Graeme McDowell joins list of World Match Play legends with sizzling performance at Thracian Cliffs

Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell fired a warning to his US Open rivals by winning the Volvo World Match Play Championship yesterday, making amends for his defeat in the event last year with a hard-fought victory over Thailand's Thongchai Jaidee in Bulgaria.

McDowell, runner-up last year to Ryder Cup team-mate Nicolas Colsaerts, took the lead for the first time in the final on the 14th hole after several vital par saves on the front nine at Thracian Cliffs.

The top seed then birdied the 15th to move two ahead and sealed a 2&1 win on the 17th – his 99th hole of the week – to claim the first prize of £675,000 and a first European Tour title since 2010 to go with his win at the RBC Heritage on the PGA Tour last month.

McDowell joins an illustrious list of players to have won the trophy including Arnold Palmer, who won the first World Match Play event in 1964, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman and Ernie Els.

"It's very special," said McDowell, who moved to the top of the Race to Dubai and should move up a place from eighth to seventh in the world rankings today.

"We have been talking all week about how prestigious this event is. I can't say how excited I am to win it and add my name to that list of legends.

"It was not quite the salubrious golf of this morning [when he was eight under in beating Branden Grace 3&2 in the semi-final]. It was a little more tentative, there was a lot on the line.

"I played strongly coming in and I sensed Thongchai was a little fatigued. I really tried to feed off that and show him I was really up for it. He made his first mistake on the 14th, and the 15th has been kind to me all week."

Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/graeme-mcdowell-joins-list-of-world-match-play-legends-with-sizzling-performance-at-thracian-cliffs-29278677.html

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Young drivers warned over eyesight by South Wales Police

Young motorists are being urged to ensure they can see clearly when driving after a police crackdown found many at the wheel with poor eyesight.

Random checks in south Wales found young drivers who did not realise they needed glasses.

The crackdown, which led to nine motorists with bad eyesight losing their licence, is to be extended to the M4.

A force road safety manager blamed a lack of eye tests in schools.

During a month-long crackdown held earlier this year, police stopped 821 motorists, nine of whom lost their licences because they could not see clearly while driving.

Another 29 people received cautions.

Insp Wayne Tucker, South Wales Police's road safety manager, said while most of those discovered to have bad eyesight were elderly, officers also found many younger people needed sight tests.

"We feel we have made people more aware of their responsibilities in relation to eyesight when driving, especially young people," he said.

"We find these days young people aren't having eyesight tests in schools like they used to and as they get older they're not going to the optician and don't realise the danger they are putting themselves and others in by driving.

"We're not banging people over the head with a big stick about it but asking them to please be responsible.

"We have had incidents where we have had to recommend they get an eye test."

Insp Tucker said one man in particular, who was in his early 30s and drove for a living, had such bad eyesight that police prevented him from driving until he got glasses.

"He went straight away to an optician and got glasses there and then over the counter," he added.

New technology
The South Wales Police crackdown against drivers with poor eyesight was launched at the end of February.

Motorists in Talbot Green, Cardiff, Aberdare and Rhondda were stopped and asked to read the registration plate of a vehicle parked 20m (65ft) away.

Police said that new handheld devices meant they could refer motorists to the DVLA immediately and they could lose their licences within hours.

In the past it could take days for a licence to be revoked, meaning potentially dangerous drivers could still get behind the wheel after police had stopped them.

The changes followed a campaign to highlight the issue after 16-year-old Cassie McCord, from Colchester, Essex, was killed by an 87-year-old driver in 2011.

He had refused to surrender his licence despite failing an on-the-spot eye sight test three days earlier.

Insp Tucker said the crackdown would now be extended along the M4 corridor.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-22529740

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Canada blanks listless Sweden

STOCKHOLM – Canada scored once in the first and twice in the second en route to an impressive 3-0 win over Sweden tonight at the Globe Arena. With the win, Canada moves into second place of the Stockholm group with 10 points, one behind Switzerland and one ahead of the Swedes.

Mike Smith stopped 33 shots to record the shutout in only his second ever World Championship game.

Canada (3-0-1-0) gets right back at it, playing Belarus tomorrow night, while Tre Kronor (3-0-0-2) have a day off before playing Slovenia.

"The fans were buzzing form the start and it's always kind of fun to play in that kind of atmosphere," said Brenden Dillon. "They have a passion for their country and their team, and we knew coming in it was going to be loud with the tournament being here in Sweden."

Steve Yzerman arrived into Stockholm today just in time to watch the KidCan Line of Jordan Eberle (22 years old), Matt Duchene (22), and Taylor Hall (21) put on an impressive display of puck wizardry. All three are strong Sochi candidates if the NHL goes to the Olympics and Yzerman is named Canada’s executive director (both are strong possibilities at this stage).

