Friday, October 29, 2010

The Rise Of Islamic Correctness

October 18, 2010
Geert Wilders and the Rise of Islamic Correctness
By Andrew G. Bostom

Islamic correctness, which criminalizes any criticism of Islam, is a rising force in the world, and not merely in Muslim-majority countries. Even in traditionally tolerant Holland, a combination of misguided liberal multiculturalism and a fear of violence from immigrants has led to a sometimes farcical prosecution.

This past Friday (10/15/10), Dutch prosecutors asked the presiding judges to acquit Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders on all charges of inciting hate and discrimination arising from his comments on Islam.

Wilders was unsurprisingly "very happy" with the prosecutors' recommendations, adding with his usual plainspoken lucidity, "I do not insult, I do not incite to hatred, I do not discriminate. The only thing I do and will continue to do is to speak the truth."

However, former U.S. federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy underscores an important caveat regarding the presiding judges: they could ignore the recommendations of the Dutch prosecutors and convict Wilders when they deliver their verdict next month. McCarthy reminds us that the Dutch prosecutors never desired to charge Wilders, but they were in effect "overruled" by the Dutch judiciary:

    In 2008, the office of the public prosecutor declined to charge him. The lunatic judges are the ones who've been behind this all along, representative as they are of the transnational progressive thinking responsible for having such "crimes" on the books in the first place. In 2009, the Dutch Court of Appeals issued an order essentially overruling the prosecutors and ordering that Wilders be charged.

With refreshing sobriety, Dutch prosecutor Birgit van Roessel argued in her summation that Wilders' statements were made as an integral part of the public debate

    ... about the immigration and integration of nonwestern foreigners, especially Muslims. Standpoints can vary considerably and emotions can run high, but ... it is a debate that it must be possible to have.

And most importantly, Ms. van Roessel further acknowledged that "[m]any of Wilders' statements seemed to denounce Islam as an ideology or its growing influence in the Netherlands, rather than being intended as an abuse of Muslims as a people or group."

During a March 2009 interview with the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby, Wilders had earlier rejected the notion he "hates Muslims" while providing a frank characterization of the totalitarian nature of Islam.

    I have nothing against the people. I don't hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life - economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book - but it's not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state. Islam is totally contrary to our values.

By making this latter claim, Wilders shattered a corrosive modern taboo, enforced rigidly and without forgiveness by cultural relativist politicians and government bureaucrats, as well as influential "savants" in media, academia, and religion.

But Wilders' assessment not only comports with scholarly observations made (primarily) before the advent of the postmodern Western scourge of cultural relativism, it is supported by contemporary hard polling data from 2006/2007 and their more recent follow-up reported February 25, 2009.

At present, overwhelming Muslim majorities -- i.e., better than two-thirds (see the weighted average calculated here) of a well-conducted survey of the world's most significant and populous Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries -- want these immoderate outcomes: "strict application" of Shari'a, Islamic Law, and a global Caliphate. Specifically, the World Public Opinion.org/ University of Maryland poll (released February 25, 2009) indicated the following about our putative Muslim ally nations of Egypt and Pakistan: 81% of the Muslims of "moderate" Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, desire a "strict" application of Shari'a, Islamic Law; 76% of the Pakistan's Muslims -- one of the most important and sizable non-Arab Muslim populations -- also want this outcome. Furthermore, 70% of Egyptian Muslims and 69% of Pakistani Muslims desire the recreation of a "single Islamic state or Caliphate." Elsewhere, I have detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires based upon their doctrinal and historical application, across space and time.

And these concrete data validate eminent Western scholarly appraisals of Islamic despotism, or in modern parlance, totalitarianism.

Most importantly, our uninformed chattering classes across the political spectrum need to know that their eminence grise on Islamic civilization, Professor Bernard Lewis, and outspoken Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders have a shared understanding of totalitarian Islam. Ironically, Wilders has been demonized -- and is currently being prosecuted -- for expressing views identical to those the Western sage of Islam Lewis put forth in a 1954 essay.

