#303 (8/27) - "Lance Armstrong: Guilty, Even When Proven Innocent"

[FYI - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

[NOTE: What follows is a side of the recent news about Lance Armstrong that I had not heard. It is a good reminder that there often is another side than what we only hear by the usual media outlets. - Stan]

- By: John Hayward, 8/24/2012; http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/24/lance-armstrong-guilty-even-when-proven-innocent/

Quick, name a pro cyclist other than Lance Armstrong.

If you’re a cycling enthusiast who really could rattle off the names of a few other favorite athletes, then bless your heart, but of course you probably still realize that Armstrong is the only name that comes to most people’s minds. He won the Tour de France an amazing seven times, and survived a battle with testicular cancer that made him an inspirational figure to many fans. He remains a dedicated crusader against cancer, having established the highly successful Livestrong foundation.

Bicycle racing at the Tour de France level is a grueling test of endurance. So is beating cancer. The philosophy of Armstrong’s foundation is based on the link between the two – “We believe in energy: channeled and fierce. We believe in focus: getting smart and living strong,” as the Livestrong manifesto puts it.

But the one thing Armstong’s perseverance couldn’t defeat was an out-of-control quasi-governmental agency with government funding and a single-minded vendetta against him. On Thursday night, Armstrong announced that he would no longer continue his three-year battle against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which was never able to produce a single conclusive test to prove Armstrong guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs… but relentlessly persecuted him anyway.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in L.A. investigated Armstrong for two years, without filing any charges, but that didn’t matter to the USADA. Armstrong noted that some of the charges leveled against him by the anti-doping agency far exceeded their 8-year statute of limitations. He also pointed out in his statement on Thursday that various international cycling organizations declared the USADA’s proceedings improper, questioned their authority to conduct the investigation, called upon them to cease and desist, and advised other athletes to refrain from cooperating in the Armstrong persecution.

The USADA’s case rests entirely on hearsay – witnesses claiming to have seen Armstrong doping before races, even though incredibly extensive medical testing found no conclusive evidence. Armstrong alleges that corrupt testimony from these riders was obtained with special deals from the USADA. It’s a classic example of a witch hunt, in which the target must be guilty, even though science says he is innocent, because several other people insist upon his guilt.

“If I thought for one moment that by participating in USADA’s process, I could confront these allegations in a fair setting and – once and for all – put these charges to rest, I would jump at the chance,” Armstrong said in his statement.“But I refuse to participate in a process that is so one-sided and unfair. Regardless of what [USADA chief] Travis Tygart says, there is zero physical evidence to support his outlandish and heinous claims. The only physical evidence here is the hundreds of controls I have passed with flying colors. I made myself available around the clock and around the world. In-competition. Out of competition. Blood. Urine. Whatever they asked for I provided. What is the point of all this testing if, in the end, USADA will not stand by it?”

And why won’t they stand by it? Why did they work so hard to bypass their own standards, and obtain a “victory” in defiance of clinical procedure? It couldn’t be because the agency would have felt institutionally embarrassed by letting Armstrong walk away after picking a fight with him, could it? Or was personal embarrassment by certain top bureaucrats the issue? Did the agency feel a need to mount a high-profile head above its fireplace, to prove its importance? When does the investigation of this investigation start, and who will conduct it?

The USADA has banned Armstrong from cycling for life, and attempted to strip him of his seven Tour de France titles, but it appears that only the International Cycling Union has the power to take his titles away. You would think the USADA bureaucrats would have known that before issuing a pronouncement they have no power to enforce… but they don’t exactly seem to be sticklers for the rules over there, do they?

“The bottom line is I played by the rules that were put in place by the UCI, WADA and USADA when I raced,” said Armstrong. “The idea that athletes can be convicted today without positive A and B samples, under the same rules and procedures that apply to athletes with positive tests, perverts the system and creates a process where any begrudged ex-teammate can open a USADA case out of spite or for personal gain or a cheating cyclist can cut a sweetheart deal for themselves. It’s an unfair approach, applied selectively, in opposition to all the rules. It’s just not right.”

