I was trolling through Kindle’s free books the other day looking for stuff to read. Unless I’m quite obviously not going to read the book (Paleolithic cook books aren’t my thing), I click over and check the best and the worst reviews for a book. The best reviews tell me about the book; and the worst tell me about its flaws. Any book that gets scathing attacks because of bad grammar, wooden dialogue, whiny heroines, etc., never finds its way onto my Kindle.

Today, I found a “one star” review that raises a point I’ve never thought about before: the book is unfair to witches. As best as I can tell, the book is a sweet, but silly, romance/ghost story but, somewhere in the book the writer said something mean about witches and got this negative review:

5 of 49 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointed, April 15, 2013

By GW Alumna (Planet Earth) – See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

This review is from: Keep Me Ghosted (Sophie Rhodes Romantic Comedy #1) (Kindle Edition)

Let me first say that I’ve enjoyed Cantwell’s books immensely. And I enjoyed this one for about the first third. Then the problems started. The problem in this book, the malevalent ghost, was identified as having been evoked by witchcraft. I don’t take insults to my religion lightly, and this is the last Cantwell book that I will ever read. Just imagine if some dastardly ghost had been invoked by islam or judaism. We didn’t even get the dignity of a capital letter for our religion. I am very disappointed in Cantwell. I thought she was better than this. It was just a cheap shot that was totally unnecessary. Surely she could have created an antagonist without insulting people.

Bizarrely, I feel as if the ACLU, which had lapsed into being an arm of purely Left wing politics, might be coming into its own again. I don’t have problems with the US spying on other countries (all countries have always spied on each other), but I’m very disturbed by the integrated network of data the U.S. government is amassing on all of us.

The starting point for any discussion about abortion is, of course, Roe v. Wade.  Pro-abortion people like to throw that case name around like a magic talisman that allows abortion from the moment of conception until some time after birth.  They invariably forget that Roe v. Wade was a very limited ruling. It did not create an unfettered right to abortion. Instead, it established a delicate balancing act over the entire length of the pregnancy between the State’s interests and the woman’s interest in the fetus.  Based upon the state of medicine in the early 1970s, the court saw viability as starting sometime within the second trimester.  The specific weeks or months of a pregnancy, though, weren’t the issue.  Viability trumps all:

With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the “compelling” point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.  (Emphasis added.)

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 163 (1973).

The Supreme Court has decided myriad abortion cases since Roe v. Wade, all of which push back on limitations states attempt in impose on abortions in the early weeks.  The one thing that none of these cases have done is to limit the viability standard.  Instead, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court actually expanded the viability standard by saying trimesters are irrelevant.  The only thing that matters when it comes to determine the State’s interest is average fetal viability under current medical practices:

We have seen how time has overtaken some of Roe’s factual assumptions: advances in maternal health care allow for abortions safe to the mother later in pregnancy than was true in 1973, see Akron I, supra, at 429, n. 11, and advances in neonatal care have advanced viability to a point somewhat earlier. Compare Roe, 410 U. S., at 160, with Webster, supra, at 515-516 (opinion of REHNQUIST, C. J.); see Akron I, 462 U. S., at 457, and n. 5 (O’CONNOR, J., dissenting). But these facts go only to the scheme of time limits on the realization of competing interests, and the divergences from the factual premises of 1973 have no bearing on the validity of Roe’s central holding, that viability marks the earliest point at which the State’s interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions. The soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow be enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact, just as it has done since Roe was decided; which is to say that no change in Roe’s factual underpinning has left its central holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for overruling it.

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 860 (1992) (emphasis added).

In sum, what the Supreme Court has done over the years is to expand pre-viability rights, while contracting the window of time within which those rights apply.  This is an important point to keep in mind when considering the House’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which bans abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy.  First, don’t let the 20 weeks throw you.  The method the House bill uses to calculate fetal age translates to what most women would consider 22 weeks pregnant, which is when fetus’s can survive outside the womb.  (There are two different time measurements, in the same the way that Celsius and Fahrenheit are two different temperature measurements.)

Right out of the box, the pro-abortion media gets the bill wrong.  In a Washington Post article, the Post claims the House bill goes beyond the Supreme Court, which it does not:

The bill would narrow the window currently set out by federal law and the Supreme Court, which bans most abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Some Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed similar laws in recent months.

As you can see from the quotation above, the Supreme Court did not place a time-limit on abortion.  It placed a viability limit.  Once the average fetus is viable with modern medical care, the State has rights.

