Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Fallen Marine’s mom teaches powerful Memorial Day lesson ~ Pittsburgh suburb has to be reminded of the significance of Memorial Day. A reminder that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
 
Rep. Black Introduces Bill Allowing Border Wall Crowdfunding ~ Hey, it’s worth a shot ~

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) introduced H.R. 5876, which would enable Americans to make donations for building President Trump’s border wall. In a statement, Rep. Black said, “Americans know that President Trump is committed to protecting our nation for future generations, and we are ready to stand with him to build the wall.”

 
Trans People Urged to Become Priests in Church of England Drive ‘to Honour LGBT+ People’ ~ Sure. Let’s not help them. Let’s pathologize the whole church ~

Claiming young people are put off by “the perception that the Church is homophobic and transphobic”, church leaders said it is vital to challenge this with celebration of the “great contribution” sexual minorities have made to church life, and for outreach “within the LGBT+ community more broadly”.

Don’t let reality invade your rainbow-colored utopia ~

The belief that churches must promote homosexuality, “alternative” sexual lifestyles, and a liberal political agenda in order to engage people, especially the young, does not seem to be borne out by data on church attendance.
 
Study after study looking at thousands of churches across the U.S. and globally, show that so-called ‘progressive’ churches are in steep decline, while those which hold to conservative sexual ethics and traditional church teachings and Scripture are growing and thriving.

Never Drink Another Starbucks Coffee Again, It Funds Planned Parenthood ~ Apparently their recent corporate sensitivity training didn’t include the unborn (aka – future customers). And are they aware of PP’s racist roots? ~

“Through its corporate donations, Starbucks contributes one of the most racist organizations in our nation’s history. Planned Parenthood, the largest single provider of abortions in the U.S., performs more than 300,000 terminations each year. Planned Parenthood operates the nation’s largest chain of abortion facilities, and almost 80 percent of its facilities are located in minority neighborhoods. About 13 percent of American women are black, but they have more than 35 percent of the abortions.” ~ Alveda King (MLK’s niece)

Muhammad and Medicine: We Need To Talk About Devout Muslim Doctors ~ There does seem to a bit of a conflict of interest here (Remember Muslim Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan?) ~

Last year, a Christian in Pakistan died because three Muslim doctors refused to touch him. It was Ramadan, and the patient, being Christian, was “unclean.” Yes, doctors are supposed to be above such considerations. Hippocratic Oath and all that. “First do no harm.” But for devout Muslims, other doctrines take precedence. The Koran instructs them not to heal the infidel but to slay him. What does a pious Muslim physician think when confronted with a critically ill patient who is not only an infidel but a critic of Islam?

 
Knives are too sharp and filing them down is solution to soaring violent crime, judge says ~ Gun-controllers in the UK are a couple steps ahead of those in the U.S., oblivious to the fact that Evil will find a way ~

A judge has proposed a nationwide programme to file down the points of kitchen knives as a solution to the country’s soaring knife crime epidemic.
 
Last week in his valedictory address, retiring Luton Crown Court Judge Nic Madge spoke of his concern that carrying a knife had become routine in some circles and called on the Government to ban the sale of large pointed kitchen knives. 😯

[This reminds me of that incident a few years’ back at a Swedish IKEA]

 
Gowdy Never Saw Subpoenaed Records Before Exonerating FBI Spy Use ~ He’s the mainstreams’ latest Republican darling (See Jeff Flake, and John McCain). Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has been posing as a conservative for years. But now that he’s announced he won’t seek reelection in the fall he’s let the mask drop and exposed the swamp creature within. Must be angling for a job on MSNBC ~

Although Gowdy intimated that the information he received in a briefing last week made clear the FBI did nothing wrong, numerous reports from multiple news outlets indicated that the lawmakers DOJ invited to the briefing were not given access to all of the records HPSCI subpoenaed. Other comments Gowdy made during recent television interviews raise questions about how firm a grasp he has on the investigation and concerns the investigation has raised.

 
Not really a surprise: Science again shows that fracking doesn’t pollute groundwater ~ More than two dozen scientific studies published since 2010 have concluded that fracking is not a major threat to groundwater ~

(E)ven though the claim that fracking contaminates groundwater continues to be a cornerstone of the “Keep It in the Ground” movement’s unrelenting campaign to undermine American energy production, there is simply no credible scientific evidence to support that claim.

 
Bob Menendez Is Severely Under Water In NJ Senate Race ~ Even New Jersey has had enough of this Democrat senator’s corruption ~

While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the state with 14 percent more of the vote than President Donald Trump in 2016, voters are becoming increasingly iffy about Menendez, a man who has been at the center of one of the biggest political scandals since the 2016 election.

 
“Right to try” somehow makes it into law ~ Like most good news about President Trump, this story was quickly disappeared by the mainstreams ~

It’s a rare day we get to say this, but congratulations to Congress and the White House for getting this done. You’ve managed to pass a law which might actually make a difference to people facing life and death decisions.

 
The Forgotten True Story of Alan Bean’s Unlikely Journey to the Moon ~ Interesting bit of history from Popular Mechanics ~

The fourth person to walk on the Moon, astronaut Alan Bean, died over the weekend. This is the wild true story of Apollo 12, and how a little creativity and ingenuity saved the day.
 
Bean’s advice: “Never come to the moon without a hammer.”

 
Burgess Owens: NFL would have stopped playing national anthem if Clinton was president ~ (Video) Former NFL player talks to Fox Business News about the kneelers.