If/when Roe vs. Wade is struck down, pro-life advocates will wake up the next day with a headache. With abortion gone, they will need to find another reason to vote Republican, a party which has otherwise shunned all other good "conservative" values. They will also realise that people are still having sex, still getting pregnant, and still faced with unwanted babies. Oh, we can wish that people would act responsibly, and we can wish that people valued unborn life, but still, that ain't the way it works (alas).

Cynthia Tucker has a good OpEd at the ACJ that addresses this issue. She turns her attention towards the pro-choice crowd. In short, Planned Parenthood et.al. could do more, a lot more, to promote the one thing that would really make abortion rare--contraception--rather than making abortion rights their only crusade:

Reproductive-rights groups have already ceded too much of the moral high ground with their seeming enthusiasm for abortion. Too many of their public relations efforts have portrayed the decision to terminate a pregnancy as if it were as inconsequential as getting a prescription for a toenail fungus. A few years ago, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America sold T-shirts on which the wearer advertised the fact that she had had an abortion. The slogans were much too glib.

Abortions should be — as Bill Clinton once said — safe, legal and rare. While the abortion rate has gradually declined over the last decade, the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than a million are still performed annually — far more than in most other Western industrialized countries, where contraceptives are used more widely. The Guttmacher Institute also estimates that nearly half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended.

Family planning advocates would find overwhelming public approval for a high-profile campaign advocating broader use of contraceptives: Ninety-four percent of Americans believe that contraceptive use is morally acceptable. It's a crusade whose time has come.

Abortion is a complicated issue for me. One thing is for sure, though: a million abortions a year in the US is a tragedy. I wish it weren't so. If Roe goes, contraception must become a national issue. Abstinence is one option and kudos to all those who manage it, but abstinence only education is simply head-in-the-sand craziness (and one which may be the next goal of the Religious Right). That said, I wonder why the UK has the highest rate of teen pregancy in Europe despite being a country with liberal abortion rights and where contraceptives are discussed in school. Is there more to it? How does one promote responsible sex in the real world (the one where not every one shares your religious views)?

When a civilian leader feels a need to dress up in military uniforms and have members of the military present for all of his speaking engagements, isn't that a bad sign?

I read my hometown newspaper from time to time, just to know what's going on. Mostly, the news it pretty dull. However, one of the articles appearing today read

Payne County residents interested in learning about Oklahoma weather are encouraged to attend the second annual Storm Spotter Training Class.

The class is being hosted by the Stillwater Emergency Coordination and Communications Center and will feature information regarding seasonal weather and safety precautions to ensure resident’s safety.

The class is free.

Rick Smith of the Norman National Weather Service Office will be presenting the training class Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. at the Payne County Expo Center.

How cool is that? In the tradition of my father, I've always been interested in weather-- particularly Oklahoma's notorious spring-summer storms (cf. this film)-- and I would have loved to have taken this class. Of course, now I live in another time zone, so no class for me. Alas...

Feeling a little nostalgia for the old days when you could count on some robust civil liberties' abuse. You look at Geoffrey R. Stone's 2004 book "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism" and it just tells you what a sissy liberties' abuser W is. I mean John Adams jailed a congressman for criticizing his "continual grasp for power." Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and had the army arrest up to 38,000 civilians suspected of undermining the Union cause. Woodrow Wilson imprisoned Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. And then FDR packed 120,000 Japanese Americans off to detention camps.

Presidents from FDR to Richard Nixon used the FBI to spy on, blackmail and harass their political opponents. The Senate's Church Committee in 1976 blew the whistle on decades of misconduct, including FBI investigations of such nefarious characters as Eleanor Roosevelt, William O. Douglas, Barry Goldwater and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

And what has W done? As I understand he's jailed Michael Moore, blackmailed Nancy Pelosi and threatened Al Gore and others who have used defamatory language against him.... wait, sorry, none of that? You mean all he's done is intercept communications between terrorists and their American connections without a court order?

