The Scriptorium

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” Matthew 18:15-27

This is the biblical model on conflict resolution that churches have been practicing for two thousand years. It is a matter of faith – of following the directives of our Lord and Savior. Nearly six years ago, Pastor Buddy Westbrook of Crossland Community Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas, implemented this model and ultimately disfellowshipped a church member who did not repent from her sins. The church member sued. This case, now before the Texas Supreme Court, carries the weight of whether or not pastors can be sued for implementing biblically prescribed disciplinary practices. By the way, THIS is what Jefferson was referring to when he talked of a wall of separation between church and state.

The Texas Supreme Court has announced it will hear a case that could determine whether courts have the authority to interfere with matters such as church discipline.

The case known as Penley v. Westbrook dates back nearly six years to when Buddy Westbrook, pastor of Crossland Community Bible Church of Fort Worth, Texas, disassociated female church member Peggy Penley over divorce and adultery. Pastor Westbrook was sued after sending a letter to church members informing them of the situation.

Hiram Sasser is with Liberty Legal Institute, which is representing the church in the matter. He maintains that the U.S. Constitution protects churches and pastors when it comes to internal matters such as church discipline, and he says this case is “extremely important,” in that it deals with this fundamental First Amendment issue.

According to Sasser, Pastor Westbrook followed the three-step model for conflict resolution outlined in Matthew, Chapter 18, and was left with no other choice but disassociation after Penley refused to repent of her sin.

The attorney says Westlake had approached Penley about her inappropriate relationship with another man as well as her decision to terminate her marriage without any biblical basis. It was only after these efforts failed and Penley refused to repent that Crossland Community Bible Church’s pastor wrote the letter to congregation members outlining the reasons for Penley’s removal.

Increasingly over recent years, Sasser notes, a pattern has existed “of new lawsuits against pastors for following biblical principles and following the Bible.” One of Liberty Legal Institute’s goals in this case, he points out, is “to make sure that we establish clear precedent that pastors are immune from suit under the Constitution of the United States.”

Europe might want to give up on the strongly worded letter and think seriously about preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The U.S. can’t come to their rescue if they’ve already been “wiped off the map“, as President Ahmanutso likes to say.

Iran has received a first batch of BM-25 surface-to-surface missiles that put European countries within firing range, Israel’s military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, was quoted as saying in the Haaretz daily on Thursday.

The missiles, purchased from North Korea, have a range of 1,550 miles and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Haaretz reported.

The report comes as U.N. members consider slapping sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment. The United States, Israel and other Western countries say Iran is trying to get nuclear arms, but the Islamic regime says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

This story is too disgusting and blasphemous to even discuss. I won’t give it anymore time than just to say, not a single Christian has rioted over these Cartoons. There’s not been a single death as a result of their publication, nothing has been burned, and not a single bomb has exploded anywhere in the world.

This is proof that the Democrats don’t care about national security. They only care about politics and their hatred of George Bush. Osama Bin Laden recently put out another video taped threat promising attacks on civilians and new attacks on the U.S. The Democrats response is to blame Bush, and cut funding for the surveillance program that has stopped numerous terrorist attacks in the past and is absolutely necessary if we’re to stop attacks in the future. If these people take power again, we’re in deep trouble.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday he is considering legislation to cut off funding for the Bush administration’s secret domestic wiretapping program until he gets satisfactory answers about it from the White House.

“Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment,” Specter, R-Pa., told the panel. “If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it.”

Specter said he had informed President Bush about his intention and that he has attracted several potential co-sponsors. He said he’s become increasingly frustrated in trying to elicit information about the program from senior White House officials at several public hearings.

No one wants to divulge top secret information to you, Senator Sphincter, because you’d immediately hand it over to the New York Times, who will then promptly tip off our enemies.

Either the Chinese President is completely clueless about how our system of government works, or he’s been listening to too many Christian-hating liberals. Instead of asking President Bush to ban Falun Gong and label it an evil cult, he should have gone to the ACLU. All he’d have to do is tell the ACLU that Falun Gong is a denomination of Christianity, and they’d file lawsuits all across the country.

