Saturday, April 21, 2007

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Why Did The Shooter Do What He Did?

By John Hawkins

Friday, April 20, 2007

Townhal.com Article – John Hawkins

After we read about a serial killer or mass murderer, the first question people always ask is, "Why?" What set him off? Why did he kill all those innocent people? Unfortunately, no matter how many different ways you try to fill in the blanks, there's never going to be a satisfying answer.

Want to blame music or video games? Well, okay, how many people listened to those same songs or played those same games and didn't go on a murderous rampage? In almost every case, you're talking about millions of people. So, even when you do find someone like Sebastian Bosse, the crazed gunman in Germany who injured 37 and was known to be obsessed with "Counter-Strike," you have to think that he was attracted to the game because he was disturbed, not made disturbed by the game.

The same could be said of violent television shows and movies and probably will since it has been revealed that Cho Seung-Hui was apparently copying parts of a movie called Old Boy. But again, millions of people have probably seen that movie and it didn't produce a slew of murders. So, it's not the movie, it's the person.

What about the killer's rants against the rich? That's exactly the sort of thing you'd find at liberal websites like the Democratic Underground and Daily Kos, isn't it? Sure, but if hating the rich turned people into mass murderers, then there are 30 or 40 million liberals who would have already gone on killing sprees

Other people -- liberals again -- will point to guns as the cause of the crime. But, if guns cause crime, then they must malfunction 99.9% of the time because law abiding Americans with guns are very seldom dangers to their fellow citizens. That's because guns don't cause crime; they're just tools -- and they're particularly dangerous tools when a person like Cho Seung-Hui has one and his fellow citizens are banned from having weapons of their own. If you want a perfect example of how gun control puts decent people at the mercy of criminals, you really don't need to look any further than what happened at Va. Tech.

Well, if it wasn't video games, guns, violence put out by Hollywood, liberal morals, or guns, why did Cho Seung-Hui do what he did? It must be goth culture, Dungeons and Dragons, bullies, or something else like that. Right? Wrong. The world's full of goths, people who play D&D, and people who are bullied. How many of them snap and murder 32 of their classmates for no discernible reason?

Here's the thing: you're never going to get a satisfactory answer that explains why Cho Seung-Hui did what he did. How could you? What is the reasonable explanation for why a run-of-the-mill college student decided to walk into a building full of strangers, chain the doors shut, and then gun them down? There isn't one.

What you have here is a strange, seriously disturbed individual who frightened some of his fellow students and teachers with his writing and behavior. His behavior and his thinking were not normal and so you can't reason them out normally. Were he still alive, perhaps you could sit him down with a psychologist for a few months and tease some sort of twisted rationale out of him, but it wouldn't make sense -- not in the way that we want it to.

In a situation like this, we want to know the exact events that set the murderer off so we can stop people like Cho Seung-Hui before they kill again. But, in the spiderweb of a mass murderer's mind, you never know what sort of muddled thinking and bizarre associations may be present.Seung-Hui could have been upset because he fantasized about a girl and she didn't give him the time of day, because of bad grades, or even because of a misinterpreted remark that the average person wouldn't have thought about for two seconds. On the other hand, despite all of his planning, if Seung-Hui had a happier week, he may have never gone through with his plans to murder those students.

The reality is that we're never going to really understand the "why" behind Seung-Hui's actions any more than we truly understand why Klebold and Harris murdered kids at Columbine, Ed Gein had a necklace made out of human lips, or why Ted Bundy eventually chose to rape and murder his way across the country.

You can chalk it up to evil. Psychologists and profilers can study these cases to see what they can learn, but don't expect it to really ever make sense because there's not going to be a rational, logical explanation behind it.

Pelosi and Reid… Surrender?

(Little Green Footballs props)

Well, Pelosi and others who went to the Middle-East and even met with the Muslim Brotherhood failed miserably, again.

In his weekly sermon, the general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Muhammad Mahdi ‘Akef, called for attacks in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

He said that the U.S.’s plan was based on imposed rule according to a unilateral view characterized by extremism without taking into account the simplest principles of the unique faith, culture, and society of other peoples.

