Brain Damage
[Supporting the troops by sending them off on fools errands that end in brain damage.]
A growing number of U.S. troops whose body armor helped them survive bomb and rocket attacks are suffering brain damage as a result of the blasts. It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq war.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-03-brain-trauma-lede_x.htm
The narrowness of the strait--a chokepoint--presents some nightmare scenarios the armchair admirals and air marshals of the Neocon brigade conveniently ignore when pimping for a new war. Imagine a sinking an American aircraft carrier or two, and the predictable outcry from folks here at home to retaliate with even more missiles and bombs against Iran, and suddenly the world's on the brink of nuclear war. Indeed, the entire, Strangelovian scenario of trading missiles with Iran would make the present Iraq war seem like an afternoon concert with Jimmy Buffet.
How or why so many American citizens can sit silently and watch, without an outcry of dissent, while so many incompetent US officials with divided loyalties make absurd foreign policy, never ceases to amaze me. Very likely the placid citizens of Germany or Japan also watched silently, while the military regimes began to launch aggressive wars for territory and scarce resources during the 1930s. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should heed the words of Admiral Yamamoto: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
...
Exactly how many US Navy ships do the Neocons consider expendable? Have any critics besides Mark Gaffney mentioned the anti-ship missiles that likely await ponderous, floating targets in the duckpond of the Persian Gulf? "In 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war," wrote Gaffney, "the USS Stark was nearly cut in half (photograph) by a pair of Exocets while on patrol in the Persian Gulf. On that occasion US Aegis radar picked up the incoming Iraqi fighter (a French-made Mirage), and tracked its approach to within 50 miles. The radar also saw the Iraqi plane turn about and return to its base. But radar never detected the pilot launch his weapons. The sea-skimming Exocets came smoking in under radar and were only sighted by human eyes moments before they ripped into the Stark, crippling the ship and killing 37 US sailors."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/herman/herman3.html
[I guess will have to stop using ATMs. This is part of the “New and Now Sucks” advertising paradigm that replaced the old “New and Improved” one.]
Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn., said ATM fraud will likely pick up because of the move by most banks to Web-enabled systems, "because of the combination of stealing ATM numbers online and creating counterfeit ATM cards to use off-line." Litan also said the move to Windows-based systems is "not great news for the security of the system. I'm sure there's a lot of holes that will be created because of this."
Sentenac said he is concerned with the security of his Windows-based systems, but no more so than with OS/2. He said Wells Fargo took all "the rational steps you'd take to harden any operating system," such as closing unused ports. But, "the reality is you can't buy a new ATM that runs OS/2. This is where the industry is," he said.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,100165,00.html?source=x10
How fast is technology turning radio upside down? Ask Brian Ibbott. Last September, when the wannabe Denver deejay started playing music on the Internet, the term for what he was doing -- podcasting -- had been around for two weeks. These days the 35-year-old produces a half-hour show of popular songs called Coverville. Some 9,000 devotees download it three times a week to play on -- what else? -- their iPods. And if they tire of Coverville, they now have 3,500 other podcasts -- and counting -- to choose from.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005033_0336_tc024.htm
What we said to the Americans in the past two years — and now I am repeating this, on the record — is "The moment you bring us a shred of evidence that anybody, anybody is doing this, we will act upon it." I will repeat: "We will act upon it."
But the problem is they never come to us and tell us, "Look, this is what we have." They only go to the media and say, "We think that this is happening," or "We believe that this is happening out of Damascus." Now we do not allow this. We do not believe this is happening, but we do not stop here. We tell our American counterparts, "Whenever you want to really find a solution to this problem, come and discuss it with us. Show us what evidence you have, and we will act upon it."
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/SyrianHoax.htm
Around 7,000 people living as slaves in Niger will be told today that they are free for the first time in their lives, as the government begins to enforce a law banning the practice of slavery.
The government is expected to hold a ceremony in the western Niger town of Tillaberi, on the edge of the Sahara, to explain the law to people who have spent their whole lives as the property of their masters.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ebeg.htm
[Shouldn’t they be doing that here?]
The United States has deployed another team of customs and border patrol agents to Iraq and surrounding countries to help prevent saboteurs, terrorists and weapons from crossing Iraq's borders, according to a February 1 press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2005/02/iraq-050203-usia02.htm
[The settlers condoned this behavior when it was directed against the Palestinians, now that it might be directed against themselves they talk of civil war.
If everyone were to make an effort to behave in a just and honorable manner none of this would be happening. This is the chickens coming home to roost.]
Events this week indicated the threat of a civil war over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 'disengagement' plan might be more of a reality than many Israelis care to acknowledge.
A media circus earlier in the week over a false claim that rabbis had granted permission to open fire on non-Jewish evacuators led Wednesday to a very real religious ruling allowing Arab soldiers to kill resisting Gaza residents.
It was reported last week that the government plans to send special units made up of Arabs and anti-settler leftists to carry out the expulsion of Gaza,s Jews.
http://www.rense.com/general63/civ.htm
Dear Condi,
I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/story/2610442p-3026695c.html
Kohno seems to be aware of the interest from surveillance groups that his techniques could generate, saying in his paper: "One could also use our techniques to help track laptops as they move, perhaps as part of a Carnivore-like project". Carnivore was Internet surveillance software built by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation. Earlier in the paper Kohno overshadowed possible forensics applications, saying that investigators could use his techniques "to argue whether a given laptop was connected to the Internet from a given access location".
Another application for Kohno's technique is to "obtain information about whether two devices on the Internet, possibly shifted in time or IP addresses, are actually the same physical device."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/0,2000061744,39183346,00.htm
[In case you forgot, this is the guy who was grabbed by the US/Canada as a suspected terrorist and shipped off to our “enemy” Syria to get worked over, andi f they found anything the Syrians would tell us about it. They didn’t find anything so they dumped him on the side of the road after torturing him for a year or something like that. He was never a terrorist.
Now he wants the US/Canada to apologize and maybe compensate him for the whole kdinapping and torture thing.]
The commission investigating the Maher Arar case wants to postpone a legal battle with the government about the disclosure of secret evidence concerning Mr. Arar's deportation to Syria in 2002.
The postponement would allow the public hearings into whether federal officials were involved in Mr. Arar's deportation as a suspected terrorist to proceed.
But Mr. Arar's lawyers, as well as human-rights groups, said the 34-year-old may never get a fair chance to clear his name if the inquiry's commissioner, Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor, puts off the secrecy issue until the hearings are complete.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050305.wxarar0305_2/BNStory/National/
But Walker isn't a lobbyist or an activist, he's an accountant. His title is comptroller general of the United States, which makes him the head auditor for the most important and powerful government in the world. And he's desperately trying to get a message out to anyone who'll listen: the United States of America's public finances are a shambles. They're getting rapidly worse. And if something major isn't done soon to solve the country's intractable budget problems, the world will face an economic shakeup unlike anything ever seen before.
