But Tebow is not without controversy. It stems, largely, from his open professions of Christian faith. There’s his signature pose: The Tebow. There’s the fact that, while at Florida, he put verse citations in the black under his eyes (the NCAA has since prohibited the practice). And, as such, when Christianity and pop culture collide you get snark. Lots of snark.

So when Tebow finally lost, it produced the typical finger pointing and laughing. As if God had somehow abandoned Tim Tebow in his hour of greatest need. I’ve known God for some time and I also know that this is how He likes to work. That Tebow’s rise and fall were all part of a larger plan. If you’re not a Christian that might not make any sense. You might think I’m being a simple fanboi who will always defend Tebow and God. But neither need me to defend them. Instead, I want to point out the larger picture.

There is one game in Tebow’s career that I consider defining and it’s not one you might pick. The game would be the 2009 SEC Championship game. If you’re not familiar with it, let’s go back to 2008. Florida had this young but brilliant sophomore quarterback (guess who) who went on this winning streak. It came to an abrupt halt against Mississippi State when a missed extra point translated into a 31-30 loss. Tebow, in tears, stood at the press conference and vowed that they would never see anyone play so hard. He did and Florida would not only win the SEC East, they would beat a precarious #1 Alabama in the SEC Championship and ultimately a national title. It even netted Tebow the Heisman, a first for a sophomore.

2009 seemed like destiny. Florida stomped everyone it met and it seemed like a repeat was in order. The SEC Championship was a rematch from 2008 and Florida was the heavy favorite. To give you an idea how tight they were, the Gator defense had only allowed one kick returned for positive yardage. Alabama was ready this time, however. They had their own Heisman contender and he showed his colors. The #1 team in the country came unglued. It was pretty much over when Tebow threw an interception into the end zone during the third quarter. I remember him sitting on the sidelines, bawling like crazy.

I saw that as a defining moment. I like to call them brick walls, where God abruptly ends a dream so He can do something else later on. It wasn’t the end of Tebow’s career. It was simply the end of what would have likely made him a legend. Had Tebow won, he likely would have had a second Heisman AND a second national championship, something unheard of in college football. Heck, they might have had to make a new trophy or rename the Heisman to the Heisman-Tebow award. Instead, he simply became plain old ordinary Tim Tebow.

So why the spectacular wins and then a loss? Well, for one thing, it’s unfair to pin everything on Tebow. Football is a team sport and not even the best quarterback in the world can make up for a blown defensive line. And Tebow isn’t perfect. I knew that his spectacular comebacks couldn’t last forever because it just required too many things to fall just right. Furthermore, if you’re a truly good QB, you don’t need spectacular comebacks because you’re never behind. But the largest reason is that it brings God glory.

Consider Psalms 19: 1-4

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Tim Tebow was an improbable QB. It took an injury to bring him in off the bench. Then you have the improbable wins. The spectacular fashion of those wins (it’s thrilling football and topped the highlight reel) pushed Tebow into the spotlight. Tebow never stopped being Tebow, he just got noticed for it now. And when he lost? Well, he’s still Tebow. He still prays. He still sings off key. He still hesitates some when he throws. But he has a spotlight now. And like the stars in the heavens, Tebow uses it to proclaim the majesty of God. The more people talk about him and his faith (even snarkily), the more it brings glory.

I don’t think God or Tim Tebow would have it any other way. So who was the loser here again?

I woke up to Erin on her laptop in the bedroom Oct 14. She told me her contractions were much stronger and not to go into work. My mother had, thankfully, already been planning to come up so I told her to plan to stay. There wasn’t much consistency to the contractions early on so we were stuck in limbo for most of the morning. It became obvious they were going somewhere, it was simply a question of when. I took the kids out to get us some lunch so Erin wouldn’t have to cook. She had done breakfast but was in no real condition to much anything else by lunch. Mom arrived shortly thereafter and Erin and I went for a walk to help the contractions along.

Walking was an adventure. We’d go maybe 100ft before Erin would stop and grab my arm for dear life to make it through the contraction. We didn’t stay out long (maybe 15 mins) but it was enough. Then we came back around 2pm to time contractions. They stayed in the 5 min range for 30 mins so we figured we should call it and made prep to do so. Erin called the OB while I packed the car and we headed to the hospital.

