A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Sudanese student today defended the British teacher accused of insulting Islam saying he had chosen to call a teddy bear Mohammad because it was his own name.

Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teacher, was arrested on Sunday after complaints that she had insulted Islam's Prophet by allowing the bear to be named Mohammad.

She is facing a third night in jail without being formally charged.

The boy said: "The teacher asked me what I wanted to call the teddy. I said Mohammad. I named it after my name."

He said he was not thinking of Islam's Prophet when asked to suggest a name, adding most of the class agreed with his choice.

Described as “timid and polite,” Ms Gibbons - facing 40 lashes for the 'offence' - had told friends how she was loving her life in the country.

The teacher, from Liverpool, let her class of seven-year-olds choose the teddy’s name as part of a project at Unity High School.

She was said to be “deeply distressed” in a police cell last night after learning she faces the barbaric lashing under the Muslim state’s strict sharia law.

Former colleague Gill Langworthy said today: “I saw her in July and had farewell drinks and she was so excited about going.

“Since then we have been in email contact at least once a week.

“Last week she sent one with pictures of her sitting on a camel and a beach, loving it, she felt so welcomed and loved teaching the children.”

Miss Langworthy, who taught with Ms Gibbons at Garston Primary School in Liverpool, said teaching abroad had always been her friend’s dream.

But she fears for her safety and thinks the experience will have damaged her deeply.

She said: “I am constantly worried, and thinking about her sitting in the prison cell is horrible.

“When we emailed, she never mentioned a thing about any problems and only said positive things about the staff and children because I asked her.

“She was just having a great time and said nothing negative at all.”

Miss Langworthy, an assistant headteacher, said her friend had endured a tough few years with the end of her marriage and several bereavements.

She said: “She will be absolutely petrified about her children John and Jessica and how they are coping and what they are thinking. She’ll be more worried about them.

“But obviously, she will be scared for her own safety.”

Police seized the 12in brown teddy complete with its handwritten name badge, describing it as “evidence”.

An angry group of young men was said to have gathered outside the police station where mum-of-two Gillian is being held to protest about her conduct.

The teacher – formerly deputy head of Liverpool’s Dovecot primary school – began a two-year posting in Khartoum two months ago.

Complaint

Miss Langworthy explained that Ms Gibbons had always wanted to see the world: “It was always a dream of hers.

"Gillian is such a traveller and wanted to increase her knowledge of different cultures and countries and every year would go on mad explorations.

“She always said she fancied teaching abroad.

“She was just fascinated by Sudan and wanted to learn more about their culture and experience life there - which is just Gillian down to a T.

“I think this will knock her confidence horrendously. I am really worried about how it will affect her."

Miss Langworthy said her “inspirational teacher” friend would be “devastated that she has insulted and offended anyone” with “an innocent mistake”.

She was arrested at her home on the school site even though no parents objected to the bear’s name.

It is thought another teacher, said to belong to a conservative Khartoum family, made a complaint.

An item on the Sudanese Media Centre website – closely linked to the nation’s government – reported Gillian could be prosecuted under “faith and religions” legislation.

The teacher, who is estranged from her husband Peter, could also face imprisonment or a large fine.

Her case is being monitored by the British embassy in the city.

A spokesman said: “The children chose the name because it is very common here. Parents did not have a problem with it. We are in contact with the authorities here and they have visited her. She is in good condition.”

The school was set up by Christian groups but also welcomes Muslim pupils. Director Robert Boulos said Gillian “is timid, polite and the children love her”.

The teacher’s former next-door neighbour in Liverpool said she would be going through hell.

Peter Sorensen, 64, added: “Gillian wouldn’t harm a fly. I’m sure she would never have done anything deliberately to insult the Muslim faith.”

Gillian is a keen traveller and is pictured on her MySpace web page with a cheetah and locals during a trip to Kenya. She told pals she hoped to use Sudan as a base to “indulge my wanderlust”.

Her children Jessica, 27, and John, 25, would not comment last night. A relative said: “They do not want to aggravate the situation.”

From The Daily Mail:

A North Korean factory boss accused of making international phone calls was executed by a firing squad in front of 150,000 people, it emerged today.

The manager was gunned down in a sports stadium in South Pyongan province after authorities claimed he'd installed 13 in a basement to reach the outside world, the Good Friends aid agency revealed.

And six people were also crushed to death and 34 others injured in an apparent stampede as they left after the execution, it was claimed.

The factory chief's death last month came as executions in the communist dictatorship began increasing after a seven-year decline in the number of people publicly killed.

North Korea had faced a barrage of international criticism over claims it has executed many innocent people.

Its citizens are banned from communicating with the outside world, part of the regime's authoritarian policies seeking to prevent any challenge to the iron-fisted rule of Kim Jong Il.



The North has carried out four other similar public executions by firing squad against regional officials and heads of factories in recent months, Good Friends revealed.

"It is aimed at educating (North Koreans) to control society and prevent crimes," the group's head Venerable Pomnyun said in a press conference.

Good Friends gave no exact figures of the public executions this year, although the group has a good reputation as previous reports of what was happening in the country have later been confirmed.

Its report came a week after a UN General Assembly committee adopted a draft resolution expressing "very serious concern" at reports of widespread human rights violations in North Korea, including public executions.

The resolution, co-sponsored by more than 50 countries including the United States and many other Western nations, was sent to the 192-member General Assembly for a final vote.

The North has condemned the draft, saying it was inaccurate and biased.

The communist country insists it does not violate human rights, but it has long been accused of imposing the death penalty for political reasons, holding thousands in prison camps, torturing border-crossers and severely restricting freedom of expression and religion.

From the UK's Daily Mail

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Scroll down for more...
Toni Vernelli

Desperate measures: Toni Vernelli was steralised at age 27 to reduce her carbon footprint

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible "mistake" of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.

He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - "relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.

Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".



Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.

While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.

Continue reading this article here.

Check out the videos made for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama here.

Also, here's an article about the videos from Newsweek, featuring some reactions from a couple of vacuous asswipes that didn't realize it was a joke.

Dennis Kucinich might be one the most supremely frightening individuals on Earth, much less among the contendors for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 Presidential election. His policy proposals range from unrealistic to criminally irresponsible, and his gnomish good looks conjure images of a bastard love-child between Vladimir Lenin and Zelda Rubinstein (the chunky medium from Poltergeist).

That being said, you just have to love the guy. First of all, he is a recalcitrant Communist. While his colleagues in the American Left retreat from words like "liberal" and "redistribution," he happily embraces them in his own unique heart-warming, carefree woodland creature kind of way. If you caught any of the debates, his mainstay for reform in almost every arena is "take out the profit motive." Brilliant.

Being a curious type of guy, I often wondered what Representative Kucinich got up to when he wasn't making hats out of tinfoil and worrying about his Lucky Charms. As it turns out, he spends a great deal of time with Shirley McClaine:

For those who were wondering, Rep. Dennis Kucinich confirmed at Tuesday night's debate that yes, he has, in fact, seen an unidentified flying object.

"Shirley MacLaine writes in her new book that you sighted a UFO over her home in Washington state," Russert said, "that you found the encounter extremely moving, that it was a triangular craft, silent and hovering, that you "felt a connection to your heart and heard directions in your mind."

Kucinich said yes, all of that was true.



And he defended it as a solid policy position. More Americans have seen UFO's, Kucinich quipped, than approve of Bush's presidency. He deadpanned that he plans to open campaign offices in Roswell, New Mexico.

Perhaps more than anyone else in the current political arena, I'd love to have a beer with this dude, or since he probably doesn't drink beer (on account of evil, profit driven breweries and their oppressive labor practices) maybe some yerba mate' tea or something, and just get to know how this little man's brain works. I imagine it's like the the Keebler Elves' cookie factory, only there are propaganda posters on the wall and they're all wearing dull, gray uniforms.

After a long hiatus, and a minor overhaul, The Salt Makers is back in working order. I hope any and all who would like to post topics for discussion will do so by simply clicking the 'email' link in the header.

As always, any subject is open for discussion, any questions, and statements are welcomed and will be answered swiftly and (we can hope) with a moderate amount of respect.

