Thanks to bloggers, CNN was quickly exposed as leaning its YouTube Republican presidential candidate debate left by choosing Democrat-affiliated questioners and questions.

The retired gay general asking the "gays in the military" question has been much discussed. We now know he's a Hillary worker on the homosexual issue.

Other ringers have been noted, including Journey from Arlington, TX, who it turned out was an Edwards supporter.

The question is whether CNN purposefully chose these people are simply failed to research their backgrounds. Most pundits think the latter.

But I'm finding it harder to believe that of 5,000 submissions, Anderson Cooper and CNN picked Journey's question blindly. Hers was on abortion....

This is truly an amazing story, of little Dallas Hextell. Doctors used Dallas' own cord blood stem cells to treat his Cerebral Palsy with miraculous results. Click on image to link to video of news story:

Three points to take:

1. Cord blood stem cells are ethical. They are a type of adult stem cells.

2. Adult stem cells are miraculously treating patients NOW.

3. Save your baby's cord blood!

[HT: friend Chris M.]

Great story in the entertainment section of the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday:

In America, about one in five pregnancies ends in abortion, according to the latest figures from the Guttmacher Institute. In recent American movies, however, every unplanned pregnancy is carried to term.

From Knocked Up to Waitress to Juno [scene pictured left], opening Dec. 14, abortion is The Great Unmentionable, euphemized as "we don't perform, uh, -- " (Waitress), and "nipped it in the bud" (Juno) in comedies in which pregnancy is the situation. Abortion is likewise obliquely referenced, if actually considered, in the drama Bella, now in theaters.

"It's as if there's an 'every conception deserves delivery' policy being observed," says Virginia Rutter, senior scholar at the Council on Contemporary Families....

This guy faces life in prison for slipping his girlfriend RU-486 in a smoothie and causing her to abort (not "miscarry") twice, when if she had wanted to take the pill to abort she would have been federally protected. He also gave her the drug, which is not to be prescribed after 49 days, at 15 weeks. From Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A 34-year-old Kaukauna man who owns several hotels and gas stations in the Fox Valley and northeastern Wisconsin is accused of giving his girlfriend the abortion pill RU-486 because he didn't want children.

The 39-year-old Kaukauna woman couldn't understand why she suddenly miscarried twice especially after her regular medical check-ups showed her pregnancies were going well....

Chicago Tribune, today:

Like most new moms, Linda Sanchez couldn't take her eyes off her newborn daughter....

But the biggest marvel was that Isabella Marie Sanchez came into the world at all. She is the latest baby born to a breast cancer patient who was treated with chemotherapy while pregnant. It took a pioneering Houston program to make the birth possible....

I was on Adam McManus's radio show yesterday afternoon discussing my Thompson column.

McManus is a big Mike Huckabee supporter and mentioned he has been having listeners contact Iowa Right to Life to encourage it to reject National Right to Life's endorsement of Fred Thompson and instead endorse Huckabee.

I found that tidbit interesting and called IRTL this afternoon to find out if it was making the switch.

I spoke with Kim Lehman, IRTL president. She said after they started getting calls and emails from Huckabee supporters the board went into closed door session to discuss what to do.

And they decided to go neutral, "which is a tradition in a primary for us if there's more than one pro-life candidate," said Kim. Here's IRTL's strategy, again quoting Kim:

We don't want Rudy Giuliani to win. We want a pro-life candidate to win. IRTL is working toward the promotion of life, and so, as long as a pro-life candidate is in the lead, we just support that and hope everyone puts their vote behind the one candidate. Hopefully, the pro-life vote will not be split, which would allow Giuliani to win by default.

Good advice.

[Lehman photo courtesy of New York Times]

I was sorry to hear of Congressman Henry Hyde's passing today. I met him a few times. He was an eloquent, ardent and invaluable defender of life.

His short political bio, from World magazine, today:

Former IL Republican congressman Henry Hyde, 83, passed away on Nov. 29. Hyde, who led the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, served 16 terms in Congress before retiring at the end of the last term. A stalwart pro-life conservative, the congressman in 1976 authored what became known as the "Hyde Amendment," which blocked all federal funding for abortions. Days before Hyde left office earlier this year, President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, declaring him a "powerful defender of life."

The jury's out whether I'm suffering from carbohydrate withdrawal or a touch of the flu, but I think it's the former.

I started on The Maker's Diet yesterday, and the author warned I might feel a little nauseous or headachy for a few days. So, sorry, I've been out of it today.

The premise of the book is to get back to eating foods God instructed the Israelites to eat in the form they ate them, organically.

Something the author wrote made me think of the young posters on this site, so many of whom have health problems....

AB Laura sent me a great point worth discussing, made by Glenn Beck:

Massachusetts is considering a possible ban on spanking where parents wouldn't be allowed to spank children under 18. Yup, the people's republic of Massachusetts is ok with abortion, but don't spank your kid, that would be just wrong.

You've likely heard by now MA legislators are considering such a ban. From ABC....

I'm glad for the decision, but this just goes to show what a mockery Roe v. Wade has made of U.S. murder law.

From Statesman.com, November 22:

The death of a fetus can be prosecuted as a murder, even if the fetus was too young to survive outside the womb, Texas' highest criminal court ruled Wednesday.

State laws declaring a fetus an individual - and therefore eligible for protection under statutes prohibiting murder - do not conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that protects abortion rights, a unanimous Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled....

CNN featured a photo of Rudy Giuliani signing autographs in Hialeah, FL, yesterday, which prompted me to check on the status of the Hialeah baby abortion murder case.

