Sarah Palin's and Oprah Winfrey's Spiritual Beliefs Contrast Starkly Reveal Obama's True Standpoint
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07614.shtml
MEDIA ADVISORY, September 15 (christiansunite.com) -- In an essay published today at www.solvinglight.com/blog/sarah-and- oprah/, author Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. contrasts, point by point, the spiritual beliefs of Sarah Palin with those of passionate Obama supporter, Oprah Winfrey. Here are some excerpts from it:
SARAH exhibits faith in God, believing that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
OPRAH mocks Christian faith, insisting that "God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience. If God for you is still about a belief, then it's not truly God."
SARAH believes that the Scriptures (Genesis to Revelation), in the original Hebrew and Greek, are the inspired, infallible words of the Creator and that these words speak the truth to our minds, and to the eyes of our heart.
OPRAH believes that divine revelation comes through the words of her pathologically narcissistic New Age guru, Eckhart Tolle, whose exclusive, esoteric, "infallible" interpretation of all spiritual traditions she avidly embraces. Oprah sees herself as an "awakened" and "evolved" human being who partakes fully in the supreme "it" behind all things, "universal intelligence." Being plugged in to this "universal intelligence" generates for Oprah "awareness," "presence," and "flowering consciousness," all disguised terms for self- adoration.
SARAH believes that she was created in the image of God, and that she is descended from Adam and Eve through Noah and his wife.
OPRAH believes she evolved by chance out of some kind of primordial ooze over hundreds of millions of years through worms, reptiles, and monkeys.
SARAH relies on the word of God and the Holy Spirit to guide her into truth.
OPRAH relies on a spirit or a force Tolle calls the "Source" which he claims resides within him and Oprah. That "Source" has told him that the word of the God of the Bible is not reliable, that there is no death, and that he and Oprah both are as God, able to say of themselves "I Am That I Am." These things that the "Source" has told Oprah and Tolle are the same things the serpent told Eve in the ancient garden.
Johnson goes on to show that Oprah's own words reveal it was her spiritual beliefs that drew her to Barack Obama. Johnson points to the very obvious and troubling fact that Oprah would not have endorsed a man who did not share her spiritual values.
SBA List President: 'Obama is Lying About Record on Born Alive Infant Protection Act'
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07638.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Today, in response to a new Ohio ad by the Barack Obama campaign addressing Obama's position with regard to opposing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act the Susan B. Anthony List offered comment and facts on Obama's record:
"If only 'change' was all about how Barack Obama could change his past votes. He knows his extreme record on abortion doesn't resonate with values voters in battleground states, and sadly it is too late to change his votes. So now he's truly lying - bordering upon the pathological -- with this new television ad. The only favorable interpretation of this ad would be that he is suffering from some sort of amnesia," said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "However, that seems unlikely. His inhuman vote on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act is too memorable and will repel values voters across the country. American voters are savvy - they can and will see through Barack Obama's cynical attempt to play the politics of personal gain when unborn lives are on the line."
"Obama built a straw man out of the public's condemnation of his vote. No one claimed he wants to leave every single newborn infant to die - just the most vulnerable ones - those almost full term girls and boys whose abortion was unsuccessful," said Dannenfelser.
Documents recently obtained by the National Right to Life Committee reveal a discrepancy between the facts and Barack Obama's rhetoric about the Born- Alive Infant Protection Act:
- Barack Obama opposed the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act as an Illinois State Senator. He spoke against the bill, calling it an "unnecessary burden" for women and voted against it three times. Despite that opposition, he has since declared support for the federal version of the same legislation that aims to protect newborn babies who survive abortions.
- After NARAL pulled its opposition to the legislation, Obama continued to oppose it.
- Obama has publicly stated he opposed the legislation due to its lack of a "neutrality clause" - language expressing that the bill had no bearing on the legal status of unborn children with regard to abortion.
- Official legislative documents show that Obama in fact presided over a committee hearing where "neutrality clause" language - identical to the federal language - was added to the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
- After voting in support of the "neutrality clause," Obama then joined fellow Democrats to oppose the bill, killing it by a vote of 6-4, even after the addition of the "neutrality clause."
- The bill Obama killed is nearly identical to the federal version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act signed by President Bush in 2002.
Since its founding, the Susan B. Anthony List has helped elect 75 pro-life candidates to the House, seven to the Senate, and seven to other statewide offices across the country.
The Susan B. Anthony List is a nationwide network of Americans, over 147,000 residing in all 50 states, dedicated to mobilizing, advancing, and representing pro-life women in politics. Its connected Candidate Fund increases the percentage of pro-life women in the political process. www.sba-list.org
Richard Viguerie: Members of Congress Who Protected Fannie and Freddie Must Accept Their Responsibility for Financial Crisis
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07636.shtml
MANASSAS, Virginia, (christiansunite.com) -- Members of Congress who helped bring about the current financial crisis should be investigated, placed under oath and made to testify publicly about their role, and forced to disgorge money they received from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other bailed-out corporations, Richard A. Viguerie, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, said.
"For years, while Fannie and Freddie and other financial institutions were buying favor and cover on the Hill through campaign contributions, and making multimillionaires out of politicians and their friends, few people cared, because they didn't see how it could affect them. Now they know. Now the American public should demand that politicians like Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and Chuck Schumer explain, under penalty of perjury, why they protected these 'houses-of- cards.'
"Democratic pols such as Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, and other well-connected insiders - including Republicans - who profited obscenely from working at Fannie Mae should be dragged in front of investigating committees. They should be forced to testify about what they did to 'earn' the tens of millions of dollars they made. They should be forced to tell us exactly how the books were cooked.
"Over the past decade and a half, Democrats substituted bad social engineering and special- interest favoritism for sound financial practices. Their greed for power led them to try to buy votes with easy credit backed by taxpayer guarantees, which in turn got us to where we are today. Every politician involved with Fannie or Freddie, or with corrupt practices such as 'credit for the non-creditworthy,' should be held to account for his or her actions.
"The investigation should reach back to Clinton administration officials Janet Reno, Roberta Achtenberg, and others who, in the 1990s, used fraudulent 'studies' of mortgage lending patterns' to pressure lenders to extend credit to people who weren't capable of paying back their loans. This was corruption that put the American taxpayer and the American economy at risk for the political gain of a few. This was Chicago-style politics, played out at the national level," Viguerie said.
"This scandal is far, far bigger than Enron," he noted. "You'll know that someone is taking this seriously when the key players in this scandal are as infamous as Ken Lay."
Viguerie acknowledged, "Whoever takes on this assignment--bringing these people to justice--will be vilified by the Washington establishment and most of the media. They protect their own. And Fannie and Freddie and their ilk have been careful to spread enough of the slush funds around to Republicans, as well as Democrats, to ensure that any investigation would entangle both. They gave hundreds of millions to politicians' favorite charities, as well - corrupting those charities and forming a last line of defense against reform.
"For Republicans, this is a test of whether they are the party of change and the middle class, or the party of cronyism and the country club. To get at the Democrats who are mostly responsible for this scandal, they may have to take down some Republicans as well.
"If the Republicans don't move quickly to put responsibility where it belongs," Viguerie said, "I'm sure President Obama will find someone else to blame."
Americans concerned about loss of world standing: poll
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jk7ZiO1WjKy7YkOwcT1LA1OErN4Q
Foreign policy could play a big role in November's presidential election according to a new poll that suggests 83 percent of Americans are most concerned about improving the nation's standing in the world.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll also showed majority support for Washington to take a new tack in foreign policy by talking to enemies like the leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar (Burma), Hamas and Hezbollah.
Such a stand appeared closer to that of Democratic candidate Barack Obama than that of his Republican rival John McCain.
Bipartisan concern about America's standing in the world topped the list of 14 goals presented in the survey to be officially released on Monday, even higher than protecting the jobs of US workers (80 percent).
The survey was conducted in July, before the collapse of investment giant Lehman Brothers, the unprecedented government rescue of insurer American International Group and the seizure of mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sparked market panic.
Eighty-three percent of Americans -- including 81 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats -- think that improving their nation's standing internationally should be a "very important" foreign policy goal, the poll said.
The survey asked respondents to comment on whether they thought their government's ability to achieve its goals abroad had increased, decreased or remained the same.
"Fifty-three percent say that is has decreased, while only 10 percent say it has increased. Thirty-six percent say it has stayed about the same," according to the Chicago Council survey.
Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say it had stayed the same.
But such concerns were not breeding new isolationism, it added. Americans remained strongly committed to have Washington retain an active role in world affairs and maintain its global military presence.
A majority of Americans also backed US government talks with leaders of unfriendly governments and groups listed by the US and other governments as terrorists.
It listed the "percentage who say US government leaders should or should not be ready to meet and talk with leaders of countries and groups with whom the US has hostile or unfriendly relations."
For Cuba, 70 percent say they should be ready versus 25 percent who say they should not; for North Korea, 68 percent versus 28 percent; for Iran, 65 percent versus 30 percent; for Myanmar, 63 percent versus 30 percent; for Zimbabwe, 61 percent versus 34 percent; for the Palestinian movement Hamas, 53 percent versus 41 percent; for the Lebanese Hezbollah, 51 percent versus 43 percent.
The survey also found that Americans considered it "very important" to secure adequate supplies of energy (80 percent), prevent the spread of nuclear weapons (73 percent), combat international terrorism (67 percent), control and reduce illegal immigration (61 percent), maintain superior military power worldwide (57 percent).
A vast majority of the remaining respondents considered the same goals to be "somewhat important," while between two percent (US standing in the world) and eight percent (controlling immigration) considered them "not important."
If responses are combined for "very important" or "somewhat important" in three categories, some 91 percent ticked combating world hunger, 82 percent marked limiting climate change, and 79 percent flagged strengthening the United Nations.
Respondents were pretty much evenly split in those three categories.
Americans either considered it "somewhat important" or "very important" to promote international trade, promote and defend human rights in other countries, protect weaker nations against foreign aggression, and help bring a form of democratic government to other nations.
A Christian View of the Economic Crisis
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080925/a-christian-view-of-the-economic-crisis.htm
The headlines tell the story as recent days have seen the American economy and its financial system buffeted by seismic failures and the virtual disappearance of major investment banks. The debate raging in Washington these days concerns the form and extent of government intervention that will be required in order to restore stability to the financial markets.
Comparisons to the Great Depression are inevitable, but today's crisis bears little resemblance to the total economic collapse of the late 1920s. Capitalism is not in crisis and the fundamentals of the American economy remain strong. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, the nation faced a genuine crisis and economic collapse. For the most part, the banks were closed and the nation was out of business.
Nothing like that is happening now, but the financial system is clearly in need of reform and realism. The fundamentals of the economy remain intact. These include American innovation, a dedicated labor force, strong consumer demand, vast natural resources, and unlimited intellectual capital.
More than anything else, this crisis has to do with what happens when the markets come to term with excessive valuations. Put bluntly, wildly inflated valuations led to risky financial adventures and worse. The sub-prime mortgage collapse came as more realistic real estate valuations forced market corrections. The vast global financial system has accepted the inflated valuations as real and traded in the risky mortgages as if the game would go on forever. This was a fool's errand.
There were other causes of the current distress in the markets and other forces at work within the economy at large. The slide of the dollar and the rising price of oil both played a part, as did more fundamental shifts having to do with a globalized economy and the continuing shift toward a knowledge-based economy in a technological age.
Is this all about greed? Yes and no. In the movie "Wall Street," the character Gordon Gekko famously declares that "greed is good." But is the economy really driven by greed?
This question requires a return to what we might call "Economics 101." No one has explained basic economics as well as Adam Smith did in his 1776 classic, The Wealth of Nations. As the great Scottish thinker explained, an economy is based upon the transfer of goods and services from one individual to another. Each partner in the transaction must believe that this transfer is in his or her own best interest or the transfer is not voluntary. Both parties seek to gain something from the transfer. Since no one person can meet all of his or her own needs alone, a vast economic system quickly takes shape. Individuals trade goods and services through the exchange of currency or another agreed-upon form of value.
At every stage, the transfer is made because those involved desire and intend to achieve a gain. The legal entity of a corporation allows individuals to band together in a common economic cause with certain legal protections. A stock market allows individual investors to buy an interest in a company, thus allowing the corporation to use their capital in hopes of future gain. The market works because all concerned hope to gain through the process.
The development of vast global economic systems simply builds upon the simple principle that all participants are willing to trade one good for another they want even more and to invest in the hope of future gain.
Is this greed? In and of itself, this is not greed at all. The desire for a profit, for income, and for material gain is not in itself greed. The Bible clearly teaches that the worker is worthy of his hire and that rewards should follow labor, thrift, and investment.
Greed raises its ugly head when individuals and groups (such as corporations or retirement funds) seek an unrealistic gain at the expense of others and then use illegitimate means to gain what they want. Given the nature of this fallen world and the reality of human sinfulness, we should expect that greed will be a constant temptation. Greed will entice the rich to oppress the poor, partners in transactions to lie to one another, and investors to take irrational risks. All of these are evident in this current crisis.
Christians should think seriously about this economic crisis and ponder what it would mean to come to a Christian understanding of what it means to be participants in this economy. As Adam Smith recognized, the economy is a moral reality. Human beings actualize their moral selves in making economic choices and through participation in the economic system - and we are all participants.
Indeed, one of the defining differences between the current crisis and the crisis of the 1920s and 1930s is that the vast majority of Americans are now, in effect, investors. Our retirement accounts are, by and large, mingled with the investments of the titans of industry. Through their pension funds, school teachers are investors right alongside Warren Buffet. This was not the case in the run-up to the Great Depression. We all want and need the stock market to do well, and the outcome of any market crisis effects both Bill Gates and the worker in the local medical clinic.
