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In California, Death Row Rarely Means Execution

Another convicted murder on California's death row has died of natural causes, a peaceful death he denied to 74-year-old Lois Roy Fried of Tulare County.  He's the "70th condemned prisoner to succumb to old age, suicide or murder compared with 13 executed by the state since capital punishment resumed in 1978" reports Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times.

I am deliberately removing his name and the name of another murderer.

The newspaper, apparently unwilling to blame him for the murder which he was convicted of committing, wrote he "was convicted and sentenced to death a year after the May 25, 1982, murder of 74-year-old Lois Roy Fried of Tulare County."  Yeah, I’m sure that was mere coincidence.  They couldn't bring them to say "a year after he murdered..."
Executions have been on hold in California since early 2006, when death row inmate [a convicted murderer] successfully challenged lethal-injection procedures as cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose ruled the three-drug sequence unconstitutional after hearing expert testimony that some of those put to death in the state hadn't been fully anesthetized before the final-- and intensely painful -- dose of potassium chloride that induces cardiac arrest.
How about we do what the people who wrote the Constitution did with their murderers?  I can respect people who object to capital punishment on religious grounds.  But those who object on Constitutional grounds are demonstrably wrong.
But further legal challenges have been threatened and pressure is mounting on state officials to take the cost-cutting step of commuting death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, a change estimated to save $1 billion over five years.

There are 680 inmates on death row, where the condemned now spend an average of 25 years while exhausting state and federal appeals.
That's where the cost comes in.  Some of these bleeding hearts have deliberately made the process expensive so that they can cite the expense as a reason not to have it.
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Will Lutherans Follow Episcopalians, or the Bible?

What should determine a church’s stance?  The Bible, or a whiny minority of malcontents who want their sin celebrated by the church?  Associated Press writer Patrick Condon reports.
Leaders of the country's largest Lutheran denomination began discussing Monday whether or not to allow people in same-sex relationships to serve as clergy.
Let’s be clear here. I have plenty of same-sex relationships.  They are called... friendships.  What we're really talking about here is homosexual sodomy – psuedosexual activity with someone other than your spouse, as recognized by the Bible and church tradition.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is meeting this week in Minneapolis, plans to decide whether to approve a proposal that would allow individual congregations to let gay and lesbian people in committed relationships serve as clergy.
What constitutes "commitment", and why is that a criterion?

In other news, those brilliant military strategists at the Los Angeles Times had an editorial complaining again about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
Nearly 13,000 servicemen and servicewomen have been discharged under the policy -- 287 since President Obama took office.
And how many were discharged for homosexual behavior (or not even allowed to enlist) in similar time frames before this policy was adopted?

Finally, check out my analysis of the latest California Marriage Amendment coverage over at The Opine Editorials.

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Questions For Obamacare Supporters

We've all heard from someone in our lives, usually a Leftist, who supports national socialized "health insurance".  Here are some questions to ask these people.

If your Leftist friend thinks guns are the reason people kill each other, ask him:

"Should you be forced to pay, through your taxes, for the health care of a 35-year-old civilian who injures himself playing with his gun collection?"

If your Leftist friend despises hunting, ask her:

"Should you be forced to pay, through your taxes, for the health care of a 35-year-old civilian who hunts, especially if he ends up getting injured by an errant gunshot, or by an animal, or by eating a diseased animal, or has his arteries clogged from eating his kills?"

If your Leftist friend is a militant vegan, ask him:

"Should you be forced to pay, through your taxes, for the health care of a 35-year-old civilian who is a meat-eating, dairy-loving, egg cracking, honey lover?"

If your Leftist friend is a militant anti-tobacco type, ask her:

"Should you be forced to pay, through your taxes, for the health care of a 35-year-old civilian who smokes cigars and cigarettes, chews tobacco, and regularly enjoys snuff?"

If your Leftist friend is convinced that vaccines cause autism, ADHD, or anything else, ask her:

"Should you be forced to pay, through your taxes, for vaccinations?"