Chinese President Hu Jintao sought to convince President Bush during their meetings to publicly declare the Falun Gong religious group an “evil cult” that should be banned, U.S. officials said.

But Bush did not agree to do so and there were no public announcements to that effect.

Falun Gong, founded by a former People’s Liberation Army colonel, has changed its posture in recent years from that of a strictly Buddhist-based religious group to a political movement that targets the Chinese Communist Party.

Dennis Wilder, a National Security Council specialist on Asia, told reporters after the Bush-Hu meeting that the president raised the issue of freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and freedom to worship.

“We continue to believe that China has some way to go on this area, that a modern society that has moved as far as the Chinese have economically must begin to provide these kinds of freedom to their people,” Wilder said.

Some way to go? They aren’t even in the same solar system on this issue.

Just as so many of us predicted, Gaza has become a terrorist base, not just for Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups, but for Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda attempted their first attack inside Israel today, and it won’t be the last. I hope for Israel’s sake they consider what’s happening to Gaza before they give up more of the Holy Lands.

I wonder, when Al Qaeda has a fully functioning AQ training camp in Gaza and they’re launching attacks, not just on Israel, but in the West as well, what will the international community and the U.S. do? If they ignore these Al Qaeda attacks on Jews, just like they do when Hamas or Fatah blow up innocent civilians, the next attack might hit closer to home.

A suicide attack today in Egypt’s Sinai desert near the Israeli border and a second, nearly simultaneous foiled large-scale bombing against the main Israel-Gaza crossing were coordinated by al-Qaida and mark the global jihad group’s first strike inside the Jewish state, senior Palestinian security officials told WND.

Palestinian forces today stopped a car with several terrorists from passing through the Karni border checkpoint, the main cargo passage between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The crossing is controlled by the Palestinians on the Gaza side and by Israeli officers on the Israeli side.

Israel immediately closed the Karni crossing after the explosives-laden car was found and evacuated all Israeli personnel. Security sources said the car, which was safely captured by Palestinian officers, contained “enormous” amounts of explosives likely meant to be detonated at the border crossing inside Israel.

At almost the exact same time in Sinai, on the Egyptian side of the Gaza-Egypt border just outside Israel’s Rafah crossing, two suicide bombers exploded near a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force, injuring at least four people.

The attackers hit just two days after a triple bombing killed 24 at Egypt’s Sinai resort city of Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Israeli security officials, for now, are refraining from commenting on whether today’s bombings and attempted bombing were coordinated or if they were related to Monday’s Dahab attacks, which already are being widely attributed to al-Qaida.

President Bush finally threatened to veto a bill if Congress didn’t cut out some of the pork. With the nomination of Tony Snow as Press Secretary and now the threat of a veto (I didn’t know Bush knew he had veto power), I’m starting to think Bush is finally listening to his base. Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t gotten the hint yet. They won’t be staying within the budget requested by the President. The thought of cutting spending would probably cause a collective mental breakdown for most of our Representatives in Congress, but they are at least diverting some of the spending to pay for border and port security. Simply throwing more border guards at the problem isn’t going to work, but I suppose it’s a step in the right direction, and hopefully, a sign that Republicans are realizing how important this issue will be during upcoming elections.

The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation’s borders and increase security at U.S. ports.

An amendment cutting Bush’s Iraq request by $1.3 billion to pay for new Border Patrol agents, aircraft some fencing at border crossings widely used by illegal immigrants was adopted on 59-39 vote.

While the border security funds had sweeping support, Democrats and Republicans argued over whether the cuts to Pentagon war funds would harm troops on the ground in Iraq. The cuts, offered by Judd Gregg, R- N.H., trim Bush’s request for the war by almost 3 percent but don’t specify how.

The vote came in the wake of a toughly worded promise by the White House to veto the $106.5 billion measure unless it is cut back to below $95 billion.

This was an easy one for the Democrats. Cutting funding for the military comes naturally to them.

