Citizenship - links
RADIO: New Baptist Covenant?
Feb 6, 2008
Topic: Faith, Life, Abortion, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Human Rights, Religious Liberty
WA Post: New Estimate of Iraqi Deaths Is Lower
By David Brown and Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 10, 2008; Page A18
A new survey estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the three years following the U.S.-led invasion of the country. Roughly 9 out of 10 of those deaths were a consequence of U.S. military operations, insurgent attacks and sectarian warfare.
The survey, conducted by the Iraqi government and the World Health Organization, also found a 60 percent increase in nonviolent deaths — from such causes as childhood infections and kidney failure — during the period. The results, which will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine at the end of the month, are the latest of several widely divergent and controversial estimates of mortality attributed to the Iraq war.
Jan 15, 2008
Topic: Citizenship, War
The Surge Worked
The Surge Worked
By JOHN MCCAIN and JOE LIEBERMAN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 11, 2008
It was exactly one year ago Thursday, in a televised address to the nation, that President George W. Bush announced his fateful decision to change course in Iraq, and to send five additional U.S. combat brigades there as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and under the command of a new general, David Petraeus.
At the time of its announcement, the so-called surge was met with deep skepticism by many Americans — and understandably so.
After years of mismanagement of the war, many people had grave doubts about whether success in Iraq was possible. In Congress, opposition to the surge from antiwar members was swift and severe. They insisted that Iraq was already “lost,” and that there was nothing left to do but accept our defeat and retreat.
In fact, they could not have been more wrong. And had we heeded their calls for retreat, Iraq today would be a country in chaos: a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran.
Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001. Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency’s core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst — prompting Osama bin Laden to call them “traitors.”
Jan 15, 2008
Topic: Citizenship, War
Robert George: An Unrequited Letter to Anne Rice
First Things blog
An Unrequited Letter to Anne Rice
Posted by Robert P. George on December 17, 2007, 9:29 AM
Dear Ms. Rice:
I am a professor of the philosophy of law at Princeton, and someone who enjoyed your fine book Out of Egypt. I have read your endorsement of Senator Clinton and your reasoning as to why you support her despite your pro-life convictions.
I am a former Democrat who left the party because it hardened its heart toward the child in the womb. In the 1990s, I had the honor of working for Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania, the last of the great national pro-life Democratic political leaders. (The governor, you may recall, was denied an opportunity to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his pro-life advocacy.) I am the grandson of West Virginia coal miners who, together with my grandmothers, were loyal Democrats. If they were alive today, they would ache, as I ache, to know that the political party they loved has committed itself to the legal protection of the killing of the unborn.
Jan 15, 2008
Topic: Life, Abortion, Citizenship, National
WA Post: Crackdown on Child Pornography
Crackdown on Child Pornography
Federal Action, Focused on Internet, Sets Off a Debate
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 15, 2007; Page A01
Lewd photographs of children were disappearing from adult bookstores. Child porn magazines in plain brown envelopes were no longer reaching customers through the mail. It was the early 1990s, and experts believed that federal law enforcement efforts were ending child pornography.
“We thought this was one of those rare forms of social deviance, of criminal behavior, that had been eradicated,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “Except for a fixated group of hard-core pedophiles, we thought it was gone.”
Dec 15, 2007
Topic: Family, Addictions, Sexual Purity, Homosexuality, Citizenship, Human Rights, National
House approves Christmas resolution
By Tom Strode – Dec 13, 2007
The House of Representatives approved a resolution Dec. 11 acknowledging the significance of Christmas and Christianity.
The roll call was 372-9 for passage. The resolution’s sponsor expressed astonishment over the “no” votes. Rep. Steve King, R.-Iowa, said he could not understand how members of Congress could vote against the measure after the House approved without opposition similar resolutions honoring observances of Islam and Hinduism.
Dec 13, 2007
Topic: Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Legislation, National, Religious Liberty
Richard Land: A Hope List for Romney’s Speech (Beliefnet)
Richard Land: A Hope List for Romney’s Speech
Nov 5, 2007
Former Massachusetts Governor and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is going to give a speech on “Religion in America” tomorrow in Texas.
I have been encouraging Governor Romney to give such a speech for over a year now, since I first met with him at his home in Massachusetts. He had invited approximately a dozen evangelical leaders to meet with him to have a free-wheeling discussion about his presidential candidacy and to allow us to ask him questions—and to allow him to ask us questions as well.
Dec 5, 2007
Topic: Faith, Citizenship, Church and State, National, Religious Liberty
TV: Land discusses Romney on Hannity & Colmes
Dr. Richard Land was featured on Fox News Channel’s program Hannity & Colmes on Monday Dec 3, 2007.
Dec 3, 2007
Topic: Faith, Citizenship, Church and State, National, Religious Liberty
UK: Eco-friendly? Get sterilized…
UK Daily Mail
Meet the women who won’t have babies – because they’re not eco friendly
By NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH and MORAG TURNER
Last updated at 22:05pm on 21st November 2007
Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers – and a voice calling her Mummy.
But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.
Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.
Nov 27, 2007
Topic: Life, Abortion, Birth Control, Science, Environment
Podhoretz: ‘America the Ugly’
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on us that took place on this very day six years ago, several younger commentators proclaimed the birth of an entirely new era in American history. What Dec. 7, 1941, had done to the old isolationism, they announced, Sept. 11, 2001, had done to the Vietnam syndrome. It was politically dead, and the cultural fallout of that war—all the damaging changes wrought by the 1960s and ’70s—would now follow it into the grave.
Sep 11, 2007
Topic: Citizenship, Human Rights, National, War