Did you know that there is an International Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism? Well, I just finished reading about it’s existence in the US Mid Term Review on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in America – boy what a page-turner. If it weren’t about a gravely serious topic (kids getting sexually abused) I would have stopped reading as soon as I hit the appendix. By the way, do the people working for the government and non-government organizations get bonuses based on the length of these titles? Someone should tell them we commoners lose interest at the Third Capitalized Word.

If you were interested in knowing more about that Code of Conduct, don’t try to find timely information on their website. www.thecode.org has information as recent as 2005. Wait, it’s 2007, right? Yes, it is. So, my question for thecode.org is, have efforts to influence the travel industry to self-regulate protection of children been abandoned or are things going so swimmingly that people are too busy to update the website? I hope it’s the latter.

The website lists travel related businesses – hotels, agencies, airlines -- that give a rip about protecting children from being raped, prostituted and otherwise victimized in a sexual way. You know, like if a cleaning lady sees evidence of child pornography in a room, she should report it to the police. Sounds reasonable, right? Which hotels wouldn’t want to help out in the fight to end child abuse on their property?

Apparently many. It’s shameful to see that every participant in the world (as in, the entire planet Earth) can fit in the viewing space of a website page, no scrolling required to see the whole list.

I’ve been planning our family'sDisneyland trip for a couple of months. Should I spend an extra $2000 to stay in the Disneyland hotel or just get a nice hotel across the street? When I saw that even the Disneyland hotels are not participants in thecode.org, I knew that I couldn’t give them one dime of our lodging budget. The happiest place on earth can’t put it’s logo on a code of conduct that says, if you abuse kids in our hotel, we’ll report the crime? I did email Disney and Marriott hotels to see if they have a reason for not supporting the code of conduct but I don't expect either of them to respond, much less have a valid reason for their decisions to sit on the fence about child sex abuse.

I’m so disgusted that even a seemingly pleasant experience as planning a Disney vacation has been robbed of it’s joy knowing that so much evil is tolerated by business for profit – and ultimately by we the consumer who take it all in without a second thought. Wake up America. We all have to do something to confront the evil in our face. No, not just confront it, we have to attack it and kill it before it kills our kids.

Why would anyone link Girl Scouts to Planned Parenthood?  That's a great question, glad you asked.

Life Decisions International (fightpp.org) produces a list of organizations the donate to Planned Parenthood.  For those of you who aren't aware, Planned Parenthood doesn't really help anyone plan for parenthood. Instead, they are responsible for the greatest percentage of abortions in this country.  Abortion is the opposite of parenthood.

Walt Disney, Circuit City,  JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, Nieman Marcus, Patagonia,  Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Chase Bank, Bank One are some of the corporations that donate money to Planned Parenthood.  It seems odd that Walt Disney companies would benefit financially by an increase in abortion so I guess they fund the killing of babies for the better good.  Remember these companies make money when you buy their products and services, and then turn around and give some of that money to groups like Planned Parenthood. 

But wait, there's more.  It's not just big, impersonal corporations that celebrate a culture of death with their donations.  There are big, impersonal charities that take your donated money and time and turn it into the most vile product.  I think it's ridiculous to hear of charities that donate to other charities in the first place. If I am participating in the Race for the Cure, then I intend for that money to fund breast cancer research. I don't intend for them to turn around and give that money to a totally different group that I may or may  not support.  Last month the American Cancer Society gave a Planned Parenthood group in Iowa $5000 to tell it's clients to stop smoking.  It's laughable that an organization that won't tell woment the health risks of an abortion would be trusted to tell them the health risks of smoking? And the funny part is that the grant is to train staff.  What training do these so-called healthcare workers need to say "smoking's not healthy, you should quit. Here's the state's quit-line 800 number..."  Besides, the last thing a stressed out girl seeking an abortion will give up is her morning cigarette.

Maybe you are like me and wondering why in the world you should ever give a dime to charities like this if they have so much extra to give away to groups like Planned Parenthood.  If you are, then go the fightpp.org website and order up one of their lists so you can see what's really going on before you give. It's not just a matter of making sure they don't spend a lot on administration. You should know what "services" they are really providing with the money you donate.

And the Girl Scouts, too - yes they show as contributors to Planned Parenthood as well. It's amazing that we heard so much about the Girl Scout cookies trans-fats like it was some sort of scandal - as if anyone thought cookies were healthy foods in the first place.  But, if the Girl Scouts, American Cancer Society, the March of Dimes, and Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation donate money to Planned Parenthood to fund abortions, well, that's just not newsworthy.

    The National Abortion Federation has a handy, printable "fact sheet" (are you laughing yet?) about the deceptive practices of pregnancy resource centers.  They exist, you know, expressly to keep women from having abortions.  I can't believe organizations like that are tolerated in the United States in this day and age.  And much to the NAF's dismay, the number of PRCs are double the number of abortion clinics. 

The only thing the "fact sheet" doesn't include is the enormous amount of money that the PRCs receive in return for their evil deceptions.  It took some time to figure out the omission, but I finally remembered that must PRCs don't actually make money from their services.  That's right, it's free.   They "target" women by - if you are a sensitive person, please stop reading now - offering free pregnancy tests, locating themselves near colleges, and advertising in school newspapers.  They do it for free to trick women into not killing their children.

