* Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of LifeSiteNews.com. They are presented only for your information.
Compiled by Steve Jalsevac
LIFE ISSUES
New Site for Adult Stem Cell Resources
A new Web site is detailing success stories in adult stem cell research. https://www.stemcellresearchfacts.org/ is part of a campaign to educate and spread awareness about the potentials and successes of adult stem cell therapies. It was created by the Family Research Council and SaintMax Worldwide. The site is just the first phase of the project, a statement from the Catholic Medical Association reported. It includes three videos that present the stories of people who have been saved or helped by adult stem cells.
Amy Daniels tells how she has survived systemic scleroderma. The parents of Joseph Davis tell how their second child was able to save Joseph from sickle cell anemia. And Laura Dominguez affirms that thanks to adult stem cells, she is going to walk again after a car accident that left her paralyzed. The new site was launched Saturday in Kansas City.
https://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-27581
Cord Blood Stem Cells Treat Cerebral Palsy–And a Potential Problem For Regenerative Medicine Overall – Wesley J. Smith
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/11/18/cord-blood-stem-cells-treat-cerebral-palsy-and-a-potential-problem-for-regenerative-medicine-overall/
Canadian Medical Students:'We will never intentionally kill patients entrusted to us'
https://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2234646
Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Pave the Way to Eugenics
Ever-more sophisticated technology allows us to detect ever more genetic anomalies.
https://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/pre-natal_diagnostic_techniques_pave_the_way_to_eugenics/
2009…A Not So Dark Year in Bioethics After All by Wesley J. Smith
I underestimated the resiliency and determination of those who oppose the development of what is sometimes called a culture of death. Thus, the year didn’t go nearly as badly as I feared.
Predictions I Got Right
– “The Bush Embryonic Stem Cell Funding Policy is Toast.”
– The Amount of Federal Funding of Human ESCR Will Remain Roughly the Same.
– The Federal Government Will Not Fund Human Cloning Research in 2009.
Predictions I Got Wrong
– New Federal Law Will Explicitly Legalize Therapeutic Cloning.
Prediction I Missed Altogether
– Special Federal Funding for Ethical Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Rescinded
– My greatest failure – and it’s a whopper – was missing the entire brouhaha over Obamacare. I expected health care reform to be introduced. But I never anticipated it would bloat to a 2000-page bill or that Congressional leaders would try and push the behemoth through with such scant opportunity for democratic debate. And because I missed the ruthlessness of Obamacare’s pushers, I also failed to predict the commitment and resiliency of the resistance. The lines generally held because people across the nation and the world worked energetically to prevent the worst from coming to pass.
https://www.cbc-network.org/2009/11/2009-a-not-so-dark-year-in-bioethics-after-all/
Schools Let Students Seek Secret Abortions
Parents not notified when 12-year-olds obtain 'confidential' medical procedures
https://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116315
Pulling the Plug: Five Strategies for Talking to Democrats About Euthanasia by Eric Pavlat
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=148&Itemid=48
Biological Colonialism: Murdered For Fat – Wesley J. Smith
Peruvian police said on Thursday they had broken up a gang that allegedly killed dozens of people and sold their fat to buyers who used it to make cosmetics. Four Peruvians were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, murder and trafficking in human fat.
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/11/20/biological-colonialism-murdered-for-fat/
RELIGION
A Most Diligent Mother: Angelica by John Zmirak
In large swathes of the country where parishes have either closed or turned de facto Methodist, EWTN's broadcasts serve the isolated faithful like Allied broadcasts into Occupied Europe. Given the crisis of faith of the 1970s and 1980s, building EWTN sometimes meant flouting the power of worldly bishops who'd learned more than golf tricks from their liberal Protestant colleagues.
Mother Angelica did an end-run around the bureaucratic institutions that modernists had co-opted—and built an enduring bridge between ordinary believers and the teaching office of Peter. Mother Angelica has flouted powerful men, the conventional wisdom, and the voice of prudence so many times that for her it's almost routine.
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7237&Itemid=48
Pontifical Council for Social Communications Looks at Promoting Charity, Truth Online
One of the pontifical council's consultants, Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, the head of Canada's Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, said the Internet and blogs have brought about a “radicalization of rhetoric,” even among Catholics. Asked to address the council about Catholic media in North America, Father Rosica said, “On the Internet there is no accountability, no code of ethics and no responsibility for one's words and actions.”
