Not Alone

If you are a long, long time reader, you may remember my post last fall detailing my very first experience with the public education system with my soon-to-be kindergartener titled "Charter School Perversion." In short, I was told by the school that me nor my child would be a 'good-fit' for the new charter school because I had voiced concern over my child being taught about homosexual lifestyles. Let's please remember here folks, we were also talking about a FIVE year old child who does not know about heterosexual sex either.

Today I'm feeling not-so-alone, as Wizbang tells of an incredibly similar story of a father that actually gets arrested because he simply wanted to be notified when his child would be exposed to this discussion.

How many times do we hear educators complain how parents are not interested in their child's education? Well, for a lot of educators this is just a load of excrement. Parental involvement is their worse fear.

I highly recommend you read both posts to educate yourself on what is out there waiting for your children. It's only their minds.

Who CAIRs?

Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities has really kicked some major CAIR butt with this post.

A fantastic round-up of who is behind CAIR and then a great discussion of how Hollywood distorts historical facts to protect their favored minority groups. And guess what? Straight, white guys ain't one of them. Don't miss the comments either.

Catching Up

I saw this funny bumper sticker yesterday:

Horn Broke, Watch for Finger

Driving Etiquette:
1) When the light turns green, GO.

2) It is never okay to turn left from the Right hand lane (yes, I am referring to 4 lanes of traffic), unless specifically marked on the pavement or with a sign. NEVER, Okay??

3) If you are turning left and you can position your car so that the traffic behind you can carry on and not obsess over the fact that your donut fixation is holding up about 50 people from getting to work, it would be rather nice of ya.

4) Don't push your luck: Just because you pull half of your car onto the street to then look to see if you may enter traffic, I just may be in the mood to take that hood off for you. Trust me, you never know.

My life is full of forms and paperwork these days. With only 4 more days of work here in RI (though I'm not moving to La until late June) I have accepted an academic position in Louisiana. Early in my career, I had a mentor in Pittsburgh who I always thought had the perfect job. Ten years later, I have now positioned myself to have essentially that same job. I am going back to where I worked the first 5 years of my career, to pick up relationships where they left off, and, hopefully, have the career exactly as I've always imagined. Some people might say how lucky I am, but I really don't like that word. I've worked my tail off to be in this position and, with God's grace, I've finally reached my goals. And for today, it's feeling pretty good.

So hold on to your hats boys and girls, I'm gonna tell you what I can without risking too many details. I wouldn't want the psychos knowing too much.

The news cycle is pretty slow these days, but do not fear. I plan on writing a lot over the next 2 months on my ups and downs, best/worse memories, etc. that my family and I have been through here in RI.

Stay tuned...

My Kind of Guy

The Boston Globe runs this great editorial supporting John Bolton. It is a fantastic read that lays out a convincing case that even though Bolton can be a 'bull in a China shop', he is selective about which china gets broken and which remains intact. Guess which country he makes look good?

Next is this article from The American Thinker that dissects Colin Powell's career as he is trying to derail the Bolton nomination. I must admit to being one of the many that was fooled for years by Powell's public persona. This is an important article and most certainly is a must read.

Hollywood: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Rocco at Moonbat Central has been watching MTV lately and has found some true, moonbat treasure. Rocco's quotes between Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore are priceless. It is all too good to post an excerpt. Go get it all.

I just have one question for Rocco: Did he get the idea of watching MTV from me?

Hollywood Idiot

Another dumb actress. Nothing new here...

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, star of a new flick about the aftermath of 9/11, believes the United States "is responsible in some way" for the devastating terror attacks.

Gyllenhaal, 27, made the comments at the Tribeca Film Festival, where her new movie "The Great New Wonderful" - which has a plot centered on the destruction of the World Trade Center - premiered Friday.

"I think what's good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such a subtle, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just, 'Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them,'" Gyllenhaal told the NY1 cable channel.

"Because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it's dealt allows that to sort of creep in," she added.

I know, I know - so dog-gone predictable.

