Woman Wears Mohammed Cartoon T-Shirt To Spanish TrialOh man, this woman is an amazing. She deserves to be highly commended. Thank God for her:
MADRID – The widow of a man killed in the Madrid bombings attended the trial of Islamic radicals with a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on her T-shirt.The judge in charge of trial on Monday asked security guards to check the woman’s T-shirt and ordered the cameras to halt live transmissions. Initially, he thought the woman could been a relative of one of the 29 accused and thought she might have put some kind of message on her T-shirt.The T-shirt was a copy of the cartoons showing Mohammed on top of a bomb which were first printed by a Danish magazine and which caused disturbances in Muslim countries around the world.The judge decided the woman was free to wear what she liked and could come back to the court if she wished.The woman, who was not identified, is a member of the Association of those Affected by Terrorism.Why is it that women like this one, and Hirsi Ali, and Orianna Fallaci, are leading us in these times?
Why is it that we men are not taking up the battle?
WE WILL!
I BELIEVE IN US MEN. I BELIEVE WE WILL TRIUMPH.
FREEDON OVER DESTINY.
C'mon, my friends.
Riots
In
Paris
Subway
Station
PARIS - Riot police firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed Tuesday with bands of youths who shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station, and officials said seven people were arrested.
Officers and police dogs charged at groups of marauding youths, some of them wearing hoods, who mingled with commuters and travelers at the Gare du Nord — one of Paris' most important transport hubs.
Some of the youths threw trash cans and other objects at the officers, who responded by firing tear gas.
One woman was evacuated by paramedics for inhalation of tear gas.
The clashes began in midafternoon, and forced the closure of the station's subway and commuter lines for several hours. The station's long-distance rail hub and Eurostar terminal, which is attached to the subway station, remained open throughout.
They started after a man without a Metro ticket punched two inspectors during a routine ticket check, said officials from Paris' RATP public transport authority. Youths also attacked the inspectors and later turned on police patrolling the station, officials said.
"The inspectors were hit with projectiles, as were the officers who came to assist them," said Luc Poignant, an official for the Force Ouvriere police union.
A standoff ensued between officers and some 100 youths.
Kobemania!Kobe Bryant's recent play has been so stunning that people are beginning to forget about that other guy people use to compare him to. What was his name? Michael Jordan? Was that it?
:)
Anyway,
check out this article from ex-Jordan teamate, Steve Kerr:
In the past five games, Kobe Bryant has averaged 54 points per game. Think about that for a moment. Fifty four! Most importantly, the Los Angeles Lakers won all five, reversing a seven-game losing streak that had threatened to ruin their season. In effect, Bryant placed the entire team on his shoulders and willed it back into a positive state. The Lakers are now confident again, they have Luke Walton and Lamar Odom back from injuries and they're no longer looking like road kill for the West's top seeds come playoff time. And they owe it all to Kobe. His offensive game is so good, so fundamentally sound in every aspect, that it may be time to debate whether or not he's the most complete offensive player in the history of the NBA. I'm not talking about the best player – there are plenty of players who rank well ahead of Bryant in that category. I'm simply wondering if there has ever been a player with a more complete skill set with footwork, ball handling, perimeter shooting and leaping ability.That from a guy who won several championships with Michael Jordan.
I would contend that Kobe is among the best all-around players ever to play the game. His offense gets so much attention, people forget to notice that he is a lockdown defensive player as well.
Now, all that being said, you know who has really impressed me? Steve Nash.
I've always thought Magic Johnson was the greatest team player in NBA history. But, Steve Nash is giving him a run for his money. Difference is, Magic won five championships with the Lakers. And, Steve Nash? Not so many.
Yeah, not one.
If Nash can keep it up for two or three more years and win a championship or two with the Suns, then he will likely be remembered as one of the three or four best players ever to play the game.
By the way, here's my top ten alltime best NBA players:
1) Magic Johnson
2) Wilt Chamberlain
3) Michael Jordan
4) Kobe Bryant
5) Julius Erving
6) Bill Russell
7) Elgin Baylor
8) Shaquille O'Neal
9) Larry Bird
10) Oscar Robertson
These are the players who have most impressed me.
Oh, and while I'm on the subject of NBA greats, let me say this. Neither LeBron James, nor Kevin Garnett have done anything to prove they should be mentioned among the greats. All of the guys in the top ten were guys who carried teams on their backs when needed.
Kevin Garnett and LeBron James are both very impressive players, but you will notice, when their teams are down, you will never see either one of the them take over the game by scoring at will, stealing, grabbing rebounds, and blocking shots.
James and Garnett are team players who both seem to like to work within a system. One of the things I like most about basketball is that it is as much about individual will as it is about teamwork. In baseball, no single player can change the course of a bad team. And, that isn't true in football either. Those games are all about teamwork. Basketball is great when it's played by a finely tuned team, but it is astonishing when it is dominated by an individual. And, it is the individuals that we watch the game for. They loom largest on the historical stage.
Just like in real life.
The Language Of A Warrior
I've been criticized from multiple directions for my language and my content. Many of the people who criticize me are people I consider friends and allies. To be honest, it is very painful for me to have become a kind of outcast. I love my friends.
I think this article goes a long way towards explaining my frame of mind.
In his introduction to the published script of Full Metal Jacket, Michael Herr, the author of the Vietnam-era book Dispatches that partially inspired the movie, wrote that director Stanley Kubrick was notorious for not allowing any of his actors to deviate from his shooting script. Kubrick made one prominent exception: Lee Ermey, "the ex-Marine who had been hired as technical advisor, bugged Stanley to test him for the part of Sergeant Hartman, and he brought a lot of his own incredible language in, like Orson Welles in The Third Man."
While Austin Bay is a retired Army colonel and not a Marine D.I., his new pamphlet, Embrace The Suck, also introduces the public to military jargon. It's a pocket-sized dictionary of that same sort of incredible language, updated for the 21st century and the Global War On Terror.
In its introduction, Bay writes, "Priests, prostitutes, psychologists, cops, jazz musicians, poker players, the gang at the beauty shop—every trade has its jargon; every group a lingo or recognition code that separates 'ins from outs' and 'us from them.'"
The Common Currency of Military Slang
Lenny Bruce would certainly approve of much of the language of Bay's pamphlet, which is colorful (and often scatological), to say the least. In a recent interview, Bay told me, "You can say that war is obscene and obscenity is the common currency of military slang from the beginning of the military". As he notes, "The title is right on the edge. It's clearly got an obscene basis to it".
In his four-page introduction to the pamphlet (2007, Pamphleteer Press, LLC) Bay writes, "'Embrace the suck' isn't merely a wisecrack; it's a raw epigram based on encyclopedic experience. Face it, soldier. I've been there. This ain't easy. Now let's deal with it." He adds that the title is "indicative of a lot of military humor—there's a gallows humor aspect and a darkness to it". No shit, we would engage in gallows humor in the situation we are faced with.
I believe we are in a war for our very lives. On 9/11, I said to my wife, "Life will never be the same. I may decide to join the military." That was a completely unprecendented statement coming from a liberal like me.
The point is, my mindset is that I am in a war. Most of us do not think that way. Most of us think the war is something that is happening "over there," and that it doesn't much threaten us.
I am constitutionally made up to see the way events are unfolding, and from that, to extraplolate where they will lead us.
Am I always right?
Hell no.
In fact, I may be wrong more often than not. But, at the same time, I do think that I have given much consideration to the issues we are faced with. And, I do believe my opinion is worthy.
I believe we are faced with an enemy (Islamofascism) which has convinced a huge percentage of its population of a terrible, evil idea; that Islam must spread itself by means of violent Jihad waged upon all Infidels (or, in other words, all non-Muslims). One can not negotiate with such an enemy. One can not trust that such an enemy will even be deterred by threat of destruction.
I would like nothing more than to be wrong in my conclusions. I feel as if I am walking on the edge of a sharp knife, morally. I feel as if I am being sliced between good and evil. All I can be somewhat certain of is that, if I don't speak up, if I don't express what I believe to be true, I will be partially responsible for horrible events that are to follow.
Righteous Words Spoken At The UN
UN Threatens To Strike Words From RecordWell, naturally. What else would you expect a council of demons to do when faced with the truth, huh? The United Nations was started with good intentions. The thing is, obviously, there are a lot of nations in our world who do not have good intentions. So, how can we expect an organization made up of oppressive, and sometimes downright evil nations to do the work of keeping the peace in our world?
The idea doesn't make sense from the very start, does it?
Condoleeza Rice Says,
The Halt of
Jewish Immigration
To Israel
Is One of Two
Key Arab
Pre-Conditions
For Engaging
The Jewish State
In Peace Talks?Is this story true? It's from Debka which is know for not being highly accurate. If it is true, what the hell right do we, the United States, or anyone, have to tell Israel who and who not to let live in their country?
DEBKAfile reports: Condoleezza Rice sells Israeli PM Ehud Olmert her Middle East initiative - The halt of Jewish immigration to Israel is one of two key Arab pre-conditions for engaging the Jewish state in peace talks March 26, 2007, 11:27 PM (GMT+02:00)Earlier Monday, the US secretary of state called off the Monday night press conference to launch her initiative. Instead, she held a second round of talks with Olmert to overcome his objections. He finally succumbed to the creation of a US-Arab-Israeli mechanism forace talks based on the resolutions reached at the Arab League summit convening in Riyadh March 28-29.
The summit will approve the Saudi peace plan without any of the modifications requested by Israel.Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni, whom Rice met earlier in the day, spent hours hammering the phrasing for presenting their concession to the US secretary, without being seen to have abandoned the Middle East roadmap, which is the central plank of this Israeli government's foreign and peace policy.They decided that Rice would term the Israel-Arab diplomatic track a preface to the roadmap's implementation. The US secretary argued that Israel has nothing to lose by engaging Arab representatives and would only improve its image. Olmert asked for the encounters to take place at the senior level of foreign ministers, in order to convince the public that his government had not been browbeaten into a concession contrary to national interests. But Rice could not make this promise. US-Israeli discussion on the framework for Israeli and Arab delegates to meet will continue.But in Riyadh, meanwhile, the preliminary conference of Arab foreign ministers has already determined the mechanism and forum for the talks with Israel. They have opted for the UN Security Council and Middle East Quartet as sponsors, convinced that both bodies are powerful enough to impose a settlement on Israel. The US Secretary informed Olmert that she does not support this demand.Regarding the Saudi peace plan, Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu rejected the clause calling for the return of Palestinian refugees as a threat to Israel's existence.Arab foreign ministers drafting summit resolutions demanded the refugees' return to their pre-1948 homes and rejected any prospect of settling Palestinian refugees in any Arab state. They also demanded the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Arab sources reveal that the two conditions will be incorporated in the final resolutions approved by the Arab League summit in Riyadh on Thursday.1. Israel must halt Jewish immigration so that the Israelis leaving the country or revoking their citizenship are not replaced by newcomers.2. The international community must condemn Israel's High Court of Justice for authorizing targeted assassination of Palestinians in cases of security threats. Arab justice ministers will lobby international judicial bodies to elicit this condemnation.
Wilt Chamberlain: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next DoorIn light of Kobe Bryant's recent streak of four fifty point games in a row, let us remember the man who averaged 50.4 points per game over the course of an entire season.
Wilt Chamberlain was my hero when I was a kid. Among the things I admired about him was that he was a Republican. I was not a Republican myself. In fact, I was raised by parents who took me to see McGovern speak when I was just a wee lad. I was against the Viet Nam War. And, while Wilt supported Nixon (in fact, he even campaigned for him), I had to admire Wilt because his choice to support Nixon was evidence that he was a free thinker.
Additionally, Wilt abhorred superstition. The reason he chose number 13 for his jersey was he believed that people create their own fate.
Wilt wasn't just a tall man. He was a giant of a man as well. He did everything big. Obviously, there is much negative that could be said of him. And, certainly, I don't want to make excuses for any of his behavior. But, the truth is, sometimes men who leave giant footprints tred hard upon all of life.
Spring
Is
Coming
Europe Losing Faith In Its Future
I must say, I am also losing faith in Europe's future. I want Europe to survive, in fact, I still think it will pull it out at the last moment, but it is looking awfully bleack.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Europe appears to be losing faith in its own future, Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday, warning against "dangerous individualism" on a continent where many people are having fewer children. "One must unfortunately note that Europe seems to be going down a road which could lead it to take its leave from history," the pontiff told bishops in Rome for ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, a major step toward the creation of today's European Union.
Benedict said he was concerned about Europe's "demographic profile"—though he did not describe the trends that have alarmed the continent for decades.
In countries like Italy, where many married couples have one or no children, the population is expected to shrink dramatically in a generation or two unless fertility rates quickly increase.
Benedict expressed concern that Europe's population trends, "besides putting economic growth at risk, can also cause enormous difficulties for social cohesion, and, above all, favor dangerous individualism, careless about the consequences for the future."
"You could almost think that the European continent is in fact losing faith in its own future," Benedict said.
A recent Eurostat survey showed Poland's fertility rate to be the lowest in the EU, at 1.23 children per woman.
Sociologists and economists blame the economy, particularly the unemployment rate—at 14.9 percent the highest in the EU. Worried about losing their jobs, many women in Poland put off having children, often until it is too late.
Earlier this month, Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski proposed a new program of tax exemptions and support for working mothers in the hope of encouraging births and ensuring that Poles "continue as a nation."
Italy's fertility rate steadily plunged to a low of 1.25 children per women of childbearing age in 2001, with the last few years seeing a small turnaround, mainly due to births to immigrants.
Italian experts cite Italian's desire for an easier lifestyle, but they also blame shortages of day care centers, expensive housing and a sluggish job market which sees many Italians living at home until well into their 30s as reasons for the country's relatively few children.
Antonio Golini, an Italian demographer, told The Associated Press recently that unless the retirement age is raised, Italy will have more people drawing pensions than it will have workers in 2050. Spain also has a low fertility rate, while France, with family friendly policies such as cheap day care and generous parental leave, has experienced a baby boom.
France had more babies in 2006 than in any year in the last quarter- century, capping a decade of rising fertility that has bucked Europe's graying trend. Its fertility rate in 2006 was 2.0 children per woman.
A rate of 2.1 children per woman is considered the minimum necessary to keep a population from shrinking.
CAIR MIGHT HAVE SUED FLIGHT 93 PASSENGERS?UH, YEAH, PROBABLY.From my friend, the great Eavesdropper at Maverick News Media:
If the passengers on Flight 93 had somehow been able to take control of the plane and kept it from crashing, I suspect CAIR would have considered suing them.I suspect CAIR would have claimed that the passengers were not allowing the muslims onboard to conduct their freedoms of religion. I suppose they would have said the passengers were overreacting and a bunch of Islamophobes.CAIR would have said the muslim passengers were exemplary and energetic members of their communities who were being humiliated and victimized.CAIR would probably have said that these good muslim were models of interfaith and ethnic understanding, that they were peaceful and wanted only to educate the general public about Islam and that they represented the very best of Islamic and American values.And all the passengers that fought and said, "Let's Roll" would have been called racists and bullies and accused of stopping decent young muslims from pursuing their dreams.A CAIR lawyer would probably say it pains him tremendously to see these muslims being smeared and he would wonder how the passengers could have such a misconception about these "bridge-builders".He would probably say how much work is still needed to overcome the fear and hate mongering that have been heaped on "groups of US citizens" (muslims) simply because of race, religion, or national origin.The lawyer would ask us to join CAIR and reach out across the divides to strengthen the ties of human friendship and equality.In the meantime, six imams are walking around carefree and easy while our fellow citizens, heroes really, are being sued for reporting suspicious terrorist activity.Yes, CAIR's suit is intended to stop the heroic passengers on Flight 93. To make them wait for the authorities, or the military, and if they had, the terrorists and their plane would have hit it's intended target of the White House or the Capital.
World War III, Anybody?I've been waiting for the Islamofascit idiots of the world to make the fatal mistake.