People have said plenty of bad things about Armstrong, whose admirable qualities and sporting achievements do not insulate him from personal criticism. In that respect, he’s just like the rest of the human race. But his critics can’t seem to do two things: prove he was cheating, or beat him in a bicycle race.

The Washington Post quotes USDA chief Tygart, who must have been struggling to hold back his tears: “It is a sad day for all of us who love sport and our athletic heroes. This is a heartbreaking example of how the win-at-all-costs culture of sport, if left unchecked, will overtake fair, safe and honest competition.”

He got the “win-at-all-costs culture” part right, but it’s not the sport of cycling we need to be worried about.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

#302 (8/26) - Sunday Special > "Christian Citizenship"

[FYI #1 - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

FYI - As usual on Sundays, please try to catch this week's broadcast of "Truth That Transforms." (In Central Florida, 9-9:30 am, 10-10:30 am, 5-5:30 pm; check your TV listings) or watch it at www.truthinaction.org. This week's very timely message is entitled “Building A Christian Nation" and helps Christians to determine the values they should vote for.
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- The following is a commentary by the late D. James Kennedy, posted on August 1, 2012, by Truth In Action Ministries [See the article after the one below to find out how you can REGISTER TO VOTE and PRAY for our country. - Stan]

Jesus Christ declared, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21)

In that verse we can clearly see that there are two spheres in which we are to render our due responsibilities — the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world.
America began with godly men who came to these shores to worship Jesus Christ and advance His Kingdom. God blessed their efforts and America became the greatest nation on earth. But what happened?

Today we live in a land of rampant sexual immorality, abortion, drug use, and violence of every sort. Education, which used to be the pride of this nation, has become a disgrace. Well, what happened along the way from Plymouth Rock until now? Upon whom shall we lay the blame?

Do you remember the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster? In the final scene the monster goes berserk, wreaks havoc upon the townspeople, a number of them are killed, and now he attacks Doctor Frankenstein and destroys his home.
A friend of Dr. Frankenstein says to him, “What has happened here?”
Dr. Frankenstein replies: “A monster did this.
“A monster? Where did it come from, Dr. Frankenstein?”
“Well… I made it myself.”

You see, we have to acknowledge that a great deal of the blame must be laid at the doorstep of the church. We failed to obey the Great Commission of leading others to Christ and the Cultural Mandate to be involved in every sphere of activity. We retreated from politics and government and the media and higher education, and we left it to unbelievers. We have failed to fulfill our responsibilities as citizens, and we have failed to obey the command of Christ to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.

The purpose of government is to defend its citizens and restrain evildoers that we may live godly and peaceable lives. But we have had a government that all too often has failed to defend its citizens and has encouraged evildoers rather than restraining them.

Well, how do we render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s? First of all, we should pray regularly, faithfully, and daily, for those who are in power — for our President, the Supreme Court, the Congress, and those who rule locally. Secondly, we should register to vote. Millions of evangelical Christians are not even registered to vote. Do you realize that we could have totally changed every election that has taken place in the last 50 years if we simply voted? Christians have had it in their power to change all of these things that we lament and complain about, and we just haven’t done it. Voting, for non-Christian Americans, is a privilege and a responsibility. But for Christians, it is a DUTY demanded by God that we should fulfill.

Thirdly, we should educate ourselves regarding the important moral issues facing our nation. Also, we need to examine what the candidates themselves stand for, and then vote as God would have you vote.

I wonder what people will say to their grandchildren when they ask, “Granddaddy, What were you doing when America became a godless nation? What did you do to stop that?”

We can stop it and we can change it if we will simply be obedient to what Jesus Christ told us to do and fulfill our responsibilities as Christian citizens. All the blessings this nation has enjoyed have come from Jesus Christ, and it’s up to us to bring Him and His teachings and His Gospel back to this country so that we can once more say, “God bless America, land of the free.”

