Adult Stem Cells can Multiply, Come From Human Skin Research Shows

Pittsburgh, PA (LifeNews.com) — Some adult stem cell success stories are raising new questions about whether there’s a need to explore unproven embryonic stem cell research. In what’s being hailed as a groundbreaking study, scientists at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh have discovered that adult stem cells have the same ability to multiply as embryonic stem cells.

The discovery means that adult stem cells could play an important therapeutic role. Before this research, it was generally believed that embryonic stem cells had a greater capacity to multiply than adult stem cells.
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Hairsplitting at the Court

TownHall.com George Will June 28, 2005

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rendered two more hairsplitting, migraine-inducing decisions about when religious displays on public property do and do not violate the First Amendment protection against “establishment” of religion. In a case from Texas, where a Ten Commandments monument stands outside the state Capitol, the court, splintered six ways from Sunday, said: We find no constitutional violation. The second case came from Kentucky, where the Commandments displayed in several courthouses are surrounded by historical symbols and documents — e.g., copies of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Star Spangled Banner — to comply with the “reindeer rule,” more about which anon. On Monday the court recoiled from Kentucky’s displays, saying, they are unconstitutionally motivated by a “predominately religious purpose.” Not enough reindeer?

Never mind the court’s minute reasoning about the finely tuned criteria it has spun over the years. Instead, consider — as the court should have done years ago, when it began policing religious displays — a few facts about the era in which the Establishment Clause was written.

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de Tocqueville on religion and freedom

“When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the higher powers of the intellect and half paralyzes all the others. Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the springs of the will, and prepare a people for servitude. When there is no longer any principle of authority in religion any more than in politics, men are speedily frightened at the aspect of this unbounded independence. Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed?” -Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

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A Party Without Ideas

TownHall.com Charles Krauthammer (archive) June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON — What has happened to the Democrats over the past few decades is best captured by the phrase (coined by Kevin Phillips) “reactionary liberalism.” Spent of new ideas, their only remaining idea is to hang on to the status quo at all costs.

This is true across the board. On Social Security, which is facing an impending demographic and fiscal crisis, they have put absolutely nothing on the table. On presidential appointments — first, judges; and now ambassador to the United Nations — they resort to the classic weapon of Southern obstructionism: the filibuster. And on foreign policy, they have nothing to say on the war on terror, the war in Iraq or the burgeoning Arab Spring (except the refrain: “Guantanamo”).

A quarter-century ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted how it was the Republicans who had become a party of ideas, while the Democrats’ philosophical foundation was “deeply eroded.” But even Moynihan would be surprised by the bankruptcy in the Democrats’ current intellectual account.

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US Anglicans bless ‘sacred’ gay unions

2005.06.22 Times Online June 22, 2005 Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

THE Anglican Church of the US gave the first justification yesterday of its decision to consecrate an openly homosexual man to the episcopate, arguing that same-sex unions can be open “to God’s blessing and holy purposes” in the same manner as marriage.

At a meeting in Nottingham of Anglican leaders from around the world, delegates from the US said the blessing of same-sex unions constitutes a “new reality, a sacred union”.

The consecration of Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two who has a male partner, as Bishop of New Hampshire, and the authorisation of same-sex blessings by the New Westminster diocese in Canada, has brought the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion to the brink of schism.

The Church is split between liberals in Britain and North America and orthodox conservatives in the so-called Global South churches of Africa, Asia and the West Indies.
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American churches shown door as gay row deepens

2005.06.23 Times Online June 23, 2005 Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

THE Anglican Church moved closer to schism yesterday when members of its central administrative council formally asked the Churches of Canada and the US to go.

Unconvinced by the justifications offered by both Churches on Tuesday for their actions in ordaining an openly homo- sexual bishop and authorising same-sex blessings, members of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham asked them to leave the council and its central finance and standing committees.

Although the motion invites the Churches to withdraw voluntarily, it amounts in effect to a punishing expulsion. The debate was held behind closed doors at Nottingham University yesterday, and the motion was passed 30 to 28 by secret ballot, with four abstentions.
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If Terri Schiavo had been dehydrated to death at Gitmo

Catholic Citizens

Blind, Deaf, and Dumb: If Terri Schiavo had been dehydrated to death at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, would Dick Durbin be reading her autopsy report from the Senate floor?
6/19/2005 3:23:00 PM
By American Spectator – George Neumayr

If Terri Schiavo had been dehydrated to death at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Dick Durbin would be reading her autopsy report from the Senate floor. It would be an occasion for great moral anguish. How did the U.S. sink so low as to adopt such Nazi-like callousness toward disabled prisoners of war? one could imagine him saying. Instead, Democrats — even as they spent part of the week crassly celebrating, with news of Schiavo’s autopsy report in hand, the human rights abuse of euthanasia against the disabled — are in a moral lather over the paucity of proper air conditioning terrorists receive at Guantanamo Bay.

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Moral police have been disarmed

The Daily Telegraph

After a lengthy investigation into criminal behaviour among young people, the committee reached the following conclusions: the main causes were the “improper conduct of parents”, the “want of education” and the “want of suitable employment”. Moral guidance and civilised order were seen as the remedies.

Sound familiar? This was the opinion of a report from the Society for Investigating the Causes of the Alarming Increase of Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis, established in 1815, just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The circumstances then, of course, were very different. When a police chief spoke recently of gangs of “feral” children in our towns and cities, his grasp of history was somewhat tenuous. In the 19th century, some children were literally feral, wild and untamed, with no family to return to, no social workers to look after them, no welfare state to provide for them.

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Kiev Patriarch Says Orthodox Church Shouldn’t Be Afraid of the Vatican

Mara D. Bellaby Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 15, 2005

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – Defying the Russian Orthodox Church’s stance, one of Ukraine’s top religious leaders said Wednesday he sees no obstacles to greater cooperation between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
The statement, which was made during an interview with The Associated Press, signaled yet another rift between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, where pro-Western leaders came to power earlier this year.

The Moscow Patriarchate accuses the Catholics of encroaching on its territory and blocked the late Pope John Paul II’s long-held wish to visit Russia, the world’s most populous Orthodox nation.

Patriarch Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Kiev Patriarchate, said the churches have much in common and should cooperate in emphasizing the importance of the family and moral values.
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A New Exodus? Americans are Exiting Liberal Churches

BreakPoint Albert Mohler June 14, 2005

“We have figured out your problem. You’re the only one here who believes in God.” That statement, addressed to a young seminarian, introduces Dave Shiflett’s new book, Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity. The book is an important contribution, and Shiflett offers compelling evidence that liberal Christianity is fast imploding upon itself.

Shiflett’s instincts as a reporter led him to see a big story behind the membership decline in liberal denominations. At the same time, Shiflett detected the bigger picture–the decline of liberal churches as compared to growth among the conservatives. Like any good reporter, he knew he was onto a big story.

“Americans are vacating progressive pews and flocking to churches that offer more traditional versions of Christianity,” Shiflett asserts. This author is not subtle, and he gets right to the point: “Most people go to church to get something they cannot get elsewhere. This consuming public–people who already believe, or who are attempting to believe, who want their children to believe–go to church to learn about the mysterious Truth on which the Christian religion is built. They want the Good News, not the minister’s political views or intellectual coaching. The latter creates sprawling vacancies in the pews. Indeed, those empty pews can be considered the earthly reward for abandoning heaven, traditionally understood.”

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