A true "hearts and minds" campaign wages daily in the home. There are no perfect people, perfect couples or perfect families. There are strong people, strong couples and strong families. They should be shown to the United States and globally.
It is always wonderful to see American innovation working and succeeding.
The launch of Atlantis was successful.
From fightglobalwarming.com:
Higher seas are one of the most certain consequences of global warming. Why? For one, melting glaciers and polar ice sheets add water to our oceans. Glaciers store water on land. When these huge ice masses melt into the oceans, it adds volume and water levels rise. (The concept is simple to demonstrate. Add a bunch of ice cubes to a glass of water that’s already full to the brim and it will overflow. That extra water is like the extra ocean water from melting glaciers.)On top of that, water expands as it gets warmer. So as the temperature rises, the same amount of water takes up more space. This raises sea levels higher.
Really? Freeze water and it expands. Boil water and it evaporates.
Ask yourself these questions.
1) Why don't I have what others have? The labor side answer is knowledge, skills and activities.
2) Do people of differing beliefs or any other differences desire to murder or harm one another? The majority do not but there are extremes. Those who can get along, will get along and will unite against those who cannot. Therein lies the great strength in diversity.
Has Greenland more fully recovered from the Little Ice Age as a consequence of carbon emissions?
LIA was preceded by the Medieval Warm Period.
Is it reasonable to fear that after this period of global warming there will be global cooling? Is it reasonable to enact "cap-and-trade" due to climate change?
Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) has enumerated four key pillars of action.
1) Building US Military & Economic Strength
…. This means adding at least 100,000 troops and making a long-overdue investment in equipment, armament, weapons systems, and strategic defense…. The next president should commit to spending a minimum of four percent of GDP on national defense…. Indeed, a nation cannot remain a military superpower if it has a second-tier economy.
2) Energy Independence
…. Our military and economic strength depend on our becoming energy independent — moving past symbolic measures to actually produce as much energy as we use…. It will also mean increasing our domestic energy production with more drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more nuclear power, more renewable energy sources, more ethanol, more biodiesel, more solar and wind power, and a fuller exploitation of coal…. Moreover, even as scientists still debate how much human activity impacts the environment, we can all agree that alternative energy sources will be good for the planet.
3) Rethinking & Reenergizing Civilian Capabilities
…. In the Reagan era, the Goldwater-Nichols Act helped tear down bureaucratic boundaries that were undermining our military effectiveness, fostered unified efforts across military services, and established "joint commands," with an individual commander fully responsible for everything going on within his or her geographic region…. Just as the military has divided the world into regional theaters for all of its branches, the work of our civilian agencies should be organized along common geographic boundaries…. Their performance should be evaluated according to their success in promoting America's political, military, diplomatic, and economic interests in their respective regions and building the foundations of freedom, democracy, security, and peace.
4) Revitalizing & Strengthening Alliances
…. Whether diplomatically, militarily, or economically, the United States is stronger when its friends stand alongside it…. I envision that the summit would lead to the creation of a Partnership for Prosperity and Progress: a coalition of states that would assemble resources from developed nations and use them to support public schools (not Wahhabi madrasahs), microcredit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health care, and free-market policies in modernizing Islamic states…. In the end, only Muslims themselves can defeat the violent radicals.
Perhaps, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has been adversely influenced by Malia and Sasha watching Ice Age 2. Senator Obama wrote:
Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.
Really, Senator? Rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world? What about water evaporation, ice/snow sublimation, condensation, and precipitation, that is, the hydrologic cycle? The hypothesis that the boundaries of the seas are fixed is supported by the water cycle (a reason for refraction of light). Melting ice/snow towards the poles is simultaneously accompanied by evaporating water towards the equator. Hurricanes and tsunamis flood coastal regions but sea levels aren’t rising. The probability of global coastal flooding is as remote as the oceans evaporating.
Ice Age 2 is a cute movie but pure science fiction.
Where are the laws protecting viable life (i.e., banning abortion at +/- 26 weeks)? Their absence suggests disingenuousness among anti-abortionists. Anti-abortionists should protect life at viability before they attack Roe v. Wade. Since Roe, there have been numerous cases regarding the right to abortion. All those cases, including Roe, affirm the right of the state to prohibit abortion at viability.
As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physician and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.
….
With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
The tests that §188.029 requires the physician to perform are designed to determine viability. The State here has chosen viability as the point at which its interest in potential human life must be safeguarded. See Mo.Rev.Stat. §188.030 (1986) ("No abortion of a viable unborn child shall be performed unless necessary to preserve the life or health of the woman"). It is true that the tests in question increase the expense of abortion, and regulate the discretion of the physician in determining the viability of the fetus. Since the tests will undoubtedly show in many cases that the fetus is not viable, the tests will have been performed for what were, in fact, second-trimester abortions. But we are satisfied that the requirement of these tests permissibly furthers the State's interest in protecting potential human life, and we therefore believe §188.029 to be constitutional.
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State's intervention on behalf of the developing child.
….
We also reaffirm Roe's holding that, "subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother."
Three established principles determine the issue before us. We shall set them forth in the language of the joint opinion in Casey.
….
Third, "subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother."
We assume the following principles for the purposes of this opinion. Before viability, a State‚ "may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy." 505 U.S., at 879 (plurality opinion). It also may not impose upon this right an undue burden, which exists if a regulation's‚ "purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability."
To answer the opening question, laws protecting viable life do exist but are rendered unenforceable by an all encompassing health exception.
We agree with the District Court, 319 F.Supp. at 1058, that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors –physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman.
A limited exception for the life and "physiological health" of the mother would better serve the state's interest in protecting viable life. Jurists are stating an interest only to negate it. That is hardly prudent.
From Troy Smith, a soldier in theater:
Despite the emotions and pain felt in remembrance of those who have fallen this Memorial Day, our efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan carry on and continue to show marked improvement. We will continue to defeat evil in both of these campaigns, despite the spineless desire to surrender seen in the Democratic Party. Those who have given their souls for political votes (as well as their lemming little protesters) will not sway the efforts to succeed and win these vital campaigns in the broader spectrum of the global war on terrorism.
Remember to whom we owe our freedom and security this Memorial Day!
If the mandate of the 2006 electorate was retreat and surrender, it is considerably weaker than the mandate of the 2004 electorate. 2006 was a wake up call and a warning Americans are wavering when we should be reinforcing. May the right side win in 2008. See you at the touch screen.