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Monday, March 31, 2008

 

Monday, March 31, 2008

Avoiding Math and Science Like The Plague By Armstrong Williams
Category: Life

Original Article

Take a minute to think about the following: When was the last time you made a mathematical calculation in your head or by hand (yes which means not using a calculator)? Surely, some of you avoid math like the plague – especially when your teenage child comes around looking for help on their math homework – but you must admit that even in this compalculator era it comes in handy to be able to tally your bills in your head or figure out the miles per gallon you’re getting while driving along in traffic.

Surely it seems reasonable to expect that people with high school diplomas and college degrees shouldn’t be afraid of a little algebra. We all took math in school, and although most of us struggled with the subject, and many of us hated every second of it, we did it and we got by. We got by, and it has helped us in some way or another while at college, work, or home. But if you thought math was hard for you, consider how hard your kids have it.

It shouldn’t be hard to understand why most American teenagers struggle with math and other basic subjects like science and English. Schools are overcrowded and rundown, teachers are underpaid and overworked, kids are over-stimulated and cannot focus, and administrators are forced to push testing over learning. The fact is that kids are left behind, and sadly, even when they’re not, they don’t always grasp what we think they do.

So if our high school math and science scores are dropping, our children are dreading these classes, and we ourselves can barely go through the times tables, then why aren’t we demanding real tutelage in math and science? Why is it socially acceptable not to understand fractions, percentages, and exponents, not to mention basic science principles that don’t change with time or opinion? One reason, I submit, is relativism.

Relativism allows everyone to be right, and puts our feelings ahead of everything else. We all know that it is not fun to find out that we are wrong about something, but a part of growing up is learning to cope with this negative feeling and learn from the experiences of failure. It would seem that many people today, however, would prefer to shield themselves and their children from ever being wrong or from feeling that hurt. This is true on the Little League diamond, where every player now makes the team, and in the school classrooms, where every assignment is given a modification to make sure every student can easily get by.

It also seems that children these days prefer not to study very much; I’m not sure if it’s because they are so busy with other things, or they just have been handed so much that the idea of hard work is foreign to them. But whatever the reason, it’s obvious to parents and teachers across America that kids aren’t putting in the effort to excel in math and science. One explanation may be because math and science generally demand specific solutions, meaning either a right or wrong student. So for a lot of kids who are scared to fail, or sadly even scared to try, math and science are just pushed away at all costs. Instead, more kids focus on subjects like History and English which tend to be more philosophical and interpretive which allows for more wiggle room and less hurt feelings. Don’t misinterpret my meaning, subjects like History and English are imperative to education and add great value to society, but they are not the only things our children should be learning. But the fact is that far more people study these subjects because their feelings won’t be hurt like in math or science, where strict guidelines and exact answers are expected. Unfortunately, 20% off will not make a $40 shirt cost $20 no matter how much you ’feel’ that it should; the shirt would still cost you $32. Also, science tells us that it is impossible to hear a bullet, because they travel faster than the speed of sound.

Do you really think that with the brain that either evolution handed down, or God bestowed upon us, we are incapable of learning science and math if we put our mind to it? Absolutely not! We can all learn everything taught in school, it merely requires effort, determination, and perseverance. And once learned it is empowering and enjoyable to utilize these new-learned skills. We must pass along this attitude to our children and demand that lawmakers, teachers, and administrators make math and science a priority in our schools again. Then we must put away our calculators, brush up on our arithmetic, and show our children that even old dogs can break out old tricks. We may not always need math and we may not always like science, but we must always learn and hone these valuable subjects and skills.

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A Truly Endangered Species By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Category: Life

Original Article

So Al Gore is launching a 3-year, $300 million ad campaign to frighten us all into doing what he says (not what he does) to counter global warming. It is a safe bet this spectacular propaganda endeavor will feature prominently polar bears who will be described as endangered species due to the impact of climate change on their ever-less icy habitat.

While there remain serious disagreements about the scientific merits of the Gore crusade, one thing is clear: If man-made greenhouse gases actually are affecting climate change, it will be decades – if not a century – before the effects of such changes translate into widespread dangers to mankind.

In the meantime, the world is increasingly at risk from a far more imminent threat, one Mr. Gore and his ilk seem content to ignore. In fact, the caviling about global warming can be seen as a deflection from a menace that is at hand and that risks turning vast human populations into endangered species: the rapidly metastasizing, totalitarian ideology of our time that has come to be known as Islamofascism or, alternatively, Islamism.

