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She's revered as a trail-blazing feminist and author Alice Walker touched the lives of a generation of women. A champion of women's rights, she has always argued that motherhood is a form of servitude. But one woman didn't buy in to Alice's beliefs - her daughter, Rebecca, 38. Here the writer describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a cultural icon, and why she feels so blessed to be the sort of woman 64-year-old Alice despises - a mother.

Are global warming alarmists encouraging children to commit suicide because their carbon footprints supposedly are harming the planet?It certainly appears so in a children's game concocted by the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Science Department, available online. 'Pigs' Should Die YoungThe game is called Planet Slayer. Using it, children can calculate their carbon footprint--how much impact their carbon emissions allegedly have on global warming. The purpose for doing so, children were told in a version of the game that was online in early June, is so they can "find out what age you should die at so you don't use more...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― Their colorful shops line the streets, catering to their own culture and drawing in ours. Beginning in 1993, Somali people began arriving in Minnesota from refugee camps in Kenya. By that time, Somalia's political chaos had led to the killing or starvation of many of its people. For refugees, Minneapolis offered a place to start a new life, a new business, or a new family. "Many things attracted Somalis to Minnesota to stay. Good health cover and good education," said Huda Farah. Farah works on refugee resettlement with the Minnesota Department of Health. It's through her work...

The survey found that extreme Islamist ideology has a profound influence on a significant minority of Muslims on campuses across the country. The findings will concern police chiefs, the security services and ministers, who are struggling with radicalisation among Muslim communities. The YouGov poll was conducted for the Right-wing think tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion, at 12 universities, including Imperial College and Kings College London. It also found: * 40 per cent support the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims * a third back the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law *...

BASRAH — “I feel blessed to be working on this important project,” said Ryan Hartwig, construction representative with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Basrah Children’s Hospital Office “Each time we go, we see more progress. I can look at the place now and actually visualize patients using this facility,” he continued. “It’s just very satisfying being part of this effort that will no doubt save or change the lives of so many Iraqi children.” Several key partners are involved in the project including Project Hope (a non-government organization), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Iraqi Ministry of...

Engineers from Multi-National Division – Baghdad, as well as Civil Affairs Soldiers with 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, visited a water pump station in Adhamiyah July 23, to determine its viability to meet the peoples’ needs. Photo by Sgt. Zachary Mott, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs. BAGHDAD — More than two-thirds of the Earth is made up of water. But for the residents of northern Baghdad, water is one of the most precious resources – and an often scarce resource. While the ancient Tigris River flows a few miles away, many farmers in the...

Dr. Dhea Mijwal Shami Maadahidi, 38, a surgeon and manager of the Rutbah General Hospital in Rubah, Iraq, checks the mouth of a child during a cooperative medical engagement in Akashat, Iraq, July 23, 2008. The Baghdad native was one of three medical specialists working with Coalition forces to provide the town with health care. During the event, surgeons and corpsmen were assisted by Iraqi doctors to treat sicknesses ranging from measles to the flu. Photo by Cpl. Ryan Tomlinson, Regimental Combat Team-5, 1st Marine Division Public Affairs. AKASHAT — Navy surgeons and corpsmen with 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion,...

There is a point at which one’s contempt for the environmentalists and their allies is irredeemable. There is no longer the usual excuse that’s there’s room for argument or discussion regarding global warming. Having been labeled “deniers” for years, the sense that the end of this hoax is in sight brings no desire to forgive and forget. Recently, Dr. Roy Spencer, an atmospheric scientist who formerly worked for NASA, testified before a Senate committee. Free now to speak without the impediments of bureaucratic oversight, Dr. Spencer told the committee, “I am pleased to deliver good news from the front lines...

In 2003, Showtime's Penn & Teller program with a name not appropriate above the fold -- unless, of course, you're a member of the Netroots! -- marvelously exposed what's behind the global warming and environmental hysteria in America today. The videos have just come available on YouTube. In part one (embedded right), the comedy team accurately depicted environmentalists as political and social activists who use green rhetoric to "cloak agendas that actually have more to do with anti-corporatism, anti-globalization, anti-business, and very little to do with science and ecology." Exactly. Parts two and three are embedded below the fold with...

Last week, radio talk-show host Michael Savage talked about autism: I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, `Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.” I’m not an impartial observer here. My six-year-old son has high-functioning autism. He is exactly the...

Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." ... Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love...

Oil was selling for $123 a barrel on May 7, and that's where it closed this week. Sounds like a calm and rational market, except for the fact that just last week it was going for $145. Which price was right, $123, $145, or something else? Before you let anybody give you an answer to that question, try to get them to comment first on the following two facts. (1) According to the Energy Information Administration, China consumed 7.6 million barrels of petroleum each day of 2007, which is 860,000 barrels/day more than in 2005. (2) EIA also reports that...

