Saturday, August 30, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
American diplomat escapes gun attack in Pakistan
By RIAZ KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The top U.S. diplomat in northwestern Pakistan narrowly escaped an attempt on her life Tuesday when two men with AK-47s jumped in front of her armored vehicle and sprayed it with bullets, staging a brazen attack that raised fears other foreigners could be targeted.
The attack — which the driver eluded by jamming the vehicle into reverse and speeding away — came just hours after the collapse of the governing coalition that drove Pervez Musharraf from the presidency as Pakistan grapples with escalating violence by Islamic militants.
A late nighttime bombing at a cafe on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital killed seven people and wounded 20, police reported.
Lynne Tracy, an Ohio native who heads the U.S. consulate in restive northwestern Pakistan, left her home in an upscale and heavily guarded area of Peshawar with a bodyguard provided by the local anti-terrorism squad about 8 a.m., police chief Arshad Khan said.
Moments later, the vehicle came under heavy gunfire, Khan said. He said no one was hit by bullets but a rickshaw driver was hospitalized after his three-wheeled taxi was hit by the consulate vehicle during its rapid retreat to Tracy's home.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Lou Fintor, declined to identify or describe any of three consulate employees in the vehicle, including where they were from or what role they played in what he would only refer to as a "security incident."
The attack follows a week of extremist violence and political strife in this nuclear-armed nation. There have been at least three suicide bombings, the deadliest outside the country's largest and most sensitive weapons factory, just 22 miles from the capital, Islamabad.
Police said a homemade bomb exploded late Tuesday at a street cafe and rest stop on the edge of the capital and seven people were killed and 20 wounded. The blast also damaged vehicles and left a large crater at the scene.
Senior police official Ahmed Latif described it as a low-intensity bomb and said it was unclear why the site was chosen. The casualties included truckers and laborers and not security forces, which tend to be target of militant attacks, Latif said.
The United States and other Western nations have been nervously watching the ruling coalition unravel since close ally Musharraf resigned last week after nearly nine years in power to avoid the humiliation of impeachment.
A decision by the coalition's second largest party to quit the government Monday could concentrate power in the hands of a more-Western leaning party that says it is committed to supporting the U.S.-led war against extremist groups.
The government immediately announced a ban on the Pakistani Taliban — blamed for the wave of suicide bombings — and it rejected a cease-fire offer from militants in the Bajur tribal region, where the army has been on the offensive for several weeks. The fighting in Bajur has reportedly killed hundreds of people and caused 200,000 to abandon their homes.
Washington has pledged $750 million toward a five-year drive to develop impoverished areas along Pakistan's frontier with Afghanistan, which it hopes will reduce extremism.
Militant activity is rampant in parts of northwest Pakistan, which is a rumored hiding place for Osama bin Laden and where U.S. officials say insurgents have found havens allowing them to mount attacks across the border in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment runs deep, is considered a hardship posting for U.S. diplomats, with many coming for one-year stints without family. Attacks on Western targets do occur, but ones targeting individual diplomats are relatively unusual.
Talat Masood, a political and military analyst, said that could start to change.
"I think (foreign diplomats) have to be very careful" he said, especially as the army intensifies its offensive in the tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan. "They should take a low profile; their movements should be restricted during this period."
Masood cautioned against Western nations scaling back their presence, however, saying that would further embolden al-Qaida- and Taliban-linked militants and demoralize Pakistanis.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack on Tracy and said the government was committed to ensuring the security of diplomats.
Peshawar, a crowded, dusty city, has not been immune from violence. Concerns about militant activity in and around the city prompted the government to conduct an offensive in the neighboring Khyber tribal region earlier this year.
There have been several attacks in recent years on Western targets.
In 2006, a suicide attacker blew himself up outside the Karachi consulate, killing a U.S. diplomat, and five people, including two Americans, died in 2002 when a militant hurled grenades into a Protestant church in Islamabad.
This March, a bombing at a restaurant frequented by Westerners in the capital killed a Turkish aid worker and wounded at least 12 others, including four FBI personnel. A suicide bombing outside the Danish Embassy three months later killed at least six people.
Political instability, meanwhile, caused stock prices in Pakistan to tumble to a two-year low Tuesday.
The main ruling Pakistan People's Party, once led by slain ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is expected to cobble together a new coalition following the departure of its biggest partner, a party headed by Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister and longtime Bhutto rival.
Bhutto's widower and political successor, Asif Ali Zardari, who spent years in prison on corruption allegations, has said he will run for president in the Sept. 6 election by lawmakers. The party submitted his nomination papers Tuesday and he is widely expected to win.
Pakistani officials played down a Financial Times report claiming Zardari had severe mental health problems as recently as 2007, though they acknowledged he had suffered from stress related to alleged torture in prison and separation from his family.
"He only received counseling," said Wajid Hasan, Pakistan's ambassador in Britain and a friend of Zardari's.
"I have spent long periods of time with him in the past two years," Hasan said, adding that recent examinations "showed that he is fit."
The United States has remained publicly neutral in the contest to pick a successor to Musharraf, although U.S. officials have questioned peace initiatives to militants that Sharif supported.
A senior U.S. official confirmed Tuesday that State Department higher-ups were angered to learn that Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, had unusual contacts with Zardari, including multiple recent telephone calls and plans for a meeting next week. The meeting between Khalilzad and Zardari has been canceled, the U.S. official said.
The official insisted on speaking anonymously to describe Khalilzad's confidential conversations and the internal Bush administration reaction, which were first reported by The New York Times.
Associated Press writers Robin McDowell, Nahal Toosi and Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Paisley Dodds in London and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.
9 killed in bomb blast in northwestern Pakistan
By RIAZ KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected militants bombed a van carrying prisoners in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least nine people, as fighting between security forces and extremists flared across the tribal belt.
The violence came just over a week after longtime U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf resigned as president, triggering a scramble for power that collapsed Pakistan's governing coalition.
The party long led by slain former Prime Minister Bena zir Bhutto is now in a position to dominate the government and it is toughening its stance against Islamist extremists.
The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly bold, claiming responsibility for a wave of suicide bombings and gun attacks.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack Thursday, though police said militants were the likely culprit. It happened as a van carrying prisoners crossed a bridge in Bannu, a town in the North West Frontier Province, said Waqas Ahmad, an area police chief.
The dead included police officers and prisoners, said Jalil Khan, another police official. But he could not provide an exact breakdown.
Hours earlier, security forces drove off a Taliban attack on a fort and pounded another band of militants holed up in a health center, officials said Wednesday as fighting spread to new areas in the tribal belt along the Afghan border.
As many as 49 insurgents were reported killed in separate attacks.
Pakistan's 5-month-old government initially sought to calm militant violence by holding peace talks.
But the initiatives have borne little fruit, and U.S. officials have been pressing for tougher action against insurgent groups blamed for rising violence across the border in Afghanistan and in cities further inland.
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Ashraf Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected militants bombed a van carrying prisoners in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least nine people, as fighting between security forces and extremists flared across the tribal belt.
The violence came just over a week after longtime U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf resigned as president, triggering a scramble for power that collapsed Pakistan's governing coalition.
The party long led by slain former Prime Minister Bena zir Bhutto is now in a position to dominate the government and it is toughening its stance against Islamist extremists.
The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly bold, claiming responsibility for a wave of suicide bombings and gun attacks.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack Thursday, though police said militants were the likely culprit. It happened as a van carrying prisoners crossed a bridge in Bannu, a town in the North West Frontier Province, said Waqas Ahmad, an area police chief.
The dead included police officers and prisoners, said Jalil Khan, another police official. But he could not provide an exact breakdown.
Hours earlier, security forces drove off a Taliban attack on a fort and pounded another band of militants holed up in a health center, officials said Wednesday as fighting spread to new areas in the tribal belt along the Afghan border.
As many as 49 insurgents were reported killed in separate attacks.
Pakistan's 5-month-old government initially sought to calm militant violence by holding peace talks.
But the initiatives have borne little fruit, and U.S. officials have been pressing for tougher action against insurgent groups blamed for rising violence across the border in Afghanistan and in cities further inland.
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Ashraf Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
Combat flares in 3rd area of Pakistan border belt
By STEPHEN GRAHAM – 11 hours ago
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani troops drove off a Taliban attack on a fort and pounded another band of militants holed up in a health center, officials said Wednesday as fighting spread to a third area of the tribal belt along the Afghan border.
As many as 49 insurgents were reported killed.
The violence came a week after the threat of impeachment forced longtime U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf to resign as president, triggering a scramble for power that resulted in the collapse of Pakistan's governing coalition.
The party led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto until her assassination last December is now in a position to dominate the government and it is toughening its stance against Islamic extremists at a time when they are becoming increasingly bold.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for a wave of suicide bombings, including one outside the country's biggest weapons complex last week that killed at least 67 people, almost all of them civilians.
Security forces have been waging offensives against militants for several weeks in the northern Swat valley and in the Bajur tribal area, considered a launch pad for Taliban operations into Afghanistan and a possible hideaway for Osama bin Laden.
On Wednesday, fighting spread to South Waziristan, a tribal region that has seen a stream of suspected U.S. missile attacks on al-Qaida hideouts in recent months.
The military said 75 to 100 militants assaulted the Tiarza Fort around midnight Tuesday, but troops guarding the post and a checkpoint on a nearby bridge "responded effectively and repulsed the attack."
Its statement said 11 militants were killed and up to 20 wounded, but made no mention of any casualties among the troops. Spokesmen for insurgent groups could not be contacted to discuss the government's claim.
Aminullah Wazir, a shopkeeper in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, said authorities imposed a curfew in the area Wednesday. He said shops were shuttered and the streets deserted.
"We heard shelling and gunfire almost all night," Wazir told The Associated Press by telephone.
The fiercest battles in Pakistan's restive northwest have been in Swat and Bajur, where officials say hundreds of militants have been killed by military operations and some 200,000 residents have fled their homes to escape the violence.
In the deadliest incident Wednesday, troops rained gunfire and artillery shells on militants sheltering in a health center in Bajur, killing as many as 30 and wounding many more, said a military spokesman, Maj. Murad Khan.
Security forces estimated the toll with the help of intercepted radio traffic among the insurgents, he said.
Police said an additional eight militants were killed and 10 wounded when troops fired on suspect vehicles in two areas of Bajur early Wednesday.
Later in the day, militants ambushed a government convoy near Wana. Khan said there were several casualties, without giving details. But an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said two paramilitary troopers were killed and several others were missing.
Pakistan's 5-month-old government initially sought to calm militant violence by holding peace talks. But the initiatives have borne little fruit, and U.S. officials have been pressing for tougher action against insurgent groups they blame for rising violence across the border in Afghanistan.
In addition to a string of suicide bombings in the last week, gunmen fired at the car of a senior U.S. diplomat in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday and a bomb killed seven people at a roadside restaurant near Islamabad, the capital.
Pakistanis and the country's Western backers worry the political turmoil since Musharraf's ouster after nine years in power is distracting the government from dealing with militants as well as taking steps to shore up the flagging economy.
On Wednesday, the Karachi stock exchange's benchmark 100-share index fell 3 percent. The index has slid more than 40 percent since April and stands at its lowest level in more than two years.
Lawmakers are to elect a new president Sept. 6. Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower and the current leader of her party, which has the biggest block of seats in parliament, is widely expected to win.
Critics have questioned Zardari's suitability in light of a Financial Times report that his lawyers told a London court that he suffered from serious mental problems.
Zardari's party said he had suffered great stress during his confinement in Pakistani jails on corruption charges, but is now fully fit to lead the country.
Pakistan's second biggest party, headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which bolted the governing coalition Monday, said Wednesday that a "patient" shouldn't be allowed to run for president.
"Similarly, if a sitting president suffers from such mental and psychological problems, constitutionally he cannot retain his office," said the spokesman for Sharif's party, Sadiqul Farooq.
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Ashraf Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani troops drove off a Taliban attack on a fort and pounded another band of militants holed up in a health center, officials said Wednesday as fighting spread to a third area of the tribal belt along the Afghan border.
As many as 49 insurgents were reported killed.
The violence came a week after the threat of impeachment forced longtime U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf to resign as president, triggering a scramble for power that resulted in the collapse of Pakistan's governing coalition.
The party led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto until her assassination last December is now in a position to dominate the government and it is toughening its stance against Islamic extremists at a time when they are becoming increasingly bold.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for a wave of suicide bombings, including one outside the country's biggest weapons complex last week that killed at least 67 people, almost all of them civilians.
Security forces have been waging offensives against militants for several weeks in the northern Swat valley and in the Bajur tribal area, considered a launch pad for Taliban operations into Afghanistan and a possible hideaway for Osama bin Laden.
On Wednesday, fighting spread to South Waziristan, a tribal region that has seen a stream of suspected U.S. missile attacks on al-Qaida hideouts in recent months.
The military said 75 to 100 militants assaulted the Tiarza Fort around midnight Tuesday, but troops guarding the post and a checkpoint on a nearby bridge "responded effectively and repulsed the attack."
Its statement said 11 militants were killed and up to 20 wounded, but made no mention of any casualties among the troops. Spokesmen for insurgent groups could not be contacted to discuss the government's claim.
Aminullah Wazir, a shopkeeper in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, said authorities imposed a curfew in the area Wednesday. He said shops were shuttered and the streets deserted.
"We heard shelling and gunfire almost all night," Wazir told The Associated Press by telephone.