[bold and italics emphasis mine]
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Voter Registration Will Be Critical in 2012, Posted on August 1, 2012 by Dr. Karen Gushta, http://www.truthimpact.me/index.php/author/k-gushta/

... About 30 percent of eligible American voters are not registered. The number of unregistered Christian voters is higher. Of the 60 million evangelical Christians in the United States, 40 percent are not registered. This year, two organizations are trying to change this.
Both ChampiontheVote.com and iVoteValues.org offer online voter registration, volunteer mobilization, and church voter registration packets.

This year’s election is crucial. In 2008, nearly 15 million newly-registered voters tipped the election for the winner. As Christian citizens, it is our civic duty to vote. If you’re not registered, please register, and then vote your values in November.

(1) Be sure to be REGISTERED TO VOTE. To get details of doing that in your state, go to > http://www.cbn.com/special/register-to-vote/

(2) For a review of the CRITICAL ISSUES to consider in your voting, please go to > http://www.truthinaction.org/PDF/Final_Voters_Guide.pdf

(3) ALSO, BEGIN PRAYING FOR THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS; Download a free prayer guide at > http://www.prayerconnect.net/resources/prayer-guides/2012-election-prayer-guide

#301 (8/25) - Items for Prayer From the Past Week

[FYI - My GENday is Sept.19th. When is YOURS?]

Hurricane Isaac Threatens to Swamp Republican Convention,, August 22(Source: ABC News, National Weather Service)

Hurricane Isaac, currently a tropical storm brewing southeast of Puerto Rico, is on track to hit Florida the same day that Mitt Romney and 50,000 Republican delegates, journalists, protestors and guests descend on Tampa for the Republican National Convention. While it is too early to accurately predict the storm’s path, ABC meteorologist Max Golembo said it will hit southern Florida. Whether it will skim the east coast near Miami or crash head-on into Tampa, is still up in the air.

As the Lord leads, please pray: •About the path of Hurricane Isaac and the havoc it can create all along its progression.
•For the organizers and attenders of the Republican Convention, their safety, and the logistics of planning an alternate convention time if the need arises.
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Risk of Double-Dip Recession Rises in U.S., August 22

The odds the United States will slip back into recession next year have risen, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said, citing risks from the European debt crisis and budget tightening at year-end. The US ratings firm raised the chance of the US falling into recession to 25 percent, up from a 20 percent chance estimated in February, as the world’s largest economy struggles to recover from a severe 2008-2009 slump.

It also pointed to the looming possibility of the government being forced by existing law to severely cut spending and increase taxes on January 1, the so-called fiscal cliff that would crunch the economy.

"Economic activity has downshifted sharply from earlier this year," S&P said in a report on North American credit conditions amid global uncertainty, dated August 20.
"At the same time, possible contagion from the European debt crisis, the potential so-called ’fiscal cliff’, and the risk of a hard landing for China’s economy have added greater uncertainty to US economic prospects," it said.(Source: American Foreign Press, Wall Street Journal)

As the Lord leads, please pray:
•About the national and international economic downward trends and what can be done to reverse them.
•About the impact on American family budgets if the economy takes another recessionary dip.
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Two U.S. Special Ops Troops Killed by Afghan Soldier in Training, August 17

Two American soldiers were part of a U.S. special operations team tasked with training local Afghan military and police forces in Farah province in Western Afghanistan, were killed by an Afghan recruit only moments after he had been handed a weapon...Including Friday’s shootings in Farah province, 11 American soldiers have been killed by Afghan forces in what the Pentagon is now calling "insider attacks" over the past two weeks... The Pentagon is planning to ramp up counterintelligence operations to ferret out insurgents or sympathizers who might have infiltrated the ranks of American, NATO and Afghan forces.(Sources: The Hill, New York Times)

As the Lord leads, please pray:
•About the need for trust between U.S. and NATO forces and the Afghan nationals being trained to take over security.
•For efforts to ferret out the insurgents and those intent on betrayal.
•For the families of our military men and women being lost to these attacks.
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Pakistani Christians, Fearing Backlash, Flee Community after Girl Accused of Blasphemy, August 20

Everyone in the teeming, tense community of Muslims and Christians just outside Islamabad seems to have a different story about the young girl and the Koran.