Christians should look at the economy as a test of our values. The Bible values honest labor and dedicated workers, and so should we. The Bible warns against dishonest business practices, and we must be watchful. False valuations are, in effect, lies. Dishonest accounting practices are just sophisticated forms of lying. Insider information is a form of theft.
The Bible honors investment and thrift, and Christians must be wary of the impulse for short-term gains and pressure for instant profit. Over the long-haul, the entire economy must prosper if the vast majority are to do well and realize a responsible gain.
Thus, the current crisis sheds light on what happens when things get out of control, when various pressures distort the proper operation of the markets, and when irrational valuations entice investors to make poor investments. Dishonesty enters the picture at many levels, and the individual investor is too often left in the dark.
When these things happen the economy is threatened by a lack of trust, and trust is the most essential commodity of all when it comes to economic transactions. Without trust, the entire system collapses.
The big debate in Washington is over the extent of government intervention. Prudence would indicate that the less government intervention, the better. Adam Smith was confident that a "hidden hand" within the economy would rectify excesses and punish bad actors. I think he is basically right, but the government is, like it or not, one of the actors in this economic system.
The problem with letting the markets solve this problem and letting the "hidden hand" punish the bad actors and unwise decisions is that, in this situation, the small investor is crushed along with the tycoon. Furthermore, the entire economy could face a crisis of confidence.
So watch the debates in Washington with interest and consider how a Christian should understand the economy and our economic lives. The free market is not perfect, but capitalism has brought more wealth to more people than any other system. It rewards investment, labor, and thrift and rises on innovation. Better ideas and better products push out inferior ideas and inferior products. Given the reality of human sin, we should not centralize economic control in the hands of the few, but distribute economic power to the many. A free market economy distributes power to multitudes of workers, inventors, investors, and consumers.
No economy is perfect, but the American economy remains a marvel. The present crisis is an opportunity to rethink some basic questions and restore trust. There are no easy ways out of a crisis like this, and no painless solutions. Yet, would you trade this system for any other?
This current crisis should also remind Christians that we are not called to be mere economic actors, but stewards. Everything we are, everything we do, and everything we own truly belongs to God and is to be at the disposal of Kingdom purposes. This world is not our home and our treasure is not found here. We are to do all, invest all, own all, purchase all to the glory of God.
Finally, this current economic crisis just might help Christians to focus on another issue - retirement. Where in the Bible are we told to aspire to years and decades of leisure without labor? There is nothing wrong with saving for what the world calls retirement. Indeed, that is just good stewardship. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with workers enjoying the fruit of their labor. But Christians should think of retirement as an opportunity to be redeployed for Kingdom service.
Today's crisis in the financial system should not be a threat to the long-term health and vitality of our economic system. There is cause for concern, but no justification for panic. Rather than hit the panic button, spend that energy thinking about how Christians should glorify God in our economic lives. We should watch the developments and debates in Washington and New York with interest, but we should investigate our own hearts with even greater urgency.
Christians & Jews Protest Dinner by Mennonites, Quakers & World Council of Churches to "Honor" Iran's Ahmadinejad
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017383833&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A broad coalition of Jewish, Christian and secular human rights and political groups plan to demonstrate Thursday outside the Manhattan hotel where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be the guest of honor at a dinner reception.
Even the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay political group, are joining the opposition to Ahmadinejad's invitation by Mennonites and Quakers, both pacifist religious groups that have a history of reaching out to the Iranian government.
"If there is a common thread uniting all of those groups, it's opposition to Ahmadinejad and his exclusionary policies, and we're all promoting freedom, whether it's religious freedom or personal freedom," said Gregory T. Angelo, spokesman for Log Cabin's New York City chapter.
Invited guests include representatives from an array of Christian groups, including the World Council of Churches, whose United Nations liaison office is co-hosting the dinner.
Wire services will be among a handful of journalists allowed into the event. Organizers declined to extend an invitation to The Jerusalem Post despite repeated requests, claiming that they did not want the dinner to turn into a de facto press conference.
"We aren't able to provide the invitation to come," Mennonite Central Committee spokesman Ed Nyce told The Jerusalem Post last week.
Opposition to the dinner, to be held at the Grand Hyatt next to Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street, has been growing over the past two weeks, particularly among groups with ties to the evangelical Christian movement.
One, the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, sponsored a flood of critical e-mails to the dinner's organizers.
The messages were sent under the banner of "Stand for Israel," an offshoot group that mobilizes Christian support for Israel.
"The cause of peace will in no way be furthered by breaking bread with this tyrant," said the form letter, which also claimed that Ahmadinejad compared "Zionists" to Satan during a trip to Sudan, just days after a meeting last year with American Mennonite and Quaker leaders.
The event has already drawn ire from Jewish groups, starting with the Anti-Defamation League, whose leader, Abraham Foxman, accused those who participate of "tarnishing" their reputations.
Others have criticized other guests planning to attend, including Nicaraguan diplomat Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, listed as a guest of honor in his capacity as president of the UN General Assembly. Rev. Kjell Bondevik, a former prime minister of Norway who now heads a human rights center in Oslo, is also expected to attend.
David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said in a radio address Tuesday that he was appalled that d'Escoto would appear with Ahmadinejad, who is in New York this week for the annual opening of the General Assembly.
"Shame on him for conferring the legitimacy of his UN office on the Iranian president, shame on the UN if it doesn't rise up in protest," said Harris.
Spies Warn That Al Qaeda Aims for October Surprise
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/spies-warn-that-al-qaeda-aims-for-october-surprise/86326/
In the aftermath of two major terrorist attacks on Western targets, America's counterterrorism community is warning that Al Qaeda may launch more overseas operations to influence the presidential elections in November.
Call it Osama bin Laden's "October surprise." In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America's military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda's leadership to intermediate members of the organization asking local cells to be prepared for imminent instructions.
An official familiar with the new intelligence said the message was picked up in multiple settings, from couriers to encrypted electronic communications to other means. "These are generic orders," the source said — a distinction from the more specific intelligence about the location, time, and method of an attack. "It was, 'Be on notice. We may call upon you soon.' It was sent out on many channels."
Also, Yemen's national English-language newspaper is reporting that a spokesman for Yemen's Islamic Jihad, the Qaeda affiliate that claimed credit for last week's American embassy bombing in Sa'naa, is now publicly threatening to attack foreigners and high government officials if American and British diplomats do not leave the country.
Mr. bin Laden has sought to influence democratic elections in the past. On March 11, 2004, Al Qaeda carried out a series of bombings on Madrid commuter trains. Three days later, the opposition and anti-Iraq war Socialist Workers Party was voted into power.
In the week before the 2004 American presidential election, Mr. bin Laden recorded a video message to the American people promising repercussions if President Bush were re-elected. In later messages, Al Qaeda's leader claimed credit for helping elect Mr. Bush in 2004. Last year in Pakistan, Qaeda assassins claimed the life of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who returned to her native country in a bid for re-election.
"There is an expectation that Al Qaeda will try to influence the November elections by attempting attacks globally," a former Bush and Clinton White House counterterrorism official, Roger Cressey, said yesterday.
Mr. Cressey said Al Qaeda lacks the capability to pull off an attack in the continental United States, however. "It would likely be a higher Al Qaeda tempo of attacks against U.S. and allied targets abroad," he said.
At a talk at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs on August 12, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats said he expected to see more threat reporting on Al Qaeda as America approaches the November elections.
The terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday was a particular blow to the allied effort against Al Qaeda. The hotel's lobby in recent years served as a meeting place for the CIA and Pakistanis who would not risk being seen at the American Embassy. The bombing, which targeted one of the most heavily fortified locations in Pakistan's capital, will likely claim close to 100 lives after the dead are pulled from the rubble.
President Zardari, who had just given his first major address as Pakistan's head of state, on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, was the target of Saturday's attack, the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, said.
"He was expected to attend the iftar dinner at the Marriott," Mr. Gartenstein-Ross said "Think of the symbolic value if they were able to kill Zardari after his first address as president of Pakistan in a speech announcing his fight against the terrorists. The symbolic effect of the attack on the same day would be devastating."
An adviser to Senator McCain and a former director of central intelligence under President Clinton, James Woolsey, said Al Qaeda has a "history of doing three things at least related to elections. One is to attack before elections, such as in 2004 in Spain, and of course the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. They also have a history of attacks when new leaders take over, like Gordon Brown in Britain and the new leader in Pakistan, with the attack over the weekend. Also Al Qaeda sends messages to populations in elections. You really don't know which one of these they are going to implement."
Directives for Islamic terrorist attack in U.S. appear on the Internet
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/
A posting uncovered in an Arabic language Internet forum is currently raising a few eyebrows in the intelligence community. The single posting, which is presently being scrutinized by intelligence officials, appears to provide detailed instructions for Muslims living within the United States, giving them specific actions to take before, during and after an upcoming attack in the U.S. The communication was discovered by "Archangel," a well-known independent intelligence analyst active within the intelligence community.
The post was initially published on August 2, 2008 under the title "Commandments [Directives] Before the Strike," and appears to be a sort of a conflict management guide, or instructions on what Muslims should do prior to the attack, actions that should be undertaken concurrent with the attack, and well as additional instructions following the attack.
The text addressing the nature, location and timing of the planned attack, although specific to the U.S., appears otherwise ambiguous. For instance, the timing appears to focus on the Tuesday following the end of Ramadan, which would be October 7, 2008. The nature of the attack is less clear. Although the author appears to talk about a strike greater in magnitude than the 9/11 attacks and makes reference to the possibility of it being nuclear in nature, the text references to the nuclear aspect of the attack appear somewhat muddled.
In terms of the location of the attack, it is clear that the author identifies both New York, as the financial capital of the U.S., and Washington, DC, as the nation's capital, as being both desirable and affected. It is interesting that under analysis, the details of "the attack" referenced by the author are nestled within the text of instructions, rather than being prominently placed to serve as an overt warning as seen in the past. The relative subtlety in which the targets and type of attack was referenced is most interesting from a historical and analytical perspective.
The author who wrote the posting appears to be well established and respected by the community of terrorists and their supporters who frequent such forums. Research of the various membership profiles within that community indicates the author could be a sheik or other Muslim with leadership status. To be clear, research indicates the author has a level of credibility within the forum community. Accordingly, it would be completely consistent for the author to be able to issue a set of instructions that could be expected to be followed by the readers of the forum.
An investigation of the post, in terms of placement, links and replies, also provides significant insight with regard to its weight and credibility. Looking at a specific patterns of posting on Arabic language forums over the last seven years, investigation and research takes into account the number, type and authorship of follow-up postings or replies, for example to the original communication.
What makes this post particularly interesting is the limited number of replies to date – a total of three- despite the length of time it has been posted. Further, the replies in this case are general blessings, such as "May Allah Bless You" and general wishes of support for the operation. Based on extensive research of historical posting patterns over the last seven years suggest that this posting could be classified, recognized and acted upon as an order, as opposed to being a point for further discussion.
The commandments or directives are written as a set of instructions to an audience the author has divided into six groups as follows, most if not all having some presence in the United States:
1. Muslim scholars, students, followers of Islam;
2. Various Islamic movements.
3. Islamic peoples not belonging to any specific movement.
4. "Dubai Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus" the Islamic State of Iraq and other jihadist movements;
5. Sleeper cells and potential recruits;
6. The general command of al Qaeda.
Various directives are issued to each of the groups referenced above, providing direction to each group on activities that need to be conducted before and after "the" attack. For example, members of "sleeper cells" should immediately seek out those who are already activated – known by some Islamic scholars and religious leaders – for further tactical advancement.
Specific instructions were also given to the Muslim people to move Muslim children to the safety of training camps at a time that would correspond to the Tuesday after Ramadan – a date that was established as the potential attack date within this posting.
In addition to the varied instructions within this post, there is an additional directive that appears to serve as a worldwide activation order for Islamic terrorists to carryout maritime missions subsequent to the attack, with the obvious intent on disrupting all major maritime supply routes.
Instructions were given to jihadists in the following areas for such operations:
"The Philippines - Indonesia - Maldives - the coast of Yemen - the coast of Somalia - the coast of Chinguetti - and perhaps the coast of Algeria;"
"The skyline of the Islamic many important straits and sea lanes that have articulated by the march of trade and military forces of infidelity:"
"The Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Sumatra, one of the most important corridors of the world trade."
"The Torres Strait, which lies between New Guinea and northern Australia..."
Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of this posting might not be the message itself, but the message when viewed through the prism of historical patterns exhibited subsequent to the 2001 terrorist attacks. While the contents of the message are revealing, they become even more relevant when analyzed in tandem with the threat of worldwide jihad in advance of the bombings in Yemen and Pakistan.
We are seeing a resurgence of Islamic jihad previously before unseen, with few notable exceptions. Those exceptions, however, are indeed notable: the time periods before the London & Madrid bombings, both described as each country's own 9/11.
Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,426485,00.html
Baggage searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind.
Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror.
MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.
It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye — signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack.
But this is no polygraph test. Subjects do not get hooked up or strapped down for a careful reading; those sensors do all the work without any actual physical contact. It's like an X-ray for bad intentions.
Currently, all the sensors and equipment are packaged inside a mobile screening laboratory about the size of a trailer or large truck bed, and just last week, Homeland Security put it to a field test in Maryland, scanning 144 mostly unwitting human subjects.
While I'd love to give you the full scoop on the unusual experiment, testing is ongoing and full disclosure would compromise future tests.
But what I can tell you is that the test subjects were average Joes living in the D.C. area who thought they were attending something like a technology expo; in order for the experiment to work effectively and to get the testing subjects to buy in, the cover story had to be convincing.
While the 144 test subjects thought they were merely passing through an entrance way, they actually passed through a series of sensors that screened them for bad intentions.
