It was reported last year that the Republican candidate who most worried the Democrats was Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. The Democratic Strategists must be relieved that his name hasn't been mentioned on McCain's short lists. But let's take a look at the type of thing that the Democratic consultants are probably very afraid of.

Friday, August 29th 4:30 AM

Dear Diary,

I just woke up from the scariest dream ...

When I went to bed last night, I was in a great mood. Our conference was awesome and the party was starting to come together. Barack gave an incredible speech. And the polls showed we were getting a good bump out of the convention.

And then I went back to the hotel and fell asleep. And I dreamed that I was watching television and watching McCain announce his running mate. We had been preparing for Romney (we put together the coolest ad). But we also were ready for the other members of the short list. For each of those people, we had talking points about why they were horrible picks and would continue the Bush tradition. I dreamed I was staring straight at the screen when they unveiled McCain's Veep.

And then I saw MIKE HUCKABEE with John McCain. Aw, shucks. The guy we weren't expecting. And I screamed for a minute like I was Howard Dean. I was really scared.

But then I thought to myself - "yes we can." We can deal with this. And so I went to the office to prepare some talking points on Huckabee. But that was even scarier.

I searched through all of Huckabee's comments to find something bad he said about McCain so that we could put out our own ad just like the Republicans did to us last week. But I came up empty. He never said anything bad about McCain.

Then we tried to connect him to the Bush Administration so that we could show why he'd be part of a second Bush term. But that was even more frustrating. He ran a state and didn't have anything to do with Iraq, the deficit, the national debt, or our image abroad. We looked around for how much he voted with Bush. But because he was the only person running who wasn't in the Senate, he didn't even have the opportunity to vote with or against Bush. Arrggh.

We tried to make some arguments about how McCain/Huckabee would not help Americans with health care. But even that didn't work. Huckabee created a program that offered health insurance to poor children. He cut the number of uninsured Arkansans so that it was a quarter less than the national average. He even lost a hundred pounds and saved money on drugs himself because he didn't need diabetes medication anymore. This dream kept getting worse by the minute.

We were going to make an ad to attack all Republicans because of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. But even that didn't work because Huckabee took money out of his own state's treasury to help house the evacuees from neighboring Louisiana. He even gave free dialysis machines to the evacuees who were sick.

We tried to point out how the Republicans haven't reached out to black voters. But we couldn't even do that because Huckabee got half the black vote in Arkansas, even with Bill and Hillary Clinton helping his opponent. And then a bunch of black Pastors and church groups got together and (tremble) said they were going to vote for him.

Since Joe Biden has been in politics for so long, we wanted to compare our Veep against their Veep and show how much experience our guy has. But then someone pointed out that Huckabee was the only person who had actually run a government and has a longer tenure than any governor of either party. We were hoping Biden would be able to beat the Pub's Veep in a debate. But Huck won the debates easily. He even told funnier jokes.

We tried to talk about all the personal scandals that Republicans have been involved in over the past couple of years. But when we tried to pull up dirt on Huckabee, we came up ... empty. EMPTY!? He's been married to the same woman for 34 years, his kids love him and he's stayed out of trouble.

Our last hope was that those talk show radio hosts would help us out, the way they did during the primaries. But it turned out that even though their guy didn't get picked, they still disliked our nominee so much that they started being fair to Huckabee.

And because McCain and Huckabee seemed to have so much fun campaigning together, McCain started looking happier and more relaxed on the stump.

I started to cry. I knew we were probably going to lose the election. And then I woke up.

Gosh! I'm still shaking. I'm just glad they haven't realized that they've been ignoring the best candidate. That was TOO close. I'm just glad it was just a dream.

Do you think that it's impossible for politicians to give you even less respect than they have for you now? Of course they can! And by following these steps, you can go from Joe Citizen to Joe Nobody in no time! I present to you my seven-step program for becoming totally irrelevant as a voter.

Step 1: Commit unconditionally

The first thing you need to do is realize that are no covenant relationships in life more sacred than marriage and political party affiliation. You have to make a decision here. What's more important to you - your undying commitment to always vote for politicians of a particular party or the issues that drew you to that party in the first place? The issues? Wrong! You must get rid of this type of thinking if you want to go further along the path to irrelevancy.

Make a decision this morning that no matter what happens, you are going to vote for whoever your party sends your way. Are you a pro-lifer and say you wouldn't vote Republican if that Party adopts late-term abortion into the party platform? An environmentalist who won't vote Democratic if they start pushing for more nukes and fewer trees? Get out of that way of thinking. Decide that no matter what, you are going to always do what the party says to do. How else are the politicians going to sleep easy at night knowing that their jobs are safe?