The 12-year-old Christian deliberately burned the Muslim holy book, some say. No, she innocently put pages from a non-sacred teaching text into the trash, say others, and nothing was burned. Still another version holds that an older Muslim boy planted pages of the Koran for the cleaning girl to find, and leveled the accusation of desecration because she had spurned him. Amid the conflicting claims, this much is certain: As many as 600 Christians have fled their colony bordering the capital, fearing for their lives, officials said, after a mob last week called for the child to be burned to death as a blasphemer.

The girl, whom authorities have described as having Down syndrome, now sits in jail in Rawalpindi, charged by police with blasphemy, while her family has been put in federal protective custody.

Under Pakistani law, those found guilty of defaming the Islamic prophet Muhammad face the death penalty, while defiling the Koran can bring a life sentence. The case of the girl is the fourth in recent months to alarm human rights advocates, who say the law is frequently used to persecute Christians and also has been unfairly applied to the mentally ill - including some Muslims.
(Source: Washington Post, Reuters, Associated Press, Fox News)

As the Lord leads, please pray:
•For Christians in Pakistan who fear persecution.
•For the young girl in protective custody and her family,that they might be strong in the face of potential mob violence from their Muslim neighbors.

#300 (8/24) - "Obama’s Medicare Fear Mongering Will Drown In the Facts"

[FYI - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

PRAYER REQUEST:Hurricane Isaac Threatens to Swamp Republican Convention,, August 22 (Source: ABC News, National Weather Service)

"Hurricane Isaac, currently a tropical storm brewing southeast of Puerto Rico, is on track to hit Florida the same day that Mitt Romney and 50,000 Republican delegates, journalists, protestors and guests descend on Tampa for the Republican National Convention. While it is too early to accurately predict the storm’s path, ABC meteorologist Max Golembo said it will hit southern Florida. Whether it will skim the east coast near Miami or crash head-on into Tampa, is still up in the air."

As the Lord leads, please pray: •About the path of Hurricane Isaac and the havoc it can create all along its progression.
•For the organizers and attenders of the Republican Convention, their safety, and the logistics of planning an alternate convention time if the need arises.
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By: David Limbaugh; 8/17/2012 http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/17/obamas-medicare-fear-mongering-will-drown-in-the-facts/

Analysts may be correct that the presidential election won’t primarily turn on entitlements reform, but by choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney can, contrary to conventional wisdom, make it a winning issue and lay the foundation for a reform mandate when he wins.

Besides, the economy and entitlements are wholly integrated issues: We cannot ultimately fix the economy long term without entitlement reform, and we can’t balance the budget or retire the debt without a growing economy.

Democrats appear jubilant about the Ryan pick, believing his close association with entitlement reform provides an opening for them to scare seniors into thinking they’ll lose Medicare and Social Security benefits. But what they haven’t factored in, or are pretending to deny, is that Ryan’s presence on the ticket ensures that Romney and Ryan will tackle the entitlements issue head on and that Democrats will not have the luxury of merely fear mongering. They’ll have to deal with the substance of these issues, and this is a battle they cannot win, because the facts are their foe.

Let’s examine these facts briefly.
No one can reasonably deny that Medicare is headed for insolvency, and that Medicare’s insolvency, if not rectified, will lead to the federal government’s insolvency. President Obama has admitted that Medicare is on an unsustainable course and that no amount of tax increases can fix it. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that Medicare spending has increased fivefold in the past 42 years, dramatically more than all other categories of federal spending.

Short of severe price controls ordered and enforced by Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, which common sense and the history of such controls demonstrate will not work to reduce costs absent rationing and radical reductions in access to care, Obama has no plan to restructure entitlements. Only a restructuring of the program can work.