As always, if you wish to become a regular contributor, a simple request to that effect will exact for you access to the blogger account and unfettered ability to post anything at anytime.

I also invite any and all to email with comments about the new look, suggestions for possible improvements, or for a new topic for the opinion poll.

Two Teens Held In Gang-Rape Of Mother, Torture Of Son

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Two teenagers have been arrested on charges that they gang-raped a mother and forced her to have sex with her 12-year-old son.

Authorities said 14-year-old Avion Lawson and 16-year-old Nathan Walker are being charged as adults with armed sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, sexual performance by a child, armed home invasion and aggravated battery.

Lawson was arrested Tuesday after police said they matched DNA evidence found on a condom in the victim's home to the teen.

Walker was taken into custody Thursday after police said they found the teen's left palm print inside the victim's apartment.

Both teens are being held in the Palm Beach County Jail without bail.

Authorities said the boys were among a group of about 10 suspects who forced their way into the woman's Dunbar Village home on the night of June 18.

According to police reports, a young man tricked the victim into opening the door of her home after he told her that the tires on his vehicle were flat.

Police said the woman and her son were then ambushed by three masked teens carrying weapons, who pushed the two back into the home.

Investigators said seven other teens entered the home and demanded money while separating the two victims into different bedrooms.

According to police reports, the mother was then raped and beaten by all 10 teens.

Police said the victim's preteen son had a plate smashed over his head and numerous household liquids poured into his eyes. Investigators said the boy was also forced at gunpoint to participate in the sexual assault.

The invaders eventually fled the scene after more than 20 minutes inside of the victim's home, police told WPBF-TV.

Following the attack, police said the woman and her son walked a mile to the hospital.

Police told WPBF-TV they are still searching for as many as eight more invaders in the case, all of whom they said they believe to be between 14 and 18 years old.

From The UK Sun

A pair of gay flamingos have finally become proud foster parents after taking an abandoned chick under their wings.

Carlos and Fernando had been so desperate to have chicks that they had resorted to stealing eggs to fulfil their unlikely dream of a starting a family at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.

But their egg-sitting and hatching skills impressed staff so much that when one of the Greater Flamingo nests was abandoned last week, they were considered the number one choice to "adopt" the chick.

The unhatched egg was whisked off to an incubator where it was warmed up and monitored.

Hours later a healthy chick hatched, but staff were concerned the flamboyant duo would not bond with the newborn because the process normally begins when the chicks are "calling" them from inside the egg.

So the chick was carefully placed in an old eggshell, which was taped up and returned to the unsuspecting couple's empty nest.

The pair were soon seen 'talking' to the chick inside the egg and a little while later it hatched for a second time - to be greeted by its loving new foster parents.



WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn said: "Fernando and Carlos are a same sex couple who have been known to steal other Flamingos' eggs by chasing them off their nest because they wanted to rear them themselves.

"They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents."

The pair, who have been together for about six years, can feed their chick without any female help - by producing milk in their throat.

The chick, who is being brought up in a "creche" with 15 other newborns, has been welcomed into the flock, under the watchful eye of its new parents.

Gay flamingos are not particularly rare and enjoy an elevated status with their choice of partner.

"If there aren't enough females or they don't hit it off with them, they will pair off with other males," Ms Waghorn said.

The pair are Greater Flamingos, the most widely dispersed of the six flamingo species, being found in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. The average lifespan is about 30 years.

This excerpt appeared in a student-run humor magazine at Cambridge University. Needless to say, despite the jokes poking fun at Christianity, Buddhism, Americans, the French and Hillary Clinton, it was only the Cambridge Muslim Association that has demanded (and received) a groveling apology from the author.

Click here to read the story about the woman in Boston, MA that's suing Planned Parenthood for improperly destroying the baby she was carrying.

Scroll down to read the story about the woman that's being tried for terminating her own pregnancy with ulcer medication.

Woman will not face murder charge for inducing miscarriage

SALEM, Mass. A Lawrence teen-ager authorities say took anti-ulcer pills to induce an abortion will not face murder charges.

Eighteen-year-old Amber Abreu was indicted by an Essex County Grand Jury on a charge of procuring a miscarriage.

Prosecutors had considered a more serious charge of murder after Abreu prematurely delivered a baby girl weighing just one-and-a-quarter pounds in January. The infant died four days later.

Abortion is illegal in Massachusetts after the 24th week of pregnancy and the state medical examiner determined that the baby was about 25 weeks at birth.

The teen allegedly admitted to investigators that she had taken misoprostol in an attempt to induce a miscarriage, an abortion method common in some Latin American countries. Abreu is originally from the Dominican Republic.

This tragic love story reminds me of another recent tale from Germany.  A woman had lost her job and began receiving unemployment.  After a few months, the unemployment office offered her a job, and she refused.  So, they cut her off.  Legitimate, right?  Except that job was to be a prostitute. 

These assholes just can't get it right.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/newsviews.cgi/Islam/Europe_Shariatized_.html?seemore=y

Europe Shariatized: Wife-Beating Legitimized by German Court

The husband routinely beat his 26-year-old German-born wife, mother of their two young children, and threatened to kill her when the court ordered him to move out of their apartment in Hamburg. The police were called repeatedly to intervene. The wife wanted a quick divorce—without waiting a year after separation, as mandated by German law—arguing that that the abuse and death threats she suffered easily fulfilled the "hardship" criteria required for an accelerated decree absolute. The judge—a woman by the name of Christa Datz-Winter—refused, however, arguing that the Kuran allows the husband to beat his wife and that the couple's Moroccan origin must be taken into account in the case.

---

They both come from a cultural milieu, Her Honor wrote, in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives—and the Kuran sanctions such treatment. "The [husband's] exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship criteria as defined by Paragraph 1565" of German federal law, the judge's letter said. [emphasis added] The judge further suggested that the wife's Western lifestyle would give her husband grounds to claim his honor had been compromised.

The reports in German and English do not state this, but Turkish papers have reported that the judge made specific reference to Sura 4, which contains the infamous Verse 34:

Men have the authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.

The wife's lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, could not believe her eyes: a German judge was invoking Kuran in a German legal case to assert the husband's "right to castigate" his wife. The meaning was clear: "the husband can beat his wife," Becker-Rojczyk commented. She decided to go public with the case last Tuesday because the judge was still on the bench, two months after the controversial verdict was handed down. The judge was subsequently removed from the case, but not from the bench.

A spokesman for the court, Bernhard Olp, said the judge did not intend to suggest that violence in a marriage is acceptable, or that the Kuran supersedes German law. "The ruling is not justifiable, but the judge herself cannot explain it at this moment," he said. But according to Spiegel Online this was not the first time that German courts have used "cultural background" to inform their verdicts. Christa Stolle of the women's rights organization Terre des Femmes said that in cases of marital violence there have been a number of cases where the perpetrator's culture of origin has been considered as a mitigating circumstance.

Of some 25 million Muslims in Western Europe, the majority already consider themselves autonomous, a community justifiably opposed to the decadent host society of infidels. They already demand the adoption of sharia within segregated Muslim communities, which but one step that leads to the imposition of sharia on the society as a whole. Swedish courts are already introducing sharia principles into civil cases. An Iranian-born man divorcing his Iranian-born wife was ordered by the high court in the city of Halmestad to pay Mahr, Islamic dowry ordained by the Kuran as part of the Islamic marriage contract.

As our magazine readers may recall, Europe's elite class is ready for further surrenders. Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner—a Christian Democrat—sees the demand for sharia as perfectly legitimate, and argues that it could be introduced "by democratic means." Muslims have a right to follow the commands of their religion, he says, even if the exercise of that right included some "dissenting rules of behavior":

It is a sure certainty for me: if two thirds of all Netherlanders tomorrow would want to introduce sharia, then this possibility must exist. Could you block this legally? It would also be a scandal to say "this isn't allowed"! The majority counts. That is the essence of democracy.

The same "essence" was reiterated in similar terms last July by Jens Orback, the Swedish Integration [sic] Minister, who declared in a radio debate on Channel P1, "We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us."

