Scrolling around...December 19, 2012

Viewing porn leads to short-term memory loss: study
Researchers at the University of Duisburg-Essen have found that viewing pornography has a significant negative effect on a man’s ability to complete short-term memory tasks that are important for understanding, reasoning, problem solving and decision making.

“Some individuals report problems during and after Internet sex engagement, such as missing sleep and forgetting appointments, which are associated with negative life consequences,” the introduction to the research report states...

...The study found a significantly greater number of incorrect answers when the men viewed the pornographic images than when they saw the nonsexual images...

A Hundred Percent of Nothing
JoAnn Watson, Detroit city council member, said, "Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president, and there ought to be a quid pro quo." In other words, President Obama should send the nearly bankrupted city of Detroit millions in taxpayer bailout money. But there's a painful lesson to be learned from decades of political hustling and counsel by intellectuals and urban experts.

In 1960, Detroit's population was 1.6 million. Blacks were 29 percent, and whites were 70 percent. Today, Detroit's population has fallen precipitously to 707,000, of which blacks are 84 percent and whites 8 percent. Much of the city's decline began with the election of Coleman Young, Detroit's first black mayor and mayor for five terms, who engaged in political favoritism to blacks and tax policies against higher income mostly white people. Young's successors, Dennis Archer and Kwame Kilpatrick, followed his Third World tyrant policies, but neither had his verbal vulgarity. Kilpatrick (2002-2008) went to jail and is on trial today on charges of corruption. Mayor David Bing is making an effort to revive Detroit. His problem is that he's not God.

Policies that ran whites and other more affluent people out of Detroit might have been Young's and his successors' strategy. After all, why not get rid of people who aren't going to vote for you anyway? The problem is that getting rid of these people left Detroit with a lower tax base, fewer jobs and fewer consumers. Fewer whites might be good for the careers of black politicians, but it's not in the best interests of ordinary blacks. Blacks have political control of Detroit, but the relevant question is whether some control of something is better than 100 percent control of nothing. By most measures, Detroit is one of the nation's most tragic cities, and it's mostly self-imposed. ..

Obamacare could drive Little Sisters of the Poor out of the US
A religious order of nuns is concerned about its future presence in the United States because of Obamacare’s impact on its charitable operations. The Little Sisters of the Poor told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare’s healthcare mandate. The law requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities...

Newtown Residents Complain of Media Showing Up at Funeral Homes
There's no question the media needs to be in Newtown covering this story, but as we've seen since the beginning, too many members of the media are crossing too many lines; interviewing children, interrupting worship services, and now we have complaints about the media showing up at funeral homes:...

Taxpayers to Lose Billions as GM Buys Stake Back from Government
The American taxpayers stand to lose billions as General Motors today announced a plan to buy back 40 percent of the company owned by the federal government.

"The Detroit automaker said it will purchase 200 million shares of GM stock held by Treasury for $5.5 billion — or $27.50 per share — nearly $2 above the stock's closing price on Tuesday," the Detriot News reports.

However, the break even price — the price that GM would need to pay for each share in order to pay back the money the government put in to the company —was $53 a share. That number has now risen dramatically...

Court: Obama Admin Must Rewrite HHS Mandate to Protect Religious Liberty
In a victory for the pro-life battle against the HHS mandate, a federal appeals court yesterday reinstated two of the top legal challenges to the mandate, which requires religious employers to pay for drugs that may cause abortions.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals handed Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College a major victory in their challenges to the HHS mandate. Previously, two lower courts had dismissed their lawsuits as premature because the Obama administration is expected to revise the mandate next year. However, the appellate court reinstated those cases...
Also:Court: Obama must rewrite contraception mandate to accommodate religious liberty

Bork, whose failed nomination made history, dies
Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1980s nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85.
Robert Bork: From Atheism to Christian Faith