Can't we just have movies?

Without political overtones? Apparently not. From Stones Cry Out:

Mocking Religion, Happy Feet is Not a Friendly Little Film

I can't remember coming out of movie theater more furious than I did this Thanksgiving holiday after watching the animated and PG-rated Happy Feet. With relatives visiting from around the country, how could we go wrong taking both kids and adults to a cute little penguin story with lots of singing and dancing, with warm and fuzzy animal themes?

I'm not a movie prude; we check out many kinds of movies. And I expect lost anything coming out of Hollywood, with any rating, to include something contrary to my values. I let most of it roll off my back. But with Happy Feet, I didn't expect my conservative Christian family to be assaulted with what we all recognized as a anti-Christian screed, with open mockery of traditional Christian preaching against values and lifestyles contrary to church teachings. It was abundantly clear that Happy Feet substituted homosexuality with dancing as the "different" lifestyle that was the unfair target of an Inquisition on ice. It was Dirty Dancing and Footloose all over again, but with the rhetoric and situation developed to make religious criticism of homosexuality counter to everything good and pleasing.

Did they think Christians wouldn’t notice? I suppose the creators just didn’t care. We had four families attending Happy Feet, with children of all ages. Independently, parents concluded during the film that they would walk out if it wouldn’t be a disruption to others in the large group of family members who had come to the movies together.

Clearly, we should have all left together.

The creators of Happy Feet should have taken less time mocking Christians and more time making sense out of the wild leaps at the end of the film, when the dancing penguin so impresses crowds in the aquarium that they release him back into the wild. And when the community of penguins gets happy feet, the commentators of the world decide its time to stop disrupting their food supply. (Of course the humans are to blame for all the animal woes; a long movie-making tradition that goes back to Bambi).

Wild leaps, even with happy feet.

For Christians who have not seen Happy Feet and are considering it as a friendly, family film—make another choice. This film is not good for children or families, and it is another Hollywood example of open mockery of Christian traditions.

Now I have not seen this film, and I have no plans to see it, nor did I have plans to see it before this scathing review. Still, I can't help but wonder if Mr. Jim is reading too much into the film? I somehow doubt it, though.

Does it mean we should never trust them with anything important?

Via Common Sense and Wonder:

Democratic political strategist Pat Caddell is one angry man. His is not the anger, however, of a typical partisan, seething at his opponents and gloating in their defeat on November 7th. Rather, Mr. Caddell is furious with the Republican leadership for allowing his party to win both houses of Congress at what he rightly sees is a desperate moment in our nation’s history. President Bush and what is left of the GOP on Capitol Hill and around the country would do well to heed this skilled operative’s critique — and the insights it provides for the way ahead in such a dangerous time of war.

On Sunday, before a capacity crowd at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Restoration Weekend in Palm Beach, Florida, the former advisor to George McGovern and Jimmy Carter depicted the election as one the Republicans lost more
than the Democrats won. Above all else, the GOP failed to run on the issue that resonated most effectively, not only with their own base but with independent voters and even some Democrats: the grave nature of the conflict we are in, and
the extent to which the Democratic Party and its senior officials cannot be trusted to manage it.Far from making this case forcefully, consistently and at every level of the 2006 campaign, the Republicans allowed their opponents politically to define the “war” strictly in terms of Iraq. Such a dumbing-down of the subject — largely ignoring the global threat posed to the entire Free World by Islamofascists and their enablers — had several undesirable effects.

[...]

Mr. Caddell noted that Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s victory emonstrates it did not have to be this way. Despite his loss in the Democratic primary, the Connecticut senator ran as an independent on a platform that unapologetically rejected cutting-and-running from Iraq. He offered his constituents a well-reasoned, and accurate, assessment of the larger war we are in and the implications for it of our loss of Iraq. As Mr. Caddell sees it, the failure of too many Republican Party leaders and candidates to do as Joe Lieberman did and “put the country first” out of a belief that “they could rely on getting out the vote and the hell with the issues” has led to our present pass.The longtime Democratic operative’s rage is particularly intense because he knows the sort of people to whom our future security is now being entrusted. He expressed deep concern that Nancy Pelosi would be, as Speaker of the House, two heartbeats away from the presidency, saying she is someone who is no more prepared to be Commander-in-Chief than he would be to serve as an astronaut on a lunar mission.