If your Leftist friend thinks Gardasil is the best thing since The Pill, ask her:

"Should you be forced to pay, through your taxes, to treat a woman for a kind of cervical cancer that Gardisil prevents if she refused to get the vaccine when she had the chance, and refused regular check ups after that?"

Of course, they will probably say that other laws will mitigate this - gun bans, for example.  Even if they take that position, ask them if they can see how socializing health care for everyone on a national level will reduce personal freedoms and choices.

Finally, ask them if you should be able to shoot up with a dirty needle, drink yourself into stupors, eat yourself into morbid obesity, sit on your butt watching sports all day, never holding a job, and get the same level of health care as a successful Hollywood actress at no cost to you.  If they say "no", ask them how this will be prevented under national socialism in health care.  Will they force you to work under pain of beatings?  Will food be rationed? Will there by some sort of preference for people who work?

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Oh, the Irony

It's interesting to see that many of the same people who were so desperately upset that the Patriot Act supposedly violated privacy and due process are just fine with Obamacare.

So it's okay, as long as a Democrat is President?  Do they really think there will never be another Republican President?


 




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They Want National Socialism

A couple of letters printed in today's Los Angeles Times caught my eye.  They support Obamacare.

After noting that thousands of people showed up for "free" health care at an event held in Inglewood, a lower-income suburb of Los Angeles, Johanna Dordick of Los Angeles wrote:
But those who should be ashamed -- the Republicans, the Blue Dog Democrats and the mindless screaming minority determined to disrupt the dialogue -- apparently have no shame. Nor do they seem to have compassion for their fellow Americans.
She makes the mistake of thinking that just because we don’t want to expand the federal government’s role in health care that we want to deny health care to people.  The federal government isn't the only organization that can be used to help  people.  It should be the last one considered.
Our elected representatives have the responsibility to follow the guiding principals of our Constitution: "Establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity ... [and] promote the general welfare."
This is a frequently misunderstood concept.  "General welfare" does not mean "any new program someone proposes".  Otherwise, I could argue, "homosexual behavior is harmful, therefore for the sake of general welfare, we will use government force to prevent people from engaging in it."  It is clear from the Constitution and what we know about the creation of that Constitution, that the federal government is only supposed to do what it is specifically instructed to do in the Constitution.  Read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
What is it about this they do not get?
We get that when a service or product is provided for at no cost to the recipient, there will be lots of recipients, including people who do not really need that service or product.  Unfortunately, the rest of us can't afford to provide this to every person, including illegal aliens, who happen to be here.

Arnie Moore of Sherman Oaks wrote:
I want profit taken out of healthcare.
Gee, Arnie, what if I wanted the profit taken out of whatever you do for a living?  Profits drive innovation.  Profits drive customer service.  Profits (payment) is what drives most people to continually get out of bed and show up at work.

Who should go without being compensated for their services?  Doctors? Nurses?  Technicians? The person designing the medical equipment? The cement mixer helping to build the hospital?  The janitor? The insurance administrator who keeps you from having to pay the true cost of a major surgery in a single bill?  Should people who invest money in providing medical facilities and services and insurance not be given a return on their investment, thereby discouraging investment in the first place?  How about malpractice lawyers?  Let's start with them.

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Courage, Equality, and Defamation

One marriage neutering advocacy organization wants to challenge the California Marriage Amendment on the ballot ASAP.  Another wants to wait so that more kids who will be turning voting age in the next few years can be indoctrinate to their side in our public schools and via the MSM.  See my entry at The Opine Editorials.

Meanwhile, Reuters' Christine Kearney reports that a judge has ruled that labeling someone a homosexual or saying that they participated in homosexual activity isn't actionable as defamation, because "homosexuality is no longer viewed as contemptible."
Chin dismissed Stern's claims that statements implying he was homosexual were defamatory, although he acknowledged that gays and lesbians still suffered prejudice.

