As serial killers continues to offend without being captured, they can become empowered, feeling they will never be identified…they feel that they can’t get caught.”

Source: Gosnell: The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer (2017) by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer.

There were also five serial killers in the Soviet Union which according to the Left was a utopia. So, if capitalism causes crime according to Karl Marx then why did the USSR have any serial killers at all? China had two serial killers. The Ottoman Empire had one serial killer.

Other articles on serial killers:

• 15 Notorious Female Serial Killers
• 7 Myths About Serial Killers
• Persistent Myths about Serial Killers
• 15 Notorious Female Serial Killers

‘Dangerous and Foolish’: How Legal Vote Harvesting Prompts Illegal Conduct by Political Operatives

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 24):

In Texas, they are called “politiqueras” and in Florida, they are called “boleteros.” Broadly speaking, these are professional campaign operatives and political activists who have access to absentee ballots and authority to recruit voters.

Such ballot harvesting, allowed in 27 states and the District of Columbia, gained much attention this year when corrupt handling of absentee ballots led to an invalidated U.S. House election in North Carolina. But such controversies are hardly new, as explained in a recent Heritage Foundation report.

Mayor Anthony Grant was elected in Eatonville, Florida, in a close 2015 race thanks to absentee ballots. Grant was convicted on charges of voter fraud in 2017 that included coercing absentee voters to vote for him.

Mayor Ruth Robinson of Martin, Kentucky, was convicted along with family members in 2014 on civil rights and vote fraud-related charges. Prosecutors said Robinson’s conduct included threatening and intimidating poor and disabled residents into casting absentee votes for her in the 2012 mayoral race.

The Heritage report, written by Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative, says ballot harvesting should be banned in states that now allow it.  [read on]

Vote harvesting is not a good idea.

More articles on voting:

• Vote Harvesting a Recipe for Coercion, Election Fraud
• The Voter-Purge Myth
• CONSERVATIVE WATCHDOG GROUP UNCOVERS MILLIONS OF “EXTRA” VOTERS – WARNS 5 STATES TO CLEAN UP VOTER ROLLS OR FACE A LAWSUIT
• Hundreds of Non-Citizens Registered to Vote in Illinois Due to “Programming Error”

‘Medicare for All’ Actually Isn’t Medicare at All

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 28):

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was recently on comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show to discuss, among other items on his agenda, his vision for health care in America.

In one interesting statement, Sanders described the rollout of his plan: “I want to expand Medicare to include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses, and then what I want to do is lower the eligibility age the first year from 65 down to 55, then to 45, then to 35, then we cover everybody.”

There is a sleight of hand here.

What Sanders seems to be describing is the gradual expansion of the existing Medicare program, which currently covers Americans 65 and over, to include everyone eventually. In reality, Sanders’ signature bill, “Medicare for All,” is anything but Medicare.

Medicare comes in several forms, including Parts A and B, which pay for inpatient and outpatient visits along a fee schedule with premiums and deductibles, and Part C, also known as Medicare Advantage.

This is the system that covers 60 million Americans and enjoys high satisfaction ratings.

Medicare for All would scrap all of this.

One of the most misleading aspects of Medicare for All is that it is not Medicare at all.

Medicare offers several choices between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, which itself offers a whole marketplace of health plans. In addition, supplemental insurance is available that helps pay for additional costs and services, so beneficiaries are able to tailor coverage to fit their needs.

Medicare for All, however, would replace all of this with a system that is free at the point of care but paid for by taxes. Essentially, this is not Medicare but Medicaid for all.
……………….

Medicare for All would cost over $30 trillion in the next 10 years in ideal conditions, but still require physicians and providers to take a pay cut of up to 40% and continue working with the same productivity. [read more]

Bernie Sanders has no idea how much it will cost and how it will be paid for. And that doesn’t bother him.

Other articles on health care:

• Seven Big Problems with Universal Health Care No One Wants to Address
• Health Care Doom on the Horizon
• The Cost of Sacrificing Public, Private Health Insurance for ‘Medicare for All’
• The ‘Public Option’: Government-Run Health Care on the Installment Plan

New Book Reveals Trump Has Watched Christian Television Since the 1980s

From CNS News.com (Oct. 25):

In best selling author Doug Wead's forthcoming book, Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency, it is revealed that President Donald Trump has been a devoted viewer of Christian television, and evangelical preachers, since the 1980s.

President Trump's good friend Paula White told Wead, "He had watched hours of Christian television [since the 1980s]. And not just watched it, but really listened to the messages. He had retained what he had heard. He could bring it back and repeat it to me. He would say what it meant to him.”

"Trump had watched the Billy Graham telecasts as a boy and had later watched Jimmy Swaggart in the 1980’s," states Wead in the book. "But he especially loved the positive preacher, Norman Vincent Peale. Trump found televangelist Paula White while channel surfing on a Sunday morning in Trump Tower."

"Political writers were always puzzled by his connection to evangelical supporters but it had actually begun early," said Wead. [read more]

Have read the book yet, but it sounds interesting.

Pompeo: Obama ‘Invited’ the Russians – Pretending to be Chemical Weapons Inspectors – Into Syria

From CNS News.com (Oct. 25):

(CNS News.com) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday accused the Obama administration of having “invited” the Russians to intervene militarily in the Syrian civil war, by having “them come in and pretend to be chemical weapons inspectors.”