I parked in front of the doors for obvious reasons. This irked the lady behind the desk who, as I walked in with Erin (who was waddling through contractions at this point) asked “Is that your car, sir?” I wanted to reply “No, I just found it and figured I’d take it to get us here” but I held my tongue. I saw Erin to the elevator and then dashed back to go park the van. This hospital has an OB Triage since probably a good third of the hospital is dedicated to labor and delivery. Erin was there signing papers through contractions and they let her go back when I arrived with the bags, letting me sign instead.

The room was small and Erin got dressed in record time so we could beat the next contraction. The nurse checked Erin, but would only tell us that “Her bag is bulging” and nothing about her dilation. Not helpful at all. And more paperwork! They then moved promptly to transfer her to a delivery room around the time Meg arrived (Erin’s friend to take pics). We all trotted briskly (run is too strong a word but they were definitely in a hurry) to the delivery room on the other side of the hospital (it’s not a big hospital). We get there and were met (inside a room with the heater running on an 80 degree day) by the OB representative (yet another guy I don’t know) who looked at her and said she was at 10cm. I rushed to get the laptop up with the birth playlist and I barely finish when the nurses start with their fever pitch stuff. Everyone is racing at this point and the OB guy breaks her water. The nurses and the OB guy are chafing under our request list. The OB, who seems dumbfounded that we want minimal help and no drugs, says “Well I’m not going to let you bleed to death.”

Dr Bedside Manner he is not.

He leaves and the nurses announce that Erin is Strep B positive (news to us) and want to know if it’s OK to give antibiotics. They haven’t given Erin a hep-lock yet so they have to get that in while Erin (who is literally convulsing and screaming with contractions at this point) begins to crown. To give you an idea on the speed here, we left the house at 2:45 and it’s now about 3:45. I focus on getting her to breathe (which, unsurprisingly, she’s not doing) and the nurses, who now realize she’s crowning, abandon the IV and tell me to hit the call button. I’m no idiot (I do a lot of technical stuff at my job, after all) but I can’t find the call button anywhere. It’s on this remote thing on the back of a unit where I can’t see it. After a good 30 seconds of the nurse prompting me where to look, I find it.

Mr Bedside returns just as the top of Abby’s head is visible. He’s not supporting her but is giving her a local anesthetic to likely give Erin an episiotomy (something she requested not be done). They spread a plastic wrap thing (think a plastic blanket) to catch the water and blood and such and  then Abby’s head pops out, with the cord around the neck. Bedside is now in urgent mode, clamping the cord and cutting it. He then grabs Abby (who is in perfect head-down position) and pulls with Erin’s contraction to get Abby out. There’s a massive gush of fluid and Abby is flipped on the table. She lets out what I can only describe as an “Ahhhh” sound (the sound you make after guzzling water after being parched). The nurses are then in panic because of the cord. They take her immediately to the table and wash her, thinking she’s in distress. Erin wigs, thinking they’re intibating Abby (they’re not but we can’t see that from where we are, see pic below) and one nurse announces “We need NICU in here NOW”.

I need to stop here and note I’m not panicked like I was with Samuel (who also came out with a wrapped cord) and I marvel that his nurses never panicked over him like Abby’s are with her. My reactions were opposite to what happened.

So what happened with the NICU? They never came. Never let it be said that God doesn’t walk through your trials with you because, the moment you start to doubt, He shows up, and often shows everyone else up. As soon as the words had left the nurse’s lips, Abby began to wail. I literally laughed as the nurse said “Maybe not.” Indeed.

Abby came at 3:52pm, about 1 hour after arriving at the hospital. I started calling the close relatives, who were, of course, as shocked as we all were.

Samuel and Ruthie are curious still. They aren’t sure what to make of this. But they have their moments of sweetness.

Anyways, she had a real knack for doing the Anne Geddes style of photographs. I was very impressed with her attentiveness and eagerness to work with babies. You can check out her shots of Abby and others on her Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Montgomery-AL/Simply-L-Photography/120817717938526?ref=sgm&__a=6&

I can only assume that she then left the studio on a unicorn and rode through Fairyland to get home, where her house runs on a clean, reliable fusion reactor.

