President Bush Endorses McCain
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/333537.aspx
President Bush endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain, Wednesday, joining together two former rivals from the 2000 presidential race.
"John showed incredible courage, strength of character and perseverance in order to get to this moment and that's exactly what we need in a president - somebody who can handle the tough decisions, somebody who won't flinch in the face of danger," Bush said, appearing with McCain in the Rose Garden.
The endorsement comes a day after McCain clinched the GOP nomination by winning the required 1,191 convention delegates. Republicans won't officially nominate McCain until early September at the GOP national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
"A while back I don't think many people would have thought that John McCain would be here as the nominee of the Republican Party," Bush said.
Some believe Bush's endorsement could hurt McCain because of his low approval ratings and the unpopular Iraq war. But Bush rebuffed that notion.
"They're not going to be voting for me," the President said. "I've had my time in the Oval Office."
"It's not about me," Bush said. "I've done my bit."
McCain said he looked forward to campaigning with Bush at his side. He said the President could be helpful in states such as Texas.
Huckabee Prepping for 2012 Bid
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Huckabee_Prepping_for_201/2008/03/06/78439.html
Just days after officially dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mike Huckabee is already making plans for a possible run for the White House in 2012.
“We want to stay in touch and start now building a platform to continue addressing issues that brought us together in the first place,” Huckabee said in an e-mail to supporters on Wednesday.
“We will keep our Web site up and as we transition, will want to create a way to keep in touch and continue the battle for our families, our freedom, and our future.”
Huckabee intends to use as a model Ronald Reagan’s efforts following his failed run in 1976 and leading up to his success in 1980, the Washington Post reports.
He plans to help GOP nominee John McCain and Republican congressional candidates gain support among conservative Christians for the November elections, “while looking for a national radio show or other forum that he can use to expand his influence within the party,” according to the Post.
Huckabee’s daughter Sarah, his national field director, said she could easily see her father running for president again in 2012.
“He’s a young guy,” she said. “We learned a lot over the last few years. A lot depends on what happens in 2008, but if there’s an opportunity and he felt it was a good time to do it, I think he would.”
Meanwhile Huckabee said he doubts McCain will offer him the vice presidential slot, but he hasn’t denied interest in the job.
McCain Noncommittal on Veep Choice
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/mccain/2008/03/06/78360.html
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Republican John McCain praised Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a potential running mate, as they campaigned together Thursday, although he sidestepped questions about a vice presidential choice.
During his first campaign appearance since clinching the GOP presidential nomination, McCain said he has not even begun looking at vice presidential candidates.
"You know, obviously, we have just begun that process, and we, in fact, have not even outlined how we're going to go about this," McCain said at a news conference after he and Crist shook hands with people at a local diner. "We're looking at how the process was conducted by other candidates and nominees of their party.
"But I know one thing about Governor Crist," he added. "And that is that he is a great governor. He does a great job. And I think that ... there are many ways for him to serve the country."
As soon as McCain wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday with victories in Texas and Ohio, attention turned to his running mate. McCain, who is 71, has said his foremost concern is finding someone capable of serving in his place.
He talked with President Bush about making that choice over hotdogs when they lunched Wednesday at the White House.
As he told reporters later, Bush joked, "You know, you want to be careful who you select to run it." That's because Vice President Cheney headed up the running-mate search for Bush, who ultimately chose Cheney.
McCain, who plans to mix campaign appearances with fundraising over the next week, also told reporters he wants to talk with people who have been involved with such a process before. Specifically, he mentioned A.B. Culvahouse, who served as counsel to President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989, as someone he wanted to speak with.
Crist, 51, is among more than a half-dozen politicians mentioned as a potential running mate. His last-minute endorsement of McCain is credited with helping McCain win the pivotal Florida primary election on Jan. 29. He won election last year to serve as governor of Florida, a state that will be a battleground in the November general election.
"The process is really open," McCain said of his search. "But I know that Governor Crist will continue to serve this country in many respects in the future. He's still a very young man."
Also being talked about as possible running mates for McCain are Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.
Also Thursday, McCain defended the country of Columbia, which is in the midst of the worst diplomatic standoff in years with Venezuela. Venezuela and Ecuador have each sent thousands of soldiers to their borders with Colombia.
The Bush administration is seeking a diplomatic solution. McCain said the U.S. would come to the aid of Columbia if it were invaded but quickly said he didn't see that ever happening.
"Obviously, the United States of America supports the government of Columbia and would assist if it were invaded, but very frankly, I don't see that transpiring," McCain said. "I think it's not going to happen."
Poll: McCain Not Attracting Evangelicals
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Poll_McCain_evangelicals/2008/03/06/78317.html
Evangelicals sent a strong message in Tuesday's Republican primaries in Texas and Ohio by voting overwhelmingly for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, while almost every other Republican demographic group chose Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), exit polls show.
This was despite the fact McCain had already been dubbed the "presumptive nominee" of the Republican Party by the national media and political pundits. As predicted, Huckabee was soundly defeated in all four of Tuesday's primaries and caucuses and subsequently withdrew from the race.
Some analysts say that if McCain expects to capture evangelical vote in November, he must tailor his approach toward conservatives.
Exit polls provided by MSNBC reveal that the most devout Christians voted for Huckabee in large numbers. In Texas, for example, 60 percent of Christians who attend church more than once a week voted for Huckabee, while only 33 percent voted for McCain. In Ohio, 54 percent of church-goers voted for Huckabee compared with 45 percent who voted for McCain.
"McCain can get that vote in November but he is going to have to work for it," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council told Cybercast News Service." It would be a mistake to assume the conservative vote is just going to gravitate to the Republican nominee."
Perkins of the Family Research Council told Cybercast New Service that McCain must be more proactive in reaching out to conservatives if he expects evangelicals to come out to vote for him in November. "He already has the voting record to back up his claim to be a conservative," Perkins said, "But he has never led on evangelical issues. He is going to have to lead if he wants to get the socially conservative vote."
Perkins said McCain must convince conservatives that their issues are important to him and that he will advance them as president. "Really, it just depends on him, whether he moves towards them and communicate to conservatives that he really cares about them," said Perkins.
Keith Appel, senior vice president of Creative Response Concepts Public Relations, told Cybercast News Service that the exit poll results should tell McCain he must "actively pursue social conservatives. I have a feeling in the coming months he is going to make a substantial outreach to all types of conservatives, and if he does actively run on a commitment to conservative principles, I think he will find enthusiast evangelical support," Appel said.
Scott Skeeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, told Cybercast News Service that evangelicals will prefer McCain to the Democratic candidate. "It does not appear that McCain is unacceptable to conservative voters. When you offer him to evangelicals against the Democrats, they don't have trouble voting for him rather than Obama," said Keeter. "The real question is, how much enthusiasm is there for John McCain? He needs to stress the things that connect him to that constituency"
The MSNBC exit poll also substantiated the link between evangelical, churchgoing Christians and people who consider themselves to be "very conservative." People who considered themselves to be "very conservative" were the only other group, aside from evangelicals, who voted for Huckabee in significant numbers in Tuesday's contests.
In Texas, 50 percent Republican voters chose the former Baptist minister compared with 38 who voted for McCain; in Ohio, 51 percent of Republicans chose Huckabee compared with 41 percent who voted for McCain.
Singapore Takes on a World Mission
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/326584.aspx
Singapore is a small country with some of the fastest growing Christian communities in Asia.
Now the island nation is making waves for world evangelism.
Sandwiched between Malaysia and Indonesia, Singapore was once counted as a Third World country.
But since it's independence in 1965, Singapore has risen to become a rich and thriving Asian metropolis.
It not only has the busiest port of trade, best airport with the world's number one airline, but also the world's fourth-highest per capita income at $23,000.
Singapore is also a major financial and high-tech hub.
Joseph Prince, senior pastor of New Creation Church, one of the largest churches there in the country, says there's a reason why his nation is so blessed.
"In terms of a small country, with no natural resources, it is amazing that God has prospered our country, for this purpose: so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can go forth from this tiny island," he said.
And today church leaders and mission groups are taking advantage of Singapore's strategic location to reach major countries like China, India and Indonesia with the Gospel.
"We are positioned to be major sea-routes, air route, where within a seven-hour flight; we can actually reach to most of the populated cities and nations around us," Rev. Stanley Ow of Singapore Centre for Evangelism & Mission said.
His group plays a vital role in encouraging churches on the island to get more involved with mission work. As a result, a large majority of churches have active missions programs.
"And that's exciting because we are not only talking about individuals or groups, but we are actually taking nations for Jesus," he said.
It's all part of what Christians there say is Singapore's calling to be a spiritual hub and stepping stone into Asia.
"We've had wonderful prophesies from different ministers, genuine ministers of God that have said in times past that Singapore is going to be an Antioch of Asia and it has come to pass. When they said that we didn't have mega-churches, we didn't have many missions work," Pastor Prince added.
Singapore maybe a small country, home to some four million people. But today, the tiny island has some two thousand short-term and long-term missionaries scattered around the world.