For those of you who do not know what this actress suffers from, allow me to introduce you to Punitive Liberalism. Really guys, I keep this on my side-bar under "Must Reads" 24/7 so that you all may have the same diagnostic skills that I've developed. I can't read for ya.

Welcome Ace of Spades readers! Take a sec and look around...

New Hope

Last week was very busy for me, but my sister was having a harder time of it. Her husband had a 12-hour surgery to remove his pancreas after suffering for years with painful, chronic pancreatitis. This procedure is a new, radical option offered as a last resort, but may also be a huge advance in possibly curing some forms of diabetes. The surgery and his story is reported here.

In a 12-hour, dual-stage surgery known to be performed at only two other centers in the U.S., doctors at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) on Tuesday returned a patient's own insulin-producing cells to him after surgically removing his pancreas to eliminate constant, severe pain from chronic pancreatitis. The patient, Leonard Stewart, 47, of Panama City, Fla., remained anesthetized in the operating room at UAB Hospital through removal of his entire pancreas and the hours-long wait for the pancreatic islet cells to be processed in a specialized UAB laboratory. The cells were then returned to the operating room and infused into the patient's liver, where they have begun to produce insulin.

This is a very important advance in medicine that may ultimately help thousands, if not millions of diabetics.

Last I heard he is doing very well and is requiring very little insulin once a day. The hope is that eventually he will make all of his own insulin. I pray it works, they've both been through a lot these past couple of years.

I'm Back!

Hi there boys and girls! I'm back after an eight day vacation to the great state of Louisiana, our soon-to-be new home. We accomplished all of our goals. We bought a house, toured our kids new school, I interviewed for a new academic position and we met with/dined with great friends and family.

So much to write about - so little time. Thanks to SeanO for his excellent posting.

I am so behind on all the news stories it is not funny! I know that we now have a new pope and that the lady that claimed to have found a finger in her chili at Wendy's is now enjoying prison decor.

Quote of the week: My 5 year old - "Jesus sent me the right Mommy."

Aaarrggghhhh

Warning: Pointless, Mindless post ahead:

Can anyone say PROCRASTINATION!

I am the queen of procrastination.....

As part of my interview next week I am suppose to give a 45 minute presentation. I had decided last week to cover a very broad topic by reviewing the "Surviving Sepsis Campaign". Well yesterday morning I decided the topic was just too broad, and being that this would be the first time delivering such talk, I would give my much more comfortable "Parenteral Nutrition" lecture. I know this stuff like the back of my hand, but good golly! I've been updating the lecture, adding more references, wanting to add more slides to cover one or two more topics....all very easy to get done.

But nothing. I've made very few changes. I just keep on flipping through the slides...thinking of about anything but what I need to get done.

*ahem* Including blogging. Yes, this post is one more thing to do so that I don't have to work on my presentation.

I just wanna go run.....

Okay - got that out!

Who Cares?

I don't know if any of you out there driving by my site actually cares about any of this, but well, you know the line: It's my blog and I'll write about anything I want!

So I'm heading out tomorrow morning for the great state of Louisiana and future home. During this eight day stay we'll be making a deal on a house (priority one), touring schools, I'll be interviewing for another academic gig, and hopefully, we'll be mixing and mingling with great friends and family. We're about to start a new chapter after 10 years of marriage.

Hopefully I'll get a post off here and there... but as you know, that depends on how far my friends have entered into the 'information age'. My contributor, SeanO, will have the keys to the place, so be nice to him; and while you're here, Scroll down already and check out some previous posts, for the love of pete!!! It's not like I haven't been busting my tail around here.

So, please, okay guys - no pilfering. If you're good, maybe I'll bring ya'll back an alligator head or something.

Thanks in advance.

Campus Political Plays

Evan Coyne Maloney of Brain Terminal has an exceptional post on one-sided campus activism. He writes of Bucknell University and uses examples from Feminism to Gay marriage to illustrate how different groups and administrators block out what they do not want to hear.

You know that you should always check out Brain-Terminal... it is definitely one of my favorite sites. When you have the time, you can also check out Evan's movie Brain Washing 101. He knows what he's talking about.

