Main Stream Media Admits that Adult Stem Cell Therapy Works!

In the Veggietales episode Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler, there’s a short called “The Asparagus of La Mancha,” where Archibald is a restaurant order named Don who goes to war against a windmill-themed chain restaraunt across the street.

In one segment, Don changes his restaurant to a Starbucks-style cafe with the motto: “Joppa Java: Why pay a little bit for coffee when you can pay a lot?”

It is well established outside the US that adult stem cell therapy works, and that it is fairly simple and inexpensive (sample the patient’s own stem cells, sometimes from saliva, sometimes from bone marrow; adapt them as necessary; culture them; inject them back into the relevant body part of the original patient and watch the damage heal).

For years now, the pro-life community has been reporting advances in adult stem cell therapy, while the MSM remains silent, and advocates of embryonic stem cell research claim that pro-lifers have made up their facts on ASCR.

Well, here’s an ABC news story about a Texas police officer who was healed from paralysis by stem cell treatment he received in China. Not only that, but it’s a Yahoo! Headline!

I’m sure the Left will find some way to steer this as a story in favor of embryonic stem cell research. If they were honest, they would adopt as their motto a paraphrase of Mr. Lunt’s “Poncho”:

“Embryonic Stem Cell Research: why pay a little for treatment when you can pay a lot?”

(Heck, that should already be the motto of the AMA and FDA).

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What does it say about American Catholics that my "Natural Family Planning" news ticker only brings up news from the Philippines?

In loosely related news, VeggieTales teaches the difference between the Phillistines and the Philippines 🙂

Thanks, Speaker Pelosi, for inspiring a sea change among the bishops

Bishops who have already rebuked Pelosi:

1. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver
2. Bishop James Conley, his auxiliary bishop
3. Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington DC
4. Cardinal Justin Regali of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities
5. Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, chairman of the Committee on Doctrine
6. Cardinal Edward Egan of New York
7. Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo
8. Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh
9. Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs
10. Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio
11. Bishop Oscar Cantu, his auxiliary bishop
12. Bishop William Murphy of Rockville
13. Bishop Edward Slatter of Tulsa
14. Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas
15. Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin
16. Bishop James Slattery of Tulsa
17. Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston
18. Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando
19. Archbishop John Nienstedt of Saint Paul/Minneapolis
20. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, President of the US Bishops
21. Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, OR
22. Bishop Jerome Listecki of La Crosse, WI
23. Bishop Richard Lennon of Cleveland, OH
24. Bishop Ralph Nickless of Sioux City, IA
25. Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco
26. Bishop Glen Provost of Los Angeles

Plus, the USCCB has issued an official statement on Joseph Biden.

McCain starts to challenge Neocons

Now, obviously I disagree with some of his disagreements with Bush (e.g., ESCR, and I’m hoping his position there will change), but given that torture is a big albatross for the GOP, and McCain has been waffling a bit on it during this campaign, hopefully he will come out now with a strong anti-torture position, eliminating one of the arguments Catholics have against him.

McCain overtakes Obama in the Polls

Looks like Obama’s aura is Palin, and we’re just Biden our time till he loses in November. 🙂

800 Radicals Arrested at RNC

At the DNC, only 13 pro-lifers were arrested, in an event arranged by Randall Terry, who intentionally planned to be arrested–and, according to this account, it sounds like they were very peaceable about the whole thing.

When the protesters first gathered at the gate, people with convention
passes were able squeeze behind them to get through. When protesters sat
down in the street, Terry asked an aide for the “red phone,” a cell phone he
used to call police. He could be heard saying “Lieutenant, we’re here at the
gate.”
Then some of the protesters moved closer to the gate, blocking it. Secret Service officers shut it and directed convention-goers to another gate. Protesters sang a Catholic hymn, “Salve Regina.” They said one Hail Mary for the police officers before a lieutenant approached them. Reading from a card, he cited the city ordinance they were violating and warned them they would have to leave or be arrested.
After he read the warning for a second time, things went slightly off script. Some bystanders began to call on police to arrest the protesters immediately. One man shouted that protesters were terrorists. A protester shouted back, “What do you call
abortion?” An officer told the crowd the protesters would be gone in a few minutes.

The lieutenant read the third warning, and Terry reminded anyone who wanted to leave to do so. As officers lined up to remove the protesters, they began to chant: “Deny Biden communion.”