And not only are churches sending out missionaries from the shores of Singapore, they're also giving generously to the work of world evangelism.
Pastor Prince has set aside 10 percent of his annual church budget for missions.
"Last year we gave about 4 million US dollars for the mission work...And we are not the only ones," he proclaimed.
And while Singapore serves as a strategic base for missions in the region, it also boasts one of the fastest-growing Christian communities in Asia. Christians makeup some 17 percent of the population here. The rest are mix of Buddists, Muslims and Taoists.
One of those congregations is Pastor Prince's, New Creation Church. Every Sunday, some 16,000 people pack into the Rock Auditorium in the heart of Singapore's business district.
Founded in 1983, New Creation Church has witnessed explosive growth in recent years. Prince says that as Asia's economies have grown, so too has the demand for faith.
"I was at a point in my life where I had pretty much everything I could ask for," said Ken, a member of New Creation Church. "I had my own house, I had a job ready for me, I had money, doing things I'd love but I still felt empty. So in the end, once you have everything, it doesn't mean that you have everything."
So much of life here in Singapore is built around wealth, and the five C's of career, cash, credit cards, condo, car, and country club.
"People are crying out for grace. The world is full of religion and what we have is the grace of God to offer to people," said Pastor Prince.
Prince and others also realize that the world is coming to Singapore. The nation has a diverse mix of cultures.
"We have as many as 400,000 mainland Chinese among us, 80,000 Indonesians, 80,000 Filipinos," explained Rev. Ow. "The latest I heard is that there are thousands upon thousands of Mongolians are here, Russians are coming here. So this is basically a place where the Lord is bringing them right into our doorstep."
Today, the trends show that in Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China, Christianity is growing so fast that experts predict this region will be home to the largest Christian population in the world.
"There is a time and season for Asia," concluded Pastor Prince.
Liveprayer.com Announces Christian Music Artist Search
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06942.shtml
LOS ANGELES -- Liveprayer.com, the world's largest interactive Christian website with over 2.4 million opt-in subscribers worldwide, is launching a 6 month search for the top artists in Christian music. This worldwide online search begins this week and will end at the end of August 2008 when a winner is determined in each of the 4 categories: soloists, duets/groups (2-8 members), bands (instruments), and choirs (9+).
Each artist will upload their music video between 2-4 minutes onto the LivePrayer website and the voting will be done by visitors to the site. The winners in the duets/groups, bands, and choirs categories will each receive a $10,000 cash prize. The winner in the soloist category will win an all expense paid trip for two to Nashville to work with one of the Christian music industry's top producers to create a CD the artist will own the rights to.
Liveprayer.com founder Bill Keller states, "I am excited to offer this opportunity for gifted and talented artists who use their gifts to glorify the Lord in churches all over the world, to have a worldwide platform to showcase their great talent." Keller said that over the next 6 months, Liveprayer.com will not only showcase some great Christian music, but has no doubt God will use this contest to open the doors for the winners and many others who enter and are looking for an opportunity to make music their life's work.
Those interested can go to www.liveprayer.com and click on the Christian Music Artist Search icon in the Special Features section of the homepage.
In 1999 Keller launched LivePrayer.com, which has become the most successful online faith outreach in history. Since its inception LivePrayer.com has responded personally to more than 60 million online requests for prayer. Additionally, Keller's "Live Prayer" devotional is received daily by more than 2.4 million e- mail subscribers, making Keller's devotional one of the most read e-communications in the world.
Judge: Money for Baptist School Is Wrong
http://www.newsmax.com/us/cumberlands_gays/2008/03/06/78382.html
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A judge has ruled that lawmakers violated the state constitution by appropriating state funding to a Baptist university.
A gay rights group filed suit to try to block an $11 million appropriation to create a pharmacy school at the University of the Cumberlands, a Southern Baptist school in Williamsburg.
Kentucky Fairness Alliance executive director Christina Gilgor calls the ruling a victory against state-subsidized discrimination. A call to the university for comment wasn't returned.
The Center for Law & Religious Freedom had argued on behalf of the school that the legislature acted lawfully because it sought to address the state's shortage of pharmacists.
California's top court ponders gay marriage
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/03/04/news/OUKWD-UK-RIGHTS-CALIFORNIA-GAYS.php
SAN FRANCISCO: Four years after San Francisco ignited passionate embraces and heated national debate by briefly allowing gay marriage, California's top court hears arguments on Tuesday as to whether matrimony should be limited to a man and a woman.
The hearing brings into focus the highest-profile U.S. fight over gay rights in recent years and the outcome could end up influencing legislation and litigation in other states.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom forced the issue by suddenly issuing gay marriage licenses in February 2004. More than 4,000 homosexual couples took him up on the offer, including comedian Rosie O'Donnell and her partner, until a lower court halted the process.
Later that year California's Supreme Court ruled that Newsom, mayor of a city long at the forefront of gay rights, had no authority to wed gays and voided the marriages.
The same court just across the street from City Hall where the gay marriages took place now decides the larger question whether California can legally bar same-sex matrimony.
Gay marriage supporters won an initial battle when a Superior Court judge ruled in their favour in 2005. The following year a state appeals court judge overruled that decision and backed existing state law.
Californians in 2000 approved a ballot measure defining marriage as the union of man and woman. But domestic partnership legislation as of 2005 gave registered gay couples many of the same privileges enjoyed by married couples.
Since 2005 California's legislature twice voted to allow gay marriages, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is liberal on many social issues, vetoed the bills, saying voters or the courts should decide the issue.
UNUSUAL SESSION
It now falls to the seven justices of the California Supreme Court to resolve the matter, and they have 90 days from the hearing to issue an opinion. With six of the judges appointed by Republican governors and one appointed by a Democrat, the panel is considered politically moderate.
The court has made a rare exception to its one-hour total limit on oral arguments and will hold a three-hour session.
"I can't recall any where there were three hours of arguments, I really can't," Cruz Reynoso told Reuters about his years as a California Supreme Court justice from 1982-87.
"Not often, but sometimes, oral arguments actually make a difference in difficult cases and I assume that the court considers this a difficult case."
More than half of U.S. states have passed constitutional amendments barring gay marriage, and President George W. Bush has proposed a U.S. Constitutional amendment.
State supreme courts in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont have ruled against limiting marriage to a man and a woman. Massachusetts responded by becoming the only U.S. state to allow gay marriage, while New Jersey and Vermont instead passed civil union laws similar to those in California.
Several other state supreme courts, including those in New York, Washington and Maryland, found that marriage can be limited to one man, one woman.
Christians Expelled in Mexico
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06944.shtml
On February 18, residents of the town of Tenango Tepexi, Guerrero state expelled 20 local evangelical Christians from their homes according to a February 22 report from Compass Direct.
Three couples and 14 children were expelled for failing to pay fees for the cost of local festivals which include cer emonies that are a blend of traditional native religions and Catholicism. The 20 were temporarily held in town offices and then loaded onto trucks and dumped at the edge of town. Town leaders supportive of the "traditionalist Catholics" told the believers that they would be burned to death if they tried to return.
That same day, authorities in Santa Rita, Chiapas state cut off the water and electricity supply of eight local evangelical Christian families who refused to help pay for religious festivals or fund the repairs of a Catholic church building.
Ask God to protect and embolden evangelical Christians in Guerrero and Chiapas in the midst of ongoing persecution. Pray that their passion for Christ will be the light that draws many to repentance (Matthew 5:14-16).
For more information on the persecution of Christians in Mexico, go to www.persecution.net/country/mexico.htm.
Foreign Christians Expelled from Jordan
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06943.shtml
Jordan has expelled and denied residence permits to at least 27 foreign Christians in 2007, according to a February 26 report from Compass Direct. The acting Foreign Minister of the country, Nasser Judeh, confirmed on February 20 the expulsions of missionaries operating "under the cover of doing charitable work." The measures violated Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which was adopted by Jordan in 2006.
Recent expulsions included two Egyptian pastors married to women of Jordanian citizenship. The two pastors were deported to Egypt in early February. Similarly, a foreign Christian left Jordan on February 18 after police ordered her to vacate the country by February 20. She used to attend an Arabic-speaking church and was accused by the authorities of studying Arabic to hide her work evangelizing Muslims.
Ask God to raise more church leaders and other servants of the Lord in Jordan to continue His work in the nation (Matthew 9:36-38). Pray for the Lord to embolden Jordanian Christians to carry on spreading the Gospel to the lost.
For more information on the persecution of Christians in Jordan, go to www.persecution.net/country/jordan.htm.
Attacks on Christians in Madhya Pradesh, India
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06940.shtml
There were at least two attacks on Christians by Hindu militants in Madhya Pradesh in recent weeks, according to a February 25 report from Compass Direct.
On February 22, Hindu militants forcibly entered a local Christian's home in the district of Balaghat where a group of Christians were gathered together for worship. The militants shouted "Stop conversions" at one of the men present and dragged him outside. When another believer tried to come to the man's aid, the militants also dragged him outside, where 15-20 militants were waiting.