Now that we’ve established the law, let’s look at what Barack Obama has to say about the House bill, which he has declared he intends to veto in the unlikely event it gets through the Senate:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 1797, which would unacceptably restrict women’s health and reproductive rights and is an assault on a woman’s right to choose.  Women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care, and Government should not inject itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor.

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose.  This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women’s health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients’ health care decisions, and the Constitution.  The Administration is continuing its efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies, expand access to contraception, support maternal and child health, and minimize the need for abortion.  At the same time, the Administration is committed to the protection of women’s health and reproductive freedom and to supporting women and families in the choices they make.

If the President were presented with this legislation, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill.

This is a steaming pile of manure.  It cites to Roe v. Wade without understanding it, and which completely ignores Casey, all in an effort to give women unfettered abortion rights from conception through to some moment after delivery.  Reading the statement, it’s difficult to remember that our President is a Harvard Law graduate and former constitutional law professor. I mean, we know he didn’t author it himself, but how in the world could he have put his imprimatur on it?

I’ve commented before on the factual dishonesty of the abortion debate.  Abortion proponents pretend that we’re living in the 1950s, when out-of-wedlock pregnancy was a stigma, not a commonplace.  I guess it’s unsurprising that the intellectual debate would be equally dishonest.  One could say that the good thing about mass murderer Kermit Gosnell is that his “post-birth” abortions have brought to light the intellectual paucity of the Democrat party when it comes to abortion.  The Supreme Court has insisted on a balancing act, and the Democrats have responded by putting their thumb firmly on the abortion side of the scale.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still cheering.

With the recent passion for vampires and other supernatural characters, Robards has decided to try her hand at the genre as well.  Her first paranormal book was The Last Victim: A Novel (Charlotte Stone). The heroine is Dr. Charlotte Stone, who witnessed a serial killer — the “Boardwalk Killer” — in action and who went on to become a psychiatrist specializing in what makes serial killers tick. She also sees dead people.

The plot gets going when Stone is at a prison interviewing a serial killer named Michael Garland, who has God-like looks and a dirty mouth. Garland gets stabbed by another inmate and, despite Stone’s best efforts, he dies. Garland’s ghost immediately attaches to Stone and won’t go away. While she’s adjusting to this haunting, an FBI team, led by a good-looking agent, approaches her for help.  The FBI believes the Boardwalk Killer has returned and Stone is their best bet to stop him. The rest of the book has Stone and the FBI racing to catch a killer, while Stone finds herself torn between the FBI agent and the good-looking ghost of a convicted serial killer.

As the book goes on, it becomes very obvious that the serial killer is winning Stone’s heart — which means either that Robards has become one strange lady as a writer or that the serial killer was falsely convicted. And that’s kind of where Book 1 ends: with Stone losing her heart to a ghost we can no longer believe is a serial killer (although there’s no evidence to the contrary) and, of course, with the whole team solving the crime.

Book 2 in the series is The Last Kiss Goodbye: A Novel, which comes out in August (I was able to get as a preview copy).  The book picks up immediately where the last one left off, within hours of Stone having successfully solved the previous murder.  Garland is still a ghost, Stone is still conflicted, and the FBI still needs Stone because there’s another serial killer out there.  In other words, there’s nothing new about The Last Kiss Goodbye.  If you enjoyed the first book, which had Robards’ trademark pacing and sizzling romance, you’ll like this one, which has Robards’ trademark pacing and sizzling romance.

I wouldn’t rank The Last Kiss Goodbye as one of Robards’ best books but, in her defense, I’m not a fan of the whole paranormal genre.  I prefer it when my romantic heroes are real people, not vampires, or werewolves, or ghosts.  I just don’t see where a romance can reasonably go when the hero’s instinct is to suck your blood or dismember you or when, as here, he’s dead.  Believe it or not, though, Robards does manage to work around the whole sex thing, which gives hope that, in subsequent books, Stone and Garland will get to live (or die) happily ever after.

Overall, I don’t regret reading this book.  I never regret reading Robards’ books.  I just can’t rave about it because (a) the premise is a little too strange for me and (b) Book 2 has a slightly recycled feel to it.  I will certainly read Book 3 in the series (I assume there’ll be one), because even when she’s a little disappointing, Robards is still a cut above the rest.

All I could think was “good dog” and “good man,” since it was his quick reaction that saved all three of them from terrible injuries or even death.