[...]

Now I have a couple of issues with this. First of all, if Mr. Caddell is to be seen as sincere, then what does this mean for the Democratic Party? It sounds to me that Caddell is saying--quite clearly--that the Dems cannot be trusted on the single most important issue of my life time--preserving the free world by defeating terrorism. If they can't be trusted on the important issues, then A) why vote them into office B) why trust them with any issue and C) why even bother allowing the party to continue to exist if it is so useless?

My second issue is the belief that the R's didn't do just what Caddell is arguing--they framed the election around the war on terror. They--we--framed it as a vote for cutting-and-running or staying the course. And the voters apparently didn't want to 'stay the course' so they changed it by handing the Congress over to the Democrats. How can anyone argue otherwise?

Finally, and this is going to shock some people, fear that Nancy Pelosi is not Presidential material though she is just "two heart beats" away from the job is not reason enough to NOT support the Democrats. Now I don't care for Pelosi and she certainly wouldn't be my choice, but does anyone believe that Dennis "I looked into the scandal and it wasn't a big deal" Hastert would have been better suited to be President on a whim? I don't. I don't for one minue. I don't believe that a single member of the House of Representatives would be ready to take over the presidency tomorrow if they had to, regardless of parties.

Yet the biggest of this three issues seems, to me, to be why the Democrats continue to exist if they can't be trusted. I suppose we'll see A) if they can be trusted and if not then B) if they can continue to exist after these next two years.

So here it is...

One of the historical arguments against abortions--particularly late term abortions--has been that such openness to terminating human life as late as the third trimester could lead to a call for termination of life immediately after birth. And here it is:

LONDON -- A leading British medical college has called on the health profession to consider euthanasia for seriously disabled newborns.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology has said that "active euthanasia" should be considered to spare parents the emotional and financial burdens of bringing up such children.

"A very disabled child can mean a disabled family," it says in a formal submission. "If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome."

Morals aside, there are present at least a few problems in this short passage alone . Firstly, what is "very disabled?" Will that be a term defined by doctors at the time of birth? What if the disability is caused by the doctor during the birth? How much proof will a doctor have to provide to "prove" that the killed child had a 'qualifying disability?' Secondly, the 'informal submission' claims that this procedure will prevent late term abortions. If these children aren't going to be considered "aborted babies," then what do we call them? Beyond that, the argument in favor of abortion is often that the "fetus isn't a child, but a developing children, and since it is developing and therefore dependent on the mother's body to survive, it must be the mothers choice." If we are going to allow, to quote directly from the 'informal submission, "interventions to kill infants," where do we draw the line?

The call comes in the college's submission to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which is conducting an inquiry into the ethical issues raised by the policy of prolonging life in newborns. The submission states: "We would like the working party to think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best-interests test and active euthanasia as they are ways of widening the management of options available to the sickest of newborns."

It is not officially calling for the introduction of active euthanasia, but wants it openly debated. The proposal has been supported by several leading geneticists and medical ethicists.

Joy Delhanty, a professor of human genetics at University College London, said: "I think it is morally wrong to strive to keep alive babies that are going to suffer many months or years of ill-health."

But John Wyatt, a consultant neonatalologist at University College London hospital, called the proposal "social engineering."


"Once you introduce the possibility of intentional killing into medical practice, you change the fundamental nature of medicine," he said.