The fiercest battles in Pakistan's restive northwest have been in Swat and Bajur, where officials say hundreds of militants have been killed by military operations and some 200,000 residents have fled their homes to escape the violence.
In the deadliest incident Wednesday, troops rained gunfire and artillery shells on militants sheltering in a health center in Bajur, killing as many as 30 and wounding many more, said a military spokesman, Maj. Murad Khan.
Security forces estimated the toll with the help of intercepted radio traffic among the insurgents, he said.
Police said an additional eight militants were killed and 10 wounded when troops fired on suspect vehicles in two areas of Bajur early Wednesday.
Later in the day, militants ambushed a government convoy near Wana. Khan said there were several casualties, without giving details. But an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said two paramilitary troopers were killed and several others were missing.
Pakistan's 5-month-old government initially sought to calm militant violence by holding peace talks. But the initiatives have borne little fruit, and U.S. officials have been pressing for tougher action against insurgent groups they blame for rising violence across the border in Afghanistan.
In addition to a string of suicide bombings in the last week, gunmen fired at the car of a senior U.S. diplomat in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday and a bomb killed seven people at a roadside restaurant near Islamabad, the capital.
Pakistanis and the country's Western backers worry the political turmoil since Musharraf's ouster after nine years in power is distracting the government from dealing with militants as well as taking steps to shore up the flagging economy.
On Wednesday, the Karachi stock exchange's benchmark 100-share index fell 3 percent. The index has slid more than 40 percent since April and stands at its lowest level in more than two years.
Lawmakers are to elect a new president Sept. 6. Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower and the current leader of her party, which has the biggest block of seats in parliament, is widely expected to win.
Critics have questioned Zardari's suitability in light of a Financial Times report that his lawyers told a London court that he suffered from serious mental problems.
Zardari's party said he had suffered great stress during his confinement in Pakistani jails on corruption charges, but is now fully fit to lead the country.
Pakistan's second biggest party, headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which bolted the governing coalition Monday, said Wednesday that a "patient" shouldn't be allowed to run for president.
"Similarly, if a sitting president suffers from such mental and psychological problems, constitutionally he cannot retain his office," said the spokesman for Sharif's party, Sadiqul Farooq.
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Ashraf Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Hebron Massacre
From aviramoz
The arabs want to convince the world the Israelis and Jews are the aggressors and killers, while at the same time trying to cause the world to forget the first massacre, a massacre they committed against Jews, while trying to make people forget that over one million jews were forced to flee arab and muslim lands to save themselves....many died but thanks to G-d many fled and survived.
UNC grad sentenced for plowing into crowd with SUV
By MARLON A. WALKER
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) — A former student was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison Tuesday for plowing his sport utility vehicle into a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in a self-professed bid to avenge Muslim deaths overseas.
Mohammed Taheri-Azar, 25, pleaded guilty earlier this month to nine counts of attempted murder for the March 2006 attack at a popular outdoor gathering spot known as The Pit.
One person had a head injury and several were cut and bruised from jumping out of the SUV's path, but no one stayed in the hospital overnight, Orange County District Attorney James Woodall said.
Victim Karen Harman said in court Tuesday that when she saw a Jeep coming toward her, she assumed it was headed to The Pit to do work.
"But the driver hit the gas, and I mean, he hit the gas. In the next instant, I was on the ground, clutching my knee in pain," she said.
Former history professor Michael Allsep, whose wrist and tailbone were broken, said he feared for his life.
"This man not only tried to kill me and my students, he tried to kill the best of our future. He failed only through poor execution," Allsep wrote in a statement read by his mother.
The original charges were consolidated into two counts of attempted murder for sentencing purposes. Taheri-Azar was sentenced to between 13 and 16 1/2 years in prison on each count.
The guilty plea comes after a tumultuous court process. Taheri-Azar initially tried to represent himself, then tried to fire his lawyer. After an outburst in court in 2007, a judge ordered a mental evaluation.
Authorities said Taheri-Azar was traveling between 10 and 30 mph when he drove onto campus and through The Pit.
Afterward, he waited in his vehicle for police for about 15 minutes and told them he was the man they were looking for. Police found a letter in his apartment that he had written them because he thought he would be killed during the attack.
The letter said he wanted revenge for the deaths of Muslims overseas that he said were caused by the U.S. He has said he rented a Jeep Cherokee because it was better equipped for what he planned to do.
Taheri-Azar is a naturalized citizen from Iran who grew up near Charlotte and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Gallup Daily: No Bounce for Obama in Post-Biden Tracking
McCain creeps ahead, 46% to 44%
From Gallup.com
PRINCETON, NJ -- It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.
Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.
The race for president has been virtually tied since mid-August. In this period, Obama's support from national registered voters has consistently ranged from 44% to 46%. The 46% currently supporting McCain is technically his best showing since late May/early June, but is not a statistically significant improvement over his recent range from 43% to 45%. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
An analysis of historical election poll trends by Gallup Poll Managing Editor Jeff Jones shows that recent presidential campaigns have enjoyed a small (though short-lived) bounce from the running mate announcement. This includes a four percentage point bounce for John Kerry in 2004 after selecting John Edwards, a 5-point bounce for Al Gore in 2000 with his announcement of Joe Lieberman, and a 3-point bounce for George W. Bush in 2000 upon choosing Dick Cheney. Bob Dole received an extraordinary 9-point bounce in 1996 after bringing Jack Kemp onto his ticket.
All of these bounces occurred before the respective party's convention began, and in most cases the candidates received an additional boost in the polls upon completion of the convention. Thus, any increase in Obama's support in the coming days would seem to be more the result of the star-studded and well publicized Democratic national convention than the apparently lackluster Biden selection.
The official Gallup records will show that support for Obama declined by two percentage points in Gallup Poll Daily tracking (from 46% to 44%) conducted immediately before and after the Aug. 23 Biden announcement. (Because the announcement was made at 3 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, all Gallup interviewing conducted that day can be considered post announcement.)
Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking result includes interviewing on the first night of the Democratic National Convention (Aug. 25). However, much of this interviewing, particularly in the East and Midwest, was conducted before the prime time convention speeches by Sen. Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama. The Gallup Poll Daily tracking results reported tomorrow may start to indicate whether voters are impressed enough by what they are seeing at the convention to give Obama the bounce that typically occurs as a result of a party's convention. -- Lydia Saad
Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.
Survey Methods
For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.
The general-election results are based on combined data from Aug. 23-25, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,684 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
To provide feedback or suggestions about how to improve Gallup.com, please e-mail feedback@gallup.com.
From Gallup.com
PRINCETON, NJ -- It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.
Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.
The race for president has been virtually tied since mid-August. In this period, Obama's support from national registered voters has consistently ranged from 44% to 46%. The 46% currently supporting McCain is technically his best showing since late May/early June, but is not a statistically significant improvement over his recent range from 43% to 45%. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
An analysis of historical election poll trends by Gallup Poll Managing Editor Jeff Jones shows that recent presidential campaigns have enjoyed a small (though short-lived) bounce from the running mate announcement. This includes a four percentage point bounce for John Kerry in 2004 after selecting John Edwards, a 5-point bounce for Al Gore in 2000 with his announcement of Joe Lieberman, and a 3-point bounce for George W. Bush in 2000 upon choosing Dick Cheney. Bob Dole received an extraordinary 9-point bounce in 1996 after bringing Jack Kemp onto his ticket.
All of these bounces occurred before the respective party's convention began, and in most cases the candidates received an additional boost in the polls upon completion of the convention. Thus, any increase in Obama's support in the coming days would seem to be more the result of the star-studded and well publicized Democratic national convention than the apparently lackluster Biden selection.
The official Gallup records will show that support for Obama declined by two percentage points in Gallup Poll Daily tracking (from 46% to 44%) conducted immediately before and after the Aug. 23 Biden announcement. (Because the announcement was made at 3 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, all Gallup interviewing conducted that day can be considered post announcement.)
Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking result includes interviewing on the first night of the Democratic National Convention (Aug. 25). However, much of this interviewing, particularly in the East and Midwest, was conducted before the prime time convention speeches by Sen. Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama. The Gallup Poll Daily tracking results reported tomorrow may start to indicate whether voters are impressed enough by what they are seeing at the convention to give Obama the bounce that typically occurs as a result of a party's convention. -- Lydia Saad
Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.
Survey Methods
For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.
The general-election results are based on combined data from Aug. 23-25, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,684 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
To provide feedback or suggestions about how to improve Gallup.com, please e-mail feedback@gallup.com.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas leader, becomes a Christian
The son of one of the most revered leaders of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has renounced his religion to move to America and become an evangelical Christian.
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles and Carolynne Wheeler in Ramallah
Last Updated: 2:21PM BST 24 Aug 2008
Mosab Hassan Yousef, 30, said that his decision to abandon his Muslim faith and denounce his father's organisation had exposed his family to persecution in his home town of Ramallah and endangered his own life.
But despite the cost, Mr Yousef told The Daily Telegraph that he is convinced that speaking out about the problems of Islam and the "evil" he witnessed back home would help to address the "messed-up situation" in the Middle East and one day bring about peace and enable him to return.
"I'm not afraid of them, especially as I know that I'm doing the right thing, and I don't see them as my enemies," he said. "I do think about this a lot. But what are they going to do? Are they going to kill me?
"If they want to kill me, let them do it. I'm not going to stop anyone. It's going to be my freedom.
"My soul's going to be free of my body, not flesh any more."
Mr Yousef, who is known as Joseph by friends at the Barabbas Road church in San Diego, California, arrived in America 18 months ago but only recently made "the biggest decision of my life" to go public with his conversion to draw attention to how the Palestinian leadership is "misleading" and exploiting its people.
"Palestinians look really ugly in front of everybody in the world and they are very, very good people ... they are misled, and their picture is very dark because of this leadership.
"They need some help, they need people to stop lying to them, and lying to the world."
Mr Yousef was raised as a Muslim by his politically powerful family. His father, Hassan Yousef, a highly respected sheikh born in the West Bank town of al-Ghaniya near Ramallah, is a founding member of Hamas, whose military wing has instigated dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel since it was formed in 1987.
Hamas now governs the Gaza strip after ousting the more moderate Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, whose administration now only controls the West Bank.
Mr Yousef said that the decision to leave the home he loves and his family including five brothers and two sisters had made life hard for them.
"They are definitely suffering because of what I've done," he said. "They are not a regular family, they are a very famous family, and Muslims around the world praise my family, praise my father. So when I came with a step like this, it was impossible to think about, it was crazy.
"I knew from the beginning my family would face an impossible situation. It wasn't their choice but they have had to carry it with me. It's difficult for my mother, she's crying all day long. Every time I talk to her, she's crying."
His mother, Salsabin, told The Daily Telegraph that she and her children were "in daily contact with Mosab" but she declined to comment further on his new life.
Mr Yousef said that his father, who has spent more than a decade in Israeli jails for his involvement with Hamas, was in prison when he "got the worst news in his life" - that his son had become a Christian and left Ramallah. "But at the same time he sent me a message of love.
"Everybody is asking him to disown me. You understand if he disowns me he will give terrorists a chance to kill me. "He loves me as a son and he believes that what I've done was something I believed in, but at the same time it's very difficult for him to understand and he won't be able to understand."
Many saw him as heir apparent to his father, who retains great influence both within Hamas and in Palestinian society, winning election to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006 from his prison cell.
But Mr Yousef said that his questioning of Islam and Hamas began early. His father, a pragmatist who has even suggested Hamas would be willing to talk to Israel under certain conditions, would often accept his concerns, such as the targeting of civilians.
Mr Yousef said that his doubts about Islam and Hamas crystallised when he realised not all Hamas leaders were like his father, a moderate who he describes as "open-minded, very humble and honest".
Mr Yousef said that he was appalled by the brutality of the movement, including the suicide bombers seeking glory through jihad.
"Hamas, they are using civilians' lives, they are using children, they are using the suffering of people every day to achieve their goals. And this is what I hate," he said.
It was after a chance encounter nine years ago with a British missionary that Mr Yousef began exploring Christianity.
He found it "exciting", he said, and began secretly studying the Bible, struck by the central tenet "love your enemies".
Nevertheless he does not advocate the "collapse of Islam", but rather for people to acknowledge that after 1,400 years "it's not working any more".
He said: "It's not taking them anywhere. It's making them look ugly."
He hopes that Muslims will begin to question their religion and "fix it" by rejecting the parts that call for "killing others, cutting hands, cutting legs, torturing people and asking for destruction of entire civilisations".
He said that after he converted to Christianity, he decided he had to escape and "live my life away from violence because I couldn't coexist with that situation as a Christian."
"I was thinking, what is my responsibility now? To see people dying every day or to stand up and say, this is wrong, this is right and be strong about this? So I had to make this move."
He plans to write a memoir about his "transformation" that he hopes will inspire others and to found an international organisation to educate young people about Islam and preach a message of "forgiveness", the only way he thinks "the endless circle of violence" between Israelis and Palestinians can be broken.
"I know this take a longer time, but this is the right way to do it, to build a new generation, a new generation who understand how to forgive, how to love."
It is a vision his new church shares. In a posting on the Barabbas Road website entitled "Joseph's story", the most unlikely member of the congregation is described as "a miracle" who left a society steeped in "brutal and bloody warfare" and instead "turned to Jesus".
"He is most certainly the face of things to come; an Ambassador to those oppressed by Islam. He is passionate about liberating his brothers and sisters from the darkness of a false religion, and living the truth that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light."
