About 70 percent of the roughly 100,000 U.S. Boy Scout units are sponsored by religious institutions, and many said the Monday decision runs counter to the moral standards set by the 105-year-old youth organization.
“We express consummate sadness that this once vibrant organization continues to cave to social pressure, compromising its long-held, constitutionally protected tenets,” said Roger “Sing” Oldham, a spokesman for the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention.
Even though the decision permits religious organizations to exclude gay adults in keeping with their beliefs, other major conservative church groups also criticized the change, which took effect with the vote Monday by the National Executive Board.
The largest sponsor of Boy Scout units, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has said it was “deeply troubled” by the move, adding the Mormons’ “century-long association with Scouting will need to be examined.”
The church was unable to make a decision quickly on whether to remain with the Boy Scouts because its top leaders — including the president, his two counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles — were off with their families in July, Dane O. Leavitt, a Mormon leader who serves as the liaison with the Boy Scouts, told The New York Times. (Read more from “Baptists, Mormons Both Slam Boy Scouts Over Gay Leadership” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 02:34:252016-04-11 10:58:16Baptists, Mormons Both Slam Boy Scouts Over Gay Leadership
Last fall we wrote about leaders of ISIS encouraging their followers and supporters to attack American servicemen here at home, and that it was imperative that a national concealed carry reciprocity bill be passed to allow members of the military and members public to carry concealed weapons legally from state to state.
“Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers. Both of them are considered to be waging war,” said the leader of ISIS in a radio speech.
Well, the recent attack that killed four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tenn. was unfortunate proof that we were right. At the time officials at the Department of Defense issued warnings to service members, veterans and their families that they might be targets and to be aware of potential dangers and practice situational awareness when off base, as well as monitor their social media accounts.
Unfortunately while DOD warned them, they didn’t give them a means to defend themselves. Military recruiters are never issued arms and even on base stateside only a limited number of service members carry weapons with ammunition and that is generally limited to military police and those on guard or security duties.
This is a long-standing policy going back many decades, though it has nothing to do with a Clinton era directive, as many have claimed. The policy is much older.
As a Marine in an infantry battalion on Camp Pendleton in the 1980s the only time we had our issue weapons was for training, inspections, cleaning, or guard duty and the only time we had ammunition was at the rifle range, live fire exercises or guard duty, and only a tiny percentage of Marines in the regimental area were on guard at any one time. I have spoken to Marines and soldiers who served in the 1970s and 1960s who confirmed the policy was the same then.
The same went for privately owned weapons. If you owned one it had to be kept off base or the unit armory, not in your barracks. Even married Marines living in on base houses couldn’t keep weapons at home. The policy also went back to at least the 1960s.
Regardless of when the policies started, it is time they were changed. They date back to the Cold War, when the homeland was comparatively safe, at least on an individual level. We may have been preparing for all-out war with the Soviet Union but we did not have to face terrorist attacks on our military here on our own soil. The situation we face today is more akin to what the Israelis have combatted for years, when an attack can come at any place or any time and soldiers are armed at all times—even off base and in urban areas.
There has to be a way to allow some of our recruiters at recruiting stations to be armed, to allow soldiers and Marines who wish to carry concealed to do so—especially going to and from base— and to expand the definition of who can be armed on base. The Israelis with a conscripted military manage it; it assumes that our all-volunteer, highly trained, and professional force cannot. If we trust our military with live weapons overseas, we should be able to trust them with them here.
There is a one small consolation that came out of the attack in Chattanooga and it is that is that two of those under attack were able to shoot back against their attacker, apparently with privately owned and not issue weapons. One of them, a Marine, was killed. His Glock was found near him. The other, a naval officer, Lt. Commander Timothy Smith, shot back and lived. Federal agents investigating the attack said these two men saved countless lives.
Of course the great fear now is that that Smith will be prosecuted by the military for his heroism because he may have violated federal law by having a weapon at all. Members of the military cannot pick and choose which orders to obey. He may be given a medal with one hand and a reprimand with the other.