This should not be a debate. It is utterly despicable that such horrific ideas should even be brought up for debate. Abortion has lead us to a complete and total devaluation of human life to the point where we now are debating whether or not it is morally OK to murder a child once he or she (the culture of abortion that I have grown up in has labelled babies as "it" as a generic term. I think this is probably an intentional attempt to paint the child as being less than human.) has been born. It is simply shocking and disgusting. How long before this debate leaves Great Britain and is taken up by our own Liberal "progressives?" God help us.

Politicizing disease

*Update: The folks over at Gateway Pundit explain that it's not just "America's Anchorman: that harmless, loveable little fuzzball el Rushmo" who's railing against the M.J. Fox ads.

When we politicize diseases, this is the kind of debate we get...

As I was skimming the blogs this morning--as I do nearly every morning--I came across several entries regarding comments by Rush Limbaugh on Michael J. Fox entering the political arena by doing ads for senatorial candidates in Maryland (Cardin) and Missouri (McCaskill ). The debate seems to be over what Limbaugh said--that Fox either acted well or had stopped taking his medication to make his condition look as bad as possible for the purpose of misleading people who suffer. The bigger debate--and the one which I think Limbaugh was trying to frame--is that the Democrats think that they can use 'victims' in political attack ads without any reprecutions. From Limbaugh:

Then you bring forth a person who's suffering the disease, and you illustrate the disease and the ravages and the suffering on TV to create sympathy and infallibility, because you're not supposed to be able to attack somebody or criticize somebody in any way or in any regard if they suffer from the disease. It's considered cold-hearted and cruel. What's happening here is that Michael Fox has entered the political arena with his attack, which includes false information about Senator Talent and Michael Steele in Maryland. That's fair ame, and I am not going to follow the script that says we're not allowed to comment on the things said by participants, "victims," what have you, that the Democrats put forth as infallible in the middle of a political campaign.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Limbaugh said. Sister Toldjah covered the debate here and here. She says that Limbaugh's comments about Fox possibly acting 'disgraceful.' I disagree. The comments may have been distasteful, though I think even that's a stretch, but he is not somehow insulated to say whatever he wants about this issue with out some sort of backlash from those who oppose his political views

Rush clearly outlines what the Dems are trying to do in this. They are painting conservatives as "for Parkinsons" for opposing stem cell research. We've seen it before. Conservatives are "for incest and babies born from rape victims" if we oppose abortion. We are for...well I'll let Rush explain:

That's what the Democrats are doing, politicizing diseases and illnesses, damaging what has traditionally been a bipartisan effort at addressing and curing illnesses, and the same time they claim if you don't embrace their political and cultural agenda, then you're for Parkinson's disease, and you are for spinal paralysis. It's no different than the way they do it in the environmental movement. They talk about dirty water and dirty air, and if you oppose the environmentalists, why, you must be for dirty water and dirty air! You don't want clean water and clean air, and this is a script that they have written for years. Senate Democrats used to parade victims of various diseases or social concerns or poverty up before congressional committees and let them testify, and they were infallible. You couldn't criticize them.

The bottom line is that celebrities, victims, disease patients etc. are not any different than anybody else once they enter the political arena--the are open to insult, debate and rebuttle just as anywone else. And so it should be. Rush's main point is simply that we cannot sit by and let somebody spew disinformation simply because they are victims etc. More:

The truth is, all stem cell research is legal today in Missouri. Jim Talent does not seek to criminalize it, as Michael J. Fox asserts in his television commercial. Stem cell research is legal today in Missouri, it is happening at universities across the state. The truth is Amendment 2 would put human cloning in the Constitution. Now, the Michael J. Fox ad says that Talent wants to criminalize research, and this is false. It is already legal and it's already happening. Senator Talent and other opponents of Amendment 2 are not touching stem cell research in any way. What they want to do is stop human cloning from becoming a new right in the Missouri Constitution, and so they have named the pro-cloning bill the stem cell research and cures initiative so that people will go to the polls on November the 7th and think they're voting for stem cell research, which is already legal.

