iPandora

Epic Fail: For some things, there's just no excuse

Investors Business Daily reports the institute created by California Proposition 71 to research medical applications of Embryonic Stem Cells has quietly begun shifting it’s research focus to Adult Stem Cells.

Quick rehash: Embryonic Stem Cells are the result of abortions, the designer baby process, in vitro fertilization, and other procedures of a morally ambiguous to morally evil nature. Adult Stem Cells are derived from adult human adipose (fat) and other sources all given voluntarily, usually by the very person who will be benefiting directly from the treatment.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR) = Morally murky, usually objectionable.

Adult Stem Cell Research (ASCR) = Morally good.

Now back to the story.

Five years later, ESCR has failed to deliver and backers of Prop 71 are admitting failure. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state agency created to, as some have put it, restore science to its rightful place, is diverting funds from ESCR to research that has produced actual therapies and treatments: adult stem cell research. It not only has treated real people with real results; it also does not come with the moral baggage ESCR does.

To us, this is a classic bait-and-switch, an attempt to snatch success from the jaws of failure and take credit for discoveries and advances achieved by research Prop. 71 supporters once cavalierly dismissed. We have noted how over the years that when funding was needed, the phrase “embryonic stem cells” was used. When actual progress was discussed, the word “embryonic” was dropped because ESCR never got out of the lab.

Alan Trounson, stem cell pioneer in Australia and director of the California institute says “If we went 10 years and had no clinical treatments, it would be a failure.”

In other words, as I’ve mentioned here before, Embryonic Stem Cell Research fails. Epicly. Again.

This is not Hugh O'Shaughnessy

Sometimes the cynics are so ludicrous you can’t help but laugh. It’s the only thing you can do in the face of huffy and misguided rants such as this one:

No one who surveys the statistics of abortion in the US and the wider world can in conscience express anything but horror at the increasing casualness with which this action is being performed.

But must one not be equally horrified by the fact that the signatories chose to make no reference to the evident evil committed by the US government and its allies in their illegal invasion of Iraq?

Hugh O’Shaughnessy of the Times of London posts this piece of precious pomposity under the title “A Declaration Of Hypocrisy” and his (initial) aim is at what he considers the nefarious religious right and the the recently revealed Manhattan Declaration, which is an attempt to codify and unify support for the goals of protection of all human life, protection of traditional marriage, and protection of the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

The Manhattan Declaration appears to be a worthwhile document with a strong backing from such leaders as Charles Colson, Kay Arthur, Joel Belz, Dr. James Dobson, and many other leaders of the Catholic and protestant faiths.

Hugh’s connection of the Manhattan signers support of pro-life measures and their support for the war in Iraq appears to be entirely founded on the bug bears of Abu Graib and Fallujah:

Tell me, Your Eminences, why did you achieve nothing effective in “defence of life” during the illegal invasion of Iraq and its attendant massacres? Why, Mr Colson, did you do nothing “in defence of marriage … and freedom of conscience” when Iraqis were being deprived – temporarily or for ever – of their spouses and children of their parents at the hands of the torturers of Abu Ghraib?

Go ahead and read the whole thing, it’s not very long and none of it is very bright. But hey, you may laugh, it’s just that bad.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

Don’t you wish sometimes you could lie, cheat, steal, deal underhandedly, and in general act immorally in order to accomplish what you thought was best in this world?

I do.

With the state of our nation and it’s populace, lies are more believed than the truth. So if I could lie to protect unborn babies, if I could cheat to lower taxes, if I could steal to keep the government within it’s areas of legitimate responsibility.

Sometimes I just wish I could.

But I can’t.

Without equivocation I condemn the murder of Dr. Tiller.

Murder is murder, and one murder never justifies another.

We live in a land of law and justice. No man is above the law or a law to themselves, when such a personal law conflicts with the law of the land.

The only way a person can lose their life legitimately and legally at the hand of man is when that person has been found guilty of some crime worthy of the death penalty by the justice system of that land. In America this means being found guilty by a jury of their peers of certain specific crimes.

In the small way I am aware of Dr. Tiller, I find his career to be revolting and disgusting in the highest sense. I find it difficult to even consider the occupation with which he has spent his life: killing innocent, unborn children late in their term.

If he did not repent, prior to his death, of this heinous sin, God has perfect justice ready for him. But it is not mine to mete out to him.