Back in the West Bank, however, many are distressed about his move.
"It is upsetting not only to his community and to his family but to all Muslims," said Abdel-Jaber Fuqaha, an Islamist parliamentarian and friend of the family who described Mr Yousef as "a straightforward, observant Muslim".
"But the worst impact is on his family, and his father. This is a thing that is more unique to our Middle Eastern culture. It is the most difficult thing, to convert from one religion to another."
He suggested that Mr Yousef may have been pressured into conversion in exchange for financial help or permission to stay in the US, given his background - allegations Mr Yousef rejects.
"I didn't come to Christianity for money, I came to Christianity because this is the way we can live a better life," he said.
"I love my people. They have the right to live like any other nation on Earth. But at the same time, I want to help them [get] on the right track."
The Bible vs. The Book of Mormon
This film is available on DVD for only $4 a copy at:
http://www.lhvm.org/order.htm
Please keep discussion threads civil and refrain from personal attacks.
SYNOPSIS:
The Book of Mormon claims to be "a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible." Both the Bible and the Book of Mormon declare themselves to be ancient, historical, and reliable rules of faith--the very word of God.
These claims have historically been taken on faith. But is there any evidence to support them one way or the other? Is it even possible to "test" a rule of faith? More to the point, is there any basis for placing one's faith in the Bible or the Book of Mormon?
It's an important question. It's an eternal question. This presentation puts the Bible and the Book of Mormon to the same tests. History, archaeology, textual criticism, and other disciplines combine to shed light on what is true...and what is false.
Truth never fears investigation. Faith need not--and should not--be blind. Discover for yourself which of these books is worthy of being called "scripture" and which is worth of your trust.
Participants: Thomas W. Murphy, William Wilson, Philip Lindholm, Philip Johnston, Peter Williams, Simon Gathercole, Gabriel Barkay, and others.
From lhvm
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Danger of Pulling Out of IRAQ
What the West doesn’t understand
By X-Terrorist and lover of Zion, Walid Shoebat, Author of God’s War on Terror
The day that the US troops leave Iraq it will be controlled by Iran the major pricking brier for Israel. No one today denies that Iran with its prospects of gaining nuclear status has transformed itself into a super power in the midst of majority Sunni Muslim region. But Iran is hardly isolated, with Iraq (65% Shiite), Syria’s ruling Shiite Alawite regime, and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah, alongside Iran’s puppet Hamas will create a horn stemming from Iran forming a dagger into Israel’s heartland. America’s futile support of Saudi Arabia and Turkey in order to balance this threat and exit Iraq in false hope to neutralize Iran’s takeover of Iraq ignores a major factor—that in the Middle East loyalty to Islam first and second to sect prevails over democracy and truth. Iraq and Iran has Circassians, Turkmens, Turks and Azeris, which are Turkey’s natural allies. Instead, Turkey will gain a foothold as another regional superpower and instead of fulfilling America’s hope will unite with Iran. Westerners that bank on Sunni-Shiite divide ignores that Sunni Muslims in their desire to destroy Israel will unite. During the Hezbollah-Israeli fiasco, everyone witnessed Hamas advocates carrying both Hezbollah’s Shiite yellow flag alongside the green Sunni Hamas flag and Hezbollah did the same. This is crucial since Turkey eventually will ally itself with Iran and central Asia for a last dash against Israel. Anyone who doubts can search the Bible for Elam(Iran) Lydia(Turkey) Tyre(Lebanon) Arabia(Saudi Arabia) and find that the whole of the Muslim nations are written in the End-Times scenario.
In the end, this Sunni-Shiite divide will be the cause of the collapse of Islam. Saudi Arabia today officially condemns Hezbollah, yet this condemnation has nothing to do with a sudden love for Israel and the West, but a hatred and mistrust of their Shiite competition, which sees the rise of Shiite Iran and the fear of Iran’s takeover into Iraq will only get Iran closer to Saudi Arabia’s Adam’s apple. Yet this plan to neutralize Iran by aiding Sunni nations is dangerous. The main problem with American policy in the Middle East can be summed up through the latest experience that proves beyond any shadow of doubt that every time the West depended on a Muslim country to neutralize another, the neutralizing country ended up becoming a ravishing beast. Afghanistan was an excellent example—ridding the world of Communist Russia by aiding Afghanistan ended up creating the Taliban, which still funnels the Islamist cancer into neighboring and already nuclear powered Pakistan. Aiding Iraq to neutralize Iran ended up empowering Saddam Hussein to attack its neighbors Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and threatened the oil supply that ended in the first Gulf War. Bringing Arafat into Palestine simply created Gaza’s Hamasistan. Had the West learned from its past experiences that such systems only understand strength and power naive Democratic Party politicians would never be so quick to demand a pullout from Iraq. The West with its policy to aid the lesser of two evils ultimately ended up aiding and abetting the very enemies of Israel and the West. Mediocre western discernment is no match to fourteen centuries of professional Islamic deception. The U.S Armed Saudi Arabia with sophisticated military equipment in hope to protect the supply of oil was a dangerous move, and instead of recognizing the futility of not tapping its own resources to quench its addiction, continues to import the slimy crude from the slime of humanity, ignoring that the only things Arabia exports globally besides oil is Islam. Arabia’s Islam is flourishing in Turkey’s outskirts in full public view and fills Pakistan with madrassas that have now all but buried the remnants of Pakistani and Turkish secularism. I am on record on countless radio interviews stating that Pakistan will oust Pervez Musharraf and will eventually elect an Islamist government. The CIA’s 1997 State Failure Task Force Report identified Turkey as “a nation in danger of collapse. The West needs to come to grips with the realization that Turkey like Iraq is not and can never be a democracy, and any efforts to establish a democracy in these regions will prove fatal since democracy, like the attempts in Iraq, will only be used for electing an Islamic Sharia-driven system.” It will be near impossible for the United States to deal with Iran and Pakistan’s Islamic rise with nuclear weapons, Iraq War, and Turkey’s decline into Islamism simultaneously. The exercise in democratic elections recently has been a disaster—Hamas was elected in Palestine, Shiite regime in Iraq and in Turkey the AKP Islamist party. Then we have the Mahdi obsession, today in Iraq we have at least seven different Mahdist movements, each one believing that the return of the Mahdi is imminent. Timothy Furnish, American scholar of Mahdist movements, recently commented: “No military or political solution is going to work in Iraq until this enormously powerful eschatological element in the region both Sunni and Shiite is addressed.” According to Muhammad the prophet of Islam, “There will be four peace agreements between you and the Romans [Christians]…and will be upheld for seven years.” Western Prophecy analysts pay little attention on how the Muslim world is setup to receive what the Bible documented thousands of years ago—the rise of Antichrist.
Leaving Iraq will also revert it into its previous state and break it into three sectors – Shiite, Sunni and the oil-rich Northern Mosul Province and when all this comes to pass, we shall see the rise of Islamic fundamentalism not from simply being small terrorist organizations, but mutating into fully fledged states similar to the cancer in Iran. Hezbollah in Lebanon is not just a terror organization but is part of the Lebanese government and infrastructure.
History repeats itself, even biblical prophecies have a long term fulfillment—while Iraq, the old lion of Babylon arose and was humbled with its wings plucked by the West. A pullout of Iraq will definitely reignite civil unrest between Shiites and Sunnis accompanied with a desire for Kurds to seek independence in the northern region of Mosul and Kirkuk, which will eventually divide Iraq into its three original federal units - Kurdistan, a Sunni Arab center, and a Shiite south. This three state solution will not work and will further weaken Iraq to allow Iran, the revived bear of Daniel 7:5 which rises on one side (Persia without Media/Kurdistan) to take over control and gulp up Iraq’s three regions in its mouth. Recently Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran. This triumph for political Shiism was a blow to the Bush administration. Ayatollah Khomeini, the newly installed theocrat of Iran, pressured the expatriates to form an umbrella organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) one of Iraq's most powerful political parties in hope to eventually take over Iraq. Iran is more clever then what most westerners think. They have created diversions to make everyone focus elsewhere. The Israel-Hezbollah fiasco which bolstered Hezbollah’s strength in the Muslim world by diverting attention away from Iran’s nuclear buildup to focus on Hezbollah launching rockets on northern Israel. Syria did the same by aiding both Hamas and Hezbollah to spark some trouble in order to divert the investigation over the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Hamas also was interested to stop the civil war between Fatah and Hamas. The results of all of this, is devastating to the isolated Christians in the Middle East. An Islamist takeover will ultimately result in the extermination or forced conversion of Christians—The Assyrians in Iraq and the Lebanese Christian community. Turkey will persecute Christians as it did in the past when it executed millions of Armenians and Cypriots and by that Islam will again “overcome the saints.” (Revelation 13:7, Daniel 7:25) Just as we have seen in Iraq, in Pakistan after the eviction of Musharraf, if free democratic elections are sought, more Sharia will be embedded in the system. We have seen this when the Bush Administration insisted that Israel allows the Jerusalem Arabs to vote during the Palestinian elections despite Israel’s warning that Hamas as a result will win. It did. The West and the E.U through invoking democracy invited the fox into the henhouse, unaware that what all foxes are interested in the end is to kill the hens. Turkey, the country that is also interested in controlling Iraq’s Kurdish Mosul Province, has the largest standing army in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and has been viewed by the US and its allies as a bastion against nationalism in Russia and fundamentalism in Iran and other neighboring countries. John Hooper, writing for the Guardiam states: "the scope for conflict, were Turkey, like Iran, to 'go Islamic' would be immense." The simplistic American approach with the war in Iraq and the insistence to pull out of its military will be devastating. The University of Maryland conducted a face-to-face survey of 4,384 Muslims between December 9, 2006 and February 15 2007 (1000 Moroccans, 1000 Egyptians, 1243 Pakistanis, and 1141 Indonesians). Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Jihad and an expert on Islamic Jihad commented on the results: “65.2% of those interviewed—almost two-thirds, hardly a ‘fringe minority’—desired this outcome: ‘To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate’, including 49% of ‘moderate’ Indonesian Muslims. 65.5% of this Muslim sample approved the proposition ‘To require a strict application of Shari’a law in every Islamic country.’
For further detailed study of Islam, Prophecy and the Bible, please read Walid’s new book God’s War on Terror.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
September Dawn - Go See It
I urge all Christians to go and see the film September Dawn. I know the film came out a while ago but I just bought and saw it and I must say it is the greatest and only Hollywood film which talks about the subject of the the evils of Mormonism. Go rent it, buy it, whatever - just see it and tell your freinds about it! The film shows a great lesson of how much we should learn from history. The things the Mormons were preaching about are the same things that are being preached in mosques all over the world.
I give it a 10/10 no doubts!
Satan Controls Hollywood
Its amazing how a great film like September Dawn has gotten such intense criticism for so-called "Mormon bashing." The libs attack a film for "Islam bashing" if a film exposes Islam and will also attack a film for criticizing Mormonism.
Here is an article written by Wikipedia on the criticism (and some praise) of the September Dawn film.
The film has been described by various critics (most or all of whom are not LDS) as "the year's first honest-to-goodness exploitation flick,"[9] as "carrying an anti-Mormon agenda,"[10] as "some sort of attack piece on the Mormon religion,"[11] as "little more than wild-eyed anti-Mormon propaganda,"[12] as "a stridently anti-Mormon and cliché-heavy melodrama,"[13] as "unbelievably ugly and an insult to Mormons,"[8] as a "Swift Boating of Mormonism that advocates the religious intolerance it’s supposedly condemning,"[14] as "clearly anti-Mormon,"[15] as an "anti-Mormon broadside" that is "certain to fan the flames of hatred toward America's largest homegrown religion and continue the persecution that terrified the original Mormons."[16]
The movie has "the chilling certitude of the self-righteous" that goes beyond "mockery" and is "practically a call to jihad [against Mormons]."[17] It "equates the institution of the Mormon church with Islamic extremism at every opportunity,"[18] it is "propaganda pure and simple,"[19] is "filmmaking at its worst...full of propaganda,"[19] and it "goes way beyond history into the realm of speculation, rumor, myth and gossip."[12] Critics further state that the movie "feel[s] like blatant propaganda,"[13] and that there is an "unmistakable air of evil about this enterprise, and not just an atrocity the Mormon church caused to happen 150 years ago"[17] and its negative portrayal of Mormons is "unsubtle (in the manner most closely associated with Dr. Goebbels)."[12]
Not all reviews however have been completely negative. Boo Allen of the Denton Record-Chronicle gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, saying that "director Christopher Cain renders a suspenseful, gripping tale."[20] Linda Cook of the Quad-City Times calls the movie "interesting."[21] Ted Fry of the Seattle Times writes that the movie is a "mix of poetry and polemics" that despite "theocratic elements that come unnervingly close to the spirit of Mormon-bashing" is nevertheless "a mildly effective dramatic tale of period Western strife."[22] Pete Hammond of Maxim gives the movies 2½ stars, saying that Cain has made "a pulse-pounding movie experience reminding us that a terrorist act can happen anywhere, anytime, by anyone."[23] David Tianen of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the script's "great strength" is that Voight's character, Samuelson "is a zealot who behaves logically within his own belief system" in that he believes in "a theology that sees non-Mormons as wicked and degenerate." Consequently, "when Bishop [Samuelson] says things like 'May these children of Satan go to hell,' or, 'We have been honored above all others to be the chosen instrument of death," the hatred is more than mere craziness.[24]
In a piece written for FrontPage Magazine, Ken Eliasberg states that: "I found the film to be artistically pleasing, theatrically well done, and, based on my less-than-exhaustive research, historically correct. [...] While the Mormon hierarchy denies any effort to directly or indirectly sabotage the film, it seems possible much of the criticism dealing with the film is derived from some common blueprint. [...] I hope that this notion is mistaken, and that there is no effort on the part of the Mormon establishment to do this film in. If there is such an effort, I have to believe it emanates from certain individuals who are acting on their own, who have so little faith in the power of their religion that they think a mere film about one isolated historic incident could do it harm."