Michael J. Fox is participating in this disinformation campaign. Folks, I don't care what anybody says, it is unseemly, it is exploitative, and it is downright mean to mislead people who suffer from incurable diseases at the moment or horrible diseases, that there is a cure around the corner if only, if only Republicans could be defeated. There has been a tradition in this country of bipartisan efforts to cure all of these diseases or to come up with vaccinations for them, but never mind that, we're in the process here now of damaging what has traditionally been this bipartisan effort in addressing and curing illnesses by politicizing them. We're now politicizing diseases and illnesses.

[...]

So the Michael J. Fox Foundation currently, with its namesake, doing commercials misleading Missourians and Marylanders on the effects of stem cell research and the idea that Republicans want to criminalize this research and stop and prevent a cure for Parkinson's disease has actually funded a follow-up study to this virus research that involves gene therapy. Do I need to say more? They're still not sure about this but it shows promising results, far more promising than anything that has come from embryonic stem cell research to date, ladies and gentlemen. Now, this has to be known by Mr. Fox since his foundation donated $1.9 million for a follow-up study on this and yet he still is producing these commercials.

But Rush doesn't blame Fox. He blames the candidates:

Now, who do you want to blame, you want to blame Fox or do you want to blame the candidates for running them? Robert George, the professor at Princeton, blames the candidates. They're the ones who are disgraced by exploiting and using the sufferers of this disease to politicize the illness and for political gain.

And so, love him or hate him, Rush is right yet again. Kudos to Rush for seeing--yet again--through the liberal trap.

Setting the record straight

Sister Toldjah (who is just an amazing writer) sets the record straight on feminism. Here is the entire post. Read it all:

Just got done reading this piece by Joan Z. Shore at the Huffington Post, in which she states her opinion that women really aren’t liberated today - they are merely sex objects being exploited. This is an argument I’ve seen written by other feminists before, but have neglected to address the topic until now. Shore writes:

Let’s be honest — we have taken women out of the factory, out of the kitchen, out of the maternity ward only to turn them, again, into sex objects. Sixty years ago, they were pin-ups or calendar girls; today, they’re advertising gismos and media bimbos. This isn’t progress — it’s promiscuity parading as freedom. And the biggest danger is that this shallow, cynical view of women ends up making them thoroughly interchangeable, dispensable and, ultimately, vulnerable.

This is not simply a feminist issue; this is a question of where we place our values. As long as we encourage and reward women solely for their entertainment value, we are turning them into dolls and puppets. We are denying their human-ness, and our own. We are creating a seraglio society.

Note the repeated use of the word “we” - it’s used to denote “society”, as in it’s society’s fault these women have chosen the path they have, when the reality is that the majority of women who sell their faces and bodies are doing it because they chose to, not because society forced them to do so. This is yet another all-too familiar example of feminists not wanting to accept responsibility for their actions, or more importantly, what they advocated. The women’s lib/sexual freedom movement of the 60s and 70s helped bring about the voluntary sexualization of women (and I say voluntary meaning that women willingly engage in it) that we see today in part because leading feminists of that time were big on the idea of women being able to do whatever they wanted and whenever ever they wanted with their bodies - including sex with multiple partners whenever and however, sex with other women, sex without responsibility. Anything and everything revolved around sexual freedom. Magazines and books about sex became immensely popular. Cable movie channels showing explict sex scenes would become popular starting in the 80s and continue to be so today.

And nowadays we have some of those same feminists who advocated or believed in that ‘whatever, whenever’ attitude wanting to complain about the fact that hundreds of thousands of women have chosen to use their bodies as sex objects in order to make money. Astounding. While I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that the ’sex anytime, anywhere, I’ll be fast and loose with my body’ attitude does not equate to ‘progress for women’, I, unlike Shore, am aware of where exactly this attitude stemmed from and it did so, in large part, thanks to feminists of the 60s and 70s who encouraged women to uncover their bodies, shake their booties, and be sexually free to do whatever with whoever. In other words, women were encouraged to be as irresponsible with their bodies as possible, and told not to worry about the consequences of their actions.