To all forward-looking Europeans it must be a welcome sign that continental courts are catching up with the leader in sharia compliance, Great Britain. A key tenet of sharia is that non-Muslims cannot try Muslims. Peter Beaumont, QC, senior circuit judge at London's Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, accepts the commandment not only in civil, but also in criminal cases. He banned Jews and Hindus—and anyone married to one—from serving on the jury in the trial of Abdullah el-Faisal, accused of soliciting the murder of "unbelievers." "For obvious reasons," he said, "members of the jury of the Jewish or Hindu faith should reveal themselves, even if they are married to Jewish or Hindu women, because they are not fit to arbitrate in this case." One can only speculate what the reaction would be if equally "obvious reasons" were invoked in an attempt to exclude Muslims from a trial of an alleged "Islamophobe."

Here at home, The New York Times had a bone to pick with the German judge mainly because of her suggestion that Islam justified violence against women. It stated matter-of-factly, "While the verse cited by Judge Datz-Winter does say husbands may beat their wives for being disobedient—an interpretation embraced by fundamentalists— mainstream Muslims have long rejected wife-beating as a medieval relic."

In reality "mainstream Muslims" do nothing of the sort. New York Times' claim notwithstanding, the original sources for "true" Islam—the Kuran and Hadith—provide ample and detailed evidence on Islamic theory and the sources of Shari'a practice that remains in force all over the Islamic world today. According to orthodox Islamic tradition, the verse invoked by the German judge (4:34) was revealed in connection with a woman who complained to Mohammad that her husband had hit her on the face, which was still bruised. At first he told her to get even with him, but then added, "Wait until I think about it." The revelation duly followed, after which he said: "We wanted one thing but Allah wanted another, and what Allah wanted is best." Qatari Sheikh Walid bin Hadi explains that every man is his own judge when using violence: "The Prophet said: Do not ask a husband why he beats his wife." The scholars at the most respected institution of Islamic learning, Cairo's Azhar University, further explain:

If admonishing and sexual desertion fail to bring forth results and the woman is of a cold and stubborn type, the Qur'an bestows on man the right to straighten her out by way of punishment and beating, provided he does not break her bones nor shed blood. Many a wife belongs to this querulous type and requires this sort of punishment to bring her to her senses!

Physical violence against one's wife, far from being Haram, remains divinely ordained and practically advised in modern Islam. "Take in thine hand a branch and smite therewith and break not thine oath," the Kuran commands. Muslim propagators in the West "explain" that the Islamic teaching and practice is in line with the latest achievements of clinical psychology: it is not only correct, but positively beneficial to them because "women's rebelliousness (nushuz) is a medical condition" based either on her masochistic delight in being beaten and tortured, or sadistic desire to hurt and dominate her husband. Either way,

Such a woman has no remedy except removing her spikes and destroying her weapon by which she dominates. This weapon of the woman is her femininity. But the other woman who delights in submission and being beaten, then beating is her remedy. So the Qur'anic command: 'banish them to their couches, and beat them' agrees with the latest psychological findings in understanding the rebellious woman. This is one of the scientific miracles of the Qur'an, because it sums up volumes of the science of psychology about rebellious women.

According to Allah's commandment to men (Kuran 2:223), "Your wives are as a soil to be cultivated unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will." Therefore "the righteous women are devoutly obedient." Those that are not inhabit the nether regions of hell. Muhammad has stated that most of those who enter hell are women, not men. Contemporary Azhar scholars of Egypt agree: "Oh, assembly of women, give charity, even from your jewelry, for you (comprise) the majority of the inhabitants of hell in the day of resurrection." In the same spirit, courts in Muslim countries, to mention a particularly egregious legal practice, routinely sentence raped women to death for "adultery," usually by stoning, because they follow the sharia that mandates this punishment.

To the outright divine command of every wife's obedience to her husband, Muhammad has added a few comments of his own. When asked who among women is the best, he replied: "She who gives pleasure to him (husband) when he looks, obeys him when he bids, and who does not oppose him regarding herself and her riches fearing his displeasure." Even in basic necessities the needs of the husband take precedence: "You shall give her food when you have taken your food, you shall clothe her when you have clothed yourself, you shall not slap her on the face, nor revile (her), nor leave (her) alone, except within the house." The husband's sexual needs have to be satisfied immediately: "When a man calls his wife to his bed, and she does not respond, the One Who is in the heaven is displeased with her until he is pleased with her."

Such treatment of women might be expected to make Islam abhorrent within the cultural milieu epitomized by the equal-rights obsessed European Union and the neofeminist New York Times, but this has not happened. There is a reason for this. It is the refusal of Islam to accept the wife as her husband's closest and inseparable loving partner and companion. Islam therefore challenges Christian marriage in principle and in practice. Muslim teaching on marriage and the family, though "conservative" about "patriarchy," denies the traditional Christian concept of matrimony. Islam is therefore an "objective" ally of postmodernity, a few beatings here and a few rapes there notwithstanding.

"I can only say, Good night, Germany," says Ronald Pofalla, general secretary of Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union, of Frau Datz-Winter's ruling. Unless the madness is checked it will be good night to us all well before this century is over.

--
Zachary Sonnier

More solar evidence:

http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11432&feedId=online-news_rss20

The restless bubbling and frothing of the Sun's chaotic surface is astonishing astronomers who have been treated to detailed new images from a Japanese space telescope called Hinode.

The observatory will have as dramatic an impact on our understanding of the Sun as the Hubble Space Telescope has had on our view of the universe beyond, scientists told a NASA press conference in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday.

"Everything we thought we knew about X-ray images of the Sun is now out of date," says Leon Golub from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. "We've seen many new and unexpected things. For that reason alone, the mission is already a success."

Hinode (Japanese for "sunrise") was launched in September 2006 to study the solar magnetic field and how magnetic energy is released as the field rises into the Sun's outer atmosphere. The mission was formerly known as Solar-B.

Seething and swaying

The spacecraft carries an optical solar telescope (SOT), an X-ray telescope (XRT) and an ultraviolet spectrometer. It orbits the Earth in a permanent twilight zone between night and day, which gives it a continuous view of the Sun.

Hinode has sent back startling images of the Sun's outer limb. Where astronomers expected to see a calm region called the chromosphere, they saw a seething mass of swaying spikes (see image below right, and watch a video of the spikes taken by Hinode).

"These structures are 8000 kilometres long and some extend twice that high," says SOT science team member Alan Title from Lockheed Martin Advance Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, US. "Their speed is such that if you sat on the end of one, which I don't recommend, you could travel from Washington, DC, to San Francisco in about four minutes. These things are really moving."

Crashing loops

Another surprise sighting is that of giant magnetic field loops crashing down onto the Sun's surface as if they were collapsing from exhaustion, a finding that Golub describes as "impossible". Previously, scientists thought they should emerge from the Sun and continue blowing out into space.

"Almost every day, we look at the data and we say – what the heck was that?" says Golub, a member of the XRT science team.

Astronomers do not yet know what to make of the surprises, but they hope Hinode will help solve many big puzzles. One is that the temperature of the Sun's tenuous outermost atmosphere, or corona, is far hotter than the layers underneath, which are nearer its energy-generating core.

Scientists believe that tangled magnetic fields must somehow dump energy in the corona. "Theorists suggested that twisted, tangled magnetic fields might exist," says Golub. "With the XRT, we can see them clearly for the first time."

Astronomers hope Hinode's clear view of the Sun will also help them identify the magnetic field configurations that lead to the most explosive energy releases of all. That would enable better forecasts of stormy "space weather", when solar eruptions can interfere with satellite communications and disrupt electricity supply networks on the ground.

I got the following email the other day:

36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group of idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year
designed to keep the rest of us in line.

You gotta pass this one on!

AND THEY JUST VOTED THEMSELVES $15,000 PER MONTH PENSION FOR LIFE AFTER SERVING ONLY ONE TERM IN CONGRESS!!

As much as it would fuel our distrust for the half-wits that (sometimes) warm the seats of the Congress, this one just isn't true. Here's the (poorly written) article in which this email finds its origins.

Analysis from Snopes.com:

The information isn't independently verifiable, since none of the people referenced is identified by name. (Why bother to conduct all that research but then not mention any names? One plausible answer is that doing so heads off libel lawsuits if the information proved to be inaccurate or false.)