The rule of law also has to be grounded in common sense and reality.  That’s why Anatole France was being nonsensical when he famously said “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.” The reality is that a rich man, unless crazy, does none of those things — but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the law is unfair if societal good demands that we value property or try to keep streets safe for all citizens. The law is what it is. In the case of theft, vagrancy, and begging, it isn’t the law that should change but, perhaps, the availability of opportunities and, as needed, charity.

Common sense has long-dictated, at least since 9/11, that the best way to stop terrorism directed at Americans is to keep a close eye on people, especially men, who practice a strict form of Islam and on disaffected young men who take psychotropic drugs.  These two categories of people have been responsible for almost all, or maybe all, of the mass killings against Americans over the last decade and more.

When it comes to the mentally ill, we keep talking about monitoring them, but we don’t do it.  Lack of political will, lack of political and social organization, civil rights issues, and the fact that it’s more fun to rail against guns than against insane people (poor things) means that this won’t change any time soon.

Even worse, our government has made the “politically correct” decision to refuse to monitor with extra focus those young men who embrace radical Islam (e.g., the Tsarnaevs or Nidal Hassan).  It’s not fair, we’re told.  Profiling will make law-abiding Muslims (and the vast majority of Muslims in America are law-abiding) uncomfortable.  It’s racist and mean to assume that, because someone is Arab-looking, and sweating, and smelling of rose water, and murmuring “Allahu Akbar” under his breath to think that he’s up to a bit of no good — never mind that, when the bomb goes off or the plane falls from the sky, any Muslims in the area will be just as dead as their non-Muslim compatriots.

Heck, we’ve allowed minority groups to prey on each other for decades for fear of causing offense.  The number one target of violent, young, black and Hispanic males is . . . violent, young, black and Hispanic males, followed closely by all the hapless black and Hispanic children, old people, mothers, and fathers who have to share communities with these monsters of violence.  Because it looks bad for white police to go after these monsters, their communities must suffer.  The Gods of Political Correctness delight in human sacrifices, and the younger, more innocent, and more tender the better.

Americans therefore fully understand that our government, for “diversity,” or “multicultural,” or “politically correct” reasons (all of those terms speak to the same end), absolutely refuses to look first at the obvious suspects (young, radical Muslim men) before casting its net wide to sweep in people who are trying to avoid capture by looking less obvious.  It’s not likely that the Minnesota granny has a bomb in her brassiere, but it’s possible.  A good national security system doesn’t assume that anyone is innocent, but it does concentrate its resources where they make they most sense.

So here’s the deal with the NSA spying:  We know with some certainty that, for Leftist political reasons, the NSA is not making an effort to scrutinize the population most likely to go all “Allahu Akbar” on us.  Instead, for politically correct reasons, it’s spying on everyone.  In essence, it’s creating a haystack of information, with extra paddings of politically correct, multiculturalist hay wrapped around any spot where a needle might hide.

If politics means that the system won’t look for the obvious bad guys, what is it looking for then?  Well, I suspect that what’s going to happen is that the system will be used to look for easy targets.  Things that are neither criminal nor suspicious, but that pop up nevertheless, will suddenly be scrutinized because they’re there.  It will be the surveillance equivalent of “If the mountain won’t come to Mohamed, then Mohamed must come to the mountain.”  Since the NSA can’t focus its efforts on finding real criminals, it will engage in some flexible thinking and criminalize whatever activity it sees.  And — voila! — it will therefore justify its bureaucratic existence and purpose.  That the country will lose its identity and the people their freedom is a small price to pay for bureaucratic immortality.

I thought of this liberal delusion — that guns can magically be transformed into harmless flowers — when Hube brought to my attention the clarity with which Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the existential threat facing Israel, and about the West’s passivity in the face of this threat:

“The leaders of the Allies knew about the Holocaust in real time,” Netanyahu said at the opening of a permanent exhibit called “Shoah” in Block 27 at the Auschwitz- Birkenau State Museum.

“They understood exactly what was happening in the death camps. They were asked to act, they could have acted, and they did not.

“To us Jews the lesson is clear: We must not be complacent in the face of threats of annihilation. We must not bury our heads in the sand or allow others to do the work for us. We will never be helpless again.”

To stare down the muzzle of a rifle is a remarkably clarifying moment.  Why aren’t we having such clarifying moments in America despite the Islamists’ relentless war against America and Western values?  I think the problem is perfectly summed up by the young man in that photo:  reality-challenged Progressive think that, by pretending the rifle is a flower, it will magically become one.  That’s not how rifles or flowers work.