It’s official. Tony Snow will be the new White House Press Secretary, as of a week from Monday. I’m pleasantly surprised that Tony was willing to give up time with his family for such a stress filled job. I’ll miss listening to the Tony Snow Show on the radio, but I’m hopeful that White House press briefings will be far less frustrating now. Snow is less likely than his predecessor to let the press core walk all over him, and far more likely to get the message out and actually counter some of the Democrat’s and liberal reporter’s lies and distortions. I’m also pleased to hear that, as a condition of his acceptance, he will have more say in policy decisions than did McClellan. We needed an outsider of sorts in there to give a voice to those of us who’ve been frustrated with some of Bush’s decisions.

President Bush on Wednesday named conservative commentator Tony Snow as White House press secretary, putting a new face on a troubled administration.

Snow, a Fox news pundit and former speechwriter in the White House under Bush’s father, replaced Scott McClellan who resigned in a personnel shuffle intended to re-energize the White House and lift the president’s record-low approval ratings.

“My job is to make decisions and his job is to help explain those decisions to the press corps and the American people,” Bush said, with Snow and McClellan at his side in the White House briefing room.

Snow’s appointment is notable in a White House that has a reputation for not suffering criticism. He has had some harsh things to say about Bush.

Spanish Socialists are giving apes the same rights as human beings, and a declaration has been proposed that would have the U.N. do the same. What does it say about humanity (real humans, not the monkeys who actually take care of their young) that people will show more concern and give more rights to a monkey than they will unborn babies?

The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for “the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings.” The PSOE’s justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.
The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests “the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species.”

According to the Project, “Today only members of the species Homo sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan are our species’s closest relatives. They possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their inclusion in the community of equals.”

A reminder that there ARE terrorists among us:

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a 23-year-old man of supporting terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan three years ago.

Hamid Hayat, a seasonal farm worker in Lodi, an agricultural town south of Sacramento, was convicted of one count of providing material support to terrorists and three counts of lying to the
FBI.

His attorney said she would seek a new trial. “Hamid Hayat never attended a terrorist training camp. This fight is not over,” Wazhma Mojaddidi said.

The verdicts came hours after a separate jury hearing a case against the man’s father deadlocked, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.

The father, 48-year-old ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, is charged with two counts of lying to the FBI about his son’s involvement in the training camp. Defense attorneys and prosecutors will meet in court May 5 to decide whether he will be retried.

Jihad Jr. faces a minimum of 30 years.

The maniacs in charge of Iran are making threats if the West imposes sanctions or other “stern” measures. They have threatened to hide their nuke program from the IAEA. They have also met with Sudan to plan for transferring nuclear technology to that country. The possibility of Sudan having nuclear technology is as frightening a proposition as Iran having nukes.

Iran ratcheted up its defiance ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, threatening Tuesday to hide its program if the West takes “harsh measures” and to transfer nuclear technology to chaos-ridden Sudan.

Ali Larijani, the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, also renewed a vow to end cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and said increasing pressure on Iran would only stiffen its resolve.

“If you take harsh measures, we will hide this program. If you use the language of force, you should not expect us to act transparently,” Larijani said, adding that Western nations “have to understand they cannot resolve this issue through force.”

Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice fired back almost immediately, saying, “Iranians can threaten, but they are deepening their own isolation.”

Top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the offer to transfer nuclear technology at a meeting Tuesday with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

“Iran’s nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country. … The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists,” Khamenei told al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir said last month that his impoverished, violence-ridden country was considering a nuclear program to generate electricity.
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“Electricity”. Yeeeaa, right.

The blogosphere and talk radio has been buzzing lately with possibilities that conservative radio talk-show host and part-time FNC host Tony Snow will be tapped to be the new White House Press Secretary. It appears that this will indeed be the case. This according to Foxnews.com:

WASHINGTON — Tony Snow will be named new White House press secretary on Wednesday morning, FOX News has learned. Snow is expected to be at the White House for the announcement. He has been mulling the offer for the last several days.

Long before the announcement, oddsmakers were banking on Snow, host of FOX News Talk’s “The Tony Snow Show,” to be tapped for the highly visible White House post.

“I expect to see him at the podium in just a few days, in the press room at the White House,” Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor, said Tuesday.

