Abortion Restrictions Approved in 22 States

According to the Washington Examiner, “70 new anti-abortion laws OK'd in 22 states, second most ever”

Planned Parenthood objects to upgrade requirements now legally placed on their “women’s health care” abbatoirs. Incorporating modern health practices is not in the cards for many of the human abbatoirs, and so they close down.

“Some 22 states enacted 70 new provisions to target abortion last year, the second most ever, prompting an outcry from Planned Parenthood, which accused “out-of-touch Tea Party politicians” with using “every underhanded trick in the book to get these laws passed.”

A new report from the Guttmacher Institute said that the 70 provisions were second in number to the nearly 90 approved in 2011. The group said that 205 abortion restrictions were approved over the past three years, more than the 189 enacted during the previous decade.

The report also noted that many states increased access to abortion, such as California, but it was mostly critical of the more conservative states and efforts to reduce abortion.

Among the examples of “abortion restrictions” cited by the report were provisions by states to involve parents in the decision by a child to get an abortion, waiting periods, public funding and counseling.”

There must be NO parent involved in a child's abortion; there must be NO waiting period to think it over; there must be NO ultrasound to show a moving, living unborn child; there must be NO oversight of abortion clinics by anyone, ever; on and on. This is "women's health care", and/or "privacy?", and/or CHOICE to kill one's progeny without any moral qualms, and/or all of the above... IFF you are a human female-supremicist and a moral arbiter who is morally qualified to kill other humans at any stage of human development and life.

Institutionalizing The Non-family Family

Two friends who don't even live together have been given the judicial green light to adopt a child together. In other words, none of the three individuals are related, except via the adoption papers. The concept of family has taken another step toward extinction.

“They spent years planning and hoping” for a child, and their dream came true in 2011, when KAL was able to adopt a child — identified as G. — from Ethiopia.

They traveled to Africa together to bring the baby home, but because they weren't married, only KAL was able to adopt, filings say
.
When they returned to the U.S., the pair petitioned Manhattan Surrogate's Court to have LEL named as a second legal parent, even though they don't live together and are not romantically involved.

Manhattan Surrogate's Court Judge Rita Mella ruled that a couple who are not romantically involved are legally allowed to adopt a baby, the first ruling of its kind in New York.

Manhattan Surrogate's Court Judge Rita Mella ruled that a couple who are not romantically involved are legally allowed to adopt a baby, the first ruling of its kind in New York.

In a landmark ruling, Judge Rita Mella did so.

“From the moment they met G,, more than two years ago now, KAL and LEL have functioned as her parents," the judge wrote in a decision from last month.

“G. calls KAL ‘Mommy’ and LEL ‘Daddy,’” and “although they live in separate households,” they “have created a nurturing family environment for G., including a well-thought-out, discussed and fluid method of sharing parenting responsibilities between their homes.”

The once-radical idea that any group of people which lives together is a family has now expanded to include those who like each other at a distance.

What's next?

MSNBC Is Offended

MSNBC complains about - wait for it - mocking. AGW is not to be mocked. Those who mock are anti-science and believe that Jesus will return. And they're all in the pay of certain evil corporations. There’s a great interview with Michael Mann The Persecuted, and two toadies from the uberLeft. Oh yes, this: cold is just "winter"; Colorado wildfires are "climate change". Oh yeah: now I see the light.

But I have the answer: burn more dirty coal. Getting that good sulfur and soot into the atmosphere will solve all the problems of heat retention by preventing the original insolation. Sort of a sulfur-soot umbrella or heat shield. China is doing its part. What's a little acid rain when we're SAVING THE EARTH? Besides, the effluent could be pumped directly into the outer atmosphere with 30 mile high inflatable smoke stacks (you read it here first).

But as for direct mockery, the facts serve that end without embellishment: The chinese ship which now has the "rescued" Global Warming researchers aboard is now stuck in the ice. This self-mocking expedition might provide fodder for its own ridicule all summer down there, just by reading the news.

MIT's Remote 3D Touching Development

This will spiral off into usefulness similarly to the 3D printing spiral.

Krugman's Racism

Paul Krugman is a consistent race-baiter and self-indulgent Messiah. Of course there is not direct evidence of racism for him to present. The evidence is found in the conservative/tea party rejection of the Left's Messiahist capture of blacks into the Victimization plantations; dissent is "racist" because dissent is never morally acceptable under Leftist Rules of Intolerance of Dissent.

In fact, it is the Left's racist rejection of minorities who deny the Left of the gratification of placing them onto the Leftist Victim Plantations which is overtly racist, rather than any racism which is found on the Right:

As for blacks who are favorites of the Tea Party, either nationally or locally, they include Herman Cain, Allen West, and Mia Love as well as Thomas Sowell (the Stanford economist who deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics at least as much as Krugman), Walter Williams, and Larry Elder. But all these African-Americans must be ignored, because for the Left, the only good "Negro" is the martyred "Negro" — the one who constantly thinks he and his like are victims and therefore votes for the victimization party (i.e., the Democrats).

