Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good, But never actually come close to reality?
Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship.
You will see no cute little smiley faces on this card -- Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.
1.... When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.
2.. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
3.... When you smile -- I will know you are thinking of something that I would probably want to be involved in.
4.. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get until you're NOT.
5.. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining..
6.. When you are confused -- I will try to use only little words.
7.. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have...
8.. When you fall -- I will laugh at your clumsy ass, but I'll help you up.
9.. This is my oath.... I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask; because you are my friend.
Friendship is like wetting your pants, everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Is Assassination Ever Justified?
The recent disclosure that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was developing a program to track down and kill individual Al Qaeda leaders has re-awakened legal and ethical questions about assassination as a tool of national policy. The program had been kept hidden from Congress until this spring, when it was uncovered and cancelled by the current C.I.A. director, Leon Panetta. In a succession of executive orders, Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan had proscribed assassination as a policy of the U.S. government.
President George W. Bush, in “an intelligence finding,” without formally rescinding the earlier prohibitions, authorized “lethal covert actions” against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda operatives. Previously, the government had been using pilotless aircraft to target terrorist camps. The new plan involved deploying teams of assassins to kill individual senior terrorists, requiring the assassins to strike “at two feet instead of 10,000 feet,” according to an intelligence official quoted by The Washington Post. The anticipated benefit of assassination over drone attacks is a potential decrease in “collateral” civilian casualties.
The new program, according to some analysts, violated the spirit, if not the letter, of executive orders issued by previous presidents. Those executive orders came in the wake of a series of government reports on U.S. intelligence activities in the 1970s that detailed abuses of power. Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba and the brothers Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu of Vietnam.
Just War Analysis. The new disclosures have prompted a debate about how government-sponsored assassination should be viewed in light of the Catholic moral tradition on just war theory. Traditional just war theory was inclined to prohibit assassination of political and military leaders on two grounds. The first was that to “decapitate” the enemy might make negotiation of peace more difficult and lead to protracted fighting as a result of chaos or competition for command in the enemy ranks. The other was that civilian political leaders were technically “innocents”—that is, they were not bearing arms and directly threatening the other side. Armed personnel were permitted to attack only other armed personnel.
The emergence of global terror networks intent on mass terror raised new questions. Are terrorists, who are not members of a national army, but are carrying out lethal attacks often under civilian cover, open to direct attack as if they were armed military? Is the fight against terrorism best carried out as “a war against terror” or as an international police action?
David L. Perry, a former ethics professor at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., addressed the matter in a 1995 issue of The Journal of Conflict Studies: “Just as it is not a crime to kill the enemy during wartime, so too should it not be regarded as a crime or a morally reprehensible act when a nation, acting in concert with its obligation to protect its own citizens from harm, seeks out and destroys terrorists outside its borders who have committed, or are planning to commit atrocities on its territory or against its citizens.” Yet “the assassin in effect acts as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner combined; the target is precluded from being represented by counsel before an impartial court,” added Perry.
Gerard F. Powers of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, distinguished among targets of assassination. “You’re not talking about killing political leaders. You’re talking about killing Al Qaeda leaders. You’re talking about killing terrorists,” he said. “If terrorism is treated primarily as a crime, then the targeted killings would probably be problematic, unless they occurred in the effort to arrest. And all the normal rules of police work apply,” Powers added.
“But to the extent that terrorism can be seen as an act of war, then the targeted killings of known terrorists who are actively engaged in terrorism, or actively planning terrorist acts, then the terrorist becomes more like a combatant in war,” he explained. “And the same criteria that would apply to war would apply to the killings of terrorists.” In the case of Al Qaeda, Powers said, there “are elements akin to war” and “others more akin to crime. That’s where the issues become blurred.”
President George W. Bush, in “an intelligence finding,” without formally rescinding the earlier prohibitions, authorized “lethal covert actions” against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda operatives. Previously, the government had been using pilotless aircraft to target terrorist camps. The new plan involved deploying teams of assassins to kill individual senior terrorists, requiring the assassins to strike “at two feet instead of 10,000 feet,” according to an intelligence official quoted by The Washington Post. The anticipated benefit of assassination over drone attacks is a potential decrease in “collateral” civilian casualties.
The new program, according to some analysts, violated the spirit, if not the letter, of executive orders issued by previous presidents. Those executive orders came in the wake of a series of government reports on U.S. intelligence activities in the 1970s that detailed abuses of power. Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba and the brothers Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu of Vietnam.