So, back to reality here. The “age of oil” isn’t over. Oddly enough, John Stewart gives us a history lesson here and basically proves it’s not over. But he doesn’t answer the “why”. Hence, my post here and this odd section (which I promises relates).

Did you go to the grocery store this week? I’m sure you did. I know of nobody in America who doesn’t. Sooner or later, everyone goes. Now, let me ask you something strange: Did you worry that the store would be out of stock? I’m not talking about you variety of cereal here, mind you, I’m talking about bare shelves. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Now let me ask you this: where does your store get its stock from? Most likely, it was aggregated into a distribution center from various sources.

How did the distribution center get the stock to your store? If you said trucks, give yourself a pat on the back.

Trucks run on oil. Trains run on oil (except for light rail and subway commuter lines). Planes run on oil. Your car also runs on oil. To sum it all up, America has a pretty extensive infrastructure that is run on oil. If the age of oil is over we’re all screwed. Even Miss Maddow. Hardees had, for a while, a slogan of, “Without us, some guys would starve.”

Without oil, you WILL starve.

I’ve been through hurricanes where people run on stores for some supplies. I’ve seen earthquakes turn people into scavengers. And I saw the Louisiana Wal-Mart that was stripped nearly to the bare wall after Katrina by looters. When you lose that infrastructure, hard times come within days. Lose a few roads or the ability to run trucks to an area and see how well you fare.

Odds are you know nothing about crops, livestock, etc. You don’t worry about your next meal because you make money and people who handle those things will gladly sell to you. It’s likely that these people live nowhere near you, hence the need for logistics.

This brings us to an important point. Obama is talking about “green energy” like windmills and solar. But those technologies cannot replace oil because they are methods of generating electricity. In fact, nothing right now can. Ethanol requires far too much land and would price virtually everyone around the world out of corn. Hydrogen is not efficient to extract. Natural gas has it’s own issues. None of them have enough market demand to replace the existing oil infrastructure.

So, like it or not, the age of oil isn’t gone. Not unless you don’t need anything delivered to you anytime soon…

1. The bill is designed to bankrupt the health insurance industry. One of the things that has had populist backing in polls is the idea that “pre-existing conditions” are some sort of corporate greed. That we’ll deny you coverage for that health problem because you waited until you got sick to apply. What exacerbates this problem is the tax code. If you buy health insurance through your employer you get it tax free. If you’re self employed or buy your own, you get nothing. So people go where the tax breaks are. Thus, when you lose your job, there goes your insurance. You then have a narrow window to get another job or else you become subject to the pre-existing clause and anything you had before you get re-insured isn’t covered.

It’s just not fair.

Rather than fixing the tax code so all health insurance is deductible (because why would we want to fix the system when we can have Uncle Sam run it?) the Democrats’ solution is to ban the practice. You know, shoot the messenger. There’s a tax penalty if you don’t buy insurance but it’s laughable. The penalty goes up to around $700 a year. That might sound like a lot but consider that this is 1-2 months of health insurance premiums we’re talking about (and that’s based on numbers from this year, not after they’re adjusted for things down the road). Rapidly, the health insurance premiums will outpace that fixed fine.

So why is this bad? Well, consider that it’s cheaper to pay the fine than comply. Further, consider that insurance companies can’t deny you coverage for your pre-existing conditions. So let’s say Bob doesn’t like health insurance. He skips out and pays his tax fine instead. Then Bob starts getting ill. He goes to the doctor (still cheaper to pay out of pocket and the fine) and the doctor tells him it’s cancer. Right now, Bob would be out of luck. But, thanks to Obamacare, he can go right out and buy insurance. So Bob is shelling out, say, $500/mo for health insurance while the insurance company is on the hook for, say, $1000/mo in treatments. To add insult to injury, Bob recovers after a year and, surprise, drops his health insurance to go back to paying the fines. So Bob paid $6000 in health insurance premiums for $12000 in care. Initially, the health insurance companies will take that out of your pocket but there’s only so long you can run a system this upside down. Eventually the insurance industry will be as bad off as the banking industry was last year. What does that mean? Bailout! Except that, in this case, the wise Democrats will go “Hey, we just need to go to single payer. Everyone is now on the government system!”