"I respectfully disagree that the existence of this continued prejudice leads to the conclusion that there is a widespread view of gays and lesbians as contemptible and disgraceful," the judge said.
Once again, there fails to be a distinction made between orientation and behavior.  Are we all slaves to our feelings?
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Nevada Seeks California Businesses

The Nevada Development Authority is running ads on TV, radio, and in print encouraging California businesses to relocate.  They rightly point out that California is an expensive and overly regulated business climate.  Alana Semuels has the article in the Los Angeles Times.
California has battled such negative perceptions for years. But its huge consumer base, great weather and dynamic entrepreneurial culture have kept many businesses anchored here. Still, in a tough economy when companies are looking to slash costs, some industry leaders fear poachers will be more successful this time around.

...

The Nevada campaign touts the fact that the Silver State has no corporate or personal income tax, no inventory tax, and lower workers' compensation costs. A light-industrial facility that costs $405,478 a year to operate in Las Vegas would cost $625,774 to operate in Los Angeles County, according to the Nevada Development Authority.
I'm sure the Leftists of California would sooner seek to "solve" this problem by imploring the federal government to impose California-style taxation and regulation nationwide than they would reform California government.

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Update on Fight Against California Marriage Amendment

While federal lawsuits are underway, marriage neutering advocates are divided on whether or not they should wait until  2012 or not to try to repeal the California Marriage Amendment via the ballot.  The update is over at The Opine Editorials.
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Government or Private Health Insurance

Obama and those who favor Obamacare cite that insurance companies already make decisions for us, and this is supposedly a justification for having the federal government make medical decisions for us.

There's a big difference.  Must of us with non-government insurance choose which insurance company to use, and often what kind of coverage we want.  If we don't like one company, we can find another.  Conversely, we have just one federal government.

If someone can't see the difference, then they have a problem in their understanding of the world.


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More Response to the APA

In a recent blog entry, I looked at a media account of the APA's latest materials regarding people with unwanted homosexual feelings.

Here are a few recent items on the Stand to Reason blog that are of interest in this area:

Can Homosexuals Change?

Get to Know a Former Homosexual

Also: What is a general principle to determine what in the Old Law applies to Christians under the New Covenant?  

Again, this is in response to the idea that someone who wants to deal with homosexual feelings in a Biblically appropriate way shouldn’t be told that they can change.  This is not about forcing anyone to stop engaging in homosexual behavior.  If someone wants to live by the Biblical teachings that sex is for marriage and that marriage unites the sexes, then they should know that there is hope for them.

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Some Have Faith in Naturalism

Here they go again - equating atheism with science and reason - as a starting point instead of a conclusion.  Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, coauthors Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future have a commentary in the Los Angeles Times discussing how some atheistic philosophical naturalists are being brashly confrontational against those who do not buy their conclusions and others are trying to make nice with those who accept their conclusions, except for the atheism assumption.

They call "anti-evolutionists" "religious adherents", without defining the terms "evolution" or "religious".  This is important because there is microevolution and macroevolution.  There is the evolution of species and the evolution of life in general, and the evolution of the solar system, galaxy, and universe.  These are not all the same thing, except for one camp's view.  There are different constructs offered for the evolution of species.  There are different assumptions made, such as naturalism vs. supernaturalism.  And what makes someone "religious"?  Believing there is a God?  If so, then Anthony Flew is "religious".
These religious adherents often view science itself as an assault on their faith and doggedly refuse to accept evolution because they fear it so utterly denies God that it will lead them, and their children, straight into a world of moral depravity and meaninglessness.
Who are these people?  These people don't sound like these Christians (see here, here, here, here, and here for example) and those who question materialistic naturalism (see here, and here for example).  Science, as a method, does not assault my faith.  Some philosophical naturalists try.  But we know science does not determine all truth about reality, and these philosophical naturalists, though they may control what gets published in peer-reviewed journals, do not have a monopoly on facts.
It often appears as though Dawkins and his followers -- often dubbed the New Atheists, though some object to the term -- want to change the country's science community in a lasting way. They'd have scientists and defenders of reason be far more confrontational and blunt: No more coddling the faithful, no tolerating nonscientific beliefs.
Notice how this is worded – to imply that those who do not agree are unreasonable?  It is easy to win a debate, at least in your own mind, when you prejudicially dismiss others as unreasonable.  My beliefs are based on a reasonable evaluation of the evidence.