Just War Analysis. The new disclosures have prompted a debate about how government-sponsored assassination should be viewed in light of the Catholic moral tradition on just war theory. Traditional just war theory was inclined to prohibit assassination of political and military leaders on two grounds. The first was that to “decapitate” the enemy might make negotiation of peace more difficult and lead to protracted fighting as a result of chaos or competition for command in the enemy ranks. The other was that civilian political leaders were technically “innocents”—that is, they were not bearing arms and directly threatening the other side. Armed personnel were permitted to attack only other armed personnel.
The emergence of global terror networks intent on mass terror raised new questions. Are terrorists, who are not members of a national army, but are carrying out lethal attacks often under civilian cover, open to direct attack as if they were armed military? Is the fight against terrorism best carried out as “a war against terror” or as an international police action?
David L. Perry, a former ethics professor at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., addressed the matter in a 1995 issue of The Journal of Conflict Studies: “Just as it is not a crime to kill the enemy during wartime, so too should it not be regarded as a crime or a morally reprehensible act when a nation, acting in concert with its obligation to protect its own citizens from harm, seeks out and destroys terrorists outside its borders who have committed, or are planning to commit atrocities on its territory or against its citizens.” Yet “the assassin in effect acts as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner combined; the target is precluded from being represented by counsel before an impartial court,” added Perry.
Gerard F. Powers of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, distinguished among targets of assassination. “You’re not talking about killing political leaders. You’re talking about killing Al Qaeda leaders. You’re talking about killing terrorists,” he said. “If terrorism is treated primarily as a crime, then the targeted killings would probably be problematic, unless they occurred in the effort to arrest. And all the normal rules of police work apply,” Powers added.
“But to the extent that terrorism can be seen as an act of war, then the targeted killings of known terrorists who are actively engaged in terrorism, or actively planning terrorist acts, then the terrorist becomes more like a combatant in war,” he explained. “And the same criteria that would apply to war would apply to the killings of terrorists.” In the case of Al Qaeda, Powers said, there “are elements akin to war” and “others more akin to crime. That’s where the issues become blurred.”
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Disturbing Finding on the Abortion Front
Use of RU-486 quietly on the rise
July 21, 2009
Special Note: Please visit our new blog, "While We're at It," dedicated to enriching the quality of contemporary moral discourse. We hope you'll stop by often.
ru486 Planned Parenthood, the nation's single largest provider of abortions, has recently engaged in some damage control to mend its image, tarnished by association with the chemical abortifacient RU-486. First some background.
RU-486, the "abortion pill" (chemical name mifepristone and not to be confused with the "morning after pill" Levonorgestrel, an over the counter emergency contraceptive) was approved by the FDA in 2000.
Mifepristone works by blocking the normal functioning of progesterone, a hormone necessary for the maintenance of pregnancy. The immediate consequence is the degeneration of the uterine lining and the blocking of nutrition to the fetus resulting in its death. Mifeprex is used in combination with a prostaglandin called misoprostol which then causes the cervix to dilate, and the uterus to contract and expel its lining and the now-deceased child.
RU-486, we might add, is also the only FDA-approved drug that has as its purpose the death of a living human being.
The drug's approval was forced through by President Clinton's administration, which dubiously approved the drug under a provision of drug law reserved solely for drugs developed to treat "serious or life-threatening illnesses" (of which pregnancy is not).
RU-486 was under intense scrutiny by the House of Representatives' Drug Policy Subcommittee before the Democrats took over the majority in 2006. The Subcommittee reported that as of April of 2006, the FDA acknowledged the deaths of six women associated with the drug, nine life-threatening incidents, 232 hospitalizations, 116 blood transfusions, and 88 cases of infection.
The high infection rate, deaths of otherwise healthy women who took this drug, and the intense scrutiny (at the time) of Congress and the FDA prompted Planned Parenthood, in particular, to change the way it administers the drug.
Tragically, use of RU-486 has slowly been on the rise, and according to the most recent study, accounts for 25 percent of all early abortions (abortions through 9 weeks gestation).
Under the FDA-approved protocol for administering the drug, it must be administered within 49 days gestation; patients are to be given 600mg of Mifeprex to consume at once; they are then to be instructed to return two days later to consume orally 400mcg of misoprostol. Many providers, including Planned Parenthood, deviated from the FDA protocol by extending the use of RU-486 to as long as 56 and even 63 days of gestation, cutting the dose of Mifeprex by two-thirds, and providing patients with misoprostol pills to insert vaginally at home two days later. In 2006, there were two more deaths of women who received RU-486 from Planned Parenthood facilities. For its part, the nation's biggest abortion provider quickly corrected itself to get in line with the FDA protocol. But its image was tarnished.
That brings us to last week's news that Planned Parenthood has sponsored a study which found that the altered regimen (providing antibiotics and administering the drugs orally according to the FDA protocol) causes fewer severe infections in the women taking the drug.
