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Liberal or conservative, you have to admire Helen Thomas.  In the “man’s world” of the 1940’s and 1950’s she was a strong voice for female reporters.  She has been around Washington DC for a very long time – she started with JFK.  “She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and, in 1975, the first female member of the Gridiron Club.”  (Wikipedia)

She made it no secret that she despised Bush and supported Obama.  She was even criticized for asking Obama easy questions during his first 100 days.  Well, the honeymoon is over now. 

From the Political Grapevine:

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas has lashed out at what she sees as an unprecedented effort by the Obama administration to control the media.

Thomas tells Cybercast News: "Nixon didn’t try to do that… What the hell do they think we are, puppets?" Thomas points to the arrangement between the White House and The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney, who was allegedly invited to last week’s presidential news conference with the understanding he would ask a question from an Iranian blogger.

And Wednesday, Thomas vented during the White House press briefing after the president conducted a town hall meeting that featured pre-screened participants asking pre-screened questions: "It’s really shocking… It’s a pattern of controlling the press. Your formal engagements are pre-packaged."

From Reuters:

General Electric Co is teaming up with U.S. biotech company Geron Corp to use stem cells to develop products that could give drug developers an early warning of whether new medicines are toxic.

The venture is the largest U.S. conglomerate’s most direct attempt to make a commercial products from human embryonic stem cells.

GE and Geron aim to use an existing batch of stem cells to develop sample human cells that drug companies could use to test the toxicity of new drugs early in the development process, before they are ready for animal testing or human clinical trials.

"This could replace, to a large extent, animal trials," Fiedler said in a telephone interview. "Once you have human cells and you can get them in a standardized way, like you get right now your lab rats in a standardized way, you can actually do those experiments on those cells."

Just recently I wrote about Bioethicist Leon Kass who said that it is dangerous to use human life as a natural resource.  Leon Kass considers himself to be agnostic, so his opinion on this is based on science and not religion.

If they want to use stem cells I have no problems with that.  If they want to use embryonic stem cells, I have serious problems with that.   Human life should never be sacrificed for any reason.  It doesn’t matter stage of development that human life is in. 

Such a professional title, huh?  But it is the only way I could describe this next story.  Eww….

The German entrepreneur, who describes himself as a plastinator, has earned international fame for his Body Worlds shows which feature human cadavers arranged in lifelike poses.

But his latest project Cycle of Life, which opens in Berlin today, has been condemned as indecent and offensive for arranging two dead bodies as if they were making love.

Von Hagens has defended his piece, insisting it is not intended to be sexually stimulating and the models gave their consent to the pose.

He was once accused of using the bodies of executed prisoners from China in his plastination process and in 2004 he returned seven corpses which had head injuries because he said he could not prove they had not been executed.

The scientist’s technique, which involves removing body fluids and fat from corpses and replacing them with plastic resin, has made him a multi-millionaire.

No words.  There are just no words.

The Catholic News Agency reports:

The Modesto City School Board on Monday voted to allow junior high and high school students to leave campus during the school day for “confidential medical services,” …. without the consent or knowledge of their parents.

Karen England, executive director of the pro-family lobbying group Capitol Resource Institute, attended the meeting and reported that four people testified in favor of “excluding parents.” Three were from Planned Parenthood while one was described as an “activist.”

School district attorney Roman Munoz said the new policy updates district regulations to conform to a provision of the state Education Code which took effect in 1986.

The relevant section of the Education Code says the governing board of each school district in each academic year should notify pupils in grades 7 to 12 and their parents and guardians that school authorities may “excuse any pupil from the school for the purpose of obtaining confidential medical services without the consent of the pupil’s parent or guardian.”

England said the law “provides permission” for implementing confidential medical release but “certainly does not impose a mandate.”

The Sacramento Bee said that medical services can include pregnancy testing, contraception, abortion, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, counseling and treatment for rape, drug abuse, mental health and other services.

No prayer in school, but a trip to the clinic is perfectly fine.  What are these people thinking?  Look at that list.  Shouldn’t parents know about their child’s mental health, STD’s and mental health issues? 

How many children are going to suffer greatly before we wake up and realize this isn’t helping.  Even the kids in abusive homes can’t get help from this.  Those kids can just keep covering it up with no outside help.  Brilliant, huh?  Let’s just keep covering up the bad so everyone can have free sex!  Ya’ll know that free sex is more important than anything else, right?

So, what does fast food and sex have in common?  I have no idea, but Burger King seems to think they have a lot in common.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the people of the U.S. actually woke up and discovered the truth in the media bias.

Fox News Channel continued its ratings dominance in the just concluded second quarter. Compared to Q2 ‘08 FNC is up an astonishing 33% among Total Viewers and up 44% in the A25-54 demo in Total Day (Monday-Sunday). In primetime (Monday-Friday) the numbers are even more impressive: up 35% in Total Viewers and up 54% in younger viewers. FNC is on-track to have the highest rated year in the network’s 13 year history.

In primetime, Fox News has more Total Viewers and younger viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined.

