The high school responsible for this insanity was Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington.

As a principal and teacher in Michigan, I could never legally offer even an aspirin nor any medical advice to a student in the school.

But what happened at Ballard doesn’t end there. The school can also send children off campus for mental health care and drug addiction treatment without their parents ever knowing. Supporters say the confidentiality allows teens who are too afraid to tell mom and dad to get necessary treatment.

Parents signed consent forms for off-school treatment thinking it was limited to emergency health care when the parents could not be reached. But the teen health clinics at 14 Seattle schools are about much more. They have a full-time registered nurse, counselor and nursing assistant on hand to help kids with more sensitive issues.

When the 15-year old girl’s pregnancy was confirmed, they counseled her on the options. The mother says they encouraged her to have an abortion and not tell her parents. She claims her daughter was told that if she informed her parents they would have to pay for the abortion, otherwise it would be free.

The teen clinics are administered by the King County Health Department. Officials say school clinic workers are supposed to encourage girls to include their parents in the decision. They will not comment on the specifics of the case.

As for the fact the girl was called a taxi and transported by herself to a clinic to have her abortion then driven back to finish her school day, officials say that’s not unusual. They would not say how many girls have been helped to have an abortion.
Washington State is one of thirteen states that does not have either a parental consent or parental notification law. Girls of any age can obtain an abortion without having to tell a parent.

Not only is this incident shocking to me, but, in my opinion, a criminal use of the emergency consent form. Forget “no child left behind” education initiatives…Ballard High School lowered the moral bar so far that its educational objectives seem almost irrelevant.

What a concept…free speech. Not that I have any animus toward the 400 speeches, White House plugs for this or that new idea the President has proposed, etc., in his first year in office, but why the attack by the Prez on the Court?

The ruling is expected to unleash a flood of money into this year’s congressional elections. Obama’s fellow Democrats face a struggle to retain control of the U.S. Congress amid voter unhappiness over double-digit unemployment, a record deficit, political gridlock in Washington and other matters.

“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

“It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don’t. This ruling strikes at democracy itself,” Obama said.

Oh, really? Strikes at democracy? What the heck has this administration been doing this past year…browbeating banks and Wall Street with threats of punitive taxation on anyone who has touched bail-out money.

The real problem for Obama is that he sees that the corporations and banks he has been critical of will now have their comeuppance in being allowed to throw big money into ads opposing his Democrat buddies right up to the day of this November’s elections.

Republican Party chairman Michael Steele has praised the court’s ruling, saying free speech strengthened democracy.

Obama blasted the ruling the day it was issued, and expanded on his criticism in Saturday’s remarks.

The Supreme Court ruling dealt a powerful blow to efforts to rein in corporate influence and could even allow foreign corporations to “get into the act,” Obama said.

“It will make it more difficult to pass common-sense laws to promote energy independence because even foreign entities would be allowed to mix in our elections,” Obama said.

It also will impede efforts to pass financial regulatory reforms and will give the health insurance industry “even more leverage to fend off reforms that would protect patients,” he said, referring to the industry’s opposition to his efforts to overhaul the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry.

No kidding.

The Ukraine was the Soviet Union’s bread basket. Today, the rich dark soil and the vast fields of wheat and other food products earned Ukraine the nickname “bread basket of Europe.”

According to the CIA World Factbook, Ukraine produced 25% of all agricultural output in the former Soviet Union. Today, Ukraine exports substantial amounts of grain, vegetables, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, milk and meat.

Exports (including non-food exports) go to Russia, 20%; the countries of the European Union, 17%;China, 7%; Turkey, 6%; and the U.S. 4%.

In addition, food processing, especially sugar processing, is an important industrial segment. Nearly one out of four workers in Ukraine is employed in agriculture or forestry related endeavors.

The recent election in the Ukraine, however, should be of concern to the U.S. Names are confusing, but look at the results.

Remember pro-West Mr. Yushchenko, who was poisoned by dioxin during the 2004 race? There was suspicion that Russia’s Putin had a hand in that. Anyway, Yushchenko languished in fifth place with 5% of the preliminary vote tally. Voters said they were fed up with a leadership that failed to function at times, improve living standards or tame corruption.

However, another political player the U.S. should watch is Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian politician, who had been the vilified by moderate members of the Ukraine. Yanukovych scored a comeback in Sunday’s presidential election, as preliminary official returns today (Jan. 18th) showed him leading a field of 18 first-round candidates but failing to avoid a runoff against a heroine of the 2004 uprising, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Returns from four-fifths of Sunday’s ballots gave 35.8% of the vote to Mr. Yanukovych. The same count by the Central Election Commission put Ms. Tymoshenko solidly in second place, with 24.7% of the vote.