What was ‘right’ then, apparently, is wrong today, if what Ms. Shore writes is any indication. Irresponsiblity back then was acceptable because women were just engaging in free love every chance they got as part of their newfound freedom. And for the past couple of decades, in addition to doing that, some of them have also learned to take advantage of their looks by selling them for money via photos, movies, etc. Ironically, back during the time of the women’s lib/sexual revolution movement, conservative female voices decrying what the feministas were preaching were laughed at and called ‘repressed, subservient, old-fashioned, behind the times’ etc simply because they said that the feminist movement was carrying things too far - those drowned out voices tried to get the femmes to understand that what they pushed for would have consequences down the road. They argued that with this newfound sexual freedom came responsibility. They were ignored. Guess what? Those conservative voices were right. The push for sexual freedom without responsibility over time led to an increase in the number of women with sexual diseases, higher illegitimacy rates, and a rise in abortions (once they became legal again).

According to Shore, women are still ’subjugated’ by men because those men enjoy the sight of the female form (horrors!) and in response, some women cash in. Shore makes the mistake of implying that most of the women who do this do so because they have no choice but to do it, which is a hell of a lot more convenient than admitting to the fact that telling women back in the 60s and 70s that they could be sexually irresponsible with their bodies actually translated into telling women they shouldn’t respect their bodies, which paved the way for the voluntary sexualization of women we see today. Think about it: If a woman respects her body, is she going to share it with just anyone? No self-respecting woman would. Sharing it over and over again - whether it be through sex, or revealing photos, or what have you - isn’t a sign of respect for your body, I don’t care how you spin it. Men don’t respect women who are fast and loose with their bodies, either. They might enjoy looking at them and, ahem, spending a little time with them, but they don’t enjoy coming home to them.

Feminists have always been fond of talking about how women should be empowered sexually, but in the process ignore where the real ’sexual empowerment’ begans. It looks as though Shore realizes now, as I do, that the real ’sexual power’ (if it should even be called that) was and always has been in the mystery of the female mind, body, and soul - and holding on to that mystery, not in literally and figuratively putting it out there on the table at drop of a hat. Too bad Shore doesn’t realize that what’s happening today has come about in part thanks to what the feminists of yesteryear - feminists she no doubt admired - pushed for with extreme vigor, because if she did understand and admit to the root causes of the problem, she might be able to come up with solutions better than this one:

We look in revulsion at Muslim women wrapped in scarves and veils. We pity them, and we despise the male chauvinism that imposes that on them. But here’s the catch: they are not caught up in our Western cult of exhibitionism and vanity. They are not openly competing with each other for men and men’s favors. They are
even, to a large degree, protected from assault and rape because they are virtually invisible. Home is their domain, husbands are their guardians.

Somewhere, between that repressive culture and our own permissive one, there must be a middle way.

Shore almost seems to be taking the same attitude of western convert to Islam Yvonne Ridley, whose delusional piece about Islam and feminsim I discussed at length Sunday. Not a good sign.
The solutions to the problem of sexualization should start in the home, with parents (rather than teachers) talking to their sons and daughters about respecting their bodies and making sure they know that it’s not a toy. The biggest battle comes not so much from getting parents to do that - because I’m sure most do try and instill a sense of values in their children, values that include loving and respecting one’s self - but culturally, through the images we see in magazines, on TV, on the Internet. Cultural reinforcement of good values, like abstinence until marriage, would go a long way towards reversing the social ills that radical feminism hath wrought. Ultimately, of course, the decision on what to do with their bodies is up to women themselves, but if we devoted as much time in this country to encouraging a strong sense of pride and respect in ourselves and our bodies as we did to glorifying sex, think about the positive social influence it could have on society as a whole, and look at the potential for real progress to be made. Sadly, that’s a more idealistic than realistic approach, as I don’t see America changing culturally as far as attitudes about sex are concerned anytime soon, if ever. Even today conservatives get laughed at for preaching the value of modesty. The Janet Jackson Super Bowl boob flash controversy almost three years ago is a perfect illustration of that. Every name in the book was thrown at conservatives after that: “prude” and “repressed” are two that come to mind.