Step 2: Complain but don't abstain

Now that you've made it to the next step, you have to accept the fact that the issues that are important to you may not always be important to the party. When your party knows that you can be counted on to vote for them no matter what, they tend to shift around to try to please those losers who don't have the high sense of commitment that you do. Don't be discouraged - it's natural. Remember, the issues that made you want to join the party may not be dealt with now. The party could even be starting to work against them. But you must continue to vote for the team - remember your commitment from Step 1?

Which is more important? The issues that you have deep conviction about or the commitment to do whatever is in the best interests of the team? Your issues? Wrong! You have to stop being so selfish if you want to get nowhere. Be a team player - even if the playbook calls for throwing an interception. The really important thing is that you're part of the team and if you promise to always stay in line, then possibly ... maybe ... eventually, one day far in the future, those issues might get dealt with. Don't ever forget that.

Step 3: Stand alone

When you become known for being an unconditional team player, you will notice that at the same time your party begins to take you for granted, the opposing party begins to care even less about you and your issues. At the same time that your party learns that they can't lose your vote no matter what they do, the other party learns that they can't get your vote no matter what they do. And as a result, neither side has any sincere interest in doing anything for you or the things you care about. And about this time, you might start to feel discouraged and lonely. But I'm telling you that your loneliness and isolation are a badge of honor. For your party, that is. Just hang in there.

The feeling of having your issues ignored is the price to pay for the noble cause of deciding that neither death nor life nor issues nor principles nor the quality of the candidates nor any other important thing will separate you from your party. Don't feel bad. Take pride. Not everybody could do what you do. You are almost half way to the cliff ... er ... to the other side. Hang in there.

Step 4: Listen to smart people

While you're being patient and undemanding, you also need to remember to relax and not work too hard yourself. Instead of spending your valuable free time researching candidates and their positions and coming up with your own opinions of them, you need to delegate this type of thing and trust the people who really know. Does a politician who is on your team say that you should vote for somebody? Hello? Then vote for them. This must be a good person. Why else would your elected official ever tell you to vote for them?

And you really need to start paying attention to the smart people in the media. Get all your information from them and don't question it. These people are here to protect you and your team from the evils that you face if you don't accept every word they tell you without doubting or hesitation. These people wouldn't be on the air if they weren't both really smart and really honest, right?

Step 5: Beware the boogeyman

By this point in our program, most people become discouraged and start to question the benefits of always doing whatever the party says to do no matter what. And I've got a good answer for you that has nothing to do with who you're voting for at all. Look over there - to the other side. Do you see that person who scares you? That, my friend, is the boogeyman. Are you frightened? Good! Now, get back in line!

Remembering that the boogeyman is out there is a good technique for keeping you focused on things other than the fact that your party takes you for granted, ignores or even works against your deeply held convictions and that you may even be mindlessly doing what other people have told you to do. Forget all that. Just worry about the real problem. You may not totally like your party any more, but at least they're still better than the boogeyman's party. Of course, if the opposing party thought they had a chance in the world of getting your vote, they might not have picked the boogeyman either. But that's neither here or there. Just focus and remember that you've almost made it to where you don't want to be.

Step 6: Toughen up

You may notice at this stage that your party is getting bolder and bolder in their disrespect toward you. They are openly flaunting people and positions that you've told them over and over that you oppose. They smile at you, nod their heads, and then push them even harder. They know and you know that you're not really going to do anything different this year than you've always done - especially not with the boogeyman out there. Your party has turned into what the opposing party was 15 years ago and is treating you in the same disrespectful manner. But this is where you have to show your true team player grit and toughen up a bit. Stop whining. You need to get with the program - their program.

Look at it this way. You're special. Not everyone could tolerate the disrespect that you take year in and year out for the good of the team. Those Independent voters who are coveted and actively courted by both parties certainly wouldn't. You don't want to end up like them, do you?

Step 7: Look in the mirror

You, my friend, have completed a long journey. You have shown that you have the ability to stick in there and honor your commitment under the toughest of conditions. You are a faithful member of your party, even though your unwillingness to set any boundaries whatsoever created the complacent atmosphere that encouraged your party to stray far from you. None of the issues that you have been passionate about have been dealt with. Your party feels no need to address any of the issues that are important to the faithful family members but has a fire lit under them to reach out to those less discriminating strangers.

The other thing you notice now is the fact that nobody takes you seriously as someone whose vote should be courted. Not your side or the other. Everybody knows exactly who you're going to pull the lever for and the rough percentage margin by which your group will pull it. And instead of being in this political relationship because of love, you remain in it because of fear, because the other party, which has been emboldened to go even further against your interests because they know they'll never attract you, is looming out there as the sole alternative. You feel pretty useless as a voter, knowing that your steadfastness has helped many politicians to get away with doing almost nothing for you.

