Keith Olbermann: High on Emotion—Low on Facts

If anyone hasn’t seen this clip, you should.  The implication of hate here is unconscionable.  It is the epitome of slant in this arena of old media.  Emotion, outrage, questions—all left unanswered but pointing in a certain direction, leaving the viewer with ideas that mirror his own.  Without touching on the answers that are readily available, Olbermann’s viewers are left with a sense of righteous anger at pro family voters who opposed gay marriage, and the idea firmly planted that hate is all the motivation there is.

High on emotion, low on facts, all the questions Olbermann asks have answers that are not hate as he implies.

From 20 Reasons to Support Traditional Marriage:

Marriage is an essential institution of society. Marriage is an institution which pre-exists both church and government, and is the foundation of all known civilizations and societies. History shows us that marriage is an essential institution in preserving social stability and perpetuating life itself – which is why the state has a compelling interest in preserving and protecting it. Central to the state’s interest in marriage is the procreation and rearing of children. Marriage advances the state’s interest in ensuring the birth and rearing of children in the setting most likely to ensure their well-being and protection, and providing the next generation the training and attributes necessary to sustain a civilized society. Hence, married couples in almost every culture have been granted special privileges and have been held to important obligations, by force of law, all aimed at sustaining their relationship and promoting the environment in which children are reared.

Advocates of gay marriage tend to see marriage as a ceremony between individuals, primarily to ratify their affections. Contrary to what gay activists assume, the state does not endorse marriage because people have feelings for one another. The state endorses marriage primarily because of what marriage does for children and in turn for society. Society gets no benefit from redefining marriage to include homosexual relationships — only harm. Legalizing gay marriage will transform the meaning, expectations and practices of marriage as a social institution – in essence destroying marriage as we know it – in a reckless social experiment with numerous destructive consequences.

There already are disturbing social impacts where gay marriage has been legalized. The experience of European countries that have legalized gay marriage demonstrates that any dilution of the traditional definition of marriage erodes the already weakened stability of marriage, family and children. Research shows that marriage is weakest, in nations where support for gay marriage is strongest, and that there is a direct connection between gay marriage and illegitimacy. As scholar Stanley Kurtz concluded, “If gay marriage were imposed here by a socially liberal cultural elite, it would likely speed us on the way toward the classic [European] pattern of less frequent marriage, more frequent out-of-wedlock birth, and skyrocketing family dissolution. In the American context, this would be a disaster.” (The Weekly Standard 9, No. 20 (February 2, 2004): 26-33.)

The rest of this article is posted here: http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/why-preserve-man-woman-marriage/

Facts Facts and More Facts:

Need more facts?  Skip the summaries, get straight to the sources: http://troysmsxp.blogspot.com/2008/10/off-topic-but-important-proposition-8.html

Please Breastfeed Your Baby…

1.) Most nutritional way to feed an infant – Composition of breast milk changes overtime to adapt to a growing baby’s needs.

2.) Not only satisfies hunger, but emotional needs as well – Helps mother to develop a strong and unique bond with her baby.

3.) Reduces your baby’s risk of developing a childhood illness – Breastfed babies are less likely to develop Crohn’s disease, diabetes, asthma, SIDS, or develop allergies.

20.) You cannot overfeed a breastfed baby – When breastfeeding an infant will stop nursing when he or she is fully satisfied; however, bottle fed infants are encouraged by parents to finish a bottle at each feeding.

I have 100 more reasons if would like to know them…

Breast milk heals infections (even in the eye), diaper rash, pimples and even sore mommy nipples.

With first hand experience, I can tell you that breastfeeding Raleigh has not only been easier for me but I know that he is getting all the nutrients that he needs to grow intelligent, healthy, confident and strong. Raleigh is 13 months old and still is nursing. He has yet to be sick or even get a stomach ache. He has not ever thrown up.

Although I do have Raleigh on solid foods and juice, he still snuggles with me to go to bed. It’s sweet, loving, bonding, healthy and necessary.

Of you have any questions, concerns or advice please comment back. Thank you.

I was creating a poster for Ms. Candice David promoting the positive side of smoking and decided to google “smoking is good for you” just to see what I would find. The first result made me chuckle so I thought I would share it. sure, I know you could just google it yourself, but would you?