Akef called for directing the energy of the resistance, with all the means at its disposal, towards the real enemy of the nation, the occupying, murdering, torturing, and plundering enemy of all good things, the enemy concealed in Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Kabul, the enemy who thinks itself the only human race with the right to live, even at the expense of abandoning the others.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Democrat Defeatism

Mona Charen can add a chapter to her book Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First just on this Iraq war alone! I will recommend two books for those who are history buffs.

  1. Vietnam: The Necessary War;
  2. and, Why We Were In Vietnam.

Harry Reis is not up on his history: the release of communiqués from the Viet Cong, nor does he understands how the Cold War was won.

A Patriotic Musical Interlude

(Thanks Hot Air)

33 Stones?


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Besides all the crazy Mason’s seeing a connection, I am at a loss of words for why there would be 33-stones. That would mean the school placed a stone for Cho, the killer. This wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because I am sure in our politically-correct/victim mentality… placing a stone for a psychotic murderer shouldn’t really surprise us.

I mean Cho was a victim too. Right?



Va. Tech Gunman's Family Feel Hopeless

Las Vegas Sun – AP Story

Meanwhile, at Virginia Tech, hundreds of somber students and area residents, most wearing the school's maroon and orange, stood with heads bowed at a memorial on the Drillfield in front of Norris Hall, where most of the victims in Monday's massacre died. Along with the bouquets and candles was a yellow sign covered in maroon and orange handprints, bearing the words "Never forgotten."

"It's good to feel the love of people around you," said Alice Lo, an alumna and friend of Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor killed in the rampage. "With this evil, there is still goodness."

The mourners gathered in front of simple stone memorials, each adorned with a basket of tulips and an American flag. There were 33 stones - one for each victim and Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old gunman who took their lives.

High-Brid Nation – “Sharpton you’re a Phony. I’ve got a hundred reasons why.”

(A Reader Turned Me On To This Blog)

I suggest you guys go read this honest expression of thought and fact on the Sharpton hypocrisy that was most recently brought out by Imus.

Democrats Blame Republicans for, Well, Everything!

(Hot Air Props)

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I couldn’t imagine having a President like Biden… he’s nuts. This shows an almost psychotic yield to politics and a conspiratorial belief. Rove is involved in everything that happens in Washington. The government was involved in 9/11. Whatever this metastasis is it shows that the democratic base is unhinged.

Speaking at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network event in New York, Biden said President Bush, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove are responsible for what he called “the politics of polarization.”

Biden said Republicans have created an environment that brings bad things to the United States.

“I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what’s gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn’t happen accidentally, all these things,” he said.

Hot Air Blog

Being a comparative religious man, I could almost interpret this as a New Age quote, almost Kucinich like. If you compare the two parties, Democrats and Republicans, the New Age movement is much more prominent in the Democrat party. This has some consequences for both the poli-sci guy as well as the person who studies eschatology. Most New Agers believe that they are God, or divine, I will give just one example from a book Whole Foods sells and is the number best seller:

Byrne's book (The Secret) centers on her teaching that every object and mind in the universe operates at a certain frequency. Tune your mind to the object you desire, and it will be attracted to you. Why? Because you are the center of the universe. "You are God in a physical body," she writes. "You are spirit in the flesh. You are Eternal Life expressing itself as You. You are a cosmic being. You are all power. You are all wisdom. You are all intelligence. You are perfection. You are magnificence."

New Agers also believe that if everyone “visualized” peace all at once, it will happen. So I almost see that Biden is sensing a “bad karma” coming from Republicans and affecting even weather. At any rate, we can see (below) that conspiracies run rampant in the Democratic Party.

Best of the Web Today brings to our attention a new Pew poll done for the Council on Foreign Relations. Among the interesting findings of this poll are these:

51% of Democrats say that US "wrongdoing" might have motivated the 9/11 attacks…. In contrast, only 17% of Republicans in the poll are this amazingly stupid.

These are the people who buy-into the whole MoveOn.org, Left-wing, Koolaid-swilling nonsense… the… Bushitler/Blood4Oil/Bushlied (hattip to JawaReport). Another survey (says) done was the Scripps Howard/Ohio University, this poll found that a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East…. The poll [also] found that [m]embers of racial and ethnic minorities, people with only a high school education and Democrats were especially likely to suspect federal involvement in 9/11.