Link via Instapundit.

Lying with Numbers

If at first it doesn't fit, fit, fit again.
--John McPhee

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
--Aaron Levenstein

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.
--Rex Stout

If you can't tell by now... this post is going to be about statistics. As part of my job I review the medical literature and critically evaluate the articles, including the statistical methods and analysis. I've known for a long time of the article discussed here at Slate. The Slate article is really good at describing all of the horrible errors contained within the Lancet trial that tried to estimate the number of dead Iraqi civilians since the start of the war. The author is tough on the Lancet authors, but here and there he also cuts them slack. Go read the Slate article and come back to talk about confidence intervals. I'll wait... haven't you heard? I'm just up here in Rhode Island killing time anyway.

Here's a point I wanted to expand upon:

The report's authors derive this figure [100,000] by estimating how many Iraqis died in a 14-month period before the U.S. invasion, conducting surveys on how many died in a similar period after the invasion began (more on those surveys later), and subtracting the difference. That difference—the number of "extra" deaths in the post-invasion period—signifies the war's toll. That number is 98,000. But read the passage that cites the calculation more fully:

We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000) during the post-war period.

Readers who are accustomed to perusing statistical documents know what the set of numbers in the parentheses means. For the other 99.9 percent of you, I'll spell it out in plain English—which, disturbingly, the study never does. It means that the authors are 95 percent confident that the war-caused deaths totaled some number between 8,000 and 194,000. (The number cited in plain language—98,000—is roughly at the halfway point in this absurdly vast range.)

I did not particularly like the way he defined a confidence interval. The way I would have described it to my students is that the authors are 95% confident that the true value [ie # of dead Iraqis] is between 8,000 to 194,000. Here's the kicker: Each and every value represented in that range is equally likely to be the true value of the variable we are studying. So 8000 is as likely to be correct as 194,000. To take the mid-point of the confidence interval and report it to the press as the number or even the more likely number is so dishonest for a supposed scientist... it is truly beyond the pale.

Now to continue with the definition of confidence intervals:

The width of the confidence interval gives us some idea about how uncertain we are about the unknown parameter (see precision). A very wide interval may indicate that more data should be collected before anything very definite can be said about the parameter.

Now that we all know the true meaning of a confidence interval, I'm sure we can all agree that this study is complete and total crap.

I had a very, very low opinion of the Lancet before this article, and now... maybe they can go and work with the United Nations to help them cook their books. Oh wait... That's already been uncovered as well.

Hat tip to Beautiful Atrocities for the reminder.

Pink Bats

Rocco has a new post up at Moonbat Central. Go find out what "Pink Moonbats" are... and for the love of pete... please, please have your rabies shots nearby. You've been warned.

Dancing Cadet

Who says white boys can't dance? For a little comedic relief, go watch the video. And let's be honest here folks, we all want to dance like this in the privacy of our home, you just never know when your best friend is going to hide a camera to catch your 'private dancing' moments.

Go and enjoy a moment we all were never suppose to see.

How much spare time is there at the Air Force Academy anyway?

Huge hat tip to RI friend Kristy for the link.

Rummaging Around

From my last post to this post, I'm not in much of a mood to write and opine away. However, I will direct you to what I think is interesting and let you link away.

First up is this column from John Podhoretz. It is a must read, as he explains why the media are acting like fools over Sharon unilaterally pulling out of Gaza. I loved this part:

The astonishing changes on the ground over the past 18 months are creating a new political dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians. The effort on the part of the press, the pundits and the Europeans to make the theoretical Maale Adumim issue a major scandal is an effort to deny the existence of this new political dynamic.

You do realize that this is what Clinton wanted so desperately to happen during his tenure? It was to be his one, true "legacy". Sorry dude, the legacy ended up being a certain blue Gap dress. What a waste.

Next up: More reasons to hate the United Nations. This piece is written by an eye-witness to the corrupt and abusive United Nations.