The trio controlled the puck inside the Swedish end much of the night and have formed Canada's most impressive line to date. The goals, however, came from Steven Stamkos, Luke Schenn, and Jordan Staal.

If you want to know why Stamkos is so good and how he scores most of his goals, just watch the replays of Canada’s first goal. On the power play, defenceman Brian Campbell had the puck at the top of the right face-off circle.

He fired a cross-ice pass to Stamkos in the same spot on the other side, and a split second after the puck hit his stick the disc was coming out of the net, already having beaten Jhonas Enroth. That goal, at 8:56, gave Canada the early lead.

"We started quickly," said Matt Read, who had two assists. "The first power-play goal may have deflated the team, and we used the next couple of shifts after that as momentum and supported each other throughout the game."

Indeed, the rest of the period saw tremendous action and pace, but Canada had a decided edge in great scoring chances. Taylor Hall sent Matt Duchene in alone with a beautiful pass outside the Sweden blue line, but Enroth made the save. A short time later, Stamkos nearly finished a perfect three-way passing play but Enroth made a sensational glove save off a sure goal.

Near the end of the period, captain Eric Staal also had a breakaway, only to be foiled by the Swedish goalie.

Smith looked a little nervous in the Canada goal in the early going, but he made a nice save on Martin Thörnberg and later on Calle Järnkrok to help settle the nerves.

"They came out with more energy than we did and they outworked us," said Erik Gustafsson. "That is really where we lost the game, especially in the first period. We tried to recover from that start but couldn't."

If Canada had the better scoring chances in the first, it dominated even more thoroughly in the second period, a period that was nothing short of a disaster for the Swedes who made countless turnovers and sloppy plays and allowed many odd-man rushes by the Canadians.

Canada took charge just 55 seconds into the period when Schenn took a pass from Read, waited half a beat, and then roofed a shot over Enroth’s glove. It was a goalscorer's shot from a defenceman who rarely scores.

Canada made it 3-0 at 11:00 when Jordan Staal came out of the penalty box to create a two-on-one with Ryan O’Reilly. O’Reilly made a perfect pass, and Staal ripped a shot into the open side. Coach Pär Mårts called a timeout, but it had little effect. The Swedes hardly tested Smith and failed to control the puck anywhere on the ice.

The Swedes had a great chance to get back into the game with an early power play in the final period, but Martin Thörnberg blasted a shot high over an open net and the moment was lost.

The rest of the period was controlled by Canada who kept the Swedes to the outside with great efficiency.

Source: http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/news/news-singleview/recap/7858.html?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=187&cHash=2de3886734

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A 10 years old boy was standing on the side of the road with a huge hand painted sign which said “Radar Trap Ahead.”

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In South Carolina politics, two very different campaign styles

Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) – In South Carolina's 1st congressional district, the race for Rep. Tim Scott's open House seat is showcasing two very different candidates with two very different campaign styles.

Elizabeth Colbert Busch, on the Democratic ticket, is criss-crossing the district in a fully wrapped tour bus with her name plastered along the outside. It's a look that evokes a presidential campaign. She travels with an entourage that, this weekend, included Jon Bauman, better known as Bowzer from the rock group Sha Na Na. He goes with her to rallies and sings a few chords from "Blue Moon," ending with "Vote for Colbert Busch" in his booming low voice.



She is very outgoing, shakes hands, hugs lots of babies and talks about the issues, all while her campaign staff are close at hand.

Contrast that with her opponent, former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, whose 2009 extramarital affair tarnshied his reputation. He says he is running a very grass-roots campaign. Many of his campaign signs are hand-painted pressed wood signs that look like children may have spray-painted them. He usually travels with a single aide in a small Chevy SUV and stops by businesses and restaurants unannounced.

He often starts his greeting to voters with an apology, saying he's "sorry for being rude and interrupting" while people are eating or talking. But he always adds that he hopes they'll "consider him" when they vote on Tuesday. He rarely uses the word "vote."

Another difference: Sanford does not like to campaign on Sundays. Even this Sunday, two days before the election, his campaign is dark. There are no events scheduled and no campaigning.

Meanwhile, Colbert Busch has scheduled a news conference and then is knocking on doors in a Charleston neighborhood.

This morning, the local paper, The Post and Courier, gave Colbert Busch its endorsement. It says she "offers a balanced alternative to her GOP opponent Mark Sanford. He held the 1st District seat for a self-limited three terms, then later served two gubernatorial terms marred by near-constant conflict with his fellow Republicans who ran the Legislature."

It even says the district has "Sanford fatigue," described as "a malady caused by overexposure to all of the cringe-worthy details of his 2009 disgrace as governor, his ongoing efforts for redemption via the political process, his resurgent personal problems, etc. "

On Saturday, Sanford won his own endorsement from the fiscally conservative group the Tea Party Express. Amy Kremer, the group's chairwoman, said she backs him because he doesn't just "claim to be a fiscal conservative but has actually acted as a fiscal conservative. And has a record as a governor and congressman of being fiscally responsible."