Homeland Security also selected a group of 23 attendees to be civilian "accomplices" in their test. They were each given a "disruptive device" to carry through the portal — and, unlike the other attendees, were conscious that they were on a mission.
In order to conduct these tests on human subjects, DHS had to meet rigorous safety standards to ensure the screening would not cause any physical or emotional harm.
So here's how it works. When the sensors identify that something is off, they transmit warning data to analysts, who decide whether to flag passengers for further questioning. The next step involves micro-facial scanning, which involves measuring minute muscle movements in the face for clues to mood and intention.
Homeland Security has developed a system to recognize, define and measure seven primary emotions and emotional cues that are reflected in contractions of facial muscles. MALINTENT identifies these emotions and relays the information back to a security screener almost in real-time.
This whole security array — the scanners and screeners who make up the mobile lab — is called "Future Attribute Screening Technology" — or FAST — because it is designed to get passengers through security in two to four minutes, and often faster.
If you're rushed or stressed, you may send out signals of anxiety, but FAST isn't fooled. It's already good enough to tell the difference between a harried traveler and a terrorist. Even if you sweat heavily by nature, FAST won't mistake you for a baddie.
"If you focus on looking at the person, you don't have to worry about detecting the device itself," said Bob Burns, MALINTENT's project leader. And while there are devices out there that look at individual cues, a comprehensive screening device like this has never before been put together.
While FAST's batting average is classified, Undersecretary for Science and Technology Adm. Jay Cohen declared the experiment a "home run."
As cold and inhuman as the electric eye may be, DHS says scanners are unbiased and nonjudgmental. "It does not predict who you are and make a judgment, it only provides an assessment in situations," said Burns. "It analyzes you against baseline stats when you walk in the door, it measures reactions and variations when you approach and go through the portal."
But the testing — and the device itself — are not without their problems. This invasive scanner, which catalogues your vital signs for non-medical reasons, seems like an uninvited doctor's exam and raises many privacy issues.
But DHS says this is not Big Brother. Once you are through the FAST portal, your scrutiny is over and records aren't kept. "Your data is dumped," said Burns. "The information is not maintained — it doesn't track who you are."
DHS is now planning an even wider array of screening technology, including an eye scanner next year and pheromone-reading technology by 2010.
The team will also be adding equipment that reads body movements, called "illustrative and emblem cues." According to Burns, this is achievable because people "move in reaction to what they are thinking, more or less based on the context of the situation."
FAST may also incorporate biological, radiological and explosive detection, but for now the primary focus is on identifying and isolating potential human threats.
And because FAST is a mobile screening laboratory, it could be set up at entrances to stadiums, malls and in airports, making it ever more difficult for terrorists to live and work among us.
Burns noted his team's goal is to "restore a sense of freedom." Once MALINTENT is rolled out in airports, it could give us a future where we can once again wander onto planes with super-sized cosmetics and all the bottles of water we can carry — and most importantly without that sense of foreboding that has haunted Americans since Sept. 11.
Lethal Micro Air Vehicles & the Locusts of Revelation
http://www.officialdisclosure.com/mav.htm
At the Air Force Research Laboratory near Dayton, Ohio, civilian researchers and military developers have set a 2015 deadline for the first battlefield ready, lethal generation of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs).
The first armada of tiny flying death machines will be the size of small birds and will be able to operate several days without recharging. On the heels of these lethal mini-drones, bug-sized swarms of GPS-guided soldiers will flitter, slither and creep into enemy war zones to spy, provide real-time intelligence reporting, and, when ordered to do so, kill adversaries.
"It may look like a futuristic arcade game," says Aamer Madhani for the Chicago Tribune, "but it's a scene from an official Air Force animated video: Bad guys of indiscernible origin being shadowed, from a careful distance, by small robotic drones designed to resemble birds and insects.
"When one of the bad guys opens his apartment door, a tiny robo-bug, looking like a garage door opener with wings, sneaks in to spy. In another scene, a bug—the Air Force calls them Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs—creeps into a sniper's roost and delivers a deadly shot to the back of his head.
"It might sound far-fetched. But top Air Force officials believe that MAVs could be a significant part of the Defense Department's arsenal in the not-so-distant future."
A report by Jim Wilson in Popular Mechanics a while back presented evidence supporting the army's MAV rollout timeline for operational insect sized killer robots. "The future of warfare isn't pressing on the trigger of a laser death ray or button of a doomsday device," he wrote, "It's holding a stubby-winged mechanical bug."
The Pentagon agrees and has been feverishly working with engineers and biologists to create a lethal arsenal of micro-mechanical fighting bugs that combine insect aerodynamics with GPS navigation and molecular electronics.
Micro air vehicles represent one of the most fantastic opportunities for military surveillance and weapons delivery. "When perfected," Wilson points out, "Stainless steel and Mylar robot flies will be able to flap their way into the most secret places on Earth--the bunkers where terrorists plan their genocidal campaigns, and where Chinese spymasters plot their raids on America's nuclear weapons laboratories."
Consider these scenarios from the Popular Mechanics report:
* Alan H. Epstein, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), recently described....GPS-guided MAVs landing on structurally critical points along bridges deep in enemy territory. Each MAV would carry a small piece of shaped-charge plastique. Responding to a command transmitted from half a world away, the MAVs would explode in sequence, bringing down the bridge with only one-hundredth of the amount of explosives required by a pinpoint-accurate smart bomb.
* Some military strategists envision swarms of robot flies fluttering onto battlefields. Scout flies, equipped with miniature cameras, would do the work of reconnaissance teams by eavesdropping on tactical communications and sending back real-time videos of enemy positions. Sniper flies would seek out field commanders, recognizing them by the iris patterns of their eyes....Then, they would become the 21st century incarnation of the tribesman's poison dart as they hurled themselves into the carotid arteries of their targets.
* Meanwhile, titanium-tipped robot flies too small to register on radar screens would gather in the weeds at the end of enemy runways. Then, rising as a swarm, they would allow themselves to be sucked into jet engine air intakes. The MAVs' titanium bodies would fracture the whirling turbine blades and send a rain of red-hot fragments through thousands of pounds of jet fuel and ammunition.
Instruments of Armageddon?
While MAV development obviously appeals to the highest levels of US military intelligence, theologians may see similarities between such technology and predictions of an end-time spiral by mankind into a cataclysmic war where locust-sized weapons are "given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power" (Rev. 9:3).
Thomas Horn, best selling author of "Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers" says, "When viewed against biblical end times scenarios and interpretation of the Book of Revelation, Micro Air Vehicle development may shed light on a different, much older Biblical subject concerning exotic flying enemies that pursue and torment mankind at the end of the age.
"For instance, when one considers the exponential achievements of modern science and humanity's newfound interest in playing God, the inevitability of soul-free soldier-clones keeping eye on a biometric chip-implanted humanity with the help of GPS controlled micro air vehicles... well, it just kind of takes the fun out of wondering where our once-idyllic world may be headed."
On the other hand, fundamentalists Christians may have been right all along. Perhaps our pretentious sciences are forming for Armageddon.
According to the Bible, an unprecedented war will occur in the future. It will be fought on land and sea, in the heavens above, and in the earth below, in the physical and spiritual worlds. It will include "Michael and his angels [fighting] against the dragon; and the dragon [fighting] and his angels" (Rev. 12:7).
Pagans will join the battle, calling upon "idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood" (Rev. 9:20) to convene their powers against the Christian God. They will unite with "unclean spirits....to gather them to the battle of that great day....[to] a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon ["Mount Megiddo"]" (Rev. 16:13-14;16).
The fowl of the air will "eat the flesh of the mighty" and hybrid locusts will sting the enemies of God until the omnipotent Christ utterly repels the forces of darkness and destroys the New World Army.
At least that's the way fundamentalist Christians believe it will happen.
When reading about the supernatural war mentioned above, Horn finds particular interest in Revelation 9:1-11 where it speaks of synthesized insectoids and arthropods emerging from the bottomless pit to join the end-time battle.
Down through time myriad preachers have warned of demonic locusts bursting upward from out of the abyss and torturing unfortunate earthlings during a future time of great tribulation. Is that really what the prophet saw?
Some scholars believe 'John the Revelator' actually beheld future technologies, and that he simply referred to them in terms he understood, such as a military helicopter being compared to a giant locust whose wings sounded like "many horses running to battle" (Rev. 9:9).
The Bible - a book repeatedly proven to possess astoundingly accurate predictions - states that Jesus Christ will return at a future time and will defeat a well-equipped Antichrist army made of soldiers that kill without conscience. Could these be the genetically modified super-soldiers such as DARPA has shown interest in developing?
The Bible also depicts flying locust-weapons. Are these micro air vehicles developed by the military?
The 'MAVs' of Revelation 9 torment those who receive the Mark of the Beast. Are we looking at GPS enabled biometric chip implants?
In the end, while the locust hoards of Revelation 9 are presided over by Abaddon and may have been created in human laboratories, the flying weapons of the Apocalypse do whatever Jesus commands, as every member of humanity ultimately will, says Horn.
Supernatural Experiences Common Among America's Religious
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080921/survey-supernatural-experiences-common-among-america-s-religious.htm
Nearly half of Americans report having at least two supernatural encounters, with conservative Protestants more likely than religious liberals to say they had such experiences, according to a survey recently published in a new book.
Among the most common religious and mystical experiences reported by Americans include protection from harm by a guardian angel (55 percent); calling by God to do something (44 percent); witnessing a miraculous, physical healing (23 percent); and hearing the voice of God (20 percent), according to the second part of the Baylor Religion Survey.
Researchers say they did not expect to find such high numbers of Americans reporting supernatural experiences, in particular, the guardian angel result.
"It was the biggest surprise to me in our findings," sociologist Christopher Bader of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said on Thursday.
When examining results by denominations, respondents belonging to conservative Protestant churches were more likely than those in liberal Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and Jewish respondents to report religious and mystical experiences.
Those belonging to the Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, and Baptist denominations were the most likely to cite having religious and mystical experiences.
Meanwhile Jewish and those in the Unitarian and United Church of Christ were least likely to report such experiences.
"A finding like this doesn't directly change religion or the churches," explained Dr. Rodney Stark, co-director of Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, who wrote the book What Americans Really Believe, in which the survey's findings were published this past week.
"What it may change are popular perceptions. The knowledge that such events are common may change the way the media treat them and may reassure many who have had them," Stark told The Christian Post.
Other survey findings include:
• Megachurches surprisingly are more intimate communities than small congregations of less than 100 members. The growth of Megachurches is mostly due to their members, who tend to witness to friends and strangers, much more than members of small churches.
• The percentage of atheists in America – Americans who say they do not believe in God – has not changed for the past 63 years. It holds steady at four percent .
• Conservative Christianity, especially evangelicalism, greatly decreases belief in the occult and paranormal such as Bigfoot, UFOs, haunted house, communicating with the dead and astrology.
• Sixty-seven percent of Americans say they were "absolutely sure" heaven exists, and 17 percent thought it "probably" does.
• Seventy-three percent of Americans believe hell absolutely or probably exists.
Episcopal Church Ousts Pittsburgh Bishop For Holding To Bible As Literal Word Of God
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080919/episcopal-church-ousts-pittsburgh-bishop.htm
Conservative Anglicans have expressed their "great sadness" at the decision of The Episcopal Church to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh.
The Episcopal House of Bishops voted 88 to 35 in a closed meeting in Salt Lake City on Thursday to remove Bishop Robert Duncan from ordained ministry on the grounds of "abandonment of the communion of this church." There were four abstentions.
Duncan, who has led the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh for 11 years, is the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, a network of Anglicans in North America disenchanted with the The Episcopal Church's pro-homosexual agenda and moving to break away from the liberal denomination.
His deposition comes ahead of the Diocese of Pittsburgh's vote on October 4 on whether to secede from the The Episcopal Church and align instead with the more conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. The Pittsburgh diocese said it will move ahead with the secession vote despite Duncan's removal.
In a joint statement, Dr. Philip Giddings, convenor of the conservative Anglican Mainstream, and Canon Dr. Chris Sugden, the group's executive secretary, said: "To take such action is hardly in the spirit of the reflections at this year's Lambeth Conference or the Archbishop of Canterbury's final presidential address.
"We see this vote as further evidence that The Episcopal Church in the USA in its formal decisions and structures 'have denied orthodox faith.'"
Bishops at the Lambeth Conference, a decennial meeting of Anglican bishops that was held in Canterbury in July and early August, agreed on an immediate halt to homosexual consecrations, blessings for same-sex unions, and cross-border interventions. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, spoke in his final address, meanwhile, of the desire among bishops to remain in communion and continue working towards a unifying covenant.
Giddings and Sugden were among the hundreds of conservative Anglicans who met in a separate meeting, the Global Anglican Future Conference, in Jerusalem in June to assess the future of orthodox Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion.
The two leaders pointed in their statement to the Jerusalem Declaration issued by GAFCON leaders at the end of their conference, which stated, "We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord."
Giddings and Sugden added, "Anglicans who adhere to the orthodox faith will continue to welcome and receive the ministry of Bishop Bob Duncan as a faithful Bishop and wish him and the people of the Diocese of Pittsburgh the Lord's blessing in their faithful witness to the gospel."
The orthodox Convocation of Anglicans in North America also said it would continue to recognize Duncan as a bishop of the Anglican Communion, as Bishop of Pittsburgh, and as the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership.
CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns denounced The Episcopal Church's "hostile and uncanonical action," saying it would not be accepted by the worldwide Anglican Communion.
"We hope and pray for the leaders of The Episcopal Church that they would protect the interests of its members by working with – rather than fiercely against – its bishops to proclaim the life-transforming news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That should be the goal of all Christians. Sadly, trying to fire a bishop in good standing with the rest of the Anglican Communion does nothing to save one soul," Bishop Minns concluded.