Asked during an interview with the Wichita Eagle whether the Russians have “been able to fill the power vacuum that was created by the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Syria” in recent weeks, Pompeo drew attention to the previous administration’s Syria policies.

“I remember who invited the Russians into Syria: It was President Barack Obama,” he said. “I mean, he didn’t just let them come in. He invited them in. He had them come in and pretend to be chemical weapons inspectors. He, he actively worked with the Russian leadership, said ‘no, come on in, come on into Syria.’”

Pompeo was later asked whether President Trump’s withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria – ahead of a Turkish military offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters allied to the U.S. – had “undercut U.S. credibility.”

After describing the premise as “insane,” he asserted that “the word of the United States is much more respected today than it was just two-and-a-half years ago.” [read more]

I thought Russia was our enemy? I don’t trust them but according to the Dems they could attack America with nuclear warheads at anytime. So, I guess they were okay back then when a democrat was president.

The Mind-Gut Connection

The gut and the brain are closely linked through bidirectional signaling pathways that include nerves, hormones, and inflammatory molecules. Rich sensory information generated in the gut reaches the brain (gut sensations), and the brain sends signals back to the gut to adjust its functions (gut reactions). The close interactions of these pathways play a crucial rule in the generation of emotions and in optimal gut function. The two are intricately linked.

The diversity and abundance of gut microbes vary war the lifetime of an individual. It is low during the first three years of life when a stable gut microbiome is being established, reaches its maximum during adult life, and decreases as we grow older. The early period of low diversity coincides with the vulnerability window for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and anxiety, while the late period of low diversity coincides with the development of neurodegenerative disorders such is Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's disease. One may speculate that these low diversity states are risk factors for developing such diseases.

Emotions are closely reflected in a person's facial expressions. A similar expression of our emotions occurs in the different regions of the gastrointestinal tract, which is influenced by nerve signals generated in the limbic system. Signals to the upper and lower GI tract can be synchronous or go in opposite directions. For example, when a person is fearful the signals go in opposite directions: downward from the upper track and upward from the lower track. When a person is angry, both signals in the tracks travel upward. Sadness makes signals in both tracks move downward.

The Caltech investigators found that the young mice exhibited changes in their gut and the gut microbiota: an imbalanced mix of gut microbes, a leakier intestine, and greater engagement of the gut-based immune system. The investigators identified a particular gut microbial metabolite that was closely related to a metabolite that had previously been identified in the urine of children with ASD. When they gave this metabolite to healthy mice born to mothers whose immune system had not been activated, those mice had the same behavioral abnormalities as mice born to mothers whose immune systems had. Most intriguing, when they transplanted the stool of the abnormal mice into germ-free mice that behaved normally, the transplanted animals behaved abnormally. This strongly suggested that transplanted stool from the affected animals produced a metabolite that could reach the brain and alter the behavior of healthy mice. Most important for people with autism spectrum disorders, they could make several (though not all) of the autism-like behaviors disappear by treating the affected mice with human intestinal bacteria called Bacteroides fragilis.

Source: The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health (2016) by Emeran Mayer, MD

Obama's FSA called 'the new ISIS'

From Free Pressers.com (Oct. 23):

The Free Syrian Army, which was regarded as a strong ally by the Obama administration, is in reality “the new ISIS” and is committing atrocities against civilians in Syria, the president of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) told a group of U.S. congressional representatives on Oct. 21.

Ilham Ahmed pleaded with Congress members and President Donald Trump to call on Turkey to stop its “massacre” and “ethnic cleansing” of Syrian Kurds. She also pointed to a new threat from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which was supported by the Obama administration.

Ahmed said “a new ISIS is emerging” from among Turkey’s FSA allies and said the group is filled with “jihadists” and “former members of ISIS,” according to a Breitbart News report.

The SDC is the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish-led SDF is a military alliance that was a key U.S. ally in the fight to destroy the Islamic State (ISIS) caliphate.

The SDF is also linked to the Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) – which Turkey regards as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist insurgency that is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and NATO. [read more]

It’s good that President Trump has taken the fight to ISIS and destroyed most of the members.

Other articles about ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood:

• ISIS Tells Followers to Set Forest Fires in U.S., Europe
• 5 Things to Watch in Tracking the Future of ISIS
• Trump Moves To Designate Muslim Brotherhood As Terror Group
• ISIS claims responsibility for London stabbing attack that left 3 injured

Should We Abolish All Prisons?

From Break Point.org:

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez successfully grabbed another headline last week by tweeting that Americans should have a “real conversation” about abolishing prisons. Though she did later walk back this bone-toss to her far-left supporters, the prison abolition movement isn’t as niche as you’d think.

At their annual meeting this year, the Democratic Socialists of America passed a resolution to start a working group on the topic. In April, the ACLU told the New York Times it wants to defund the prison system.

The idea behind this radical proposal is this: If we could just get our systems right - our healthcare system, our education system, our welfare system - we wouldn’t need any prisons. If everyone just had proper healthcare, great teachers, and all the money they could want or need, no one would commit any crimes.

It’s a bit like suggesting we should abolish doctors; because if all had equal access to leafy greens and the flu shot, no one would ever get sick.

Obviously, part of the prison abolition movement’s strategy is to shock and turn heads toward these other issues. But such a proposal is also a particularly obtuse expression of Utopianism.

