Want to go the way of Russia?

Authorities in the southern Russian city of Novorossiysk have scheduled a “week without abortion” in an effort to combat the country’s extremely high abortion rate.

During the weeklong event that began on Monday, doctors will not perform abortions in all but “the most extreme cases,” RussiaToday.com reports. The city’s maternity welfare center will hold open houses with information seminars on family planning as psychologists and gynecologists work with pregnant women to help prepare them for motherhood.

A hotline for pregnant women will also operate during the week, putting them in contact with gynecological experts in Novorossiysk.

“Doctors will do everything they can to stop women from doing the irreparable,” a city administration representative told RussiaToday.com.

The city’s universities will also screen films demonstrating the detrimental effects of abortion.

Russia’s abortion rate is among the highest in the world, with nearly 70 percent of pregnancies ending in an abortion. The Western Europe abortion rate is about 12 per 1,000 women per year, while in Russia that figure is 54 per 1,000, according to U.N. records on abortion rates.

In 2004 there were 100,000 more abortions than births.

Further, about 10 to 15 percent of abortions in Russia have complications, leaving about 8 percent of women sterile.

Right now, the pro-abortion fanatics are plotting their misbegotten and fraudulently named “Freedom of Choice Act” for President Obama’s signature. They hope to slip it through the legislative process and allow Obama to quietly keep his pledge to sign it. FOCA, as its known, will codify “federally funded abortion on demand” – a position held by only a tiny minority of Americans, but by using the word “choice”, the pro-abortion fanatics hope to impose their sick, anti-human worldview upon all of us.

FOCA means lots of things – it means that every Catholic hospital in America (about 1/3 of the total) will close their doors (no, not sell out to others, but actually close because we Catholics cannot materially aid evil); it means that doctors and nurses who refuse to participate in abortion may be held liable; it means that tax payers will be forced to perform abortions because abortion, under FOCA, is considered a basic human right…it means, in the end, that we’ll become a nation more in line with aborting children than bringing them into the world…much as Russia has been for the past couple decades, and now a desperate Russian government seeks expedient after expedient to stop the slow-motion suicide of the Russian people.

Abortion is the crowning evil of our age of legalized murder and lies. It is the only genuinely important issue we face, because if we cannot even see our way to welcoming new life into our society, then what worth is anything else we do? It must be stopped, and it will be stopped – and it is what we will fight on here and now and for ever, until victory goes to the cause of life.

Barcepundit is keeping close tabs on developments in this horrible crime.

It really is time that all people of good will band together to destroy this scourge of terrorism.

UPDATE: A Night Out in Mumbai is a frightening, first hand account.

This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,

Pity me not; but let the world be fed,

Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,

Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.

If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,

Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,

In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,

The shining silence of the scorn of God.

Thank God the stars are set beyond my power,

If I must travail in a night of wrath,

Thank God my tears will never vex a moth,

Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.

Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had

Thought it beat brightly, even on—Calvary:

And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree

Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.

GK Chesterton

Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness and love.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all of my heart,

for you have heard the words of my mouth;

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple.

Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness and love.

I will give thanks to your name,

Because of your kindness and your truth.

When I called, you answered me;

you built up strength within me.

Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness and love.

All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD,

when they hear the words of your mouth;

And they shall sing of the ways of the LORD:

“Great is the glory of the LORD.”

For all of here in the United States, the first thing we should thank God for is the fact that we are here – there are so many places of extreme suffering in this world, and we are almost entirely spared such things. Even the poorest among us has far more than most people in the world – think of it: a person of Darfur would gladly trade places with the most decrepit street person here in the United States. Remember as you gather with family this day that you are exceptionally blessed – and also remember that those who are given much are expected to give much in return.

After gratitude for that, I wish to thank God for my wife, my father, my in-laws and all my family, near and far. I wish to thank those who stand guard over me this day and every day, ready to do hard tasks on my behalf. I wish, also, to thank those whom I work with and for – in labor of all kinds there is dignity, and my gratitude for having a place of work, especially in these hard times, must impel me to do my best at all times. And, finally, I wish to thank you, dear readers, for your kindness and patience with my many errors – I pray you will continue to show me your kind attention now and in the future.

We conservatives, of course. It is my contention that when you are beaten in a political fight, you usually deserve it. John Hawkins notes:

Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

The corollary to that statement here in the United States could be, “All that was necessary for the Democrats to triumph was for conservatives to do nothing.”

It’s fashionable to blame George W. Bush, the Republicans in Congress, and the out of touch, inside-the-beltway pundits for the ascendancy of Barack Obama and the left — and they certainly deserve the largest portion of the blame.

However, it’s worth taking the time to ask: what responsibility does the conservative movement — you, me, and all our conservative friends — have for this disaster?

Quite a bit actually.

We were too slow to challenge Republicans in D.C., including George Bush, when they veered from a conservative course. Yes, we complained, but not loudly enough and too late in the game.

