Archives for 2009

You know all those stories about how French people don’t get fat? Well, apparently, it’s all a big pile of gooblahoy.

According to a 2009 study published on Tuesday, 15.1 per cent of France’s women are classed as clinically obese, while a further 26 per cent are overweight.

The survey, conducted by TNS Sofres health care and Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche, also pointed to similar trends among the male population, with 13.9 per cent of Frenchmen obese and 38.5 per cent overweight.

This either makes your life easier (no need to starve yourself trying to emulate a model that’s not even real) or harder (because now you can’t blame your non-Frenchitude and have to rely on willpower instead).

Argh! It’s not easy being a girl.

It’s a busy time for me just now. Still, wanted to post something about the many myriad emails I’m getting about what’s going on down south. This one is funny–apparently the Stupak amendment which would not allow federal funding to pay for abortions “denies women’s rights.” Really? Because there’s never been federal funding for abortions through health care as I understand it but now that the status quo remains it somehow has a devastating effect on women?

Like I said, I’m busy these days, so maybe I am misunderstanding something here. Either way, whenever someone says “abortion is a woman’s right” that’s my cue to jump in and ask why. And people don’t generally have a very good answer for that. (Ya, I don’t accept “her right to control her body.” Come up with something new and even just a tiny bit logical.)

Abby Johnson (quit Planned Parenthood after watching an abortion through ultrasound) on what Planned Parenthood does not want employees to see:

If clinic workers saw what was happening on that screen, they would be running out of those clinics. This is what the abortion industry does not want their workers to see. They don’t want their workers to see what’s actually happening during an abortion. That’s why Planned Parenthood doesn’t do, that’s why so many of these large abortion industries don’t do ultrasound-guided abortion procedures. They don’t want people to see what’s really happening in the woman’s womb.

_______________________

Brigitte couldn’t agree more: And here’s a link to a video of an abortion at 11 weeks. Warning: It is not for the faint of heart. But I hereby challenge every person who is either in favour of abortion or indifferent to it to watch it. It shows exactly what it is that you support and if you can’t bring yourself to watch it, why are you in favour of it?

A father who was found guilty of criminally harassing his daughter and threatening violence against her to force her to submit to his will (and save the family’s “honour”) was sentenced to 12 months in prison.

Yusef Al Mezel sent to jail after a judge determined it was the minimum penalty he could serve that would adequately reflect the “strong need” for denunciation and general deterence.

Not that he’s likely to spend much time in prison (people here rarely serve as much as half their sentence), and not that it’s likely to deter such men – he himself said, in an email to his daughter, that “no one will care about police or other thing, you know your family”. But hey. It’s a start.

Funny. I had a very strong feeling the U.S. House of Representatives would vote down that huge complicated government-take-over health care bill. I was wrong, which goes to show what I know (hint: very little). But here’s a little bit of silver lining:

The bill will allow the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies and make insurers offer cover to those with pre-existing conditions.

However, the government-run healthcare programme – the so-called “public option” – was scaled back in the run-up to the vote.

One key concession to get the bill through was to anti-abortion legislators.

An amendment was passed that prohibits coverage for abortion in the government-run programme except for rape, incest or if the mother’s life is threatened. Private plans can still offer the cover.

Democrat Bart Stupak, who sponsored the amendment, said: “Let us stand together on principle – no public funding for abortions.”

Abortion rights supporters said the amendment was the biggest setback to their cause in decades.

See? If you deny public funding for elective abortion (i.e. those made for “choice” reasons), the pro-abortion crowd will see it as a big setback. Doesn’t that give you any ideas?

It’s the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall tomorrow. This article interviews some of those who experienced it and I liked this quote:

“What was more amazing?” I asked her. “That the wall could come down, or that it could be built in the first place?”

“That it could be built in the first place,” she replied. “I find it amazing that it is possible to put an entire country into a cage and keep them there without producing a major uproar; that you can frighten people so much that they don’t object to a wall being placed around their lives.”

Watch number 15 in this short soccer clip.

A woman after my own heart:

A female civilian police officer is being hailed as a hero in the aftermath of a gunman’s rampage at Fort Hood — an outbreak of violence that the officer is credited with ending by shooting the alleged gunman four times despite being shot herself.

The attack killed 13 people and wounded 30 others at the Texas military post, but the carnage ended there, thanks to the quick response of Fort Hood Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley.

Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reports of gunfire on Thursday, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said Friday. Authorities say Munley, 34, exchanged fire with the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who remains comatose in a Texas hospital. Munley is in stable condition, officials said.

“It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said.

I wish her a full and speedy recovery.

Just saying, is all… Nominate your favourite blogs here.