Official results will be released by the commission in the next 10 days. But there was no doubt that the incumbent premier, Ms. Tymoshenko, and Mr. Yanukovych, who was prime minister 2002-2004 and again 2006-2007, will enter the two-person runoff on Feb. 7.

If Yanukovych wins the runoff, the Russian bear will be on its way to dictating policy to the Ukraine with its valuable resources. Not a good omen for the U.S. or for Olga and her generation. I hope Obama recognizes what’s going on and doesn’t cut some fruitless deal with Russia as it did visa-vis Poland’s promised missile defense system to obtain tough sanctions against Iran. I’m not holding my breath.

 Recently, former anchor of Fox News’ “Special Report,” Brit Hume, had this advice to offer Tiger Woods: “He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

One day soon, writes Lynch,  the recession will be officially declared over. That will be welcome news, but it won’t end the pain.

The aftershocks from deep recessions reverberate for years, even decades, and take an enduring toll on everything from government finances to countless upended individual lives.

“People assume once the recession is over, people go back to work. They don’t quite get the long-lasting impact,” says economist John Irons of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

What Irons calls “economic scarring” will long serve as a reminder of the 2007-09 recession.

Millions of workers who’ve lost their hold on the labor market are seeing their incomes reset to a permanently lower level. Young people who entered the workforce this year can expect to earn substantially less during their careers than those who start work during booms.

As state and local governments slash spending, some children will lose educational opportunities, including the chance to attend college.

Others will be weakened by untreated physical and mental illnesses.

“We live in a big, dynamic economy, so some people will reinvent themselves. But a significant minority will have permanent, lasting earnings loss. They’ll have to relocate, and some will see real turmoil,” says economist Lori Kletzer, an expert on the labor market at the University of California-Santa Cruz.

For millions of Americans, the recession will bend the trajectory of their lives in unexpected ways.

Today, 15.4 million workers are jobless, more than twice as many as in December 2007.

To get work, many will face unwelcome moves to distant states or be forced to abandon preferred careers.

Some will be dealt blows from which they will never truly recover, the recession’s impact hardening like a footprint in wet cement.

Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff studied 14 postwar financial crises and found that, on average, public debt in the affected country rose 86% after three years.

The ballooning U.S. debt will cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more each year in annual interest payments.

Other marks will be equally real, though obscured: investments that aren’t made, businesses not created, stunted lives that could have blossomed more fully, concludes Lynch.

And the President wants to add trillions more in debt? What is he thinking? If people are unemployed, tax revenues drop. We have borrowed to the hilt, printing currency continues, and super-inflation is coming.

I find it of interest that Senators Dodd and Dorgan are abandoning the Democratic flagship. They simply know they cannot be re-elected. More Democrats in Congress will see the handwriting on the wall. Even Michigan’s Dem. Lt. Governor can see the tsunami coming in 2010 as voters are realizing that the Obama vision of the economy is catastrophic and change to any political course other than the one we are on is preferable.

Every January 1^st, the Pope issues a message on Roman Catholics’ World Day of Peace. This year, the Pope’s remarks were issued early in an attempt to influence the high-profile climate talks in Copenhagen. In his message the Pope called for urgent action to protect the environment, saying Tuesday (Dec. 15^th) that climate change and natural catastrophes threaten the rights to life, food, health — and ultimately peace.

The 82-year old Pope is no intellectual slouch, and his call for mankind to rethink its way of living is a view that is based on his concern for the future of the planet and its 6 billion-plus inhabitants.

If you listen to conservatives in the U.S., the Pope’s message seems more in tune with Al Gore than with the recent climate-gate hubbub. Although I am a conservative, I am not persuaded that climate change is a hoax. I don’t believe that we are headed toward a future Venus, because there are solar cycles and the regular 11,000 year change in tilt in the earth’s axis that have cooled the earth dramatically for eons. Yet, we don’t exactly have thousands of years to wait for such events. We do have to deal with the here and now. Furthermore, an idea that I have always thought was neglected in the debate was touched on by the pontiff.

A partial solution to carbon dioxide emissions is to plant more trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. A single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs./year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings. Trees also reduce the greenhouse effect by shading our homes and office buildings. This reduces air conditioning needs up to 30%, thereby reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned to produce electricity. This combination of CO₂ removal from the atmosphere, carbon storage in wood, and the cooling effect makes trees a very efficient tool in fighting the greenhouse effect.

Three major ideas contained in the Pope’s message are: Research ways to exploit solar energy, to manage forests better, and to improve waste disposal. Noting that climate change, and resulting desertification, could push millions into poverty, hunger, conflict and displacement, the pope said: “All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development.”

Benedict said industrialized countries should recognize their responsibility for the current environmental crisis and show solidarity toward developing nations. However, emerging countries are not exempt from their own responsibility and there is a need for internationally-coordinated action, he said.