I arrived in Sierra Leone as a legal aid worker in the summer of 2003, one year after the release of a damaging report on sexual abuse in U.N. refugee camps in West Africa. Although the report's description of widespread sexual abuse had prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to issue a strongly worded "zero tolerance" policy, I found abuse of a sexual nature almost every day -- zero compliance with zero tolerance, as one investigator was to write. U.N. leaders had simply not expended any effort beyond lip service to carry out this zero tolerance policy.

In fact, abuse at these camps went beyond sexual violations: Injustices of one sort or another were perpetrated by U.N. missions or their affiliated nongovernmental organizations every day in the camps I visited. Corruption was the norm, in particular the embezzlement of food and funds by NGO officials, which often left camp resources dangerously inadequate. Utterly arbitrary judicial systems in the camps subjected refugees to violent physical punishment or months in prison for trivial offenses -- all at the whim of officials and in the absence of any sort of hearing.

Go read it all - Isn't there a shortage of housing in Manhatten? Think of all the apartments we could convert from that one building. I'm all for it. The UN should go and headquarter in the Sudan to get the full flavor of the hell on earth they've allowed/facilitated to form.

Jonah Goldberg has a good post at The Corner on what a misfit Sy Hersh has always been become. I guess Sy thinks Michael Moore's methods are the way to go.

Of course, we can't go on too long without sticking a pitchfork in the dead horse John Kerry. Looks like he has taken to 'outing' real covert CIA agents in a public forum. Oh the tangled web we weave....

Now for those of us who held the faith, always believed the US was doing the right thing in Iraq and was doing it well. The WSJ takes a moment to reflect on what the naysayers were saying just one short year ago. It shows you why support at home is paramount for the success of any military campaign.

I would like to end this with an opportunity to remind everyone of your own delicate mortality. Here is a quote from the short newspaper clip (too old for a link) that was run five years ago in my hometown paper when my good friend suddenly died:

Lee said all he knew about the incident late Sunday was that Sanderson went off riding his horse and that sometime later the horse came back to the house without Sanderson. Lee said Sanderson's father went walking in the direction Sanderson had been riding and found him in a pasture near his house.

A perfectly healthy, athletic 39-year old football coach just slumps over and dies. Most probably from an aneurysm. That is purely my speculation, but it happens folks. All the time actually. No one is immune. Life is so incredibly delicate and fragile... my heart still mourns.

In Memory...

Today my heart is breaking and there is no stopping the tears.

I remember a line from a movie years ago - a mother talking to her son about letting your heart takes pictures of your memories. Memories that you recall all the time; it doesn’t matter how many years have gone by, they’re just as vivid in your mind from the moment they occurred.

Growing up there are always people around that you remember for different reasons: For whom they were, what they said, their jokes - their kindness.

In my junior high to college years I had a best friend who had 3 other siblings, she was the youngest. My friend came along about 9 years after the first 3 were born - the oldest a sister, a brother and another brother, Mark. There is no way to over exaggerate the amount of time I spent with this lively, affectionate family. My friend and I were growing up in the country, it was 2 miles between our houses, and we were in our early teens. I spent numerous weekends/summers at her house and loved every minute of it. Her siblings were so much older than us (and my other siblings), it was like hanging out with adults all the time, which they were, of course. We were in the 8th or 9th grade and they were either graduating college or already along in their careers. It is easy to see that their house was the more ‘cool’ place to hang out. Not only could they drive, but they actually had cars! They all drove us places or just took us along to wherever they were headed.

Mark had competed in body building and was a big, big guy. He would come breezing in from wherever, plop down in the living room and start ragging on us. We would always throw out to him whatever it was we were up to: “Hey Mark, we’re going to the movies tonight.” Or “Hey Mark, we’re going swimming later.” Or “Hey Mark, I’ve got a new boyfriend.” He had a usual comeback for us on anything we were bragging about. If you look on my right side-bar you’ll see it. “Well Kelli, Isn’t that just slicker than snot on a doorknob!”