Chuck Colson defined Utopianism as “the myth that human nature can be perfected by government.” Utopianism has at least two core flaws: First, it completely misunderstands the human condition. Because human beings are corrupted by sin, we gravitate toward greed, selfishness, and pride without the redirection of the Holy Spirit. In fact, we do this without help of any kind… our sin is not society’s fault or caused by poverty. You can’t educate us out of our sinful natures. [read more]

Yea, abolishing prisons is a crazy idea.

This E-Cigarette Tax Could Be Hazardous to Your Health

From Daily Signal.com (Oct. 21):

Sin taxes of all types have unintended consequences.

A new proposal in the House Ways and Means Committee to tax electronic cigarettes could harm the health of Americans—and could even be deadly.

The tax will slow the decline in traditional smoking-related health complications as fewer adults switch to smokeless alternatives that research has demonstrated to be less harmful.

The tax will also stimulate the black market and move the sale of otherwise legal products outside the reach of law enforcement and health officials.

The health risks of traditional tobacco cigarettes are well-known. Cigarette use “is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New products such as e-cigarettes are able to deliver nicotine without the chemicals and tar that are most destructive to the human body. Nicotine alone does not cause cancer.  [read more]

University dumps professor who found polar bears thriving despite climate change

From Washington Times.com (Oct. 20):

Nobody has done more to sink the claim that climate change is endangering polar bears than zoologist Susan Crockford — and she may have paid for it with her job.

After 15 years as an adjunct assistant professor, Ms. Crockford said the University of Victoria rejected without explanation in May her renewal application, despite her high profile as a speaker and author stemming from her widely cited research on polar bears and dog domestication.

Ms. Crockford accused officials at the Canadian university of bowing to “outside pressure,” the result of her research showing that polar bear populations are stable and even thriving, not plummeting as a result of shrinking Arctic sea ice, defying claims of the climate change movement. [read more]

Oops! The assistant professor found something that didn’t fit the Leftist global warming narrative. That something being the truth.

Other environmental articles:

• The Green New Deal Isn’t Just Expensive. It’s Also Bad Environmental Policy.
• Increased Antarctic sea ice may have contributed to past ice ages
• Faulty Assumptions Lead to Fake News About Climate Change

Life After Google: 10 Laws of the Cryptocosm notes

In the Google era, the prime rule  of the Internet is “Communications first.” That means everything is free to be copied, moved, and mutated. While most of us welcome “free” on the understanding that it means “no charge,” what we really want is to get what we ordered rather than what the authority chooses to provide. In practice, “free” means insecure, amorphous, unmoored, and changeable from the top. This communications-first principle served us well for many years.

The Internet is a giant asynchronous replicator that communicates by copying. Regulating all property rights in the information economy are the copy-master kings, chiefly at Google.

In this system, security is a function of the network, applied from the top, rather than a property of the device and its owner. So everything rises to the top, the Googleplex, which achieves its speed and efficiency by treating its users as if they were making random choices. That’s the essence of the mathematical model behind their search engine. You are a random function of Google.

But you are not random; you are a unique genetic entity that can- not be factored back into an egg and a sperm. You are unbreakably encrypted by biology. These asymmetrical natural codes are the ruling model and metaphor for enduring security. You start by defining not the goal but the ground state. Before you build the function or the structure, you build the foundation. It is the ultimate non-random reality. The ground state is you.

1. Utterly different from Google’s rule of communications first is the law of the Cryptocosm. The first rule is the barn-door law: “Security first.” Security is not a procedure or a mechanism; it is an architecture. Its keys and doors, walls and channels, roofs and windows define property and privacy at the device-level. They determine who can go where and do what. Security cannot be retrofitted, patched, or improvised from above.

…………..

2. The second rule of the cryptocosm derives from the first: “Centralization is not safe.” Secure positions are decentralized ones, as human minds and DNA code are decentralized. Darwin’s mistake, and Google’s today, is to imagine that identity is a blend rather than a code—that machines can be a singularity, but human beings are random outcomes.

Centralization tells thieves what digital assets are most valuable and where they are. It solves their most difficult problems. Unless power and information are distributed throughout the system peer to peer, they are vulnerable to manipulation and theft from the blenders at the top.

3. The third rule is “Safety last.”1 Unless the architecture achieves its desired goals, safety and security are irrelevant. Security is a crucial asset of a functional system. Requiring the system to be safe at every step of construction results in a kludge: a machine too complex to use. [read more]

Source: Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy (2018) by George Gilder.

The other laws are:

1. Nothing is free.
2. Time is the final measure of cost.
3. Stable money endows humans with dignity and control.
4. Asymmetry law
5. Private keys rule.
6. Private keys are held by individual human beings, not by governments or Google.
7. Behind every private key and its public key is the human interpreter.

A Couple Is Suing Taco Bell for Overcharging Them $2.18 for Chalupas

From Vice.com (Oct. 17):

Last May, a New Jersey couple caught a Taco Bell commercial on TV, and they were excited enough by the chalupa-based combo that were being advertised that they drove to the nearest 'Bell to get one. Although the TV spot said that the Chalupa Cravings Box was 5 bucks, when Nelson Estrella-Rojas and Joann Estrella each ordered one, they were charged $6.06 each, before tax. Instead of just shrugging off the $2.18 difference and enjoying a shit-ton of fast food, they decided to hire an attorney.