The original article is now several years old (having been published in 1999) and even when first published didn't list any names or state when its information was collected, so there's no telling how many of the people referenced might still be in Congress.

The list is long on vague innuendo and woefully short of hard facts. It describes members of Congress who have supposedly been "arrested," "accused," or "defendants," but doesn't mention a single case (anonymous or otherwise) of any of them having been convicted (or even tried) on criminal charges, no matter how minor, or of having been found liable in a civil lawsuit. We're told that "117 members of the House and Senate have run at least two businesses each that went bankrupt, often leaving business partners and creditors holding the bag," but get no detail about who these members were, the nature of the businesses that failed, why the businesses failed, or who was left "holding the bag" (and for how much). We're also told that "twenty-nine members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse in either criminal or civil proceedings," but find nothing about any of them actually being convicted or ordered to pay civil damages.

Lacking any specific context, some of these claims border on the silly. "Twenty-one [Congress members] are current defendants in various lawsuits, ranging from bad debts, disputes with business partners or other civil matters." How much significance should we place on such a vague statement in our litigious society, where just about anyone can find himself a defendant in a civil lawsuit over the most frivolous of matters (or nothing at all)?

If you read the original article, you'll notice that it doesn't mention anything about the $15,000 per month pension after only one term in office. That was just tacked on by some guy who likes to believe things that people just make up, see the analysis here.

The debate over "abortion" in the western world, that is to say, the debate regarding the rights of a woman to terminate her own pregnancy, has been a hot topic since the days of Hippocrates. "Abortion" is one of those rare, "holy grail" topics that test the mettle of all who stand before it because of it's almost infinite age, it's deep relationship with our concept of humanity and it inexorable ties to morality and justice.

A tactic that is a relative newcomer to this discussion (say within the last thirty years or so) is one commonly employed by the worldwide left in various arenas. The basic strategy is to stifle debate by raizing the battelfield before the toops even assemble: they refuse to accept that debate is neither necessary or acceptable. Much like the "debate" on global warming, it had been determined that that all the evidence has been floored, all the votes haev been counted and dissent will no longer allowed or tolerated. The high minds have decided and it's time we all gave up our petty squabbling and just accepted what everybody knows to be true and went to sit by our food bowls to think about all the touble we've caused.

A common effort to stifle any and all debate on the subject of life, ethics, responsibility, etc. is to attempt to cast the looming shadow of god over the faint words of dissent. The idea is that god has been marginalized in western society, so if all opposition to one point of view can be associated with god, so too shall it be marginalized.

My own opinions on the matter of god are irrelevant, but if the debate on abortion is to continue, a concerted effort must be made to disassociate it from the will of the church in order to reach a wider audience. We must remember that this debate, like global warming, is far from over.

The following excerpt is from from a debate that took place on Infidels.org in September 2000. The author, whose work I have displayed here, is Ms. Jennifer Roth, who sits on the board of directors for The Seamless Garment Network, a coalition of organizations opposed to abortion, the death penalty, war, and other threats to human life.

A Secular Case Against Abortion

Opening Arguments by Jennifer Roth

I intend to show that an ethical case can be made against abortion without reference to a deity, an immortal soul, or any other supernatural concept. Though I am not an attorney, I also plan to point out principles upon which laws restricting abortion might be built.

My argument consists of three parts: first, that the human prenate is entitled to human rights; second, that a child's parents are responsible for his/her welfare and that this responsibility begins when the child's life begins; and third, that the so-called "need" for abortion is really evidence of the need for greater justice for women.

Before starting, I wish to define a few terms. Language usage is a source of much miscommunication and mistrust in the abortion debate -- even such seemingly basic terms as "person" mean different things to those on opposite sides. In order to communicate as clearly and honestly as possible, I offer the following explanations of what I mean when I use certain terms in this debate:

* Human being: an individual member of the species Homo sapiens.
* Prenate: an umbrella term for the zygote, embryo, and fetus. It's not a scientific or commonly used term, but I find it a useful and relatively neutral shorthand.
* Abortion: the deliberate termination of the life of the prenate. Note three things about this definition; it does not include miscarriage (and in that sense it departs from the medical definition of abortion) it does not include prenatal death as an unintended result of a medical procedure, and it does not include the removal of the body of a prenate who has died in utero.
* Person: a being which has what are commonly referred to as "human rights". A person need not be a human being -- one could imagine, for instance, extraterrestrial lifeforms with rights. Whether every human being is a person is, of course, one of the main controversies in the abortion debate.

Prenatal Personhood

"To be a [person] is to be just the sort of animal to whom, in specified situations and at a specified stage of development (beyond infanthood and before utter senility), moral blame and praise attach." [1]

Many defenders of abortion, both religious and secular, claim that the question of when life begins is a religious one, and therefore the views of any one group cannot be written into law. That claim comes in handy for them, since the idea that life begins at birth is already effectively written into law.

I find that in the dispute over "when life begins", people are rarely asking: at what point does an individual physical being come into existence? Rather, the question is usually: At what point does that being become a person which must be accorded rights? The first question can be answered scientifically, and intellectual honesty demands that we incorporate those findings into our positions. The second, however, cannot. Personhood is a philosophical issue, but it need not be a religious one. After all, we can't scientifically prove that anyone is a person, but we secular humanists do manage to advocate for the human rights of women, minorities, and the severely disabled -- all of whom have been considered non-persons at various times in history. If prenatal personhood depended upon the notion of ensoulment at conception or a similar supernatural phenomenon, then it could properly be called a purely religious position. However, this is not the case.

I think that to answer the question of who is a person, we first have to ask what makes a person a person -- that is, why does any being have human rights? Most would answer that what sets us apart from other animals is that we have the ability to reason and to make moral choices. A being which exhibits these abilities can be said to be functioning as a person. Put another way, reasoning and moral decision-making are personal acts. Not only does this make a certain intuitive sense, but if there were no beings who could reason and make moral choices, then there could be no beings with the ability to respect rights. Therefore, rights could not exist. I do not believe that Mr. Carrier and I differ substantially on this point, but I am confident that he will correct me if I am mistaken in that assumption.

I am aware of no serious dispute over whether a being who performs personal acts is, in fact, a person. Controversy arises when trying to decide whether or not to confer personhood upon those beings who are not currently able to perform personal acts. Such beings include the comatose, infants, and prenates.

The case of the comatose individual is probably the easiest to resolve. Such an individual typically has already performed personal acts in his lifetime, and will do so again when/if the coma ends. The pre-comatose individual is identical to the comatose and post-comatose individual. Not identical in the sense of being exactly the same, of course, but identical in the mathematical sense of having the same identity. The comatose individual is a person because of his identity, not because s/he is currently capable of performing personal acts.

An infant, unlike a comatose person, has never performed a personal act. Is the infant, then, a non-person? Only if a non-person can become a person. However, if that is possible, then why do other non-persons, such as trees and ladybugs, never become persons? Presumably, there is something inherent in a human infant which differentiates her from other creatures. It is in the nature of the infant to develop into a being which can reason and make moral choices -- barring catastrophe, of course. The ability to perform personal acts is not added, by some outside force, to the developing infant. In the process of her growth, she naturally builds the mental structures necessary to function as a person. I would argue, therefore, that personhood itself is inherent in the infant.

I was born in October of 1972. That newborn in 1972 was identical (again, in the mathematical sense) to the adult in 2000 who exhibits the ability to reason and make moral choices. I am the person; I perform personal acts. Even before I was able to perform personal acts, I was still the person I am now.

Current law and public opinion seem to agree. Most people and governments recognize that infants have human rights which must be respected. In effect, we hold the infant's rights "in trust" until such time as she is capable of exercising them. Therefore, there is already legal precedent for the recognition of personhood in those who have yet to develop the ability to perform personal acts. Opponents of abortion propose nothing unheard-of, then, in advocating that all human beings should be considered persons from the beginning of their biological lives.

This is where the question, "At what point does an individual physical being come into existence?" becomes important. In species which reproduce sexually, this generally occurs when the male and female gametes join to form a new organism. (I must defer to the embryologists on the finer points of twinning and chimerism; that is, a person who is an identical twin could be said not to have attained an individual identity until the zygote split. This is an interesting question, but not particularly relevant to the public policy debate.)

