God Or Science

This was bound to happen. The far right is so out-of-control angry at the left that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. I can only hope that these people don’t start cheering like the Palestinians did on 9/11. They are so fond of telling the world that Islam is the religion of violence, not christianity. I call BS. It is particularly ironic that this happened at a church.

Source: Abortion doc Tiller gunned down at church

WICHITA, Kan. – Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, a prominent advocate for abortion rights wounded by a protester more than a decade ago, was shot and killed Sunday at his church in Wichita, a city official said. A City Hall official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the case told The Associated Press that the 67-year-old doctor was killed Sunday morning at Reformation Lutheran Church.

Police spokesman Gordon Bassham would not confirm the victim’s identity pending notification of relatives. He said the shooting occurred at 10:03 a.m. and the gunman fled the scene in a 1993 powder blue Ford Taurus registered in another part of the state. Bassham said no suspects were in custody. He said it is not clear whether one or more suspects were involved. Capt. Brent Allred said police were looking for a gunman who fled in a 1993 light blue Ford Taurus registered in Merriam. Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue issued a statement denouncing the shooting.

Tiller has been among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortions. His clinic has repeatedly been the site of protests for about two decades and he was shot and wounded in both arms by a protester in 1993. He remained prominent in the news in recent years, in part because of an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent. Prosecutors had alleged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires, but a jury in March acquitted him of all 19 misdemeanor counts against him.

Abortion opponents also questioned then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ ties to Tiller before the Senate confirmed her this year as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary. Tiller donated thousands of dollars to Sebelius over the years.

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This is not looking good at all. North Korea is run by an unpredictable lunatic who believes that the world is secretly planning a strike against his country at any moment and is willing to go down in flames as long as he can take as much of the rest of the world with him as possible, particularly his most hated enemy South Korea.

I understand the reason for sanctions, but history has shown that this only ends up starving the innocent people of NK. The government, army and the leaders are always taken care of first. I even hear that Kim has one of the biggest collections of DVDs in the entire world. There is no easy way to solve this problem but it has become clear that NK has to be liberated to ensure the peace and safety of the world. unfortunately, it is not the top priority of the Obama administration, falling far behind behind Iraq, Iran, and and Afghanistan. IMHO, it should be the top priority. But we can’t simply invade and conquer the way we did in Iraq. We need this to be a total UN effort,led primarily by the Asian nations. China needs to be on board and that will not be easy.

Any kind of military campaign will result in the deaths of millions of innocent citizens, who have been so brainwashed they believe that the USA and SK are even more dangerous to them than their own government. More sanctions may end up making the wounded animal strike the South and kill millions.

One thing is certain. We simply cannot allow the North to develop the technology to make a nuclear weapon and they are on the verge of doing so at this very moment. We might need to knock out their nuclear facilities with a limited strike, and God knows what that will lead to.

North Korea test-fires missile, slams Security Council
By SIYOUNG LEE, Associated Press Writer – May 29, 2009

YEONPYEONG, South Korea – North Korea warned Friday it would act in “self-defense” if provoked by the U.N. Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions over the communist country’s nuclear test, and followed the threat with the test launch of another short-range missile. The North fired the missile from its Musudan-ni launch site on the east coast, a South Korean government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter. It is the sixth short-range missile North Korea has test-fired since Monday’s nuclear test.

The official did not provide further details. But the Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified South Korean government official as saying the missile is a new type of ground-to-air missile estimated to have a range of up to 160 miles (260 kilometers). Yonhap said the missile is believed to be an improved version of the SA-5, which North Korea introduced in 1963 and deployed in eastern and western parts of the country. The SA-5 was originally produced by the Soviet Union.

North Korea is also showing signs of firing a short-range missile from its west coast, Yonhap said, without elaborating. With tensions high on the Korean peninsula, Chinese fishing boats left the region, possibly to avoid any maritime skirmishes between the two Koreas. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the situation was not a crisis and no additional U.S. troops would be sent to the region.