The talk radio host was given a clean bill of health by his oncologist Tuesday, following a CAT scan and other tests that were undertaken last Thursday. Sources said Snow was President Bush’s first choice, but he needed the all-clear from his doctors before he takes the job. Snow is recovering from colon cancer.
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Read the full article. We personally feel that Tony will make an excellent press secretary. He’s battled cancer, so he should have no problem dealing with the W.H. press corps.

Almost every Christian realizes that the ACLU is not concerned so much with civil liberties as it is with obliterating any public reference to God. That’s why satirical names such as the Anti-Christian Lawyers Union are so commonly applied to the ACLU. However, the ACLU has been losing lately. Case in point is the recent decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the Ten Commandments display at the Mercer County, Kentucky courthouse.

Pro-family attorneys are hailing the decision of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a three-judge panel’s prior ruling allowing the Ten Commandments to remain on display at Kentucky’s Mercer County Courthouse.

Last December the Sixth Circuit panel unanimously ruled the Mercer County Ten Commandments display constitutional on the grounds that its purpose is historical rather than religious. The Sixth Circuit Court has jurisdiction over Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan.

In yesterday’s 19-5 vote by the full court, the majority of the judges refused to rehear the case of ACLU of Kentucky v. Mercer County, Kentucky, rejecting arguments by the American Civil Liberties Union that the Commandments display violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court’s ruling allows the panel’s previous decision to uphold the constitutionality of the display to stand.

According to an Associated Press report, in the December 2005 ruling the panel cited the fact that the courthouse’s biblical laws are displayed alongside replicas of nine other historic documents, including the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The judges also noted that the font size is the same for all the documents, and no attempt was made to put the religious document at a higher level.
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Mercer County was also represented by Liberty Counsel, another legal organization that specializes in defending religious freedom. Mathew D. Staver, Liberty Counsel’s president and general counsel, is hailing the Sixth Circuit’s decision as a great victory that has begun to “turn the tide against the ACLU.”

The ACLU has been on what Staver calls a “search-and-destroy mission to remove all vestiges of our religious history from public view.” But whether that liberal civil liberties organization likes it or not, he asserts, “history is crystal clear that each one of the Ten Commandments played an important role in the founding of our system of law and government.”

The Liberty Counsel spokesman believes federal courts are beginning to reject extreme notions of the so-called separation of church and state. After all, he notes, the Sixth Circuit expressly rejected the ACLU’s “repeated reference” to the Establishment Clause, saying that this “extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome” and noting, “The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.”

It is about time, Staver insists, that courts start interpreting the Constitution of the United States according to its original purpose. And with the recent changes of personnel on the nation’s highest court bench, he says, “the trend toward a more historical approach to the First Amendment is well under way.”

An elementary school in Massachusetts is standing by a second grade teacher’s decision to read a story to her class about… a gay romance and gay marriage. The school’s response to concerned parents? We don’t have to tell you before or after, and you don’t have the right to opt-out your kids. This school is just hankering for a lawsuit! AGAIN!

Some parents in Massachusetts are fed up with Lexington school officials who are defending a second-grade teacher’s decision to read students a book about homosexual romance and “marriage” in class.

Estabrook Elementary School teacher Heather Kramer read her students the book King & King, a story about a prince who spurns a number of eligible princesses to marry another prince. The story ends with the two men marrying and sharing a kiss. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained about what took place, the school’s principal told them no parental notification was required, nor would it be given before future discussion on homosexual “marriage.”

Brian Camenker with the Article 8 Alliance in Massachusetts says Kramer and school officials violated the state’s parental notification law, which he wrote. “At this meeting the teacher and the principal were rather insulting,” he says. Camenker contends the school officials basically told the Wirthlins “We’re not going to give you notification on this — we’re not even going to tell you after it happened, and you can’t opt your child out.”

The Alliance spokesman says the approach being taken by the school toward the law is ridiculous.