Now here is a Wikipedia article on the criticism of the anti-Jesus film The Last Temptation Of Christ:
The film has been supported by scholars, film critics and some religious leaders. In his defense of the movie, noted critic Roger Ebert writes that Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader:
“ paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and they have made a film that does not turn him into a garish, emasculated image from a religious postcard. Here he is flesh and blood, struggling, questioning, asking himself and his father which is the right way, and finally, after great suffering, earning the right to say, on the cross, 'It is accomplished.' ”
Writers at NNDB.com claim that "Paul Schrader's screenplay and Willem Dafoe's performance made perhaps the most honestly Christlike portrayal of Jesus ever filmed."
In recent years, the film has been cast in a more positive light within the Christian community. Some conservative Christians groups (many of whom initially attacked the film) have reexamined it and found it an acceptable hypothesis on what it might have been like for Christ to be both fully human (subject to all of man's weaknesses) and fully God (perfect and omnipotent).[citation needed] Promise Keepers is the most notable conservative Christian group to recently come out and defend this interpretation of Christ, and acceptance of The Last Temptation of Christ seems to be growing in many Christian communities and organizations.
Some Christian scholars acknowledge that maintaining equilibrium between these two contrasting natures might have been as difficult as The Last Temptation of Christ depicts, and that the notion is even suggested in the Gospel of John when Christ admits, "I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me" (chapter 6). In the case of Kazantzakis's and Scorsese's Christ, there is a notable difference between Christ's will and the will of his Father; yet driven by his love for mankind and his devotion to his Father, Christ constantly denies his own will in order to fulfill his divine mission as Savior.
However, some Christians, along with people of other faiths, retain a negative view of the film. Conservative film critic Michael Medved (who is Jewish) has an extreme dislike of the film for its biblical inaccuracy, especially in what he considers its portrayal of Judas Iscariot as braver and wiser than Jesus.
When The Passion of the Christ was released in 2004, Scorcese's film was mentioned very often when compared to Mel Gibson's, mostly for the portrayals of Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate and also in analysis of how the 2004 film was an enormous blockbuster while the 1988 film didn't do well at the box office even though both were highly controversial. One[citation needed] article said that Gibson hated the 1988 film. In another article[citation needed], Scorcese said in general terms that his film had a different aim than Gibson's and wanted to inspire different reactions.
On Rotten Tomatoes.com, the film rating website, the picture had reached a rating of 81%, with an average rating of 7.2 out of 10 as of July 2008 [5].
Here is an article written by Wikipedia on the criticism (and some praise) of the September Dawn film.
The film has been described by various critics (most or all of whom are not LDS) as "the year's first honest-to-goodness exploitation flick,"[9] as "carrying an anti-Mormon agenda,"[10] as "some sort of attack piece on the Mormon religion,"[11] as "little more than wild-eyed anti-Mormon propaganda,"[12] as "a stridently anti-Mormon and cliché-heavy melodrama,"[13] as "unbelievably ugly and an insult to Mormons,"[8] as a "Swift Boating of Mormonism that advocates the religious intolerance it’s supposedly condemning,"[14] as "clearly anti-Mormon,"[15] as an "anti-Mormon broadside" that is "certain to fan the flames of hatred toward America's largest homegrown religion and continue the persecution that terrified the original Mormons."[16]
The movie has "the chilling certitude of the self-righteous" that goes beyond "mockery" and is "practically a call to jihad [against Mormons]."[17] It "equates the institution of the Mormon church with Islamic extremism at every opportunity,"[18] it is "propaganda pure and simple,"[19] is "filmmaking at its worst...full of propaganda,"[19] and it "goes way beyond history into the realm of speculation, rumor, myth and gossip."[12] Critics further state that the movie "feel[s] like blatant propaganda,"[13] and that there is an "unmistakable air of evil about this enterprise, and not just an atrocity the Mormon church caused to happen 150 years ago"[17] and its negative portrayal of Mormons is "unsubtle (in the manner most closely associated with Dr. Goebbels)."[12]
Not all reviews however have been completely negative. Boo Allen of the Denton Record-Chronicle gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, saying that "director Christopher Cain renders a suspenseful, gripping tale."[20] Linda Cook of the Quad-City Times calls the movie "interesting."[21] Ted Fry of the Seattle Times writes that the movie is a "mix of poetry and polemics" that despite "theocratic elements that come unnervingly close to the spirit of Mormon-bashing" is nevertheless "a mildly effective dramatic tale of period Western strife."[22] Pete Hammond of Maxim gives the movies 2½ stars, saying that Cain has made "a pulse-pounding movie experience reminding us that a terrorist act can happen anywhere, anytime, by anyone."[23] David Tianen of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the script's "great strength" is that Voight's character, Samuelson "is a zealot who behaves logically within his own belief system" in that he believes in "a theology that sees non-Mormons as wicked and degenerate." Consequently, "when Bishop [Samuelson] says things like 'May these children of Satan go to hell,' or, 'We have been honored above all others to be the chosen instrument of death," the hatred is more than mere craziness.[24]
In a piece written for FrontPage Magazine, Ken Eliasberg states that: "I found the film to be artistically pleasing, theatrically well done, and, based on my less-than-exhaustive research, historically correct. [...] While the Mormon hierarchy denies any effort to directly or indirectly sabotage the film, it seems possible much of the criticism dealing with the film is derived from some common blueprint. [...] I hope that this notion is mistaken, and that there is no effort on the part of the Mormon establishment to do this film in. If there is such an effort, I have to believe it emanates from certain individuals who are acting on their own, who have so little faith in the power of their religion that they think a mere film about one isolated historic incident could do it harm."
Now here is a Wikipedia article on the criticism of the anti-Jesus film The Last Temptation Of Christ:
The film has been supported by scholars, film critics and some religious leaders. In his defense of the movie, noted critic Roger Ebert writes that Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader:
“ paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and they have made a film that does not turn him into a garish, emasculated image from a religious postcard. Here he is flesh and blood, struggling, questioning, asking himself and his father which is the right way, and finally, after great suffering, earning the right to say, on the cross, 'It is accomplished.' ”
Writers at NNDB.com claim that "Paul Schrader's screenplay and Willem Dafoe's performance made perhaps the most honestly Christlike portrayal of Jesus ever filmed."
In recent years, the film has been cast in a more positive light within the Christian community. Some conservative Christians groups (many of whom initially attacked the film) have reexamined it and found it an acceptable hypothesis on what it might have been like for Christ to be both fully human (subject to all of man's weaknesses) and fully God (perfect and omnipotent).[citation needed] Promise Keepers is the most notable conservative Christian group to recently come out and defend this interpretation of Christ, and acceptance of The Last Temptation of Christ seems to be growing in many Christian communities and organizations.
Some Christian scholars acknowledge that maintaining equilibrium between these two contrasting natures might have been as difficult as The Last Temptation of Christ depicts, and that the notion is even suggested in the Gospel of John when Christ admits, "I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me" (chapter 6). In the case of Kazantzakis's and Scorsese's Christ, there is a notable difference between Christ's will and the will of his Father; yet driven by his love for mankind and his devotion to his Father, Christ constantly denies his own will in order to fulfill his divine mission as Savior.
However, some Christians, along with people of other faiths, retain a negative view of the film. Conservative film critic Michael Medved (who is Jewish) has an extreme dislike of the film for its biblical inaccuracy, especially in what he considers its portrayal of Judas Iscariot as braver and wiser than Jesus.
When The Passion of the Christ was released in 2004, Scorcese's film was mentioned very often when compared to Mel Gibson's, mostly for the portrayals of Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate and also in analysis of how the 2004 film was an enormous blockbuster while the 1988 film didn't do well at the box office even though both were highly controversial. One[citation needed] article said that Gibson hated the 1988 film. In another article[citation needed], Scorcese said in general terms that his film had a different aim than Gibson's and wanted to inspire different reactions.
On Rotten Tomatoes.com, the film rating website, the picture had reached a rating of 81%, with an average rating of 7.2 out of 10 as of July 2008 [5].
U.S. Muslims share friendship, similar values with Mormons
Its amazing how this article explains how two religious groups which are demonic have become great friends.
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By David Haldane
April 02, 2008 in print edition B-1
The Mormon Church has to be among the most outgoing on Earth; in recent years its leaders have reached out to, among others, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics and Jews.
One of the most enthusiastic responses, however, has come from what some might consider a surprising source: U.S. Muslims.
“We are very aware of the history of Mormons as a group that was chastised in America,” says Maher Hathout, a senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. “They can be a good model for any group that feels alienated.”
Which perhaps explains an open-mosque day held last fall at the Islamic Center of Irvine. More than half the guests were Mormons.
“A Mormon living in an Islamic society would be very comfortable,” said Steve Young, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attending the event.
The sentiment is echoed by Muslims. “When I go to a Mormon church I feel at ease,” said Haitham Bundakji, former chairman of the Islamic Society of Orange County. “When I heard the president [of LDS] speak a few years ago, if I’d closed my eyes I’d have thought he was an imam.”
Though the relationship has raised eyebrows and provided ammunition for critics of both religions, Mormons and Muslims have deepening ties in the United States.
What binds them has little to do with theology: Mormons venerate Jesus as interpreted by founder Joseph Smith, while Muslims view Muhammad as God’s prophet. Based on shared values and a sense of isolation from mainstream America, the connection was intensified by 9/11 and cemented by the Southeast Asia tsunami. It is especially evident in Southern California, with large Mormon and Muslim populations.
The Mormon Church has become the biggest contributor to Buena Park-based Islamic Relief, touted by its administrators as the West’s largest Muslim-based charity. Relief officials say the church has donated $20 million in goods and services since the 2004 tsunami, equal to about 20% of the charity’s annual budget.
Brigham Young University in Utah, the church’s major institution of higher learning, features what is thought to be one of the world’s best programs for translating classic Islamic works from Arabic to English. Though created primarily for academic purposes, the results have impressed Muslims flattered by the close attention.
“It shows they have a keen interest in the Muslim world,” said Levent Akbarut, a member of the Islamic Congregation of La Cañada Flintridge.
And Mormons and Muslims say they often are co-hosts of educational and social programs at which, though some may be angling for long-term doctrinal influence, very little open proselytizing of each other seems to take place. “We have a very close and friendly relationship,” said Keith Atkinson, West Coast LDS spokesman.
Mormons “explain our faith to anyone who will listen” and “treat Muslims like anybody else,” said Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, one of the church’s top governing bodies in Salt Lake City. But Oaks added that “we don’t preach to people who would be disenfranchised” or likely offended.
Arnold H. Green, a history professor at BYU, has traced how early Mormons in the 19th century were hounded by accusations that church founder Smith was the American Muhammad. The first Mormons angrily denied any connection to the Muslim prophet but gradually accepted some comparisons, particularly that both religions were founded by post-Christian prophets with strong sectarian views. “As the church grew into a global faith,” Green wrote in a 2001 essay, “its posture toward Islam became … more positive” until, today, “the two faiths have become associated in several ways, including Mormonism’s being called the Islam of America.”
Both religions strongly emphasize family. They tend toward patriarchy, believing in feminine modesty, chastity and virtue. And although Islam discourages dancing involving both sexes, Mormons report that church-sponsored “modesty proms” commonly draw Islamic youths.
Both faiths adhere to religion-based health codes, including prohibitions against alcohol, but Mormons and Muslims share something more: membership in quickly growing minority religions that many other Americans have sometimes viewed with suspicion and scorn.
“We both come from traditions where there has been persecution in the past and continues to be prejudice,” said Steve Gilliland, LDS director of Muslim relations for Southern California. “That helps us Mormons identify with Muslims.”
A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that although a thin majority of those polled expressed positive opinions of Muslims and Mormons, the number was significantly less than those favoring Roman Catholics or Jews.
More than half the respondents said they had little or no awareness of the precepts and practices of either faith. But 45% saw Islam as more likely than other religions to encourage violence, and 31% said that Mormons weren’t Christian.
Armand L. Mauss, a Mormon and professor emeritus of sociology at Washington State University specializing in religious movements, said that unlike mainstream Christians and Jews, Muslims and Mormons “tend to make fairly stringent demands for religious conformity on their members.” These practices, he said, include discouraging marriage outside the religion and observing dietary laws, such as the Mormon prohibition against tobacco, alcohol and caffeine.
But the clincher, according to Mauss, is that both communities “have been stung in recent years by the recurrence of scandals over which they have no control.” For Muslims, the obvious example is 9/11.
For Mormons, Mauss says, the problem is polygamy, which, though rejected by the mainstream church more than a century ago, is still the first thing that occurs to many Americans when they think about the religion.
The relationship between the two religions has sometimes drawn ire.