If that happens it would ignite a public relations disaster for the administration. It would be better that this be recognized as a watershed moment and that Smith disobeyed a stupid and dangerous regulation and any necessary punishment be light and symbolic. Honor Smith for showing the way forward and find a way for members of the military to legally protect themselves. (Re-posted with permission, “The New Military: Guns Aren’t Welcome Here”, originally appeared HERE)
A growing body of science reveals an undisputable fact: unborn babies can feel pain by 20 weeks post-fertilization, and most likely even earlier. As the medical community continues to increase its understanding of fetal pain, there have also been increasing legislative efforts to protect the unborn child from cruel suffering.
Unborn babies 20 weeks post-fertilization not only have the anatomy to process pain but also the neurobiology to transmit painful sensations to the brain and perceive pain. Dr. Jean A. Wright, testifying at a Congressional subcommittee hearing summarized it best:
After 20 weeks of gestation [18 weeks post-fertilization], an unborn child has all the prerequisite anatomy, physiology, hormones, neurotransmitters, and electrical current to close the loop and create the conditions needed to perceive pain. The development of the perception of pain begins at the sixth week of life. By 20 weeks [18 weeks post-fertilization], and perhaps even earlier, all the essential components of anatomy, physiology, and neurobiology exist to transmit painful sensations from the skin to the spinal cord and to the brain.
[The author, Arina Grossu, discusses fetal pain in the second half of the below podcast; during the first half, she discusses the Planned Parenthood videos]
There is no question, biologically speaking, about whether an unborn child can feel pain by 20 weeks post-fertilization. By 18 weeks post-fertilization, nerves link pain receptors to the brain s thalamus (the pain processing center). By 18 weeks post-fertilization, the cerebral cortex (the region of the brain associated with higher mental functions) has acquired a full complement of neurons, meaning all of the neurons are present, though not all the connections in the cortex are fully developed until later. EEG activity, a recording of electrical activity in the brain, appears for the first time at 18 weeks post-fertilization, showing the integrity of the circuitries of the cortex and the thalamus.
Some scientists take an agnostic position on whether the unborn child consciously experiences pain by 20 weeks post-fertilization and they argue this based on a theory that a mature cerebral cortex is necessary for the conscious perception of pain. However, a mature cerebral cortex is not necessary in order for the unborn child to feel pain, as evidenced by scientific studies and observations that both children and adults who are born with no or minimal cerebral cortex, do in fact still perceive pain.
The instruction of medical textbooks and accepted common medical practice is to administer fetal anesthesia before an in-utero surgery on the unborn child around 20 weeks post-fertilization. The common practice is based on the science of fetal development and the observation that unborn children who are not given anesthesia elicit a hormonal stress response to painful stimuli, which is alleviated by the effects of anesthesia as it is in adults.
Legislation that addresses fetal pain must be based on the indisputable biology, scientific data, and physical evidence of fetal pain and not on political, religious, theoretical, or philosophical ideas about self-consciousness or self-awareness. The bottom line is that an unborn child can and does feel pain by 20 weeks post-fertilization. Fetal pain mechanisms are in place at that time.
Polling shows that the majority of Americans agree on setting abortion bans, such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, to protect the almost 13,000 American pain-capable unborn children who die from late abortion each year. (Re-posted with permission from the author, “What Science Reveals About Fetal Pain”, originally appeared HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 02:33:462016-04-11 10:58:17The Science is Conclusive: Fetal Pain is Real AND Extreme
Photo Credit: CNS News White House Spokesperson Josh Earnest says he suspects somebody in the Obama Administration has seen a series of videos on Planned Parenthood’s role in harvesting the organs of babies, but the administration is basing its position that the videos are edited unfairly on the comments of Planned Parenthood and “the high ethical standard they live up to.”
During a White House press briefing Thursday Earnest was asked if anyone at the White House has watched the series of videos about Planned Parenthood . . .
