Kosovo - Practice run for Palestine
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=104
Those of us who care about the future of Israel, and indeed could sometimes perhaps be forgiven for wondering whether Israel even has a future [though I have no doubt she does – Ed] might do well to take note of what happened in Europe this week, when the southern province of Serbia declared independence, with the blessing of many other nations, including the United States, but against the wishes of the Serbs themselves.
“Welcome to Europe’s newest country,” rejoiced a BBC World television reporter in the “capital” Priština, a few minutes after Kosovo’s parliament had announced their “country’s” independence.
Kosovo has never been an independent state. And protesting Serbs rioted in the real capital, Belgrade, with one telling journalists Serbia “will never accept the creation of a new state inside our land.”
But for the BBC, with its massive global reach, these things were irrelevant and would not reverse the “new reality.”
Kosovo’s “prime minister” would soon be addressing “the new nation,” declared the organization emphatically, and the European Union would move quickly top establish a mission there in order to help strengthen Kosovo’s institutions.
In short, neither historical facts nor national objection were going to get in the way of this nation being recognized by most the world and as soon as possible welcomed as their newest member by the international community.
Indeed, the United States and United Kingdom were among those nations that leaped to recognize Kosovo.
And Monday saw the Organization of the Islamic Conference welcoming the development excited, according to a Reuters report, about this new country that “would be an asset to the Muslim world.”
In a The Jerusalem Post feature on Kosovo’s tiny Jewish community Tuesday, members of the just 50-strong community expressed uncertainty about their future and said antisemitism had begin to manifest itself with the deployment in the area of Saudi Arabia-run charities.
Israel has decided to adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude and will not recognize Kosovo “for now.”
For its part, Russia fiercely opposes Kosovo’s independence, and has threatened to respond, albeit not militarily.
Russia’s rejection is the only thing that prevents the United Nations from welcoming Kosovo as its newest member state. But for that, all opposition to this theft of Serbia’s land would have already disappeared, making it a fait accompli.
Meanwhile, Serbia’s Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica excoriated the US for being “ready to violate the international order for its own military interests.
“Today, this policy of force thinks that it has triumphed by establishing a false state [but] as long as the Serb people exist, Kosovo will be Serbia,” he declared.
Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo complained that a “new country is being established by breach of international law,” and added: “It’s better to call it a fake country.”
As it has gone with Kosovo, will it go with Palestine? Very likely, with just this one difference:
Not a single nation on earth opposes the creation of that fake country on ancient Jewish lands. Within minutes of its declaration of independence (God forbid) the United Nations will welcome it into the fold.
Jewish protestations against this looming event have long begun to fade. Virtually lost are the voices of the few, God-fearing men, women and young people who still reject and speak out against what the world wants to do with their land.
Few, maybe. But they, and all those who stand with them, can claim these promises:
The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him ,
And delivers them. (Psalm 34:7)
Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him ,
That glory may dwell in our land. (Psalm 85:9)
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him ;
He also will hear their cry and save them. (Psalm 145:19)
The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him ,
In those who hope in His mercy. (Psalm 147:11)
The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him ,
And He will show them His covenant. (Psalm 25:14)
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him ,
On those who hope in His mercy (Psalm 33:18)
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him (Psalm 103:11)
Serbs Torch U.N. Checkpoints in Protest After U.S. Recognizes Kosovo
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331157,00.html
Thousands of Serbs chanting "Kosovo is Serbia" marched Tuesday to a bridge dividing them from ethnic Albanians while others torched U.N. border checkpoints and cars to protest Kosovo's declaration of independence.
NATO troops later closed down the roads leading to the checkpoints, cutting off the only link between northern Kosovo and Serbia, said Besim Hoti, a U.N. spokesman. The move appeared to be due to fears that the reduction of U.N. control of the border could allow Serbian militants to return to fight in Kosovo, a land Serb nationalists consider the cradle of their state and religion.
Smoke billowed from two checkpoints separating Kosovo from Serbia and flames engulfed several U.N. vehicles set ablaze in protest against Kosovo's weekend proclamation of independence and anger over international recognition of the new nation.
For two days, Kosovo's Serbs have shown their determination to shun the declaration by destroying U.N. and NATO property, setting off small bombs and staging noisy rallies through the Serb stronghold of Kosovska Mitrovica.
The attacks on U.N. border crossings showed the protesters' willingness to use violence to hold onto Kosovo — and could clear the way for Serbian militants to return to fight in Kosovo, a land Serb nationalists consider the cradle of their state and religion.
Kosovo has not been under Belgrade's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A U.N. mission since has governed Kosovo, with more than 16,000 NATO troops and a multiethnic police force policing the province.
The divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica in the north has been tense since the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on Sunday — widely expected after internationally mediated talks on the province's future fell apart last year.
Overnight, three loud explosions shook the town, with one damaging several cars near a U.N. building. Two hand grenades hit deserted homes that belonged to ethnic Albanians who fled this Serb stronghold after the 1999 war. A U.N. vehicle also was torched overnight in a nearby village.
No injuries were reported, and Kosovo Serb authorities said they were investigating the bombings.
In Jarnije and Banja, some 18 miles north of Kosovska Mitrovica, protesters used plastic explosives and bulldozers to wreck the two border checkpoint posts.
Protesters tipped over metal sheds that housed Kosovo's customs service and sent them sliding down a hill and into a river. They vandalized and set fire to passport control booths.
NATO peacekeepers did not intervene but stepped up patrols on the road leading to Serbia. Alliance helicopters buzzed overhead.
The top U.N. official in Kosovo, Joachim Ruecker, condemned the attacks. He said he and the chief of NATO-led peacekeepers decided to close down the two crossings.
"Any violence is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated," the German diplomat said.
Mitrovica's Serb authorities called on Belgrade to "urgently take steps" to protect Serbia's territorial integrity and protect its citizens — a covert way of inviting Serbia's military intervention.
Later, about 2,000 young Kosovo Serbs marched to a bridge that spans the Ibar River dividing the town between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, wrecking a NATO car in downtown Mitrovica with sticks and stones along the way.
"We cannot allow the institutions of a nonexistent state to be imposed on us and to pay taxes to some independent Kosovo," said Slavisa Ristic, head of the local Serb municipality. "That is impossible."
International recognition of Kosovo's declaration of independence — led by the U.S., Australia and the European Union's biggest powers — appeared to feed Serbs' anger over a unilateral move the government in Belgrade rejected as illegal.
Russia, China and some EU members also strongly oppose letting Kosovo break away from Serbia over Serbia's objections.
In Vienna, Austria, Serbia's foreign minister urged members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation to condemn Kosovo's "illegal" declaration.
"History will judge those who have chosen to trample the bedrock of the international system and on the principles upon which security and cooperation in Europe have been established," Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said.
He said Serbia is ready — "at any time, in any place, in any manner" — to engage in talks with Pristina to agree on a mutually acceptable solution for Kosovo's future status.
"But we cannot give them sovereignty. ... For us, Kosovo is the crucible of our identity, it is the essential link between our past and our future," he said.
Kosovo, where the population of 2 million is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanian, insisted during U.N.-led talks on statehood while Serbia, which has deep religious and historic ties to Kosovo, pushed for wide autonomy.
FM: Two states essential to quell threat of 'refugee' 'return'
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2340
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Tuesday there was no choice but to go along with the "two state" vision if Israel wants to be established "as a Jewish, democratic and secure state."
According to The Jerusalem Post, Livni sees the ongoing Israeli-"Palestinian" peace talks as an essential vehicle for instilling the notion of two states in the hearts of the two peoples to ensure that the so-called refugees are never allowed to return and flood the truncated, indefensible half-state which is all that will be left of Israel.