North Korea, meanwhile, warned it would retaliate if provoked. “If the U.N. Security Council makes a further provocation, it will be inevitable for us to take further self-defense measures,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea also accused the Security Council of hypocrisy. “There is a limit to our patience,” the statement said. “The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth’s 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests.”

The North has been strident since its test — which it has also called a self-defensive measure. It did not specify what further action it was considering in response to U.N. resolutions, or what it would consider a provocation. Fears have increased of military skirmishes, particularly in disputed waters off the western coast, after North Korea conducted the nuclear test on Monday and then renounced the truce that has kept peace between the Koreas since the Korean War ended in 1953. The waters were the site of two deadly clashes in 1999 and 2002. From Yeonpyeong, the South Korean island closest to North Korea, about a dozen Chinese ships could be seen pulling out of port in the North and heading elsewhere. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that more than 280 Chinese vessels were fishing in the area earlier this week, but the number has dropped to about 140.

It was not clear if the Chinese vessels, in the area for the crabbing season, were told by the North to leave or if they were leaving on their own for fear of clashes at sea. “For now, it seems quiet,” said local construction worker Lee Hae-un, 43. “But if North Korea provokes us with military power, I think our government should actively and firmly counteract it.” South Korean and U.S. troops facing North Korea raised their surveillance on Thursday to its highest level since 2006, when North Korea tested its first nuclear device. About 28,000 American troops are stationed across the South.

North Korea, whose 1.2-million strong military is one of the world’s largest, says it is merely preparing to defend itself against what it says are plans by the United States to launch a pre-emptive strike to overthrow its communist government. The United States has repeatedly denied any intention to attack North Korea.

In Washington, the Army’s top officer, Gen. George Casey, expressed confidence that the U.S. could fight a conventional war against North Korea if necessary, despite continuing conflicts elsewhere. But Gates, en route to Singapore for regional defense talks, tried to lower the temperature. “I don’t think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early Friday.

Meanwhile, talks at the U.N. Security Council over possible sanctions for the nuclear test were moving forward slowly. Russia’s U.N. ambassador said Thursday there was wide agreement among key world powers on what a new U.N. resolution should include, but said putting the elements together will take time because the issues are “complicated.” A list of proposals was sent Wednesday to the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — and the two countries most closely affected by the nuclear test, Japan and South Korea.
Diplomats said a draft of the proposed resolution is not expected to be circulated until next week.
The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. North Korea disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast and has positioned artillery guns along the west coast on its side of the border, Yonhap said.

Traffic at the border between the Koreas appeared to be normal. Yonhap said more than 340 South Korean workers crossed to a joint industrial complex in the North. The two Koreas are also maintaining a communication line to exchange information on commercial vessels passing through each other’s waters, Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

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Here is a story that I am sure will make James Hartline cringe. It concerns a gay teenage male student who was elected prom queen by the students at his high school. It is probably only a matter of time before Michael Savage starts calling this lad a queer and wishing him a long and painful death from AIDS. How long before we see Fred Phelps and family set up their ‘GOD HATES FAGS’ picket signs across the street to protest. The good thing about this is that it shows that the younger generations are no longer being fooled by the propaganda and fear tactics of the bible thumping homophobes on the right.

Openly gay teen voted prom queen at LA high school
Thu May 28, 11:23 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – An openly gay teen has been voted prom queen at his Los Angeles high school in a campaign that began as a stunt but ended up spurring discussion on the campus about gender roles and popularity. Sergio Garcia said he felt “invincible” when he was crowned queen of the Fairfax High School dance at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Saturday.

Days before the dance, Garcia told fellow students that he was “not your typical prom queen candidate. There’s more to me than meets the eye.” He also promised that he would be wearing a suit on prom night, but “don’t be fooled: Deep down, I am a queen.” And he made good of that promise Saturday, wearing a gray tuxedo topped off with the prized tiara.