As for Sanford's checkered past, Kremer said, "That's between Gov. Sanford, God and his family. I'm gonna leave that to the man upstairs."

"All I'm concerned about is sending a congressman to Washington that's going to do something about this out of control spending."

She notes that "the Democrats forgave Bill Clinton, and these voters seem to have forgiven (Sanford) because he went through a rough primary. He's now the nominee, and we're here to stand with him."

Sanford said the topic of his past rarely comes up on the trail. "You'll hear people talking about issues and ideas that are important to their pocketbook their wallet, their ability to provide for their family and for themselves," he said. "It has not been representative of what I talk to folks about on a daily basis."


Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/05/in-south-carolina-politics-two-very-different-campaign-styles/

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Vouchers 'widen quality gap' in Sweden's schools

The introduction of school vouchers in Sweden, allowing pupils to shop around for their school, could explain the widening gap in quality between different schools, a new report has claimed.

The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) argued this week that ironing out the differences should be a top priority for Sweden.

"If there are big differences between schools and we have students who do not deselect the worse schools, they risk a worse education and less opportunities in life," Director General Anna Ekström told the TT news agency.

"Swedish society loses out when there is less equality."

The report authors also said a long-term strategy for Swedish education as well as strengthening the teaching profession should be lawmakers' primary goals for the future.

Ekström said that one potential equalizer would be for municipalities, which are responsible for managing the school system locally across the country, to place the most experienced teachers in schools where they were needed the most.

The report coincided with a summary by the Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen), which also came to the conclusion that Swedish schools now differ considerably in terms of education quality. Researcher Per Thullberg underlined that all education reforms take a long time to be felt on the ground.

"The 'effect chain' is very long and it can take considerable time before it has an effect, if it has any," he told TT, adding that any reforms put into place now would at their absolute earliest be felt in a few years, but likely not before the late 2010s.

Sweden's Education Minister Jan Björklund welcomed the twin reports on Thursday and acknowledge that quality gaps had grown too wide.

"The gaps are too big, I think, and there are a few things we must do," Björklund said, outlining his belief that more creative, student-led teaching methods were counterproductive to ironing out differences between students from different socio-economic backgrounds.

He told TT that teachers should teach, as not all students knew how to organize their own studies. Björklund further agreed that the municipalities should pay greater attention to the needs of differing socio-economic groups.

"I want us to legislate so the municipalities have to divide up their resources based on socio-economic criteria," the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) minister explained.

His party's coalition partner the Moderate Party has also discussed implementing more guidelines and feedback for teachers whose pupils do not perform well, a suggestion that Sweden's biggest teachers' union welcomes.

"All school systems that perform well in international comparisons have an element of having teachers working together to a greater extent than in Sweden, where teachers are often left to their own devices," Swedish Teachers' Union (Lärarförbundet) chairwoman Eva-Lis Sirén told TT.

"Offering more support and a guiding hand is an excellent idea."

While Sirén said one could not ignore the widening quality gap that came on the heels of Sweden's school choice (skolval) reform, she said the system of students shopping around for their education was here to stay.

Not even the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, have suggested that the system be abandoned, instead discussing tweaks to ensure less segregation.

"The central state should go in and play a bigger financial role for the schools that are falling behind," the party's shadow education minister Ibrahim Baylan said.

Source: http://www.thelocal.se/47694/20130503

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Sounding the Sharia in Sweden

Calls to summon Muslims to prayer were broadcast over loudspeakers for the first time ever in Sweden this past Friday on April 26th at the Fittja Mosque in the Stockholm municipality of Botkyrka.  The Islamic call to prayer (adhan), resonating from the towering 104-foot (32-meter) minaret, began with the ear-shattering "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is Great) and was followed by the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah".  Every Friday, people from as far as two kilometers away will be subjected to hear what U.S. President Obama called "one of the prettiest sounds on earth".

This is what Swedes in the Stockholm municipality of Botkyrka will have to get used to, now that the decision rendered by the Botkyrka Municipal Assembly and authorized by the Botkyrka Police to approve the public call to worship, has taken effect.  Whether or not Swedes find it offensive, loud, or disruptive, they have no choice but to listen every Friday to the live three-to-five-minute amplified recitation of the Muslim declaration of faith that calls the people to come together and pray.To pray for what?