Religio-Political Blog

Ethnic minorities, high school diploma workers (grocery stores, line workers… union jobs) are mainly democrats, which is why “and Democrats” is a repeating of the first two groups. Morons I say!

Agree or Not?

Quoting History Series

I want to highlight a case that has, well, institutionalized the “post-modern” society. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1996), the 9th District Appeals Court wrote:

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State."

In other words, whatever you believe is your origin, and thus your designating meaning on both your life and body is your business, no one else’s. If you believe that the child growing in you – no matter at what stage (Doe v. Bolton) – isn’t a child unless you designate it so. You alone can choose to or not choose to designate life to that “fetus”. It isn’t a “potential person” until you say it is first a person. Understand? That being clarified, do you agree with this general statement:

“If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own reality…”

Sounds really close to the 9th Courts majority view doesn’t it. The above is basically saying that your opinion is just as valid as another persons opinion because both are your’s and the other persons perspective on something is formed from influences from your culture and experiences. So someone from New Guiney may have a differing view or opinion on eating dogs than an American.

Let’s compare a portion from both statements:

  1. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life…”
  2. “…the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own reality…”

Whether you’re an atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian or Muslim, it doesn’t matter. Your reality is just that… your reality, or opinion, or personal dogma. I want to now complete one of the quotes that I left somewhat edited, not only that, but I want to ask you if you still agree with it after you find out who wrote it.

Ready?

“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”

Mussolini, Diuturna pp. 374-77, quoted in A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (Ignatius Press; 1999), by Peter Kreeft, p. 18.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Can God Make a Rock So Big that He Cannot Lift It?

“The atheist can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman.”

(from an old debate)


These kinds of arguments are clearly illogical and even silly, although they are commonly used by inexperienced atheists. Most intelligent atheists have dropped these kinds of arguments long ago.


From: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/rock.html

The following will explain why many experienced atheists have given up this argument. Richard Swinburn in his book, The Coherence of Theism, explains why such thinking is illogical (pp. 153-154):

… A person is omnipotent if and only if he is able to do any logically possible action, any action, that is, of which the description is coherent. It may be objected that in order to be truly omnipotent, a person should be able to do not merely the logically possible, but the logically impossible as well. This objection is, however, misguided. It arises from regarding a logically impossible action as an action of one of one kind on a par with an action of another kind, the logically possible. But it is not. A logically impossible action is not an action. It is what is described by a form of words which purport to describe an action, but do not describe anything which is coherent to suppose could be done. It is no objection to A’s omnipotence that he cannot make a square circle. This is because “making a square circle” does not describe anything which it is coherent to suppose could be done.


A proper understanding of omnipotence has been known and defined for quite some time; the way it is used by the skeptics here in this thread is the misdefining of a well-defined concept. For instance, in the Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion, omnipotence is defined as: “The quality of being all-powerful, normally understood as the power to perform any action that is logically possible and consistent with God’s essential nature.”


Even Thomas Aquinas saw this o’ so long ago:

This point was recognized by Aquinas. He wrote that “it is incompatible with the meaning of the absolutely possible that anything involving the contradiction of simultaneous being and not being should fall under divine omnipotence. Such a contradiction is not subject to it, not from any impotence in God, but simply because it does not have the nature of being feasible or possible. Whatever does not involve a contradiction is in the realm of the possible with respect to which God is called omnipotent.”


Summa Theologiae, vol. v. (Thomas Gilby trans.), Ia.25.3


You (the person I was debating) are again making a category mistake, this is a real “logical fallacy,” or, mistake! When you ask who made God – or, does God need a beginning, it is akin to asking, “how does the color green taste.” Your other comments about change and the like is akin to the following mock conversation, don’t get me wrong… I enjoyed your last few queries… why? Because you are asking questions while assuming the thing said is true, e.g., God’s unlimited power (you are assuming what you are refuting – in other words). A true skeptic sheds even skepticism at times and puts on the alternative view and seeks answers and criticisms from within:


One day, while I (SeanG) am having lunch with some student friends, tom decides to sit at the table and say, “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”


You answer, “No prob.”