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I’ve had that “Glenn Reynolds fake quote” on my site for at least 2 months now. I’ve not been with this family for about 15 years and tonight I found out that Mark died in September of 2000.

Don’t ask why it had been so long since I’ve spent time or communicated with this family. My friend and I were a couple of immature girls that had our disagreements. I graduated college in 1993 and left my hometown. I made other friends and moved on, though I have relived my memories with this family time and again. I’ve missed them often, all of them, for they all made lasting impressions on me that I’ve carried in my heart and soul every day of my life.

Even though I am hearing of this news late, it doesn’t feel that way to my heart. Her siblings became my siblings, her parents were my surrogate parents, and it is as if I have lost a brother. All I know of his death was that he went horseback riding and never came back. His father found him in a field. His sister told me that they have no idea what happened to him.

Be thankful for this day, for tomorrow is not promised to any of us.

That Slippery Slope

Wizbang has posted on a story that seems to confirm that by denying Terri Schiavo nourishment and hydration, we've entered into a new era of a 'death culture'. You know, the one where many, many people stated that if you did not protect the most defenseless, where does it stop? Exactly where is the line for whom to dehydrate to death and who gets to live?

In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.

Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.

In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.

Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.

Also upon Gaddy's request and without prior legal authority, since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer.

Her nephew, Ken Mullinax, told WorldNetDaily that although Magouirk is given morphine and ativan, she has not received any medication to keep her eyes lubricated during her forced dehydration.

"They haven't given her anything like that for two weeks," said Mullinax. "She can't produce tears."

The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax's son, Ken Mullinax.

Magouirk's husband and only child, a son, are both deceased.

In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice.

Magouirk lives alone in LaGrange, though because of glaucoma she relied on her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, to bring her food and do errands.

Two weeks ago, Magouirk's aorta had a dissection, and she was hospitalized in the local LaGrange Hospital. Her aortic problem was determined to be severe, and she was admitted to the intensive care unit. At the time of her admission she was lucid and had never been diagnosed with dementia.

Claiming that she held Magouirk's power of attorney, Gaddy had her transferred to Hospice-LaGrange, a 16-bed unit owned by the same family that owns the hospital. Once at the hospice, Gaddy stated that she did not want her grandmother fed or given water.

"Grandmama is old and I think it is time she went home to Jesus," Gaddy told Magouirk's brother and nephew, McLeod and Ken Mullinax. "She has glaucoma and now this heart problem, and who would want to live with disabilities like these?"

Did you catch all of that? This woman had a living will that is being violated. But most of all, look at the bolded statement by this 'granddaughter'. She thinks it's time for her grandmother to die because she is old. They're already aborting babies in England for cleft palates. Can anyone now deny what is happening? Terri Schiavo's death will linger with us for many, many years to come. The question is will we be able to pull our culture off of this ill-fated slippery slope?

Here's the local paper link.

Stranger than Fiction: $$ for Fingers

If this woman cut off someones finger to put in her chilli.....

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Investigators have acknowledged they've searched the home of the woman who said she found part of a finger in chili she bought at Wendy's.

San Jose police say they carried out the seach of the Las Vegas home of Anna Ayala with the help of local authorities. Detectives aren't saying what they were looking for.

Ayala says she was in a San Jose Wendy's restaurant on March 22nd when she spooned the fingertip into her mouth. She's filed a claim against the franchise owner.

Wendy's says it's done a thorough internal investigation, and the fingertip did not come from its ingredients. The employees at the restaurant were found to have all their fingers.

Meanwhile, Wendy's is now offering a 50-thousand dollar reward for information leading to the positive identification of the origin of the finger.

So how much do you think a finger costs on the blackmarket these days? Wendy's is willing to spend 50K to get their reputation straightened out - which, for them, is a bargain. I can't wait to see how this one plays out. I fear it will get much more strange by the time we're finished with this one.

Paid Protester Movie Clip from MTV

The other day I posted on MTV's PowerGirls where one of the characters, a model wannabe, was fooled into being a paid-protester.