So many Web sites and bloggers who call themselves Catholics focus so much on negative stories and messages that increasingly “Christians are known as the people who are against everything,” he said.
https://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0904838.htm
Cardinal George Questions Role of Independent Catholic Media
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Nov. 16 that Catholic publications, universities or other organizations that insist on complete independence from their bishops are “sectarian, less than fully Catholic.” George placed his comments in the context of the bishops’ role in governance as promoters and guarantors of church unity. At a press conference later that afternoon George declined to name specific Catholic media, higher education or other organizations that the bishops might have in mind, but he said that more generally “if any institution, including the media, calls itself Catholic,” it is the moral responsibility of a bishop to assure that it is Catholic.
https://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/george-questions-role-independent-catholic-media
Bishops Try to Reassert Control of a Restive Flock
The leader of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States on Monday launched a new effort to rein in Catholic debates and dissidents and to remind the flock that the bishops will be the arbiters of what it means to be a Catholic.
In remarks at the opening of the hierarchy's annual meeting in Baltimore, Chicago Cardinal Francis George made it clear that after years of repeated questions about the bishops' credibility, it was time for the bishops to clarify just who can and cannot speak for the church.
He also confirmed that he had set up three committees of bishops to develop guidelines for determining what will be considered legitimate Catholic entities. Church insiders said the divisions and open dissents, and the criticisms that often bombarded the bishops from right and left, increasingly frustrated George and others in the church leadership, and led George to quietly form several committees that will try to find a way to certify which universities, media, and other organizations can claim to be Catholic.
…several bishops and church insiders said that conservative publications and organizations that often cast themselves as “more Catholic than the bishop” are a major source of concern—and irritation.
https://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/17/bishops-try-to-reassert-control-of-a-restive-flock/
Bishop of Killaloe Willie Walsh has questioned the right of women to be ordained – challenging the papal ban.
Bishop Walsh – who'll celebrate 50 years as a bishop this year – expressed sadness at the Church's exclusion of homosexuals and divorcees.
https://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/eymheycwcwoj/
Effort to Stop New Liturgical Translations at USCCB Meeting Fails
Bishop Trautman, who has headed the bishops' liturgy committee in the past and is a strong supporter of gender-neutral translations, tried to stop the vote on the new liturgical texts. The majority of bishops supporting Cardinal George's decision to accept the Vatican translation 194-20.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17748&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29
Rome Conference Examines Responsibilities of the Catholic University
The Vatican announced late last week that the Pontifical Gregorian University is planning a conference to discuss the responsibilities of Catholic universities.
https://www.ncregister.com/daily/conference_examines_responsibilities_of_the_catholic_university/
The USCCB On Marriage And Family—zzzzzzzz – National Catholic Reporter
The National Catholic Reporter, looking at a leaked draft of the pastoral letter on marriage says in an editorial that it's so heavy-handed and crudely done—full of “sweeping denunciations” and lacking in “pastoral solicitude” that the bishops should “scrap the entire text … and start fresh.”
https://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2009/10/contraception-gay-marriage-divorce-catholic-bishops/1
On Marriage, the Bishops Should Start Over – National Catholic Reporter Editorial
It reads as if it was written by someone who has never once engaged in a marriage preparation program, let alone actually ever been married. The first section of the draft spends too much time talking about the threats to modern marriage, such as high divorce rates, cohabitation, same-sex unions and, of course, contraception (an “intrinsic evil”).
…sweeping denunciations of modern trends plague the discussions of other issues, such as same-sex marriage. In the section that treats gay marriage, the draft does speak of the dignity of all people, including gays and lesbians. The lack of focus on the rite and on the scripture results in a text that is strangely, and fatally, at odds with the texts of the Second Vatican Council.
https://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/marriage-bishops-should-start-over
Greek Orthodox solidarity in face of crucifix ban
https://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=22552
Tom Monaghan secured a $4 million “investment” from a pro-choice billionaire for Ave Maria University’s new “Tom GolisanoField House”. The fiscally conservative, socially liberal/tolerant Golisano is a significant contributor to the political campaigns of pro-choice Democrats, is a significant contributor to the Bill Clinton Foundation and is a thrice-divorced 67 year old dating a 35 year old woman
https://www.angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28720
Focus President Speaks Out on Religion in Government
https://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/jim_daly/2009/11/people_of_faith_are_citizens_too.html
Washington Post Headline Bias: Paper Profiles Clergyman 'Seeking to Put Asunder' Gay Marriage
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2009/11/18/wapo-headline-bias-paper-profiles-clergyman-seeking-put-asunder-gay-ma
Play Depicting Jesus as Gay Packs Church
https://www.ocregister.com/news/church-219451-play-jesus.html
The Economic Benefits of Hell
Two Harvard researchers have come to a fascinating conclusion. Not only does religious conviction benefit economic growth, but belief in one particular doctrine—the existence of a hell—produces a dramatic effect. If belief in hell jumps up sharply while actual church attendance stays flat, it correlates with economic growth. Belief in heaven also has a similar effect, though less pronounced. Mere belief in God has no effect one way or the other. Meanwhile, if church attendance actually rises, it slows growth in developing economies….
