Photo Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay
The Family Research Council on Friday revealed some of the details in a release to Secrets to promote an upcoming family policy lecture that will include longtime abortion foe Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.
Among the details:
– Rather than the one-third of women commonly cited by abortion supporters as having obtained an abortion, the number is one-sixth.
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Photo Credit: A. Chedorros Onoky/Corbis
Researchers found that the more time a child spent viewing TV, the more profound the brain alterations appeared to be.
The Japanese study looked at 276 children aged between five and 18, who watched between zero and four hours TV per day, with the average being about two hours.
MRI brain scans showed children who spent the most hours in front of the box had greater amounts of grey matter in regions around the frontopolar cortex – the area at the front of the frontal lobe.
But this increased volume was a negative thing as it was linked with lower verbal intelligence, said the authors, from Tohoku University in the city of Sendai.
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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mohammed Jaffer
The new YouGov poll bolsters the State Department’s Dec. 12 arrest and strip search of a top Indian diplomat charged with falsifying visa information for her Indian maid and paying her pauper’s wages of $600 a month despite promises of $4,500 a month.
The prosecution of Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York City, has roiled U.S.-India relations. Images of President Obama have been burned in New Delhi. Khobragade has denied the charges, even claiming that her maid had tried to blackmail her.
India claims she has diplomatic immunity, but federal officials said that the rights to foreign officials only extends to their governmental duties.
On Friday, Khobragade flew back to New Delhi after she was indicted then granted diplomatic immunity from visa fraud charges.
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Income inequality is once again the rallying cry for Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Mark Begich and the Democrats for this election cycle.
None of us should be surprised. Candidate Barack Obama in 2008 revealed the central tenet of his governing philosophy to a famous plumber with a good first name, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Though Barack Obama lied to the American people about keeping their healthcare and their doctors, in this instance he told truth. He and the Democrats have spread the wealth around and when there was not enough in the Treasury to meet our current obligations, they borrowed and printed trillions more and spread it too.
Here in Alaska Mark Begich runs ads about being “as independent as Alaska.” What he must mean is his actions in Washington are independent of his rhetoric at home.
Big Government Begich holsters a rubber stamp with a big fat “YES” on it: ObamaCare, Yes; trillion dollar stimulus bill, Yes; for the nuclear option to end the filibuster and push radical nominees through the senate, Yes; for nearly $8 trillion in new debt since taking office a mere 5 years ago, Yes; Voting 91 percent of the time with Harry Reid and the Democrats, YES! So much for being an independent voice for Alaska.
Margaret Thatcher wisely observed, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” And Ronald Reagan said that it always leads to “shared scarcity.”
You and I both know a diminishing future is not the calling or destiny of America. We didn’t declare our independence from Great Britain only to become dependent on the federal government to run our lives. We declared independence from Great Britain precisely because it was trying to undermine our economic and political freedom. We believed, and still must believe, that all are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Any success or prosperity we are experiencing as a nation now is because of the foundation laid at the beginning. We are still riding on the momentum of what our Founding Fathers set in motion. The promise of America is equality of opportunity for the people to exercise their God-given talents, not equality of outcome.
We cannot allow our nation to be lured by the sirens’ song that you can have liberty and big government socialism too. The two are mutually exclusive.
If you use the force of government to guarantee a certain outcome for everyone, you discourage the people from whom you take the money from working harder and taking risks and you encourage the people to whom you give the money to work less. The lesson of history is unmistakable. You end up with a far poorer society, and one in which power shifts primarily from the people to make choices to the government.
That is why I decided to run for the U.S. Senate. I cannot stand by and watch the American experiment in liberty die.
As Ronald Reagan once exhorted, it is time to begin the hard work of getting government back within its means and exercising less control over our daily lives. On these two principles, let there be no compromise.
Thank you for your friendship and support,
Joe Miller, Candidate
United States Senate
Photo Credit: Getty Images
If the business in question sold standard, mass-produced items, such as rings, then denying gay couples the right to purchase such things would be clearly discriminatory in the same way that a realtor would be discriminating if they refused to show a house that was for sale to any and all interested potential buyers. The sexual orientation of the buyers should not be an issue in that sort of transaction.
However, the sensitivities of gay couples who claim to feel slighted is not the real issue. The plaintiff in a recent wedding cake related suit, one David Mullins, is reported to have said:
Being denied service by Masterpiece Cakeshop [the defendant] was offensive and dehumanizing especially in the midst of arranging what should be a joyful family celebration.
While vigorously defending the plaintiffs’ claims that they have a right not to be offended, the judge, the ACLU, and others in the LGBT community seem to be ignoring (in this particular case) the rights of the baker who chose not to fulfill the plaintiffs’ request. Most people would immediately think of the 1st Amendment’s protection of freedom of religion, but in truth that is not the most relevant part of the Constitution here. It is the 13th Amendment, Section 1, which should be the controlling part of the legal debate in this situation.
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Photo Credit: Fox News
“I come out here to apologize to the people of New Jersey,” he said. “I am embarrassed and humiliated.”
The governor added: “I am stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here.”
The governor is trying to get a handle on the scandal, which could threaten the potential 2016 presidential candidate’s political aspirations. He’s also facing various legal inquiries. The U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey confirmed Thursday that it is now “reviewing” the matter to “determine whether a federal law was implicated.”