I grieve for Dr. Tiller in that it is very likely did not accept the salvation of the Lord. Eternal punishment is a fearful thing that I cannot wish on any person, ever. It is not mine to wish.

As a Christian, I take both comfort and warning from God’s claim to perfect justice:  “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’ says the Lord.”

Comfort because I know God will do a much better job of justice than any human court ever could. He judges the innermost thoughts and wishes, the heart and the mind. Things a human judge could never see clearly to judge on.

And yet warning, because God reserving, without qualification, all vengeance to Himself leaves none for me. Not even the vengeance of thought or hope.

I should not feel giddy or happy that God may indeed be judging an evil man for his sin. Instead, there is anguish that Satan succeeded in destroying another life entrhalled in deception and pride. Another life is doomed forever to torment and there isn’t another chance to rescue this soul from the depredations of sin and score another victory against the prince of darkness and his failing, faltering, now conquered kingdom.

Dr. Tiller was a sinner, as am I.

And his murderer ought to be brought to justice, as should the murderer of any other sinner.

To the pro-life people: We are against death. It’s the morally superior position and all those who dispute this argue against sense and reason.

When pro-abortion people state that our general position for the death penalty makes our argument false, they only reveal the moral bankruptcy of their own feeble stand.

We are for the life of the innocent and the protection of that life through the rare but possible, lawfully imposed death of the guilty at the hands of the law and the government.

They are for the death of the innocent, damage and destruction of their mothers, freedom from responsibility of the fathers, and protection of those who would kill other innocents.

There really isn’t much comparison.

If we’re tempted to support, in any way, the murder of Dr. Tiller. No matter how we may despise the sin he dug himself so deeply into, we succumb to lawlessness and anarchy. Which leads, without exception, to the death of innocents.

H1N1 (swine) flu isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Gee, it’s just aweful when the bugbear doesn’t live up the trumped up claims the media seems to want us to believe.

The Illinois Public Health Director has not drunk the koolaid:

The Illinois Department of Public Health director told state lawmakers Tuesday that it’s important to remain vigilant in the face of the H1N1 flu virus, but fears of a pandemic flu are overblown.

“We have to keep these things in perspective, look at them rationally, know what the threat is and deal with it in a rational way. We know right now that this virus is acting very similarly to the regular seasonal flu,” said Dr. Damon T. Arnold, head of the state public health agency.

“At this juncture, this virus seems to be in a mild course,” Arnold said. “We’re recommending now that for routine cases you take care of yourself at home as you would for seasonal flu.”

As ShatteredChina wrote here earlier, fear is not a reasonable response to this flu.

Yet fear is a powerful tool. Those desiring power desire a fearful populace. When someone tells you to fear, they are seeking to gain power over you.

Fear not, we are told.

An unfearful populace is a strong populace. The Christian following the most frequent admonition of God is a person who cannot be lead by whim or desire of the power-hungry.

And the kids can go back to school now.

And big brother wishes we’d die younger.

Two reasons: It’s a sure fix for the Social Security cesspool, and they can adjust the artificial, age-graded stratifications of service wherein those with greater potential determined by mathematically “fair” judgments of age and expected longevity.

Just a few of the many benefits of the new socialized medicine system President Obama and the Democrats laid the groundwork for in the big spending bills they’ve been forcing us tax payers to swallow since he entered office:

• Reducing costs by “guiding” doctor decisions
• Doctors surrendering autonomy and learning to operate less like sole proprietors
• Establishes the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, whose goal would be to slow down new medications and techniques because these drive up costs
• Forcing the elderly to accept the realities of aging and surrendering certain advanced treatments

Betsy McCaughey says HillaryCare 2.0 (ObamaCare) will ruin your health, especially if you’re old.

It’s being sold as the solution to our current health care system. But with our current system, if the old were forced out of treatments that would improve their lives, there would be an uproaor. If the government says they can’t be treated, who is there to turn to?

It always starts as something good:

As elsewhere, the combination of an aging population and the increasing cost of new technologies has started to put immense pressure on the French health system. But the French system of compulsory insurance – something for which many Democratic leaders are calling in America – acted as a Trojan horse, allowing the government to seize control over increasing areas of health care.