You have completed the seven-step program and are now an Unimportant Voter. Congratulations!! Your unwavering commitment has certainly paid off for somebody.

On the bright side, though, you've finally been invited to one of those VIP fundraiser events. Got your wallet handy?

The Club For Growth is an organization that never seems to be very happy. They complain about high income and corporate taxes but then complain again when a top-tier candidate suggests doing away completely with both of them. They're a bit hard to please.

And according to an article by Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post, they're not happy about the selected speakers for the GOP convention either. Here's part of what they said:

Club for Growth spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said the group understands that the GOP needs speakers like Lingle, who is female, and Steele, who is black, "to look diverse and all that good P.R. stuff." But she said McCain should also make room for conservatives "on the front lines" of the fight against big government and high taxes.

Yep - blacks and females - all that good P.R. stuff. Some pretty bad P.R. for the CFG.

By the way, since the CFG is out to protect taxpayers and wage war against government spending, let me point something out. In the beginning of 1999, when the CFG was founded, we had a national debt of $5,614,217,021,195.87 (5.6 trillion bucks). Today, with that organization being more successful than not at getting candidates of their choice into office and re-elected, we now have a national debt as of yesterday of $9,608,334,387,261.59 (9 trillion bucks).

Great job, CFG! And don't be surprised if John McCain doesn't want you folks anywhere near the GOP Convention.

Some complex questions can be answered by very simple sayings: "If it's not a baby, you're not pregnant."

If you for whatever reason feel that the question of when life begins is one that is beyond you, let's start with the questions that you can answer no matter who you are. I'll re-ask the questions I posed some months ago: tell me when doesn't life begin and we can work through the process of elimination to determine when it does. (It doesn't matter what your current pay grade is - if you're smart enough to be running for office, you can easily work through this with me to figure it out.

I am asking this of Obama and showing his picture but also asking this of politicians of both parties who support the practice of aborting the lives of unborn babies whose hearts have already started beating (which happens within a week of the time most people discover that they're pregnant). You're all smart people. Let's figure out when life begins by figuring out when it doesn't.

OUR STARTING POINT ("DAY ONE") - A NEWBORN BABY IS A HUMAN BEING. WHEN DID HE/SHE BECOME HUMAN?

Almost everybody believes that after birth, a human baby is actually human (I say almost everyone because I have talked online with very radical pro-abortion people who don't think babies are actually people until age 10 or so). So, let's make our starting point the agreement that a newborn baby is human. Let's go backwards in time from this point.

POSSIBILITY 1: LIFE BEGINS WHEN OUR BIRTH IS RECORDED AND CERTIFIED (normally 38-42 weeks after conception)

Some people think that that great moment in time that makes us an official human being is shortly after birth, when we are weighed, given Social Security numbers, and given a birth certificate. These people think that being "official" and having our identities recognized by the government are the things that certify our humanity. But we all know that many people live in this country who have no official records or documentation. In fact, in the time it took you to read this sentence, another human being has crossed into the United States without having a social security number or any official documentation by the government. Therefore, we can make our first elimination. Being officially documented is not the thing that makes us human. So, a baby is already human before he or she gets "recorded." So, let's keep going backwards in time.

Some people have actually suggested that the issuing of a birth certificate or other legal governmental certification of birth is what makes us human and starts our lives.
But many people are in this country who don't have any documentation regarding their identity or birth. But yet they are all humans. So, documentation is not a prerequisite for humanity and we are human before we get documentation.

POSSIBILITY 2: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE ARE NO LONGER PHYSICALLY CONNECTED TO OUR MOTHERS (38-42 weeks after conception)

So, other people think that what makes a baby a human is when the baby is no longer attached to his/her mother. At this point, say these people, the baby is now a "separate person" and this distinction is what makes life officially begin. However, let's remember that for the first moments after birth, a newborn baby is still attached to his/her mother through the umbilical cord, which is still in the mother's body. So, a newborn baby isn't technically physically independent of his/her mother. But a newborn baby is human. And therefore, by this counterexample, we know that physical independence from the mother is not the thing that makes life begin. Because a newborn baby, a human, isn't physically independent from mom for at least a couple of minutes after we've all agreed that they're already human. Let's go back some more.

For the first moments after a live baby is born, the baby remains physically connected to mom through a very tough umbilical cord attached to the placenta that is still inside of the mother.
But yet we all agree the live baby is a human being already. And so the physical independence from the mother's body isn't the thing that makes them human.