According to NJ.com, the couple was "taken aback" by the price of each Chalupa Cravings Box, which contained one Chalupa Supreme, one 5-Layer burrito, one crunchy taco, an order of cinnamon twists and a medium drink. Because the Estrellas sound like loads of fun, they asked to speak to a manager, who told them that the commercial in question did say that prices may vary.

That answer wasn't good enough, so they hired an attorney who was willing to type out a complaint alleging that the couple "sustained an ascertainable loss" with their slightly more expensive visit to Taco Bell, including their "wasted time," the gas it took to make the six mile round trip, and that crucial $2.18. They have filed a lawsuit against both Taco Bell and Yum! Brands, its parent company. (And here's where it's worth noting that it costs $250––the equivalent of roughly forty-one $6.06 Chalupa Cravings Boxes––to file a civil lawsuit in a New Jersey state Superior Court.) [read more]

It costs more to file the lawsuit then just to let it go. The couple could have talked to the Taco Bell manager instead of suing. Oh, well.

‘Absurd, Immoral and Offensive’: UN Member-States Hand Maduro Regime Seat on Human Rights Council

From CNS News.com (Oct. 17):

(CNS News.com) – Despite the public appeals of human rights advocates and behind-the-scenes lobbying, U.N. member-states on Thursday elected Venezuela onto the world’s body’s Human Rights Council, handing the socialist Maduro regime more votes than Costa Rica, a stable liberal democracy.

Until the small Central American country declared its candidacy just weeks ago, Venezuela had been virtually assured a seat on the Geneva-based HRC, since it was one of two candidates running for two seats earmarked for the Latin America and the Caribbean group.

But Costa Rica’s candidacy, while turning the “closed slate” election into a competitive race – with three countries running for two vacant seats – failed to win over sufficient member-states.

Voting by secret ballot in New York, 105 members of the U.N. General Assembly threw their support behind the Maduro regime. Costa Rica received 96 votes. (Brazil, the region’s third candidate, won 153 votes.) [read more]

Stupid, then again that’s the UN.

Another article about the UN:

UN's Agenda 2030 Translator: How To Read The UN's New Sustainable Development Goals

Guaranteed Monthly Income: Boon or Bane?

From American Thinker.com (Oct. 14):

Andrew Yang's Bad Idea

Andrew Yang's socialist idea of a guaranteed minimum income, if enacted, could only prove to be a bane.  The idea may enjoy limited success among some entrepreneurial types, but when it comes to the entire American people, the great likelihood is that replacing $1,000 of income per month for all workers would sway many to reduce work.  Others may even experience a "failure to launch" their own entrepreneurism, encouraged by unearned payouts.  If a guaranteed minimum income were enacted as a welfare entitlement, the result would be that the wealth generation taxed by the government would see an overall drop, while welfare spending would rise.  Any tax increase to recover losses in revenue would only incentivize people to work even less.  This would mean fewer people working, since whatever is taxed decreases in frequency, including work.  With costs up, revenues down, and incentives to work less, a guaranteed monthly income entitlement would become unsustainable.

Would People Be Harmed?

Human economic activity grows from mankind's ecological imperative to address survival needs by seeking to reduce material scarcity and increase physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  But, as Thomas Sowell points out, "future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated."  How many potential Thomas Edisons and Alexander Graham Bells, being awarded unearned income, might refrain from working the hours necessary to invent new things?  Imagine a world where Edison and Bell themselves had worked less, while socialist programs bestowed "free" money on would-be inventors for not working.

Nothing is really "free"; everything has a cost.  The cost of socialist welfare programs can be seen in the increase of physical misery and premature death they bring about.  With less responsibility toward work, people exercise less responsibility toward their fellow human beings.  Without responsibility, freedom gives way to dependency.  When people work more, they bless their communities by their labors and create more freedom for themselves and for those relieved from the financial burden of having to support them.  When people work less, they benefit society less, often themselves becoming dependent on others. [read more]

Yea, guaranteed monthly income is a bad idea. Glad Young dropped out of the race.

Homeland Security Officials Tout 100 Miles of New Border Wall

From The Daily Signal.com (Jan. 13):

YUMA, Ariz.—Top officials in the Department of Homeland Security visited southern Arizona on Friday to commemorate completion of 100 miles of new border wall.

Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf stopped by the U.S.-Mexico border near Yuma and delivered a speech in recognition of what he called a milestone: 100 miles of completed border wall since the beginning of the Trump administration. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls, and Border Patrol officials joined Wolf.

Wolf looked on as a plaque emblazoned with President Donald Trump’s name was welded onto a section of the wall.

“Today, as a milestone has been reached, a celebration is in order,” Wolf said. “Today I am proud to report that the Trump administration has now constructed 100 miles of new border wall system on the southern border. This is a milestone achievement for the president, the department, and more importantly for our country.”

In plain sight behind the acting homeland security secretary was newly built border wall that stood roughly 30 feet high and included anti-climbing plates. Adjacent to the new wall was the older—and much smaller—anti-vehicle barrier, which stood about waist-high. Much of the new border wall has replaced these small walls or dilapidated barriers. [read more]

That is good news.

Articles on illegal immigration:

• Identity theft: Another plague of illegal immigration
• Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Securing Visas for Fake Crime Victims
• California Now Pushing Free Health Care for Illegal Immigrant Seniors
• Illegal crossings plunge as US extends policy across border

A History of Communism

When a communist revolution finally succeeded in 1917, it was led by intellectuals in an agrarian culture that had little history with either democracy or capitalism. As Harvard historian Richard Pipes puts it: "Communism. . . did not come to Russia as the result of a popular uprising: it was imposed on her from above by a small minority hiding behind democratic slogans."

