The Critical Mind again apologizes for the sporadic posts this week, but Irene continues to take its toll. Best luck to all of you who were impacted.
CULTURE OF LIFE
The Washington Post has an op-ed piece by Michael Gerson called ‘Family planning as a pro life choice’. In it Gerson describes the work of a group of 6,000 women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to reduce maternal and infant mortality from child birth. Key to the success of the effort is the dissemination of information about and use of contraceptives. He writes:
“in places such as Bweremana, family planning is undeniably pro-life. When births are spaced more than 24 months apart, both mothers and children are dramatically more likely to survive. Family planning results not only in fewer births, but in fewer at-risk births, including those early and late in a woman’s fertility. When contraceptive prevalence is low, about 70 percent of all births involve serious risk. When prevalence is high, the figure is 35 percent.”
Congratulations are due to these women, who have overcome a culture of superstition and ignorance with a plan that saves lives. If only the people who are so virulently opposed to all that Planned Parenthood does because a small percent of its activities involves abortion (which is legal in the US and not funded with any tax payer money) could be as enlightened then we could have an adult conversation about sex and reproduction in the US.
But I am not holding my breath.
DICK CHENEY’S TRUTH
I'm Dick Cheney and every word in this Goddamn book is true
Dick Cheney’s book: “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir” has hit the book shelves. If you want to read a book that is an accurate and critical assessment of the ex Vice-Presidents time in office this wouldn’t be it.
In fact I will save you the time and money of buying and reading the book by offering a synopsis.
“I am Dick Cheney. Everything good that happened while I was in office was due to me. Everything bad either didn’t actually happen or was beyond the control of the Administration.”
Here is an actual review of the book at ‘The Washington Post’. It is negative. But if you want to read a positive review go to any Conservative blog.
MICHELE BACHMANN AND THE BOGEYMEN
Michele Bachmann would have you believe that she is a good Christian but she does not love her neighbors if they are gay or illegal. Her positions against gays are well known and she continues to trot out the disproved claims of the costs of illegal immigration.
The truth about illegal immigration is very different in the reality based world. It is well summed up by Shikha Dalmia in a piece for Reason.com called ‘Michele Bachmann’s Unholy Crusade‘
(To provide context, Reason.com is a Libertarian group. Shikha Dalmia is a winner of the Bastiat prize – a Libertarian award for journalism. The judges have included Margaret Thatcher and Milton Friedman. This is not a ‘lefty’ journalist, writing for a socialist rag.)
Dalmia analyses the five lies of the anti-immigration lobby.
1. Illegal immigrants increase crime.
Statistically areas which see large increases in illegal aliens see decreases in crime, which makes sense as most illegals are here to find work.
2. Illegal immigrants take jobs away and depress wages.
Illegals take the jobs natives won’t do; as Georgia found out when its extreme anti-immigrant policy made it hard for farmers to take in the harvest. The farmers couldn’t increase wages and natives wouldn’t take the jobs.
3. Illegal immigrants mooch off welfare.
In fact, because they pay taxes and social security without being able to collect benefits, they are net contributers.
4. Illegal aliens ‘jump the line’.
There is no line to jump. There is no quota for unskilled workers to get green cards. Only skilled workers can get an H1-B visa which allows them to work here legally and pursue a green card. (And we don’t grant enough of those, forcing talented engineers etc. to work in competing countries.)
5. Without a wall Mexicans will flood the US.
Mexicans come here when there are jobs and go away when there aren’t. the best way to dry up illegal immigration would be to promote a recession.
But Bachmann and her kind don’t care. She knows evolution is a myth, climate change isn’t happening, gay marriage will lead to pederasty and illegal immigrants are a threat to the American way of life because facts are a distraction from the truth.
A REALLY BIG WASTE OF MONEY AND LIVES
The ‘Commission on Wartime Contracting’ (an independent panel created by Congress in 2008) estimates that the Government, due to incompetence and fraud, overspent as much as $60 billion to fight the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The panel calls the estimate conservative.
What the panel didn’t include as wasted money is the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on fighting the unjustified war in Iraq at all. Not to mention the people killed.
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