POSSIBILITY 3: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE ARE NO LONGER IN OUR MOTHER'S BODY (38-42 weeks after conception)

For many, the moment at which a baby leaves his/her mother's body is the point at which the person becomes a human. But anyone who has either experienced a birth or seen a live birth knows that there often isn't a "moment" but sometimes a very long set of "moments." So, let's consider the case of a baby who is on the way out of the womb - partially in the womb and partially on the outside. Such a baby simultaneously meets the criteria for being "part of its mother's body" and outside of his/her mother's body all at the same time. Is the baby a human when, for example, her head has emerged from the birth canal but the rest of her body is still inside of her mom? Or in a breech birth, the legs being out and the head still being in. Is the baby "part of the mother's body" or an independent person? Nothing about the baby really changes between the time the baby is on the way out and when the baby is out. And since we know that when the baby is out, the baby is already a human, and the baby can't be both an a human and bunch of cells in mom's body at the same exact time, we can conclude that the baby is also human when he/she is on the way out. And so we know that the baby is human before the baby leaves the mother's body. And so, a-back we still go.

If the argument is that a baby is human when outside the womb but "part of the mother's body" when inside of it, a baby being born is both at the same time. Part of the baby is inside the mother's body and part is outside.
So, if the baby is a human when he/she is outside of the mother's body, that same full-term baby is a human when he/she is partially inside of the mother's body. And so we know that the baby became human before she completely left her mother's body.

POSSIBILITY 4: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE TAKE OUR FIRST BREATH (38-42 weeks after conception)

Some people might believe that the moment at when the baby takes his/her first breath is the moment in which they become a human and life begins. However, consider the case of babies who are born very prematurely and can't breathe on their own. These babies, who are born and whose birth and identity is legally certified by the government, sometimes need pulmonary surfactant to be administered to them and in some cases for breathing tubes to be inserted in their tracheas. Are they not yet human until their lungs develop enough to function properly enough for them to take their first unassisted breath? Of course not. In fact, their births have been certified, they are physically separate beings from their mothers, and are outside the womb. But they haven't yet really breathed on their own. So, therefore, we can conclude that the first breath is also not the thing that makes life begin. So we'll still keep tracing this thing backwards.

Many very premature babies cannot breathe on their own for a while after birth. But yet they are human. So, being able to breathe on your own is not the thing that makes our life begin or the thing that makes us human.

POSSIBILITY 5: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE REACH "FULL TERM" STATUS (35 weeks after conception)

So the next point to look back to is the point at which the unborn can be considered "full term," which technically happens after 35 weeks. Is there something about this point in time that defines the line at which we make that journey from being a bunch of cells to being a human? Apparently not, because nearly four months before Amillia Taylor had reached this point last year, she was certified to be a human being when she was born at 21 weeks. And although it is very rare for babies that young to survive outside the womb (although medical advances are allowing premature babies to survive earlier and earlier), the limit of viability (the point in time at which a baby has a 50% chance of surviving outside the womb) is 24 weeks. And the point here is that reaching the status of full-term is not the thing that causes life to begin. So, we can scratch this off the list. Human life begins long before we are full term.

Amillia Taylor was born last year at 21 weeks and 6 days gestation - three months before unborn babies reach "full term" status. She survived and did not even stay in the hospital for an extended period of time. Another baby, James Gill of Canada, was born in 1987 at 21 weeks and 5 days gestation. And in general, by the time an unborn baby is at 24 weeks gestation, the baby has roughly a 50% chance of survival outside the womb (although Roe v. Wade allows for unborn babies to be aborted up to 24 weeks for any reason).
This disproves the theory that becoming "full term" is the thing that causes life to begin.

POSSIBILITY 6: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE REACH THE "FETAL" STAGE (8 weeks after conception)

The funny thing about the term "fetus" (which is simply the Latin word for "offspring") is that by the time a baby gets to the fetal stage, at about 8 weeks after conception, a whole lot of the important things that make a human a human have already taken place. The baby's heart has started beating three weeks after conception. By seven weeks after conception, the unborn baby's brain waves are registering on an electroencephalograph (which is used on already-born people as a test for whether their brain is alive). And by the fetal stage, every organ that the baby will ever have is already formed and in place. Their ears have begun to form. Spontaneous limb movements can be detected by ultrasound. So there is no evidence that anything special happens to suddenly make the developing baby with the beating heart and the signaling brain and the limb movements and the hair buds to suddenly become human at the 8th week or at any other arbitrary moment during the pregnancy.

There is no evidence that at any arbitrary point in the human development cycle, including the point at which we stop calling that developing being an "embryo" (from Greek "that which grows") and start calling him/her a "fetus" (from Latin "offspring"), suddenly makes that developing being a human.

