StumbleUpon | moorrbrt1's blog posts

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/26460092/

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:32:54 -0700

http://www.barackobamatest.com/?fuseaction=home.options

Copy and paste this into your web browser and take the Barack Obama test. My score was I disagreed with him in 46 out of 48 questions on the issues.

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/26458524/

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:33:25 -0700

What Reduces Abortions?
By Richard M. Doerflinger

Sometimes election years produce more policy myths than good ideas. This year one myth is about abortion. It goes like this: The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision is here to stay, and that's fine because laws against abortion don't reduce abortions much anyway. Rather, "support for women and families" will greatly reduce abortions, without changing the law or continuing a "divisive" abortion debate.

Various false claims are used to bolster this myth. It is said that over three-quarters of women having abortions cite expense as the most important factor in their decision. Actually the figure is less than one-fourth, 23%. It is said that abortion rates declined dramatically (30%) during the Clinton years, but the decline stopped under the ostensibly pro-life Bush administration. Actually the abortion rate has dropped 30% from 1981 to 2005; the decline started 12 years before Clinton took office, and has continued fairly steadily to the present day.

The steepest decline is among minors. Is it plausible that economic factors reduced abortions for teens but not their older sisters, or their mothers who support them?

The reality is this: In 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde amendment, and federally funded abortions went from 200,000 a year to nearly zero. With its decisions in Webster (1989) and Casey (1992), the Court began to uphold other abortion laws previously invalidated under Roe. States passed hundreds of modest but effective laws: bans on use of public funds and facilities; informed consent laws; parental involvement when minors seek abortion; etc. Dr. Michael New's rigorous research has shown that these laws significantly reduce abortions.

In the 1990s, debate on partial-birth abortion - kept in the public eye, ironically, by President Clinton's repeated vetoes of a ban on this grisly late-term procedure - alerted many Americans to the violence of abortion and shifted public attitudes in a pro-life direction. Now the Court has upheld a partial-birth abortion ban, and signaled that other laws to save unborn children and their mothers from the horrors of abortion may be valid. If Roe is reversed outright, that will allow more laws that can further reduce abortions.

By contrast, a pending federal "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) would knock down current laws reducing abortions, and require public programs for pregnant women to fund abortion. No one supporting that bill can claim to favor reducing abortions.

Many women are pressured toward abortion, and they need our help. The pressures are partly, but only partly, economic in nature. Women are influenced by husbands, boyfriends, parents and friends, and by a culture and legal system that tells them the child they carry has no rights and is of no consequence. Law cannot solve all problems, but it can tell us which solutions are unacceptable - and today Roe still teaches that killing the unborn child is an acceptable solution, even a "right." Without ever forgetting the need to support pregnant women and their families, that tragic and unjust error must be corrected if we are to build a society that respects all human life.

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/24342943/

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:24:04 -0700

I'll be moving within the next few weeks and most likely turning off my Internet connection in the next couple of days or so. It's been fun and I'm already looking forward to getting settled somewhere and getting back up and running. Take care everybody and hope to be back soon.

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/23151213/

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:47:23 -0700

Hating Change

Back in '93 I moved to Raleigh. Would have be a good thing for me had I left Robert in Henderson. I found myself quickly in the same situation I had been in, just a different location. I hated my life. Didn't want to live anymore, but didn't want to die either.
Ended up in a trailer park, which was nothing new for me. Have lived in one for most of my adult life. Bought the trailer so I only had to pay rent for the lot. It was a good location. Right off the belt-line. I'm within striking distance of several main roads in Raleigh.
Made a lot of changes in my life that changed the way I felt about myself and about life in general. Took my last drink of alcohol on Sept. 23, 1995. Stopped smoking about six or seven years later.
Between twelve step meetings and my job I learned my way around Raleigh and have considered it home for awhile now. My trailer's not much, too old to move. About a year and a half ago I found out that the park I live in is up for sale. Can't blame the lady who owns it. She's in her eighty's and has cancer. Every time I pay my lot rent she looks sicker and sicker. We've had our share of arguments over the last fifteen or so years, but for the most part it's all been good.
When I first moved here there wasn't much around. One convenience store within walking distance (my idea of walking distance). A few houses and trailers. A McDonald's, a Food Lion with a small mall of sorts.
Now we're all grown up with housing projects, businesses, etc. The seafood restaurant which had been across the street from me has been bulldozed and now is a vacant lot (also for sale).
Someone decided to put a new road behind my trailer and now what used to be a quiet place has become a construction zone. They even work Saturdays and Sundays.
About four or five years ago a family of black cats took up residence in the wooded area behind and to the side of my trailer. A girl cat and two boys. The boy cats left and others took their place, some kittens from the girl cat. I've been feeding them for so long I think of them as mine. As of last week I had the girl cat and three new kittens, a boy cat about a year old and another boy cat about two to three years old. The only inside pet I have is a cat named Tiger that has never spent the night outside and doesn't know what a flea is.
Around about the middle of the week all but two of the strays I've been taking care of vanished. It didn't really hit me how much I had become attached to them until this afternoon. Usually when I come home they surround my car and if I have some scrapes from lunch or I've just come from McDonald's, I give them some of my fries. They aren't here anymore. Perhaps they were crushed by one of the trucks working on the road or maybe all the noise scared them away.
As I look out over my fence at what once was a wooded area, but now is a construction zone it hammers home the fact that life as I know it is soon to change. Where I'll go or what I'll do remains to be seen, but the place I've called home for the last few years is about to no longer exist. My dump of a trailer along with its memories will be gone.
Of course, I realize that much of this is something only I give a damn about, but I thought I'd share it now. Before it's all just a memory.

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/17439026/

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:43:40 -0800

Happy Valentines Day to all my friends on StumbleUpon! I love you all and hope you have a Fantastic holiday.
Robert M. aka moorrbrt1

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/17045965/

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:18:21 -0800

My Yahoo 360 site seems to have died on me. For some reason it's been harder to post a blog and sometimes it works and sometimes it don't. Even though I do have a MySpace account, I'm not really a fan, mostly use it to keep up with a few friends and family. But I see a lot of people using SU as a blog and since most of my posts are small anyway, not to mention I love StumbleUpon, it came to me(very slowly, not the brightest bulb in the pack)why not use this as my blog? It may have even been an epiphany. Or as close to one as someone of such a low IQ can have.

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/16400641/

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:22:58 -0800

Well, I've broken my New Year's resolution already. To be less responsible and to spend more time on the Internet was my intentions, but unfortunately it is necessary to work and pay the bills (especially Time Warner or they will turn off my Internet).

http://moorrbrt1.stumbleupon.com/review/12924958/

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:06:30 -0700

Yesterday, I celebrated twelve years without drinking. It's been an adventure for sure, but an enjoyable one.