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20050307_101541_101541
[Every time the US gets mixed up with a country, all of a sudden the country is over-run with drugs and gangsters and women get screwed. I can see that happening by accident once or twice, but every single time? There is no way that is an accident.]
More than three years after a pro-U.S. government was installed, Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is “on the verge of becoming a narcotics state,” according to a presidential report.
The report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a new record of 206,700 hectares, more than triple the figure for 2003.
The Afghan narcotics situation, “represents an enormous threat to world stability, said the report, issued Friday.
http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Mar05/050305Afghanistan.html
[Attention idiots. We are still in Kosovo and Bosnia, and neither of them is winning any awards for stability or peacefulness. Haiti is being run by a junta and the violence there is virtually off the charts. Even the Haitians think it is unusually bad.]
The United States has occupied many foreign lands over the last half centuryóGermany and Japan in World War II, and, on a much smaller scale, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo in the 1990s. In all these cases, we sponsored elections and handed-off to democratic governments control of countries that were relatively stable, secure, and reasonably peaceful.
...
[Bring back the draft for a humanitarian problem in some other country? -This is my first swear in this blog- Fuck you.]
All this for a war that most planners consider to be a medium-sized conflictónothing like what the United States faced in World War I, World War II, or the Cold War. And while threats of that magnitude aren't anywhere on the horizon, there are plenty of quite possible scenarios that could quickly overwhelm usóan implosion of the North Korean regime, a Chinese attack on Taiwan, worsening of the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, or some unforeseen humanitarian nightmare.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0503.carter.html
[This could very well be true, but whetehr it is or it isn’t, the fact remains that people can’t breathe the fumes from burning hydrocarbons, and most forms of life do not get along well with either crude or refined petroleum products.]
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not untested or speculative. On the contrary, the modern theory was severely challenged by many traditionally-minded geologists at the time of its introduction; and during the first decade thenafter, the modern theory was thoroughly examined, extensively reviewed, powerfully debated, and rigorously tested. Every year following 1951, there were important scientific conferences organized in the U.S.S.R. to debate and evaluate the modern theory, its development, and its predictions. The All-Union conferences in petroleum and petroleum geology in the years 1952-1964/5 dealt particularly with this subject. (During the period when the modern theory was being subjected to extensive critical challenge and testing, a number of the men pointed out that there had never been any similar critical review or testing of the traditional hypothesis that petroleum might somehow have evolved spontaneously from biological detritus.)
...
It appears that, unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been, for quite some time now, two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic 'fossil fuel' deposited in finite quantities near the planet's surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth's magma. One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an unproven relic of the eighteenth century. One theory anticipates deep oil reserves, refillable oil fields, migratory oil systems, deep sources of generation, and the spontaneous venting of gas and oil. The other theory has a difficult time explaining any such documented phenomena.
So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom, chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd 'Fossil Fuel' theory, of course -- the same theory that the 'Peak Oil' doomsday warnings are based on.
http://www.rense.com/general63/staline.htm
The Caucasus is among the most vital regions of the world for the United States, said Commander of the United States European Command James Jones. In the opinion of Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of Russia"s foreign affairs parliamentary committee, this statement betrays the true goals of the U.S. military presence in the Caucasus.
Mr. Kosachev noted that one of the U.S. goals in the Caucasus is to spread democracy and secure U.S. economic interests. So, Mr. Jones in fact "admits that the U.S. is spreading democracy by expanding its military presence in various parts of the world," Mr. Kosachev said. The statement made by General Jones "could have been made by a politician or a diplomat, but not by a high ranking general," he stressed.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/371/15065_Caucasus.html
[I will assess the risk for you in two seconds for free. Yes it exists. The chances are better than 1 in 3 he would be thrown into a stockade or sent to Guantanamo.
I’ll also give you some free advice, renegotiate that treaty.]
A British terrorist suspect could face the death penalty or imprisonment in Guantánamo Bay if he is extradited to the US, his lawyers said yesterday.
The US authorities want to try Babar Ahmad, 30, from Tooting, south-west London, for allegedly running websites and sending emails to raise money for the fighting in Chechnya and Afghanistan.
The extradition hearing at Bow Street magistrates court, central London, was adjourned to give US government lawyers more time to assess whether there was a risk that he could be put into military detention, where he could face the death penalty.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2005/040305faceexecution.htm
[How is a corporation not a person?
Let me count the ways:
1. Corporations can be bought and sold, whereas it is illegal for people to buy and sell one another.
2. Corporations can theoretically live forever, whereas actual people can not.
3. Corporations can exist simultaneously in several different places, whereas people can not.
4. Corporations are created by administative acts of government, whereas actual people are are brought forth from other people.
5. People can be imprisoned, whereas corporations can not be.
6. If you believe the Bible you can read that God created Man in his own image, and that he created only men and women. A corporation has no specific image and certainly does not resemble either a man or woman either physically, morally, intellectually, or spiritually. If you believe in the Bible, I think you ought to find the notion that corporations are people essentially blasphemous.
7. Corporations in almost all areas of the law enjoy greater rights than actual people. If corporations were people, this would be a violation of the equal proection clause of the Constitution.
If I think of it I will come back and work on this some more later.]
My jury duty questionnaire: "Do you agree that a corporation is a person?"
It was time for me to serve on jury duty again. It's easy to get out of jury duty but frankly I think the jury system is the backbone of America. Serving on a jury is the most patriotic thing I can do -- aside from protesting election fraud.
So there I was in the courtroom. Jury selection. "This trial is a civil trial. A corporation is suing a corporation. Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" There were 58 people in that jury pool. Not one of them raised their hand. Except for me. I went OFF on that poor sweet judge.
"What do you MEAN that a corporation is a person!!!! A table is not a person. A chair is not a person. And a corporation is not a person either!" Me and that guy on "Law and Order". I was on a roll.
"Your Honor!" I expounded. "In 1886, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a lowly LAW CLERK by the name of J.C. Bancroft Davis -- a former employee of a railroad, mind you -- SNUCK a headnote into a decision, saying that a corporation is as good as a person. That headnote was not legally binding! And for the last 118 YEARS, America has been PRETENDING that corporations were living, breathing persons! Your Honor! That's just wrong."
I paused for breath. The judge paused for the bailiff. The Plaintiff looked worried and the Defendant looked worried too -- but by golly I was going to have my day in court! "No judge has ever ruled on this issue. You can't even cite case law on this. Can a corporation die? Can a corporation father a child?" And can a corporation receive welfare? Don't answer that.
I find it very hard to believe that every day, across this great nation of ours, thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of perspective jurors are being asked this very same question and yet the whole nation-wide jury pool hasn't stood up in open rebellion when asked this stupid, cheesy question. "Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" What are we? A nation of sheep?
Needless to say, I was excused from jury duty. A corporation, however, did not step up to take my place. Why? Because a corporation is not allowed to serve on juries. Why not? Because at least someone somewhere has the good sense to realize that A CORPORATION IS NOT A PERSON!