The mob beat the two men along with three other believers with bamboo poles, rods and belts. Both men sustained internal injuries. Later the militants took some of the Christians to the local police station where they accused them of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity.
At approximately 2:30 p.m. on February 24, a mob of at least 125 Hindu militants forcibly entered the compound of the Masihi Mandir Church in the Chawani area of Indore while 15 Christians were preparing to begin a worship service. The militants beat drums and shouted slogans such as, "He who talks in favor of only Hindus will rule the nation," and "Stop conversions." When the believers vacated the building and locked it, the mob shattered the windows and destroyed a cross on the lawn.
A Christian college student was severely beaten while trying to flee the scene. During the attack, the militants apparently voiced plans to set the church building on fire, but when the police arrived they were able to stop them from causing further damage.
Pray for healing for those injured in these attacks. Pray that those who accuse Christians of forcible conversion will be silenced. Ask God to enable Christians in India to grow in Christlikeness through their trials (James 1:2-4).
For more information on the persecution facing Christians in India, go to www.persecution.net/country/india.htm. VOMC has a number of video reports on the persecution of Christians in India on our multimedia website, www.persecution.tv.
Boy Scouts Still Under Siege
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06936.shtml
AUSTIN, Texas -- In his new book, On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts are Worth Fighting For, [Stroud & Hall Publishers] Texas Governor Rick Perry, examines the "scorched earth" attacks on the Boy Scouts of America over the last three decades by the secular leftist forces, explains the wider impact of this battle on the culture, and offers a rousing defense of this iconic institution and its impact on millions of young American men.
As a governor and an Eagle Scout, Perry tells of the Boy Scouts' growth and most importantly, its role in the development of character and leadership in young men. Yet, in recent years, the Scouts have been targeted by those who scoff at the Scouts' values and want to reverse its time-honored virtues such as "duty to God" and the Scout Oath's requirement to be "morally straight."
"Although the first attacks on the Boy Scouts seemed isolated and uncoordinated thirty years ago, we now see them as part of a larger movement to redefine American values," writes Gov. Perry. "If seen in the wider context of a great debate taking place in our society, then one is more likely to join the once silent majority who are now speaking out about the role of faith and family in society."
Readers of On My Honor will learn about:
The nature of the litigation brought on by the ACLU regarding the Boy Scouts' commitment to God.
Efforts of radical homosexuals to become Scout leaders and twist the founding principles of the organization.
The tactics used to stop the Boy Scouts from meeting in schools and camping in public parks.
How the United Way and employee-giving campaigns are excluding the Scouts from receiving donations.
Gov. Rick Perry hails from Paint Creek, Texas. Governor Perry was active in scouting and earned the high distinction of Eagle Scout. He assumed the office of Governor in 2000 and was elected to four- year terms in 2002 and 2006.
Biotech Firm to Provide Ethical Alternatives to Aborted Fetal Vaccines
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06945.shtml
SEATTLE -- In a victory for pro-life families around the world, AVM Biotechnology LLC (AVM Biotech) today announced their decision to provide ethical alternatives in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and vaccine development.
Dr Theresa Deisher, AVM Biotech Research and Development Director and founder stated, "We will be working to bring commercially available, morally acceptable, vaccines to the US market and to use existing technology to produce new morally certified vaccines. Revenues from the vaccine business will also further the research, development and commercialization of morally certified therapeutics in other areas of medicine as well."
The announcement was an answer to years of hard work and prayers for Children of God for Life, a pro-life organization that has battled to bring moral alternatives to aborted fetal vaccines to the US market for nearly a decade.
"There are no words sufficient to express our deepest gratitude to Dr Deisher and AVM Biotech", noted the group's Executive Director, Debi Vinnedge, who was also named to AVM Biotech's Advisory Board for vaccine development.
While most vaccines and medicines are produced in an ethical manner, several are manufactured using cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue with no competing ethical products available. Vinnedge noted this has left concerned pro-life families in both a difficult and unjust position.
Both organizations hope the news will spark Congress to move forward with their Fair Labeling and Informed Consent legislation, a bill that would require full disclosure from the pharmaceutical industry whenever aborted fetal or embryonic cell lines are used in medical products.
"Every consumer, whether pro-life in philosophy or not, has the right to know if human fetal cell contaminants are present in the drugs they receive", noted Dr Deisher. "Consumers should be informed and empowered to make the best health care choices for themselves and their families. Surely, if we have the right to know what is in our fast food, we should also have the right to know what is in our medicine. "
AVM Biotech intends to further assist in this effort by certifying that its therapeutic products are not discovered, screened, evaluated, produced, or tainted in any way by the use of electively aborted human fetal material, human embryonic material, or any other unethically obtained materials.
Special Prosecutors Allow Planned Parenthood to Corrupt Grand Jury
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06938.shtml
OLATHE, Kansas -- District Attorney Phill Kline filed a motion late yesterday asking for Judge Patrick Moriarty to enforce the sole subpoena issued by a citizen-called grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood, and raised allegations that the grand jury has been so corrupted by irregular and often "bizarre" behavior by Special Prosecutors Larry McLain and Rick Merker, that it is not now possible for the grand jury to rule one way or the other.
Last week, Planned Parenthood struck a deal in a meeting between McLain, Merker, a member of the grand jury to hand over certain documents in lieu of complying with the subpoena for 16 abortion records in which all patient-identifying information had been removed. However that deal was voided by Judge Moriarty last week after it was rejected by the grand jury as a whole as being inadequate. Judge Moriarty has yet to order the original subpoena be enforced 50 days after it was issued.
"Since when does the accused get to run their own investigation? Judge Moriarty must have a noodle for a backbone to allow this investigation to spin so out of control. He has allowed special prosecutors to compromise the secrecy and the integrity of the grand jury and allowed Planned Parenthood to set the parameters of evidence that they will provide. It is outrageous," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who was a member of the coalition of groups that led the petition drive to convene the grand jury.
The grand jury has met only a total of 11 days and is scheduled for dismissal in early March. It has issued only one subpoena.
"The will of the people who signed the petition calling for this investigation is being thwarted. To date, the grand jury has not considered all of the seven allegations that it was asked to review in the petition. There is no way this grand jury has done its job in only eleven days. It was convened to investigate Planned Parenthood, not to cover-up for them. This investigation has become a sham," said Newman. "It's time for the public to speak out!"
Concerned citizens may contact:
Judge Patrick Moriarty
913-715-3880
Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation. Operation Rescue recently made headlines when it bought and closed an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas and has become the voice of the pro-life activist movement in America. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.
Seven-State Investigation Organized By UCLA Students Shows Evidence of Racism at Planned Parenthood
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion06937.shtml
LOS ANGELES -- A student magazine at UCLA, The Advocate, released phone recordings of Planned Parenthood staffers approving a donor's racist agenda, prompting students to begin a petition to request that UCLA administrators cut programs and affiliations with Planned Parenthood. The magazine conducted a seven-state probe to ascertain how Planned Parenthood development centers would respond to a caller who expressed explicitly racist motives behind his donation.
An actor, posing as a racist donor, called Planned Parenthood development centers and asked that his donation be used to abort African American babies in order to "lower the number of black people." Each branch agreed to process the racially earmarked donation, with some encouraging the racist motive behind it. None expressed concern about the racist reasoning for the donation.
When the actor stated in a phone conversation with an Idaho Planned Parenthood that "the less black kids out there the better," Director of Development Autumn Kersey called his position "understandable" and indicated she was excited to process his donation. An Ohio representative, Lisa Hutton, tells the donor, when informed of his racist agenda, that Planned Parenthood "will accept the money for whatever reason."
UCLA senior Jose Manaiza called upon fellow African American students and the entire UCLA student body to "commit to this new era of the Civil Rights Movement and fight any type of racism from Planned Parenthood." Manaiza, a 2007 nominee for the UCLA Student of The Year award and winner of the 2007 UCLA Chancellor's Service Award, believes that targeting blacks for abortion violates the civil rights fought for by his hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A student campaign, led by Lila Rose, sophomore at UCLA and Editor-in-chief of The Advocate, has begun petitioning UCLA to end ties with Planned Parenthood. Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, says she supports "the student campaign to get UCLA to cease its programs with Planned Parenthood."
As part of their campaign, students have entered into discussions with UCLA administrators regarding the university's relations with Planned Parenthood. So far, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Janina Montero has declined to comment on The Advocate's investigation or the student campaign.
Rose, whose previous work through The Advocate has been featured on The O'Reilly Factor and national radio, says she is hopeful that regardless of their position on abortion, students can stand together to combat Planned Parenthood's racism, both past and present.
Visit: www.laadvocate.com
China's Military Budget Reported at $59 Billion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/04/AR2008030401345_pf.html
BEIJING -- China announced Tuesday that it will again sharply increase its military spending this year, budgeting a 17.6 percent rise that is roughly equal to last year's increase.