Tom then asks you, “Didn’t Jesus say in Matthew 19:26, ‘With God all things are possible?”


I answer, “Yes.”


Tom continues, “Do you believe that God is all-powerful and can do all things?”


Again I answer, “Yes.”


Now Tom thinks his moment is about to unfold, so with a sarcastic grin he asks, “Okay, can God create a rock so big that He cannot lift it?”


continued…

I ponder the question for a moment, thinking to myself, If I say yes, I’ll be admitting that God is powerful enough to create the rock but not powerful enough to move it! However, if I say no, I’ll be admitting that God is not all-powerful, because He cannot create a rock of that magnitude. It seems that either answer will force you to violate the law-of-noncontradiction and contradict your view of God, defined as an all-powerful Being. It also seems as if Tom is using first principles to discredit you and your view of God. It is true that Tom is speaking correctly about God’s power, but is he using first principles correctly?


Before we examine Tom’s questions, remember that now is not the time to appeal to ignorance and tell Tom that he is trying to use human reason and that there are some things we just cannot understand about God. Nor should you say that somehow God is exempt from such a question. Instead, I must focus in on this question and think of a principle question to ask him (Socratic method) that moves the conversation from unstable emotional ground to firm conceptual territory.


Let’s think about Tom’s question and apply the law-of-noncontradiction. Tom wants God to create a rock so big that He cannot lift it. What is Tom really asking God to do? In order to find out, we need to define and clarify the use of Tom’s words. The first question that comes to mind is, “How big of a rock does Tom want God to create?” Well, Tom wants God to create a rock so big that it would be impossible for Him to move it. Now, how big would a rock have to be in order for God not to be able to move it? What is the biggest physical entity that exists? Of the course, the biggest physical entity is the universe, and no matter how much the universe expands it will remain limited, finite physical reality – a reality that God can “lift.” even if God created a rock the size of an ever-expanding universe, God could still lift or control it. The only logical option is for God to create something that exceeds His power to lift or control. But since God’s power is infinite, He would have to create a rock of infinite proportions! This is the key: Tom wants God to create a rock, and a rock is a physical, finite thing. How can God create an object that is finite by nature – and give it an infinite size? There is something terribly wrong with Tom’s question. So let’s apply the correct use of the law-of-noncontradiction to analyze it.


It is logically and actually impossible to create a physically finite thing and have it be infinitely big! By definition, an infinite, uncreated thing has no limits, and a finite, created thing does. Consequently, Tom has just asked if God can create an infinitely finite rock, that is, a rock that has limits and, at the same time and in the same sense, does not have limits. This question, then, violates the law-of-contradiction and turns out to be utter nonsense. Tom thought he was asking an important question, one that would put the Christian on the horns of a dilemma. Instead, he only managed to show his own inability to think clearly.


Now that we have a clear understanding of Tom’s question, it’s simply a matter of formulating a principle question to ask him in order to reveal his error. How about this one: “Tom, how big do you want God to create that rock? If you tell me how big, I’ll tell you if He can do it.” I can keep asking Tom that question until it reaches the size of the universe and eventually introduce the idea of infinity. Once Tom reaches the point where he begins to see what he is really asking God to do, to create an infinite rock, he needs to be shown that he is asking God to do something that is logically irrelevant and impossible. God could no more create an infinitely finite rock than He could create a square circle: both are examples of intrinsic impossibilities. Commenting on intrinsic impossibility and an all-powerful God, C. S. Lewis said:


“It [the intrinsically impossible] is impossible under all conditions and in all worlds and for all agents. ‘All agents’ here includes God Himself. His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to him, but not nonsense.” (The Problem of Pain, p. 28)


Not every question being asked is automatically meaningful just because it is a question. The question may sound meaningful, but we (anyone here, but especially the believer) must be sure to test it with first principles to see whether it is valid in the first place. The key is to not respond too quickly to questions; a person may wind up trying to find cogent answers to a question that has no logical relevance. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College (my favorite Catholic philosopher) says on the matter, “There is nothing more pointless than an answer to a question that is not fully understood” (Making Sense Out of Suffering, p. 27)



(The above was taken somewhat from the book, Unshakeable Foundations: Contemporary Answers to Crucial Questions About the Christian Faith, by Geisler & Bocchino.)