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/
There may come a day when Uncle Sam wants Wayne Flenniken for the U.S. Army.
In many ways, he's an ideal candidate for military service. At 15, he already has finished high school and is enrolled at Delaware Technical & Community College studying Spanish and English. There is a problem, however. Wayne doesn't want any part of Uncle Sam's Army - or anyone else's, for that matter.
"I don't believe in war and I don't like the military in any way, shape or form," he said. "I don't think anyone should be forced to die prematurely."
That's why he went to a draft resistance training session Friday in his hometown of Newark. It's why Wayne has begun building his case as a conscientious objector.
http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?rpr/050221Dr.htm
[Well thank goodness some group of people this country is remotely interested in protecting their own children.]
The Army's wartime recruiting challenge is aggravated by a sharp drop in black enlistments in the last four years, which internal Army and Defense Department polls trace to an unpopular war in Iraq and concerns among blacks with Bush administration policies.
The Army strains to meet recruiting goals in part because black volunteers have fallen 41 percent ---- from 23.5 percent of recruits in fiscal 2000 down steadily to 13.9 percent in the first four months of fiscal 2005.
"It's alarming,'' said Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Ky. and one of the Army's most senior black officers, No single factor explains the drop, Rochelle added, but clearly the propensity of black youth to enlist is impacted by the war and increasingly by views of parents, teachers, coaches, clergy and other "influencers.''
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/03/05/news/columnists/philpott/3405184934.txt
[Losing friends one dunam at a time.]
The Israeli authorities have given the Al-Ram local council military orders demanding the confiscation of Palestinian-owned lands in Al-Ram and Jaba' and Hazma villages.
The confiscation of the lands, all located in occupied Jerusalem, are for the purpose of constructing a section of the separation wall, said Khalil Al-Tafakji, director general of cartography department at the Arab Studies Association.
The construction of that section of the wall on Palestinian lands would completely isolate them from the holy city, he added.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7327
[The “Christian” right’s champion also happens to be a proponent of orgies.]
Justice Antonin Scalia, who at one point told Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (who was arguing for a Ten Commandments display in his state), "'Our laws come from God.' If you don't believe it sends that message, you're kidding yourself." At another point, Scalia declared: "It is a profoundly religious message, but it's shared by the vast majority of the people . . . It seems to me the minority has to be tolerant of the majority's view."
Scalia, of course, is locked in a political struggle with Justice Clarence Thomas for the hearts and minds of conservatives who are debating which of the two to support for chief justice. He has become the Christian Right's charismatic champion here, but whether he has the political weight to push the fight forward is another matter.
http://villagevoice.com/news/0510,webmondo,61772,6.html
[I’ll tell you why Byrd’s opponents are trying to shut him up. They rely on a history-free world view to make their lies work. Perspective and background and historical facts only trip them up and they want nothing to do with stuff like that. His whole speech is about perspective and background. Of course they can’t let that go unchallenged.]
The director, the legendary Frank Capra, in his autobiography, "Frank Capra: The Name Above the Title," cites this moving review of the film, appearing in the Hollywood Reporter, November 4, 1942:
Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," chosen by French Theaters as the final English language film to be shown before the recent Nazi-ordered countrywide ban on American and British films went into effect, was roundly cheered. . . .
Storms of spontaneous applause broke out at the sequence when, under the Abraham Lincoln monument in the Capital, the word, "Liberty," appeared on the screen and the Stars and Stripes began fluttering over the head of the great Emancipator in the cause of liberty.
Similarly, cheers and acclamation punctuated the famous speech of the young senator on man's rights and dignity. "It was . . . as though the joys, suffering, love and hatred, the hopes and wishes of an entire people who value freedom above everything, found expression for the last time. . . ."
For those who may not have seen it, "Mr. Smith" is the fictional story of one young Senator's crusade against forces of corruption and his lengthy filibuster -- his lengthy filibuster -- for the values he holds dear.
My, how things have changed. These days, Mr. Smith would be called an obstructionist. Rumor has it that there is a plot afoot to curtail the right of extended debate in this hallowed Chamber, not in accordance with its rules, mind you, but by fiat from the Chair -- fiat from the Chair.
http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=1237
A French university said Friday it decided to suspend a professor for five years after he made remarks that cast doubt on the Holocaust.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1109906439670
[I think you have to keep an open mind when your victim was dressed in a rubber suit at the time of death.
This guy was supposed to be some big shot in the world of high finance. Yet more evidence that the higher up types are predominantly freaks and weirdos.]
The investigation into the murder of the French banker Edouard Stern took a bizarre twist yesterday with a report that he was shot while wearing a latex bodysuit.
The report, by the Geneva newspaper Le Temps - a report neither confirmed nor denied by investigators - appeared to point to a personal motive for the killing. Investigators were, however, said to be keeping an open mind.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=616966
[So to be a friend of the Jews you must give up a belief in Jesus. I would like to know which five so-called “chruches” he is referring to that have given up their belief in Jesus. What do they belief in now? Sticks and stones and broken bones?
At the top of this web page it says the website is to “increase interfaith understanding”. I have to say this is very accurate. It sure has increased my understanding.]
CHRISTIANS have to make a choice - "either retain their present belief system and be antisemitic or form a partnership with the Jewish people."
This is the view of Bar-Ilan University's Rabbi Dr. Pinchas Hayman, who is active in Jewish-Christian dialogue and in encouraging modern Christianity to return to its Jewish roots by observing the Seven Noahide Laws.
"As long as Christians keep Jesus as God, they will be antisemitic because that belief must lead them to believe that those who reject Jesus reject God," he told the Australian Jewish News.
"That's how the process of satanising the Jews began. That belief is the root cause of 1500 years of the Christian idolatrous antisemitism which led to the Holocaust."
Proficient in New Testament Studies and Classical Greek, Dr. Hayman noted that at least five American churches have given up belief in Jesus.
http://www.comeandhear.com/supplement/ajn-hayman/ajn-page.html
[I guess what this is about is some white supremacist type was on trial for something, and then one day last week the judge in his case came home and found her husband and mother dead or something like that. So I guess people are saying the guy in trial was somehow behind it. So he is saying back here that that is not the case.
It does seem a bit implausible to me, since everyone would immediately suspect him of being in on it and it would only be likely to get him more jail time anyway, since the judge would be mad at him for killing her family.]
Monday's killings of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's mother and husband came a month before Hale was to be sentenced by another judge for soliciting an undercover FBI informant to murder Lefkow. Lefkow had ordered Hale to change the name of his extremist group as part of a trademark lawsuit.
Hale released a statement Thursday through his mother, Evelyn Hucheson, saying, "There is no way that any supporter of mine could commit such a heinous crime."
"I only hope they sincerely wish to apprehend the animal instead of railroading the innocent," Hale said. "Only an idiot would think I would do this."