Disclosure of plans for a $59 billion outlay in 2008 followed a Pentagon report Monday that raised questions about China's rapidly increasing military budget, and came less than three weeks before a presidential election in Taiwan, the self-governed island over which China claims sovereignty.
A spokesman for the Chinese legislature said the country's decade-long military buildup does "not pose a threat to any country," but he warned that relations with Taiwan were at a "crucial stage" and that the island would "surely pay a dear price" if it were to take steps that China viewed as a declaration of independence.
At the same time Taiwanese choose a president, they also will vote on a referendum issue asking whether the island should apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan.
China's reported $59 billion budget is still a fraction of what the United States spends each year on its armed forces. President Bush last month requested $515 billion to fund the Pentagon in fiscal 2009, a 7.5 percent increase, plus $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States has pressed China to be more open about its intentions as the scope of its military capabilities and pace of spending increase. At a Pentagon briefing Monday, David Sedney, deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia, reiterated the U.S. view that China's defense establishment still severely underreports total spending and has not been clear about its intentions.
"China's military buildup has been characterized by opacity," Sedney told reporters, and "by the inability of people in the region and around the world to really know what ties together the capabilities that China's acquiring with the intentions it has."
The Pentagon report said China's near-term focus remains on preparations for potential problems in the Taiwan Strait. But China's nuclear force modernization, its growing arsenal of advanced missiles and its development of space and cyberspace technologies are changing military balances in Asia and beyond, the report concluded.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was stuck in a "Cold War mentality" and that the annual Pentagon report on China's military power, mandated by Congress since 1999, "is a serious distortion of facts and attempts to interfere in China's internal affairs."
Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for the National People's Congress, said at a separate news conference that the 2008 budget would fund only a "moderate increase" in weapons purchases. Most of the additional funds would go toward higher military salaries, rising oil costs and training programs, he said. He noted that the country has a long-standing plan to modernize its forces.
Jiang said that from 2003 to 2007, China's national defense spending increased by an annual average of 15.8 percent, while government revenue increased by an annual average of 22.1 percent. Defense spending was the equivalent of 1.4 percent of China's gross domestic product last year, he said. By comparison, he said, U.S. defense spending was 4.6 percent of GDP and Britain's was 3 percent.
Although the Pentagon report raised questions about China's military intentions, Sedney told reporters Monday that he had just returned from "surprisingly successful" talks with his Chinese counterparts.
In addition to reaching a deal to establish a military telephone link between the two countries, announced last week, the two sides agreed to move forward in a dialogue on nuclear strategy and policy, he said.
Russian Bomber Approaches U.S. Aircraft During Training Off South Korea
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335591,00.html
U.S. and South Korean fighter jets scrambled to turn back a Russian bomber that approached a U.S. aircraft carrier during training exercises, South Korean and U.S. officials said Thursday.
The Russian plane flew close to the USS Nimitz in waters off South Korea's eastern coast Wednesday, but retreated shortly after the fighter jets approached, an official at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
The official refused to provide details of the fighter jets involved.
Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified military official as saying two F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters from the carrier and four South Korean F-16 jets were deployed to intercept the Russian plane.
The Russian navy confirmed that a Tu-142 anti-submarine aircraft flew over the American carrier, calling it a routine mission over the open sea.
"Attempts by U.S. officials to portray almost every flight of the Russian military aviation, including our naval aviation, over the world ocean as some sort of breach are appalling," Igor Dygalo, assistant to the navy commander in chief, said, according to Russia's Interfax-AVN news agency.
In February, U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers — one directly flying over the Nimitz in the western Pacific ocean.
In Washington, a defense official downplayed the significance of the latest incident.
"We don't view this activity as threatening or of concern," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The official said it was standard operating procedure for Navy aircraft to escort a plane flying near its ships.
To get close to the U.S. carrier, the Russian plane intruded into a South Korean-controlled air defense zone above the open sea, Yonhap reported.
The zone does not belong to South Korea's aerial territory but was demarcated by the U.S. military a year after the Korean War broke out in 1950 as part of efforts to prevent accidental aerial clashes among regional powers.
In recent years, discord between the U.S. and Russia has grown over American plans to build a missile defense network and expand NATO membership. Russia has sought to bolster political and trade ties with countries in Asia and the Middle East to counter U.S. clout.
The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea in a legacy of the Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. American and South Korean troops regularly stage joint exercises to maintain their ability to deter any North Korean attack.
Commander Warns of Al-Qaida Threat to U.S.
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/renuart_Al_Qaida_Threat/2008/03/06/78512.html
WASHINGTON - Al-Qaida terrorists may be plotting more urgently to attack the United States to maintain their credibility and ability to recruit followers, the U.S. military commander in charge of domestic defense said Thursday.
Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, told reporters he has not seen any direct threats tied to the U.S. presidential elections. But he said it would be imprudent to think that such threats are not there.
"We need only to look at Spain and see that they're certainly willing to try to do something that is significant that could affect an election process," Renuart said. "I think it would be imprudent of us to let down our guard believing that if there's no credible threat that you know of today, there won't be something tomorrow."
While he said that U.S. authorities have thwarted attacks on a number of occasions, he said terrorist cells may be working harder than ever to plot high-impact events. He did not point to any specific intelligence that authorities have received but said the "chatter" they are hearing "gives me no reason to believe they're going to slow down" in their efforts to target the U.S.
"If an organization like that is to maintain credibility and continue to grow more of its extremists, it has to show tangible results," Renuart said. "So I think there may be a certain sense of urgency among that organization to have an effect. So it would tell me that they're trying harder."
Of the more than a dozen daily events that Northern Command responds to — ranging from natural disasters to threats — two or three may have the potential to be terrorist incidents, he said.
The chatter, which included public audio and video tapes released on the Internet by al-Qaida leaders, suggests that they are looking for a way to have a big impact again, he said. Pressed for details, he said the chatter was more common but "whether that's louder or more ominous, I'm not sure I'm ready to draw that conclusion."
He did, however, repeat his assertion — which he first made last July — that he believes there are al-Qaida cells or sympathizers within the United States.
President Bush, in a speech, also said the United States remained under threat from terrorists. Marking the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Homeland Security Department, Bush said that in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks "it was hard to imagine that we would reach this milestone without another attack on our homeland."
Yet he said, "On this anniversary, we must also remember that the danger to our country has not passed. Since the attacks of 9/11, the terrorists have tried to strike our homeland again and again. We've disrupted numerous planned attacks — including a plot to fly an airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast and another to blow up passenger jets headed for America across the Atlantic Ocean."
Bush said the lesson is clear: "The enemy remains active, deadly in its intent — and in the face of this danger, the United States must never let down its guard."
Kuwaiti Paper: Mega-Attack on Israel in March
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/142227
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan quoted "top Western sources" Monday saying that, "according to reliable intelligence information, Hizbullah has begun planning a large-scale attack on Israel in retaliation for its [alleged] assassination of senior Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyah."
According to the report, translated by MEMRI, the attack is being planned in coordination with Syria and Iran, and is to take place before the Arab summit next month.
It was also reported that there would be a simultaneous terrorist escalation by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other PA groups in Gaza.
Anti-Semitism on the Rise in Europe
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/333648.aspx
If you don't think anti-Semitism is rising in Europe, look at the political cartoons.
A Greek cartoon suggests Israelis kill Christians on Easter. An Italian cartoon shows the baby Jesus worried that the Israelis are going to kill him again.
And then there are the cartoons that compare the Jews to the Nazis. It reminds Jews of another period: the 1930s, the time before the Holocaust.
In Europe today, most Jews are at least anxious. Some are scared, and many have already left for Israel or the United States. Because even though many European governments have condemned the new rise in anti-Semitism, there is a clear perception among many Jews that Europe's terrible history is somehow coming back to life.
"Jewish communities around the world are under more pressure now than at any time since 1945," says Robert Wistrich of Hebrew University in Israel. Wistrich is the son of Polish Jews who fled the Holocaust. "Here we are 60 years after that and what lessons have been learned? Not enough."
A survey last year by the Anti-Defamation League of five European countries found that half of those questioned believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than the countries in which they live. That was what the Nazis believed.
And almost half of Europeans surveyed also said Jews "probably" have too much control of international finance. That was another Nazi view.
Almost half also believe that Jews control U.S. Middle East policy. The Nazis would have agreed.
The editor of Der Sturmer, Julius Streicher wrote in 1944: "The Jews have made America what it is today: a nation…forced into helping the Jews achieve world domination!"
Manfred Gerstenfeld, a leading Holocaust expert, says the constant demonization of Israel by the European media and the European left has helped create what he calls a "new anti-Semitism" against the "collective Jew"; that is, Israel and Zionism.
"All studies show that Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism almost entirely overlap," he said. "Now, of course, it is very bad to say you are against the Jews after the Holocaust, so you have a found an escape clause to be against the Jews without saying you are against the Jews. And you say I am against Israel, applying standards to Israel that you do not apply to any other nation."
