Beyond help?

Michelle says the assassination-mongers "all need serious help." I have to wonder if people that deranged (or unhinged, as Michelle would say) are way beyond help.

Happy Birthday, Jayme Elise.!!!

Happy 3rd birthday to my beautiful daughter!

2,996: A Tribute to the Victims of 9/11

[See update #5 below.]

I'm moving this on top until either the end of 9/10 or until all names have been assigned. If you have a blog, please consider joining this effort. There are only about 550 victims yet to be assigned with 19 days left until the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Let's make sure everyone who died on that day is remembered.

The 2,996 Project

The idea is simple, but powerful: have a special tribute for each victim of 9/11, with each tribute being created by a different blogger. We started 2,996 Project to coordinate the creation of the tributes, and that's what this site is all about. Here you can sign up to make a tribute yourself, on your blog (we'll randomly assign a victim to you). You can also browse or search through either the victims that have already been assigned, or those that have not -- and you can get pointers to more information on all of them.

UPDATE: As of today - Sunday, August 27 - there are only 71 people left unassigned with 15 days left to go. That's awesome!

UPDATE 2: 33 left as of Monday afternoon! Hopefully they'll all be taken by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Katie Favazza and I had a brief discussion about how to write up posts on the victims. The information that can be found on 9/11 memorial pages and through web searches tends to be pretty sparse and not very personal ("sterile" is the term I use). Katie agreed. I don't think these memorial posts should sound like news articles or encyclopedia biographies. The only way I could come up with for making these posts the best that they can be is to contact the victims' families. The only problem is how to contact them tastefully. Simply writing, "Hi, I'm writing a page about your loved one for the '2,996' project. Can you help me out?" is pretty gauche, but then writing 12 paragraphs (I may be exaggerating a little) as delicately as possible before getting to the request for help isn't any more appealing. Heck, even asking "Can you help me?" in any way, shape or form seems crude and uncaring.

Expressing your condolences should be first and foremost as these people are undoubtedly still feeling the pain after five years. Next, the "2,996" project should be mentioned and briefly described in case the family hasn't heard of it yet. Finally, the request for help should be something like, "If you don't mind, I would appreciate any personal rememberences of [victim's name] that you feel would help honor [his/her] memory."

And as for those of you reading this post, I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you have on this issue. Thanks.

UPDATE 3: It's coming down to the wire, folks! 16 names left as of early evening on Monday. I hope they'll be taken before midnight hits the East Coast - I've got a good feeling about it. Just a few days ago, the number was still in the thousands and the goal seemed almost impossible to reach by September 11th. Amazing!

UPDATE 4: Two names One name (it just changed!) left with less than an hour to go before midnight hits the East Coast.

UPDATE 5: YEAH! All names have been assigned! Fantastic! (I'll be letting this post drop down the page now.)

It's like playing the telephone game!

So the nutty left has taken this document:

EPA FY 2007 LIBRARY PLAN

...which explains how more and more people are accessing EPA data via electronic means and how reducing the cost of physical materials and personnel would be sensible, and via a series of subtle (and not-so-subtle changes), gone from this:

EPA BEGINS CLOSING LIBRARIES BEFORE CONGRESS ACTS ON PLAN — End of Public Access to Technical Holdings as Original Collections Shuttered

To this:

The reactionary campaign against knowledge and information is reaching frightening new heights.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered by the White House to "shut down libraries, end public access to research materials and box up unique collections on the assumption that Congress will not reverse President Bush’s proposed budget reductions." Fifteen states will lose library service immediately, the rest will follow, and the public is to be turned away as soon as possible.

And finally, to this:

EPA has been ordered by W.H. to close all libraries to the public

...

What better way to assuage "them" than to remove more of our freedoms?

...

our Libraries are treasures at least they aren't burning the records... yet. what are you doing for your local library?

...

If the f***ers can't BURN BOOKS, they will BAN THEM instead. They've got to be stopped.

...

I had to click on the link to make sure this wasn't a parody I kept waiting for the punchline but there was none. I can't believe how bad things have gotten in just 6 short years.

...

The Republican party is insane. Criminally insane.

...

Are these PUBLIC libraries? I have read this over and over and don't understand. PUBLIC libraries? Closing? Don't fundies use libraries too? When the hell are the people going to wake up. Maybe not. Maybe not until some liberating army comes to save us? And where will they come from? Weren't WE the LIBERATORS?

