Of the young lady who converted from Islam to Christianity:

A 17-year-old girl who says she ran away from her Muslim family in Ohio because she feared she could be killed for converting to Christianity can remain in Florida for now.

An Orlando judge signed an order Thursday sealing a police report for at least ten days until lawyers for Rifqa Bary, her parents, and child welfare officials can read it. The report contains the results of a two-week investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into Bary’s family and home life.

There is no easy answer, here. We want to stay out of family affairs. Parents do have a right to impart their views to their minor children and even, to a certain extent, compel conformity to religious practices while the child lives at home. On the other hand, there have been cases of girls who strayed from Moslem orthodoxy being killed by Moslem family members due to a false view of what constitutes honor. As the girl is 17, in less than a year the case will be moot – at 18, she’s free to do as she wishes.

And that is actually what concerns me – why should the parents want to force a near-adult child back home? While there may be anger and hurt feelings, using legal efforts to compel conformity is unlikely to bring the child back to the fold, nor cure any of the anger and hurt. In fact, its only likely to exacerbate it and thus there is a concern that the only reason to bring the girl back is to enforce something upon her – not necessarily harming her, but spiriting her out of the country in to a Moslem land where women are essentially regarded as property to be disposed of.

On balance and knowing what we know of these cases, I’d argue for judicial delay – making no hard and fast ruling which might set a bad precedent, but tying things up until the girl turns 18, at which time it won’t matter, any more.

The unemployment and under-employment rate:

…The jobless rate rose to 9.7 percent; the so- called underemployment rate — which includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking — reached a record 16.8 percent…

A friend of mine’s husband was just laid off this past Tuesday; another friend’s son was recently laid off. At my work, we’re all just wondering when the next axe will fall.

There is no recovery – and whatever “good” the Spendulus could do has been done and the renewed slide to the bottom will just accelerate from here. We need to change the way we do things – we need to start creating wealth. Until we do, we’ll just slide down to the bottom and then sputter there for until we get rid of these financial sharks and socialists who led us here.

Yet more inspiration:

…The time is arriving when we can have further tax reduction, when, unless we wish to hamper the people in their right to earn a living, we must have tax reform. The method of raising revenue ought not to impede the transaction of business; it ought to encourage it. I am opposed to extremely high rates, because they produce little or no revenue, because they are bad for the country, and, finally, because they are wrong. We can not finance the country, we can not improve social conditions, through any system of injustice, even if we attempt to inflict it upon the rich. Those who suffer the most harm will be the poor. This country believes in prosperity. It is absurd to suppose that it is envious of those who are already prosperous. The wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful…

…We need not concern ourselves much about the rights of property if we will faithfully observe the rights of persons. Under our institutions their rights are supreme. It is not property but the right to hold property, both great and small, which our Constitution guarantees. All owners of property are charged with a service. These rights and duties have been revealed, through the conscience of society, to have a divine sanction. The very stability of our society rests upon production and conservation. For individuals or for governments to waste and squander their resources is to deny these rights and disregard these obligations. The result of economic dissipation to a nation is always moral decay. – Calvin Coolidge

If only we had listened – but, we didn’t…and we allowed a grab-bag collection of socialists and speculators to take us for a ride. Now we’re trillions in debt, economically dissipated and deep in a morass of moral decay.

Our only way out? Work.

Could be:

According to The Boston Globe, former Boston Red Sox ace Curt Schilling is contemplating a run for the vacant U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts previously held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

The Globe speculates that if he runs, Schilling — who starred earlier in his major-league career with the Philadelphia Phillies — will seek the Republican nomination in the special election that will be held Jan. 9 to fill Kennedy’s seat. If so, Schilling will face a steep uphill battle to win the seat, given that Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the Union.

But with the Democrat “brand” at a heavy discount, this could be the perfect time for a GOPer to slip in and win…especially as he’ll be able to campaign as the person who would force the Democrats to work across the aisle.

As relates to the TEA Party movement:

Opportunities like this come along once in a political lifetime. Instead of worrying about Whole Foods, the Tea Party leadership should be figuring out how to channel this tidal shift in American public opinion into concrete results in next year’s congressional elections.

Being nonpartisan, the Tea Party movement must identify and encourage like-minded candidates in both major parties. That means a Tea Party Movement Seal of Approval, or a Tea Party Pledge, to point voters of all stripes to the new blood needed to replace the current calcified cast of establishment insiders running Congress.

No, that would straight-jacket the movement. It would turn it in to just another special interest the politicians will placate. What the TEA Party movement is all about, if anything, is anger over the status quo. It is for independent-minded Republicans and Democrats to demonstrate – by word and deed – that they are not part of the corrupt power structure but are, indeed, determined to bring it down; then the TEA Party support will be automatic.