Hale reportedly made the statement to Hucheson during her weekly telephone call to him at Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center.
http://www.nbc5.com/news/4253971/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=2265994&dppid=65192
http://www.nbc5.com/news/4251514/detail.html
[I keep reading about how these so-called “Christian” right-wing millenialist types think that they can hurry up the second coming of Christ by getting the Jews back in charge of Israel and forcing the supposed time table for Armageddon by destroying the planet and stirring up trouble and this and that, as in this quote from below:
“When the concept of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) is raised, those who believe in a literal war at Armageddon often feel that Christians should work to start this war and should vigorously participate in it”
Now what’s wrong with this way of thinking? I will tell you.
In the first book of the Bible we can read that God spent six days to create the heavens and the Earth and on the seventh day he rested. Now God is supposed to be the supreme being of all that is or ever could be, the creator not just of the Earth, but of the whole universe. He spent six days to create the world, and on the seventh dy he rested from his labors. God himself, the most powerful being- period- put in so much work on the world, that he himself had to rest on the seventh day. Was this because he was making a little trinket for his children to toy with and then smash when they got bored with it?
In the very first chapter we read how God created grass and seeds and trees even before he divided night from day. Then following that he created the fish of the sea and the fowl of air. Then following that he created the beasts which live upon the solid surface of the Earth, and finally he got around to creating Man. Now it seems clear to me that the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, which were created prior to the human race, were not low on God’s list of priorities, he did not forget them, and they weren’t afterthoughts. Neither were the plants or land animals or any other part of his creation. [Genesis Chapter 1]
Lest we think that perhaps all these things WERE low on his list of priorities, Jesus himself informs us otherwise. He says, “Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them!” [Matthew 6:26]
Or as Jesus also says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father.” [Matthew 10:29]
The Bible is shot through with references to both plants and animals, and clearly God takes note of them all and delightsin all his creations. Furthermore, God relies on the plants and animals to act as symbols and convey messages to Man.
A quick look through Matthew reveals “The Parable of the Sower”, “The Parable of the Mustard Seed”, “The Parable of the Weeds”, “The Parable of the Yeast”, “The Parable of the Lost Sheep”, “The Lesson of the Fig Tree”, etc. etc.
Obviously, God is not oblivious to his world, and obviously he takes an interest in it and gets use from it, even as we do ourselves who were created int he image of God.
These are just a very few examples, but having them, and having all the evidence easily available before you, how can you claim to follow God and simultaneously seek to destroy the world and hurry the day of judgement? It is clear this is against the will of God, if only because you seek to destroy that which God has created and which he uses and takes pleasure in.
But let us go beyond this. In Matthew 4:7 we hear Jesus quote the scriptute to say to Satan, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” By pushing for Armageddon, by pushing for the supposed “rapture”, by pushing to move up the ultimate day of judgement for all the world, are you not seeking to put the Lord to the test? Does God work for you, or do you work for God?
Let us go even further beyond this. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too. And if someone takes you to court to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well.” etc. etc. [Matthew 5:38-40] And in Luke 22:49-51 we read how Judas came with agents of the Pharisees to arrest Jesus. “When the disciples who were with Jesus saw what was going to happen, they asked ‘Shall we use our swords, Lord?’ And one of them struck the High Priest’s slave and and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘Enough of this!” He touched the man’s ear and healed him.”
And as is further reported in Matthew 26:52-3 “’Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. ‘All who take the sword will die by the sword. Don’t you know that I could call on my Father for help, and at once he would send me more than twelve armies of angels?’”
Don’t YOU know this, who may claim to have read the Bible. If God is not in a hurry for war and violence, why are you?
What can you do that God can not do? Even if you were not commanded not to put God to the test, why seek to do what God can do on his own? Both the Old and New Testaments have already laid out a series of commandments and goals which are more than enough work to fill a mortal lifetime.
This is why Jesus says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” [Matthew 7:5] This is why he lays out the different obligations such as not to swear oaths in God’s name, not to live in anger, even in your heart where no one knows about it, and so on.
So many people out there do not even attempt to do even the smallest of these things, and yet they are eager to bring about the day of judgement. How bitter will that day be when they have to explain to God that they made little or no effort to follow his teachings or his rules, that they sought to trample his creation underfoot and destroy it, that they actively sought to bring about the end of the world which God had created. The Bible tells us that when each person goes to face their judgement there can be no one to intervene, each person will stand or fall on their own merits.
What is the merit is pursuing a course that is known to lea to death, destruction, and the end of the world? Just because of your selfish desire to see Jesus more quickly?
Some further say that we must restore Israel to the Jewish people as part of the fulfillment of this supposed prophecy of world-ending destruction because they are the “chosen” people. But Joh nthe baptist tells us “Do those things which show you have turned from your sins. And don’t think you can escape punishment by saying that Abraham is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make of them descendant of Abraham! The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire....He will gather his wheat into his barn, but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out.” [Matthew 3:8-12]
Well, so having demonstrated that God does care about the whole world, and not just (some) humans, having demonstrated that it is not right to try to hurry God, having established that human beings are enjoined to try to perfect their own personal faults during their lives, having established that Jesus does not encourage violene among his followers, let alone a world ending Holocaust, one question remains to be answered.
Is there any character we know of from the Bible who would back all of things which go against the will of the Lord? The answer is an obvious yes.
Who seeks to thwart the will of God? Who takes pleasure in the destruction of God’s creation? Who takes pleasure in the perversion of God’s teaching and of his children? Who works in devious ways for nefarious ends? Who is also known as “the slanderer” or “diabolos” in Greek? Satan.
Isn’t the perverse drive to death and destruction being made in the name of God and the followers of Christ a great slander against them? Doesn’t it cause people to recoil in horror and say that “Christians” are bad? Are there not also slanders against the other religions that claim to follow God, i.e. Judaism and Islam? Who would be most interested in seeing this happen?]
"Pre-millennial and Zionistic understandings of Scripture, and practices resulting from these understandings, pose grave dangers to our present civilization," says F. Furman Kearly, Ph.D. in " The Middle East Crisis in Biblical Perspective."
Dr. Kearly is Professor of Bible and Director of Graduate Studies at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas. He takes sharp issue with such Israel-First Millennialists as Jerry Falwell and Hal Lindsey.
“When the concept of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) is raised, those who believe in a literal war at Armageddon often feel that Christians should work to start this war and should vigorously participate in it. Those in particular who view the present situation as Armageddon believe that Christians should support Israel with vigor and urge our government to take an active part in the conflict in the Middle East."
"The main feature of dispensational pre-millennialism relative to the Middle East crisis is the doctrine that all the biblical prophecies concerning restoration of Israel relate to the return of the Jewish people to their homeland prior to the second coming of Christ. About 1830 J. N. Darby, one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren, began teaching what has come to be called dispensational pre-millennialism. No one person has been more influential in spreading dispensational teachings than C. I. Scofield."
