Well, the move to North Carolina is finally done and over with. I’m here, and I’m getting settled in, slowly but surely. Unpacking is getting done a little each day, and for the most part I’ve just been trying to adjust to being here. I’m meeting some of Matt’s friends, cooking him dinner each night, and loving how pretty North Carolina is. The hunt for a job is difficult, because I honestly have no idea where to start being new in town, but I’m doing the best I can, pretty much just putting in applications anywhere that’s hiring. Matt and I are just so happy to be together, though, finally — after so much time constantly apart.

I’m really excited about the fact that I can finally cook every day. Living by yourself, cooking full meals isn’t very practical, but when you live with someone and have someone to cook for, it’s great. I’m loving it.

Matt took a few pictures of me working in the kitchen, so I’m going to post them below the jump since I haven’t put any new pictures here in a while. I’m also going to put the recipe for dinner that I made the other night below the jump.

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(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Lila Rose and Jackie Stollar have uncovered yet another case of Planned Parenthood covering up abuse of a minor. This time, they bring us a video from a Planned Parenthood in Birmingham, Alabama.

A Planned Parenthood counselor in Birmingham was caught on hidden camera telling an alleged 14-year-old statutory rape victim that the clinic “does sometimes bend the rules a little bit” rather than report sexual abuse to state authorities. This is the seventh Planned Parenthood clinic implicated in a multi-state child abuse scandal involving the deliberate and unlawful suppression of evidence of statutory rape.

Lila Rose, 20-year-old UCLA student and Live Action president, went undercover at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Birmingham and told a counselor that she was 14-years-old, pregnant by her 31-year-old “boyfriend,” and needed a secret abortion so her parents would not find out about her sexual relationship with the older man.

After telling the counselor that her “boyfriend” is 31, Rose asks, “Is it a problem about my boyfriend?” The counselor, identified as “Tanisha” in the video, responds, “As long as you consented to having sex with him, there’s nothing we can truly do about that.” Rose then says that her boyfriend “said he could get in big trouble,” and Tanisha acknowledges that “he could, especially if your parents find out that he’s 31.” She then tells Rose that the clinic manager, OB/GYN Dr. Desiree Bates, “sometimes does bend the rules a little bit” and states that “whatever you tell us stays within these walls” and “we can’t disclose any information to anybody.”

Alabama Code 26-14-3 requires health professionals to disclose suspected cases of sexual abuse to state officials immediately.

“The law is explicit about a healthcare provider’s duty to report, yet Planned Parenthood pretends they cannot say anything,” Rose notes of the investigation. “Planned Parenthood increases its business and influence by circumventing state reporting laws, but inflicts terrible harm upon the vulnerable young girls sent back to statutory rapists.”

In the video, Tanisha also seems to tell Rose that a signature from an “older sister that’s over the age of 18″ or someone “with the same last name” could function as a substitute for parental consent so Planned Parenthood could perform an abortion on a minor. Alabama Code 26-21-3 specifies that the written permission of either a parent or legal guardian is necessary before a minor may obtain an abortion.

The new video is sixth in Live Action’s “Mona Lisa Project,” a nationwide undercover investigation that documents Planned Parenthood’s repeated noncompliance with state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse of minors. Alabama is the fourth state to be implicated in the controversy, along with Arizona, Indiana, and Tennessee. Recently, the investigation of a clinic in Memphis, TN assisted state legislators in their effort to successfully divert nearly $1 million in taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood to law-abiding local health clinics.

“When to ‘bend the rules a little’ means hiding a case of statutory rape from Child Protective Services and looking for ways around the parental consent requirement, Planned Parenthood becomes directly responsible for ensuring that statutory rapists can continue their abuse of young girls,” Rose says.

This is yet another incident in yet another Planned Parenthood where the abuse of a minor child by an adult is not being reported. What I would really love to know is just how many young girls are exploited by older men and go to Planned Parenthood, without having their abuses reported to the police as the law requires. Yes, Lila Rose and Jackie Stollar are just pretending. But how many girls walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic that have found themselves in a similar situation to the one that Lila Rose describes, and their abuse never sees the light of day? Is the money made from performing abortions really so lucrative that it is worth covering up the abuse of a young girl?

