Philosophy

Political, purposeful lies (Francis Collins & Anthony Fauci)

I’m still researching , but so far, I’m disappointed by what I’m finding. It’s enough to make me, a conspiracy-denier, to begin to suspect that there really were multiple conspiracies, at least to control the public conversation.

The shame of Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the NIH, & his emails to Dr. Anthony Fauci about the Great Barrington Declaration, as reported in the Wall Street Journal:

““This proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists . . . seems to be getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize winner Mike Leavitt at Stanford. There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” Dr. Collins wrote. “Is it underway?””

This is politics, not science.

Remember how the community seroprevalence/infection rates were disputed? Or the mandates that forced long term care facities – nursing homes – to accept infected patients, even though everyone knew that the facilities weren’t able to isolate the vulnerable or even protect staff?

Don’t expect anyone to be held accountable. Neither the US Department of Justice nor State prosecutors, at least in New York, appear set to continue investigation, much less charge those responsible.

I don’t expect much fallout about the US CDC’s sponsorship of – and Fauci’s dishonesty in testimony to Congress about – viral “gain of function” that quite possibly led to the creation and escape of the “novel Coronavirus” from the lab in Wuhan, China. Instead, the debate is used to divide the political Left and Right, not to discover the truth.

For a comprehensive discussion about the debate and the science, I recommend a video podcast from Lex Fridman, an MIT Ph.D., in conversation with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – one of the original three “fringe” epidemiologists. Dr Fridman also interviewed Dr. Collins, but that was before the “takedown” emails were revealed.

Biden to Ask OSHA to Mandate Vaccines at Businesses With 100 or More Workers

A primary tenant of Western medicine is that people have the right to refuse medical treatment. President Joe Biden has ignored this tradition, the First Principle of Medical ethics (“First, do no harm”) and the Constitution of the United States.

In medicine, there’s a huge ethical difference between forbidding intervention and not only forcing individuals to comply, but forcing third parties like employers and medical personnel and administrators to intervene by mandating the involuntary breaching of bodily integrity.

The rare cases in contradiction are treatment of tuberculosis and psychosis where it’s proven that patients are an imminent danger to others, not just themselves. This infection can not rise to that level of threat.

There is a history consistent with quarantines – but only of the contagious or suspected contagious.

It’s an egregious violation of human rights to force invasive medical treatment on the unwilling except in emergent, extreme circumstances.

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiECEzQBy-2BVvgoYNVQlwMKUqFwgEKg8IACoHCAowjuuKAzCWrzww9oAY?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

James Baldwin debates William F. Buckley, Jr., 1965

James Baldwin is still pointed used as an example in efforts  to accuse the current US of subjugation of Black Americans and other minority groups. This happened to me just last  week on Twitter – for some reason,  in support of elective abortion on demand.

So, I’ve done some research.

This debate took place at Cambridge University in the UK, in 1965. In the US, the March on Selma, and the arrest of Martin Luther King, has just occurred. Dr. King was still imprisoned. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was slowly taking effect.

In contrast to  Mr. Baldwin’s dismissive comments, a Black man was elected President of the US in 2008. We’ve not eliminated prejudice, but our progress against discrimination has more closely mirrored the predictions of Robert Kennedy than those of Mr. Baldwin. 

No, I don’t believe that the American dream has been at the expense of the American Negro and I don’t believe that race discrimination in 2021 can  be  compared to  Mr. Baldwin’s (or Martin Luther King’s) 1965.

Normal & reality: a proposed definition for discussion

On one of the Facebook groups I follow, the conversation about the recent Arkansas law protecting conscience was diverted from the law itself by a sensational headline that reflected only the worst accusations of opponents & the reactions of group members to that headline. 

During the  conversation,  I was questioned about my use of the term “normal” for healthy bodily functions.  At the least, “normal” is that which doesn’t itself injure tissues & organs and doesn’t require technological intervention to produce or to prevent morbidity & mortality.

We are hearing & reading about demands that legitimate research results should be suppressed,  watching physicians and scientists who express heterodox opinions be censored. Then we’re told that there’s a “consensus,”  since none of the “objectionable” research is published, much less popularized, and the outliers are demonetized and covered with warning boxes.