I should also state for the record that I believe Shore way overstates her case and makes it sound like there aren’t many women out there who have been successful based on anything other than their looks. Yes, there are women out there who sell their looks for cash, but I believe there are far more women who have made it using their brains: Nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, CEOs, and so many more. But I won’t deny there is a problem with the voluntary sexualization of women - and I also won’t deny some of the root causes of this problem. You have to be able to recognize what those problems are in order to try and not repeat those mistakes. Along with that I won’t stop adovacting solutions that may seem hopeless now. Who knows? One day we may see a modesty revolution - ‘twould be interesting to see the feministas reaction to that one, eh? If there ever is such a revolution, yours truly will be standing on the front lines of it. In fact, I think I already am

Holy Shmokes

Watch what you say, or the P.C. police might arrest you... No seriously:

A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English.

Codie Stott’s family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers.

The 14-year-old - who was released without charge - said it had been a simple matter of commonsense and accused the school and police of an over-the-top reaction.

The incident happened in the same local education authority where a ten-year-old boy was prosecuted earlier this year for calling a schoolfriend racist names in the playground, a move branded by a judge “political correctness gone mad.”

Codie was attending a GCSE science class at Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, when the incident happened.

The teenager had not been in school the day before due to a hospital appointment and had missed the start of a project, so the teacher allocated her a group to sit with.

“She said I had to sit there with five Asian pupils,” said Codie yesterday.

“Only one could speak English, so she had to tell that one what to do so she could explain in their language. Then she sat me with them and said ‘Discuss’.”

According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - then began talking in a language she didn’t understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher.

“I said ‘I’m not being funny, but can I change groups because I can’t understand them?’ But she started shouting and screaming, saying ‘It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police’.”

Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day.

A complaint was made to a police officer based full-time at the school, and more than a week after the incident on September 26 she was taken to Swinton police station and placed under arrest.

“They told me to take my laces out of my shoes and remove my jewellery, and I had my fingerprints and photograph taken,” said Codie. “It was awful.”

After questioning on suspicion of committing a section five racial public order offence, her mother Nicola says she was placed in a bare cell for three-and-a-half hours then released without charge.

There's no need for me to comment, as Sister Toldjah says it all perfectly. Read what she's got to say about it.

"Unlike basketball, the security of the United States is not a game. Can we afford a party that treats it like one?"

Updated: Scroll down

How great is this?

I first saw this on Instapundit (surprise surprise, Glenn Reynolds was the first to post on it--how shocking). Since then LGF has posted on it. It originally appeared on the Drudge Report.

The video has been "flagged" and as such requires a password if viewing it on the YouTube site. But, LGF notes that:

the fictional assassination of George W. Bush? No problem:

YouTube - Death of a President.

The ad is apparently not being shown on TV (I certainly haven't seen it--though I've seen the stupid ad about Bob Byrd supporting a law protecting silent prayer about 9,000 times). Why? Well Ann Althouse--who I am not overly familiar with--explains it all:

Noooooo! It wouldn't be nice! [We] must be niiiiiiiiiice. So they're not showing it, and it's a good thing no one can see it.

I think that is said with tongue-in-cheek, though.

Anyway, it's an interesting video--quite good. It sure does lay it out there for the American people to take it--too bad relatively few people are seeing it.

PS--As a side note, does Google's recent acquisition of YouTube mean an end to countless hours of browsing free stupid videos? I hope not...

Update:

I just viewed the video "Death of a President" that LGF linked to. How disgusting. The producer says it's not anti-Bush, and he can't understand why people would think it is. Gee. A video about killing Bush, how could that possibly be seen as anti-Bush?

Homosexuals on the moon?