Even after Huff-n-Puff made a slight change to the entry (inserting the clarifying "[its]" before the word "libraries"), the DU crowd is still going on the belief that this is about public libraries! Even if they realize their mistake, they will still believe that this is some horrible act of censorship by the Bush Administration instead of a reasonable cost-effective action.

Huff-n-Puff and DU both have it wrong. First of all, it's simply ridiculous and silly to think that President Bush ordered the closure of all public libraries. But you know how rumors are. They start and the people who believe them unquestioningly find it hard to admit they are wrong.

Second, this action simply does not affect the availability of EPA information. The Bush Administration isn't shutting down the EPA or censoring their information. All this is doing is shifting tax-dollars to where they are actually being used. Access of the physical libraries has fallen off while electronic access has grown. This order is perfectly reasonable and cost-effective, and is not any vast right-wing conspiracy to limit people's access to EPA information.

Silly, silly far-left loons.

Embryonic stem cell researchers caught in a big fat lie

Remember this?

New method makes embryo-safe stem cells

Turns out that the news doesn't match the actual outcome:

Supposed New Embryonic Stem Cell Research Technique Killed All Embryos

Gee, what a surprise.

ESCR supporters move on to emotional arguments

Here's a silly video from embryonic stem cell research supporters (like this guy) entitled, "the End of an Unused Embryo." The text inserted into the video reads:

This is one of 350,000 embryos from fertility clinics across America

...thrown out every year instead of being used for stem cell research.

An extremely unfortunate situation brought about by the practice of over-harvesting and over-fertilizing women's egg cells. However, I do not support destroying these lives for embryonic stem cell research anymore than I support throwing them out. I would prefer that they be donated to infertile couples who want to have children. I wish more people would support that idea.

But anyway, back to the video as the text isn't finished. Here comes the heart-wrenching stinger:

Research that could help someone you know.

Oh! They got me! Yes, I must support any and all research that could help someone I know! Bring back Josef Mengele! Nevermind the dubious nature of the research!

IT COULD HELP SOMEONE YOU KNOW!!!

Yeesh!

And guess what? The text still isn't finished! At the end, they provide an URL for the website of those behind this video with the phrase, "Choose life." "Choose life?" Pray tell, how is killing human life choosing life?

Silly, silly video. But it does go to show how the left has moved from scientific arguments (which they know weren't going anywhere because ESCR has produced no treatments or cures) to emotional one. What will happen when they find that won't work, either (like it hasn't worked for abortion for over 33 years)?

All Your Fakes Are Belong To Us

All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us

Courtesy of the Jawa Report.

Portrait of Jesus stolen from high school

Contentious W.Va. Jesus painting stolen

So much for "Thou shalt not steal." Just before 4 a.m. Thursday, an intruder snatched the contentious painting of Jesus Christ from the halls of Bridgeport High School. The theft came just two days after the Harrison County School Board voted to fight a legal challenge over the portrait.

Schools Superintendent Carl Friebel said the bandit took the painting, but left behind the gilded frame and backing.

"The picture was the only thing stolen, so the deliberate intent was to steal the picture and only the picture," Friebel said.

I guess that if your side can't win, just cheat. I hope they recover or replace the portrait soon and catch the thief. I'm sure he'll turn out to be one of those open-minded, tolerant liberal atheists.

Abortion clinic turns out to be a slaughterhouse

Via Stop the ACLU and WorldNetDaily:

A Wichita, Kan., building that formerly was used as the headquarters for an abortion business had blood covering its walls "from floor to ceiling," according to a witness.

...

In continuing their documentation, an Operation Rescue team recently went into the building at night with a chemical that reacts to the presence of human blood with a glow, and their nightmares were confirmed.

...

Brenna Sullenger sprayed the floors and walls with luminal, while Keith Mason used a still camera and Cheryl Sullenger videotaped the testing and the results.

They started in the recovery room area.

"As Brenna began to spray the baseboards and the walls, suddenly, the entire room reflected an eerie glow as the area began to emit a bright pale-blue luminescence – the positive indicator of the presence of human blood," the group said in its report.

Both spatter patterns and smears, where it appeared there were cleanup attempts, were revealed.

"The walls looked like there had been a chain saw massacre in there," said Cheryl Sullenger.

Then, in the first abortion room, there were similar results. A floor vent revealed particularly heavy amounts of blood, with indicators it had literally drained down into the vent.