Science  isn’t a “consensus.” In science, true hypotheses are testable,  with valid results capable of being confirmed by different observers under similar conditions in different labs. 

That’s also a good definition of reality or “normal.” One that  could be applicable to medical subjects like COVID or vaccines, as well as social and legal  matters.

We’re  being manipulated for reasons that have nothing to do with actual health, physical or mental.  I can’t fathom a reasonable explanation. It looks like an exertion of power – social, financial, then legal.

Patients won’t be helped at all by forcing moral injury by requiring medical professionals to act against their conscience and we all lose when rational discussion is suppressed in the  public sphere.

Jordan B Peterson makes a mistake (Times article)

Dr. Jordan B Peterson has a new blog up in response to the publication of a hit piece disguised as an interview in the UK’s Sunday Times.

I’m a big fan of Peterson, as is my husband. I first noticed his online videos of his college lectures on philosophy & psychology, then became aware of his activism and, finally, his “Rules for Life” which became the base of his book of the same name. Larry and I were lucky enough to attend Dr. Peterson’s conversation with Sam Harris, moderated by Douglas Murray, in London a couple of years ago.

The Times‘ recent published interview is even worse than Peterson describes, with gratuitous remarks about toxic masculinity & unflattering, skewed and unexplicable comparisons to Donald Trump.

He’s posted the audio of the entire unedited interview on YouTube and has links in this blog post to the article published 31 January, 2021.
Here are a few of the hostile remarks by the author, Decca Aitkenson, from that article:

“I don’t know if this is a story about drug dependency, or doctors, or Peterson family dynamics — or a parable about toxic masculinity. Whatever else it is, it’s very strange.”

…

“After 80 minutes on Zoom, the one thing of which I’m certain is that, were I as close to death as she assures me her father repeatedly was, this is not the person I would entrust with saving my life.”

…

“The more he talks, though, the more I wonder whether toxic masculinity might have been a culprit, too. His family history of depression might tell us something about the price to be paid for his bootstrap philosophy; that when life became excruciatingly stressful, Peterson’s stand up, man up, suck it up mentality didn’t work.”

And, finally,

“Parallels with Donald Trump come to mind; another unhappy man closed off from his emotions, projecting strong man mythology while hunkered down in a bunker with his family against the world.”

If there’s anything I’m certain about Dr. Peterson it’s that he isn’t “closed off from his emotions.” Aitkenson is delusional or a biased liar. She’s no “reporter.”

Life, art, sureal (“Divided We Fall”)

Sureal to see the Tweets by Andy Ngo after just finishing “Divided We Fall, ” which is available for free to those subscribed to Kindle Unlimited.

The Baen Books Publishing anthology features short stories by Sarah A. Hoyt, Brad Torgersen, and Jon Del Arroz, among others. We’re told by the authors that Science Fiction writers aren’t popular with the new Powers That Be. Although there’s been a lot of “woke” SF in the last few years, there’s also a long tradition of military and libertarianism. Then, there’s the [T]Ruth and [S]cience problem, not to mention that the scion of Sci-Fi, John W. Campbell, called the genre, “future history.” Campbell wasn’t sufficiently prescient and has himself been cancelled by the “woke.”

Prescient? Although mistaken about an early concession by President Trump, “Divided We Fall,”  makes quite a few accurate predictions, at least up to the point I’m living in: the 2020 election and, to a lesser extent, through the inauguration and first week of the Biden (or what the White House news releases call the “Biden-Harris” administration). The early stories could have been reports from the last two months.

Not bad for a book that was published the week before the election, on October 31, 2020.

I hope and pray it’s not as accurate about the year(s) after.

The excellent story tellers – many with a military background – outline a dystopia that reads like the news from tomorrow if the French and Russian revolutions are to be repeated in the post-2020 election period. With a heavy dose of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

Rather than the Great Leap Forward, rural life is suspicious, too independent of the Federal government. Politically conservative or libertarian, gun owning, religious citizens are suddenly and mysteriously “disappeared” or publicly killed. Any dissent results in being fired, at least. Imagine convicted felons, terrorists, and antifa activists released from prison, with the latter put in charge of emptying libraries of “problematic” books (including most science fiction), or the military forced to assist with gun confiscation, beginning with Marines, but rapidly shifting to the other branches.