“Where are you getting your information that the fact that it’s fraudulent, or the fact that they’re distorted and edited unfairly?” a reporter asked.
“Based on the public comments of Planned Parenthood who has indicated that the views that are represented in the video are entirely inconsistent with that organizations policies and with the high ethical standard they live up to.” (Read more from “White House Declares Support for Planned Parenthood Due to Their ‘High Ethical Standard'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 02:32:042016-04-11 10:58:17Watch: White House Doubles Down, Declares Support for Planned Parenthood Due to Its ‘High Ethical Standard’
A long decline in the percentage of American teens who are sexually active has leveled off, and an increasing number of teen girls are using the morning after birth control pill on a regular basis, according to the findings of a recently published study . . .
[Valerie Huber] says sex education in public schools in recent years has been focused on the assumption that all or most kids are sexually active, which puts pressure on more teens to meet that expectation.
That drowns out the main message students should be hearing – that the best way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease is to put sex on hold during the middle school and high school years, Huber said . . .
“A real emphasis should be renewed on sexual delay because it removes all the possible consequences of teen sex, including those that are not the ones people usually think of – pregnancy and STDs. Teens could greatly benefit from messages reinforcing the healthiest choice of waiting for sex.”
Huber was reacting to a new survey on teen sex from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The survey is based on interviews with about 2,000 teens between the ages of 15 and 19, conducted between 2011 and 2013. (Read more from “Expert: ‘Comprehensive’ Sex Ed to Blame for Increase in Activity Among Teens” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-07-31 02:31:172016-04-11 10:58:17Expert: ‘Comprehensive’ Sex Ed to Blame for Increase in Activity Among Teens
The economic expansion—already the worst on record since World War II—is weaker than previously thought, according to newly revised data.
From 2012 through 2014, the economy grew at an all-too-familiar rate of 2% annually, according to three years of revised figures the Commerce Department released Thursday. That’s a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from prior estimates.
The revisions were released concurrently with the government’s first estimate of second-quarter output.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years, the one from 2001 through 2007. While there have been highs and lows in individual quarters, overall the economy has failed to break out of its roughly 2% pattern for six years . . .
The output reading for the first quarter of last year was recast to a 0.9% contraction instead of a 2.1% annualized drop. The prior figure represented the worst contraction on record outside of a recession. The new number isn’t even the worst quarterly contraction of the expansion. GDP declined at a 1.5% annual pace in the first quarter of 2011. (Read more from “The Worst Expansion Since World War II Was Even Weaker” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 02:30:492016-04-11 10:58:17The Worst Expansion Since World War II Was Even Weaker
The director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, called the Middle East’s Sunni Arab nations “Israel’s allies” . . .
“What we have is a regime on a roll that is trying to conquer the Middle East,” Gold said of Iran, “and it’s not Israel talking, that is our Sunni Arab neighbors — and you know what? I’ll use another expression – that is our Sunni Arab allies talking.”
Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and a longtime adviser to Israeli prime ministers from the right-wing Likud Party, is also the author of a 2003 book on Saudi Arabia called “Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.” Saudi Arabia has been one of the most vocal Arab opponents of US-Iran rapprochement and the Iran nuclear agreement.
The presentation, which was organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, also featured Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence who now heads Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. Yadlin ran unsuccessfully for the Knesset in March on the center-left Zionist Union list.
Both Yadlin and Gold warned of the perils of the Iran nuclear agreement. Gold called Iran a major force of instability in the Middle East, and Yadlin said that while the deal gets a B+/A- on its short-term accomplishments of rolling back and freezing Iran’s nuclear program, it’s a “disaster” when it comes to the long-term implications of where it leaves Iran in 15 years. (Read more from “Israel’s Foreign Ministry Chief: Sunni Arab Nations Are Our ‘Allies'” HERE)
Nicolas Miailhe can’t stop thinking about the robot that’s going to take your job. And it’s not just robots that concern him, it’s also the contractor working for the latest Uber-like disruptor that plans to take over your industry. He’s also contemplating what will happen to our genetic sequences when we hand them over to doctors who promise personalized medicine, and how that data could fuel a new age of eugenics if it lands in the wrong hands. But he, of course, realizes that all of this worry will be for naught if climate change makes Earth unlivable.