Among those most immediately imperiled by the Islamofascists are Muslims who dare to challenge the repressive, seditious theo-political-legal code that the former describe as "Shariah" and seek to impose on their co-religionists and everyone else. Some of these endangered species cling to and seek to reform their faith. Others, like the estimable Syrian-born psychologist Wafa Sultan, have felt constrained formally to leave it.

All such individuals risk death at the hands of the Islamists on the grounds that they are, respectively, "hypocrites" or "apostates" – capital offenses under Shariah. At the very least, they can be charged with "slandering" Islam, which is also according to the Islamofascists’ rule book a capital crime.

This is hardly an academic point. Dr. Sultan is currently in hiding somewhere in this country after an appearance on March 4th on the Islamofascists’ favorite television network, Al-Jazeera. In the course of a heated debate about the Danish cartoons with an Egyptian Islamist named Tal’at Rmeih, she bravely declared:

"All religions and faiths, throughout the history of humanity, have been subject to criticism and affronts. With time, this has helped in their reform and development. Any belief that chops off the heads of its critics is doomed to turn into terrorism and tyranny. This has been the condition of Islam, from its inception to this day. Islam has sentenced [its critics] to prison, and whoever crosses the threshold of that prison meets his death. The Danish cartoons have managed to break down the first brick in the wall of that prison, and to open up a window, through which the sunrays enter, after a lengthy darkness. The Danish newspaper exercised its freedom of speech. Liberties are the holiest thing in the West, and nothing is more important. But if Islam were not the way it is, those cartoons would never have appeared."

Dr. Sultan added: "If you want to change the course of events, you must reexamine your terrorist teachings, you must recognize and respect the right of the other to live, you must teach your children love, peace, coexistence, and productive work. When you do that, the world will respect you, will consider you in a better light, and will draw you in a better light."

On March 16, one of the world’s preeminent Islamofascists, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi took to the airwaves of Al Jazeera to denounce Wafa Sultan and provide the religious basis for her murder. Qaradawi declared that she had "leveled accusations against Islam and the Muslims, and cursed Allah, His Prophet, the Islamic nation, the Shariah, and the Islamic faith and culture. She did not omit anything. She was insolent and stopped at nothing."

Qaradawi has parlayed his platform as the host of Al Jazeera’s popular "Shariah and Life" program into a prominence in the Muslim world that makes such statements life-threatening to those he criticizes. In a 2004 interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, the sheik ordered those who strayed from Islam to be put to death. He has also described "the abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq as a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately" and supported suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

Al Jazeera thought it wise to apologize for allowing Wafa Sultan to appear. Dr. Sultan has been subjected to death threats and she and her family have been forced to conceal their whereabouts.

What makes this story the more appalling is that such a man and his colleagues at the European Council for Fatwa and Research have been engaged by prominent commercial institutions to serve as "Shariah advisors" in connection with the latters’ "Shariah-Compliant Finance" operations. In that capacity, they not only have a say in where capital and credit flow in Western economies. They are also able to advance the legitimization of Shariah and to engage in what these Muslim Brotherhood types have called "financial jihad."

During the Cold War, a great Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson led the effort to help protect that era’s most endangered species – Soviet dissidents – by publicizing their plight and penalizing their oppressors. Today, we must do at least a much for our era’s refuseniks, the Wafa Sultans here and elsewhere, for their fates are truly tied to our own.


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Questions that Bother Oprah and Today’s New Age Thinkers By Frank Pastore
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Original Article

I have a few questions—but they are not about whether Oprah Winfrey, Eckhart Tolle or Marianne Williamson are good, smart and nice people. I’m sure they are. My concern is about the ideas they hold—since good, smart, nice people can hold false beliefs and be wrong about all kinds of things. Sometimes, even the most important things.

I have questions about their worldview.

A worldview is made up of the answers we give to life’s most fundamental and profound questions. It includes the answers we give to questions of philosophy, religion, ethics and theology. And they are questions that have been asked and answered by every culture in world history.

When comparing and contrasting religions, worldview categories are the most basic level of inquiry.

If you know a person’s worldview, you know a whole lot about them. Oftentimes, you even know more about their thinking processes than they do.