To forestall this, Livni insists, the only thing Israel can do is cede parts of its ancient land.
The internationally-supported Arab position is that it is the "Palestinians" who are being asked to cede land to the Jews.
From the start of Israeli-"Palestinian" negotiations at Madrid in 1991, the Arab side has remained immovable in its demands, including the central demand for the "right of return" of the "refugees."
History has recorded a consistent slipping and erosion of Israel's position under massive pressure from America and the rest of the world to compromise its red lines.
German professors: We've paid for Holocaust in full
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2343
A group of German professors came to Israel to tell the Jews - of whom their countrymen murdered six million just a few short decades ago - they believed Germany has paid fully for what it did.
And because it had, they said, Germany should now stop giving Israel "preferential" treatment and behave more "even-handedly" towards the Arabs.
The bald-faced assertions were made Monday at a conference at Netanya's Academic College, according to Ynetnews.
These words, demanding to be "let off the hook already" after wiping out fully one-third of all the world's Jewish people, had long been "brewing just below the surface in Germany," stated the news service.
Nor was this the limit of these professors' gall.
Germany had actually helped to establish Israel by deporting 160,000 Jews to Palestine during the Nazi era, they said.
"These refugees ultimately ended up in Israel and bolstered its Jewish population at the Arabs’ expense."
Antisemitism down in the United States
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2342
Notwithstanding a petrol bomb attack Monday on a Jewish community center in Los Angeles which the police are investigating as a hate crime, incidents of Jew-hatred (antisemitism) are reportedly down in the US.
Israel's Army Radio reports the Anti Defamation League (ADL) found 13 percent fewer cases of antisemitism took place last year over 2006 - with "just" 1,350 recorded.
The ADL also released the worrying finding that one in three American citizens believe Jews in the United States are more loyal to Israel than to America.
Historically, charges of "dual-loyalty" have been used to stoke antisemitism.
UN official equates Arab terror and Israel's self-defense
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2341
Visiting United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes Monday bundled together the Arab firing of rockets at Israeli civilians and the Israeli effort to stop those attacks by describing the conflict on the Gaza-Negev frontier as "a vicious cycle of violence."
Israel reacted angrily to the immoral equation, charging that Holmes' blurring of the clear lines between aggression and self-defense in fact contributed to more terrorism by encouraging the Arabs to believe the world would pressure Israel rather than condemn the Arabs.
According to The Jerusalem Post, prior to making his statement Holmes had toured the Gaza Strip and visited the bombarded Israeli town of Sderot where he had heard first hand from victims who have for years endured the horror of living under almost daily attacks.
That he would come out with such a mealy-mouth statement after so-clearly witnessing the suffering of Israel's civilians flabbergasted Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Aharon Abramovitch.
But Holmes went even further.
Ignoring the often-reported widespread support given the terrorists by Gaza's Arab civilians, including the public rejoicing when Israeli victims are killed in "Palestinian" attacks, he asserted that the harm caused the people in Gaza is not justified by the rocket attacks.
Israel's surgical strikes "collectively penalizes an entire population" and are wrong, he said.
The fact that Israel fully and unilaterally left the Gaza Strip in 2005, and no longer controls one square inch of that territory made no difference.
"Israel continues to have the obligation of an occupying power in ... Gaza and [as such] must fulfill its obligations."
The United Nations' long history of damning Israel and pitying the "Palestinians" has done nothing to help bring the conflict to an end.
As Abramovitch said, it is an approach which in fact encourages the terrorists to persist.
Israel Objects to U.N. Official's Remarks
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/324803.aspx
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israel rejected United Nation's Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes' assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a "vicious cycle of violence."
Near the end of a five-day visit to the region, his first since assuming office in January 2007, Holmes met with Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Aharon Abramovitch, who concluded that the UN official's remarks encourage terrorism.
"Such comments create an analogy between terrorists and those who are defending themselves from terror," Abramovitch said after their meeting.
Noting the Palestinians' "constant, indiscriminate firing of Kassam rockets and mortars at Sderot and communities in the western Negev, smuggling arms, ammunition and terrorists into the Gaza Strip, and the unceasing efforts by terrorist organizations to carry out attacks against Israel," Abramovitch said the UN should support Israel's struggle against terrorism.
"The UN and the democratic countries, some of which face similar challenges from extremist elements, support Israel in its struggle against terrorism and against organizations that deny its right to exist," Abramovitch said.
Holmes took issue with the director-general's remarks.
"It would be very hard to construe from what I said anything that would be encouraging terrorism," he said.
"There is a crisis [in Gaza] that has increasingly severe humanitarian consequences," Holmes said at a press conference in Jerusalem, adding that Kassam rocket attacks on Israelis don't justify actions that "collectively penalize an entire population."
While Israel holds Hamas responsible for the economic conditions in the Gaza Strip, Holmes believes Israel is "largely in control of what happens in Gaza."
"Israel continues to have the obligation of an occupying power in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Gaza, and Israel must fulfill those obligations," he said.
"I am deeply concerned that what is happening on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank is not a good basis on which to build a successful peace settlement," Holmes concluded.
The UN undersecretary also took issue with the security barrier and checkpoints in Judea and Samaria.
Kuwait condemns 'all who honor Mugniyah'
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2339
In contrast to the widespread Arab and Muslim world's lionization of top Hizb'allah leader Imad Mugniyah who was killed in a mysterious car bombing in Damascus, Syria last week, the Kuwaiti government Monday denounced him as "a terrorist whose hands have been stained with blood."
The government was not referring to Mugniyah's hundreds of victims - Jewish, American, French - but to two Kuwaitis who were allegedly killed during the hijacking of a Kuwait Airways flight in 1988.
"The Cabinet regrets and condemns the eulogizing and glorifying by some of a terrorist whose hands have been stained with the blood of Jabriya martyrs Abdullah Al-Khaldi and Khalid Ayoub," it said.
Mugniyah’s death was "a just punishment from Allah" and his two victims could now rest in peace, it said, according to a report in the Arab Times.
Observers said the majority Kuwaiti government was anxious to keep a rift from opening between the country's majority Sunnis and minority Shiites.
Mugniyah was a Shiite.
Kuwaiti Minister for Cabinet Affairs Faisal Al-Hajji said it was everybody’s responsibility to save the country from "what other societies that neighbor us" are suffering from.
Iraq has long been torn by Muslim sectarian violence.
Mike Baker: Terrorists and Morality
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331316,00.html
Just the other night, while having our usual Wednesday happy hour at the office with the handful of PWB staffers either still gainfully employed or not currently incarcerated, one of the interns asked if I thought it was morally okay to be happy that the senior Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh had just been blown up in a car bomb in Damascus, Syria.
Huh? Or better yet, mmmm.
As I poured myself a tasty measure of bourbon (from a bottle bought just that day to celebrate Mughniyeh’s explosion) I stared at the intern with my best, most sincere look of concern. This was certainly a moral quandary.
A young, idealistic intern, just at the beginning of life’s journey — all full of beans and optimism. As I silently pondered how the folks at Bakers make their bourbon so yummy, I also took a minute to consider how best to answer the intern’s stupid question. The pause clearly made me look wise. Wise and sensitive to her concern.
I sat down, snagged a couple of cashews, which I think go really well with bourbon, and stared hard at the intern.
The fact that just that morning I had declared it “Mughniyeh Finally Got What He Deserved By Being Blown Straight To Hell Day" at the office, with a banner, refreshments and everything, clearly had made her think I was insensitive to his death.