"Pre-millennialism and Zionism is based on an error-filled system of biblical interpretation. This means the present state of Israel is of men and not of God."
http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?articles/050125Kea.htm
A growing number of U.S. troops whose body armor helped them survive bomb and rocket attacks are suffering brain damage as a result of the blasts. It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq war.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-03-brain-trauma-lede_x.htm
The narrowness of the strait--a chokepoint--presents some nightmare scenarios the armchair admirals and air marshals of the Neocon brigade conveniently ignore when pimping for a new war. Imagine a sinking an American aircraft carrier or two, and the predictable outcry from folks here at home to retaliate with even more missiles and bombs against Iran, and suddenly the world's on the brink of nuclear war. Indeed, the entire, Strangelovian scenario of trading missiles with Iran would make the present Iraq war seem like an afternoon concert with Jimmy Buffet.
How or why so many American citizens can sit silently and watch, without an outcry of dissent, while so many incompetent US officials with divided loyalties make absurd foreign policy, never ceases to amaze me. Very likely the placid citizens of Germany or Japan also watched silently, while the military regimes began to launch aggressive wars for territory and scarce resources during the 1930s. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should heed the words of Admiral Yamamoto: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
...
Exactly how many US Navy ships do the Neocons consider expendable? Have any critics besides Mark Gaffney mentioned the anti-ship missiles that likely await ponderous, floating targets in the duckpond of the Persian Gulf? "In 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war," wrote Gaffney, "the USS Stark was nearly cut in half (photograph) by a pair of Exocets while on patrol in the Persian Gulf. On that occasion US Aegis radar picked up the incoming Iraqi fighter (a French-made Mirage), and tracked its approach to within 50 miles. The radar also saw the Iraqi plane turn about and return to its base. But radar never detected the pilot launch his weapons. The sea-skimming Exocets came smoking in under radar and were only sighted by human eyes moments before they ripped into the Stark, crippling the ship and killing 37 US sailors."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/herman/herman3.html
[I guess will have to stop using ATMs. This is part of the “New and Now Sucks” advertising paradigm that replaced the old “New and Improved” one.]
Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn., said ATM fraud will likely pick up because of the move by most banks to Web-enabled systems, "because of the combination of stealing ATM numbers online and creating counterfeit ATM cards to use off-line." Litan also said the move to Windows-based systems is "not great news for the security of the system. I'm sure there's a lot of holes that will be created because of this."
Sentenac said he is concerned with the security of his Windows-based systems, but no more so than with OS/2. He said Wells Fargo took all "the rational steps you'd take to harden any operating system," such as closing unused ports. But, "the reality is you can't buy a new ATM that runs OS/2. This is where the industry is," he said.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,100165,00.html?source=x10
How fast is technology turning radio upside down? Ask Brian Ibbott. Last September, when the wannabe Denver deejay started playing music on the Internet, the term for what he was doing -- podcasting -- had been around for two weeks. These days the 35-year-old produces a half-hour show of popular songs called Coverville. Some 9,000 devotees download it three times a week to play on -- what else? -- their iPods. And if they tire of Coverville, they now have 3,500 other podcasts -- and counting -- to choose from.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005033_0336_tc024.htm
What we said to the Americans in the past two years — and now I am repeating this, on the record — is "The moment you bring us a shred of evidence that anybody, anybody is doing this, we will act upon it." I will repeat: "We will act upon it."
But the problem is they never come to us and tell us, "Look, this is what we have." They only go to the media and say, "We think that this is happening," or "We believe that this is happening out of Damascus." Now we do not allow this. We do not believe this is happening, but we do not stop here. We tell our American counterparts, "Whenever you want to really find a solution to this problem, come and discuss it with us. Show us what evidence you have, and we will act upon it."
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/SyrianHoax.htm
Around 7,000 people living as slaves in Niger will be told today that they are free for the first time in their lives, as the government begins to enforce a law banning the practice of slavery.
The government is expected to hold a ceremony in the western Niger town of Tillaberi, on the edge of the Sahara, to explain the law to people who have spent their whole lives as the property of their masters.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ebeg.htm
[Shouldn’t they be doing that here?]
The United States has deployed another team of customs and border patrol agents to Iraq and surrounding countries to help prevent saboteurs, terrorists and weapons from crossing Iraq's borders, according to a February 1 press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2005/02/iraq-050203-usia02.htm
[The settlers condoned this behavior when it was directed against the Palestinians, now that it might be directed against themselves they talk of civil war.
If everyone were to make an effort to behave in a just and honorable manner none of this would be happening. This is the chickens coming home to roost.]
Events this week indicated the threat of a civil war over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 'disengagement' plan might be more of a reality than many Israelis care to acknowledge.
A media circus earlier in the week over a false claim that rabbis had granted permission to open fire on non-Jewish evacuators led Wednesday to a very real religious ruling allowing Arab soldiers to kill resisting Gaza residents.
It was reported last week that the government plans to send special units made up of Arabs and anti-settler leftists to carry out the expulsion of Gaza,s Jews.
http://www.rense.com/general63/civ.htm
Dear Condi,
I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/story/2610442p-3026695c.html
Kohno seems to be aware of the interest from surveillance groups that his techniques could generate, saying in his paper: "One could also use our techniques to help track laptops as they move, perhaps as part of a Carnivore-like project". Carnivore was Internet surveillance software built by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation. Earlier in the paper Kohno overshadowed possible forensics applications, saying that investigators could use his techniques "to argue whether a given laptop was connected to the Internet from a given access location".
Another application for Kohno's technique is to "obtain information about whether two devices on the Internet, possibly shifted in time or IP addresses, are actually the same physical device."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/0,2000061744,39183346,00.htm
[In case you forgot, this is the guy who was grabbed by the US/Canada as a suspected terrorist and shipped off to our “enemy” Syria to get worked over, andi f they found anything the Syrians would tell us about it. They didn’t find anything so they dumped him on the side of the road after torturing him for a year or something like that. He was never a terrorist.
Now he wants the US/Canada to apologize and maybe compensate him for the whole kdinapping and torture thing.]
The commission investigating the Maher Arar case wants to postpone a legal battle with the government about the disclosure of secret evidence concerning Mr. Arar's deportation to Syria in 2002.
The postponement would allow the public hearings into whether federal officials were involved in Mr. Arar's deportation as a suspected terrorist to proceed.
But Mr. Arar's lawyers, as well as human-rights groups, said the 34-year-old may never get a fair chance to clear his name if the inquiry's commissioner, Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor, puts off the secrecy issue until the hearings are complete.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050305.wxarar0305_2/BNStory/National/
But Walker isn't a lobbyist or an activist, he's an accountant. His title is comptroller general of the United States, which makes him the head auditor for the most important and powerful government in the world. And he's desperately trying to get a message out to anyone who'll listen: the United States of America's public finances are a shambles. They're getting rapidly worse. And if something major isn't done soon to solve the country's intractable budget problems, the world will face an economic shakeup unlike anything ever seen before.
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20050307_101541_101541
[Every time the US gets mixed up with a country, all of a sudden the country is over-run with drugs and gangsters and women get screwed. I can see that happening by accident once or twice, but every single time? There is no way that is an accident.]
More than three years after a pro-U.S. government was installed, Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is “on the verge of becoming a narcotics state,” according to a presidential report.
The report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a new record of 206,700 hectares, more than triple the figure for 2003.
The Afghan narcotics situation, “represents an enormous threat to world stability, said the report, issued Friday.
http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Mar05/050305Afghanistan.html
[Attention idiots. We are still in Kosovo and Bosnia, and neither of them is winning any awards for stability or peacefulness. Haiti is being run by a junta and the violence there is virtually off the charts. Even the Haitians think it is unusually bad.]
The United States has occupied many foreign lands over the last half centuryóGermany and Japan in World War II, and, on a much smaller scale, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo in the 1990s. In all these cases, we sponsored elections and handed-off to democratic governments control of countries that were relatively stable, secure, and reasonably peaceful.
...
[Bring back the draft for a humanitarian problem in some other country? -This is my first swear in this blog- Fuck you.]
All this for a war that most planners consider to be a medium-sized conflictónothing like what the United States faced in World War I, World War II, or the Cold War. And while threats of that magnitude aren't anywhere on the horizon, there are plenty of quite possible scenarios that could quickly overwhelm usóan implosion of the North Korean regime, a Chinese attack on Taiwan, worsening of the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, or some unforeseen humanitarian nightmare.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0503.carter.html
[This could very well be true, but whetehr it is or it isn’t, the fact remains that people can’t breathe the fumes from burning hydrocarbons, and most forms of life do not get along well with either crude or refined petroleum products.]
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not untested or speculative. On the contrary, the modern theory was severely challenged by many traditionally-minded geologists at the time of its introduction; and during the first decade thenafter, the modern theory was thoroughly examined, extensively reviewed, powerfully debated, and rigorously tested. Every year following 1951, there were important scientific conferences organized in the U.S.S.R. to debate and evaluate the modern theory, its development, and its predictions. The All-Union conferences in petroleum and petroleum geology in the years 1952-1964/5 dealt particularly with this subject. (During the period when the modern theory was being subjected to extensive critical challenge and testing, a number of the men pointed out that there had never been any similar critical review or testing of the traditional hypothesis that petroleum might somehow have evolved spontaneously from biological detritus.)
...
It appears that, unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been, for quite some time now, two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic 'fossil fuel' deposited in finite quantities near the planet's surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth's magma. One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an unproven relic of the eighteenth century. One theory anticipates deep oil reserves, refillable oil fields, migratory oil systems, deep sources of generation, and the spontaneous venting of gas and oil. The other theory has a difficult time explaining any such documented phenomena.
So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom, chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd 'Fossil Fuel' theory, of course -- the same theory that the 'Peak Oil' doomsday warnings are based on.
http://www.rense.com/general63/staline.htm
The Caucasus is among the most vital regions of the world for the United States, said Commander of the United States European Command James Jones. In the opinion of Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of Russia"s foreign affairs parliamentary committee, this statement betrays the true goals of the U.S. military presence in the Caucasus.
Mr. Kosachev noted that one of the U.S. goals in the Caucasus is to spread democracy and secure U.S. economic interests. So, Mr. Jones in fact "admits that the U.S. is spreading democracy by expanding its military presence in various parts of the world," Mr. Kosachev said. The statement made by General Jones "could have been made by a politician or a diplomat, but not by a high ranking general," he stressed.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/371/15065_Caucasus.html
[I will assess the risk for you in two seconds for free. Yes it exists. The chances are better than 1 in 3 he would be thrown into a stockade or sent to Guantanamo.
I’ll also give you some free advice, renegotiate that treaty.]
A British terrorist suspect could face the death penalty or imprisonment in Guantánamo Bay if he is extradited to the US, his lawyers said yesterday.
The US authorities want to try Babar Ahmad, 30, from Tooting, south-west London, for allegedly running websites and sending emails to raise money for the fighting in Chechnya and Afghanistan.
The extradition hearing at Bow Street magistrates court, central London, was adjourned to give US government lawyers more time to assess whether there was a risk that he could be put into military detention, where he could face the death penalty.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2005/040305faceexecution.htm
[How is a corporation not a person?
Let me count the ways:
1. Corporations can be bought and sold, whereas it is illegal for people to buy and sell one another.
2. Corporations can theoretically live forever, whereas actual people can not.
3. Corporations can exist simultaneously in several different places, whereas people can not.
4. Corporations are created by administative acts of government, whereas actual people are are brought forth from other people.
5. People can be imprisoned, whereas corporations can not be.
6. If you believe the Bible you can read that God created Man in his own image, and that he created only men and women. A corporation has no specific image and certainly does not resemble either a man or woman either physically, morally, intellectually, or spiritually. If you believe in the Bible, I think you ought to find the notion that corporations are people essentially blasphemous.
7. Corporations in almost all areas of the law enjoy greater rights than actual people. If corporations were people, this would be a violation of the equal proection clause of the Constitution.
If I think of it I will come back and work on this some more later.]
My jury duty questionnaire: "Do you agree that a corporation is a person?"
It was time for me to serve on jury duty again. It's easy to get out of jury duty but frankly I think the jury system is the backbone of America. Serving on a jury is the most patriotic thing I can do -- aside from protesting election fraud.
So there I was in the courtroom. Jury selection. "This trial is a civil trial. A corporation is suing a corporation. Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" There were 58 people in that jury pool. Not one of them raised their hand. Except for me. I went OFF on that poor sweet judge.
"What do you MEAN that a corporation is a person!!!! A table is not a person. A chair is not a person. And a corporation is not a person either!" Me and that guy on "Law and Order". I was on a roll.
"Your Honor!" I expounded. "In 1886, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a lowly LAW CLERK by the name of J.C. Bancroft Davis -- a former employee of a railroad, mind you -- SNUCK a headnote into a decision, saying that a corporation is as good as a person. That headnote was not legally binding! And for the last 118 YEARS, America has been PRETENDING that corporations were living, breathing persons! Your Honor! That's just wrong."
I paused for breath. The judge paused for the bailiff. The Plaintiff looked worried and the Defendant looked worried too -- but by golly I was going to have my day in court! "No judge has ever ruled on this issue. You can't even cite case law on this. Can a corporation die? Can a corporation father a child?" And can a corporation receive welfare? Don't answer that.
I find it very hard to believe that every day, across this great nation of ours, thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of perspective jurors are being asked this very same question and yet the whole nation-wide jury pool hasn't stood up in open rebellion when asked this stupid, cheesy question. "Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" What are we? A nation of sheep?
Needless to say, I was excused from jury duty. A corporation, however, did not step up to take my place. Why? Because a corporation is not allowed to serve on juries. Why not? Because at least someone somewhere has the good sense to realize that A CORPORATION IS NOT A PERSON!
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/
There may come a day when Uncle Sam wants Wayne Flenniken for the U.S. Army.
