Haley on Obamacare; Mohler on marriage and family; Three-parent embryos....

Ecumenism in the Chaplaincy
Last week I was sitting in my office at the chapel when one of our chaplain assistants came in and told me that an Airman was on his way in and wanted to talk with a chaplain. He wanted to know if I was available to see this particular Airman. I said that I was, but inquired further if the Airman expressed any denominational preference. “Did the Airman want to see a particular kind of chaplain?” The chaplain assistant assured me that the in-bound Airman didn’t have a preference; he just wanted to see a chaplain.

When he finally arrived and was escorted into my office, we were both a little surprised that we knew each other. “Oh, hi, Father,” he said. I, likewise, addressed him by his name and invited him to take a seat. This particular Airman is a practicing Catholic and attends Mass faithfully each week. We went through the counseling session and I believe I was able to help him. Furthermore, I think he was appreciative that it was I, his priest, who was the one available to meet with him. Still, the question hit me, almost immediately, “Why didn’t he ask to see the priest?” Was his request to speak with “any chaplain” an endorsement of the high quality of the chaplains we have on our staff, or in the Air Force in general, or an open-minded act of ecumenism; or was it rather a sign of the creeping religious indifferentism that affects so many people, especially in the younger generation?...

A.S. Haley: Finally: a Clear Explanation of What’s Unfixable about Obamacare
...“Horrific management” does not begin to describe the problems with Obamacare. They began with a bill that was passed solely by Democrats in Congress, in violation of the rules and without any opportunity to read what was in it, and that had been drafted mostly by the lobbyists for, among a myriad of special interests, Big Insurance and Big Pharmaceutical—who wanted to ensure that their clients would gain, and not lose, from the politically popular (but financially very costly) changes being made in coverage requirements.

They continued with a hare-brained scheme to subsidize the huge increase in costs by forcing everyone to purchase the new insurance, so that premiums paid by the young and healthy would offset the premiums for those with pre-existing conditions and other health disabilities. Enforcement would also be supported by the fact the insurance companies would have to cancel millions of existing policies in order to replace them with ones having all the fillips and curlicues required by Obamacare...

No, You Can’t Keep It
Ultimately, the only way to allow people to keep (and buy) the insurance they want is to repeal the law and foster a true market in health insurance. Until then, the wrecking ball of Obamacare swings.

Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance
...Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”...

Creation of Human Embryos With Three Parents Facing Massive Opposition

Albert Mohler: A Clear and Present Danger: Religious Liberty, Marriage, and the Family in the Late Modern Age — An Address at Brigham Young University
...Heterosexuals did a very good job of undermining marriage before same-sex couples arrived with their demands. The marriage crisis is a moral crisis and it did not start with same-sex marriage, nor will it end there. The logic of same-sex marriage will not end with same-sex marriage. Once marriage can mean anything other than a heterosexual union, it can and must mean everything. It is just a matter of time.

Of course, one of the issues we must confront is the fact that marriage is a pre-political institution, recognized and solemnized throughout history by virtually every human culture and civilization. But we are living in an age in which everything is political and nothing is honored as pre-political. In the recent words of Justice Antonin Scalia, we are all now waiting for the other shoe (or shoes) to drop.

This has all been made possible by a breakdown in the immune system of human society—and this breakdown was no accident. Immunologists will explain that one of the wonders of human life is the fact that each of us receives from our mother an amazing array of defenses within our immune system. Throughout time, we develop further immunities to disease, or we grow sick and vulnerable. A severely compromised immune system leads to chronic disease, constant vulnerability, and potential death. If this is true for an individual, it is also true of a society or civilization.

We have forfeited our immunity against the breakdown of marriage, the family, and integrity of human sexuality. We can point to others who have been the prophets and agents of this self-injury to society, but we must recognize that we have all contributed to it, in so far as we have embraced essentially modern understandings of love, romance, liberty, personal autonomy, obligation, and authority...

Teaching Children Death Panels: School Pushes Euthanasia Assignment on Kids
...When news about the assignment spread, people invoked the “death panels” that figure in the debate over health care reform. While understandable, making that connection misses a far larger and more pernicious point.

The assignment was a lesson in utilitarian ethics, the kind made famous—or infamous—by Princeton professor Peter Singer. The students were being taught to value a person’s worth and dignity on the basis of what kind of contribution they could make to society.

And it’s a lesson they took to heart: The students’ choices reflected the person’s social prestige and/or age. The top three were the doctor, lawyer and teacher. The bottom three were the college student, ex-convict, and the disabled person...


Brain bending Honda car commercial...


Behind the scenes...