It looks like they might have finally done so:
The Government is demanding the "immediate and safe return" of 15 British sailors and Marines seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces.They were taking part in a routine operation boarding merchant ships in Iraqi territorial waters when they were taken captive by Iranian naval vessels.The sailors and Marines had completed a successful inspection of one ship, reportedly a dhow, when the group and their two boats were surrounded.They were then escorted by Iranian vessels into its territorial waters.Crew were from HMS Cornwall The men, from the Type 22 frigate HMS Cornwall, were seized in the Shatt Al Arab waterway.
The Royal Navy insists they were operating in Iraqi waters and not Iranian territory. It is thought the operation was part of a crackdown on smugglers.The commanding officer of HMS Cornwall, Commodore Nick Lambert told Sky News: "I have got 15 sailors and Marines who have been arrested by the Iranians.
Commodore Nick Lambert "My immediate concern is that their safety and their safe return to me is ensured."A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level."The British Government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."The Iranian ambassador was later summoned to the Foreign Office to discuss the incident.
It is not the first time British servicemen have run up against Iranian forces in the troubled waters between Iran and Iraq.Forces seized by Iranians Eight men were seized and detained after three patrol boats were said to have strayed into the Iranian side of the Shatt al Arab waterway in July 2004. They were later released.Analysts have told Sky News that such cases are normally resolved peacefully.
The latest incident comes at a time of renewed tensions with Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.It also coincides with fresh claims of Iranian interference in Iraq - UK commanders say Iran is arming and funding insurgents attacking British troops.
I hope to God this war is finally going to break out into its reality. The truth is, our problems are primarily with Iran and Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan and Iraq were merely strategic waystations on the road to destroying our real enemies.
Please God, please, let this be Iran's fatal mistake.
Bye bye, Mahmoud.
TWO THINGS I'VE LEARNEDFrom my friend, the Simple Witness:
1) I can't control the decisions, actions, thoughts or feelings of others.2) The only one I have charge of is myself.Yeah, I know...for many of you these are obvious lessons. Though I have heard them many times before...phrased in one way or another...I am learning them again...as if for the first time.It's soooo dang hard when someone who is important to you doesn't respond in the way you want them to. It's easy to disguise our "want" of their behavior as something they "should" do or "could" do if they loved us enough...or something that anyone else "would" do under the circumstances. And it is so easy to "blame" that person for not doing what I want.The truth is that the behavior of that other person is not under my control and as much as I WANT them to do the thing the way I WANT...my WANTING doesn't make it so...no matter how hard I try. So, even though this is a painful reality...it is also freeing.At least now...if I pay attention to what the person is really saying or doing...I have reality. And by acknowledging reality, I can act on it!I think Jesus gave us this example often. When the disciples were cowering and fearful in the boat. He didn't waste time whining at them to knock it off and take charge. He commanded the storm to stop. When the Pharisees lacked compassion on the Sabbath...He did not spend hours laboring through each law refuting it's validity. He healed a man in the midst of them. When faced with centuries of inequities toward women, Jesus did not pity them by reinforcing a victim mentality, but rather forgave the adultress, spoke publicly to the woman at the well, healed the unclean woman with the issue of blood, and gave to a woman (rumored to be a prostitute) the first witness of Him as the risen Christ.I am learning again that we have a choice. We can either spend our lives blaming others for hurting us, keeping us down, or framing our injured identity...OR...We can take charge of our own lives...living out the image of God in which we were created...and take on each day with courage.It doesn't mean it's easy...but I'm finding...that by the grace of God...it can be done!Check out Simple Witness' blog regularly.
Iranian Woman Reinterprets Koran With Feminist ViewFile this under, "Pushing back the river":NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new English-language interpretation of the Muslim Holy book the Koran challenges the use of words that feminists say have been used to justify the abuse of Islamic women. The new version, translated by an Iranian-American, will be published in April and comes after Muslim feminists from around the world gathered in New York last November and vowed to create the first women's council to interpret the Koran and make the religion more friendly toward women. In the new book, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, a former lecturer on Islam at the University of Chicago, challenges the translation of the Arab word "idrib," traditionally translated as "beat," which feminists say has been used to justify abuse of women. "Why choose to interpret the word as 'to beat' when it can also mean 'to go away'," she writes in the introduction to the new book.Yeah, why not? Then again, don't you just go away?
Women are the slaves of Islam.
German Judge Rules Koran Allows Wife AbuseFrom Little Green Footballs:
The nihilistic dead end of multiculturalism has been attained in Germany, where a female judge seemingly forgot which culture’s laws she was supposed to uphold:
German judge rules Koran allows wife abuse. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
BERLIN (AFP) - A German woman judge has refused a Moroccan-born woman permission to file for divorce by interpreting the Koran as allowing husbands to beat their wives.“Where are we living? Woman judge allows beating in marriage... and invokes the Koran,” said a front-page headline in Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper, reflecting the widespread angry reaction on Thursday.“This Moroccan woman has the same right to protection from a violent husband as any German woman. Anything else would be misconceived sensitivity to the benefit of the husband and would amount to racist discrimination against the wife,” said the Tageszeitung daily.The Central Council of Muslims in Germany also condemned the decision. “The judge should have made a decision based on the German constitution instead of the Koran,” said spokeswoman Nurhan Soykan, who said that violence and mistreatment, regardless of the gender of the victim, were also grounds for divorce in the Islamic world.A court in the western city of Frankfurt on Wednesday upheld a complaint of bias against the judge lodged by the lawyer of the 26-year-old woman, who has two children.The woman had filed for immediate divorce on the grounds that the husband, also of Moroccan origin, regularly beat her and threatened to kill her. The claims were backed up by a police report. But the female judge, who has not been named, made clear in a letter that the wife’s bid had little chance of approval because, according to her, Islamic law allowed a man to strike his wife.The judge is not wrong, and it’s not hard to find examples of leading Islamic scholars who would agree. But there’s still a difference between shari’a and the German legal system—isn’t there?
What The Hell
Happened
To Al Gore?
The incredible melting Al Gore
Al Gore circa 2000
Al Gore circa 2007
Seven short years, and the man has melted like a candle. What the heck happened? It must be Global Warming.
My
Little
Lamb
A song by Pastorius (I'll have to record this and post it here - for now, here are the lyrics).
If I denied you, would you stay by my side
If I left you - all high on my pride
If I lied to you - would you lose your trust
If I tripped and fell down in my lust
Would you leave me to burn?
Would you leave me to burn?
Would you leave me to burn, my Little Lamb?
If I cursed you - with bared fang
If I betrayed you - would leave me to hang
If I cheat you - if I lied and stole
Can I come back home when I'm tired and old
Will you help me to learn?
Will you help me to learn?
Will you help me to learn, my Little Lamb?
Just because I'm mad at you
Don't mean I hate you
And just because I hate you
Don't mean I don't believe in you
And, just because I don't believe
Don't mean I don't need you
I need You
I need You
If I took you from your friends at dawn
Made you carry my load - made you my pawn
If I kicked and beat you - left marks on your back
Made you to die for all that I lack
Would you forgive me?
Would you forgive me?
Would you forgive me, my Little Lamb?
WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT ABOUT JERUSALEM ?Why do the nations so furiously rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing? (Thank you to Michael)
In 586 BCE, on 9 Av, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the First Temple. Two thousand five hundred fifty-three years later, on June 7, 1967 (28 Iyar 5727), during the Six-Day War, Israel regained control of Biblical east Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.For the first time in more than 2,000 years, Israel was in complete control of the entire city.Within a few days, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan gave control of the Temple Mount back to the Moslems, while maintaining Israeli sovereignty over it. Thirteen years later, Israel adopted its "basic law; Jerusalem" declaring, "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel".If the above had happened in any other nation, it wouldn't have garnered much attention from the rest of the world. But it didn't happen in just any other nation. It happened in the nation of Israel. Because of this, the entire world is in an uproar.On November 29, 1947 — six months before the declaration of the State of Israel — the United Nations passed Resolution 181. One of the main points of this Resolution was the establishment of Jerusalem as a "corpus separatum" ("body of separate covenant"). This means, basically, that the UN separated the city of Jerusalem from the rest of the world and created a separate covenant for it. This has never been done before in all of history. In 1950 the UN adopted the "Statute for the City of Jerusalem"setting forth the regulations for the administration of the city of Jerusalem by the United Nations. It would be an international city; it would not be linked to, or controlled by, any nation or government except the United Nations.Why would the world be so concerned with an ancient city like Jerusalem? It is located approximately 27 miles inland from the coast. It has no natural resources. Most of it is built upon the ruins of previous structures. What makes it so important that the United Nations would set it apart from any other city or nation in the entire world?The interesting aspect is that Jerusalem has never been important to the nations unless it was important to Israel. When Israel started to return to the Land in large numbers during the late 1800's, the nations began to stir. It was just a little more than 50 years later that the UN adopted its "Statute for the City of Jerusalem".The importance of Jerusalem lies in its spiritual aspect, not its physical makeup. It is a city that lives and responds to the Holy One of Israel. God declares to Ezekiel how He had mercy on Jerusalem, how He blessed her and made a covenant with her (Ezekiel 16.6-14).Jeremiah laments of her misery and suffering after God judged her (Lamentations 1.1-22). Yet God declared that He will not forget Jerusalem; He will establish an everlasting covenant with her (Ezekiel 16.60-63). Jerusalem is the center of the earth, according to the Lord (Ezekiel 5.5). Its very existence continually proves that there is a God and that He will judge every man and hold him accountable for his deeds.God has declared that Jerusalem is the place from which He will reign: "At that time they shall call Jerusalem 'The Throne of the Lord'" (Jeremiah 3.17a). It is to Jerusalem that Jesus will return in the Glory of the Father (Acts 1.11; see also Ezekiel 43.1-4). The Lord said He was "exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem" (Zechariah 1.14). Many of the prophets spoke of the Lord's return to Jerusalem. The Lord declared through Zechariah, "'I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it', declares the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 1.16a; see also Zechariah 2.12; 8.3 ). More than 4,000 years ago Abraham understood the importance of the city when he declared that Mount Moriah, in the midst of Jerusalem, would be "the place where God will be seen" (Genesis 22.14).Yet God also declared that Jerusalem would be a problem for the nations of the world:"Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it" (Zechariah 12.2-3). The Lord also gave warning of His judgment against those who come against Jerusalem:"And it will come about in that day that I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem" (Zechariah 12.9); "Now this will be the plague with which the L-rd will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth" (Zechariah 14.12).Jerusalem is important to the Holy One of Israel. It is the place that He has chosen to dwell in the midst of His creation. It is also the place where He will judge the nations.Does this scenario sound familiar? It should. It is happening in our very day. Literally all of the nations of the world are gathering against Israel. The line has been drawn in the sand. It is the people of the God of Israel standing against all the nations of the world. Whose side will you be on? This is not the time to be straddling the fence. Now is the time to make a stand. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for through her peace will come the peace of the world. Enter into the battle, put on the full armour of God. Stand and see the salvation of the Lord.[ Written by Lee Underwood :: Permission to reprint is granted with proper credit to author.]
Islamic Groups Impose Special Poll Tax (Jizya)On Christian "Subjects"I
slamic militias in Baghdad and Mosul order Christians to pay the jizya, a poll tax which dates back to the period of the Ottoman Empire, which guaranteed non Muslims the right to practise their religion as well as Muslim protection; the groups are ordered "not to reveal their activities" to Iraqi authorities while all contributions are given in alms to the Mosques. Baghdad (AsiaNews) – "Non Muslim subjects must pay a contribution to the jihad if they wish to be allowed to live and practise their faith in Iraq". These orders are being imposed on the Christians of Mosul and Baghdad by Islamic militias. Besides these threats of extortion, thousands of non Muslims are also being forced to leave their homes by letters assigning their house to Muslim citizens. The initiative is part of the general campaign to Islamafy the entire country, which begun with the imposition of the veil on all women. The website Ankawa.com was the first to carry news of this latest development; the website has eye witness accounts of Iraqi refugees in Erbil, in the semi autonomous region of Kurdistan. The fourth anniversary of the US military's arrival in Baghdad, March 20th 2003, brings with it little improvement in the conditions of the ever decreasing Christian community. Bomb attacks, kidnappings and threats continue to mark the daily existence of those few who so far have not been able to leave. The latest sign of the increasingly worrying situation is news that the community is now being forced to pay the jizya, a "poll tax" requested from non Muslims according to the Koran, guaranteeing "protection" form the Islamic umma. The tax was once extracted by the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1918, but now Baghdad and Mosul's Mosques have ordered it be put in place again, "without revealing it to authorities". According to local Christians it really is a contribution to the holy war, which – the jihad maintains - will also protect their community from external aggression. The monies collected are then given over to Mosques, but "without the knowledge of authorities". Other accounts tell of letters being left in gardens or the entrance to Christian homes, notifying the families that they must leave their dwellings because they have been assigned to others, whose names and surnames are listed in black and white in the letters.
A New European Femininty?Does that mean they'll start shaving their armpits and stuff?
Check it out:
A new wave of anti-feminism is taking hold of Germany. Former career women-turned-housewives are spreading the word about a "new femininity" which encourages women to stay at home and embrace motherhood.The anonymous letter makes for heartbreaking reading. "Dragging myself from job to job, I used to feel so useless. I wanted to be special but didn't know how -- I was neither fish nor flesh." For this angst-ridden career woman, salvation finally came in the full-bellied shape of motherhood. "With my husband and daughter at my side, I'm so happy and free now," she proclaims.What sounds like a scene out of a 1950s TV sitcom is in fact a letter written to Eva Herman, the German author of the controversial bestseller "The Eva Principle" ("Das Eva Prinzip"), sub-titled "Towards a New Femininity." The principle in question rests on a series of tenets so old-fashioned they seem almost revolutionary again: Motherhood instead of emancipation, child-rearing instead of career-climbing, devoted marriage instead of egoistic self-fulfillment. The 262 pages behind the pink cover of "The Eva Principle" are full of anti-feminist anger. Herman feels that nothing less than the survival of the country is at stake – Germans will "die out" if women don't change their behavior, she says. She sees herself as courageously breaking a "taboo" by criticizing women's liberation."Let's just say it loud," Herman writes. "We women have overburdened ourselves - we allowed ourselves to be too easily seduced by career opportunities." She recommends women exchange the cold sphere of work for the "colorful world of children" and discover their "destiny of nurturing the home environment."
America's Thankless JobFrom African Path:
The United States of America is a great country and she is doing immense positive things to people of all colours around the world. Nonetheless, America is still vilified, even by those you never expected. To refresh the memories of the many modern day Thomas, they might have seen or watch on their Television screens, from stations that cared to broadcast it, or read in papers that cared to print and publish, the sad but true stories from the north east African state of Egypt. It was the sad story of 20 Sudanese, killed some two years ago by Egyptian police men in Cairo. If those Sudanese were in the United States, the US Police won’t have treated them inhumanely as the Egyptian Police did. And yet, those calling the US all sorts of names were cherry picking the words to use to denounce the audacious atrocities of the Egyptians police force.
Interestingly or not, those Sudanese who were humiliated and 20 lost their dear lives, wanted to go to the United States, the land of freedom, equality and great expectations coated with hope. This simply means that, the US is not exactly a nightmarish country with devilish imperialist policies as Hugo Chavez, the demagogue president of Venezuela and others are portraying her to be. For if the US was reduced to only the negative things that sadly even some Americans and in chief, the Democrats are always claiming, people the world over will not be thronging to her, as it is currently the case. Even the hordes of Latin Americans who are now demonstrating on the George W. Bush tour of the region and are shamelessly and stupidly comparing him to Adolf Hitler, are in their numbers wanting to go the US.
Why is the US, in spite everything attractive? The answer is simple; it is mostly because of America’s unique charitable image abroad. But it is also this positive image of the US, which, many with malicious equanimity, wants to drag in the mud. Egyptians authorities are known to violate human rights with impunity and two years ago also, they did launched an operation code name: clear away all blacks, a discriminative policy hidden to the world by the syndicate of the dominant doom and gloom media, in part for fear of irritating a Muslim country, that is also renowned for persecuting its other minorities: the Christians.