2. This bill breaks the bank. Assume that the “savings” the Democrats claim are real. Some $180B reported and touted over 10 years. Sounds like a lot.

The federal government spent $400B in Feb 2010. Hmm… that’s not so much after all. Add in the doc fix bill and suddenly we’re in red ink. Consider further that there was all sorts of gimmickery to pass this bill as “fiscally neutral” and suddenly things look bad. The bill has 4 years of taxes and revenue before the spending starts. The estimated cost from 2014 to 2024 is $2.6 trillion, or $2,600,000,000,000 (granted such projections are wrong but EVERY entitlement projection has been well under ACTUAL costs). Add in the current massive federal deficits and we’re looking at some $14T in debt. Worse, the bill does nothing to address costs. All we’ve done is put ourselves on the hook for a health care takeover.

Solomon said that the borrower is slave to the lender. In this case, we’re slaves to China and anyone else who bought our debt. There’s only 3 ways out of this, too. Cut spending (with Democrats? fat chance), raise taxes (immensely unpopular) or inflate it out. You inflate it out by printing more money and devaluing the currency. Destroys your credit ratings with other countries but you can cut massive deficits by a lot just by doing so. There’s just one more itty bitty catch to doing this: your money becomes worthless too. Ever seen those old signs that advertise Coke bottles for $0.05? Wonder why they charge you $1.50 now? Inflation. When this is all said and done that bottle of Coke might run you $3.00 or more. And that’s at Wal-Mart. There’s nothing to stop Obama’s Fed from doing this and Obama alone sets this policy (or has the ability to stop it).

On the upside, the Democrats will have a reason to raise the minimum wage… assuming anyone will hire you.

I could go on but, on those two points alone, this bill needs repeal. So what am I going to do? I’m going to do what I suggest you do. If you want change do two simple things

1. Vote. Not just in Nov but soon in your primaries. Find someone who is willing to support repeal. Here’s a hint: that person is not going to be a Democrat (thank you, Bart Stupak). It may not even be a Republican. Read up and vote. Vote for House (and Senate)

2. Make a political donation. I don’t have a ton of money but I intend to donate. If everyone mad at this bill donates, say $5-$10 to a candidate willing to vote for repeal that would send a message louder than any protest (and certainly far more than making stupid phone calls to voice mail).

Here’s hoping for real reform (and repeal)

I’m advancing a very simple proposition here. Conservatives can be really, really wrong about everything, and centralized solutions could be the only responsible course of action across every policy domain. But is it possible that we conservatives are sincerely wrong, and that we care about more than “power and status”?

I’m trapped in this cycle of thinking that our political leaders, regardless of partisan affiliation, are people, with all the foibles and limitations that this entails. While I do think that a bottomless hunger for power and status exists in the world (we can call this “evil” as a shorthand), I know enough liberals and conservatives to suspect that something else might be at work in our domestic political conflicts.

I don’t think either Salam, nor Sullivan, delve deeply enough into the issue. Sullivan is dismissive and I think Salam is genuinely looking for an answer. It’s not an easy one but it’s important to understand the fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives.

Before I go any further, it’s important to note that, in any philosophy, you have two basic groups of people (you can subdivide this a lot more but I’m keeping it simple for the sake of the argument). The largest group is what I call the Believers. These are people who agree with the basic tenets of your argument or movement but only in a visceral sense. They don’t pull the arguments apart or look at it from multiple angles. Instead, they’ve bought into the introductory arguments (which is not to say the arguments are right or wrong, just that they are introductory and often have little substance).  Believers simply take their position for granted. They tend to hang around other Believers and talk in hushed tones about those “other people” who are not Believers. If you ask them why they believe in their philosophy (or worse, questions the introductory arguments) you get a wide range of reactions from silence, to anger, to rationalizations.

In short, Believers generally aren’t sure why they believe, they just know that they believe. They are also the foot soldiers, pawns, hitmen, and evangelists.