Contrary to Marx's predictions, this was the pattern of communist revolutions throughout the twentieth century.

The 1917 Russian Revolution was led by an angry and fanatical intellectual named Vladimir Lenin. He led his Bolshevik ("majority") Party to victory after a three-year civil war. Before the revolution, Russia had been ruled by a czar. Russian society was divided between a small elite aristocracy and a large population of rural peasants, with few capitalists to speak of.

Lenin quickly abolished all legal hindrances to rule and set up a one party system in which the Bolshevik Party (soon renamed the Communist Party) filled every nook and cranny of Russian society. He began to centralize large chunks of the Russian economy, from industry and trade to education and transportation. This required secret police, a massive bureaucracy, and the widespread use of terror.

Lenin's attempts to centralize the economy were utter disasters. The dictatorship of the proletariat quickly became the dictatorship of recalcitrant bureaucrats. To his chagrin, Lenin found that bureaucrats in Moscow were neither motivated nor competent to manage distant factories and farms. Restrictions on trade created a black market that was larger than the official economy. To add insult to injury, the regime dumped banknotes into the market, which predictably led to runaway inflation. By 1923, prices were 1 million times greater than prices before the revolution began.

Across the economy, productivity plummeted: "Overall largescale industrial production in 1920 was 18 percent of what it had been in 1913...The number of employed industrial workers in 1921 was less than one-half of what it had been in 1918; their living standard fell to one-third of its prewar level." Agriculture was even worse. Lenin tried to force peasants to sell their grain below market price even as he ordered a largescale massacre of the wealthier peasants, the kulaks. This led to food shortages and massive strikes, which Lenin punished with poison gas. The situation became so dire that in 1921 Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed the peasants to sell their grain for market prices after paying a tax. He also eased some of the restrictions on trade while continuing to assert control of other parts of the economy. These modest reforms allowed grain production to rebound. But it was too late to prevent a famine, brought on by drought, that killed 5.2 million people.

Lenin did not live to see his policies through. That was left to his successor, Joseph Stalin. Under Stalin, Communist Russia quickly absorbed the countries on its border such as Ukraine, and in 1924 Russia formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Stalin implemented a series of "Five Year Plans" to take control of large sectors of the economy. The livelihoods of industrial workers were decimated, while millions of peasants died from a forced famine in 1932 and 1933. Combined with various purges of Communist Party officials, Stalin orchestrated the largest scale massacre of a domestic population in human history. At its height in 1937 and 1938, there were on average one thousand political executions per day, not including the countless millions sent to labor camps.

Such tragedy was not the exception but the rule for other communist experiments in the twentieth century. Whatever Marx expected, revolutions never sprang up in advanced industrial societies where there was a strong rule of law, but rather in poor agrarian cultures with career tracks for despots.

The Chinese Revolution led by Mao Tse-tung in 1948 differs from the Russian Revolution in details, but the basic plot line is the same: labor and reeducation camps, mass killings, and economic ruin following attempts to collectivize industry and agriculture. Where Stalin had his Five Year Plans, Mao had the "Great Leap Forward":"We shall teach the sun and moon to change places," read one piece of promotional literature. "We shall create a new heaven and earth for man." Perhaps it sounds nice in Mandarin, but more than 20 million Chinese died in the famine that resulted from the heaven-on-earth construction project. Another 20 million died in laogai, the Chinese labor camps.
China and Russia take first and second place when it comes to total deaths. But for the prize of applying the brutal logic of equality, no one beats the French-educated Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. No other regime ever worked so hard to create an egalitarian society.

Source: Money, Greed, and God. Why Capitalism is the Solution and not the Problem (2009) by Jay W. Richards.

An articles on Communism:

• At the White House, Victims of Communism Share Stories About Finding Freedom in America
• Antifa’s Ultimate Goal Is Communism, Journalist Attacked by Adherents Says

FBI Employees Conducted 3.1 Million Questionable and Illicit Searches, Including Searches on US Citizens in 2017-2018

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Oct. 19):

According to a new declassified ruling FBI employees abused NSA mass surveillance data in 2017 and 2018. In 2017 FBI employees conducted over 3.1 million searches from the NSA database including searching activities of US citizens.

Under current FBI rules surveillance data can only be searched if there is reasonable suspicion of crimes having taken place or clear risks to national security. But FBI employees and even contractors were searching the database to see what information they could find on U.S. citizens.

CPO Magazine reported:

According to a new declassified ruling from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), FBI personnel systematically abused National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance data in both 2017 and 2018. The 138-page ruling, which dates back to October 2018, was only unsealed 12 months later in October 2019. It offers a rare look at how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been abusing the constitutional privacy rights of U.S. citizens with alarming regularity. The court ruling is also a stinging rebuke to the FBI’s overreach of its ability to search surveillance intelligence databases.

Key elements of the FISA court ruling

The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, itself a super-secret court that traditionally approves each and every request of law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, found that employees of the FBI searched data collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in an inappropriate and potentially unconstitutional manner. These abuses, says the FISA court, included accessing NSA surveillance data to look into the online communications of U.S. citizens, including fellow FBI employees and their family members. All told, there may have been tens of thousands of these improper queries, all of them carried out without any reasonable suspicion of a crime or illegal activity posing a risk to national security. Moreover, many of the FBI’s backdoor searches did not differentiate between U.S. citizens and foreign intelligence targets.