University of Michigan Professor Andrei Markovits, author of Uncouth Nation adds: "Criticizing Israel, Israeli policy, certainly is not Anti-Semitic. Criticizing Israel the State is not Anti-Semitic. But when you bring in old anti-Semitic tropes to criticize Israel or to depict Israel as the murderer of God, as the blood libel, showing them as Nazis; that is anti-Semitic."
And Markovits, a self-described progressive or leftist, says hatred of Israel is now a core principle for many on the Left. At anti-Israel protests, you'll see radical Muslims and Leftists both expressing, not only anti-Israel messages, but anti-Semitic messages, too.
This political cartoon from the London Independent newspaper, showing what Jews claimed was an imitation of the ancient blood libel, won best political cartoon award in Britain. The same cartoon later showed up in a rally by radical Muslims in the Middle East.
"The terrorists have allies in European society," Gerstenfeld said. "In the media. In the NGO's, on academia, among leftwing politicians."
The leftist mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said he's against anti-Semitism. But he has also said that anyone who goes to kill Israeli soldiers is not a terrorist. And a onetime member of the British parliament, Jenny Tonge, said if she were a Palestinian, she would consider being a suicide bomber.
Distorted Media Coverage
Throughout Europe, distorted and one-sided news coverage has created an Israel that is aggressive and evil.
"It's a demonization based on a radical detextualization, de-legitimization that's been going on," Melanie Phillips, a British conservative, says. "And if you're the averagely ignorant Brit, watching your TV, listening to your radio, you believe it. That's your world view."
In France, a court is deciding whether a government TV channel, France2, showed faked footage of the supposed death of a Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Durah, during the second intifada in 2000, to make it look like he was killed by Israeli solders. When the judge ordered France2 to turn over all of its footage of the incident, it also showed the boy moving his arms and peering through his fingers after he was supposed to be dead.
But Muslim rage at the original France2 news story led to countless reprisals against Jews around the world. It was even mentioned by terrorists as a reason for the beheading Daniel Pearl.
Scott Jacobs at DemocracyBroadcastingNews.com says the France2 story "globally defames the Jewish nation, Israel, with a fabricated icon of hypocritical brutality and immorality; and criminalizes Jews and their State to justify pariah-punishment."
The EU says Muslims are responsible for half of all attacks on Jews in Europe. In France, Muslims outnumber Jews 10 to 1. Nidra Poller, an American writer and commentator in Paris, says the government and media are afraid of the Muslims.
"The French are using the Muslims, allowing the Muslims, to express this vicious and violent, murderous Jews hatred, and they get a free ride on their old fashioned anti-Semitism," Poller said. "The whole Lebanon war was shown from the Hezbollah point of view. Israel was the villain. And Hezbollah were the innocents who were suffering. So all the Muslims in France got another dose of Jew hatred."
And when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, anti-Semitic violence in Europe surged.
Surpising, But Not Unique
Anti-Semitism is by no means just a European phenomenon. But it is in Europe, the place of the Holocaust, where the return of anti-semitism is so surprising.
As a boy in the Netherlands, Manfred Gerstenfeld hid from the Nazis in an upstairs apartment. He may have never believed it could happen again. But he now believes Europe is re-living the 1930s.
"A senior Dutch politician told me a few months ago, 'Look, the Jews have to understand that in the Netherlands, they have no future,' he said.
In large part because Israel lost the media war in Europe long ago, and the Jews are still paying for it.
Today I unsubscribed from The Jerusalem Post
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=107
The Post is Israel’s main English-language daily, and I have been a reader since my first day in this country, more than 20 years ago. Back when I came to live in Jerusalem the paper was run under Executive Editor David Bar-Illan, z-l. A brilliant mind housing a powerful and uncompromising Zionist spirit, Bar-Illan took the Post to its greatest heights, making it one of the 10 most influential newspapers in the world.
Last week, while on the way to the north, I was browsing through The Jerusalem Post as my bus wended its way through the lush green of the late-winter countryside.
Not far from the coastal port city of Haifa, I almost choked. That evening, as soon as I returned home, I fired the following letter to the editor:
Sir
It was with a sense of dismay and real disappointment that I read this statement in your editorial ‘Insatiable Extremism’ (The Jerusalem Post, February 28, 2008):
“This newspaper recognizes that for Israel to remain at once Jewish in character and democratic, it must relinquish territory to which it claims a biblical and historic right and separate from the Palestinians.”
While I have for years tracked your paper’s drift away from the political center towards the left, I had no idea that the Post’s editors had so fully subscribed to President George W. Bush’s “Two State Vision” as to unabashedly endorse it. Yes, I know the entire international community is pushing Israel down this road and endeavoring to sever you from the cradle of your nationhood - the odds are overwhelming; it’s not surprising that you, too, have succumbed to them. But it is still a terrible shame. And mark these words, with their roots cut off, no nation can survive.
I will be terminating my subscription until such time as your editors return to a more healthy, Zionist position. David Bar-Illan, a personal friend and one of the best editors ever to stand at the helm of The Jerusalem Post, must be spinning in his grave.
Yours regretfully
Stan Goodenough, Editor
JERUSALEM NEWSWIRE
Jerusalem
Needless to say, the letter was not published. Still, today I called the subscription office in Tel Aviv, and ended mine.
Terrorists machinegun Jerusalem Bible-students
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2361
At least eight people were killed and 35 were wounded Thursday evening when two Palestinian Arabs opened fire in a Jerusalem seminary (yeshiva).
Ambulances from around the capital were heard at about 8:45 PM racing to the Mercaz Harav Seminary in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood not far from the Knesset.
Police and soldiers also descended on the scene, from where reports came that two terrorists had been shot dead. Eyewtinesses said one of the killers was wearing an explosive ("suicide") belt but did not detonate it.
According to rapidly updated reports from the scene, at least two Arab gunmen burst into the seminary dining room (some reports say library) where about 80 people were having supper and opened fire.
Terrified students fled the scene, some seeking cover in bomb shelters as the shooting continued.
One student told Sky News he had seen an armed man crouched on a roof near the seminary. The next minute a man walked into the building and began "spraying" the students with automatic fire.
The student said he shot the terrorist twice in the head at point blank range.
It was the first terrorist attack in Jerusalem in over a year.
Kassam rocket scores direct hit on Sderot home
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2363
Four Israelis were wounded Thursday afternoon when a Kassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a home in the Negev town of Sderot.
Pictures of the house, which was reportedly set on fire by the rocket, showed a massive hole in the dining room.
A second, but uninhabited, house in the town was also damaged when another rocket hit a nearby fuel tank, according to reports.
At least eight rockets and a number of mortars were fired from Gaza through the day.
Palestinian Militants Attack Israeli Army Patrol, Killing Soldier
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335449,00.html
Palestinian militants ambushed an Israeli army jeep patrolling the Gaza border, then attacked a rescue crew that rushed to the scene, killing one soldier and wounding three in a brazen cross-border attack, according to military and witness accounts.
The attack raised the possibility of a fresh round of violence in Gaza, just two days after Israel ended an offensive that killed more than 120 Palestinians. Senior Israeli military officers held an emergency meeting to plot a response, officials said.
Palestinian witnesses said a large explosion tore through the jeep, which was on the Israeli side of the border fence near the Kissufim crossing into central Gaza, and set it on fire.
Several other army vehicles, along with an army helicopter, arrived to rescue the wounded, but came under fire, the witnesses said.
Military officials said a bomb had been set off next to the jeep. One of the wounded was in serious condition, the army said.
Islamic Jihad, a tiny Islamic militant group with links to Iran, claimed responsibility for the ambush. Hamas, the larger militant group that rules Gaza, said its men also participated in the attack.
Abu Ahmad, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, said the attack was revenge for an Israeli strike a day earlier that killed one of the group's commanders in southern Gaza.
"We are sending our message to all the Zionist criminals," he said. "Your threats to target the leaders of resistance ... won't scare us. We are going to continue our resistance and holy war, and we will continue to rain rockets on your colonies until we make them ghost towns."
For months, Israel has been operating in Gaza against Palestinian militants who fire rockets into southern Israel. Last week, it launched a ground and air offensive in response to especially heavy rocket fire, including several barrages that reached as far as Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, 11 miles north of Gaza.
Israel withdrew its ground forces from northern Gaza on Tuesday, leaving a wide scene of destruction in its wake. Palestinian medical officials say more than half of the dead were civilians. Israel accuses Hamas militants of using civilians for cover.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended peace talks with Israel earlier this week to protest the violence in Gaza. Despite Abbas' rivalry with Hamas, Israeli military action is so unpopular with the Palestinian public that it undermines his authority and makes it difficult for him to negotiate with Israel.
Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from Abbas' forces last June. Abbas wields no control in Gaza, but continues to claim to represent the area's 1.4 million people.
On Wednesday, Abbas said he would not return to the negotiating table until Israel reached a truce in Gaza. However, under pressure from visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Abbas backtracked and agreed to resume talks, though it remained unclear when negotiations will restart.