Backdrop:

On the morning of July 20, 2006, an 18-year-old pregnant mother returned to A Gyn Diagnostics Center in Hialeah, now shut down, to abort her 23-week-old baby after having been given a medication to dilate her cervix the day before.

She complained of abdominal pain all day with abortionist Frantz Basile nowhere to be found. Finally, between 2-2:30p, she delivered the baby alive with at least one clinic worker present. Both saw the baby gasping for air and moving.

Clinic owner Belkis Gonzales allegedly came into the room, cut the cord, and put the living baby into a biohazard bag containing bleach....

Washington Post, November 19:

A young, trim farmer with four or more children: According to a new study, that's the ideal profile for American men hoping to reach 100 years of age.

The research, based largely on data from World War I draft cards, suggests that keeping off excess weight in youth, farming and fathering a large number of offspring all help men live past a century....

The spark of the current riots in France was not just that two "minority" teens, as this article called them, were killed when their motorscooter hit a police car. They were, in fact, Muslim teens, and the rioters are primarily Muslim....

A week before the National Right to Life Committee endorsed Fred Thompson, I blogged he had disqualified himself from my list of presidential primary picks following his Nov. 4 interview on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert.

During those moments, Thompson revealed he's in the same death camp as Rudy Giuliani, just with more exceptions.

Between that interview and one on Nov. 18 on "This Week" with George
Stephanopoulos, NRLC endorsed Thompson and clearly tried to tutor him.

But it failed. Thompson unsuccessfully tried to pull one of three coffin nails he'd hammered two weeks prior, while he pounded another harder. I was left more curious than before about NRLC's decision.

Nail One....

Continue reading my column today, "The Stephen Douglas of the 2008 race," on WorldNetDaily.com.

Today the 12th Annual Webby Awards named its 12 most influential online videos of all time. You can access all the videos here.

Here's 1... off topic but funny, a bit of nostalgia (some off color, fyi). Ah, memories....

How did Webby pick? "[E]ach of the videos listed,,, represents an important starting point for the tactics and trends currently flourishing online."

Why This Land? Says Webby:

"This Land," an animation featuring a John Kerry/George W. Bush duet, became the medium's first hugely popular political parody -- enjoying three times the combined traffic of the actual candidates' sites and paving the way for campaign-defining political clips like the "1984" Hillary Clinton ad and the camp "Obama Girl" video.

At least four points can be drawn from this Washington Post article today, with a disclaimer it was written through an MSM prism and may not accurately reflect the situation.

Two points:

The Center for Bioethical Reform has just released photos of its GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) visit to the University of Cincinnati October 22-23, invited by UC Students for Life.

Afterward UCSFL president Joe Burwinkel said, "Everybody on campus saw the display or at least heard about it and at times there were about a hundred people around the display asking questions and engaging in debate."

That's what we want, to talk about it. The student newspaper, The News Record, included a photo with an aborted baby in its front page as well as a balanced story about the event. Here's one photo. See more on page 2.

UPDATE, November 26, 6p: I just went to little Kaylie's wake, the first wake of a baby I've ever attended. My cousin Sam said he was googling Kaylie's name and found this post and your comments and was very touched. Thank you for your kind words and prayers.

November 24, 5:30p

My little 2nd cousin Kaylie Goff went home to Jesus yesteday morning. I was related to Kaylie 2 ways, through my first cousin Dian (Coffin) Goff and through my daughter-in-law Bernadine (Goff) Stanek.

Kayle had Down syndrome. She was 13 months old. She had been through major heart surgery in August. Children with Down syndrome often have heart problems.

Kaylie died unexpectedly in her Daddy's arms. First, her Dad, my cousin Sam, posted this:

November 23, 2007 at 10:23 AM CST

Hello Sam here... Please sing with me this morning..."Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now I'M FOUND." Keep singing or humming if you do not know the words. I have something to share with all who love Kaylie. At approximately 5:30 am this morning Kaylie went to be with the Lord. She went from my arms to the Lord's arms. We just wonder if she put her little fingers into His mouth like she would do with me? Please pray for us in our loss. We love you all and will let you know about the arrangements as soon as we know. Love to all! Samuel Goff

And then this....

American Life League/Rock for Life are making good use of YouTube.

They've just uploaded a video expose of, It's Perfectly Normal, a book supposedly for kids ages 9-12 that has been banned from at least one prison as pornographic.

News to me, the book lists the anus as a sex organ, certainly not its original or ongoing purpose.

And the decent among us have united. It's Perfectly Normal topped the American Library Association's list of "most frequently challenged books of 2005" for "homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group," and ranked #15 in ALA's list of "100 most frequently challenged books 1990-2000" - even though it was published more than halfway through the decade, in 1996.

Of course, Planned Parenthood endorses It's Perfectly Normal. Good for business. The book promotes abortion, of course.

[HT: moderator Bethany]

Get ready, Planned Parenthood. Pro-Life Action League's Ann, Joe, and Eric Scheidler, along with J. T. Eschbach of ChicagoProLifeActivist fame, will travel to Denver Friday to launch two days of events, including a strategy meeting, a rally at the proposed Denver PP site, and a fundraiser.

Click on page 1 of flyer to see enlarged pdf and page 2:

Also see www.noplannedparenthood.org for up-to-date info.

Last week came news of a huge stem cell breakthrough. How big? According to ABC:

"It represents a phenomenal breakthrough, more important than cloning... or the discovery of human embryonic stem cells," said Dr. Markus Grompe, director of the Oregon Stem Cell Center in Portland. "This is a Nobel Prize worthy advance."