Has anyone ever wondered, or taken the time to understand what these prayers, to which Muslims are now being publicly called, are all about?  One of the Friday prayers consists of the seven verses of the opening chapter of the Koran, Al-Fatiha (The Beginning).  This prayer, which is repeated twice during Friday noon prayer, and repeated 17 times a day by religious Muslims, instills distrust of the non-believer by asking Allah to keep Muslims away from the path of the Jews and Christians:

Guide us to the Straight Way, the Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).
According to Louis Palme who often writes on Muslim apostate websites, Friday prayers include recitation of two additional Koranic chapters, chapters 62 (Friday) and 63 (Hypocrites).  These chapters encourage hatred of not only Jews and Christians, but also of those who renounce their Muslim faith. Jews are compared to "the likeness of a donkey who carries huge burdens of books (but understands nothing from them)" and are told to long for death if they pretend to be friends of Allah.  Non-believers (i.e., Christians, Hindus, Buddhists) are condemned to a state of error until Mohammed purifies them "from the filth of disbelief and polytheism" with his verses.  Hypocrites or apostates "are the enemies so beware of them. May Allah curse them!"

The application to demand permission for the amplified call to prayer in Botkyrka was submitted in January 2012 by the President of the Botkyrka Islamic Cultural Association, Ismail Okur.  He convinced the majority of the Botkyrka Municipal Assembly members to concede to his demand after telling Swedish newspaper Dagen that "now we want to have religious freedom."

Unbeknown to most council members, Islam does not allow religious freedom -- according to the Koran (Medina chapters), the Hadiths, and Reliance of the Traveller (one of the most venerated and reliable manuals of Islamic Sunni law).  Islam does not give people the option to follow other religions, nor does it give Muslims the choice to leave their religion -- despite what verse 256 from chapter two of the Koran says: "There is no compulsion in religion."  If this were truly the case, then why are countless numbers of non-Muslims, Muslim apostates, and Muslims of other sects or denominations being persecuted and killed throughout the world?

Intolerance to people of faiths other than Islam occurs not only in countries where Islam is the state religion, but also in the Sharia-controlled no-go zones that are springing up all over Europe.  These areas are off-limits to non-Muslims and function as independent Islamic republics. Intolerance also occurs in non-Islamic countries like the Philippines where Islam is busy creating a separate Islamic state in the south (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, ARMM), and in Indonesia-occupied West Papua, the former Dutch colony, where Islam is vying for control. China's far-west region of Xinjiang is another area where Islam wants to establish an independent state, namely East Turkestan. Integration is out of the question, as Islam is more interested in breaking away from Western culture and in forming a separate Islamic state to eventually become part of an Islamic caliphate. Amplifying the call to prayer on Friday is only the beginning.

Stockholm, and eventually any Swedish city or municipality where a mosque can be found, will soon enjoy more of the same five times a day for the entire week.  As senior analyst Soeren Kern writes, "the decision is especially significant because it will set a precedent for all of the 200 other mosques in Sweden."  Sharia law has just been imposed on the citizens of Stockholm. Good luck Sweden, you are not alone.


Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/sounding_the_sharia_in_sweden.html

 

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Waitrose allowed to open seventh store in Scotland

FOOD retailer Waitrose is on course to open a seventh store in Scotland, after the go-ahead was granted for an outlet at the home of a historic rugby club.

The company, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership, was granted planning permission by East Dunbartonshire Council for the store in Milngavie, north of Glasgow.

It comes despite officials at the authority recommending councillors refuse the application, and objections from local traders and community activists.

It has been claimed Waitrose setting up shop could adversely affect local retailers.

Planning permission for the store, which will be built on land owned by West of Scotland rugby club, was granted subject to certain conditions, which are understood to include contributions towards the A81 route corridor plans.

Construction will start later this year and Waitrose will open its doors in 2014. The firm has said it will create 180 jobs.

Waitrose spokesman Martin Gorman said: "We have been looking for a site in Milngavie for several years. We've had a desire to see a new Waitrose in East Dunbartonshire since 2010.

"This was acknowledged by officers as the most suitable site and we are careful to open shops in areas where they will do well."

He said Waitrose would offer "long-term employment with a local recruitment drive".

Gordon Cairns, vice-president of the West of Scotland Football Club, said: "After years of uncertainty over the development of the club, we are delighted that we're able to move on and plan for a future."

The Milngavie Community Council raised concerns about the impact of the store on Bearsden and Milngavie town centres, as well as increased traffic and flooding.

Fiona Risk, chairman of Milngavie Community Council, said: "The store may draw people to the Milngavie area from a wide region but these shoppers will not then be drawn to Milngavie town centre as there would be no reason to get back into their car and drive there from Waitrose, which will have everything they need, including a cafe.

"The projected drop in trade for small shops in Milngavie ranges from 7% to 13%. This means not only no profit, but closure.

Waitrose said the Milngavie store would "act as a shopping destination, drawing customers from 20-30 minutes' drive away, attracting new people and trade worth around £4m into the area, with potential spin-off benefits to Milngavie town centre".

It added: "Due to the wide catchment of Waitrose, the vitality and viability of the Milngavie and Bearsden town centres would not be threatened."