Right now, Oprah is co-teaching an online class with author Eckhart Tolle, based upon her current Book of the Month, his "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose." And, Oprah’s promoting a daily radio show on her XM channel featuring Marianne Williamson teaching from "A Course in Miracles."

Both Tolle and Williamson are New Age thinkers. Oprah says she’s a Christian—arguing that she can reconcile "her" Christianity with what they’re teaching. If she’s a Christian, she’s an ignorant one, because Christianity is incompatible with New Age thought.

Here’s how the two opposing worldviews, Christianity (C), and New Age (NA), answer some of the most basic worldview questions. The New Age answers are ones that would be commonly held, though certainly not universal, as the belief system is loose, eclectic and unique to each individual adherent.

1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

Christianity (C): God created the universe at the moment of the beginning of time, matter and space. Big Bang cosmology and all modern science affirms this.

New Age (NA): The universe is beginning-less, endless, eternal.

2. Does God exist?—and is He personal?

C: Yes, God is personal, and the Bible teaches God is three persons sharing one essence, what Christians refer to as the Trinity. More specifically, God is tri-personal.

NA: Yes and No. Yes, God is an impersonal force that exhaustively fills every atom of the eternal universe: All is God, God is all, God is all of us and God is each of us. No, there is no personal creator called God who is outside of time, matter and space.

3. Who am I?

C: A creation of God.

NA: God.

4. How did I get here?

C: God created man with moral freedom and invited him to join the presence of the Trinity. But man exercised his freedom in rebellion to God, and now only through the work of the incarnate God and second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, can that severed relationship be restored.

NA: Through the infinite process of karma. As God, you are eternal, and have been reincarnating from object to object for trillions of years, and when you ultimately achieve enlightenment, and remember that you are God, you will then lose your individual sense of self and consciousness and become One with the One. (Remember, there is no personal God. God is a force. You must return to being a force.)

5. Why am I here?

C: The Westminster Catechism answers this question beautifully: The chief end of man is "to glorify God and enjoy him forever." I am called to make a decision with eternal consequences: either accept or reject God’s offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. I am also called to help others make a correct choice; to advance the true, the good, and the beautiful; to fight evil and injustice; to work with God at reconciling the world to Himself.

NA: To pay off previous karmic debt gathered over trillions of years.

6. What is the meaning of life?

C: To glorify God.

NA: To achieve enlightenment.

7. What is the true, the good, and the beautiful?

C: God—and his goodness can be seen through his creation.

NA: Since there is no distinction between creator and creation, there can be no distinctions between true-false, good-bad, right-wrong, ugly-beautiful, or pain-pleasure.

8. What is the best life?

C: A life in the full presence of God.

NA: The life immediately before enlightenment, since you will no longer exist as a person once you remember you are God.

9. Who is the best man?

C: Jesus Christ, the Man who never sinned.

NA: "Best" is a nonsensical moral category.

10. Why is there evil, pain, suffering, and injustice?

C: The Fall. Man exercised his freedom in rebellion to God and these are the consequences.

NA: People are paying off their karmic debt. As God, we are responsible for the reality we create for ourselves through our thinking and choices. If we are suffering, it is because we are choosing to suffer. If we think differently we can alter the external world and create our own reality.

11. Why do bad things happen to good people?

C: We live in a fallen world with moral freedom. Evil and sin exist. Men hurt themselves intentionally and accidentally. Our hope is only in God who is able to bring good out of evil.

NA: Karma.

Karma and reincarnation have all kinds of fatal logical problems. Who started karma and reincarnation and why? Who decides what behavior gets rewarded and what gets punished, especially since there are no moral categories? How can there be a "who" to all this when God is a "what," an impersonal force like gravity? How can an impersonal force help you in your relationships, heal your hurts, illnesses and wounds, help with your addictions and bad habits, lead you to confront social evils, poverty, crime, corruption, broken families, broken hearts?

12. Will good or evil ultimately triumph?

C: The resurrection of Jesus proves that good ultimately triumphs over evil.

NA: These are only apparent moral categories, they don’t really exist.

13. Is there life after death?

C: Yes! In either heaven or hell. Our destination is based on our response to the person and work of Christ.