(A couple of stories point out that the Navy and Marines, aren’t covered by the Posse Comitatus Act.)

The characters all live in the same universe, with the same basic timeline and major events.

If the “Resistance” from the Right not only becomes necessary, imagine the the different ways people from all sorts of backgrounds find themselves managing to stand strong against chaos like what we’re seeing in Seattle. Portland, and, now, Tacoma.

Am I going to be disappeared for having read and liked this book?

Inauguration

“Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!”




President Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States, said ” See you later,” rather than goodbye, but he (peacefully) left the White House and Washington, DC this morning – “for the last time”, according to headline after headline. Number 46 will be sworn in at noon.






While I’m certain that Donald Trump absolutely wanted to bring about changes in the Federal government, especially in regulations and the “unfair” deals with other nations, I think he might have been just as surprised as Hillary that he won. (My husband hates it when I compare the Trump victory to “The Mouse That Roared.”)

I was a “Never-Trumper’ through the 2016 Republican National Convention. After the Democrats chose Hillary Clinton, I knew there was no chance I wouldn’t vote against her.
While at first simply being ABC (Anybody But Clinton), the more I fact-checked and explained the misconceptions about Republicans and Trump, I first became anti-anti-Trump, then okay with him, to a supporter. I’m definitely in support of his policies, if not of his behavior.





Before noon four years ago today, the “Resistance” started breaking laws as well as windows. Every day, someone, somewhere in the US, burned a car or business or vandalized a building. A minority went beyond destroying property,  mobbing and harassing anyone associated with the Trump Administration. The media published leaked documents, transcripts and quotes from anonymous sources about the President and it was nearly impossible to find any positive coverage of anything Trump.

 Then, there was legal challenge after legal challenge. The heads of the Democratic Party, chairs of Congressional Committees, the FBI and CIA publicly distorted and – I believe – lied to the public and sometimes, to Congress.





Things are going to change under the new Administration. 

Our whistleblowers will be vilified, anyone who dares leak will be prosecuted as a spy, media will cooperate with the Powers That Be , as Social Media has in China. They’re already championing the turning in of family members & friends. 
But (using a few more metaphors and in spite of January 6) this time, the barbarians are within the gates. Outside, are those of us who believe in the rule of law, the Judeo-Greco-Christian legacy. Rather than topple statues and pain disfiguring and profane graffiti on monuments. We understand that we stand on the shoulders of giants, even as we recognize and acknowledge that virtually all of our predecessors were human, with human flaws. I hope we remember history, and try to learn from it, reform, rather than revolution. 
I believe that Conservatives will prevail.






As President Trump implied in his speech this morning, we’ll be back! 

“No fly list,” Social Media purge, and personal witnesses of 6 January.

Two of the YouTube video bloggers I follow have posted interviews and first-hand descriptions of events at the Washington, DC Capitol building on 6 January, noting the consequences. It’s almost as though they describe three totally separate events.

Kash Kelly describes his experience, beginning about 39 minutes in. He says that his group left the Trump speech early to walk to the Capitol lawn in order to avoid the rush when everyone walked. They were standing still on the lawn, chanting “USA”when men in SWAT gear began firing  paintballs and flashbangs.

One older man evidently had a heart attack because of the effects of the flashbangs.

Eventually, the police ceased firing when the crowd moved back. Some of the officers waved them onto the exterior balconies, some fired mace at them, others waved them into the building and even directed them to the offices and legislative chambers.

Kash says there were three different areas of entry, where police were alternately waving them in, spraying mace and beating them. Before entering the building, When he witnessed another group banging on a window. The patriots he was with demanded that the vandalism stop. The violent men seemed to know where thhey intended to go, went through a window and began handing out what appeared to be batons and other weapons to others waiting outside the window.

Once inside, his group of patriots saw police laughing what he believes were antifa and decided to leave but we’re trapped. The police guided them outside through a window.