I realize how counterintuitive this is. The prenate -- especially at the earliest stages -- seems so foreign, so other; and yet every one of us once was a prenate. People take adults as the norm, and then say, "It's obvious that they can't be persons! Look how unlike us, how subhuman, they are!" They're not. It's just that our model of the "normal" human is biased towards ourselves -- the adults.

Many (I wish I could honestly say all) supporters of prenatal personhood seek truly equal human rights for all human beings, not just those deemed worthy by the powerful. That inclusive spirit has been at the heart of the greatest social movements in human history.
Parental obligation

"The following is a working definition of the parental duty, against which neglectful parental care may be measured: The child has the right to expect, and the parent has a duty to reasonably and prudently provide, food, clothing, shelter, supervision, medical care, nurturance, and teaching." [2]

Defenders of abortion commonly argue that even if the prenate is a person, the pregnant woman is not obligated to allow him the use of her body.

Before I address this argument, allow me a brief semantic digression. For the purposes of this part of the essay, I will be using the term "child" to denote the human being in utero. There are two reasons for the change in terminology. First, there is little reason to even discuss whether a woman has obligations to a non-person, so for the sake of argument I am assuming prenatal personhood in this section. Second, while I find the term "prenate" useful, it is a bit artificial and tedious. I will also be using the pronouns "he" and "him" to denote the unborn child of unknown gender, simply to avoid confusion (since the mother, of course, will be "she" or "her").

In the United States, children are legally entitled to be supported by their parents. This includes the right to receive basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. Children are not entitled to support from random strangers, but only from those people who are responsible for having created their needs in the first place. Other parties, such as adoptive parents, charities, or governments, may voluntarily take on those responsibilities, but they are the parents' by default.

However, current law only requires parents to provide for their children's needs after birth. If the child is a person before birth, should the parents have a duty to provide for his needs before birth as well?

Many people would answer that they should not, because the needs in this case include the use of the mother's body. A parent cannot be required by law to donate a kidney, or even blood, to save his/her child's life. Therefore, abortion defenders argue, a mother cannot be required by law to donate the use of her uterus, even though her refusal will cause her child's death.

However, there are significant differences between a kidney donation and pregnancy. In the former case, the transplant is an extraordinary measure. The need for it is caused by disease or injury, and most people will never need one. The parents may not withhold from the child the opportunity to receive a new kidney -- they must seek medical care for her. But they need not provide a kidney themselves; they did not directly create the need.

When a woman is pregnant, the situation is different. In the usual case, where pregnancy did not result from sexual assault, the child himself, and his need for shelter and nourishment in the womb, is a direct result of actions taken voluntarily by both parents. The need to live in the mother's uterus for approximately forty weeks is also not an extraordinary measure, in the way that the term is generally used. It is a basic human need -- every single person who has ever been born required it. Just as the newborn has a specific claim against his parents due to the fact that they created him in all his helplessness, so too did he have a claim against them before he was born, for the same reason. It is true that the heavier burden falls on the mother during the prenatal period. Men simply cannot directly provide what their children need during the first forty weeks of their lives. (I would advocate requiring fathers to indirectly provide as much as they can by compensating mothers for their medical bills, lost work time, and other expenses during pregnancy.) The fact that women must shoulder more of the parental obligation during pregnancy than men is regrettable, but does not negate the obligation.

When pregnancy occurs as the result of sexual assault, one could make a case that the woman is not obligated to carry the child to term. She has done nothing to incur any obligation. While I am unconvinced that a legal basis exists for banning abortion in such cases, I still contend that the ethical thing to do is to seek a nonviolent solution which allows the mother to heal and the child to live. No woman should feel that she must abort in order to spare herself the social stigma of bearing "the rapist's child", or that abortion is the only way to get on with her life after the attack. If a rape survivor feels that she must have an abortion, the people who are supposed to help her have failed her.

I can imagine what some readers are thinking right about now. In fact, I don't need to imagine it, because it's been hurled at me before: the accusation that, "You just want to punish women for having sex." I ask anyone who might be thinking that to pause for a moment, and reflect upon the possibility that your reaction might result more from prejudice than from a careful reading of my arguments. After all, the loudest voices against abortion in the media have belonged to people who wish everyone to conform to their religion's version of sexual morality. I wish that weren't true, but I can't deny it. However, I shouldn't need to explain to an atheist audience how distorted media coverage of contentious social issues can be.

The distinction I have drawn between the woman who is pregnant as a result of voluntary sex and the women who is pregnant as a result of rape is not based on any value judgments against the former. Nor is it based on the superstitious notion that a child conceived in rape is somehow "tainted" and therefore less worthy of life. An atheistic moral system, since it cannot depend on rules handed down from an outside source, must instead depend on the effects our actions have on other people. It is not punitive, therefore, to state that one who voluntarily decides to have sex has obligations to the child who exists and has needs as a result of that action. It is simply a concrete application of the general principle that some of our actions have consequences for other people, and we must avoid inflicting negative consequences upon them.
Women's "need" for abortion

"There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?" [3]

Supporters of legal abortion have positioned themselves as the friends of women, and they frequently paint their opponents as misogynists who are insensitive to the difficulties faced by women with unplanned pregnancies. I've no doubt that this tactic makes for successful fund-raising letters, but it is intellectually dishonest. It reminds me of a politician who accuses his opponent of being soft on crime because she opposes the death penalty.

Still, abortion proponents have many legitimate concerns. They are enraged that an unplanned pregnancy can mean social, financial, and professional ruin for a woman. They find it unjust that the sacrifices of raising children are borne mainly by women. They're outraged that many women are still uneducated about the way their bodies work, and many others lack access to safe, affordable contraception. They're absolutely right.

But shouldn't the solution to these inequities be a change in the social structures that cause them? Legal discrimination and sanctioned violence against the very young cannot change the unfairness of our society toward mothers -- it can only keep women from being mothers, for a while at least. The underlying problems are not solved, and we set a horrible precedent that allows us to define away the humanity of those who get in our way.

If someone claims that "women will always need abortion," note the implicit assumptions. The first is that our ability to bear children is, and always will be, a handicap. The second is that we can never hope for our society to adequately adjust to the needs of mothers so that women will not feel the need to abort. The third is that violence against certain of our fellow human beings is an acceptable, even necessary way to solve social problems.

Granted, this last little rant has nothing to do with a secular argument per se. But I find the acceptance of abortion as a response to a sexist society to be inconsistent with humanist ideals. Humanism values the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. It affirms that moral standards should be based on the effect of our actions on our fellow human beings. It embraces the use of reason and repudiates the use of violence to settle disputes. Abortion is an ancient, backwards practice which is not worthy of those ideals. Legal or not, we must progress beyond it.

The rest of the debate can be viewed here.

Liberal:

There are many areas where I think the government oversteps their boundaries and that should be included in the zone of privacy.   The government should stay out of the abortion arena. Who are they to tell a woman she MUST have a baby?  It truly is none of their business.  While I would never dream of having an abortion, neither would I presume to tell someone else that they can't.   With so many circumstances as to why women choose abortion, it should be a private decision.

I also do not think that the government should have any say in who gets to marry whom.  If we all have equal rights under the law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, why does the government get to decide who can marry whom?  The bible defines marriage as that between a man and a woman, however the government should be separate from religion so this is a lame excuse.

The last area where I think the government has no business is with prostitution.  As long as the girls are not getting physically harmed, are not minors, and are not forced to prostitute, where is the problem?  

Me:

The problem with prostitution is that is condones an immoral act. It promotes the objectification of women. It perpetuates the patriarchal status quo. The legal sanctioning helps corrupt our youth, showing them that paying for sex is morally permissible.

We do have equal rights under the constitution. Heterosexuals can't marry their same sex just as homosexuals can't marry their same sex. The rules apply to both sides equally. You'll say that it doesn't affect one side, and you'd be right. But you can't say that the rules don't apply equally.