...last night while watching episode 4 I was able to witness something that I've only heard about and read about play out before my eyes. One of the girls, Kelly, is a wannabe model/actress that goes to this modeling gig she's been booked for for months, stating that she was told it was a lingerie shoot for a new line. Well girlfriend gets there and it is not the type of photo shoot she was hoping for. It was an outright protest exhibition, and from what I could gather, for this group. So this Kelly chick is really upset because the media are there taking pictures of them holding these stupid signs; it even shows them being coached on what to chant.

I've heard of this kind of thing, but of course have never witnessed it in action. Oh, what a joy to see no other than MTV documenting this farce! How sweet it is...

Well ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to watch it with your own eyes. Note that she is not just a 'paid protester', but that she had absolutely no idea this was what she had signed on to. I report you decide.

Further research on 'paid protesters' turned up some interesting accounts:
The Beltway Buzz recently posted this tidbit:

“I was walking through the Dallas airport with some colleagues and one of them recognized two of the same protestors we had seen outside the event in Albuquerque. We had some extra time, so we decided to talk to them. They were very polite and explained to us they had just come from protesting an event nearby. One of them very quickly identified themselves as professional protestors.”
“Not that they just liked to protest, but that they actually got paid by liberal interest groups to travel the country protesting. Here they were, sitting in the airport TGI Friday’s having a burger and getting ready to travel to New Orleans for another protest. They were good kids and wanted to talk. We tried discussing some of the benefits of Social Security reform. They listened, but weren’t too interested. Not because they had opposing views, they just said they weren’t too educated on the details. They even admitted they didn’t know who it was they were going to protest in New Orleans.”

Then out of Seattle we have this story:

The investigation by the Seattle Police Department revealed that the nine defendants are members of a highly organized team of paid protesters who traveled to Seattle from various parts of the United States and Canada.

In charging papers, prosecutors allege that on February 19 five of the defendants unlawfully entered the Swinterton Company construction site by cutting through a chain link fence and climbing to the top of a 240-foot crane tower. The five blocked a crane operator from entering the control compartment at the top of the tower, and then unfurled a banner to protest logging practices. The defendants said that the construction firm was not the target of the protest.

And we would never want to leave out the "animal-rights" activists:

Sondag made a couple interesting observation about the protests at the conference. First, most of those who showed up to protest the conference weren’t all that interested in convincing through persuasion. "Ninety percent of what [the protesters said] had nothing to do with animal rights. They said filthy stuff, made remarks about people’s anatomy."
Second, many of the protesters apparently weren’t animal rights activists but paid protesters. Sondag said he found classified ads in the local newspaper offering to pay people $5/day to protest the AALAS.

Corn Rows

Case Study: Overwhelming government stupidity. Some people should pay for the oxygen they're depriving the rest of us.

WHO's Incompetence

Last October I posted on an unforgivable mismanagement of the AIDS epidemic in Africa by the World Health Organization (WHO). The problem was the use of counterfeit anti-AIDS drugs that only accomplished increasing the HIV resistance rate. Who formed WHO, you ask? The U.N. of course.

Well now the WHO has a new target of interest to keep the poverty and death rate going strong. AIDS is running rampant and up to 40% of children are dying from an out-of-control (but very preventable) Malarial epidemic, but the U.N. is now focusing its energy on evil baby formula.

With AIDS, the WHO got a black eye for placing 18 Indian-made rip-off medicines on its list of approved drugs. Those medicines turned out to be uncertified copies of the patented HIV drugs from which they were copied.

With malaria, the WHO has refused to encourage the use of DDT and other proven insecticides and has engaged in what a group of scientists, writing in The Lancet, called “medical malpractice” in its use of a poor regime of anti-malarial drugs.

A U.N. agency that was set up in 1948, the WHO, more and more, has come under the influence of radical health and environmental activists who push a bitterly anti-enterprise ideology.

Congress should insist that the WHO stick to the basics. Instead, having botched campaigns against the two worst epidemics in the world, the WHO, incredibly, is focusing its attention on the bottle-feeding of infants.