Over a half century later, during his keynote address to the first Conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa in April 2008, Professor Lewis warned of the ominous limits on scholarly analysis of Islam imposed by political correctness and multiculturalism:

    The degree of thought control, of limitations on freedom of speech and expression is without parallel in the Western world since the eighteenth century and in some cases longer than that...It seems to me it's a very dangerous situation, because it makes any kind of scholarly discussion of Islam, to say the least, dangerous. Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.

The politicized prosecution of Geert Wilders for his free-speech criticism of Islam is a case study illustrating Professor Lewis' gravest concerns. Most notably, Professor Lewis in a 1954 essay, "Communism and Islam," expounded upon the quintessence of totalitarian Islam and how it was antithetical in nature to Western democracy while sharing important features of Communist totalitarianism -- in particular, global domination via jihad.


    I turn now from the accidental to the essential factors, to those deriving from the very nature of Islamic society, tradition, and thought. The first of these is the authoritarianism, perhaps we may even say the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition... There are no parliaments or representative assemblies of any kind, no councils or communes, no chambers of nobility or estates, no municipalities in the history of Islam; nothing but the sovereign power, to which the subject owed complete and unwavering obedience as a religious duty imposed by the Holy Law...For the last thousand years, the political thinking of Islam has been dominated by such maxims as "tyranny is better than anarchy," and "whose power is established, obedience to him is incumbent."

    [Islamic Religious and Communist Party leaders] profess a totalitarian doctrine, with complete and final answers to all questions on heaven and earth...[in]contrast [to]the eternal questioning of Western man. ...[T]he aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same. The humorist who summed up the Communist creed as "There is no God and Karl Marx is his Prophet'" was laying his finger on a real affinity..[t]he call to a Communist Jihad, a Holy War for the faith-a new faith, but against the self-same Western Christian enemy.

Geert Wilders' keen if blunt conceptions articulate contemporary realities while restating seminal insights on Islam by the universally respected scholar Bernard Lewis, whose written observations from 1954 antedated the present-day morbid affliction of cultural relativism. At present, the tragic rejection of freedom of conscience by mainstream Islamic religious and political institutions representing all Muslim nations, and the global Islamic umma -- a living sine qua non of Islamic totalitarianism -- provide irrefragable confirmation that Wilders' characterization of Islam as a totalitarian ideology is accurate.

Let us hope that the outrageous proceedings against Geert Wilders have pushed the Western freedom-stifling agenda of Islamic correctness too far and that his ultimate acquittal marks the beginning of an unrestrained political debate on the dangers of totalitarian Islam.

Department of Homeland Security Hires Islamist

DHS swears in an Islamist

Elections have consequences

On the weekend before the crucial mid-term elections, we bring you the juxtaposition of two recent events.

First, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in three new members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council—one of whom, Mohamed Elibiary, was a speaker at a 2004 event honoring the Ayatollah Khomeini!

When a Dallas Morning News reporter exposed Elibiary, Elibiary threatened him. Incredibly, Elibiary is someone Napolitano believes should now be on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Second, two weeks ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an obvious reference to the tidal wave of Muslim immigrants to Germany, made the stunning statement that multiculturalism in Germany has “totally failed.”

This is emblematic of the broader pushback against the rising threat of radical Islam that is occurring throughout Europe—except, as celebrated author Melanie Phillips points out, in Great Britain (see story below).

Europe is beginning to understand the threat of radical Islam. More and more of the American people are beginning to understand the threat of radical Islam. Unfortunately, it is clear that much of the Obama administration, as illustrated by Napolitano’s latest blunder, does not.

Elections have consequences. Please remember this when you vote.


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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.7684/pub_detail.asp

October 19, 2010

Britain: Groveling Alone

Melanie Phillips

Angela Merkel has got the point. Multiculturalism has failed, she states flatly, as she surveys western Europe going down under the tide of radical Islam. Rather than liberal society creating the utopia of harmonious cultural pluralism, it is being swallowed whole by the giant predator whose voracious mouth it encourages, in the spirit of tolerance, to open ever wider in the unshakeable belief of western liberals that the jaws about to snap shut around their necks are actually stretched wide in a smile.