Just a question on the abortion issue: I presume that you would whole-heartedly agree that the objectification of women is wrong, and should be precluded as best as it can be. I completely agree with the notion that abortion has given men the opportunity and encouragement to objectify women. Why? Because they know that they can sleep around, and if their partner gets pregnant, then they can probably convince them to have an abortion. So many young women are pro-choice now, there isn't much fear they wouldn't want to do so. How do you reconcile these two views? How do you support something that objectifies women? Relegates them even more to the status of sexual objects?

Another question: you say that you would never dream of having an abortion, yet you also would never tell someone else they can't. The only answer I can think of to the question of why you would "never dream" of having an abortion is that somewhere, deep inside perhaps, you believe that the fetus is more than just a conglomeration of cells. But maybe I can't think as a woman does.

Liberal:

As long as the woman is prostituting because she wants to, I don't consider it men exploiting women.  Women have minds and know how to use them.  As I said, if she is doing it against her will, or she is a minor, then I object.  Immoral acts don't necessarily constitute illegal acts. 

If a heterosexual wanted to marry the same sex, they would be homosexual or at least bisexual.  Don't understand your point here at all.  Ask any homosexual if the laws are equal and you aren't going to find any who agree with you.

You must really think women are weak if you think that men can CONVINCE us to have abortions.  Some, I would agree are, but most have minds that we can use to decide what is best for ourselves.  I certainly don't equate abortion rights with women being sexual objects.  I will save that for Playboy Swimsuit Models and Playboy Bunnies.  I would never be able to live with myself if I had an abortion, but other women have no problem with it.  It is not my place to try and convince them that they are wrong and I am right.  I wouldn't want anyone to tell me I had to have an abortion and I won't tell anyone else that they shouldn't.  Personal choices have to be lived with by individuals and if it doesn't bother them, why would it bother me?

Me:

I would say that just because you don't consider it exploitation, does not make it not exploitation. When you pay someone for sex, you are using them as a sexual object. This commands no respect or equality. Even if it is voluntary, it makes no difference. You are still reducing women to nothing more than entertainment.

What I said was that abortion permits men to have promiscuous sex with multiple partners without the repercussions of pregnancy. They know that many women are pro-choice and that they can possibly convince them to do so, if they don't already want to. But chances are, they would if they are very young. You may not "equate abortion rights with women being sexual objects," but once again, just because you don't equate that, doesn't mean it isn't so. Sexual objectification is a huge problem in our society, and institutions such as prostitution and abortion only perpetuate this.

Also, you missed my question: why is it that you couldn't live with yourself after an abortion? Clearly, you seem repulsed by the idea, as your rhetoric is very strong. Why is this? It certainly can't be because you think that an abortion clears nothing more than a conglomeration of cells out of your body, right? I mean, you would be OK with removing a cyst from your ovaries or a wart from your skin. Is it because somewhere inside of you, you feel that it is more than just cells? Perhaps a life? I can't think of any other answers myself, but maybe you can. And if that is the case, then you now have your justification for telling someone what they can do with their personal choices.

Personal choices can very easily hurt other people. I can make the personal choice to kill my neighbor. Why should that bother you? It does, and it should. But it's a personal choice, those things you say are only lived with by the individual. This is simply not true. Personal choices often affect other people, and there is your justification for telling them what they should or shouldn't do. Furthermore, when people are committing clearly immoral acts, you can tell them they are doing the wrong thing. To not do so would be to do your friend or neighbor an injustice.

Furthermore, you say you will leave the sexual objectification (or exploitation) to the Playboy models, but that you don't equate prostitution with sexual objectification(or exploitation). Can you explain how posing in a nude magazine is more sexually objectifying than taking money to have sex, one of the most intimate experiences people can share?

Also, if voluntarily being a prostitute doesn't exploit or objectify women, why is it that posing in a magazine voluntarily makes you an object? Isn't having money for sex much worse than just posing in a magazine?

Liberal Friend:

in response to Zachary:

-prostitution can be seen as objectification of women, but that view is generally taken by anti-sex feminists.  pro-sex feminists believe that a woman can feel empowered through sexual activity, and many sex workers feel that making money through sex is an empowering thing.  the view of objecification is simply resultant of perspective.

-as for the issue of homosexual marriage, the rules may apply equally, but one side is still being treated unfairly. if straight males were the ones being affected, i'm sure that your response to angel's statement would be very different.

-i am strongly pro-choice, and see absolutely no connection between the objectification of women and their freedom to choose what to do with their bodies.  just because a woman knows she is able to get an abortion if necessary will not make her more apt to sleep around.  the reality is, less than 1% of u.s women use abortions as a form of "birth control"...most use them only one or twice in accidental situations, when medical complications are involved, when they are victims of rape or incest, or when they are economically unable to care for the baby. making the statement that the availability of abortion causes women to be more sexually active and sexually manipulated is naive and sexist.

as well, the choice to have an abortion is one that some agree with and that others do not.  however, angel is right...even if she doesn't feel an abortion is right for her, she has no right (and neither does the government) to tell someone what they should or should not do with their body.  to attempt to make her feel guilty for feeling the way that she does is cold and callous.

Me:

Sara,

To say that the objectification of women in prostitution is simply a matter of "perspective" is wrong because to say this is to say that everything is a matter of "perspective." It's not "racial preferences" it's "affirmative action" or it's not "handouts" it's "welfare." You can justify anything by saying it's simply a matter of perspective, and if most people believed this then we would surely be in trouble. To say this is to deny the existence of truth, that a true "perspective" doesn't exist.

What you do is assert what some feminists say. What you don't do is address my arguments as to why it objectifies women. You can assert that sex is "empowering," but you'll have to justify it. And even if it is granted that it "empowers" women, which personally I think is simply a way to justify promiscuity for women, then you still have to answer why it isn't objectifying. These two results are not mutually exclusive. You can be empowered in one way and objectified in another. Personally, if women want to be treated equally, I believe you'll have to stop supporting prostitution. It can't be denied that in the act of paying for sex, men treat the women nothing more than objects for their own means, thus objectification. No self-respecting woman with a good education will choose to be a prostitute. Ever wonder why? Because they know it demeans them to objects that are bought for money. Entertainment. Even if these feminists view sex as "empowering" I doubt they would still propone prostitution. They can't possibly believe that sex in any circumstance is "empowering."

On the issue of homosexual marriage: I'm not really interested in pursing this issue because it is not very important to me. What do want to do, however, is let you know that the most effective way to persuade someone is not to reduce the issue to a personal level, and you and Angelic made these type of points in the death penalty debate. "Well, you wouldn't believe that if it affected you." Actually, I would. If people didn't believe in the things they say once it was brought in front of their face, then no one would believe anything. That's what a belief is. It's mutable, but firm. I don't believe in welfare. "Well, you would think differently if you were poor." I don't believe in the death penalty. "Well, you would if your parents were murdered." These responses are not apposite, and only hinder dialectic. And just to answer: Yes, if it involved me I would still believe this. I believe war can be a great tool to protect people. Would I believe that if I were drafted? Certainly. I'm in the military as we speak. Clearly, I stand by my convictions regardless of the consequences.

Abortion: You may fail to see the connection between abortion and an increase in sexual activity, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You cannot pretend that having abortion available does not increase the likelihood of someone having sex. As with anything, when repercussions vanish, an act increases. If weed became legal, more people would do it. If drinking became legal at 16, more 16 year olds would drink. It is not naive and "sexist," it's simply a logical conclusion.

Furthermore, as with our previous death penalty debate, your statistics are skewed. Here are actual statistics:

# Wants to postpone childbearing: 25.5%
# Wants no (more) children: 7.9%
# Cannot afford a baby: 21.3%
# Having a child will disrupt education or job: 10.8%
# Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy: 14.1%
# Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy: 12.2%
# Risk to maternal health: 2.8%
# Risk to fetal health: 3.3%
# Other: 2.1%

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2411798.html

This is a whopping 70.5% having abortions just because they don't want children, or it's inconvenient. Of the reasons you cited, which are your implied "justified" reasons, it is only 29.5% of abortions. So how can the 1% statistic be true?

