Welcome to the Wilcox Family weB LOG, your source for the latest Wilcox news, anecdotes, and rants; and, as Jack Benny quipped on his first radio show (March 29, 1932), “There will be a slight pause while you say, ‘Who cares?’â€â€
A few days ago, I got home and Nichelle told me we had received a special Christmas greeting. I looked at the envelope, and saw that it had what may be America’s most famous address, and that it was postmarked from Crawford, Texas.
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We like the verse of Scripture our President and first lady have chosen: “Let us come before Him with thanksgiving, and extol Him with music and song.†(Psalm 95:2)
I thought I would post a couple of links for some interesting reading:
Taxpayer Dies After Official Error
Mon Nov 1, 2004 07:49 AM ETWARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish taxpayer died from a heart attack after a demand for immediate payment in full of 80,000 zlotys ($23,560) following a mistake by the tax office.
Locksmith Zbigniew Macewicz died during a hearing in the central city of Bydgoszcz, where tax collectors demanded 80,000 zlotys because he failed to keep to a restructuring agreement.But, in fact, the tax office had miscalculated one payment, telling Macewicz to pay 8.80 zlotys less than he should have and thus putting him in arrears on his repayment schedule.
The government expressed regret over the incident.
“I express my deep regret at the taxpayer's death,” deputy Finance Minister Stanislaw Stec was quoted by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily as saying in Bydgoszcz, where he was sent to look into the matter.
He ordered an internal audit of the city's tax authorities.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
| Issue | President Bush | Senator Kerry |
| Passage of a Federal Marriage Protection Amendment | Supports | Opposes |
| Permanent Extension of the $1,000 Per-Child Tax Credit | Supports | Opposes |
| Educational Choice for Parents (School Vouchers) | Supports | Opposes |
| Unrestricted Abortion on Demand | Opposes | No Response |
| Federal Funding for Faith-Based Charitable Organizations | Supports | No Response |
| Permanent Elimination of the “Marriage Penalty†Tax | Supports | Opposes |
| Permananet Elimination of the Death (Inheritance) Tax | Supports | Opposes |
| Partial Birth Abortion Ban | Supports | Opposes |
| Public Financing of Abortions | Opposes | Supports |
| Adoption of Children by Homosexuals | Opposes | No Response |
| Placing US Troops under UN Control | Opposes | No Reponse (but you’ve heard his speeches) |
| Affirmative Action Programs that Promote Preferential Treatment | Opposes | Supports |
| Allowing Younger Workers to Invest a Portion of Their Social Security Tax in a Private Account | Supports | Opposes |
| Unborn Victims of Violence Act | Supports | Opposes |
| Appointing Pro-Life Judges | Supports | Opposes |
| Prohibiting Distributing “Morning After†Pills to Children in Schools | Supports | Opposes |
| Requring Parental Notification for a Minor Daugher’s Abortion | Supports | Opposes |
This weekend, for the first time ever, I actually heard a newscast (a Webcast, actually) that included the words, “the destruction of embryos,†in conjunction with President Bush’s stance on Federal funding of stem cell reseach.
On October 21, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Lisa Boucher Clark, Ph.D., from the University of New Hampshire, entitled “Stem Cells and Cloning: The Perils and the Promise.†The issue was fascinating, and Dr. Clark presented this extremely controversial topic in a factual context, attempting to avoid editorializing or taking a side on the issues, and, in general, succeeding in doing so. (The topic needs a BLOG entry of its own; despite Dr. Clark’s efforts, there were outbursts and arguments that erupted from the audience.) One of the things she discussed is the promise of using stem cells in therapeutic medicine. For example, we are nearing the technological point at which it would be possible to combine somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning) with stem cell harvesting to produce stem cells that would later be coaxed to differentiate into heart cells—or just about any other tissue—that perfectly match the donor-recipient to replace damaged heart muscle. (This is something of an oversimplification: Although the basic technologies have already been proven, they are not yet very reliable, and to date, SCNT has not been successful with human cells.)
This is the promise of cloning and stem cell research. But it comes at a price. Assuming the SCNT procedure works, the stem cells produced would be removed from an embryo at its blastocyst stage, thus killing the developing embryo. Those stem cells could then be cultured into entire cell lines. Note that current stem cell lines are produced using discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics, not from cloning via SCNT.
Our President does not want to give federal money toward stem cell research that destroys embryos. He has allowed for federal funding for stem cell research in cultured stem cell lines that are already in existence, and has done nothing to prohibit or outlaw privately-funded stem cell research. He is not trying to stop the progress of science in a potentially helpful area. He is living up to his beliefs, and his promises, by not putting tax dollars to use in killing the unborn.
The media have done a poor job of presenting the technology and the subject matter as it actually exists, although it is not entirely their fault. Former President Reagan’s son Ron is an outspoken advocate of stem cell research, but he carefully avoids talking about the fact that embryos are destroyed in the current process. More proponents of embryonic stem cell research should come clean on what the full implications of such research are.
Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway) “noted that last year the U.S. graduated just 62,000 engineers (there were more Sports Management graduates) as compared to the 3.4 million technology grads coming out of universities in India. Kamen says we have only ourselves to blame. ‘You get what you celebrate…we celebrate sports and movies.’â€
See this article at PC Magazine online for a more complete story about his speech at the FIRST robotics competition.
See this article at Slate for an unusually detailed (for a Web article) look at the highly controversial leftist propaganda piece. Here is an excerpt:
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.
… And I thought the end of the Cold War had also brought an end to the great age of propaganda!
Commentator Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, says American troops returning from Iraq are surprised to find such a pessimistic view of the war in the media.
Listen to his commentary at this National Public Radio archive site.
Interestingly, Mark Bowden is actually against the war, given the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.
I still find it interesting that we have forgotten that Bill Clinton believed Iraq had WMDs, that he failed to transfer information on current terrorist threats to the Bush administration, went soft on terror, crippled the military, and even failed to eliminate Osama Bin Laden when given the opportunity.
Former President Ronald Wilson Reagan died on Saturday, June 5, at the age of 93. We mourn the passing of a leader who inspired our nation, saw the end of the Cold War, and chose to do what he believed was right, rather than what was politically expedient. Even Bill Clinton chose to pattern some of his Presidency after Reagan—it is a pity he chose not to try to emulate Reagan’s integrity.
There are hundreds of articles available about President Regan. Here is one perspective; Dr. James Dobson also has written an excellent account of his experiences with President Reagan and his administration. I highly recommend reading the latter, as it offers a perspective on conservative political issues from before Reagan era through today.
[nuke][doug]I am not normally very critical of the US government, especially having traveled a little and seeing what life in other countries is like. However, the official reactions to the pardon of Dr. AQ Khan have me completely flabbergasted.
For the record, these faults existed long before the Bush administration—in fact, there have been few times in US history when a clear foreign policy was applied consistently. Let me make a few points to illustrate why we desperately need a consistent foreign policy:
So, why are we making a deal with the devil (despite claims to the contrary) in Pakistan? I will have to get back to this later.