Examples of US help to the Arabic and Islamic world
It spites all its flaws; Egypt remains a big beneficiary of American open-handedness. In genuine terms, the US offers tons of subsidised Wheat annually to the Egyptians and also bankrolled its Army to the tune of $ 1.8 billion yearly. Even so, walk down the streets of Cairo and you will cringe at the despicable things voiced out from the mouths of ordinary Egyptians against the US. However, they could be forgiven, for they are largely illiterates and thus easily manipulated. What is unacceptable though is that, the blackmail of the US also comes from the mouths of the clique despots ruling the country.
More so, the corrupt Egyptian ruling cliques are those really profiteering from American tax payer’s monies given them yearly, courtesy of the successive US governments (Democrats or Republicans). There are also some people who even go the extra mile of claiming that the US is against Muslims. A fallacy only propagated and supported by all those who want to see the back of America. To refresh their collective memories, they have to read honestly and they will discover that, if Algeria, a Muslim country located in North Africa is an independent state today, it is not because of the pressures the French received from the rag tag rebellion of the FLN (Front de liberation Nationale) also known as “Mojahedines”, it was the pressures that the US government mounted on the French government led by General Charles De Gaulle.
Any way, the records are there to proof that, the French paramilitary called the OAS and the French regular army, had by 1958 pacified Algeria and quelled the Algerian rebellion, led by the FLN. It was because of American pressure that, the French grudgingly gave up Algeria in 1962. In addition, if there is peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina today, which is a majority Muslim enclave in Eastern Europe, that the Serbs and Croats wanted crushed from 1992 , it is not because of the moribund European Union, it thanks to the US government. The country that stopped the combined Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956 after it was nationalised by Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser was still that of the United States.
However, in a world and region known to give hero status to manipulators and liars and death sentences to honest people, it was no surprise that, the man who self-styled himself as leader of pan Arabism, did transform all his failures into success. Without American pressure the Israeli Defence Force in 1973, would have driven the Egyptian Army to the Sudanese and Libyan borders. The list of US aid to Muslims and Muslim nations is too long and one wonders where some people find the effrontery to disparage the US. The other beneficiary of American generosity is kingdom of Jordan; she receives annually from the sum of US $ 1 billion direct financial aids. Do all these generosities look like the US is discriminative toward Muslims?
Even the kingdom of Saudi Arabia benefits from US generosity. Yet one America’s most lethal enemy is a Saudi native. The Saudi Kingdom is what she is today not because of Islam but because of American and British support. For records, the Americans are not helping because of Oil as a certain popular notions want the world to think and believe. Some 40 thousand and 30 thousand Americans and British expatriates are in the kingdom to run her economy without their presence; Saudi Arabia will go back to her medieval past.
Flabbergasted anti-Americanism
While ignoring firmly the ranting of pleasure seeking and freelance demonstration eager youths of Western Europe, who are ready to always go down the street to vent their anger against America, it is primordial to remind them that, without the Anglo-Americans help; they would have today been speaking German and languishing under Nazi millennia rule. Western European youths would do well to instead utter and focus their anger against their incompetent leaders, who love cows more than Human beings and who are not capable to give them jobs. Although there is no small anti-Americanism as some may want to think, the most irksome aspects of American hatred are those professed by some European politicians. One is always flabbergasted at the level of anti-Americanism in some western European countries (1). It is simply shocking to hear some Europeans leaders speak.
One of them was Gerhard Schroeder alias Mobutu who identifies well with Jacques Chirac in two or three things: their love for power, their hatred for America and their management deficiencies that have ruined the economies of their collective countries. The apologists of Mobutu Schroeder may deny, but his actions will certainly contradict even his most ardent fan. He was against the campaign to drive away the butcher of Baghdad from power, under clumsy reasons and used anti-American rhetoric to win elections. This is a man who had the courage to call Vladimir Putin the dictator president of the Russian Federation a flawless democrat. In making such declarations, Mobutu Schroeder was shameless ignoring the Russian atrocities in the break away Republic of Chechnya located in the Caucasus.
Ironically Mobutu Schroeder and his friend Vladimir Putin did challenged the Iraqi war, pretending that it will cause hardship, forgetting that during the 35 years of reign of Mr Saddam Hussein Al Tikiriti, Iraq was a laboratory of human right violations. Yet that type clairvoyance from Mr Schroeder was never placed or manifested against the governments of Russia and Sudan. The reason why Schroeder pampered the current Tsar of Russia has now been made clear. Less than a month after he painfully left office was offered the post of chairman of a Russian Oil/ Gas company called North West European Gas Pipeline Company. This company is currently building a $ 4 billion pipeline between Russia and Germany (2).
Has that news made headlines or any ripples in the Press? Had it been it was the wrong kind of American, that is a Republican or any person, who even had a hand shack with Mr Bush who got the current post of the former German chancellor; it would have made an earthquake in the Press. The US makes great effort to help the world and she is only supported by a divinely given friend called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But, with the coming up stream of Eastern European countries such as Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, the US will have new reliable allies. The US and UK governments are both united to bring peace and democracy in the Greater Middle East and the world over and also give hope to the hopeless. In all these good deeds people keep on whacking the US.
An indispensable World helper
Paradoxically, when America fails to act, there is an out cry. President Bush has made it very clear that, preventive action was the only remedy to stall tyrants and rogue states from endangering their neighbours and the world. It is in this light that, the Americans were ready to stop the Iranians and their desires to have the A bomb with the sole aim to destroy Israel. However, the Europeans or three countries within the European Union decided to parley with the Mullahs in Tehran, they had forgotten the adage: “spare the rod spoil the child”. Today Iran is defiant and has vowed to continue to develop the A bomb and also to destroy Israel. The other roguish state in the region with a tyrannical rule is Syria; her targeted killing of Christians and journalists of the same faith in Lebanon goes on unabated simply because America does not want to act.
When the US went to Afghanistan to flush out the medieval government of the Taliban there were some who cried, but now America wants to reduce her troops and have asked others to take up larger share of the responsibility, but there is an out cry. More France is even withdrawing her troops in Afghanistan. The lead vocalists against America are those so-called Peace activists who are in reality merchants of illusions who privately appreciate America but publicly decry and tarnishes her noble job around the world.
Tell a Shiite or Kurdish Iraqi or even a southern Sudanese to accept those audacious and odious statements peddle around against America, he/she will have the one uttering such statements for supper, for they know and appreciates the true loving America, that is ignored and ridiculed by some Liberals (US Democrats included) and Islamists today. America is a great country and it must be made known without any fear or shame.
French Jews Seek
Political Asylum
In United States
We are watching history repeat itself like a ghost living out the traumatic events of its life over and over again.
JTA "Following the barbarous murder of a young Jew because he was Jewish, in the context of the rise in anti-Semitic acts committed by Islamic fundamentalists, numerous members of the community no longer feel safe in France," reads the petition, which was sent to the U.S. Congress. The reference was to Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death last year by an anti-Semitic gang.
The petition asks Congress to enact a law according refugee status to French Jews. "We believe that the United States, known for its traditional welcome to those under threat in their native lands, must open its doors to us," the petition says. French communal officials reacted with outrage. "This petition is bizarre, stupid and out of place," Haim Musicant, director of CRIF, the umbrella organization of secular French Jewish groups, told Israel's Ma'ariv newspaper. "I don't feel threatened in France, and the authorities are doing everything they can to protect the Jewish community. French Jews don't need this kind of petition."
Will the United States lift its hands to help the Jews this time?
Evidence Points To "Dirty Bomb" PlotFrom Scott Wheeler (with thanks to Michael):
Adnan El Shukrijumah is a suspected al-Qaeda organizer who is the subject of a worldwide manhunt by the FBI and CIA. He is believed to be working on Osama bin Laden's plan to trigger a radiological disaster inside the United States - the so-called "dirty-bomb" scenario where a small charge would trigger dispersion of radiation over a large area, wreaking havoc on those caught in the blast and making the blast area uninhabitable. High-grade uranium is not necessary for this project; ordinary, low-grade nuclear waste will be deadly enough.El Shukrijumah has eluded capture. But Insight in field interviews has obtained evidence that he was spotted several times last year on the campus of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Now, subsequent to Insight's field investigation, news reports are saying that "an FBI source" has confirmed El Shukrijumah's presence. McMaster University is the site of a 5,000-watt research reactor, as well as the university hospital that routinely generates nuclear waste. It is alleged that some of that waste has gone missing, but McMaster has refused to confirm or deny that report to this magazine. Insight already had interviewed a confidential informant who tipped off the FBI about El Shukrijuma. The confidential informant tells Insight that El Shukrijumah "said he was a student" and had met with him "five or six times" in 2002, the last time in November. Months later, in March 2003, the confidential informant recognized El Shukrijumah's photograph on television and says, "I got sick to my stomach."According to the confidential informant, El Shukrijumah was "always alone," he "didn't talk much," but "said he was from the Middle East." The FBI lists El Shukrijumah's place of birth as Saudi Arabia, though the Saudi government denies that he is a citizen. On Sept. 5, the Saudi Embassy issued a statement that read, in part, "The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia again feels the need to correct the issue regarding the nationality of Mr. Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, wanted in connection with possible threats against the United States. ... Shukrijumah is not, and never has been, a Saudi citizen, as had been widely reported." The statement declared that the suspect's father, "Gulshai El Shukrijumah, worked in Saudi Arabia for 27 years as an expatriate employee until 1986. ... The father did not have Saudi citizenship." The FBI alerts state that "El Shukrijumah speaks English and carries a Guyanese passport, but may attempt to enter the U.S. with a Saudi, Canadian or Trinidadian passport." The Saudi Embassy statement repeats for emphasis that El Shukrijumah is "not a Saudi citizen and if he is traveling using a Saudi passport, then he has obtained it and is using it illegally."A well-placed source with ties to McMaster University tells Insight that in early May he was made aware of a concern on campus about "missing nuclear material" amounting to "82 or 86 kilos [180 or 189 pounds]." McMaster officials have been adroit in responding to Insight's inquiries about El Shukrijumah, saying they are not aware of a student by that name attending the university but declined to provide similar information about the suspect's aliases. The FBI alert lists El Shukrijumah's aliases as Abu Arif, Ja'far Al-Tayar, Jaffar Al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar and Jaafar Al-Tayyar. Jayne Johnston, a university spokeswoman, admits that "these are very serious allegations," involving as they do the possibility of missing nuclear material. She says "the media focus comes back to us to ask what truth is there to these allegations. Well none that we are aware of. ... We don't have that information to provide." While addressing concerns about the nuclear reactor, she sidestepped the issue of security over and losses of radioactive material on campus.This presents U.S. and Canadian security with a nuclear scare of the most likely sort. The raw byproduct of a nuclear reactor or the waste from nuclear medicine is not sufficiently concentrated to create a nuclear chain reaction for an atomic explosion, but radiological waste is a threat as part of what commonly is called a "dirty bomb." A report on terrorism issued by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) describes a dirty bomb as "a radiological weapon" created from "a conventional explosive such as dynamite packaged with radioactive material that scatters when the bomb goes off." The explosion, according to the report, "kills or injures through the initial blast of the conventional explosive and by airborne radiation and contamination, hence the term 'dirty.'" Peter M. Leitner, president of the Higgins Counter-Terrorism Research Foundation, tells Insight that the threat of a dirty bomb is "enormous." And, he says, "The materials are not hard to get - it is available at hospitals, X-ray clinics and industrial sites." As a terror weapon designed both to kill and to create panic it is very nasty indeed [see "Searching for 'Dirty Bombs,'" Jan. 21-Feb. 3].This leads back to McMaster University, which now has denied to Canada's National Post that there is any nuclear material missing from its reactor. The newspaper quotes Dave Tucker, a physicist "who manages radiation safety for the university," as saying there is no indication that any nuclear material is unaccounted for. According to Tucker, "There is a very small number of people who have access to our nuclear facilities and we know who they are and we know that [El Shukrijumah] isn't one of them. There are few enough that we know personally the people who have unescorted access to the reactor." It is important to note the distinction being made between missing radioactive material and material missing from the university's nuclear reactor. There also is radioactive waste on the campus in areas other than the reactor, such as the School of Nuclear Medicine. However, university officials and local police respond to questions about the potential loss of medical radiological waste with answers about the security of the reactor - a separate matter.An official of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission told Insight that there were no "reports of any significant material" missing from the McMaster School of Nuclear Medicine.According to Leitner, access to the reactor is not necessary to obtain components for a dirty bomb. "They can have a full accounting of the material used to fire the reactor," he says, "but that wouldn't include items that are irradiated." This could include radiated material used in hospitals such as the McMaster University School of Medicine. Officials for the university, however, dodged Insight's questions about missing radiated medical waste.The CFR report states that such radioactive substances are not always well-guarded. The report says, "The [International Atomic Energy Agency] notes that virtually every country has radioactive substances that could be used to make dirty bombs." It cites a U.N. report stating that "Iraq tested a one-ton radiological bomb in 1987 but gave up on the idea because the radiation levels it generated were not deadly enough."But U.S. authorities analyzing this information may find a terrorist-threat trifecta in El Shukrijumah, says a terror specialist. In addition to the sighting of the suspect in Hamilton and the hint of missing nuclear material from McMaster, El Shukrijumah was being sought for questioning because his name came up in documents belonging to senior al-Qaeda figure Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal terrorist deputy to Osama bin Laden. Mohammed was apprehended in Pakistan last spring and is believed personally to have cut the throat of captive Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in February 2002. A Cable News Network report last March stated that "Mohammed identified El Shukrijumah as one of his deputies, according to sources." That same report said federal authorities had linked El Shukrijumah to José Padilla, an American converted to Islam who was arrested last May and is suspected of being involved in an al-Qaeda plot to explode a radioactive bomb inside the United States. As Time magazine reported in July, "The FBI believes that al-Qaeda recruiters are aggressively enrolling youths ... with U.S., Canadian or Western European passports and good command of the English language and the North American interior." Time quotes outgoing counterterrorism chief Larry Mefford as saying that al-Qaeda is "refocusing its efforts" to recruit "disaffected Americans, green-card holders and Muslims who had spent time in the U.S. as students or visitors" with good English skills and a "working knowledge of American society and culture." Both El Shukrijumah and Padilla fit that profile, say Insight sources. Federal authorities believe the two first met while residing in Pembroke, Fla.
The Pagan Fetish Of Pacifism
FOUR YEARS INFour years in. An inch of time.
Four years in and the foolish and credulous among us yearn to get out. Their feelings require it. The power of their Holy Gospel of
"Imagine" compels them.
Their overflowing pools of compassion for the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women working quietly at their desks, rise and flood their minds until their eyes flow with crocodile tears while their mouths emit slogans made of cardboard.
They believe the world is run on wishes and that they will always have three more.
Like savages shambling about some campfire where all there is to eat are a few singed tubers, they paint their faces with the tatterdemalion symbols of a summer long sent down to riot with the worms. They clasp hands and sing songs whose lyrics are ash. "We shall... over... come." Overcome what, overcome who? Overcome their own nation? Is that their dream? It is the lifelong dream of those that lead them, that much is certain.
Four years in and we see these old rotting rituals trotted out in the streets like some pagan procession of idols and shibboleths, like some furred and feathered fetish shaken against the sky by hunkering witch-doctors, to hold back the dark, to frighten off the evil spirits and graven images that trouble the sleep of the dreamers.
Four years into the most gentle war ever 
fought, a war fought on the cheap at every level, a war fought to avoid civilian harm rather than maximize it. Picnic on the grass at Shiloh. Walk the Western Front. Speak to the smoke of Dresden. Kneel down and peek into the ovens of Auschwitz. Sit on the stones near ground zero at Hiroshima and converse with the shadows singed into the wall. Listen to those ghost whisperers of war.
Ayaan Hirsi AliHere's a quote from one of my heroes, the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali (with thanks to
Hip Hop Republican):
"Colonisation and slavery have created a sentiment of culpability in the West that leads people to adulate foreign traditions. This is a lazy, even racist attitude."– Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali-Dutch moderate-conservative feminist and vocal critic of Islam
Shut Up,
Europe
By Michael Freund
Even for a continent with such a dishonorable record of appeasement, Europe has been outdoing itself. For the first time in more than two years European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will pay a visit this week to President Bashar Assad at one of his numerous palaces, marking a resumption of high-level EU contact with the Dictator of Damascus.