And from the Associated Press....

This weekend question requires a detailed backdrop.

The question is simply: What do you think of all this?

The backdrop....

My column this week, "Collapse of civilization nears as UN identifies 'masculinization of Asia'," described a UN report estimating a shortage of 163 million Asian women due mostly to sex-prejudiced abortions. I said the Asian gender disparity had tripled between 1950 and 2005.

I said governments of countries with extreme gender imbalances would likely find the overabundance of single men perfectly suited for their military.

I also read, but didn't include in my column, what the UN demographer said when presenting the aforementioned report last month at Asia-Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights in India. According to the Sidney Morning Herald:

French demographer Christophe Guilmoto [stated]... [t]here are 2.1 billion men and 1.9 billion women across Asia....

This makes sense. After an abortion business lies its way into a city and citizens overwhelmingly oppose it, city officials turn on the citizens.

With no plan in sight to pour sidewalks so those citizens can safely protest according to their First Amendment rights, or even so the poor women of America can safely trudge barefoot and accidentally pregnant to Planned Parenthood's largest abortion mill in the U.S., Aurora city officials have instead erected nonsensical signs to nowhere banning pro-life presense from anywhere across the street from PP (click to enlarge)....

While Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee "remains a distant fifth in New Hampshire, behind [Mitt] Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Ron Paul [and]... fifth in national polls," according to the Chicago Examiner, he's surging in Iowa, according to a ABC/Washington Post poll released November 21, conducted November 14-18:

Are we beginning to coalesce? ABC thinks so....

On this Thanksgiving Day, what are you thankful for?

Click to enlarge....

Know that a very expensive public relations firm designed this message and the message within the message, including the prominently pregnant worker and Cecile's "family" imagery. I always like to analyze how PP tries to portray itself and then, of course, why.

Thought you also might be interested in this video I stumbled on of Cecile speaking at Planned Parenthood Aurora on October 10, about a week after it opened.

"... some of the ugliest protesters we've seen in more than a decade.... we're on the blogosphere...."

*bow*

[HT for Cecile's Thanksgiving message: John Jansen at Pro-Life Action League]

That Fred Thompson claims to be pro-life but would leave the abortion decision to individual states really angers me. This is actually a pro-abortion position, simply "pro-choice" in a different arena.

Professor Hadley Arkes, crafter of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, has written an article for the December issue of First Things that could be carved up and served for discussion in many areas, which I just may do.

In the following section, he discusses the similarites between Stephen Douglas' pro-slavery position and Rudy Giuliani's pro-abortion position. But I see Fred Thompson's name next to Giuliani's every time.

As I was preparing photos for this post, I discovered something bizarre. Douglas and Thompson even look alike:

Here's what Arkes said....

Friend Paris Hilton threw a Beverly Hills, Wizard of Oz-themed (Nicole's fav) baby shower this past Sunday for expectant parents Nicole Richie and boyfriend Joel Madden. Nicole is due in January.

But guests were told beforehand their gifts would be donated via the newly created Richie Madden Children's foundation to help moms in need.

Very cool.

There is no website yet, but a press release announcing the formation of the charitable organization states....

Not wanting to be dismissed as someone whose issue has overcome them, I've always tried to explain in an academic, unemotional way what worldwide devastation abortion and population control are wreaking.

But a report the United Nations Population Fund released three weeks ago on what it calls "the masculinization of Asia" has me so distraught I can't keep my affect flat.

At this risk of sounding like a crazy person, I am driven to say I believe a civilizational collapse is near. Worse, I think it is too late to reverse. When this happens, abortion and population control will be major reasons why, alongside radical Islam. In fact, the three overlap and synergize one another.

I've thought this for a while, but what has me more distraught than ever is this UNFPA report, which estimates the shortage of Asian women is actually 163 million, approximately the entire population of U.S. women, more than double UNICEF's 2002 estimate of 74 million.

UNFPA has listed six countries with a "severe" gender imbalance: Armenia, Azerbaijan,China, Georgia, India and South Korea; with Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam headed the same direction.

According to UNFPA, the "phenomenon... under way... ha[s] never before been recorded in demographic history."

This all comes thanks to...

Clearly the National Right to Life Committee attempted to tutor Fred Thompson between his November 4 interview on Meet the Press and November 18 interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

But NRLC failed. On three major pro-life issues, Thompson continued to frankly stink. And on one he dug his hole deeper....

In Chicago we have tailgate parties before Bears games. In Colorado pro-lifers have tailgate parties at protests. Major hoot.

Here's the report from Leslie Hanks:

On November 18, 30-40 Denver pro-life activists enjoyed hot dogs and hamburgers at a protest and BBQ in front of the Cherry Hills Village home of Weitz Construction executive, Bill Hornaday.

Although it appeared that the Hornadays were not home, most of his neighbors saw the signs of aborted babies and "Abortion is always wrong" signs Planned Parenthood opponents carried. The youngest protester was a 5 day old baby boy....

One forlorn young woman... sat in her front yard with a hand made sign indicating her family will donate to Planned Parenthood every time there is a protest of the new super death camp's construction company executive. Ironically, she told pro-lifers she was adopted, but she sadly championed a woman's right to "choose."

See more photos, including that sign, on page 2.

I blogged here and here that Wayne State University's Medical Students for Choice invited late-term MI abortionist Alberto Hodari to speak November 9.

Students for Life of America was there to catch the 50 minute speech on videotape with two cameras and will be releasing "best of" clips. The first is below.