<..snip..>

In January, the WHO recommended the adoption of an extreme anti-bottle-feeding resolution at the 57th World Health Assembly — the WHO’s annual meeting, set for mid-May in Geneva. The immediate objective of the resolution is to force infant-formula packages to carry warning labels akin to those on cigarettes or liquor. The ultimate goal is to scare mothers into abandoning bottle-feeding.

There’s a deep irony here. The WHO wants to discourage the use of baby formula, whose efficacy and safety have been established over many decades — while at the same time, the WHO has been approving untested anti-AIDS drugs.

<..snip..>

There’s a correlation between high rates of infant-formula use and low rates of infant mortality. The reason is not that infant formula is better than breast milk, but that, as a country develops, infant health and nutrition improve, and the use of formula, at the same time, increases.

Nestle sells more infant formula in a healthy nation like Belgium than it does in all of Africa, which has 60 times Belgium’s population. The best way to boost good health in Africa is to boost African economies. And time-saving technologies like infant formula can help.

This means that Africans should be able to choose, and not to be scared or shamed into breast-feeding. Radicals and their supporters at the WHO, however, want to keep African women, in effect, barefoot, denying them the choice, as they modernize, of a healthy, convenient product.

After the UN runs all the baby formula out of Africe, just who exactly is suppose to breast-feed all of the orphans? Does this make sense to anyone? This is beyond insane.

Read here to find out how radical activists have kept the safe, lifesaving insecticide, DDT, out of use that is paramount to mass murder...Oh, I'm sorry - that's 'population control'. Go read it yourself...I'm not kidding.

Population control advocates blamed DDT for increasing third world population. In the 1960s, World Health Organization authorities believed there was no alternative to the overpopulation problem but to assure than up to 40 percent of the children in poor nations would die of malaria. As an official of the Agency for International Development stated, "Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing."

[Desowitz, RS. 1992. Malaria Capers, W.W. Norton & Company]

Your United Nations at work ladies and gentlemen. Those poor souls in Africa have not a chance in hell.

Battle of Moms

Stay At Home Mom talking with Working Mom:

WM: "So I'm gonna make some pasta tonight for dinner."

SAH Mom: "Store bought pasta?" [disfigures her face in a twisting motion]

WM: "Uhhh, yeah."

SAH Mom: "I can't believe you buy pasta! It is sooo easy to make. Really....I just use my own hands."

WM:

SAH Mom: "I would never let my kids eat that stuff. I guess you buy milk from the store too."

Jay's Hot

"That's hot!" is how Paris Hilton describes just about anything she likes. Okay, we won't go too far into that territory. The point here is Jay Reding is on a roll these past several days and if you haven't been reading his posts you are just missing the mark and some truly great writing. So, go on over and read and keep on reading. He was one of my first 'favorites' and has clearly maintained the title.

Paid Protesters

The other day I freely admitted to watching MTV's new show PowerGirls. Well last night while watching episode 4 I was able to witness something that I've only heard about and read about play out before my eyes. One of the girls, Kelly, is a wannabe model/actress that goes to this modeling gig she's been booked for for months, stating that she was told it was a lingerie shoot for a new line. Well girlfriend gets there and it is not the type of photo shoot she was hoping for. It was an outright protest exhibition, and from what I could gather, for this group. So this Kelly chick is really upset because the media are there taking pictures of them holding these stupid signs; it even shows them being coached on what to chant. A lady with a bullhorn says something like: "If you forget what to chant, just look on the back of someone's t-shirt and it is right there." There's some passionate people for ya.

I couldn't believe it, but there it was in front of me being documented by MTV no less! Not just paid protesters though, but unsuspecting paid protesters. She was quite upset that she had taken off from a real job to end up protesting something she knew nothing about.

Lilek's Rant

I don't read Lileks everyday as I know a lot of people do, but when I do read his bleat it is always funny and enjoyable. It is nice to read about a Dad's perspective. I've never run across a rant before now, and it is good. God bless him for his clarity.