And what exactly has Mr. Assad done to deserve this diplomatic prize? Let's see. His track record includes the murder of political opponents, allowing foreign fighters to traverse Syria and join the insurgency in Iraq and playing host to terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Assad regime is believed to have orchestrated the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri; it has funneled arms and financial support to a cast of nasty characters including Hizbullah, and it has openly threatened to wage war against the Jewish state.
Syria's government also continues to suppress the most basic and fundamental rights of its citizens, and it has been steadily building up a military arsenal bristling with chemical warheads.
So how exactly have Europe's guardians of civilization decided to respond to Assad and his appalling record of behavior? By rewarding him, of course.
It doesn't seem to matter one whit to Solana that he will be sipping tea and exchanging pleasantries in Damascus with a man who has arguably done more than any other head of state to sow chaos in the Middle East over the past 24 months.
And if that weren't enough, the EU diplomat will likely fawn all over his host, pleading with him to play a "more constructive role" in the region, as if such blather is likely to convince an autocrat like Assad to stop causing trouble.
Read it all
Necessary
Permission
By Husband
Women are not human beings with the right to make their own decisions in Islam. Instead, they are the property of their husbands. Depending upon how strictly the husband decides to deal with his property,
women move up and down the sliding scale of slavery:
Women in Islamic Society — 13: Necessary Permission by Husband
Dr. Abd Al-Haleem Abu Shuqqah
Islamic propriety and decency also requires that long and repeated meetings between men and women should be avoided, as happens when frequent visits of relatives and friends last several hours, or when men and women meet all day long at the workplace, even though each of them is attending to their jobs.
Although these conditions are not included in any statement of the Qur’an or the Hadith, they should be observed. The point here is that when such repeated and long meetings become frequent, it becomes difficult to observe Islamic manners such as looking decently at the other person and maintaining seriousness in conversation and propriety of movement. These are required of both men and women when they meet.
Therefore, to implement the rule of closing doors leading to what is prohibited, it is advisable to refrain from such long and repeated meetings, unless the nature of one’s job requires such frequent meetings, either for discussion or cooperation in completing certain tasks. In this case, there is no harm in meeting frequently, provided that people maintain their guard. Needless to say, people who are preoccupied with their jobs have no time for distractions, which in turn helps them to maintain propriety.
All this comes within the overall requirement that Muslims, men and women, should steer away from all indecency, committed publicly or privately. God says in the Qur’an: “Do not commit any shameful deed, whether open or secret.” (6: 151) He also says: “Abstain from all sin, be it open or secret. Those who commit sins will be requited for what they have committed.” (6: 120)
We have so far explained the standard of manners that both men and women should observe. A special requirement applied only to the Prophet’s wives when they met men. Such a meeting should be from behind a screen. God says in the Qur’an: “When you ask the Prophet’s wives for something, do so from behind a screen.” (33: 53) This screening applied only to the Prophet’s wives. It merits a special discussion which we may publish later, God willing.
In addition, certain standards are required of women in particular. The first is that they should always wear clothes that fit with the standards of decency. God says in the Qur’an: “Tell believing women... not to display their charms except what may ordinarily appear thereof. Let them draw their head-coverings over their bosoms.” (24: 31) “Prophet! Say to your wives, daughters and all believing women that they should draw over themselves some of their outer garments.” (33: 59) “Do not display your charms as they used to display them in the old days of pagan ignorance.” (33: 33)
A number of Hadiths speak about decency when women go out.
Umm Atiyyah mentions that she asked the Prophet when he ordered women to attend the Eid prayer: “Is a woman excused from attending if she has no outer garment to wear? He said: “Let her friend lend her an outer garment.” (Related by Al-Bukhari and Muslim.) Fatimah bint Qays quotes the Prophet as saying to her: “I hate that your head covering should drop, or that your dress should be lifted to expose your legs and thus people would see of you what you would dislike them to see.”
I actually live by some of these rules in my own personal life. I do not go to the home of a woman whose husband is away and spend time with her alone. I wouldn't do that, because I do not want to invite unncecessary temptation into my life.
However, I made the decision to live in this manner of my own free will, and I do not require that my wife adopt my rules. She is free to do as she pleases.
In Islam, a woman is free only to do as her husband pleases. What do you think of that ladies? Are you ok with the idea that your gender are virtual slaves throughout much of the world?
A European
Declaration
Of Independence
After the death last Sunday of Rinie Mulder, a 54-year old indigenous Dutchman who was shot by a police officer, non-immigrant citizens went on a rampage in Utrecht. Apparently Mulder intervened when Muslim youths harassed a pregnant native Dutch woman. Locals claim the police has failed to protect them for years. They say the authorities are afraid of the immigrants and tolerate their criminal behavior.
This issue is not just about Utrecht or Holland. Similar resentment against Muslim immigrants, but at least as much against their own authorities, is quietly brewing among the natives all over Western Europe.
It is insulting that two thirds of the Dutch, one of the founding members of the European community, voted against the proposed EU Constitution, and yet EU leaders will apparently
just ignore this and force their massively undemocratic Constitution down people's throats anyway. The German Presidency wants EU leaders to agree on a text for a new treaty by February 2008. The label 'Constitution' is to be dropped, in order to avoid further referendums.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso expressed unease with the prospect of a second Dutch constitution referendum. "Referendums make the process of approval of European treaties much more complicated and less predictable," he said "If a referendum had been held on the creation of the European Community or the introduction of the Euro, do you think these would have passed?" Although the EU warns against "Islamophobia," those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the Middle East are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries.
Jonathan Friedman, an American living in Sweden, mentions that the so-called Integration Act of 1997 proclaimed that "Sweden is a Multicultural society." The Act implicitly states that Sweden doesn't have a history, only the various ethnic groups that live there. Native Swedes have been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. As Friedman puts it: "In Sweden, it's almost as if the state has sided with the immigrants against the Swedish working class." Sadly, it is likely inevitable that we will have to see some European governments toppled by their own people before the governments begin to recognize that their first duty is the protection of their own citizenry.
I like that Fjordman is putting out the idea of a European Declaration of Independence.
Back when I was working on the Infidel Bloggers Alliance (which, by the way, I will likely start up again) I ran the following, as our constant headline:
The Parallel Government of the Entire World - All of us, every single man, woman, and child across the face of the Earth were born endowed by our Creator with the same unalienable rights; to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, if the governments of the world can't get that through their thick skulls, then regime change will be necessary.
I had Europe in mind when I wrote that. I am happy to see that the people of Europe are beginning to take matters into their own hands. Lord knows, they can't expect their governments to do it for them.
For God's sake.
The Infidel Radio ShowFeaturing Pastorius and the Fu2rman.
Click here to listen.This week's highlights include:
1) The Ask The Imam Show - for some inexplicable reason the Imam segues directly from a nuanced theological discussion of Wudhu - the Islamic purification ritual - directly into an admonishment about the dangers of passing gas during the course of Wudhu. Somehow, the two subjects seem linked in the Imam's mind. Hear what happens when I try to get the Imam to make sense.
2) Interview with Christian writer John McTernan, author of the astonihing book As America Has Done To Israel. Mr. McTernan discusses Bible Prophecy and the punishments that will befall those who curse the Jews.
3) Interview with Horst Schweinhaxe of the Council of American-Nazi Relations (CANR). Horst discusses the oppressive and racist treatment his six Nazi friends received when they visited the Holocaust Museum.
Hope you enjoy the show.
New LogoMy friend Michael made this for me. What do you think?
Gandhi's Way Is Not The American WayThis is written by former actor and U.S. Senator, and possible Presidential candidate, Fred Thompson:
I feel bad for Nancy Pelosi, AND her neighbors. Anti-war activists from the group Code Pink have been giving her the same treatment the president gets at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Camping on her San Francisco lawn, they’re demanding she cut off funds to the troops in Iraq. Besides coolers and mattresses, protesters have brought along a giant paper mache statue of Mahatma Gandhi, who is pretty much the symbol of the anti-war movement. Code Pink was founded on his birthday, and when Saddam Hussein was being given a last chance to open Iraq to U.N. weapons inspectors, posters appeared around America asking “What would Gandhi do?”And that’s a pretty good question. At what point is it okay to fight dictators like Saddam or the al Qaeda terrorists who want to take his place? It turns out that the answer, according to Gandhi, is NEVER. During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” “Collective suicide,” he told his biographer, “would have been heroism.”The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi’s way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won’t cut it in this country. When American’s think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Gandhi probably wouldn't approve, but I can live with that.
The Sleeping Giant Of Christian Zionism Has AwakenedAnd mere anarchy shall be loosed upon the world. LOL!
What rough beast, its hour come round at last:
'The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. There are 50 million Christians standing up and applauding the State of Israel." So began a speech by Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United For Israel, before an AIPAC Policy Conference plenary earlier this week. His address may not have received as much media attention as those by Richard Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu. It should have, however, because it could herald a critical new stage in the American-Israeli relationship. The speech certainly did not lack clarity. "It is 1938," Hagee said, "Iran is Germany, and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler. We must stop Iran's nuclear threat and stand boldly with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East." Neither, however, did he mince words regarding what any Jewish audience cannot help thinking when hearing such unabashed support from a Christian leader. Hagee noted that those who committed the Holocaust were "baptized Christians ... in good standing with their Church." He continued: "Today I humbly ask forgiveness of the Jewish people for every act of anti-Semitism, and the deafening silence of Christians in your greatest hour of need, during the Holocaust. We were not there. We cannot change the past, but together we can shape the future. Think of our potential future together: 50 million evangelicals joining in common cause with 5 million Jewish people in America on behalf of Israel is a match made in heaven." The AIPAC audience granted Hagee multiple standing ovations. The Jewish people, some surely thought, has been waiting two millennia to hear such unalloyed words of contrition and support, and they could not have come at a more propitious time. Understandably, offers of Christian assistance will continue to be met with a considerable degree of wariness. History aside, Jews and evangelical Christians are perhaps the ultimate "Odd Couple" -- culturally, religiously, politically and even geographically. If all these obstacles are not enough, there is also Jewish concern regarding Christian motives, concern that necessitates careful consideration in building relationships. First, there is the suspicion that evangelicals, as their name implies, are out to convert Jews. Second, that their support is colored by doctrines of "rapture" and the apocalypse, in which a catastrophic global war plays an important part. In a Jerusalem Post interview last year, Hagee responded that a growing majority of evangelicals no longer preach replacement theology - the doctrine that Christianity has replaced the Jewish people in the plans of God. As for himself, Hagee said further, "I do not target Jews for conversion." Nonetheless, he stressed, "If you come into my church, you are asking to hear my witness of Jesus Christ and you're going to get it, wide open." "What is going to happen when Jesus comes back?" Hagee said, touching on the second sensitive point. "I say to my rabbi friends: 'You don't believe it; I do believe it. When we're standing in Jerusalem, and the Messiah is coming down the street, one of us is going to have a major theological adjustment to make. But until that time, let's walk together in support of Israel and in defense of the Jewish people." Hagee reports that CUFI now has 13 regional directors, 40 state directors, 80 city directors, and is aiming to organize in every Congressional district. After only four months in operation, CUFI brought 3,500 members to Washington, DC to lobby Congress last July. That is already over half the size of the AIPAC conference, and the numbers are growing quickly. The objective, Hagee told AIPAC, is to signal to Congress that American support for Israel "is no longer just a Jewish issue, but a Christian-Jewish issue from this day forward." The political importance and value of such a transformation, if successful, is difficult to overstate. Jews and evangelicals will never agree on many issues, but the one on which they do agree is of overwhelming importance. It is natural, given history, that Jews are wary even of a hand outstretched in friendship, and caution is justified. The Jewish people, however, cannot afford, and arguably does not have the right, to simply dismiss a significant potential ally.
Hirsi Ali On The Bill Maher ShowThis is quite an incredible video, but not for the reasons you might expect. First, of course, Hirsi Ali is articulate and a great spokesperson for the counter-Jihad, as always. But, the truly amazing things about this video are
1) finding that Bill Maher actually seems to have a bit of a grip on the real world
and
2) the blood pressure raising moment when U.S. Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) actually makes the insane claim that there is no Islamic extremism in the Palestinian territories.
Oh my God, I thought I was going to have a heart attack on the spot.
Anyway, watch the video.
Two More Generals Disappear In IranUPDATED AT BOTTOM OF POST
And, apparently,
"dozens of Revolutionary Guards" have defected as well:
Three weeks ago the Iranian armed forces command in Teheran lost contact with a senior officer who had been serving in Iraq with the al-Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to a senior Iranian official cited in the Wednesday edition of the London-based Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.The Iranian source said that it is still unclear why contact with the officer, Colonel Amir Muhammad Shirazi, was lost. “It is possible that the American forces in Iraq arrested him along with a group of 13 Iranian military and intelligence officials,” he said, adding that this is just one of the scenarios being investigated by Tehran.Allah says:
No surprise that Tehran isn’t playing this one up like it has with Asgari, as it would amount to an admission that the Quds Force is operating in Iraq. Writing for Newsmax, Ken Timmerman says he’s hearing from his sources that Shirazi was in fact captured by the U.S. — in December, though, much earlier than Asharq claims, and in southern Iraq, where American troops aren’t operating.But that’s a detail. Timmerman’s got a bigger story to break:In recent days, intelligence circles in Tehran have been awash with rumors of a second high-level defection to the Americans of a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Seyed Mohammad Soltani.Gen. Soltani is a career intelligence officer, who took over as head of the Persian Gulf bureau of Rev. Guards intelligence in October 2006. On February 8 – just one day after Gen Asgari disappeared in Istanbul – Gen. Soltani traveled to Bandar Abbas [Iran’s largest port, home to the Revolutionary Guard’s largest naval base], where he was scheduled to inspect an intelligence listening post. Instead, he vanished…So far, the official media in Tehran has not mentioned Gen. Soltani’s alleged disappearance and defection. But NewsMax sources in Tehran said that his wife and two children have also disappeared, and that the Rev. Guards searched his house in the Amirieh district of Tehran searched on Feb. 11…Gen. Soltani was known as “Engineer Mousavi” within Rev. Guards intelligence, and has intimate knowledge of foreign intelligence operations, especially in Iraq and in other Persian Gulf countries, Newsmax sources in Iran said.Go read the rest at Hot Air.
UPDATE:
From Roger Simon:
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that a Tehran military court sentenced to death a colonel in Iranian military intelligence who recently returned from service in Iraq. The officer was accused of collaborating with American forces and providing them with details on the deployment and activities of the al-Quds unit and Iranian military intelligence operatives. He was also accused of providing the Americans with classified documents, photographs and maps related to Iran's nuclear program and armed forces.Roger says:
Say what? If this report is true, it means the Iranians are virtually admitting they are infiltrating inside Iraq. Otherwise, why the trial? Will this come up in the Congress today? Would you like to bet? Perhaps we should administer basic information tests to our representatives. But the results might be terrifying.
House GOP Leadership Taking On CAIRThe House GOP leadership is taking on the "moderate Muslim organization" (sometimes also called the terrorist front group) the
Council of American-Islamic Relations (from Atlas Shrugs):
House GOP challenges Muslim meeting in Capitol By S.A. Miller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
House Republicans yesterday called on majority leaders to rescind their invitation to allow the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- an organization that refuses to disavow terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah -- to meet today in the Capitol. "Americans ought to be troubled that the new Democratic majority is agreeing to face-to-face meetings in the Capitol with apologists for suicide bombers," said Ed Patru, spokesman for the House Republican Conference. The conference said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, should cancel CAIR's forum titled "Global Attitudes on Islam-West Relations: U.S. Policy Implications," which is scheduled for this afternoon in a basement conference room. "Ultimately what happens in the Capitol is the speaker's responsibility," Mr. Patru said. "She ought to make it clear that groups that refuse to condemn the tactics of Hezbollah and Hamas don't get meeting spaces in the People's House." Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey Democrat, reserved the room for CAIR despite the group's spotty record on terrorism, The Washington Times reported yesterday. Calls for comment were not returned by Mrs. Pelosi or other Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, who both previously spoke out against CAIR.