All over mainland Europe, a few shoes are belatedly – maybe too late -- starting to drop.

France and Belgium have banned the burqa and other countries are debating doing the same.

Switzerland has banned minarets.

Denmark has imposed ferocious limits on immigration.

In the Netherlands the prosecution in the case against the Dutch politician Geert Wilders for allegedly inciting religious hatred -- through his criticism of Islamic hatred -- has thrown in the towel and asked the judges to acquit him of all charges. See here for an authoritative analysis of the significance of this.

And so what of dear old Blighty, the country which in 1940 stood alone against the threat to democratic life and liberty and the values of western liberalism? Is the shoe of reality starting to drop in the UK too?

A report by Quilliam about City University, central London, states that a hard-line Islamist ideology is being promoted through the leadership of the university’s student Islamic Society, leading to increased religious tensions on campus and to the intimidation and harassment of staff, students and members of minority groups by extremists and increasing the risks of students turning to terrorism.

Ahmadi Muslims in south London have been targeted by Islamists in a hate campaign, and a Muslim woman in Bradford has died after being set on fire (via JihadWatch), underlining the fact that Muslims are themselves front-line victims of Islamic jihadis and sharia law.

And in the Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan continues to chronicle the remorseless takeover of an entire London borough, Tower Hamlets, by the radicals of the Islamic Forum of Europe using intimidation, infiltration and corruption:

According to one of its own leaflets, the IFE – based at the hardline East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets – wants to change the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.’ The group is accused by one of the area’s Labour MPs, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating and ‘corrupting’ his party in a way similar to the Militant Tendency in the 1980s.

The response of other newspapers to what’s going on in Tower Hamlets? As far as I can make out, deafening silence. And what is the response of the rest of the British thinking classes to this and countless other signs of increasing Islamisation and Islamic radicalisation in Britain?

The hitherto resolutely counter-counter-cultural think-tank Civitas, which in the past has produced some outstanding social and cultural analysis, has just published a set of essays on Women, Islam and Western Liberalism in which one author, Alveena Malik, states that the full-face Islamic veil, or niqab, should be regarded

‘...as part of a modern British way of life.’

She continued: ‘The wearing of religious symbols, including the full veil, should be a fundamental human right of an individual in both the public and private sphere. The real test for religious symbols in the public sphere should always be: “Does the wearing of a symbol (such as the kirpan, turban, yarmulke, crucifix and the veil) hinder a citizen’s ability to perform their public civic duties?”’ Britain is in a ‘unique’ position to embrace such a public display of faith because of the role the church plays in the affairs of the state and its ‘multicultural diversity’.

To be fair, the Civitas pamphlet contains other views which profoundly disagree with this. Even so, the idea that advocating as ‘part of the British way of life’ the niqab, which presents such an obvious danger to security as well as intimidating non-radical Muslim women, inciting religious subversion by serving as a symbolic call to arms against western values and destroying the equality inherent in human interaction by virtue of the simple act that we can all see each other’s faces – the idea that this is, as Civitas appears to suggest, a contribution towards liberal diversity, is simply grotesque.

And here’s the thing: the Telegraph also tells us:

Mrs Malik was appointed by last government to a panel of faith advisers for the Department for Communities. She has overseen British Council guidance on ‘intercultural dialogue’.

It looks horribly like, seventy years on, Britain is now once again alone -- this time, though, not standing but grovelling on its knees before those bent upon the extinction of freedom.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Muslim Brotherhood Declares War On USA

Muslim Brotherhood 'declares war' on U.S.

Analyst compares leader's sermon to bin Laden's pre-9/11 warning

Posted: October 12, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

By Art Moore
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=214245

Five years before the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaida declared war on America, the West, Christians and Jews – and virtually no one noticed.

Now, a longtime observer of Islam is warning that a "war declaration" of potentially much greater significance has been made.

The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badi, who was elected only months ago, has "endorsed anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book," writes Barry Rubin, author and director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal.