On the other hand, how often do you hear about free abortions? Hmmm, not very often. In fact, the NAF says the actual cost of the abortion varies between $350 and $1000 depending on location, who is killing the baby and how old the baby is. Apparently, it costs more to kill a baby after he or she reaches certain ages.  Mind you, the National Abortion Federation is saving the taxpayers millions of dollars every year by preventing babies from being born.  After all, it costs more to go to the doctor for prenatal care and actually birth the child than to just pay a few hundred bones for an abortion.  They do all this, you know as compassionate people who have seen their cut of the deal grow at a slower rate than inflation.  What the good doctors are raking in today is nothing like they were making in the 70's. 

My thanks to Susan Dudley, PhD for her wonderful contribution to humanity with the National Abortion Federation's "Fact" Sheet back in 1996.  Her parents must be proud. 

If you happened upon this blog and it made you think about something besides what to cook for dinner tonight, good.  Go get more information and think about it some more.  When your thoughts start bothering you, it's time to start doing something about it.

Yes.  Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey said onthe House floor:


"Not only is abortion violence against children but we now know that abortion is painful to the baby as well.

"In expert testimony provided to the Northern District of the US District Court in California during the partial birth abortion trials, Dr. Sunny Anand, Director of the Pain Neurobiology Lab at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute said, ‘the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborn's or older children’.

"In testimony before the Virginia State Senate, Dr. Jean Wright of Emory University School of Medicine said, 'Aspects of pain architecture begin as early as six to seven weeks, mature and are identified by their anatomy, their physiology, and the coordination of responses so that by 20-22 weeks of gestation, the evidence reveals a developed system of pain perception and response. ... The ability to modulate or blunt the pain response does not develop until the last weeks of pregnancy and the first few weeks of infancy, leading us to believe that the pain perceived in the fetus is greater than that in the full-term infant’.

"Dr. Anand further describes before the court that the ‘highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero,’ while still in the womb, ‘from 20 to 30 weeks gestation. During this period, the epidermis is still very thin, leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface of the skin than in older neonates and adults.’

"He went on to explain that the pain inhibitory mechanisms, in other words fibers which dampen and modulate the experience of pain, do not begin to develop until 32 to 34 weeks of gestation. Thus, Dr. Anand concludes, a fetus 20 to 32 weeks of gestation would experience a much more intense pain than older infants or children or adults when these groups are subjected to similar types of injury.

"Dr. Anand points out on the question of fetal consciousness that more than 3 decades of research show that preterm infants are actively perceiving, learning and organizing information, and are constantly striving to regulate themselves, their environment and their experiences. All preterm infants actively approach and favor experiences that are developmentally supporting and actively avoiding experiences that are disruptive.

"Additionally, a recent British study measured blood flow and oxygen in the part of the brain that feels pain while blood was drawn during a heel lance. The results showed a surge of blood and oxygen in the sensory area of their brains, meaning the pain was processed in the higher levels of the brain, indicating that these little boys and girls do feel pain.

"Meanwhile 18,000 unborn children at 20 weeks or beyond are destroyed without the basic decency of pain relief. That means that twice every hour a baby is destroyed without pain alleviation by methods that include the D and E abortion.

"The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is a modest but necessary expansion of informed consent."

Dr. Anand is the leading authority on fetal pain in the U.S. Dr. Jean Wright is a CMDA member. Unfortunately, even this modest proposal failed. 

But, what does the National Abortion Federation have to say about this bill?  They said they strongly opposed the "so-called 'Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act' ".   They lamented the fact the Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Minnesota law makers have already passed similar bills.  The National Abortion Federation is a professional organization specifically for people who perform abortions. In fact, they perform over half of the abortions in the country each year.  Do you think they  have a strong and vital interest in keeping women in the dark about the pain their choice is going to put their unborn child through?

Maybe you don't want to get involved in the politics of abortion.  That's fine, but consider going through your next surgery without anesthesia.  It's not about politics, it's about life and a torturous death.

I think John Stossel's columns are thoughtful and relevant. I enjoyed the ones about charity that he did in December, 2006 on Townhall.com.  Arthur C. Brooks wrote a book about that topic called Who Really Cares.  Unfortunately, when I tried to find it at my library, he can't be found. 

I frequently run into this situation where a book on a conservative topic just isn't available at the library. I'm not talking about just one library, I'm talking about the entire county I live in here in Oregon.  Dave Ramsey, author of several books about personal finance, can be found at that library, but there is a long waiting list for his books.  His 2003 book The Total Money Makeover has 23 holds for 7 copies and I'm # 11 after waiting since November 18.  By contrast, Al Franken's latest book The Truth (With Jokes) has 17 available copies and guess how many holds - 0.  So, for liberals, there is no end to the availability of their favorite diatribes but for conservatives, we have to wait in line.  And, after four years, Ramsey's book is still extremely popular but the library can't invest in a few more copies?

I know it's not a scientific study, but based on my own experiences, I know that I can't find the books I want to read at the library that my tax dollars helps to support.