A Little Girl
Interviewed On
Palestinian TV
EU Backs Returning Golan Heights To SyriaThe time for compromise with viciously anti-Semitic thugs is over. The Bush Adminitration and the EU are setting their respective countries up for failure by supporting such idiotic policy (from the Jerusalem Post):
EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said on Wednesday that Europe supported Syria's plans to get back the Golan Heights. Following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Solana said at a press conference that "we are interested in working for your country to return to itself the territories that were captured in [the 1967 war]." In what was the first high-level visit by an EU official to Syria in more than two years,Solana met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa earlier Wednesday morning and discussed the Lebanese crisis. Syria, through its state-run press, welcomed Solana's visit as a good move "after a long absence." Solana came to Syria as on final stop of a three-nation attempt to mediate an end to the crisis in Lebanon, where the Hizbullah-led opposition has staged three months of mass protests in a bid to topple the government. In Lebanon on Monday, where he began his mediating, Solana said he hoped his trip to Damascus would help spur an improvement in relations between the EU and Syria, but he added that Syrian policies had to change. "In order to resume the relationship, we have to have a frank and sincere discussion about things that can change ... and we have to see how the behavior of our friends in Syria may change," Solana said. He did not elaborate, but EU member states have criticized Syria for its role in Lebanon, where it is seen as undermining the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and is suspected of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. European governments also fault Syria for being the major patron of Hizbullah, whose abduction of two IDF soldiers last July sparked a 34-day war with the Jewish state, and for hosting Palestinian terrorists opposed to the peace process. "Solana's visit to Damascus is a big and important step on the road to repairing two years' of damage in Arab-EU relations," said the official Syrian newspaper Tishrin said in an editorial Wednesday. "Syria is receiving Solana with a lot of openness and a readiness to hear what he has to say as an EU envoy." Solana visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, where he discussed Lebanon with the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, in Riyadh. He is expected to return to Europe late Wednesday.
"The Lord Brings The Counsel Of The Nations To Nothing"From Stan Good (with thanks to Olivia):
The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.The counsel of the LORD stands forever,The plans of His heart to all generations.Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.(Psalm 33:10-12)
Well, they certainly are straining to push out Palestine, and with increasing desperation. The international community is employing every conceivable approach and strategy to implement the next stage of the ”land-for-peace” process that will see another great chunk of the land God gave to the Jews stolen to grease the oil-and blood-stained Arab hands.
And, come to think of it, the Quartet midwife does constitute a formidable force:
There is Christian United States of American President George W. Bush, the most powerful man in the world, principal visionary and sponsor of the two-state-solution, aided by powerhouse Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a lady keen to leave her particular mark on the history of this region.
Then there is the secular-humanist and arrogant foreign policy chief Javier Solana, primary pusher for the United States of Europe – the continent with the longest and most sordid history of antisemitism, a prejudice that remains as pervasive as ever from England and France through Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland and Italy.
We have Putin-the-Terrible, Russia’s new Czar-in-the-making and “former” KGB thug – who is expensively arming Israel’s enemies (and bumping off his own) even as he adds his increasingly influential weight to the political pressure on Israel.
And green to the scene, but clearly well-briefed, is United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who “within the month” plans to visit Israel and the “Palestinian Authority” in order to “save” the peace process.
Enthusiastically assisting these parties at the birthing stool with helpful declarations and provocative demands is Britain’s soon-to-be-former Prime Minister Tony Blair, France’s apparently ever-living pro-Arab president Jacques Chirac, Lady-in-waiting for the White House Hilary Clinton, peacenik extra-ordinary Jimmy Carter, and a host of less significant, but no less dedicated [to Israel’s dissection], leaders around the world.
Divided about so many things, these nations, blocs and individuals have common ground in their resolve to see Palestine – so long a political fantasy and never a historical reality – born as soon as possible onto the world stage.
And it hardly helps, having weak Israelis – Jews like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and, of course, the country’s eminence gris, Shimon Peres, enthusiastically anticipating the arrival of this monstrosity: another Muslim Arab state whose religion and nationalism (which is really one and the same thing) will immediately bond it integrally with the Islamic effort to rid “its” Middle East of this hated race.
One way or another, these leaders are convinced – and from their perspective how could they be otherwise? – their “solution” will come into being.
Never mind that the great majority of the Palestinian Arabs have repeatedly stated that they have no intention of “living side-by-side in peace” alongside what would be left of Israel. The world has determined how it will be, and with their combined and irresistible power will move heaven and earth to make it so.
Well earth, maybe.
Heaven, however, will not be moved. Heaven has decreed a different future for the Land and People of Israel from the “vain thing” plotted by the Gentile nations. And no matter how many or how prevailing these nations may be, to Him Who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, they are “as a drop in the bucket and counted as small dust on the scales;” their people “like grasshoppers” in His sight.
Go read the whole thing.
Quardumun The Arabic word here is "Quardomun"; which means "We are coming".
Note the Saudi Flag on the Al Qaeda fighter...
also the nuke over Jerusalem.
These guys live in the United States!
Click on picture to enlarge.
Russia Delays Iranian Nuclear PlantThis story sounds like good news on the face of it, but Putin is such a Machiavellian that I don't believe it for a second.
Read the story, and I'll tell you what I think at the end of the post:
MOSCOW - The state-run Russian company building Iran's first nuclear power plant said Monday that the reactor's launch will be postponed because of Iranian payment delays.Russian media reports, meanwhile, indicated that the Kremlin was growing tired of Iran's nuclear defiance in the face of U.N. Security Council sanctions, with three agencies citing an unidentified official warning Iran to cooperate and stop playing "anti-American games."Russia, which has remained close to Iran even as the Islamic republic defied international demands to stop enriching uranium and answer questions about its nuclear program, has accused Iran of paying only a fraction of the $25 million monthly payments for construction work at the Bushehr reactor in recent months. Officials have warned that the funding delays would push back both the launch — originally planned for September — and the delivery of the uranium fuel needed to power the reactor."It will be impossible to launch the reactor in September, and there can be no talk about supplying fuel this month," Atomstroiexport said in a statement that followed the collapse of bilateral talks last week on the funding dispute. It accused the Iranians of failing to give a written obligation to resume funding for the project.Iran has urged Russia to speed up the fuel delivery, but Russian officials said it would only be delivered six months before the plant's launch.In a signal that Russia could be close to yielding to Western push for stronger sanctions, Russian news agencies reported Monday that the country's support for Iran could end if it continues to ignore international demands to freeze enrichment.ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA-Novosti all carried identical remarks by an unidentified official, who warned that Iran must answer the U.N. nuclear watchdog's queries about its nuclear program, which the United States and others say is aimed at building an atomic bomb.Russia's leadership often uses remarks by anonymous sources to convey its position on sensitive issues.Ok, so my theory is that Russia is simply threatening stronger sanctions as a way to get Iran to make their payments in a more timely manner.
Simple, huh?
I don't think any help will be forthcoming from Russia on the Iranian Nuclear front.
Nobody Is Suffering More Than The Palestinian People?Barack Obama is very charismatic, and a very good public speaker. Additionally, he strikes me as a man without a moral compass. Check this out:
Muscatine, Ia. - Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday told a small
group of Iowa Democrats that U.S. policy in the Middle East can be
compassionate as well as tough - while he also provided these
influential voices in the leadoff caucus state with an up-close view of
him as a presidential candidate.
Obama told the Muscatine-area
party activists that he supports relaxing restrictions on aid to the
Palestinian people. He said they have suffered the most as a result of
stalled peace efforts with Israel.
"Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," Obama said while on the final leg of his weekend trip to eastern Iowa.
No one is suffering more than the Palestinian people? Not the Sudanese who are being killed in a brutal genocide? Not the North Koreans who are being slowly starved to death by their own government in a country which is little more than a large concentration camp at this point?
And, has it occurred to Obama that his loose language here does not acknowledge the fact that the world, including Israel, has been helping to fund the Palestinian regime for years on end? That they have been given a chance to form a working government, to build businesses, to educate their children, and that instead of doing so they have squandered it all on providing their entire population with a 24 hour a day curriculum of Jew-hatred.
Yes, the Palestinian people are suffering alright. They are choking themselves to death on their own hatred of Jews.
Borat
I bought the movie Borat last night and watched most of it. It is a relentlessly negative movie, and as someone had warned me, it is perhaps the most raunchy mainstream movie to date.
It also very funny.
I think his main point (I guess I can't know for sure without seeing the ending) is that human beings are not nearly as civilized as they appear to be. In fact, he portrays Borat and and his friend Azymath as acting, basically, like animals. In portraying himself this way, he brings out the animal nature in many of the people he deals with.
He fails to do so with the Jewish people who own the Bed and Breakfast, and with an Etiquette group that he has dinner with.
Both times he fails I think he does so because the people got the joke.
The Jewish people just played along with him, and the etiquette crowd were offended. And, who can blame them? (At one point he comes down from a trip to the restroom holding a plastic bag full of his own feces, and begins to ask what he should do with it.) They had gone so out of their way to be understanding of him and he just basically abused their trust.
By the way, when I say the movie is relentlessly negative, I do not mean to say that its portrayal of human beings is inaccurate. I do think it is a rather thin veneer of civilization that most of us carry around with ourselves.
However, I think it is important to note that the two groups of people who did see through him, and refused to treat him badly were people who had been raised on the Bible; the Word of God.
I think the only hope we have for raising ourselves above the level of animals is to behave according to strict moral principles. By strict, I mean that humans must decide what they believe in and not back down on those principles even when they do not seem to be practical, even when they do not seem to be working.
It seems to me that America itself is evidence of this fact. We have become the great nation we are because of our Judeo-Christian value system. Israel has turned, what was a desert, into a productive nation (albeit, one with few natural resources) because Israel, for the most part, acts according to its Jewish value system.
I think it is important to note that Sasha Cohen, the genius behind the Borat character, is a religious Jew. He observes Sabbath so strictly that he will not talk on the phone, among other things.
I believe he knew full well what he was doing with this movie. I think he managed to accomplish his task without being preachy. I don't think he trusts American Fundamentalist Christians (many Jews don't - although they would be wise to realize that American Fundies are the best friends they have) and that is why I think he was so intensely hard on the etiquette crowd.
It was actually painful to watch that scene. I felt bad for those people. To my mind, they truly didn't deserve such treatment.
I think Sasah Cohen does humor the same way my cohorts and I do our "Infidel Radio" Program. That is, he does it to serve a larger purpose.
There are some comedians who were just kind of born comedians. I am not that. I do comedy because I think it is effective. I love comedy. I love doing comedy, but the reason I am spending my time on it is because I think it is effective.
A guy I correspond with says he thinks the positions the Left take on issues these days are so fundamentally irrational, and so based on trying to make themselves feel good about themselves, rather than upon logic, that they really can't be dealt with using rational argument. He said he came to the conclusion several years ago that ridicule is the only way to deal with such irrationality.
It seems to me a combination of ridicule and sober talk is probably the most effective.
The ability to switch back and forth between reasoned argument and adept comedy is, I believe, pretty disarming. This is not what Sasha Baron Cohen does. Instead, he endlessly hits you over the head with humor which reveals the dark, primal side of humanity.
The movie is worth seeing, and it is especially worth considering the worldview which it portrays.
Who would expect such a humorless review of such a funny movie, huh?
Great Moments In The History Of ProtestantismWho said this:
... set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues.Answer
here.
Oh yeah, we the Protestant Church have a lot to be proud of, huh?
That Old Piece Of ClothFrom Frank Miller (the official contemporary writer of the Batman comic books, and of the new movie "300"), via This I Believe:
That Old Piece of ClothI was just a boy in the 1960s. My adolescence wasn't infused with the civil rights struggle or the sexual revolution or the Vietnam War, but with their aftermath.My high school teachers were ex-hippies and Vietnam vets. People who protested the war and people who served as soldiers. I was taught more about John Lennon than I was about Thomas Jefferson.Both of my parents were World War II veterans. FDR-era patriots. And I was exactly the age to rebel against them.It all fit together rather neatly. I could never stomach the flower-child twaddle of the '60s crowd and I was ready to believe that our flag was just an old piece of cloth and that patriotism was just some quaint relic, best left behind us.It was all about the ideas. I schooled myself in the writings of Madison and Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. I came to love those noble, indestructible ideas. They were ideas, to my young mind, of rebellion and independence, not of idolatry.But not that piece of old cloth. To me, that stood for unthinking patriotism. It meant about as much to me as that insipid peace sign that was everywhere I looked: just another symbol of a generation's sentimentality, of its narcissistic worship of its own past glories.Then came that sunny September morning when airplanes crashed into towers a very few miles from my home and thousands of my neighbors were ruthlessly incinerated—reduced to ash. Now, I draw and write comic books. One thing my job involves is making up bad guys. Imagining human villainy in all its forms. Now the real thing had shown up. The real thing murdered my neighbors. In my city. In my country. Breathing in that awful, chalky crap that filled up the lungs of every New Yorker, then coughing it right out, not knowing what I was coughing up.For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to face an existential menace. They want us to die. All of a sudden I realize what my parents were talking about all those years.Patriotism, I now believe, isn't some sentimental, old conceit. It's self-preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation's survival. Ben Franklin said it: If we don't all hang together, we all hang separately. Just like you have to fight to protect your friends and family, and you count on them to watch your own back.So you've got to do what you can to help your country survive. That's if you think your country is worth a damn. Warts and all.So I've gotten rather fond of that old piece of cloth. Now, when I look at it, I see something precious. I see something perishable.
Pre-Futurism:
The Ethics
Of RoboticsThe future is coming at us so fast, it is palpable now. We must begin to make to make the ethical decisions for our future now.
Try wrapping your head around this. If you don't, a robot will, eventually:
If the idea of robot ethics sounds like something out of science fiction, think again, writes Dylan Evans. Scientists are already beginning to think seriously about the new ethical problems posed by current developments in robotics. This week, experts in South Korea said they were drawing up an ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa. And, a group of leading roboticists called the European Robotics Network (Euron) has even started lobbying governments for legislation. At the top of their list of concerns is safety. Robots were once confined to specialist applications in industry and the military, where users received extensive training on their use, but they are increasingly being used by ordinary people. Robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers are already in many homes, and robotic toys are increasingly popular with children. As these robots become more intelligent, it will become harder to decide who is responsible if they injure someone. Is the designer to blame, or the user, or the robot itself? Decisions Software robots - basically, just complicated computer programmes - already make important financial decisions. Whose fault is it if they make a bad investment? Isaac Asimov was already thinking about these problems back in the 1940s, when he developed his famous "three laws of robotics". He argued that intelligent robots should all be programmed to obey the following three laws:
1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law These three laws might seem like a good way to keep robots from harming people. But to a roboticist they pose more problems than they solve. In fact, programming a real robot to follow the three laws would itself be very difficult. For a start, the robot would need to be able to tell humans apart from similar-looking things such as chimpanzees, statues and humanoid robots. This may be easy for us humans, but it is a very hard problem for robots, as anyone working in machine vision will tell you. Robot 'rights' Similar problems arise with rule two, as the robot would have to be capable of telling an order apart from a casual request, which would involve more research in the field of natural language processing. Asimov's three laws only address the problem of making robots safe, so even if we could find a way to program robots to follow them, other problems could arise if robots became sentient.
If robots can feel pain, should they be granted certain rights? If robots develop emotions, as some experts think they will, should they be allowed to marry humans? Should they be allowed to own property? And the technology is progressing so fast that it is probably wise to start addressing the issues now. One area of robotics that raises some difficult ethical questions, and which is already developing rapidly, is the field of emotional robotics. This is the attempt to endow robots with the ability to recognise human expressions of emotion, and to engage in behaviour that humans readily perceive as emotional. Humanoid heads with expressive features have become alarmingly lifelike. David Hanson, an American scientist who once worked for Disney, has developed a novel form of artificial skin that bunches and wrinkles just like human skin, and the robot heads he covers in this can smile, frown, and grimace in very human-like ways.These robots are specifically designed to encourage human beings to form emotional attachments to them. From a commercial point of view, this is a perfectly legitimate way of increasing sales. But the ethics of robot-human interaction are more murky.