Homosexual clubs encourage teens to sexually identify themselves at an early age -- something an organization called Parents and Friends of ExGays & Gays considers dangerous. Parents and Friends of ExGays & Gays (PFOX) provides support for parents and friends of former homosexuals, also referred to as ex-"gays." Spokeswoman Regina Griggs believes schools should not be party to the homosexual propaganda campaign. "Children should never be told to identify themselves as heterosexual, gay, bi-sexual, transgender," Griggs contends. "Kids change as they mature and they go through puberty. Lots of questions that need answers come up." Research shows that individuals often go through periods of gender...

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST. HOUSE # 1: A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than...

Health and safety killjoys tell war veterans they are too old to hoist the Union Flag over town hall Last updated at 02:38am on 26.07.08      Up in arms: Veterans John Ireland (right) and Keith Hutchins in front of the town hall In their younger days, they risked death and injury to fight for their country against the Nazis and other enemies.  But, now, war veterans who want to fly the Union Flag proudly above their town hall are being defeated by a barrage of health and safety rules.  Royal British Legion members had scented victory after fighting...

The Supreme Court ended its term this year by making a mistake in one of its most controversial cases--the case in which it held unconstitutional a Louisiana law authorizing capital punishment for the rape of a child under 12 years of age.

Early in July, OK! magazine featured a cover story about Jamie Lynn Spears and her new baby, Maddie. Newsweek reported that the magazine paid $1 million for the rights to publish photographs of the baby and mother. The young mom, now 17, is shown on the magazine's cover declaring, "Being a mom is the best feeling in the world." A good number of parents were understandably outraged.   This week, Newsweek is out with an article that questions how Hollywood is presenting teenage motherhood. The magazine reports that teen moms and their babies have become "a hot plot device lately."...

About seven years ago, University of Chicago economists Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst were researching the “wealth gap” between black and white Americans when they noticed something striking. African Americans not only had less wealth than whites with similar incomes, they also had significantly more of their assets tied up in cars. The statistic fit a stereotype reinforced by countless bling-filled hip-hop videos: that African Americans spend a lot on cars, clothes, and jewelry—highly visible goods that tell the world the owner has money. But do they really? And, if so, why? The two economists, along with Nikolai Roussanov...

By Burt Prelutsky It seems to me that when it comes to foreign policy, the U.S. has two separate problems. To begin with, there are those two billion foreigners in places like China, Russia, North Korea, and all the various Islamic nations that give America and much of the rest of the world non-stop migraines. But compounding the problem for us are the millions of illegal aliens who have been flooding across our southern border for the past 25 years or so. It’s bad enough that they’ve placed a terrible burden on our schools, our prisons, and our health care...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn underwent tests Friday for what was described as an irregular heartbeat. His office told news outlets that the 60-year-old Oklahoma Republican was expected to return to work at the Senate over the weekend. An aide said Coburn was at a hospital for the tests for "common arrhythmia.'' He was not admitted to the hospital, the aide said. Coburn's office would not comment further. A physician, Coburn describes himself as a two-time cancer survivor. In 2003, just months before deciding to run for the Senate, he confirmed that he had undergone surgery and treatment for...

Liberals say Iraq is another Vietnam; conservatives say Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter redux. ABBA's a mega-hit and Elton John's going to be performing at Madison Square Garden. Had enough of these '70s flashbacks? Brace yourself for another: the return of the national speed limit, courtesy of one of the country's most venerable politicians. Senator John Warner (R-VA) — elected in 1978 — recently expressed interest in the idea of a national speed limit to conserve gasoline. Warner, who is not running for re-election this year, wrote to U.S. Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman, asking "at what speed is the...

Civil rights organization fights elitists and racists By John Bender With the Heller decision only hours old, the National rifle Association, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, filed suit against Chicago and San Francisco seeking to overturn obviously unconstitutional laws those cities have on the books. In the case of Chicago, their anti-civil right law mirrors the Washington, D.C. law the court struck down. In San Francisco the anti-civil rights law being challenged is different, but also absolutely unconstitutional on its face. In fact the San Francisco law is elitist and racist and the federal government should have insisted it...

Men have long been accused of judging women on looks alone, but even the plainest Jane can get their hormones raging, a study has found. Research involving a group of male students found that their levels of the hormone testosterone increased to the same extent whether they were talking to a young woman they found attractive – or to one they didn't fancy much at all. After 300 seconds alone in the same room as a woman they had never met before, and in some cases did not find particularly attractive, the men's testosterone levels of the hormone had shot...