Israel has been negotiating with Abbas, a moderate who rules from the West Bank, since last November. At the same time, it continues to battle the Hamas militants who control the Gaza Strip. Israel has also imposed a painful economic embargo on Gaza, causing widespread hardship in the already impoverished area.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office announced Wednesday that Israel would maintain its pressure on Hamas. Olmert did leave the door open to an unofficial truce with Hamas.
"If there is no rocket fire at Israel, there won't be Israeli attacks on Gaza," he told reporters.
In other violence Thursday, Israeli forces attacked a rocket-launching site in the northern Gaza Strip, killing one militant, Palestinian medics said. The army said it had carried out an airstrike on a launching site.
Israel's blockade of Gaza has led to shortages of basic staples, fuel and electricity. On Thursday, a coalition of eight British human rights groups claimed the humanitarian situation in Gaza is at its worst point since Israel captured the territory in 1967. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but continues to control its borders and airspace.
The report said that more than 1.1 million people, about 80 percent of Gaza's residents, are now dependent on food aid, up from 63 percent in 2006, unemployment is close to 40 percent. Close to 70 percent of the 110,000 workers employed in the private sector have lost their jobs.
It also said that hospitals are suffering from power cuts of up to 12 hours a day, and the water and sewage systems were close to collapse, 10 million to 12 million gallons of sewage pouring into the sea daily.
"Israel has the right and obligation to protect its citizens, but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care," said Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen, one of groups behind the report.
Israel's Defense Ministry rejected the report, blaming the militant Hamas rulers of Gaza for the hardships. It also said medicine and other humanitarian supplies continue to flow into Gaza.
The 16-page report — sponsored by Amnesty, along with CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire — calls on the British government to exert greater pressure on Israel and to reverse its policy on not negotiating with Gaza's Hamas rulers.
Arabs rejoice at death of another IDF soldier
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2362
Arabs in Gaza reportedly celebrated joyfully Thursday morning after an IDF soldier was bombed to death while patroling the "border" with Israel.
The soldier, a loyal Israeli Beduin Arab and father of seven children, was killed when a roadside charge was detonated alongside his jeep. Three other soldiers were wounded, one seriously.
Credit for the killing was claimed by the Popular Resistance Committees - a cover name for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' PLO.
Rockets, tears and trauma
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=110
Jerusalem has safe skies - for now.
I remember the welcoming feeling, 18 months ago, on returning to the capital after two days in the north during the Second Lebanon War. Up there - standing on Haifa’s hillsides, ears filling with siren screams and eyes straining out across the bay to where invisible and deadly rockets were winging their way towards us - the feeling of vulnerability was acute. Driving through the Galilee, with the hills smoking on either side, the inner cringing and subconscious bracing for impact leaped up again as the sirens sounded once more; it didn’t matter where we were - anywhere north of Haifa my scalp would be prickling with the sense of what could be hanging literally over my head.
And yet, I could balance that uneasiness against the fact that the potential targets of Hizb’allah’s high-explosives were many and covered a wide area. Apart from Haifa and the Kirya, there was Har Meron and Tsfat (Safed), Rosh Pinna, Kiryat Shemona and Metulla, each surrounded by open countryside dotted with fields and fishponds. There were plenty of places the rockets could fall, minimizing the chance they’d hit me.
At night in my hotel, I could hear the boom of rockets hitting all around, but safely afar off. And yet, there was the uneasiness, the defenselessness; intense enough so that when I got back home and walked the city streets, I really felt the freedom from fear under Jerusalem’s safe skies.
Today, early in the morning, we leave that safe, if grey, covering once again, this time heading from the mountains of Judea south-east down toward the coastal plain. Rolling hills give way to fields, lush-green all around us in these early days of March. Roads busy with traffic, life around us is buzzing with the normalcy of a working week-day.
It takes little more than an hour to reach our destination. Behind me, my wife is safely walking our children to school. But for me and my companions, after just this short drive, we’ve left the peace for a war zone. The skies here are also grey, but now they’re ominous too. Like an unwelcome guest, the sense of vulnerability returns. My scalp prickles. At any moment, projectiles can be coming towards us through the air.
This time, the target area is small: If Israel is a plastered wall, Sderot is the dart board hanging there. And if Sderot is the dart board, we feel like we’re right in the bull’s eye.
“It’s not a question of whether something will happen” Joel, a fellow journalist, says as we pull up outside the town’s central ambulance station, parking among the eight or nine ambulances that stand ready in the street. “It’s not a question of if something will happen. It will happen. The question is just, when?”
Less than 30 minutes after we arrive, it turns out.
“Tseva Adom! Tseva Adom! Ttseva Adom!” (Color Red! Color Red! Color Red!) The metallic voice sounds through the town-wide alarm system, and people start running for shelter. They have between 15 and 20 seconds before the rockets, fired by Arabs in Gaza, come hurtling into the town.
The ambulance crews beckon us into their security room, and we quickly and quietly file our way downstairs, our ears peeled. Before we even reach the shelter, with its bunk beds lining the walls, the sound of detonations reach our ears. A minute later, the all clear returns us to the street.
Two rockets landed just outside the town, we’re told. No one was hurt. Over an aid worker’s radio we hear details of what happened in Ashkelon minutes before: a Katyusha or Grad rocket (twin-engined, longer-range, larger warhead) hit a seven story building there. Twenty-eight people are wounded; miraculously none killed.
But for now, the ambulances in Sderot are not needed. “Please God we’ll have a quiet day,” an aid worker tells us as we move on.
Lots of police vehicles line the street outside the main police station. Two sport license plates indicating that some of the country’s most senior policemen are in town. There is no spokesman available, but we’re taken out back to view the racks of used Kassam rockets that have hit Sderot. They’re crude; pipes with vanes and warheads. The casings are thick; upon exploding they spray jagged pieces of steel around them, tearing flesh, destroying limbs and lives.
Then we drop by the fire station next door and talk to the men there. “Our first priority on arriving at an attack scene is to save lives and care for the wounded,” one firefighter stresses, in answer to our questions. Only then is structural damage seen to - ruptured gas mains, holed walls and roofs, and downed power lines repaired.
Compared to yesterday and the weekend, it’s quiet. I relax a little as we head to the “To Go” restaurant to meet with Geut.
Geut Aragon’s photograph, her head bloody and draped in bandages, stares at us out from the cover of a recent Christian Edition of The Jerusalem Post. Today she looks well, if tired. One of the media workers who helped set up this interview had said earlier Geut did not feel up to talking to the press today. But she had changed her mind.
We sit on the small patio and within minutes she has launched into her story of what happened on January 15. I’m running it as she told it:
“I will never forget it,” she says, quietly. “It was about five in the afternoon. We were at home; me and my little boy Nir, now four years old, and his friend who had come to play with him, she is five years old. They started playing downstairs and they asked me to put on the computer. And the computer is upstairs in his room. And I’m like, ‘Children, you know what, it’s not safe upstairs, I will put you something else on the TV.” And you know what, the children, they insisted that day. ‘Please put it on for us; we’ve had TV all day, TV - we can’t go outside even to the playground.” So I said, “Okay, just a few minutes, okay?’
“So we go upstairs and I sit in front of the computer, and just at that moment my little boy asked me to go to the toilet, ‘Mommy, mommy!’ So I’m like, ‘Go, hurry up.’ And he went out and was just standing by the door.
“There was no alarm; there was no tseva adom. It was like a great big boom. I know for the first second I was unconscious. And when I woke up it was like, what happened? Then I started to hear them screaming. The little girl was next to me and I could not see anything. Everything was black and I just heard the two screaming, ‘Mommy! mommy!’
“They were in a panic; they were hurt; they were bleeding. I was bleeding all over; my head was hurt so I didn’t stop bleeding, and I’m like, what shall I do? Oh, my God, they are children!
“I don’t know how to describe to you the way I felt at that horrible moment, and the way they screamed, ‘Help us! Help us! Mommy! Mommy!’
“I started to try to get up and I could not, so I started to crawl on the floor to search for the little girl. I touched pieces of the roof and the wall and suddenly I felt her arm and pushed her very hard, and took her and started to find the way out from the room while my boy screamed and cried and panicked….it seemed like forever.
“I’m like, please God send someone to save us. I got out of the room, and the moment I pushed the door my little boy was standing there. I did not know what I looked like. He was standing there and me and the girl were standing there and he stopped breathing in shock. Then he was screaming, ‘Mommy! Mommy! Blood! Blood!’ He turned his back to me, too afraid to see me. I took them and started to go downstairs, and I feel like I must take them downstairs before the house falls down on us. When I got to the front door there was the ambulance, the paramedics, all the people. They checked us and took us to the hospital.