Let me preface the clip by giving a shout out to the WSU abortion apprentices who invited Hodari: Kia Jones, Jonathan Oakes, Katie O'Connell, and Cynthia Velting-Kidder. I'm not sure which one introduced Hodari, but there's her picture on the right.

And we upset her, sorry to say. At the close of her intro she said, "I'm sure pretty much everyone here knows that this has been... there's been a lot of [unintelligible] surrounding this talk. One of our fellow students sent our flyer to the national pro-life people. We are now all blogged on their blogs, and you know, it's pretty upsetting that a fellow student would do that to us, brand us, so people know what kind of people we are. But we're here to stay and we're not intimidated by that and we really appreciate everyone coming out becuase it makes all that perhaps worth it."

I'm not sure why we would be considered intimidating when the young woman was standing next to a man who has been accused of killing at least two women and maiming many more.

And "brand"? Why would publicizing one's profession be considered "branding"? She should thank us. I'm hurt. And my dear, you don't need pro-life bloggers to broadcast what kind of people you are. You're doing fine broadcasting that on your own.

At any rate, here is the first clip, and it will not disappoint After ridiculing aborting fathers who pass out while observing their child being sliced and diced, Hodari admits to lying to both father and patients about the procedure. Hodari's braggadocio is quite shocking, quite stupid, actually. What a guy. How long will abortion proponents try to say these quack abortionists are anomalies?

Note this abortionist only lies less now thanks to public education about abortion, no thanks to the industry. This video clip should be shown at every legislative hearing on Women's Right to Know laws - which the industry always fights. It's no wonder.

On November 13, Operation Rescue reports that police at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, roughed up and arrested 3 members of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, who came on campus to get a permit to conduct pro-life outreach.

Video of the incident shows an out-of-uniform police officer pushing one of the Survivors. The officer refuses to identify himself despite repeated requests. Then the officers purposefully moved the arrestees away from the documenting eye of the video camera (what did they have to hide?) and confiscated an audio recorder they have yet to return. My bet is the tape will be erased. See the video of the arrest on page 2.

OR reports....

[HT: friend Karen]

How can someone who is pro-abortion argue against abortions of female fetuses based solely on their gender? Some countries such as China or India have made such abortions illegal. Would you support such a prohibition in the United States?

The latest from pro-life blogs....

1. Marybeth Hagan at ProLifeBlogs.com has an interesting theory on the NRLC's endorsement of Fred Thompson, "that it may also be is also about putting the brakes on a nomination of... Mitt Romney."

I have to say that while I've supported Romney's conversion, this November 16 David Brody column gave me pause.

2. On the other hand, friend Nathan Sheets blogs in defense of NRLC. While disagreeing with its Thompson endorsement, Nathan makes a point similar to one I made as a comment to one of my posts on the topic (here and here) I'd like to reiterate. "To insinuate that they don't care for unborn children is childish in of itself," says Nathan.

3. Not Dead Yet (click NDY's logo above to enlarge) tells the stranger the fiction latest development re: the Swiss group Dignitas, which helps dead-headed tourists euthanize themselves. The Association of Zurich Hoteliers has now banned Dignitas from using any of its premises to induce permanent sleep as corpses and body bags are turn-offs to nonsuicidal guests.

4. Fr. Frank Pavone updates Catholics on the latest "Faithful Citizenship" document from the US bishops, issued every 4 years. "[T]he document is certainly an improvement over past such statements," states FP. "[T]here is more clarity about the fact that not all the issues are equal. It makes it clear that abortion is not just one issue among many." FP's explanation counters MSM's misleading accounts of the document. (CNN and NYT provide ready examples.)

5. RealChoice updates us on abortionist Mi Young Kim, who is still registered to practice in VA despite abortion whoopsies. One of those resulted in the accidental termination of the mother as well as baby in 2002.

One important admission by Kim at that time, which I've told you before abortionists do, quoting RC: "Kim told the medical board that she didn't give Adelle any analgesia for pain because she gives enough Versed to cause amnesia so that the patient can't remember the pain."

Pro-aborts, get it through your heads that the abortion industry does not care about women. It cares about money, and it cares about eugenics - ridding the world of what it considers the inferior.

This was produced by the people at what used to be named Crisis magazine that has switched to become an internet-only publication and renamed Inside Catholic.

[HT: Br. Francis]

Love the name of the organization. But pro-aborts and pro-homosexuals hate it, so much so they sued. And lost. Per the Colorado Springs Gazette, November 13:

The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an effort by pro-choice groups to stop a Peyton organization from collecting signatures for a 2008 anti-abortion ballot measure.

Colorado for Equal Rights hopes to define life as beginning at fertilization, thereby banning and criminalizing abortion. After a title-setting board OK'd the initiative for signature-gathering, several organizations sued, saying its title is deceptive and misleads voters about the sweeping consequences of the measure.

Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously that the title involves only a single subject and that its intentions are not misleading. Colorado for Equal Rights now can begin collecting the roughly 76,000 signatures it needs to get the initiative on the ballot.

The plaintiff organizations blasted the decision Tuesday, saying that the measure would go beyond banning abortion and would give fertilized eggs access to Colorado courts.

Love how the AP titled its article....

A few pro-abort bloggers are complaining Democrat presidential candidates weren't up front enough in last night's Vegas debate about their intention to choose Supreme Court nominees based their belief that abortion is a constitutionally protected right.

Bloggers thought candidates coded this by saying they would pick nominees who believe 1) in the "right to privacy," and 2) that Roe v. Wade is "settled law."