Garcia, 18, said he saw fliers advertising the prom and the election but they didn’t specify that the queen must be female. He thought the role would suit him better than prom king. ”I don’t wish to be a girl,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I just wish to be myself.” Senior class president Vanessa Lo said she and other students were initially against the idea but became convinced he wasn’t just an attention-seeking clown.
“It just goes to show how open-minded our class is,” Lo said. Unique Payne, 17, said she voted for Garcia because she supported the gay community.

Although many students were supportive of Garcia’s run, others were upset and didn’t understand why Garcia chose to run for prom queen. ”I’m not really happy about that,” said 17-year-old Juan Espinoza. “He should’ve run for prom king.”

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This is just plain sickening. How can the military let this kind of stuff go on over there. All we do is give militants the justification for their next round of suicide bombings. We are suppose to be standing up for what is right — for peace and security. But instead, we are rapping women in their cells and water-boarding 12 year olds at Gitmo, all in the name of the war on terror. The USA needs to put a nose around these dogs once and for all. We need to get these criminals out of the military. Otherwise, we will be scraping up the remains of American citizens at what use top be bus station and subway terminals for the next fifty years. I am simply disgusted.

Photos show rape and sex abuse in Iraq jails: report
Wed May 27, 8:54 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – Photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse which U.S. President Barack Obama does not want released include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday. The images are among photographs included in a 2004 report into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison conducted by U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba.

Taguba included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report, and on Wednesday he confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that images supporting those allegations were also in the file. “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency,” Taguba, who retired in January 2007, was quoted as saying in the paper. He said he supported Obama’s decision not to release them, even though Obama had previously pledged to disclose all images relating to abuses at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. “I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one,” Taguba said. “The sequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan. “The mere depiction of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Others are said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. The photographs relate to 400 alleged cases of abuse carried out at Abu Ghraib and six other prisons between 2001 and 2005.

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Here is an interesting story from Reuters about a cancer patient who was prescribed a drug that apparently ‘concealed’ his fingerprints. Customs held him for four hours because they were unable to get a fingerprint of him and only released him after a thorough check of his background.

I don’t have an issue with the Big Brother VS Little Brother side of this. They are just doing their job, but the thing I wondered about is how many criminals or potential criminals might read this news-story and go out and buy the drug to use as a way of eliminating potential evidence. I am not aware of the side effects of this drug or its availability on the open market, but if you are a serial killer or thief, I suspect the potential benefits would outweigh the considerable risks.

Cancer patient held at U.S. airport for missing fingerprint
By Tan Ee Lyn – Wed May 27, 12:03 am ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A Singapore cancer patient was held for four hours by immigration officials in the United States when they could not detect his fingerprints — which had apparently disappeared because of a drug he was taking. The incident, highlighted in the Annals of Oncology, was reported by the patient’s doctor, Tan Eng Huat, who advised cancer patients taking this drug to carry a doctor’s letter when travelling to the United States.
The drug, capecitabine, is commonly used to treat cancers in the head and neck, breast, stomach and colorectum.

One side-effect is chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of the feet and the skin can peel, bleed and develop ulcers or blisters — or what is known as hand-foot syndrome. ”This can give rise to eradication of fingerprints with time,” explained Tan, senior consultant in the medical oncology department at Singapore’s National Cancer Centre. The patient, a 62-year-old man, had head and neck cancer that had spread but responded well to chemotherapy. To prevent the cancer from recurring, he was put on capecitabine. ”In December 2008, after more than three years of capecitabine, he went to the United States to visit his relatives,” Tan wrote. ”He was detained at the airport customs for four hours because the immigration officers could not detect his fingerprints. He was allowed to enter after the custom officers were satisfied that he was not a security threat.”

Tan said the loss of fingerprints is not described in the packaging of the drug, although chronic inflammation of the palms and soles of feet is included. ”The topmost layer … is the layer that accounts for the fingerprint, that (losing that top layer) is all it takes (to lose a fingerprint),” Tan told Reuters. ”Theoretically, if you stop the drug, it will grow back but details are scanty. No one knows the frequency of this occurrence among patients taking this drug and nobody knows how long a person must be on this drug before the loss of fingerprints.”

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