“Every day, the moment I hear the alarm, I cover my ears and until now I just hear the screaming of those two children. Back then I was told I was badly hurt in my head and my leg. A large piece of shrapnel in my knee and three pieces in my head; one into the brain, so they do not want to touch it so it is still there…. I am still doing treatment and seeing doctors, and it’s very, very hard. The children need to have care, special psychologists take care of them; they don’t sleep at night and until today they start crying when they hear the alarm…they are so afraid. It is very hard to live in such a place that you don’t have the chance to recover. Every day gets harder and harder…. People saw the pictures and they came to see me in the hospital. And if you see the room, the whole second floor, it was horrible and the people said it was a miracle, a big miracle; one chance in a million that with a direct hit like that we came out of this room. I know it was a miracle and I thank God it was a miracle…”
Geut said all Sderot’s people “are very, very afraid. Some don’t go out at all; they do their shopping and everything by telephone because every day different houses are being hit…more than once in a day, every day, sometimes every 20 seconds….”
She believes “the government is trying everything [but] it’s not human to live like this. It’s hard to say – because I have two boys and one day they will also go to the army and will fight – but I feel that our army does not do enough because years ago there was a war in the north and … they protected all the people that lived there, and here in the south we don’t feel that they protect us; I know we are all afraid to lose soldiers but that’s why we have an army.”
Subdued, we wish her well. After lunch - “To Go’s” small kitchen turns them out to order so the food is fresh, tasty, inexpensive - we head for a second rendezvous.
This next experience will be the most harrowing.
Chava Gad meets us downtown and we drive her the five minutes to her home. She asks whether we would like to talk to her inside or outside. The sun has started to peep through, warming and coloring the air. “Outside would be best,” we agree.
Nervously, Chava insists on first opening the door into her apartment block so that, if necessary, she can quickly get inside. Three floors above us, a blackened window and burned gables show where a rocket scored a direct hit.
As she touches the latch, the alarm breaks out: “Tseva Adom! Tseva Adom!” Quickly, we are ushered indoors. Chava grabs a small boy and leads us into the hallway – a relatively safe place to stand.
Bending protectively over Yanai, her nine-year-old, Chava pulls him close, whispering calming words through her own clenched teeth; encouraging him to breathe slowly, deeply.
Through the rasping of the alarm, the whimpering sounds of the child fighting sheer terror pierces my heart. Then Yanai gasps, together with his mom, at the first explosion, some distance away. The second, closer, is much louder; we feel the shock waves. More seconds drag out, and then it’s over.
Last week, they were going through this 15 to 20 times a day.
Chava doses Yanai with syrup – a natural remedy to calm him, she says. Her whole body is shaking, as if chilled, as she takes the valium she needs before sitting down, still quivering, to talk. For nearly an hour, while Yanai alternately potters around the kitchen and hurls himself on and off the couch, Chava pours out her heart, describing how so many facets of life have been destroyed for so many in Sderot. And still, even as she expresses bewilderment at the circumstances she is in, the woman insists she still believes in, and hopes for, peace.
Chava’s story, as she recounted it, will be posted here soon.
While we’re talking, a young policeman enters from an inside room – pistol on his hip, girl with a large helium balloon at his side. He’s her first-born, Chava says proudly. And it’s his 21st birthday today. They will leave the house, between rocket attacks, to celebrate. I wonder where.
An hour later we are heading back to Jerusalem. But our thoughts are back there with Yanai’s family, and with all the others who have lived under rocket attacks for a period that has lasted nearly twice as long as World War 2.
How easy things are for us as, winding our way up through the hills, we look forward to being once again under the friendly skies over the ancient city of King David.
Then one of my companions bursts that bubble. “The rockets will be falling here too, one day,” he says.
Despite the pain, anguish and fear suffered by the Israeli people in the past two years, their leaders seem unable to learn the lessons inflicted as a result of the Lebanon withdrawal and the Gaza “disengagement.”
Certainly, if they continue in the direction they insist on following despite the daily intensifying danger, it is only a matter of time – and not much of that – before Jerusalem’s skies rain rockets too.
How much we need to pray, for the people of Sderot, Ashkelon, and indeed for all Israel. And how we, gentiles, need to speak out against the concerted effort of our nations that continue to work, inexorably, towards the dividing up of this land and the weakening to ultimate destruction, of this people.
‘Mommy - I love my shirts’
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=111
Earlier this week, a handful of journalists and I huddled together with Chava Gad and her little boy in the hall of their Sderot home. For five long minutes, as Kassam rockets from Gaza exploded nearby, and between the staccato sounds of the “Red Color!” alert, I listened to Yanai’s small, frightened cries. When the danger was over, and after Chava and Yanai had taken medication to calm their clearly shattered nerves, we sat in their living room where she shared her story and her feelings about the situation facing her family and her nation.
Normally, the media slants interviews in a particular direction, or uses selective quotes to communicate what the reporter - rather than the interviewee - wants to say. I have decided to run Chava’s interview pretty much without adding comments of my own. I think it conveys pretty well what an ordinary individual in that relentlessly rocketed town is going through. If her account is similar to many others in Sderot - and I think it probably is - then the number of casualties from the last eight years of rocket attacks is way, way higher than reported by the medical services.
What I did feel to do was rework her words and sentences into more readable English, so this is not a verbatim transcript, although it is everything she said herself. This is Chava’s story.
It’s very difficult to live here in Sderot because you saw, five minutes ago, when the rockets started…you wanted to interview me outside and I told you , “OK, Just with open doors” [and then the alert was sounded].
The children don’t go to play outside; like in a normal neighborhood - no football or hide and seek; the children here are staying at home. If I allow my son to go outside and play it is only if I go with him and stay outside [myself]. Children here are in stress; they sleep with their parents, sometimes not only in the same bed but between the mother and the father. It has destroyed our private life. It’s destroyed everything in our life.
I am not working. I was manager of the office [but] I’ve stopped working because I am not able to concentrate. I was not sleeping in the night and in the day I could not concentrate. Before it happened I was able to type a letter in Hebrew or in English. And now to type a small letter is difficult for me because I am not able to concentrate - I have to think about where I put each finger on the keyboard.
So it hurts you financially. It hurts you mentally. You saw how many tablets I take; what happened to me, how I started to shake. I’m shaking less now because the tablets started to work.
I see a psychologist once a week; I go to psychiatrist once every two weeks - he has to see if the tablets work; if he has to give me more or change them all the time. I am not sleeping well in the night. Even when you take a tablet to sleep you don’t allow your body to relax completely. All the time you have one eye open and one ear open to hear. My husband tells me that I scream in the middle of the night “Tseva adom! Tseva adom!” “Color red! Color red!” - that I have nightmares. I wake up in the morning all wet from sweating in fear.
It destroys your life.
I take my child - my son - its one minute’s walk from here to his school; I take him to school in the morning and I take him from school; I do not allow him to go by himself. And it happened to us last week, last Friday, that we go to school; no, this Sunday, I think it was… We were on our way to go to school when, with no alert sounding, five or six rockets exploded. We threw down his school bag and whatever we had in our hands and ran home. We were screaming and crying and I called my husband: “Come quickly; the rockets fell without an alarm. Both of us were shaking; both of us were crying; unable to breathe. Because, if you have the alarm, you wait for the bomb. But if it’s a rocket without an alarm you are not anticipating it and the rocket causes inside more stress, and all the muscles in your body are tensed.
Three weeks ago, I was sitting playing on the computer when I heard the explosion and I just started to run. Yanai was in the shower and I wanted to run to him. My husband was watching the television. There was the explosion and then you heard the alarm. “Color red!” And after another three or four minutes another explosion - it was the rocket that took the leg off Osher Tuito - the little one [A ten-year-old who had to have his leg amputated - Ed] .
All the house as shaking and I fell over here [points] and I cut my leg. I did not break it but I was screaming from the pain over here and my son was screaming in the bathroom and my husband didn’t know where to run - to me or to the boy. I told him, “Go to the baby.” He went to Yanai. Then he called my daughter and said “I have to take her to the hospital” because he was sure I had broken my leg. So we went to the hospital and they told me that it wasn’t broken, but I had to go on crutches for a week.
Four days later I was sleeping over here, and the rocket fell on this building, on the third floor above us. The miracle is that the warhead didn’t explode. But the noise was so terrible and we all had pain in our ears. I just put my hands on my ears crying “the pain the pain, the noise the noise” and they took me to the hospital again to check. Thank God that nothing bad happened to my ears.
The children here talk about this a lot. Yanai asked me, “Do I have to die?” He said, “I don’t want to die.” He told me, “I love all my shirts, even the old ones.” I asked him, “Why are you saying this? I am not going to throw away your shirts.” And he said to me, “If one of the rockets kills you, I have to sit in shiva [seven day mourning period] and they will cut my shirt [Jewish tradition for mourners].”
You don’t know what to answer, what to tell them. What do I promise him? That I won’t die from the rocket? That nothing will happen to me? I try not to cry because he is next to me and it is very difficult, these things he says to me - that he doesn’t want me to die; that he wants me to be at his bar mitzvah and his wedding; that he will be very sad if I die; that he will miss me; that he will never laugh again if I will die. These are very difficult words to hear from a child of nine. No-one on the world - except those who live where there is war - will understand this.