This is a nationwide issue. There’s no getting around that anymore. This has happened in multiple Planned Parenthood clinics in cities across the country, again and again and again. And Planned Parenthood is a taxpayer funded organization. Unfortunately, with our abortion-loving president, it’s unlikely that any federal investigation will take place. All the same, each state that has seen videos from Lila Rose’s Mona Lisa Project target Planned Parenthood’s in their state should be undergoing investigations. This kind of criminal activity should not be allowed to continue.

For you pro-abortion people out there: is “the right to choose” really so important that you’ll defend an organization that has been caught repeatedly covering up the sexual abuse of children?

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Obama’s energy czar, Carol Browner, supports cap and trade. But that doesn’t mean she bothered to actually read the bill that will cripple our economy in the name of non-existent global warming. She’s read “large portions” of it, but not the entire thing. 1,000 pages must just be too long for her.

Of course, that makes her better than 219 people in Congress, who didn’t bother to even read “vast portions” of it. The eight traitorous Republicans who voted for this monstrosity are included in that list, by the way.

Not to worry, though. I’m sure that Obama will be sure to go through this bill himself line-by-line though, like he promised last year. Aren’t you?

Hat Tip: Hot Air

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It’s time to burn up those phone lines.

When we wanted to stop amnesty, so many Americans called the Senate that the switchboard crashed. It’s time to do that again.

H.R. 2454, or Waxman-Markey, is the cap-and-trade bill you’ve been hearing so much about. Nancy Pelosi is trying to ram this through the House, and we need to stop it in its tracks. This is the biggest tax increase in American history. It will also make energy and gas prices skyrocket. The economy is crippled as it is; this will punish businesses and families even more. And for what? It’s all in the name of manmade global warming, which has pretty much been discredited. Even NASA, led by global-warming alarmist James Hansen, has made the AMAZING! discovery that the Earth is heated by (gasp!) the sun. There is no manmade global warming, but that’s not stopping Democrats in Congress from trying to destroy our economy in the name of it. Even Greenpeace is against this monstrous bill.

So make your voices heard. Call your congressman now. You can get their contact information here. Tell them to oppose the bill. Remember to be polite and respectful, but be firm. We don’t need to be scrambling around to stop this bill in the Senate. Let’s just put an end to this madness today.

Make the call.

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I got a text message last night from my friend Cara saying that Michael Jackson had died. I was mildly skeptical, but when I found out multiple news sites were confirming his death, I believed it.

I didn’t quite know how to take the news. However, I sat there with another friend of mine, Tara, and together summed up exactly how Michael Jackson would be eulogized. There would be over-the-top, soaring rhetoric about his musical genius. Newscasters would briefly mention how he was steeped in controversy, and then quickly rush on to cover how beloved his music is and how he was such an innovator. And what do you know, I was exactly right.

Look, Michael Jackson’s death is shocking. He was only fifty years old. But reports are coming out that he was apparently a habitual drug abuser in the last few years of his life, and that his family at one point even tried to stage an intervention. And let’s not forget the massive child molestation charges, which first surfaced in the early 1990s and then years later resurfaced again. He gave alcohol to children, calling it “Jesus Juice”. He paid somewhere between $15 – $20 million in settlements to his accusers. Whether he actually sexually molested the children or not, Michael Jackson certainly had inappropriate relationships with children.

Child molestation aside, Michael Jackson became a strange, strange person in adulthood. From the Peter Pan obsession to the plastic surgery overloads to the irresponsiblility with his money to the increasingly crazy behavior to the insane parenting methods he used with his children, he was a boy who grew up to be, at best, a very troubled man.

This video, I think, kind of sums it up the best. It’s a video of Michael Jackson’s face morphing throughout his life, and at the end, asks a very good question: If this is what’s happening outside, what’s going on inside?