When costs became a political issue, the government mounted a cost crackdown. But instead of eliminating inefficiencies through greater individual responsibility, broader choice and more competition, the French government did precisely the opposite: It sought to control costs by fiat – that is, by piling on more bureaucracy.

But don’t worry: the Obamessiah will look out for each of us with the personal care of his omnipotent eye.

Oh, and it’s also why Obama is for lawful, government funded, unlimited and unrestricted abortion: fewer of us the government has to support.

It’s all across the newswires:

The Great Messiah Steps Into Our Small, Mostly Vicarious, Lives And Allows Federal Funding Of Stem Cell Research!

Well, tie me to a pole until the Jackanapes come home and lick my toes until I die imagining Caravaggio! I’d've never thought such a thing could occur.

At least the ABC story got things half right when they filed this story under Health AND Politics.

Two bits and then my opinion:

1. The local Fox affiliate this morning noted that opponents to stem cell research are opposed on moral grounds. No word yet on if the reporter bothered researching any further than the local abortion mill’s press release.
2. There are actually 2 primary classifications of stem cells: embryonic and adult. The embryonic stem cells cause tumors and uncontrollable growths and the adult stem cells actually cure people.

My opinion is an old article I wrote as far back as November of 2007:

• Adult stem cells suffer no chance of rejection from their host. Adult stem cells are collected from the person they will be used on, meaning the organs grown from them carry the exact biological and genetic “fingerprint” of the rest of the body, there is zero chance of rejection of these treatments.
• Adult stem cells are given voluntarily as part of treatment. There is no moral or ethical morass involved in the collection of the these cells.
• Adult stem cells can differentiate under controlled conditions. Unlike embryonic stem cells, which differentiate wildly and which we are currently unable to control, adult stem cells pluripotency can be controlled in application with greater reliability.

So we have an issue where the successful treatment and therefore all the private money has gone in one direction, but a few stubborn souls insist on using disinformation and outright lies to promote a morally reprehensible treatment system which would have been likely looked upon with distaste by most of the Nazi death doctors in hopes of getting us to pay for a treatment process with no current success and little promise.

“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” ~James A. Thomson

Read all about it…

It’s an issue of science as much as morals. If you will ignore the morals, you cannot, at least, ignore the science.

If you must ignore both, your life is far smaller for it.

By the way, what business is it of the government to pay yours and my money for this? Don’t we already do that supporting the massively bloated health care industry?

“…to be Pro-Choice.”

Neil highlighted this fact in his article on why it is abortion supporters who are the ones still stuck in the middle ages of scientific ignorance.

It is an incontrovertible fact that life begins at conception and those who say otherwise are either deceiving or deceived.

And then John posted this video which uses humor and passion to reveal the moral depravity of the abortion industry.

Mr President,

You may think such children shouldn’t be faced with the hardships of life and instead ought to be terminated in utero. But, for your sake, I’m glad your mother didn’t think so.

Hat tip: The Point.

From today’s Whirled Views from the WorldMagBlog:

Today’s quote is from an African-American pastor on abortion, the leading cause of death among black Americans since 1973: “The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African American mother.”

How true, and how sad. Entire generations wiped away because of any of so many lies and decietful and destructive philosophies.

The rocks are drenched in blood and the cries of a multitude massacred rise before our God.

Who will hear?

Who will praise the Lord when His smallest children, the offspring of the jewels of His creation, are being murdered?

Or, why using a pro-life criteria as a single-issue voting guide is acceptable and responsible in the American Republic.

A fellow-student of my wife’s at her well-known Christian school wrote a note stating her belief that Obama is a better Christian and will be a better President than McCain. It was discouraging to read.

This makes the second person who I’d've thought would be able to see beyond the incessant, sycophantic cheerleading by the MSM and the carefully tailored lies of the Obama campaign to the real depth of his deception and would not support him for that.

I guess an audacious hope in change for the sake of hope or something similar really is something for which people yearn to such an extent they are willing to kneel at the baals of our culture and join the thronging hordes chasing the dream of socialism.

I thought I had one more generation before America had it’s watershed moment of decision over communism.

We can’t choose our situations or the perils which will beset our life, we can only do our best in the situations with which we are faced. As when Frodo faced with despair his imminent doom:

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil.

But to the subject at hand:

This student, writing in her note, commented that she had people in her life who would not vote for Obama under any circumstances due to his support of Abortion. She considered this view too narrow and not a careful approach to the broader issues at hand.