…. Could God think of a time when He was not omnipotent? If He can't think of it, He isn't omnipotent, but if He does think of it then there was a time when He wasn't omnipotent? This question is quite similar to the rock question above. The answer, of course, is that God can never think of a time when He wasn't omnipotent. God has always been omnipotent. His inability to contradict His divine character does not mean that He isn't omnipotent.


Conclusions
The atheist distorts the biblical definition of omnipotence in order to "prove" that God cannot exist. Contrary to their claims, omnipotence does not include the ability to do things that are, by definition, impossible. [This is a straw-man argument!] Neither does omnipotence include the ability to fail. By defining omnipotence as requiring one to have the ability to fail, atheists have defined omnipotence as being impossible. Of course, an omnipotent God would never fail.


These kinds of arguments are clearly illogical and even silly, although they are commonly used by inexperienced atheists. Most intelligent atheists have dropped these kinds of arguments long ago.


From: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/rock.html


Here is another look at the same problem:


IF GOD HAS NO LIMITS, THEN HE MUST BE BOTH GOOD AND EVIL, EXISTENCE AND NONEXISTENCE, STRONG AND WEAK


When we say God is unlimited, we mean that He is unlimited in His perfections. Now evil is not a perfection; it is an imperfection. The same is true of nonexistence, weakness, ignorance, finitude, temporality, and any other characteristic that implies limitation or imperfection. We might say that God is “limited” in that He can’t enter into limitations, like time, space, weakness, evil – at least not as God. He is only “limited” by His unlimited perfection.



Norman Geisler & Ron Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, p. 31.


And finally, I think Keith Ward in his recent book, God: A Guide for the Perplexed, adds the finishing understanding to this topic.


The real problem, however, comes from our thinking that God must be able to do anything we can think of or imagine. Because we, ignorant as we are, can imagine lots of things which are really quite impossible. For example, we can imagine going back in time to kill our grandparents before they had any children – you can even see films in which such things happen. Yet we can see that such a thing is obviously impossible, since without our grandparents we would not exist, so we could not kill them. We think we can imagine finding a square equal in area to a given circle – but mathematicians can prove that is logically impossible. We think we can imagine the force of gravity being just a little stronger than it actually is [throughout the universe, that is] – but physicists can tell us that, if it were, then electrons would collapse into the nuclei of atoms, there would be no atoms, and so there would be no organized universe at all…. Our imaginations are a poor guide to what is really possible, because we have absolutely no idea of what sorts of things can really exist, or of what might be necessary or optional for God. So I think we just have to say that God is powerful enough to create the universe…. and that is as much as we have a right to expect from omnipotence.


Remember, all my believing brother and sisters out there, saying that God created the universe is not an argument from ignorance or the “God-of-the-gaps” argument, it is inferred from the evidence. I suggest you read The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel’s newest book.

Victor Davis Hanson Takes On IMUS’ Debacle


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Imus, Nifong Meet Their Match in God Nemesis
By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Victor Davis Hanson on IMUS

In the past week, Don Imus was fired, all charges against the Duke University lacrosse players were dropped, and almost everyone has offered a sermon about the racial and class issues involved in both cases. But we need look only to the Ancient Greeks for the best insight.

The Greeks believed that insolence naturally leads to bullying, or hubris. This arrogance induces a mad behavior called ate . Finally, that recklessness earns well-earned destruction unleashed by the god Nemesis.

In other words, what goes around comes around - big time.

No one gets a pass, according to the Greeks. Just ask the arrogant Oedipus, who ultimately stabbed his own eyes out.

For years, talk-show host Imus trashed people, sometimes with racist and anti-Semitic banter. And not only did he get away with playing the foul mouth, but he was often courted by the powerful for his supposedly influential audience and the notion that it was hip to rap with him.

All the attention only swelled Imus' head. And his excess led him to a kind of madness. How else to characterize the mind of someone who labels the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos"?