I feel bad for Michael Jackson, I think. I believe that he was a musical genius. I believe that he fell victim to a horrible life. It’s a known fact that he was physically and verbally abused by his father, Joe Jackson, as a child. Once he became a celebrity, I believe that his innocence was corrupted by celebrities and handlers looking to take advantage of his genius and his naivete. I believe that the genius of Michael Jackson eventually imploded under all of the stress and pressure put onto him by himself and those around him, most of whom likely had no regards for Michael’s well-being, and he eventually became anorexic and both physically and mentally ill.

Michael Jackson’s life is a tragedy. He had such talent, such promise, but I don’t think any person could have lived a normal life under the circumstances of which he lived. I feel awful for his family, and especially for his children. His music will always be remembered and revered, and I don’t know if there will ever be another person who can come close to the musical genius of Michael Jackson.

Aside from that, what more is there really to say? This all-day-and-all-night eulogizing of Michael Jackson is a little ridiculous, and it’s sad that even legitimate news organizations have succumbed to it. Believe it or not, there are more important things in the world than the death of Michael Jackson, so let’s just take a few minutes to remember his music and move on.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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John Kerry, good-for-nothing senator extraordinaire, has come out of hiding to show us his rather odd sense of humor. Upon finding out that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was missing, he made a wisecrack: why couldn’t it have been Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin who was missing and possibly dead??

The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.

“Too bad,’’ Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’

The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.

Of course, Kerry couldn’t know that 24-hours later the Sanford story would get even stranger when the Republican governor confessed he had actually been in Argentina over Father’s Day weekend – a long, long way from the Appalachian Trail – and with his paramour, no less.

That’s nice. A sitting governor goes missing, and no one knows where he is. For all we knew at the time, he could have been dead. And John Kerry’s response was to joke that he wished it was Sarah Palin who was missing and possibly dead instead.

What a classy, classy guy.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Yesterday, Live Action Films posted the following video to YouTube:

It has since been removed by YouTube with no detailed explanation other than a “violation of the YouTube Community Guidelines”.

Here are YouTube’s community guidelines that could be considered relevant to this particular video:

The world is a dangerous place. Sometimes people do get hurt and it’s inevitable that these events may be documented on YouTube. However, it’s not okay to post violent or gory content that’s primarily intended to be shocking, sensational or disrespectful. If a video is particularly graphic or disturbing, it should be balanced with additional context and information. For instance, including a clip from a slaughter house in a video on factory farming may be appropriate. However, stringing together unrelated and gruesome clips of animals being slaughtered in a video may be considered gratuitous if its purpose is to shock rather than illustrate.

Now, the Live Action video does indeed show graphic images. However, there is additional context and information, as well as ample warnings about the gruesome images you were about to see.

Live Action president Lila Rose issued the following statement:

Without offering any specific explanation, the video-sharing site YouTube has removed a new video by the student group Live Action that shows dishonest counseling practices at Planned Parenthood. The video first plays undercover footage of a Planned Parenthood counselor from Tucson, AZ telling a patient that images of aborted fetuses “are not real” and then shows photographs of a completed abortion and documentation of their authenticity.

Lila Rose, 20-year-old president of Live Action, calls on YouTube to re-instate the video in accordance with its own guidelines: “Since the video we posted does not violate any terms of use, we expect YouTube to re-instate it immediately. YouTube’s own ‘Community Guideline Tips’ advise that intense or disturbing imaging should be ‘balanced with additional context and information,’ which is exactly what Live Action has done.” YouTube has removed videos posted by Live Action without explanation before, including videos showing Planned Parenthood employees caught on tape sympathizing with donors with racist agendas to encourage the abortion of black babies.

Live Action’s videos use undercover tactics to expose fraudulent practices in the abortion industry and are similar to other “sting” investigations which journalists often post on YouTube. The most recent video is part of Live Action’s Mona Lisa Project, which documents abusive practices in Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation. Footage released to date has caught on hidden camera six Planned Parenthood clinics in three states ignoring their mandatory reporting responsibilities for statutory rape and protecting adult-child sexual relationships. Recently the Tennessee State Legislature used undercover footage from Live Action to help divert nearly $1 million in taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood clinics, and in California, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to end a nearly $300,000 contract with the abortion provider.