Marriage Proponents Physically Assaulted in Santa Rosa, California
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07625.shtml
SANTA ROSA, Calif., (christiansunite.com) -- Volunteers with the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) were assaulted on September 5th while distributing literature in support of traditional marriage at Santa Rosa Junior College.
TFP volunteers are participating in a 30-day tour of cities and colleges across California to educate the public on the importance of preserving traditional marriage.
After shouting obscenities at a TFP volunteer, a supporter of same-sex marriage slapped him as he filmed the demonstration. Although he managed to avert the blow, the assailant hit his camera disabling the settings.
In a separate incident at the same demonstration, another supporter of "gay marriage" threw hot coffee at the face of a different volunteer.
"This shows the contempt for First Amendment rights of proponents of gay marriage," said Cesar Franco, TFP Asst. Student Action Director. "While demanding tolerance for what they call 'diversity,' they are utterly intolerant of opposing viewpoints."
TFP, a Catholic organization, was distributing flyers titled "Ten Reasons Why Homosexual 'Marriage' Is Harmful and Must Be Opposed." It calls on Californians to firmly and peacefully resist the advance of the so-called gay-rights movement.
In June, the California Supreme Court forced same- sex "marriage," on the state. Tradition Family and Property believes the decision will undermine the family unit, harm the nation's moral foundation and jeopardize the innocence of children.
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property was founded in 1973 by a group of concerned Catholics to lead an intellectual resistance to liberalism, socialism and communism, and to affirm the positive values of tradition family and property.
Visit www.tfp.org for more information on the activities and philosophy of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.
'The Shack' Author to Face Fans, Critics via Chat
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080918/-the-shack-author-to-face-fans-critics-via-chat.htm
Next month, the author of The Shack will be joining a public online chatroom to discuss his No. 1 New York Times best-selling book, which has received strong praise from some Christian circles and strong criticism from others.
Both fans and critics of William P. Young's surprise best-seller will get the opportunity to submit questions to the author as part of Abunga.com's bi-weekly "Authors at Abunga" chat, which connects avid book readers with their favorite authors.
And with all the buzz that has surrounded The Shack since its rise to success, the questions will likely be pouring in ahead of the high-anticipated Oct. 22 chat.
Though Young had not originally intended the novel to be for public consumption, since its debut on the market last year, The Shack has reaped in a surprising amount of success, generating a large amount of buzz – both positive and negative – within Christian circles.
"This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his," stated Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus Of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, in a published endorsement for the book. "It's that good!"
"Everybody that I know has bought at least 10 copies," Caleb Nowak of Yakima, Wash., told the New York Times earlier this summer. "There's definitely something about the book that makes people want to share it."
The Shack tells the fictional redemptive story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips, whose daughter is tragically abducted and murdered during a family vacation.
Four years after the tragedy, Phillips receives a note, supposedly from "God," inviting him back to the abandoned shack where evidence of his daughter's murder had been found. When Phillips accepts the offer and returns to the shack, he enters into a kind of spiritual therapy session with "God," who appears in the form of a jolly African-American woman and calls herself "Papa;" Jesus, who appears as a Jewish workman; and Sarayu, an indeterminately Asian woman who incarnates the Holy Spirit.
"This is a story of one believer's brokenness and how God reached into that pain and pulled him out and as such is a compelling story of God's redemption," explained author and former pastor Wayne Jacobson, who was part of a team that worked with Young on the manuscript for over a year and also is part of Windblown Media, the company formed to print and distribute this book.
"The pain and healing come straight from a life that was broken by guilt and shame at an incredibly deep level," Jacobson wrote in his personal blog, "and he (Young) compresses into a weekend the lessons that helped him walk out of that pain and find life in Jesus again."
Young says he had suffered sexual abuse in New Guinea as the child of Canadian missionaries and spent a decade in therapy trying to earn back his wife's and family's trust after an extramarital affair 15 years ago.
In 2005, Young started writing what would eventually be The Shack to show how he had healed by forging a new relationship with God.
"It wasn't an intended thing," Young said during an interview earlier this year on The Drew Marshall Show. "It wasn't saying 'Well, this is the new formula for touching the hearts of the people,' but people are – they're just starving for authenticity. They're just starving for someone to stand up and say, 'You know what? God loves the worst of us – the losers, the screw ups."
"I'm an example of what grace looks like," he added.
According to Jacobson, the reason why The Shack has touched so many people is "because it deals with God in the midst of pain in an honest, straightforward way and because for many this is the first time they have seen the power of theology worked out inside a relationship with God himself."
"Some will disagree with … the solutions this book offers," he continued, in addition to the book's take on "how many of our religious institutions and practices have blinded people to the simple Gospel and replaced it with a religion of rules and rituals that have long ceased to reflect the Lord of Glory."
"But those who confuse the issues by making up their own back-story for the book, or ascribing motives to its publication without ever finding out the truth, only prove our point," he said, acknowledging the numerous criticisms against the book that have come out since its rise to fame.
Among the book's critics are several conservative Protestant heavyweights, including R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.; Chuck Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship Ministries; Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle; and influential blogger Tim Challies, who wrote a downloadable 17-page review/guide on The Shack that compares the novel's assertions to Scripture.
"Much of what Young writes is good and even helpful (again, assuming that the reader can see past the human personifications of God)," wrote Challies in his extensive review. "He affirms the absolute nature of what is good and teaches that evil exists only in relation to what is good; he challenges the reader to understand that God is inherently good and that we can only truly trust God if we believe Him to be good; he acknowledges the human tendency to create our image of God by looking at human qualities and assuming that God is simply the same but more so; he attempts to portray the loving relationships within the Trinity; and so on. For these areas I am grateful as they provided helpful correctives to many false understandings of God."
"But the book also raised several concerns," he continued before addressing the issues of the Trinity, submission, free will, forgiveness, scripture and revelation, and salvation.
In his conclusion, Challies said it was clear to him that The Shack is a mix of good and bad.
"Sadly, though, there is much bad mixed in with the good," he added.
In Chuck Colson's assessment of the book, the prominent evangelical leader also admitted that the book is not without merit.
"The centrality of Christ and God's breathtaking, costly love come through loud and clear," he said in a commentary.
However, like Challies, Colson expressed his concern on the author's view of the Bible.
"The Bible, it seems, is just one among many equally valid ways in which God reveals Himself. And, we are told, the Bible is not about rules and principles; it is about relationship," Colson noted. "Sadly, the author fails to show that the relationship with God must be built on the truth of who He really is, not on our reaction to a sunset or a painting."
Next month, whether they are fans or critics of the book, readers will get the opportunity themselves to submit questions to Young regarding his book through the chat Web page at Abunga.com. While questions will also be accepted during chats, all will be screened prior to being presented to the author.
Transcripts of each chat session are posted the following day on the "Authors at Abunga" chat page. Anyone who registers to be an Abunga.com community member can sign up to receive e-mail notification of transcript postings.
Distribution of 28 million copies of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" stirs discussion across the nation
http://www.greeleytribune.com
Abdiamar Bare, 21, walks up to the nondescript mosque in Greeley for noon prayers and pauses a moment to talk about his faith.
He is asked by a visitor if he's seen the DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." No, he says. He's asked if the principles of Islam allow other religions to coexist with it.
"Every religion is the same. No religion is better than another religion," Bare says. "I believe in Islam. I like my religion, and I don't want it to interfere with other religions."
Bare is one of about 120 Muslim workers recently fired by JBS Swift & Co. for walking off the job after a disagreement on prayer breaks. He enters the mosque, off 8th Avenue near the University of Northern Colorado campus, to join dozens more for prayer.
It's a low-profile, unmarked building in which Greeley Muslims come to practice their faith, which again finds itself in the crosshairs of scrutiny locally and nationally.
In Greeley, the dispute continues on prayer breaks for Muslim workers at the meatpacking plant. Sentiment has spread among some in the community that the newcomers are pushing too much, exhibiting a desire not to assimilate but rather impose their religion on others.
Nationally, the DVD arrived on 28 million doorsteps as rhetoric on homeland security heats up in the presidential race.
The confluence of recent events -- the Muslim workers' dispute and, on its heels, the "Obsession" DVD -- is the talk of the town. Many Greeley residents have noticed the 400 mostly Somali refugees who've arrived in the past 18 months to take jobs at JBS Swift. The workers say they are here to escape the oppression of their war-torn homeland, build a new life and peacefully practice their religion.
What to make of these newcomers and their religion, which is indelibly linked to 9/11 and other violent acts across the globe, has sparked a variety of views. The DVD alone prompts widely different opinions.
A Greeley woman calls the disc "neo-con propaganda," while a history professor at Colorado State University says the film is factually accurate and shows it in his classes.
Meanwhile, in the day-to-day operation of the Greeley meatpacking plant, the African refugees' religion is at odds, especially during Ramadan, with the assembly line production.
Brianna Castillo, a JBS Swift employee for four years, said the Somali workers are asking for special treatment and making non-Muslim plant employees pick up the slack.
"Somalis are running our plant," Castillo said at a recent protest by non-Muslims against the Muslims' request for a changed break time. "They are telling us what to do."
'They need to be flexible'
Bill Jerke, a Weld County commissioner, said he worries that if a large percentage of workers walk off an assembly line at once, it can lead to an over-stressed and potentially dangerous situation for the remaining workers.
He said the Muslim workers who walked off the job because of the prayer issue should be more flexible.
"Every other group that's come to the United States, that maybe has a little different angle on culture and religion, has learned to assimilate with the majority, and that's what I think they need to be flexible enough to do," he said.
Jerke has watched "Obsession" -- he bought the DVD a couple of years ago at a Republican function -- and read a book called "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It." Those sources, which he deems well-researched, as well as worldwide bombings by radical Muslims over the past 15 years, make him circumspect of Muslims in America.
"With the Muslim religion, their practices will dominate over what your American practices would wind up being," he said. "And part of that is they believe that Islamic law should dictate over laws of man."
He said the issue in Greeley, Weld County and across the country boils down to "whom will accommodate whom and whom will assimilate to whom." He said "America Alone" argues that Europe is "reverse assimilating" in that fewer Europeans are being born compared to Muslims, and the continent is being overwhelmed by Muslims.
DVD and presidential race
Greeley resident Marise Downing said she doesn't know enough about the JBS Swift labor dispute to decide which side is right -- the workers or the company. She said she has no problem with Muslim workers attempting to follow their beliefs.
Downing is more pointed about the "Obsession" DVD, which in an e-mail to The Tribune she called a "disgusting piece of neo-con propaganda." The film was a paid advertising insert in the Sept. 14 Tribune and 70 other newspapers nationally, including the Denver Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Downing said she hasn't watched the hour-long film, produced by the New York-based Clarion Fund, but said she's researched it enough to satisfy her belief that it's fear-mongering propaganda.
"I understand it's a matter of money I presume (for the newspaper)," she said. "To me, it gives it a kind of authenticity that it wouldn't otherwise have."
The packaging says the DVD's intent is to educate people about the threat of radical Islam. It adds that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing the issue openly.
A story in Editor & Publisher said about 28 million copies of the DVD have been distributed so far, mostly in swing states in the presidential race.
Hasan said she believes the DVD's main intent is to spread fear and sway the election.
"I don't know -- is this anti-Obama, is this for McCain?" she said. "Either way, this is a very bad way of doing things."
Mainstream vs. radical
James Lindsay, an associate professor of Middle Eastern history at CSU, takes an opposite view on "Obsession." He believes it's a straightforward look at radical Islam.
He said the producers are explicit that film is about the radical ideology within Islam, which is advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and other groups. The film's introduction states that most Muslims are peaceful and don't support terror.
The militant Islamic branch -- which the film says makes up about 10 percent to 15 percent of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.2 billion, the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity -- has a conquest ideology, Lindsay said.
"It's one of subjugating the world to their ideology. There is not room for another ideology, according to the radical Muslim ideology, and it's frightening," he said. "But it's part and parcel of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaida types that they want to impose their will on everyone."
The film acknowledges that part of that mindset stems from a fear that the West is out to destroy Islam, and that the religion's followers must strike first.
Hasan agrees that there is a radical strand that claims adherence to Islam. But she dismisses them as brainwashed and "sick, sick individuals" who don't practice Islam but rather a singular and misguided hatred of America.
Hasan, who is married to a physician and has homes in Denver and Beaver Creek, returned from Washington, D.C., Thursday after being invited to the White House's annual dinner observance of Ramadan. Hasan, an ardent supporter of the Bush administration, said she spoke last week with a Brazilian ambassador about the problems at the Brazilian-owned JBS Swift plant in Greeley.
She believes the Somalis in Greeley will assimilate within about eight years. Resettling people to the United States from a country of poverty and poor education is a complex process, she said.
The U.S. or United Nations should assign social workers to the refugees to smooth their transitions, Hasan said, "then the communities where these people are sent to, it would be a much happier atmosphere."
Hasan, whose Muslims for America organization works to get Muslims more involved in the American political process, believes Islam can coexist peacefully in the United States.
"American Muslims are very happy, very satisfied because they are allowed to enter mainstream America," she said. "We are not held back. We are not judged against."
Conflict inevitable
Lindsay, the CSU professor, said the Muslims who flew the airplanes into the Twin Towers felt they were doing God's work.
Muslims who say "jihad" means the struggle for personal betterment aren't giving the full picture of what's written in the classical text, he said. Rather, the text says the Islamic practitioner is preparing himself to be a better warrior.
"The idea of the jihad as laid out by extremists is one of the doctrines within the Quran itself," Lindsay said. "It's a fundamental tenet of Islamic religion and it has been in Islamic history -- engaging in warfare against the enemies of Islam."
Conflicts between the West and Islam are inevitable, Lindsay said, because the demands of Islamic law are in conflict with the West's approach to law and religion. The Quran speaks of creating a society that's obedient to God's law, not obedient to men's model, he said.