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Obama’s vice presidential choice, is Catholic.

Uhh, no he’s not.

Meanwhile, a bunch of “anarchists” and “peace activists” were arrested at the DNC.

This is quite different from these folks:

Younger people did cartwheels. Tourists came by to check out the spectacle. The chants, which were political at the outset, turned silly a couple hours in.
“You’re sexy, you’re cute, take off the riot suit,” protesters serenaded those blocking their path.

On a tangential note, I was surprised to learn that Randall Terry converted to Catholicism in 2005. Prior to that, he divorced his first wife in 2000, married a woman with whom he’d already been committing adultery. One of his kids is now a Muslim, and another is gay.

Weird.

The Catholic Left Shows its true colors

Researching a recent story I will be writing about later, I found some group from Michigan called “Catholics for the Common Good.” On their website, they say the following:

“Download ‘Life Does Not End at Birth’ Ad placed by Pax Christie in newspapers across the United States [emphasis added]”

Apparently, they do not worship Jesus Christ, but some female goddess named “Christie.”

The Seven Liberal Arts

Concerning the purposes of an Education

Even the media are starting to change their tunes!

OK, Peggy Noonan isn’t happy

Vatican responds to calumnies against Cardinal Newman.

Archbishop Amato at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has recruited the world’s leading Newman expert, Fr. Ker (the article doesn’t give us his first name), to write an article in L’Osservatore Romano refuting the claims that Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman was secretly gay. The main basis for this is his close friendship with Fr. Ambrose St. John and request that they be buried together.

Among other things, he points out that the Lewis brothers were buried together and that G. K. Chesterton’s secretary asked that her ashes be buried in the same grave as her employer and his wife (both of whom regarded her as a daughter).

Apparently some pro-choice women like Sarah Palin

And Palin had her photo taken with them. Big deal.

Tax collectors and sinners, people

Vlasic’s in a Pickle: B16 Bomber’s targeting Medjugorje

So, it turns out that the infamous Fr. Tomislav Vlasic is guilty of the sexual improprieties of which he’s been accused over the years. He fathered a child with a nun, and he’s been running a co-ed “spiritual community” in Italy.

Not anymore. Pope Benedict XVI has formally suspended him in the first stage of what is seen as a “crackdown” on the Medjugorje situation:

Benedict XVI has authorised ‘severe cautionary and disciplinary measures’
against Father Tomislav Vlasic, the former ‘spiritual director’ to six children
who said Our Lady was appearing to them at Medjugorje in Bosnia.
The
Franciscan priest has been suspended after he refused to cooperate into claims
of scandalous sexual immorality ‘aggravated by mystical motivations’.
He has
also been accused of ‘the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of
consciences, suspected mysticism and disobedience towards legitimately issued
orders’, and is suspected of heresy and schism.

Vatican responds to calumnies against Cardinal Newman.

Archbishop Amato at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has recruited the world’s leading Newman expert, Fr. Ker (the article doesn’t give us his first name), to write an article in L’Osservatore Romano refuting the claims that Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman was secretly gay. The main basis for this is his close friendship with Fr. Ambrose St. John and request that they be buried together.

Among other things, he points out that the Lewis brothers were buried together and that G. K. Chesterton’s secretary asked that her ashes be buried in the same grave as her employer and his wife (both of whom regarded her as a daughter).

Even Giuliani supports Palin

See? I told you so!

I have said for years that the key to elections is not the “independents” but the “stay at home” conservatives. For decades after the “Monkey Trial,” Evangelicals stayed out of American politics. They were mobilized in the 1970s with the dawn of the “Religious Right.” In 1976, conservatives were mad at Nixon and Ford. Ford lost; Carter won. In 1980, Reagan mobilized a coalition. It led to 2 terms of Reagan & 1 term of Bush Sr. By 1992, Bush Sr. ticked off conservatives. Buchanan and Perot pulled away different factions. Clinton won. In 1996, Dole was boring. Many contenders pulled apart the former Reagan Coalition. Clinton won.
In 2000, Dubya managed to form a new coalition under the impression that he was the second coming of Reagan; Gore was scary. People who’d otherwise have voted third party or not at all came out to vote for Bush, and he won. In 2002, he was the most popular president in history. While his popularity was waning in 2004, and while he was, as Limbaugh put it, looking more like Nixon than Reagan, conservatives still came out to vote for him–and against Kerry.