This should indeed be a concern. Note no one is saying these days they believe abortion is constitutionally sound on The Point: preborn humans aren't constitutionally protected persons....

You knew I'd get to this. From the Associated Press, November 13:

More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year - the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.

"A new U.S. record," said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More bad news: Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a "superbug" version resistant to common antibiotics, federal officials said Tuesday.

Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis - which can deform or kill babies - rose for the first time in 15 years....

by moderator Jacqueline

A mother in Grand Rapids, Michigan, just gave birth to triplets. This would not be news at all, if this woman weren't homeless and living in a shelter.

From the Grand Rapids Press:

Monica Roberts will admit she has made mistakes. And she figures that in her lifetime, she probably will make more.

Just don't hold it against her three newborns - triplets born last month to a woman who is broke, homeless and uncertain of her future and that of the tiny bundles she refused to abort or give up for adoption.

In true point/counter-point fashion, I can easily see both sides of the abortion debate berating this woman. I can hear a chorus of pro-aborts screeching she had no right to bring 3 babies into this world when she can't even take care of herself. I can also hear the still, quiet voices of pro-lifers thinking she should have placed her babies for adoption, as she has no means to care for them.

I disagree with both. I'm PRO-LIFE, I'm not pro-adoption....

I'm not too happy with the National Right to Life Committee these days.

The tipping point was learning on November 3 while attending a speech given by Hadley Arkes at Valparaiso University that NRLC originally opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which Hadley wrote and which I testified regarding. Hadley explained during his speech the Partial Birth Abortion Ban was coming to the fore about that time, and NRLC thought it more important and that BAIPA was too soft.

Add to that, NRLC actively opposed the South Dakota Abortion Ban and is currently actively opposing the Georgia Human Life Amendment.

There may be pragmatism and smart politics and all involved in these NRLC decisions, but when a pro-life organization takes the same position as pro-abortion organizations, something is wrong.

There are other things, but that's enough of a backdrop.

So about Fred Thompson.

NRLC's endorsement might be the best decision. I just know he's not the best pro-life candidate. There is at least one other who is polling as well or stronger, and he's more pro-life, and that's Mike Huckabee. I'm not in Huckabee's camp, but when I compare the two, I just don't get NRLC's endorsement. I'm cynical.

I'm wondering if the leadership of NRLC, which has been the same forever, has become too immersed in the DC culture. This would go a long way toward explaining support for Thompson (and his wife) over Huckabee. Also recall NRLC immediately jumped on board the Harriet Miers bandwagon.

I'm wondering when pragmatism and smart politics become something else.

UPDATE, 10:10a: Email from "Washington insider," as s/he wants to be identified, on the question of NRLC's endorsement of Thompson:

Don't really know what to make of it. It's a prudential judgment, obviously: the result of a no-doubt complicated calculation of who is most likely to win divided by the square of who is least objectionable on the issue times an estimate of what states they can make a difference for him in.... Like any early endorsement, it's a gamble: if he wins, they're in like Flynn. If he loses....

I had an opportunity to screen the movie Juno last Thursday, due out December 14.

Turns out we shared the theater with 50 friends and family of Juno's stripper-turned-blogger-turned-debut-movie-writer Diablo Cody, who is from Chicago, which made the experience that much more entertaining.

Juno is the third in an unplanned movie trilogy, the others being Waitress and Knocked Up, where a girl accidentally gets pregnant and grows into a heroine by rejecting abortion as a quick solution.

Social conservatives attempting to break through in movies have not yet mastered the art of getting our point across without coming off preachy.

But it's fascinating to watch the Hollywood and Indie crowd handle one of our premises pretty much the way we'd like it handled....

From the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, November 11:

Freakonomics lesson: What is the most powerful incentive in the history of humankind?

"Freakonomics" co-author Stephen Dubner posed the question Thursday to about 230 people at the Washington Policy Center's statewide small business conference luncheon.

The audience members began to shout things. Money. Fear. Pain. Love. Sex?

Bingo. Someone said what Dubner was waiting to hear, and gave him the segue to talk about how legalizing abortion had eliminated sex's biggest disincentive -- unwanted children -- thus leading to a present-day decrease in violent crime.

"What happens to the unwanted pregnancy?" he asked. "In the history of the world, there wasn't that much to do. And then abortion happened....

This morning National Right to Life will announce its endorsement of Fred Thompson for president, which I reported yesterday and which is raising about as much blog and media curiosity as Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani.

One bone of contention is Thompson's opposition to a human life amendment to the Constitution, which I said last week was a deal breaker for me (in the primary I should add, not if he makes it to the general).

(Thompson also opposed congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, supported McCain-Feingold, and made NARALesque/Giulianiesque comments on Meet the Press of fear that making abortion illegal might see young girls sent to jail, which showed a serious lack of understanding of pre-Roe law.)

About the HLA, Ramesh Ponnuru on NRO blogged yesterday....

I'm quoted today in the Los Angeles Times on National Right to Life's impending endorsement of Fred Thompson for president....

Fox News just announced the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Republican Fred Thompson for president.

This explains why an NRLC board member entered into a heated email debate with me last week over my post saying Thompson had disqualified himself. (I also wrote a follow-up post on Thompson's disturbing comments on the Schiavo case.) At the time I didn't understand the reaction. Now I do.

Developing story.

UPDATE, 12:15p:...

Liberal columnist Rosa Brooks wrote a column in the Los Angeles Times on November 8 lauding the Republican Party for deemphasizing abortion while condemning it for supporting what she called torture, specifically waterboarding. Wikipedia described waterboarding as:

... is a torture technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex, and can make the subject believe death is imminent.