Lindsay believes the way to deal with Muslim immigrants -- as in the case of the JBS Swift workers -- is to explain how employment rules and policies operate in the United States. "I have no desire to make any accommodations to Islamic law, and that's my opinion."
Amin Kazak, a professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at the University of Colorado-Denver, said he believes a middle ground can be reached between JBS Swift and the Muslim workers.
"The workers have to be flexible as much as the owners of the (company) have to be flexible," he said. "Not jeopardize the ritual and spirit of Muslims, and not jeopardize also the other (non-Muslim) workers' rights and so on."
Hasan argues that they reflect the majority of Muslims worldwide. She believes moderate Muslims can help bring change.
"Everybody now in the world who really cares about this issue of spreading hatred is trying to bring the religions together and doing peace dialogue," she said. "That's mostly what needs to be done -- come closer together, sort out whatever differences that we have."
Lindsay has a more jaundiced view. He considers the gulf so wide, and the militant element within Islam so vehemently anti-West, that finding a path to peace is unlikely. He points out that the extremists believe they are doing the work of God and "that is a tremendous motivator. They don't mind dying."
Lindsay doesn't expect to see an end to the conflict between radical Islam and the West in his lifetime.
"If we value who we say we are, we have to be vigilant against this ideology, which is hell-bent on our destruction," he said.
PUBLIC OPINION ON MUSLIM RELIGION
A Washington Post poll in 2006 found that 58 percent of Americans say there are more violent extremists within Islam than in other religions and 46 percent have a negative view of Islam.
When asked, "Do you think mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims, or is it a peaceful religion?" 33 percent said it encourages violence and 54 percent said it's peaceful (13 percent said no opinion).
In 2007, a CNN poll found that 53 percent of Americans believe conflict between Islam and Christianity is "inevitable," up from 45 percent in 2003.
Greeley's latest chapter in Islamic relations
It's an unlikely pairing.
The dispute between Muslim workers and JBS Swift & Co. is the latest intertwining of Islam and the conservative, agricultural-oriented city of Greeley.
The first came about 60 years ago.
The six-month stay in Greeley by an Egyptian student in 1949 made him so angry that he wrote books to express his anti-American diatribe. Sayyid Qutb (SIGH-yid KUH tahb), studied at the University of Northern Colorado and wrote disdainfully of the city's teen dances, loose morals and "behavior that could not be further from religion."
Qutb became one of the founders of Islamic terrorism and is referred to as the godfather of al-Qaida.
In 1965, he published his most famous book, "Mallem Fittareek" (Milestones), in which he condemned Western morals, partially because of what he witnessed in Greeley. It led to his arrest on the orders of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was executed in 1966 in Egypt.
Greeley, largely thanks to Qutb, is more than a simple footnote in modern Islamic history. The recent friction between the Muslim workers and the meatpacking plant is adding to that history.
"I think we've been in religious and cultural conflict with Islam since the Middle Ages," said Bill Jerke, a Weld County commissioner, "and this is simply one of Greeley's small chapters in that worldwide discussion of culture and religion."
"Dangerous gulf" opens between Russia and West
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE48O4FM20080925
The West's pillorying of Moscow over last month's invasion of Georgia has kindled a fierce Russian resentment that poses dangers for security in Europe and in trouble spots beyond.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lectured Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a United Nations gathering in New York, telling him Russia was now isolated. Lavrov countered that his appointment book for the meeting had never been fuller.
Behind the studiedly gentle riposte lay a sense, echoed on the streets in Russia, that the West was not granting resurgent Russia the respect it feels it merits. Animosities ascribed in earlier times to ideological schism between communism and capitalism are proving hardier than many might have expected.
Russia's sense of grievance over the Georgian war stems from Western governments' unwillingness to acknowledge publicly what many say privately -- that Tbilisi started the conflict.
Adding insult to injury for the Russians is strong Western support for Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili -- loathed by Moscow -- and Western media coverage which has overwhelmingly favored Georgia during the conflict.
"Never in the past quarter century have Russia and the West differed so much over the interpretation of the same event," wrote political commentator Georgy Bovt in an opinion piece entitled "Divorce with the West" on the gazeta.ru news site.
"Never before has the behavior of Russia been presented in Western media in such a diametrically opposite way to the way that behavior is perceived in Russian public opinion."
Further stoking resentment is a string of recent Western moves seen as hostile by Moscow.
In Russian eyes, the West snubbed it by recognizing the independence of Kosovo, ignored its objections to a U.S. anti-missile system in eastern Europe, didn't listen to its criticism of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and broke a promise made to Moscow in the 1990s not to expand NATO to its borders.
Now Russia's patience has snapped.
RUSSIA LOST
Top diplomats stationed in Moscow privately despair over how, as one put it, "we have lost Russia completely over Georgia." Even normally pro-Western intellectuals and their own Russian embassy employees had turned against them.
"There's no one in this society who sees things our way," one senior Western diplomat commented.
"Russians are reacting to 18 years of condescension and being ignored by the West. They have had enough."
President Dmitry Medvedev summarized the changed public mood in his remarks at a meeting with Western analysts on September 12.
"I think for a vast majority of our citizens the events in the Caucasus means the loss of the remaining illusions of the period when Russia emerged as an independent state," he said referring to Russia's 1990s honeymoon with the West.
Russia's loss of trust in the West over Georgia could have serious consequences for peace in Europe, with neighboring Ukraine looming as the next potential battleground between a fearful and mistrustful West and an angry, emboldened Russia.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock criticized moves to draw Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, a policy that he said could split Ukraine. As long as the West followed this course, true strategic co-operation with Moscow was impossible.
"We are in a deep crisis," a second senior Moscow diplomat said. "We have embarked on a confrontation course which it is very difficult to pull back from."
The West seeks Russian co-operation in a host of security problems from Iran's nuclear program to Islamist militancy from the Caucasus to Afghanistan.
In an echo of Cold War posturing, Moscow has dispatched a flotilla of warships to America's backyard for joint maneuvers proposed by Venezuela's anti-American President Hugo Chavez. On a weightier issue, Moscow signaled it would not back any move for major powers to discuss Iran's nuclear program at the U.N.
Opinion polls show overwhelming popular support for President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to send troops into Georgia and a dramatic hardening of attitudes toward the West.
KREMLIN MEDIA CONTROL
A regular survey by the independent Levada Centre published this week showed Russians' views of relations with the United States plummeting by 40 points between July and September to their most negative level since polling began in 1997. There was a 29-point drop in support for relations with Europe.
"It's quite difficult to be pro-Western in the current situation," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal.
"The consensus is there in Russia that the West cannot be trusted."
At the same time, some Western media, drawing on Cold War stereotypes, have painted a picture of an aggressive and dangerous Russian bear on the prowl.
"I understand the value of investing in this place but my biggest problem is that back home, a lot of people watching CNN think this place is one notch above North Korea," said one frustrated U.S. fund manager visiting Moscow last week.
Andrew Somers, president of the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce, said a number of large U.S. corporations already active in Russia were putting big future investment projects on hold, partly because of the hostile media coverage.
"The image of Russia is very bad and some of the press coverage is way out of context," he said.
President Vladimir Putin, renown for his acid comments about the West, took a swipe at Western media coverage of the Georgian war at a meeting with the Western analysts on September 11.
"I was surprised by the power of the Western propaganda machine," he said. "I congratulate all who were involved in it. This was a wonderful job. But the result was bad and will always be bad because this was a dishonest and immoral work."
To be fair, the public mood over the war in Russia is not totally spontaneous. Russia's Kremlin-controlled television channels have worked hard to keep popular wrath high.
Images of destroyed houses and dead civilians in South Ossetia dominated television screens. Newsmakers denounced "Georgian Nazism" and condemned the West which backed Tbilisi.
One unintended result of the media war: Western criticism of Russia's generally Kremlin-friendly media will now fall on deaf ears. Many feel the Western press is as biased as their own.
"Discussion about freedom of the press is over here," the second diplomat said.
"Our Russian colleagues tell us how they have seen how Western television channels manipulate and distort the truth over Georgia so they need no lessons from us on press freedom."
US 'will lose financial superpower status... The world will never be the same again'
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d6a4f3a-8aee-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html
The US will lose its role as a global financial "superpower" in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said on Thursday, blaming Washington for failing to take the regulatory steps that might have averted the crisis.
"The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. This world will become multipolar" with the emergence of stronger, better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament. "The world will never be the same again."
His were the most outspoken comments by a senior European government figure since Wall Street fell into chaos two weeks ago.
He later told journalists: "When we look back 10 years from now, we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture. I am not saying the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, but it will become relative."
The minister, who has spearheaded German efforts to rein in financial markets in the past two years, attacked the US government for opposing stricter regulations even after the subprime crisis had broken out last summer.
The US notion that markets should remain as free as possible from regulatory shackles "was as simplistic as it was dangerous", he said.
But Mr Steinbrück had warm words for the US's crisis management in the past fortnight, including the government's planned $700bn rescue package for the financial sector. Washington, he said, had earned credit for acting not just in the US interest but also in the interest of other nations.
Yet he repeated Germany's refusal to mount a similar rescue operation using taxpayers' money to acquire toxic assets. "This crisis originated in the US and is mainly hitting the US," he said. In Europe and Germany, such a package would be "neither sensible nor necessary".
The US, Mr Steinbrück said, had failed in its oversight of investment banks, adding that the crisis was an indictment of the US two-tier banking system and its "weak, divided financial oversight".
He blamed Washington for refusing to consider proposals Berlin had made as it chaired the Group of Eight industrial nations last year. These proposals, he said, "elicited mockery at best or were seen as a typical example of Germans' penchant for over-regulation".
His comments followed calls this week by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current holder of the European Union presidency, for an emergency G8 meeting on the crisis.
Mr Steinbrück's proposals include a ban on "purely speculative short selling"; a crackdown on variable pay for bank managers, which had encouraged reckless risk-taking; a ban on banks securitising more than 80 per cent of the debt they hold; international standards making bank managers personally responsible for the consequences of their trades; and increased co-operation between European supervisors.
Following a meeting with Christine Lagarde, his French counterpart, in Berlin, he said France and Germany would set up a working group of treasury, central bank and supervisory authority officials that would consider tougher regulation of short selling.
Dangerous Trends: Environmentalism leading many to endorse one child policy and now "Sterilization for Women"
http://www.prisonplanet.com/magazine-promotes-sterilization-for-women-in-their-20s.html
A popular women's magazine in the UK recently featured an article entitled, Young, Single and Sterilized, in which women in their 20's discussed why they had undergone an operation to prevent them from ever having children. The article is little more than PR for a "women's charity" called Marie Stopes International, an organization that carries out abortions and sterilizations and was founded by a Nazi eugenicist who advocated compulsory sterilization of non-whites and "those of bad character".
The story appears in a weekly magazine called Love It. One of the women featured in the article, Chloe, explains why she decided to have herself sterilized at the age of just 20.
"By the time I was 18, I knew I was never going to change. I couldn't imagine letting something take over my body and then my whole life."
"I couldn't even look at a baby without feeling uncomfortable."
Following the sterilization procedure, Chloe celebrates the fact that "I've got a lifetime of going out ahead of me now," presumably meaning going out, getting mindlessly drunk and having sex with random strangers, as is British culture, while not having to worry about the risk of pregnancy or the responsibility of looking after a child.
Despite admitting that she has not told any of her family and not even her own mother about the sterilization, the article ends with Chloe boldly stating that it was, "the most sensible adult decision I'll ever make."
Another 'success story' as the article skews it is Charlie McCann, who was sterilized on her 30th birthday and, we read, "is happy with her choice, insisting the men in her life have to adjust." Her then boyfriend decided to adjust by ending the relationship because he couldn't bear never having children.
Ironically, another woman speaks about how she first became interested in the idea of being sterilized after reading about the subject in a women's magazine.
Jacquelyn Arnold tells of how she felt "irritation" at the sight of children playing in a garden and decided to go ahead with the operation, which is described in routine and straightforward terms. Arnold says she has no regrets and has 'taken control of her life'.
Sterilization is lauded as an "excellent method of birth control" by Dr. Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
The article includes an advertisement that encourages women to seek "more information about sterilization" by contacting Marie Stopes International. We read that, "Over the past year, a quarter of the women who booked a sterilisation consultation with women's charity Marie Stopes were aged 30 or under."
Marie Stopes was a feminist who opened the first birth control clinic in Britain in 1921 as well as being Nazi sympathizer and a eugenicist who advocated that non-whites and the poor be sterilized.
Stopes, a racist and an anti-Semite, campaigned for selective breeding to achieve racial purity, a passion she shared with Adolf Hitler in adoring letters and poems that she sent the leader of the Third Reich.
Stopes also attended the Nazi congress on population science in Berlin in 1935, while calling for the "compulsory sterilization of the diseased, drunkards, or simply those of bad character." Stopes acted on her appalling theories by concentrating her abortion clinics in poor areas so as to reduce the birth rate of the lower classes.
Stopes left most of her estate to the Eugenics Society, an organization that shared her passion for racial purity and still exists today under the new name The Galton Institute. The society has included members such as Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist), Julian Huxley and Margaret Sanger.
Ominously, The Galton Institute website promotes its support and funding initiative for "the practical delivery of family planning facilities, especially in developing countries." In other words, the same organization that once advocated sterilizing black people to achieve racial purity in the same vein as the Nazis is now bankrolling abortions of black babies in the third world.
While the issue of abortion is an entirely different argument, most would agree that no matter how extreme it sounds, a woman has the right to sterilize herself if she so chooses, just as a man has the right to a vasectomy.
But when a magazine aimed primarily at young women all but encourages girls as young as 20 to have their fallopian tubes tied in order to prevent the "irritation" of children entering their lives and then advertises an organization founded by a Nazi eugenicist that can perform the operation, something has to be amiss.