The rest of the staff sat quietly waiting for an answer. “Did I think it was morally okay to be happy that Mughniyeh got all blowed up?"
Time for an answer.
I milked the whole silence thing for all it was worth and now an answer was in order. I carefully set my glass down on the desk, not wanting to spill a drop as I climbed up on the official PWB soapbox that we keep in the office for occasions just like this.
I said that every human life starts out as precious; something to be treasured, valued and treated with dignity and respect.
But then some of those lives veer off track, becoming murderers, pedophiles or in Mughniyeh’s case, a butchering terrorist with the blood of several hundred innocent people on his hands. At the point where these individuals choose to carry out heinous acts, they opt out of civilization and all those lofty, righteous ideals regarding the treatment of human life.
That’s the point where I no longer feel a moral obligation to worry about how they are treated. If you choose to become a terrorist, I choose to view you as less than human. We’ve all got free will. Ain’t life grand?
Now, of course, there are loads of people who bang on about the values of our country, and how treating even one terrorist improperly eats away at our principles and makes us less American.
Whether celebrating the termination of a bloodthirsty killer or using an aggressive technique in very limited circumstances to gather information from the high value detainee who doesn’t respond to kindness, the theory goes that we are debasing ourselves, chipping away at our humanity, causing the rest of the world to hate us or contributing to the destruction of our planet.
Something like that.
Well, take a deep breath, count to three, and in a clear, strong voice say, "What a load of crap."
According to that argument, if we stray from our ideals, we sink to the level of the terrorists.
I receive a fair amount of email from readers on the left side of the spectrum (and believe me, I value the fact that they take the time to read and respond to the PWB) who are keen to point out that it doesn’t matter what the terrorists do or how abhorrent their behavior may be, we must be true to our principles lest we become just like the terrorists.
Really?
Because honestly, I don’t have any problem differentiating myself from the terrorists. While I applaud the theoretical concept of "treat the terrorist as you yourself would want to be treated," I am always surprised by the realization that some people can’t separate theory from real life.
Down here on planet Earth, it’s okay to want to kill terrorists and still maintain your humanity. In fact my theory, known as the Baker Principle, states that the fewer terrorists you have makes it easier to maintain your humanity.
Scientific research has actually shown that as the numbers of terrorists decrease, your chances of getting blown up, beheaded or otherwise targeted and killed likewise decreases. In some academic circles this is referred to as a direct corollary. As opposed to a coronary which is something entirely different.
A coronary is something I may have if, as a nation, we become any more apologetic for the way we deal with terrorists.
[...]
The Democrats in Congress couldn’t see their way clear to approving the Senate amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a thirty plus year old piece of work that was enacted back when we were using rotary telephones to ask Sarah to connect us to Barney over at the Mayberry sheriff’s office.
I’m no specialist on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that the thing about technology is that it changes over the years. Unfortunately, the terrorists have proven to be early enablers of technology, using the internet and telecoms advances to their benefit.
Certainly we have also benefited, but frankly the good guys spend a great deal of time trying to stay even, much less one step ahead, of the enemy. Amendments to FISA, as well as the now expired Protect America Act, contain elements designed to account for the changes in technology.
Another element of FISA that has Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other like minded politicians up in arms is the effort to provide immunity from prosecution and [...] law suits for the private telecommunications companies that assist the government in its efforts to identify, monitor and collect information on terrorist suspect communications.
Here’s the honest to Gods truth — the government (whichever administration is in place) needs the cooperation of the private sector in order to properly protect national security. Whether we’re talking about cooperation in research and technology or assistance from telecoms with communications intercepts, the private sector is a critical part of homeland defense.
Exactly how many telecoms companies will willingly assist the U.S. government if they think they’ll be subjected to prosecution or enormously expensive law suits from tools who think the government is out to listen to the average citizen? I’m willing to go out on a limb and suggest that the answer is none.
So, let’s screw the national security effort. The main thing is that we’ve protected the civil liberties of terrorists and the citizens of our country who believe that we’ve overblown the whole war on terrorism thing.
As a politician, I suppose it’s much more important to pander to the progressive side of your party than it is to do something constructive, logical and important.
It’s all part of the same malaise that comes from a false sense of security, and a bizarre self loathing on the part of some who think the U.S. and the Bush administration are the root causes of terrorism.
Imagine the disappointment on the faces of all those excited voters currently getting drunk on the rhetoric from Senator Obama and Senator Clinton about change, a new direction, hope and restoring our image when, in early 2009, we all wake up to find that the world is the same, the fraternal order of terrorists still want to kill us and Hugo Chavez still hates us.
Oh well.
They may not be much for fighting terrorists, but at least under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi our fearless politicians stood up to the evil Bush administration and made sure that pesky FISA and Protect America Act won’t trample on any of our rights.
Perhaps now the Speaker of the House can turn her attention to foreign policy issues again. How about another trip to Syria? Wait, wasn’t that where Imad Mughniyeh was killed, in an upscale Damascus neighborhood after attending a local function? You don’t suppose Syrian President Bashar Assad knew Mughniyeh was living in Damascus do you?
I suppose it’s possible he didn’t know Mughniyeh was responsible for the death of 241 U.S. marines and over 60 U.S. Embassy personnel in Beirut back in the 1980s.
There is a chance no one told the President that Mughniyeh planned the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish Center in Buenos Aries back in the 1990s that killed over 100 civilians.
It’s conceivable that his staff forgot to mention to the President that Mughniyeh oversaw the kidnapping and killing of Beirut Station Chief William Buckley among other kidnappings, managed the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia and directed the team that hijacked the TWA flight during which young US Navy diver Robert Stethem was killed and dumped on the Beirut airport tarmac.
Never mind.
Listen, Ms. Pelosi, if you do travel back to Damascus for another chat with Bashar, please let him know how happy I was to see that Mughniyeh got what he deserved. If he asks, let him know I’m pretty sure my morality is still intact and I’m happy to report I can still differentiate myself from the terrorists.
Just my opinion. As always, we love to hear your thoughts and comments, regardless of your morality or place on the political spectrum. Till next week, stay safe.
Let me know your thoughts on the subject. Send your comments to peoplesweeklybrief@hotmail.com .
Till next week, stay safe.
Florida Board of Education to Vote on Evolution Standards
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,331170,00.html
The State Board of Education is scheduled to vote Tuesday whether to place the words "scientific theory of" in front of the term "evolution" in proposed science standards.
A Department of Education spokesman says the option of applying that label to all scientific theories mentioned in the new standards will be offered to the board as a possible compromise. Some opponents have urged the board to label evolution as a theory because they believe it conflicts with the biblical account of creation.
Florida's existing science standards don't mention evolution by name but require its teaching, using code words like "change over time."
But the proposed standards refer explicitly to evolution and require that it be taught in more detail.
Huckabee Admits Political Fallout From Staying
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Huckabee_Admits_Political/2008/02/19/73902.html
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee acknowledged that he might be “killing” his political career by remaining in the race despite the likely inevitability of John McCain winning the nomination.
While campaigning in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Huckabee told a crowd gathered at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire: "I may be killing my political career, but I know this -- if we don't start thinking in terms of solving some of America's problems, we're killing all of your careers."
During a press conference after the rally, Huckabee was asked to clarify his remarks.
"I'm just saying there are a lot of people who say I'm staying and creating problems for the party, and there are obviously people in the party who are unhappy that I've stayed,” he said in remarks reported by ABC News.
“Now keep in mind, they're all supporting John McCain, but this sense that it's just his turn, let's just all step aside -- I find that insulting as a Republican, and as a candidate.”