ABC News (and other venues) reported waterboarding led to the confessions by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed....

The new poll question is up:

How do you think televangelist Pat Robertson's endorsement of GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani impacted Giuliani's standing?

Vote and then make your comments on this post, not on the Vizu poll site.

Here was my previous poll question and results....

Let's take a topic break.

On average, how many hours of sleep do you get a night?

Mother May I... Be Born spotlights HelpUsAdopt.org, an organization founded by an adoptive couple that "offers grants of between $500 and $15,000 toward adoption expenses for U.S. citizens who apply and qualify for this financial assistance." MIBB also reminds us November is National Adoption Month.

On a related topic, because the majority of Asians made available for adoption are girls, is a post by NationalPro-LifeRadio linking to a LifeSiteNews.com article on a United Nations Population Fund report released the end of October that is surprising in its candor on the impact and impetus for Asia's sex-ratio imbalance crisis. UNFPA has just added Vietnam to the list....

[HT: Denny at Vital Signs blog; reader Angela]

Per Cogforlife.com, which tracks these things, the failed AIDS vaccine in the article below was derived from the retina of an 18-week-old fetus and has been used to create vaccines since 2001.

Not only did this vaccine fail to slow AIDS, it increased it.

To create the AIDS vaccine, Merck researchers modified the aforementioned fetal cell line by adding a cold virus and to that cold virus elements of HIV.

This fetal cell line is also known to cause cancerous tumors in nude mice (photo right). Cogforlife reports, "Worse news to ponder, this same cell line is being used in many other new vaccines under development."

(For more information on this fetal cell line, go here and here and see FDA documentation here.)

The Washington Post, November 7....

Both Judge Judy and Judge Roy Brown are vying to hear a small claims court case filed by KS pro-life activist Mark Gietzen against late-term Wichita abortionist George Tiller, who was served yesterday.

Gietzen is requesting the maximum allowable, $4,000, for injuries he sustained after Tiller allegedly ran him over and then fled the scene outside his abortion mill last year.

The details of the hit-and-run, according to an Operation Rescue press release:

Gietzen says that as he and another man were measuring the driveway to insure that certain prayer activities were within the law, when Tiller accelerated his Jeep Grand Cherokee directly at them, even turning to continue to aim at them as they began to move out of the way. Tiller’s Jeep struck Gietzen as he attempted to move, bruising his arm and leg, and causing pain for several months.

Tiller should definitely agree to let either Judge Judy or Roy hear this case. The shows pay the claim, so Tiller would get to keep a late-term abortion's worth of money rather than hand it over to a pro-lifer.

See letters from both show producers on page 2.

The avalanche of criticism falling on Pat Robertson for endorsing Rudy Giuliani is so overwhelming I almost feel bad for the guy. But he did what he did, and I think it tapped into that strong emotional reaction we all have when sensing hypocrisy.

Thanks to Matt Lewis at Townhall.com for linking to my post on this topic.

Aside from much written commentary, the cartoon commentary is also expansive. Here's a sample. See 7 more on page 2:

Nick Anderson, Washington Post...

Citizens for a Pro-Life Society is planning a protest today of late-term abortionist Alberto Hodari's scheduled appearance at the behest of Wayne State University's Medical Students for Choice for an unappetizing "lunchtime seminar":

Following the lead of 60 pro-life/pro-family groups who on October 24 sent a letter to every US senator and congressman asking them to suspend federal funding of Planned Parenthood, US Sen. Sam Brownback and 12 other senators sent a letter Tuesday to chairmen of both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees. asking the same:

We write to urge you to suspend funding... for organizations that promote abortion. While an amendment to this effect was not adopted in the U.S. Senate last month, we believe recent findings warrant such a suspension pending further investigation....

The Guttmacher Institute states up to 1.2 million illegal abortions were committed a year in the U.S. before abortion were legalized.

This was demonstrated to be a wildly inflated number when about the same number of abortions went on to be committed legally every year. Logic says that with the ease of finding legal abortionists and fear removed, that figure should have at least doubled, if not tripled or quadrupled, or maybe more.

Well, abortion proponents decided to stick with the 1 million figure when pushing legalized abortion in Mexico City earlier this year. If it worked once, they thought, it could work again. And it did. They were successful.

But Newsbusters has busted the abortion embellishers and their willing accomplice, the Los Angeles Times....

In the words of the Tribune's Swamp blogger, televangelist Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani yesterday was "straight out weird."

I've never thought much of Robertson one way or the other. As an evangelical I considered him a slightly embarrassing uncle I endured for the sake of the family. Whatever impact he had was before my time, but I respected him for whatever that was.

When junior Stephanie Hoffmeier's request to launch The Pro-Life Club at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, VA, was rejected in August, she sued.

School officials initially said no to the club because "it was not tied to the school curriculum," according to the Washington Post, although the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Young Republicans, and Young Democrats had been previously accepted.

On October 24, the school backed down. End of story. Yeah.

Kudos to the aforementioned Washington Post for writing a fair story, even though editors apparently couldn't bear to see the word "pro-life" in the headline, even though that was the name of the club, and so entitled the piece, "Teen Wins Fight for Antiabortion Club at School."

[HT: John Jansen at Generations for Life; photo credit of Stephanie and mother Bernadette: Washington Post]

Voters for the first time have rejected a referendum to fund human embryonic stem cell research, in New Jersey of all places, a liberal bastion.

