Christina’s Common Sense

According to this study done by a neurosurgeon in the UK (which should arouse suspicions right off the bat; what was the last great medical innovation that came out of the UK?) cell phone usage causes brain cancer.

Dr. Khurana is hardly the first person to make this claim. They’ve been saying this since cell phones have existed. I mean, Rush Limbaugh used to talk about this on his TV show. That was what, fifteen years ago? Khurana is restating the same evidence, using the same methodology, and giving us the same warnings that his counterparts have used for years. I wish I could get this much press for using someone else’s idea.

But in all seriousness, this has perennially made news for years. And every time it has, it has been debunked. I mean, have these people no shame? They should be embarrassed for trotting out the same stupid hypothesis that has been falsified numerous times.

The scientific community does itself and us a huge disservice by doing stuff like this. When scientists put forth blatantly false evidence for years on end, nobody wants to listen to them anymore. If they actually were to discover a link between cell phone use and brain cancer, nobody would listen. The people in the white lab coats have cried wolf so often it’s hard to believe them anymore.

However, if—despite all evidence to the contrary—you are worried about your cell phone eating your brain, take heart. There’s a possibility angiostatin drugs could have muddled their way through the FDA approval process in time to save your life. But don’t hold your breath—they’ve only been sitting in FDA labs since about 1998.

What would we ever do without the FDA?

If you’re a typical American, you probably think we’d all die. We need the FDA to approve drugs so they don’t kill us, right? If it was left to the drug companies they’d never test anything and we wouldn’t know if that bizarre vitamin concoction we just bought at Walgreen’s is safe or not.

To quote Capt. Teneal of MXC, “Well, you’re wrong.” The FDA is not keeping us safer. In fact it misses many side effects, some of them very dangerous, when approving drugs. In addition, the near decade it takes to put a drug through the federal bureaucracy leaves critically ill patients with fewer options. A drug that could save a cancer patient’s life is denied him because it’s only 6 years into the approval process. Honestly, if you were dying of cancer would you not take a drug that might kill you and instead live with cancer that will kill you? According to Mom and Dad Government, it’s better for you to die than take a chance on an unapproved drug.

The FDA is failing us. It’s that simple. We don’t need to reform it. We don’t need to fix it. We need to get rid of it. Doctors who make drugs aren’t going to stay in business very long if they make drugs that kill their customers. That’s bad business. Drugs that don’t work won’t stay on the market very long, just like cars and air conditioners and computers that don’t work. People stop buying them.

I admit some part of me’s a little nervous about leaving substances I put into my body to the market. But the government sure isn’t working. When something’s not working, you don’t keep doing it. You abandon it and try something else. The FDA’s not working. Let’s hang an “Out of business” sign on its door and try something else.

In a post earlier this month, I wrote about a court case in California that effectively outlawed homeschooling. Naturally, that put homeschoolers across the nation up in arms.

Fortunately, homeschoolers have some big advantages in this matter. There’s a lot of them, they’re well-organized, and they make a lot of noise. They also have HSLDA on their side. Now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is on their side too. In a statement earlier this month, the Governator blasted the court’s decision, saying that it penalized parents for acting in the best interests of their children.

“If the courts don’t protect parents’ rights,” Schwarzenegger said, “then as elected officials, we will.”

While I’ll admit to having enjoyed a few (all right, more than a few) Arnie movies in my day. I’ve never been too fond of most of his policies. But I’m quite fond of this one. California homeschoolers may be squirming right now, but they’ve got some very powerful allies: HSLDA, their governor, and most importantly the truth. Nearly everywhere homeschool rights have been attacked in this country, they have prevailed.

It is not likely that a hard and fast decision in this case until June, as American society hasn’t yet gotten rid of lawyers and sped up the justice system as revealed in Back to the Future Part II. Even after the case is decided,this is likely to be a long and anxiety-ridden battle, but I am confident that homeschoolers will emerge victorious with one more tally mark on the Government vs. Homeschoolers scoreboard.