Apparently, the unhinged Imus thought that adopting such racist, sexist slurs used by those in the "gangsta" culture - "hos" is a favorite term of some African-American rappers and comedians - was also cool for a white shock-jock.

Imus also foolishly assumed that the parade of liberal politicians and friends who clamored to get on his show might offer him politically correct cover.

Wrong again. Something called "race, class and gender" studies in our universities has long preached otherwise: Only those not white, heterosexual and male have an unspoken pass to use jocular slurs that their "oppressors" better not copy.

Lesbians on motorcycles carry placards blaring "Dykes on Bikes." Homosexuals hype "queer studies." Yet for outsiders to dub someone a "queer" or a "dyke" - or a "ho" - even as a bad joke is deemed automatically proof of their prejudice.

Imus, for all his pseudo-sophistication about the contemporary scene, apparently did not grasp this hypocrisy of American popular culture. So he thought he could piggyback on such vile language - and as a hip white celeb get away with it.

Then he met Nemesis, long lying in wait. And the more America learned about the past rantings of this talk-show bully, the more it wondered why such a banal fool ever had an audience in the first place, much less was courted by politicians and celebrities.

The same ancient pattern of arrogance and retribution appears in the case of the Duke lacrosse team. Three Duke players were unjustly accused of rape and sexual offense by an African-American stripper. Local district attorney Mike Nifong, some of the Duke humanities faculty, the Duke University president, and the ubiquitous race hustlers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton all swarmed on a perfect scandal for political advantage and self-promoting sermonizing.

After all, beer-drinking, rich white lacrosse athletes were supposedly brutalizing a poor woman of color, forced by her poverty to submit to them sexually.

Despite no evidence, the accused students were charged with felonies. The coach is long gone, and the entire team was disbanded for the year.

The academic mob added its own rush-to-judgment easy condemnations. Then Nifong won re-election as a populist crusader against supposedly racist preppie sex-offenders. Seemingly ignoring evidence that the victim was making the charges up, this lynch mob went headlong into mad excess.

Then, wham, Nemesis hit them, too.

Now these false accusers are getting their long-awaited due. The past anti-Semitism of Jackson ("hymietown") and Sharpton ("diamond merchants") is finally being broadcast nightly. Both preachers scramble to get on TV - only to be cross-examined as never before as they try in vain to explain away their own past bigoted slurs.

Meanwhile, Duke University, its president, and many of the liberal arts faculty - the latter in public statements and letters repeatedly tried and convicted those wrongly accused on rumor and false evidence - appear not just as opportunists, but mean-spirited ones at that.

Nifong now faces possible disbarment and civil suits. What saves the stripper who concocted all this from the fate of Scooter Libby is that her stories are so preposterous that so far she is thought to be a delusional victim rather than a perjurer deserving of a prison sentence.

At the heart of both the Imus and Duke scandals is arrogance. Overweening conceit inevitably led bigheads like Imus, Nifong, Sharpton, Jackson and many at Duke University to go one step too far - and thus at last earn their just deserts.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

USMC Silent Drill Team

Thanks Little Green Footballs

Tammy Bruce on Censorship!

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Partial Birth Abortion Ban Upheld


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A big push for states rights! Right on!


Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure

Apr 18 10:18 AM US/Eastern

By MARK SHERMAN

Associated Press Writer

AP Article Links; as well as Breitbart.com

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how—not whether—to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Tuesday's ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.


What Is Partial Birth Abortion?


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sixth months of pregnancy, but it can be performed as late as the moment of birth. Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grasps an unborn baby's legs with a forceps and pulls the struggling victim out of its mother. When all of the baby's body but the head is exposed, a scissors perforates the base of the skull and an aspirator is inserted to suck out the living brains. (The illustration, showing the scissors being used after the forced breech birth, is taken from a training manual prepared by an Ohio abortionist. The baby is five or six months old.)

If the mother accidentally pushed, and that baby came out the rest of the way, it would now be considered human and the doctor would be required by law to save that child’s life with all the power a hospital could muster. You see how silly the designation is? Three inches makes a “fetus” a human!

VIDEO - VIDEO - VIDEO

Abortion Discussed in Philosophical, logical, and Theological Terms