Three hours and 12 minutes

Three hours and 12 minutes — that’s how much time I’ve got to myself this morning.  I am beyond excited.  I haven’t really hit the online news yet, but I did discover some things last night that I wanted to bring to your attention (assuming you haven’t already read them).  I expect that, as I read more, I’ll have more ideas swirling around my head.  As it is, even though I never left town, it was such a frantically busy week last week, and an even more busy weekend, that I feel as if I’ve actually been away and am only now returning.  So, in no particular order, stuff that interested me:

Yesterday, American Thinker had two articles about Barack Obama.  That’s not unusual, of course, since Obama is definitely a topic of conversation in the blogosphere.  What struck me about both of these articles, however, is how they reminded me of closing argument at a trial.  Each was an unusually good summary of the facts we know about the man and why those facts disqualify him from being President.  More than that, rather than trying to convince us about his disqualifications — since we, the average American Thinker reader, are already among the converted — the articles explain why his same handicaps mean that, even as he bewitches the media and the intelligentsia, he’s not a sure winner.  You’ll find the articles here and here.

Kathryn Jean Lopez offers some rather stunning insights into the Planned Parenthood approach to birth control and why it will ultimately be ineffective when it comes to teaching our children responsibility, even when it is ostensibly preaching abstinence.  After discussing PP’s suggested packing list for vacation (every birth control item known to man), Lopez goes on to say:

And therein lies the problem with groups like Planned Parenthood — and with way too much of pop culture. For Planned Parenthood and the anything-goes ethos it represents, young people are always going to have sex. In their worldview, there’s no reason for living if you’re not going to mimic the rutting bachelorettes of Sex and the City. What could you possibly do to have a successful, happy life if it doesn’t involve going through a condom a day?

Likewise, in its abstinence video, PP has its little protagonist message make it clear that she’s heading for some self-fulfillment. Lopez immediately realizes what the problem is with this approach to abstinence:

So abstinence to Planned Parenthood means masturbation? No wonder they think abstinence education is a total waste of time. They can’t get their minds out from Down There. They can’t believe that if you challenge young people to want more than what they see on TV and in the movies, they’ll take you up on it. Planned Parenthood just doesn’t get it; abstinence education can never be about simply saying, “Here’s what you can do so no one gets pregnant but you can still get some sexual kicks.” It has to be part of a greater education: a character education. A physical education. A moral education.

[snip]

The girl in the Planned Parenthood video is, of course, right to say that her night at home won’t give her disease or a baby. But it’s no way to live. She’s cutting herself off from others. She believes she lives in a world in which sex and simulating sex are the only options on a Friday night. There are, of course, alternatives, and good ones at that. If there weren’t, all married couples would get divorced after only a few years of nuptial bliss.

“I want [the Israelis] to come back” — ’nuff said.  Read it.

More to follow.