Military pensions blocked; Stem cells treat brittle bone disease; Facebook tracks unposted comments...

Senate GOP fails in final bid to block military pension cuts in budget bill
...Sessions wanted to instead eliminate an estimated $4.2 billion in annual spending by reining in an IRS credit that illegal immigrants have claimed.

He and fellow senators argued the bill unfairly sticks veterans and other military retirees with the cost of new spending.

“It’s not correct, and it should not happen,” Sessions said on the floor.

"By blocking my amendment, they voted to cut pensions for wounded warriors," he said afterwards. "Senators in this chamber have many valid ideas for replacing these pension cuts, including my proposal to close the tax welfare loophole for illegal filers, and all deserved a fair and open hearing. But they were denied.”

Sessions’ office claimed the vote Tuesday to block the amendment was a vote to "cut military pensions instead of cutting welfare for illegal immigrants."...

45 States Still Haven’t Hit 10% of Enrollment Goals for Obamacare
In Arkansas, its up to 1,404! Well along the way to the state’s goal of 51,000 paid enrollees by the end of March.
In Delaware, it’s up to 793! The state’s goal is 35,000. 
In New Hampshire, they hit 1,569. Getting close to that goal of 19,000!
In West Virginia, it’s up to 775! They’ll hit their goal of 24,000 in no time! 
In Hawaii, all the way up to 444! That goal of 9,000 is in sight!
In Colorado they’re up to 9,980… with a goal of 92,000...

Stem cells could treat brittle bone disease in children
..."We only need to collect 100 or 200 microlitres of blood from the foetus, which is a tiny amount, less than a fifth of a millilitre of blood. From this tiny sample we can grow all that we need to provide the potential treatment...
Doctors inject stem cells into foetus to treat brittle bone disease

‘God is calling men to rise up’: How a post-abortive dad is helping save thousands from abortion
...Finally, however, Jeff started researching how Online for Life was saving babies from abortion using cutting edge Internet marketing techniques. “And it was really the first time in my life that I began to really understand the devastation of abortion,” he says. “I had really hidden from it. God began to really drop the scales from my eyes, and I saw what abortion was.”

Then, he says, “I began to become enraged that as Christians that we were aborting 3500 of our children every day."

Soon thereafter, Jeff began to volunteer for Online for Life, putting his extensive experience in business to work saving lives. Then, last year, “kicking and screaming,” he accepted a full-time position as Vice President for Development for Online for Life, completing his transition to becoming a full-time pro-life activist.

For him, the work of Online for Life - which, to date, has been directly involved in saving 1,368 babies from abortion - is quite simply “compassion and intervention” – a way to reach lost men and women, like he and his wife were 20 years ago...

North Dakota to Let Man in Same-Sex Marriage Wed Woman, Too
North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem filed a legal opinion last week confirming that the state does not recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages, allowing a man married to another man to come to North Dakota and marry a woman without divorcing his husband.

While many wildly speculated that the legalization of same-sex marriage could lead to polygamy, they probably never thought it would be like this. Presented with a legal hypothetical, Attorney General Stenehjem answered three questions: whether someone in a same-sex marriage in another state can also receive a marriage license to someone of the opposite sex in North Dakota, whether they can file legal documents as "Single" when they possess a same-sex marriage license in another state, and whether this would open the individual up for prosecution under another state's bigamy laws. The Attorney General's response can be read in full PDF form here...


Facebook keeps track of every message you type – even ones you don’t post Every social network user has at some point typed something they knew they’d regret sharing and has promptly erased it before clicking “post.” However, Slate’s Jennifer Golbeck reports that these discarded thoughts don’t completely disappear — rather, Facebook uses a code that keeps track of every time you delete a would-be message and sends metadata about that message back to its own data bases.

Just what is Facebook doing with information on these non-posts, you ask? Golbeck cites a new research paper written by Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer and Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student Sauvik Das that examines the reasons for Facebook users’ “self-censorship” and takes a look at millions of users’ “aborted status updates, posts on other people’s timelines, and comments on others’ posts.”

Facebook Wants to Know Why You're Self-Censoring Your Posts
...Unfortunately, the code in your browser that powers Facebook still knows what you typed—even if you decide not to publish it.* It turns out that the things you explicitly choose not to share aren't entirely private...