Last week, Hillary Clinton recounted a tale of landing under sniper fire during her 1996 trip to Bosnia . Turns out, the tale was a crock. Big shocker, I know. She says she “misspoke” about the incident, and there actually was sniper fire on the hillside near the landing strip. Good heavens. If this woman confuses sniper fire near her with bullets actually being fired at her, what else will she “misspeak” over? I mean, if the North Koreans batted an eye she’d rapidly turn it into a full-scale nuclear assault or something.

Since then, various military commanders have denounced Hillary’s remarks, saying that it demeans the sacrifices they make. They’re right. Making light of something like getting shot at by snipers diminishes everyone who’s actually been under fire. It’s like schools branding everyone and his brother with a learning disability—it hurts the credibility of those who are actually learning disabled. Not only that, but Hillary’s story makes the military look like they fell down on the job and let the First Lady and her teenage daughter land with a bunch of disgruntled Bosnians on the runway.

So we have two options here. Hillary’s either too dense to properly recall a fairly memorable incident like being shot at, or she cares so little about our servicemen that she’s perfectly willing to make up a story which demeans them. Neither one’s a particularly attractive trait in a potential Commander-in-Chief, is it?

With Barack’s pastoral mishaps and Hillary’s faulty memory, the Democrats look ready to shred themselves this year. For them, that’s bad. Which translates to wonderful for America! And for this blog, as  it means I will rarely be short post topics.

There are numerous good things about being a card-carrying member of Young America’s Foundation. One of them is that you wander around CPAC and get free books that haven’t been published yet. Actually, I lied. Anyone could do that. But it’s still cool to be a card-carrying Young America’s Foundation member. You should look into it.

The free not-yet-published book in question is A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel J Flynn. Having heard Flynn speak before and read some of his columns, I had high expectations. They were not disappointed.

With exhaustive research and dry wit, Flynn exposes the origins and history of current American liberalism. The history is not a flattering one—I mean, if your ideology’s history was one of racism, sexism, eugenics, and communism wouldn’t you want to forget that too? Well, if you’re a liberal, Dan Flynn has revealed that to be your movement’s sad story.

Flynn does a masterful job of showing that the current liberal ideas of big government and lack of personal freedom can trace their origins to the landing on Plymouth Rock. The current liberals use the same schemes that have been tried and have failed for centuries. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

A Conservative History of the American Left will be on sale April 29, but Amazon is currently taking pre-orders. You should order this book if you want a well-done, insightful, and accurate look at the origins of today’s loony left.

“A nation built on the principles of the Founding Fathers,” said Mitt Romney in his withdrawal speech at CPAC, “cannot long stand when its children are being raised without fathers in the home.”

For decades now, American culture has bought the lie that we can engage in, shall we say, risky behaviors all we want with no consequences. But the reality is that there are consequences for such behavior, and it’s not just the unwed mothers who are suffering them. It’s our kids too.

It’s not politically correct to say that in this day and age, but it is the truth. And it’s been said the truth hurts. But in the case of unwed mothers, the lie is just as painful. Encouraging a culture of indulgence like this exploits our children. It makes them slaves to our desires.

Gov. Romney’s insight was all too accurate. Out-of-wedlock births are a crisis for America that must be addressed, no matter how much it makes us squirm. It’s not fair to our next generation to make them subservient to our culture of indulgence. We need to put the needs of children ahead of ourselves—and we can start by not having them until we can afford them.

How would you feel about paying $0.50 more a gallon for gas?

If you greet that concept with mixed feelings—dread and angst—you’re hardly alone. But if you live in my adopted home state of Michigan, it could become a sad reality.

Michigan is already in an economic jam, and now Con. John Dingell wants to make it worse by raising gas taxes $0.50 a gallon. Last time I gassed up, I paid $3.45 a gallon. A $0.50 tax would mean almost $4 a gallon! Ouch!

