There’s her book, obviously, in book form. But now there’s also the audio book – read by the lady herself.

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Andrea adds: The way I see it, there’s only one thing people should really want. That’s People for the Ethical Treatment of People t-shirts. Buy one today! Enter the code “Christmas” at checkout et voila, a two-for-one deal on high quality, thought-provoking fashion.

A fetus becomes a baby at birth? Having an abortion is safer than having a baby? There’s no heart beat at 10 weeks? A 10-week fetus is about as big as a fingernail?

According to these Planned Parenthood employees, that’s all true.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIXHrusvMDw&feature=player_embedded]

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Andrea adds: Seems to me it is almost impossible to offer the abortion choice and tell the truth. Because the science is pretty clear on that stuff, heart beat, etc. and mothers are also pretty clear on what they are doing. Ie. they know if they wait too long (pretend there were a wait list for abortions) they’ll end up with a baby in their hands. So it becomes the job of the “choice counsellor” to make a girl be comfortable with the decision to abort. Which is actually a form of influence, which is what we see here in this clip. Repeating multiple times “it’s not a baby” is meant to instill in that mother that she isn’t one, instead of saying “There’s no undo button” and how can we help you where you are at? How can we make this more comfortable? What can we offer you? Do you need protection from an older boyfriend? What do you need? These are the questions abortion clinics can’t ask. And my feeling is people rarely do ask those questions these days because they don’t want to “influence” but by not asking them, they are influencing a girl toward abortion. If you only have one choice, you don’t have a choice at all.

Hey, remember this? Looks like them ACORN dudes and dudettes aren’t losing much sleep over it.

You are going to be shocked, shocked, I tell you, when you read the conclusion of the “independent” review of ACORN’s recent activities by ACORN’s “independent” assessor, left-wing former Massachusetts AG and Common Cause president Scott Harshbarger.

Harshbarger has determined — wait for it — that ACORN engaged in no wrongdoing depicted in the nationwide undercover stings conducted by BigGovernment.com/James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles.

Well, you know. It was only a few cases of overlooking the sexual exploitation of minors. Nothing major.

See, when we say we’re against state-sanctioned euthanasia (in part) because we worry about a slippery slope, this is what we mean.

A Dutch health researcher has called on the nation’s government to allow physicians to euthanize newborns based on foreseen suffering, rather than only actual suffering, reports the Dutch medical journal Zorgkrant.

Hilde Buiting, maintains that such an amendment would only conform the law to the current practice among physicians.

“The current guidelines state that there must be actual grave suffering on the part of the newborn,” she said, as quoted in Zorgkrant.  “In practice, physicians look not only to the actual suffering of the sick newborn, but also to the grave suffering foreseen in the future.  This reality should be included in the considerations in adapting the guidelines.”

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Andrea adds: This article points out that care for the terminally-ill in the Netherlands has declined since legalizing euthanasia:

Without elaborating, she admitted that medical care for the terminally-ill had declined since the law came into effect. She said more should have been done legally to protect people who wanted to die natural deaths. ‘In the Netherlands, we first listened to the political and societal demand in favour of euthanasia,’ said Dr Borst. ‘Obviously, this was not in the proper order.

Further to Andrea’s post from yesterday, with an even nastier twist. Now we in the West are urged to consider saving the planet from global warming by preventing more poor, non-white babies from being born.

That’s what I call progressive!

Don’t believe me? Read on:

Consumers in the developed world are to be offered a radical method of offsetting their carbon emissions in an ambitious attempt to tackle climate change – by paying for contraception measures in poorer countries to curb the rapidly growing global population.

The scheme – set up by an organisation backed by Sir David Attenborough, the former diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell and green figureheads such as Jonathon Porritt and James Lovelock – argues that family planning is the most effective way to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic global warming.

Optimum Population Trust (Opt) stresses that birth control will be provided only to those who have no access to it, and only unwanted births would be avoided. Opt estimates that 80 million pregnancies each year are unwanted.

This is the picture they used to illustrate the story:

Well. Imagine how relieved environmentalists in the West are going to be when they are able to offset their own carbon emissions that way! “It’s fine, honey, we can fly to Costa Rica eco-guilt-free! I bought enough credits to send three more shipments of condoms to Dakar and cover the cost of four abortions in Nairobi! Woo-hoo, party!”

I think I’m going to go idle the car for no reason.

You’ll have to forgive my naive ignorance of such things, but no, I did not know what this story would lead to. It had started out fairly innocently, or so I thought:

The 43-year-old supermodel – who is married to Rande Gerber – hopes people still think she’s sexy, even though she is now mother to two children, Presley, 10, and Kaia, seven.

She said: “I don’t want to be a cougar, I want to be a milf. I hate that word cougar and what it represents. Milf is a word I absolutely love.