As Max Boot says today:

"The anti-Bush brigade hasn't had any luck in turning up actual instances of abuse, despite no end of effort. The ACLU compiled a list of supposed victims of the Patriot Act. After examining each case, however, Sen. Dianne Feinstein — no friend of the administration — said "it does not appear that these charges rose to the level of 'abuse.' "

Yes, Ms Pelosi, apparently the bar has been lowered for "impeachable offenses."

Mr. Fuk King Kwok has changed his name to Andy Kwok.

Hey, what are you laughing at? It's pronounced "Fook," you philistine.

For the first time in years, I am utterly unimpressed with any of the final fours teams left in the playoff race for XL. Granted, I haven't followed things this year as closely as in years past. However, is anyone particularly "wowed" by Denver, Pittsburgh, or either NFC team? True, Pittsburgh has looked good of late, and did a nice job against a typical underperforming Colts postseason team. However,they weren't always so dazzling in the regular season. And it wasn't so long ago when Carolina was in the Super Bowl (a 32-29 loos to New England in XXXVIII). Still...

Perhaps it's all that attention Colts got this year that's been distracting me from Seattle, Denver, and company. Perhaps there really are some compelling reasons to be impressed by this year's Conference Championship teams. But even so, I can't help but think that the luster seen with recent teams-- New England (of course), St. Louis, Tamba Bay, Philadelphia, and so on-- just isn't there this year.

With that in mind, for this "down year" in the NFL, I'll pick Pittsburgh over Denver 23-17 and Seattle over Carolina 24-17, and hope that whoever wins will inspire the greatness seen in the teams of past Super Bowls...

Lancer asked for some sourcing on my claim that 80% of journalists describe themselves as liberals. The numbers below vary but in all of them a couple of things remain consistent--American journalists are overwhelmingly to the left of the American mainstream, vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

• A comprehensive study published in 1981 by the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs showed that 54 percent of elite journalists identified themselves as liberal but only 19 percent as conservatives. In every presidential election between 1964 and 1976, at least 80 percent of them voted Democratic.

• A 1996 study of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents by the independent journalism foundation Freedom Forum found that 89 percent of them voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, and just 7 percent for George Bush. Sixty-one percent said they were liberals, only 9 percent conservatives; 50 percent were Democrats, only 4 percent Republicans.

• In a new Pew study, 34 percent of national journalists describe themselves as "liberal," compared with 22 percent in 1995. Only 7 percent of reporters say they are conservative at present. For the general public, the results are reversed: 33 percent of Americans call themselves conservatives; 20 percent, liberals.

A little while ago, Stu posted news on a study which demonstrates that the media are, in fact, biased. I (and several others here) read through it and thought that there were some flaws in the methodology. (Despite claims to the contrary, this is a valid form of critique!)

Now, Eric Alterman has a post up at Mother Jones which expounds upon these flaws. Most importantly, Alterman notes that

One of the central problems for scholars seeking to study ideological bias in the media is the lack of agreed-upon data. Natural scientists and even most social scientists can run experiments where their variables are to a considerable extent controlled. But this is simply impossible in the case of coverage of politics.

Indeed!

Now, none of this is to say that Alterman's critique shows that the media aren't liberal. (Though Alterman would argue this.) It is instead to simply show some of the major metholodigical flaws in the study, and to suggest that trying to get a fix on the politics of the media (made up of various forms (TV, newspapers, etc.), hundreds of outlets and tens of thousands of people from all walks of life, etc.) is very very difficult.

And please-- actually read the article before posting on its contents.

Kill 18 people* in a sovereign country, one that is supposed to be your ally, and one that already has a propensity for churning out people who think America Hates Muslims. When the dust settles on this, and if the facts stand as they are now being reported, I will be astounded at the utter idiocy of such an action, both the philosophy behind it and its execution.