The Brotherhood – the dominant Islamic organization in the West that has spawned most of the major Muslim terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, along with the largest "mainstream" organizations – is giving the signal that it is "ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action," says Rubin.

In a sermon published Sept. 30 titled "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny [against the Muslims]," Badi said waging jihad against both Israel and the United States is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded.

The remarks were delivered in a weekly sermon, published Sept. 30 on the Muslim Brotherhood's website and translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Governments trying to stop Muslims from fighting the U.S., he said, "are disregarding Allah's commandment to wage jihad for His sake with [their] money and [their] lives, so that Allah's word will reign supreme" over all non-Muslims.

Rubin concludes: "Let it be said that in September 2010, the Muslim Brotherhood, a group with 100 times more activists than al-Qaida, issued its declaration of war."

He calls the sermon "one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don't fit their policies; and by experts, because they don't mesh with their preconceptions."

The sermon is a signal to the Brotherhood's hundreds of thousands of followers, Rubin says.

"Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West."

Rubin calls Badi's "explicit formulation of a revolutionary program" a "game-changer."

"It should be read by every Western decision-maker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people's lives in every Western country," he writes.

Some U.S. and Western leaders are urging engagement and partnership with the Brotherhood, Rubin notes, because they regard it as moderate. But the movement, founded in the 1920s in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish empire, considers itself an instrument of the charge Muslims were given when Islam was founded 1,400 years ago – to make the Quran and Allah's authority supreme over the entire world.

In a 1991 document titled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," the Brotherhood stated the Muslim community "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

In his sermon, Badi declared Arab and Muslim regimes are betraying their people by failing to confront the Muslim's real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States.

All Muslims are required by their religion to fight, he said: "They crucially need to understand that the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."

Asked by WND to assess Rubin's conclusions, Robert Spencer, author and director of the website JihadWatch.org, said Rubin is right that "war against the West has been the Brotherhood's program, according to captured internal documents, since at least 1982."

"This sermon just crystallizes many of the ideas contained in those documents," he told WND.

Spencer said be believes it's possible that Badi's sermon is a seminal declaration of war comparable to al-Qaida's 1996 declaration.

"It certainly could be," he said, "but I don't see it as all that much qualitatively different from things they've said before. If they were dedicated as far back as 1991 to 'eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,' this doesn't seem to represent a huge departure."

Call to arms

Rubin emphasizes the significance of the remarks coming from Badi. He explains that when a "marginal Muslim cleric" like Britain's Anjem Choudary says that Islam will conquer the West and raise its flag over the White House, the remark can be treated as "wild rhetoric."

"But when the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood says the same thing in Arabic, that's a program for action, a call to arms for hundreds of thousands of people, and a national security threat to every Western country," Rubin says.

Rubin notes the Muslim Brotherhood controls front groups recognized by Western governments and media as authoritative. Government officials in many countries meet with these groups, he says, asking them to be advisers for counter-terrorist strategies and national policies.

Prominent U.S. organizations launched by Muslim Brotherhood leaders include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Students Association, North American Islamic Trust, the Islamic Society of North America, the American Muslim Council, the Muslim American Society and the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR – a self-described civil rights group that has more than a dozen former and current leaders with known associations with violent jihad – is trying to keep alive a lawsuit against WND and two investigators behind the best-selling expose "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."

CAIR's origin as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is documented in "Muslim Mafia." CAIR and some of its leaders were confirmed by the Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted of helping fund Hamas.

Banner of the revolution

Rubin points out President Obama "speaks about a conflict limited solely to al-Qaida," which "makes sense when referring to Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen."

"Yet there is a far bigger and wider battle going on in which revolutionary Islamists seek to overthrow their own rulers and wage long-term, full-scale struggle against the West," he says. "If it doesn't involve violence right now, it will when they get strong enough or gain power."

Three years ago, Rubin published a detailed analysis of the development, explaining that the "banner of the Islamist revolution in the Middle East today has largely passed to groups sponsored by or derived from the Muslim Brotherhood."