Republicans will benefit from this more than Democrats – partially because we’re the out party, mostly because we’re more ideologically in tune with the TEA Party than most Democrats. But smart Democrats can also ride this wave of anti-establishment anger – indeed, even ultra liberals can garner at least some TEA Party support, if they just become part of the solution to big government problems, as opposed to being part of the problem (as almost all liberals are). This is a revolutionary wave – whomever catches it, will win.

Its just getting weird:

A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”

Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Number 46 of the petitioners from the so-called “Truther” movement which suggests that people in the administration of President George W. Bush “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”

In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of “the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.”

Now we are being asked to agree that a person’s signed statement should not be held against him. If Lewis Carroll had written this, the editor would have struck it out as too unbelievable.

Look, anyone with and wits at all knows darn well that Van Jones signed on to the “truther” movement – which is being played, today, as if only a few fringe kooks were involved, but which was actually running quite strong on the left right about the same time Jones signed the petition. The left is trying to do a bit of a re-write but the fact of the matter is that the left, by and large, still believes that President Bush used 9/11 as a foundation for lies to get us in to Iraq. While not one in a hundred will admit to harboring “truther” views about 9/11, itself, there is no great leap from thinking that Bush cooked the intel books on Iraq to thinking Bush had a hand in 9/11. Van Jones isn’t an oddity – he’s mainstream liberal (yes, even with his cockeyed communism – especially so!).

The Obama Administration is shot through with people like this because the Democratic party is shot through with people like this – you couldn’t heave a brick at a Democrat gathering without hitting someone who thinks that President Bush had a hand in 9/11, or some other variant of the “BusHitler” meme (Ed. Note: Blogs for Victory strongly discourages hurling bricks at gathered Democrats…no matter how fun it’d be). The Democrats invited these kooks in to the party for the 2004 campaign. Michael Moore was the tip of the spear, but once the party was opened to people like Moore, they just came flooding in…and ended up providing the core support for Obama’s candidacy.

What can the Democrats do? Conduct a purge – though they won’t do it until they’re beaten. So, we’ll have to put up with Van Jones and his like at least through November of 2010.

UPDATE: Least shocking news of the day – he’s also a supporter of the cop-killed Mumia.

Inquiring minds want to know, in light of this:

A healthcare-reform opponent whose finger was partially bitten off Wednesday during a Thousand Oaks rally said today that doctors could not re-attach the severed section.

William Rice, 65, of Newbury Park also confirmed reports that he threw the first punch in the confrontation that claimed part of his left pinky.

“When he got in my personal space, I popped him in the nose,” Rice said. “I felt like I had no choice other than to defend myself.”

The incident was reported at 7:26 p.m. Wednesday at Lynn Road and Hillcrest Drive, where more than 100 people gathered for a pro-healthcare reform vigil organized by Moveon.org.

A bit of advice for my fellow conservatives: while punching hippies is fun and relaxing, we should refrain from such activities as long as Obama is in office. It distracts from the central issue. If you must get in to a physical confrontation with a hippie, wear durable, leather work gloves.

Have at it, boys and girls.

If this doesn’t get you in a fighting mood, then you’re dead:

…Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. They — and let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions, ladies and gentlemen, of equality. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. And, so help us God, that is exactly what (we will do) – Barry Goldwater

Goodness, what a well spring of human love:

Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar told US news service MSNBC they are delighted to discover the impending arrival of their 19th child. Described by the Today program as “glowing,” Michelle Duggar said, “I’m feeling sick and tired, which is a good way to be feeling about right now.”

“I always tell myself that’s a good way to be because that means good things are happening.”

The baby is due to arrive around March 18, 2010.

The family stars in the reality TV show “18 Kids and Counting” airing on TLC. The family are members of the Quiverfull movement among US Protestants that rejects the modern anti-child philosophy and allows God to decide how large their families will be.

The news of Michelle’s pregnancy, only eight months after the birth of their last child Jordyn-Grace, was followed by that of the family’s eldest son, Josh, who announced that his new wife Anna is expecting their first child, who is due on October 18. “Children are a blessing and a gift if you raise them right, and I think my parents have definitely shown that,” Josh Duggar said.

Most people simply will not have 19 children, even if they remain open to Life as God intends – God, I think, is providing a bit of instruction here. The family is happy, filled with love and seems to be completely free of the social pathologies we see in all too many of our families these days…those oh, so “planned” families.

So, how does the left react to this? With the only thing they have – hate:

…When the story was published on the website of the left-leaning Huffington Post, commenters did not hesitate to express their hostility to the Duggar’s openness to life. 1081 commenters responded with nearly uniform outrage that the Duggars, who have no financial problems, live in a large house they built themselves and are not in debt, have the audacity to be happy with their large family.

“Nothing but pure selfishness,” said one…

Mutual self-donation and the open well springs of life are examples of selfishness? Yes, if you are on the left – where the only generosity in existence is government-funded and the proper role of sex is personal pleasure. Rather sad, actually – the fools don’t realize what they’re missing.

Life – always choose life. You’ll never go wrong, that way.