In theory anyway. From WorldNetDaily:

Fly me to the moon? No thanks, said a 13-year-old girl who refused, because of her faith, to write an assignment for her health and physical education class about being the only heterosexual in a lunar colony with 10 homosexuals.

The class at Windaroo Valley State High School, made up of 13- and 14-year-old girls, was given the scenario and told to answer 10 questions, including how it felt to be a "minority" and what they would do to cope with their situation. They were also
told to discuss where ideas about homosexuality came from.

While many of the students were uncomfortable with the assignment or said they didn't understand the questions, one girl instantly refused because of her religious faith. "It is against my beliefs and I am not going there," she told the teacher.

For this, she was given her first-ever failing grade in a health and physical education class. According to the Brisbane Sunday Mail of Australia, students were told that details of the assignment were to remain in class and they weren't to discuss it with their parents.

And there's the real problem. The worst part isn't the assignment, or even the 'F' the girl recieved for not doing the assignment, but rather that the kids were told not to discuss school with the parents. If the assignment is one that shouldn't be discussed with parents--aside, of course, from those cheeseball assignments were the kids make their mommies and daddies something nice for Mother's Day or Father's Day, though I don't think that kind of stuff is allowed any more--then it shouldn't even be brought up in class. Not that such tactics can prevent assertive parents from getting to the root of the problem:

"I went to the school thinking there might have been a personality clash with the teacher," said the teen's mother, who only learned of the assignment after her report card was sent home. "When I started to read it I thought, 'Oh my God' ... I was shocked by the content," she said of the assignment.

"My daughter said she didn't want to do the assignment because she did not believe in homosexuality and did not want to answer the questions. She was being challenged, but she should not be challenged like that at her age."

No 13 year-old student should be challenged like this. Kids don't even get a childhood now. Though I sound like an old man when I say this, I honestly do not remember it being this way just 8 years ago when I was 13. Kids barely know what they belief at this point, challenging them on why they believe it is just uncalled for.

"It's no wonder our kids are struggling with the basics when the government is allowing this sort of rubbish to be taught in the classroom," Queensland, Australia Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney said.

The government "has created a system that tries to tell kids what to think instead of teaching them how to think," he said. "It is completely out of line for students to be graded on their moral beliefs. It's not the job of our schools to politicize our children. It is their function to provide our kids with the basics, like reading, writing and math."

The revelation of "faith-based grading" came to light in the same week Federal
Education Minister Julie Bishop announced plans to take control of the schools from Australia's separate states.

The state education systems, she told a history teachers' conference, had been hijacked by leftist "ideologues" promoting ideas "straight from Chairman Mao."

Regarding Windaroo Valley's homosexuals-on-the-moon assignment, Bishop
said it was one more reason to be concerned about Australia's schools.

"This is another example of a politically-correct agenda masquerading as curriculum," she said. "Parents need to know the content of school curriculum so they can be confident their children are receiving a high quality education that is also consistent with their values."

"Knowing the content," said the girl's mother, was precisely what Windaroo Valley High did not seem to want, noting that school officials seemed more concerned about how parents learned of the assignment than her daughter's religious beliefs.

"That's what concerns me most ... the parents had no opportunity to even see the assignment," she said.

The school website had this to say about the school:

That should be good news for one 13-year-old girl at Windaroo Valley High
where the school's website makes this promise:

"Ultimately we offer choice, opportunity and potential. There is something for everyone with new additions being made every year to enhance our progressive curriculum. We want students to be happy."

This stuff has to stop. Period.