"I was not sure I could continue the testing at that point," said Brenna Sullenger. "The blood spatter revealed a pattern that clearly showed the orientation of the abortion table and the location of the suction machine."

The small closet where a sink and garbage disposal were found "lit up like a Christmas tree," said Cheryl Sullenger.

What had appeared to be rust stains during daylight hours "glowed with bright blue reflections indicating the thick presence of human blood," she said. Even the paper towel dispenser glowed.

Sickening.

Just another reason not to vote for Democrats

Because you just know they'd have no second thoughts about chaining the U.S. to this:

Constitution threatened by homeschool case
Expert: U.S. parent-led education endangered by U.N. children's protocol

A couple in Brussels has been threatened with criminal neglect for schooling their children at home, and a U.S. expert on the issue told WorldNetDaily the case actually could pose a threat to the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution.

That's because if the basis for the legal arguments being made by Belgian prosecutors ever were accepted in – or imposed upon -- the United States, that fact would make the U.N. protocol equal to the Constitution.

...

What terrifies U.S. homeschool education experts is the authorities' decision to cite the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a legal argument.

...

Under the U.N. protocol, a child could have an abortion without telling her parents, while at the same time forcing them to pay for it. A generic description of the treaty calls it "child-centric." But Klicka's HSLDA is more specific.

The U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause requires that "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land," the HSLDA said.

That would mean any state law relating to child custody, the family, education, adoption, child pornography and dozens of other issues could be nullified in an instant, the group said.

Under the protocol, children would be vested with freedom of expression, so that "any attempts (by parents) to prevent their children from interacting with material parents deem unacceptable is forbidden."

Reaching to the far end of that logic would produce this result: your 6-year-old wants Playboy magazine, or even to visit a Playboy club, and you pay for it.

Parents who fail would be subjected to "identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment, and follow-up."

Hello, fellow Hot Air fans!

And thanks to Allahpundit for the plug.

I must confess that I originally found the Democratic Underground post about the Jonbenet Ramsey case arrest being a Bush/Cheney/Rove/whatever distraction via "tuolumnejim" on the Conservative Underground forums, where I post under the handle "jinxmchue." CU is a great place to follow the bizarre world of DU - from the claims of 90,000+ active members (yeah, right!) to the tombstonings (DU's version of banning) to the death threats against Republicans (most of which the rest of the world would not know about if CU didn't catch them before they are deleted).

The wonderful world of abortion

It's stories like this that make me say, "Thank goodness for abortion!"*

An investigation into the remains of a baby found at a Hialeah, Fla., abortion clinic in July has determined that the child was born alive, but authorities say it may come down to an interpretation of federal law whether charges will be filed.

The case developed at the end of July when the remains were found in a biohazard bag at "A Gynecologists Diagnostic Center" after an anonymous 911 call reported to police that a child had been born alive, then killed.

Infants' remains at an abortion clinic are not a violation of the law -- unless that child was born alive, in which case the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2000 takes effect.

The Miami-Dade County medical examiner and police in Hialeah have been investigating, and now local investigators in the South Florida city have confirmed the child was born alive.

Hialeah Deputy Police Chief Mark Overton recently told WorldNetDaily columnist Jill Stanek that the medical examiner ruled the baby was born alive, but state attorneys were trying to determine if the child was viable, or able to live outside the womb.

At the time the body was found, a lawyer for the owner of the abortion business issued a statement that no crime was committed, and an 18-year-old had had an abortion without complications.

"My clients run an abortion clinic. It's a legal business," Regina DeMoraes-Millan told television station WFOR-TV in Miami-Fort Lauderdale at the time. "Right now police are just investigating a 9-1-1 call."

Police were called to the Hialeah clinic on July 20 after a report that a person – identified by Overton as clinic owner Belkis Gonzalez – took the infant and placed it in the biohazard bag. But police were unable to investigate because the clinic was closed when they arrived.

After getting the mother's name, police obtained a search warrant, but on July 22 found nothing in their search, Stanek's sources reported.

Then on July 29, after another anonymous tip, officers returned and found the decomposing body in the bag.

Since then, the investigation has gone on, but now Overton has confirmed to Stanek that he's ready to move it to the next level, if a homicide count isn't coming.

"I will make a request to have the case reviewed by a higher authority and go to the media, regardless of the outcome," he told her.