Christie stressed Thursday that he was not involved and that while his political style is tough, “I am not a bully.” He said repeatedly that he was betrayed by his staff.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Spectator.co.uk
But still: you’d have to have a heart as cold and unmovable as Commonwealth Bay ice not to be howling with laughter at the exquisite symbolic perfection of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition ‘stuck in our own experiment’, as they put it. I confess I was hoping it might all drag on a bit longer and the cultists of the ecopalypse would find themselves drawing straws as to which of their number would be first on the roasting spit. On Douglas Mawson’s original voyage, he and his surviving comrade wound up having to eat their dogs. I’m not sure there were any on this expedition, so they’d probably have to make do with the Guardian reporters. Forced to wait a year to be rescued, Sir Douglas later recalled, ‘Several of my toes commenced to blacken and fester near the tips.’ Now there’s a man who’s serious about reducing his footprint.
But alas, eating one’s shipmates and watching one’s extremities drop off one by one is not a part of today’s high-end eco-doom tourism. Instead, the ice-locked warmists uploaded chipper selfies to YouTube, as well as a self-composed New Year singalong of such hearty un-self-awareness that it enraged even such party-line climate alarmists as Andrew Revkin, the plonkingly earnest enviro-blogger of the New York Times. A mere six weeks ago, pumping out the usual boosterism, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that, had Captain Scott picked his team as carefully as Professor Chris Turney, he would have survived. Sadly, we’ll never know — although I’ll bet Captain Oates would have been doing his ‘I am going out. I may be some time’ line about eight bars into that New Year number.
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Over the past week we have heard many mainstream media reports about the dreaded ‘Polar Vortex’ that has been impacting the lower 48 and making it downright cold in early January. Watching the coverage one might think that is something new and different, the likes of which we have never seen before (except in B-grade science fiction movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow”). Rush Limbaugh said earlier this week the ‘Polar Vortex’ was a media ‘lie’ and ‘hoax’. What is the truth? In this case, the media hype got so bad that the National Weather Service was forced to put out a graphic and statement to help clear up the disinformation. It can be seen here:
Photo Credit: NOAA
In short, this is nothing new. Sure, this is a stronger cold outbreak that most (called it the Siberian Express a decade or two ago). However a cold air mass in January is not, in fact, anything unusual. What is does show is that the ridiculous prognostications from five to fifteen years ago that proclaimed that global warming would make snowfall rare, and cold outbreaks a thing for the history books, were wildly wrong.
Does a cold outbreak in January prove or disprove anything scientifically? Of course not, but what it does prove is the picture painted by climate alarmists was, and continues to be, devoid of reality.
The media is once again doing their best Marx Brothers imitation: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”
The Alaska State Senate held hearings on January 7th and 8th on the Alaska State Standards and the Common Core curriculum. Most of the speakers at the hearing were officials from the Chief State School Officers and others affiliated with the process of drafting the state standards. Most of those who testified were direct beneficiaries of the Alaska Department of Education in some way, or in some way connected to a foundation that receives substantial sums from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
There were a few exceptions.
One of the highlights of that hearing was the testimony by Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. James Milgram regarding the Alaska State Standards and the Common Core. Both served as members on the validation committee for the Common Core and refused to sign off on the standards. According to Dr. Stotsky those who were involved in the development of the common core standards lacked the credentials to be involved in the process.
Dr. Stotsky highlighted the involvement in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in states where the Common Core had been adopted.
Toward the end of the testimony, there were some fireworks between Mr. Chris Minnich, Executive Director of the Council of Chief State School Officers made a personal attack against Dr. Sandra Stotsky. She responded appropriately and pointed out that Mr. Minnich was reading the introductory material to prove Alaska’s Standards were rich in literary content, and not the standards themselves. Essentially, she makes short work of him.
According to a correspondence by Patrick Gamble to Arne Duncan, the state of Alaska began writing the standards in 2010 through the involvement of Achieve Inc. As Gamble wrote, [https://stopalaskacommoncore.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/UA-letter-on-standards.pdf]
“…Alaska Department of Education and Early Development Staff coordinated with Achieve, Inc in the initial planning stages, of the standards revision process in 2010. Staff from Achieve reviewed Alaska’s revision plan and provided feedback via phone conversations and teleconferences. Achieve provided critical guidance for consideration of appropriate stakeholders, identifying key decision makers, and process-specific tasks, which Alaska incorporated into the review.”
New information revealed today is that in October of 2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $1.65 Million to the Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development (AK DEED). [https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2010/10/OPPLi011]
Thus, it seems that Dr. Stotsky was vindicated. The initiation of the Common Core in Alaska did coincide with a donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MCGILL
The cosmic “hand of God” photo was produced when a star exploded and ejected an enormous cloud of material, which NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, glimpsed in high-energy X-rays, shown in blue in the photo. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory had imaged the green and red parts previously, using lower-energy X-rays.
“NuSTAR’s unique viewpoint, in seeing the highest-energy X-rays, is showing us well-studied objects and regions in a whole new light,” NuSTAR telescope principal investigator Fiona Harrison, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a statement.
The new image depicts a pulsar wind nebula, produced by the dense remnant of a star that exploded in a supernova. What’s left behind is a pulsar, called PSR B1509-58 (B1509 for short), which spins around 7 times per second blowing a wind of particles into material ejected during the star’s death throes.
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