The Ryan-Wyden plan (Sen. Ron Wyden is a Democrat), which Romney has essentially embraced, is a type of hybrid system that includes market reforms while guaranteeing comprehensive coverage for Medicare beneficiaries. That is, the law would provide guaranteed coverage, but the costs for such coverage would not be unilaterally determined by the government and thus open-ended, out of control and manageable only by rationing boards (resulting in reduced access to care), but by a competitive process.

Under the current system (and under Obamacare), the government sets the price (the reimbursement), and the absence of competition guarantees spiraling costs and/or rationing. Under Ryan-Wyden, a bidding process among insurance providers, including a federal insurance provider, would determine the government’s premium-support payment to Medicare beneficiaries and would ensure that their out-of-pocket costs won’t exceed those under the current system unless they choose a more expensive option. This bidding process — competitive by definition — would contain or reduce costs.

Recent studies have shown that such competition works. The Medicare Advantage program, which was far less ambitious than Ryan-Wyden, produced a 9 percent cost reduction. The savings under Ryan-Wyden should be substantially greater.

Team Obama has no plan of its own and no credible rebuttal for the Ryan-Wyden model, so they have begun a vigorous disinformation campaign to distort the Romney-endorsed plan.

They say his plan would end Medicare as we know it. To the contrary, it is the only plan on the table that has a chance of saving Medicare from insolvency. Those now 55 and older would receive Medicare benefits as they currently exist. As for all others, they would receive the same type of comprehensive coverage (though the costs of that coverage would be reduced through market forces), and the older, sicker and poorer would receive preferential treatment.

In fact, it is Obama, not the GOP, who has assaulted Medicare, robbing it of $716 billion to shore up Obamacare. Obama can’t deny that he’s pilfered this money from Medicare, but speciously argues that it is a cut to health care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries. But cuts to health care providers always result in a reduction to access. Indeed, Obama’s own Medicare actuaries have warned that these cuts could result in providers discontinuing their participation in Medicare.

Obama also fraudulently claims that Ryan’s original plan didn’t put Obamacare’s stolen $716 billion back into the Medicare fund, either. But Ryan’s plan never took that money out in the first place because it involved a full repeal of Obamacare. Romney, for his part, clearly doesn’t contemplate robbing the Medicare fund.

Obama doesn’t believe in market reforms and so has no ideas other than to impose top-down cost controls, which cannot work. His re-election guarantees the insolvency of Medicare — and ultimately of the entire federal government.

The Romney-Ryan plan preserves benefits for current and future seniors and would drive costs down through competition, thereby shoring up Medicare’s solvency and averting the principal driver of national insolvency.

This is a debate Obama can’t win on the merits, so expect increasing demagoguery, fear and stridency. But the truth will prevail.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

#299 (8/23) - "Pentagon Official: Sequestration a Step Toward ‘Hollow’ Military Force"

[FYi - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

- Tray Smith, August 6, 2012; http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/06/pentagon-official-sequestration-a-step-toward-hollow-military-force/

A senior Defense Department official testifying before the House Armed Services Committee last week said implementing sequestration, across-the-board budget cuts set to take effect in January, “would represent a major step toward creation of an unready,‘hollow’ military force.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s second-in-command, told House members that sequestration “introduces senseless chaos into the management of more than 2,500 defense investment programs” and “would be devastating to DoD, just as it would to every other affected federal agency.”

The cuts would take almost $55 billion out of the national security budget next year. Among the consequences Carter listed, it would:

•Result in fewer people to fix weapons, including weapons damaged in war.
•Force cuts in base support services, facility maintenance and maintenance of government-owned family housing.
•Delay payments to service providers through the Defense Health Program, which provides health care for retirees and military dependents.
•Indiscriminately reduce more than 2,500 procurement programs, research projects and military construction projects.
•Force military managers to buy fewer weapons, including four fewer F-35 aircraft, one less P-8 aircraft, 12 fewer Stryker vehicles, and 300 fewer Army medium and heavy tactical vehicles compared with the President Obama’s budget for 2013.
•Delay the new CVN-78 carrier,the Littoral Combat Ship program, and the DDG-51 destroyer procurement.
* Outside of the armed forces, Carter said the cuts “would have devastating effects on the intelligence community.”