(Note: Kash calls the bad guys “angwifwa,” because he’s lost his Instagram page and believes he will soon lose his FB page because of calling them out.)
https://youtu.be/FSdwxnNbEKA

Dave Rubin interviewed 3 people, two who were at the DC rally and have had their FB accounts arbitrarily removed from FB and have learned that they’re on a “no fly” list simply for being present. 

One, a journalist named Elijah Schaeffer, is certified to work in the Capitol and works with The Blaze.  The other is a woman, Dr. Karlyn Borysenko, an organizational psychologist who works with the organization, “#Walk Away.”

Neither took part in the riots or protest. Schaeffer was reporting & recording with the cooperation of the Capitol police, and Borysenko said she arrived late, never went into the Capitol and never saw any violence at all.

Shaffer’s professional and private FB page and Instagram accounts have been removed. FB has “banned” Borysenko and the leaders of her entire organization have also been permanently removed, according to a Tweet by Brandon Straka.

Borysenko’s photos of the event were removed from Instagram:

“Instagram just deleted my pictures from the capital that show that people were peacefully there and threatened to delete my account.”

https://youtu.be/M2qmsW0haE8

Conservatives on Twitter are losing “Followers” by the thousands, making it obvious that the site is purging conservatives. Dave Rubin says that at least, we know who’s really in charge:

BTW, I’m @bnuckols on Parler as well as Twitter

Edited: to make the 1st paragraph clear & to fix the spelling of “angwifwa.” BBN

Absence of evidence

I’ve been avoiding tackling a post to WingRight, waiting for the Georgia Senate runoffs to pass before ranting. As of now, at 6:30PM, Georgia time, 4 January, 2021, we don’t know the outcome – or when we will know the outcome – but my little blog definitely won’t make a difference, now.

The “news” is virtually all one-sided, claiming to “debunk” any complaints and dismissing any and all claims of fraud or cheating in the 3 November, 2020 election. Yet, I am absolutely convinced that something illegitimate happened in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Others point to possible manipulated votes in Arizona, Minnesota, and Nevada.

Yet, none of the suspicious activity has actually been laid out in Court. No one has ruled on the many sworn testimonies from witnesses who claim to have observed irregularities. There have been a couple of victories in Pennsylvania to but the rest of the lawsuits have been dismissed without trial or hearings involving those witnesses, all on technicalities.

The Republican challenges themselves have sometimes looked like the efforts of the Resistance. For instance, how to explain a lawyer who forgets to pay filing fees, or the case after case dismissed for lack of “standing.”

I’m afraid that even the planned objection by Republicans on January 6th is simply theater. It will be interesting, but has little chance of passing in either the House or the Senate. And, just what would be the result of Congress overturning the apparent vote?

I can’t think of anything that will prevent Joe Biden from being sworn in on 20 January. But, if I’ve learned anything from watching the results of the “Resistance,” the FBI, and the CIA over the last four years, it’s to anticipate a slow trickle of information about the validity of at least some of the suspected fraud.

Something to remember: absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.

Edit: the Republican Legislators from Pennsylvania sent this letter, today:

Woke after 28 years

Proof once again that our most important elections are decided by the least knowledgeable. – the “undecideds.”

The Christian Post has an editorial explaining why the author is voting for the first time in 28 years: she has decided she must vote against President Trump because she blames him for the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers.

I’d like to challenge the author to fact check her assumptions by taking a look at the issue from President Trump’s side. I wonder whether she’s even considered arguments from the other side. (Or whether she can even find any.)

A good place to start is to identify who is responsible for the looting, vandalism, and violence against police officers and civilians.

How could President Trump be responsible for the riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014?

Or, take a look at this week in Philadelphia. Who caused business owners to scramble to board up their stores in the middle of the night – President Trump & the Proud Boys or Harris/Biden, antifa, & BLM?

For the rest of us, it should be our mission today to educate & edify at least one unknowing undecided.

Interview with Dr. Immanuel

14 minute interview with Houston TV reporter.

She’s a warrior, all right! Worth your time!

I would like to see some data, but lots of other doctors report the same results, and I’d like to see some of their patient information, too. (Ages, other meds, vitals, timing, symptoms.)
She does say wear a mask if you can’t be on prophylaxis and to make other people comfortable. I would call her regimen a “treatment” rather than a “cure.”