Source: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/waitrose-allowed-to-open-seventh-store-in-scotland.20907211

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Canada beats Sweden 6-0 at U18 hockey championships

SOCHI, Russia -- Connor McDavid scored three power-play goals and Canada clinched first place in its group with a 6-0 rout of Sweden on Tuesday at the world under-18 hockey championship.
McDavid opened the scoring 1:17 into the game, and sealed the victory with a pair of goals in the third period.
The 16-year-old Erie Otters forward, who added an assist, has 11 points in four games at the tournament.
Zach Nastasiuk, Morgan Klimchuk and Nick Ritchie scored in the second period as Canada pulled away from the Swedes.
Philippe Desrosiers made 28 saves for the shutout.
Despite the lopsided score, Canadian assistant coach Jody Hull said he didn't feel his team was in control until late in the second period. Canada took three straight minor penalties after McDavid's game-opening goal, allowing Sweden to build momentum.
"We had some real good momentum early before we ran into penalty problems," Hull said. "We got back and started doing what we need to do to win games."
Canada finished first in Group B with a 4-0 record, outscoring its opponents 23-3. The Canadians will play the Czech Republic, which finished fourth in Group A, in Thursday's quarter-finals.
Sweden will face the United States on Thursday. The Americans who finished third in Group A, are looking for a fifth straight gold medal at the event.
Hull said while Canada would love a crack at the Americans, his team is prepared to face any opponent in the medal round.
"The Canada-U.S. rivalry is at a high in both men's and women's game right now," Hull said. "If we get to the final and we play the Americans, great. If it's another team, we'll be prepared for them."


Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/canada-beats-sweden-6-0-at-u18-hockey-championships-1.1251729

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Warm weather to stay in south of England

Temperatures in the south of England could break the 20C (68F) mark this week, according to forecasters.

But as the south-west, south-east and East Anglia bask in the spring sunshine amid unseasonably warm conditions, the rest of the UK will experience average temperatures and some rain.

Experts said the north-south split was down to a frontal system.

Brendan Jones, a forecaster for MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "For the south of the country the warm weather is going to hang around on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but it's certainly fairly cool for the north of the country."

He said the mercury was set to rise to 19C or 20C (66F-68F), and possibly as high as 22C (71F) in some parts – far higher than the average of 13C or 14C (55F-57F) for late April.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, however, temperatures will stick to the average of 9C-12C (48F-53F), while in the north of England and the Midlands there could be highs of 16C (60F).

But on Friday, temperatures are likely to drop across the UK. "It does look as if it's going to turn cold from the north everywhere," Jones said.


Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/22/warm-weather-south-england

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Kermit Gosnell and the Politics of Abortion

Several years ago, Jennifer Senior wrote a fascinating, agonized essay for New York Magazine on abortion and the challenges facing the pro-choice cause. Of the piece’s many memorable passages, this stretch in particular stood out:

• … if you want to hear honest talk about the realities of abortion, go speak with those abortion counselors and providers. Even the most radically pro-choice will tell you that the political discourse they hear about the subject, with its easy dichotomies and bumper-sticker boilerplate, has little correspondence to the messy, intricate stories of her patients. They hear about peace and guilt, relief and sin. And it is they who will acknowledge, whether we like it or not, that the rhetoric and imagery of the pro-life movement can touch on some basic emotional truths. Peg Johnston, who manages Access for Women in upstate New York, remembers the first time her patients unconsciously began to co-opt the language of the protesters outside. “And it wasn’t that these protesters were brainwashing them,” she says. “It’s that they were tapping into things we all have some discomfort about.”
• This is quite a brave confession for Johnston—or any pro-choice person—to make. It means making oneself vulnerable to opportunist pro-life activists, who’ll happily take those words about uncertainty or moral qualms and repurpose them for their own ends. Back in the late eighties, Charlotte Taft, who first pioneered the practice of writing notes on hearts in her Dallas clinic, mentioned to a journalist that women knew “abortion is a kind of killing,” and poor Kate Michelman, at NARAL, was forced to go on the defensive for days. Last year, Lisa Harris, a Michigan doctor, wrote an incredibly powerful essay for Reproductive Health Matters, trying to come to terms with the goriness of second-trimester abortions while simultaneously recognizing their validity: “What do we do when caught between pro-choice discourse that, while it reflects our values, does not accurately reflect the full extent of our experience of abortion and in fact contradicts an enormous part of it, and the anti-abortion discourse and imagery that may actually be more closely aligned to our experience but is based in values we do not share?”
• … [her essay described] performing an abortion on a woman who was 23 weeks along and then immediately running to deliver a premature baby … of 23 to 24 weeks. “I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother’s uterus,” she writes, “but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable.” Later she notes, “Currently, the violence and, frankly, the gruesomeness of abortion is owned only by those who would like to see abortion (at any time in pregnancy) disappear.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this passage, and the tensions it illuminates, while following the debate over whether the national media has adequately covered the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia M.D. charged with murdering both the women who went to him for late-term abortions and the post-birth infants whose spines he allegedly severed with scissors after they were delivered. Since the story was finally forced into prominence late last week, it has inspired a number of eloquent critiques of how the press covers abortion (I recommend reading Carl Cannon and Melinda Henneberger, in particular) as well as various pieces defending the media from charges of bias and pinning the lack of coverage on other factors.