They bemoan the "public scientific illiteracy":
About 46% of Americans in polls agree with this stunning statement: "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."
Was there an alternative offered?  Maybe people agreed with most of the statement, or a majority of the idea behind it, and so said "yes".  Maybe they disagree with the 10,000 years part, but weren't given the option of disagreeing with that and still agreeing that God created human beings.  It doesn't mean that they are scientifically illiterate, necessarily.  Perhaps they have read through science texts and journals and can tell you what they say, but they don’t agree with the conclusions.

Like I said, there needs to be a clear definition of terms when discussing these things.  They seem to use "religious belief" as a catch-all for anything supernatural.  I don’t see compelling scientific research showing that time + matter/energy = life.  There is much more reason to believe that information + matter/energy = life, and I don’t know of any way to get information without intelligence.

Previously: Time for Education to Evolve
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Update on Talk Radio in Los Angeles

Townhall.com member station News Talk KRLA AM 870 continues to have an impressive weekday lineup, including Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Miller, Kevin James, Bill Bennett.  This lineup has been fairly stable lately.  (Salem also has an FM Christian station, 995. KKLA, which has a conservative afternoon talker, Frank Pastore.)  This is notable, because there have been many changes lately in the local market.

Earlier this year, we lost our CBS FM Talk ("hot talk") station, which flipped to Top 40 (less expensive, better ratings).  This was after losing our "Republitarian" Larry Elder from our Citadel talk & news station.  Elder's local show was replaced by syndicated Mark Levin.  I'm sure this was a move that saved money, too, but I don't know how the ratings have held up.  That station still has a local host during the morning drive.  Tammy Bruce would be on the station Saturdays, when not pre-empted by Dodger baseball, but recently she was off the station and making a push online.  This station also has the Sean Hannity show.

Meanwhile, the powerhouse high-rated "conservative" talk & news Clear Channel station features Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger as live syndicated programming, and local shows for the morning and afternoon drives (neither of which is especially conservative) and the evening.

There has also been another AM station that has recently tried to do some conservative talk, with the syndicated Laura Ingraham program and John Ziegler (author, documentary filmmaker).

Now things are going to be shaken up again as Dr. Laura leaves the station that launched her current show, and one of the local CBS AM news stations, which has been toying with format changes, adds talk to accommodate her show.  I'm assuming her signing with syndicator TRN also means she is leaving Premiere, the syndication arm of Clear Channel.  This station also says they will be bringing on Laura Ingraham's show.  I would think that would mean the other station is losing her.  If that other station is going to retain the talk format, and if this CBS station is open to adding more talkers, there certainly are a of local personalities without shows on local radio, as well as syndicated shows without a Los Angeles affiliate.  However, the trend seems to be towards cost cutting, so I don't expect we'll see these returning to the Los Angeles airwaves.

Something of note is that the station dropping Dr. Laura - one of the top rated stations in Los Angeles - will be filling the three hours by having the morning host return for two hours after Limbaugh, and expanding the afternoon show so that it starts an hour earlier.  The afternoon show's 6pm hour is often a replay of the 3pm hour, so I expect that the additional hour will also mean repeating another hour instead of a new hour of content.  Not having to pay for Dr. Laura and instead using existing station personalities (especially rebroadcasts) should save a nice chunk of change for the station.  But considering Los Angeles is one of the top markets in the nation, I am surprised this is going on.  It shows how tough things have gotten in radio.

The "conservative" Clear Channel station is going to be less conservative, further giving KRLA AM 870 an edge when it comes to those looking for conservative hosts.  Unfortunately, the trade-off is that KRLA doesn't have a local focus during the daytime.

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Theocrats Aiding Nationalized Socialism?