In 2006, Bush’s popularity plummeted. He was seen as having betrayed almost every one of his core constituencies in some way. Republicans had had a secure lock on the presidency, Senate and House for 2 years. They could have rolled through a whole agenda of conservative issues.

They dropped the ball on abortion and any number of other issues. They *used* their majority to try and help Terri Schiavo, but they backed down to the judiciary’s unconstitutional refusal to obey Congress, and further solidified Judicial Tyranny.

In 2006, Republicans lost: not because Americans had lost faith in conservatism, but because conservatives had lost faith in Republicans. Meanwhile, the Michael Moore Pothead Anarchists came out in droves.

As 2008 loomed, I a Republican win possible only with two conditions: a strong conservative nominee against Hillary Clinton. When the media nominated McCain, Romney and Giuliani back in mid 2007, I couldn’t see any one of them mustering enough of the various factions of the Right to even beat Hillary, much less Obama.

The thing people don’t understand is that the Michael Moore anarchists and the Ralph Nader communists will vote for Al Gore or John Kerry if they see it promoting their agenda. American Life League-style pro-lifers, National Rifle Association members, libertarians, anti-taxers and strict constructionists won’t vote for “the lesser of two evils.” They only vote for someone who they perceive as favoring their convictions. In the end, while Russell Kirk always insisted that conservativism is not about ideology, it is about ideals. Liberalism is ultimately about the quest for power. Republicans usually talk about their convictions . Democrats usually talk about power.

When McCain won the nomination, I kept holding out hope for two things: his wife and his running mate. I’ve withheld my decision on whom to vote for until finding out about the VP.

Another one of my long-held maxims is that we won’t see a truly pro-life administration till we see a pro-life first lady (Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush are all pro-abortion). Cindy McCain is the real deal, regardless of her husband’s issues, and she has shown in the past that she can sway him.

Now, we get Sarah Palin, who, literally out of left field (or, rather, Northwest Field), has mobilized the Right.

Pat Buchanan is happy.

Rush Limbaugh is happy.

Laura Ingraham is happy.

Judie Brown is noncommittal. (but she has to be, especially on EWTN’s forums)

Fr. Deacon Paul Weyrich is happy.

Torture loving “Catholic” Kathryn Jean Lopez is grudging.

The collective editors of National Review are happy.

Keyes apparently isn’t happy, but many of his columnists at www.renewamerica.us are.

Liberals are furious. Obama’s numbers have gone up among baby-killing feminazis.

That is a good thing.

Conservative women are happy. NRA types are happy. Pro-lifers and Evangelicals are happy. Many Catholics are happy.

There is suddenly major hope for this election to be a complete turnaround: a renunciation of both the Democrats and Dubya’s Big Government “Conservatism.”

Remember, Bush may be the lowest-rated president in history right now, but his ratings are still higher than those of the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Thank you, Liberal Blogosphere

It’s funny. We keep hearing from the Left about alleged lies spread by conservatives regarding Democratic candidates. For example, supposedly 2004’s “Swift Boat Vets” have been “discredited” in their complaints against John Kerry but the only arguments against them I’ve seen have been ad hominems , while the evidence the Swift Boat Vets presented was pretty clear: including recordings of different speeches where Kerry gave contradictory statements on his Vietnam record.

Then there’s the attempt to say the “Obamessiah” idea is entirely made up by the Right.

But the Left concocts cockamamie conspiracy theories all the time on little or no evidence (e.g., Pius XII was a Nazi; T. S. Eliot was gay; Mother Teresa was a megalomaniac). The latest, which sprouted up this weekend, was that Gov. Palin faked her last pregnancy, and that her eldest daughter was the one who was really pregnant.

Well, it turns out that rumor was partly true. 17 year old Bristol Palin is, indeed, five months pregnant, and engaged to marry the baby’s father.

So, in an attempt to dig up a scandal, the liberals have, in fact, increased Gov. Palin’s pro-life street cred: we now have *2* incidents in her immediate family where the Demonocrats would take for granted that one should have an abortion.

In fact, we now have a direct antithesis to Obama’s infamous comments that he would not want his daughters “punished” for their “mistakes”.