She further commented, as noted earlier, that per her reading of Proverbs, Obama was living his Christian witness on the campaign to an extent she’d not seen elsewhere.

Two questions: Is a single-issue pro-life position too narrow a view and is Obama living a Christian witness on the campaign trail?

The abortion battle which divides much of our society so drastically is so divisive and drastic because it is so very important, and those who have considered it at all either believe it is extremely important for many reasons beyond those just on it’s face or they are decieved.

Suitable to the depth of the issue (not the complexity, abortion is not complex: the baby is either dead or alive), there are a plethora of positions on abortion, all along the continuum from “No, not ever” to “The more dead the merrier, the later the better”. I can understand and sympathize with those who have honestly experienced a “for the life of the mother” situation and have their ideas formed that way. But were my wife in that position (though the percentage chances of that are incredibly miniscule), I would only allow myself the position that it is an accepted risk and part of life that we go through, and that were it necessary for me or my wife to give up our lives for the sake of our child, that is the correct thing to do. Pragmatically, it is the measuring of potential: my child has greater potential than I. Theologically, Jesus died for me, God’s child, I can die for my child. Being a man it is easy to dismiss my argument as being ill-considered and shallow and prone to revisiting when I’m actually faced with that. But the truth is there, and I could not live with another decision.

Most average people believe the lies that abortion is intended only for rare cases of parental abuse, rape, incest, and the like, and therefore support it for those reasons. Some people recognize it for it’s inherent racism: whole generations of black and other minority children cut down like so much government-subsidized and unwanted wheat.

The real militants take it is a watershed for womens rights, making motherhood as much a choice as fatherhood.

Only the cold-killers go all the way: Abortion anytime, anywhere, for any purpose. Obama voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the Illinois Legislature AFTER it was ammended to included the obligatory protections for cases of rape and incest at his request. This is not a case of one random vote against, it is a case of him realizing the political expediency of something (support for such an obviously good piece of legislation) and then changing his mind for the sake of his personal belief that children are only to be kept when they’re wanted.

Obama further supported and defended a hospital which was found to be condoning the practice of leaving unwanted babies delivered during botched abortions unattended in storage closets until they died.

Obama is for, and this is not a debatable or arguable issue, the allowable killing of babies who have survived the horrifics of an abortion and are living outside of their mother.

Right now we call this murder.

What kind of man believes this is good? What kind of president would that man be who believe such a thing?

Human dignity was a term this student used to describe the totality of Obama’s ideas. His ideals were better for human dignity.

If we as a society believe it’s OK to kill babies AFTER they’re born, have we ANY acceptable or reasonable perception of human dignity?

A man who would not work to save a baby does not understand the magnificence and wonder of human life. A man who does not understand these basic aspects of human dignity has no dignity himself.

It is not a small view or a narrow perception to believe that one who does not support the protection of human life, especially that of the weakest and most innocent among us, is not a fit man to be president.

Is Obama living a “Christian” witness on the campaign trail?

He denies that children are a blessing from the Lord. Or if believes that, he doesn’t want that blessing.

He finds it necessary to lie about his past and about his views and opinions on issues. He was not raised in the middle class but by his extremely successful bank president grandmother. Nothing against him or his grandmother for that. I would not think less of him, were he to only not seek to hide it and lie about it.

He claims that it was deregulation which allowed the banking failures when it was his direct actions and work which contributed towards the protection of Fannie and Freddie from scrutiny and increased regulation at the hands of the Bush administration and John McCain years ago which may have averted this crisis we are now experiencing.

He claims that taking a position on the beginning of human life is “above his pay grade”, again failing to stand up, as a Christian man ought to have done, in protection of the innocent and unborn among us and denying that his actions, speaking much louder than his words, show that he believes human life begins when the parents decides they want the child and not a moment sooner.

He associates with people who support the disruption of society and killing of people in terrorist acts and who when given opportunity to recant, say they did not do enough.

He spends 20 years in the pews of a church which has more in common ideologically with Marxism than Christianity as Jesus modeled it.

This is not hidden fact or obfuscated information. It is all readily available to those who would listen.

I am not to judge because I will be judged with the same measure I have measured with, but I can observe based on the evidence before me and draw conclusions.

I just don’t understand.