Then you have the Core. The Core are your forest people. They not only know why they believe, they can defend it backwards and forwards. If you spot a flaw they might move to straw men or attack you personally. If they’re more rational, they might just agree to disagree but it depends greatly what the forest (the real forest in some cases) is and what they would give up if they were to even admit you might have a point. What determines their reaction depends more on whether or not the Core is based on lies or truth. No matter what the philosophy, the Core is more limited because Believers don’t need to see the forest, they might reject the forest, or because there’s a high cost to getting into the Core that your average Believer doesn’t want to pay.

So what does this have to do with nihilism and politics?

Liberalism and Conservatism are opposite ends of the spectrum. Nihilism is where you see the other end as a force to be stopped at all costs. In politics, this translates into “I can’t stand that you’re in power so I’m going to block you at every turn.” This is a bad policy because it causes serious issues to not be addressed. Each side accuses the other of it all the time. Right now, Liberals (Sullivan) are lobbing it at Conservatives over health care. But it’s important to remember that Liberals have done their own share.

As Salam mentions, in 2005, Pres. Bush wanted to reform Social Security. SS is built on a bad assumption that takes money from current workers to pay current recipients. Bush wanted a change to allow workers to invest some in the stock market. I have no idea how sound the idea was but Liberals proceeded to decry it as a wrecking of the system. They complained that the stock market was risky and that SS will not go bankrupt for many years to come. But the latter argument is weak. Saying it’s not broken now because it won’t fail tomorrow is a poor policy. The system will fail and nobody denies it. A better argument (if less popular) would have been that Liberals didn’t want to deal with the issue. The problem is that it looks very much like the real answer was Nihilism. Specifically the political calculus was that Republicans were weak on the issue (few wanted to take up the cause) and that they would pay no price for doing so.

Sadly, they were right. Few understood the core flaw and Republicans balked at spending the political capital.

So is Conservative opposition to health care Nihilism in kind? Not quite.

First, it’s important to understand that Liberalism’s Core is the philosophy that “The ends justify the means”. What that means is that, if it gets us to where we want to go, we should take it, even if taking it involves poor, wrong or even evil options. With regards to health care, the system really does need reform, but the problem is that the Liberals (like Ted Kennedy) have really meant that their idea of reform is something called Single Payer. Single Payer (proposed by Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1993) is where the government is the only entity that can pay for your health care. It sounds good until you begin to look at the forest. Single Payer means the government is the sole determiner of what care you can and cannot (or will not) get. Worse, the model is simply a tree in a larger forest still, where the government can then determine what you can or cannot consume because, if you make poor consumption choices, the government will, eventually, be on the hook for the consequences. So prepare to pony up punitive sales taxes in the same mold as tobacco products for things you normally eat now because, if you drink too much soda, eat too much red meat or run afoul of anything else lobbyists can get through Congress, the taxpayers will have to pay for it. Worst of all, is that when anything is made “free” by the government, it has to be rationed. In the UK (with single payer), they aim to get you a hospital bed in 18 weeks (4.5 months).

This plan, for obvious reasons, is unpopular with all but the most Liberal (the Core) people. It failed to pass. So we have Round 2 with Pres Obama. This time, we have ideas floated like the “Public Option”, which looks suspiciously like a path to Single Payer. Basically, the government would create its own insurance plan and create a poor mechanism intentionally designed to ensnare more and more people until all people are insured by the government. The Core understands this. Believers are either in denial that it will happen (willful naivete) or they don’t care. But the question is why all the horse trading, deception, and smoke and mirrors for an issue we’re all supposed to be behind? Why the rush to pass one massive bill that does a number of odd things that look like political payoffs when it would be more prudent to make a smaller bill and work with Conservatives?

The answer, sadly, is that the Liberals want their power. If the government gets to decide, sooner or later then it puts them in the drivers seat of your life. You learn what they want you to learn, eat what they want you to eat, and get what treatments they want you to get. They’ll promise to do better on the long waits and let up on the restrictions that people chafe under but now they’ve got you by the nose and they won’t let you go (and we won’t let ourselves go either).