Poster (just for fun)

WAY too much has been said about the ‘ill-effects’ of smoking, what it could ‘do’ to you and other crap. The effects of smoking have been greatly exaggerated, and it’s us smokers who have to face the public sentiment on this.

Anyways, what is the big deal if I smoke? People will often come up to me and tell me, “Smoking can kill you, you know?” I promptly reply with some smartass remark like “Really? THANK you for telling me!” Yeah, Sherlocks. I’m too stupid and illiterate to read the warning on the pack, let alone understand it. I have this feeling that not smoking actually makes people so stupid, they don’t realize that smokers already know what they’re doing to their bodies. Hey, I know my lungs have taken on a distinct coloration of black, with pink patches here and there. I know that I’ll be hacking up blood in my cough, a couple years from now. Who gives a damn?

I have a hectic and inundated life, and I’d like to take a break from it all to enjoy the relief that the cigarette can bring to me. The last thing I need is for yet another self-appointed Samaritan coming near me to tell me what I’m doing to my body, or why they object to me puffing around. It’s not like I’m going up to them and telling them, “Excuse me, sir, could you please go elsewhere, you’re in my smoking space.” I’d really love to do that though, I don’t think that they’re even worthy of breathing my 2nd hand smoke.

How many of you readers smoke? How many of you are ferverent anti-smoking lobbyists? What IS your problem with smokers? Till date, I haven’t seen a good answer for that last question.

I’ve made a list of 20 points I’d like to make for the case of smoking. If anyone can, what is the case against smoking/second-hand smoking?

Here’s my spit:

1. Increases concentration.
2. People often go with the general sentiment on things like these, most of what you hear is hogwash.
3. Cases of cancer are linked with smoking, but it’s not proof. Only 1 in 3 of us will get lung cancer. (By “us” I also include non smokers).
4. Smokers are a persecuted lot, since this habit has been banned from workplaces, restaurants, buses, subways and planes. You don’t think they’d outlaw breathing for christ’s sake.
5. Smokers have the only real community that’s left in the workplace today.
6. Smokers suffer from less stress, since they actually take a few breaks per day.
7. That bruhaha about second hand smoking is a load of crap. it’s just a phrase made up to get normal people who earlier didn’t care about it, to go and further persecute the smokers.
8. It’s cool to smoke. Ever seen a hacker or a real artist with a health shake?
9. Smokers support the economy by paying all those taxes, which *AHEM* some of us don’t.
10. Warning: The Surgeon General fails to warn you that non-smokers die every day
11. Studies have shown that prolonged contact (as in several years) with second hand smoking can cause mild lung problems. Second hand smoke has no immediate harmful effects. Actually, why not just ban non-smokers?
12. Too much is made of the 4000 chemicals that make up a cigarette. Several carcinogens found in cigarettes are found in peppers, carrots, strawberries, tomatoes, onions and grapefruit.
13. Believe it or not, nicotine is actually “a surprisingly potent drug for a variety of diseases that afflict the brain, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Tourette’s syndrome.” (An image makeover for nicotine: It shows promise against brain diseases, HealthCentral.com - Feb. 21, 2000) Smokers have a 60% lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.
14. Nicotine has a positive effect on ulcerative colitis, which is an inflammation of the stomach lining, and this disorder affects nonsmokers more than smokers.
15. Smokers actually recovered better from a heart attack than nonsmokers.
16. Smoking was found to reduce the risk of estrogen-dependent endometrial cancer (dunno what that means, it just sounds really cool)
17. Schizophrenics (4 million Americans) who smoke can get enough nicotine stimulation to switch on a brain receptor that helps filter information.
18. Stanford researchers have discovered that low doses of nicotine - a major component of cigarette smoke - appear to promote new blood vessel growth (in mice). (“Nicotine to be used to treat heart disease,” Reuters Health, HealthCentral.com - Sept. 2000)
19. Alcohol is even more harmful than smoking. Yet not much is said against it as compared to smoking. Half a bottle of wine can supply you with 32-40 times the amount of lead a whole pack of smokes can give you.
20. “Sick smokers may burden a country’s health care system but dead smokers save governments money”

1. They are humble and respectful and courteous and even funny (the ones I’ve met).

2. They believe in truth.

3. They believe that truth really matters.

4. They believe that the Bible is true, all of it.

5. They know that the Bible calls for some kind of separation from the world.

6. They have backbone and are not prone to compromise principle.

7. They put obedience to Jesus above the approval of man (even though they fall short, like others).

8. They believe in hell and are loving enough to warn people about it.

9. They believe in heaven and sing about how good it will be to go there.

10. Their “social action” is helping the person next door (like Jesus), which doesn’t usually get written up in the newspaper.