In many ways, he's an ideal candidate for military service. At 15, he already has finished high school and is enrolled at Delaware Technical & Community College studying Spanish and English. There is a problem, however. Wayne doesn't want any part of Uncle Sam's Army - or anyone else's, for that matter.
"I don't believe in war and I don't like the military in any way, shape or form," he said. "I don't think anyone should be forced to die prematurely."
That's why he went to a draft resistance training session Friday in his hometown of Newark. It's why Wayne has begun building his case as a conscientious objector.
http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?rpr/050221Dr.htm
[Well thank goodness some group of people this country is remotely interested in protecting their own children.]
The Army's wartime recruiting challenge is aggravated by a sharp drop in black enlistments in the last four years, which internal Army and Defense Department polls trace to an unpopular war in Iraq and concerns among blacks with Bush administration policies.
The Army strains to meet recruiting goals in part because black volunteers have fallen 41 percent ---- from 23.5 percent of recruits in fiscal 2000 down steadily to 13.9 percent in the first four months of fiscal 2005.
"It's alarming,'' said Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Ky. and one of the Army's most senior black officers, No single factor explains the drop, Rochelle added, but clearly the propensity of black youth to enlist is impacted by the war and increasingly by views of parents, teachers, coaches, clergy and other "influencers.''
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/03/05/news/columnists/philpott/3405184934.txt
[Losing friends one dunam at a time.]
The Israeli authorities have given the Al-Ram local council military orders demanding the confiscation of Palestinian-owned lands in Al-Ram and Jaba' and Hazma villages.
The confiscation of the lands, all located in occupied Jerusalem, are for the purpose of constructing a section of the separation wall, said Khalil Al-Tafakji, director general of cartography department at the Arab Studies Association.
The construction of that section of the wall on Palestinian lands would completely isolate them from the holy city, he added.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7327
[The “Christian” right’s champion also happens to be a proponent of orgies.]
Justice Antonin Scalia, who at one point told Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (who was arguing for a Ten Commandments display in his state), "'Our laws come from God.' If you don't believe it sends that message, you're kidding yourself." At another point, Scalia declared: "It is a profoundly religious message, but it's shared by the vast majority of the people . . . It seems to me the minority has to be tolerant of the majority's view."
Scalia, of course, is locked in a political struggle with Justice Clarence Thomas for the hearts and minds of conservatives who are debating which of the two to support for chief justice. He has become the Christian Right's charismatic champion here, but whether he has the political weight to push the fight forward is another matter.
http://villagevoice.com/news/0510,webmondo,61772,6.html
[I’ll tell you why Byrd’s opponents are trying to shut him up. They rely on a history-free world view to make their lies work. Perspective and background and historical facts only trip them up and they want nothing to do with stuff like that. His whole speech is about perspective and background. Of course they can’t let that go unchallenged.]
The director, the legendary Frank Capra, in his autobiography, "Frank Capra: The Name Above the Title," cites this moving review of the film, appearing in the Hollywood Reporter, November 4, 1942:
Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," chosen by French Theaters as the final English language film to be shown before the recent Nazi-ordered countrywide ban on American and British films went into effect, was roundly cheered. . . .
Storms of spontaneous applause broke out at the sequence when, under the Abraham Lincoln monument in the Capital, the word, "Liberty," appeared on the screen and the Stars and Stripes began fluttering over the head of the great Emancipator in the cause of liberty.
Similarly, cheers and acclamation punctuated the famous speech of the young senator on man's rights and dignity. "It was . . . as though the joys, suffering, love and hatred, the hopes and wishes of an entire people who value freedom above everything, found expression for the last time. . . ."
For those who may not have seen it, "Mr. Smith" is the fictional story of one young Senator's crusade against forces of corruption and his lengthy filibuster -- his lengthy filibuster -- for the values he holds dear.
My, how things have changed. These days, Mr. Smith would be called an obstructionist. Rumor has it that there is a plot afoot to curtail the right of extended debate in this hallowed Chamber, not in accordance with its rules, mind you, but by fiat from the Chair -- fiat from the Chair.
http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=1237
A French university said Friday it decided to suspend a professor for five years after he made remarks that cast doubt on the Holocaust.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1109906439670
[I think you have to keep an open mind when your victim was dressed in a rubber suit at the time of death.
This guy was supposed to be some big shot in the world of high finance. Yet more evidence that the higher up types are predominantly freaks and weirdos.]
The investigation into the murder of the French banker Edouard Stern took a bizarre twist yesterday with a report that he was shot while wearing a latex bodysuit.
The report, by the Geneva newspaper Le Temps - a report neither confirmed nor denied by investigators - appeared to point to a personal motive for the killing. Investigators were, however, said to be keeping an open mind.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=616966
[So to be a friend of the Jews you must give up a belief in Jesus. I would like to know which five so-called “chruches” he is referring to that have given up their belief in Jesus. What do they belief in now? Sticks and stones and broken bones?
At the top of this web page it says the website is to “increase interfaith understanding”. I have to say this is very accurate. It sure has increased my understanding.]
CHRISTIANS have to make a choice - "either retain their present belief system and be antisemitic or form a partnership with the Jewish people."
This is the view of Bar-Ilan University's Rabbi Dr. Pinchas Hayman, who is active in Jewish-Christian dialogue and in encouraging modern Christianity to return to its Jewish roots by observing the Seven Noahide Laws.
"As long as Christians keep Jesus as God, they will be antisemitic because that belief must lead them to believe that those who reject Jesus reject God," he told the Australian Jewish News.
"That's how the process of satanising the Jews began. That belief is the root cause of 1500 years of the Christian idolatrous antisemitism which led to the Holocaust."
Proficient in New Testament Studies and Classical Greek, Dr. Hayman noted that at least five American churches have given up belief in Jesus.
http://www.comeandhear.com/supplement/ajn-hayman/ajn-page.html
[I guess what this is about is some white supremacist type was on trial for something, and then one day last week the judge in his case came home and found her husband and mother dead or something like that. So I guess people are saying the guy in trial was somehow behind it. So he is saying back here that that is not the case.
It does seem a bit implausible to me, since everyone would immediately suspect him of being in on it and it would only be likely to get him more jail time anyway, since the judge would be mad at him for killing her family.]
Monday's killings of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's mother and husband came a month before Hale was to be sentenced by another judge for soliciting an undercover FBI informant to murder Lefkow. Lefkow had ordered Hale to change the name of his extremist group as part of a trademark lawsuit.
Hale released a statement Thursday through his mother, Evelyn Hucheson, saying, "There is no way that any supporter of mine could commit such a heinous crime."
"I only hope they sincerely wish to apprehend the animal instead of railroading the innocent," Hale said. "Only an idiot would think I would do this."