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=The-economic-benefits-of-hell.html&Itemid=127
Tragedy or Scandal? We Weaseled and Equivocated and Appeased By Mark Steyn
You didn’t have to be “alert” to spot Maj. Nidal Hasan. He’d spent most of the last half-decade walking around with a big neon sign on his head saying “JIHADIST. STAND WELL BACK.” On the other hand, who needs surveillance operations and intelligence budgets? Major Hasan was entirely upfront about who he was.
“Diversity” is one of those words designed to absolve you of the need to think. Likewise, a belief in “multiculturalism” doesn’t require you to know anything at all about other cultures, just to feel generally warm and fluffy about them.
https://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGYzZTExZWU0NjZhYTM2ODdiNmU2NDMyNzUzMTk5NzY=&w=MQ==
SWINE FLU
Teresa Forcades, the Scary Flu Nun
Via Western Confucian, here's an hourlong presentation about swine flu from a Sister Teresa Forcades, a Spanish nun who is also a physician (and, alas, a pro-abortion feminist, which has nothing to do with her competence on medical matters)
https://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/11/teresa-forcades-the-scary-flu.html
Outspoken Spanish Nun a Pro-Abortion Feminist and Supporter of Liberation Theology.https://iglesiadescalza.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-voices-in-church-sr-teresa-forcades.html
Million in Ukraine Hit by 'Plague Worse Than Swine Flu'
A Deadly plague could sweep across Europe, doctors fear, after an outbreak of a virus in Ukraine plunged the country and its neighbours into a state of panic. A cocktail of three flu viruses are reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague, which it is believed may be far more dangerous than swine flu. President Yushchenko said: “People are dying. The epidemic is killing doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.”
https://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/140492/Million-hit-by-plague-worse-than-swine-flu–
Joseph Moshe arrested for predicting Baxter bioweapon outbreak mutated H1N1 flu in Ukraine!
(LSN NOTE:We do not know what to make of this. We present it for your information. There have been increasing reports of a major and deadly flu epidemic in the Ukraine, but getting accurate, verifiable information on the situation has been difficult)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A66kx0KYFCA&annotation_id=annotation_2452&feature=iv
US POLITICS
American Buffoon – Brack Obama
Obama was supposed to be America's answer to the suave, European head of state. Russia Today wrote that week, “Despite Barack Obama's eloquent elocution, ivy school credentials and electric charisma, there is talk that he lacks the most crucial element of any great leader: judgment.”
https://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/18/american-buffoon
Dede Scozzafava Is No GOP Moderate
“I was first on the Planned Parenthood board when I returned to the North Country,” Scozzafava said last year as she accepted the Family Planning Advocates’ Margaret Sanger Award for pro-abortion activism. Scozzafava was endorsed by the leftist, ACORN-associated Working Families Party and ran on its ballot line with 2008’s Obama-Biden ticket and 2004’s Kerry-Edwards team.
https://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmQ4ODVhZmI1NTE2NmQ4YjZiYTMyZjY1YzdkNjAxMDg=&w=MQ==
Lou Dobbs: My downfall at CNN started when Barack Obama became President
https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009/11/17/2009-11-17_lou_dobbs_my_downfall_at_cnn_started_when_barack_obama_became_president.html#ixzz0XB6Kphhj
I Was Lou Dobbs's Last Guest: Witness To a Star Reborn By Jeffrey Lord
If they can silence Lou Dobbs—they will eventually try to silence you.
https://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/16/i-was-lou-dobbs-last-guest-wit/4
Who Are The Neoconservatives? An Interview With Michael Novak
Michael Harrington, the most famous democratic socialist in America. Harrington invented a new name for some of his old friends, Democrats who had become critical of socialism and statism—he called them “neoconservatives.” He intended that name as an insult, since the Left held that “there are no intelligent conservatives in America.”
He meant to push us outside the margins of intellectual life. We all fought against this insulting label. It is true, we did not believe in socialism any longer; we saw better results for the poor from enterprise and markets. Yet we continued to believe in democracy and human rights. We considered ourselves to be persons of the Left even as we began to criticize the Left.
It is characteristic of the Left, one learns, to excommunicate its critics. If you are in favor of capitalism—even a little bit—that's intolerable to the Left. The Left is extremely intolerant.
Reagan was elected in 1980, and Newsweek ran a cover story on what they called the “New Right.” The edition included the neoconservatives near to the heart of the new Right. This was an enormous exaggeration. Most of the neoconservatives barely supported Reagan, and some did not at all.