Several members of the House Armed Services Committee issued similarly dire warnings about sequestration last week at a YG Network Summit on Capitol Hill, moderated by The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano. “Imagine if there is a day though where we’re involved somewhere, something kicks off, we need a carrier in the region, and there’s just literally no option,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said at the event. “That’s a potential. That’s nothing we’ve ever imagined but it could happen.”

Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) said that while the cuts would be painful for the military, they wouldn’t make a significant difference in the federal budget deficit.“If we eliminated the whole discretionary budget, everything, take all the spending out of education, research and development, law enforcement, infrastructure, and defense — eliminate it all — we would still be running a deficit of a half a trillion dollars a year,” McKeon said.

The defense sequester would total $492 bill over the coming decade and come on top of $487 billion in cuts the Pentagon will already be forced to absorb under last year’s Budget Control Act. The defense cuts equal half of total spending cuts under the sequester, even though defense spending only makes up 11 percent of total federal outlays.

The cuts would come even as the military faces continued threats abroad and aging military equipment. On average, B-52 bombers are nearly 50 years old, long-range bombers are nearly 35 years old, midair refueling tankers are 49 years old, and fighter aircraft are 22 years old. Carter said he could not even outline a plan that would mitigate the consequences of sequestration.

“The reason for this is that sequester was designed to be an inflexible and mindless policy,” he said. “It was never designed to be implemented. Instead, it was enacted as a prod to Congress to devise a comprehensive package to reduce the federal deficit.”

Tray Smith is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

#298(8/22)- Say What! - "Sales Tax Holiday Only A Gimmick ..."

[FYI - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

- from Newsmax.com; August 12

Sales tax holidays that exempt certain items from state and sometimes local sales taxes will be held in 17 states this year, with supporters continuing to tout their economic benefits. But a new report from the Tax Foundation argues that the holidays are “politically expedient but poor tax policy.”

Tax holidays often exempt back-to-school supplies, clothing, computers, and hurricane preparedness items, and politicians and other backers claim they boost sales, create jobs, and benefit lower-income Americans. But the Tax Foundation report states: “Political gimmicks like sales tax holidays distract policymakers and taxpayers from genuine, permanent tax relief. If a state must offer a ‘holiday’ from its tax system, it is a sign that the state’s tax system is uncompetitive. If policymakers want to save money for consumers, then they should cut the sales tax rate year-round.” The foundation makes several points casting doubt on the economic benefits of sales tax holidays:

* Rather than stimulating new sales, tax holidays simply shift the timing of sales. A 1997 study in New York found that while sales of exempted items rose during the holiday, overall retail sales for the year did not increase, because shoppers waited until the holiday to purchase exempted goods, slowing down sales in the weeks before and following the holiday. Retailers often raise prices during the holiday, reducing consumers’ savings. The more consumers the holidays turn out, the more demand goes up, and the more prices rise, because retailers are not required to keep prices at non-holiday levels.

* Most tax holidays involve politicians picking products and industries to favor with exemptions, “arbitrarily discriminating between products and across time, and distorting consumer decisions,” the report observes. [This is what is called "crony capitalism" where government chooses the winners and losers in the economy.]

* Tax holidays are not an effective way of providing relief to the poor. “To give a small amount of tax savings to low-income individuals, holidays give a large amount to others,” the report also states. Any increase in employment during the holidays will be modest and temporary, and costly for businesses that must hire and train temporary employees. The report concludes: “Sales tax experts and economists widely agree that there is little evidence of increased economic activity as a result of sales tax holidays. Experience shows that the claims of economic stimulus, increased revenue, and consumer savings are greatly exaggerated. The holidays instead represent a costly-to-administer revenue loss for the government.”