Jaron Lanier, an internet pioneer, has warned of the dangers such technology poses to our sense of our own humanity. If we see machines as increasingly human-like, will we come to see ourselves as more machine-like? Lanier talks of the dangers of "widening the moral circle" too much. If we grant rights to more and more entities besides ourselves, will we dilute our sense of our own specialness? This kind of speculation may miss the point, however. More pressing moral questions are already being raised by the increasing use of robots in the military. The US military plans to have a fifth of its combat units fully automated by the year 2020. Asimov's laws don't apply to machines which are designed to harm people. When an army can strike at an enemy with no risk to lives on its own side, it may be less scrupulous in using force. If we are to provide intelligent answers to the moral and legal questions raised by the developments in robotics, lawyers and ethicists will have to work closely alongside the engineers and scientists developing the technology. And that, of course, will be a challenge in itself. Yes, and of course, lawyers and ethicists have such a great track record on moral questions.
In the future, mankind will find himself up against the limits of his own humanity. It will be the first time, since we were still tilling the fields as our primary occupation- appealing to a pantheon of "gods" for our daily rain and our daily bread - when we will have been faced with the obliteration of our own humanity, on an almost daily basis.
It will be the first time in thousands of years when human history will be mediated by visceral concerns, rather than philosophical, governmental, and theological texts.
We will find ourselves alone, up against the reality of the limits of our humaness. We will find ourselves alone with the Force of the Universe.
I pray that we will make the correct moral decisions. I think that we have been given the directions necessary to make these decisions, but while we were made to stand upright, we have sought out many devices.
NBC's Law And Order Promotes Anti-Jew/Anti-Israel SentimentFrom Layla at the Hill Chronicles:
Damaging misinformation is being conveyed about Israel not just in news stories, but in popular culture items as well, such as Oprah and Vogue magazine, and now a popular NBC police drama. A "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" television episode that aired Tuesday, February 27, 2007, fosters negative stereotypes of Jews as disloyal Americans and Israelis as brutes who demolish Palestinian schools and kill innocent civilians. During this time of escalating anti-Semitism and anti-Israel animus, the show’s executives have shown extremely poor judgment to promote such an anti-Jewish, anti-Israel storyline. True, it is only a fictional TV show, but because the "Law and Order" series (of which there are numerous variations) is advertised as having plots "ripped from the headlines," some viewers may not realize the program is pure fiction. TV executives obviously have the right to air an offensive episode presenting anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment. But rights are generally tempered by individuals acting responsibly and weighing the real-life consequences of their actions. It’s time for NBC to consider the impact of its dramatic characterizations that denigrate Jews and Israel. [1] Israeli bulldozers destroy Palestinian schools. [2] A Jewish police captain (Danny Ross) covers up for Israel at the urging of the pro-Israel pac (political action committee). The captain’s friend, the director of the pac, is portrayed as an agent of Israel and possibly involved in spy activities.[3] Detective Logan challenges his superior, Ross: "… are you a Jew first and a cop second?"
The portrayals in [2] and [3] taken in context, are tantamount to claiming the loyalty of American Jews is first to Israel. This false dual-loyalty assertion has, of course, been a mainstay of historic anti-Jewish prejudice. [4] The poisoning victim groups Israel, along with Hamas and Syria, as a suspect in his poisoning. The thesis posed here is absurd; if Israel were to poison journalists in order to prevent a harmful media report, it would be poisoning many journalists, since there are numerous well documented instances of anti-Israel bias in news media reports. [5] The plot was inspired by the recent news story of the polonium poisoning murder of a former Russian KGB agent in London. However, unlike the show’s plot, that actual event had no connection whatsoever with the nation of Israel. The question might be asked of NBC execs: "What is the motive for using a prominent news event — having nothing to do with Jews or Israel — as the basis for a story that seriously disparages Jews and Israel?"Isn't Hollywood supposed to be "controlled by the Jews"?
More Land, Less PeaceFrom the American Thinker:
Caroline Glick, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, ?has written a serious paper exposing the risks inherent in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's 'Convergence ' plan for the West Bank.??That plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from most (90% or more) of the West Bank (all but the areas encompassed by the new security barrier), with some continued IDF presence in the Jordan Valley (at least in the short term). Less clear is what Olmert plans to do in Jerusalem.Glick argues in her paper published by the Center for Security Policy in Washington D.C., that the Gaza withdrawal has?been a security disaster for Israel, and for its ostensibly pro—American neighbors (Egypt and Jordan, in particular).?A terrorist final four of Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are now all operating freely in Gaza, and more advanced weaponry is pouring across the Egyptian/Gaza border crossing in Rafah.? The same scenario would almost certainly play out after an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank, putting major Israeli population centers and its international airport within range of enhanced Palestinian rocket capability. Glick argues that this second Israeli disengagement, from an area almost 20 times the size of Gaza, would be viewed and broadcast by the jihadist forces as a huge victory over both Israel and the United States. It would also serve as a major recruiting tool for their efforts to destroy Israel, overthrow Arab governments in the Middle East,? drive the US from Iraq, and undermine Western nations in Europe, and other continents.The Gaza withdrawal was carried out in August 2005 by Prime Minister Sharon when the Palestinian Authority was led by Mahmoud Abbas, the hoped for Palestinian moderate who was hailed as? the Israeli peace partner that Yassar Arafat never was. Abbas, while still around, is more of a figurehead today in the Hamas—run Palestinian Authority regime, who can be trotted out to Western nation donors as evidence that the PA is still functional, and deserves new money. Sharon is in an irreversible coma, with Ehud Olmert having replaced him, and now heading a coalition government largely dependent on other parties, (Kadimah won fewer than a quarter of the seats in the recent Knesset election).Unlike the removal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza, Olmert's plan for a West Bank disengagement would require the destruction of dozens of settlements and the transfer of as many as 65,000 settlers to the area within the Israeli security barrier. The Israeli population had little stomach for the trauma of the Gaza withdrawal, which?it was forced to witness up—close, under what would have to be? considered more benign conditions in the conflict than exist today.? A forced withdrawal of a much larger Israeli population, and a large handover of territory to a Hamas run government, would seem to be a recipe for a major and unnecessary internal Israeli conflict at a time when external security threats to the state (e.g., the Iranian nuclear threat, and Hizbollah's military capability on the northern border) are growing.While Israel won a small (and short) public relations victory from the Gaza withdrawal, an incomplete disengagement from the West Bank with continued IDF presence in some of the evacuated areas would not receive a similar international seal of approval. Olmert will be coming to America in the next month, to try to sell his plan to the Bush administration, whose approval matters more than what Kofi Annan thinks of the plan, in any case.And here is where it gets very tricky. It is difficult, if not impossible, for an American President to stand to the right of the Israeli Prime Minister and tell him not to withdraw from territories that most of the world (including our State Department) views as illegally occupied. American Presidents, prior to Bush, all gratefully acceded to any request for support from an Israeli prime minister (usually, though not always, from the left or center left), who was willing to negotiate with Arab countries, or the Palestinians, or offered to? withdraw from? territory captured in the Six Day War.In essence, Glick is hoping that Bush will protect Israel from its own leader's misguided plan.?? Since Olmert is coming to seek significant US financial support, as well as political support from the President, the issue is not as straightforward as the Gaza withdrawal last summer. The Olmert mission also comes at a time when the? issue of the power of the pro—Israel lobby to influence US policy has been very publicly raised by a noxious and dishonest paper prepared by two prominent academics from Harvard and the University of Chicago.Glick argues forcefully, that it is also in America's national interest to have the Olmert plan shelved. For one thing, the withdrawal will threaten both Egypt and Jordan, two countries in which the US has invested substantial political support and foreign aid. And behind the scenes, both Egypt and Jordan are trying to kill the Olmert plan. Neither of them wants a more powerful Hamas—run government operating freely in the West Bank, motivating and facilitating the efforts by Islamic radicals and Palestinian terrorists in both countries to step up the pressure on their regimes.Olmert will try to sell Washington that the Muslim world's ill will directed at America can be reduced by a further separation of the Israeli and Palestinian populations.?This seems naﶥ.
There can be no moderation of Hamas, just as there can be no moderation of al Qaeda.? And Glick argues?that another disengagement will be viewed by the enemies of Israel and America as further evidence of the West in retreat, which will inspire the jihadist movement to take on America and the West more broadly. So it will likely encourage more terrorism in more places, rather than serve to placate the jihadists. Hamas and its terror allies, running freely in the West Bank, will certainly not help the American effort to stem the tide of foreign jihadists entering Iraq.For more than? a decade, the only game in town for solving the Israeli Palestinian conflict has been land for peace.? With Hamas in power and Islamic fundamentalism seemingly on the march in countries around the world, it may be time for some fresh thinking.Daniel Pipes has spoken of winning a victory that forces a change in the rejectionist mindset among the Palestinians. Glick has written of an enhanced role for Jordan in Palestinian governance. The land for peace bromide assumed that at some point, the Palestinians would receive an offer of enough land for them to drop their claims and end their hostility to Israel. But the reality is that an offer of all of the West Bank, and Gaza and East Jerusalem would? not have been enough for Arafat, just as half of Palestine was not good enough in 1947. The existence of Israel and the?corresponding desire to destroy it have always been the focus of Palestinian politics and terror efforts.? Since 1967, the occupation and the settlements have been a sideshow that has masked the underlying and steadfast opposition by Arabs to Israel's existence. The occupation that Palestinians have sought to end has always included Haifa and Tel Aviv. We are now almost 60 years since the founding of the modern state of Israel, and the Palestinians and their allies are no more reconciled to its existence today than they were at the beginning of the state. Those who speak of needing another generation to come of age before resolution to the conflict is possible, badly misread the younger generation of Palestinians, steeped in the constant incitement to destroy Israel, and kill the Jews, and defeat America? and the fervent attachment to martyrdom.?The current younger generation of Palestinians, regrettably, is more irreconcilable with Israel than their elders. And unlike Camp David in 2000, the stars are not aligned for substantive progress. The Olmert plan in essence is that after the second disengagement, 'we' (the Israelis) will be here, and 'they' (the Palestinians) will be there, and so the conflict becomes less heated. Glick's paper deconstructs the logic of this optimistic reading and the potential danger of Olmert's plan to both Israel and the US. The reality is that the Palestinians are not going away, even if they are on the other side of a fence. Their grievance, which is pretty much all they have chosen to hang onto, will remain and intensify, if they think they are being ignored.? Their economy will be more of a basket case after disengagement than before, which is what happened already after the Gaza withdrawal.? I do not believe the conflict is resolvable at the moment (and maybe never), but it does need to be managed. It is hard, however,? to see how the Olmert plan makes managing it any easier.
Bad, Christian Zionist, BadI am a Christian Zionist. That means, I am a Christian who supports the idea that the Jews ought to have a homeland. Ooh, that's a scary idea, huh?
We Gentiles have done nothing but persecute the Jews throughout history. We have proven that, no matter what, whether the Jews are rich, poor, powerful, or weak, we will hunt them down and kill them.
If you look at history honestly, you have to admit that this is the case. We are not to be trusted.
Because of this, the Jews must have a homeland of their own, so that they can take care of themselves.
Here's an interesting consideration of Christian Zionism by Thomas Ice:
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse,
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
- God to Abraham (Genesis 12:3)
The last couple of years the secular community and some in the religious community have woken up to the fact that most of the American Evangelical community is pro Israel. Guess what? They do not like it one bit. There have been a number of articles in the media about the alleged dangers of the Christian support for Israel. A widely noted article appeared in the May 23, 2002 issue of the Wall Street Journal entitled, " How Israel Became a Favorite Cause of Christian Right." For some, this is horrifying.
Current Christian Zionism
At the beginning of this article I have quoted Genesis 12:3, which is God' s promise to bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants (i.e., Israel). Does this promise still stand or has it been changed? If the Bible is to be taken literally and still applies to Israel and not the church, it should not be surprising to anyone that such a view leads one, such as myself, to Christian Zionism. Zionism is simply the desire for the Jewish people to occupy the land of Israel. Christian Zionists are Christians who advocate this belief.
Back in the spring of 1992, Christianity Today did a cover story on Christian Zionism. The article " For the Love of Zion" (March 9, 1992; pp. 46-50) reflected a generally negative tone toward Christian Zionists, which is normal for Christianity Today. They made the case that evangelical support for Israel is still strong but it has peaked and is declining. Yet, today, over a decade later the consensus appears to be that Christian Zionism is getting stronger, but so are those Christians who oppose it.
In February 2003, the Zionist Organization of America released extensive polling results from the polling firm of John McLaughlin and Associates indicating rising support by Americans of the modern state of Israel as against the Arab Palestinian state. 71% of Americans were opposed to creating a Palestinian state and by almost the same margin Americans oppose any support to the Palestinian Arabs. Much of this current support is surely generated by those who are classified as Christian Zionists.
Christian Anti-Zionists
Probably for the first time ever, an organized effort appears to be on the rise of Christians (many who are Evangelical) who are outspoken Anti-Zionists. Knox Theological Seminary, founded and headed by D. James Kennedy (interestingly Dr. Kennedy did not sign the document) has posted a document on their web site denouncing those who are supportive of the modern state of Israel as engaged in " a serious misreading of Holy Scripture." Oh really!
Stephen Sizer is writing a major new book against Christian Zionism. I guess we have gotten so bad that they believe one is necessary. It will be called Christian Zionism: Fueling the Arab-Israeli Conflict, due out in December 2003 from Intervarsity Press. Colin Chapman has written what amounts to an anti-Zionist book in Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis Over Israel and Palestine, Baker, 2002. He attempts throughout his work to refute the biblical teaching about ethnic Israel' s right to the land of Israel.
Gary DeMar has for many years exhibited his anti-Zionism in the many incarnations of Last Days Madness (American Vision, 1999). pp. 407-23. In an appendix entitled " ' Anti-Semitism' and Eschatology," DeMar quotes from Assembly of God premillennialist, Dwight Wilson' s Armageddon Now!, (Baker, 1977) saying that premillennialism fostered anti-Semitism during the Holocaust. Both Wilson and DeMar have made a statement that is ridiculous and cannot be supported from the facts of history. DeMar says, " Wilson maintains that it was the premillennial view of a predicted Jewish persecution prior to the Second Coming that led to a ' hands off' policy when it came to speaking out against virulent ' anti-Semitism.' " [1]
Wilson and subsequently DeMar' s interpretation of the premillennial record on this matter is simply wrong. Instead, historian David Rausch is correct when he declared:
This theory of " Fundamentalist anti-Semitism" is not only biased- it is totally inaccurate. Fundamentalist Protestants are not historically anti-Semitic, nor are they anti-Semitic at the present time. In fact, Fundamentalism is itself a religious movement which grew out of a millennialism which was Zionist. Fundamentalists are ardent supporters of Israel and the Jewish heritage.[2]
Convoluted Calvinism
Calvinist DeMar must be desperate in his attempt to label dispensational premillennialists as anti-Semitic, that he would adopt and advocate Wilson' s Arminian logic in relationship to the sovereign decrees of God.
Wilson' s interpretation that the premillennial belief in the certainty of the fulfillment of prophetic decrees from the Bible leads to fatalistic inactivity by its adherents is not only factually wrong, but would be rejected by DeMar as theologically wrong if he had applied his Calvinism to all issues involving the sovereignty of God and human responsibility. DeMar does not believe, nor do I, that because God has decreed who will be saved and who will remain lost that the believer' s response should be fatalistic inactivity in regards to evangelism or any decreed fact of history. History shows that Calvinists have led the way in evangelistic concern and activity. History also shows that premillennialists have led the way in their support for the Jewish people and Israel, and have led Christian opposition to anti-Semitism, just as they are doing at the present time. If this were not the case then there would not be all the press about our love and support for Israel.Hands Off
Wilson,[3] and therefore DeMar[4], made a number of mistakes in their characterization of premillennialists in regards to anti-Semitism. Wilson quotes a poem written by a premillennialist entitled " Hands Off" relating to anti-Semitism. The poem is saying that those who have persecuted the Jews would be better off keeping their hands off of God' s people because God will judge them for their sin. Wilson characterizes the poem as if the author was advocating a hands-off policy of Christians toward helping the downtrodden Jew. The actual viewpoint of the poem was telling people like Hitler to keep their hands off the Jews, not for Christians to be apathetic towards persecution in Europe.