However, here in the U.S., I am not convinced that imposing upon ourselves an economy-crippling monetary cap and trade policy at this time is good either for us or the world. If we are unable to sustain increased borrowing and spending, the dollar’s value will continue to shrink and, as the old saying goes, “as GM goes, so goes the economy.” GM has already been bailed out more than once. Who will bail out the U.S.? China is stepping away from its commitment. A global economy without the foundational dollar would be catastrophic.

So, the Pope’s message, seen from his unique global perspective, is sound and I applaud him for entering the debate. Everyone, conservative and progressive alike, is for less reliance on fossil fuels.

Incremental steps to reduce carbon emissions are imperative. Cap and trade will not be the panacea if India and China ignore steps to reduce their own ever-expanding carbon emissions.

The Obama administration warned Congress this week that if it doesn’t move to regulate carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it has determined that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health and welfare. But it leaves unanswered questions about how the agency will go forward and which industries will be most affected.

The EPA reached the decision last month, and earlier this week the agency’s determination cleared White House review. Today’s announcement, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said, will “trigger the beginnings of regulation of CO2 for this country.”

Industry groups are wringing their hands about what it will mean to have greenhouse gases regulated under the Clean Air Act, and environmentalists are chomping at the bit for the agency to get to work. While groups across the spectrum would prefer that Congress pass a new climate bill to address the matter, in the absence of that, the EPA is compelled to start regulating with the laws already on books.

“There’s no time left to waste,” said David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate center. “We want the EPA to do what it can under the existing Clean Air Act, because that’s what the law is today … We have a problem ahead of us that we’re long overdue in dealing with.” Glenn Beck, On Dec. 9^th, was engrossingly compelling in his monologue about “let’s do it now” regarding healthcare and a host of other issues this administration wants to regulate:

“We, the people, are thinking when has “just hurry up and do it” ever been the right strategy for something this big? It must be done now… but it won’t start for four years?

“What? Well, wait a minute. Why don’t we take our time, do it right — make sure it’s right — and then, once we’re finished, if we decide to, we could still enact it by 2013?

“No, instead: Don’t think, don’t ask, don’t wait another second! This plan …is a plan that will cost over a trillion dollars but is somehow free. It adds 40 million patients and no doctors, but somehow doesn’t ration care. It cuts Medicaid benefits, but no elderly suffer. It adds fees, taxes and bureaucracy, but no one pays.

“If you believe that, you’ll believe we’ve saved or created 200 million jobs this week alone and that the temperature is so hot right now, the Atlantic Ocean is boiling and despite the fact that we didn’t have even one this year, hurricanes are more powerful, intense and frequent than ever before.

“Don’t think about any of this at all — just act now!

“It only makes sense to people who will tell you to fly to the other side of the Earth for medical care, but then tell you to stop flying in jets because the Earth has a temperature.

“The same people that believe that terrorists should be understood and tried in New York courtrooms, but Marines should be tried by the military; that terrorists who mutilate, burn bodies and hang them from bridges should be believed over our Navy SEALs.

“Or that you can print money all you want because hyper-inflation would be good — it would pay off the debt and everyone will have money in their pockets. We have to keep spending our way out of enormous debt?

“Again, don’t think — just do it, right now!”

Fast-backward to Dubai and California…Monday, Nov. 30, Glenn Beck put the problem Democrat Dean forsees in the following monologue:

“Dubai World has a GDP of $75 billion a year; California’s GDP is $1.8 trillion — the eighth largest in the world, ahead of major countries like Italy. What happens when the truth of what’s going on in California becomes apparent to the rest of the country and the world?

“When news of the credit risks in Dubai were announced the Dow Jones fell 154 points. Again, California is the eighth largest economy in the world with a GDP of $1.8 trillion.

“California is now reportedly up to $130 billion in debt. They’re handing out IOUs at tax time. They are proposing new 10 percent taxes, called “forced loans.” The energy shuts off every other week. Fires rage because they refuse to clear the underbrush. And now they have just proposed another $11 trillion in debt through a bond issue even though California’s state comptroller says they can’t afford more debt.

“Dubai should have put on brakes. California should put on brakes. All of America should put on brakes, but no one is.

“Government spending, incredibly, is set to increase through 2011. Our deficit is $12.2 trillion today and by 2018 it’s projected to be over $24 trillion — and that’s if everything goes well.”

Do you think, in your wildest dreams, that New York, Michigan, and a host of other states are not going to face the same problems as Dubai and California? How about a forced loan and IOUs? Good stuff for the average stiff.

The latest projections for mandated programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and others puts the U.S. in debt to the tune of over $100 trillion, or roughly a debt tab of $350,000 for every man, woman, and child alive today.

Hey, but what’s another trillion or more for the present Dems plan for healthcare? Cap and trade? More goodies from Uncle Santa in generations to come….