11. They tend to raise law-abiding, chaste children, in spite of the fact that Barna says evangelical kids in general don’t have any better track record than non-Christians.

12. They resist trendiness.

13. They don’t think too much is gained by sounding hip.

14. They may not be hip, but they don’t go so far as to drive buggies or insist on typewriters.

15. They still sing hymns.

16. They are not breathless about being accepted in the scholarly guild.

17. They give some contemporary plausibility to New Testament claim that the church is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

18. They are good for the rest of evangelicals because of all this.

19. My dad was one.

20. Everybody to my left thinks I am one. And there are a lot of people to my left.

By John Piper

Here’s a couple more video clips from the same VSA Văn Nghệ Xuân in 1986, posted here so you can view the young and innocent faces of the “later” classes. Enjoy!

Trống Cơm by Tí & Toe

Ly Rượu Mừng

Here’s a video clip from an old VSA Văn Nghệ program, featuring some of our best performers. Doesn’t watching this take your heart and soul 25 years back into the past? Well, many of these same performers will be there to entertain you at the Reunion. Attending this reunion will not only take you back 25 years, it will also make you younger by 25 years. Cải Lão Hoàn Đồng! Register NOW!

Rước Tình Về Với Quê Hương (part 1)

Rước Tình Về Với Quê Hương (part 2)

BTW we will have more video like this available on DVDs at the reunion banquet. Come and get it!

Hung Hawaii offers four more reasons to attend our 2008 reunion:

14. See never-before-seen pictures of yourself and that guy/gal you secretly admired through the lenses of Berkeley’s best paparazzi’s

13. Stroll down memory lane with your old pals; spend ‘virtual’ time at beloved UCB campus landmarks

12. Relax to the best music, the most melodious voices of the last 3 decades at Cal

11. Find out if Tùng Đười Ươi có còn “khỉ” như xưa, and Thăng Củ có còn phong độ như ngày nào tại Durant Palace

Much more to come… get your tickets TODAY!

Một tác giả của những bài thơ bất hủ trong Nối Vòng Tay năm xưa gởi đến các bạn một lý do nữa để tham dự chương trình hội ngộ năm nay:

Reason #21 to come to the reunion:

I can tell you whom I wrote this poem to and why …

Lửng Lơ Con Cá Vàng

Sao cô cứ than mình ế mãi,
Một mình một cõi chẳng có hai.
Đành rằng tình ý muôn ngàn lý,
Nhưng tại vì cô chẳng chịu ai.

Cô ơi cô biết tôi cũng ế,
Diện quần diện áo vẫn bị chê.
Đành rằng “húi cua” theo “kẹp tóc,”
Theo hoài không được thấy mệt ghê.

Cô ơi cô ế tôi cũng ế,
Sao mình không giải cã hai bên.
Thương tôi, tôi cũng thương cô trót,
Tình mình sẽ đẹp như giấc mê.

Cô nghỉ sao?

Kòm.

PS. Just finding out who this charming character “Kòm” is will be worth the price of admission!

Our prince MC Hamming Hung Hawaii has been pulling what’s left of his hair trying to entertain you at the banquet. From what we’ve heard, you are in for a treat! Here’s what he wants to post, just to wet your appetite:

Top 20 reasons you must attend our 2008 reunion

20. You get to vote which female alumni still has the cutest cheeks.

19. You vote which male alumni has the shiniest forehead i.e. will benefit from a free supply of Rogaine

18. Share your fondest memory of Berkeley with the entire audience

17. See pictures of you when you used to look young and beautiful/handsome

16. Catch-up with old flames

15. Introduce your new flames to your old flames

Much more to come … buy your tickets NOW!