Text to speech
Global Warming: (H/T Robb)
Liberal Elites:
I really need to make one of those one day…
Jury Duty
Cat summoned for jury duty. (H/T Mary)
Texting while walking
Here’s another one:
Thank you so much to all of our regular readers and commenters!
Happy Friday!
Look at this new study from CNN.
Excerpt:
Alcohol dependency not only affects people who drink excessively, but also spouses, friends and family. Now a new study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research finds that alcoholism has a strong connection to when people get married and whether those marriages are successful.
“For young adults who are drinking, if their drinking continues to levels of problem use, it could impact their likelihood of marriage as well as likelihood of having a really lasting marriage,” said study author Mary Waldron, assistant professor in human development at Indiana University. “What we found is yes, it’s true that alcohol dependence is a strong predictor of separation and we’ve known that for quite a while, it was really the predictor of delayed marriage that was surprising to us.”The study looked at 5,000 Australian twins, ages 28-92, all of whom reported a history of alcohol dependence sometime over their lifetime.
The researchers found the association between alcoholism and getting married for the first time at a 23% lower likelihood for women. For men it was 36% lower only after age 29. For both sexes, the researchers concluded that the chance of separation was twice as likely and earlier. They also found that genetics played a role.
“What we found by using both fraternal and identical twins is that genetic influences appear to contribute to the association … but the processes underlying the genetic effect, we really don’t know yet and that will be a focus of future research,” Waldron said.
The reason I am worried about this is that there seems to be so much drinking that goes on on university campuses. It’s like the young people are really getting addicted to it, and there seems to be a lot of peer pressure on everyone to drink and drink and drink. I think alcohol is very interesting (I was recently visiting friends and got to try whiskey for the first time – it was horrible!) and it makes people feel at ease when you are having a good serious conversation. But I am not so sure about drinking it all the time. It’s expensive, and it alters your moods. How can you be good at making sense when you drink too much? So I think in moderation it’s OK, but not too much.
I think that reading articles like this are important to me. It’s good to know WHY the Bible says things are right and wrong. If being drunk is “wrong” then why is it wrong? Why does God not want us to do this? With a little study and some good research, we can find the answers. And then when we talk to non-Christians about right and wrong, we can explain the reasons for the moral positions we hold using scientific evidence. It’s a lot easier to talk about morality in public when you have solid evidence that doesn’t assume the Bible.
From John Boehner’s official government web site. (H/T Cubachi via Liberty Pundits)
Full text of John Boehner’s speech:
“Our new majority has pledged to listen and focus on the will of the people. We’ve begun to carry out this commitment by cutting our own budget and repealing the job-destroying health care law.
“Today we’re here to talk about keeping another commitment to the people – and that is ensuring their tax dollars are never used to fund abortions.
“A ban on taxpayer funding of abortion is the will of the people and ought to be the law of the land. But current law – particularly as enforced by this Administration – does not reflect the will of the people.
“Last year, we listened to the people through our America Speaking Out project, and they spoke out on this issue – loudly and clearly. So we included it in our Pledge to America, and today we begin to make good on that commitment.
“Congressman Chris Smith has introduced bipartisan legislation that codifies the Hyde Amendment and other similar policies by permanently applying a ban on taxpayer funding of abortion across all federal programs.
“This common-sense legislation reflects the will of the people and deserves the support of the House. It is one of our highest legislative priorities. As such, I have directed that it receive the designation of H.R. 3. I appreciate Congressman Smith’s steadfast leadership on this critical issue.”
And it’s not just abortion providers like Planned Parenthood that get federal funding, either. It’s the United Nations, too. (H/T Mary)
Excerpt:
By funneling tens of millions of dollars to organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which support China’s brutal One Child Policy, the United States and other Western countries are “accomplices” to “murder on a massive scale,” said the Director of China Aid in an interview this week.
[…]In general, each family is permitted to have only one child. When a couple wants to have their first child, Fu explained, they are “required to get a pregnancy permission card – a yellow card before your wife can legally get pregnant.” If a woman is pregnant without the permission card, she is arrested and forced to have an abortion.The “massive practice” of forced sterilization and abortion has a huge impact on China. Last year, said Fu, there was “a report of about 20 million babies, which were aborted … abortion being performed as late as nine months.”
[…]Fu attests to the fact that a significant portion of the funding for abortions in China comes from international organizations, including The United Nations Population Fund.
“The U.S.,” said Fu, ”provides funding and 40 million dollars goes to China to assist in carrying out this One Child Policy. So, unfortunately, the Western countries are accomplices to this policy.“
“It’s really time for us to get past our apathy about it as an American people, and really start to take that seriously. These abuses with the One Child Policy and the factories are really going on in real life … These are actually really happening! My message is always to the American people: get over the apathy and do something. We have to hold our own government and the Chinese government accountable for these things,” said Mason.
A lot of people talk about restricting abortion. They talk and talk and talk about it. And then when election day came around in 2008, some of them voted for the most pro-abortion President ever. Well, some real pro-lifers decided to fix that in 2010. And now Republican John Boehner has a mandate from the people to change the laws of this country to discourage the wholesale slaughter of innocent life. Less taxpayer funding for abortion means fewer abortions. It’s a start. If the Republicans win the Presidency in 2012, maybe Boehner can finish it.
Mary also sent me this post from Scott Klusendorf on pro-life pastors and abortion and this post from Randy Alcorn on pastors and abortion.
UPDATE: Wes from Reason to Stand posted this video as well.
Here’s an MP3 file of the speech.
Everyone on the left thinks that just because THEY don’t care about the unborn then no one cares. But that’s not true for conservatives. We really have thought this issue through, and we really do care.
UPDATE: From Canbuhay.
Martha Roby:
Ann Marie Buerkle:
Ann Marie Buerkle was a spokeswoman and then leader of local pro-life groups in New York and is now one of at least 15 pro-life congresswomen.