“I like that tag because I think there is a worry for all models that the moment you have kids the perception of you is going to change.”

A ‘milf’ is an abbreviated slang term used to describe a sexy woman who has children.

How interesting, I thought. Nothing wrong with being an attractive mom, is there? I wonder what M.I.L.F. stands for? So off to Google I went, and if I were you I wouldn’t try that – it was one porn site after another. Turns out it stands for Mothers I’d Like to F***.

How lovely. Think her children appreciate?

No, you cannot express any kind of concern for young white males who are suddenly finding themselves behind other groups at university thanks to affirmative action.

This PC nonsense is so annoying. If you disagree with that particular university president, then you ought to debate her on the merits of what she’s saying. That would be the grown-up thing to do.

People who say the monarchy is useless haven’t heard about this lady.

Queen Rania, who regularly appears without head-scarf, let alone hijab, has given her quiet support to women’s rights groups who want to change laws amounting to legal impunity for men involved in honour killings.

Standing against her is another symbol of the country’s attempts to show a progressive face. Jordan’s MPs, who have been given more power to hold the government and royal family to account than in other Arab countries, have shown little enthusiasm for the moves.

[…]

King Abdullah, Rania’s husband for 16 years, trained at Sandhurst and is said to speak better English than Arabic. The queen regularly appears in glossy celebrity magazines, and is one of the world’s best-known users of Twitter, updating followers with details of the latest Hollywood “chick-flicks” she has watched with her children.

For her, it is deeply offensive that the killing of women not only appears to be condoned, but seems to be on the rise: the number of deaths reported, currently between 20 and 25 a year, is increasing.

Sentences remain low, often as little as six months to three years in jail.

The government is introducing a special tribunal to hear honour killing cases, but a parliamentary alliance has so far blocked attempts to change two articles of the legal code. The first is article 340, which allows an “in flagrante” defence to a man who kills his wife and her lover if he finds them in bed together. It has only ever been used once. More important is article 98, a “crime of passion” defence, which is commonly used and gives reduced sentences to those who claim they commit violence in the fury of the moment.

The government wants a minimum penalty of five years even under this defence, but is coming under vociferous attack.

“We are not for taking the law into your own hands,” said Sheikh Hamza, an affable, white-bearded man who is among the government’s more measured critics. He insists that Sharia, or Islamic law, does not support honour killings.

“But we believe there are political forces which stand behind this issue, and they are trying to destroy the family.”

I’m sorry. Is he saying that lending support to groups who pursue stronger sentences for men convicted of killing their wives or sisters in the name of “honour” amounts to “trying to destroy the family”? Oh, sure. I buy that.

I say, you go, Queen Rania!

(Visit her YouTube channel here.)

True, I don’t know any more about the Tiger Woods affair than anyone else – probably less, now that I think of it, considering that I don’t watch television. But I read reports like this one and shake my head in disbelief. No doubt there are plenty of other factors involved – human affairs are, after all, reasonably complex. But wouldn’t his life be less complicated if he had managed to, you know, behave like a married man who takes his marriage vows seriously? Millions of men manage; why couldn’t he? I’ve tried both marriage and golf and while I would hesitate to call marriage a picnic, it’s a heck of a lot easier than playing par.

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Puzzled update: Why are Globe female columnists so determined to excuse him? First it was Margaret Wente, now Lysiane Gagnon.

My goodness, what a horrible mistake to make.

After hearing a joint submission in favour of Sherry Sherrett-Robinson by the Crown and defence, the court told the 34-year-old woman it was “profoundly regrettable” that she was wrongly convicted based on errors by Charles Smith, who was once the toast of the pathology community.

“The tragedy of this four-month-old child’s death is compounded by the fact that his mother was wrongly convicted of infanticide, served a year in jail, and she lost her other child,” Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg said.

Ms. Sherrett-Robinson was convicted in 1999 after Dr. Smith testified that he found signs consistent with homicide on the body of her four-month-old son, Joshua Sherrett.

James Lockyer, a lawyer for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, told the court Monday that all four of Dr. Smith’s suspicious findings – a skull fracture, swelling of the brain, burst blood vessels and small, unexpected lacerations – were either normal in accidental asphyxiation cases or caused by Dr. Smith’s autopsy techniques.

[…]

Judge Rosenberg said that, based on a review by two prominent pathologists, it is quite possible that Joshua suffocated in his crib after becoming entangled in bedclothes.

Ms. Sherrett-Robinson’s eldest son, Austin, was seized and put up for adoption after she was charged. She is not permitted to seek him out until he is 18.

“I still get pictures and letters twice a year from him,” she said. “I’d give anything to get him back, but it’s my responsibility as a mother to leave him where he is most comfortable at this point. He is well taken care of.”