The exposure, he writes, "so upset the Brotherhood that it put a detailed response on its official website to deny my analysis."

"Yet now here is the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi giving a sermon entitled, 'How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,'" Rubin says.

Badi's interpretation, he says, is in tune with the stances and holy books of normative Islam.

"It is not the only possible interpretation, but it is a completely legitimate interpretation," he says. "Every Muslim knows, even if he disagrees with the Brotherhood's position, that this isn't heresy or hijacking or misunderstanding."

Friday, October 08, 2010

Trampling The Constitution

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Our Future In Chains: The For-Profit Debtors' Prison System
Michael Edwards
Activist Post

Debtors' prisons have a sordid history that was thought to be best left behind in Medieval Europe and in Charles Dickens' fictionalized accounts of the 19th-century hellholes of Victorian England. America was not to be outdone, debtors’ prisons were widespread in the United States as well, and stories of the conditions in New York's debtors’ prisons could make one question if repayment of debts was really the purpose; violent criminals were much better clothed and fed. In fact, history shows that terror and slavery have always had a close relationship with debt, and it follows a path from the Romans right through to 17th century England, and into America from English common law. However, America chose to abolish her debtors’ prisons a full 36 years before England; first in New York in 1831, and by 1833 the rest of the America had followed.

Now, debtors' prisons seem to be making a comeback in America. A recent article in the Star Tribune in Minnesota titled, "In jail for being in debt," exposes the growing number of citizens going to jail at the behest of banks and a welcoming judicial system.

    They write:
    It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.

In our modern era of debt servitude, a PR Push has been designed to reintroduce a serious discussion of debtors' prisons as a sound solution. What goes beyond alarming is that the full-fledged return of debtors’ prisons might be seen as both appropriately terrifying, as well as a profitable investment opportunity and politically sound decision to be made by state governments struggling with their own looming bankruptcies, and a Federal government struggling politically with the concept of a jobless recovery that is not materializing.

A de facto debtors' prison has already been largely accepted in the case of "deadbeat" parents when a failure to pay child support puts them in civil contempt of court. It is this civil contempt charge that is now beginning to take on an expanded definition to include those who owe for much smaller infractions. When a court order to pay a debt is issued and ignored, it then qualifies as a civil contempt of court. At that point, the judge becomes a literal dictator with the ability to imprison a person indefinitely for the violation. The Constitution explicitly prohibits incarceration for failure to pay debts, but it is the violation of a court order that gives judges free rein to impose draconian punishments. In this way, an end-run around the Constitution can become frighteningly commonplace.

America already has a record-high ratio of people in prison, with no signs of the trend reversing as private corporations like Wackenhut Corporation, referred to as a "Free Market in Human Misery," have long been enlisted to turn government directives into shareholder profit. One might even deign to call it blatant fascism in its purest form, as government legislation leads offenders directly into private company coffers. The prison-industrial complex has already capitalized on government actions like The War on Drugs. A prime example is how The California Correctional Peace Officers Association helped fuel the prison-building boom as a cozy relationship was established on Capitol Hill through influence peddling.

Profiting from the suffering of the poor while bailouts and bonuses await the over-leveraged banksters, car companies, and state governments, sets up a prison-industrial complex with a class warfare component that is the domestic mirror of the military-industrial complex sent abroad. This domestic prison system seems to be the only industry left to build upon, and it is here that things become truly frightening. For the federally-owned prison system complex, Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR), more incarceration means a growing supply of cheap labor and a skewing of unemployment numbers, as these inmates are often doing jobs they couldn't even find if they were job hunting on the outside. But it is the private prison system, with its web fully woven throughout the U.S. government, that stands to profit the most from the return of debtors' admission.

The largest private prison conglomerate in the U.S. is Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which controls more than 47% of all private prison and jail beds nationwide and is able to produce a 13-15% return annually on new real estate investments. Wackenhut (now subsumed into G4S, the largest security company in the world) was of course started by an FBI agent, George Wackenhut, who is famous for developing millions of dossiers on America's "potential subversives" in the sixties, and was exposed as being an integral player within the shadow CIA.

