Healthy People 2000 initiative from the CDC, Item 14.8: "Reduce the cesarean delivery rate to no more than 15 per 100 deliveries" (15%) (having failed to meet that goal in 2000, the Healthy People 2010 initiative merely says "reduce cesarean amoung low risk patients", but still sets a goal for first time mothers of 15%. However, it fids a repeat cesarean rate of 63% acceptable)

The World Health Organization states: "There is no justification to have a caesarean section rate of higher than10 - 15 %. Vaginal deliveries after a caesarean section shouldbe encouraged."

Babies Delivered by Cesarean More Likely to Die
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed over 5.7 million live births and nearly 12,000 infant deaths over a four-year period.

Now, compare those to the 2005 Cesarean Rates for Seattle Hospitals

The Stuff of Chaos

Added a new link to the collection on the side:
Department of Swag for the Foundation for Neo-cognitive and Ontological Research and Development

Athiests' Good Works-Part 1

Quoted from a reply to my other blog:

From www.positiveatheism.com, in a conversation on the topic:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9553.htm

Atheist Centre of India
The Atheist Centre was founded in 1940 by the Gora family, who were associated with Ghandi and the nationalist movement for freedom. They provide counseling, are fighting against the caste system and for the abolition of child marriages, helping ex-prostitutes, and protecting widows from inhumane customs. They also dispell superstitions by scientific demonstrations, and are asked to calm witchcraft hysterias. They provide sex education and family planning, are carrying on a rural development program, and have a center for free cornea grafting operations which is giving sight to the blind.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tocindia.htm

Atheist Charity
This is a new, small charity run by atheist volunteers. They currently give money to other charities for the poor, are involved in forming a non-discriminatory alternative to the Boy Scouts, and later will start natural disaster relief projects.
http://www.atheistcharity.org

EARTHWARD, Inc.
Earth's Atheist Resistance To Holy Wars And Religious Devastation gives humanitarian aid to victims of religiously motivated violence.
http://earthward.net

Humanitas
Dutch organization for social care an community development, based upon humanistic principles with projects in the fields of child-care, elderly homes, support for the homeless, care for the disabled, visiting and empowering the lonely, and grief counseling.
http://www.humanitas.nl

Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries
Hivos is an organisation working to promote: democracy; economic development; cultural development; human rights, including equal rights for women, in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin-America and South-east Europe. It also combats poverty and the spread of AIDS in those areas.
http://www.hivos.nl/

Furthermore, humanist organizations such as the International Humanist and Ethical Union at
http://www.hivos.nl/
have been cooperating with the U.N. in promoting global human rights and social progress. Several people named Humanists of the Year by the AHA (American Humanist Association) at
http://www.humanist.net
have been leaders in the U.N. and/or helped draft human rights documents.

~~~~~~~~~~~
They raise the idea that there are few athiest charity organizations for the several reasons. A) Religious charities utilize their works as prolethetizing and recruitment/conversion opportunities, and thus are very vocal about them (And they are self-perpetuating for this reason.) B) The lack of belief in a diety does not bond individuals together in the same way that an organized religion does, etc.

Morality

rsjm brought up a sermon on 1st Corinthians, where Paul is telling the Corinthian church to behave.

Paul says, "Just because society thinks it's ok, doesn't mean God does". I accept that as a fundamental of Christian belief, and don't see any problem with a Christian chosing to live their life that way.

Paul says that God's rules are for God's people. That's a very Judaic way of thinking, too, and an area where Christianity changed from Judaism. Jews believe the rules in the Torah are for them, and they're the only people who should live by them, and too bad about those other folks.

Christianity, OTOH, expects *everyone* to live by their rules, and some are willing to impose those by force and law.

And that's where Christianity and I break. They (in the general theological sense) accept their morality as the only morality, and no one else is living a moral life but them. And, especially recently, power-holding Christans are willing to enfoce their morality through the law. This, in my mind, risks puts things on par with the thecracies of the Middle East, and other places where religion is state-enforced. Especially in America, no one religion should have the right to enforce its beliefs on the populace.

I think until Christianity as a whole begins to understand that people of other faiths can be moral beings, and that morality is much more about how we treat the people around us, and less about arbitrary rules, there will always be a cultural rift between Christians, and non-Christans.

PSA

Reguarding the use of 'public' information in order to defame or otherwise disparage me and mine:

I have said my piece. Blade has said his. If the perpetrator wishes to continue trying to justify his mudslinging, he'll need to come out of his safe little cave and engage in public debate, where everyone can see his behavior.

Please know that I bear no ill will towards other members of his family, or others who enjoy his company and his community, unless, like some, they have used the sheild of his power there to attack me directly.

pot, meet kettle

People would tell us that they were warned to stay away from us... And some did actually listen... The other people who came over here anyway were shunned after that... Or looked at strangely in the community. And all it took for that to happen was to come to a place and say hello to a few people...

Even on place that still took place... It sure felt nice having people who have never even met you claim how horrible you really are...

Gee, I'm sure I'd have no idea how *that* feels...to be condemned just for the people you hang out with, or be branded with a certain label because of unfounded rumor and overreaction. Or have people hate you without ever talking to you, because their 'leader' said to hate you.

gotta love to hear something like that out of the same group of people who've been running a hate campaign on you for almost 2 years.

Clothes make the...

Glitzy t-shirts with suggestive slogans. Hip hugger jeans. THONG panties, for ghus sake. And now padded bras in sizes that would fit my 6 year old?

You will hardly find another person on the planet more apt to wave the flag of sexual freedom and being able to wear clothes that make you feel sexy, and I've happily reclaimed slut as a title of pride. Sexuality should be enjoyed, not hidden from.

But 'slut' clothes for girls who have barely entered puberty is too much. For one, it's giving girls the wrong message about themselves, that they have to be sexually suggestive to be attractive. Two, it makes it damn hard to advocate for free sexual expression in adults, when that image is being marketed inapproprately.

How can we say it's OK for a woman to dress in a clevage-baring shirt, and that she still has rights and boundaries, when little girls who havn't even got actual breast tissue are being encouraged to show off their 'assets'.

They have no idea what message their clothing sends, they have no idea that these things can be interpreted sexually, they just see the glitz, and that it's what their favorite -fill in the blank- wears.

Today

I honor Liam Colhoun, and all of the innocents who have ever lost their lives because of someone else's religious or political fanatacism.

This comes from the blog of Cyantist Ryan Warzecha, an all around nifty guy:

Consider this a quest... no, a request... We have a great number of people signed up for the beta; however, I am a one of those types of people where there can never be enough. Call me crazy but I want a number that I spit out my morning coffee out when I see it. I want a number that when I say the number in the morning meeting that someone has to give Moke The Heimlich because he choked on his juice. I want a number that it gives Mark D night sweats worrying if the server will stay up. I think you get what I am getting at. This does not mean I want you to sign up with every email address you have. Some one might ask if Turner is going to base funding on the number of people in beta.That is not the case. I just want the numbers for my own personal vendetta to say "Hey World .. We are back... and guess what, this time its personal"

Completely seperate from the giggles I get at the thought of Moke snorting Orange Juice out his nose, everyone should sign up for beta :)