The study was blatantly self-serving for PP, but then again, that doesn't surprise us, does it?
So fewer women are developing infections and other severe health effects, but babies continue to be aborted. That RU-486 accounts for 25% of all early abortions is a sobering and disturbing statistic. And abortion providers are taking advantage of that stat to present this procedure as a "safe," (notwithstanding the lingering dangers) "natural" (because it mimics a natural abortion, or miscarriage) and convenient (do-able "in the privacy of your own home" though in actuality it involves at least 3 visits to the abortion provider).
A convenient, safe, natural way of surmounting the inconvenience of an embryonic human life.
Fortunately, the science of human embryology continues to steer our culture -- and the language we employ to talk about the human embryo -- toward clarity, honesty and truth. Truth on the beginning of human life, and the dangers to women's health in the age of chemical abortions, cash-for-eggs and other schemes, is the only way ahead.
***
Rev. Thomas V. Berg, is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.
July 21, 2009
Special Note: Please visit our new blog, "While We're at It," dedicated to enriching the quality of contemporary moral discourse. We hope you'll stop by often.
ru486 Planned Parenthood, the nation's single largest provider of abortions, has recently engaged in some damage control to mend its image, tarnished by association with the chemical abortifacient RU-486. First some background.
RU-486, the "abortion pill" (chemical name mifepristone and not to be confused with the "morning after pill" Levonorgestrel, an over the counter emergency contraceptive) was approved by the FDA in 2000.
Mifepristone works by blocking the normal functioning of progesterone, a hormone necessary for the maintenance of pregnancy. The immediate consequence is the degeneration of the uterine lining and the blocking of nutrition to the fetus resulting in its death. Mifeprex is used in combination with a prostaglandin called misoprostol which then causes the cervix to dilate, and the uterus to contract and expel its lining and the now-deceased child.
RU-486, we might add, is also the only FDA-approved drug that has as its purpose the death of a living human being.
The drug's approval was forced through by President Clinton's administration, which dubiously approved the drug under a provision of drug law reserved solely for drugs developed to treat "serious or life-threatening illnesses" (of which pregnancy is not).
RU-486 was under intense scrutiny by the House of Representatives' Drug Policy Subcommittee before the Democrats took over the majority in 2006. The Subcommittee reported that as of April of 2006, the FDA acknowledged the deaths of six women associated with the drug, nine life-threatening incidents, 232 hospitalizations, 116 blood transfusions, and 88 cases of infection.
The high infection rate, deaths of otherwise healthy women who took this drug, and the intense scrutiny (at the time) of Congress and the FDA prompted Planned Parenthood, in particular, to change the way it administers the drug.
Tragically, use of RU-486 has slowly been on the rise, and according to the most recent study, accounts for 25 percent of all early abortions (abortions through 9 weeks gestation).
Under the FDA-approved protocol for administering the drug, it must be administered within 49 days gestation; patients are to be given 600mg of Mifeprex to consume at once; they are then to be instructed to return two days later to consume orally 400mcg of misoprostol. Many providers, including Planned Parenthood, deviated from the FDA protocol by extending the use of RU-486 to as long as 56 and even 63 days of gestation, cutting the dose of Mifeprex by two-thirds, and providing patients with misoprostol pills to insert vaginally at home two days later. In 2006, there were two more deaths of women who received RU-486 from Planned Parenthood facilities. For its part, the nation's biggest abortion provider quickly corrected itself to get in line with the FDA protocol. But its image was tarnished.
That brings us to last week's news that Planned Parenthood has sponsored a study which found that the altered regimen (providing antibiotics and administering the drugs orally according to the FDA protocol) causes fewer severe infections in the women taking the drug.
The study was blatantly self-serving for PP, but then again, that doesn't surprise us, does it?
So fewer women are developing infections and other severe health effects, but babies continue to be aborted. That RU-486 accounts for 25% of all early abortions is a sobering and disturbing statistic. And abortion providers are taking advantage of that stat to present this procedure as a "safe," (notwithstanding the lingering dangers) "natural" (because it mimics a natural abortion, or miscarriage) and convenient (do-able "in the privacy of your own home" though in actuality it involves at least 3 visits to the abortion provider).
A convenient, safe, natural way of surmounting the inconvenience of an embryonic human life.
Fortunately, the science of human embryology continues to steer our culture -- and the language we employ to talk about the human embryo -- toward clarity, honesty and truth. Truth on the beginning of human life, and the dangers to women's health in the age of chemical abortions, cash-for-eggs and other schemes, is the only way ahead.
***
Rev. Thomas V. Berg, is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.
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