After getting all eight of our children through college, my wife and I are working to pay off all our debts. We are getting close…1/2 the price of a Cadillac Suv. No more spending on anything but essentials. The word more politicians should use more is “No.” What letter of the word “Now” doesn’t Obama understand?

In a blog by Damien Cave in the Oct. 9th edition of the New York Times, Cave wrote a post on Mrs. Migliorino Miller, an associate professor of theology at Madonna University in Orchard Lake, Michigan. Miller has probably posted more pictures of aborted fetuses than any other person.

In an age when we as humans are concerned with endangered species of birds and animals such as the Arakan Forest Turtle, the Brazilian Merganser, the Alagoas Curassow, the Black Caiman, and a host of other of God’s creatures, it seems to me that it is a good wake-up call to see how we humans treat ourselves. Not that we are in danger of extinction, but I question where we put humans on the scale of living things.

Director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Mrs. Migliorino Miller said she had firsthand experience retrieving fetuses after abortions and photographing them. Cave met Miller in her university office and she handed him proof: a series of 4-by-6-inch prints that she shot, which have been turned into portraits by Stephen McGee.

The first image in the pile gave Cave a clue to the source. It showed a cardboard box with six or seven large, sealed plastic bags with something red inside. There were names on the bags in black ink and, on the box, there was a date written with felt-tip marker: Feb. 27, 1988.

Mrs. Migliorino Miller said this was one of the many boxes filled with fetuses that she, her husband and several others pulled 21 years ago from a loading dock in Northbrook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Acting on a tip, between February and September of 1988, she said they retrieved around 4,000 fetuses that had been shipped there from a dozen or so abortion clinics nationwide.

The incident sounds gruesome, but the images Miller took dwarf the story. If you have ever been to one of the some 60 Holocaust museums around the world (25 in our country alone), Miller’s images give one similar feelings of horror. If you are interested in this documentation of man’s inhumanity to its most vulnerable,check out Damien Cave’s blog here.

With over 51,000,000 abortions in our country alone since Roe v. Wade, AND OVER A BILLION WORLDWIDE, what have we humans evolved into? We are far worse than the Sparta of old where unwanted infants were disposed of by abandonment and exposure. We are creating a holocaust of unthinkable proportions.

We may condemn Iran’s president for his denial of World War II Holocaust, but if we look the other way and deny this continuing holocaust, are we any different? If the most precious of human life has been rejected and destroyed hundreds of millions of times, it seems to me that the Author of life has been rejected as well and this might well explain the rise of agnosticism and atheism around the world.

It is no wonder that the human race is losing its moral compass and is drawing itself farther and farther away from its Creator.

The recent attempt by the administration to freeze out Fox News from the White House press corps pool was an attempt, not seen since the Nixon days, to marginalize media that does not slobber all over the Prez’s policies.

The attempt began on recent weekend TV appearances by Chief of Staff  Rahm Emmanuel and senior advisor David Axelrod taking on Fox News as not a legitimate news organization. Psychiatrist turned journalist Charles Krauthammer, whose journalistic savvy and witty analysis has won him a  Pulitzer Prize and the 11th annual Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Journalism, had this to say:

“Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster…Not very subtle. And not very smart… Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox “not really a news station.” And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to “be led (by) and following Fox.”

“Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration — from exposing White House czar Van Jones as a loony 9/11 “truther” to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health care legislation — the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead. The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry — finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.”

Obviously an interim messianic appearance at a kind of Judgment of media, the Prez, whose initiatives are wallowing in the murky waters of the Red Sea and who is waffling about Afghanistan, is attempting to separate the sheep from the goats. Well, ABC news reporter Jake Tapper had the guts to engage press secretary Gibbs thusly:

• Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization”  and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news  organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

That was just the beginning…

Just when you thought the White House couldn’t possibly do anything to make their bizarre feud with the Fox News Channel an even larger spectacle – the administration managed to take it to another level.

On the Oct. 22 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” host Bret Baier revealed a White House pool announcement was offering Kenneth Feinberg, the “Special Master for Compensation,” better known as the White House “pay czar” for interviews – all except for one network – Fox News.

The press pool is comprised of the five major TV news organizations – CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox News. However, according to Baier, the other members declined to participate unless Fox News was included.

“When they put out that message, they specified that all members of the pool were welcome except Fox News,” Baier said. “Well the other members of the TV pool said, ‘Well we’re not going to do the interview unless Fox News is included.”

Well, three cheers for CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS. They did the right thing. If freedom of the press is restricted only to friendly news media by the administration, we can expect more dead fish to be sent to the American people by these crazies, one of whom, White House communications director Anita Dunn, said recently that one of her “favorite political philosophers” was Mao Zedong.