NA: Yes and No. Yes, in that you may have trillions of more reincarnated bodies to inhabit as you pay off your karmic debt before reaching enlightenment. No, in that once you’re enlightened, you will cease to exist, since you will have remembered you’re really an impersonal force that New Age thinkers call "God."

The New Age Movement is intellectually and spiritually bankrupt. But, it is making Tolle and Williamson—and especially Oprah—a whole bunch of money.

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Liberals and Their False Idols By Burt Prelutsky
Category: News and Politics

Original Article

There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together. And I suspect that Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate son doesn’t know, either.

For instance, if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands?

If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our common ground? Doing away with opposite-sex marriages?

If I believe in capital punishment and you don’t, what constitutes a midway point between our positions? Only executing convicted killers whose last names start with the letters between A and M?

One of the most unpleasant things about liberals is the way they tend to place the politicians they endorse on pedestals. Frankly, I have never understood this phenomenon. How is it that so many people turn into besotted teenagers once they decide to vote for someone?

I’m not saying that I don’t like some politicians more than others. I like those who vote the way I want them to and I dislike the ones who don’t. But when you get right down to it, most politicians on either side of the aisle are pretty mediocre human beings. What is their great accomplishment, after all? These are people who have devoted their lives to convincing other people to hand over their hard-earned money so that they can get or keep a job that essentially consists of spending other people’s tax dollars. Often enough to keep the tabloid press occupied, these palookas are caught taking bribes, using drugs and getting involved in sex scandals. In other words, they often behave like the rock stars they aspire to be, even though they can’t sing, cavort around a stage or play a musical instrument.

Politicians, unlike cops, firemen and members of the military, are not called upon to do anything dangerous, heroic or the least bit self-sacrificial. Instead, they build up fiefdoms on your tax dollars, go on junkets around the world, receive the sort of health care only millionaires can dream of and the sort of pensions no working stiff can even imagine.

If they deign to place their names on ghost-written books, millions of you will rush out to buy them, and if they manage to give a speech, also ghost-written, that doesn’t put everyone into a coma, they’re hailed as great orators.

I swear, when I see the ladies gazing up at Hillary Clinton, adoration shining in their eyes, or at the hordes of born-again left-wingers gathered to watch Barack Obama transform water into whine, I feel grateful that I don’t know any of them.

It’s not because I’m a conservative that I haven’t mentioned John McCain. For one thing, most Republicans have no illusions about him. Many of them will vote for him in November for one very good reason; namely, that their blood runs cold at the mere thought of either Democrat being the next commander-in-chief. For another thing, conservatives tend to be realists, and just about the only politician who really excites them is Ronald Reagan, and he’s been dead since 2004.

I don’t happen to think it’s a coincidence that left-wingers are much more juvenile than conservatives when it comes to making idols of politicians. As psychiatrist Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., points out in his new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness," liberals are very much "like spoiled, angry children. They rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from the cradle to the grave."

For over 35 years, Dr. Rossiter has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients and examined nearly 3,000 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. Regarding the sort of liberalism being espoused by Obama, Clinton and their devout worshippers, he states: "A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity, as liberals do. A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population, as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation’s citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state, as liberals do."

Dr. Rossiter goes on to say that the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization; satisfying infantile claims of entitlement, indulgence and compensation; augmenting primitive feelings of envy; rejecting the sovereignty of the individual and subordinating him to the will of the government."

Take that, Hillary and Barack! Take that Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi! Take that, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, Chris Matthews and Barbara Boxer! Take that, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Keith Olbermann and John Murtha!

In summation, Dr. Rossiter writes: "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."

At the risk of burying you all in psychological jargon, suffice to say that the good doctor agrees with my own diagnosis: Liberals are cuckoos.


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For all you singles living on your own
Category: Life

..>Dr Steve Brule  "Living" on FunnyOrDie.com..>

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

American Taxpayers Beware By John Boehner
Current mood: hungry
Category: News and Politics

Original Article

House Republicans have taken a stand against wasteful Washington spending by calling for a complete freeze on all "earmarks" and pork-barrel projects. While our challenge has largely fallen on deaf ears — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, could shut down the earmark process tomorrow if she wanted to — our cause has a strong ally in Sen. John McCain.