In short, “health care reform” is a bad deal the way it’s written. There are real and salient reasons to oppose it. I don’t see Conservatives as Nihilists on this issue. It’s not the Liberal road or nothing. I do hope that both side will start working together soon to get real reform.

If not, I can see the Liberal forest start losing trees.

My problem is that while I am convinced that the reasonable accomodations Frankie has come to advocate seem like the proper policies to pursue–I think his analysis on how to get there is flawed. Similarly, while I am still convinced that abortion is murder, I don’t want to become John Brown or Scott Roeder; but I can’t find an intellectually satisfying reason for why I shouldn’t be.

There’s just something about these kinds of questions that draws me to them like a moth to a flame. Sometimes you get burned but it’s sooo pretty… So this may be a practice in self immolation but I think that Frank and David have some points that could stand more discussion than the tiny little box Facebook gives you. So, rather than eat up David’s wall with my ramblings, I turn here where I have room to stretch my legs.

If you’ve not read Frank’s article, it is probably one of the most feckless articles I’ve ever read. Frank used to be a Christian and now, not so much. The article is a mocking mea culpa about how he and “other Christians” are really responsible for the murder of one George Tiller. Tiller was probably one of the most vocal and active abortionists in the country, going so far as to abort up to the moments before birth. He was murdered at his church by a deranged gunman who had dealings with a pro-life group. There’s no indication the group had anything to do with the shooting.

Given Frank’s choice of platform, I knew it wasn’t going to be a friendly article but I was downright stunned at how well postmodernism had grabbed him. His assertions are that the “religious right” is largely a hate filled group, “pro-life” is really another way of saying “kill abortionists”, and that the primary objection to abortion is largely due to late term abortions, which have a nasty way of producing byproducts that resemble human anatomy. David’s question seems to be how to rebut this without turning into a raving lunatic.

The best place to start is with the assertion that the “religious right” (read Christianity) is a group with “hate-filled rhetoric”. If this were true, shootings like this would be common. Furthermore, I don’t think Frank was all that much into the Bible. The biggest hole in Frank’s assertion is that, to be a Christian, you can’t run around spewing hate, much less arbitrarily executing people you don’t like. I mean, Christ himself said that the law was summed up as loving God and loving your neighbor. You can twist the Bible all you want but you can’t wring hate from its pages with an objective reading. Ravi Zacharias put it best when he said that you can’t judge ANY philosophy on its extremes. People will take pretty much anything and twist it to their own bent. Furthermore, how, then, does he explain the massive outpouring of things like charity, or love? Why would people filled with hate condemn this action as just as wrong, if not worse, than the actions of Dr Tiller?

Then there’s the issue of murder. Since murder requires intent, let’s simplify it for the sake of discussion. When is it justifiable to kill another person? The two basic answers (for the sake of this discussion) are in wartime combat and when another life is in eminent danger. To reach the point where you are committing murder like, say, Paul Hill, you have to twist several ideas to reach justification. The most common are that the subjects of abortion, being murdered themselves, make it some form of defense and that it is the “will of God”.

The latter is one that cannot be addressed in any fashion except to say that, when a man has convinced himself he is carrying out God’s will, he is capable of anything. To the former, it is madness to run around executing people doing things you disagree with. In essence, they would become gods unto themselves in the same way that various shooters around the country do. Once you are your own moral authority with a gun, you become an arbiter of death, meting it out as you see fit and ending it only when someone (perhaps yourself) questions (or is about to question) the basis for that authority.

It’s also important to note that, in some ways, the media feeds this. I saw Paul Hill as an attention junkie. People paid a LOT of attention to him after an abortion shooting in the late 80s because he was one of the few kooks who defended  the shooter. It wasn’t too long after the limelight faded that he took up arms himself and got it back and once again  just before he was executed. He fed on the attention and if you look at the interviews you can see it.

The last assertion is that the primary objection to abortion comes from late term abortions.

The Roe v. Wade decision went to far, too fast and was too sweeping.I believe that abortion should be legal. But I also believe that it should be re-regulated according to fetal development. It’s the late term abortions that horrify most people.