THE UNPOPULAR POSSIBILITY: CONCEPTION

There is only one biological event that every person's existence can be traced back to and that can be identified as the trigger for every other event in the person's life. Regardless of your faith, your race, your gender, your nationality or your age, your heart started beating 21 days after you were conceived. Your brain showed evidence of functioning starting about 42 days after you were conceived. If you were a full-term baby, you were probably born sometime between 245 days and 280 days after you were conceived. If you were born prematurely, you were probably born sometime between 153-245 days after you were conceived. You can almost figuratively set your clock to it.

If you had not been conceived you would not have been born. And once you were conceived and implanted in your biological mother's womb, your heart started beating about a week after she missed her period and has been beating continuously since then (unless at some point later in life your heart stopped beating and you were revived).

We know a newborn baby is a human being. We also know a lot of things that didn't cause that human baby to become a human and to have his/her life begin. Everyone will continue to have their own opinions of when life begins, including our Presidential candidates, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for a belief that life begins at some point after conception and lots of reason to believe that it does.

Did you know that most of the things you've heard about abortion are factually false. You might read "Debunking Choice." I also have pointed out the fact that many more American babies during the time of the unpopular Iraq War than the number of already-born people who have died during the conflict and talked a lot about the impact of abortions on African Americans. For more on this topic, click the LIFE, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness tag on the bottom of the page. But more than anything, if you are pregnant and scared or know someone who is, organizations such as Life Choices can either help you or point you to someone who can.

Many of the political pundits on television and radio today, especially those focusing on the Republican ticket, have spent a lot of time talking about the theoretical benefits that certain running mates could bring to a Presidential ticket by helping the nominee to carry certain states. Many people cite the example of the 1960 election in which President Kennedy won the election with the help of his running mate, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who helped carry his state. However, a simple study of the state of residence for the major party Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees from 1960 until now shows that from then until now, no person who won the Presidential Election would have lost it had they not won the state of their running mate. Not even Kennedy.

There have been four instances since 1960 in which a non-incumbent Presidential candidate's running mate helped deliver a state that the candidate's party had not won in the previous election. And in every one of these situations, while the running mate himself may have helped the candidate in a number of ways, the President would have won, and in most cases won comfortably, even without winning his Veep's home state.

Governor Bill Clinton won the election of 1992 partially because he carried Tennessee, the home state of his running mate, Senator Al Gore, which went for the Republicans in 1988. But even without Tennessee, Clinton would have carried 31 states and won by an electoral vote tally of 359 to 179. Furthermore, Al Gore himself did not manage to carry his own home state when he ran for President in 2000, a loss that cost him the Presidency (had Gore won his home state, he would have been President with or without Florida).

Governor Ronald Reagan won the election of 1980 in part because he won Texas, the state of his running mate, CIA Director George Bush, which had gone Democratic in 1976. But even without Texas, Reagan would have carried 43 states and won by an electoral tally of 463 to 75.

In 1976, Governor Jimmy Carter won the Presidency with the help of the 10 electoral votes of Minnesota, the home state of his running mate, Walter Mondale. But even without Minnesota, Carter would have carried 22 states plus the District and won the election by an electoral tally of 287 to 250. In fact, since Nixon won 49 states in 1972, it could be said that any running mate from almost anywhere who managed to carry his home state would have helped Carter, as the Democrats could essentially only improve on their last performance.

And in 1960, although Senator Kennedy certainly gained some much needed breathing room in one of the closest elections in U.S. history by winning Texas, he would have still won 21 states and the election by a tally of 279 to 243 had Texas not gone his way. He even could have afforded to lose Illinois. What would have made Nixon President that year would have been if Kennedy lost both Texas and Illinois (or, according to some, if only the legitimate votes had been counted). But with or without his running mate's home state, Kennedy would have been our 35th President.

So, no new President in at least the past 50 years has ever come to office by "flipping" the home state of his running mate from the other party. It is a myth and even the most frequently cited example of a running mate helping to deliver a state did not in that case make the difference in the election. Running mates add a lot to a Presidential ticket (or in some cases, take a lot away). But the home state of the running mate does not seem to make a difference.

(The Fox News people and others in the conservative punditsphere keep talking about the possibility of McCain winning Michigan. I would suggest they really need to worry more about the possibility of losing places like Virginia and Georgia. Oh, and there is one more statistic that they should consider when pondering the Veep pick. From 1960 through 2004, no Presidential ticket that did not include a southerner has won a single Presidential election).