But the biggest fuss has been about Dr. Immanuel’s religious beliefs. I’ve heard Baptist, Assembly of God, even Church of Christ preachers say much the same about the hidden powers in the world. Maybe not the origins, but their existence and, as Jesus Himself said, the need for prayer and fasting to deal with them.

I’ve been told that her religious views are a distraction and counter-productive for the Medical issues and “science.” But Dr. Immanuel doesn’t even bring up her religion until she’s questioned in this interview and didn’t bring it up at all in DC.

The detractors don’t understand the cultural background and how many Christians – across the spectrum from those who believe in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to those who only remember the story of St. Michael – will recognize the theme.

Dr. Stella Immanuel and political eugenics

Were you triggered by the religious views of Nigerian born and trained, Texas licensed and practicing, Dr. Stella Immanuel?

(As of Midnight, 30 July, the video was available at https://www.bitchute.com/video/09K3kIwzeewO/?fbclid=IwAnR2E-LChNhpqOktcV4GPeT0ZS79cdf1tjdlnfNSlpGNWMCW6vVYYnHLCbjU so I was able to watch the rest of the docs.I am impressed especially by Dr. Joseph Ladapo, beginning at minute 33.)

SCOTUS redefines words. Again. (Say goodbye to single sex sports & spaces)

There’s a right way and a wrong way to change a law. The Constitution doesn’t provide that the Courts make the big decisions, leaving the inconsequential matters to Congress. And yet, nominally “textualist” Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Roberts joined with the”living document” Progressives to do it the wrong way.

Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in Bostick v. Clayton County and got at least two points right:

1. “When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and the extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.” and,
2. There’s no way that the 1964 Congress would have intended for the word “sex” to include sexual orientation or gender identity.

In his 37 page argument, Gorsuch stuffed and fluffed strawman after strawman to fit an extratextual interpretation of “because of …sex” into the redefinition of “sex.” As noted in the dissents by Justices Alito & Kavenaugh, his is a redefinition that wasn’t even attempted when SCOTUS redefined “marriage” in Obergefeld.

In other words, as Justice Alito wrote in his dissent, Gorsuch and the majority “legislated.”

I agree that this law needed changing to give more protection to employees in the public market place. Congress should have been encouraged to work out those protections, while also preserving religious freedoms and single-sex spaces and even women-only sports. I can’t help but wonder whether – perhaps – both political Parties took a dive, hoping the Supreme Court would do exactly what they did.

And the Country will witness lawsuits, year after year, that might have been averted.

In the meantime, though, I’ll bet Senator Chuck Schumer feels caught in a whirlwind of his own. What price, now, Chuck?

Virtue signalling

A friend just posted a definition of “virtue signalling” and asked, “Is this supposed to be a bad thing?” His definition: “the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.” (I also found it on Google, attributed to Oxford Languages.) Well, no. It’s not supposed to be a bad thing. But in the real world, it too often is. The definition I found on Dictionary.com touches on the important distinction: the righteousness and superiority of the virtuous.

“the sharing of one’s point of view on a social or political issue, often on social media, in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not. “

Instead of “tolerance,” the virtuous demand positive affirmation of their superiority, and in fact seem (to me) to be expecting and finding offence. It’s too often weaponised, used to “cancel” previously unsuspecting people, especially on social media.

Right to Life, COVID, 16 May, 2020

The “Right to Life” means the negative right not to be killed by intentional acts. It’s not the right to force others to invest our life, liberty or property other than the duty to intervene against infringement. This is a basic negative right, not a positive right.

There’s a huge difference between personal responsibility in avoiding a risk to yourself and actively causing harm to someone else. Self-defense rather than selfish demands, using only appropriate force on others.

You know, the old “your right to swing your fist ends at my nose!” (Especially Appropriate in this case.)

*You* take the actions *you* believe are responsible. Only frequent places/businesses that require masks if you want, do the work necessary to maintain the social distancing you are comfortable with. Don’t force everyone else to do your work for you.

Test the story! (COVID-19 Fake News)

More thoughts on Texas Advance Directive Act

I was asked about the #BabyTinslee case and what we should do, what can we do, in the disputed cases.

