TOUCHING PHOTO OF BABY GRASPING DOCTOR’S FINGER FROM THE WOMB DURING C-SECTION GOES VIRAL

It’s not the first time such a moving photo has been taken, but the imagery of a baby’s finger reaching up out of the womb is causing a stir in the pro-life community yet again.

The image snapped of the baby being delivered via a Cesarean section in Phoenix in October was released just before the new year and has gone viral. According to AZFamily.com, the photo of Nevaeh — heaven spelled backwards — reaching into the outside world she was about to join has been viewed more than 10,000 times and liked by more than 1,000 people on Facebook.
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The Truth About The Emancipation Proclamation

In all the hullabaloo about the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln January 1, 1863, and the ensuing worship of St. Abe for freeing the slaves, it is a sure thing that the truth about the document will be lost.

To begin with, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave. It applied only to slaves in the states "in rebellion" – the Confederacy – where the Union had no power or authority, thus having about as much real effect as the famous (putative) papal bull against Halley’s comet. And it did not apply to the Border states where there still was slavery (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri). In other words, as Secretary of State William Seward remarked ironically at the time, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

But then, it was not really intended to liberate anybody. It was, as Lincoln took care to spell out, a "military measure," issued under the President’s authority as commander-in-chief, and its real purpose was to undermine the Confederate Army. This would be accomplished, Lincoln hoped, first by encouraging slaves to take over the plantations so that they would no longer be supplying foodstuffs for the soldiers, and second by causing plantation owners serving in the army to desert and rush home to protect their wives and children from the presumably dangerous freedmen.

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4 Surprise Tax Perks In The "Fiscal Cliff" Deal

Now that there's been time to digest the "fiscal cliff" deal that passed Congress, it turns out that negotiators didn't just help out individuals, families, the unemployed, doctors and milk consumers. Tucked into the 150-plus page bill are several tax perks for businesses - businesses you probably didn't even know needed tax perks.

To be clear, these are renewals of existing tax breaks that were set to expire, so they weren't plucked out of thin air during negotiations over the weekend. However, the fact that they were included in a bill that was the result of such acrimonious debate got the attention of some House members who were against the deal.

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As Offline Retail Dies, Commercial Real Estate Apocalypse Looms

As we do more and more of our shopping while sitting on our couches in our pajamas with an Ultrabook, we’re destroying a glorious American institution: the mall. Realspace retailers large and small alike have gone bankrupt and shut down or scaled back: a process that the recession only sped up. The best case scenario? Those former malls might become community colleges or gain some condos. What’s more likely? Rotting husks of shopping centers dotting our cityscapes, dragging down property values and making everyone sad.

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Gun Purchasers Set New Record In December: FBI

The number of FBI background checks required for Americans buying guns set a record in December, as the Connecticut school massacre stirred interest in self-defense and prompted renewed talk of limits on firearms, according to FBI data.

The FBI said it recorded 2.8 million background checks during the month, surpassing the mark set in November of 2 million checks. The number was up 49 percent over December 2011, when the FBI performed a then-record 1.9 million checks.

Consumer demand for guns appears to have accounted for the uptick in activity. There were no changes in FBI background check procedures that would have affected the December numbers, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said.
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Sandy Hook And Pre-emptive Civilian Disarmament

Civilian disarmament advocates insist that the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre illustrates the dangers of inadequately restrictive firearms laws. That assumption is impossible to reconcile with the fact that Connecticut’s state government regards individual firearms ownership not as a right but as a highly conditional privilege subject to revocation without notice, on the whim of an unaccountable bureaucrat.

In 1999, the Connecticut legislature enacted Sec. 29-38c, a measure allowing the police to confiscate firearms from anybody believed to pose "a risk of imminent personal injury to himself … or to other individuals." All that is required is a sworn complaint "by any state’s attorney or assistant state’s attorney or by any two police officers to any judge of the Superior Court." A warrant will then be issued allowing police to confiscate the firearms and hold them for up to a year.

The gun confiscation measure was enacted in October 1999, about a year and a half after the last pre-Sandy Hook mass shooting to occur in the Nutmeg State. The assailant, Matthew Beck, was an ex-employee of the Internal Revenue Service who at the time was employed as an accountant at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation.

A few months before the March, 1998 massacre, Beck had been granted a medical leave for stress-related symptoms. His application for a promotion had been denied. Several of his co-workers and relatives had become concerned about his emotional state. Some of his close friends believed that Beck suffered from suicidal depression. But nobody had expected that he would arrive at work one morning, take out a Glock, and start gunning down his supervisors.

As is always the case in episodes of this kind, the shooter ended the rampage on his own terms, killing himself before the police arrived. The on-scene security guard was similarly useless: The only aid he provided was to suggest to the victims that they take refuge in a wooded area nearby.