But the most interesting response by far has come from voices on the uncompromisingly pro-choice left. These writers have basically made two interlocking arguments: First, that there was no “liberal media” blackout, because feminist bloggers wrote about the story from the beginning, and second, that if there was a breakdown in mainstream coverage, it was the failure to recognize the ways in which the Gosnell story is actually about inequities in access to medical care and the perverse consequences of abortion restrictions, rather than (as the pro-life side would have it) the inherent horror of the procedure itself.

These arguments have showed up in a lot of places, but they’ve been developed most extensively by Irin Carmon at Salon. From her initial piece on the case:

• If you’ve never heard of the Gosnell story, it’s … probably because you failed to pay attention to the copious coverage among pro-choice and feminist journalists, as well as the big news organizations, when the news first broke in 2011. There would be something rich, if it weren’t so infuriating, about these (almost uniformly male, as it happens) reporters and commentators scrambling to break open this shocking untold story. You know, the one that was written about here, here and here, to name some disparate sources.
• I can’t speak for big news organizations like CNN and the networks, but let’s think about this question another way: How often do such places devote their energies to covering the massive health disparities and poor outcomes that are wrought by our current system? How often are the travails of the women whose vulnerabilities Gosnell exploited — the poor, immigrants and otherwise marginalized people — given wall-to-wall, trial-level coverage? If you’re surprised that in the face of politicized stigma, lack of public funding or good information, and a morass of restrictive laws allegedly meant to protect women, the vacuum was filled by a monster — well, the most generous thing I can say is that you haven’t been paying attention.

And then, in a follow-up piece:

• By all means, let’s talk about Kermit Gosnell — who is accused of acts that are already illegal — but in a fact-based fashion. As Philadelphia Weekly reporter Tara Murtha put it, this was about a “multi-level, panoramic, institutional negligence, a culture of passing the buck and flagrant disregard for patient’s welfare, [which] prevented any meaningful investigation.” This is not about how Gosnell performed “late term abortions” (a highly imprecise term) as much as it is about the fact that the women who went to him felt they had nowhere else to go, an issue I have yet to see all the right-wing grandstanders fully address. As Erin Grant of the Philadelphia Women’s Center wrote, ”Now, instead of people who morally oppose what I do just being outside my door on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, they are emboldened on the state Senate floor to ‘save women’s lives.’ Yet, nothing has been done to provide low-income women with dignified health care, including safe abortion care.”

Some of Carmon’s commentary on the press coverage feels like obfuscation: The voices complaining about the media blackout obviously weren’t talking about a lack of coverage in The Nation, and the claim that the people taking an interest in the story are “uniformly male” is just nonsense. (As I noted in my Sunday column, the two writers who put the most energy into pushing this story into the mainstream were Kirsten Powers in U.S.A. Today and Mollie Ziegler Hemingway of GetReligion; it’s one recent appearance on a Sunday roundtable was courtesy of Peggy Noonan; one of the best pieces on the lack of media coverage was the Melinda Henneberger column I noted above … you get the idea.)

But her obfuscation is woven together with a legitimate point. The most rigorously pro-choice writers really did cover the Gosnell case more assiduously than the mainstream media, because they really do see it, not as an embarrassment to the cause of abortion rights, but a vindication of their worldview.

And not without reason. In a society more comprehensively pro-abortion than our own, there would presumably be more doctors willing to perform late-term abortions and certainly more government funding for abortion generally, both of which would reduce the “market share,” if you will, available for a monster like Gosnell to exploit. His practice allegedly operated in a gray area created by the combination of 1) Pennsylvania’s restrictions on post-viability abortions and 2) pro-choice Pennsylvania administrations that didn’t want to enforce those restrictions. But obviously if the state had no restrictions whatsoever and spent public money subsidizing abortion, his abattoir would have had more clean, well-lit, sanitary competitors. Thus Matt Yglesias’s conclusion that from a rigorously pro-choice, pro-Roe v. Wade perspective the lesson of the Gosnell horror show is not that the regulations he flouted should have been better enforced; rather, it’s that Pennsylvania needed an ”above-board competitive marketplace with multiple legal providers of late-term abortion facilities,” and the restrictions on late-term abortion unfortunately prevented that marketplace from emerging.

The only things missing from this clean, airtight, entirely consistent argument are, well, all the dead babies in the Gosnell clinic — or the dead “precipitated fetuses,” to employ the language Gosnell and his associates used to euphemize their practice of delivering and then “snipping” rather than aborting in utero. Their absence is not necessarily a problem if you’re willing to argue that those babies were non-persons before delivery and became persons immediately after (in which case Gosnell is guilty of infanticide but a more competent late-term abortion facility wouldn’t be), or if you’re willing to argue, with Peter Singer and some others, that personhood is something that emerges gradually at some indeterminate time after birth (in which case Gosnell’s “snipping” wasn’t murder at all). The former, I think, is the more common form of pro-choice absolutism, and the latter belongs to the more philosophically-inclined fringe (although the debate over “born-alive” bills has moved the official consensus fringeward). But if you’re already committed to absolute support for abortion rights, either argument will suffice to justify treating Gosnell’s conduct as irrelevant to the broader abortion controversy.

What neither argument seems likely to do, however, is do much to persuade the many, many “pro-choice but …” people who aren’t already so committed, and whose support for abortion rights tends to waver most when they’re confronted with the reality of what abortion actually does to fetal life — in clean, well-funded facilities as well as filthy ones, and in the womb as much as on Gosnell’s operating tables. This is, of course, the central reason why the pro-life side assumes that mainstream reporters didn’t particularly want to cover the trial: Because the mainstream press leans pro-choice, because mainstream journalism is pitched to readers in the mushy middle on abortion, and because the practice of “after-birth abortion” makes fetal humanity manifest in ways that almost inevitably push that middle in a more pro-life direction.

And it’s this reality that the pro-choice commentary on the case, with its focus on making these procedures safer and more accessible (and keeping them in utero), has a very hard time addressing. If you’re one of the 28 percent of Americans who believe that abortion should be legal in all circumstances (or, to take a more specific Gallup question, one of the 14 percent who think that “all circumstances” should include the third trimester), then Carmon’s points, or Yglesias’s, will tend to confirm you in that position. But if you’re a typically-conflicted American — the kind of person for whom stories about neonates gasping for breath before their spines get severed makes you question whether abortion isn’t murder after all — then the insistence that Gosnell case just reveals the advantages of an “above-board competitive marketplace” in late-term abortion isn’t really much of a response.

Which brings us back to that Senior essay, because I think what you’re seeing from the pro-choice side of the Gosnell debate is exactly the dilemma she describes. To respond effectively to the doubts about abortion that fetal snipping summons up, pro-choice advocates would need arguments that (to rephrase Senior’s language) acknowledge and come to terms with the goriness of third-trimester abortions while simultaneously persuading the conflicted and uncommitted of their validity, and that somehow take ownership of the “violence” and “gruesomeness” of abortion (to borrow Harris’s words) without giving aid and comfort to the pro-life cause. And in the absence of such arguments, the pro-choice response to Gosnell feels either evasive and euphemistic, or else logically consistent in ways that tend to horrify the unconvinced — and in either case, inadequate to the challenge his case presents to the cause of abortion rights.

But of course it’s possible that those arguments are absent because they simply don’t exist.

Source: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/kermit-gosnell-and-the-politics-of-abortion/

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Ireland to hold gay marriage referendum

Convention set up to reform Irish constitution recommends that same-sex couples get full marriage equality

Ireland is to hold a referendum on legalising gay marriage after a special convention set up to reform the Irish constitution recommended that same-sex couples in the republic be recognised in law.

The convention voted 79% in favour of full equality for same-sex marriage in Dublin on Sunday.

Under the Irish constitution any major constitutional change has to be ratified by the electorate.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Gay and Lesbian Network welcomed the endorsement of gay marriage equality.

The Marriage Equality director Moninne Griffith said the vote proved "Ireland is ready for equality for same-sex couples and wants equal access to civil marriage for loving committed gay and lesbian couples".

The Gay and Lesbian Network director Brian Sheehan described the vote as a "historic day – a major milestone on the remarkable journey" towards full equality.

The convention was established by the Fine-Gael-Labour coalition to secularise much of the Irish constitution, which has given the Catholic church a great deal of power and influence in the state since its foundation.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/14/ireland-hold-gay-marriage-referendum

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England's Gary Neville says home-grown talent being blocked in Premier League

Gary Neville, England’s assistant coach, delivered a frank and alarming perspective on the state of youth development in this country on Thursday, arguing that the “pathway” to clubs’ first teams was being blocked by foreign players and that some youngsters needed toughening up anyway.

Neville was talking at the Soccerex Conference in Manchester, and was followed on stage by Roy Hodgson, Michael Owen, Bryan Robson and Kevin Keegan, who also debated England’s limitations.

“Is talent not being produced or is the pathway being blocked?’’ Neville asked. “For me it is because the pathway is blocked. I used to commentate on the Youth Cup for six or seven years for MUTV and watched Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool.

"I’ve seen these players, the Josh McEachrans of this world, who five or six years ago were coming through. Where are they? Nobody is telling me they didn’t have the talent to play in the Premier League.” McEachran is now on loan from Chelsea to Middlesbrough.

“I know the world is much more open now, it is much easier for players to move around, but here we have reached a tipping point. You have Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid and Lionel Messi at Barcelona but in the Spanish league 63 per cent of their players are still Spanish. That sounds about right.

“We’ve gone too far in England. We’re maybe 20 per cent off. We need to give chances to our own. We can’t go back to having no foreign players, the league is better for them, but the tipping point in terms of the numbers of players, managers and coaches has gone too far. We are harming ourselves a little bit.”

The current generation miss out on reserv-team football. “We have sanitised slightly football at that level, we have tried to protect the kids and what we need to do is throw 16 to 17-year-olds on and let them play against men. I played against Ian Marshall and Graeme Sharp, of Oldham, and got battered by two physical forwards.
That toughened me up. I was playing with Bryan Robson, Mike Phelan, Neil Webb. There was a real fight.’’

The concern among former players such as Neville is that many young players have too much done for them, so inhibiting their decision-making strengths at pressurised moments during games. Neville did emphasise that the current young generation of players “give 100 per cent” for England.
Unfortunately, not all are regulars for their club and some are withdrawn from international duty.

“There’s always going to be conflict between club and country,’’ said England manager Roy Hodgson. “The Premier League clubs have their own agenda. They need to get success and find the players that will bring success. If they decide that the English players aren’t good enough for their purpose we have to deal with that.”
He noted the increasing trend of clubs using international breaks as breathers for players. “It concerns me that we are guilty of accepting ‘it’s the international break so we can give the player 10 days off or go to Dubai’.” Hodgson was annoyed last month when Rio Ferdinand withdrew from the squad and resurfaced in a Doha television studio.

This is the battle Hodgson faces, a struggle particularly painful at England’s lower age-group levels. He was angry yesterday when discussing the number of pull-outs scarring England’s attempts to shine in the Fifa Under-20 World Cup: 30 in 2011 and 54 in 2009 when one player was actually dragged off the England plane by his club.
“I can remember Lionel Messi playing for Argentina in it and winning it in 2005,’’ reflected Hodgson. Messi had already played for Barcelona. The expanding of pre-season tours, and now post-season tours, complicates life even more for England.

Hodgson also seemed almost accepting of his fate that the talent pool was shallow. “My regret is that I’ve seen England teams with some very good players, some great stars, and sometimes you look back at England teams and the names and think: ‘Blimey that was a good team.’ We’ve got some good players and we need to build on that, some that will go on to be the new Robson, Owen or Keegan, but they’re not going to do that at 18 or 19.’’ They lacked experience. “We have to use the Lampards, Gerrards and Rooneys.”

Keegan made the pertinent point that Hodgson needed some “generals”. Keegan always used to refer to his Newcastle United and England midfielder, Robert Lee, as a general, “the best player in the country,” leading to “General Lee” headlines. “Roy needs four or five generals, players who are pulling the strings at their clubs,’’ said Keegan. “We don’t have that at the moment. Spain have Juan Mata, Santi Cazorla and David Silva pulling the strings at English clubs. But they are not first choice for Spain.” Spain have Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Cesc Fàbregas, Xabi Alonso and others.

Contemplating the depth of resources available to Vicente del Bosque, Hodgson acknowledged that “there’s a lot of work to be done” to improve player development. “Ten or 11 years ago the Spaniards took a long hard look at what they were doing,’’ added Hodgson. “Maybe we’ve got to start thinking what it will take. What are the Spanish doing that we’re not? Why does Cazorla do this? Why does Mata do that? Jack Wilshere can do all these things those guys can.” It is simple: England need to develop more of Wilshere’s character and ability.

“The FA is making big strides,’’ he continued. “We’ve a new technical director in Dan Ashworth, a new home of coaching at St George’s Park.”
Neville, who revealed he had turned down “two or three offers” to become a club manager in the past 18 months, also urged some optimism. “Spain didn’t do anything for 100 years,’’ he said. “They’ve had five good years. England might have five good years.”

England first have to overcome the psychological barrier of shoot-outs, having failed in seven of their last eight. Hodgson, making the mistake of certain predecessors, refused to believe that lengthy practice helped.

“I don’t believe doing penalties every day will help when the time comes. We did it in the Euros and the results were outstanding. We had three groups of six and each player took three. They were flying in. But I’ve seen too many really, really good players miss who I would never expect to. The best thing is ‘don’t draw’ but if you do, hope your players have got the cold blood to come through. I’ll really start to worry about it when we’re in the World Cup finals in Brazil.”
England have to qualify first.


Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/9988596/Englands-Gary-Neville-says-home-grown-talent-being-blocked-in-Premier-League.html

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