These major security conglomerates are at the top of a growing pyramid of for-profit, international detention center operators that has Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs simply fawning over the solid, long-term investment potential. Similar to war, when there is a profit to be made off of incarceration, only more incarceration can be expected to follow. The U.S. government certainly seems to be working hard to ensure that the numbers of poor continue to increase, as they are well aware that that programs designed to help the downtrodden are an abject failure every time. Furthermore, the massive government debts that must be repaid directly into the hands of the Federal Reserve-led banking cabal must lead us to an inescapable conclusion: More money is to be made from slavery in the United States, than from freedom.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

A Must For Travelers

Support The 2nd Amendment and let the bad guys know they need to move on


A must for frequent Travelers. Hang this on your hotel doorknob and sleep better at night


Traveler's Accessories

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Editorial: Ben Stein

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees... I don't feel threatened.. I don't feel discriminated against.. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu .. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about.. And we said okay..

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben S

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Van Susteren Destroys Allred

'FOX NEWS GRETA VAN SUSTEREN DESTROYS GLORIA ALLRED'


Adios, Sanchez!

CNN host Rick Sanchez came under fire Friday after making controversial remarks the previous day on a satellite radio show.

Sanchez called out Comedy Central host Jon Stewart as a "bigot" for mocking him, and complained that Jews — like Stewart — don't face discrimination. He also suggested that CNN, and perhaps the media industry more broadly, is run by Jews and elitists who look down on Hispanics like himself.

[Related: Stewart to hold D.C. rally to 'restore sanity']

Clearly, those comments didn't sit well with the network, which put out a terse statement around 6 p.m. Friday.

"Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company," the CNN statement read. "We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well."

So far, Sanchez hasn't spoken out about the explosive interview Thursday on "Stand Up! with Pete Dominick." On the radio show, the now-former CNN star didn't just make a single impolitic statement, but spoke at length — for roughly 20 minutes — about Stewart and a media world he believes to be filled with "elite Northeast liberals" who consider Hispanic journalists "second tier." Sanchez is a Cuban-American.

He specifically called out Stewart as someone with "a white liberal establishment point-of-view" who "can't relate to a guy like me." Also, Sanchez claimed that Stewart is "upset that someone of my ilk is at, almost, his level."

Sanchez also has yet to address the controversy via Twitter, where he is a frequent user. He even made the social media platform a signature part of his afternoon show, "Rick's List." Sanchez didn't appear on his 3 p.m. show on Friday, but CNN's public relations department put out word that he was going to be at a book signing at the CNN Center in Atlanta. It's unclear whether he attended it.

Sanchez joined CNN in 2004 after working as an anchor in Miami. Prior to that, Sanchez worked as a correspondent at MSNBC, providing breaking news updates at CNBC, and at other local stations.

CNN plans to air "CNN Newsroom" in the "Rick's List" time slot, weekdays from 3 to 5 p.m.

You can listen to part of Sanchez's rant against Stewart and his dismissive comments about Jews below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101001/bs_yblog_upshot/cnn-fires-host-rick-sanchez-over-controverial-remarks

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Thanks, Mister Obama!

Here is MORE Change You Can Believe In

In September 2010 the Department Of Health And Human Services sent out letters to all who receive help with prescription drugs. The letter bluntly states that as of January 1, 2011 the amount of help one receives will be cut and that means the cost of that person's prescription drugs will double.

This is the Obama health care plan, to rip out the hearts of the indigent and feed them to the wealthy, campaign contributing, pharmaceutical industry billionaires.

Every individual on Medicare will experience this to some extent and many will be living on dog food again. There is probably going to be a major crime wave because of the food stamp cut already in place and many seniors that also get food stamps are now in double jeopardy. My home health nurse friend has been warning people of this for about 10 years now.

So, Thanks Mister Obama, for more of the same damned lies and deceit we have been hearing for so many years. Here is but one of dozens of scathing articles outlining the President's 'budget cuts to pay for reform' (that actually makes no sense) READ THE ARTICLE.