Just weeks after the shooting, State Representative Michael Lawlor introduced the gun confiscation measure.

State police Lieutenant Robert Kiehm explained to the Associated Press that the purpose of the measure is to give police officers the power "to take some proactive steps instead of waiting for something to happen."

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State Of The Chesapeake Bay’s Health: D+

The Chesapeake Bay’s health continues to suffer from pollution from sewage plants, septic systems, farm and urban runoff and air emissions, according to the latest “State of the Bay” report.

The nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation again gave the bay a subpar grade - 32 or a D+ - in its report, which was issued on Wednesday.

“We can see a saved bay in our future, but a D+ is not a good enough grade,” said Will Baker, longtime president of the bay foundation.

The foundation’s report evaluates 13 areas for pollution, wildlife and habitats.
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Redbook Ticks Off Internet After Copying Blogger’s Idea

Here’s the thing about the Internet: It can facilitate the spreading of ideas and information at an astounding rate, but this dissemination can come at the expense of that materials’ source. So at what point does a cool notion go from being the brainchild of an individual to becoming something owned by the faceless hive mind?
Just think of all the photos you see posted to Facebook that are already three generations removed from a source that may or may not be the original. How many jokes get passed around with complete disregard to the author?

It’s exactly this sort of question being raised by blogger Jen Yates, most widely known as the mind behind CakeWrecks.com, who in April 2011 posted a clever instructional piece (on her other site Epbot.com) on how to turn a typical wire clothes hanger into a hanger specifically for flip-flops (and other lightweight shoes).

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Al-Jazeera buys Current TV from Al Gore

LOS ANGELES — Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that has struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV, Al Gore confirmed Wednesday.

Gore and his partner Joel Hyatt announced the sale in a statement.

"Current Media was built based on a few key goals: To give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling," Gore and Hyatt said.
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Can You ID This Person?

 

 Can you ID this person. Wanted for theft of purse from a 90 yoa female while she was shopping at KMart. If you can ID this person please call the Salisbury Police Department at (410) 548-3165

WAR ON KWANZAA! WISC. SEN. BLASTS ‘RACIST’ ‘HARDCORE LEFT-WINGER’ HOLIDAY

Created by “racist” college professors in the 1960′s, Kwanzaa is a holiday that “almost no black people today care about” and it only exists because it’s being kept alive by “hardcore left-wingers,” or so says Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.), according to Patch.

“Why must we still hear about Kwanzaa?” the senator asked in a press release. “Why are hard-core left wingers still trying to talk about Kwanzaa — the supposed African-American holiday celebration between Christmas and New Year’s?”

Needless to say, Democrat party leaders were quick to condemn Sen. Grothman’s “absolutely jaw-dropping” comments.
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Wet Sidewalks Cause Rain

Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? and ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

~ Mark Twain

My wife and I are very fortunate: we have two automobiles that have the kindest, and most congenial and responsible dispositions. In the years that we have owned them, they have neither gotten us drunk and crashed us into a busload of schoolchildren, nor have they driven us along a freeway at 120 mph, weaving in and out of traffic. I might add that none of our previous cars engaged in any such acts, leaving me thankful that they have chosen not to endanger our safety, or that of our children and grandchildren. Perhaps my wife and I know how to select "nice" vehicles; cars with a pleasant state of mind; unlike those that manage to extend their powers of causation to other drivers.

As I write this article, I am informed that a van carrying Chinese kindergarten children plunged into a pond, killing eleven youngsters. Are we to conclude that Chinese vehicles are more inclined to destroy human life than are those in the West? We do know that there are various substances – such as alcohol, drugs, and tobacco – whose use forces men and women into an irresistible submission to their powers. We are also being told – by those who most of us accept as being more knowledgeable than ourselves (e.g., politicians, academicians, people in the mainstream media) – thatguns also have this capacity to exercise their wills over us; to make us do their bidding.

Why are so many of us inclined to accept the proposition that inanimate things and forces in the universe have the capacity to act through intentionality; to substitute their will for ours, and to make us do things we might never choose to do on our own? The answer to this question can be traced back to the patterned conditioning to which we were subject in early childhood. Like our tribal ancestors, we modern humans embarked on institutionally-defined and centered social systems, and have been conditioned to think of ourselves as extensions of the organizations that have succeeded in setting their purposes above our own. In so doing, we have not only made ourselves subservient to institutions, but have become what David Riesman defined as "other-directed" persons. Truth, moral principles, useful standards of conduct, our sense of being and purpose in life, and all other considerations bearing upon human motivation and behavior, are qualities prescribed and enforced by authorities in the organizational hierarchy.

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JUDGE SAYS TEXAS CAN CUT OFF FUNDING FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Texas can cut off funding to Planned Parenthood’s family planning programs for poor women, a state judge ruled Monday, requiring thousands to find new state-approved doctors for their annual exams, cancer screenings and birth control.