We were also too complacent and too willing to stand pat on an out of date agenda. Consider the irony, for example, of conservatives using an income tax cut as a primary selling point for our domestic agenda when more than a third of the American public doesn’t pay income tax.

Along the same lines, we’ve been too content to advocate policies like the Fair Tax that couldn’t be gotten through Congress, or to merely poke holes in the Democratic agenda on issues like socialized medicine without truly pushing viable alternatives.

Conservatism needs to adapt to changed circumstances, that is for sure – we can’t go forward with the quiet dogmas of the past but must think anew and act anew. Conservatism has been, is and always will be the answer – but the applicability of conservatism changes as circumstances change. As a for-instance, we’ve won the tax battle – leftist Obama campaigned on a promise of tax cuts and hammered McCain very hard on the claim that his health care plan amounts to a tax increase. It is now time (and, indeed, has been time for years) for us to move beyond the mere debate over keeping taxes low and get into a debate on what should be taxed and when.

On and on down the conservative agenda, it is time to recast our efforts in light of the fact that we by and large won the battles of 20 years ago – we live in the economic and political house Reagan built for us and even the most ardent of liberal Democrats really propose no more than tinkering around the edges of it, plus socialized medicine. But we can bring the fight to them – provided we learn to be insurgent, and get fresh blood into our senior ranks, and propose bold, new initiatives to increase freedom, faith, family and prosperity.

I’m up for this debate about the future of conservatism, but I do issue one warning: let us not get into backbiting about who did what to whom. Such internecine battles only please our liberal opponents – clean slate, and lets start building a new conservatism for the 21st century.

The sad facts of life in Gaza:

As Palestinians stranded in Gaza face a humanitarian disaster due to blocked borders, Christians there also face beginning Advent without Mass.

Israeli authorities Sunday refused to allow the papal nuncio in Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco, and two priests of the Latin patriarchate to enter Gaza to celebrate Mass.

The refusal came despite previous coordination with Israeli officials. The nuncio intended to celebrate Christ the King Mass with the faithful there. The parish in Gaza is vacant since the parish priest, Monsignor Manuel Mussallam, was allowed to leave Gaza last week after eight years to visit his family in West Bank.

Too many people hating, not enough people loving – and the problem confounded by people who refuse to see evil where it is. This is the result of decades of blindness – a Mass can’t be held because hatred and fear have masked human decency. The enemy laughs with delight. There is plenty of blame to go around in that area of the world, but the primary blame goes to those who fan the fires of hate – who delight in war and destruction.

God in heaven, grant us peace.

And, actually, a tip of the hat to President-elect Obama for having the wisdom to keep at least part of the command structure in place through the transition:

President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates in that job for at least a year, according to an official familiar the two men’s discussions.

Obama is expected to announce the selection of Gates and other members of a national security brain trust next week. Gates has served as President George W. Bush’s defense chief for two years.

Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.

Retaining Gates provides stability for a stretched military fighting two wars during the turbulent changeover in administrations. Gates once said it was inconceivable that he would stay on past the close of Bush’s term on Jan. 20.

But the 65-year-old former spymaster had recently turned mum in public on the circumstances under which he would stay, even briefly, in an Obama administration.

Keeping Gates might afford Obama a sort of extended transition, in which critical military issues are left in trusted hands while Obama focuses most intensely on the financial crisis.

Indeed – and provide Obama a wellspring of good advice when the inevitable challenge comes (which one friend in the know advises might come from Putin over the Baltic States). Obama will still have to take the advice and act with courage, but with Gates at Defense there won’t be any way to say that Obama isn’t equipped with sagacious counselors who know how things work in the military field.

To help out Senator Chambliss who, with Franken still trying to steal Minnesota, may be all there is between liberty and 60 Democratic Senators:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will come to Georgia next week to campaign for incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss on the eve of the runoff election.

Palin, who drew large crowds while running for vice president with Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain, will appear at Chambliss rallies in Augusta, Savannah, Perry and Atlanta on Monday, the day before the Dec. 2 senate runoff between Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin.

A Chambliss victory following hard upon a Palin visit will make Governor Palin a top draw as we head towards 2010, and thus give her a massive leg up for the GOP nomination in 2012.

Have at it. Just can’t think of anything to write which is either relevant, true or not part of a book I’m writing.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Be sure to tune into The American Resolve tonight on BlogTalkRadio from 6 to 7 pm EST. We will be talking abeout the RNC Chairman race, and the state of conservative blogging.

I have been getting a lot of complaints of inappropriate comments being posted here, so i have decided to enable mandatory registration before you can post a comment.

That’s all folks.

UPDATE: I have decided on a short term transition. You all are advised to register right now, but I will allow unregistered comments to continue for a week… So starting Tuesday, November 25, you will have to be registered and logged in to comment.

UPDATE 11/25/08: Today is the day… Mandatory registration will begin at approximately 12 PM EST.