Even more shocking than this is the fact that the majority of people in the UK routinely express their support for society's "undesirables" to be forcibly sterilized by the state, harking back to a time when such a thing was commonplace right up to the 1970's in some areas of America and Europe.
As we highlighted earlier this month, respondents to a Daily Mail article about Royal Mail honoring Marie Stopes by using her image on a commemorative stamp were not disgusted at Royal Mail for paying homage to a racist Nazi eugenicist, but were merely keen to express their full agreement that those deemed not to be of pure genetic stock or of the approved character should be forcibly sterilized and prevented from having children.
"A lot of people should be sterilized, IMO. It's still true today," wrote one.
"Just imagine what a stable, well-ordered society we'd have if compulsory sterilisation had been adopted years ago for the socially undesirable," states another respondent, calling for a "satellite-carried sterilisation ray" to be installed in space to zap the undesirables.
Shockingly, another compares sterilization and genocide of those deemed inferior to the breeding and culling of farmyard animals, and says that such a move is necessary to fight overpopulation and global warming. Here is the comment in full from "Karen" in Wales;
"We breed farm animals to produce the best possible stock and kill them when they have fulfilled their purpose. We inter-breed pedigree animals to produce extremes that leave them open to ill-health and early death. It is only religion that says humans are not animals. The reality is that we are simply intelligent, mammalian primates".
"The world population of humans has increased from 2 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 50 years. This planet can support 2 billion humans comfortably. 6.5 billion humans use too many resources and leads to global warming, climate change and a very uncertain future for all of us - humans and all other life sharing this planet with us".
Marie Stopes believed in population control and in breeding the best possible humans. So did Hitler. Neither of the aims are bad in themselves. It is how they are achieved that is the problem. The fact that we still remember Marie Stopes is an achievement in itself.
The nature of these comments is so fundamentally sick and twisted that one is tempted to dismiss them as a joke - but these people are deadly serious. Presumably they would also agree with China's one child policy, which is routinely enforced by intimidation as young pregnant women are grabbed off the streets by state goons and taken to hospitals where forced abortions are carried out.
Now with popular women's magazines advising women in their 20's where they can go to be sterilized and ensure a lifetime of partying and carefree sex, it's no surprise that experts predict that by 2010 one in four western women will be child free for life.
The yearning to have children is the most beautiful, natural and innate emotion either a man or a woman can possibly experience. That is not to say that it's always wrong for some people not to have children - extreme circumstances can justify such a decision. But to have yourself sterilized because you find children to be an "irritant" and want to live a life free of responsibility or consequences is an awful message to send to young women, especially in the sex-saturated entertainment culture that we are now forced to endure.
Furthermore, the outright promotion of Marie Stopes International as 'the place to go' to get sterilized if you're under 30 is stomach-churning considering the fact that the origins of this organization can be found in Nazi ideology, racist and backward early 20th century eugenics and a long-standing agenda to cull the population of undesirables, an abhorrent belief still held by elites across the planet today.
Islam, Secularism and the Gospel
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080923/islam-secularism-and-the-gospel.htm
While Britons may think of America as its juvenile and impetuous offspring, Great Britain has surely become our senile grandmother. Through repeated acts of self-condemnation and political correctness, the British are systematically capitulating to all things Islamic. In essence, our British forbearers are committing cultural suicide.
In what may appear to be deferential considerations to their growing Muslim population, British authorities are slowly conforming to the demands of an increasingly outspoken and violent minority. Already in Britain, Muslim men with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long government review. Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the decision by British authorities means that polygamous marriages can now be recognized formally (not to mentioned subsidized) by the state, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is legal. And yes, polygamy remains a norm in the Muslim world.
In other another act of mindless irony, the Research, Information and Communication Unit, a division of the British Home Office, established for the purpose of countering al-Qaeda's influence in the UK, is actually instructing civil servants not to use terms such as "Islamist extremism" or "jihadi fundamentalist." Instead, they are to use phrases such as "violent extremism" or "criminal murderers" or "thugs" to avoid any implication that there is connection between Islam and terrorism.
Closer to home, the US government also issued guidelines earlier this year for the Department of Homeland Security suggesting such terms as "jihad" and "Islamic terrorism" not be used.
So ridiculous have British concessions to Muslim demands become that Fortis Bank "stopped giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims," according to The Times of London. (Pigs are an offensive, unclean animal to Muslims.) There are also accounts of Muslim nurses refusing to comply with hygiene procedures on the grounds that scrubbing requires them to bare their arms.
And this past week, Fox News reported that "Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases." According to news reports, "The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence." Adding that "rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system…" In an astonishing statement, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, said there was no reason why sharia law, derived from several sources including the Qur´an, could not be used for contractual agreements and marital disputes. The first question that comes to mind: How does British society plan to mitigate between the Western and Muslim views relative to the rights of women?
The first public signs of appeasement emerged in the wake of the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa (death edict) against British author Salman Rushdie in 1989. Thousands of British Muslims marched in the streets calling for Rushdie to be killed while the British authorities thought it best to "play it cool," according to Mark Steyn, author of America Alone. Of the more than 100 demonstrators arrested for violent assaults on the police that day, all were released without charges. British non-Muslims held a (much smaller) counter-demonstration shortly thereafter to uphold the right to free speech—meaning the free speech of Salman Rushdie—only to be attacked and beaten by Muslims. Playing it cool has only emboldened Muslim radicals and the calls for blood and violence increase. Today there are sections of London in which no non-Muslim dare venture for fear of being killed.
And the same is occurring across the rest of Europe. Recall the French riots in 2005 in which thousands of young Muslims, armed with clubs and sticks and shouting, "Allah Akbar!" stormed the streets. Windows were smashed; stores looted and cars were torched. Europeans trapped by the mob were viciously attacked, and some killed. The trouble in France finally ended only when various levels of French authorities quietly accepted that there were de facto no-go areas within the country, mini-Islamistans run by the dominant local Muslim majority. Shortly after, riots in Denmark featured Muslims taunting authorities, saying, "This territory belongs to Islam; you don't belong here." In a growing number of Western European nations there are now territories that have been effectively occupied by Islamic fundamentalists determined to subdue their host countries.
Iman Abdelali Hamdoune revealed the goal of Islam when he urged the Muslim faithful:
Do not permit your children to follow the example of the French. They should comport themselves in a totally different manner than the French. Here in France we have to impose ourselves, and impose Islam.
Recently, the United Nations General Assembly began considering a resolution sponsored by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) under the altruistic title of "Combating Defamation of Religion." Supporters claim its goal is to stamp out "incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular." Of course, Muslims are at liberty to incite hatred and violence against other religions and infidels.
Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan federal body, says it's clear that the OIC countries are attempting to "mainstream" prohibitions on any speech that could be considered critical of Islam. So when Muslims take to the streets with signs reading BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM, it would be insensitive of us to suggest that perhaps Islam is a factor in breeding violence. Hmm?
Next week I will explore the philosophical preconditions that have rendered Europe so impotent in its response to radical Islam, demonstrating that these same conditions are emerging within our own society. In short, there are three worldviews today that are contending to "narrate the world" (in the words of theologian Robert Webber)—Christianity, secular humanism, and Islam.
I will argue that the American church, in its present state, will not be able to counter the Islamic effort to narrate the world until it is liberated from its own cultural captivity. American evangelicalism, with its emphasis on personal experience and therapy, has produced a narcissistic faith that centers on self rather than Christ and the redemptive mission of God—and this has rendered the Christian story of the world shallow and irrelevant.
MEPs to ask US Congress about funding for Irish No vote
http://euobserver.com/9/26815
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament's delegation to the US will on its next trans-Atlantic visit ask Congress about allegations that the Irish anti-Lisbon Treaty campaign was funded out of America.
The parliament's political group leaders - the "conference of presidents" - made the decision on Thursday (25 September) following calls for transparency by the Irish and French governments and the European Commission.
The move also comes after Declan Ganley - an Irish businessman with US interests who ran the prominent No-vote lobby, the Libertas group - admitted loaning it €200,000 of his own money. Under Irish rules, donations must be capped at €6,348.
The conference of presidents decided not to set up its own commission of enquiry, leaving any investigation to Ireland's Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO). But the parliament's administration will "regularly and closely monitor the situation."
Using language that puts Mr Ganley in an unsavoury light, the parliament statement noted that SIPO "enjoyed real investigative powers and that any proven misuse of funds ... could lead to sanctions, including of a criminal nature."
The leader of the Liberal group, Graham Watson, said he supported contacting the US Congress because Irish-American groups had funded the Irish terrorist group, the IRA, in the past.
The idea that Mr Ganley fronted a US plot to kill the Lisbon Treaty emerged when Irish media reported that his US firm, Rivada Networks, had a €200 million communications equipment contact with the Pentagon.
The French leader of the Green group in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, popularised the theory at the opening meeting of this week's plenary session in Brussels.
"The Irish press revealed that there possibly exists a link between the financers of the No campaign in Ireland and the Pentagon as well as the CIA ... If proved true, this would clearly show that there are forces in the US willing to pay people to destabilise a strong and autonomous Europe," he said.
"We stand on the side of those who strive for absolute transparency in all of these questions in order to keep Europe from suffering harm," parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering added.
No means no?
Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum in June, with most No voters saying they lacked information on the treaty contents. Those who voted No were also concerned about threats to Irish neutrality, Europe's 'democratic deficit' and a weakening of Ireland's position in the European Union.
The main thrust of the treaty was to tidy up EU institutions after the 2004 round of enlargement and help create a robust EU foreign policy, its supporters say.
Mr Ganley is now campaigning around Europe to launch an anti-Lisbon political group in time for European Parliament elections in 2009. A second Irish referendum on Lisbon is not expected before late 2009.
"Libertas is obliged to communicate the details of its funding to the Irish authorities in 2009. Libertas will comply with this obligation," Mr Ganley said in response to what he called the parliament's "baseless allegations."
"This statement gives us grave concern for the state of democracy in Europe," he added. "Neither Libertas nor I have done anything illegal or wrong - this is interference in the electoral process in Ireland."
Juncker rules out Lisbon treaty before 2010
http://euobserver.com/18/26759
The European Union's Lisbon Treaty will not enter into force before the European Parliament elections in June 2009, as was initially hoped, and is unlikely to do so before 1 January 2010 either, Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels on Wednesday.
"I don't think that the treaty will be in place in June 2009, when the next European elections will take place," Mr Juncker, who is also the president of the eurogroup - gathering the finance ministers of the eurozone - said at a conference organised by the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC).
In order for the document to be in place by June 2009, it would have to be ratified by all 27 EU member states by February - something which according to Luxembourg's premier is "not realistic."
"It's not possible to have this treaty enter into force before the year 2010," he stressed.
Mr Juncker is the first high-level politician to publicly state the Lisbon treaty may be impossible to adopt next year.
Originally, the document - aimed to replace the failed European Constitution and to provide for a better and more efficient functioning of the EU - was planned to enter into force in January 2009.
But Irish citizens voted No in a referendum on the treaty in June, casting a doubt over the possibility to reach the goal.
EU leaders will be expecting to hear from Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen on the issue at a summit meeting in October, with the EU insisting ratification of the document should continue in other member states, and a second referendum in Ireland seen by some as a possibility to bypass the June No vote.
Mr Juncker, however, said that a possible revote in Ireland should not take place in the immediate future.
"Given the economic crisis we're living in, given the confidence that's lacking, given that governments are increasingly unpopular all over Europe, organising a referendum around a European treaty is a dangerous road to take," he said.
"If I was the Irish Prime Minister, I wouldn't go for a referendum in the next few months."
If the Lisbon treaty does not come into force in 2009, that will affect the composition of both the European Parliament and the European Commission next year, which would have to be conducted under the EU's current set of rules, the Nice treaty.
It would mean that the number of seats in the European Parliament would shrink from the current 785 to 736 – instead of 751, as foreseen in the Lisbon treaty.
But the number of commissioners in the next commission - to be nominated by November 2009 - would also be reduced, as under Nice, their number should be "less than the number of member states."
CBS census: 75.6% of Israelis Jews
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3601423,00.html
The Central Bureau of Statistics published its census Wednesday, ahead of the High Holidays.
According to the report, 2007 saw 7,243,600 residents living in Israel – a 1.8% increase from 2006. Some 75.6% are Jewish, and 20% are Arabs, other denominations make up 4.4% of the populous.
Other figures in the report indicated that Israel welcomed 151,679 new babies in 2007 – a 2.4% increase. Jewish women have 3 children on average, while Arab women have four.
About 247,000 people moved across Israel during 2007, with central Israel being the favorite destination of choice. The Judea and Samaria District was also popular, as 4,900 people relocated to it.
Jerusalem and Haifa, however, did not fare as well, as 6,400 people left the former and 2,200 left the latter in favor of other cities.
Within central Israel, Bnei Brak was found to be the most densely populated city, with 20,680 people per-mile. Bat Yam ranked second, with 15,743 people per-mile.
Positive financial trends
The Central Bureau of Statistics also looked at Israel's finances, its BOP – the balance of payments which measures the payments flow between Israel and all other countries, its international debt and import-export standings.
Israel's BOP surplus in 2007 came to $4.5 billon. Israel's international debt – comprised of credit lines and loan given to Israeli businesses, importers and various financial holdings abroad came to $44.6 billion.
Israel's strongest exports in 2007 were software, computer and research and development services, which made up 51%. Israel's international debt has been steadily declining since 1995.
In 2007, the lion's share of Israeli exports stemmed from services' exports. Software, computer and research and development services made up 51% of Israel's exports, 40% of exports are subsidiary-derived, construction and equipment services came to 8.6% and licensing fees made up 6%. Israel, said the CBS, exports services mostly to the United States (45%).