One of his main targets in the rant is the vile Lewis Black, a regular contributor on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Lileks takes on Black's awful book cover and title, Nothing's Sacred. Go read the whole thing, for it is a worthy dressing down of one of the most anti-religious, obnoxious comedians - yes, I'm using that word loosely here - on T.V. or anywhere else.

Steyn Says It All on Schiavo

I have not written on Terri's death simply because, to me anyway, it should all be self-evident. I've been simply worn-out and tired - depressed to see a court ordered execution of a fellow, innocent citizen of the greatest country on Earth. Depressed to see fellow bloggers at each others throats. Some of my favorite sites now turn my stomache. Not because they took the opposite side of the issue, but because I wanted to err on the side of life I am now a religious fanatic. A zealot - a religious theocrat if you will.

Today, however, thanks to Michelle Malkin, I found this brilliant piece by Mark Steyn on said subject. It should be read top to bottom and the enormity of what has occurred should be thoughtfully absorbed into our consciousness:

Michael Schiavo’s lawyer, George Felos, is a leading light of the so-called ‘right-to-die’ movement, and his book, Litigation as Spiritual Practice, makes interesting reading. On page 240 Mr Felos writes, ‘The Jewish people, long ago in their collective consciousness, agreed to play the role of the lamb whose slaughter was necessary to shock humanity into a new moral consciousness. Their sacrifice saved humanity at the brink of extinction and propelled us into a new age.... If our minds can conceive of an uplifting Holocaust, can it be so difficult to look another way at the slights and injuries and abuses we perceive were inflicted upon us?’

Mr Felos feels it is now Terri Schiavo’s turn to ‘agree’ to play the role of the lamb whose slaughter is necessary to shock humanity into a new moral consciousness. As I read Felos’s words, I heard a radio bulletin announce that the Pope may now require a feeding tube. Fortunately for him, his life is ultimately in the hands of God and not a Florida probate judge.

I blogged earlier today on the Holocaust Memorial in Boston - On the train ride back to Providence I was looking out the window refecting on how I felt at the memorial and digesting the many quotes I had just read, and the enormous feeling of "the need" to fight for the lives of the unfortunate or the persecuted innocent came over me like a wave of water. Please read all of Steyn.

The article requires registration, as provided by Malkin this worked for me: bmn@dodgeit.com password: spectator

UPDATE: The Senescent Man brings my attention to this piece found in the WSJ that continues the theme of protecting helpless souls:

Granted, it is easiest to sense this mystery when gazing at the Sistine Chapel's ceiling or listening to Bach. But it should be evident--for Christians at least--even when everything glorious and prodigious in our nature has been stripped away and all that remains is frailty, brokenness and dependency, or when a person we love has been largely lost to us in the labyrinth of a damaged brain. Even among such ravages--for those with the eyes to see it--a terrible dignity still shines out.

I do not understand exactly why those who wanted Terri Schiavo to die had become so resolute in their purposes by the end. If she was as "vegetative" as they believed, what harm would it have done, I wonder, to surrender her to the charity (however fruitless) of her parents? Of this I am certain, though: Christians who understand their faith are obliged to believe that she was, to the last, a living soul. It is true that, in some real sense, it was her soul that those who loved her could no longer reach, but it was also her soul that they touched with their hands and spoke to and grieved over and adored. And this also means that it was a living soul that we as a society chose to abandon to starvation and thirst--which should, at the very least, give us cause to consider what else we may have abandoned along the way.(emphasis mine)

Boston

Spent the day yesterday kicking around Boston with a couple of girlfriends. What a great time! We shopped and ate and shopped and ate and then barely made our train to get home. It was fantastic. However, we did take a moment to appreciate the New England Holocaust Memorial.
You are first greeted by the famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemoeller(also, this link when clicked provides a chronology of the holocaust):

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.

And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Here's a black and white photo essay.

It is a powerful memorial that accurately depicts the enormity of the mass murder. Much more however, you are reminded how important it is to value and defend life. If you're ever in Boston, I highly recommend that you check it out.