This came despite the best attempts by liberals and MSM to hide the paramount reason for the controversy, that it was about EMBRYONIC stem cell research, still on full display the morning after as evidenced by hidelines to the left.

The stunning defeat, which betrayed all pre-election polls to the contrary, may or may not signal a turn away from this liberally created must have. The decision by NJ voters for the first time in 17 years to reject a ballot initiative, this one to allow the state to borrow $450 million to fund escr, may have been purely pragmatic: NJ's property taxes are the highest in the U.S., and it has the 3rd highest overall tax burden. NJ's state deficit is $3 billion and its debt load over $33.5 billion, making it the 4th most indebted state....

Hm. A late-term abortionist speaking at a "lunchtime seminar." Doesn't sound digestionally conducive to me.

But of all who could stomach it, I expect it would be Medical Students for Choice, the group sponsoring abortionist Alberto Hodari Friday at Wayne State University:

The Actuary, a professional magazine for actuaries in the UK, has published an article in its November 2007 issue entitled, "The Breast Cancer Epidemic," about its impact on life and health insurance and health care industries in the UK.

The article was based on forecasts of breast cancer rates published last month in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

In that article, Patrick Carroll, a statistician and actuary, showed that of 7 risk factors, abortion is the "best predictor" of breast cancer trends, and fertility is also a useful predictor.

Carroll used a mathematical model he successfully used previously to forecast breast cancer incidence to project a 50.9% increase in breast cancer in England and Wales by 2029. Other highlights:

Tomaselli said he was "surprised" by the following findings, according to Reuters, today....

Two weeks ago, Laura Bush traveled to the Middle East to raise breast cancer awareness.

When I learned that I, of course, thought of the link between abortion and breast cancer and how wonderful it would be for Mrs. Bush to publicly address it.

But I knew she wouldn't since Mrs. Bush is pro-abortion....

How perfectly the issue of the sanctity of life would fit into Mrs. Bush's platform. How stupendous it would be for a first lady to use her public forum to decry abortion....

This morning I complimented the British press, and this evening I must say they're crackers.

On November 3 London's Telegraph published "The most influential US conservatives."

And topping the list of 100?

Rudy Giuliani.

That's right. Crazy.

Here's their top 20....

In yesterday's autumn 2007 Aurora Borealis, the City of Aurora's quarterly newsletter, Mayor Tom Weisner rationalized allowing Planned Parenthood to lie its way into his city by saying he investigated PP from every angle for naught.

But all along, pro-lifers smelled a rat, particularly since the mayor's current chief of staff, Bill Wiet, admitted knowing PP was coming to town beforehand.

So while Weisner ramrodded an investigation of PP that ended with the verdict pro-lifers suspected Weisner wanted, pro-lifers called for an investigation of Weisner, which to date has not been conducted.

Against that backdrop, OpenLineBlog today caught Clintonspeak in the mayor's newsletter....

Several of you sent me this one posted on November 3 by the Daily Mail.

I love abortion stories emanating from the UK. They're void of liberal abortion offense or defense. Journalists there just tell the story.

At her 20-week ultrasound scan last year, Rebecca Jones was told one of her twin boys was half the size of his brother with a heart three times the normal size.

Doctors said the boy would likely have a heart attack or stroke en utero, which would threaten the life of the surviving twin. Doctors said his survival after birth was "impossible."

They said "[i]t would be kinder to let him die in the womb with his brother by his side than to die alone after being born," according to the story, a load of emotionally coercive hooey. It was the ludicrous inverse of saying, "Let his brother deal with the death, not you."

Nevertheless Jones absurdly responded, "That made my mind up for me. I wanted the best thing for him."

The world is mad....

I blogged earlier today that Fred Thompson lost any hope of my vote on Meet the Press yesterday by saying he opposed a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, also a plank of the Republican platform.

Thompson also spoke incoherently on states outlawing abortions, saying,
"[Y]ou can't have a law that cuts off an age group or something like that, which potentially would take young, young girls in extreme situations and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail to do that." I have no idea what he was getting at.

Well, Bobby Schindler just emailed me that Thompson additionally answered wrong about his sister Terri Schindler Schiavo's case. I found the transcript and will post it on page 2.

Bobby alerted me that Fr. Frank Pavone just posted a YouTube video about Terri and politicians like Thompson who say Congress should not have involved itself in her slow murder by starvation and dehydration. Here's FP's video. Watch it before reading the Thompson transcript.

Does this sound like Aurora deja vu?

On January 11, 2007, a corporation named Fuller 38 LLC bought the property at 7155 E. 38th Ave. in Denver from United Airlines for $1,350,000 according to this HomeInfoMaxReport.

Fuller 38 LLC was created two weeks before, on December 27, 2006. See deed to property and Fuller 38 incorporation papers here (pages 3-5).

On August 20, 2007, the Denver Post broke the story of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains' stealth purchase of the United Airlines Denver property with this map acknowledging the purchase was made "under a different name":

So why as recently as October 3, 2007, did the Weitz Company, which I've previously documented is PP Denver's general contractor, apply for construct permits from the City of Denver listing United Airlines as the property owner? Click to see enlarged view:

Oh, the pro-aborts will have grand mal seizures about this one, a public service announcement sponsored by www.4parents.gov:

What a great ad! Reader Rosie reported seeing it on ABC Family last night and someone else spotted it on TBS Saturday....

Up until 30 minutes ago, Fred Thompson was one of the Republican presidential candidates I would have accepted - not perfect, but pro-life.

No longer.

He said yesterday in a Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert that he does not support a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution:

As my friend Bill fleshed out in an email about this clip....