“The law talks about human sexuality issues,” he explains. “[School officials are] saying ‘Well, homosexuality isn’t a human sexuality issue, it’s a human rights issue.’ So they’re saying it doesn’t apply here, ‘and so we’re not going to notify you.’
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One year ago, Estabrook Elementary School was the site of an arrest of the father of a kindergarten student who had been attempting for several months to get his son opted-out from discussions portraying homosexuality as acceptable. Last April, following a meeting with the school principal, David Parker was handcuffed, spent the night in jail, and appeared before a judge the next morning. Trespassing charges were eventually dropped against Parker, but a ban preventing the six-year-old’s father from school property remained in effect.

We can always count on China to arm our worst enemies, and then defend those enemies when they threaten to annihilate our allies. I hope our government views China as the enemy that they are, and are preparing for all contingencies.

China and Saudi Arabia have signed defense and security agreements that strengthened the strategic relations between the two Asian powers.

The accords were signed during the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Riyad over the weekend. Hu, arriving on April 22, has sought to offer Chinese weapons and technology in exchange for greater access to the Saudi crude oil market.

“This will further strengthen the friendship between our two countries and our two peoples as well as expand strategic and friendly cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia,” Hu said.

Over the last few weeks, China and Saudi Arabia have accelerated cooperation in defense and energy relations. In January 2006, Saudi King Abdullah signed a memorandum of understanding during his visit to China, the first by a Saudi monarch since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1990.

Liberals keep telling us that Muslims in the U.S. are moderates. I’m confused. Why are these moderate Muslims holding up signs telling us that the “mushroom cloud is on its way”, and cheering for another holocaust? Maybe it’s just me, but their protest looks an awful lot like those Al Qaeda tapes Al Jazeera runs periodically. Signs also read “Islam will dominate” and one featured a picture of the White House with an Islamic flag flying on top.

The clueless half of the country better wake up. The terrorists are living among us and it’s only a matter of time before they start using suicide bombers here. The “activists” at this protest wouldn’t hesitate to volunteer for such a mission.

A New York rally by the Islamic Thinkers Society outside the Israeli consulate yesterday featured chants of “The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!”

The demonstration by the Queens-based group was monitored by the Investigative Project on Terrorism whose members noted signs including “Islam will Dominate” and a picture with an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

The chants were in Arabic and translated by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, headed by Steve Emerson, a former reporter for CNN.

Here are some excerpts from the chants:

Leader (in Arabic): “With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!”

[The rest also respond in Arabic:] “With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!

Israeli Zionists What do you say? The real Holocaust is on its way”

“Takbeer!”

Response: “Allahu Akbar!”

“Takbeer!”

Response: “Allahu Akbar!”

“Zionists, Zionists You will pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!

Israeli Zionists You shall pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!

The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!”

“Israel won’t last long … Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel”

“Takbeer!”

Response: “Allahu Akbar!”

According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, the Islamic Thinkers Society is an offshoot of London’s Al-Muhajiroun, a group that celebrated the 9/11 attacks, referring to the hijackers as “the Magnificent 19,” and posting a burning picture of the Capitol on its website.

You would think the Associated Press might choose a headline for this article that mentions Ahmadinejad’s new threat to destroy Israel. Wouldn’t that be more attention grabbing? More news worthy? In typical fashion, the AP tries to minimize the situation by emphasizing something less inflammatory in Ahmdinejad’s speech. Those who only skim the headlines and then make their own assumptions (liberals) will assume the speech was just another anti-Israel rant much like the ones you’ll hear at any pro-Pali protest in the U.S.

If you actually read the article, you find that Iran’s insane President actually called Israel a “fake regime” that cannot continue to exist.

Another Associated Press tactic is to portray the U.S. as the only party who has a problem with Iran and other Islamic dictators/terrorists. The idea is to make it appear that the U.S. is trying to start another conflict without the support of the international community.

The United States says Iran is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for producing weapons. Iran denies that, saying its program is designed only to generate electrical power.

I guess the rest of the world has no problem with Iran’s nuke program then, right?