Please Select An Applicant For The Senior Leadership Position

"Dwight"	"Milton"	The Ballot

This is the greatest country in the world. However, you would probably agree that we have a government that serves itself more than the people. Our Congress is on vacation. We're $9 trillion dollars in debt and spend $240 billion more than we earn every year. We have no shortage of problems. And many Americans frankly aren't very excited about the final applicants who have asked us to hire them to lead us out of this mess.

For whatever reason, most of us have always felt the need to vote for one of the candidates on the ballot. Even if we don't like any of them. We figure that even though we dislike both of them, that one of them has to be better than the other. Either we figure that one is better than another because they belong to the right party or because they have the right last name, the right looks, or just that the alternative scares us even more. And so we feel obligated to hire the lesser of two evils.

But since we've done that for years and that hasn't worked out too well for us, isn't it time to consider another approach? If it's not working, why do we keep doing it?

If you are in a position where two candidates you don't have a good feeling about are in front of you, why would you hire either of them?

If no one has proven that they deserve to be hired, isn't it possible to not try to hire anyone but instead to simply republish the job description. Or to try to consider another candidate. Why do we always feel that we have to figure out which of two candidates we don't like is the best?

I have not yet decided exactly what I'm going to do this November. But I know that I will never support a ticket that includes anyone who believes in allowing for unborn babies to be killed at any time and for any reason. And I also won't support anyone who hasn't earned my vote.

What if one day you went to work one day and looked out of your office window to discover a demolition crew. To your horror, you discover that they're getting ready to tear the building down. With you in it.

You can hear the crew outside talking with the owner about the details of the plans to destroy the building. In anguish, you yell out at the top of your lungs to try to let them know that you're in there. But they don't hear you. You try to open the windows. But you discover that you're not strong enough to get out.

Thankfully, some people do know you're in there and they go to talk with the building owner. They tell her that there is somebody inside and that it's not right to tear the building down with somebody in it. She doesn't seem to believe that there could actually be anyone inside and is assured by the demolition crew that the building is empty except for some worthless furniture. They discourage her from checking for herself, insist that it's empty and try to hurry her along so that they can get paid.

The people who know you're in the building don't give up. They go to court and file a motion to halt the demolition on the grounds that you are in the building, which you are. But the demolition company files a counter-motion on behalf of their client, the building owner, and insist that the people trying to help you are attempting to restrict the owner's right to do what she wants with her property. The court sides with the demolition crew and the building owner, ruling that there is no evidence that anyone is inside the building and that no one has the right to stop someone from tearing down their own property. The owner and the demolition crew rejoice that justice has been done and their rights have been protected. The news media reports that the owner's property rights have been protected against the people who tried to take them away.

Back in the building, you nervously look outside the window as the wrecking ball begins to move. You had never planned on being in the building for long and just want to be able to be allowed to leave safely. You instinctively hope that someone will somehow help you. But the owner has most likely been deceived into thinking that you're not there. In addition, the court has determined that the owner has a right to destroy the property. They ruled this way without even considering the possibility that when the owner allows the demolition crew to destroy the building, they will also be ending your life in the process.

Anyone who bothered to check the building would conclude that there is a living person inside of it. But even this is no longer the issue that concerns those watching. Your struggle to avoid being demolished is now viewed by many as the struggle to allow the building owner to have control of her own property and to prevail against the people who want to stop her from destroying it with you in it.

The wrecking ball swings over and over again. Eventually, the building falls and tragically, your life is ended.

The story you just read does not have a happy ending. But what is saddest about it is that this is exactly what happens every day to thousands of unborn babies whose moms have been convinced by "demolition crews" that there is no one in her "building" - her womb. The courts have declared that mom, the property owner, has the right to do what she wants with her "building" - without fully exploring the question of whether or not anyone is in there.

There is one main difference between this story and the story of the million unborn American babies who face the wrecking ball each year. The unborn babies can't yell.

If you are pregnant and scared or know someone who is, please know that you have a lot of people who care about both the mother and baby and that there are alternatives. For example, there are a lot of organizations (Life Choices for example) that can help you or refer you to someone who can. There is somebody else in your building.

Information in the highlighted sections above is from the National Institutes Of Health

In the book The Brethren, by legendary Washington Post Investigative Journalist Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, we learn that Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun spent the summer of 1972 at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota searching through medical journals to determine the point at which an unborn baby's life begun. His purpose was to determine the point in time through which a mother had the legal right to end the life of her unborn baby through abortion.

Months later, the infamous Roe v. Wade decision was handed down by a 7 to 2 margin. The ultimate conclusion about the timeline as reflected in the case was that it is permissible to terminate a pregnancy by killing the unborn baby through abortion for any reason until the 24th week of gestation. The Supreme Court decision struck down abortion laws in 46 states.