But there’s more to this story than a hit in the wallet. Dingell’s rationale is that this tax will encourage people to consume less fuel and therefore be more environmentally friendly.

What do you call using money to change someone’s behavior? Extortion, that’s what you call it. It’s kind of illegal. But then, so’s theft, which is what the government does when it takes your money and gives it to someone who hasn’t earned it. But I guess the law only applies to those of us who don’t hold elected office.

If I were smart, I wouldn’t have blogged about Iraq two days ago because I would have known that tonight marks five years into the deal. But I’m apparently not smart, so you get two Iraq posts in three days.

Tonight will mark five years since I sat on the floor of my living room watching the first bombs drop on Baghdad and watching to a Fox News anchor report over a video phone.

A lot has changed since then, most of which would be included in this post had I not written about it a mere 48 hours ago. But many things remain the same.

One of these things is the anti-war movement, just as strident today as it was five years ago—or 40 years ago, for that matter. While America’s best have been doing us proud in the Middle East, we’ve had such gems as Fahrenheit 9/11 from the erstwhile Michael Moore, with Fahrenheit 9/11 ½ anticipated later this year. Well-known liberal loon Mike Farrell has put to use all that foreign policy experience he gained playing BJ Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H in a documentary Whose War? Cindy Sheehan has crashed the State of the Union and camped out by Camp David. Stop-Loss, a movie where soldiers desert the Army and don’t get a firing squad is set for release in just a few days.

We should always support our troops, but today is an especially important day to do so. Remember them in your thoughts and prayers, and do everything you can to make sure they know the likes of Michael Moore, Mike Farrell, and Cindy Sheehan don’t speak for America.

The title of this post is the refrain from Paul Shanklin’s latest song regarding Obama’s Jeremiah Wright debacle. It’s also the basic response Obama’s had to this whole brouhaha.

This morning, Obama gave a speech regarding his relationship with Rev. Wright. He stated that he could no sooner disown Rev. Wright than his white grandmother who uttered racist slurs and said things he disagreed with. But his association with his grandmother is involuntary. He didn’t choose his grandmother. But his association with his pastor is completely voluntary. He could have left his church if he disagreed with the teaching. He could have confronted his pastor if he felt the teaching was faulty. Barack Obama did neither of those.

Obama’s strategy of talking without saying anything is about to backfire on him big time. He can’t sweet-talk his way out of this. He’s either willingly listened to Jeremiah Wright denounce America for 20 years or he really had no idea what his pastor was preaching. Neither of those options inspires a lot of confidence in a potential president.

This is a video of some of Obama’s (somewhat belated) denunciation of his pastor’s comments.

When it comes to Iraq, it’s hard to separate the spin from the reality. Many of us—and I was among their number for some time—find ourselves scratching our heads and wondering what to believe. On one hand, our friends in the military tell us that everything’s going well and they’re proud of their mission. On the other, we’ve got the likes of the Clinton News Network and PMSNBC telling us that this is all a catastrophe and we should cut and run before we create more terrorists. You know, like the police create more criminals by throwing people in jail.

Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, brilliantly cuts through the horse hockey to the truth. And I’m not biased or anything just because he’s in tight with my school. Here, Hanson shows us how despite the disastrous reports we get from the mainstream media, our War on Terror in general and Iraq specifically is right and in our national interest.

One of the biggest arguments against the Iraq War is that America is intervening where she has no business. But like it or not, the world has changed since the 1800s. Since the invention of a nasty little bugger known as the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, isolationism isn’t a good idea anymore. The reality is that American intervention is changing minds in the Middle East about Osama bin Laden and suicide bombing. These things made them our enemies, and now they are losing their stronghold on the Middle East. You’d have to be a complete fool—or a liberal—to not see that this is good for America. Iraq is not another Vietnam, and as long as this is the case it never will be.

On the subject of freedom, I want one of these. But I’ll probably have to wait for a cubic zirconia knockoff.