Noting that the District of Columbia canceled its sales tax holidays beginning in 2009 after a study found they did not spur enough growth to offset costs, the Foundation adds: “Other states would be wise to follow D.C.’s lead and re-evaluate the costs and benefits of sales tax holidays.”

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

#297 (8/20) - "Two Women, Two Legacies"

[FYI - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

PRAYER REQUEST: Dallas Steps Up War on West Nile Virus, Friday, August 17

A warm winter and recent rains have helped prompt a surge in cases of West Nile virus nationwide, and the toll is so severe that Dallas officials planned to conduct aerial spraying for the first time in more than four decades to kill mosquitoes that spread the potentially fatal disease.

A total of 693 cases of West Nile virus, with 26 deaths, have been reported nationwide this year to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of Aug. 14-the highest number of cases since the disease was first detected in the U.S. in 1999. Nearly a quarter of the cases and 10 of the deaths have occurred in Dallas County, making it a hot spot of transmission ..." (Sources: Dallas WFAA-TV News, Wall Street Journal, ABC News)

As the Lord leads, please pray:
•That the mosquito population will be controlled by the spraying and the West Nile virus contained.
•For other regions across the nation considering how to deal with the fatal disease.
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http://online.worldmag.com/2012/08/15/two-women-two-legacies/
by Barbara Curtis, August 15, 2012,

Like many moms who’ve had to navigate the supermarket checkout lines with children in tow, I’ve held a special place of contempt for Cosmopolitan magazine, whose shocking headlines at kids’-eye level have been polluting young minds for more than 40 years—not to mention the damage to a few generations of lost young women.

On becoming editor in 1965, Helen Gurley Brown quickly changed a women’s magazine from one with tips on food and fashion and decorating and diets, to a racy rag preaching a gospel of sex, sex, and more sex. In Brown’s vicious may-the-sexiest-woman-win world, all traditions and conventions were off. So your boss is married? So he has three kids? So what? If you want him, go for it, girl! No guilt, no regrets.

Brown made her final personal headline Monday, dead at the age of 90, wealthy but childless. But what did that matter when—according to the cultural elite—she was personally responsible for liberating young women from the goal of husband, family, and home, and replacing it with a sex and pleasure-driven lifestyle, like the one eventually celebrated in the TV series Sex and the City. She empowered women, they said, overlooking the fact that she had made them sexual slaves, trying to keep happy with uncommitted sex while being unconcerned with the havoc they wreaked in the lives of husbands and fathers and children.

Another woman died Monday: 88-year-old Nellie Gray, a more modest role model whose life was dedicated to saving families, lives, love, and hope. Gray’s service as a corporal in the Women’s Army Corps (WACS) during World War II changed the direction of her life. According to Father Frank Pavone, founder of Priests for Life: “The reality of the Holocaust made a profound impression upon her, as did the Nuremburg Trials, to which she often referred in explaining her pro-life position. At issue for her were not the numbers of people killed, vast and disturbing as those statistics are. “For Nellie, the horror was that a single human life had been intentionally taken. That was the point at which government transgressed its proper authority. That was the evil that had to be stopped.”

In 1974, on the first anniversary of Roe v. Wade decision, Gray organized a March for Life in Washington, D.C., which evolved from a one-time event into a growing coming-together of pro-life groups from across the country, and she had been involved every year since, serving as a voice for unity in the midst of disagreements and infighting among well-intentioned but passionate political players.

Gray was also responsible for bringing to light the terrible toll abortion has had on fathers and other family members—as well as the holocaust within the black community: While only 13 percent of the female population is minority, that group accounts for 36 percent of the abortions.

Two women, two legacies, both with legacies reaching well beyond their lifetimes — a reminder to each of us to look to our own lives and to make the most of what time we have left.

[I've heard a quote by Ms. Brown that went, "Good girls go to Heaven; bad girls go everywhere else." Why is it we can assume Ms. Brown is somewhere else than Heaven? - Stan]

[bold and italics emphasis mine]