Miailhe isn’t some crazy on the fringe of society. He is a student at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and he belongs to just one of the serious groups around Boston that are devoting their brainpower to preparing for the technological crises of the future.
Elon Musk, founder of the electric car maker Tesla, is helping to fund such studies. Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist, was one of thousands of people to sign a letter published this week that warns of the dangers of autonomous weapons.
In case you’ve missed it, threats to civilization as we know it are a hot topic right now, as anyone who’s been to a bookstore or a movie theater knows. But real-world scientists are thinking apocalyptically, too. Many believe that humans — sometime between inventing agriculture and reshaping the global climate — have created a new geological epoch. This age, informally called the anthropocene, will be the subject of a new section at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The display will be set among the dinosaurs — perhaps as a reminder of just how precarious life for humans has become.
So it’s only natural that Boston and Cambridge, hubs for both technology and serious thinking, are sprouting groups that address doomsday anxieties. (Read more from “Doomsday Scenarios? They’re Always Top of Mind” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 02:14:092016-04-11 10:58:17Doomsday Scenarios? They’re Always Top of Mind
A University of Cincinnati police officer was indicted Wednesday on a murder charge in what a prosecutor called “a senseless, asinine shooting” during a minor traffic stop. It was the first time such a charge had been leveled against an officer in the city.
The Hamilton County prosecuting attorney, Joseph T. Deters, released a much-anticipated video of the shooting of Samuel DuBose, and described it as providing crucial evidence that the officer had lied about being dragged by DuBose’s car.
A grand jury, Deters announced, had indicted Officer Ray Tensing for murder, punishable by life in prison, and voluntary manslaughter.
“It was a senseless, asinine shooting,” Deters said at a news conference in Cincinnati, using stark terms to denounce the July 19 episode, Tensing’s statements about it, and the 25-year-old officer himself. “This office has probably reviewed upwards of 100 police shootings, and this is the first time we’ve thought, ‘This is without question a murder.’
“He wasn’t dealing with someone who was wanted for murder,” Deters said. “He was dealing with someone who didn’t have a front license plate. This was, in the vernacular, a pretty chicken-crap stop.” (Read more from “University of Cincinnati Officer Indicted in Shooting Death of Driver” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 02:06:582016-04-11 10:58:18University of Cincinnati Officer Indicted in Shooting Death of Driver [+video]
A federal appeals court has locked down America’s largest national forest from logging, in a tight decision that reverses a Bush-era bid to open up the Alaska land and has state officials fuming.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in the 6-5 decision, on Wednesday lifted Tongass National Forest’s longstanding exemption from a 2001 federal mandate called the “Roadless Rule.” That rule prohibits road construction and timber harvesting across millions of acres of America’s national forests.
The George W. Bush administration gave a special exemption to the Tongass forest in 2003, but conservationists fought the move — and won.
Alaska officials, who had been hoping to use the land for limited timber harvesting and other projects, are weighing their options [but environmentalists are celebrating].
“Today’s decision is great news for the Tongass National Forest and for all of those who rely on its roadless areas,” Earthjustice official Tom Waldo in a statement. “The remaining wild and undeveloped parts of the Tongass are important fish and wildlife habitat and vital to residents and visitors alike for hunting, fishing, recreation, and tourism, the driving forces of the regional economy.” (Read more from “‘Setback’ for Alaska? Federal Court Blocks Logging in Largest National Forest” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-31 01:50:232016-04-11 10:58:18‘Setback’ for Alaska? Federal Court Blocks Logging in Largest National Forest