Scattered throughout the Internet are numerous tracts, many by evangelical Christians, comparing the two religions in less-than-complimentary terms. “Modern Mohammedanism has its Mecca in Salt Lake,” reads one. “Clearly the Koran was Joseph Smith’s model, so closely followed as to exclude even the poor pretension of originality in his foul ‘revelations.’ ”
In Southern California, the relationship between the two religions became closer after the Los Angeles riots in 1992, when the Mormon Church, hoping to promote diversity, invited several ethnic and religious groups to attend the opening of its new temple in San Diego. Muslims responded in higher numbers and with greater enthusiasm than most others. The church later feted prominent Muslims in Salt Lake City.
“We were treated as dignitaries,” said Shabbir Mansuri, founding director of the Muslim-based Institute on Religion and Civic Values in Fountain Valley, which encourages tolerance through research and education. “I met with the president of LDS and the governor of Utah. We were sitting in the front row of the Tabernacle. Mormons would give their right arms to be there.”
The relationship deepened on Sept. 11, 2001. The first call Mansuri received that day came from Elder Oaks. “He was concerned and wanted to send us a very clear message that we were in their prayers,” Mansuri recalls. “It was like having someone who loves and cares for you; not so much a Mormon reaching out to me as a fellow believer reaching out.”
Oaks said he was primarily motivated by friendship. “I consider Shabbir Mansuri a brother,” he said. “He’s a good man who’s doing good work. We try to be friendly to all people, and in the days after 9/11, lots of Muslims felt rejected.”
In the months that followed, Mormons nationwide opened their churches to Islamic worshipers fearful of reprisals in their mosques. When Muslims needed a cannery to process the Bosnia-bound beef slaughtered for the annual Eid al-Adha observance, the Mormons offered theirs in Utah.
Following the tsunami that devastated many Islamic communities, the Mormon church, which has a history of contributing to a wide range of charities, began working closely with Islamic Relief. Though LDS had helped Muslims before – providing 195 tons of powdered milk, hygiene kits, medical supplies and other provisions – it had never previously worked with this major Islamic agency, or on such a scale.
And though the church continues to aid non-Muslim causes, only two of the six major disaster assistance efforts listed on its website since 2004 – Hurricane Katrina and Africa measles vaccination campaigns – did not primarily affect Islamic nations.
Locally, LDS helped the Islamic Society of Orange County’s Al-Rahman Mosque in Garden Grove develop its library with a $15,000 donation. “Their beliefs are similar to ours,” Robert Bremmer, a Mormon bishop, said at that facility’s open-mosque day in 2005. “They have modest dress, and so do we. They believe in all the [Old Testament] prophets, as do we.”
During Al-Rahman’s most recent open house in August, attended by many Mormon elders and dignitaries, a tribute was paid to a deceased LDS official supportive of the mosque.
The effects of Muslim-Mormon interaction are showing in subtle ways too. Spending time with Mormons, Bundakji says, has inspired him to stop drinking coffee.
“I thought they had a good idea,” he says. “Now I don’t drink caffeine and I don’t have headaches anymore.”
david.haldane@latimes.com
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By David Haldane
April 02, 2008 in print edition B-1
The Mormon Church has to be among the most outgoing on Earth; in recent years its leaders have reached out to, among others, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics and Jews.
One of the most enthusiastic responses, however, has come from what some might consider a surprising source: U.S. Muslims.
“We are very aware of the history of Mormons as a group that was chastised in America,” says Maher Hathout, a senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. “They can be a good model for any group that feels alienated.”
Which perhaps explains an open-mosque day held last fall at the Islamic Center of Irvine. More than half the guests were Mormons.
“A Mormon living in an Islamic society would be very comfortable,” said Steve Young, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attending the event.
The sentiment is echoed by Muslims. “When I go to a Mormon church I feel at ease,” said Haitham Bundakji, former chairman of the Islamic Society of Orange County. “When I heard the president [of LDS] speak a few years ago, if I’d closed my eyes I’d have thought he was an imam.”
Though the relationship has raised eyebrows and provided ammunition for critics of both religions, Mormons and Muslims have deepening ties in the United States.
What binds them has little to do with theology: Mormons venerate Jesus as interpreted by founder Joseph Smith, while Muslims view Muhammad as God’s prophet. Based on shared values and a sense of isolation from mainstream America, the connection was intensified by 9/11 and cemented by the Southeast Asia tsunami. It is especially evident in Southern California, with large Mormon and Muslim populations.
The Mormon Church has become the biggest contributor to Buena Park-based Islamic Relief, touted by its administrators as the West’s largest Muslim-based charity. Relief officials say the church has donated $20 million in goods and services since the 2004 tsunami, equal to about 20% of the charity’s annual budget.
Brigham Young University in Utah, the church’s major institution of higher learning, features what is thought to be one of the world’s best programs for translating classic Islamic works from Arabic to English. Though created primarily for academic purposes, the results have impressed Muslims flattered by the close attention.
“It shows they have a keen interest in the Muslim world,” said Levent Akbarut, a member of the Islamic Congregation of La Cañada Flintridge.
And Mormons and Muslims say they often are co-hosts of educational and social programs at which, though some may be angling for long-term doctrinal influence, very little open proselytizing of each other seems to take place. “We have a very close and friendly relationship,” said Keith Atkinson, West Coast LDS spokesman.
Mormons “explain our faith to anyone who will listen” and “treat Muslims like anybody else,” said Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, one of the church’s top governing bodies in Salt Lake City. But Oaks added that “we don’t preach to people who would be disenfranchised” or likely offended.
Arnold H. Green, a history professor at BYU, has traced how early Mormons in the 19th century were hounded by accusations that church founder Smith was the American Muhammad. The first Mormons angrily denied any connection to the Muslim prophet but gradually accepted some comparisons, particularly that both religions were founded by post-Christian prophets with strong sectarian views. “As the church grew into a global faith,” Green wrote in a 2001 essay, “its posture toward Islam became … more positive” until, today, “the two faiths have become associated in several ways, including Mormonism’s being called the Islam of America.”
Both religions strongly emphasize family. They tend toward patriarchy, believing in feminine modesty, chastity and virtue. And although Islam discourages dancing involving both sexes, Mormons report that church-sponsored “modesty proms” commonly draw Islamic youths.
Both faiths adhere to religion-based health codes, including prohibitions against alcohol, but Mormons and Muslims share something more: membership in quickly growing minority religions that many other Americans have sometimes viewed with suspicion and scorn.
“We both come from traditions where there has been persecution in the past and continues to be prejudice,” said Steve Gilliland, LDS director of Muslim relations for Southern California. “That helps us Mormons identify with Muslims.”
A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that although a thin majority of those polled expressed positive opinions of Muslims and Mormons, the number was significantly less than those favoring Roman Catholics or Jews.
More than half the respondents said they had little or no awareness of the precepts and practices of either faith. But 45% saw Islam as more likely than other religions to encourage violence, and 31% said that Mormons weren’t Christian.
Armand L. Mauss, a Mormon and professor emeritus of sociology at Washington State University specializing in religious movements, said that unlike mainstream Christians and Jews, Muslims and Mormons “tend to make fairly stringent demands for religious conformity on their members.” These practices, he said, include discouraging marriage outside the religion and observing dietary laws, such as the Mormon prohibition against tobacco, alcohol and caffeine.
But the clincher, according to Mauss, is that both communities “have been stung in recent years by the recurrence of scandals over which they have no control.” For Muslims, the obvious example is 9/11.
For Mormons, Mauss says, the problem is polygamy, which, though rejected by the mainstream church more than a century ago, is still the first thing that occurs to many Americans when they think about the religion.
The relationship between the two religions has sometimes drawn ire.
Scattered throughout the Internet are numerous tracts, many by evangelical Christians, comparing the two religions in less-than-complimentary terms. “Modern Mohammedanism has its Mecca in Salt Lake,” reads one. “Clearly the Koran was Joseph Smith’s model, so closely followed as to exclude even the poor pretension of originality in his foul ‘revelations.’ ”
In Southern California, the relationship between the two religions became closer after the Los Angeles riots in 1992, when the Mormon Church, hoping to promote diversity, invited several ethnic and religious groups to attend the opening of its new temple in San Diego. Muslims responded in higher numbers and with greater enthusiasm than most others. The church later feted prominent Muslims in Salt Lake City.
“We were treated as dignitaries,” said Shabbir Mansuri, founding director of the Muslim-based Institute on Religion and Civic Values in Fountain Valley, which encourages tolerance through research and education. “I met with the president of LDS and the governor of Utah. We were sitting in the front row of the Tabernacle. Mormons would give their right arms to be there.”
The relationship deepened on Sept. 11, 2001. The first call Mansuri received that day came from Elder Oaks. “He was concerned and wanted to send us a very clear message that we were in their prayers,” Mansuri recalls. “It was like having someone who loves and cares for you; not so much a Mormon reaching out to me as a fellow believer reaching out.”
Oaks said he was primarily motivated by friendship. “I consider Shabbir Mansuri a brother,” he said. “He’s a good man who’s doing good work. We try to be friendly to all people, and in the days after 9/11, lots of Muslims felt rejected.”
In the months that followed, Mormons nationwide opened their churches to Islamic worshipers fearful of reprisals in their mosques. When Muslims needed a cannery to process the Bosnia-bound beef slaughtered for the annual Eid al-Adha observance, the Mormons offered theirs in Utah.
Following the tsunami that devastated many Islamic communities, the Mormon church, which has a history of contributing to a wide range of charities, began working closely with Islamic Relief. Though LDS had helped Muslims before – providing 195 tons of powdered milk, hygiene kits, medical supplies and other provisions – it had never previously worked with this major Islamic agency, or on such a scale.
And though the church continues to aid non-Muslim causes, only two of the six major disaster assistance efforts listed on its website since 2004 – Hurricane Katrina and Africa measles vaccination campaigns – did not primarily affect Islamic nations.
Locally, LDS helped the Islamic Society of Orange County’s Al-Rahman Mosque in Garden Grove develop its library with a $15,000 donation. “Their beliefs are similar to ours,” Robert Bremmer, a Mormon bishop, said at that facility’s open-mosque day in 2005. “They have modest dress, and so do we. They believe in all the [Old Testament] prophets, as do we.”
During Al-Rahman’s most recent open house in August, attended by many Mormon elders and dignitaries, a tribute was paid to a deceased LDS official supportive of the mosque.
The effects of Muslim-Mormon interaction are showing in subtle ways too. Spending time with Mormons, Bundakji says, has inspired him to stop drinking coffee.
“I thought they had a good idea,” he says. “Now I don’t drink caffeine and I don’t have headaches anymore.”
david.haldane@latimes.com
Monday, August 18, 2008
'I will win' Obama vows, as VP rumors swirl
From BreitBart.com
Democrat Barack Obama piled up nearly eight million fundraising dollars in a single lucrative night, as anticipation built over his looming choice of White House running mate.
"I will win, don't worry about that," Obama told a crowd of 1,300 people at a fundraiser Sunday night in California, one of three back-to-back events which netted a staggering 7.8 million dollars, his campaign said.
Obama's vow opened a crucial week in his White House duel with Republican John McCain, the last before his party's nominating convention in Denver, with expectations high that he will soon name his vice presidential nominee.
Given the deteriorating economy, "bungled" foreign policy and unpopular Iraq war, Obama said it would be nice if voters would simply think "'Toss the bums out, we're starting from scratch, we're starting over.'"
"These are the knuckleheads who have been in charge -- throw em out. But American politics aren't that simple," he said, arguing people needed to be prodded into voting for change.
And he warned Republicans had a "whole machinery that they're cranking out" full of negative character attacks designed to scare people away from him.
But the Illinois senator, introduced in San Francisco by House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "leader that God has blessed us with at this time," vowed not to make the mistake of previous Democratic nominees in failing to sufficiently repel Repubican assaults.
"Not only do you have a candidate who doesn't take any guff. Not only do you have a candidate who will hit back swiftly and forcefully and truthfully.
"But you've also got American people who are rising up all over the country and saying, enough is enough," said Obama, in remarks detailed in a pool report of the private event distributed by the Obama campaign.
Obama later flew on to New Mexico, to campaign Monday in a key western state, home of Governor Bill Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, seen as an outside possibility for vice presidential nominee.
A frenetic two-and-a-half month sprint is looming for Obama and McCain, with the close race offering tantalizing hopes of victory for both campaigns.
Neither candidate has offered a clear hint of the identity of their running mates, but one potential pick for McCain, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, ruled himself out of the race on Sunday.
Asked by NBC if he would like the job, 37-year-old Jindal said: "No. I've got the job I want."
Possible Obama pick, Virginia governor Tim Kaine, said he didn't think he was in the frame, while Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, coyly told CBS there was nothing to report yet.
Democrats meet in Denver, in the swing state of Colorado, between August 25 and 28, in a convention choreographed to finally salve the wounds of the bitter primary fight between Obama and former Democratic foe Hillary Clinton.
Republicans will anoint McCain in St Paul, Minnesota the following week, leaving the Arizona senator a little longer to wrestle with his choice of running mate.
Then the rivals will clash in presidential debates on September 26 and October 7 and 15, which analysts say could cement the decisions of voters before the November 4 election.
Going into this critical period, the race is remarkably stable, with Obama, 47, vying to become America's first black president, enjoying a steady yet small lead of a few points over McCain in national polls.
The rivals are also closely matched in battlegrounds like Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, Ohio and Florida that hold the key to the White House.
Democrat Barack Obama piled up nearly eight million fundraising dollars in a single lucrative night, as anticipation built over his looming choice of White House running mate.