Fox News occupies the Top 10 spots on cable news among Total Viewers:

8pm – O’Reilly Factor — 3,188,000
9pm – Hannity — 2,341,000
5pm – Glenn Beck — 2,053,000
10pm – On the Record — 1,950,000
6pm – Special Report — 1,889,000
7pm – Fox Report — 1,757,000
11pm – O’Reilly Factor — 1,579,000
9am – America’s Newsroom — 1,399,000
4pm – Your World — 1,389,000
3pm – Studio B — 1,169,000

Fox News is the #3 basic cable network in primetime – behind USA and TNT. CNN is #23 and MSNBC is #25.

I hear it all the time, that Fox News is more bias than CNN in reporting. Really? Is that why everyone is jumping the CNN ship and getting on the Fox News bandwagon?

Hat Tip: Kristi

So which is it?

If a pregnancy was terminated for any reason, this heightened the risk of premature and very premature delivery in subsequent pregnancies.

If a previous pregnancy had to be terminated for any reason, that may increase the risk of premature rupture of the membrane, premature and very premature delivery in subsequent pregnancies.

If a previous pregnancy had to be terminated for any reason, premature birth was a risk in subsequent pregnancies.

And women who have had more than one abortion double their risk of having a "very" premature baby – classed as being born before 34 weeks.

Those who terminate a pregnancy are subsequently more likely to give birth prematurely, with two or more abortions more than doubling the odds.

Can you believe they are all talking about the same report report?  It was the analysis of 75 different studies from 1980 – 2008 presented at European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) annual meeting.  Dr Robbert van Oppenraaij, from Erasmus MC University Medical Centre in Rotterdam was the leader of this report. 

All of them say the same things in regards to a miscarriage:

They found that a history of one or more miscarriages nearly doubled the risk of pre-term rupture of the membrane that surrounds the baby in the womb, thereby increasing the chances of a premature delivery.

The researchers have found that a history of one or more miscarriages nearly doubles the risk in an ongoing pregnancy of preterm premature rupture of the membrane that surrounds the baby in the womb.

A history of one or more miscarriages nearly doubled the risk in an ongoing pregnancy of preterm premature rupture of the membrane that surrounds the baby in the womb, and increased the risk of a premature birth.

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I’ll just give you the story in it’s entirety (no editing on my part)  and leave comments up to you. 

The author of controversial book The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers.

Richard Dawkins is subsidising the camp which will offer children aged eight to 17 the chance to sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine and have lessons in evolution.

The five-day camp, based in Somerset, promises to be ‘beyond belief’ – the event’s motto – and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.

As well as traditional camp pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war attendees will be given lessons in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology as well as debating otherworldly activities such as crop circles and telepathy.

There will even be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.

And instead of finishing up the day with a toasted marshmallow and round of Kim-bi-ya budding atheists will belt out ‘Imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too.’

Dawkins said the camp was designed to ‘encourage children to think for themselves sceptically and rationally.’

The event has been held in America for 13 years and was set up in the UK by Samantha Stein, a postgraduate psychology student from London.

The 23-year-old said the 24 places available were now taken and she hoped to expand next year after receiving hundreds more inquiries.

She said the camp, to be held from July 27 to July 31, was not intended to convert children but to introduce them to a different way of thinking.

‘It is not about changing what they think, but the way that they think.

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It isn’t odd to do what President Obama is doing with the bioethics council that Bush established, its just….well….. Let me first tell you what I’m talking about.

Members of the President’s Council on Bioethics were told by the White House last week that their services were no longer needed and were asked to cancel a planned meeting, a council staff member said Wednesday.

The council was disbanded because it was designed by the Bush administration to be “a philosophically leaning advisory group” that favored discussion over developing a shared consensus, said Reid Cherlin, a White House press officer.

President Obama will appoint a new bioethics commission, one with a new mandate and that “offers practical policy options,” Mr. Cherlin said.

I’m wondering if anyone else caught the odd part of this all.  I began to doubt myself that I just may be wrong on something, because it just didn’t seem to make sense, so I looked it up.

The study of bioethics is basically the philosophy of ethical controversies in the advancement of biology and medicine.  So, why would they be disbanded for doing their jobs?  This council actually went against a lot of what the Pro-life community thought they would.  An example is the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  The bioethics community established that this study could continue as long as no knew embryo’s were created for the purpose of research.  It did not stop the research.  In January of this year the FDA approved the first human trials of human embryonic stem cell research so it is obvious that advancements were made under the Bush policy. 

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Reading 1

Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24

God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being;
and the creatures of the world are wholesome,
and there is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of the netherworld on earth,
for justice is undying.
For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who belong to his company experience it.

Reading II

2 Corinthians 8:7,13-15

Brothers and sisters:
As you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse,
knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you,
may you excel in this gracious act also.

For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor,
so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Not that others should have relief while you are burdened,
but that as a matter of equality
your abundance at the present time should supply their needs,
so that their abundance may also supply your needs,
that there may be equality.
As it is written:
Whoever had much did not have more,
and whoever had little did not have less.

Gospel

Mark 5:21-24,35b-43

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat
to the other side,
a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea.
One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward.
Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying,
"My daughter is at the point of death.
Please, come lay your hands on her
that she may get well and live."
He went off with him,
and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him.

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