Mr. McCain has been a leader in the quest to end pork-barrel spending and has led by example — the senator, like myself, doesn’t request earmarks. He strongly supported a one-year moratorium on all earmarks in the U.S. Senate. And as president, Mr. McCain has promised that any "earmarked, pork-barrel bill that comes across my desk, I’ll veto it."Mr. McCain’s opposition to wasteful spending is a breath of fresh air to taxpayers who foot the bill for congressional spending sprees. Americans aren’t interested in paying for teapot museums, peanut storage and "monuments to me," where congressmen name buildings and other projects after themselves. And with families feeling the pinch of high gas prices and skyrocketing health care costs, they’re certainly not interested in tax increases.

Not surprisingly, Mr. McCain’s Democratic opponents have quite a different record on spending. In 2007 alone, Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York Democrat, earmarked $340 million in taxpayer dollars. Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, earmarked more than $91 million. As recently as last week, both campaigns refused to disclose their full list of earmark requests.

The pressure finally got to Mr. Obama, who released his 2005-06 earmark requests on March 13. His requests include $1 million for a hospital where his wife served as vice president of community and external affairs.

While Mrs. Clinton continues to decline demands that she make her requests public, one nonpartisan watchdog group says the senator landed 360 earmarks from 2002 to 2006. In 2007, Mrs. Clinton admitted to seeking funding for a hippie museum in Bethel, N.Y. Her spokesman has stated flatly that Mrs. Clinton is "very proud" of her earmarks, which cost taxpayers more than $2.2 billion.

Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama received poor marks on the Club for Growth’s 2007 report on pork-barrel spending and government waste. Mr. Obama received a score of 33 percent for his votes against anti-pork legislation, while Mrs. Clinton scored even worse: 11 percent. Another group dedicated to protecting tax dollars, Citizens Against Government Waste, echoed the Club for Growth’s poor rankings. They gave Mr. Obama a lifetime rating of 22 out of 100. Mrs. Clinton received a lifetime rating of 10 out of 100. In other words, taxpayers beware.

Last week, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama both voted for the Democrats’ $3 trillion budget that included the largest tax increase in American history. According to the Associated Press, the budget would raise income taxes "on individuals making as little as $31,850 and couples earning $63,700" to pay for more wasteful spending.

In fairness, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama followed Mr. McCain — and other fiscal conservatives — and signed on as "11th hour cosponsors" of his proposed earmark moratorium.

I know what you’re thinking: Why would two Democrat senators — who have fed at the trough as much as anyone — suddenly support a one-year ban on all pork? Simple: They understand that taxpayers oppose pork-barrel spending, and they’ll say anything to get elected.

Americans aren’t going to buy it. They know that Washington spending is out of control and dramatic change is needed to fix it.

As the year goes on, voters will find out who is really serious about fixing Washington and reforming how taxpayer dollars are spent. Consider that one party is calling for a complete freeze on wasteful pet projects and for a balanced budget that doesn’t raise taxes, while the other is raising taxes and refuses to curb wasteful spending.

Which really represents an attempt to fix Washington? Which represents the status quo? I think the answer is clear.

House Republicans recognize that the failure to control spending helped cost our party the majority. We’ve learned our lesson, and our nominee for president is the one with the record and the commitment to working with us to eliminate wasteful Washington spending once and for all.

The election-year posturing of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama is another example of why neither candidate is fit to be president. Come November, voters are sure to embrace John McCain’s positive vision of freedom, security and an end to wasteful spending.

Currently listening :
40 Acres
By Caedmon's Call
Release date: 13 April, 1999

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Friday, March 21, 2008

The Truth About Everything By Chuck Colson
Current mood: hungry
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Original Article

Easter for many of us is a day of family gatherings and a celebration, not only of Christ’s resurrection, but also the coming of spring. Today, on Good Friday, let’s not rush the celebration before coming face-to-face with the paradoxes that are at the heart of the Christian faith.

Those paradoxes are the subject of a wonderful book Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus written by my friend Father Richard John Neuhaus.

A paradox, as G. K. Chesterton famously put it, is "Truth standing on her head to get attention." Our aversion and resistance to truth is so strong that God often finds it necessary to employ extreme measures to get us to see past the lies we have embraced.

Never was this truer than on what Christians call "Good Friday." As Neuhaus writes, "If what Christians say about Good Friday is true, then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything." That "everything" starts with telling the truth about the human condition. And how does God do that? By paradoxically punishing the offended party, instead of the guilty one.