We need to educate more. People don’t understand basic medical ethics in this day of “choice.”

Autonomy doesn’t supersede nonmaleficience. In other words, the First Principle of medicine, “Cure when possible, but first do no harm,” always should guide us, rather than “wants” or “choice.”

In the end, doctors are the ones actually performing the acts and we’re most likely to understand the projected outcome. We benefit from oversight by colleagues and the community, both informally and in the process prescribed by the Texas Advance Directives Act.

Some people demand that every one of these cases go to court, for “due process” and “cross examination.”

But judges and courts can’t be as knowledgeable as doctors are. Their decisions are necessarily informed by dueling (paid) lawyers and (hired) medical experts.

In all the cases that have gone to court, the family has had quite a lot of notice, but the 48 hour notice before the committee meeting is perceived as too abrupt, especially since the relationships all appear to be adversarial by that point.

(And who could get your family to a meeting in 2 days?)

The 10 days isn’t thought to be long enough to arrange a transfer, either. Again, in many of the Court cases, the attempts to find another doctor willing to accept the patient’s care has begun before the committee meeting.

Doctors acknowledge the great trust and privileges we are given by agreeing not to abandon our patients. When we have a disagreement with a patient or surrogates (usually a familymember), we accept that we must continue treatment for a period of time. But not indefinitely.

If we could get the reforms that have been attempted to lengthen the statutory timeframe (multiple times) since before 2005, the TADA would be much better. It’s still the best process we have, currently.

Miracles in a predictable universe

We are blessed with a universe that’s predictable and testable, yet we pray for miracles. And we pray for miracles, but act as though human actions can block them. Is the will of the Creator Who spoke the physical laws into existence limited by humans if they act as though the universe is predictable and testable?

Those of us who practice medicine are limited by the physical laws, the predictable and testable, with an emphasis on the tested. Our education and experience is based on these tested predictions and guide our decisions, and we’re watched and sometimes redirected by our colleagues, patients, laws and the community.

And then, there’s the best test of all: time.

In fact, I once noted that a patient who outlived the “10 Day Rule” might have proved the doctor (who instigated the process from the Texas Advanced Directive Act) wrong. There might have been a few cases like this, just as I believe there have been miracles. 

However, can you tell me how to measure these events and predict their occurrences, much less practice medicine based on them?

In the majority of TADA cases when treatments weren’t withdrawn, the patient died in the exact manner the doctors predicted, after the same interventions -and sometimes more invasive and tortuous “treatments” than the ones the doctor originally objected to. 

Experimental Abortion – Schrodinger’s Fetus

What ethics review board approved a randomised trial to temporarily prevent the ending of the life of a human embryo or fetus, with a planned surgical abortion as an end point?

Horrifying report about human experimentation: Obstetricians at the University of Southern California have announced that they stopped a study using progesterone to reverse the anti-progesterone effects of mifepristone in medical abortions.

According to the NPR:

“For the study, the researchers aimed to enroll 40 women who were scheduled to have surgical abortions. Before their surgical procedures, the women received mifepristone, the first pill in the two-medication regimen that’s used for medical abortions. The women were then randomly assigned to receive either a placebo or progesterone, which advocates claim can block the effects of mifepristone.“

Ignore the fact that only 12 women signed up over 6 months, that in spite if the claims if the researchers, the mifepristone was the actual, immediate cause of the complications that included 3 women needing ambulance transport to a hospital for excessive vaginal bleeding and 2 others dropping out due to some other side effects.

But you should certainly – they hope – forget that 4 of the babies exposed to progesterone and 2 who received placebo after the mifepristone continued to live for 2 weeks until their death at the hands of an Obstetrical surgeon. That’s half of the study group!

There’s no question that I consider it unethical to cause the intentional, interventional death of any human who isn’t a threat to life for another. It’s heinous that our laws allow the best medical technology in the world to kill members of our species, because they aren’t considered human-enough to possess the inalienable human right not to be killed.

But there’s an additional ethics problem in this case: a strong “yuck factor” (aversion) to the idea of purposefully experimenting with ¢ lives of humans, both the mother and her child, planning to monitor the signs of the prenatal human’s life, anticipating his or her death by surgical abortion.