I don't understand how you think I'm trying to "guilt" her. If asking her questions about the rhetoric she uses is a "guilt" trip, then I am guilty. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I don't mean to guilt anyone out of their beliefs, but they must be backed up by careful reasoning and statistics, if available. My questions are neither cold nor callous. If being asked to qualify your beliefs is "callous" then this world is truly in trouble.

However, most of my arguments were ignored and feel they should be answered in order to truly convince me of my wrong beliefs. And you cannot justify a belief by saying it's simply not "right" for me. It's simply not "right for me" to obey the law. It's simply not "right for me" to not kill my neighbor. It's simply not "right for me" to not be an alcoholic or a drug head. This qualifies no belief system.

Liberal:

(No Response)

Shocker.

--

Zachary Sonnier

Oh George, what will we do when you're gone?

Our columnist on an easy target for America-bashers

Somewhere, deep down, tucked away underneath their loathing for George Bush, in a secret place where the lights of smart dinner-party conversation and clever debating-society repartee never shine, the growing hordes of America-bashers must dread the moment he leaves office.

When President Bush goes into the Texas sunset, and especially if he is replaced by an enlightened, world-embracing Democrat, their one excuse, their sole explanation for all human suffering in the world will disappear too. And they may just find that the world is not as simple as they thought it was.

It's been a great ride for the past six years, hasn't it? George Bush and Dick Cheney and all those pantomime villains that succour him — the gay-bashing foot soldiers of the religious Right, the forktailed neoconservatives with their devotion to Israel, the dark titans of American corporate boardrooms spewing their carbon emissions above the pristine European skies. Having those guys around for so long provided a comfortable substitute for thinking hard about global challenges, a kind of intellectual escapism.

When one group of Muslims explodes bombs underneath the school buses of another group of Muslims in Baghdad or cuts the heads off humanitarian workers in Anbar, blame George Bush. When Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, denounces an imbalanced world and growls about the unpleasantness of democracy in eastern Europe, blame George Bush. When the Earth's atmosphere gets a little more clogged with the output of power plants in China, India and elsewhere, blame George Bush.

Some day soon, though, this escapism will run into the dead end of reality. In fact, the most compelling case for the American people to elect a Democrat as president next year is that, in the US, leadership in a time of war requires the inclusion of both political parties, and in the rest of the world, people will have to start thinking about what is really the cause of all our woes.

Take a look at the miserable mess that is unfolding in what is supposed to be the "West's" fight in Afghanistan against the Taleban and al-Qaeda. Afghanistan was, remember, unlike Iraq, "the good war". Within days of September 11, 2001, all the European members of Nato readily signed up to assist America in righting the wrongs of international terrorism by defeating the Kabul regime and its allies.

Even after the alliance fell out over the Iraq war, those who opposed that conflict reiterated their dedication to winning the one in Afghanistan. When the Spanish socialists pulled their nation's troops out of Iraq in 2004, they insisted they were fully committed to the war against the Taleban.

But what is the state of that struggle? These days, despite the notional presence of a Nato force involving more than 15 countries, only a handful — Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, and plucky Lithuania included — are putting anything like the effort required in terms of resources and willingness to take the fight to the enemy.

Others — such as the Germans and the French — will commit troops and equipment but won't let them fight, preferring noncombatant roles. Last week the Italian Government collapsed because some of its members actually want to make friends with the Taleban. European countries are not failing to fight the war in Afghanistan because they don't like George Bush. They lack either the perception of the threat or the will to deal with it.

Does anyone really think the election of President Hillary Clinton will be greeted with a sudden surge of German and French troops to Kabul and Helmand, routing al-Qaeda militants in the name of multilateralism?

President Barack Obama will find that when he wants to make good on his promise to win the war in Afghanistan, EU leaders will be much happier explaining how their new constitution will enlighten the world.

President John Edwards will discover, when he seeks a united front to tackle an enemy that would happily incinerate every European city and its inhabitants tomorrow, that the Europeans would much rather take urgent action to address the risk that global warming will produce a possible 18cm increase in sea levels by 2100.

This escapism is not confined to President Bush's critics in Europe, as the current battle over Iraq in Congress demonstrates. The Democrats have majorities in both houses. They could, if they wished, move to end the war in Iraq, which most of them — having once supported it — now oppose. They could vote to cut off funding for US troops and force the Pentagon to bring them home.

But they won't do that. That would involve taking responsibility for a dangerous war. They would much rather, carp and cavil and pass "nonbinding" resolutions that express dissatisfaction with the war but leave the actual job of ending it to the Bush Administration.

This is why it may be a good thing if Americans were to elect a Democrat next year. Certainly, he or she could change the tone of US diplomacy by speaking more contritely about Iraq, by sounding more concerned about climate change, perhaps even by agreeing to hold talks talk with the Iranians to try to persuade them to drop their nuclear programme.

But it's likely that sooner or later a Democrat would have to have his or her "Nixon Goes to China" moment. Just as Bill Clinton discovered in the 1990s, when the Europeans were happy to sit back and let Serbs slaughter Bosnian and Kosovan Muslims, a Democrat will find a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the task.

In the dread modern vernacular of management-speak, the Democrats need to take ownership of American leadership in a turbulent world. Though it can be fairly argued that President Bush's incompetence has made things worse, the challenge of radical Islamism was not invented by the Bush Administration.

Even as some future Democratic president proclaims his commitment to renewing alliances, he is sure to be greeted with all kinds of explanations as to why the Europeans are just not quite ready to make that a joint ownership. When that moment comes, everyone will be urgently wishing they still had George Bush to blame.

--
Zachary Sonnier

In case you guys missed it, there was a pretty substantial, if not poorly organized, protest against war in Washington, D.C. last Saturday. I say "protest against war" because the messages of these innumerable "direct action groups" (thats' what they call themselves... as if there's such a thing as "indirect action") were to garbled and convoluted, if you looked at the whole as a group, marching down Pennsylvania Ave., you'd be hard pressed to figure out what specifically they were marching against, marching for, or where the hell they thought they were going.

Apparantly, it's time to stop the war, remember some other war, stop animal testing, start rebuilding Indonesia, stop driving cars, start buying organic vegetables, stop the war on drugs, start offering free healthcare, stop buying Strabucks coffe and start voting with your heart, not with your brain. Code Pink, Mothers Against the War, MoveOn.org, Breasts not Bombs (not kidding) and just about every other lefty, pinko group had a presence in spades. As usual, they came together to deliver one message, and ended up delivering about seventeen, all of them poorly.

What caught my eye was the elaborate "things" these jobless freaks took the time to construct, with no clear purpose in mind. The giant puppet of Uncle Sam drinking a barrel of oil, sure, that's one's pretty clear, but the giant duck?



Yes, that's a giant duck. No, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. "Stop the Ducking War?" Too childish, even for them. "Duck! Cheney's got a gun?" Clever, but unrelated. Frankly, I'm stumped. Maybe it's some kind of giant "Peace Duck."



This looks like a giant spinal cord. The message is convoluted at best, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a decent photo of what's written on the side. I'll just pretend it says "Spine. It's What's for Dinner" because it doesn't make any sense.



This one's a personal favorite. It turns out public buses don't run on fossil fuels, they operate solely on one's feeling of self-worth. Oh, and gasoline.



I gotta give this woman some credit for a clever protest sign. Here's a conundrum: Do you think she'd polish the President's knob to end the war?



Okay, this one's actually an altered photograph from the Islamic demonstrations in London, I just thought it was fucking funny.



Man, that flag is an asshole! Why do we even keep that thing around, after all the terrible things it's done? I've got a good mind to sit that flag down and give it a good spanking.



This photo was taken in a nearby park area after the crowds had dissipated to score some weed and find a box to crawl into for the night. Truly, civil disobedience in it's purest and most awe-inspiring form.



Alright, this photo is also not from the recent protests, but I just thought it was awesome. Can you imagine what Dr. King would have to say about that? I think he'd just rub his temples and moan quietly to himself.

I find it amusing that so many people start their criticisms of the anti-war movement with "I would never question anyone's right to protest but.." The fact is we should be encouraging these people to to parade around like idiots, waving flags and chanting not-too-clever slogans that make humorous associations with the names Dick and Bush with genatalia. Every time these people show themselves in public, they show not only how disorganized and ramchackle they are, but every time they spit on a veteran or threaten someone's life, they expose their true extremism, hate and disrespect for anyone that disagrees with their own very narrow view of the world.