Hands On
Contrary to the Wilson/DeMar viewpoint, Rausch argues that premillennialists were involved in fighting anti-Semitism and did not sit back and do nothing. Rausch cites example after example of American and European premillennialists warning against anti-Semitism in Europe (especially in Germany and Russia) during the many Prophetic Conferences convened between 1878 and 1918.[5] Rausch notes that American dispensationalist, Arno Gaebelein, a German immigrant, " castigated Gentile Christendom in his lectures and writings for its attacks on the Jew." [6] In 1895, Gaebelein, upon returning to the US from a trip to Germany, sadly stated,
It is only too true that Protestant Germany is Jew-hating, and we fear, from what we have seen and heard, that sooner or later there will come another disgraceful outbreak.[7]
The fact of the matter is that there were not too many premillennialists in Hitler' s Germany since most of Christianity in Germany at that time was of a liberal variety. In my entire life thus far I have never met or heard of a liberal who was premillennial.
Much of the Christian resistance to Hitler came from those who also hid Jews and they were often premillennial. Joop Westerville, a leader in the underground was a Plymouth Brethren and has a prominent place in the Israeli memorial to the " Righteous of the Nations."
Corrie Ten Boom' s family were premillennial and are synonymous in the minds of American evangelicals with activism on behalf of the Jews in WW II.Rausch has noted, " Contrary to popular opinion, this prophetic viewpoint (premillennialism) combated anti-Semitism and sought to reinstate the biblical promises that God had made to the Jewish people through Abraham- biblical promises that postmillennial Christendom had determined were null and void." [8]
Further Wilson Confusion
Wilson says that premillennialists like Gaebelein " seemed to provide legitimacy for the Nazi attitude" [9] because, on a few points, they were critical of some Jewish activities and because they did not believe that the anti-Semitic document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a forgery. Wilson portrays premillennialists as if belief that the Protocols were not forged was belief that they were true. Premillennialists like Gaebelein thoroughly disagreed with the anti-Semitic agenda of the Protocols, but Wilson does not bring this out. Premillennial criticism could not in any way be interpreted as anti-Semitic attitudes. Rausch, contra Wilson, has observed: " It was premillennial eschatology that led the early Fundamentalist to have a high view of Jewish history and Jewish heritage. Even in negative remarks, there is no malevolence toward the Jewish people because the Proto-Fundamentalist believed that all men were unworthy of God' s grace and that even the Proto-Fundamentalist was a sinner." [10]
Dispensationalist Love for Zion
I believe that it is safe to say that there has not been a group of Christians who have cared more for the Jewish people and their destiny than dispensationalists in the 2,000-year history of the church.
Previous to the rise of dispensationalism, Christians did not seem to be able to acknowledge that God had a future plan of glory for national Israel, without at the same time making the church subordinate to Judaism.J. N. Darby, the father of modern dispensationalism, developed his theology in the 1820s and 1830s by saying that God' s plan for history included two peoples, Israel and the church. Darby took the Old Testament literally and at face value so that he recognized Israel' s future destiny.At the same time, he took the New Testament and the church literally and at face value. Darby did not have to spiritualize either Israel or the church recognizing from the Bible two peoples of God. "J. N. Darby has testified that it was his coming to understand that ' there was still an economy to come, of His ordering; a state of things in no way established as yet' which compelled him to formulate his distinction between Israel and the church." [11] Because of the rise of the dispensational viewpoint " premillennialists were able to stress the evangelization of the Jews while at the same time they supported Jewish nationalistic aspirations." [12]
In fact, the heightened interest in dispensational evangelization of the Jews has been recently documented in a new study of the history of Jewish evangelism. Yaakov Ariel says,
The rise of the movement to evangelize the Jews in America also coincided with the rise of Zionism, the Jewish national movement that aimed at rebuilding Palestine as a Jewish center. The missionary community, like American dispensationalists in general, took a great deal of interest in the developments among the Jewish people. . . .
Perhaps not surprisingly, missionaries to the Jews were among the major propagators of the dispensationalist premillennialist belief. . . .
They condemned anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jews worldwide.[13]
William E. Blackstone
Dispensational theology explains why this form of premillennialism has been the most effective in evangelizing Jews, while at the same time standing with Jews in causes like Zionism. In fact, dispensationalists were the earliest advocates of Zionism, even before it began within the Jewish community. " Zionism humanly speaking owes its origin not primarily in the Jewish fold, but in the efforts of a Christian, one whom we all respect, and who has been a great friend of Jewish Missions, William E. Blackstone." [14]
Benjamin Netanyahu also recognizes the early rise of Christian Zionism when he declared that it " antedates the modern Zionist movement by at least half a century." [15]
Blackstone' s contribution was acknowledged by the Jewish community in 1918 by Elisha M. Friedman, secretary of the University Zionist Society of New York, who said, " A well-known Christian layman, William E. Blackstone, antedated Theodor Herzl by five years in his advocacy of the re-establishment of a Jewish state." [16] Contrary to the image presented by DeMar and Wilson, Blackstone provides another example of premillennial " hands on" involvement in combating anti-Semitism. " After traveling to Europe, Egypt, and Palestine in 1888, Blackstone organized in Chicago in 1890 one of the first conferences between Christians and Jews. The Jews of Russia were being persecuted and William Blackstone felt that mere resolutions of sympathy were inadequate." [17]
Conclusion
In spite of our critics, who unjustly attempt to cast us in a bad light, dispensational premillennialism has always been the best friend the Jewish people have ever had within Christendom. For years many in Israel have recognized this. What is amazing is that in the last few years even the Orthodox community has come to realize that they have friends and supporters within the conservative Christian community. At the same time that we support Zion, dispensational premillennialists have been the leaders in evangelizing the Jewish community during the present church age. I believe that such support of Zion by Christians will continue to be the case from now throughout all eternity.
Maranatha!
France Bans Citizen Journalists (Bloggers) From Reporting ViolenceThis is one of the most sick things I have ever heard.
I don't have a lot of time tonight, so I'm gonna have to give you the stats, and you'll just have to believe me, but the Muslim riots never stopped in France.
As I have reported previously, there are an average of close to 200 cars torched every night on the streets of France. The Parisian police chief declared that they are at "war", and asked the state to provide his forces with weapons of war so that they would be adequately protected, and able to fight back. To this date, the French police have NOT been provided with the tools necessary.
And, here is the most stunning thing of all. The casualty rate of the French police force is over three times higher than the casualty rate of the American armed forces in Iraq.
And now, France is banning bloggers from reporting on this violence.
There's nothing to see here. Move along.
Screw France:
The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.
Fly AmericanHmm,
what do you think of this?At Annie Jacobsen’s web site Aviation Nation, we discover an account of an apparent terrorist dry run on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami—the same route and airline on which Richard Reid failed to detonate his shoe bombs:
American Airlines Flight 62: A Terrorist Probe?This report was posted in mid-February, and has received no media coverage whatsoever. Jacobsen confirmed that the incident did occur, with an American Airlines spokesperson.
This is not meant to scare, but it probably will. Consider yourself informed and warned that the threat is real. This crew reported that they were not prepared that something of this nature could be happening to them.Flt 62, Paris to MIA [Miami], a few weeks ago. 2 maybe 4 mid-eastern types causing minor disturbance from the get-go. Nothing that the FAs [flight attendants] couldn’t deal with, but, in hindsight, they seemed to be pushing the envelope. Cross-cabin activity, hanging out in the forward galley, complaining about everything, etc. Mid-Atlantic, the FO [First Officer, or Co-Pilot] called to return to the cockpit after his crew-rest break. One of the perps [perpetrators] was in the forward galley, was instructed by a FA to go aft, but didn’t. As the cockpit door opened, another perp suddenly appeared from around the galley, dropped his shoulder into FO while the first one got in the way of the FO’s attempt to block the other...here I’m not certain...so....wait for the movie.FO (one of our first FFDO’s [Federal Flight Deck Officers*]) was about to pull his flashlight to use as a weapon in a counter attack, but thought better of it not knowing how many more perps he might have to fight, called “lockdown” to the FB [secondary “B” First Officer], inside the cockpit, who slammed the door. As soon as the perps heard the word lockdown, they retreated to their seats.I’m not doing justice to the story, but, if not an attempt on the cockpit, this was a serious probe.
Crew considered divert, but since the threat diminished and seemed to be contained, they pressed on towards MIA. Flight was met in MIA by FBI, FAMS [Federal Air Marshal Service] (none aboard, by the way), AA [American Airlines] Security suits, etc. During the de-brief, which lasted several hours, the FAMs told the pilots that they would have “dropped” both of the perps with the first shove near the cockpit door. Perps claimed to not understand English, were detained for 4 days and deported, back to Paris, when they are free to attend Sunday school, tell their buddies of their Adventure and plan their next move.Enjoying the story so far? It’s good we can’t carry guns on Int’l [International] trips, eh?
Upsetting is that we all have to learn of this, by happenstance. Why didn’t you and your last crew know of this? We took a delay yesterday while this FB detailed the entire event to my crew. Believe me, there were no disbelievers that the terrorist threat is real in my crew by the time we boarded.I’m more than upset that this is still a secret! The FB is a man I’ve flown with often, trust completely and attended FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) training with a year ago January. I hope I’ve presented his story accurately, but am certain that the basic details are very close.
Why I Am
A Big
Second
Amendment
Supporter
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution
It's pathetic that we've come to a place in our country's history when a person has to come out as a supporter of one of our fundamental liberties, provided for by the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. But, you know what, I have to. How many people would say they are big supporters of not only the right to bear arms, but also the right to form a "well regulated militia."
I am not a gun nut. Far from it. I've only shot a gun a few times in my whole life, but I am deadly accurate. Deadly.
Head shots, everytime.
Anyway, why do I sound so extreme? Because I know history (from By Samantha Levine , via Michael):
Marion Pritchard - She shot a Nazi to save Jewish Children. The officer stood at the door. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and he was hunting for Jews. Someone must have tipped him off to the three Jewish children sheltered in the home of Marion Pritchard. He entered the living room, his back to the bedroom where the youngsters were sleeping. Pritchard's gut told her he would send them to a concentration camp. Within two minutes, she'd decided what to do. She reached up to a shelf and felt for the revolver given to her for emergencies. "It was him or the kids, so I shot him," she says, unflinching. "It was a moment of excitement. I did it! I did it! The kids are safe! Then it was, what do I do with the body?" Such is the meaning of the Second Amendment.
Like the angel of death, the Dutch police officer stood at the door. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and he was hunting for Jews. Someone must have tipped him off to the three Jewish children sheltered in the home of Marion Pritchard. He entered the living room, his back to the bedroom where the youngsters were sleeping.
Pritchard's gut told her he would send them to a concentration camp. Within two minutes, she'd decided what to do. She reached up to a shelf and felt for the revolver given to her for emergencies. "It was him or the kids, so I shot him," she says, unflinching. "It was a moment of excitement. I did it! I did it! The kids are safe! Then it was, what do I do with the body?"
During World War II, the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others. But thousands of ordinary folks risked their own lives to help the intended victims. Marion Pritchard was one of the rescuers, concealing a Jewish family for nearly three years.
"It was never a question," says Pritchard, now 80 and a practicing psychoanalyst who lives in Vershire, Vt. "For somebody's life, how could you not?"
The straightforward woman with the clipped Dutch accent is puzzled by those who don't understand her conviction that hesitating in the face of evil is equal to siding with the enemy. Her brows knit together, she crosses her arms and asks, "What if nobody had done anything?"
"To my father, justice was everything," Pritchard says of her dad, a judge. "Not law and order, but justice." His philosophy shaped her idyllic girlhood in Amsterdam."I was never spanked, never hit," Pritchard says. "I got all my questions answered. When you are brought up that way, with complete love, respect, and understanding, that is how you try to treat people when you grow up."
When the Dutch government shocked its people by capitulating to the Nazis five days after the Germans invaded in May 1940, Pritchard remained true to her family's values. She aimed to "do whatever I could to get in the way of the Nazis." So when her supervisor asked her and her classmates at social work school to temporarily shelter Jewish children targeted for concentration camps Pritchard agreed. Despite the possibility of prison, or worse, she took a boy into her parents' home.
One morning in the spring of 1942, Pritchard watched Nazis load sobbing Jewish children into trucks. When they didn't move fast enough, the Nazis grabbed an arm or leg and threw them in. "I was so shocked I found myself in tears," Pritchard says. "Then I saw two women coming down the street to try to stop them, and the Germans threw them into the trucks, too. I stood frozen on my bicycle. When I saw that, I knew my rescue work was more important than anything else I might be doing." She was 22.
That summer, a friend in the Dutch resistance movement secured empty servants' quarters in a rural village as a refuge for a Jewish family. Pritchard volunteered to live with and care for them.
"Jews in hiding couldn't be visible," she explains with a hint of annoyance when asked her rationale. "They couldn't just go to the store. So I stayed with them. It was the right thing to do." The Polak family–Fred and his children, 4-year-old Lex, 2-year-old Tom, and newborn Erica–stayed with her until the war ended in 1945. (The mother was separated from the family but reunited with them after the war.) There was nowhere to hide other than a tiny compartment under the living room, so Fred spent each day upstairs in a nurse's house across the street and worked on his doctoral dissertation. The children, who passed for gentiles, could play in the yard. Though many of the neighbors knew what she was doing, they were "good Dutchmen, anti-Nazi, and rescuers in their own way," Pritchard says. They sneaked her milk and vegetables to supplement her meager rations. Pritchard struggled to keep house while finding havens for other Jews.
By the time the war ended, the Nazis had murdered approximately 110,000 of the Netherlands' 140,000 Jews. Pritchard had helped find hiding places or transport to safe houses for more than 150. "I tried," she says, "but many were only saved temporarily."
Pritchard was an exemplary rescuer because she chose to risk her life when she saw Jewish children being hauled away, says Malka Drucker, who coauthored Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust. "She was frozen in fear and indecision, so she decided to become a rescuer."
For all her bravery, Pritchard is haunted by that night she shot the policeman. She was fortunate local authorities did not pursue the missing man–hatred for Nazis and Dutch turncoats seethed in the village. And she was extremely lucky that friends and supporters disposed of the body. Karel Poons, a gay Jew who was her former ballet teacher, risked his life to sneak out after curfew and persuade the baker to take the body in his horse-drawn cart to the undertaker, who stashed it in an occupied coffin slated for burial. Still, Pritchard feared being found out. "I had to go on, to stay strong for the family," she says. "I wish it hadn't been necessary. But it was the better of two evils."
© 2001 U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved. 8-18-2001
MasqualeroWayne Shorter Quartet, with Danilo Perez (Piano), Brian Blade (Drums), John Pattitucci (Bass).
Every Grain Of SandA song by Bob Dylan
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.
Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.
Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
If Iran Gets The BombFrom Caroline Glick:
With the Bush administration now happily basking in the glory of positive coverage in The New York Times and enjoying the warm embrace of the James Baker/Brent Scowcroft wing of the Republican Party, it is hard to imagine that it will reconsider its decision to abandon the Bush Doctrine. That doctrine, named after President George W. Bush and most forcefully enunciated by him, eschewed appeasement of terror-supporting, weapons of mass destruction-proliferating enemies of the free world. Today, what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refers to as a "diplomatic initiative" aimed at appeasing terror-supporting, and weapons of mass destruction-proliferating Iran, and its terror-supporting, and weapons of mass destruction-proliferating Syrian colony is about to take off in Baghdad. So too, this week, the US began normalizing its relations with the terror-supporting, weapons of mass destruction-proliferating Stalinist dictatorship in Pyongyang.
Bush's traditional opponents are beside themselves with glee. With regard to North Korea, these opponents are quick to note that there has always been great uncertainty about the level to which Kim Jung Il has advanced in his illicit uranium enrichment program. With regard to Iran, in an interview with the Times, former congressman Lee Hamilton warned that the Bush administration had better not think that the negotiations with the mullahs will lead anywhere quickly. As the co-chairman of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group which last November called for the president to appease Teheran and Damascus by forcing Israel to surrender the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria explained, negotiations with the mullahs have to be open-ended. In his words, "You can't expect miracles here. There has to be a sustained effort. Successful diplomacy requires very careful preparation and very extensive follow-through."
