Right here in Canada, I mean.

OTTAWA ­- Infant mortality rates are up for the first time in Canada since 1982, according to new numbers released by Statistics Canada Tuesday.

The infant mortality rate rose slightly from 2006 to 2007, up to 5.1 from 5.0 per 1,000 live births, a 6.2% increase from 2006 to 2007.

That’s the first increase in the infant mortality rate since 1982, when the rate was at 9.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. Boy and girl death rates increased at the same rate.

The story does not offer anything by way of explanation, and I must admit I don’t have time to go looking for one (workworkwork you know). Anyone with more info, please send it in.

The idea that women earn less than men is a mainstay idea of old school feminists. That’s it’s not true would take the wind out of their sales and funding out of their pockets.

This column is all about how if women do earn less than men it’s typically for very good reasons, like they work fewer hours:

Few people would advocate more women living in poverty, but if we are going to have a serious discussion of how best to tackle the issue that more women than men live in poverty, we need to face reality. Sadly, the report issued by a collection of advocacy groups fails miserably on that count. The group uses conjecture rather than facts and when confronted with facts, changes the rules to suit themselves.

If women have bridged a gender wage gape, why perpetuate the old myth?

This post features a video outlining the rights of pro-life clubs on campus. In the U.S., that is – not everything in there can be of use in Canada. But some of it might.

Identify and explain five (5) elements of gender architecture and how they apply to your everyday life.

Failing that, read this amusing piece by Tasha Kheiriddin and chuckle to your little heart’s content.

An update on a story I mentioned in November:

LONDON — It was heralded as a medical miracle. After spending more than two decades in a coma, Rom Houben, a Belgian man in his mid-forties, was suddenly able to communicate, news reports trumpeted last November.

Other experts questioned the method Houben that was apparently using to communicate. The technique is known as “facilitated communication,” in which the patient supposedly directs the hand of a speech therapist who typed out his thoughts.

Houben’s doctors said it seemed to be genuine. Until now.

Dr. Steven Laureys, a neurologist at Liege University Hospital in Belgium, one of Houben’s doctors, now acknowledges the technique doesn’t work and that while Houben is conscious, he is not communicating.

“We did not have all the facts before,” he said Friday. “The story of Rom is about the diagnosis of consciousness, not communication.”

If I understand correctly, the patient has more brain activity than other doctors had thought, but is not really able to communicate.

[h/t]

What a weird (and ultimately good) story:

Mechelle Hall dabbed tears from her eyes Tuesday as she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for brandishing a knife and threatening a woman who urged her not to get an abortion.

Yet, she revealed later, she never got it.

[…]

The surprise came when Hall was reached by phone at her Superior home Tuesday evening. She said she never had the planned abortion. Hall said she decided to keep the baby after being confronted by anti-abortion protesters Leah Winandy and her mother, Sarah, on Nov. 24. She said she was stressed out and they made her realize that she didn’t want to end the life she was carrying inside her.

Hall was asked if there was anything she’d like to say to the Winandys.

“Thank you for being there,” she said. “If they weren’t there, I probably would have gone through with it and regretted it for the rest of my life. It probably would have gone the other way. I’m sincerely sorry for doing that to her.”

[h/t]

You can see my talk about why being pro-life is a pro-woman stand, here.

Thanks again to the students for having me!

A friend draws attention to this (apparently left-wing/libertarian) argument against assisted suicide and euthanasia. I’m not sure I see what’s left-wing or libertarian about it, but OK, it’s still early in the day, there’s still some hope for me. It’s not an uninteresting piece, except for this part, which made me jump out of my chair some:

But the problem arises when campaigners call upon society not only passively to accept that these acts of humanity take place, but actively to welcome them, to sanction them, even to celebrate them. Gosling and some of his supporters in the assisted suicide lobby say they want to bring these acts ‘into the open’, to raise awareness about them, and to encourage society to create new rules outlining when it is acceptable to help end someone’s life. But such acts do not belong ‘in the open’. If society were to legalise assisted suicide, it would send the very profound message that death is an acceptable solution to life’s trials and traumas. At a social level, it would elevate hopelessness and fatalism above the cultural affirmation of living, loving, fighting for another day, week, month or year.

Not sure on which planet this fellow lives, but down here it so happens that death has already been declared an acceptable solution to life’s trials and traumas.

Interesting story about aid shipment to Haiti allegedly delayed because of a massive stock of condoms clogging up storage facilities (I say “allegedly” because the story came from one eyewitness, and we know what can happen when we’re too quick to believe everything). Anyway.

The flow of medical supplies waiting to be distributed to tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Haiti was delayed for weeks by a massive supply of condoms dominating the space of the main storage facility there, an eyewitness with insider information has told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN).

The central pharmaceutical supply center, known as PROMESS (Program on Essential Medicine and Supplies), is home to the operations of the World Health Organization (WHO)/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in the area. “Without PROMESS we would have had a second catastrophe,” Dr. Alex Larsen, Haitian Minister of Health, said at the PROMESS warehouse recently.

However, the glut of condoms at that same warehouse delayed the massive influx of aid pouring in from around the world, according to an inside source, and may have cost lives. The source reported that shipping containers of medical supplies were unable to be unloaded, sorted and distributed since an enormous supply of condoms clogged the facility till early February, when the condoms could be removed.  The condoms were estimated to take up about 70% of the space in the 17,000 sq. ft. warehouse.

Will you think badly of me (more than usual, I mean) if I tell you I laughed when I saw the story?

[h/t]