*Some bad guys, some children, some innocents, but not the guy you were aiming for.

Following on my post below it looks like some Saudi leaders are speaking out on the situation. Straight up. These are the men in Saudi society with the benefits of education and opportunity. Not loopy wahabists in the outer reaches of the kingdom, but the men running the whole show. And this is their honest response to this tragedy.

Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdel Aziz told reporters the kingdom had "spared no effort" to avoid such disasters but, he added, "it cannot stop what God has preordained. It is impossible."

"This was fate destined by God," Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the Interior Ministry said. "Some of the pilgrims were undisciplined and hasty to finish the ritual as soon as possible."

Here I go.......dropping the PC filter....... stand back.... CULTURES and CIVILIZATIONS ARE NOT BLOODY EQUALS in morality, sophistication, or basic good sense. All Cultures have problems, some cultures just ARE problems, SOME CULTURES JUST SUCK. No amount of indoctrination from addled multiculturalists is ever going to change this fact.

Headlife movie-lovers: feel free to participate in the Kulturblog Moviedrome, another prong in Ronan's blogaholicism.

I don't know whether to cry, laugh or just shrug at this kind of 4th century behavior. First 345 of your co-religionists get trampled while you're throwing stones at the devil. Well done. Then there's the whole preliterate stone-throwing exercise. What's to be said about a religious culture in which the most sacred act climaxes in an orgy of chucking stones at a rock that is supposed to be Satan?

Says Iranian pilgrim Azghar Meshadi about a new Shiite directive allowing the throwing ritual to take place early in the morning: "This is much better. We are now done with the stoning before the crowd gets larger." I agree, I love a good stoning in the morning. Puts a smile on my face and a bounce in my step.

Christ: Get thee behind me Satan.
Mohammed: You wanna piece a me Satan???!!!???

Why does so much at the core of Islam have to be about fighting somebody?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181406,00.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saudi_hajj

I have dear Muslim friends in Iran, Jordan and Turkey. They have all extracted the more enduring elements of their religion and made it live for themselves. But can we please stop pretending that all religious cultures are equally evolved? And that there is no connection between this primitive religiosity and the problems of jihadist terror?

From the New York Review of Books comes this piece:

We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as reported in The New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice Department's December 22, 2005, letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the administration's defense of the program. Although the program's secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law...

This is important stuff. The question is, will serious discussions about the President's actions ever happen, or will the "Liberals (=anyone who questions His Highness President Bush) Love Terrorists" line continue to dominate?

In a ritual drenched in blood, Muslims celebrate their Day of Sacrifice by slitting the throat of their sacrificial animals and letting them bleed out. The resulting bloodbath is disconcerting to say the least. In some ways, this is like glancing back in time to the sacrifices performed at the temples of old, both pagan and monotheistic. (hat tip: Die Welt on the picture)

It is worth asking, I suppose, whether the continuation of sacrifice by the shedding of blood for religious purposes can or does contribute to a jihad perspective in which the shedding of the blood of infidels is not something that is unthinkable. It seems an easy parallel to draw, but could could just as easily be a fallacious conclusion. In the judeo-christian tradition, the ritual and imagery of the sacrificial lamb in pre-Christian Judaism invoked not bloodlust but humility and anguish. I assume that this ritual in Islam is meant to produce the same result. The difference is the existence of prescriptive injunctions to slaughter infidels in the fundamental doctrines of Islam, which are lacking in the judeo-christian scriptures, if I am not mistaken. It is true that the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) relate a description of bloodshed that Jews and Christians alike largely believe was sanctioned and even directed by their God. But precisely the fact that this episode and others like it are merely descriptive in the Judeo-Christian scriptures differentiates them from passages in the Muslim sacred writ that appear, on an objective reading, to condone or even suggest the killing of "infidels," or those not of the Muslim faith, as a legitimate course of action. The latter is how the Muslim terrorists justify their acts of bloodshed, at least.