The Politics of Abortion

A great blurb from the Evangelical Outpost on abortion and the politics thereof:

Princeton professor Robert George -- one of the smartest men in America -- explains he cannot support the Democratic Party:

I find no cause for joy in this. I wish that it were possible for pro-life citizens legitimately to support Democratic candidates. I wish that the party of my parents and grandparents had not placed itself on the wrong side of the most profound human rights issue of our contemporary domestic politics. I wish that the killing of embryonic and fetal human beings by abortion and in biomedical research were resolutely opposed by both parties so that we could cast our votes based on our assessments of the candidates’ and parties’ competing positions on taxation, immigration, education, welfare, health-care reform, national security, and foreign policy. It is hardly satisfactory that pro-life citizens—representing a variety of views on the range of issues in economic, social, and foreign policy—find themselves bound to the Republicans because the only viable alternative is a party that has abandoned its commitment to the weakest and most vulnerable members of the human family by embracing abortion and embryo-destructive research.

Every Christian has to follow their own concience. But for the reasons George lists, I cannot fathom how a Christian can justify supporting the Democratic Party. They have placed themselves on the wrong side of morality and history and until they repent and find their way back, they don't deserve the support of pro-life citizens.

Sometimes I feel guilty for it, but I have to say that I agree whole heartedly with the last paragraph there. I have always said, "How can you be a Christian and vote democrat?" I am by no means suggesting that the Repubicans are somehow 'more Holy' or 'righteous' or even "more christian." Yet it stands to reason that if one is a Christian at all concerned with doing right, then voting for a party that stands so solidly in support of such a horrid practice as abortion has a knock against it before we are even able to examine other issues.

Robert George also makes a good point...the Dems are seemingly putting themselves in a bit of a pickle by (almost) always supporting unregulated abortion. By doing so, they're losing out on a voting bloc that is pro-life, but stands for many if not all of the other staples of the Dems platform. I've said before that I could never vote pro-choice--republican or democrat--on a state or national level. Maybe that's just me?

On the Pope

A lot of bloggers and right-wingers like to compare liberals to the Islamo-facist terrorists (or whatever it is we're calling them this week). I don't know that it's really appropriate in all situations (e.g. I don't think that most democrats/liberals want to see the US destroyed in the same manner that terrorists do) but there is at least one characterization which fits...and that it hypocrisy.

The dems--though I praised them for it--jumped all over Chavez for the personal attacks on Bush, but they themselves say the same (or worse) on a near daily basis. Don't believe me? Just listen to anything Howard Dean says. Or take a look at people like Noam Chompsky, who condemns the US government military, though he took significant amounts of money from the Pentagon (see Peter Schwizer's Do as I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy).

The Islamo-nutjubs share this trait. They burn flags, attack embasies, kill, mame and generally spread havoc because of a picture of Mohammed. Then they do this (from Little Green Footballs):

Here’s a lovely cartoon from the current issue of Palestinian weekly Al Risala, a Hamas publication, courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch. The Arabic script reads, “The Pope and those who live under his cloak.”

It just goes to show, the standard they hold us to is different than their own...much like the libs.

As a side note, do we hide under the cloak of the Pope? Hmm. Points to ponder?

More on Clinton's rant

Clinton's rant was just that good...it's being covered by everybody, but my favorite--and probably the most thought provoking--is from the blog Christian Conservative:

BUSH: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the left-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight years to try. They did not try. I’m trying.So I tried and am failing [to get bin Laden]....but I'm making a comprehensive anti-terror strategy with the best guy in the country, Donald Rumsfeld, whose charicter is attacked on a daily basis.So you did CNN’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little liberal hit job on me. What I want to know is…

CNN: Well, wait a minute, sir.

BUSH: No, wait. No, no…

CNN: I want to ask a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

BUSH: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Democrat Party you asked this question of.I want to know how many people in the former Clinton administration you asked, Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?I want to know how many you asked, Why didn’t you fire Dick Clarke?I want to know how many people you asked…

CNN: We asked — we asked…

BUSH: I don’t…

CNN: Do you ever watch CNN, sir?

BUSH: I don’t believe you asked them that.

CNN: We ask plenty of questions of…

BUSH: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, man.

CNN: About the USS Cole?

BUSH: Tell the truth, man.

The man makes some good points. Some really good points. What would the reception have been if Bush had acted like a spoiled two year old?