“New media is vital to educating the public about the shocking realities of abortion practice in America,” Rose emphasizes. “Our videos show hard truths about the abortion industry that must be seen and dealt with. Lawmakers and their constituents are recognizing this, but YouTube does everyone a disservice when they cooperate with Planned Parenthood in burying the evidence of abuse.”

Contact YouTube and ask them why the video was removed, and then ask them to reinstate it. There’s no reason for this video to be censored… except, perhaps, for the fact that YouTube is owned by Google, a notoriously left-leaning company. Could it be that they’re just trying to protect Planned Parenthood? Who knows? Whatever the motive, it’s not right.

Give them a call or shoot them an e-mail. Remember to be polite, and see if we can help Live Action get this video back up and running.

YouTube web form (select video removal)

YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave.
San Bruno, CA 94066
USA
Phone: 650-253-0000 or 650-343-2960
Fax: 650-253-0001

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Readers, beware: Rosie O’Donnell is getting her very own radio show, God help us all.

Rosie O’Donnell is returning to her old stomping grounds as a talk show host but, this time the star will be entertaining fans on the radio!

Rosie will host a new morning talk show “Rosie Radio,” for Sirius XM Radio Inc.

The new two-hour show will launch in the fall and air Monday through Friday. Listeners will have the opportunity to call in and talk to the star about pop-culture, politics, movie stars and more.

Let’s just go over what Rosie stands for, OK? First, there was her notorious statement that radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam. She’s well-known for being an anti-gun nut, but had no problem dressing her daughter up as a terrorist wearing a bullet belt and posting the picture on her blog. Of course, it wasn’t playing terrorist that bothered her, as she says we shouldn’t fear terrorists because they’re “mothers and fathers just like us”.

Sick to your stomach yet? Wait, it gets better.

She’s compared the Patriot Act to South African apartheid. Worst of all, she accused our soldiers of being terrorists. She recently said that Rev. Jeremiah Wright made perfect sense to her, too.

Why on Earth would anyone give Rosie O’Donnell her own radio show? I mean, crazy does not even begin to describe that woman.

I guess the only good thing about all this is that it’s radio. I mean, heaven forbid you had to actually look at her every day.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Taylor Swift is one of my favorite new singers. I recently bought her new CD, Fearless, and she wrote one of the songs on the CD for her mom, titled The Best Day. It’s a sweet, touching song. There are no overblown declarations of love and affection and gratitude, and I think that’s what makes it all the more touching.

The problem is, I really need to stop listening to it. And watching the video. I’m moving out of the state in a matter of mere days, and honestly, the hardest part is leaving my mom. I’ve lived on my own for almost six years, but I typically get to see my mom about once a week. And now I’ll still see her fairly often, but it’s just different. I’m so, so excited to be going and frankly can’t wait for the move to be over with, but I’ve cried multiple times every day, usually when I start thinking about my mom. I wouldn’t have thought that, at almost 25, I’d have such a hard time moving away from my mom. I don’t have that “best friend” relationship with my mom that some girls have, and frankly, those “best friend” mother-daughters annoy the crap out of me. Your mom is your mom. I don’t want my mom to be my best friend, I want her to be my mother. Maybe it works for some people, I don’t know, but I just don’t think parents should strive to be their children’s friends. And my mom has always been a great mom. Of course I’ll miss a lot of people — my dad, my sister, my friends. But I think I’m going to miss her more than anyone else. I’m going off and living my life, which is good, but I hate leaving the people I love behind. It’s a lot harder than I anticipated, and especially knowing that it is making my mom cry to see me go.

So every time I see this video or hear this song, it’s been making me cry. A smart person would stop watching or listening. I guess I’m an emotional cutter or something. I have to soak in my misery. And because I love you all so much, I’m sharing this with you. Below is Taylor Swift’s video, made entirely from family home videos, for her song The Best Day, with the lyrics below. Enjoy.