I love conspiracy theories because of the categorically illogical basis upon which they are vistually always based. Not only does your typical conspiracy theory never follow the common guideline of "the simplest explanation is usually the most likely," the less evidence your average tin-foil hat wearing sideshow attraction can muster to support his brain-dead contentions, the more he's convinced he's right.

The black helicopters are coming!

I find it truly laughable that one consipracy theory that has found significant audience among the conservative ranks of this country is the growing threat of the "North American Union." Conservatives tend not to to subscribe to these whacked out ideas mostly because, deep down, what makes us all conservative is the idea that the government always screws up anything it touches. Logically, if I believed that my federal government would be tragically incapable of administering and executing even basic tasks of revenue tracking, road building and land management, then I would certainly have little to fear from that same entity secretly administering some hemispherical ecenomic control scheme while successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of about half a billion citizens.

However, as usual, someone more eloquent than I has already addressed many major tenets of this bizarre theory. So tighten up that alunimum hat, load up the air rifle, crack open a can of beans from the underground store and take a read.

From John Hawkins at Right Wing News:

Killing the North American Union Conspiracy

"By 2010, the integration of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. will be almost complete. Congress and the media will not know what happened. Americans will be as clueless as ever; thanks to the complicity of the brain-dead media, the triumph of a bloodless bureaucratic elitist coup will become a reality, or close to it." - Diane Alden

"President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the step without approval from either the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States." -Lou Dobbs Tonight

"President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy....Why doesn't President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union." - Jerome Corsi

Judging by the three hysterical quotes you've just read, you'd think that the United States was about to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into some sort of merger with Canada and Mexico.

However, that's not exactly true. As a matter of fact, to be completely accurate, it's not true at all. But, since claims of this sort are spreading like wildfire on the right, it seemed like a good idea to take the time to tear out the underpinnings of this conspiracy theory.

So, let's explore some of the pieces of "evidence" that support the North American Union conspiracy theory and see how well they bear up under scrutiny.

Claim #1: There a Council of Foreign Relations report called, "Building A North American Community," that's being used as the "blueprint" for a merger of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

Back in 2005, a task force sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations put out a report called, "Building A North American Community." I recently spoke to Lee Feinstein, Executive Director of the Task Force Program at the Council of Foreign Relations -- and he told me the report calls for improving security between the borders, steps to grow the American economy, and improving trade.

When I asked him if the report favors merging the United States, Canada, and Mexico, his reply was, "It doesn't favor anything of the kind." Indeed, if you read through the report (.pdf file), you will find that it doesn't call for the creation of a superstate.

Moreover, Mr. Feinstein said he would be flattered if people in the Bush Administration were reading and paying attention to the report, but he denied that it was being used as any sort of "blueprint" and said, "Realistically, anyone outside the government has to be modest about the impact that they have on government policy because the government has its own ideas of what it wants to do."

Claim #2: "Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S..." -Jerome Corsi

To be honest, this one has always been a little hard to figure out. After all, Canada and Mexico are our two biggest trading partners. Therefore, it's difficult to understand why some people are so adamantly opposed to improving the highways running between those nations, and into the US, or why they believe a road is part of some monstrous conspiracy. But nevertheless, since this issue has been widely discussed, I took the time to dig into this claim.

First of all, the group behind the "NAFTA Super Highway" is called NASCO. They're not a government entity and they're not advocating building "four football field-wide" roads or even new roads at all. They just support the expansion of existing roads to better serve business interests in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

Yesterday, Tiffany Melvin, the Executive director of NASCO was kind enough to take the time to discuss the North American Union conspiracy theory with me. Here's what she had to say:

"NASCO is a non-profit organization that has been around for 12 years. We have no secret meetings with the Bush administration and we're not part of a conspiracy. We're a business organization trying to promote the NASCO Corridor and the connecting highways in Canada and Mexico as an efficient, secure transportation system that will attract companies to use our corridor for their business."

NASCO has gotten so tired of the conspiracy theories swirling around them that they've actually put up a "NASCO Myths Debunked (.PDF File)" section on their website to try to kill some of these rumors. People who believe they're involved in creating some sort of "North American Union" should take a look at that article. It'll quickly ease their concerns.

Claim #3: A customs facility in Kansas City is going to become Mexican territory!

What this refers to is the KC Smartport, which is, at least in my humble opinion, a brilliant idea. The idea is to set up an area in Kansas City, with Mexican and American customs officials there who can examine outgoing vehicles away from the long lines generated at the borders. You heard that right by the way; this facility will only handle outbound freight headed to Mexico, not Mexican vehicles headed into the United States.

So, is the area the KC Smartport sits on going to be leased or owned by Mexico? No. So, where did the idea come from? I asked Tasha Hammes, the Media Relations & Marketing Manager for the KC Smartport project, about that and she said it was an idea that was kicked around via email in something akin to an online brainstorming session at one point. However, as she confirmed to me in a follow-up email, the idea was not something that the KC SmartPort project chose to pursue:

"Kansas City, Mo., is leasing the facility to KC SmartPort. It will NOT be leased to any Mexican government agency or be sovereign territory of Mexico."

Claim #4: The United States, Mexico, and Canada are going to merge their currencies into something called an Amero.

It's always difficult to reason people out of something that they weren't reasoned into in the first place and therefore, it'll be very difficult to convince people who believe in this claim that it's not going to happen.

That being said, George Bush has never advocated merging our currency with that of another country and neither has anyone in his cabinet. Furthermore, no one has presented any proof whatsoever that anyone in the United States government is working on this idea. At least one of the North American Union conspiracy theorists has speculated that the Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America may be working on such a proposal. However, I spoke with David Bohigian over at the Commerce Department yesterday and he issued a flat denial that the SPP was working on merging America currency with that of our neighbors.

So, if people want to insist that we're creating some sort of unified currency based on the fact that a few professors think it's a good idea, that's fine -- but as of yet, there has not been one, single, solitary shred of evidence presented that the Bush administration supports, advocates, or is working on this idea.

Claim #5: The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is the government entity that's working on merging the United States, Canada, and Mexico!

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is a group that was launched in 2005 and it works under the aegis of the Commerce Department. The SPP was created to help increase cooperation between the U.S. and its neighbors to the North and South.

As I mentioned earlier, yesterday I spoke to David Bohigian over at the Commerce Department about the SPP. He confirmed that the SPP is not using the, "Building A North American Community," report from the CFR task force as any sort of a "blueprint" and he added the following:

"This is not a treaty and not an agreement. It's like a discussion you'd have with your neighbors. Nobody is looking to merge our currency, or our borders, or do any sort of union like the EU. The United States is working cooperatively with its neighbors to enhance security and prosperity of our countries."

Summary: Folks, as you can see from reading this column, there is no "North American Union" in the works. If you don't believe me when I tell you that, then maybe you'll believe Tony Snow who had this to say when he was, "asked if the president would categorically deny any interest in building a European Union-style superstate in North America."

"Of course, no. We're not interested. There is not going to be an EU in the U.S."

If you don't believe me and you don't believe Tony Snow, then believe your own knowledge of how the U.S. Government works. To merge the United States into a North American Union would obviously require a whole host of Constitutional Amendments. In fact, so many would be necessary that the only possible way to accomplish it would be through a Constitutional Convention, an event that hasn't occurred in over 200 years and that would require the support of 34 state legislatures to be possible. So, even if George Bush or any other U.S. President were so inclined to create a North American superstate, he would be powerless to do so unless he were able to rally 2/3 of America's state legislatures to his side.

Since that is the case, there's simply no need for people to try to turn run-of-the-mill attempts to improve cooperation with Canada and Mexico into some sort of vast conspiracy to create a North American Union. The reality is that since Mexico and Canada are our neighbors and our biggest trading partners, there are plenty of reasons for the government and private industry to try to streamline and improve our relationship with them on security, trade, and other issues. So, let's worry about real problems instead of non-existent conspiracy theories that melt like snow in the middle of a Texas summer the moment you take a hard look at them.