Ten years after publishing The Brethren, the year after the court papers of the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglass were released, Woodward gained additional insight over the deliberations that went into the Roe decision that went beyond what he was able to learn during the writing of his book. In the article The Abortion Papers, Woodward reported that according to Justice Blackmun's own words, the selection of the 24 week mark was "arbitrary." This was a highly unusual admission, according to experts, even for private court notes. Another Justice who concurred with the Roe decision, Potter Stewart, had said that the process that led to the determination of this timeline was "legislative" in nature.

Beyond the larger debate about the morality of aborting unborn babies whose hearts have already started beating is one that isn't mentioned often. Roe says that a baby can be aborted until 24 weeks. However, a number of babies are born prior to 24 weeks gestation and survive. At 24 weeks, a baby today is estimated to have as high as a 56% chance of surviving outside the womb. Amillia Taylor was born at 21 weeks 6 days gestation in 2006. James Gill of Canada was born in 1987 at 21 weeks 5 days gestation - way back in 1987. But according to the text of Roe, neither of these people or the other babies who are born and survive prior to 24 weeks were considered "viable."

So, since Roe allows for babies to be aborted prior to 24 weeks, for any reason, and some babies are now viable prior to 24 weeks, this means that Roe allows for unborn babies who have the ability to survive outside the womb to be aborted. The limit of viability, or the point at which an unborn baby can live outside the womb, is at an earlier point in time than was the case when Roe was decided. This in itself is a reason why the decision was a horrible one that needs to be overturned. According to Woodward, some of the Justices called the written decision itself "an abortion".

Perhaps taking on the task of deciding the cutoff point at which the baby had the legal right of protection was beyond Harry Blackmun's "pay grade."

But then again, making the decision to allow the death of an innocent life that has a beating human heart is one that's beyond any of our pay grades.

As a person who sees abortion as the termination of human life in development, I've heard it argued that we should vote for "the lesser of two evils." The problem with that line of thinking to me is that the lesser of two evils is by definition, evil.

I will never support any Presidential ticket that includes someone who believes that the killing of a human life whose heart has already started beating should be considered a "choice." Not in either of the top two spots. And here's why.

There have been 55 Presidential Elections in U.S. History. There have been nine times that the elected President did not complete his term, either because of death or resignation. Put that together, 9 out of 55, and the odds of a President completing his term are the exact same as surviving the first round of Russian Roulette. You should look at any Vice President as a potential President. The odds are thankfully in favor of whoever gets elected completing their term but the odds are also significant that the Vice President will succeed the President and become President himself/herself.

So, if a pro-abortion person becomes Vice President in 2009, the odds are unacceptably high that that pro-abortion person will become President sometime before 2013. Which would probably mean that that pro-abortion person would be naming a number of Supreme Court Justices.

And that's not even all of it. It's not all about SCOTUS picks. Because what the President thinks about the issue of human life affects us in ways outside of the Supreme Court, no matter what the pundits have said. Four times in the past twelve years, the President has issued the power of the veto to impact the fate of babies who were subjected to late term abortion. President Clinton twice vetoed Congressional efforts to ban the barbaric procedure. President Bush twice vetoed attempts to support stem cell research on human embryos. What the President thinks on this matters.

For many people pushing our buttons, we might as well be talking about oil, the dollar, or whatever else. A lot of the talking heads do not care about abortion. They care when it involves the other party but are curiously not speaking out when people like Rudy Giuliani gain prominence and are close to getting into the White House; they support these people. To me, this is an issue that is beyond politics. The argument that "their guy is even more pro-abortion than our guy is wasted on me completely."

If I am forced to pick between a Democrat who favors legal abortion and a Republican who favors legal abortion, I will write someone else's name in. I will not support anyone who favors it. Doing so will make me part of the effort that put someone in place who makes it easier for unborn babies to be killed for any reason at any time prior to birth. Speaking personally, I just can't do that.

And when I look at whoever McCain picks as a Veep, I don't see that person as a caddy, a high-profile assistant or a ticket balancer. When looking at any person who could become a Vice President, I think the only accurate way to look at that person is as someone with a 17% chance of becoming President. I think that you have to judge that person with the same criteria that you would judge a Presidential nominee. And if you wouldn't vote for a pro-abortion person for President, by voting for a ticket that contains a pro-abortion person, you are potentially doing just that - putting a person who could control this country's course on this barbaric evil in a position in which they could have the last say.

When I saw the news headline Saturday that Bernie Mac passed away, my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it.

