Jan 24 2009

Time to roll up our sleeves

Category: abortionharmonicminer @ 6:17 pm

Abortion and the Obama Presidency

Pro-lifers in the United States were generally disappointed and discouraged by the results of the 2008 national elections. Barack Obama—as measured by his own record and campaign promises, the most pro-abortion presidential candidate the United States has ever seen—was elected with 52.6 percent of the popular vote. It appears inevitable that the modest but significant political gains made by the pro-life movement since 2000 will be eroded or undone when the president-elect takes office. In some areas the short-term damage may be even more extensive than veteran pro-lifers anticipate.

To step back for some perspective, when Roe v. Wade, the infamous Supreme Court decision striking down state anti-abortion laws nationwide, turned 25 years old in 1998, the pro-life movement was at a low point. Just five years under then-President Bill Clinton had wiped out what little political progress there had been during the Reagan and Bush (I) administrations.

In 1998, to mark that grim 25th anniversary, an anthology of essays entitled Back to the Drawing Board was published, in which around two dozen American pro-life leaders reviewed the political, legal, educational, and social gains and losses since 1973 and recommended courses of future pro-life action. The volume demonstrated that politics is only one area of a much broader social movement, and that practical efforts to help women in need and to educate the American public are as important as political measures.

Now, 10 years later, the prospects at the level of the federal government are again bleak, but this time pro-life leaders are not waiting until the second term of a pro-abortion president to take stock.

Much more at the link above.

Tags:


Jan 24 2009

www.MoralAccountability.com

Category: abortion,Obamaharmonicminer @ 6:13 pm

I have written earlier about the failure to deal with evidence that characterizes those who fancy themselves “pro-life” or “pro-family” yet still voted for Obama in what can only be characterized as a spasm of wishful thinking.  Here is a new website offered by people hoping to bring some clarity to the discussion about what it is appropriate for Christians to support in the political sphere.  Along the way, they hope to  reopen dialog with Catholics and Evangelicals who voted for Obama, with the intent of moving past good intentions, and continuing to seek true alliance with Christians who want to resist immoral public policy. (much more at the link)

The Moral Accountability Project trusts that those self-identified pro-life and pro-marriage Catholics and Evangelicals who helped to put Barack Obama into a position to accomplish his goals were sincere in their admiration for him. We are willing to believe that they genuinely hope that he will go back on his pledges to attack pro-life laws and repeal pro-marriage policies. Still, actions have consequences, and the actions of these intellectuals and activists will have consequences that are all too easy to predict. With each assault of the Obama administration on laws and policies upholding the sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage, we will ask all Catholics and Evangelicals, including those who supported Obama, to join us in resisting these assaults. That is what we will do at www.moralaccountability.com.

Our project is offered in a constructive spirit, not one of vilification. Our goal is to help ensure that never again will good intentions conspire with shoddy reasoning and wishful thinking to compromise the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable members of our community and to undermine the institution of marriage. And so in a sincere spirit of friendship, we invite those Catholics and Evangelicals who joined with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and similar organizations in supporting Obama to join us now in repelling the attacks that will be launched against life and marriage in this administration.

It’s time for some moments of clarity.  I join with MoralAccountability in keeping attention on the policies of the Obama administration as they affect life and marriage issues, and in calling for all Christians (and anyone else, for that matter) to assess his policies with wisdom and discernment.

But Obama has already kept an anti-life campaign promise.

Tags: ,


Jan 24 2009

Proof that escrow is hell

Category: humorsardonicwhiner @ 10:19 am

Not to put too fine a point on it, escrow is HELL. Really. There are only TWO eternal states, Heaven and Hell, unless you count driving across Kansas. So anyway, since ESCROW NEVER ENDS, and since it sure as hell ain’t heaven, Escrow IS Hell.

This makes a certain sort of sense. A house is a black hole, sucking everything into its maw eternally, including money, time, and joy, not to mention paint, porcelain, copper and asbestos. Regarding the process of falling into a black hole:

From the viewpoint of a distant observer, an object falling into a black hole appears to slow down, approaching but never quite reaching the event horizon: and it appears to become redder and dimmer.

Consider: you may approach but never quite reach the end of escrow. As you attempt to approach, and indeed get closer and closer while never quite reaching it, you will note that your face gets redder and redder, while your putative escrow officer (actually spawn of Satan) becomes dimmer and dimmer, eventually becoming invisible and unreachable.

A house emits only a single thing, somewhat similar to Hawking radiation, known popularly as property taxes.  As with Hawking radiation, there is no effect on those involved in the escrow process itself, as the radiation of property taxes totally bypasses those entering the black hole (eternally entering it, did I mention that?) and is the only direct evidence of the black hole in the universe outside the event horizon.  Further, it appears that objects entering the black hole are destroyed in parts during the process, so that the Hawking radiation of property taxes simply re-emits energy stolen from the partially destroyed object trying to enter the black hole, otherwise known humorously as “the buyer.”  This is only one of many paradoxes surrounding real estate black holes, since “the buyer” is required to pay taxes on a property not yet owned, one of the few confirmed instances of time travel in Creation.  The energy of the emitted property taxes cannot be captured and put to any useful purpose, thus hastening the heat death of the Universe, which mathematical physicists assure us will happen before Escrow ever ends.

Similar observations regarding the Faustian bargain one strikes when entering any real estate related process have been made here regarding human sacrifice to the pyramid scheme of land subdivision.

One of the early Christian heresies, Depositism, was based on the theory that since nothing escapes escrow, if Jesus had gone into escrow instead of hell after dying on the cross then the Resurrection would never have happened, and Satan would have collected property taxes forever on real estate no one actually owned, otherwise known as the law of sin and death.  Unlike believers in other heresies, Depositists were not burned at the stake;  they were simply forced to enter escrow themselves.

Etymological analysis of the term “escrow” reveals that it is a degenerative form of the French term “excrowment,” which means exactly what you think it does (and was partly responsible for the tradition of French people sounding like they’re holding their noses), the term devolving in the British Isles after an early escrow officer, William the Conqueror, brought it across the Channel.

Post-modern approaches have denied that escrow even exists, since no one really owns anything anyway.  Others have said that Escrow is not Hell, but merely Purgatory.  However, since no one has ever been seen actually leaving Escrow, this seems a bit of wishful thinking, though the connection of purgation with excrowment seems clear enough.  Well…  maybe not THAT clear.