Congressman Chris Smith’s rally speech on Friday afternoon packed a punch, as usual. Smith and his wife, Marie, have been champions of human rights for many years. (Marie heads up the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues, which provides pro-life news, information, and networking to members of democratically-elected legislatures around the world.) Here he takes on … Read more
A Canadian farmer has been found not guilty of 19 charges related to selling unpasteurized milk, according to the Canadian Press. (I wrote about this case back in May 2008.) Michael Schmidt’s farm was raided by two-dozen armed officers and government officials back in 2006: The Durham, Ont., farmer argued the charges laid against him … Read more
A group of chefs, businessmen, and civil servants in Louisiana have devised a clever plan for dealing with an invasive fish: Rename it and stick it on retail shelves and restaurant menus. Asian carp was brought to the U.S. from east Asia in the 1970s to be used to help manage ponds and lagoons. As … Read more
This post over at the The Anchoress today is a must read. A missionary friend, writing from a city 30 miles from Port-au-Prince, paints a grim picture. They have received no aid, no help. As the Anchoress notes, reading the personal account is like reading a modern-day psalm. Also interesting is the info there on … Read more
Here’s a fascinating article by Ethan Watters in the New York Times about how mental illness is being exported from the West to other parts of the world: For more than a generation now, we in the West have aggressively spread our modern knowledge of mental illness around the world… There is now good evidence … Read more
The Times Online ran a great piece last May on Haiti, highlighting the history of the impoverished nation. Many people don’t know the background story: The appalling state of the country is a direct result of having offended a quite different celestial authority — the French. France gained the western third of the island of … Read more
So much for genetically modified (GM) foods being ‘absolutely safe.’ The Huffington Post reports that a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences shows that GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats. The study looked at three varieties of big agribusiness Monsanto’s GM corn — all three were approved for human … Read more
Last week, Phases of Womanhood posted a column by Mary Hasson about a heated same-sex custody battle that reached Virginia’s Supreme Court. While Hasson and I agree on some of the fundamental issues involved, I disagree with both the tone and content of her commentary. First, the case: Two lesbians — Lisa Miller (on the … Read more
I’m working on a longer post at the moment and I expect it to get the comments moving. But let’s first get the week started with a little fun… an a cappella singing group that doesn’t sound anything like an a capella singing group. The performers appear to be lip-synching, but the recording is authentic … Read more
Polyamory is the latest “alternative lifestyle” grabbing headlines these days for its titillating (to some) approach to love and commitment. The latest article comes from the Boston Globe: Adherents call it responsible non-monogamy or polyamory, and the nontraditional practice is creeping out of the closet, making gay marriage feel somewhat last decade here in Massachusetts. … Read more
If I could remember everything I’ve read over the last few years, I’d be quite the pundit. Unfortunately, that’s becoming less likely as I age… or is it? This article in the New York Times gives me a glimmer of hope. Health editor Barbara Strauch says that even though the middle age brain gets distracted … Read more
We’ve known for a while that dolphins are smart creatures. Now it appears they’re even smarter than we thought. According to the Times Online, research suggests dolphins have “individual personalities, a strong sense of self, and can think about the future.” Dolphins can also recognize themselves in a reflection, and have figured out how to … Read more
BBC News published a heart-breaking piece just before Christmas about what has become of Romania’s orphans. You may remember reports from the early 1990s detailing the horrific orphanage conditions there. (Deal and his family can attest to this first-hand, from the experience of adopting their son.) Tragically, most of the children from that period went … Read more
It’s almost as if WholeFood’s CEO John Mackey enjoys ticking off a large percentage of his customers. He was recently profiled in The New Yorker and said plainly that there was no consensus that climate change is mostly man-made: …One of the books on the list was “Heaven and Earth: Global Warming–the Missing Science,” a … Read more
Here’s a piece from the New York Times about the problems we still have treating industrially processed ground beef… That would be the same beef purchased by fast food joints, many restaurants, school lunch programs, and the majority of American food shoppers. Michael Moss reports that eight years ago, federal officials were looking for ways … Read more
Readers here may be interested in this personal account of a Jewish woman’s first encounter with the Catholic Mass on Christmas eve. American Thinker contributor “Robyn of Berkeley” became a political conservative, and her experience of religious people drew her to church. (Certainly the reverse of the stories we typically hear.) Here’s an excerpt from … Read more
Are people like WholeFoods founder and CEO John Mackey really that rare? Many in the media seem to think so. Ever since Mackey published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this summer, the press have been treating him as an anomaly. Nick Paumgarten has a piece in The New Yorker about Mackey’s quirks, but … Read more
I finally got around to reading Pope Benedict’s Christmas message — it’s both concise and rich, just like everything he writes. Unfortunately, it also seems to have gotten lost in the media coverage of that mentally ill woman who attacked him. Here’s a passage I found particularly striking: The first thing we are told about … Read more
As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Divine Child, we face some sobering numbers: There are an estimated 145 million orphans worldwide — more than enough little ones to go three times around the planet at the equator. A few years ago, the United Nations put the number of child victims of trafficking … Read more
Yesterday, Merck and Co. announced that Dr. Julie Gerberding has been named president of Merck Vaccine, effective at the end of January. As far as credentials go, she has them in spades… the most noteworthy is her recent position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2002 to 2009. Of … Read more