Currently, one favorite of the Tea Party crowd for presidential candidate in 2016 is Dr Benjamin Carson, a neurosurgeon who is offering a free-market alternative to Obamacare that would keep prices down and Washington's brand-new army of bureaucrats out of the health care system. His skin, too, is darker than Obama's.

But all these inconvenient facts must be ignored or belittled by media people like Krugman in order to push the narrative that America is an intolerant hell hole of prejudice populated by hordes of despicable racists.

The Left needs Victims, or its Messiahism would be seen for what it is: totalitarianism.

RIP: WWII Ace Bill Overstreet has died

The Greatest Generation is nearly depleted. It must be remembered.

Bill Overstreet was a WWII Ace, renowned for flying under the arches of the Eiffel tower in pursuit of a German plane. That act gave hope to the French opposition. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor, France's highest, in 2009. Overstreet gave the credit to his friends on the ground who helped him but did not make it back.

Every generation has the capability of generating greatness from amongst its ranks; their generation found fruition.

Earth Warming Stories

Warmist expeditionists to Antarctica rescued from ice by chopper. 98% of media coverage ignores the fact that they were global warmists on a global warmist mission.

Earth warming faster than expected.

U.S. ushers in 2014 with record-low temps, snow

Black Leftist Racism

A black associate professor blames ‘southern white radicals’ for Obamacare debacle

“[S]outhern White radicals vowed to stop implementation of the Obama-care law leading one to wonder if Tea Party members would oppose affordable healthcare if it came from a nonBlack [sic] President,” writes Browne-Marshall."

And,

"It’s not clear how Browne-Marshall reasoned her way to the conclusion that “southern White radicals” derailed Obamacare. As College Insurrection notes, a CNN poll conducted just before Christmas shows that 62 percent of Americans oppose the president’s signature legislation."

More than 4.7 million Americans have had their health insurance cancelled as a result of the massive new healthcare regime. At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday that, between federal and state exchanges, just 2 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare coverage. (RELATED: It’s official: Obamacare debuts with more cancelled plans than enrollments)

From the Race Law Society:

Ms. Browne-Marshall is an Associate Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) and the Graduate Center where she teaches Constitutional Law, Race and the Law, and Evidence and is a member of the Gender Studies faculty. She has published articles on racial justice in the field of education as well as book chapters on international criminal tribunals and the rights of female inmates living with HIV/AIDS. She is a Civil Rights attorney who has litigated cases on behalf of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc.. She is a member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc..

Concealed Carry Vs. Crime and Assault Weapons Bans Vs. Murders

Abstract from a study of Carry Laws and Crime:

"Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level."
[Emphasis added]

The purpose of gun restrictions and bans is not for reduction of crime or murder; it is for the long term protection of totalitarians.

Headline of the Day

Obama pollster: Reporters should stop covering polls in 2014

Quote of the Day

"The media's love affair with Obama is ending the same sad way as so many crushes: "You're not the person I was pretending you are!"

Sanity Inspector at instapundit.

Sphexism, Physicalism, Syntactical Engines and Semantic Engines, Not to Mention Cognitive Zombies

An interesting article over at Feser's place, with a different approach from the Chinese Room argument, and yet much the same. This time it is the robotic actions of the Sphex wasp as compared to the intellectually exploratory capacities of humans.

"Now, Dennett, perceptive fellow that he is when he wants to be, argues in Chapter 2 of his book Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting that any purely physical system is going to be essentially sphexish. The reason is that qua physical such a system can only ever be sensitive to syntactical properties, and syntactical properties can never add up to semantic properties. Now a non-sphexish creature would have to be sensitive to semantic properties. Hence a purely physical and thus purely syntactic system is inevitably going to be a sphexish system. Dennett thinks it can at least approximate non-sphexishness, however, because a sufficiently complex “syntactic engine” will in his view at least approximate a perfect “semantic engine.” And sphexishly dogmatic materialist that he is, Dennett insists that human beings are purely physical. Hence, though we seem non-sphexish, Dennett insists that we really are sphexish, but -- being exquisitely complex syntactical engines -- in so subtle a way that for practical purposes we can treat ourselves as if we were not.

But as Howard Robinson points out in the introduction to his edited volume Objections to Physicalism, Dennett’s position is a muddle. A purely syntactical engine will not even approximate a perfect semantic engine, because it will fail to be semantic at all. Syntax by itself doesn’t get you imperfect semantics; it gets you exactly zero semantics, just as the ketchup kids use for blood at Halloween time will never get you even imperfect real blood no matter how much of it you pour out. Dennett knows this, which is why (as Robinson notes) he has to resort to the essentially instrumentalist position that our sophistication as complex syntactic engines makes it useful for us to interpret ourselves as if we were semantic engines. But this too is a muddle, for interpretation is itself an act that presupposes real semantics rather than a mere ersatz. Dennett’s further reformulations of his position (e.g. in his paper “Real Patterns”) only ever paper over this fundamental incoherence rather than resolve it, but his dogmatic materialism makes him think there must be some way to make it something other than the reductio ad absurdum that it is.

