The news you may have missed - 2 June 2015

• Even if most doctors would rather ignore the dangers of oral contraception, a.k.a. "the pill," Time magazine is warning women that "using the Pill was linked to anywhere from a two- to more than four-fold increased risk of developing clots compared to women who didn’t take oral contraceptives" in a new study published in The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal - I guess even science today feels the need to be 'hip').
• In other news regarding "the pill," it can now be had flavored like marijuana, but if that flavor doesn't suit you, you can also buy it flavored like chocolate or strawberry.
• Hundreds of Muslims gathered outside the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul last week on the 562nd anniversary of the fall of the Christian city formerly as Constantinople to the Turks to demand the Hagia Sophia be restored as a mosque. Though currently a museum, the Hagia Sophia, built by the Emperor Justinian, was a Christian church 916 years before it was taken by the Muslims and converted into a mosque.
• Security forces in the Archdiocese of Bujumbura (in Burundi) have foiled a second assassination attempt against His Excellency the Most Reverend Evariste Ngoyagoye, the Archbishop of Bujumbura.
• A divorced Italian couple went to court to settle the matter of their son's diet. His mother fed him a vegetarian diet, but the father wanted him to eat meat. An Italian court sided with the father.

A news round up - 9 August 2014

The news you may have missed:

• J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of biblical Book of Jonah is soon to be republished. Jonah's tomb was recently destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

• The Catholic apostolate Courage has produced a new 1-hour film titled Desire of the Everlasting Hills: Hope in Isolation. Courage in Turmoil. Grace in the Last Place You Expect about three people who left behind a homosexual lifestyle in favor of chastity.

•  A new study conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center - and published in the journal Cancer Research - shows that women who take oral contraceptives are 50% more likely to develop breast cancer. This isn't the first study to show this.

• Rome Reports has a short piece about Michael James Mette, a Catholic singer, song writer, and evangelist from Effingham, Illinois.

• The New York Post reports that summer 2014 is the coldest in a decade.

• Buddhist extremists oppose Pope's visit to Sri Lanki, which he is scheduled to make in January.

News round up - March 5th

In case you missed it:

• Back in Illinois, Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D-Chicago) has told County Clerks they can immediately begin issuing "marriage" licenses to homosexual couples. As written and passed, the ill-named Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act does not take effect until June 1, 2014, but last month a federal judge ruled that there is no need to wait. Much like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, one wonders why effective dates are legislated at all if they do not actually mean anything.

• You likely won't have heard that Pope Francis recently said there is no need to change the Church's teaching on contraception 

• Some parents in Italy are gently fighting back against the progressives who, as in many parents of the world, have legal forms to include spaces for "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" instead of
  "Father" and "Mother".

•  We've all noticed a curious increase in police presence on the highways near the end of each calendar month, though many police districts have long denied the existence of an actual monthly ticket quota as linked to performance evaluation. One Illinois legislator doesn't believe that claim and has introduced legislation to put an end to the quota system in the Land of Lincoln.

• Niagara Falls has frozen for the second time this winter.

• A state legislator in Hawaii has caused a bit of a ruckus when she commented on a bill in Hawaiian, and refused to translate her words in English.

Random bits of news, some important and some not

This morning I'm in a bit of a random mood, so I thought I'd share a few random news stories of varying importance with you:

• Forbes has ranked Honolulu the "most overpriced" city in the U.S.A.;
• The Clericus Cup soccer tournament will include 358 players from 60 countries this year in Rome;
• Green Bay has never had a colder winter;
• Oral contraceptives may double a woman's risk of developing MS;
• In testimony before Congress, co-founder of Greenpeace says there is "no proof" humans are causing climate change;
• Charles Krauthammer tackles the unscientific notion of "settled science";
• Planned President says it doesn't matter when human life actually begins, only when a mother says it does;
• A man pronounced dead in Mississippi is found to be alive before being embalmed; and
• Back in 2008, Sarah Palin was mocked when she warned that Russia might invade Ukraine.

Should I make a list of news items a daily post?

Does contraception reduce "unwanted" pregnancies?

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, James Taranto traces the history of "the pill," and notes that after the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 1960 "the marriage rate declined and the illegitimacy rate skyrocketed," evidence to which Charles Murray pointed in the same publication.  Before 1960, the illegitimate birth rate was about 2% of white births; by 2008, it was 44%.  The rates, says Murray, are higher for black births.

Taranto counters the claim that contraception decreases unwanted pregnancy:

The usual criticism we've heard is that it is absurd to suggest a causal link between birth-control advances and illegitimacy because, after all, birth control prevents pregnancy, and giving birth out of wedlock entails pregnancy. By that logic, though, illegitimacy rates should have remained low, or even declined further, after the inception of the pill. The Santorum argument may be counterintuitive, but the counterargument flies in the face of the facts.

It is this reality that Taranto says is often thought of today as "downright unthinkable." Be sure to read his entire article.

NFL must "man up and bring the truth to light"

So says Matthew Hanley concerning the NFL's support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Writing at MercatorNet he says:

The linchpin uniting the reproductive risk factors is their relationship to the hormone estrogen. Overexposure to estrogen is carcinogenic – which is one reason why oral contraceptives and Hormone Replacement Therapy leads to more breast cancer. And in the early phases of pregnancy, a woman is exposed to massive amounts of estrogen, which triggers a proliferation of the types of breast lobules (Type 1 and 2) most susceptible to cancer. It is only in the weeks prior to birth that other hormones begin to help transform those vulnerable lobules into (Type 3 and 4) cancer-resistant lobules. A woman who terminates her pregnancy thus experiences a dangerous spike in estrogen without acquiring the protective tissues that emerge only by bringing a child to term. 

Most pink campaigns avoid any hint of these factors like the plague; the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a prominent advocacy and fundraising group, vehemently and unequivocally denies the link between abortion and breast cancer, citing Beral’s shady “study”. Komen is evidently content to ignore mounting epidemiological evidence along with current knowledge of breast physiology which makes such a link all the more creditable. 

Curiously, Komen also funnels millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood – already a recipient of considerable governmental largesse. By doling out tons of contraceptives and providing for more abortion than any other outfit in the country, Planned Parenthood virtually ensures that the breast cancer epidemic will persist, not shrink. 

You don’t have to be a cynic to find this cozy relationship a bit fishy.

His entire piece is worth reading, especially since he offers links to demonstate the truth.

More dangers of birth control

The average person seems to think that birth control is a safe drug, perhaps because of how regrettably common it is, but researchers have announced a study that shows quite the opposite:

August 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While use of the birth control pill raises the risk of deadly blood clots by 500 percent, the risk shoots to over 1,700 percent for U.S. women with a common vein malformation, California researchers have found.

In the study published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University School of Medicine’s Dr. Lawrence Hofmann and his team noted that up to 25 percent of the population has a vein malformation or narrowing, known as stenosis, in the left common iliac vein [more].