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Hmmm...What to write about, what to write about...oh, I know, politics. Nobody is writing about politics these days. I should write a post about NOT writing about politics. I don't like to write about politics because politics fall into the realm of opinions. As my hairy friend Alf used to say, "Opinions are like armpits. Everybody has a couple of them and they stink."

True. And plus, I don't want to tick off my cousin because he's voting for that one guy and I'm voting for that other one guy.

Anyway, I'm breaking all my own rules because I stumbled on this article by Robert George, Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton. That means he's super smart.

I'm not a big fan of the 'abortion as the litmus test' mentality. I think it's a incestuously driven, theologically twisted, relationship the evangelical community has with the Republican party. However, this article describes scenarios I haven't read about since I had a mild crush on Aldous Huxley.

Introducing the...What the #@!&? ..."the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act". This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed "fundamental right" to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, "a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons."


And the pièce de résistance, I present: the "Clone and Kill."

...He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term.

This "clone and kill" bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors misleadingly call this an anti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.

I also read this article on the same site, Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Ground.

I know what you're thinking, "What are you doing reading such heady, cerebral essays?" I said I STUMBLED people, it won't happen again.

The gist of the second article revolves around this:

A few years ago, after it became clear that some infants who were born alive in the course of an attempted induced abortion at Christ Hospital in Chicago and elsewhere were being left to die without even comfort care, Republicans and Democrats around the country united in an effort to make the practice illegal and declare that any child outside the womb, even if she was an abortion survivor whose prospects for long-term survival might be in doubt, was entitled to basic medical care. Even the most ardent advocates of the pro-choice position agreed that a child born alive, even after an attempted abortion, deserves humane treatment.

The tragic stories of infants being left to die moved legislators to act at both the state and federal levels. In Washington, D.C., consensus can be a rare commodity, and never more so than on the issue of abortion. But the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002 was just such a rarity. The bill passed both houses of Congress without a single dissenting vote-it was 98-0 in the Senate-and numerous states then proceeded to enact similar measures. In Illinois, however, a series of efforts to pass ''Born-Alive'' legislation from 2001 to 2003 met with stiff resistance from legislators concerned the measure would constrain the right to abortion in the state.

Prominent among these opponents, and the only one to actually speak in opposition to the bill when it was debated in 2002, was state Senator Barack Obama.

How does the human race go from being concerned about a women's right to spewing the philosophy of Joseph Goebbels? My how the propaganda has succeeded.

"Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect."

-Robert George, former member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

If he cares so little about the tiniest people on the planet, what makes you think he's going to care about you?

December 27, 2007

Wow, such sad news today. I didn't hear until this afternoon that former prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, has been assassinated.

No, I'm not Pakistani, or any sort of middle east political pundit, but I remember years ago being enamored with her. She was striking in appearance. I can recall sitting in a little office cubicle poring over newspaper articles about her strength and her political family. Her father, also a prime minister, was hanged in 1979. Both of her brothers were assassinated, one possibly by her husband.

In 1988, at age 35, she became the first female prime minister of a modern Muslim country. She survived several political coups, eight years in exile, corruption charges and several attacks on her life. For a brief history on the life of Benazir Bhutto, read next month's issue of Parade magazine.

In the upcoming January elections Bhutto promised to help restore democracy. Now the choices seem to be the lesser of two evils.

Assassinations and death threats come with the job description of 'world leader.' But today's events are especially ugly. Is it because she's a woman? A mother? Or is it because she's a stable mind in a country ripe with nuclear weapons?

***********

For a happier story, check out this US soldier who adopted an Iraqi boy.

No More Reality TV! Bring Out the Gladiators!

AA HA! I knew it! I have total prescience. This is just the beginning of Oprah and Obama and their one world order. B.O.O.W.O.W.O.

Oh yes, my clairvoyance knows no end. I heavily bear the responsibility of this sagacious gift. I am an oracle. I've been playing with the thesaurus again.

Thanks to the Hollywood writer's strike we may see the scowling, snarling, overly tanned faces of Earth, Wind, Fire, Ice, Heat Wave, Turf Builder and Space Heater aka the American Gladiators. Oh yeah, the joust. My favorite.

To avoid a glut of reality shows, I hear we'll be seeing some older stuff...The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Fame, Columbo, Hill Street Blues, Kidd Video...What other good shows were there?

The Big O

I’m getting ready to road trip with my eight year old daughter to Virginia. I'm going to be driving some volleyball players to a team camp there and I thought it would be fun to take Evangeline. It should only be about a seven hour drive, however, having just seen Deliverance I'm refusing to drive through the state of West Virginia, so it's going to be much longer.

Such an event calls for audio books. Our county library is so lame it left me agonizing between The Life and Times of Rodney Dangerfield or The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. Both are as about appealing as being a Soul Train dancer. I picked up the Obama book after a fierce competition of rock, paper, scissors with myself.

Then I remembered that I heard on the news earlier that Oprah plans to help raise campaign funds for Obama.

So I started wondering what it would be like if Obama and Oprah hooked up, got married and began a one name empire. Just think of the ridiculous media barrage we’d be subjected to if that came to fruition. Egad, the fourth vowel would be raised to almost biblical proportions. The letter itself would achieve sainthood, but only the long sound, not the short sound.



Even their initials together point to some hidden agenda. B.O.O.W. BOOW. BOW. Bown down and worship the great O's. They will not be treated as mere mortals but god-like in all their televised greatness.

He could use her billions and she would become the first lady of the United States. She would, of course, have to slum it in the White House. Her decorating friend Nate would be called upon to fix the feng shui from the previous administration.

And then what if instead of having a poet laureate, she hired Bob Greene and we the people were subjected to diet and fitness tips for the whole term.

And then Oprah's Book Club would reach universal popularity. Even Kim Jong Il would come on to the show to discuss The Secret, except he would be asked to leave because as soon as anyone disagreed with him, he would squint through his fiberglass lenses while making death threats in Korean.

Of course, First lady Oprah could find cave dweller Osama bin Laden and coax him onto the show where Dr. Phil would be waiting. I bet in a forty five minute segment, she could start world peace.

And then, I thought, what if, for her cause, she eschewed the cliquish topics like world hunger, and instead chose to bring Botox breaks to the workplace. She could make it mandatory that employers offer Botox injections during employee breaks and that would be really cool. I’d vote for that.

You can see how one could get carried away with the possibilities. Although Rodney Dangerfield looked tempting, in the end, I opted for La Traviata, if nothing more than to make me look smart.