[read more]

Yea, that is disturbing.

Another article on the FBI: Emails reveal FBI's accommodations for Clinton lawyers

NASA shows off patriotic new spacesuits for moon and Mars astronauts

From CNET.com (Oct. 15):

NASA astronauts will be strolling the moon in patriotic style.

The space agency broadcast a demonstration of new spacesuit designs for the Artemis moon mission at a Tuesday press conference, where NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine hosted a dramatic catwalk-style unveiling of the new suits.

The public event showcased two prototypes. The orange Orion Crew Survival System suit is meant to be worn during launch and reentry on board the Orion spacecraft. The red, white and blue Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) is for moonwalking.

Bridenstine made sure to point out these spacesuits will fit astronauts of all body types, a reference to when NASA had to scrub the first planned all-female spacewalk due to not having enough spacesuit sizes available on the ISS. 

NASA dropped some details about the xEMU suits earlier in October, highlighting the maneuverability of the design and the advances made since the Apollo era. [read more]

The red, white and blue spacesuit does look nice.

Space 'elevator' to the Moon could happen by the end of the century

From Fox News.com (Oct. 14):

The concept of using an “elevator” to travel from Earth to space has been around for quite some time, with an early concept first proposed in 1959 by Russian engineer Yuri Artsutanov. But now, that seemingly far-fetched idea may become a reality.

The idea is relatively simple: a cable is stretched from a satellite counterweight above the geosynchronous orbit, where it’s attached to a floating anchor station at the equator. The cord is able to stand up on its own by centrifugal force, allowing a car to travel along the cable, directly from Earth to a space station.

NASA and space agencies in Japan and China have been working on this version of the space elevator for years. The Obayashi Corporation has promised to have its version up and running by 2050, estimated to cost $90 billion.

Recently, a non-peer reviewed study by Zephyr Penoyre from the University of Cambridge and Emily Sandford at Columbia University theorized that not only is an “elevator” to the moon possible, but it can be built using current materials. Their idea takes a different approach than that from NASA and the other space agencies.

As opposed to a cable stretching skyward anchored from the Earth, the cable proposed in the study runs from the moon down toward our planet, coming to an end and hanging in Earth’s geosynchronous orbit, 22,236 miles above the surface. This would place the cable out of danger zone of lower orbit, where it could be struck by satellites or space debris. The pencil lead-thin cord would be constructed from carbon polymers and hung from the moon. The cost is estimated to be in the billions of dollars. [read more]

Nice. In his sci-fi novel The Fountains of Paradise Arthur C. Clarke described a space elevator.

5 Things to Know About Top Iranian General Killed by US Airstrike

From The Daily Signal.com (Jan. 4):

President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike in Iraq on Thursday that killed Gen. Qassim Suleimani, one of the most senior members of the Iranian government.

Suleimani, with the rank of major general, headed the Quds Force, the terrorist arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion, contributing to terrorist plots as far away as New Delhi and London,” Trump said Friday, using an alternate spelling of the general’s name. “Today, we remember and honor the victims of Soleimani’s many atrocities, and we take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over.”

For about 21 years, Suleimani commanded the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, charged with carrying out clandestine military and terrorist activities outside Iran’s borders as the country seeks to expand its regional influence in the Middle East.

“We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” Trump said.

Here are five things to know about the fallen terrorist leader.

1. How Was Suleimani a Direct Threat to Americans?

Suleimani orchestrated a series of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq in the past several months, culminating in a rocket attack Dec. 27 that killed an American citizen, wounded four U.S. service members, and threatened the lives of many more American personnel.
…………….

       2. Where Did Suleimani’s Terrorism Strike?

Quds Force—under Suleimani’s direction—planned and conducted terrorist attacks across six continents and inside the United States, according to the State Department.

Suleimani was directly responsible for arming, funding, and training Iranian proxy groups—or militias—in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, leading to the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands, the State Department said. [read more]

Good riddance to him.

More stories on Iran:

• State Department says Iran still biggest state sponsor of terror, spends $1B per year on proxies
• Iran resumes underground enrichment at Fordow
• Iran: By eliminating terrorists, Israel committed 'war crimes'
• Ted Cruz: Iran missiles fired at Iraqi airbases were 'in a very real sense' paid for by billions that Obama sent Tehran
• Report: Senior IRGC Officer Flees Iran With Secret Intel
• Iran Has Been at War with America for 40 Years
• Iran activist: Don't believe U.S. media coverage of Soleimani 'mourners'
• 5 Top Iranian Officials You Should Know
• Trump’s Iran Endgame Remains the Same
• After Suleimani’s Death, Iran’s Theocracy Considers Its Options
• Trump’s Handling of Iran Deserves Praise
• Hans von Spakovsky: Trump killing of Soleimani and action against Iran legal – Despite Democratic complaints
• Iranian security forces purportedly fire live ammunition to disperse protesters despite Trump's warning

Was the early Christian church communist?

Few Christians, including Christian critics of capitalism, would now endorse communism. But what about the early church? Wasn't it communist? Here's how the book of Acts describes the first church in Jerusalem, which formed after the Holy Spirit descended upon the first Christians at Pentecost:

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common… There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:32-35)

Many who have read this passage have wondered if the Christian ideal isn't communism. After all, this was the first church in Jerusalem. They were "filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly" (Acts 4:31). If they didn't get it right, who did?