I’m five years old and it’s getting cold
I’ve got my big coat on
I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you
I run and run
Past the pumpkin patch and the tractor rides
Look now the sky is gold
I hug your legs and fall asleep on the way home

Now I know why all the trees change in the fall
I know you were on my side even when I was wrong
And I love you for giving me your eyes
Staying back and watching me shine and I didn’t know if you knew
So I’m taking this chance to say that I had the best day with you today

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Barack Obama has suddenly realized how valuable our missile defense systems are.

Or has he?

During the campaign last year, Obama repeatedly said that he would make missile defense cuts because our missile shields were “untested” and “unproven”. And it appears he’s keeping that promise, because he has plans to cut $1.2 billion from our missile defense next year, as well as providing no new funds to our missile shields in Europe. Last year, President Bush, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Condoleezza Rice had agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to base interceptors and radar there, but Obama is backtracking. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn admits that there are no plans to move forward with the European missile shield at the moment. We’re already making massive defense cuts as it is, with $900 million being slashed from Homeland Security, the production of F-22 fighter jets being halted, and benefits for families of fallen police and safety officers being halved. Spending everywhere else is skyrocketing, but the one area of government where we can’t afford to be stingy is getting ripped off.

This might not ordinarily be a pressing issue, but the timing couldn’t be worse. Iran and North Korea have both gone rogue, with both countries defying U.N. Sanctions with nuclear missile testing. Last month, Iran tested a long-range missile. North Korea has tested several, one of which allegedly is comparable to the nuclear weapons that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Worst of all, North Korea has made a threat to shoot a long-range nuclear missile at Hawaii for the 4th of July. It would launch from the northwestern coast of North Korea, from their Dongchang-ni site. The missile itself is believed to be a Taepodong-2 missile, with a range of up to 4,000 miles. The missile would probably not be able to actually reach the Hawaiian islands, but that seems irrelevant. It would still be an act of war, and we need to be ready to intercept that missile if our intelligence is wrong. Joe Biden had warned during the campaign last year that the world would be waiting to test Barack Obama, and apparently Kim Jong Il is rising to the occasion. So far, the Pentagon has ordered missile defense systems to be bolstered around Hawaii, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Obama still has plans to make cuts to our missile defense. On top of that, the Obama administration refused to allow the Navy to test our missile tracking radar during Kim Jong Il’s last launch, allowing Obama to keep repeating that our missile defense systems are “untested” and “unproven”.

And despite the fact that both Iran and North Korea are getting bolder and bolder with their nuclear tests, Obama’s still planning on cutting missile defense. His $1.2 billion in cuts will shrink the number of interceptor missiles in Alaska from 44… to 30. And this has both Republicans and Democrats worried. With all of the uncertainty about what the next threat from Iran or North Korea will be, an added layer of protection would not be unwise. The National Endowment for the Arts recently received $50 million in stimulus dollars. Amtrak received $1 billion dollars. Couldn’t we perhaps have taken some of that wasted money and put it towards something that the country actually needs?

President Bush is no longer in office. Does that mean that we can no longer preemptively defend ourselves? And this isn’t even an issue of invading or attacking North Korea – at the very least, couldn’t Obama make sure that we are protected from attack? The fact that he’s considering cutting our missile defenses when there’s an upcoming threat shows how clueless he is. But of course, when our president invites a potential enemy like Iran to celebrate the 4th of July with us, what else can be expected? Iran is killing protesters fighting for freedom and testing long-range nuclear missiles, but Obama can’t recognize the threat or even stand in solidarity with freedom fighters. Should we really be surprised that he can’t understand why we need to be strengthening our missile defenses and not weakening them?

Barack Obama talked often about using smart diplomacy during his campaign, but this is not smart diplomacy. Looking the other way when rogue nations run by evil dictators start testing nuclear weapons is not smart diplomacy. Letting tyrannical regimes celebrate independence and freedom with us on the 4th of July with no concern for the cruelty imposed upon their people is not smart diplomacy.

And cutting missile defenses when we’re being threatened with nuclear weapons is not smart diplomacy, either.

(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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