While I didn't get with the language of some of Mac's stuff, he was an extremely funny man. He was so talented that he could make you laugh just by looking at you. I loved seeing his movie roles. And in addition to being a talented comic and comedic actor with great presence, he was also a family man who had been married to the same woman for thirty years. He went from rags to riches in a pretty short time period - from being a nobody in 1990 to being somebody that everybody knew just a decade later. I'm watching some of his old movie and television clips now and I really miss him. He was a completely unique talent - an entertainer with incredible presence. I'm glad he made it big so that we could all see how amazingly talented he was. I pray for his family in their time of grief.

I also pray for the family of Issac Hayes, who lost him on Sunday this past weekend.

I am considering making a donation to The Bernie Mac Foundation for Sarcoidosis (40 E. 9th Street, Suite 601, Chicago, IL 60605). This is the disease that took his life at the young age of 50.

Any one of us can fall on hard times. And one great thing about our great country is that people who fall on hard times can get temporary help to get back on their feet and help themselves again. But many of us have a huge problem when it becomes perpetual - when people who are able-bodied and able to contribute have their support just given to them over a long period of time. People don't put as much value on things that are just given to them as they do on things that they work for. And when we are given something for nothing, we tend to become convinced that we're entitled to it. We sometimes can develop a victim mentality and can easily fall into the trap of doing just the bare minimum necessary to keep the support coming (and it's not just about the programs that we call "welfare" - there are tons of different forms of entitlement out there). And over the long-term, long-term dependence on these hurt both the people who receive them as well as the rest of society. Many of you would agree.

But have you ever thought about this is almost exactly how many of our politicians get and keep their jobs?

A lot of our elected leaders have it made once they get past their party primaries. Because many of us across the political spectrum tend to simply vote for a person because he or she belongs to the party that we belong to or is running against someone who belongs to the party we loathe. Sometimes we vote for a person because they can afford to have name recognition through the media and we've heard our favorite pundits talk them up. And some of us even give politicians our vote because of attributes such as their appearance, their gender, race, religion, or family name. Voters generally don't base as much of our voting decision on what politicians actually do to earn our votes as we should. Winston Churchill once said that "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Think for one second about how incredibly unpopular and ineffective our Congress is. How many of the members have their jobs because they live in "safe" districts and, in some cases, because they have the clout within their parties to ward off challengers or the money to intimidate others from competing against them. But because we tend to vote for people regardless of their plans, their record, or even how much they've worked to understand our concerns - or because we don't vote at all - we often end up with less talented individuals representing us than we should. And because many of them know they have a very decent level of job security, they often are not very motivated either.

Generally, people value what they work for and take for granted the things that are just given to them. Do you feel like your elected representatives are taking you for granted? If so, do you think they have any realistic fear that you and the other people who form their constituency will do anything other than vote to keep them in office? If not, they probably are.

Once people begin getting compensated for things that they haven't earned - whether it's able-bodied citizens receiving long-term assistance or incumbent politicians accustomed to getting votes from their "base" - they begin to expect it. Sometimes they demand it and get outraged when they don't get it. It's always interesting to be part of a group that a politician thinks that they own - like  African Americans, who I guess are expected to always vote Democratic or Evangelical Christians, who are supposed to be the exclusive property of the Republicans - and see the outrage directed toward you when you are tempted to not give your vote to the politician who thinks that their side owns you. Oh, the names that you get called by people who say that they love your group. They ask how dare you be so disloyal. This outrage comes because, as the result of just being given your vote, they believe that they have a right to it. They get genuinely upset when what they perceive is theirs is "taken" from them.

Why do you think that not much gets done during an election year? It's largely because no politician wants to rock the boat and risk the possibility of upsetting their support network, the one that they've become dependent on for keeping their jobs. Some people probably have new and bold ideas for dealing with some of our pressing problems. However, we'll never hear from most of them because they're afraid of losing their support or bucking the party line. It is very analogous to the "welfare trap" that discourages people from venturing out to Independence and encourages them to be dependent on the establishment of the government.

So, how do we break the welfare cycle for politicians? One way to help them help themselves and us is to not automatically give our votes to anyone. Not just because they belong to the political party you feel closer to. Definitely not just because they have the right last name, skin color, religion, gender, looks, or because you've seen their ads a million times. We have to start giving them votes that they earn. And if they don't earn it, you are doing both them, yourself, and the rest of us a disservice by voting for them.

And to figure out whether or not they've earned it or not, this requires us to do some work as well. We have to stop being lazy if we expect our politicians to stop being lazy themselves. We need to spend time studying the records of our politicians. There are tons of resources available that help us to evaluate their statements, positions, and histories. But if we don't do this, the best we'll ever be able to expect is what we've got. A government run by too many politicians who expect to get something for nothing.