Huckabee has maintained that his continued presence in the race is important to the GOP, and he has compared his campaign to Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1976, when he went against the Republican base by challenging sitting President Gerald Ford.
Huckabee added: “The rules are that if you don't have the person that has the delegates to claim the nomination, it goes to a brokered convention…
"I think the worse thing is not getting the right candidate nominated for the contest. So if we haven't had a candidate who has rallied enough delegates to be named, then maybe it should go to the convention."
Huckabee says passion keeps him in race
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080220/ap_on_el_pr/huckabee;_ylt=Aqd2jMsJXkgOMeAYCO8gvfqs0NUE
Mike Huckabee said Tuesday passion for his beliefs — not his ego — was the reason he remains in the Republican presidential race despite near-impossible odds. Rival John McCain collected another primary win in Wisconsin and moved closer to the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Huckabee hasn't won a contest since Feb. 9.
"It's not about ego," Huckabee told reporters at a Little Rock hotel. The former Arkansas governor said he still wanted to deliver his message about issues important to him, such as opposition to abortion and a revised U.S. tax policy.
"We're going to keep marching on," Huckabee said. He already has campaign appearances set in Ohio and Texas, which hold primaries March 4.
Huckabee said he had spoken with McCain after the Wisconsin primary and he thanked his opponent for running a civil campaign. "Clearly we were disappointed by the results in Wisconsin," but Huckabee said he would look for the good amid the bad news.
Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html
Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.
The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate.
Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.
As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.
As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception — Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.
Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.
Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.
AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.
Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.
An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam's northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.
In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.
Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.
Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.
More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
Temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
If global warming gets any worse we'll all freeze to death.
Graham Home Following Surgery
http://www.newsmax.com/us/graham_surgery/2008/02/19/73834.html
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Evangelist Billy Graham is back at his North Carolina home recovering from surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid to his brain.
Mission Hospitals spokeswoman Merrell Gregory says Graham is recovering well and physicians are pleased with his progress. Graham underwent surgery last Wednesday.
Dr. Ralph Loomis said doctors will continue to calibrate the updated valve at his mountainside home in Montreat.
The 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister has also suffered from prostate cancer and macular degeneration. He was hospitalized last year for nearly two weeks.
Snowstorm Hits Jerusalem
http://www.newsmax.com/international/israel_snow/2008/02/19/73841.html
JERUSALEM -- Residents of Jerusalem awoke Tuesday to find their city blanketed with snow. The snowfall disrupted schools, kept most people off the roads and left holy shrines dusted in white.
It was the second serious snowstorm to hit the city in three weeks, marking a particularly harsh winter in the usually temperate Holy Land. Weather reports dominated Israeli media Tuesday and TV stations went live from Jerusalem with footage of the snow.
Three babies were delivered by ambulance crews because women in labor couldn't make it to the hospital, the Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said.
Despite the hopes of many children, schools opened Tuesday, albeit several hours late. Still, many students either stayed home or were later sent home by staff.
In Jerusalem's Old City, the golden Dome of the Rock _ one of Islam's holiest sites _ was capped with white. So were the 500-year-old walls and the roofs of the stone houses. Ultra-Orthodox men covered their distinctive black hats with plastic bags to keep them dry.
In the nearby Palestinian town of Ramallah, in the West Bank, school was canceled and the streets were nearly empty. Snow also fell in the Golan Heights and on Mount Hermon, the site of Israel's only ski resort.
In Lebanon, snow isolated the country's interior and TV forecasters said many villages and towns at an altitude of 1,100 feet above sea level were blanketed by thick layers of snow. Electricity was disrupted across many parts of the country.
In the southern port city of Sidon, the storm caused a landslide at a huge garbage dump known as "rubbish mountain," sending an estimated 150 tons of garbage into the sea, according to a statement issued by the Sidon municipality.
Russia Patriarch sees no imminent ties with Rome
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/russia.patriarch.sees.no.imminent.ties.with.rome/16946.htm
The leader of Russia's powerful Orthodox Church played down hopes of an imminent reconciliation with Rome in an interview on Monday, saying Catholic missionary activity in Russia prevented the churches from restoring ties.
Speculation has flourished about a possible historic meeting between Russia's Patriarch Alexiy II and Pope Benedict XVI after both sides indicated they were open in principle to healing a centuries-old rift between Western and Russian Christianity.
Russia is by far the biggest Orthodox Christian church and has undergone a big religious revival since the demise of the atheist Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin, once a KGB spy, is now open about his Orthodox faith.
"Stopping us from restoring relations are some unsolved issues between our churches," Alexiy told the Polish daily Dziennik in an interview published on Monday.
"We have many questions about the missionary and charitable activities of Catholic monks and clergy in Russia and CIS (former Soviet) countries."
The Russian Orthodox Church, by far the dominant religion in Russia, has sharply criticised the Vatican for creating new dioceses on its turf and has accused Catholic priests of attempting to poach Orthodox believers as converts to Rome.
Alexiy said some Catholic clerics "started to see the ex-Soviet Union as a spiritual desert to be dealt with".
The Catholic Church says it is only doing what is necessary to attend to the needs of Russia's estimated one million Catholics, mostly of East European or German origin, who were neglected during decades of religious persecution in the Soviet Union.
"We have always said that a Russian visit of (former) Pope John Paul was possible only when all the problems between our churches were resolved. Unfortunately, it has not happened until now," Alexiy said.
"In Russia and Ukraine, Catholics always treated the Orthodox believers more as enemies than as brothers in faith ... the activities of Catholics in Russia have created many challenges for the dialogue of our churches."
"These matters need to be resolved".
In particular, Alexiy criticised Catholic shelters which he said brought up orphans from Orthodox families in the Catholic tradition, saying this "is hurting us exceptionally".
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz said last October at a farewell news conference after 16 years heading the Catholic Church in Russia that the Orthodox "could have been better to us", adding he never sought to convert Orthodox Christians.
Christianity split into two branches in the Great Schism of 1054, when the Orthodox Church broke away from the Roman church in a row over papal authority and the insertion of a disputed clause into the Creed, the central statement of Christian faith.
Elite China think-tank issues political reform blueprint
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/elite.china.thinktank.issues.political.reform.blueprint/16948.htm
China risks dangerous instability unless it embraces democratic reforms to limit the power of the ruling Communist Party, foster competitive voting and rein in censors, the Party's top think-tank has warned in a new report.
The "comprehensive political system reform plan" by scholars at the Central Party School in Beijing argues for steady liberalisation that its authors say can build a "modern civil society" by 2020 and "mature democracy and rule of law" in later decades.
The cost of delaying this course could be economic disarray and worsening corruption and public discontent, they write in "Storming the Fortress: A Research Report on China's Political System Reform after the 17th Party Congress".
"Citizens' steadily rising democratic consciousness and the grave corruption among Party and government officials make it increasing urgent to press ahead with demands for political system reform," the report states. "The backwardness of the political system is affecting economic development."
The report was finished in October, just after the Party's twice-a-decade congress ended and gave President Hu Jintao five more years as party chief. But it is only now appearing in some Beijing bookstores.
This is no manifesto for outright democracy. The authors say the Party must keep overall control and "elite" decision-making will help China achieve lasting economic prosperity by pushing past obstacles to economic reform.
But the 366-page report give a strikingly detailed blueprint of how some elite advisers see political relaxation unfolding, with three phases of reform in the next 12 years, including restricting the Party's powers and expanding the rights of citizens, reporters, religious believers and lawmakers.
"Until now political reform has been scattered and inconsequential," Wang Guixiu, a professor at the Party School not involved in the study, told Reuters. "Real political reform needs a substantive plan of action, and there are some scholars and officials who believe that's what is needed now."