Yanai asks me, “Why does it happen? Why are the Arabs so bad? Why do they want to kill us? We want peace.
When I try to teach him that even in the Gaza Strip you have innocent children and innocent civilians he says, “If they are innocent, why do they go to military summer camps? You never send me to military summer camp, with a uniform; with weapons, and they are younger than me.”
Or he asks: “If they are innocent citizens - why is the mother blessing her son when he goes to carry out a suicide attack and kill innocent citizens in Israel?”
He was with me when we watched television news and you saw a mother holding her baby and she said, “My dream is that my son will be a terrorist.”
Yanai asked me, “What? Is she mad? She wants her son to die? She doesn’t love her son? What kind of mother doesn’t love her son? What, it’s a baby and she wants him to die?”
And I said, “No, it’s not like that…” and I tried to change it for him. So I try to teach him love. I try to teach him peace, but when a child grows up like this, it’s difficult. And when I hear him say, “I prefer that all the Arabs will die…”
Hopeless. It makes me feel hopeless. You just want to cry all the time… you hear the alarm and it’s like Russian roulette. You don’t know where it is going to fall. You don’t know what to do. You are hopeless and…
A lot of people ask me why I don’t leave Sderot. Last week I spoke with my sister and she said to me, “Rent a house in Ashkelon.” I said, “the rockets are coming to Ashkelon.” So where do I go? To Ashdod? The rockets will fall in Ashdod too. The Arabs say all the time they won’t rest until they have destroyed all Israel.
I grew up in the moshav (collective farm) where most of its people were Holocaust survivors. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. My name is Chava - the name of my grandmother’s little sister that was murdered in Aushwitz. So where must I go to? Back to the ghetto? Where to go to if I leave Sderot?
I supported the [2005] Disengagement from Gaza, from Gush Katif. The Palestinian government promised, “Give us Gush Katif and there will be peace.” And I am an optimistic person. I really hoped that it would be peace. Everyone in Sderot was screaming at me, “No! Why do you say the Disengagement is good?” I answered, “They promise it will be peace!” And even our mayor, Eli Moyal, told me: “I am going to run after you and tell you all the time, ‘I told you so.’” We had a lot of argument for I supported the disengagement but he didn’t. And now, when we have parents’ meeting with the mayor, he all the time tells me: “I told you so! You have something else to say?”
I really wanted to hope that there will be peace one day. And I am in confusion now because on one side they tell us they want peace but on the other side they send their children to military summer camp; they teach them hate in school; they teach them that Israel does not exist on the map - there is only Palestine; that the Jewish people are the devil; that we want to destroy their life. They teaching hate in the school, in the house; in every place.
And you don’t know whether you believe in your heart that they are innocent civilians or not. Or to what you see in the real life that all the time they teach them hate, hate, hate.
The Palestinian government got a lot of money; millions of millions of dollars from all around the world. This money was meant for building factories. If I give you money to build a factory, and you build a factory, your people would have work, a salary, a way to live. But if with this money you build palace for yourself…. They are corrupted! The Palestinian government is corrupted! They have special cars; they have palaces of gold with a private swimming pools and private helicopters; with special food imported from abroad. They buy weapons to use against us ….they don’t use the money for a factory, so their citizens are starving! And I think that unless and until there is a revolution in Gaza to change the government - there will not be peace.
[As an IDF helicopter gunship passes overhead on its way to Gaza] We want protection, to protect ourselves. In the United Nations they say what Israel is doing in Gaza is bad. But I have to protect myself; I have to protect my citizens!
Last week we went to the synagogue for Shabbat. We came home and sat at the table. My father was here. He began to say a blessing over the bread and wine, and we started to run. He tried to quiet us, saying we are not allowed to talk and to move when he is saying the blessing. But I don’t care about the blessing, just “run to the shelter!” We return after the alerts stop. We start the blessing from the beginning; we finish; we just start to eat and we have to run again. It happened that we ran four five times to the shelter….
I want people to know that we are living here in a long war. Even the Second World War wasn’t so long. We are living here like eight years. Even the Holocaust wasn’t this long. We feel here like we are living in the Holocaust - the children here feel like they are living in the Holocaust now…You saw what happened to my son, how he could not breathe when the rockets came in earlier.
It is very difficult to live but, I will survive. I am sure I will survive. I have to. I have wonderful children. I have a gorgeous husband that after 20 years of marriage we are still in love.
He supports us now that I do not work, but he does not have a high salary and we have a mortgage to pay on the house and the bills and food - he does not earn enough. It puts you into debt - which we never never had before. I have not worked for almost three years, and my debt is almost 40,000 shekels. I don’t remember when I was without a car and with so many debts. I was working with a good salary; able to buy for my children everything that they want; now I am not able to buy what they need.
We are the simple innocent citizens here in Sderot, and the simple citizens in Gaza are innocent. If the world really, really really wants to help the citizens in Gaza, then don’t send money to the Palestinian government. If you really want to help, take food and give to the simple citizens in Gaza because they are starving, and the Palestinian government does not give them food. When you are starving and your children are hungry and you don’t have what to give them to eat it makes you crazy. Give the simple citizens food and money - directly to them; go house to house, I know it is difficult, but it’s the answer - because when they are not hungry there will be peace.
I am upset with my government. They are like my parents who, when I asked them why I could not behave in certain - perhaps unacceptable - ways, said, “what will the neighbors say?”
That is the trouble with this government. Instead of protecting their people they ask, “What will the world say?” They are responsible to take care of their citizens. I gave two years of my life to the IDF. My husband was 18 years in uniform. He was on the Lebanon border; on the Egyptian border; he was in Gaza. When I was in the army I was a paramedic in the field, and if one of my soldiers was hurt I had the tools to take care of them. The army gave me tools to take care of them. Now they don’t give me tools to take care of them; I don’t know what to do.
I believe in God and I believe in peace, and I am sure that one day there will be peace. I am sure that one day there will be peace and quiet; I really want to believe in it, that these bad years will stop and there will be peace in the world.
Computer Uses Brain Scans to Read Minds
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335710,00.html
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created a machine that can read your mind — sort of.
Associate professor of psychology Jack Gallant and two researchers, Kendrick Kay and Thomas Naselaris, first trained a computer program to recognize which of a set of 1,750 photos Kay and Naselaris were looking at while their brains were scanned by an MRI machine of the sort ordinarily used in hospitals.
To do this, they made unique mathematical models of each photo, most of which were black-and-white images of familiar objects scaled down to only 64 x 64 pixels, not much bigger than the thumbnail images you see in the photo box to the left.
They also took functional MRI images of blood flow in Kay and Naselaris' visual cortices, the areas in the back of their brains that process visual information, while they looked at each photo — and then made unique mathematical models of the brain images as well.
By comparing the two sets of numbers, the computer was able to correlate brain activity to visual information.
In other words, each photo created a unique, recognizable blood-flow "fingerprint" in the subjects' brains.
That's pretty nifty, but so far the team was merely doing work that others had done before.
They then took it a step further. It turns out that definite patterns existed between similar photos and similar brain scans.
Kay and Naselaris were each shown 120 new photos they hadn't seen before while their brains were scanned.
Using the pre-established patterns, the computer was able to match the new scans to the new pictures with an amazing degree of accuracy.
In fact, for one of the test subjects, the scans and photos matched up 92 percent of the time.
For the other, it was 72 percent, but that's still much better than chance. Randomly matching 120 pictures and 120 scans should only be right 0.8 percent of the time.
The team broadened the experiment to include 1,000 new photos and got an accuracy rate of 80 percent, still pretty impressive.
"You can imagine using this for dream analysis, or psychotherapy," Gallant told the Web site of the scientific journal Nature, where the full study paper was published Wednesday.
Still, he cautions that we're a long way from being able to tell what people are thinking, or even seeing if it's not one of a preselected set of images.
"But already," Gallant told HealthDayNews, "this research makes clear that there's a huge amount of information — way more than we have expected — that we can dig out of fMRI signals to get a better understanding of brain function."
Pentagon Bans Google Earth From Military Bases
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335751,00.html
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has banned Google Earth teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases.
A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told officials to not allow the popular mapping Web site from taking panoramic views inside the facilities.
Michael Kucharek, spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the decision was made after crews were allowed access to at least one base.
He said military officials were concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level video could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel.
His comments came just a few days after published reports suggested that protesters used Google Earth to help plot their access to the roof of the Parliament building in London.
A Global Warming Bias?
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/334462.aspx
The founder of The Weather Channel recently blasted the network for telling people what to think.
John Coleman is a global warming skeptic and The Weather Channel has promoted that issue extensively.
The Business and Media Institute reported Coleman spoke out at a recent climate change conference.
Coleman founded the network in 1982, but said The Weather Channel has since veered off track.
He added that people like Al Gore should be sued to expose the fraud of global warming.
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