As Neuhaus tells us, we are all aware that "something has gone terribly wrong with the world and with us in the world." It is not just history’s best-known list of horribles. It is also "the habits of compromise . . . loves betrayed . . . lies excused . . ."

Yet, instead of acknowledging our complicity in the world’s evil, we minimize our own faults and regard our sins as "small." Good Friday puts the lie to that claim. If the Son of God had to suffer such a horrible death, then our sins cannot have been "small."

The Cross reminds us that "our lives are measured," not by us or by our peers, but "by whom we are created and called to be, and the measuring is done by the One who creates and calls." Instead of glossing over our sin with an understanding nod, the Cross renders "the verdict on the gravity of our sin."

Our unwillingness to see our sins as they really are—that is, as God sees them—leads us to embrace another falsehood: that is, that we can make things right. Even though our culture is, in many respects, post-Christian, it still clings to the idea of redemption. However, just as with our ideas about sin and guilt, our ideas about redemption are pitiful and impoverished.

On Good Friday, God made it clear "that we are incapable of setting things right." He made it clear by taking our place. On the Cross, "the Judge of the guilty is Himself judged guilty." This is, of course, the great scandal, one that paradoxically points to the great truth at the heart of Good Friday. We are powerless to set things right, and only God, the offended party, could undo the mess we created.

The Cross—God’s way of bearing witness to the truth about our condition—is as offensive today as it was 2,000 years ago. Now, as then, we insist on misinterpreting the events of that Friday afternoon, but to no avail. Our sin has been judged, and God Himself bore the punishment. And that is the truth about everything.

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Throw Grandma Under The Bus By Ann Coulter
Current mood: sleepy
Category: News and Politics

Original Article

Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we’re not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we’re not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems.

.. -->BEGIN_TEXT-->By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.



US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks during a campaign event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania March 18, 2008. Obama criticized his preacher for racially charged rhetoric but said he could not disown the man who baptized his children and officiated at his wedding during the speech about race and politics in America. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA)

But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people?

As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said -- not about black people, but literally, the exact same things -- I think we’d notice that he’s crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke’s love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming "home to roost.")

Imagine a white pastor saying: "Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God."

Imagine a white pastor calling Condoleezza Rice, "Condoskeezza Rice."

Imagine a white pastor saying: "No, no, no, God damn America -- that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human! God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme!"

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, "Isn’t that cute?" As a post-racial American, I do not believe "the legacy of slavery" gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Obama tried to justify Wright’s deranged rants by explaining that "legalized discrimination" is the "reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up." He said that a "lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families."

That may accurately describe the libretto of "Porgy and Bess," but it has no connection to reality. By Rev. Wright’s own account, he was 12 years old and was attending an integrated school in Philadelphia when Brown v. Board of Education was announced, ending "separate but equal" schooling.

Meanwhile, at least since the Supreme Court’s decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978 -- and obviously long before that, or there wouldn’t have been a case or controversy for the court to consider -- it has been legal for the government to discriminate against whites on the basis of their race.

Consequently, any white person 30 years old or younger has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people. In many cases it’s not just legal, but mandatory, for example, in education, in hiring and in Academy Award nominations.

So for half of Rev. Wright’s 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal -- though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright’s life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.

Discrimination has become so openly accepted that -- in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist -- Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist "old uncle," Rev. Wright. 

First of all, Wright is not Obama’s uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don’t choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with idea that you can’t be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.

But Wright is not a relative of Obama’s at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright’s racist invective to his actual grandmother, who "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama’s grandmother -- who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school -- has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.

Unlike his "old uncle" -- who is not his uncle -- Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama’s grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn’t get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she’s white. Denounce the racist!

Fine. Can we move on now?

No, of course, not. It never ends. To be fair, Obama hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about race.

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Saturday, March 15, 2008

Deadly Trend By Chuck Colson
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Original Article

Sociologist Stefan Timmerman has observed that "Humans in every society studied to date are more likely to be murdered on the day they are born than on any other day of their lives." Timmerman was quoted recently by bioethicist Wesley J. Smith in the online publication To the Source.

Smith rightly claims that while infanticide was commonly accepted in ancient times, only the Jews and the Christians actively opposed it. The strength of their opposition paid off "when infanticide was outlawed by Emperor Valentinian, a Christian, in the 4th century."
So, as Western culture abandons its Christian roots, we ought not to be surprised that infanticide is making a comeback.