The authors include Zhou Tianyong and Wang Changjiang, senior reform-minded scholars at the School, which trains officials for higher office. The report also has a preface by Li Junru, a government adviser and vice president of the Party School.
Several authors contacted for comment declined to comment.
UNSETTLING SOCIAL CHANGES
The authors argue that government regulation of news is needed as China navigates unsettling social changes. But the present system of secretive and often arbitrary censorship is stoking corruption and public distrust of government, they said.
"Freedom of the press is an inevitable trend," they said, calling for a law to protect reporters and "effectively halt unconstitutional and unlawful interference in media activities".
They also urge greater official respect for religion - a sensitive topic in China, where the atheist Party is wary of growing numbers of Christians, and unrest in Buddhist Tibet and the largely Muslim region of Xinjiang in the country's far west.
"Political faith and religious faith are not in contradiction," the scholars said.
They propose that China's nearly 3,000-delegate national parliament be slimmed down and given direct powers to set the budget and audit government spending.
Candidates for legislatures should be allowed to actively compete for votes, which is now banned, the authors said. And the Communist Party itself must bind itself under rule of law.
Communist Party chief Hu has promoted limited "inner-Party democracy" to expose officials to more checks, but has shown no appetite for broad political liberalisation.
In a speech on Monday, Hu said the Party had to be a "staunch leadership core" that maintained "flesh-and-blood bonds" with the people, Xinhua news agency reported.
But the Party School report, with its detailed arguments for change, and other books and essays from reformist advisers in the past year, suggest that some senior advisers have been thinking closely about much more ambitious reforms.
A recent survey of mid-ranking officials studying at the Party School indicated that growing numbers believe deeper political reform is needed.
In the survey of 154 officials conducted in late 2007, 55.5 percent nominated the "political system" as one of three areas of reform that most "concerned" them, according to a study recently published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In late 2005, 40 percent of officials surveyed listed political reform as one of the areas.
School resource to help young people engage with Easter story
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/school.resource.to.help.young.people.engage.with.easter.story/16925.htm
Church Mission Society (CMS) and the Diocese of London are encouraging churches in London to invite local schools over in the run up to Easter to help young people engage with the event of the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
New resources have been put together by CMS and the Diocese of London featuring dramatic new images by Dennis Morris depicting a modern representation of the Easter story.
The resources have been sent out to every church in the Diocese of London together with a box of support material. The churches are being encouraged to run workshops on the Easter story during Holy Week.
"The aim is to help young people engage with the Easter story and make connections with their own lives," explains the Rev Anita Matthews from the CMS Youth and Children's team.
"We hope that it will resource many people in telling the Easter story and exploring what it means in a fresh and creative way."
Churches can also build on their existing school relations by offering assembly ideas from the resource to use over the Easter period.
The resource is available to download at www.cms-uk.org
Athlete to make appearance in Switchfoot US tour
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/athlete.to.make.appearance.in.switchfoot.us.tour/16944.htm
Multi-Platinum selling rock band Switchfoot launches its spring “Up In Arms Tour” in San Antonio March 27 and hits college towns throughout the South and Midwest states of the US.
The Switchfoot tour will feature a special performance by double platinum-selling UK band Athlete, whose members are Christian and met in their teens at Greenbelt festival.
The tour will benefit the US charity To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) charity, a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for those struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
“The dialogue surrounding depression is such an important one. It is huge for people to know that these are issues that are normal and ok to talk about," said Switchfoot member Tim Foreman. "TWLOHA is breathing hope into lives once trapped by fear and doubts. ‘Love is the Movement.’ We’re honoured that a song we wrote seven years ago has become the slogan for TWLOHA. And it’s true: love provides the motion that pushes us past the scars.”
Jamie Tworkowski, To Write Love on Her Arms founder, will speak briefly before Switchfoot’s set each night on tour
“Switchfoot was the first band to lend the stage to us, back when TWLOHA was simply an attempt to tell a story and help one friend,” he said. “That was two years ago and we have come a long way since that surprising start. We are truly honoured and excited to hit the road with this band that means so much to us.”
With over 5 million records sold, three albums in the Billboard Top 20, two top-five singles at both pop and alternative radio, Switchfoot is also recognised as one of the hardest touring bands in rock.
Recently returning to the US from tours to Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand, the San Diego-based band has sold nearly three million concert tickets worldwide since the 2003 release of its double-platinum breakthrough album The Beautiful Letdown.
With an ever-growing fan base, Switchfoot continues international touring in support of its most recent and critically acclaimed albums, Nothing Is Sound and Oh! Gravity.
Oh! Gravity., Switchfoot’s newest studio album, is also getting a boost from MTV’s “Life of Ryan” as the title track is currently featured as the hit show’s theme song.
Recorded at Big Fish Recording in Encinitas, California, Oh! Gravity. showcases a harder rock direction for Switchfoot. The album debuted at No 1 on the iTunes Top Albums chart and has received stellar reviews, with Billboard magazine calling it “the best of the San Diego group’s nearly 10-year recording career”.
In addition to the music, Switchfoot has been actively involved in a number of humanitarian causes since its inception, including DATA, Bono’s THE ONE Campaign, Invisible Children, Habitat for Humanity and To Write Love on Her Arms. The band also founded the Switchfoot Bro-Am, a surfing and music benefit-event, and the online magazine, lowercase people (www.lowercasepeople.com), a daring new endeavor to revolutionise the way beauty, truth and humanity is viewed.
Switchfoot is: Jon Foreman (vocals, guitar); Tim Foreman (bass, backing vocals); Chad Butler (drums); Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keys, backing vocals); and Andrew Shirley (guitar).
For more information, go to www.switchfoot.com.
The Afters announce release of 'Never Going Back To OK'
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/the.afters.announce.release.of.never.going.back.to.ok/16791.htm
INO/Columbia Record’s rock pop band The Afters are preparing to release their highly anticipated sophomore project “Never Going Back to OK” on February 26, which has already garnered a top 5 track at Christian CHR and Rock charts in the US for the self-titled first single.
The charming and entertaining “MySpace Girl” viral video will also premiere soon on MySpace.com’s Main Page and shortly following at Seventeen.com.
In the viral video for the cute, catchy - yet true story - song “MySpace Girl”, fans will see The Afters’ cartoon counterparts re-enact the story of the song about a guy meeting his future wife at a drive thru and following up with her via myspace.
In addition, actual “friends” were chosen from the band’s MySpace page to be a part of the video. The popular social networking site MySpace will premiere the video starting February 13 on their homepage as well as the site’s music video page. One week later, Seventeen.com will be catching in on the excitement and posting the video for two weeks starting on or near February 19.
Confirmed for one of the last two cover stories of CCM Magazine (March), with the title track single headed toward No 1 on the Christian CHR charts, “Never Going Back to OK” has received a groundswell of radio airplay. It was targeted early on as a hit by a majority of key market stations nationwide including the AIR-1 Network, WONU/Chicago, Radio-U/Columbus, YES-FM/Toledo, WNAZ/Nashville, KVRK/Dallas, WMKL/Miami and many more. The Afters first Christian AC single, "Keeping Me Alive" goes for adds this week on February 8.
The Afters’ second album is a culmination of all the buzz and excitement of the past three years for this emerging band. After receiving a Gospel Music Award for “Best New Artist of 2006” and having the most downloaded inspirational track (“Beautiful Love”) of the same year on the iTunes charts, the band is back with a diverse record in “Never Going Back to OK” that includes pensive ballads such as “Ocean Wide”, potent tracks like “Keeping Me Alive”, lighter songs such as “MySpace Girl” and a catchy rock title track.
“On the last record there was a common thread of hope that came out in all the songs,” vocalist/guitarist Brad Wigg says of “I Wish We All Could Win”. “This album seems to reflect transformation. I think a lot of the songs are talking about moving forward, of becoming who we are meant to be.”
Though weeks from its release date, “Never Going Back to OK” has received early immense acclaim including:
“The result is an edgier band that manages to maintain secure melodic footing … its clear there’s a music statement being played just as loud as the lyrics … this album is better in every way.”
4 ½ stars!!
- CCM Magazine
'Israel is the cancer, Hizb'allah the radiation'
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2338
Echoing the sentiments of his president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards General Mohammed Ali Jaafari last week described Israel as "cancerus bacterium" which would soon be destroyed by "the radiation of Hizb'allah's fighters."
Jaafari expressed this belief, shared by millions throughout the Muslim and Arab world, in a letter conveying condolences to the leader of the Iranian and Syrian-supported Hizb'allah organization on the death of top terrorist Imad Mugniyah.
Similar letters of commitment to the destruction of the "Zionist entity" flooded Hizb'allah's offices, sent by, among others, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad himself.
Israel's Foreign Ministry responded to Jaafari's comments by lodging a letter of protest with the president of the United Nations Security Council.
"Jaafari's remarks express hope for the destruction of Israel. This is an anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic and racist remark. We hope that the Security Council will address Israel's complaint and will publish a letter of condemnation as it has done twice in the past following statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israel's destruction and Holocaust denial," the Ministry said.
In the words of a ministry spokesman, the comment was "shameful and unprecedented" and one UN member state cannot say things like this about another member state. Doing so "is a grave and blatant transgression of the UN charter."
Iran has shrugged off what condemnation has been leveled against it for repeatedly threatening to destroy Israel.
Even though this goal (Israel's destruction) is spelled out in so many words, the international community has been reluctant to censure Tehran, even resisting calls to boycott the country until it changes course.
Patriot Missiles Deployed near Haifa
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/324801.aspx
For the first time since the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, Israel has deployed Patriot missile defense systems near the northern port city of Haifa.
The Patriot systems are on standby in the event of retaliatory strikes by the Lebanese-based Hezbollah following last week's assassination of terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyeh.
Home Front Command also checked northern air warning stations and briefed heads of municipalities and local councils on preparedness in the event of an attack.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) moved troops closer to the border with Lebanon.
Mughniyeh's Assassination
In a videotaped speech broadcast at Mughniyeh's funeral, Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said the Second Lebanon War wasn't over yet and repeated his oft-made threat that "Israel will cease to exist."
Nasrallah accused the Lebanese government of collaborating with Israel, sparking an angry response from Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
"Lebanon wants good relations with all the world -- except Israel," Siniora said in two separate interviews with Lebanese television stations. "We need to stop classifying people and charging them with being agents," he said, referring to Nasrallah's accusation of conspiring with Israel.
In an editorial in Monday's al-Ahbar, a pro-Hezbollah daily, editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote of Israel's destruction.
"The confrontation that began under the title 'destruction of Israel' requires different tools from those [used] in the liberation of territory," predicting that Hezbollah will surprise Israel.
"They [Israel] will have to await a response where they are expecting it and where they are not," al-Amin wrote.
In a condolence letter to Nasrallah, Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander in chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, predicted that the "hands of Hezbollah" would soon destroy Israel.
"In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous germ of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah combatants," the Fars News Agency quoted Jafari.
"Undoubtedly the martyrdom of this sincere fighter [Mughniyeh] will strengthen the determination of all revolutionary and combatant Muslims, particularly his co-combatants in confrontation with the Zionist regime," he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called Israel's existence illegitimate.
"The West has tried to impose a fabricated regime on the Middle East, but even after 60 years, the Zionist regime has neither gained any legitimacy nor played any role in this region," Iran's state news agency quoted Mottaki as saying.
Mottaki said US policies in the Middle East are a failure.
"The era of imposing policies on other states by military threats is over," he said. "The [Arab] nations in the region will no longer surrender to any threats."
Rocket rain continues in the Negev
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2344
Gaza's Arabs fired at least five Kassam rockets and seven mortars towards the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon and the repeatedly-targeted town of Sderot Tuesday in ongoing efforts to kill, maim and terrorize Jews.
While no injuries were reported in this latest salvo, buildings were damaged by at least two of the projectiles, one of which destroyed a chicken coop shortly after workmen had left the precise place where the missile landed, according to witnesses.
Israel continues to discuss ways to stop the incessant terrorism, which saw 400 rockets fired "into" Israel in the last 50 days.
Figures released by IDF Homefront Command Tuesday show that 1,488 rockets landed in and near Sderot in 2006 and another 1,150 fell in 2007.
Sderot residents, together with other Israelis, have been protesting outside the offices of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week demanding more be done to put an end to the rocket threat.
Study Says Gays Can Change Orientation
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/324337.aspx
A ground-breaking new study on homosexuality threatens to change the terms of the debate. It's conclusion? It's possible to change your orientation.
"Homosexuality is not about sex. It's about relational brokenness," Rich Goddard said.
Goddard grew up going to church -- but abuse at home and struggles with his sexuality led him to seek out the gay lifestyle. It became a 12-year journey.
"My 'M-O' was, I would go to a bar, me and my buddies, and I would have a beer and a shot of Yukon Jack and then I would be gone for the rest of the night and I would either find someone to go home with, or when I left there, I would go places to cruise to find men," Goddard said.
Rejecting the Gay Lifestyle
But today, Goddard says he's following Jesus and has rejected the gay lifestyle. A purity ring symbolizes his new life.
"When I was in the life I was probably 99 percent homosexual attraction. Today where I'm at I'm probably 99 percent attracted to women," Goddard said.
Until now, such stories have been all the ammunition the church has had in a culture that says there's no choice: You're either born gay -- or you're not.
But new research shows change is possible.
Psychologists Stan Jones and Mark Yarhouse followed 98 people as they entered Exodus ministries. The Christian group is dedicated to helping those who struggle with homosexuality.
The Pain of Isolation
"They're conservative, religious people often -- in our sample that was certainly true," said Yarhouse, co-author of Ex-Gays. "They don't feel understood by the gay community. They don't feel understood by the Christian community and so they're doubly isolated."
In the midst of such pain, Jones and Yarhouse found 38 percent were able to change their orientation. Some reduced their same-sex attraction substantially. Others were also able to shift to opposite sex attraction.
"The major mental health organizations have made very strong claims that sexual orientation cannot change and that attempts to do so would be harmful," Yarhouse said.
These arguments by groups like the American Psychological Association or APA have been very effective. Today, research shows the majority of Americans agree. Gays and lesbians cannot change their orientation -- even if they want to.
We wanted to talk with the APA about these latest findings but they refused, citing an on-going investigation of its own.
And don't expect the mainstream media to provide much coverage about the research either.
Counseling, Peer Support, Pastoral Care
Alan Chambers heads Exodus International and says he's not surprised about the lack of attention.
"People don't want to promote the truth, especially the mainstream media. They don't want to add that component to the debate," Chambers said.
Now more than 30 years old, Exodus has become a coalition of more than 100 ministries to gays. Counseling, peer support and pastoral care are all part of the mix. Exodus doesn't claim any one surefire method to help those who want out -- but Chambers say the church is key.
"What I see as a common denominator in the people who live out a life of success for decades long-term is that they have community, people who they can be honest with and I mean the body of Christ," Chambers said.