In 2007, Israel imported goods mostly from the US, China, Russia, Japan, South Africa, the Ukraine, Malaysia and Indonesia.
'Settlements aren't the biggest problem'
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017403575&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
During a Friday UN Security Council meeting called at the request of Arab states to deal with the sole issue of Israeli settlement-building in Palestinian territory, Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asked the Security Council to save the faltering Middle East peace process by demanding an end to Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reminded the Council that "just one year ago, there was no peace process," and noted that Israel and the Palestinians continue their negotiations, along with many other partners. She said US President George W. Bush had met with Abbas on Thursday, and that she would be meeting him later Friday.
Rice also noted that the recognized format for discussion of the Middle East peace process is the Quartet, the working partnership of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union.
"The Quartet is the proper forum for those negotiations," she pointedly told the council.
Abbas said that "A definite end must be put to settlement diplomacy."
Saudi Prince Saud Al-Faisal said the settlement problem is the "one issue that threatens to bring down the whole peace process."
He said that addressing it was the only way to save the peace deal brokered in Annapolis, Maryland, early this year by Bush Administration, with the goal of achieving a substantive peace accord by the end of 2008.
For months, the United States had successfully kept Palestinian issues out of the Security Council, giving room for private discussions between Israel and the Palestinians to work.
Friday's debate seemed to signal that time had run out for the quiet back-door talks favored by the Annapolis process.
Before the meeting, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters that the United States and some other nations had objected to Friday's open debate, but that Washington had bowed to the inevitable and let the meeting take place.
Saud called on Israel to "cease all settlement activity including the issuance of permits."
Now the Bush administration is winding down into its final months before a new president is inaugurated in January, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has resigned in a corruption scandal. Olmert remains caretaker prime minister until his successor as head of the ruling Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, forms a coalition.
Amr Moussa, speaking for the Arab League, noted that "there are only three months left in the year 2008 and there is no sign" of a Palestinian state emerging.
New Israeli UN ambassador Gabriela Shalev replied that a stranger visiting the UN might suppose from the debate that Hamas violence, missile attacks fired over Israel's border, the buildup of Hizbullah forces in Lebanon and Iran's nuclear ambitions posed no problem to the Mideast peace process.
"While settlements remain a delicate issue, they are not the principal one," she said.
"We in Israel are committed to a two-state solution," Shalev said. "We continue to negotiate with the Palestinian president."
"Israel is prepared, if the conditions arrive, to make painful concessions" on the settlement issue. she said.
Israel on high alert for mass-casualty strikes
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_israel0557_09_25.asp
Israel's military has been placed on high alert following an airline bomb scare and reports of other threats.
Officials said the intelligence community has warned of an imminent attack by either Al Qaida or Hizbullah against Israel. They said the Islamic insurgency could be planning the hijacking of an Israeli passenger jet that would then be crashed into an Israeli residential area.
"There is an assessment that something very bad will take place over the next few weeks, perhaps over the Jewish holidays," an official said.
On Sept. 24, the Israeli military was ordered on high alert following a bomb scare involving an El Al passenger jet. Security officials received information that a bomb had been placed on plane scheduled to arrive at Ben-Gurion International Airport from Paris that evening.
Israel Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighters escorted the El Al jet once it entered Israeli air space. The passenger plane landed at 8 p.m. and was searched by a bomb disposal unit.
"The bomb threat was found to be baseless," the military said.
Hours earlier, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened a Cabinet committee to discuss reports of imminent threats against Israeli interests abroad. The National Security Council has warned of Al Qaida and Hizbullah plots to abduct or kill Israelis.
"Government bodies are making every effort to map the threats and warn against them," a Cabinet statement said. "However, it is the responsibility — first and foremost — of every citizen who travels abroad to keep far away from dangerous areas and to take obligatory precautions."
Officials said Hizbullah was coordinating with Al Qaida and Hamas to abduct Israeli tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. They said the abduction plot was one of several Hizbullah options designed to avenge the assassination of operations chief Imad Mughniyeh in February 2008.
Another threat was said to stem from Palestinian insurgents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On Sept. 19, four Palestinians infiltrated a major Israel Air Force base in the Negev desert without being detected.
Officials acknowledged that the Palestinians, later identified as residents of the Hebron area who sought employment, bypassed chain link fences, video cameras and patrols to enter the Nevatim air base. Israeli officers and airmen saw the Palestinians wander through air and weapons hangers, but failed to inform security forces.
In the end, an Israeli contractor reported the Palestinians to the base commander. The Palestinians were arrested by police. "This incident will be investigated in depth by the air force, and lessons will be learned to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future," a military spokesman said.
Hamas plotting West Bank takeover in early 2009
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_palestinians0554_09_24.asp
The Palestinian Authority has opted for a holding pattern rather than developing a strategy to block the opposition Hamas movement from seizing power in the West Bank.
PA security sources said PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has refused to respond to appeals by senior officers to implement a range of measures to protect the Fatah-aligned regime from Hamas threats.
"Abu Mazen [Abbas] is scared of Hamas," a senior source said. "He does not want to provoke Hamas."
The PA has assessed that Hamas could not topple the Abbas regime. Senior officials said that unlike the Gaza Strip, Hamas does not have sufficient forces to sustain a rebellion in the West Bank.
"Hamas does not have real power in the West Bank and Israel is exaggerating its strength," PA National Security Force commander Maj. Gen. Diyab Al Ali said. "We are ready to control the West Bank cities and maintain security if Israel withdraws from them and this will make it easier for us to obtain our demands from Israel."
But security sources said Hamas could destabilize the PA to the point where senior officials either flee the West Bank or stay home. The sources said this could include Abbas, who has often threatened to quit.
The sources said Hamas has been working with Iran and Syria in a campaign to undermine the Abbas regime in 2009. They said the Hamas effort was being planned in the Gaza Strip by military chief Ahmed Jaabari.
In 2008, the PA arrested about 400 Hamas members in the West Bank and closed four Hamas charities. All but about 120 have been released.
On Sept. 22, PA forces raided the Hebron office of a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, identified as Samira Al Halayka,. Hebron has been the latest target of a PA crackdown on Hamas.
The sources said Hamas was believed to have organized assassination and sabotage squads that could attack the PA after January 2009, when Abbas's term was scheduled to end. Abbas was said to have agreed to a U.S. request to remain in power after January.
Are these our future allies? Iraq may execute MP for crime of visiting Israel
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017356383&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi's troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state - something Iraq's leaders refuse to consider.
The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel - a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party's sole seat in parliament.
Because he had visited Israel, many Iraqis assume the maverick legislator was the real target of the assassins who killed his sons in 2005 while he escaped unharmed.
Now he is in trouble for again visiting Israel and attending a conference a week ago at the International Institute for Counterterrorism.
"He wasn't set to speak, but he was in the audience and conversed with a lecturer on a panel about insurgency and terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel," said conference organizer Eitan Azani. "We didn't invite him. He came on his own initiative."
Al-Alusi has a German passport, allowing him to travel without visa restrictions imposed on other Iraqis. Lawmakers accused him of humiliating the nation with a trip to the "enemy" state.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called the reaction to al-Arusi's visit "very distressing" and said it was sad this was the response to someone who merely visited Israel and was interested in a dialogue with it.
"It is very unfortunate that the reaction was so violent and aggressive," he said. "It adds nothing."
Palmor said Israel was appreciative of al-Alusi's "courage," and that the reactions to his visit were an example of the extremism that was plaguing that country and leading to so much bloodshed there.
The uproar shows how far Iraq has moved from the early US goal of creating a democracy that would make peace with Israel and remove a critical force from the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The US Embassy declined comment. "It is an issue for the Iraqi parliament, not the US Mission to Iraq," said spokesman Armand Cucciniello.
"What has happened was a catastrophe for democracy," Al-Alusi told The Associated Press in an interview in his Baghdad home. "Within an hour's time, the parliament became the policeman, the investigator, the judge, the government and the law. It was a sham trial."
Al-Alusi said he went to Israel to seek international support for Iraq as it struggles against terrorism, and insisted that the outcry reflected Iranian meddling in Iraq's internal affairs - an accusation often leveled by Sunnis like himself against Iraq's mostly Shi'ite neighbor.
"Iran is behind Hamas and Hizbullah and many other terrorist organizations. Israelis are suffering like me, like my people. So we need to be together," he said. "Peace will have more of a chance."
Iraq sent troops to three Arab wars against Israel, and fired Scud missiles at it in the 1991 Gulf War. It remains technically at war with the Jewish state. Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community has shriveled to just a few people, most having fled after Israel was established in 1948.
Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/25/iran.israelandthepalestinians1
Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.
The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush's trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state's founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. "He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they were at the moment, and that the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office", they added.
The sources work for a European head of government who met the Israeli leader some time after the Bush visit. Their talks were so sensitive that no note-takers attended, but the European leader subsequently divulged to his officials the highly sensitive contents of what Olmert had told him of Bush's position.
Bush's decision to refuse to offer any support for a strike on Iran appeared to be based on two factors, the sources said. One was US concern over Iran's likely retaliation, which would probably include a wave of attacks on US military and other personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as on shipping in the Persian Gulf.
The other was US anxiety that Israel would not succeed in disabling Iran's nuclear facilities in a single assault even with the use of dozens of aircraft. It could not mount a series of attacks over several days without risking full-scale war. So the benefits would not outweigh the costs.
Iran has repeatedly said it would react with force to any attack. Some western government analysts believe this could include asking Lebanon's Shia movement Hizbollah to strike at the US.
"It's over ten years since Hizbollah's last terror strike outside Israel, when it hit an Argentine-Israel association building in Buenos Aires [killing 85 people]", said one official. "There is a large Lebanese diaspora in Canada which must include some Hizbollah supporters. They could slip into the United States and take action".
Even if Israel were to launch an attack on Iran without US approval its planes could not reach their targets without the US becoming aware of their flightpath and having time to ask them to abandon their mission.
"The shortest route to Natanz lies across Iraq and the US has total control of Iraqi airspace", the official said. Natanz, about 100 miles north of Isfahan, is the site of an uranium enrichment plant.
In this context Iran would be bound to assume Bush had approved it, even if the White House denied fore-knowledge, raising the prospect of an attack against the US.
Several high-level Israeli officials have hinted over the last two years that Israel might strike Iran's nuclear facilities to prevent them being developed to provide sufficient weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied having such plans.
Olmert himself raised the possibility of an attack at a press conference during a visit to London last November, when he said sanctions were not enough to block Iran's nuclear programme.
"Economic sanctions are effective. They have an important impact already, but they are not sufficient. So there should be more. Up to where? Up until Iran will stop its nuclear programme," he said.
The revelation that Olmert was not merely sabre-rattling to try to frighten Iran but considered the option seriously enough to discuss it with Bush shows how concerned Israeli officials had become.
Bush's refusal to support an attack, and the strong suggestion he would not change his mind, is likely to end speculation that Washington might be preparing an "October surprise" before the US presidential election. Some analysts have argued that Bush would back an Israeli attack in an effort to help John McCain's campaign by creating an eve-of-poll security crisis.
Others have said that in the case of an Obama victory, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, the main White House hawk, would want to cripple Iran's nuclear programme in the dying weeks of Bush's term.
During Saddam Hussein's rule in 1981, Israeli aircraft successfully destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak shortly before it was due to start operating.
Last September they knocked out a buildings complex in northern Syria, which US officials later said had been a partly constructed nuclear reactor based on a North Korean design. Syria said the building was a military complex but had no links to a nuclear programme.
In contrast, Iran's nuclear facilities, which are officially described as intended only for civilian purposes, are dispersed around the country and some are in fortified bunkers underground.
In public, Bush gave no hint of his view that the military option had to be excluded. In a speech to the Knesset the following day he confined himself to telling Israel's parliament: "America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.''
Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, tonight reacted to the Guardian's story saying: "The need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is raised at every meeting between the prime minister and foreign leaders. Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to this issue but all options must remain on the table. Your unnamed European source attributed words to the prime minister that were not spoken in any working meeting with foreign guests".
Three weeks after Bush's red light, on June 2, Israel mounted a massive air exercise covering several hundred miles in the eastern Mediterranean. It involved dozens of warplanes, including F-15s, F-16s and aerial refueling tankers.
The size and scope of the exercise ensured that the US and other nations in the region saw it, said a US official, who estimated the distance was about the same as from Israel to Natanz.
A few days later, Israel's deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, told the paper Yediot Ahronot: "If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The window of opportunity has closed. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear programme."
The exercise and Mofaz's comments may have been designed to boost the Israeli government and military's own morale as well, perhaps, to persuade Bush to reconsider his veto. Last week Mofaz narrowly lost a primary within the ruling Kadima party to become Israel's next prime minister. Tzipi Livni, who won the contest, takes a less hawkish position.
The US announced two weeks ago that it would sell Israel 1,000 bunker-busting bombs. The move was interpreted by some analysts as a consolation prize for Israel after Bush told Olmert of his opposition to an attack on Iran. But it could also enhance Israel's attack options in case the next US president revives the military option.
The guided bomb unit-39 (GBU-39) has a penetration capacity equivalent to a one-tonne bomb. Israel already has some bunker-busters.
US-Russian deal lets Iran's nuclear bomb program off the hook
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5616
Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 was the day the policy pursued by Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, of reliance on the international community to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb, sank without a trace. The international community declined to adopt fresh economic sanctions to rein in an increasingly defiant Tehran.
A deal between the US and Russia in New York sealed a very brief non-sanctions draft reaffirming previous council decisions for the five permanent Security Council members and Germany to table. It also called for Iran's compliance.
This ignored the reality of Iran openly flouting all three previous sanctions resolutions: Tehran continues to enrich uranium, reprocess plutonium, build nuclear-capable missiles and stonewall on International Atomic Energy Agency's questions and inspections.