"I will win, don't worry about that," Obama told a crowd of 1,300 people at a fundraiser Sunday night in California, one of three back-to-back events which netted a staggering 7.8 million dollars, his campaign said.
Obama's vow opened a crucial week in his White House duel with Republican John McCain, the last before his party's nominating convention in Denver, with expectations high that he will soon name his vice presidential nominee.
Given the deteriorating economy, "bungled" foreign policy and unpopular Iraq war, Obama said it would be nice if voters would simply think "'Toss the bums out, we're starting from scratch, we're starting over.'"
"These are the knuckleheads who have been in charge -- throw em out. But American politics aren't that simple," he said, arguing people needed to be prodded into voting for change.
And he warned Republicans had a "whole machinery that they're cranking out" full of negative character attacks designed to scare people away from him.
But the Illinois senator, introduced in San Francisco by House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "leader that God has blessed us with at this time," vowed not to make the mistake of previous Democratic nominees in failing to sufficiently repel Repubican assaults.
"Not only do you have a candidate who doesn't take any guff. Not only do you have a candidate who will hit back swiftly and forcefully and truthfully.
"But you've also got American people who are rising up all over the country and saying, enough is enough," said Obama, in remarks detailed in a pool report of the private event distributed by the Obama campaign.
Obama later flew on to New Mexico, to campaign Monday in a key western state, home of Governor Bill Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, seen as an outside possibility for vice presidential nominee.
A frenetic two-and-a-half month sprint is looming for Obama and McCain, with the close race offering tantalizing hopes of victory for both campaigns.
Neither candidate has offered a clear hint of the identity of their running mates, but one potential pick for McCain, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, ruled himself out of the race on Sunday.
Asked by NBC if he would like the job, 37-year-old Jindal said: "No. I've got the job I want."
Possible Obama pick, Virginia governor Tim Kaine, said he didn't think he was in the frame, while Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, coyly told CBS there was nothing to report yet.
Democrats meet in Denver, in the swing state of Colorado, between August 25 and 28, in a convention choreographed to finally salve the wounds of the bitter primary fight between Obama and former Democratic foe Hillary Clinton.
Republicans will anoint McCain in St Paul, Minnesota the following week, leaving the Arizona senator a little longer to wrestle with his choice of running mate.
Then the rivals will clash in presidential debates on September 26 and October 7 and 15, which analysts say could cement the decisions of voters before the November 4 election.
Going into this critical period, the race is remarkably stable, with Obama, 47, vying to become America's first black president, enjoying a steady yet small lead of a few points over McCain in national polls.
The rivals are also closely matched in battlegrounds like Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, Ohio and Florida that hold the key to the White House.
Push to free border agents is renewed
By Graeme Zielinski - SAEN
Joe Loya, father-in-law of former Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos, slipped into the shade outside the El Paso federal courthouse last week, lamenting the absence of a Lou Dobbs producer while a volunteer “Minuteman” from California captured Loya on a digital recorder for a Web site.
A few yards away, Mexican drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, 27, shackled and just sentenced to 114 months in prison, was soon to be led into a white bus emblazoned with the U.S. Marshals Service insignia.
Hundreds of miles away, Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean sat incarcerated, in Phoenix and in Elkton, Ohio, respectively, each serving more than a decade for a 2005 shooting in the dust of the Mexican border. The two former Border Patrol agents shot a fleeing and unarmed Aldrete in the buttocks during a botched drug run on the border near El Paso.
The past few weeks have seen dramatic developments in the cases of Ramos and Compean, pushing the story back onto front pages and breathing new energy into movements — inflamed by the roiling debate over drugs and immigration from Mexico — to see them freed.
As the options for Ramos and Compean become more limited, there is still a flurry of activity on their behalf, fired by a recent appellate ruling and Aldrete's conviction.
Supporters continue to raise money for the former agents' legal defense and their young families. Congressional attempts are under way to retroactively change gun laws in such a way that would see Ramos and Compean sprung.
Pleas for a pardon or commutation for Ramos and Compean from President Bush are sharpening. And anti-immigration activists, who see in Ramos and Compean metaphors for what's wrong on the Mexican border, are pressing their public excoriation of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, for whom the case has become a public relations headache.
“I think, at this point, you'd have to say the hill gets a lot steeper to climb,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a supporter of the agents who has written to Bush seeking commutations.
David Armendariz, a San Antonio immigration lawyer, said the agents' supporters are at a point of desperation.
“It's the end of the road for them,” he said. “They had their day in court. They had their due process of law, the same due process that they tried to deprive a person who they shot in the back.”
Appellate ruling
On July 28, a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down arguments seeking to overturn the jury convictions of the former agents for shooting Aldrete and then seeking to cover it up.
The panel in strong language denied the central points of the appeals, that jurors had wrongly been kept from information about Aldrete and that the prosecution had improperly applied a gun statute with mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years.
The legal hurdles for Ramos and Compean grew even higher with the 5th Circuit ruling. The ruling might have cracked open some avenues for appeal, but deferred to the judgment of the jury in the case that the men wrongfully pursued and shot at Aldrete, and that Aldrete, though hauling hundreds of pounds of marijuana, posed no threat to the men.
Responding to an argument about the application of a gun statute, E. Grady Jolly wrote for the three-judge panel that “whether the defendants were justified in shooting Aldrete Davila is an issue no longer in play after the jury verdict that rejected the defendants' version of the facts.”
The appellate lawyers for both Ramos and Compean have filed motions for a re-hearing, an unusual action in any case, and for their arguments to be heard by the judges of the entire circuit, a move rarely granted following so forceful a decision.
David L. Botsford, a lawyer for Ramos, was hopeful, saying, “It ain't over yet.”
“I don't have a crystal ball, but there are some serious issues that justify re-hearing,” he said.
So far as the possibility of commutations go, a Justice Department spokesman said Aug. 8 that neither former agent had formally applied for clemency. It's not clear that either yet would even be eligible under current rules, especially since their appeals are still pending.
That hasn't stopped several members of Congress, including Cornyn, from pressing the case for clemency.
Asked July 30 about a statement from Cornyn that President Bush should “step forward and commute their sentences,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino demurred, and directed reporters to the 5th Circuit decision.
Cornyn, in an Aug. 8 interview, said, “It looks increasingly like the president's the only one constitutionally to be able to do something about it.”
Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), part of a group of congressmen who have pressed the case for Ramos and Compean, ascribed deeper motives to Bush, speculating that the lack of action had to do with the administration's deference to trade goals with Mexico.
“I don't know that for a fact. It's hard to get them to respond to anything regarding these two Border Patrol agents,” said Jones, who also said he was working to have another Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter and put Sutton under oath again.
Sutton, whose office is near the lead in the country in drug and immigration convictions, has repeatedly rejected the characterizations of the agents as innocents or his office's prosecution as vindictive.
Sutton has been caricatured as “Johnny Satan” on Web sites and been the subject of other vituperative remarks, but, in an interview last week, he again defended the case.
“This case is not about me or my prosecutors,” he said. “This case is about the rule of law ... We had to follow the facts where they led.”
Last week, a chastened Aldrete himself returned to the courtroom where he had testified against the agents.
Except this time, he was there to be sentenced for being the hub of a cross-border drug-running operation, delivering hundreds of pounds of marijuana, even after the gunshot that fragmented and tore through his urethra in February 2005.
Movement to free agents
Back in El Paso last week, Loya, father of Monica Ramos, Ignacio Ramos' 36-year-old wife and a driving force within a media-savvy campaign, sighed when asked to predict the outcome for his central goal, to see his son-in-law and a fellow agent freed.
“I don't know where this is going to go,” Loya said, maneuvering toward a battery of cameras with the “Minuteman” from the vigilante group against illegal immigration in tow.
As for attitudes within the conservative circles that have kept the story alive and Sutton in their crosshairs, Houston radio talk show host and steakhouse proprietor Edd Hendee answered a question about whether or not it still resonated with an anecdote.
After the 5th Circuit ruling, he put out appeals for donations to the Ramos and Compean families, to cover legal and living expenses. The response?
“It's going to take us the better part of a month to two months, with two people working around the clock... to handle opening the letters and counting the checks,” he said.
With more than $206,000 raised as of Aug. 8, Hendee said he's had to set aside space in his steakhouse's administrative offices for the stacks of checks.
But in El Paso, advocacy for Ramos and Compean falls on deaf ears because of the large percentage of Mexican immigrants in town, said Loya, an insurance agent.
“People just don't want to get behind us for some kind of fear, because there's so much hate for the Border Patrol in El Paso,” he said.
Loya said he was going to continue to press for Ramos' release, chiefly because of his three grandchildren. The day of the Aldrete sentencing, one celebrated his 11th birthday.
“After he opened his gifts, he said to me, ‘I still didn't get what I want,'” Loya said.
After Bibles seized, U.S. group won't leave Chinese airport
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Four members of a Christian group from the United States are refusing to leave an airport in China after authorities confiscated their 300 Bibles, the group's director said Monday.
The four members of Vision Beyond Borders -- based in Sheridan, Wyoming -- arrived in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Sunday. Customs officials discovered the Bibles during an X-ray scan of their luggage, said Pat Klein, director of the group, which supplies Bibles and other Christian material to people in China and other countries.
Under Chinese law, it is illegal to bring printed religious material into the country if it exceeds the amount for personal use. The group distributes the Bibles through a local shop owner in Kunming, according to Klein.
Klein said he's been bringing Bibles into China for 21 years and had no idea he was breaking Chinese law.
The group spent the night at the airport, and Chinese customs officials told them they had broken the law and repeatedly asked them to leave the airport, Klein said. He said the customs agents have not been antagonistic.
China says Christians are free to worship in China -- as long as they worship in a church that registers with the government.
People in China can buy Bibles, but some members of underground or unregistered churches in China say Bibles are in short supply in some locations, especially rural areas, according to a 2007 report from the U.S. State Department.
The Report on International Religious Freedom warned that the distribution of religious publications in China is closely watched. All publication in China is controlled by the government, whether religious or otherwise.
"Customs officials continued to monitor for the 'smuggling' of Bibles and other religious material into the country," the report said. "Religious texts published without authorization, including Bibles and Qurans, may be confiscated."
President Bush criticized China's record on human rights and religious freedom in a speech he made before going to China for the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics.
"I have spoken clearly, candidly and consistently with China's leaders about our deep concerns over religious freedom and human rights," he said. "And I have met repeatedly with Chinese dissidents and religious believers. The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings."
Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, brushed aside Bush's criticism.
"We firmly oppose any statements or deeds which use human rights, religion and other issues to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries," he said.
He said China "keeps to the concept of putting people's interest first and is devoted to maintaining and promoting basic rights and freedom of its citizens.
"Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religion in accordance with the law."
While in China, Bush worshipped at a church that operates with government permission. That drew criticism from Amnesty International and other advocates of religious freedom, who said that Bush was endorsing the Chinese government's regulation of churches.
Klein, meanwhile, said his group members won't leave until their Bibles are returned.
"We're being inconvenienced a little, but it's nothing compared to what our brothers and sisters in China experience for their faith in Jesus Christ," Klein said.
The four members of Vision Beyond Borders -- based in Sheridan, Wyoming -- arrived in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Sunday. Customs officials discovered the Bibles during an X-ray scan of their luggage, said Pat Klein, director of the group, which supplies Bibles and other Christian material to people in China and other countries.
Under Chinese law, it is illegal to bring printed religious material into the country if it exceeds the amount for personal use. The group distributes the Bibles through a local shop owner in Kunming, according to Klein.
Klein said he's been bringing Bibles into China for 21 years and had no idea he was breaking Chinese law.
The group spent the night at the airport, and Chinese customs officials told them they had broken the law and repeatedly asked them to leave the airport, Klein said. He said the customs agents have not been antagonistic.
China says Christians are free to worship in China -- as long as they worship in a church that registers with the government.
People in China can buy Bibles, but some members of underground or unregistered churches in China say Bibles are in short supply in some locations, especially rural areas, according to a 2007 report from the U.S. State Department.
The Report on International Religious Freedom warned that the distribution of religious publications in China is closely watched. All publication in China is controlled by the government, whether religious or otherwise.
"Customs officials continued to monitor for the 'smuggling' of Bibles and other religious material into the country," the report said. "Religious texts published without authorization, including Bibles and Qurans, may be confiscated."
President Bush criticized China's record on human rights and religious freedom in a speech he made before going to China for the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics.
"I have spoken clearly, candidly and consistently with China's leaders about our deep concerns over religious freedom and human rights," he said. "And I have met repeatedly with Chinese dissidents and religious believers. The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings."
Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, brushed aside Bush's criticism.
"We firmly oppose any statements or deeds which use human rights, religion and other issues to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries," he said.
He said China "keeps to the concept of putting people's interest first and is devoted to maintaining and promoting basic rights and freedom of its citizens.
"Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religion in accordance with the law."
While in China, Bush worshipped at a church that operates with government permission. That drew criticism from Amnesty International and other advocates of religious freedom, who said that Bush was endorsing the Chinese government's regulation of churches.
Klein, meanwhile, said his group members won't leave until their Bibles are returned.
"We're being inconvenienced a little, but it's nothing compared to what our brothers and sisters in China experience for their faith in Jesus Christ," Klein said.
California Supreme Court Tramples Doctors' Religious Beliefs
From citizenlink
In a unanimous ruling today, California's high court said the rights of gays and lesbians trump the religious beliefs of doctors.
Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state law that grants special rights based on sexual orientation.
"This case highlights an ominous trend of the law in this country," said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action. "In a conflict between the homosexual agenda and religious liberty, the homosexual agenda is favored in the courts over the First Amendment.
"This opinion is the second of the summer in which the Supreme Court has 'gone off the rails' in accommodating a minority agenda at the expense of the sensibilities and constitutional rights of the majority of Californians."
In May, the same court struck down Proposition 22, a voter-approved statute protecting marriage as between one man and one woman.
In a unanimous ruling today, California's high court said the rights of gays and lesbians trump the religious beliefs of doctors.
Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state law that grants special rights based on sexual orientation.
"This case highlights an ominous trend of the law in this country," said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action. "In a conflict between the homosexual agenda and religious liberty, the homosexual agenda is favored in the courts over the First Amendment.
"This opinion is the second of the summer in which the Supreme Court has 'gone off the rails' in accommodating a minority agenda at the expense of the sensibilities and constitutional rights of the majority of Californians."
In May, the same court struck down Proposition 22, a voter-approved statute protecting marriage as between one man and one woman.
Radio host drops lawsuit against Islamic group
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 15, 2008
(08-14) 18:29 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Conservative talk show host Michael Savage has changed his mind and is reluctantly dropping his lawsuit against an Islamic rights group that launched an advertisers' boycott after he attacked Islam and the Quran on the air, his lawyer said Thursday.
A San Francisco federal judge threw out Savage's earlier copyright and racketeering suit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations last month but gave him a chance to file an amended suit by today. In an unusual court filing, attorney Daniel Horowitz, who had earlier promised a new suit that would pass legal muster, said Thursday that Savage has a legitimate case but has decided not to pursue it.
Insisting that Savage can prove the Islamic organization engaged in a conspiracy that harmed him financially, Horowitz said the talk show host is reluctantly dismissing the suit because of "factors arising out of this litigation," which he did not specify.
Later Thursday, Horowitz said he feared his client would be in danger if he continued the case. The attorney said he has no evidence that CAIR commits violent acts but alleged that the Islamic group is out to silence Savage and conducts campaigns that may stir up violence by others.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, said Savage was "cutting his losses" by dropping the suit.
"They realized they had no case whatsoever but wanted to get one more smear in before they headed for the bushes," Hooper said.
Savage, who has about 8 million listeners a week on 400 stations for his syndicated "Savage Nation" talk-radio program, said in a broadcast last Oct. 29 that Muslims were "screaming for the blood of Christians or Jews or anyone they hate." He called the Quran a "hateful little book" and a "document of slavery."
CAIR, based in Washington, D.C., posted four minutes of excerpts from the broadcast on its Web site and called for an advertiser boycott. The group says Savage has since lost $1 million in advertising.
Savage's lawsuit, filed in September, accused CAIR of copyright infringement, saying the group had misappropriated his words and used them for fund-raising. He also claimed the group was engaged in racketeering, describing it as a "mouthpiece of international terror" that had helped to finance the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. CAIR called those allegations preposterous and denied any connection to terrorism.
In a July 25 ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said anyone who listens to a public broadcast is entitled to take excerpts and use them for purposes of comment and criticism without violating copyright.
In dismissing the racketeering claim, Illston said that even if Savage could prove CAIR was part of a worldwide terrorist conspiracy, he hadn't shown how it affected him or his broadcast. She noted that his allegations were largely focused on activities - such as lawsuits, boycotts and criticism of his broadcasts - that are protected by free speech, but said he could try to rewrite the claim to cure its legal defects.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
Friday, August 15, 2008
(08-14) 18:29 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Conservative talk show host Michael Savage has changed his mind and is reluctantly dropping his lawsuit against an Islamic rights group that launched an advertisers' boycott after he attacked Islam and the Quran on the air, his lawyer said Thursday.
A San Francisco federal judge threw out Savage's earlier copyright and racketeering suit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations last month but gave him a chance to file an amended suit by today. In an unusual court filing, attorney Daniel Horowitz, who had earlier promised a new suit that would pass legal muster, said Thursday that Savage has a legitimate case but has decided not to pursue it.
Insisting that Savage can prove the Islamic organization engaged in a conspiracy that harmed him financially, Horowitz said the talk show host is reluctantly dismissing the suit because of "factors arising out of this litigation," which he did not specify.
Later Thursday, Horowitz said he feared his client would be in danger if he continued the case. The attorney said he has no evidence that CAIR commits violent acts but alleged that the Islamic group is out to silence Savage and conducts campaigns that may stir up violence by others.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, said Savage was "cutting his losses" by dropping the suit.
"They realized they had no case whatsoever but wanted to get one more smear in before they headed for the bushes," Hooper said.
Savage, who has about 8 million listeners a week on 400 stations for his syndicated "Savage Nation" talk-radio program, said in a broadcast last Oct. 29 that Muslims were "screaming for the blood of Christians or Jews or anyone they hate." He called the Quran a "hateful little book" and a "document of slavery."
CAIR, based in Washington, D.C., posted four minutes of excerpts from the broadcast on its Web site and called for an advertiser boycott. The group says Savage has since lost $1 million in advertising.
Savage's lawsuit, filed in September, accused CAIR of copyright infringement, saying the group had misappropriated his words and used them for fund-raising. He also claimed the group was engaged in racketeering, describing it as a "mouthpiece of international terror" that had helped to finance the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. CAIR called those allegations preposterous and denied any connection to terrorism.
In a July 25 ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said anyone who listens to a public broadcast is entitled to take excerpts and use them for purposes of comment and criticism without violating copyright.
In dismissing the racketeering claim, Illston said that even if Savage could prove CAIR was part of a worldwide terrorist conspiracy, he hadn't shown how it affected him or his broadcast. She noted that his allegations were largely focused on activities - such as lawsuits, boycotts and criticism of his broadcasts - that are protected by free speech, but said he could try to rewrite the claim to cure its legal defects.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Muslim father burns Christian daughter alive
Man slices out girl's tongue, ignites her after 'heated debate on religion'
Posted: August 13, 2008
9:54 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
A Saudi Arabian Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.
The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported.
Her father read of her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report.
The father is employed by the muwateen, or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity. The man has been taken into custody, and his identity has not been released.
The ICC pointed out the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has reported textbooks at the Saudi Arabian government school in Northern Virginia teach, "It is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam)."
Saudi Arabian oil money is used to export Wahabbism – a version of Islam said to be least tolerant toward non-Muslims – to other nations, including the U.S., ICC notes.
ICC president Jeff King said, "Saudi Arabia has to treat Christians with the same respect that it wants Muslims to be treated in other countries. It has to stop exporting hate and persecution against Christians in other countries."
Posted: August 13, 2008
9:54 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
A Saudi Arabian Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.
The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported.
Her father read of her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report.
The father is employed by the muwateen, or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity. The man has been taken into custody, and his identity has not been released.
The ICC pointed out the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has reported textbooks at the Saudi Arabian government school in Northern Virginia teach, "It is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam)."
Saudi Arabian oil money is used to export Wahabbism – a version of Islam said to be least tolerant toward non-Muslims – to other nations, including the U.S., ICC notes.
ICC president Jeff King said, "Saudi Arabia has to treat Christians with the same respect that it wants Muslims to be treated in other countries. It has to stop exporting hate and persecution against Christians in other countries."
North Texas school district will let teachers carry guns
Associated Press
Aug. 15, 2008, 4:27PM
HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.
Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements.
In order for teachers and staff to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and have to use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.
Superintendent David Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.
"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in Friday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Thweatt said officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change. He said the district also has various other security measures in place to prevent a school shooting.
"The naysayers think (a shooting) won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them," Thweatt said.
Texas law outlaws firearms on school campuses "unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution."
It was unclear how many of the 50 or so teachers and staff members will be armed this fall because Thweatt did not disclose that information, to keep it from students or potential attackers. Wilbarger County Sheriff Larry Lee was out of the office Thursday and did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, the newspaper said.
Barbara Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said her organization did not know of another district with such a policy. Ken Trump, a Cleveland-based school security expert who advises districts nationwide, including in Texas, said Harrold is the first district with such a policy.
The 110-student district is 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern end of Wilbarger County, near the Oklahoma border.
Aug. 15, 2008, 4:27PM
HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.
Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements.
In order for teachers and staff to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and have to use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.
Superintendent David Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.
"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in Friday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Thweatt said officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change. He said the district also has various other security measures in place to prevent a school shooting.
"The naysayers think (a shooting) won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them," Thweatt said.
Texas law outlaws firearms on school campuses "unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution."
It was unclear how many of the 50 or so teachers and staff members will be armed this fall because Thweatt did not disclose that information, to keep it from students or potential attackers. Wilbarger County Sheriff Larry Lee was out of the office Thursday and did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, the newspaper said.
Barbara Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said her organization did not know of another district with such a policy. Ken Trump, a Cleveland-based school security expert who advises districts nationwide, including in Texas, said Harrold is the first district with such a policy.
The 110-student district is 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern end of Wilbarger County, near the Oklahoma border.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Michael Savage vows to take Islam fight to Supreme Court
Popular radio host seeks to expose CAIR's 'international funding sources'
Posted: August 10, 2008
4:50 pm Eastern
Talk-radio host Michael Savage has announced he will bring his recently dismissed copyright infringement lawsuit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of making public the Islamic group's sources of funding.
Savage's suit – originally filed in San Francisco district court – alleged CAIR illegally published singled-out quotes and audio excerpts from his show regarding Islam, misappropriated his words and used the clips for its own fundraising purposes, damaging the value of his copyrighted material.
CAIR last year waged a public campaign using excerpted Savage remarks to urge advertisers to boycott his top-rated program. CAIR stated its campaign successfully resulted in Savage losing $1 million in advertising.
Part of Savage's lawsuit alleged CAIR received millions in foreign funding and that it may have been wrongfully acting as a lobbyist or agent for a foreign government, violating the Islamic group's nonprofit status.
Savage also alleged CAIR was engaged in racketeering, describing the group as a "mouthpiece of international terror" that helped fund the 9/11 attacks, a contention strongly denied by CAIR.
But his lawsuit was tossed last month by San Francisco District U.S. Judge Susan Illston, who argued it is legal to use excerpts of a public broadcast for purposes of comment and criticism.
Illston, nominated to her position by President Bill Clinton, wrote in her ruling that Savage could try to rewrite the racketeering portion of his suit to better fit the specifics of his case.
Savage's attorney Daniel Horowitz told WND he is reworking the suit to directly address Illston's "respectful" ruling. He said the new suit includes over 200 pages of supporting documents, including 200 pages of transcripts of the meeting in which CAIR was founded.
On his program last week, Savage announced if Illston again rejects his suit, he will bring the case to the higher 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court.
"I'm going to open up this case. I'm going to sue CAIR. I'm bringing a lawsuit back against them. It's going to cost me a fortune," Savage said. "And when Judge Illston rejects it again, which she will do because she's a minion of the Bill Clinton crowd, I'm going to take it over her head and I'm going to go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where again I'm going to hit a stonewall. And then I'm going to take it to the Supreme Court until eventually I force CAIR to describe who their funding sources are.
Horowitz said if the suit goes to the Supreme Court, he will seek to procure the representation of attorney Martin Garbus, who has famously won numerous high-profile Supreme Court cases.
Savage pointed to CAIR's recent complaint against the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing company for not hiring a Muslim woman dressed in a head scarf as evidence the Islamic group is expanding its "targets" beyond talk radio.
The woman applied for a job in Oklahoma City. The local Abercrombie manager allegedly said a scarf "does not fit" the company's image.
"Don't you understand what they're doing to this country?" asked Savage. "How they're targeting the Midwest, talk radio, one talk show host at a time? One company at a time? Don't you know that CAIR is going to come for you?"
Continued Savage: "First they came for Michel Savage, and you didn't raise your voice and you laughed. Then they came after Abercrombie and Fitch, and you didn't raise your voice because you weren't in the retail business. Tomorrow they'll come after you and your business."
Addressing CAIR directly, Savage warned: "One day you're going to hit the wrong judge in the wrong city at the wrong time and then the American people are going to find out where your funding is coming from."
The top radio host urged listeners to make online donations at his website to help fund his lawsuit.
Foreign contributions to CAIR established
In May 2007, CAIR was identified by the government as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving the Holy Land Foundation, a charity allegedly affiliated with Hamas. Federal prosecutors in the case listed CAIR under the category: “Individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.”
The government also listed Omar Ahmad, CAIR's founder and chairman emeritus, under the same category.
CAIR is registered as a nonprofit organization recognized as tax-exempt under IRS codes, which restrict "lobbying on behalf of a foreign government." CAIR's website claims it receives no foreign government support.
But CAIR's headquarters near the U.S. Capitol until recently was owned by the ruler of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the ruler's foundation has pledged $50 million to capitalize a long-term CAIR public-relations campaign.
The UAE formally recognized the Taliban, and Dubai reportedly acted as the transit point for cash for the 9/11 hijackers. Two of the hijackers were from the Emirates, and one served in the UAE military.
Until 2005, the Al Maktoum Foundation run by Dubai's ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid held the deed to CAIR's headquarters just three blocks from the Capitol. The same foundation reportedly has held telethons to raise money for families of Palestinian "martyrs" during the intifada – or terrorist war – started in September 2000 against Israel. It recently pledged a $50 million endowment for CAIR.