As is the usual case, the Materialist seeks only to justify his presuppositions, not to investigate and accept logically derived conclusions.

There is magic associated with "complexity" just as the magic which is designated to "deep time": these can turn X into Z, just because. This magical thinking is necessary to bend the mind away from noticing the actual non-material nature of human existence. It can be explained in terms of magical capabilities of complexity and deep time etc. even though there is no possible mechanical cause which is attached; just the magic. It is another symptom of the religiosity of Atheists as they protect their own theory of origins with unprovable, antirational dogma.

Says Feser:

"It is not a kind of inductive inference to the effect that since we usually act unsphexish, we must really be unsphexish (as if further empirical evidence could in principle lead us to revise this “opinion” about ourselves). It is much simpler and more obvious and conclusive than that. It is that we have things sphexish creatures do not have: concepts. End of story. The reasoning isn’t: “We don’t act very sphexish; therefore we must have concepts.” It’s rather: “We have concepts; that’s why we don’t act very sphexish.”

And finally,

Now, you’ll recall from a recent post the notion of a cognitive zombie -- a creature physically and behaviorally identical to a normal human being, but devoid of concepts and thus devoid of the other aspects of rationality. You might think that a cognitive zombie would be sphexish, but that is a mistake. If it was sphexish, it wouldn’t be behaviorally identical to a normal human being, and thus by definition wouldn’t be a cognitive zombie. A true cognitive zombie would be something which would, like a sphexish creature, be devoid of concepts, but which, like a normal human being, would behave as if it had concepts.

The notion of sphexishness thus helps to clarify the notion of a cognitive zombie. If ya think I’m sphexy, then you don’t think I’m a cognitive zombie. A sphexy Rod Stewart on his best day wouldn’t pass for a cognitive zombie. A James Brown sphex machine wouldn’t pass either. People magazine’s Sphexiest Man Alive definitely wouldn’t be a cognitive zombie. The notion of a cognitive zombie is the notion of something as utterly devoid of concepts as the simplest of any of Dennett’s purely syntactical engines, but whose lack of concepts is nevertheless more perfectly undetectable than that of even the most complex and perfect of Dennett’s syntactical engines. Is this notion even coherent? I think not, but that is a topic for another time.

NSA and ANTs In Your...

...pretty much everything. The NSA has invaded pretty much everything digital, from your computer's BIOS to its harddrives to routers:

The ANT division doesn't just manufacture surveillance hardware. It also develops software for special tasks. The ANT developers have a clear preference for planting their malicious code in so-called BIOS, software located on a computer's motherboard that is the first thing to load when a computer is turned on.

This has a number of valuable advantages: an infected PC or server appears to be functioning normally, so the infection remains invisible to virus protection and other security programs. And even if the hard drive of an infected computer has been completely erased and a new operating system is installed, the ANT malware can continue to function and ensures that new spyware can once again be loaded onto what is presumed to be a clean computer. The ANT developers call this "Persistence" and believe this approach has provided them with the possibility of permanent access.

Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of the latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies.

Other ANT programs target Internet routers meant for professional use or hardware firewalls intended to protect company networks from online attacks. Many digital attack weapons are "remotely installable" -- in other words, over the Internet. Others require a direct attack on an end-user device -- an "interdiction," as it is known in NSA jargon -- in order to install malware or bugging equipment.

The very first website I ever designed had a backdoor placed in it for my own amusement. Back then it was known that Al Qaeda was using such devices to communicate, and it was incredibly simple to do - just create a page with no apparent link and a complex name.

Getting embedded into a target BIOS is a different level of digital burglary, and I think would be hard to detect without some external engineering tools (I could be wrong).

Here's For A Better New Year...

For One and All!

Last Media Lie of the Year?

I rarely watch network news anymore, but tonight I watched CBS (Constant Bull Shit) Nightly News report on the ice bound ship in Antarctica's frozen AGW. They called the ship a "passenger ship", and all the people aboard were referred to as "passengers". There was precisely NO mention of the research nature of the ship and its global warmist team. The prejudicing of the CBS viewership was obvious, and anyone who knows anything about what is going on in the real world would immediately have seen the deception.

Headline of the Day

Scientists Trapped In Record Sea Ice Announce That It Is Disappearing

For the Irony Impaired: This Is Irony

Antarctic global warming expeditionists trapped in ice may have to be rescued by helicopter; Updated

Chopper rescue of Global Warmist expedition trapped in ice is abandoned due to snow storm.

Wait... even though they are trapped unexpectedly in sea ice, the sea ice is disappearing, yet it is killing the forests of algae beneath because it is increasing? And the change toward cooling might have all these possible bad effects? These people are incoherent!

The Mawson expedition 100 years ago found the same spot to be wide open sea:



But this is all just weather, of course.

And they still need more money: