Your Business Blogger(R) teaches marketing at the local college and collects fund raising letters to study sales tactics.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood sent me her January direct mail piece. Long copy, hair-on-fire prose, multiple choice graduated dollar 'ask', closing with a final "Please act as quickly as possibly" PS appeal.

A very good letter. About what this professor/student would expect from a billion dollar enterprise. The best your tax dollars could buy.*

In the body of the letter Cecile Richards demonized her pro-life opposition.

That would be Americans United for Life.

Alert Readers know that the legal eagles at AUL have been working for decades crafting model legislation to protect women and their babies. AUL works with state and local lawmakers to build in safeguards for women and their children considering abortions.

This state-by-state incremental approach has wide, deep and popular support. These incremental laws are changing the culture and attitudes. Everyone -- including pro-choice supporters -- wants to know if their minor girls are seeking an abortion.

No one wants an abortion performed by a social worker instead of a skilled physician.

This incremental tactic is working for AUL and against Planned Parenthood.

Cecile Richards writes,

[W]e must push back against [those] who are working state by state to win legislation...We must prevent states from passing laws...that's not how this country works.

Just as laws had to be changed to eliminate slavery-- Laws are being changed today to eliminate abortion on demand.

Even as Planned Parenthood needs abortion to generate revenue.

AUL is helping to reduce abortion and to reduce Planned Parenthood's abortion bucks.

Cecile Richard's fund raising letter is attempting to maintain the revenue streams from each of it's 880 abortion offices.

Charmaine has sent the following email to some 250,000 of her closest friends.

In this letter: A report on the March for Life . . . the petition count has crossed 500,000 signatures! . . . an update on FOCA and what to expect next -- "FOCA-by-Stealth."

Dear AUL Supporter,

Surrounded by over 300,000 fellow pro-lifers -- many of you! -- on Thursday AUL Action staff and our families marched up Constitution Avenue here in Washington DC, from the base of Capitol Hill to the steps of the Supreme Court. There were so many thousands of people thronging the streets that at times we couldn't move. My eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, marched next to me, and I explained to her that we were headed to the Supreme Court so that the judges would know we believe abortion is wrong.

"Mommy," she asked, "how many people will it take to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

How many people indeed. My thoughts immediately went to you -- the hundreds of thousands of you who have signed the FightFOCA petition -- who have taken a public stand to say: our voices will not be silenced.

The day before the March for Life the petition count reached HALF A MILLION signatures!

As I write today, the number has jumped to over 585,000. That's partly because many people saw FightFOCA signs at the March.

But it's also because so many of you responded to our call to spread the word to your churches on Sanctity of Life Sunday -- the flyers were downloaded over 20,000 times! Thank you!

The success of this petition is because of YOU. The message has spread through email and through blogs and through Facebook and through word-of-mouth. Your efforts.

In fact, we have been so successful that now Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, and others are saying that they aren't going to try to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, (FOCA).

Don't believe it for a second.

If your opponent gives up the frontal attack . . . you better start watching your flank.

We are now seeing the abortion forces waging an incremental battle -- working to pass what we have termed "FOCA-by-Stealth."
They think that if they take FOCA and repackage it and pass it in pieces and under different names . . . that we won't notice.

But with apologies to Shakespeare, FOCA by any other name, smells just as bad. And as they pass the Stealth FOCA's, more babies will be killed and more women victimized by the abortion-on-demand regime.

Case in point: I'm sure you've heard that the day after the March, President Obama used an executive order to overturn the long-standing ban on funding organizations that promote and perform abortions overseas. The media portrayed him as sensitive to pro-lifers because he waited till after the March -- in fact, he released the order at 5:00 on Friday -- a textbook stealth move to keep the story under the media radar.

And now they've added subsidies for the abortion industry into the economic stimulus package. No surprise: Cecile Richards used to be the Deputy Chief of Staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. So it's no wonder we saw Pelosi on the Sunday shows arguing that more tax dollars for Planned Parenthood -- and fewer children -- helps the economy. Incredible.

Friends, this is just the beginning. We have a lot of work in front of us.
Please keep encouraging your friends to sign the FightFOCA petition.

We will be using those signatures on Capitol Hill in the days ahead to argue against FOCA and ANY and EVERY piece of legislation that promotes abortion.

The FightFOCA petition says to Planned Parenthood and their Congressional allies: we will not be silenced.

The week before the March, my husband, Jack and I had the honor of attending the funeral of the pro-life hero, Father Richard John Neuhaus.

We were all reminded that in one of his last speeches, Father Neuhaus encouraged the pro-life movement by saying, "Do not grow weary."

How many people will it take to overturn Roe? It takes you.

Thanks for your work and being a part of this movement.

Yours for Life,

Charmaine

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
AUL Action The Legislative Arm of Americans United for Life
FightFOCA.com
FightFOCA@FightFOCA.com

P.S. -- PS: More pictures from the March are posted on my Facebook page . . .

CBN reports, Abortion Policy Sets 'Disappointing Tone'

Visit Fight FOCA - Barack Obama's plan to eliminate restriction on abortion nationwide

The Spin Cipher has more on FOCA.

See Abortion News Today

Read The Catholic Review

Kara from Texas gets it right -- see My 3 Son's

Catholic Dad ask a question

Is Anybody There? wonders about Obama.

Jeff Leach has reactions from both sides.

See Traditional Catholic Reflections

Posted at 3:07 PM | Permalink
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The movie theater was packed. But no one was eating popcorn. No one was expecting to be entertained.

No one expected a good time.

However, expectations were exceeded. We were watching a movie about pain and death.

A movie about abortion.

There are over 500 serious botched abortions, re: Live Births, each year.

The movie 22 Weeks tells the true story of one of them.

Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) attended a screening of 22 Weeks in Washington, DC.

We talked with director Angel Manuel Soto after his movie. Charmaine commented that the film was well done. Hollywood quality. (This was, in this case, a compliment.)

Charmaine asked about the funding. Soto said 22 Weeks was "low budget."

What does that mean? "How low?" Charmaine asked.

"$25,000 from two donors," said director.

$25K? For a film that might change the world.

Soto feels that the story is compelling and could be a game changer. (Let's not call it a killer app...)

He feels the movie can change the culture on abortion, like the book Uncle Tom's Cabin changed the nation's emotions on slavery.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe visited the White House during the War Between The States, Lincoln greeted her, "So this is the Little Lady Who Started this Great War."

Perhaps 22 Weeks will start a different kind of war.

Join Fight FOCA

Alert Readers know that Charmaine will be speaking at the Blogs 4 Life just before the annual March for Life.

She will be speaking to alternative media outlets. She will lead with the news that the Americans United for Life Action web site FightFOCA.com petition crossed over to 500,000 signatures tonight on the eve of the March.

As Charmaine and I walked thru Union Station to catch 22 Weeks, we noticed that it was a bit more crowded than usual.

"Maybe all these people came for the Obama inauguration -- and are staying over for the 22 Weeks movie...?" I asked.

Charmaine just looked at me, "Not likely."

Thank you (foot)notes:

Fight FOCA with Catching Butterflies

Royalty expounds on FOCA.

Posted at 9:24 PM | Permalink
Comments (9)

Question: Who Declared Jan 22nd as National Sanctity of Human Life Day?

Answer: Ronald Reagan.

January 22nd is commemorated each year as National Sanctity of Human Life Day; the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision of Roe vs Wade.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 22, 1984, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day.

I call upon the citizens of this blessed land to gather on that day in homes and places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life, and to reaffirm our commitment to the dignity of every human being and the sanctity of each human life.

No wonder liberals hate Ronald Reagan.

Join Fight FOCA Charmaine was interviewed for Moody Bible Radio on the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), Sanctity of Life Sunday and The March for Life.

Visit Paul Butler's blog for the audio link. Good stuff.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Paul Butler at Paul Butler's Production Blog points us to Ronald Reagan's proclamation of January 22nd.

Reagan issued the Proclamation on January 13, 1984,

"The values and freedoms we cherish as Americans rest on our fundamental commitment to the sanctity of human life.

The first of the "unalienable rights'' affirmed by our Declaration of Independence is the right to life itself, a right the Declaration states has been endowed by our Creator on all human beings -- whether young or old, weak or strong, healthy or handicapped."

Conservatives are now the protectors of the "little guy."

The text of Reagan's proclamation at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 12:55 PM | Permalink
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Sanctity of Life Sunday is being celebrated on the 18th -- before the March for Life on Thursday, January 22nd.

In between these two dates, the most pro-abortion president in history, Barack Obama, will be sworn in on Tuesday the 20th.

What a week.

Americans United for Life has a church bulletin insert available to alert voters on the Obama abortion agenda. See the full page insert here. Read Charmaine's letter at the jump.

The Family Research Council writes,

"Blogs for Life is scheduled to take place the day of the 36th annual March for Life, during which hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates gather in the nation's capitol to celebrate life and demand the reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The conference will feature several prominent conservative voices including Senator Sam Brownback, Amanda Carpenter, Jill Stanek, Michael New, Ph.D., Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., Michael Illions, Chris Gacek, J.D. and Martha Shuping, M.D. all speaking with bloggers live from Family Research Council headquarters."

Join Fight FOCA To date almost 425,000 people have signed the FightFOCA petition.

It just might get Obama's attention.

Because it is the right thing to do.

How can Your Business Blogger(R) be so sure?

Because Chuck Norris approves of FightFOCA.

Chuck Norris writes at Human Events,

"Please, before FOCA flies onto the congressional floor in the upcoming days, sign the online petition to fight FOCA (www.fightfoca.com), and then contact your representatives and senators to tell them how you expect them to vote on the bill."

Chuck Norris is always right. He's smart. As The Dude says, 'Chuck Norris can divide by zero.'

Thank you (foot)notes:

The Dude worked backstage with Chuck Norris on the Huckabee presidential campaign trail in December 2007.

Pro-Choice abortion-approver Christina doesn't care much for the Fight against FOCA. She used to work for Planned Parenthood and says there is no such procedure as a partial birth abortion. I don't think she's seen the pictures...warning: graphic dead baby unwanted human tissue.

The Secular Heretic telling the news as it really is, has the FightFOCA code in his template. A good-guy.

UPDATE: Blogs 4 Life is on the Right Wing Watch list from People for the American Way. The anti-American PfAW has more time for abortion, now that Obama will soon be surrendering in Iraq and to Iran.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:36 PM | Permalink
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The church was full to overflowing. Even visiting priests had to stand in the aisle.

I'm sure this exceeded the Fire Marshal's Max Occupancy. But no NYFDer was going to stop this Mass demonstration.

Father Richard John Neuhaus was buried today. We were reminded of his final writings on abortion. That we would never tire nor grow weary in defending Life.

Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine talked about the funeral on the train back to DC. Pleased and humbled and encouraged by what Father Richard accomplished.

We were resolved to do two things to help carry on his work:

1) Continue to fight the good fight for the sanctity of Life. And,

2) Have more dinner parties.

We will pass on the cigars.

The abortion debate will have some challenges during the Obama administration.

Sarah Pulliam writes in Christianity Today, Battle Fatigue
Abortion opponents head into Obama presidency after big losses

"The first thing I'd do as President," Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood in 2007, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." The bill would remove almost all state and federal restrictions on abortion. But observers wonder if the anti-abortion movement has enough life in it to successfully fight the legislation or similar measures...

Signs of fatigue aside, observers agree that abortion will remain a major political issue.

"People are still energized and ready to fight a radical agenda on abortion as it comes down the pipe," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

[She should have said 'pike' not 'pipe.' She has a delightful way of mixing the metaphor: Belly up to the plate; Step up to the bar, Easy as cake, It's a piece of pie. She is a fun woman to live with...]

Polls and other research suggest that younger evangelicals are more supportive of abortion restrictions than older evangelicals are. A 2007 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that 70 percent of younger white evangelicals favor "making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion," compared with 55 percent of older white evangelicals.

The Pro-Life Movement as the Politics of the 1960s by Richard John Neuhaus

Copyright (c) 2009 First Things (January 2009).

Whatever else it is, the pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States. Since the 1960s, citizen participation and the remoralizing of politics have been central goals of the left. Is it not odd, then, that the pro-life movement is viewed as a right-wing cause?...

These are the issues addressed in a remarkable new book out this month from Princeton University Press, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, by Jon Shields, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College...

The pro-life movement is a movement for change, indeed for what some view as the radical change of eliminating the unlimited abortion license. "Meanwhile," writes Shields, "the pro-choice movement is a conservative movement defending the status quo. Pro-choicers have little to gain from engaging their opponents and from the deliberative norms that facilitate persuasion."

...the abortion battle is over abortion and whether the unborn child counts as a human person, but where one comes out on that question is, I believe, powerfully influenced by a host of other beliefs and attitudes aptly summarized in the pro-life language of a culture of death versus a culture of life. There are two cultures, one focused on rights and laws and the other on rights and wrongs; one focused on maximizing individual self-expression and the other on reinforcing community and responsibility....

"One of the great political ironies of the past few decades," writes Shields, "is that the Christian Right has been much more successful than its political rivals at fulfilling New Left hopes for American democracy. Far more than any movement since the early campaign for civil rights, the Christian Right has helped revive participatory democracy in America by overcoming citizens' alienation from politics." As one has all too many occasions to observe, history has many ironies in the fire. To the 1960s proponents of participatory democracy, the maxim applies: Be careful what you hope for. To those flirting with despair in the face of an Obama presidency, the advice is offered: You might want to get a copy of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right by Jon Shields. And all of us would do well to ponder the wisdom in the observation that there are no permanently lost causes because there are no permanently won causes.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

We had dinner last night at the Algonquin Hotel, birthplace of the New Yorker. Where writers and what-not would gather at the The Roundtable in the 1920's and 30's. We sat at The Roundtable and learned about the literary giants who walked those floors and sat at these places. We stared at the large wooden table and marveled and mumbled something about history to the waiter.

"The Table? Nevermind. It's a replica. Dunno where the real one is," he said. "New owners did something with it..."

The table was a fake. Made us think about all those authentic pro-choicers at the New Yorker.

Read more from First Things at the jump.

Vital Signs also recommends First Things.

Also see Wake for Father Richard John Neuhaus.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:40 PM | Permalink
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The best time to look for a job is when you have a job.

Question: But what if you don't have a job?

How to look?

And what to do meanwhile?

Answer: Go back to school.

Your Business Blogger(R)
The Washington Post

Continuous learning is, well, continuous.

And it doesn't have to be expensive.

Here are three FAB's, the Features, Advantages and Benefits of going back to class.

If you have a job or not.

First Feature

Meet a professor

Advantage

Learn subject matter.
Learn presentation -- interview -- life skills.
Get referrals.

Benefit

Cheaper than a personal coach.
Get a character reference letter.
Get employed faster

Second Feature

Meet other inquisitive minds

Advantage

Expand your Friend contact database.
Challenge assumptions.
Increased network of contacts for job referrals.

Benefit

Faster learning.
Cheaper than a job placement agency.
Get employed faster

Third Feature

Regularly scheduled class times.

Advantage

Encourages the student to get out of bed, out of the house.
Provides structure to the job seekers' week.
Forces the student to walk past career counselors' office.

Benefit

Get more done in less time.
Spend less time in Starbucks.
Get employed faster.

The purpose of continuing education is the gaining of new knowledge, skills and abilities. But this is even more important when one is out of work. A perspective employer is going to ask you a number of questions.

The first question will be, "What are you doing now?"

The perfect answer is, "As I look for my next position, I am taking a business refresher course at my local community college."

Remember: the best time to find a job is when you are working -- going to class is your job.

You may be unemployed, but you are busy: You are using your time wisely while you look for work.

As it happens, the Northern Virginia Community College has the perfect solution to help you find your next job.

Sit in my class.

NOVA has openings in one of my Business 100 classes. We will meet once each Friday from 3:10 to 6:00 at the Alexandria Campus. Starts January 16th. Call now to register. Operators are standing by.

Or apply on-line.

This Friday afternoon class is the perfect capstone to the week and allows the student to job hunt early in the week, early in the day.

Come join my class. And get employed faster.

Thank you (foot)notes:

For more on your job search: tattoos, lying, resume enhancement and trick questions follow links below.

Read Job Search? PASS This Test

See how "Sarah" is getting it right. To get your next job, assignment or project PASS this test! See how the mythical composite Sarah learned new behaviors to find new opportunities.

As first appeared in The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia, January 20, 2002

To get a job, first get a plan and then get busy...

Your Business Blogger(R) is of a certain age from a certain generation with teenage children and is confused by various body art. I do not understand tattoos. (Except on my dad, who was in the Navy...) A future employer also may not understand body art. Not even Starbucks.

What is the first question hiring managers ask themselves? Get a Blog; Get Hired -- And the First Question

The Lie: A Guide to Fibbing in the Job Interview, it's not what you think.

Here's what your interviewer is really looking for, Job Interview: How To Tell If the Candidate Will Lie, Cheat, Steal?

There is actually controversy on hiring competence, Hiring Super Stars vs Tolerating Turkeys

Be sure to ask some questions in your job interview, Job Interview: 3 Questions for Your Prospective Boss.

Yes, High School still counts. Forever. What's the One Best Question to Ask a Job Candidate?

Why Were You Really Hired? The Two Qualities That Count.

Here's the Business 100 course outline:

Ch. 1 Exploring the World of Business and Economics

Ch. 2 Being Ethical & Socially Responsible

Ch. 3 Exploring Global Business

Ch. 4 Navigating the World of e-Business

Ch. 5 Choosing a Form of Business Ownership

Ch. 6 Small Business, Entrepreneurship, and Franchises

Ch. 7 Understanding the Management Process

Ch. 8 Creating a Flexible Organization

Ch. 10 Attracting and Retaining the Best Employees

Ch. 11 Motivating and Satisfying Employees and Teams

Ch. 13 Building Customer Relationships Through Effective Marketing

Ch. 14 Creating and Pricing Products that Satisfy Customers

Ch. 15 Wholesaling, Retailing, and Physical Distribution

Ch. 16 Developing Integrated Marketing Communications

Ch. 18 Using Accounting Information

Ch. 19 Understanding Money, Banking, and Credit

App. C Business Law

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink
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Just before the election, Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) attended an intimate off-the-record lunch with Karl Rove.

Karl Rove, Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R)

Rove talked about election strategy and the Obama wish list.

Obama promised Planned Parenthood that the 'Freedom of Choice Act' or FOCA would be the first item of legislation he would sign.

Karl Rove has some experience against the Planned Parenthood machine -- the billion dollar enterprise that will push for FOCA; for the removal of any regulation of abortion on demand: Partial birth, parental notification, clinical standards, physician standards. It is possible to win against Planned Parenthood.

Rove has beaten a Richards before.

Rove was the, well, architect of the Bush victory over Ann Richards for Texas governor. The late Ann Richards is the mother of Cecile Richards, the present president of Planned Parenthood. Richards the younger has been trained in the workings political machinery.

To beat the current wily Richards (let's not call her "Tricky Dick"), Rove might suggest tactics he's done before to win. This time to FightFOCA; simple as 1-2-3,

1. Unify
2. Target
3. Turnout

1. Knowledge is good; and a winner. Conservative Pro-Lifers will be able to unify and bring together even Pro-Choicers who are concerned about knowing if their daughters are going to have an abortion. Pro-Abortionists would approve of the abortion. But all parents want to know if their children are playing with edged weapons and more so if they go under the knife. FightFOCA brings together Pro-Choice and Pro-Life voters. Obama would indeed be a 'uniter.'

2. Rove would suggest targeting this constituency who would have a passionate position on knowing if their children are going to have surgery by strangers. And who would be paying for the abortion. No parent would allow a stranger to give candy to their children; parents would not allow a stranger to operate on their child. Rove would identify this group, persuade them and then prompt them to action. The best sales process involves acknowledging pain -- avoiding the pain and providing a solution to solve the problem. The fear that mom and dad will lose control over the health decisions of their child is worrisome enough without Uncle Sam stepping in.

3. During an election the Rove strategy was to get a segment to the polls -- he knew he didn't need all the voters, only 50 percent + one to win a state. The action to FightFOCA is to bring the voters to movement -- so that Obama would have to delay the FOCA coming from Reid and Pelosi. This will be a challenge: Cecile Richards served as Pelosi's deputy chief-of-staff a few years ago. The tactic would be to make FOCA a costly, bloody fight of Obama against parents. Win or lose, Obama would be severely weakened in approval polls. And 'Pro-Life' Senator Reid, a Mormon, is not doing so well in his re-election polling from his home state of Nevada. His approval is 38 percent; negatives at 54.

Alert Readers know that it is nearly impossible for a candidate to win an election with negatives above 40 percent. Reid is in trouble.

Reducing abortion now polls very well for Lifers. Parental involvement polls at 70 percent approval. No liberal, finger-in-the-wind president fights this trend in the polling numbers.

At least not in his first term. Obama will delay if there is any chance that key voting groups of groups would vote against him in 2012 -- from Pro-Choice parents to Pro-Life activists; from liberal Catholics to conservative Evangelicals.

Not all agree. Alert Reader SoMG sends this counter-analysis on FOCA

Obama has everything to gain by passing FOCA. It will establish him as someone who means what he says. His friends will rejoice in his smile and his enemies will tremble at his frown.

The payoff will swamp the investment in political capital. Any honest right-winger from Machiavelli to Pat Buchanan to Carl Rove would say the same. What does he have to lose? Right-to-Lifers in general and the Catholic Church Hierarchy in particular declared war against him more than a year ago and their prosecution of their war has been limited only by fear of losing tax-exempt status and after the election by not knowing how vengeful he might turn out to be. He has nothing to lose.

As much as Obama wants chaos so that he can attempt to consolidate power in a single payer national health care system, he cannot lose the health care capacity in the near term of the closing of the Catholic hospitals. One hospital in 8 is controlled by the Catholic Church. And close they will if FOCA passes.

SoMG continues,

I count a filibuster-proof pro-FOCA majority in the Senate. Fifty-seven Dems, plus two Independents, minus RTL Dem Casey, plus three pro-choice Republicans makes sixty-one and that's assuming the scheisskopf beats the clown in Minnesota which doesn't look so likely given that if the recount's too close the US Senate decides...

My prediction about FOCA: with great pomp and circumstance (to coin a phrase) the Congress will amend FOCA to specify that it doesn't mean Catholic hospitals have to refer for abortions in order to get paid by the government.

That's the most likely interpretation anyway--the Act forbids governments, not the providers paid by the governments, from discriminating against (or for) abortion.

If your client gets an equal choice between a Catholic hospital that doesn't do abortions, and an abortion clinic that doesn't do live births, you're not discriminating, right? But they'll write it in explicitly.

Then the GOP will take credit for saving the Catholics from abortion, the Dems will take credit for being reasonable in victory (much more so than the Republicans were), women in the armed forces will be able to get abortions without going off site which it's very stupid for them to have to do.

Everybody will win. Right-to-lifers will rejoice in new Federal protection for the right to refuse abortion and grow your pregnancy, which will be increasingly important as we continue our ongoing transfer to government health care and government acquires a greater interest in aborting problem pregnancies.

Conservatives and the Catholic Church have picked FOCA as the hill to live or die on -- if FOCA passes with religious exceptions, conservatives know that this would be a liberal incremental step to first minimize, then marginalize and finally eliminate the church in the public square.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Read the commentary at Eternity Matters with post, Fight the Freedom of Choice Act by Neil.

Visit DeaconJohn about FOCA.

Obama and how he will FOCA women and children. Obama's Abortion Bombshell:
Unrestricted Abortion Over Wishes of Individual States a Priority for Presidency.

See Online Prayer Requests by our friend Horace Cooper.

Social conservatives have long road ahead, by Ed Stoddard at Reuters.

Fight FOCA at Spreading Joy.

Visit rosettasister.

Visit Fight FOCA at Streams From The Rock. This writer is worth knowing.

See Austin's Everyone Should Know.

Get Informed at The Old House Spill.

Can Obama keep up with all his promises? asks dmweblife.

Visit AbortionAbout.com, and thank them for posting the FighFOCA code, Against the Holocaust of Our Unborn Children

Posted at 8:19 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Helen:
GARDENING WITH CONFIDENCE™Every business should have a mission statement to help focus staff, benchmarks, resources, results.

Every business could benefit. Every silo, in the business; on the farm.

Even your garden.

A business going to seed, so to say...

My favorite 'plant manager' is Helen of Raleigh who runs the premier gardening business in central North Carolina. She writes for Better Homes and Gardens and blogs at Gardening With Confidence™.

Helen is also a Garden Scout and Stylist. In her work as a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and their Special Interest Publications such as Country Gardens and Nature's Garden, she scouts great gardens for their publications.

When a garden is chosen for publication, Helen works with photographers to style the photo shoot.

Just as every manager needs a business coach, every gardener needs a gardening coach.

Who knew?

Helen helped create this market niche. She is in great demand as a Garden Coach.

In her former career as a Vice President of an environmental company she learned how to shovel manure.

Good management training.

Carrying a rifle in Pakistan didn't hurt either. (Working for an environmental client. Really.)

Here is Helen's gardening mission statement,

If you have a garden statement, send it along to Helen. She will be posting the collection.

Thank you (foot)notes:

For the backstory see, Women, Work and Family: One VP's Solution,

"How do you it all?" Accomplished women with kids constantly get this question.

Helen Philbrook, married and mother of three, from Raleigh, NC, has the answer.

Your Business Blogger(R) recently sat down with Helen and her husband David to learn the secret.

She's a former Vice President of an environmental testing firm, and perhaps the world's first female "Smoke Stack Sniffer."

Full Disclosure: Helen is the sister of Your Business Blogger(R)

Posted at 10:50 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Charmaine sends this along,

As we prepare for an Obama Administration...

As we look toward celebrating the New Year on Wednesday night, my email box is filling up with end-of-year appeals, and I know yours is too.

Let me then be plain in telling you how much we appreciate your partnership with AUL this past year and as we head into the new one.

Many people have been asking me how things stand, and what our strategy will be, with an incoming presidential administration that has taken such a radical stance supporting abortion. The short answer: I am, frankly, heartened by the tremendous response of our AUL supporters each time we've asked you to stand for life.

First, we saw the remarkable response to AUL Action's FightFOCA petition. Pro-lifers are not giving in!

The signatures have continued rising, even over the Christmas
holiday, and now stand at over 350,000!

If you haven't signed yet, take a minute and add your voice at: www.FightFOCA.com.

I am also heartened by the response of AUL supporters to the 55-page Wish List pro-abortion forces sent to President-elect Obama. We asked you to enter comments on the document and now there are nearly 3,000 comments, mostly pro-life, on the site.

You can read them here: http://change.gov/open_government/entry/advancing_reproductive_rights_and_health_in_a_new_administration.

US News and World Report noted the surge in comments and observed that:

(http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2008/12/23/pro-lifers-inundate-obama-website-with-comments.html)

That's encouraging!

Of course, a realist must acknowledge that no one really knows what the ground game will look like once we begin confronting an administration so radical that its leader, President-elect Obama, could not bring himself to vote in favor of protecting babies born alive after an abortion. And he is unwaveringly supported by the current leader of the world's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood and its President Cecile Richards, who was the deputy chief of staff to the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi only three years ago.

Even so -- even so! -- I remain hopeful. I have on my fireplace mantle a copy of the classic work, Streams in the Desert, which belonged to my grandparents. The entry to be read each January 6th, addresses the perennial question of uncertainty and recounts the example of the self-opening gate:

There is a self-opening gate which is sometimes used in country roads. It stands fast and firm across the road as a traveler approaches it. If he stops before he gets to it, it will not open. But if he will drive right at it, his wagon wheels press the springs below the roadway, and the gate swings back to let him through. He must push right on at the closed gate, or it will continue to be closed.

Then the author, Lettie Cowman, sums up by saying, "This illustrates the way to pass every barrier on the road of duty."

Duty is an old-fashioned word, rarely heard today. But the AUL team believes that it is indeed our duty, and a high calling, to stand against those who would promote the Culture of Death with every last resource that God grants us, regardless of the barriers that block the road ahead.

We will pray for wisdom, direction, and discernment. And then, we intend to run straight at the gate.

These are difficult times. I've talked with so many of you recently who have told me that you are standing with us, despite financial challenges. We are humbled -- and emboldened -- by your commitment.

Thank you for your faithful support which enables us to "press on and step out boldly."

Yours for life,

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life

PS: If you haven't yet made an end-of-year contribution, please do so today!

"As thou goest, step by step, I will open up the way. . ."

Proverbs 4:12 (Hebrew translation)

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Don't Drink the King's Wine, has AUL President's Encouragement Heading Into The New Year

Visit The Reagan Conservatives Blog.

See Beltway Blips.

Prayer Request for Our Nation!!! FOCA Act to be signed by President Obama :(

Why not Serve the Lord

Make a comment on Obama's web-site concerning FOCA and the 55 page pro-abortion mandate posted there....

See TruthSeekers

Thank you to Pro-Life Blogs, AUL President's Encouraging Anecdote Heading Into The New Year

Posted at 11:30 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

The Dancer, friend of all animals, wanted a date with Dad. And off we went to see the flicka that is making moviegoers cry across America.

She was one of the five million who read the book and wanted more.

Here's what we learned, as the 22 doggie-double Marleys gnawed their way across 15 years.

Yes, it is a dog story and no humans were hurt in the filming. But the lessons were made for the alphas in us all.

1) A dog is as much cost and effort as a child. Your Business Blogger(R) had a tamer Marley-like hundred pound German Shepherd: Shadrach, The Dog Genius, who chewed his way thru four houses. Shepherding our first two children. Dogs add more than they subtract. The shaggy dog is the origin of fuzzy math.

The Dreamer and The Dude at Shadrach's last Christmas, 1995

2) Dogs are a cost-center not a profit-center: a consumer of resources. But the indoor animals (with outdoor voices) generate enough goodwill to be an asset that doesn't need to be sold to be realized or appreciated. A lot like children.

3) The domestic animals do not always produce domestic tranquility. Until housebroken. Just as, Charmaine would say, husbands.

4) Moms and Dads always cry after a miscarriage. There's one in the movie. If you are Pro-Choice you have our permission not to look at the sonogram. Then again, go ahead. There was no heartbeat. One pregnancy in five miscarries. One woman in four has an abortion. There is a lot of crying in America, and it's not only over a dog in the Marley & Me movie.

5) Funerals are for the living. As Yogi Berra said, "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." There must be closure for the living over the dead. A miscarriage needs closure. An abortion needs closure. Too bad the Pro-Choice community insists that abortion is a private matter. Women (and the dads) would heal quicker with some remembrance of what was. What could have been. Funerals provide the venue for a good cry. Like dog movies.

Go read the book. Go see the movie. Take a date.

Even if you don't need a reason to cry.

Posted at 7:00 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman said that a cultural prerequisite of capitalism is the holding of truthfulness as a common virtue. When you can trust a merchant's word, says Friedman, "it cut[s] down transaction costs." Without adherence to common moral principles we must substitute external controls to govern business behavior; efficiency demands a framework of standards and accountability.

Even the 18th-century atheist philosphe, Voltaire, recognized this problem. Though he believed Christianity was an "infamy," much like Christopher Hitchens, Voltaire wrote that "I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God...then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often."

So. If you are not a Jesus-lover, it is still good (and safer) to do business with 'em. Less chance of getting cheated.

The Fools for Christ are easier to spot during Christmas.

They run ads like this.

Thank you (foot)note,

Hat tip to Don Wildmon with the American Family Association for pointing us to David Green, CEO of Hobby Lobby.

See The Nativity Story. One family. One journey. One child who would change the world forever.

Human Resources: 2 Things To Count On At Christmas.

Posted at 7:40 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

Charmaine sent this out to a few hundred thousand of her closest friends. Please sign the FightFOCA petition today.

Tell Obama To Stop Supporting FOCA

Pro-abortion forces have given President-elect Obama 55 pages of instructions on what to do when he becomes President. A top priority? The "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA).

Some insist FOCA isn't a real threat, that we can stop it easily. But that's not what pro-life leaders on Capitol Hill are saying.

Last week, I was in a meeting with Representative Mike Pence of Indiana -- one of the key incoming House leaders -- and he listed FOCA as one of the top four threats he sees in the next few months.

The Obama transition website has posted the 55-page pro-abortion marching order and opened it up for comment.

Let's tell him to ignore it.

Click here to ask President-elect Obama to stop supporting FOCA. FOCA would eliminate every abortion-related law nationwide -- even common-sense laws that protect women and minors -- and force us to pay for the radical pro-abortion agenda with our tax dollars.

We can do it!

May you and your family have a Blessed Christmas.

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life Action
FightFOCA.com
FightFOCA@FightFOCA.com

P.S. -- The fight against FOCA is just beginning. Please forward this email to friends and family members who can help us Fight FOCA. And please consider making an end-of-year contribution to help us tell even more people about the dangers of FOCA.

________________________________

Join Fight FOCAQuick Links
FightFOCA Petition
FightFOCA FAQ
About FightFOCA
About AUL Action

FightFOCA.com is a project of AUL Action

Chicago Office:
310 S Peoria St | Ste 500 | Chicago, IL 60607

DC Office:
1413 K Street, NW | Ste 1000 | Washington, DC 20005

A Project of AUL Action

Thank you (foot)notes:

As of tonight, Monday nite, there are almost 700 comments on Obama's website -- most comments look to be pro-life against FOCA. Tell Obama To Stop FOCA and protect our little girls.

See Involving the Parents by Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO.

See "Right of Conscience" Rule Passed. What's Next? By Anna Boyd

Brad Feld writes,

As I work my way through Vonnegut, my inner cynic is rewarded with gems from 40 years ago. For example:

Kilgore Trout (near the end of the book): "The problem is this: How to love people who have no use? In time, almost all men and women will become worthless as producers of goods, food, services, and more machines, as sources of practical ideas in the areas of economics, engineering, and probably medicine, too. So - if we can't find reasons and methods for treasuring human beings because they are human beings, then we might as well, as has so often been suggested, rub them out."

Don't try to understand it - it won't really make any sense without the context of the rest of the book. But - if you want a good jolt, read the book. One thing is for certain: Vonnegut knows how to string words together in a magical way.

Brad is a hi-tech, very bright, successful entrepreneur from Colorado. He supports abortion on demand: Abortion anytime for any reason; we might as well, as has so often been suggested, rub them out... Liberals are not logical.

Posted at 9:05 PM | Permalink
Comments (8)

The Commonwealth of Virginia is a terrific state to do business.

Alert Readers and my students well know the bias of Your Business Blogger(R) has toward Virginia -- a talented labor pool, low taxes, and a right to work state (re: employees don't have to join a union).

Virginia has had a business friendly culture since the county's founding. A few decades ago the beliefs were memorialized.

A Code for Virginians
Developed by a special committee of the Virginian State Chamber of Commerce and adopted by the membership in annual session at Roanoke on April 9, 1942

Preamble

Virginia was the scene of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. In its colonial legislative halls the fundamental principles of a new democracy were developed. Here the pattern of a government for a free people was evolved.

Patrick Henry sounded the keynote of the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Deceleration of Independence. George Washington led the army that made the formation of the United States a possibility. James Madison fathered the Constitution. George Mason's Virginia Bill of Rights. Here in Virginia was launched the struggle for freedom that gave birth to a new government conceived and fostered by the sons of its soil.

It is fitting, then, that we who enjoy and seek to preserve the benefits that our forefathers provided for us, should reaffirm our faith in the principles upon which this nation was founded. We should pledge our support and dedicate ourselves, our institutions, our organizations, and our individual businesses to the principles whose adoption has brought our nation and our people to be the exemplars and leaders of the civilized world.

Since a system of free enterprise is not based upon any fundamental human right, the obligation rests upon our conduct of business that under this system the public welfare is best served.
To Virginians and Virginia institutions has come the opportunity to raise anew the battle cry of freedom, to crystallize into fulfilling action the tenets that have made of this a promised land. They who gave to us this priceless heritage will not sleep if we who now enjoy it let it slip from our grasp.

[Free enterprise may not be based on an enumerated right, but capitalism is Biblically based. The Commandment Thou shall not steal is a protection for private property and that property can only change hands -- legally -- with a willing buyer and seller.]

That we may express our faith in and pledge our support of our system of private enterprise the following code has been adopted by the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce to be displayed by all its members and proclaimed to the people pf this state and nation.

1. Business in all its forms, in all its activities, must command the respect, confidence, and support of the public and its own personnel. to this end it must keep its own house in order. only through the adoption and self-enforcement of ethical standards of conduct can business justify the right to freedom of action. By this means business can minimize the need of governmental regulation.

[Any human behavior needs to be protected from evil. Many cultures use government. We are blessed with self-government with self-regulation...enforced not with brute government, but with 'intermediating institutions' -- associations between citizens and government.]

2. The privilege of doing business in Virginia is freely acquired. It is a license to serve which imposes obligations upon business to deal fairly, openly, and honestly with the public, the employee, the investor, and the government.

[Virginia has low taxes and low barriers to entry to open a business.]

3. Laws regarding business should be based on the principle of guaranteeing freedom of action to all. They should prevent the abuse of power. Fulfillment of the statutes in spirit as well as in letter in an obligation of business.

[President Jefferson said that the purpose of government is to restrain evil -- not to do good.]

4. The freedom enjoyed by individuals in a democracy imposes commensurate obligations, applying equally to those engaged in business, professional, and governmental activity. All business enterprises, enjoying rights guaranteed to persons, must recognize the same obligation as are required of the individual.

5. The foundations of our established form of government rest upon the preservation of the fundamental, inalienable rights of the individual expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of the United States of America. These rights can best be preserved under a system of free enterprise.

Posted at 3:25 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Over 50 per cent of Americans will purchase gift cards this year.

Will you be getting one from Planned Parenthood?

Not likely.

Americans don't like to talk about abortion.

Much less paying for one.

Leslie Olsen at WISHtv.com writes,

Gift certificates for Planned Parenthood,

The certificates come in $25 increments.

"They can be [used] for sexually transmitted disease screenings,..." said Struben-Hall.

Some Hoosiers 24-Hour News 8 talked to asked if the gift certificates could be used towards abortions. The answer is yes. But, Planned Parenthood said that's not the purpose of the gift certificates.

Planned Parenthood earns income from abortions and is attempting to re-brand their image. They are attempting to emphasize birth control (from Planned Parenthood's early days in eugenics) away from abortion; the Final Solution Birth Control.

But abortion is, well, birth control and a revenue stream for Planned Parenthood.

Charmaine will be on MSNBC News Now today, Thursday, December 3rd Eastern. Hit time is 2:30.

Please tune in and let us know how you think the marketing debate went.

Marketing is reach, frequency and awareness. Planned Parenthood is using constant repetition -- frequency -- to persuade the public that they are (Reproductive) Health Clinics and not Abortion clinics.

Planned Parenthood does not want the public to be aware that the new gift cards could be used for abortions.

Leslie Olsen continues,

Planned Parenthood hopes philanthropists look at it differently. The organization hopes people might purchase the certificates, and then turn them back in for their patients who need reproductive healthcare, but can't pay for it.

Planned Parenthood is not even pretending to sell the gift cards for services -- the cards are simply a re-gifting vector for donations.

Planned Parenthood Condom Key Chains
Gift card sales totaled $97 billion in 2007, up from $83 billion in 2006, according to data from The Tower Group cited in The New York Times.

Gift Certificate usage among recipients is about 85 per cent, meaning that some 15 per cent are never redeemed.

This means that some 15 billion dollars are left on the table -- money consumers paid and that businesses didn't have to deliver.

One of Your Business Blogger(R)'s clients in India sells pre-paid phone cards. He loves them and the cash-flow. He says, "One in seven cards are never used; cash straight to the bottom line, upfront."

The low redemption rate of gift cards has spawned an opportunity for entrepreneurs to collect and repackage and re-sell. Cash re-gifting. The data on the secondary market for gift cards is fascinating: 1 adult in 6 "re-gifts" a Gift Certificate.

But I doubt that there would be a gray market for the Planned Parenthood Gift Certificates.

(Ramesh Ponnuru reminds us, "No mother wants to introduce her son, the abortionist." No one is going to give or re-gift a gift card, "Here's $50 toward your next abortion...
Here's a Benjamin for your next STD...")

There is much confusion on the Abortionist's money making Industry. But what is sure is that no one wants to talk about that most common of surgical procedures: elective abortions.

The Planned Parenthood Condom Key Chain line is one of my "favorites." I am not so sure that it is a big seller...

Go get money directly from the public. Then maybe Planned Parenthood will not demand the 300 million tax dollars from Americans who do not want to pay for anyone's abortions.

This is not likely: Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood earns a million dollar salary to manage the Planned Parenthood billion dollar empire. To get all the revenue she can -- even bailouts from the taxpayer.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Planned Parenthood is not about to go bankrupt. But many businesses -- including car manufacturers, I hope -- are in for trouble in the coming Obama administration. Do not bother with any Gift Certificate from a company headed for Chapter 11; they do not have to be honored.

Help fight Planned Parenthood. Help Fight FOCA.

See Jill Stanek on The Party of Death by Ramesh Ponnuru.

Read Margaret Sanger, Barack Obama & Planned Parenthood, Where Sanger says, "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."

Remember to FIGHT FOCA.

And visit Godless.

We appreciate The Sanctity of Human Life.

Americans United for Life Urges State Legislatures to Oppose Federal Power Grab: Provides Model Resolution Denouncing Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)

UPDATE: MSNBC just canceled the segment...at 2:11pm. Some might say at the last minute -- This is showbizness. The (other) bailout hearing is pre-empting. [GM's CEO says that his company failed "due to events beyond his control." He forgets that his job, as CEO is to control events -- or to so structure his company as to minimize disaster. He did neither. The GM board should fire him.]

Posted at 7:21 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

So begins Chapter 1 of Joseph W. Dellapenna's benchmark book on abortion, Dispelling Myths of Abortion History.

It belongs on every thinking thought leader's desk.

Dispelling the Myths
of Abortion HistoryGo Ask Alice.

During the early 1970's Your Business Blogger(R) worked in show business and watched a number of acts.

As a security guard...

One of the most bizarre performances was a gentleman/group named Alice Cooper. Mascara and Monsters. Decapitations were the crowd pleasers -- then as today.

I think there was blood: real -- imagined. As with Ozzie Osborne in Black Sabbath.

We have less of that today, I think. Less Blood on stage.

There is hope for civilization. Maybe.

Alice was the pre-curser to Marilyn Mason with the male-to-female make-up.

Alice Cooper was an act. Not so sure about Marilyn.

Alice and Marilyn are no mere metrosexual girlie-boys without manhood like Obama.

They are the real thing.

They are what Hollywood calls this gender-free entertainment: Authentic.

The sex-less who deal in pain. In angst. In the blood.

Wait a minute...maybe Alice and Marilyn and Obama are the same.

Except these girls can't have abortions.

Hollywood becomes Washington.

Well, maybe not Alice Cooper: He is Pro-Life.

Only Women Bleed Lyrics at the jump,

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Alice Cooper, Only Women Bleed

An Alert Reader writes into Stop the ACLU,

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

Vincent Fournier aka Alice Cooper

Follow Jack on Twitter @JackYoest and Charmaine @CharmaineYoest

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:17 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Join Fight FOCA Log on.
Take a number.
Hit the lottery.

Sign on at www.FightFOCA.com and let us know if your number is 250,000.

A quarter million is a nice number. Will it be yours?

Dollars?

Nope.

Maybe something better -- if you are for Life.

FightFOCA is an on-line petition to persuade our national leadership: President-Elect Obama, Senator Majority Leader Reid and House Majority Leader Pelosi that limiting states rights is not what the voters want.

[Correction: Alert Readers will note that Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, Democrat Steny Hoyer from Maryland is the House Majority Leader.]

The public wants the financial market regulated.

The public wants the abortion market regulated.

The public wants common sense oversight of abortion.

Parents want to know if their child is having an abortion.

Women want all surgical procedures to be to the highest medical standards.

The public wants licensed doctors doing surgery; not social workers.

Women want information about their babies through the science of sonograms.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, is against all these regulations. Why?

Quo Bono?

Follow the money. Planned Parenthood grosses -- so to say -- a billion (that's B as in Billion) (a 1,000 million) dollars each year.

L: A Baby
R: A BabyPlanned Parenthood profits from abortion.

Planned Parenthood gets a $300 million bailout each each year from the taxpayer.

Planned Parenthood wants a blind eye on their abortion money-machine.

Your Business Blogger(R) is a capitalistic-for profit kind of guy -- but who would want to earn earnings from the slave trade?

Or abortion?

If you want your state's rights to guard your child's health, sign the petition.

Their will be a special recognition for the 250,000 milestone.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Robert was Number 45,704. An early adopter, as we say in marketing...

FOCA Would Wipe Away Every Restriction on Abortion Nationwide.

This would eradicate state and federal laws that the majority of Americans support, such as:

* Bans on Partial Birth Abortion
* Requirements that women be given information about the risks of getting an abortion
* Only licensed physicians can perform abortions
* Parents must be informed and give consent to their minor daughter's abortion

FOCA would erase these laws and prevent states from enacting similar protective measures in the future.

Be sure to visit the Americans United for Life blog.

Even our liberal friends are noticing the work of Americans United for Life. Right Wing Watch writes,

"Any time you have a loss like that, you have an opportunity to reassess and come back stronger," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. "If they want to see this as a big loss that will set us back, that's OK. Our people are very energized, and ready for Round Two."

Visit The Webbs, Fight for Life.

LifeNews.com, Election Results Don't Mean Pro-Life Movement to Stop, Limit Abortions is Dead.

ZENIT, Life and the Elections,

In 2008, 45 states considered nearly 450 measures related to abortion alone. Among 2008 pro-life victories are:

-- An omnibus measure in Oklahoma, requiring that a woman undergo an ultrasound prior to an abortion, regulating the provision of RU-486, and prohibiting coerced abortions;

-- New laws in Ohio, South Carolina, and South Dakota requiring that abortion providers offer a woman the opportunity to view an ultrasound prior to an abortion;

-- Legislatures in Colorado, Maryland, and Michigan limiting the use of taxpayer funding for abortions and abortion counseling;

-- Idaho lawmakers strengthening the state's informed consent law and prohibiting coerced abortions;

-- Meaningful funding of abortion alternatives in Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

DFW Catholic posts, Fighting the Freedom of Choice Act. And visit ProLife Dallas.

The international All News Web reports, Abortion: Obama's nightmare,

Obama has promised to restore federal funding to international family planning services, that is, his administration will financially support institutions around the globe that perform abortions. Obama has also promised to sign FOCA or the Freedom of Choice Act. Anti-abortion activists are mobilising for a battle as they now realise they no longer have an ally in the White House.

Americans United for Life is gathering up signatures at a frantic pace to oppose FOCA.

CNSNews.com has Catholics Who Vote for Freedom of Choice Act Could Face Automatic Excommunication, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago says,

"Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be deregulated," said George.

"The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions would be abrogated. FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human life," he said.

"FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children," George continued.

"It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church should be intent on opposing evil. On this issue, the legal protection of the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will."

The liberal, etiquette-ly challenged Low and Left Part Deux will not link to Americans United for Life, behaving more like the liberal main stream media than a hard-working blogger. Spiteful when he should be cite-ful...The Pushback and 2012 Has Started. Note the link.

TIM DRAKE, Senior Writer at the National Catholic Register writes, The Abortion President? Pro-Lifers Sound Warning on Freedom of Choice Act.

Kenrick Social Justice blogs, Americans United for Life has Petition Against FOCA.

Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, Study to show thyself approved unto God... (2 Tim. 2:15), writes, Fight FOCA.

Good links at Random Junk from an Intellectual Wannabe.

Vivificat! posted the code.

Women of Faith and Culture has FOCA on the Family. Bringing Faith and Reason to Life.

If you have posted the FightFOCA.com code on your template, please email us! We will be in your debt.

Posted at 11:43 AM | Permalink
Comments (4)

So pre pre-schooler Baby Boo walks by as Your Business Blogger(R) is watching The Story of the Intrepid. The story of the famed WWII aircraft carrier.

The boy catches a few seconds of battle, of war, the triumph of good over evil; an American civics lesson. He listens to the music.

He asks, "Is this a Jesus movie?"

"No," I said. "But it's hard to tell the difference..."

Must see clips: USS Intrepid

We don't know exactly how Obama will attempt to lead as Commander-in-Chief. But we do know his liberal belief philosophy.

Where?

From his pastor: Jeremiah "God D@m America" Wright.

MEDIA ALERT: Charmaine on FOX, Cavuto Obama and Wright: Do They Hate America?

In contrast, another must see clip,

Thank you to USNA at Large for Intrepid's link.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 8:27 AM | Permalink
Comments (6)

Managing Management Time(tm)
Video production credit: Peter Shinn Your Business Blogger(R) opened up my Northern Virginia Community College classroom to guests and a camera to present an overview of Bill Oncken's Managing Management Time(tm)

The video clip is divided into five segments and totals some 70 minutes. Please comment on the section that worked best for you. Or the least.

Press Release: The William Oncken Corporation Announces Licensed Marketing Agreement With Management Training of DC, LLC

See Monkey Management Ad Campaign.

Harvard Paper on Managing Management Time(tm): Monkey Management

Instructor notes at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:55 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Warning: The Condom Commercial is for mature audiences.

In the 1990's CNN had a terrific talking-heads-shouting-show called Crossfire. Regular Hosts included Michael Kinsley, liberal, then moved to Slate. Pat Buchanan, conservative, former GOP, now gone from the Republican Club but still Pro-Life.

The show ran five nights a week for 30 minutes. Hosts earned about $200K and were worth every dime.

Charmaine appeared in a number of segments. In this episode she debated Kristine Gebbie from the Clinton administration on the marketing and efficacy of condoms. Charmaine's points are valid today -- truth is, well, timeless. John Sununu is in the conservative chair, on the right, of course.

Oddly, liberals demand that conservatives use science in any debate -- but whenever a conservative uses real science with real data, we are then accused of "imposing our values." A liberal pivot.

The actual condom failure rate is some 20 percent. The cost of failure could be pregnancy. Could be death.

This is described by anti-science liberals as "fear based sex ed."

So what will Obama do about abortion and condoms?

Even before Obama gets legislation from congress on abortion, Obama will, by Executive Order, repeal the The Mexico City Policy (1984) which,

Prohibits the use of federal funding for organizations and programs "which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations."

Media Alert: Obama may very well use the Clinton's Dancing Condom Marketing Campaign. For the Domestic and International markets.

Watch the video and let us know what you think.

Join Fight FOCA

Sign up on FightFOCA. Your Business Blogger(R) did.

Thank you (foot)notes:
CatholicCitizens writes,

For starters, we may expect removal of the present administration's ban on destructive embryonic research, and rejection of the Mexico City accords which restrained abortion and eugenics.

Crossfire: The Condom Campaign first aired on January 4, 1994.

Posted at 8:58 PM | Permalink
Comments (8)

Conservatives are giving voice to moving ideas to govern. Heidi Brennan developed this article which deserves a wide audience.

Obama: Did we elect a president?
or a logo?
A man?
or a Brand?

Proposal for Action by Conservative Organizations
By Heidi L. Brennan

The results of last week's national election are being endlessly dissected and discussed in news rooms, board rooms, and living rooms, but the following should be clear:

The loss of the White House and substantial losses in both houses of Congress are NOT due to a failure of conservative policy. They are the failure of those in the Republican Party who neutralized, ignored, and/or fought every conservative principle over the past eight years.

The Democratic Party outspent and outmaneuvered Republicans, especially at the grassroots level and in sophisticated internet communications strategy.

The two most interesting people to emerge in this campaign are: Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.

The current collapse of our economy is shrinking everyone's budget, and the consequences will include reduction of donations to non-profit advocacy institutions, including those promoting conservative values. Though funding will lessen (initially), a strong conservative values base continues to exist and will make every effort to contribute to dynamic advocacy. Conservative voters are poised to become new community activists. They may rightfully expect new ideas and strategies for promoting enduring principles. Education and policy organizations must find ways to engage these grassroots conservative values advocates with new resources, developing simplified ways to deliver timely political information along with easily usable policy research information.

Palin and the Plumber captured the enthusiastic support of voters because they transcended debate by doing more than espousing basic conservative principles. They told their personal stories in an authentic, simple manner effectively linked to election debate. There were no gimmicks, and no controlled published biographies in advance. Today's most successful public relations and marketing plans tell a story, engaging the targeted consumer, voter, or client so that they are motivated to act.

Conservative organizations should consider the following:

· Prepare stories and recruit/prepare effective storytellers to reflect their mission/values.

Assess current databases and develop others, especially directed at grassroots conservative activism.

Increase the use of internet-based media/information-sharing tools.

Expand leadership training opportunities beyond the college age population, to include high school and middle school students.

Recognizing that all parents are their children's primary teachers, especially of moral and civic values, develop easily-accessible internet-based materials for parents to utilize within their families.

Conservatives cannot afford to wait until January's inauguration of our next President and Congress to implement new thinking and approaches. Organization development should begin now.

more at the jump

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:21 PM | Permalink
Comments (4)

Managers & Staff, Career Advancement:
How to Promote & Be Promoted. FREE

Managers, How do you train your team members to take more responsibility?
To Award a Promotion.

Staffers, How do you work to earn more responsibility?
To Earn a Promotion.

If your career management skills need to be sharpened, join us at the Northern Virginia Community College, Arlington, Virginia.

Who: Managers & Individual Contributors; Owners & Direct Reports

What: Learn the benchmarks to promotion.

When: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 4:00 to 5:30pm

Where: NVCC, Room 304, 4600 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203 Behind Holiday Inn. See Map.

Why: Increase the student's value to the organization

Cost: No Charge. Registration is required. Parking is limited.

Since 1960, over one million people have been trained in our practice of management. The MMT class teaches the manager, to leverage management time, and the time of your team, to get more done.

We teach Solutions to Your Management Problems.

Harvard Business Review published Managing Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? in 1974, by Bill Oncken, Jr.. The article, an edited excerpt of the MMT seminar, has gone on to become one of the two most requested reprints in the history of the Review. The training summarized in the article is sometimes called the "Monkey Management" seminar.

Jack Yoest, Adjunct Professor of Management and President of Management Training of DC, is a former Armored Cavalry Officer in Combat Arms. His military leadership training and experience guides his management philosophy at the core of Managing Management Time™. He has managed software, health care and international human resource management companies.

Jack also served in the Governor's Office of the Commonwealth Virginia as Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Resources where he acted as the Chief Technology Officer for the secretariat. He was responsible for the successful Year 2000 (Y2K) conversion for the 16,000-employee unit. He was also a manager with a medical device start-up and helped move sales from zero to over $12 million, resulting in a buy-out by Johnson & Johnson. Jack has consulted in China and India.
Questions? www.Yoest.com, Jack@Yoest.org, or call Jack at 202.215.2434 to save your spot.

Here's the script for the YouTube clip,

Manage Your Career: Learn How To Get Promoted, Managers & Staff, Career Advancement: How to Promote & Be Promoted. #9

This is Jack Yoest Your Business Blogger® with Solutions to Your Management Problems.

Managers: How do you train your team members in the right way to take more responsibility?

So that You can Award them with a Promotion?
Staffers: How do you work the right way to earn more responsibility?
So that You can Earn that Promotion...Or to keep from getting fired.
If your career advancement management skills need to be sharpened, join us in the seminar named
Manage your career: Learn how to get promoted & be promotable.
This course is designed for both Managers & Individual Contributors; Owners & Direct Reports
To Learn the benchmarks to promotion...or termination
The purpose is to increase the attendees' value to their organizations.
To successfully navigate the office politics of promotion and earn more money.
To learn more about getting promoted visit YOEST dot com
That's Y O E S T dot com

Posted at 8:03 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

"The hospital can get me the operation now?" Charmaine asked.

"Sure," I said. "Where do you think you are, England?"

Charmaine's gall bladder removal was uneventful and, more important, immediate. There was no rationing of health care -- which we will get under an ObamaNation Health Plan.

That was exactly one week ago -- the latest surgical techniques have made recovery times shorter, less painful and less expensive. Good ol' American know-how.

Alert Readers will recall that Your Business Blogger(R) ran a number of medical device start up companies where we risked investors' investments to lower a patient's hospital 'length of stay' or LOS.

And the products and services made the world a better place as we improved patient care in a cost effective manner.

We assumed a risk in hope of a big payday, a big reward. Obama will kill this golden goose of innovative entrepreneurship.

Charmaine will be discussing the future on The Live Desk panel this afternoon. The other panelists will be Doug Schoen and Alex Burns.

The topics will be:

1) Obama's Administration - a recreation of the Clinton Administration? What's in store for Obama and his new team? and

2) A discussion on how Sarah Palin handled the campaign.

Obama Congratulates McCain YouTube.

Hit time will be at 2:30pm eastern. Please tune or tivo and let us know what you think.

Background at the jump, Obama, Candidate of Change, Looks to Old Hands from Clinton Era By Catherine Dodge and Kristin Jensen,

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, elected president as an agent of change, is building his new team with old hands from the Clinton administration.

His first appointment, chief of staff, went to Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois representative and veteran of the last Democratic White House. Leading Obama's transition team is John Podesta, who was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:21 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

We had a film crew from South Africa at the house today interviewing Charmaine on the campaign.

The rest of the world is confused at our continuing frictional discourse on abortion. Most of the world has real restrictions on abortion on national levels. The world does not understand that we do not.

The USA is one of the few countries in the world that has abortion on demand for any reason through all nine months (and longer under the Obama Born Alive Abortion Plan). Including China where the government makes the demand -- not the mother.

Unless the baby is a girl -- then everyone wants the child dead...

Or in India where abortion also is used for sex selection to allow only male babies born. Because boys are superior to girls as all advanced nations know.

USA abortion proponents tell us that the "health of the mother" is the only exception. Scare quotes are used in print and air quotes are used in conversation as John McCain does.

The quoting is used because the "health" issue is the exception that swallows the rule as Clarke Forsythe at Americans United for Life reminds us. Because anything, anything can be interpreted as "health." As in mental health. As in a bad hair day. Any reason is sufficient reason to abort.

There are no exceptions.

The Supreme Court has so ruled. Not we the people.

This was the background for the reporting by Joan Biskupic at USA TODAY in
Election comes at key point for high court's stance on abortion,

"This is a historic election," says Charmaine Yoest, [Ph.D.] president of Americans United for Life. "With the next president having the opportunity to appoint one, two or even more justices," she adds, the election could change the law "on the life issue."

Ed Stoddard at Reuters writes, Win Or Lose, Sarah Palin To Be A Political Force,

If McCain loses the exit polls will be scoured but many pundits seem likely to blame it on centrist concerns about Palin during a financial crisis.

"It's really clear that there are some people out there who would like to make her a scapegoat if things don't go their way Tuesday," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life Action, which opposes abortion rights.

"But she's has very clearly connected with the base of the party and the life and family voters and I think that is going to give her a really strong base going forward whatever happens," she said.

Jessica Arons writing at the Huffington Post has the best summation of the state-by-state, incremental Pro-Life strategy in Not All Politics Is Local: Connecting the Dots on Abortion Initiatives,

California Proposition 4 is endorsed by Americans United for Life, among others.

This is an organization that has worked to slowly erode women's access to abortion care with bills that limit available abortion methods after 12 to 13 weeks of pregnancy; require waiting periods, biased counseling, and ultrasound viewings prior to an abortion; create burdensome and medically unnecessary regulations for abortion clinics; assert that fetuses feel pain during an abortion; and allow health care employees to refuse to counsel, refer, or treat patients for any service to which they object.

She intends it to be dire and evil, but it comes out good and accurate. Something Biblical in there...

Deacon Keith Fournier at Catholic On Line has SPECIAL: Interview with AUL Action's Charmaine Yoest on 'Open Letter to Barack Obama'

Your Business Blogger(R) also recommends Values Voters

CatholicWifeAndMom

Obama the Abortionist

Makeup of U.S. Supreme Court Hangs in the Balance

J. Margaret Datiles, staff counsel for Americans United for Life representing the interests of the weakest citizens of the United States and abroad has an article in The Washington Times, A price on your head. Good read. Would get us ready for money saving suicide plans under an Obama administration.

Posted at 3:31 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

The easiest tactic to sell anything is to find Pain. Maximize it, magnify it, monetize it.

We Are The Change, election night 1988

There is some economic Pain in the American people. Obama promises to heal this nation and heal this pain with Change.

Change from Capitalism to Marxism. To "spread the wealth around."

As Wes Pruden writes in A game-changer by Obama, we are at the close of the biggest sales and marketing pitch in history. Pruden reports,

To redistribute wealth, you first have to confiscate it from those who earned it with hard work, and the way to do that is with confiscatory taxes. Then you give it to those who didn't earn it.

But do the American people really want to change to a new economic system? A centrally controlled economy? A Change to Marxism?

Even with a half-billion dollar marketing campaign and its extension in the compliant main stream media and a single quarter of negative growth, the voters have still not bought the Barack bill of goods. Pain as bad as it's been in decades.

Barack Obama has trouble selling this Change to more than 50 percent of the public.

This means that there is still hope for capitalism in our country. Hope for our 200 year-old tradition.

Every new presidential candidate runs on some version of change. Your Business Blogger(R) joyfully attended the Election Night victory party on November 8, 1988.

The theme of the celebration? "We Are The Change." And this was from Reagan to Bush. (A Republican rockin' party...no alcohol was served 'til after 8pm.)

The word "Change" has come to mean a bit more in this campaign season in the Obama sales pitch.

We enjoy an orderly transition of power every few years. Let us pray that change is only in political individuals.

Not in an economic tradition.

This week, I asked my college business class when the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith was written.

"1930...?" guessed one of my better students. This was as far back as she would dare recede into ancient history. Not the 200 years to 1776.

Two hundred years of tradition that unleashed the individual's spirit to create and to provide and to enrich. Centuries of building an economic powerhouse that dominates the world. Created by American Exceptionalism.

Quin Hillyer writes at The American Spectator,

There is something special about this country. The United States is exceptional. We are blessed by the good Lord, and in turn we have done more, far more, than any other people to spread freedom across the globe, and prosperity across the globe, and human rights across this great good Earth. We are a particularly good people...

Benjamin Franklin wondered if we, a good and virtuous people, could keep a republic, a system of government that would enable the system of capitalism.

Obama promises a change to Marxism. Other changes are sure to follow, if he is elected.

Thank you (foot)notes,

Hillyer continues comparing McCain to Obama,

We are a particularly good people -- and John McCain understands all this and believes it with every fiber of his being, down to his very marrow, in a way that is deeply spiritual in nature.

There is nothing fake about McCain's belief in American Exceptionalism. His belief in this is as genuine, and as deeply felt, as is a son's love for his father. He will defend this country, fight for this country, with every last breath in his body...

So there you have it: John McCain as a patriot firmly rooted in the American traditions of free enterprise, limited government, strong defense, personal accountability, and a decent respect for the cultural standards of the broad middle of the American public.

Those are the constituent elements of American exceptionalism -- and to his great credit, John McCain is an American exceptionalist, and an exceptional American.

Posted at 9:55 AM | Permalink
Comments (5)

Yesterday, Charmaine says, "We got hate mail."

"Success!" I replied.

Your Business(R) Blogger teaches marketing at the local college and advises clients on the effectiveness of advertising.

AUL's Open Letter to Obama

The return on investment (ROI) in the for-profit businesses should be sales generated.

But not-for-profits have a different type of "product" peddled. The purpose of a non-profit is to improve the human condition.

So when a non-profit places a media buy, how does Your Business Blogger(R) suggest measuring success?

Hate Mail.

In for-profit, we measure love.
In non-profits, we measure hate.

Our country is evenly and bitterly divided into two competing world views. The animosity is so great and the two camps have opinions so different that we all might as well be on different planets.

We non-profit marketers are now interplanetary ambassadors. Captain Kirk never had it so hard.

So measure the "good" ad with "bad" feedback.

The Alert Reader might suggest that media hits could be an immediate proxy for any ad campaign effectiveness. But here in the non-profit world, the marketing manager should measure opposing, hateful articles, not the friendlies. Getting your friends to agree is helpful, to be sure. Getting the opposition reacting is better.

On Reasoned Audacity we limit, moderate and edit hate-comments, because most are not helpful and make for atrocious reading. Motto: Delectare et Docere.

To Please and To Instruct.

Hate-mail is not pleasing to read. A wise marketer measures this mail, crunches this data, but uses only for internals, not public consumption -- which would look like whining. Complaining about all the stoopid people on that other planet.

As Jack Welch advises: Never be a victim.

And as politicians are wont to say, "Throw a rock into a pack of dogs: the one that yelps is the one that got hit."

Measure the hits by the number of yelps.

Americans United for Life Action published an open letter in a full page in the Dayton Daily News, an Ohio newspaper . Back page, section A. Good size and location. Marketers would prefer more frequency than a one-time media buy. But a good ad "sells" in more than the buy in a particular geographic location.

Today, effective prints ads are picked up by alternative media and broadcast-cable outlets.

(Goodness, during the Huckabee campaign, Ed Rollins got media attention for an ad he didn't even run.)

See Charmaine's Open Letter to Senator Obama here and at the jump.

Read the ad and let us know if you think it "sells" -- if it persuades.

###

Thank you (foot)notes:

Letter to Obama Asks for Answer on Parental Involvement Laws

Group Reminds Voters Barack Obama Wants All Pro-Life Laws Overturned.

The patron saint of marketing John Wanamaker once quipped that "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." Sometime a manager just gets lucky.

See LifeNew.com.

Americans United for Life Action Press Release.

From The Family Foundation.

Anglicans Ablaze.

Value Voters

Alliance Alert from ADF

Save the Little Humans.

Catholic Fire.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 5:58 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

In media interviews, is it harder to be the host or the talent -- the guest? Charmaine has had both duties on both sides of the microphone.

Alert Readers will recall that Charmaine's first interviewer gig was substitute-guest hosting for Blanquita Cullum, BQ in the Richmond radio market. ("Talk Show Host" has now become an invective used by the liberals...who can't get an audience.)

Charmaine tells Your Business Blogger(R) that being the host was the harder job. "You've got to know the content, the guests, and the hardest for me: the technology and timing." To break in on a speaking guest for a commercial break.

She is having a conversation with Mike Judge from the Christian Institute U.K. in May of this year. Mike attempted to place pro-life ads on Google and was denied. Google took ads from pro-abortion groups but not pro-lifers.

Also see Charmaine's old FRC office (with Ronald Reagan's picture in the background). She is now the president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

The case was resolved in September 2008, Google settles abortion ad case

Free Speech exists in Britain for now, less so here.

Camera work and production by Kevin McCullough MuscleHead Revolution.

Posted at 8:59 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Caution: Sales Pitch Follows:

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Posted at 10:54 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

AUL Action to Bob Schieffer: Americans Want to Hear a Question About Abortion

Last update: 10:21 a.m. EDT Oct. 15, 2008

WASHINGTON, Oct 15, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ --

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D. president and CEO
AUL Action

As CBS News' Bob Schieffer prepares to moderate Wednesday night's final presidential candidate debate, AUL Action President Dr. Charmaine Yoest released the following letter.

Dear Mr. Schieffer,

As you prepare for Wednesday night's final presidential debate, I know that you will be working to raise questions on domestic issues that are of interest to a wide range of Americans. I encourage you to ask each candidate about his views on abortion -- something that has not been done at either of the previous debates.

Many Americans are single-issue voters when it comes to abortion, and many more view a candidate's position on abortion as one of a handful of issues on which they select a candidate.

While each candidate's position on Roe v. Wade is well known, it remains unknown what restrictions on abortion each candidate would support in order to achieve the widely agreed upon goal of reducing abortion.

And that is the question I encourage you to ask: What restrictions on abortion would you support in order to achieve the widely agreed upon goal of reducing the number of abortions in our country?

Possible follow up questions include:

-- A recent study by Dr. Michael New (University of Alabama) found that parental involvement laws reduce abortion by 13-31%.


Do you support the right of parents to be involved in the medical decisions of their minor daughters when abortion is being considered?


-- Do you support taxpayer funding for elective abortions?


-- Do you support laws that mandate abortion clinics meet minimum health and safety standards commonly applied to other types of medical practices?


-- Do you support laws requiring abortions be performed by licensed physicians?

Particularly given that Wednesday night's debate was scheduled to focus on domestic policy, the American voters need to hear each candidate respond to at least one question that addresses the topic of abortion, which is one of the central policy questions of our day.

I wish you all the best as you prepare for and moderate the debate.
Sincerely,

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
AUL Action

About AUL Action,
AUL Action is the legislative arm of Americans United for Life (AUL). The first national pro-life organization in America, AUL has been committed to defending human life through vigorous judicial, legislative, and educational efforts at both the federal and state levels since 1971. In addition, AUL has been involved in every pro-life case before the Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade.
SOURCE Americans United For Life

Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
End of Story

Posted at 10:53 AM | Permalink
Comments (4)

Solutions to Your Management Problems

Managers work to control events, instead of events controlling them. They anticipate the future . . . adapt to the present. . . and learn from the past.

* * * The Managing Management Time™ class trains managers

how to apply this philosophy to their own leadership challenges * * *

Are you running out of time...while your staff runs out of work? If your management skills need to be sharpened, join us at the Northern Virginia Community College, Arlington.

Who: Managers who need to get in control of events or to better influence results

What: An introduction to Managing Management Time™

1. Vocational vs Management Time

2. Molecule of Management

3. Followership and Leadership

4. Management and Sales

5. Development of Direct Reports

When: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 4:00 to 5:30pm

Where: NVCC, Room 304, 4600 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203

Behind Holiday Inn. See Map.

Why: Improve managerial effectiveness

Cost: No Charge. Registration is required. Parking is limited.

Harvard Business Review published Managing Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? in 1974, by Bill Oncken, Jr.. The article, an edited excerpt of the MMT seminar, has gone on to become one of the two most requested reprints in the history of the Review. The training summarized in the article is sometimes called the "Monkey Management" seminar.

Jack Yoest, Adjunct Professor of Management and President of Management Training of DC, is a former Armored Cavalry Officer in Combat Arms. His military leadership training and experience guides his management philosophy at the core of Managing Management Time™. He has managed software, health care and international human resource management companies.

Jack also served in the Governor's Office of the Commonwealth Virginia as Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Resources where he acted as the Chief Technology Officer for the secretariat. He was responsible for the successful Year 2000 (Y2K) conversion for the 16,000-employee unit. He was also a manager with a medical device start-up and helped move sales from zero to over $12 million, resulting in a buy-out by Johnson & Johnson. Jack has consulted in China and India.

Questions? www.Yoest.com, Jack@Yoest.org, or call Jack at 202.215.2434 to save your spot.

Class reading at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:37 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

October 9th Americans United for Life is celebrating their annual gala in Chicago. Ramesh Ponnuru, the Senior Editor for National Review and author of The Party of Death is the keynoter.

The Party of Death does not care for The Party of Death.

Pictured is one of the less clever but presentable pieces of hate mail received by AUL.

Roll over for enlargement.

The Alert Reader will note a photo of Charmaine at UVA and Ramesh Ponnuru and various symbols of Germany's National Socialism.

(There are two "N" words that are not used in polite company. One is a slander for African-Americans; the other is a four letter word for National Socialism.) (The Party of Death uses this four letter word repeatedly. The Party of Death is not polite company...)

If you are anywhere near Chicago-land on 9 October come hear Ramesh speak. Register here.


The Party of Death

Matthew Eppinette at AUL reports,

A good indicator of how the pro-life position is winning is the extreme rhetoric people use in opposing it. The more ground the pro-life position gains, the more extreme the rhetoric we hear form those who oppose us. Hate mail is a good case in point.

Ramesh begins his book,

The party of death started with abortion, but its sickle has gone from threatening the unborn, to the elderly, to the disabled; it has swept from the maternity ward to the cloning laboratory to a generalized disregard for 'inconvenient' human life.

Ponnuru writes,

Everything you think you know about Roe v. Wade is a lie...

Pull out quotes from The Party of Death at the jump.

Thank you (foot)notes,

H!tler, hate-mail, and hapless history.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 5:31 PM | Permalink
Comments (5)

Two Items for Your Consideration:
1) An Invitation
2) An Article
Your Business Blogger(R)

An Invitation for managers (with direct reports, the power to hire and fire, and a budget) Wednesday, October 8th from 4 to 5:30 pm in Northern Virginia near the Ballston Metro. A brief overview on Solutions to Your Management Problems. No Charge. Email me if you'd like more detail -- click here.

Your Business Blogger(R) was interviewed for an article on dealing with -- and managing -- Bad Bosses. It is scheduled to run this Sunday, 28 September in The Washington Post, Sunday Source section.

Let me know what you think and do make plans to attend the class.

And remember, If you are near Charlottesville, Virginia tomorrow, Saturday September 27th, Charmaine is speaking at the University of Virginia on women in leadership.

UPDATE: The article is up. Please take a look and link to the article in WaPo and I will owe you.

Posted at 12:20 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Alert Readers know that Your Business Blogger(R) teaches marketing at the Northern Virginia Community College.

Todd and Sarah Palin.

(This is the same College where James Carville has taught. I am not sure that this makes us "colleagues.")

Todd Palin was recently on Greta Van Susteren. And talked about supporting his wife as mayor, governor and, soon, Vice President.

Todd Palin is the new Brawny Man.

The Georgia-Pacific paper company did a series of Brawny Man ads a few years ago. The target market is women -- depicting the Real Man with Real Sensitivity.

Almost a mockery. But.

Certainly A Man With Appeal (to women...).

But this sells:

All Real Men, usually conservative men, want the women in their lives to succeed; to reach their full potential. And if there is a woman -- daughter, wife, sister, mother with the potential for outstanding success, Real Dudes support them. As Todd Palin supports Sarah.

Every feminist now realizes that breaking the glass ceiling requires a First Dude Brawny Man to back her up. This will never happen to feminists -- they really don't care that much for men.

Todd Palin: First Dude, The New Brawny Man. Men who love their Women.

See Advertising: The Good and The Bad.

Why Didn't Hillary Clinton Get the Dem VP Nomination?

Men: Get A Wife, Live A Better Life

For all of Carville's faults, he loves Mary.

Posted at 12:31 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Gianna Jessen,
abortion survivor Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) have run a number of marathons. Charmaine always cries the last 4 miles. It always hurts -- both the physical and mental. Real Pain.

But at least Charmaine's mom didn't try to murder her...

Gianna Jessen is an abortion survivor and also runs marathons. It takes her 8 hours. (If we were on the same course, she would be the only one behind me and Charmaine.)

Watch Gianna's 30 second video
on protecting Infants Born Alive. Gianna needs a third of a day to complete the 26.2 miles because she has, as she says, "the gift of cerebral palsy."

It is a "gift" because the alternative, the intention of the mother and her "doctor" was death for Gianna.

It is not known if the "doctor" is a Democrat. But abortion is a sacrament of The Party of Death.

Gianna lived to tell her story, was adopted, and is an advocate for Infant Born Alive protections.

Our Aunt Carol spoke with Gianna and has an update.

Bookmark Americans United for Life.

"If Barack Obama had his way I would not be here," says Gianna. Visit BornAliveTruth.com.

Read more at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:36 AM | Permalink
Comments (6)

Your Business Blogger(R) just returned from meeting a number of conservative friends in Minneapolis-St. Paul in preparation for the GOP convention. It was exciting to talk with the good-guys from across the country especially during the Palin pick for VP.

I ran into my good friend Morton Blackwell who has run conservative politics in Virginia for decades and heads up the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia.

Recently, I was honored to give a brief presentation on management to LI. The overview requested was on Managing Management Time(TM) created and developed by The William Oncken Corporation.

LI also asked about some time management techiques and I certainly obliged.

But.

But Alert Readers will know that Managing Management Time(tm) is a philosophy created to teach managers to be more effective; to control events. MMT is NOT a time management course.

The briefing is divided into four short segments.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Thankyou foot(notes):

Full Disclosure: Your Business Blogger(R) is a licensed agent for The William Oncken Corporation.

Charmaine and I spent last week in Minneapolis and we just put her back on a plane this afternoon to attend the GOP convention. See her quotes in The Wall Street Journal. She is the president and CEO of Americans United for Life and former senior advisor to the Huckabee for president campaign.

Posted at 9:15 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Your Business Blogger(R) once asked writer and reporter Richard Miniter about the sales process. He described sales as The Transference of Emotion.

Nothing was transferred last night.

The political confab is designed to sell both a tangible and an intangible: A Person and his Ideas.

Neither was sold on Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention.

Mary Jo Kopechne, Born: July 26, 1940;
Died: July 18,1969

Charmaine is currently in Minneapolis and I will be joining her soon for a series of meetings.

One of our favorite constant questions is, "Will it sell?"

In any human transaction, someone is selling and someone is buying. The Democrats did not have much of a pitch last night.

The were attempting to sell Michelle Obama. But I kept thinking of another Democratic woman.

The video brought a flood of tears to all eyes who watched it. The Democrats were swooning, estatic, drowning in thier adulation.

But not conservatives. We cried for other reasons.

The Ted Kennedy video was horrifying. The opening scene was of water lapping up on a quiet shore. I kept looking for a half submerged car -- at least there wasn't a bridge in the picture. He kept talking about his connection to the water.

The Democrats have all the resources of the best minds in Hollywood and the mainstream media -- and this is the best they could do? Goodness.

The footage of a smiling Ted Kennedy sailing his 80 foot something sailing yacht made me think of all the maintenance that somebody does to keep that old boat barnacle-free (no, no, not Teddy).

Work not done by the Kennedys. Elitists don't polish brass.

The Democratic marketing machine did not deliver its intended message. This is the party of abortion, of darkness, of death.

The Democrats, as Romesh Punnuru writes, are The Party of Death.

Mary Jo Kopechne, Requiscat in Pace

###

Thankyou (foot)notes,

Alert Readers wll recall that Your Business Blogger(R) teaches sales training -- but still learned something from the former Wall Street Journal reporter Richard Miniter.

Proving that it is possible to learn something, even from a journalist...

Senior Editor, National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru will be the keynoter at the Americans United for Life gala on October 9th in Chicago. We will celebrate Life.

From NNB,

Near midnight on Chappaquiddick Island, a possibly drunk and definitely married Senator Ted Kennedy takes a right turn instead of a left. His car winds up skidding off Dike Bridge and is quickly submerged upside-down in salty Poucha Pond.
His passenger, RFK office secretary Mary Jo Kopechne, is knocked into the back seat. Kennedy swims to safety, whereupon he fails to rescue his companion or even simply report the incident to authorities until the following morning.
Because no autopsy is ever performed on Kopechne's body (her body had been promptly whisked out of state) it is uncertain how long it took her to drown, if she wasn't killed on impact. Likewise, it is never established whether Kopechne was pregnant or exhibited signs of recent sexual activity.

See Sandler Sales Technique: Selling Tangible and Intangibles.

Update: 26 August 2009, Ted Kennedy dies. Perhaps Mary Jo can now Rest In Peace. From Myrna Blyth, NRO,

This week we may hear a little about the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, but there is another anniversary that has already gone unnoticed. On July 18, 1969, a couple of nights before Armstrong took that "giant step for mankind," Ted Kennedy took a turn onto a narrow bridge in Chappaquiddick. The passenger in his car that night was Mary Jo Kopechne, a pretty, blond Capitol Hill secretary, just about to celebrate her 29th birthday. The two events are inextricably linked in my mind because my husband, who was a correspondent for a British newspaper, instead of reporting on our glorious odyssey into space, ended up at police headquarters on Martha's Vineyard covering that sordid story.

Posted at 12:22 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Your Business Blogger(R) once worked in medical device start-ups teaching new surgical procedures to clinicians.

My physicians were constantly demanding the latest data on patient care and what would work best to improve patient care.

They taught me that they were held to higher standards because the clinical community was the steward of the public's trust.

When a person is hurting, trust is the currency of the care giver.

The patient must believe that the doctor or nurse sincerely believes that the care given is the best -- and that the care giver would not violate the trust of the patient or the care givers' own conscience.
The public well understands that if a doctor will not violate his own conscience, he will not violate the patient.

This conscience clause of the medical community is being attacked by the homosexual activists. Homosexuals are demanding elective procedures -- non-life saving interventions -- medical attention that would violate the conscience of some clinicians.

And this is bad for business. Homosexuals are attempting to equate race with sexual preferences: attempting to make homosexuality a civil right.

The homosexual marketing campaign might be gaining traction in the courts -- but not with voters, not with legislators not with common sense.

An African-American will always be black; he has no choice and cannot stop being black.
A homosexual may return to hertosexuality; he has a choice and can stop being homosexual.

African-Americans are of a particular race from conception. Homosexuals make a decision well after birth. They are not born in that state. There is no homosexual gene in the human DNA. Race is not equal to homosexuality.

Look for more cases like this one in California where the homosexual activists are looking for businesses to take to court. Your business might be next.

Fox Business posted information from Americans United for Life,

California Supreme Court Ruling Threatens Medical Care and Religious FreedomBy Matthew Eppinette | August 18, 2008

Chicago, Illinois -- The California Supreme Court today ruled that patient demand for nonessential, elective care trumps the freedom of conscience of physicians and their ability to practice medicine in accordance with their religious or moral beliefs.

Denise Burke, Vice President & Legal Director of Americans United for Life (AUL), said, "This ruling will deny physicians and other professionals the ability to freely exercise their religious convictions."

Added Burke, "By forcing healthcare professionals to choose between conscience and career, we will lose doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who are already in short supply."

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., President and CEO of AUL added, "Medical experts already project that existing shortages of nurses, physicians, and pharmacists will soon worsen, failing to meet future healthcare needs. Legal action to compel healthcare providers to participate in procedures to which they conscientiously object threatens to make the already dangerous situation disastrous."

Mailee Smith, AUL Staff Counsel, said, "It defies common sense that a patient would want a doctor to violate his or her conscience in practicing medicine. A diminished physician population is not good for medical care."

The case -- North Coast Women's Care Medical Group v. Superior Court of San Diego County (Benitez) - involves a situation where artificial insemination was not provided due to the marital status of the patient (Ms. Benitez).

Ms. Benitez filed suit arguing that she was not provided the procedure because she is a lesbian. However, the physicians testified that the real issue was her marital status, and that they would not have provided artificial insemination to any single woman.

Ultimately, Ms. Benitez received the procedure from another physician after receiving a referral from the objecting physicians (who paid the additional costs she incurred).

AUL filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court on behalf of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Physicians for Life, arguing that federal and state law as well as the ethics standards of major medical organizations support the physicians' right to conscientiously object to performing certain nonessential, elective medical procedures that conflict with physicians' religious and moral beliefs.

Media Contact
Matthew Eppinette
202-289-1479Matthew.Eppinette@AUL.org

MEDIA ALERT: Charmaine Soundbite CNN: Homosexual Marriage, The Problem.

Posted at 9:43 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Obama is the smartest man in the room. I know this is true because his campaign staff told me so.

During the Iowa Caucuses, Your Business Blogger(R), Charmaine and Penta-Posse stayed at the same hotel as many of the other presidential candidate staffers.

We all often talked in the elevators or at the coffee bar. The Obama staff would remind us that Obama, the smart academic law professor (for 12 years!) was brilliant and well briefed...of course.

This made Obama's statement at Saddleback all the more interesting. He said that abortions have not gone down in the last eight years.

Abortions, in fact have declined over the last eight years.

Did Obama, the smartest man in the room, not know this simple fact? Was he poorly briefed?

Or did Obama, with the best staff money can buy, know the truth and say otherwise?

Was Obama being duplicitous a politician from Chicago, or perhaps he cannot remember a simple fact that he volunteered?

Charmaine was at Rick Warren's Saddleback church for the civil questioning and examines Obama's contradiction in an article up on National Review Online.

She reviews Obama's new marketing and messaging campaign.

Absolute Reduction
Barack Obama and abortion.

By Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.

Milling around the media room after the Saddleback Forum, I learned that while John McCain was onstage talking with Rick Warren, Barack Obama was sitting down backstage to an interview with David Brody of CBN News. Brody took the opportunity to press Obama on the issue of his record of opposition to legally protecting babies who are born alive after an abortion.

Obama became visibly irritated and replied to Brody: "I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."

Read the rest here.

Charmaine Yoest is president and CEO of Americans United for Life. She served as compaign adviser to the Mike Huckabee presidential campaign.

See Charmaine's previous article in NRO: Huckabee and McCain -- The Enthusiasm Gap

Posted at 2:07 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Friday was Charmaine's last day at FRC. They gave her a nice send off. It was less like a funeral and more like a celebration -- a celebration like many funerals should be: She's going to a better place, but we wish she were here.

Later, Your Business Blogger(R) returned with the Penta-Posse to her office to gather up the pictures and files and stuff and stuffed all into the monster-SUV. We left no action, email, paper, or child behind.

It took 'til 9pm to clear out. This is how job changing is different from death:

Crossing over to eternity: Your inbox will be full.
Crossing over to another job: Your inbox will be empty.

The only thing she took with her were the memories and the comfort that she would be seeing all of her old friends again somewhere, sometime again.

Some things don't die...

Friendships endure: Relationships in the Body are eternal.

Then again, maybe job-changing and death are exactly alike.

From the Family Research Council,

Our Loss is AUL's Gain

It is with mixed emotions that we announce that Dr. Charmaine Yoest, VP for Communications, has accepted the presidency of Americans United for Life.

While this is great news for Charmaine and even better news for AUL, it is a deep loss for us.

During Charmaine's time at FRC, we have gained a whole new level of visibility in the national media, developed an excellent new web site, built out the first video studio in FRC history, overhauled our media center to make it state-of-the-art, obtained record op ed placements, and maintained quality radio programs heard on hundreds of stations nationwide.

Charmaine and her entire team can be justly proud of these accomplishments. It's good to know that her gifts will now be deployed at the helm of one of best-known and most successful pro-life groups in the country.

We wish her and her family well in the weeks and years to come, and we're confident our paths will cross many times as we work to protect innocent human life.

Posted at 8:26 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Matthew Eppinette
Matthew.Eppinette@AUL.org
312.568.4701

Chicago, Illinois -- Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., a well-known pro-family leader, author, and media commentator, takes the helm of Americans United for Life (AUL) as president and chief executive officer on August 11, 2008.

Robert Harvey, Chairman of the AUL Board of Directors said, "Dr. Yoest's experience in pro-life issues, in political strategy, and in organizational communications make her the ideal person to lead the team at AUL in taking on challenges and capitalizing on opportunities in the present legal and political climate."

The U.S. Supreme Court's 2007 Gonzales decision upholding the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act marked the beginning of a new era in the battle over life issues. In short, the decision dramatically opened up new doors for protecting life through the law.

In striking contrast, the U.S. Congress and five states this year considered Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) legislation, which would wipe away virtually every law on abortion nationwide, allowing abortion-on-demand in all nine months of pregnancy for any reason, without any restrictions.

"It is a great honor to join AUL, an organization with a remarkable reputation for excellence and achievement," said Yoest. "AUL has been involved in every pro-life case before the U.S. Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade, and AUL-authored legislation is in place all around the country, saving lives every day."

Yoest added, "I look forward to exciting days ahead, building on this rich legacy and working to increase the legal protection of human lives."

Most recently, Yoest served as vice-president of communications at the Family Research Council, one of the largest pro-family public policy organizations in the country.

Her political experience spans working in the Reagan White House to serving as a Senior Advisor to the 2008 Huckabee for President Campaign.

A regular political commentator, Dr. Yoest has appeared on all of the major networks and cable outlets. In print, she is quoted regularly and has been published widely. She is also the author of Mother in the Middle (HarperCollins), an examination of work/family and childcare policy.

Yoest holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She lives with her husband, Jack, and their five children in the Washington, D.C. area.

Dr. Yoest succeeds Clarke D. Forsythe, Esq., a 22-year AUL veteran who served as interim president and who will continue in senior leadership of the organization.

About Americans United for Life

Americans United for Life (AUL) is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization whose vision is a nation in which every human being is welcomed in life and protected in law. The first national pro-life organization in America, AUL has been committed to defending human life through vigorous judicial, legislative, and educational efforts at both the federal and state levels since 1971. The Wall Street Journal has profiled AUL, and PBS's Frontline program chronicled AUL's successful efforts in Mississippi.

Website: http://www.AUL.org

Blog: http://Blog.AUL.org

Media Contact:

Matthew Eppinette

Matthew.Eppinette@AUL.org

312.568.4701

Posted at 12:44 PM | Permalink
Comments (14)

A common question from my business students is "Why are some ads so bad?"

It does seem odd. Why would marketing managers (Budget? What budget?) spent millions for what seems to be a bad impression. Or simply to shock.

At times marketers will deliberately make an awful advertisement to make it memorable. So that a consumer walking down a grocery store aisle will remember a product. But sometimes marketers have gone too far.

So Your Business Blogger(R) has assembled two sets of ads: Good and Bad.

Let's start with the good. The motto in my business is Delectare et Docere, To Please and To Instruct.

The first set of advertisements -- or edu-tainment -- is To Please and To Remind. The Georgia-Pacific paper company did a series of Brawny Man ads a few years ago, still alive on YouTube. A bit longer at some 120 seconds on the web which is a destination that viewers tune in and view with a purpose, which is to please. Even a novice will notice that the target market is women. Alert Readers will notice the early 'product placement' in the ad.

There's lot's more Brawny Man -- but let us begin our descent from good to bad.

Some marketing gurus have crossed over to the dark side with dark ads. Ancient Jewish tradition commands the faithful to imagine no evil. "As a man thinks in his heart, so he is." And "Guard your heart, it is the wellspring of life."

It is a sound life strategy to permit only good inside your circle of friends, your house, your head. Imagine world peace, as the new-agers would say.

But some ad messages put darkness on display.

Charmaine recently appeared on Fox to debate shock advertising. (Your Business Blogger(R) married way over his head...)

Charmaine on an earlier FOX appearance Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., appeared on Fox News on March 1, 2008 to debate the issue of edgy ads and to discuss the prevalence of shock-style advertising in the media.

Charmaine debated Greg Muehler from Serve Marketing who produced some of the shock ads.

FOX, fair and balanced is a family network and showed only those mildest of ads -- Steve McQueen's Bullet had more violent car chase scenes. Or The French Connection. The examples are not too bad.

But bad is coming at the end of this post.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Has some advertising crossed the line? Shock ads linked below.
Caution: Might be safe for work -- but not for kids.

From Newsweek, This Is Your Brain on Scary Ads -- Are these graphic PSAs inspiring or offensive? You decide.,

The image is meant to shock: a little girl's face atop a woman's body, cleavage spilling over a low-cut cocktail dress. ...The ads are disturbing, to put it mildly. But more disturbing, its creators say, is what they're trying to combat: 71 percent of teen pregnancies in inner-city Milwaukee are the result of statutory rape. ... But industry experts say the campaign represents a genre of public-service advertising that's becoming more lurid than ever.

Shock advertising is an age-old gimmick. But compared with milder fare from years past ("This is your brain on drugs"), today's imagery is "like a sledgehammer to the face," says Steve Hall, founder of the industry blog AdRants. For instance: the ad displayed above-an anti-drunk-driving spot for Arrive Alive-featuring a scantily clad girl collapsed in a men's bathroom. Experts have called it muddled and pointlessly provocative.

Alert Reader Dr. Kalynne Pudner, at Auburn University and teaches Biz Ethics, points us to this analysis by By Jeffrey A. Tucker at Mises, as in Ludwig von,

But why must it be tacky and unbearable to so many of us? Well, let's be blunt: business is trying to reach the masses. Mises explains:

"Business propaganda must be obtrusive and blatant. It is its aim to attract the attention of slow people, to rouse latent wishes, to entice men to substitute innovation for inert clinging to traditional routine. In order to succeed, advertising must be adjusted to the mentality of the people courted. It must suit their tastes and speak their idiom. Advertising is shrill, noisy, coarse, puffing, because the public does not react to dignified allusions. It is the bad taste of the public that forces the advertisers to display bad taste in their publicity campaigns. The art of advertising has evolved into a branch of applied psychology, a sister discipline of pedagogy. Like all things designed to suit the taste of the masses, advertising is repellent to people of delicate feeling."

A sister discipline of pedagogy? Yes indeed it is, and it is also art, and those with "delicate feeling" need to learn to appreciate it for what it is. They don't have to believe a word of it. Decline to drink the potion to make you thin. Refuse the breakfast that will make you concentrate. Eschew the hand cream that will restore moisture. Be as skeptical as you want and, instead, save every penny. Turn off the television if you hate it and sit in your perfect environment and listen to Gregorian chant.

Newsweek continues,

Still, deterrence by disgust can work. In 2006, a series of Volkswagen safety ads drew attention for showing its cars in heart-stopping traffic accidents; within weeks, sales inquiries were up. A more recent ad for Canadian workplace safety features a glowing young chef describing her fiancé, whom she'll never marry, she says, because she's about to be in a "terrible accident." She then slips and scorches her face with a cauldron of boiling water. ... "Some small amount of discomfort is worth it if it creates positive change," says Gary Mueller, founder of Serve, the agency behind the statutory-rape ads. The small discomfort, though, is getting bigger.

Danger: gallery of shock ads on Newsweek.

See: Reality, Marketing and Aristotle. Your Business Blogger and Charmaine were extras background artists in a movie. But The Dude was the star. And gave us a lesson in marketing.

Ludwig von Mises. Mises is pronounced "MEE-zus." Charmaine told me.

Kalynne Pudner earned her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. Auburn was lucky to get her.

For more on the ads click here.

Please watch the video and let us know what you think or comment below.

Cross Post from Management Training of DC, LLC: click here Advertising: The Good and The Bad

Posted at 10:59 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Your Business Blogger(R) teaches business, marketing and management at the local college.

I like to remind students and clients that the hardest product to sell is an intangible, an idea. The easier product to pitch has tangible characteristics -- it has a form that can be introduced through the senses, a product that can be seen and touched.

One of the most interesting marketing campaigns of the century is the promotion of abortion as 'choice' and 'reproductive freedom.'

And for many, abortion has become a vote-changing issue during the current presidential campaign.

To learn more about this interesting abortion-vote market segment, I stepped out of the DC summer heat in Your Nation's Capital and sat in on an off-the-record meeting on abortion polling data for battle ground states.

The confidential numbers revealed that 57% of the public was self-identified as Pro-Life.

This raised two marketing questions:

1) Why is Obama still actively embracing an abortion position? And,

2) How did the country move from supporting abortion rights to Pro-Life?

I was curious about the Obama Abortion Marketing Machine. He is in favor of abortion and in denying medical treatment of some infants born alive. He aggressively supports the feminist's power position of control of a mother over her baby.

Power is an intangible and intangibles are normally a 'difficult sell' as we old sales guys are wont to say. It seems odd that any seller of public policy would take pride in working this hard.

But this intangible is what has sold in the past -- a woman's complete control over her body and absolute power over her destiny, even if this meant killing her unborn baby. Power sells and people will pay most anything to get it, use it and to project the appearance of power.

It was absolute power. And Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But it was not Lord Acton's theorem that changed the mind of the American public. It was a picture. Or rather two pictures:

A) If a woman sees a picture, a sonogram of her baby, she will not have an abortion.

B) The Chicago hospital room where babies can be left to die.

Nurse Jill Stanek has the story and original reporting of the Chicago hospital's "Comfort Room" where babies born alive are left to die without medical intervention. She has more pictures.

Polite society might call this 'infanticide.' Calling the venue a "Comfort Room" is clever marketing. Like "Pro-Choice." A case study on word framing to sell. Brilliant.

But the new pictures are powerful images that can now sell the product: a child.

The tangible child is trumping the intangible power.

This provides a clear choice this presidential election between a women's power and a person's right to life.

McCain is Pro-Life.

Obama has a clear pro-abortion position: He would sign the Planned Parenthood backed Freedom of Choice Act which codifies Roe v Wade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf0XIRZSTt8

Thank you (foot)notes:

Bill Bennett and Jill Stanek on Obama Abortion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZCXcTwZPY&NR=1

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity. Your Business Blogger(R) of Management Training of DC, LLC, is a licensed agent for the William Oncken Corporation presenters of Managing Management Time(TM) fondly known as Monkey Management.

Posted at 7:13 AM | Permalink
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The new Leadership Development Carnival #1 is up and running at Great Leadership, hosted by Dan McCarthy. The Carnival is a clearing house of leadership and leadership development advice and commentary from over 30 leadership pundits, including Your Business Blogger(R).

Carnivals serve a vital function in the blogosphere that is missing in most conventional blogs: Editorial oversight.

Dan McCarthy does this ably and without direct compensation. Bloggers work for links and traffic. Go visit.

Dan will be working as the editor of the Leadership Development Carnival every month. If you'd like to submit an article, use the carnival submission form.

My humble submission was The Four Speeches Every Speaker Delivers.

Most people fear public speaking more than death itself. The public-speakers'-adrenaline rush forces the talker to review his podium performance.

And while there at Great Leadership be sure to visit Keeping Your Study Skills Razor Sharp that I may have to steal borrow for my students.

Posted at 10:43 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Charmaine is quoted in Obama works to mobilize 'Christian left.'

She says that all voters should care, "...[A]bout the public policies the person is going to put in place."

Charmaine is pictured at left on an earlier CNN appearance debating abortion.

The policies of which Charmaine speaks are the 'vote-changing' issues Grover Norquist writes about in his book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.

The Leave Us Alone coalition is made up of groups who want the government to do only constitutionally-restricted work, and to, well, leave us alone.

Following is a short list of loose associations Norquist cites who want less government and less outside intrusion:

Homeschoolers
Gun Owners
Church-goers
Taxpayers
Pro-Lifers

The Alert Reader will note that this conservative Leave Us Alone coalition includes the Pro-Life community. This is the only group in Grover's group that wants the government and the courts to protect life and stop the option of killing of unborn children -- just as the government stopped the option of slavery.

The Christian Left is willing to sacrifice freedom in order to pay higher taxes -- this small segment that occasionally attends church is delighted with large government and the government confiscation of property, life and wealth.

These young Christians are confusing government with God -- remember, for most liberals, the government is their god.

The Leftist group is a bit confused on Biblical teaching and looks forward to the tyranny of a ObamaNation. Mature followers of Jesus Christ look to the Ten Commandments, including the directive, Do Not Kill, or more accurately, Do No Murder.

The deliberate taking of innocent life is a vote-changer for thinking Christians.

Posted at 3:11 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

Charmaine is taping an interview for CNN American Morning on the Senator Barack Obama flirtation with Bible believing, Jesus loving, Evangelicals who hold for the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D. is pictured at left during a taping of Ethics in America with Barney Frank(D).

Obama has a chance with some church goers. About 30% of self-identified Christians voted for Bill Clinton.

Obama believes reporter Michael Weisskopf who wrote that members of the Christian Right are, "largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command."

So while the poor impoverished are clinging to guns and religion, how would the elitist Obama lead the nation?

1) Bring legislation forcing citizens to embrace homosexual demands: Homosexual Marriage and the Homosexuals in the military.

2) Raise taxes.

3) Raise gas prices by punishing oil companies. He refuses to explore and drill for energy.

4) Demand that some babies born alive be left to die.

5) Force citizens how and what to think. Mark Steyn is being sued under hate-crimes law in Canada for his writing about Islam in America Alone, a must read. Barack X. Obama supports this mind-thought control through legislation.

The ObamaNation will force churches and the Boy Scouts to hire Homosexuals.

The ObamaNation will force government-controlled doctors on the country.

The ObamaNation will place women in land combat and in submarines.

The ObamaNation will take more of the citizen's money in taxes and fees.

The ObamaNation will force these government doctors to perform abortions.

The ObamaNation will force babies born during a botched abortion (re: live birth) to die.

The ObamaNation will continue the African-American genocide thru Planned Parenhood.

The clip will air next week. Hit times will be announced. Please let us know what you think. Comments are now open.

Thank you (foot)notes,

Obama may be a disciple of Jesus Christ, but he doesn't understand the Bible. And after attending Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years, it figures. For example, the Old Testament dietary restrictions no longer apply. This is a "new" teaching in the New Testament that is different from the Old. Obama is going to be confused about these Old and New Testament issues:

Dietary restrictions.
Circumcision.
Animal sacrifice.

Homosexual abominations remain in effect.

Obama is fuzzy on his Biblical interpretations. And a bit confused on secular matters -- but he is consistent with the old-style liberal world view.

Your Business Blogger(R) looks forward to the continuing debate between Obama and Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family.

Obama might come to Jesus yet...

Voters will not answer the ObamaNation altar call, Lord willing.

Click here for more on Ethics in America.

Larry Cirignano sends us this article by Bishop Harry Jackson on Planned Parenhood.

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink
Comments (7)

Your Business Blogger(R) has a degree in Education and was pressured by the National Education Association (NEA) to join the union years ago.

"The NEA is great when you get sued," said the (very large) union rep.

I declined to teach and went into a less violent business: The Army.

The NEA is having their convention in Your Nation's Capital next week. On July 2nd Pro-Life Educators and Students (PLEAS) will be conducting a rally at the Washington Convention Center from 10:00am and 2:00pm.

This press conference would have my attention even if I didn't have 5 kids in the public schools or if Charmaine wasn't speaking.

If Charmaine is speaking, you'll want to listen. And this time we own the mic.

Charmaine is pictured above elbowing aside pro-abortion NOW President Kim Gandy at a open press conference in 2005. This is the only Women in Combat of which conservatives would approve.

PLEAS Coordinator Bob Pawson says, "Pro-Life teachers, school employees, parents, and students are invited to come pray and peacefully picket...Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama will surely address NEA's 9,000 Delegates, as they did last year."

Pro-Life teachers are concerned that their teacher union dues support and promote abortion and political candidates who tolerate the holocaust of the unborn.

Pawson explains, "Late-term abortionist George Tiller spoke at NEA headquarters for the [pro-abortion] Feminist Majority Foundation's Leadership Conference in March 2008." Watch the YouTube video here. Warning: graphic pictures of dead children.

No pro-life speakers or political candidates are supported by the NEA.

NEA union President, Reg Weaver is backing Obama; "every public school employee needs to get squarely behind the Obama candidacy."

The union tells us,

"The National Education Association supports...the right to reproductive freedom" -- the abortion code-words.

The "NEA supports the ...Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision which now permits abortion on demand through nine months of pregnancy. The NEA is silent on the Dred Scott decision which also codified the ownership of one human being by another. The Dred Scott slave owner is the Roe v Wade feminist.

UPDATE: Press Conference at the Family Research Council building at 9:30 to 10:15am, then on to the presser at the Convention Center at 10:30am.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 8:53 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Charmaine will be in New Hampshire tomorrow, Friday the 6th to give a talk to strengthen the conservative, pro-life movement.

See the Family Forum Flyer,

Learn how to recapture Traditional American

FRIDAY, JUNE 6 – 9AM-3PM*
WHAT: A grassroots training seminar designed to educate and equip citizens to promote traditional family values in your community. Learn practical how-tos for effective communication and creating and managing your message to be persuasive in the public debate!
WHERE: Thomas More College
Merrimack, NH

Charmaine will be speaking on the power of words to frame a debate. She noticed that Your Business Blogger(R) has a line drawing of the HMS Victory over his desk; a profile of the body of the ship that Lord Nelson made famous in the sea battle at Trafalgar against the French; against Napoleon. The English won, as usual.

VICTORY. There is no ship in the Royal Navy named "Success." And this is where President Bush gets the Global War on Terror wrong: Men don't die in combat for "Success in Iraq." They will sacrifice and die for "Victory."

We don't have "Success in Jesus." We have Victory.

The wordsmith knows the difference. (And the Christian...)

Charmaine will also speak on Bimbos. If you are anywhere in the Northeast, go visit and sey hey to Charmaine.

"Bimbos" as we are using it, is the intellectual property of Merrie Spaeth. Another brilliant women who knows the power of words. And like Charmaine, she worked for Ronald Reagan, of course.

Spaeth reminds professionals and public speakers to always recite the positive and to never repeat the negative accusation -- usually advanced by a commie reporter. Public affairs should only be handled by professionals.

When I say 'public affairs' I am not speaking of Bill Clinton's weaknesses...

See Indra Nooyi: $5 Million Gets You Bimbos . . . and Boycotts. . .

Most Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Representatives like Heather Wilson may have been a part of the deterioration of the GOP branding and why citizens are dismayed: Republicans are not behaving like Conservatives. Wilson she wanted women in combat. She advanced abortion. This is not a conservative. Wilson just lost her primary race. Thank goodness.

Watch Charmaine's debate with Heather Wilson(R) from New Mexico a few years ago on women in combat. Ignore the Army women exposing their breasts.

More at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 5:04 PM | Permalink
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The Dreamer scored in the 93rd percentile in Math for her grade in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I promised her a reward night out -- But a daddy-daughter-dinner-date at Subways won't be happening.

A good deal of her education was in homeschooling where Your Business Blogger(R) worked with her on that topic that counted: Counting. The hard sciences that "girls don't do well."

Not good in Math? Not my girls. My expectation was that they would do well in the quantitatives. (Parent and teacher expectations are the biggest variable in the success of students.) My wife is a genius with SPSS and regression analysis . The Dancer and The Diva are rabid readers and love 'rithmatic -- and are bloggers.

The Penta-Posse are outliers on the bell curve of school age young'ums.

So. I promised The Dreamer a night out. But not at Subway. The restaurant is off the good-guy list for two reasons:

1) The company doesn't care for homeschoolers, and

2) They can't spell.

Our friend Don Wildmon at the American Family Association sends this along,

Subway tells home schoolers: We will not allow you to participate in our contest. Subway discriminates against home schoolers.

Subway, the sandwich restaurant, wants to hear your child's story – unless he or she is home schooled.

The national chain's "Every Sandwich Tells a Story Contest" offers prizes and a chance to be published on the Subway Web site and in Scholastic's "Parent & Child" magazine but specifically excludes home schoolers. Subway's website states:

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contest is open only to legal residents of the Untied (sic) States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted.

Subway will probably say they excluded home schools because of the main prize ($5,000 worth of athletic equipment to the winning child's school). But Subway could have given it to a local park, church or school of the winning home schooler's choice.

Subway's Web site promotion not only misspells "Untied (sic) States," but offers the grand prize winner a "Scholastic Gift Bastket (sic) for your home."

Subway's leadership clearly does not understand the value of homeschooling. In addition to learning how to spell, we are keeping our kids clear of the public schools' Family Life Education: Which is, as is commonly known, Sex Ed taught by liberals. When almost 20% of teens have herpes -- one would hope that this objective fact might persuade our feminist free-lovers that the condom classes might not be working.

Nope. The public payroll sex trainers are working even harder.

Here's some of what appears in Family Life Education for grades six through eight,

6.1 The student will learn that there are many health care and safety agencies in the community.
No need to talk with mom or dad, or aunt Sally or uncle Joe. The Planned Parenthood abortion clinic is just around the corner.

6.7 The student will be able to describe the etiology, effects and transmission of the HIV virus.
Clean needles for drug users? Contaminated blood supply? This is more important than spelling or math? The school will not reveal the detail of homosexual sex acts in the spread of the HIV virus. I did see a very nice man who teaches the course, however.

6.8 ...[E]valuate ...sexuality, and gender stereotyping...
The feminists are determined to get women in combat in the armed services.

7.7 The student will recognize that sexual behaviors are conscious decisions...
The public schools are a bit confused even about their own world view: homosexuality is a conscious decision; a preference -- not an orientation. FLE lurched into the truth.

So Subway supports only public schools, can't spell and doesn't like homeschoolers.

Dinner at Subway? No sirree -- We all are a-going to Chick-fil-a.


Chick-fil-A

Thank you (foot)notes:

Tom Peters once remarked that excellence should permeate an organization, especially for managing the perceptions of the customer. This is why managers make so much money. Airlines, in the consumers' mind, must understand that if the tray tables are dirty, the airline doesn't do engine maintenance.

The Army taught if boots were not shined, the soldier couldn't shoot straight.

If Subway can't spell, their food will make you [sic].

Send an e-mail to Subway President Frederick A. DeLuca. Tell him you will not eat with them anymore until and unless they allow home schoolers to participate. ©2008 Doctor's Associates Inc. SUBWAY® is a registered trademark of Doctor's Associates Inc.

This is an unpaid endorsement of Chick-fil-A.

See some commonsense at The sexual ‘revolution’ that keeps on turning

This is a cross post from Pro-Life Unity.

Posted at 10:36 PM | Permalink
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Our liberal friends at PBS have put together a program on the Navy.

Remember, any time 'Hollywood' gets near the military, the result always degenerates to an anti-war film.

USS Nimitz From: Chief of Naval Operations...

Beginning Sunday, April 27, PBS will air a reality-TV documentary
entitled "CARRIER", filmed while the production company was embarked
during the entire USS NIMITZ's 2005 deployment. The program will air
over five nights from Sunday, April 27, to Thursday, May 1, 2008,
9:00-11:00 p.m. ET.

Ten hours of film will be aired, selected from almost 2,000 hours that
were shot over the course of a 6-month deployment to CENTCOM. I have
viewed the production and want to share context and some thoughts
with you.

While "Carrier" shows the outstanding work our young Sailors do every
day and the opportunities the Navy offers, it also shows Sailors
making mistakes in their personal and professional lives. The
snapshot is frank and may be somewhat disconcerting to some who came
into the Navy some time ago. However, that said, I believe it will
also resonate with a significant segment of our country, especially
potential recruits and young Sailors serving today.

1) What we did. We provided unprecedented access to our Sailors,
and this production tells their story in a very personal way. There
is no narrator -- the stories are told by the Sailors themselves.
You get unvarnished views from junior personnel about their hopes,
aspirations, and challenges of life in the Navy aboard the carrier.
We did not get between the film crews and the Sailors.

2) What we got. The production highlights the racial, gender,
religious, and socio-economic diversity of our Navy. The hard work
our Sailors perform and the remarkable feat of forging thousands of
individuals on a carrier into a truly unique team really shines
through. Culling through hundreds of hours of video, the producers
created a 10-hour reality-TV documentary that shows selected aspects
of our Sailors' personal and professional challenges. The
cinematography is very high quality and the visuals and music are
sure to appeal to younger audiences.

3) What we did not get. We did not get a Navy "commercial" in the
traditional sense. "CARRIER" is very different from the hardware
documentaries we have supported in the past. This program focuses on
our people and the reality-TV approach gives it a sense of
authenticity and credibility. Since we did not monitor the
individual interviews and ongoing production, the program contains
material that does not always and fully represent the discipline,
values and mission of the U.S. Navy.

You will see some Sailors making personal and professional mistakes,
and expressing opinions that are different from the Navy's. However,
the production shows that these are the exception, not the norm, and
that leadership is engaged to shape lives and appropriate outcomes.
There are abundant examples of how the Navy changed Sailors' lives
for the better by giving them opportunities and a disciplined
environment.

4) Why did we agree to the project? This production, although not an
all-inclusive picture of the Navy, will give potential recruits and
those who influence them a glimpse of what life is really like in the
Navy. We want the American people to know, understand and appreciate
the contribution our Sailors make each and every day while deployed
around the world. We also want them to know us, not as a monolithic
bureaucratic entity, but as a diverse organization of individual
Americans who have set aside the comforts of home and have put
themselves on the line to serve a greater cause. You already know
how inspiring our people are, but few in our Nation get to see our
people in an operational environment.

Some of you may be called upon to offer public comments about this
film to the media or to community groups. We will soon distribute PA
guidance to support your efforts and will be putting additional
information on www.navy.mil in the near future. If you need any
additional information, please contact CHINFO, RDML Frank Thorp.

Thank you for all that you do.

All the best,

Gary Roughead

Thank you (foot)notes:

Thank you to John Howland at USNA-AT-LARGE for sending this out.

See more pictures.

Posted at 11:35 AM | Permalink
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Obama talks about Change. He talks about avoiding conflict and leaving lands where some people may not want us there.

If there is a fight for a country, Obama will surrender.

On all fronts.

Obama can then take the Stars off the American Flag he won't salute; the Flag pin he won't wear.

Obama's only Absolut .

Thank you (foot)notes:

mymanmitt has alternatives to Absolut Vodka.

Before Obama surrenders, maybe we can get a refund on the Gadsden Purchase?,

In return for this vast territory, the United States gave [Mexico] $15,000,000 and assumed responsibility for paying $3,000,000 in claims of American citizens against the Mexican Government. A large body of public opinion in the United States had opposed the war against Mexico and felt that the Southern republic had been treated badly. The territory desired by Gadsden and his group was then a sort of no man's land, experiencing frequent Indian raids. The United States wanted to make certain "boundary adjustments"; Mexico needed money and wanted a settlement of her Indian claims against the United States; and Gadsden and his friends wanted a route for their railroad. In 1852 Gadsden agreed to pay Santa Anna $10,000,000 for a strip of territory south of the Gila River and lying in what is now southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Many Americans were not especially proud of the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty and considered the price of the Gadsden Purchase as "conscience money." The Gadsden Purchase has an area of 45,535 square miles and is almost as large as Pennsylvania.

Mexico reconquers California? Absolut drinks to that!,

The latest advertising campaign in Mexico from Swedish vodka maker Absolut promises to push all the right buttons south of the U.S. border, but it could ruffle a few feathers in El Norte.

The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA and now running in Mexico, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an "Absolut" -- i.e., perfect -- world.

The U.S.-Mexico border lies where it was before the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California, as we now know it, was Mexican territory and known as Alta California.

Following the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo saw the Mexican territories of Alta California and Santa Fé de Nuevo México ceded to the United States to become modern-day California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. (Texas actually split from Mexico several years earlier to form a breakaway republic, and was voluntarily annexed by the United States in 1846.)

The campaign taps into the national pride of Mexicans, according to Favio Ucedo, creative director of leading Latino advertising agency Grupo Gallegos in the U.S.
...

Full Disclosure: Charmaine, the wife of Your Business Blogger(R), served as Senior Advisor to the Huckabee for President Campaign.

UPDATE: Read a first-hand account of John McCain on the campaign trail in Pensacola, Fl, Service to America Tour, courtesy, John Howland, USNA-AT-Large, at the jump.

Terry Pruitt, former military, has more on rendering a salute and respect for the Flag at Obama Seems to Get It Wrong.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 6:45 AM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R): and
Your Circle of Friends When Your Business Blogger(R) served a tour of duty in government, I learned the harsh reality of what academics called "Multiple Points of Accountability."

I thought that my boss was my only constituent.

Nope. I learned that I had better pay attention to the press, to other department silos, to numerous associations (aka lobbyists), other political appointees, elected officials -- and finally: The Voters.

There is no difference between management in government and business. The basics are constant.

The first thing every manager learns is that he has multiple points of accountability. Points outside his silo.

The manager must nurture multiple points of accountability to turn these to multiple points of support.

He’s got to turn his silo into a circle -- of friends.

Watch the one minute clip and let me know what you think.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Script at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink
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Charmaine on an earlier FOX appearance Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., Vice President for Communications for the Family Research Council appeared on Fox News on March 1, 2008 to debate the issue of edgy ads and to discuss the prevalence of shock-style advertising in the media.

Click here for the clip. Please forgive the extra click thru to the FRC site.

Thank you (foot)notes:

For more on the ads click here. Safe for work. I think...

Posted at 7:48 PM |