Not entirely. He’s right about Roe v Wade, and I think that Liberals will, at some point, have to come to terms with the fact that the judiciary can’t make sweeping reforms that elected officials are too scared to. But abortion is a deeper issue that what trimester we’re talking about. Christians, and the “pro-life” stance, declare that all life is sacred. Period. The “pro-choice” stance is that only some life is precious. What few on the Left like to discuss is what is a plain truth elsewhere: they want to be the people to choose. This sounds far fetched until you read statements like this recent one from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice (emphasis mine)

Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way.

That the NY Times saw no problems with such an idea only compounds the horror. It makes perfect sense when you consider that abortion is a fig leaf for things like eugenics. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, held similar views (abortion clinics in black neighborhoods, forced sterilization for mental retardation, etc). Abortion erodes the conscience. It tells us that some people shouldn’t be here, that they are mistakes the universe made and we can fix them with a simple procedure. If we get government funding for it, we can make “them” go away quicker. Given that abortion is largely unregulated (few people, if any, are prosecuted for violating abortion laws), there’s no telling just how far this can go. Tiller was probably just in it for the money. Heaven help us if others are in it to get rid of “you”.

So who is responsible for George Tiller’s murder? The man who pulled the trigger. It’s not Frank, nor is it Christianity, nor a book nor an organization (although that makes for a better story). Frank can sleep better knowing his confession was unnecessary.

* Samuel loves to read these days. He says “book” fairly well (or maybe only mama could really understand the difference between “book” and “bear”) and smiles so big when you agree to get him in your lap with a book.

* Samuel has cut 4 teeth in recent weeks with another 2 in the wings. Its been rough both on him and me.

* I won’t be posting pictures on the site until we find the Photoshop disc to load on my new computer. Hopefully it won’t be too long.

* Ruthie told me today that she was going on a trip, would be back soon, and would send me a postcard.

* I’m beginning to be very anxious to start the work on the house. 2 weeks seems like a long time. New floor, a new microwave, some crown molding, a new window, and half a kitchen. Let’s get this party started already.

* I have been craving a strawberry rhubarb pie.

* We picked up our portion of the cow we purchased last week. It turned out to about 75 lbs of beef. It is fabulously lean and tastes great. An extra plus that it is locally raised, grain, hand fed, and limited vaccinations.

We had Samuel’s birthday party when my parents came to visit. I can’t believe he’s already 1, well really 13 months. He’s walking and teething, and teething, and saying Mama and “Bear”. He’s a mess.

We have been to doctors appts. (well babies), the chiropractor, play dates, the zoo, you name it. I feel like we’ve been everywhere and then there are weeks that I don’t see outside my four walls. I have been working and my computer has been on the fritz. We are waiting on a new one to be delivered any day.

The other day, Ruthie started to revert in her potty training. Thus I have let her run around the house without clothes. One afternoon she decided she didn’t want to put her poopie in the potty while Mommy was on a 5 minute phone call. Samuel got into it, head to toe, smeared it into the carpet and the tile, got some in Sister’s hair. It was a mess. I couldn’t get a picture of them covered because I needed to contain them as fast as I could but I did get one of them after they were clean. In fact, Ruthie put her arm around Brother and TOLD me to take their picture.

While I thought it would be awhile before I had another poopie incident, it was shortlived. We had another one last night. Just not as severe.

On the same note, the other day she was pretending to cook something and was going to serve me. I asked her what she was making. “Stinky Heinie” was her reply as she handed me my plate. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Ruthie is starting to say her ABC’s and sing both that song as well as “This is the Day” and “Jesus Loves Me.” She counts up to 9 accurately most of the time now as well.

Yesterday we had an absolute ton of rain. Just under 10 inches of rain in less than 4 hours in our area of town. Joel was sent home from work for the day and it was debatable whether or not he’d be going in today or not. He did and everything around town seems to be making its way back to normal. There are a few roads still our of commission and they just found a body today of a man that had been swept away in his car. I’ve never been a part of such a flood before. I’m very thankful for the blue skies today and for no damage to our property. I’d post a picture but Joel put them on his computer and quite honestly, I want to go take a nap instead of do the transfers of getting them from his pc to mine. So you just have to use your imagination as to what 10 inches of rain will do.