Hale reportedly made the statement to Hucheson during her weekly telephone call to him at Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center.
http://www.nbc5.com/news/4253971/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=2265994&dppid=65192
http://www.nbc5.com/news/4251514/detail.html
[I keep reading about how these so-called “Christian” right-wing millenialist types think that they can hurry up the second coming of Christ by getting the Jews back in charge of Israel and forcing the supposed time table for Armageddon by destroying the planet and stirring up trouble and this and that, as in this quote from below:
“When the concept of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) is raised, those who believe in a literal war at Armageddon often feel that Christians should work to start this war and should vigorously participate in it”
Now what’s wrong with this way of thinking? I will tell you.
In the first book of the Bible we can read that God spent six days to create the heavens and the Earth and on the seventh day he rested. Now God is supposed to be the supreme being of all that is or ever could be, the creator not just of the Earth, but of the whole universe. He spent six days to create the world, and on the seventh dy he rested from his labors. God himself, the most powerful being- period- put in so much work on the world, that he himself had to rest on the seventh day. Was this because he was making a little trinket for his children to toy with and then smash when they got bored with it?
In the very first chapter we read how God created grass and seeds and trees even before he divided night from day. Then following that he created the fish of the sea and the fowl of air. Then following that he created the beasts which live upon the solid surface of the Earth, and finally he got around to creating Man. Now it seems clear to me that the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, which were created prior to the human race, were not low on God’s list of priorities, he did not forget them, and they weren’t afterthoughts. Neither were the plants or land animals or any other part of his creation. [Genesis Chapter 1]
Lest we think that perhaps all these things WERE low on his list of priorities, Jesus himself informs us otherwise. He says, “Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them!” [Matthew 6:26]
Or as Jesus also says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father.” [Matthew 10:29]
The Bible is shot through with references to both plants and animals, and clearly God takes note of them all and delightsin all his creations. Furthermore, God relies on the plants and animals to act as symbols and convey messages to Man.
A quick look through Matthew reveals “The Parable of the Sower”, “The Parable of the Mustard Seed”, “The Parable of the Weeds”, “The Parable of the Yeast”, “The Parable of the Lost Sheep”, “The Lesson of the Fig Tree”, etc. etc.
Obviously, God is not oblivious to his world, and obviously he takes an interest in it and gets use from it, even as we do ourselves who were created int he image of God.
These are just a very few examples, but having them, and having all the evidence easily available before you, how can you claim to follow God and simultaneously seek to destroy the world and hurry the day of judgement? It is clear this is against the will of God, if only because you seek to destroy that which God has created and which he uses and takes pleasure in.
But let us go beyond this. In Matthew 4:7 we hear Jesus quote the scriptute to say to Satan, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” By pushing for Armageddon, by pushing for the supposed “rapture”, by pushing to move up the ultimate day of judgement for all the world, are you not seeking to put the Lord to the test? Does God work for you, or do you work for God?
Let us go even further beyond this. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too. And if someone takes you to court to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well.” etc. etc. [Matthew 5:38-40] And in Luke 22:49-51 we read how Judas came with agents of the Pharisees to arrest Jesus. “When the disciples who were with Jesus saw what was going to happen, they asked ‘Shall we use our swords, Lord?’ And one of them struck the High Priest’s slave and and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘Enough of this!” He touched the man’s ear and healed him.”
And as is further reported in Matthew 26:52-3 “’Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. ‘All who take the sword will die by the sword. Don’t you know that I could call on my Father for help, and at once he would send me more than twelve armies of angels?’”
Don’t YOU know this, who may claim to have read the Bible. If God is not in a hurry for war and violence, why are you?
What can you do that God can not do? Even if you were not commanded not to put God to the test, why seek to do what God can do on his own? Both the Old and New Testaments have already laid out a series of commandments and goals which are more than enough work to fill a mortal lifetime.
This is why Jesus says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” [Matthew 7:5] This is why he lays out the different obligations such as not to swear oaths in God’s name, not to live in anger, even in your heart where no one knows about it, and so on.
So many people out there do not even attempt to do even the smallest of these things, and yet they are eager to bring about the day of judgement. How bitter will that day be when they have to explain to God that they made little or no effort to follow his teachings or his rules, that they sought to trample his creation underfoot and destroy it, that they actively sought to bring about the end of the world which God had created. The Bible tells us that when each person goes to face their judgement there can be no one to intervene, each person will stand or fall on their own merits.
What is the merit is pursuing a course that is known to lea to death, destruction, and the end of the world? Just because of your selfish desire to see Jesus more quickly?
Some further say that we must restore Israel to the Jewish people as part of the fulfillment of this supposed prophecy of world-ending destruction because they are the “chosen” people. But Joh nthe baptist tells us “Do those things which show you have turned from your sins. And don’t think you can escape punishment by saying that Abraham is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make of them descendant of Abraham! The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire....He will gather his wheat into his barn, but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out.” [Matthew 3:8-12]
Well, so having demonstrated that God does care about the whole world, and not just (some) humans, having demonstrated that it is not right to try to hurry God, having established that human beings are enjoined to try to perfect their own personal faults during their lives, having established that Jesus does not encourage violene among his followers, let alone a world ending Holocaust, one question remains to be answered.
Is there any character we know of from the Bible who would back all of things which go against the will of the Lord? The answer is an obvious yes.
Who seeks to thwart the will of God? Who takes pleasure in the destruction of God’s creation? Who takes pleasure in the perversion of God’s teaching and of his children? Who works in devious ways for nefarious ends? Who is also known as “the slanderer” or “diabolos” in Greek? Satan.
Isn’t the perverse drive to death and destruction being made in the name of God and the followers of Christ a great slander against them? Doesn’t it cause people to recoil in horror and say that “Christians” are bad? Are there not also slanders against the other religions that claim to follow God, i.e. Judaism and Islam? Who would be most interested in seeing this happen?]
"Pre-millennial and Zionistic understandings of Scripture, and practices resulting from these understandings, pose grave dangers to our present civilization," says F. Furman Kearly, Ph.D. in " The Middle East Crisis in Biblical Perspective."
Dr. Kearly is Professor of Bible and Director of Graduate Studies at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas. He takes sharp issue with such Israel-First Millennialists as Jerry Falwell and Hal Lindsey.
“When the concept of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) is raised, those who believe in a literal war at Armageddon often feel that Christians should work to start this war and should vigorously participate in it. Those in particular who view the present situation as Armageddon believe that Christians should support Israel with vigor and urge our government to take an active part in the conflict in the Middle East."
"The main feature of dispensational pre-millennialism relative to the Middle East crisis is the doctrine that all the biblical prophecies concerning restoration of Israel relate to the return of the Jewish people to their homeland prior to the second coming of Christ. About 1830 J. N. Darby, one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren, began teaching what has come to be called dispensational pre-millennialism. No one person has been more influential in spreading dispensational teachings than C. I. Scofield."
"Pre-millennialism and Zionism is based on an error-filled system of biblical interpretation. This means the present state of Israel is of men and not of God."
http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?articles/050125Kea.htm
posted by abu nakba at 3/06/2005 11:05:00 AM
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