The "religious Left" is going to shill for Caesar.  Uh, I mean Obamacare.  Ed Stoddard has the Reuters story.
Liberal religious groups announced on Monday they are teaming up with President Barack Obama in a national campaign to counter the surprisingly vehement conservative opposition to his plan for overhaul of the U.S. healthcare industry this year.
I'm sure Americans United for Separation of Church and State and similar groups will be speaking up loudly about this, condemning this as furthering "theocracy".
"As a pastor I believe access to healthcare is a profoundly moral issue," Rev. Stevie Wakes of Olivet Institutional Baptist in Kansas City, said in a news teleconference announcing the "40 days for Health Reform" campaign.
Then why don't you provide it?  Oh, and I thought we were supposed to keep "morals" out of the law?  (Impossible, I know.)
Protestors have confronted members of Congress across the country in town hall meetings held to take the public pulse on the various healthcare overhaul plans being written in Congress.

What lawmakers found was anger fueled in part by Christian and conservative radio that healthcare would lead to taxpayer funded abortion and even euthanasia for the old, have incited much of the loudest and most dramatic reaction.
You see - you couldn't possibly have concerns about Obamacare on your own.  Oh, no.  You are out there because radio hosts told you to get out there and complain.
Conservative Catholics often side with Republican-leaning evangelicals in opposition to abortion rights but the biblical call to help the sick and the poor is also an important part of the faith.
Yes, and that is what the church is for!  It is immoral to steal from one person to give to another, especially when the recipient could have made the choices the first person did.
Some of the opposition is being fueled by leaders of the "religious right," the conservative Christian movement that remains a key base for the opposition Republican Party.
Yes, in case you didn't pick up on it the first time – you couldn't possibly have concerns about Obamacare on your own.
The groups behind the effort include Faith in Public Life, Faithful America and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.
Until the Constitution is amended, the federal government should not be involved with health insurance or health care for civilians in non-federal government jobs.  However, religious congregations and organizations are free, as they have always been in this country, to fund health care for anyone.
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Believing Strongly is Not the Problem

Gregory Rodriguez, in his Los Angeles Times column, talks about "a sure way to fight the threat of religious fundamentalism".  In the context of the column, his main concern seems to be Islamofascists.  As such, I don't think the problem is fundamentalism, but which beliefs and practices someone is holding as fundamental.

There are a few statements in his piece I want to address.
If political ideology was the scourge of the 20th century, religious fundamentalism could be the greatest threat in the 21st. But how do we fight it?
Why is there a need to fight religious fundamentalism in general?
And that burden can send people straight back to the absolutes.
What's wrong with absolutes?
But how can you be firm in your convictions while allowing others to be firm in theirs?
It's easy if your convictions include tolerance and the notion that people should be free to choose or reject God, and that "forced conversion" is not really conversion at all.
For example, Christian theologians generally define the resurrection of Christ as a core belief. But the virgin birth or the story of Lazarus rising from the dead? Not so much.
Any God powerful enough to raise someone from the dead could surely bring about another's resurrection or a virgin birth.

I'm convinced that it is absolute truth that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior - no matter who else disagrees or doesn't believe.  I believe He was conceived miraculously, that He performed miracles, that He suffered and died for my sins, and that He rose from the dead, is still alive, and will return to judge the world.  I believe that the Bible tells us about God and how to have fellowship with God.  Does that make me a fundamentalist?  If so, know that I have no desire whatsoever to coerce others in their religious beliefs.

There are certain things fundamental to any worldview or belief system.  The problem isn't fundamentalism per se, it is that people believe certain specific things that encourage them to harm others.

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Someone's Not on the Reservation

Marriage neutering advocates are not all marching in lockstep when it comes to timing out their tactics, which is causing concerns among the fascists.  The Los Angeles Times had an article noting this, as an update regarding the court challenge to the duly adopted California Marriage Amendment.  My analysis is over at The Opine Editorials.


(Thanks to that homocentric website that sounds like a brand of cotton swab for continuing to link to posts like this.)



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