Take a look at what is already happening in the Netherlands. In 2004, doctors from Groningen University Medical Center admitted to killing, or "euthanizing," to use the euphemism, dying or profoundly disabled babies. That practice came to be known as the Groningen Protocol.

Under those guidelines, not only are dying infants killed, but so are disabled infants who do not even require intensive care. The criteria for euthanizing a baby are subjective: Either the baby is judged to have no chance of survival; may survive after intensive treatment but with a grim future; or endures "suffering [that] is severe, sustained, and cannot be alleviated." These criteria depend on the doctor’s whim.

So much for the Hippocratic Oath.

By judging which life is valuable or not, doctors are doing precisely what the Nazis did over 60 years ago. The Nazis even had a phrase for this, which translated means "life not worth living"—and not because of the individuals’ suffering, but because of their burden and cost to society.

"As the West loses some of its Biblical moral footing," writes Smith, "there is a new effort to decriminalize infanticide." In fact, he asserts, "the notion is ’positively trendy’." Most notably, of course, is Princeton Professor Peter Singer who has advocated for some time killing disabled infants. But he is not the only one. When the Groningen Protocol was revealed, others began—not condemning it—but, sadly enough, defending it.

Smith noted a New York Times feature and a New England Journal of Medicine report, both giving credence and sympathy to Dutch infanticide proponents. And now the Hastings Center Report, the most respected journal on bioethics, has published another pro-Groningen Protocol article in which the authors not only "support lethally injecting dying babies, but also those who are disabled."

"The article assumes that guidelines will protect against abuse," writes Smith, but, as he points out, "infanticide is by definition abuse." And, as Smith reminds readers, Dutch euthanasia guidelines for adults and teens have been "violated for decades," so why should we expect anything different with infanticide guidelines?

"[W]e are moving toward a medical system," says Smith, "in which babies are put down like dogs and killing is redefined as a caring act."

But this can happen only in a society that has forgotten that every human life is made in the image of God—and, therefore, worthy of protection.

Think worldviews do not matter? Think our Christian heritage is irrelevant? Too bad we cannot ask the infants of Groningen what they think.

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Sunday, March 09, 2008

I Have a Dream: No More Women Abused, Raped, or Murdered - By Doug Giles
Current mood: hungry

Original Article

I'd like to see a nationwide tsunami of ladies equipped to the teeth with the physical prowess and the firearm capability to kill any and all would-be murderers and rapists should such a creeps ever accost them.

I have a dream!



Singer Britney Spears poses on the press line at the Scandinavian Style Mansion party in Los Angeles in this Dec. 1, 2007 file photo. Britney Spears' father and attorney John Eardley who claims to represent the pop star, traded legal barbs Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, in an intensifying fight over whether James Spears is violating his daughter's civil rights by controlling her finances and life. (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg, file)

A dream where girls walk in utter confidence amongst the masturbatory me-monkeys that surround them. A dream where women have solid assurance that they can and will serve some ham-fisted tool his own scrotum if need be.

I have a dream!

A dream where instead of reading about a cute college coed left dead and naked out in a vacant lot or bloated and floating in a river, the story reads, "dead jack ass found double-tapped and dead on the curb as his soul wings its way to hell, all because he messed with the wrong mama."

A dream where it's normal for girls to know Jui Jitsu and mixed martial arts. A dream where they can shoot golf ball sized groups with their .38 at 15ft. A dream where they have a BS detector that's so sensitive they can read people and environments with godlike clarity within a nanosecond.

I have a dream!

A dream where the Johan van der Sloots and all the other Bobbie Cutts-like splooge brained droogies in the midst of us live forever in fear. A dream where parents will raise their daughters to be sweet and deadly dames.

I have a dream where if some douche bag in the name of his stupid religion ever abuses his wife or daughter and God doesn't strike him dead on the spot, that his wife or daughter will. Okay, maybe that's too extreme. How about put him in an irreversible coma?

I have a dream!

A dream where the tide turns in the news cycle and we start hearing reports of molesting men going to an early grave instead of a good girl. A dream where if a girl tells her buddies that a guy is bothering her, her friends scare the living daylights out of him. Can I get a witness?

I have a dream where Christian parents will flush this "turn the other cheek" stuff down the crapper once and for all when it comes to their daughter being assaulted by an autoerotic mook trying to work out his Silence of the Lambs fantasy in real time.