Michael Novak: In the first generation, virtually all neo-conservatives were not only Democrats; we were on the left wing of the Democratic Party. We were Kennedy Democrats. Then, after 1973, the Democratic Party increasingly became the party of abortion. It is still the party of abortion. From our point of view, we did not leave the Democratic Party, the party left us.
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=48
New Wave of Female Firebrands Striking Fear Into Liberal America
Right-wing radicals are already pinning presidential ambitions on a mother-of-five from Minnesota who calls herself a 'fool for Christ' and condemns Obama as a socialist at the head of a gangster regime
https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/15/michele-bachmann-president-sarah-palin
SARAH PALIN
Palin's Popularity vs. Media Mania
Monday afternoon, Rush Limbaugh pointed out the most evil, mean-spirited act Sarah Palin has ever committed: She didn't include an index in her new book, Going Rogue.
What is it about Palin that sticks in the craw of liberal journalists? Perhaps the same thing that has always annoyed them about Rush Limbaugh: Sarah Palin doesn't need their help, and all their efforts to harm her appear impotent.
Her media enemies cite polls to demonstrate that the former Alaska governor is unpopular. Yet her book is a bestselling blockbuster, while anti-Palin outfits like CBS, MSNBC and CNN are the least-popular TV news organizations in America. And as far as Republicans are concerned, Palin is infinitely more popular.
Why do they hate her? Because Sarah Palin is guilty of a sin for which liberals can never forgive a Republican: She's more popular than they are. And everybody knows it.
https://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/17/palins-popularity-vs-media-man
Sarah Palin and the Future of Conservatism by Cal Thomas
The Palin phenomenon – for that is what it is because her celebrity flows singularly from John McCain's choice of her as a running mate – offers an opportunity for conservatives to choose their path to the future. Will it be a path of the angry and disenfranchised outsider, or will it be something of substance that produces triumphs in both politics and policy?
https://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2009/11/19/sarah_palin_and_the_future_of_conservatism
The Sarah Palin-Media Co-Dependency
Sarah Palin talked on the campaign trail about trying to get around the elite media filter, but this week she’s pushed her way straight through it.
And the media – liberal and conservative, bloggers and network anchors – have responded by dedicating magazine covers, air time and online real estate to everything related to the book-promoting, media-bashing former governor of Alaska.
For Palin’s book sales, all press is good press. And for the press, Palin is all good for the bottom line.
https://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29686.html
AP Turns Heads for Devoting 11 Reporters to Palin Book 'Fact Check'
Palin quickly hit back on a Facebook post titled “Really? Still Making Things Up?” “Imagine that,” the post read. “11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to 'fact check' what's going on with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/17/ap-turns-heads-devoting-reporters-palin-book-fact-check/
Sarah Palin Gives Oprah Her Highest Ratings In Two Years
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/18/sarah-palin-gives-oprah-her-highest-ratings-two-years
MISCELLANEOUS
The Worst is Yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses
Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.
While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession. Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession.
So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back
Read more: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/11/15/2009-11-15_the_worst_is_yet_to_come_unemployed_americans_should_hunker_down_for_more_job_lo.html?print=1&page=all#ixzz0XEbVBPGS
When Big Labor bullies and volunteers collide by Michelle Malkin
The Boy Scouts' motto is: Be prepared. Who knew it meant preparing to defend themselves against purple-shirted union thuggery over community service? Kids, pay attention. This is a teachable moment for all of you on power, politics and Big Labor's culture of corruption.
Last week at a city council meeting in Allentown, Pa., a top official of the local Service Employees International Union chapter ranted about 17-year-old Scout Kevin Anderson's park cleanup work. Anderson devoted some 200 hours to the job in order to earn an Eagle Scout badge. He picked up trash and helped clear a 1,000-foot walking path with fellow members of Boy Scouts Troop 301 of Center Valley.
But SEIU's Nick Balzano disparaged altruistic efforts in city parks and asserted that “there is (sic) to be no volunteers” since his union members were laid off. He then issued a witch hunt threat: “We'll also be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails. We may file another grievance on that.” Citing union rules, he gave the Allentown city council, the Boy Scouts and all potential volunteers an iron-fisted ultimatum: “None of them can pick up a hoe. They can't pick up a shovel. They can't plant a flower. They can't clear a bicycle path. They can't do anything. Our people do that.”
https://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/20/when-big-labor-bullies-and-volunteers-collide/
Homoesexual MPP George Smitherman: A Big Bully Toronto Needs?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontomayoralrace/article/725803—george-smitherman-a-big-bully-the-city-needs
Glenn Beck to announce ‘big plan’ for 2010
https://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29776.html