For Goddard, it was unconditional love from church friends who supported him through the up and down years of his recovery.
"They never said, 'you can't come back. Ok, you've sinned too much. You can't come back,'" Goddard said.
As many churches help those coming out of homosexuality, liberal churches that promote tolerance often stand in the way. Chambers says they remain the greatest threat to developing a biblical view of sexuality.
Maggie Bain is a former lesbian who thought she could have it all. She started living with her partner at 17. A Christian, she wanted to believe the pro-gay theology promoted by her new friends.
Pro-Gay Theology: Love is Never Wrong
"They're like -- 'Love is never wrong. God made us, we can love who we want to love,'" Bain said.
Today, she works at an evangelical church and credits Christian friends who helped her get out.
"When I left the relationship with her and decided not to be gay anymore, not be in the lifestyle anymore, I was surrounded by people that cared about me, loved me," Bain said.
Maggie's story also contradicts the major mental health groups, that say it's harmful to even try and change your orientation. But Jones and Yarhouse's research says no. Their study shows none of the 98 subjects were harmed psychologically.
Still, Yarhouse says the church must be careful not to oversimplify the process, which usually takes years -- and does not always lead to complete healing.
Healing a Difficult Path
"This is a very difficult path to take so we're not suggesting it's easy," Yarhouse said.
And what about the 56 percent in the study that reported minor or no significant change? Chambers says he's not giving up on them -- and neither should the church.
"The research found that not everyone did change. Is everyone able to change? I think that's still up for debate," Chambers said.
"It's probably one of the most difficult things I've done in my life but I wouldn't go back at all," Goddard said. "At the end of the day, my best day in that lifestyle doesn't compare to my worst day serving Jesus."
Pakistan's Ruling Party Concedes Defeat
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/324560.aspx
Pakistan's ruling party and the close allies of President Pervez Musharraf conceded defeat Tuesday in the nation's parliamentary elections.
The results could mean a change in the rule of the Islamic country and a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism.
Although fear and apathy kept millions of voters at home Monday, the elections for national and provincial assemblies were a major step toward democracy in Pakistan. The country has been under military rule for more than half of its 60-year history.
An election win by the opposition is likely to restore the public's faith in the political process. It will also prove to quell fears that the results would be rigged in favor of the pro-Musharraf party.
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told AP Television News that "we accept the results with an open heart" and "will sit on opposition benches" in the new parliament."
What's Next for Musharraf?
"All the King's men, gone!" proclaimed a banner headline in the Daily Times. "Heavyweights knocked out," read the Dawn newspaper.
The political future of Musharraf is in doubt. He was re-elected to a five year term last October in what proved to be a controversial parliamentary vote.
The opposition could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf. To do this, the opposition would need to garner the support of smaller groups as well as independent candidates.
Musharraf angered many Pakistanis when he chose to ally his country with the U.S. in 2001 to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Final Results Could Come Tuesday Night
Final results were not expected to be posted before Tuesday evening. However, the election's outcome may be to be a public verdict on Musharraf's rule. The president's popularity fell sharply when he decided late last year to impose emergency rule. Several other measures followed including purging the judiciary, the jailing of political opponents and trying to stop the flow of press information in and out of the country.
The private Geo TV network said the party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and another group led by ex-premier Nawaz Sharif had so far won 149 seats, more than half of the 272-seat National Assembly.
The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party placed a distant third, winning only 33 seats. Some of the proven party members and even some former Cabinet ministers lost in their respective constituencies.
Unpopular President
Musharraf has said he will work with the government that finally emerges from the election. But the former Army general is highly unpopular. The opposition parties that now find themselves in power will probably find little reason to work with him, especially since he no longer controls the military.
If the opposition finds itself short of the necessary votes to remove the president, the new government could then reinstate the Supreme Court justices and ask them to declare the October election invalid.
The spokesman for Sharif's party, Sadiq ul-Farooq, told reporters Tuesday that Musharraf "should go." But he added that if the restored justices validate Musharraf's October election to a new term, the opposition would accept the decision.
"We want to put Pakistan back on the track of democracy, constitution and rule of law, and the restoration of sacked judges is a must to achieve this goal," he said.
The PML-Q said it accepted the results, but Pervaiz Elahi, the party's president, noted that the party had stood by Musharraf for five years.
"We respect him, and we are still with him," Elahi, the outgoing chief minister of Punjab province, told Geo TV on Tuesday.
The election results could have far-reaching implications for the U.S.-led war on terror, especially Pakistani military operations against al-Qaeda and Taliban-style militants in border areas of the northwest. Sharif and others have called for talks with the extremists and have criticized military operations in the area because of their impact on civilians.
Afrasiab Khattak, a leading opposition politician from the northwest, said his Awami National Party did not believe "that a military solution will work," adding his group "will never support American forces coming here and operating."
In Karachi, the Pakistani stock market rose 2.15 percent to 14,669.87 points and the rupee gained against the U.S. dollar. Traders said the market was reacting positively because the election was generally peaceful.
America's economy risks the mother of all meltdowns
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ft/20080219/bs_ft/fto021920081334359078;_ylt=AqAjtATcyJLFinrY7HsB3dGs0NUE
"I would tell audiences that we were facing not a bubble but a froth - lots of small, local bubbles that never grew to a scale that could threaten the health of the overall economy." Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence.
That used to be Mr Greenspan's view of the US housing bubble. He was wrong, alas. So how bad might this downturn get? To answer this question we should ask a true bear. My favourite one is Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern School of Business, founder of RGE monitor.
Recently, Professor Roubini's scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He first predicted a US recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It is so no longer. Now he states that there is "a rising probability of a 'catastrophic' financial and economic outcome"**. The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: "A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe."
Prof Roubini is even fonder of lists than I am. Here are his 12 - yes, 12 - steps to financial disaster.
Step one is the worst housing recession in US history. House prices will, he says, fall by 20 to 30 per cent from their peak, which would wipe out between $4,000bn and $6,000bn in household wealth. Ten million households will end up with negative equity and so with a huge incentive to put the house keys in the post and depart for greener fields. Many more home-builders will be bankrupted.
Step two would be further losses, beyond the $250bn-$300bn now estimated, for subprime mortgages. About 60 per cent of all mortgage origination between 2005 and 2007 had "reckless or toxic features", argues Prof Roubini. Goldman Sachs estimates mortgage losses at $400bn. But if home prices fell by more than 20 per cent, losses would be bigger. That would further impair the banks' ability to offer credit.
Step three would be big losses on unsecured consumer debt: credit cards, auto loans, student loans and so forth. The "credit crunch" would then spread from mortgages to a wide range of consumer credit.
Step four would be the downgrading of the monoline insurers, which do not deserve the AAA rating on which their business depends. A further $150bn writedown of asset-backed securities would then ensue.
Step five would be the meltdown of the commercial property market, while step six would be bankruptcy of a large regional or national bank.
Step seven would be big losses on reckless leveraged buy-outs. Hundreds of billions of dollars of such loans are now stuck on the balance sheets of financial institutions.
Step eight would be a wave of corporate defaults. On average, US companies are in decent shape, but a "fat tail" of companies has low profitability and heavy debt. Such defaults would spread losses in "credit default swaps", which insure such debt. The losses could be $250bn. Some insurers might go bankrupt.
Step nine would be a meltdown in the "shadow financial system". Dealing with the distress of hedge funds, special investment vehicles and so forth will be made more difficult by the fact that they have no direct access to lending from central banks.
Step 10 would be a further collapse in stock prices. Failures of hedge funds, margin calls and shorting could lead to cascading falls in prices.