CAIR argues that any assertions it receives money from foreign governments is "disinformation."
"This is yet another attempt to invent a controversy," the group said. "CAIR's operational budget is funded by donations from American Muslims."
CAIR, however, has never publicly acknowledged $1 million controlling interest that the ruler of Dubai's foundation took in its national headquarters just one year after 9/11.
The group also received $500,000 from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the sheik whose $10 million relief check after 9/11 was rejected by then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after he blamed U.S. policy toward Israel for the attacks.
"There is nothing criminal or immoral about accepting donations from foreign nationals," CAIR asserted. "The U.S. government, corporations and non-profit organizations routinely receive money from foreign nationals."
"Bin Talal is not a member of the Saudi Arabian government," the group added in a statement. "He is a private entrepreneur and international investor."
This may be a distinction without a difference, Savage's lawyers argue, since bin Talal is a member of the Saudi ruling family.
"CAIR is proud to receive support of every individual," CAIR argued, "as long as they are not an official of any foreign government and there are no strings attached to the bequest."
The UAE endowment to CAIR was specifically earmarked for public relations efforts to repair the image of Arabs and Muslims in America after public outrage doomed a Dubai bid to run U.S. ports.
Lawyers for Savage argue that CAIR may have used UAE funds and other foreign support to attack the radio host.
Posted: August 10, 2008
4:50 pm Eastern
Talk-radio host Michael Savage has announced he will bring his recently dismissed copyright infringement lawsuit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of making public the Islamic group's sources of funding.
Savage's suit – originally filed in San Francisco district court – alleged CAIR illegally published singled-out quotes and audio excerpts from his show regarding Islam, misappropriated his words and used the clips for its own fundraising purposes, damaging the value of his copyrighted material.
CAIR last year waged a public campaign using excerpted Savage remarks to urge advertisers to boycott his top-rated program. CAIR stated its campaign successfully resulted in Savage losing $1 million in advertising.
Part of Savage's lawsuit alleged CAIR received millions in foreign funding and that it may have been wrongfully acting as a lobbyist or agent for a foreign government, violating the Islamic group's nonprofit status.
Savage also alleged CAIR was engaged in racketeering, describing the group as a "mouthpiece of international terror" that helped fund the 9/11 attacks, a contention strongly denied by CAIR.
But his lawsuit was tossed last month by San Francisco District U.S. Judge Susan Illston, who argued it is legal to use excerpts of a public broadcast for purposes of comment and criticism.
Illston, nominated to her position by President Bill Clinton, wrote in her ruling that Savage could try to rewrite the racketeering portion of his suit to better fit the specifics of his case.
Savage's attorney Daniel Horowitz told WND he is reworking the suit to directly address Illston's "respectful" ruling. He said the new suit includes over 200 pages of supporting documents, including 200 pages of transcripts of the meeting in which CAIR was founded.
On his program last week, Savage announced if Illston again rejects his suit, he will bring the case to the higher 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court.
"I'm going to open up this case. I'm going to sue CAIR. I'm bringing a lawsuit back against them. It's going to cost me a fortune," Savage said. "And when Judge Illston rejects it again, which she will do because she's a minion of the Bill Clinton crowd, I'm going to take it over her head and I'm going to go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where again I'm going to hit a stonewall. And then I'm going to take it to the Supreme Court until eventually I force CAIR to describe who their funding sources are.
Horowitz said if the suit goes to the Supreme Court, he will seek to procure the representation of attorney Martin Garbus, who has famously won numerous high-profile Supreme Court cases.
Savage pointed to CAIR's recent complaint against the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing company for not hiring a Muslim woman dressed in a head scarf as evidence the Islamic group is expanding its "targets" beyond talk radio.
The woman applied for a job in Oklahoma City. The local Abercrombie manager allegedly said a scarf "does not fit" the company's image.
"Don't you understand what they're doing to this country?" asked Savage. "How they're targeting the Midwest, talk radio, one talk show host at a time? One company at a time? Don't you know that CAIR is going to come for you?"
Continued Savage: "First they came for Michel Savage, and you didn't raise your voice and you laughed. Then they came after Abercrombie and Fitch, and you didn't raise your voice because you weren't in the retail business. Tomorrow they'll come after you and your business."
Addressing CAIR directly, Savage warned: "One day you're going to hit the wrong judge in the wrong city at the wrong time and then the American people are going to find out where your funding is coming from."
The top radio host urged listeners to make online donations at his website to help fund his lawsuit.
Foreign contributions to CAIR established
In May 2007, CAIR was identified by the government as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving the Holy Land Foundation, a charity allegedly affiliated with Hamas. Federal prosecutors in the case listed CAIR under the category: “Individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.”
The government also listed Omar Ahmad, CAIR's founder and chairman emeritus, under the same category.
CAIR is registered as a nonprofit organization recognized as tax-exempt under IRS codes, which restrict "lobbying on behalf of a foreign government." CAIR's website claims it receives no foreign government support.
But CAIR's headquarters near the U.S. Capitol until recently was owned by the ruler of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the ruler's foundation has pledged $50 million to capitalize a long-term CAIR public-relations campaign.
The UAE formally recognized the Taliban, and Dubai reportedly acted as the transit point for cash for the 9/11 hijackers. Two of the hijackers were from the Emirates, and one served in the UAE military.
Until 2005, the Al Maktoum Foundation run by Dubai's ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid held the deed to CAIR's headquarters just three blocks from the Capitol. The same foundation reportedly has held telethons to raise money for families of Palestinian "martyrs" during the intifada – or terrorist war – started in September 2000 against Israel. It recently pledged a $50 million endowment for CAIR.
CAIR argues that any assertions it receives money from foreign governments is "disinformation."
"This is yet another attempt to invent a controversy," the group said. "CAIR's operational budget is funded by donations from American Muslims."
CAIR, however, has never publicly acknowledged $1 million controlling interest that the ruler of Dubai's foundation took in its national headquarters just one year after 9/11.
The group also received $500,000 from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the sheik whose $10 million relief check after 9/11 was rejected by then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after he blamed U.S. policy toward Israel for the attacks.
"There is nothing criminal or immoral about accepting donations from foreign nationals," CAIR asserted. "The U.S. government, corporations and non-profit organizations routinely receive money from foreign nationals."
"Bin Talal is not a member of the Saudi Arabian government," the group added in a statement. "He is a private entrepreneur and international investor."
This may be a distinction without a difference, Savage's lawyers argue, since bin Talal is a member of the Saudi ruling family.
"CAIR is proud to receive support of every individual," CAIR argued, "as long as they are not an official of any foreign government and there are no strings attached to the bequest."
The UAE endowment to CAIR was specifically earmarked for public relations efforts to repair the image of Arabs and Muslims in America after public outrage doomed a Dubai bid to run U.S. ports.
Lawyers for Savage argue that CAIR may have used UAE funds and other foreign support to attack the radio host.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Danger of Abortion to the Mother
The Danger of Abortion to the Mother
Source: Christian Life Resources Pregnancy Counseling Center Manual, 1996 Edition
Four major studies have clearly demonstrated that one abortion can significantly impair a woman's future child-bearing ability. These studies show a two-fold to 3.3-fold increase in miscarriages or premature births in such women, and a 2 to 2 1/2 times greater likelihood of low birth-weight babies. This information should be available as part of the informed consent agreement furnished all women desiring an abortion, especially since the number of women receiving multiple abortions is steadily increasing. However, the Supreme Court on June 15, 1983, overturned the Akron, Ohio decision which mandated doctors informing their patients. The Court went out of its way to further deregulate the abortion industry giving more rights to abortionists.
Six other studies of legal abortions performed by modern methods similar to those in the U.S. report definite increased relative risks for prematurity and low birth-weight when the woman becomes pregnant again. Studies which compared women without abortions to those with a past history of abortion showed relative risks in the abortion group of 1.3 to 1.67 for a low-birth-weight baby and 1.61 to 5.3 for a premature delivery. In studies comparing women with previous legal abortions to those with previous miscarriages, the relative risk of a premature birth was 1.9 to 2.5 times greater in the abortion group. The neo-natal intensive care units across the country are filled with babies whose mothers have had previous abortions.
A number of serious medical complications can arise from the abortion procedure. An Oxford University study, based on 1,182 abortions, showed complications in the following percentages:
16.7% - Blood transfusions required to counter hemorrhage
4.2% - Torn cervix
1.2% - Perforated uterus
1.0% - Thrombosis with blood clots in the lungs
27.0% - Fever and peritonitis (infection)
Other possible effects include infection and, later in life, increased chances of tubal pregnancy and sterility. Tragically, in a number of cases, the complications have been of such severity that they resulted in the death of the woman.
Abortion not only kills the unborn child, but it can be dangerous to the mother. Women are being kept ignorant of these facts.
Source: Christian Life Resources Pregnancy Counseling Center Manual, 1996 Edition
Four major studies have clearly demonstrated that one abortion can significantly impair a woman's future child-bearing ability. These studies show a two-fold to 3.3-fold increase in miscarriages or premature births in such women, and a 2 to 2 1/2 times greater likelihood of low birth-weight babies. This information should be available as part of the informed consent agreement furnished all women desiring an abortion, especially since the number of women receiving multiple abortions is steadily increasing. However, the Supreme Court on June 15, 1983, overturned the Akron, Ohio decision which mandated doctors informing their patients. The Court went out of its way to further deregulate the abortion industry giving more rights to abortionists.
Six other studies of legal abortions performed by modern methods similar to those in the U.S. report definite increased relative risks for prematurity and low birth-weight when the woman becomes pregnant again. Studies which compared women without abortions to those with a past history of abortion showed relative risks in the abortion group of 1.3 to 1.67 for a low-birth-weight baby and 1.61 to 5.3 for a premature delivery. In studies comparing women with previous legal abortions to those with previous miscarriages, the relative risk of a premature birth was 1.9 to 2.5 times greater in the abortion group. The neo-natal intensive care units across the country are filled with babies whose mothers have had previous abortions.
A number of serious medical complications can arise from the abortion procedure. An Oxford University study, based on 1,182 abortions, showed complications in the following percentages:
16.7% - Blood transfusions required to counter hemorrhage
4.2% - Torn cervix
1.2% - Perforated uterus
1.0% - Thrombosis with blood clots in the lungs
27.0% - Fever and peritonitis (infection)
Other possible effects include infection and, later in life, increased chances of tubal pregnancy and sterility. Tragically, in a number of cases, the complications have been of such severity that they resulted in the death of the woman.
Abortion not only kills the unborn child, but it can be dangerous to the mother. Women are being kept ignorant of these facts.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Boycott McDonald's!
McDonald's sponsored the 2007 San Francisco Gay Pride parade with a television commercial. In the ad, a McDonald's official (Darwin Choy) brags that it is "a company that actively demonstrates its commitment to the gay and lesbian community." The commercial is available at boycottmcdonalds.com and was originally posted on YouTube by the McDonald's employee. After AFA exposed it, it was removed by the McDonald's employee.
The parade was broadcast on San Francisco Channel KORN-TV4 and sponsored by McDonald's. The pictures below were taken from the parade.
Satan's Lie Zeitgeist Exposed and Refuted
From VeanomFangX
Zeitgeist the new 'truth' movie being promoted by its makers on conspiracy message boards around the internet has been thoroughly debunked. It is disgusting to think the makers would try to sell it as a 'truth movie' considering that it has dozens (over 50) easily provable factual errors. We are talking about specific false claims that have been debunked for years, yet because this is the first time its been put into a form of a movie it has new life.
You will notice that they don't site one single original source for the Jesus similarities they claim exist, you would think if it was true that the ancient texts showed such similarities, they would simply site these ancient texts. They don't because they do not exist; its quite simple, they instead offer books from authors such as Tim Leedom, Massey, Acharya, Doherty. This is laughable as a resource list if you have looked in to these claims. The numerous claims made by this movie concerning Jesus's many similarities are either true or false. Before I move on here are the links to various debunkings of the 'Christ myth'
Here is a great look at the ridiculous claims of most of the authors on that list (how they get away with this stuff is beyond rational thought)
http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesu...
This is another that site handles the major deities and does so with tremendous references.
www.thedevineevidence.com...
I like the next site because no stone is left unturned in his search for more and more 'Christ myths deities' to debunk, he has about 80 claims looked in to here:
http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesu...
Because this movie spent so much time claiming the similarities of horus and Jesus here is a specific debunking to show how clearly uninformed in mythology and how easily duped the makers of this film are in making this claim.
www.tektonics.org
Now for Leedoms 'Virishna' I wish there was more information to go on, but there is no such deity, at least in our earth's currently verifiable history. He apparently didn't bother with fact checking. Here is one account of the hunt for Virishna from an earlier source:
kingdavid8.com...
This movie also tries to make the claim that the Catholic churches pagan ideals, symbolism ,and rituals are somehow proof that Christianity itself is a part of this, nothing could be further from the truth. Lets take December 25th mentioned at least a dozen times in the film. The date of December 25th, which was officially proclaimed by the church fathers in A.D. 440, was actually a vestige of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, observed near the winter solstice, which itself was among the many pagan traditions inherited from the earlier Babylonian priesthood. Any person that doesn't drool on themselves will tell you that nowhere in the bible is this date mentioned or inferred in ANY way. It is ludicrous to say that and pagan rituals involving this date can be linked to Christianity before the catholic church got a hold of the idea, that is, ALMOST 500 YEARS LATER.
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