Dr. Steiner-Hornsteyn was born with a peculiar gift, which gave her the remarkable ability to intuitively see energy-fields inside and around the human body. According to her website she has used this 'gift' to discover that "certain cells within the body contain the actual CAUSE for physical and emotional imbalance and that this information can be intuitively changed."
This particular healer has a unique way of 'healing' which is kind of hard to explain but she basically makes you realize what you can do to 'heal' yourself after she shows you the cause of whatever imbalance you may have. In her own words she describes her work as: "Usually I am shown the cause why the person is unwell, may it be physical or mental. With the power of Spirit... (or God if you prefer to sayso), you are put back in balance again. You see, the actual healing energy is a very special energy already living within you. The Godly energy flows through me to you and activates your own healing energy. I am merely a TOOL. This is the gift I have been given. You are being awakened to YOUR OWN healing power within you and a healing process is being set in motion."
From what I can understand from this 'healer', she is saying that we have the power to heal ourselves already and the only job that she does is to make us aware of this healing power. If this is the case, and she just told me that I have the power to heal myself already, what is the purpose of going to her for an appointment?
http://www.faith-healing.com/
Monday, November 26, 2007
Gay Adoption
While many gay and lesbian couples have decided to become parents, they have met many obstacles along the way. In the United States, each state currently determines its position on gay adoption. Currently, Florida is the only state that refuses single parent adoption rights to gays and lesbians. Additionally, Utah prohibits adoption by a person who is cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage, making it legal for single people to adopt, regardless of sexual orientation, so long as they are not co-habitating in non-marital relationships. Furthermore, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington State and Washington, D.C. explicitly allow second-parent adoption by same-sex couples statewide, either by statute or court ruling.
Many opponents of gay couples have the right to adopt make claims stating that social science evidence shows that the best environment for the well-being of a child comes from a household family consisting of a heterosexual mother and father. Along these same lines, they make the claim that children living in a homosexual family or more likely to experience with homosexuality than a child raised by heterosexual parents. In response to these claims, the supports of gay adoption rights state that there is no hard evidence proving that gays and lesbians are unfit to be parents or that a child raised in a homosexual household will be worse-off than a child raised in a heterosexual household. This is just one example of an argument put forth by the advocates and critics of the issue and many more can be found at the site below.
http://www.youdebate.com/DEBATES/gay_adoption.HTM?survey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_adoption
Many opponents of gay couples have the right to adopt make claims stating that social science evidence shows that the best environment for the well-being of a child comes from a household family consisting of a heterosexual mother and father. Along these same lines, they make the claim that children living in a homosexual family or more likely to experience with homosexuality than a child raised by heterosexual parents. In response to these claims, the supports of gay adoption rights state that there is no hard evidence proving that gays and lesbians are unfit to be parents or that a child raised in a homosexual household will be worse-off than a child raised in a heterosexual household. This is just one example of an argument put forth by the advocates and critics of the issue and many more can be found at the site below.
http://www.youdebate.com/DEBATES/gay_adoption.HTM?survey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_adoption
Saturday, November 10, 2007
International Definition of Torture
On December 10, 1981 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the text submitted by the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This text defines torture in Part I Article I as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
This definition of torture, as well as the rest of the text has been ratified by 142 nations, with another nine having signed but not yet ratified. The United States ratified the Convention, but lodged a declaration that "... nothing in this Convention requires or authorizes legislation, or other action, by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States." The reason for this is that the United States Government lacks constitutional authority to enter into any treaty that violates any civil rights or other provisions within the Constitution of the United States. Torture is illegal within the United States and is illegal if practiced by American military personnel anywhere at any time.
The prohibition of torture presented in this document is considered a fundamental principle of customary international law which means that all states are bound to respect this prohibition, regardless of whether or not they are parties to treaties which expressly contain the prohibition. All states are bound to respect the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment whether or not they are parties to treaties which expressly contain the prohibition. By this same standard, all states are obliged to prevent and to punish all and any form of torture outlined in the text.
According to the United Nations Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, torture is very plainly defined as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." It then adds that "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" should be interpreted to include "the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental, including the holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions which deprive him, temporarily or permanently of the use of any of his natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or of his awareness of place and the passing of time."
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/g3bpppdi.htm#one
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
This definition of torture, as well as the rest of the text has been ratified by 142 nations, with another nine having signed but not yet ratified. The United States ratified the Convention, but lodged a declaration that "... nothing in this Convention requires or authorizes legislation, or other action, by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States." The reason for this is that the United States Government lacks constitutional authority to enter into any treaty that violates any civil rights or other provisions within the Constitution of the United States. Torture is illegal within the United States and is illegal if practiced by American military personnel anywhere at any time.