Step 11 would be a drying-up of liquidity in a range of financial markets, including interbank and money markets. Behind this would be a jump in concerns about solvency.
Step 12 would be "a vicious circle of losses, capital reduction, credit contraction, forced liquidation and fire sales of assets at below fundamental prices".
These, then, are 12 steps to meltdown. In all, argues Prof Roubini: "Total losses in the financial system will add up to more than $1,000bn and the economic recession will become deeper more protracted and severe." This, he suggests, is the "nightmare scenario" keeping Ben Bernanke and colleagues at the US Federal Reserve awake. It explains why, having failed to appreciate the dangers for so long, the Fed has lowered rates by 200 basis points this year. This is insurance against a financial meltdown.
Is this kind of scenario at least plausible? It is. Furthermore, we can be confident that it would, if it came to pass, end all stories about "decoupling". If it lasts six quarters, as Prof Roubini warns, offsetting policy action in the rest of the world would be too little, too late.
Can the Fed head this danger off? In a subsequent piece, Prof Roubini gives eight reasons why it cannot***. (He really loves lists!) These are, in brief: US monetary easing is constrained by risks to the dollar and inflation; aggressive easing deals only with illiquidity, not insolvency; the monoline insurers will lose their credit ratings, with dire consequences; overall losses will be too large for sovereign wealth funds to deal with; public intervention is too small to stabilise housing losses; the Fed cannot address the problems of the shadow financial system; regulators cannot find a good middle way between transparency over losses and regulatory forbearance, both of which are needed; and, finally, the transactions-oriented financial system is itself in deep crisis.
The risks are indeed high and the ability of the authorities to deal with them more limited than most people hope. This is not to suggest that there are no ways out. Unfortunately, they are poisonous ones. In the last resort, governments resolve financial crises. This is an iron law. Rescues can occur via overt government assumption of bad debt, inflation, or both. Japan chose the first, much to the distaste of its ministry of finance. But Japan is a creditor country whose savers have complete confidence in the solvency of their government. The US, however, is a debtor. It must keep the trust of foreigners. Should it fail to do so, the inflationary solution becomes probable. This is quite enough to explain why gold costs $920 an ounce.
The connection between the bursting of the housing bubble and the fragility of the financial system has created huge dangers, for the US and the rest of the world. The US public sector is now coming to the rescue, led by the Fed. In the end, they will succeed. But the journey is likely to be wretchedly uncomfortable.
US may shoot down satellite Wednesday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite;_ylt=Apz7D4GMjzoIZ5hHLChpLcOs0NUE
An attempt to blast a crippled U.S. spy satellite out of the sky using a Navy heat-seeking missile — possibly on Wednesday night — would be the first real-world use of this piece of the Pentagon's missile defense network. But that is not the mission for which it was intended.
The attempted shootdown, already approved by President Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a weapon like a long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit.
The three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of tests since 2002 — in each case targeting a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, never a satellite. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials say the changes will be reversed once this satellite is down.
The government issued notices to aviators and mariners to remain clear of a section of the Pacific beginning at 10:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, indicating the first window of opportunity to launch an SM-3 missile from a Navy cruiser, the USS Lake Erie, in an effort to hit the wayward satellite.
Having lost power shortly after it reached orbit in late 2006, the satellite is well below the altitude of a normal satellite. The Pentagon wants to hit it with an SM-3 missile just before it re-enters Earth's atmosphere, in that way minimizing the amount of debris that would remain in space.
Adding to the difficulty of the mission, the missile will have to do better than just hit the bus-sized satellite, a Navy official said Tuesday. It needs to strike the relatively small fuel tank aboard the spacecraft in order to accomplish the main goal, which is to eliminate the toxic fuel that could injure or even kill people if it reached Earth. The Navy official described technical aspects of the missile's capabilities on condition that he not be identified.
Also complicating the effort will be the fact that the satellite has no heat-generating propulsion system on board. That makes it more difficult for the Navy missile's heat-seeking system to work, although the official said software changes had been made to compensate for the lack of heat.
The Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates was briefed on the shootdown plan Tuesday by the two officers who will advise him on exactly when to launch the missile — Gen. Kevin Chilton, the head of Strategic Command, and Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who held Chilton's post until last summer.
"We all have an agreed-upon series of steps that need to be taken for this launch to be given the go-ahead," Morrell said, adding that no final decision has been made on when to make the attempt.
"The secretary is the one who will decide if and when to pull the trigger," the spokesman said, adding that Gates was departing Wednesday morning on an around-the-world trip that will include a stop in Honolulu, Hawaii, where a military command center will be monitoring the satellite operation.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.
Known by its military designation US 193, the satellite was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor.
Morrell said the cost of adapting the Navy anti-missile system for the shootdown mission was $30 million to $40 million.
China and Russia have expressed concern at the planned shootdown, saying it could harm security in outer space. At the State Department on Tuesday, spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that the U.S. action is meant to protect people from the hazardous fuel and is not a weapons test.
China was criticized last year when it used a missile to destroy a defunct weather satellite.
The Navy ship-based system, which includes a command-and-control and radar system known as Aegis, as well as the SM-3 missiles, is just one segment of a larger, far-flung missile defense system that has been in development by the American military for more than three decades.
Managed by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, the program includes interceptor missiles sitting in underground silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., as well as radars around the world that are used to track an enemy missile and help the interceptor hit it.
As currently configured the missile defense system is designed mainly to counter a threat from North Korea. The Bush administration, fearing an emerging missile threat from Iran, is in talks with Poland and the Czech Republic to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic. Russia has objected strenuously, saying such bases would be a threat to Russia.
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Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil
Bush shaken by memorial to 800,000 Rwanda deadChris McGreal, Africa correspondent
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/20/rwanda.usa
George Bush, the US president, yesterday visited mass graves of Rwanda genocide victims, announcing that they were a reminder of the need to resist "violence and genocide in Darfur" and that a memorial for the 800,000 people who were massacred had shaken his emotions to the "very foundation".
Choosing Rwanda to publicise the US's $100m (£51m) of aid for training and equipping African peacekeepers in Darfur, Bush said in Kigali: "It's not surprising at all that the first nation to step up and say we want to deploy peacekeepers was Rwanda."
The US has already trained about 7,000 Rwandan soldiers and transported the first contingent to eastern Sudan, where at least 200,000 people are estimated to have died and 2.5 million made homeless.
Speaking about the Kigali Memorial Centre, a museum on the brutality of the massacres, and the Kigali hilltop which holds graves of about 250,000 Rwandans murdered after incitement by extremists in 1994, Bush said: "The museum had a profound effect on me. You can't walk in there and not realise evil does exist."
Bush said one lesson of Rwanda's 100-day genocide was the need to prevent conflicts and pay attention to warnings. He said that when it was necessary to intervene, the response should be with "enough force" and a "proper mandate". A strong mandate for UN and African Union peacekeepers in Darfur was important.
His visit to the genocide memorial contrasted with the action of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who blocked large-scale UN intervention in 1994, which could have saved many from the genocide. Clinton apologised on a visit to Rwanda 10 years ago though claimed he was never fully informed about the scale of the slaughter.
Bush, who is visiting five African nations, has won approval on the continent, in part because his administration greatly increased aid to Africa. Yesterday he said he was on a "mission of mercy" to save lives and Africa from "helplessness" and condemned African leaders whom he said stole money while children died.
But back in the US there has been a military setback with Washington forced to drop plans for an HQ in Africa for its force Africom, amid suspicion among countries on the continent that the principal interest is to protect oil and mining activities and that the base would be a target or embroil a host nation in the "war on terror".
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