On the surface, this looks like communism. But it's not. First of all, unlike modern communism, there's no talk of class warfare here, nor is there any hint that private property is immoral. These Christians are selling their possessions and sharing freely and spontaneously. Second, the state is nowhere in sight. No government is confiscating property and collectivizing industry. No one is being coerced. The church in Jerusalem was just that--the church, not the state. The church doesn't act like the modern communist state. No one in Acts gets their stuff confiscated. As
Ron Sider notes, "Sharing was voluntary, not compulsory." Third, when Peter later condemns Ananias and Sapphira for keeping back some of the money they get from selling their land, he condemns them not for keeping part of the proceeds of the sale, but for lying about it:

Ananias. . . why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the lands? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God! (Acts 5:3-4)

Peter takes for granted that the property was rightfully theirs, after it was sold.

Fourth, the communal life of die early church in Jerusalem is made the norm for all Christians everywhere. In fact, it's not even described as the norm for the Jerusalem church. What Acts is describing is an unusual moment in the life of the early church, when the church was still relatively small. Also, many of the new Christians probably had come from a long distance to worship in Jerusalem at Pentecost. These new Christians would have had to return home soon after their conversion had it not been for the extreme measures taken by the newborn church to allow these Christians to stay and be properly trained in discipleship.

Compared with modern nation-states, the Jerusalem church was a small community banding together against an otherwise hostile culture. The circumstances were peculiar. For all we know, this communal stage lasted six months before the church got too large. Paul elsewhere told the Thessalonian Christians to “earn their own living” and sternly warned that “anyone unwilling to work should not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10, 12). So it‘s no surprise that the early communal life in Jerusalem was never held as a model for how the entire church should order its life, let alone used to justify the state confiscating private property.

Source: Money, Greed, and God. Why Capitalism is the Solution and not the Problem (2009) by Jay W. Richards.

Da Vinci's Forgotten Design for the Longest Bridge in the World Proves What a Genius He Was

From Live Science.com:

Leonardo da Vinci was truly a Renaissance man, impressing both his contemporaries and modern observers with his intricate designs that spanned many disciplines. But although he's best known for iconic works such as "Mona Lisa" and "Last Supper," in the early 16th century, da Vinci designed a lesser-known structure: a bridge for the Ottoman Empire that would have been the longest bridge of its time. Had it been built, the bridge would have been incredibly sturdy, according to a new study.

In 1502, Ottomon ruler Sultan Bayezid II requested proposals for the design of a bridge that would connect Constantinople, what's today Istanbul, to the neighboring area known as Galata. Da Vinci was among those who sent a letter to the sultan describing a bridge idea.

Though da Vinci was already a well-known artist and inventor, he didn't get the job, according to a statement from MIT. Now, a group of researchers at MIT has analyzed da Vinci's design and tested how robust his bridge would have been if it were built.

The group built a replica of the bridge, after taking into consideration the materials and construction equipment available 500 years ago and the geological conditions of the Golden Horn,  a freshwater estuary in the Bosphorus Sea over which the bridge would've been built.

In his descriptions, da Vinci didn't indicate the materials or equipment needed to construct the bridge, but the only material available at the time, that wouldn't have collapsed under large loads on such a long bridge, would have been stone, Karly Bast, a recent graduate student at MIT who worked on the project, and her team found. The researchers also hypothesized that such a bridge would have stood on its own without any paste or material to hold the stone together. [read more]

He surely was a genius.

‘Godlessness and Big Government Go Hand in Hand,’ Allie Beth Stuckey Tells Social Conservatives

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 11):

The politics of millennials spring from their worldview, podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey told social conservatives Friday in Washington.

When people reject belief in God, Stuckey told the crowd at the Values Voter Summit, they usually embrace belief in government.

“I have never seen someone move to the left politically and become stronger theologically,” the host of the “Relatable” podcast said, as the crowd listened attentively.

Those who base their worldviews on self eventually make government more powerful and intrusive, Stuckey, 27, said.

“Godlessness and socialism, godlessness and totalitarianism, godlessness and big government always go hand in hand,” she said.

After interviews with many fellow millennials as a podcast host, Stuckey said, she sees that the generation’s worldview leads to meaninglessness. If people believe only in themselves, they have nothing outside themselves to live for and no belief in a God who can reform the self, she said.

“I think a lot of young people are saying, ‘That’s not really working out for me.’ Millennials have a higher rate of suicide,” she said. “They have a higher rate of depression, they have a higher rate of anxiety and fear and loneliness [than past generations.]”

From this place of despair, millennials often hope that government will help them fix their problems. [read more]

True. G.K. Chesterton once said “Once abolish the God and the government becomes the God.”

More articles on socialism:

• These 3 Countries Tried Socialism. Here’s What Happened.
• Building a Movement to Stop ‘Democratic Socialism’
• Next Generation of Americans Will Embrace Socialism If We Lose ‘War on History’
• Young People Might Reject Socialism If They Knew These Facts
• Socialism's Unbroken Trail of Failure
• I Went to a Socialism Conference. Here Are My 6 Observations.