The prohibition of torture presented in this document is considered a fundamental principle of customary international law which means that all states are bound to respect this prohibition, regardless of whether or not they are parties to treaties which expressly contain the prohibition. All states are bound to respect the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment whether or not they are parties to treaties which expressly contain the prohibition. By this same standard, all states are obliged to prevent and to punish all and any form of torture outlined in the text.
According to the United Nations Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, torture is very plainly defined as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." It then adds that "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" should be interpreted to include "the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental, including the holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions which deprive him, temporarily or permanently of the use of any of his natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or of his awareness of place and the passing of time."
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/g3bpppdi.htm#one
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm
7 Minutes Till Midnight
In 1947, during the Cold War, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago developed a symbolic clockface to represent mankind and the prospect of human destruction due to nuclear warfare. They called this symbolic clock the DoomsDay Clock. The first reading on the clock was 7 minutes until midnight, with midnight symbolizing the destruction of mankind through nuclear warfare. Each time nuclear conflict comes closer, the time on the clock is moved closer to midnight. On the other hand, the minute hand moves back as world events begin to improve.
The clock has seen 17 changes since it was first introduced in 1947 and most of these changes were due to a change in nuclear policy and testing in the United States and the Soviet Union. Only recently has the clock been changed due to the deterioration in international relations, specifically in the Middle East. The most recent change was in 2002 due to the United States' rejection of a series of arms control treaties and its announcement of its intentions to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This change moved the minute hand on the clock back to its original position at 7 minutes till midnight. The closest the minute hand ever got to midnight was when the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices within nine months of one another and the minute hand was changed to two minutes to midnight. Conversely, the farthest the minute hand has been from midnight and the safest we have been from nuclear destruction was in 1991 after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which changed the time to seventeen minutes to midnight.
The clock has seen 17 changes since it was first introduced in 1947 and most of these changes were due to a change in nuclear policy and testing in the United States and the Soviet Union. Only recently has the clock been changed due to the deterioration in international relations, specifically in the Middle East. The most recent change was in 2002 due to the United States' rejection of a series of arms control treaties and its announcement of its intentions to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This change moved the minute hand on the clock back to its original position at 7 minutes till midnight. The closest the minute hand ever got to midnight was when the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices within nine months of one another and the minute hand was changed to two minutes to midnight. Conversely, the farthest the minute hand has been from midnight and the safest we have been from nuclear destruction was in 1991 after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which changed the time to seventeen minutes to midnight.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The Jersey Devil
http://www.strangemag.com/jerseydevil1.html
In Southeastern New Jersey there are two thousand square miles of a dark, beautiful area of land which is home to many creatures of legend. The most famous of these is the Jersey Devil which is described as a creature with the head of a horse, large wings and claws, and has a roughly four-foot-long serpentine body. I don't know about you but that sounds like one bad ass mythical creature. Apparently, from sources undefined, whenever one sees this devil they immediately see an omen of a future disaster. Some unsourced examples are omens including ship wrecks and the outbreak of war. While all of this sounds fine and dandy, the most interesting information about this devil is how it originated. The widely accepted story goes something like this...
"When Mrs. Leeds, an indigent woman living in secluded poverty with her twelve starving children, found out she was to have another child exclaimed: "I don't want any more children! Let it be a devil." When the child was born, it was horribly deformed. It crawled from the womb and up the chimney and out into the woods. It is rumored to have fed on small children and livestock while haunting the area for years to come." (Perticaro)
Now where the feeding of small children developed into an ability to forecast omens to people it encounters, I have no idea. It all does make for an interesting story though....good luck hunting!
In Southeastern New Jersey there are two thousand square miles of a dark, beautiful area of land which is home to many creatures of legend. The most famous of these is the Jersey Devil which is described as a creature with the head of a horse, large wings and claws, and has a roughly four-foot-long serpentine body. I don't know about you but that sounds like one bad ass mythical creature. Apparently, from sources undefined, whenever one sees this devil they immediately see an omen of a future disaster. Some unsourced examples are omens including ship wrecks and the outbreak of war. While all of this sounds fine and dandy, the most interesting information about this devil is how it originated. The widely accepted story goes something like this...
"When Mrs. Leeds, an indigent woman living in secluded poverty with her twelve starving children, found out she was to have another child exclaimed: "I don't want any more children! Let it be a devil." When the child was born, it was horribly deformed. It crawled from the womb and up the chimney and out into the woods. It is rumored to have fed on small children and livestock while haunting the area for years to come." (Perticaro)
Now where the feeding of small children developed into an ability to forecast omens to people it encounters, I have no idea. It all does make for an interesting story though....good luck hunting!
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