British couples should have no more than two children to save the world from global warming, according to a green think tank. Campaigners from the Optimum Population Trust said limiting family size was the 'simplest and biggest' contribution people could make to saving the planet. While Britain need not follow the example of China and ban large families, having more than two children should be frowned upon in the same way as using a patio heater or driving a gas guzzling car. But critics said doctors and governments had no right to tell parents how many children to have -...

From No smoking hot spot in the Australian.The evidence is not there:1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no...

A total of 24 states allow voters to change laws on their own by collecting signatures and putting initiatives on the ballot. It's healthy that the entrenched political class should face some real legislative competition from initiative-toting citizens. Unfortunately, some special interests have declared war on the initiative process, using tactics ranging from restrictive laws to outright thuggery. - Snip - The initiative is a reform born out of the Progressive Era, when there was general agreement that powerful interests had too much influence over legislators. It was adopted by most states in the Midwest and West, including Ohio and...

New Courier editor takes the reignsWritten by Julie Weisberg Friday, July 25, 2008 Easton’s only local paper has a new editor. Julie Weisberg has taken The Courier’s editorial reigns after the paper’s previous editor, Maggie Caldwell, left her position to take time off from work to travel. Weisberg, who assumed her new post last Thursday, said she is not only excited about the opportunity to cover Easton, but also about her first chance to sit in the editor’s chair. “I have already had an opportunity to speak and meet with many members of the community over the last several days,...

Bexley is not exactly the next Berkeley. Still, City Council members in Bexley are poised to ban protesters from picketing in front of any one particular home. An abortion doctor living in Bexley asked for the ban after picketers marched outside his home on Broad Street in May. Besides that doctor, a lot of corporate leaders live in Bexley and they, too, could be subject to such treatment, said Matt Lampke, the council's president. "They can protest in front of the corporation. They don't need to be protesting in front of their residence," Lampke said.

PARIS -- An aide to Sen. Barack Obama said Friday the Democratic presidential contender believed he could visit wounded troops at a military hospital in Germany without involving them in a campaign controversy and scrapped his plans after the Pentagon raised concerns. The spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the Air Force several days ago cleared Obama's chartered campaign jet to land at Ramstein Air Base. It was only Wednesday night, two days before the planned visit, that Pentagon officials conveyed their views, he said, and Obama decided not to go. Gibbs said Obama had decided several weeks ago he wanted to...

Note to readers who may not understand my position regarding climate change and environmentalism: I support conservation and responsible ecology and action. I do not support alarmism, pseudo science, hypocrisy concerning special interest and excessive governmental intervention into matters which a free market will easily handle much better without imposing additional and unecessary taxes. Please read this post with that in mind. I haven't taken the time to put together a round up of the Enviro-nitwit Supreme and all the other fun, so now seems like a good time. I do want to note one thing though, and that...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage against an Islamic civil rights group over its use of a portion of his show in which he called the Quran a "book of hate." Savage sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, for copyright infringement and racketeering lawsuit late last year, claiming the group violated his rights by using a segment of his "Savage Nation" show in a letter-writing campaign to get advertisers to boycott the program. In the broadcast used by CAIR, Savage also called the Muslim holy...

Bobby Kennedy Jr. has snatched victory - and a TV deal - from the jaws of toxic mold. For years, the environmental crusader and his wife, Mary, had battled a deadly fungus that had infested their Westchester County home. "We finally came to the conclusion that there was no way to save the house," Kennedy tells us. "We had to tear it down. We didn't feel it was conscionable to sell it to someone else." The Kennedys moved to a rental house, hoping someday to build again on their land. Now they are planning to erect a state-of-the-art green home...

Religious faith has long been valued as an essential contributor to our national greatness. Thomas Jefferson, in his second inaugural address, declared: “I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life, who has covered our infancy with His Providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power.” Jefferson believed that God had led “our fathers” and blessed the nation’s birth and growth. President George Washington, in his...

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WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There's a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won't be hearing it in the House of Representatives -- certainly, you won't find lawmakers voting on it -- anytime soon. Instead of dealing with the issue on the merits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a staunch opponent of offshore drilling, has simply decreed that she will not allow a drilling vote to take place on the House floor. Why not? "What...

TEA has until the end of January to change program for secondary schools.

Amid the rolling hills and verdant pastures of south central Virginia an unlikely new front in the battle over nuclear energy is opening up. How it is decided will tell us a lot about whether this country is willing to get serious about addressing its energy needs. In Pittsylvania County, just north of the North Carolina border, the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States -- and the seventh largest in the world, according to industry monitor UX Consulting -- sits on land owned by neighbors Henry Bowen and Walter Coles. Large uranium deposits close to the surface are...