For his part, Hamilton's partner, former secretary of state James Baker, ecstatically declared on Tuesday night, "America must be prepared to talk to our enemies." What is lacking from both the media's reportage of the Bush administration's strategic about-face, and the administration's traditional detractors' praise for that sudden turn is an analysis of the likely downside of appeasing the mullahs. For instance, on Wednesday the Times ran a report on North Korea under the heading, "US Concedes Uncertainty on North Korean Uranium Effort." The thrust of the article, which was based on interviews with administration sources, was that while North Korea's commitment to acquire nuclear weapons has never been in doubt, at no time has the US had certain knowledge of its actual capabilities. In light of the uncertainty relating to Pyongyang's capabilities, the Bush administration was wrong - the Times's sources clucked - to have confronted it over its intentions. By the same token, those who applaud the administration's decision to engage the nuclear weapons-seeking mullahs in Teheran argue that the administration would be wrong to confront Iran for its stated intention to "wipe Israel off the map," and to bring about "a world without America," since US intelligence services are incapable of bringing unequivocal information regarding the state of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Clearly there is something wrong with this analysis. If what is not in doubt is Iran's commitment to acquiring nuclear weapons, rather than base its policies on a best-case-scenario regarding Teheran's unknown capabilities, the US and its allies should be basing their policies on a calculation of the risks a nuclear armed Iran would constitute for global security. BROADLY SPEAKING, there are three possible scenarios of how Iran would likely behave were it to become a nuclear power. In the most optimistic scenario, Iran would not attack Israel or any other country with its atomic arsenal, but would rather use it as an instrument of international and regional influence. In this scenario, Iran would reap economic advantage from its nuclear status by threatening oil shipping in the Persian Gulf and so jack up worldwide oil and gas prices. A massive economic dislocation in the oil consuming countries would no doubt ensue. In this state of affairs, all international economic sanctions against Iran would disappear and states would begin fighting with one another for the right to develop Iran's oil and gas fields and refining capabilities. Operating under Iran's nuclear umbrella, terror groups like Hizbullah and Al-Qaida would feel free to attack at will throughout the world. The rates of terrorism - of both the organized and lone wolf variety - would increase exponentially. Regionally, Iran would work to export its Khomeinist Shi'ite revolution. It would increase its interference in both Iraq and Afghanistan and so neutralize and defeat coalition and NATO efforts to stabilize those countries. As to Saudi Arabia, there can be little doubt that Iran would seek to foment an uprising of Saudi Shi'ites who happen to live as a repressed minority on top of the Saudi oil fields. Hizbullah's aim to overthrow the Saniora government in Lebanon would receive unprecedented Iranian assistance that would likely lead to the Shi'ite takeover of the country. So too, under the Iranian nuclear umbrella, Palestinian terrorism against Israel, and Syrian adventurism against Israel would rise steeply. The regimes in Egypt and Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia would be sunk into chaos, insurgency and war as they themselves entered a nuclear arms race the likes of which the world has never seen. In a moderate scenario, not only would all the events that would likely occur in a best-case scenario occur, Iran would also make indirect use of its nuclear arsenal. In this case, Iran would likely use one of its existing terror proxies in Sinai, Gaza or Lebanon, or invent a new terror group in one or all of these areas. Iran would transfer one or more nuclear weapons to its terror group of choice, which would then attack Israel and cause the second Holocaust in 70 years. Iran would deny any connection to the attack, although it would shower high praise on its perpetrators. While Iran's leaders from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down have expressed a willingness to endure an Israeli nuclear second-strike, judging from the way in which the Western policy elites are treating Iran today, the Iranians can have every expectation that they can wipe Israel off the map and pay no price for their aggression, either from a destroyed Israel or from the US. The New York Times and its counterparts will likely note that there is no absolute certainty that Iran was behind the attack. Even the skimpiest Iranian denials or vague allegations against countries like Pakistan or Russia or "rogue" scientists from the former Soviet Union or Pakistan will likely be seized upon as a justification for not responding to the attack. Israel, it will be said, had it coming anyway, because it refused to negotiate with the "militants" from Hamas, preferring instead to maintain its "occupation" of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. In the worst case scenario, not only would Iran implement the best case and the moderate case scenario, it would also widen its network of allies while neutralizing its competitors in the Muslim world in order to expand its exportation of the Khomeinist revolution worldwide. All this it would do in an effort to achieve its longstanding aim of destroying America. Here the Iranians would be operating under the reasonable assumption that Europe will be neutral in the conflict, and Russia and China would likely support them against the US - at least covertly. In this scenario, the Iranians would strengthen their alliances with America-haters in Latin America like Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro or his heirs. It could openly supply these countries with nuclear bombs or strengthen Hizbullah's foothold in South and North America. In the latter case, Iran could transfer nuclear weapons and delivery systems to its terror proxies and use these networks, which include Hizbullah cells that are already active in the US, to attack the US. Most brazenly, Teheran could collaborate with its ally North Korea in developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of attacking US cities with nuclear weapons launched from Iran. At the same time, given the US's large nuclear arsenal and ICBM capabilities, it is less likely that the Iranians would attack the US directly. IN LIGHT of this analysis it seems that in spite of the praise it is reaping from the policy jet-set, the Bush administration would do well to reexamine its new policy toward Iran. It should accept their criticism and revert to basing its policy toward the nuclear-proliferating, terror-supporting rogue state on what is known rather than on what is unknown. Since Iran not only wants nuclear weapons, but has an active nuclear weapons program, the question that should be guiding policymakers is not whether Iran should be negotiated with, but rather, whether the US is willing to accept any of the likely scenarios of what will transpire if Iran does in fact acquire nuclear weapons. If the US is not willing to accept any of those scenarios, then it should be asking itself what must be done to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. While Europe may be willing to sit on the sidelines of this fight, just as it sat on the sidelines of the Cold War, and did little to prevent the Nazi conquest of the continent in World War II, Israel has no such luxury. In light of this, it is deeply disturbing that this week the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government reacted to the US move toward appeasement by claiming that it will have no impact on Israel. Rather than trying to gloss over the dangers, Israel should be actively engaging the many forces in Washington and elsewhere who understand the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran. Together we should be working tirelessly to ratchet up support for a policy based on the understanding that the world cannot abide a nuclear-armed Iran.
Wilt Chamberlain
The Night Of
100 Points
On March 2, 1962, a giant rolled into Hershey, Pa., and rolled up 100 points on the New York Knicks.
The giant, of course, was the legendary Wilt Chamberlain, the center for the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA. The Big Dipper, as he liked to be known, was changing the game of basketball every time he stepped onto the court.
Author Gary Pomerantz says Chamberlain's performance was on par with Babe Ruth breaking the home run record. He chronicles the game in his new book, Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 points and the Dawn of a New Era.
Read an excerpt from Wilt, 1962, setting the stage for one of the most storied nights in basketball history:
'Wilt, 1962'
At the moment of his great glory, a minute twenty-five to play, the kids in Hershey screaming, "Give it to Wilt! Give it to Wilt!" we see Wilt Chamberlain running the floor, a force of nature gathering power with each stride, and recognize him for what he is: unprecedented.
He came with a body and an ego perfectly sculpted for dominating his game. The ego was essential: For a player to score one hundred points in an NBA game, he must not only want to do it, he must, on a deeper level, need to do it -- to take an opponent, an entire sport, and bend it to his will -- to show that it could be done and only by him. In one hundred there was hubris but also a symbolic magic. In our culture the number connotes a century, a ripe old age, a perfect score on a test.
Scoring one hundred points meant infinitely more than scoring, say, ninety-seven. One hundred was a monument.
Writers and players and coaches prophesied sucha anight for the young Wilt Chamberlain. He was a one-man revolution. he entered what was still largely a white man's game, took it above the rim, and made it his. The game's traditionalists, seeing the future, blanched. He was, at the core, an individualist (Pastorius note, an American), the ultimate alpha male.
He was averaging fifty points per game during that 1961-62 season, and as his scoring numbers grew so did the prophecy. Pity the average NBA center of the day: Several inches smaller, not nearly as agile or strong or well conditioned, they became, against Chamberlain, desperate underdogs, some even sassing him by calling him "Globetrotter."
Chamberlain luxuriated in the prophecy and admitted coyly that if he kept his cool, made his shots, then, yes, one hundred points was possible.
Who Needs Jaques Bauer?How is it that the French are tougher on terrorists than we are?
From Opinion Journal, with thanks to Jason Pappas:
Twenty-nine defendants went on trial earlier this month in a Spanish courtroom for complicity in the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 commuters and injured another 1,800. Among the accused: Jamal Zougam, a 33-year-old Moroccan immigrant who once ran a cell-phone business. In June 2001, Spanish police raided Mr. Zougam's apartment, where they found jihadist literature and the telephone numbers of suspected terrorists. But the Spaniards judged the evidence insufficient to arrest or even wiretap him. Today, the Moroccan is believed to have furnished the cellphones through which the train bombs were detonated. In raiding Mr. Zougam's apartment, the Spanish were acting on a request from French investigative magistrate and counterterrorism supremo Jean-Louis Bruguiere. Earlier, Mr. Bruguiere had also warned the Canadian government about a suspicious Algerian asylum-seeker named Ahmed Ressam, but the Canadians took no real action. On Dec. 14, 1999 Mr. Ressam--a k a the Millennium Bomber--was arrested by U.S. customs agents as he attempted to cross the border at Port Angeles, Wash., with nitroglycerin and timing devices concealed in his spare tire. It would be reassuring to believe that somewhere in the ranks of the FBI or CIA America has a Jean-Louis Bruguiere of its own. But we probably don't, and not because we lack for domestic talent, investigative prowess, foreign connections, the will to fight terrorism or the forensic genius of a Gallic nose. What we lack is a system of laws that allows a man like Mr. Bruguiere to operate the way he does. Unless we're willing to trade in the Constitution for the Code Napoleon, we are not likely to get it.
Consider the powers granted to Mr. Bruguiere and his colleagues. Warrantless wiretaps? Not a problem under French law, as long as the Interior Ministry approves. Court-issued search warrants based on probable cause? Not needed to conduct a search. Hearsay evidence? Admissible in court. Habeas corpus? Suspects can be held and questioned by authorities for up to 96 hours without judicial supervision or the notification of third parties. Profiling? French officials commonly boast of having a "spy in every mosque." A wall of separation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies? France's domestic and foreign intelligence bureaus work hand-in-glove. Bail? Authorities can detain suspects in "investigative" detentions for up to a year. Mr. Bruguiere once held 138 suspects on terrorism-related charges. The courts eventually cleared 51 of the suspects--some of whom had spent four years in preventive detention--at their 1998 trial. In the U.S., Mr. Bruguiere's activities would amount to one long and tangled violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. And that's not counting the immense legal superstructures that successive Supreme Courts have built over and around the Bill of Rights. In France, however, Mr. Bruguiere, though not without his critics, is a folk hero, equally at home with governments of the left and right. The main point in his favor is that whatever it is he's doing, it works. "Every single attempt to bomb France since 1995 has been stopped before execution," notes a former Interior Ministry senior official. "The French policy has been [to] make sure no terrorist hits at home. We know perfectly well that foreign-policy triangulation is not sufficient for that, [even if] it helps us go down a notch or two in the order of priority [jihadist] targets. So we've complemented our anti-U.S. foreign policy with ruthless domestic measures." That's something that U.S. civil libertarians, who frequently argue that the Bush administration should follow the "European model" of treating terrorism as a law-enforcement issue instead of a military one, might usefully keep in mind. As lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey argue in the forthcoming issue of The National Interest, "the [Napoleonic] Civil Law system offers considerable advantages to the state in combating terrorism--especially in terms of investigative tools and a level of secrecy--that are simply unavailable in the ordinary Common Law criminal prosecution and trial, at least as governed by the United States Constitution."
Again, review the contrasts between American and European practices. Except in limited circumstances, the U.S. does not allow pretrial detentions. But according to figures compiled by the U.S. State Department, 38% of individuals held in Italian prisons in 2005 were awaiting trial or the outcome of an appeal, while Spanish law allows for pre-trial detentions that can last as long as four years for terrorism suspects. In the U.S., the Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military in law-enforcement work, and paramilitary units are relatively rare. By contrast, most European countries deploy huge paramilitary forces: Italy's Carabinieri; France's Gendarmerie Nationale; Spain's Guardia Civil.
Even Britain, which shares America's common law traditions, has been forced by Irish and now Islamist terrorism to resort to administrative detentions, trials without jury (the famous Diplock courts) and ubiquitous public surveillance. Wiretapping is authorized by the Home Secretary--that is, a member of the government--rather than an independent judge. In the early days of the Northern Irish "troubles," the government of Edward Heath placed some 2,000 suspects, without charge, in internment camps. Ironically, it was the decision to treat terrorists as ordinary criminals that led to the famous hunger strikes of Bobby Sands and his IRA crew.
All this calls into question the seriousness, if not the sincerity, of European complaints that under the Bush administration the U.S. has become a serial human-rights violator. Europeans have every right to be proud of civil servants like Mr. Bruguiere and a legal tradition that in many ways has been remarkably successful against terrorism. But that is not the American way, nor can it be if we intend to be true to a constitutional order of checks and balances, judicial review and a high respect for the rights of the accused. When President Bush declared a war on terror after 9/11, it was because he had no other realistic legal alternative. And when the rest of us make invidious comparisons between Europe and America, we should keep our fundamental differences in mind. There is no European 82nd Airborne, and there is no American Jean-Louis Bruguiere.
Top Terrorist
Sighting
Raises
No FBI
Interest
From WND, with thanks to Michael:
March 2, 2006: Anyone wondering what the FBI would have done if they had known ahead of time of the plot to fly planes into buildings in the U.S. by Mohamed Atta and his 18 fellow terrorists may need look no further than what they did when two Americans reported the possible sighting of the al-Qaida operative identified as "the next Mohamed Atta" – Adnan el-Shukrijumah – in California.
The eyewitnesses, a husband and wife who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, said they encountered el-Shukrijumah and other potential al-Qaida operatives, including Aafia Siddiqui, in a small café near Lake Isabella in Kern County Sept. 7, 2005. They described him as small (approximately 5'4"), thin (about 130 pounds), and clean-shaven with a prominent nose, dark eyes and black hair. They noted that he appeared nervous and spoke English to his Middle Eastern companions without an accent.
Despite a $5 million reward for el-Shukrijumah – and a license plate number copied by the couple – neither the Kern County sheriff, the FBI nor Sen. Arlen Specter's office responded to the reported sighting.
Just so you understand, it is believed that this man has been charged with plotting the American Hiroshima. FBI? No Interest?
Jeez, if that's true, that is one of the most frightening things I have ever heard.
It could be, though, that the FBI knows exactly where this guy is at all times.
Evidence That Israel Is Not An Apartheid StateOne of the stupidest libels commonly uttered about Israel is that it is an Apartheid State. Punditarian, from the Astute Bloggers,
points out the obvious, but painfully important to acknowledge:
The acting President of the State of Israel is a Druze MK from Beit Jann, Majallie Whbee. He is a Kadima list member. The Jerusalem Post reports:Unlike most other Arab citizens, Druse serve in the Israeli military. Whbee, 53, attained the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring. He holds a master's degree in Middle East history from Haifa University, according to the Knesset's Web site. Whbee hoped his temporary ascension to the presidency would symbolize a push for equality for Arab citizens. "Where there is still a lack of equality, we are fighting," he said, "but the fact is that I have all the authorities of the president of the state of Israel." Whbee, a member of Itzik's and Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party, said he would carry out the normal functions of the presidency, meeting with diplomats and laying a wreath at a ceremony Thursday in honor of a pre-state Zionist fighter, Yosef Trumpeldor.This is not "apartheid." Israel is a democratic multi-cultural State, like India and the United States, and like Lebanon could be. Quite unlike Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iran . . .
