September 2009

MORE BABIE$$$$$$$$!

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Everyone’s favorite Virginity Queen can’t stay out of the news for too long (H/T – Helga):

The crisis pregnancy centers set up to help girls and women at the very time in their life when they need the most help and the centers turn out to be less then Christian. (I am being charitable)   After reading this it appears that abstinence programs lead to a lot of babies being born, so perhaps that is why she pushed that program.  Or maybe I am a cynic.  Helga
“Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), the nonprofit pregnancy-testing facilities set up by antiabortion groups to dissuade women from having abortions, have become fixtures of the antiabortion landscape, buttressed by an estimated $60 million in federal abstinence and marriage-promotion funds. The National Abortion Federation estimates that as many as 4,000 CPCs operate in the United States, often using deceptive tactics like posing as abortion providers and showing women graphic antiabortion films. While there is growing awareness of how CPCs hinder abortion access, the centers have a broader agenda that is less well known: they seek not only to induce women to “choose life” but to choose adoption, either by offering adoption services themselves, as in Bethany’s case, or by referring women to Christian adoption agencies. Far more than other adoption agencies, conservative Christian agencies demonstrate a pattern and history of coercing women to relinquish their children. ”

Shotgun Adoption

By Kathryn Joyce

August 26, 2009

Page 2: In 1984 Leslee Unruh, founder of Abstinence Clearinghouse, established a CPC in South Dakota called the Alpha Center. The first center had opened in 1967, but in 1984 Unruh’s CPC was still a relatively new idea. In 1987 the state attorney’s office investigated complaints that Unruh had offered young women money to carry their pregnancies to term and then relinquish their babies for adoption.

“There were so many allegations about improper adoptions being made and how teenage girls were being pressured to give up their children,” then-state attorney Tim Wilka told the Argus Leader, that the governor asked him to take the case. The Alpha Center pleaded no contest to five counts of unlicensed adoption and foster care practices; nineteen other charges were dropped, including four felonies. But where Unruh left off, many CPCs and antiabortion groups have taken up in her place.

Page 3: In recent years, the antiabortion push for adoption has been taken up as a broader evangelical cause. In 2007 Focus on the Family hosted an Evangelical Orphan Care and Adoption Summit in Colorado Springs. Ryan Dobson, the adopted son of Focus founder James Dobson, has campaigned on behalf of CHFS and Unruh’s Alpha Center. Last year 600 church and ministry leaders gathered in Florida to promote adoption through the Christian Alliance for Orphans. And a recent book in the idiosyncratic genre of prolife fiction, The River Nile, exalted a clinic that tricked abortion-seeking women into adoption instead.

Who frickin’ steals the art of an unknown artist anyhoo? Seriously.

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Courtesy image

It’s not like it is really worth anything? And if you like the painting, why not just prove your admiration of the art by paying the artist who created it? I hope they throw the book at the prick or bitch who did this (VIDEO). I had a painting vandalized, so I know how it feels; Shitty. From KELO-TV:

A Sioux Falls business is turning to the Internet for help solving a crime.

When the owners of Rug & Relic discovered that two paintings worth about $500 disappeared from their store at the hands of thieves, they posted the details on the crime on social networking Web sites Twitter and Facebook.

OPEN THREAD: Joker style

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One interesting item for discussion is Obama’s chances at re-election and the dems chances to hold onto congress in 2010.  This guy discusses that, and his experience on Fox’s morning show:

There was just no pretense of trying to do anything even vaguely resembling the news. I’m not reflexively anti-FOX; in fact, I’d had a couple of good experiences last year on Shepherd Smith and on their business channel. But as for their morning program: Wow. I’ve never met people more terrified of what might happen if they actually tried to engage in a rational discussion.

Personally, I think the dems will be lucky to hold onto anything resembling their current margin in the house, and will almost certainly lose their 60-seat senate majority. But I still like Obama’s chances in 2012.

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Gee, willickers, could have seen this coming a mile away

Construction values are 50% of what they were last year at this time;

The number of building permits issued in Sioux Falls through August this year is up from the same time in 2008, though the value of that construction is down significantly.

Sioux Falls has issued 4,308 permits this year, up from 4,242 in 2008 but still down substantially from the 4,564 permits issued in 2007, according to city records.

But the total construction value in 2009 of $176.7 million is down from 2008, when the numbers through August were at $294.1 million.

There have been 681 new single-family, two-family and multiple-family permits issued in 2009 at a value of $71.3 million.

That compares to 1,016 new residential permits approved through August of 2008 at a value of $114.6 million.

This is no surprise to me, if you have been following the local economy as I have since last fall, you could have seen this coming a mile away. But city hall put their blindfolds on and approved a tax increase to build new roads anyway. While this is bad news for our local economy, it is good news to taxpayers. It means we can hold off on building new roads until it picks up, therefore saving us millions in the CIP budget, money we can either put in reserves or use on infrastructure upgrades (which should be the priority anyway). If developers can’t pony up their 50% towards new roads, taxpayers shouldn’t pony up either. According to the July financial report, taxpayers have put in $1.6 million into the new fund this year while developers have put in a whopping $90,000. Yes, we have put in 17x more money then the devolpers. Yet, the SD MSM doesn’t see a story here? Go figure. Of course this would require a new council that isn’t spend happy. In the informational meeting on Monday, councilor Beninga had a pity party about not having enough time to offer amendments to 2010’s budget, which probably means he will offer very few if any at all. The funny part of the conversation was when clerk Owen informed all the councilors that Staggers already turned in his (he was absent from the meeting). They seem shocked, and one councilor joked, “He has been probably working on them for a year.” Not quite. Then they asked if they could see them, and she replied that she would have to get permission from Staggers to show them. The city attorney’s office apparently is unaware of the new open records bill that started July 1. Quen Be De also got on her soapbox about wanting to raise the retail tax by a penny, and joked that not all the wisdom in the state resides in Pierre in the winter. While I do agree with her statement, I would have to say most legislators probably have more intellect in the tip of their little toe then she has in her whole body.

I can’t wait for the retail tax increase legislation to fail. Maybe I will throw a party.