Judge Gary Harger said that Texas may exclude otherwise qualified doctors and clinics from receiving state funding if they advocate for abortion rights.

Texas has long banned the use of state funds for abortion, but had continued to reimburse Planned Parenthood clinics for providing basic health care to poor women through the state’s Women’s Health Program. The program provides preventive care to 110,000 poor women a year, and Planned Parenthood clinics were treating 48,000 of them.
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3 Men Walk Into A Bar

William Marotta, Kansas Sperm Donor To Lesbian Couple, Fighting Child Support Payments

A Kansas man who answered an online ad to donate sperm to a lesbian couple is fighting the state's efforts to force him to pay child support for the girl subsequently conceived through artificial insemination.

Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Angela de Rocha said Wednesday that the agency would not be pursuing payment if the state hadn't provided more than $6,000 in benefits for the child after the Topeka couple split. She says the state tries to establish a child's paternity when benefits are involved.

Court records show that the sperm donor, 46-year-old William Marotta, signed an agreement in March 2009 giving up parental rights to the then-couple, Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner. The agreement also absolves Marotta of financial responsibility. The state contends the agreement isn't valid.
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Clinton Injured, US Navy Seal Killed In Secret US Mission To Iran

A new Foreign Military Intelligence (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today is saying that United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [photo 2nd right] was injured, and a topUS Navy Seal Commander killed when their C-12 Huronmilitary passenger and transport aircraft crash landed nearly 3 weeks ago in the Iranian city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border.

Iranian intelligence agents quoted in this GRU report confirm that the C-12 Huron aircraft is still in their possession in Ahvaz, but will only admit that the plane was “forced to land because of technical problems”.

The US Navy Seal member reported killed in this bizarre incident, this report says, was indentified asCommander Job W. Price [photo 3rd right] who as a leader of this highly specialized American Special Forces unit protects high-ranking diplomats traveling in Middle Eastern and Asian combat zones.
Curiously, US media reports on Commander Price’s death say it being investigated as a possible suicide as he died from what the American Defense Department describes as “a non-combat related injury”.

Equally as curious, US media reports state that Secretary Clinton will return to work next week after her having suffered what they describe as a “nasty bout with stomach flu” and a “concussion” which have kept her missing from public view the past three weeks.

This GRU report, however, states that US military flight logs recorded by Russian air and space forces confirm that Commander Price, and other members of US Navy SealTeam 4, left their base in Urozgan Province, Afghanistan on a flight to US Naval Support Activity Bahrain where they met up with Secretary Clinton and all of them transferred to the C-12 Huron that began a flight path to Baghdad, Iraq.

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Nationwide Drug Shortage Has Local Impact On Maryland Hospital

A yearslong, nationwide shortage of medications for a variety of ailments has had an impact at the local level.

Many of the shortages affecting pharmacies, physicians and patients across the country involve sterile injectables -- IV medications -- that include anesthesia, chemotherapy and critical care drugs, according to Joseph Morrissey, Frederick Memorial Hospital's director of pharmacy services.

In recent months, about 50 medicines FMH uses have been in short supply, roughly 20 of which are critical, Morrissey said. Generic medications tend to make up a majority of the drugs.
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President Obama On The "Fiscal Cliff" Agreement

Colo. Theater Shooting Kin Reject Movie Invitation

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — Relatives of the majority of people killed in a Colorado movie theater rejected an invitation on Wednesday to attend its reopening later this month, calling it a "disgusting offer."

The parents, grandparents, cousins and widow of nine of the 12 people killed released a letter sent to the theater's owner, Cinemark, in which they criticized the Plano, Texas-based company for not reaching out to the families of victims to offer their condolences. They also said the company refused to meet with them one-on-one without lawyers present.

The families said they were asked to attend an "evening of remembrance" followed by a movie when the Aurora theater reopens on Jan. 17 in invitations sent two days after Christmas. 
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QUOTE OF THE DAY 1-2-13

“A credibility trap is a condition wherein the financial, political and informational functions of a society have been compromised by corruption and fraud, so that the leadership cannot effectively reform, or even honestly address, the problems ot that system without impairing and implicating, at least incidentally, a broad swath of the power structure, including themselves.

The status quo tolerates the corruption and the fraud because they have profited at least indirectly from it, and would like to continue to do so. Even the impulse to reform within the power structure is susceptible to various forms of soft blackmail and coercion by the system that maintains and rewards.

And so a failed policy and its support system become self-sustaining, long after it is seen by objective observers to have failed. In its failure it is counterproductive, and an impediment to recovery in the real economy. Admitting failure is not an option for the thought leaders who receive their power from that system.

The continuity of the structural hierarchy must therefore be maintained at all costs, even to the point of becoming a painfully obvious hypocrisy.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.”

JESSE