Half of the original mothers had planned two weeks (14-16 days)delay with serial ultrasounds, confirming her baby’s heartbeat. (Remember this experimental protocol the next time an abortion advocate complains about State-mandated waiting periods and pre-abortion ultrasounds.)

Let me repeat: half of the nascent human beings experimented upon/ lived two additional weeks after exposure to the mifepristone poisoning. Only one of the 12 pregnancies resulted in what would be considered a “normal” medical abortion.

Eventually however, all of them were finaly “terminated.” After two weeks of observation – Schrodinger’s humans.

Note: Due to some sort of technical problem at the website, I wasn’t able to purchase the article, so this is based on the abstract and NPR report.

Edit 12/9/19, BBN: I was able to purchase access to the article (24 hours for $60!). There’s no change in the facts other than to note that the authors report continued life of the prenatal humans as 6 of 10 subjects: 4 of 5 who finished the trial and received progesterone, and 2 of 5 who were randomized to the placebo arm.

Timeless Frederick Douglas

Entire abnormal human genome in vaccine?

Texas Governor Abbott on “Suspicious Activity”

Texas’ Governor Greg Abbott ( @GovAbbott ) isn’t trying to change Texas law with last week’s Executive Order – in contrast to the claims I’ve seen on my Facebook news feed.

Instead, he called for law enforcement agencies under the executive branch to establish policies and training, and financial incentives to encourage “improving reporting channels and closing ‘information gaps’ when members of the public or law enforcement agencies worry that a person might be a threat to commit violence.“

The last three mass shootings in Texas tell us that we need to improve how our law enforcement and agencies follow current law on following up on reports and investigations.

The Sutherland Springs Church shooter in South Texas should have been rejected at point of sale background check because of his prior conviction and incarceration for domestic violence crimes while in the military. Unfortunately, he was never reported to the Federal database. (And so, Texas law probably couldn’t have made any difference.)

However, the Odessa shooter threatened and brandished a weapon at his neighbor, but local Law Enforcement Officers didn’t follow up because his house wasn’t on their GPS maps and was difficult to find!

The El Paso shooter’s mother tried to report him, but the LEO who spoke to her on the phone dismissed her concerns. No record of the call was made, according to the Allen police department.

I’m not sure that current laws would have (or should have) allowed any action against the (future) shooter by authorities, but it looks like that question and reporting procedures are what Governor Abbott wants clarified. From the Executive Order:

“”Within thirty days of this order, the Texas Department of Public Safety shall develop standardized intake questions that can be used by all Texas law-enforcement agencies to better identify whether a person calling the agency has information that should be reported to the Texas Suspicious Activity Reporting Network.

Within thirty days of this order, the Department of Public Safety shall develop clear guidance, based on the appropriate legal standard, for when and how Texas law-enforcement agencies should submit Suspicious Activity Reports.”‘

The question should be whether the “standardized questions” and reporting processes might have made a difference. Unfortunately, I’m not reading questions: I’m reading accusations that the Governor wants to impose “red flag laws” and confiscation of guns without due process of law.

The Governor previously directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to implement the “iWatch app” in June, 2018, allowing the public to report suspicious activity. There was no outcry then, and there doesn’t appear to be any “red flag” incidents because of this initiative.

Why do people think the Governor wants gun control now?

Heterosexuality: oppression or happiness

Washington Post attacks Life via Texas

New Political Party?

Claiming that ” ‘conservative’ and ‘Republican’ are now mere team names that have lost all meaning,” pseudo-Conservatives are trying to start a new movement, possibly a new Party. However, their #PrinciplesFirst aren’t Conservative.

The Principles have at least two fatal flaws.

1. They’re based on man-made law & artificial designations of “persons”& “citizens,” not on inalienable rights endowed on “all men” (humans).

The Constitution of the United States is an unique, exemplary document. But its strength and legitimacy depends on the concept of inalienable rights of humans that are not endowed by laws, men or any powers that be of this world. The Constitution can be amended. Human rights can only be infringed.

2. The list also errs in supporting “Each and every family unit – regardless of its shape.”

Would these families include those shaped by polygamy? Why not?

The Republican Platform can be downloaded for reading, here.

The Platform confirms most of the items in the Principles First list. However, the Preamble of the Republican Platform is clear on its origin:

“”We affirm — as did the Declaration of Independence: that all are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

And equally clear on the”shape” of the family:

“”It is the foundation of civil society, and the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage, the union of TT man and one woman.””

Correct these errors, and the “new” Principles would be indistinguishable from that of the Republican Party Platform. The effort should be to hold our elected officials to the Platform, to strengthen our Party, maintain and expand our Seniority in the Senate, win both back in the House. It’s certainly not Conservative to tear down. #FirstPrinciples

Texas’ reaction

At least 22 people are dead and another 20 to 40 wounded in El Paso, Texas, due to a planned, murderous rampageby a man who drove 650+ miles to reach the site. He carried a semi-automatic rifle and wore both eye and ear protection.

The killings alone are enough to prove the killers are evil and full of hate, but their history and social media portray individuals focused on hate, erasing all doubt. It appears that the Texas shooter identified with white supremacists white supremacists while also professing to be anti-government and anti-corporation, while concerned about the environment. The Ohio shooter was known to be obsessed with guns, had participated while armed in a counter-protest against white supremacists and was politically left-leaning. The motives of the California shooter aren’t clear at all.

“””The age to purchase a firearm is 21. The state requires gun owners to obtain licenses and face background checks as well as imposing waiting periods on firearms purchases. Judges can take guns away from owners who are deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. And recent legislation aims to begin a fingerprinting database of all gun owners in the state.””

“””Apparently it doesn’t work like that. (Someone should tell our elected leaders.)””

Evil will find a way.

What will Texas response be?

In Texas, the result will probably be more guns.

Why does TRTL lie? (UPDATE)

Alabama bans all elective abortions

There’s an exception for the life of the mother. Doctors can be prosecuted, but mothers can’t. (Similar to the way we treat assisted suicide: the one who assists can be prosecuted, the victim isn’t, if he survives.)

Twitter is filled today with outraged hashtags: #HumanRights #HumanRightsAreWomensRights and #RoevWade

(I’ve had to create #NoIDidNtSayThat )

Eggs stop being eggs, or part of the woman’s body, when fertilized.

In #RoevWade, Blackmun stated that science doesn’t say when life begins. Louise Brown, the first “test tube baby,” was born just five years later. Any employee of an in vitro fertilization clinic can tell you the difference between the flasks with gametes and the ones containing embryos.

The embryo conceived by human parents is no other species. I can show you proof that he or she is the same human organism from the time the human sperm penetrates the human zona pellucida and enters the oocyte. From that moment, meiosis begins and the embryo refuses all other sperm.

Elective abortion infringes – aggresses – against the human rights of the one killed – and the people who are defrauded into believing the lies.
Everyone’s Human Rights are stronger when we recognize that all are equal & weakened when we call anyone less than human-enough. Disaster always follows.

Our Declaration of Independence declared that all are created equal, and legitimate government is organized to protect our individual rights.

All humans, even new humans, are human-enough to possess human rights.

(Edited typos 5/15/19 9:29PM. BBN)

Life Ethics

Western classical liberal ethics has favored “deciding” that all humans are human-enough to possess human rights. 1.Are they human? 2.Can we kill them? The answers have been increasingly 1. Yes, & 2. No. That’s not #Patriarchy. It’s a good basis for a #sentient, civil society.

HatTip to a FB poster, Clint Stutts, for the questions.

Emergency: Liberty Right Infringement

Texas Right to Life General Counsel Emily Cook is attacking Texas Medical Association on Facebook, even though virtually every other pro-life, medical, nursing, hospital, and disability group in Texas oppose SB 2089 by Hughes, that would change the “Texas Advance Directive Act, “TADA” will harm patients and attack the right of doctors to refuse to act against our conscience.

We’ve worked to fix other problems: Artificially administered food and water, even full IV feedings, can‘t be removed. Texas law didn’t even mention DNRs, but last session, we passed an amendment with explicit procedures and informed consent language.

SB 2089 specifically says anyone can file a lawsuit in any Court in the County, the Court can’t charge the patient (or surrogates) any fees, and the judge is required to rule in 5 days.