Planned Parenthood has only one thing on its mind: SEX.

You would call PP perverted unless you understood the organization makes all its money off the unmerry-go-round of selling illicit sex and fixing the consequences of illicit sex.

Case in point, the Voices for Planned Parenthood hook-up club* at Louisiana State University, aka Vox LSU.

(*Comedian Chris Rock astutely noted during one of his routines (warning: explicit) that the best women to pick up are self-identified pro-aborts. "I love going to abortion rallies to pick up women, because you know they're f***... You ain't gonna find a bunch of virgins at at abortion rally.")

On Halloween, Vox LSU members dressed as "their favorite form of birth control," i.e., walking advertisements for PP products, "to raise awareness about the need for prevention and contraception." Click all photos (more on page 2) to see enlarged view:

Some, even certain Christians, argue humans don't become persons with souls until birth. Therefore, human embryos can be dissected and preborns can be aborted. (See examples here and here.) They base this argument on Genesis 2:7:

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the earth and blew the breath of life into his nostrils. The man became a living being.

They say this shows God doesn't impart life or a soul until a human has been born. I have responded with Scripture passages like Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:13-16 and by saying this is illogical since Adam was created an adult....

My husband and I watched Mr. Brooks on dvd last night, starring Kevin Costner, William Hurt, and Demi Moore, and co-starring Marg Helgenberger.

I didn't realize what I was getting into or I likely wouldn't have rented Mr. Brooks, because it is one of those serial killer movies, and they freak me out.

But I really liked this movie. In fact, I give it 3-1/2 stars, a rarity for me. I love Hurt in any movie, and Costner, who I've never considered a great actor, was great.

So was the plot, for the most part. But there was one plot line that nabbed me. I only review movies with a pro-life theme or thread, and we had one here....

Thanks to you, October saw this blog's biggest gain ever in visitors, resulting in its most trafficked month ever. We came thisclose to having 60,000 unique visitors (59,978 to be exact) and had 2.24 million hits. That's all hard for me to comprehend, and I think I'll get rattled if I try....

From The Hill today, also posted on Drudge:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said Congress's deficit spending has become a moral issue surpassing abortion because it saddles future generations with massive debt before they're born.

"The greatest moral issue of our time isn't abortion, it's robbing our next generation of opportunity," Coburn told reporters at a breakfast meeting Thursday at the National Press Club. "You're going to save a child from being aborted so they can be born into a debtor's prison?"...

New theatres have been added this weekend.

You may be unfamiliar with the word, "doula." It is the term for women who offer professional labor support that may also encompass prenatal and postnatal/
breastfeeding/newborn care support.

Miriam Perez at RH Reality Check reported October 30 that feminists and the abortion industry are trying to establish abortion doulas....

National Abstinence Education Association:

The NAEA applauds the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation for its detailed study of how teens interpret abstinence and sexual activity. The report appears in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Children ages 12 to 16 from throughout CA were asked their perceptions on sexual behaviors. According to the study, 12% of the children interviewed believed that they were abstinent if they were engaging in sexual (vaginal) intercourse. Anal sex was considered abstaining for 14% of the respondents. More than 44% consider genital touching an abstinent behavior, with 33% oral sex constituted abstinence....

The fog suddenly lifts when it's one's own life in question.

A Tuscaloosa News article yesterday fascinated me, after I got past the so typically spun hideline (above):

A Montgomery woman who said she recovered from significant heart problems with the help of adult stem cell research on Wednesday endorsed a resolution by the Silver-Haired Legislature calling on the state to fund the research....

It's the day after Halloween, and I'm still feeling spirited.

The Planned Parenthood Aurora blog was complaining about pro-life pickets of the Weitz Company in Denver and homes of its leaders, which I've reported on extensively. Weitz has agreed to build PP's new largest abortion mill in the U.S. there, coming in at 50k sq. ft., more than double the size of the Aurora mill. Said blogger Marie...

Moderator Bethany just informed me you are unable to comment. Have notified the server, and hopefully the prob will be fixed shortly. Sorry, and thanks for your patience.

UPDATE, 9:34a: It's fixed.

John Jansen at Lunch Break reports that infamous Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer will speak tonight at the 18th Annual Chicago Humanities Festival. Writes John:

Yes, that Peter Singer - Peter "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all" Singer.

Singer advocates parents having the right to euthanize handicapped postborn babies up to one month of age.

Singer wrote in Practical Ethics...

The new poll question is up:

If the two choices for president were Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani, who would you pick?

There are five options. Make your pick and then comment here, not on the Vizu site.

As for the last poll, there apparently aren't a lot of Democrats on this site. Whereas my poll asking Republicans which presidential candidate they would pick yielded 531 responses, this poll yielded only 106.

I was surprised Obama came in 1st. I expected Hillary to claim top spot. Perhaps the answers reflect a more youthful audience of liberals on this site. Here is the breakdown...

My post last week on Robert Morris University's Day of Service, which included an "opportunity" to help the local Planned Parenthood pack safer sex kits, yielded a comment from former RMU student Cynthia Collins, pictured right.

Cynthia is now the Louisiana director of Operation Outcry, an organization of post-abortive mothers "'crying out' the truth that abortion hurts women, men, families, and the culture." She is also host of "Faces of Abortion" on the Sky Angel network.

Cynthia was one of the first to get an abortion after it was legalized following the Roe v. Wade decision. That set her on a downward spiral. Abortion is still impacting Cynthia's life but now for good. You can read her complete testimony here. As for RMU's part, here was Cynthia's comment....