Acting OMB Director Russ Vought: Trump keeps promise to tame bureaucracy that runs roughshod over Americans

From Fox News.com (Oct. 9):

When President Trump took office in 2017, he promised the American people that he would clean up Washington’s regulatory overreach. He pledged to make government accountable to the people. And he has made good on his promises by driving the largest deregulation effort since President Reagan took office over 30 years ago.

This has supported an unprecedented economic comeback—with over 6.4 million jobs created since President Trump’s election, the lowest unemployment rate in half of a century, and nearly 2.5 million people raising themselves out of poverty since 2016.

This week, the president will build on his success by signing two Executive Orders that will level the playing field for American families and small businesses and shine a light on the Federal bureaucracy that runs roughshod over American citizens.

President Trump’s “Transparency and Fairness” Executive Order protects Americans against secret or unlawful bureaucratic interpretations of rules and guards against unfair or unexpected penalties for non-compliance. American families and entrepreneurs are not the enemy, and it is long past time D.C. stopped treating them as such.  [read more]

Another great executive order from President Trump that should be put into law. I wonder if the Republicans take control of Congress they will do that. Hope so. It would be a good idea if they did.

Planned Parenthood Uses Shell Company to Build Secret Mega-Clinic Near Missouri Border

From National Review.com (Oct. 2):

A new 18,000 square-foot Planned Parenthood clinic opened Wednesday in Southern Illinois, after over a year of secret construction. Codenamed “Alaska,” the project is just 13 miles from Missouri’s last Planned Parenthood, and was built by the organization with the intention of extending abortion access to women from Missouri, which has recently passed a string of restrictive abortion legislation.

“The truth is that our patients want easier access … [the new clinic] is an opportunity for them to get that care with less judgement, with less restriction, and with far fewer hoops to jump through,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas, the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, explained to CBS News.

Planned Parenthood began working on the facility in August 2018, and used a shell company to divert public attention and scrutiny from the construction of one of the largest abortion clinics in the country.

McNicholas said the decision to be secretive was in part intended to avoid delays. At previous Planned Parenthood construction projects in different parts of the country, contractors had refused to work on the project after learning the purpose of the building.

The clinic cost nearly $7 million, and will be equipped to see roughly 11,000 women per year. CBS News visited the location in August while the building was still under construction, but waited to release the story until the facility was completed. [read more]

If abortion is not wrong then why all the secrecy? To avoid delays? Really?

13 Pro-Abortion Assertions & How to Give a Pro-Life Response Part 4

Assertion #11: If a pre-born baby isn’t viable, the mother is justified in ending the baby’s life.

This claim is sometimes cited in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, in which the baby is growing in an area of the mother’s body other than the uterus, such as in the fallopian tubes, ovaries, or abdominal cavity. These pregnancies are thought to be fatal unless the baby and, at times, even the fallopian tubes, are removed. In these cases, the pregnancy ceases to be a typical pregnancy and doctors seek to save one life, rather than losing two. The medical actions taken are not to end a life, but to save life. The same is true for complications in a late term pregnancy. Medical professionals have affirmed that an abortion is never medically necessary to save a mother. A pregnancy with a child with Down syndrome or another chromosomal abnormality is a different matter. Though they experience challenges, families with a child with Down syndrome often speak of profound joy. Some have said that they cherish life more richly. Many individuals with Down syndrome go to school, even college, right alongside their peers. Their lives have equal value.

Assertion #12: A pro-life view is anti-science.

That’s not true. Science and medicine hold that, from the earliest stages of development, the pre-born are distinct, living, whole human beings. Embryology textbooks teach that human development begins at fertilization, when a male sperm unites with a female oocyte and forms a single cell called a zygote. It contains human DNA distinct from the mother’s. Therefore, a zygote is the beginning of a new, unique human being.

Assertion #13: Quit trying to force your religious beliefs on me.

Pro-life advocates don’t have to quote the Bible or draw from a faith tradition to believe that human life has value. Abortion is a moral issue because the pre-born are human beings. Is it right or wrong to end the life of a human being? Do certain circumstances dictate what’s right or wrong? Those are philosophical questions that deal with reality and existence. You are no less alive and human right now than you were as a teenager or an adolescent or a kindergartener or a toddler  or an infant or pre-born in the womb. Your size, development, and self-awareness have changed, but your inherent human value has not changed in your journey to today. A pro-life view is clear: Taking the life of another person — especially a defenseless human being like a pre-born baby — is wrong.

Source: Focus on the Family.com.

Other articles on abortion: 

• What Would You Say About Abortion and Rape?
• Socialism, Atheism, and Abortion

Earth's Magnetic Poles Can Flip Much More Often Than Anyone Thought

From Live Science.com (Oct. 4):

Hot liquid that churns around Earth's outer core powers a gigantic magnetic field that's been hugging our planet since its infancy, protecting it from harmful solar radiation. But this magnetic field is known to get restless — and a couple of times every million years or so, the poles flip, and magnetic south becomes magnetic north and vice versa.

Now, a new study suggests that the magnetic poles can flip much more frequently than scientists thought. That's what seems to have happened around 500 million years ago during the Cambrian period, when Earth's creatures were undergoing evolutionary growth spurts, transforming into more complex life-forms.

To understand the workings of the magnetic field during this time, a group of researchers from the Institute of Physics of the Globe of Paris and the Russian Academy of Sciences collected sediment samples from an outcrop in northeastern Siberia.  [read more]

Hmmm. That doesn’t sound good.