Even the usually forgiving IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei changed his tune and admitted Thursday that Iran was on its way to "mastering technology that would enable it to build atomic bombs."
Yet no comment has come from Israel, either from the Kadima-nominee for prime minister Tzipi Livni or defense minister, Labor's Ehud Barak, although ElBaradei was clearly preparing the ground to raise his hands and admit failure in stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon capability. The world would have to swallow the pill.
This acceptance was reflected in the West's backing down on a fourth round of sanctions. Iran, free of fear of retribution, may go forward with its first underground nuclear test some time next year, flaunting the inability of its arch-foes, America and Israel, to prevent it attaining the status of first Islamic nuclear power.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could therefore afford to be cockier than ever when he addressed the UN General Assembly in Nazi-style anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-American language. Tehran would ignore any council demand imposed by "arrogant powers" to curb its nuclear program, he declared. The issue was closed.
The Iranian leader can afford to crow. This week he won solid backing from Iran's ultimate power, supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who called on the nation to give him their support.
This cleared the way for Ahmadinejad's re-election as president next year and enable him to continue to shepherd the national nuclear weapons program through to completion.
He certainly picked up the gap in perception of the program between Israel and the world powers. While Israeli spokesman still refer to a future threat which there is still time to stop, most world leaders appear reconciled to its presence.
The collapse of Israel's foreign policy on this issue came at an unfortunate juncture:
1. The pandemonium in the US-led financial world has removed the Iranian threat from international consciousness.
2. Moscow, Iran and Syria are cementing their partnership, giving Tehran's nuclear aspirations a strong diplomatic umbrella.
Moscow is pursuing cold war tactics in two new spheres: the Middle East, from its center of gravity in Tehran, and Latin America, resting on Venezuela's anti-American posture and friendly relations with Iran.
Israel's foreign policy, lame and defensive at the best of times since Livni took over, appears as oblivious as ever to the disastrous developments pressing down on the Jewish state.
Emergence of Islamic Single Currency
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75856
On Wednesday, finance chiefs of five of the six-member, oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council approved a proposal to create a monetary union as a move toward adopting a single currency, according to the AFP.
The six Islamic states constituting the Gulf Cooperation Council are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Oman pulled out of the agreement last year.
Five states in the compact have agreed to set 2010 as the target date for the creation of a monetary union and the adoption of common currency.
The emergence of an Islamic single currency among these oil-rich Middle Eastern countries marks a significant step in the emerging worldwide movement to abandon national currencies in favor of regional currencies, along the model where the EU states have abandoned their national currencies in favor of the European Central Bank and the euro.
In 2002, the finance ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council states sought out the assistance of the European Central Bank, as the model for their single currency, according to BBC reports.
The council was created in 1981 to promote the development of the member countries.
The monetary union will entail the creation of a central bank to issue the single currency.
At the Wednesday meeting in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah, the finance and economy ministers reviewed the European Union's response to the council's view on eliminating obstacles that have blocked a long-stalled free trade agreement with the EU.
Progress was also made on key convergence factors required to underpin the common currency, including setting the ratio of budget deficit and public debt to the gross domestic product, target interest rates and reserve requirements. Progress yet remains in reaching a consensus on inflation, the last remaining stumbling block to creating the common currency.
International Monetary Fund Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who met with the Gulf Cooperation Council finance ministers in Jeddah, hailed the move by the Gulf states toward economic integration, though he continued to express doubts the single currency would be adopted within two years.
"Achieving monetary union by 2010 will be a major challenge, as much remains to be done to enable the creation of a single currency within two years," Straus-Kahn. "Overcoming the current inflationary pressures, developing a clear vision of the powers of the future common central bank, choosing an exchange regime of the common currency, and harmonizing financial regulations and structures will be critical in this process."
One factor easing the transition toward a single currency is that the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states all currently peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar.
Violence continues across India
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07633.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - Hindu militants incited by the anti-Christian violence that has been escalating across Orissa since August 23 and angered by allegedly "forced" conversions of Hindus to Christianity attacked more than a dozen churches throughout Karnataka on September 14.
According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India, a mob attacked two church buildings in the village of Puthur, Dakshina Kannada district. Windows, lights, and furniture in one church building were destroyed while the other building was burned. Christians in the town of Talguppa, Shimoga district have received threats of violence from the militants if they continue conducting worship services.
On September 14, two pastors were attacked by Hindu militants in Kanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. Another pastor was beaten by a militant group after he filed a written complaint to the police against the local leader of the group.
A church building was burned down on September 13 by Hindu militants in Indore city, Madhya Pradesh. On September 16, a guard at a convent in Banduha village was shot after he refused to call the nuns inside the convent to come outside.
In the state of Kerala, a building that was used for both kindergarten classes and hosting church services was attacked and windows were smashed on September 14.
Also on September 14, a pastor and other Christians were beaten by Hindu militants when they were gathered for worship in the home of a believer in Talatad village, Jharkhand. The believers were forcibly taken to a Hindu temple were the militants demanded they convert to Hinduism.
A more thorough report by Compass Direct on these incidents can be viewed at tinyurl.com/64l8jn.
Please uphold our brothers and sisters in India during these days of tribulation. Ask God to give the Christians an attitude of forgiveness and love for those who have so openly expressed their opposition to them (Luke 6:29).
For more information on the persecution of Christians in India, go to www.persecution.net/india.htm.
Christians Hold Prayer Rally in India
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/452724.aspx
Thousands of Christians held a prayer rally in New Delhi, India, Friday for those being persecuted by Hindu radicals.
Overnight, in the eastern state of Orissa, Hindu mobs destroyed another church and dozens of Christian homes.
Orissa has witnessed several weeks of deadly anti-Christian violence. At least 20 people have been killed after a Hindu religious leader was shot dead last month.
Hindus have accused Christians of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity.
"The atmosphere in the Kandhamal district of Orissa is still volatile," an attorney visiting Kandhamal with a team to provide legal aid to victims told Compass Direct News.
"Yesterday afternoon, we were going to the Raikia area, but as we were about to reach there, we were informed that a mob had attacked a police station and the police had to open fire. We had to flee Kandhamal right away."
The attorney also said Hindu extremists had destroyed all communication links in Kandhamal, including mobile phone networks, and blocked some roads with trees and stones.
Violence broke out last month after Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati was shot along with four others in an attack in the Kandhamal district.
Although a senior Maoist leader claimed responsibility for the slaying, Hindu groups blamed Christians. Hindu mobs burned down monasteries, churches and an orphanage.
More than 20 prayer halls and houses of worship have been defaced by hard-line Hindu groups in the state.
The New Tower Of Babel - Japan's Elevator To The Stars
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4799369.ece
From cyborg housemaids and waterpowered cars to dog translators and rocket boots, Japanese boffins have racked up plenty of near-misses in the quest to turn science fiction into reality.
Now the finest scientific minds of Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all: the space elevator. Man has so far conquered space by painfully and inefficiently blasting himself out of the atmosphere but the 21st century should bring a more leisurely ride to the final frontier.
For chemists, physicists, material scientists, astronauts and dreamers across the globe, the space elevator represents the most tantalising of concepts: cables stronger and lighter than any fibre yet woven, tethered to the ground and disappearing beyond the atmosphere to a satellite docking station in geosynchronous orbit above Earth.
Up and down the 22,000 mile-long (36,000km) cables — or flat ribbons — will run the elevator carriages, themselves requiring huge breakthroughs in engineering to which the biggest Japanese companies and universities have turned their collective attention.
In the carriages, the scientists behind the idea told The Times, could be any number of cargoes. A space elevator could carry people, huge solar-powered generators or even casks of radioactive waste. The point is that breaking free of Earth's gravity will no longer require so much energy — perhaps 100 times less than launching the space shuttle.
"Just like travelling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into space," Shuichi Ono, chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association, said.
The vision has inspired scientists around the world and government organisations including Nasa. Several competing space elevator projects are gathering pace as various groups vie to build practical carriages, tethers and the hundreds of other parts required to carry out the plan. There are prizes offered by space elevator-related scientific organisations for breakthroughs and competitions for the best and fastest design of carriage.
First envisioned by the celebrated master of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, in his 1979 work The Fountains of Paradise, the concept has all the best qualities of great science fiction: it is bold, it is a leap of imagination and it would change life as we know it.
Unlike the warp drives in Star Trek, or H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, the idea of the space elevator does not mess with the laws of science; it just presents a series of very, very complex engineering problems.
Japan is increasingly confident that its sprawling academic and industrial base can solve those issues, and has even put the astonishingly low price tag of a trillion yen (£5 billion) on building the elevator. Japan is renowned as a global leader in the precision engineering and high-quality material production without which the idea could never be possible.
The biggest obstacle lies in the cables. To extend the elevator to a stationary satellite from the Earth's surface would require twice that length of cable to reach a counterweight, ensuring that the cable maintains its tension.
The cable must be exceptionally light, staggeringly strong and able to withstand all projectiles thrown at it inside and outside the atmosphere. The answer, according to the groups working on designs, will lie in carbon nanotubes - microscopic particles that can be formed into fibres and whose mass production is now a focus of Japan's big textile companies.
According to Yoshio Aoki, a professor of precision machinery engineering at Nihon University and a director of the Japan Space Elevator Association, the cable would need to be about four times stronger than what is currently the strongest carbon nanotube fibre, or about 180 times stronger than steel. Pioneering work on carbon nanotubes in Cambridge has produced a strength improvement of about 100 times over the last five years.
Equally, there is the issue of powering the carriages as they climb into space. "We are thinking of using the technology employed in our bullet trains," Professor Aoki said. "Carbon nanotubes are good conductors of electricity, so we are thinking of having a second cable to provide power all along the route."
Japan is hosting an international conference in November to draw up a timetable for the machine.
Christian converts remain under persecution from Islamic militants
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080923/egypt-s-famous-convert-still-in-hiding-a-year-later.htm
Egypt's most well-known convert to Christianity is still hiding a year after he filed the landmark case to become the first Egyptian Muslim to sue the government for rejecting his application to officially change his religion.
Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, 25, had lost his case in January when an Egyptian judge ruled that a Muslim who converted to Christianity cannot legally change his religious status.
Now, eight months after his case was closed and a year after he filed the case, Hegazy is still hiding for his life.
Since Jan. 29 when the court ruled against him, Hegazy and his wife and baby daughter has had to move five times, according to the persecution watchdog agency, Compass Direct News.
"The verdict for my case was discriminatory [on the part] of the judge," Hegazy told Compass in an interview last month. The judge had based his decision on Islamic law that says someone can convert "up," or to more recent religions, such as from Judaism and Christianity to Islam, but not vice versa.
But even after the media stopped reporting on his case, Hegazy said he still remains a target – as all converts do – of Islamic militants.
During the trial, Hegazy's face was splattered across TV channels and newspapers, making him easy to recognize to any extremists.
"The most difficult thing for me is that the lives of my wife and daughter are in danger all the time," Hegazy said.
He recalled last October that a friend had called and said one of his lawyers had given authorities his address and he should quickly move.
Hegazy and his family moved immediately and within a day the fundamentalists came to attack them. The extremists camped around his former house for several days and set fire to the apartment next door to his, killing the female resident inside.
The female neighbor was his wife's best friend who had helped them during their difficult time in hiding.
"The church denied that she was killed, and it was never reported publicly," he said.
Hegazy dreams that he and his family can leave the country someday, but they do not have passports. Obtaining passports would require them to go back to their hometowns where Hegazy says they will be killed as soon as they arrive.
"Even if it's not family, others will do it, so I can't take that risk," he said.
A convert is "stuck" between the pressure from an Islamic government, Islamic society, and a weak church, Hegazy said.
He doesn't think his case alone can be resolved, but thinks a change is possible if Egyptian converts overseas and in Egypt filed a joint case.
Human rights groups also need to push harder for convert cases, he said.
Egypt has the largest Christian population in the Middle East, which makes up about 10 percent of the country's population.
Moderate Algeria, Jordan New Spots of Islamic Fundamentalism
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080922/moderate-algeria-jordan-new-spots-of-islamic-fundamentalism.htm
Two Muslim-majority countries that traditionally have been respectful of minority faiths were highlighted by the U.S. State Department for their growing religious intolerance.
Sunni-dominated Algeria in northern Africa and Jordan in the Middle East had several reported cases of government imposed restriction on religious freedom, said U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, John Hanford, last Friday at the release of the 10th Annual State Department Report on International Religious Freedom.
In Algeria, there were several arrests and sentences of converts to Christianity, according to Hanford. Also, the government began enforcing a 2006 law that required non-Muslim congregations to hold a permit in order to operate, resulting in a series of forced church closure.
Meanwhile in Jordan this past year, a Shari'a court found a convert to Christianity from Islam guilty of apostasy. The judge then annulled his marriage and declared him to have no religious identity.
The Jordanian government also was reported to harass individuals and organizations because of their religious affiliation.
Hanford, during the event, agreed with the suggestion that Islamic fundamentalists at the grassroots level are having an impact on the two countries.
"In the case of Algeria, this ordinance was passed a couple of years ago but now is being implemented. And so, things are cracking down a little more," Hanford noted.
"And we're particularly surprised in Jordan, where there's been historically so much tolerance that we've seen some people detained and a greater sense of aggressiveness toward minority faiths."
Jordan's King Abdullah II and Queen Rania have been highly-regarded in the global community for their advocacy work with interfaith dialogue.
The State Department highlighted North Korea and Eritrea as the worst violators of religious freedom. It also spotlighted India for its recent surge in Hindu militant attacks against Christians and China and Burma for the use of government forces to squash religious freedom.
The comprehensive 800-page annual report covers 198 countries and territories and focuses on government policies and actions regarding religious freedom. The report is from the period between July 2007 and July 2008.
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