It’s open season on the LDS church, says the headline in this WAPO article.
The piece foreshadows, I fear, of what is to come — effort to portray Mormons as weirdly out of step and unmodern, and by implication, Romney as being unfit for the presidency…
But if you read the article, […]

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Most Americans know about the “Asian Tiger” economies (and if PNoy keeps hitting at corruption, the Filipinos may join that group). But did you know that other areas of the world are similarly expanding their economies?
A day or two ago, I ran into an article that those “undocumented” immigrants in the US are now returning […]

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I once lived under a dictatorship, so we rarely believed what the government run media told us. Because of the censorship of the media, rumors tended to spread wildly and so to find out what was going on, we relied on word of mouth from other missionaries,  and every night we listened to the BBC’s […]

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The Kony campaign is a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes…and a lot of folks in Africa are annoyed that these do-gooders just noticed the fight, which has been going on for quite awhile.
Some Africans think they are cashing in on it (while libeling the good things going on in Uganda). […]

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Yesterday, I published an essay about the Facebook fad “The Invisible Children”, a video about Joseph Kony and his murderous terrorist group, that has gone viral in the blogosphere.
I ended the essay with the note that there is a time for war and a time of peace, and that the war to find and punish […]

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I noticed two of my grandchildren and a niece had shared the “Invisible children” film on my facebook site.
This was a bit surprising, because one is a church going, volunteering teenager, the second is a sophisticated student in the UK, and the third one is a heavy metal music loving Goth.
But all are united in […]

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Here in the Philippines, thanks to Wikileaks, we know that not only American money is behind our “Reproductive Health Bill”, but that the American State Department is pressuring our president to pass the bill.
Heaven knows that the Philippines does need access to cheaper Birth control, but it’s not as if it’s not available: they sell […]

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While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people…

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The NYTimes has an article about problems with the Global fund to fight AIDS.
It seems that they checked the books and found some of the money was stolen or diverted, and as a result, a lot of European donors are not giving any more money until the problem is cleared up.
You want honesty at […]

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As NATO formally ended its military campaign in Libya, Al Qaeda flag was proudly flying on Libyan roof tops. It was not flying just on ordinary roof tops – it was seen flying on the roof of Benghazi’s courthouse, the birthplace of the Libyan revolution and where the new rulers have imposed Sharia law since […]

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A lot of Republican bloggers in the US are rolling their eyes up in mockery at the report that President Obama plans to send in US troops to fight the so called “Lord’s Resistance army” in Uganda.
A typical response is this, from the National Review Blog The Corner:
This is even crazier than getting involved in […]

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The New York Times had an interesting article about HIV and artificial birth control.
There seems to be a statistical increase in the risk of getting HIV with the shot:
The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months, appears to double the risk the women […]

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Paranoia kills. And the internet, which allows anyone to post any conspiracy theory without having to include minor things like facts, is a growing problem for doctors, because our patients who google sometimes end up at conspiracy theory sites for their medical information.
And this ignorance is one reason why Bachman is now no longer […]

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FreeMediaOnline.org San Francisco, CA, USA, July 24, 2011 — Leaders of the Ethiopian American community joined by free media advocates are planning a protest rally on Monday, July 25, in front of the Voice of America (VOA) building in Washington, DC amid charges of censorship of VOA news programs to Ethiopia by the Broadcasting […]

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A lot of Americans seem puzzled about why NATO is so eager to get rid of Khadafi in Libya. Yes, he was behind the TWA bombing, but why get rid of him now?
But what the US press also misses is why Libyans are angry. To paraphrase James Carville: It’s the corruption, stupid. Khadafi has billions […]

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I am old enough to remember when women were exiled into specific specialties in medicine (quick: how many women Urologists do you know), and a similar problem was seen in college (few women in my advanced science classes) and in the newspaper (where women often were expected to write fluffy reports for the fashion and […]

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 The man was well until his wife baked him a “healthy recipe” from the NYTimes “Healthy recipe section: Fava bean and artichoke stew.
He soon became pale and jaundiced, and it took awhile for the ER doc to figure out why the man was sick. He had an acute hemolytic crisis, where his red blood cells […]

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By John Donovan of RoyalDutchShellPlc.com
Today we provide a unique insight into the shadowy world of Shell Corporate Security, formerly known as “CAS” - Shell Corporate Affairs Security. Shell has had advance sight of everything you are about to read and therefore the opportunity to challenge authenticity of the featured […]

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There is an old comedy monologue by the late Alan Sherman where he explains why he got fat: As a boy, his mother reminded him that people were starving in Europe, so he needed to eat everything on his plate.
So I would clean the plate, four, five, six times a day.
Because somehow I felt that […]

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I am aghast at a lot of the news coming out of US sites about what is going on in Libya.
First, there are the “ain’t it awful” posts, lamenting that the side backed by the West hasn’t won yet, (in 7 whole days).
Second, they find out that some of those revolting are Islamicists. Well, duh. […]

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While the US headlines were full of Charlie Sheen’s rants and news of labor union protests in Wisconsin,  here in the Philippines, the headlines are about our stranded OFW (overseas foreign workers) in Libya.
Every paper has photos of those who escaped arriving at the Manila airport, and the Philippine Inquirer notes that the government arranged […]

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What is going on in Egypt may have little to do Islamic fundamentalism or democracy per se.
It is probably the result of many factors, and many of us will probably compare the demonstrations to the uprising in Iran against the Shah.
Egypt’s government is corrupt, and the US has been propping up that regime for […]

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Despite the fact that the shooting in Arizona was caused by a mentally ill person, the spin was followed by a week of Sarah Palin bashing.
With the State of the Union address, it’s calmed down a bit, but nevertheless Time Magazine decided it was important news to complain that Sarah Palin put the flag on […]

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Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men…except in the headlines.
You see headlines about NATO troops killed in Afghanistan. Yes, that nasty war is still going on. But the headlines don’t put it into perspective: the Taliban wants to stop education of girls, and any western type education for anyone. But the headlines don’t talk about positive […]

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A lot of fundamentalist Christians see radical environmentalism as a neo pagan religion, so when some bimbo invoked a Mayan goddess, it was sure to raise a few eyebrows.
From the WashingtonPost:
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered […]

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A lot of nonsense being written about Afghanistan: Some see it as a hopeless war, but the dirty little secret is that Afghanistan is about protecting India and the Silk Road (the central Asian countries with their oil and gas resources) for India and China.
But what to do about Afghanistan? It’s not true that it […]

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Awhile back, I posted about the scare of tiny amounts of lead found in some lipsticks. That was scary enough.
But an article in today’s Philippine Inquirer caught my eye, and this is potentially more serious: That some imported “skin whiteners” have been found to contain mercury, so our active “green” movement want these cremes banned.
Citing […]

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The naive guys at the NYTimes Freakonomics blog have a short article on the cost of health care, especially medicines, in third world countries:
A new study analyzed the effects of buying four basic prescription drugs in “low- and middle-income countries,” and the results aren’t pretty. “Buying brand name amoxicillin, for example, […]

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A couple weeks ago, I ran across a strange story about Zimbabwe: a couple of known terrorists were caught crossing the border from Zimbabwe into South Africa at Beitbridge.
33 year-old Imran Muhammad…was arrested last Sunday while trying to get through Beitbridge border post to South Africa on what officials believe was a fake Kenyan […]

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Background: According to a report in the National Review, the ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists) originally opposed the procedure
the select ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.”
But Kagan wrote them a memo instructing […]

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