I have a dream!

How did this dream come about? This holy vision came from God in direct response to my prayers over the cultural nightmare women in the US live with now, namely:

• One rape or sexual assault occurring every two minutes

• One violent crime occurring every five seconds

• 172 women being physically and/or sexually assaulted every hour

• 261,000 rapes and sexual assaults occurring in the US in 2006

• 2.8 percent of college women experiencing rape (according to a six-month US Department of Justice study)

• 17 percent of rape or sexual assault victims being victimized by someone they knew

• One murder occurring every 34 minutes

How do I know it was God who spawned this afflatus? It's was easy for me to know it was Him because every time He speaks to me (and it's quite often), it's always in a high-pitched, angry Chinese accent.

In addition to God birthing this vision within me, another factor gave rise to this would-be dream world of mine: I just realized that protective fathers, brothers, friends and bad-ass uncles aren't omnipresent (I know . . . I'm slow. I went to public school), and therefore all girls everywhere have to rely upon themselves as their first line of defense.

Yes, since their gallant male counterparts can't be everywhere at all times to render aid, we've got make certain that our babies know how to leave a bad guy severely inoperative and, if need be, kill them all by their lonesome. That is my definition of "girl power." This is my dream: all girls of every conceivable stripe having the attitude, skill, and force to pulverize a felonious punk.

I'd like see the following:

• One million girls flooding into martial art classes

• One million girls getting handgun training

• One million girls purchasing their own piece and getting licensed to carry it

• One million girls getting a taser for the less egregious attacks (www.shieldher.com)

• One million girls getting a heavy dose of common sense to avoid, as much as possible, dangerous scenarios

This concludes my heavenly vision.

*Not only do I have a dream, I'm writing a book on the topic "How to Keep Thugs and Bad Boys away from Daddy's Little Girl" (Thomas Nelson, Nov. 2008).

Currently watching :
Air Force One
Release date: 10 February, 1998

 Posted 3/31/2008 9:17 PM - 195 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments

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Visit MrPatriot's Xanga Site!

```````

"Real change comes heart by heart,
not election by election,
because our primary problems
are not economic and political
but moral and spiritual."
--Columnist and author Cal Thomas

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Posted 4/4/2008 7:23 PM by MrPatriot - reply

Visit TheRight_to_RemainSilent's Xanga Site!

```````
"God has chosen the man Jesus
to do the judging for him.
God has given proof of this to all of us
by raising Jesus from death."
(Acts 17:31)(CEV)-BibleGateway

"Here is my servant - whom I uphold,
my chosen one - in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him
and he will bring justice to the nations.
Thus saith God Jehovah..."
(Isaiah 42:1)(NIV)(ASV)-BibleGateway

"Here is my servant - whom I have chosen,
the one I love,   in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will proclaim justice to the nations."
(Matthew 12:18)(NIV)-BibleGateway

"For not even the Father judges anyone,
but  He has given all judgment to the Son,
and He gave Him authority to execute judgment,
because He is the Son of Man."
(John 5:22,27)(NASB)-BibleGateway

"And He ordered us to preach to the people,
and solemnly to testify that this is the One
who has been appointed by God as Judge...."
(Acts 10:42)(NASB)-BibleGateway


 "God's sovereignty will be made fully effective
in the future.  God would send a supernatural
intermediary (mediator) - "the Messiah" or
"son of man", whose function would include
a JUDGMENT... Jesus looked forward to the
future for the Kingom's arrival with power."
-The Encyclopedia Britannica; 1968 edition
Volume 13,  pg. 362 - under - "Kingdom of God"


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"God will give to each person
according to what he has done."
(Romans 2:6) (NIV) -BibleGateway
 

".... each will  receive his own reward
according to his own labor. "
(1Corinthians 3:8) (NASB) -BibleGateway
 
 
"....The dead were judged
according to what they had done ...."
(Revelation 20:12)(NIV)-BibleGateway
 

"You see that a man is justified -
pronounced righteous before God -
through what he does
and not alone through faith..."
(James 2:24)(AMP)-BibleGateway
 

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Why is God's Name Missing
From Your Bible ?
(click-here)

```````

Posted 4/6/2008 1:41 PM by TheRight_to_RemainSilent - reply


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