At the time the body was found, a spokeswoman for Florida Right to Life told WND that babies' bodies in an abortion clinic are just "business as usual" for the industry.

Spokeswoman Linda Bell said there are very few protections for the mother, and essentially none for the unborn children, as a "result of legalized abortion in our nation."

Hialeah investigator Det. Tony Rodriquez expressed immediate concern about the situation, too.

"In 24 years in law enforcement, I have never seen a case like this," he had told reporters.

Witnesses told police the woman went in for an abortion, and returned the next day but an abortionist wasn't immediately available. While she was in a room, she gave birth to the child, witnesses told police.

The witnesses said the clinic worker then came in and put the baby in the bag.

Bell said her organization and others concerned about life repeatedly have tried to get basic health clinic rules applied to abortion businesses, without success to date.

"Unfortunately, that's the mentality of this country, that the abortion business is not subject (to rules)," she told WND. "This is the result of that."

One of the witnesses in the case is the mother of the child, police have said.

A report by the Miami Herald said state records show the clinic is one of a group owned and run by the same people. The records show the owner is Gonzalez, of Miramar, who also was listed as the owner of the Miramar clinic that was closed in 2005 after several workers were accused of practicing medicine without a license.

The state Department of Health concluded that one worker, Roberto A. Osborne, failed to treat a woman after giving her an abortion in 2000 and he pleaded guilty in 2005 to performing medicine without a license, a third-degree felony.

Bell also noted the Miramar clinic at one point promoted a cleaning woman to medical assistant so she could assist with abortions. Bell said the woman later pleaded guilty to nursing without a license.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. This story is horrifically sickening. Worse yet, these lovers of death decided to play "hide the body" when the police showed up:

On July 21, an informant gave police the mother's name, and she provided enough information to get a search warrant.

On July 22, police served a search warrant at the abortion mill but could find no baby.

On July 29, police received a tip that the baby was back inside the clinic. The tipster said workers had placed the baby on the clinic roof while police were searching the clinic and put the baby back in the trash when they thought the coast was clear.

The police returned, finding the baby's decomposed body in a box they had previously searched.

I have little doubt that this goes on far, far more than is reported.

[Found via Big Blue Wave and the Conservative Underground forums.]

3 Egyptian "students" found - one in MN, two in NJ

Via Michelle:

3 of 11 missing Egyptian students found

Three of 11 missing Egyptian students have been picked up — one in Minneapolis, Minn., and two in Manville, N.J., NBC News’ Pete Williams reported.

The FBI confirmed the discovery of the student found in Minneapolis earlier Wednesday.

Two in New Jersey. One in Minneapolis. (Should put "at least" in front of both of those.)

Guess where Moussaoui was arrested.

Minneapolis.

Guess where Flight 93 originated from.

Newark, New Jersey.

I certainly hope authorities in Boston and in and around Washington, D.C., are on alert. I'm not saying that this is what these guys were/are up to, but their activities certainly have to make one think. Think and prepare. If they're not involved in any sort of terror plans, awesome! No harm, no foul. Send them on their way back to Egypt and we can breathe easy for a brief moment.

However, 17 Middle Eastern men arrive in this country on the pretense of going to school in Montana (yeah, right!) and not one or two but ELEVEN promptly vanish instead of showing up in Montana. A couple days later, two are found in New Jersey and one is found in Minneapolis. How this can't give pause to every single person in this country, I do not know.

And I do wish the media would stop refering to them as "students." They're not in Montana where they're supposed to be, so they aren't students anymore. They're criminals.

The definition of "courage under fire"

Heroine teenage soldier to be decorated for bravery

A heroic teenager who dodged sniper fire to save her commander's life will be the first female soldier decorated for bravery in the conflict.

Pte Michelle Norris, 19, braved a fierce gun battle to rescue the sergeant who had been shot in the mouth.

Bullets rained down around her as she leapt out of the Warrior patrol vehicle in the darkness, and climbed up the side of it to reach the injured soldier in the turret of the vehicle.

One bullet from an AK47 blasted through the medic's rucksack as she clamboured across the vehicle.

Pte Norris then helped drag the injured solider back inside the vehicle - which was still under heavy fire. The rescue took three minutes.

God bless her!

CONGRATS!!!!

Congratulations to my nephew Jared and his wife Stephanie on the birth of Nathan Alexander! He's beautiful!