DAYTON — A judge on Friday set a $50,000 cash bond for Peoria Chiefs pitcher Julio Castillo on a felonious assault charge stemming from his beaning of a fan Thursday during a brawl between his team and the Dayton Dragons at Fifth Third Field.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As the soaring cost of fossil fuels grabs both voters' and the candidates' attention, alternatives including nuclear power are enjoying a renaissance on the campaign trail. But while both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama embrace nuclear power as a viable form of energy, hurdles remain to ramping up production, including the cost of building plants, where to store the related waste and how to transport it. Moreover, politicians will have to overcome jitters about building new plants in local communities. With 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S., nuclear energy currently produces about 20% of U.S....

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children – as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America – each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world. The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe. Barack Obama S.2433 already has been approved in one form by the U.S. House of Representatives and now has been...

Imagine walking down the street and next to someone with a gun strapped to their hip. It's an image a group of Texans are hoping to turn into reality and they're gaining support by the thousands every day. KVUE's Jessica Vess reports 07/24/2008 “This is a basic right,” said former state Legislator, Suzanna Hupp. In Texas you can fire a gun, you can buy a gun, and you can walk around with a gun, but only if you have a concealed carry permit and the gun is out of sight. “I feel safer. My home should it be breached, I...

If that is what the senator thought he was doing, he still has a lot to learn about both foreign policy and the views of the American people. Although well received in the Tiergarten, the Obama speech actually reveals an even more naive view of the world than we had previously been treated to in the United States. In addition, although most of the speech was substantively as content-free as his other campaign pronouncements, when substance did slip in, it was truly radical, from an American perspective.

In 2008, Sao Paulo, Brazil hosted the largest homosexual pride parade ever. A bill, already approved in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies and currently being debated in the Senate, demonstrates the type of dictatorship the homosexual movement would like to impose on the Christian world. If this bill were to become law it would punish with imprisonment, anyone who criticizes homosexual ideology or practice. This would empower the homosexual movement worldwide, thus reinforcing their plans here in America. Similarly, it uncovers the true goals of the homosexual movement, and, is thus of pivotal importance to freedom-loving people aroung the globe. Religious...

Just days after a Rasmussen Reports survey was released showing more than three times as many likely voters “believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage” than help John McCain, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll taken July 22-23 of 900 registered voters discovered six times as many think “most member of the media” want Obama to win than wish for a McCain victory. On Thursday's Special Report, FNC's Brit Hume relayed: “67 percent of the respondents think most media members want Obama to win. Just 11 percent think most in the media are for McCain.” A FoxNews.com...

Each year more than a third of our country's 4 million births are to unmarried women, but it is estimated that in a typical year the total number of mothers who voluntarily relinguish their children for adoption is fewer than 14,000. Would-be parents trek to the Far East and mount expeditions to South America because there are so few infants available for adoption in the United States. Most of the couples looking to adopt are white and children in foster care are disproportionately non-white. Adoption is in decline and has been for 35 years. The decline isn't in the number...

Big Freddy collapsed his oversized umbrella after coming through the door, shook himself like a St. Bernard and made his way to our booth. "Don't drip on me," I said as he heaved into the bench seat. "Making a weather statement," Freddy said. 'Enough already with the rain. This is July — not September." "With another three months to go before we vote." I said. "You noticed," Freddy said. "How could I not?" I asked. "TV played Obama's whirlwind trip as though he had won all ready." "And why not?" Freddy asked. "He's a fresh face. Great theater. Made for...

The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that...

The National Football League, signaling a major shift in strategy, will stream live broadcasts of Sunday-night football games beginning in September, making the contests widely available on the Internet for the first time. For much of its history, the NFL has kept a tight grip on the rights to its games and the use of its images. But with more consumers, particularly younger viewers, turning to their computers for entertainment, the NFL wants to steer the nation's most popular television sport into the digital age. "We are taking a big leap here," said Steve Bornstein, chief executive of the NFL...

The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, attracted 9,000 delegates to its annual convention in Washington, D.C., over the July Fourth weekend.--snip--NEA resolutions cover the waterfront of all sorts of political issues that have nothing to do with improving education for schoolchildren, such as supporting statehood for the District of Columbia, a "single-payer health care plan" (i.e., government run), gun control, ratification of the International Criminal Court Treaty and taking steps "to change activities that contribute to global climate change."...

When Jean-Jacques Reboux was stopped in his battered Citroën AX by police in Paris and accused of obstructing the traffic, he protested his innocence. “I was in a traffic jam at a crossroads and I wasn't obstructing anything at all,” he told The Times. First, Reboux called the police officer a canard (duck). Then he lost his cool and called him a connard, which translates roughly as stupid bastard. The term landed the Parisian publisher in court and he was fined €150 (£118) this month for the peculiarly Gallic crime of outrage, or insulting a public official. The offence —...