Islamic “Dissidents” (the media’s new term for Islamic terrorists) hit a tourist resort area in Egypt killing at least 100 Christians who were celebrating Easter (the Eastern church celebrates it later). How will the media spin this so that Christians are actually the ones being intolerant and waging a crusader war against Islam? Problem solved. Every news report I’ve seen so far, with the exception of Fox News, has simply left out the fact that the victims were Christians. In fact many of them left out the fact that the attackers were Muslim. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Three explosions rocked Egypt’s Sinai resort town of Dahab on Monday night, leaving at least 22 people dead and 150 wounded.

One blast hit a hotel, a second a restaurant and the third explosion rocked the resort town’s market area about 7:15 p.m. local time (1715 GMT).

Dr. Said Essa, head of the Egyptian rescue forces in the region, said at least 17 people were killed at the el-Khaleeg Hotel alone.

What was that about a culture of corruption? Heh. The Dems have nothing to worry about, though. The media won’t cover this. They’re too busy chasing Delay.

The top Democrat on the House ethics committee, Alan Mollohan, will leave the panel _ at least temporarily _ while he defends his own financial conduct, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday.

Mollohan’s decision comes in an election year when his party is accusing majority Republicans of allowing a “culture of corruption” in Congress.

Mollohan, of West Virginia, will be replaced by Rep. Howard Berman of California, a former ranking Democrat on the panel. Mollohan has denied any wrongdoing.

The only evenly divided panel in the House, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has been divided along partisan lines for the past 16 months and unable to launch any major new investigations. If Mollohan had stayed while under his own ethics cloud, the chances for the stalemate to end would have been almost impossible.

Democrats specialize in making sure nothing ever gets done. The idea is to be able to accuse the Republicans of doing nothing, even though they are a majority, and distract people from their complete lack of ideas or solutions to the countries problems.

Good grief. Gas stations are running out of gas because refineries have been regulated to death, hit with hurricanes, and we’ve neglected to build more refineries for 30 years. Bush can’t ignore this one for long. He needs to take a page from the Reagan play book and deregulate the oil industry for a while. When Reagan did that, prices dropped considerably. And, liberals need to wake up and face reality. The demand for oil in a society that will never give up their creature comforts, technology, and mini-vans/SUV’s, is never going to decrease enough to solve our problems, especially when the economy is booming. It’s dangerous to continue buying our oil from Arabs, and our lives as human beings are far more important than an inconvenienced caribou. If not for the environmentalists, the oil industry wouldn’t be over regulated, we’d have more refineries, and we’d be drilling for our own oil. THEY are ultimately responsible for the high gas prices. Politicians are only guilty of being afraid to stand up to them.

As if rising prices weren’t enough, the tanks have run dry at some Philadelphia-area service stations in the last few days as the refining industry stumbles through a change in the formulation of gasoline.

Oil refiners are phasing out a petrochemical that makes gasoline burn cleaner but which also has been found to contaminate groundwater. Refiners are switching to corn-based ethanol.

The changeover is creating supply-chain bottlenecks because much work must be done at fuel terminals and service stations to handle ethanol.

The maintenance-related shutdown of one area refinery, production problems at another, and the change from winter-blend to summer-blend gasoline are exacerbating the problems.

“There is truly a dearth of supply in the Philly and New York markets today,” Wayne Hummel, of Liberty Petroleum L.L.C., said yesterday. His firm supplies 40 stations in the Philadelphia region.

Hummel said four Liberty stations had run out of fuel the last two days, as tanker trucks drove from terminal to terminal, unable to find fuel. “It’s ugly. It’s very ugly,” he said.

AAA Mid-Atlantic warned drivers yesterday that gasoline-supply disruptions could continue for the next few weeks and contribute to higher pump prices.

One down, many more to go. The CIA is in desperate need of some serious house cleaning. Not surprisingly, the leaker was the director for intelligence programs for Bill Clinton.

Leaking classified information is a crime, and putting your liberal politics ahead of national security is inexusible. She should be in jail. Unfortunately, once you make it to Washington in this country, you can break the law all you want without fear of prosecution – unless you’re a Republican, and then you don’t even have to break the law.

The CIA fired a long-serving intelligence officer for sharing classified information with The Washington Post and other news organizations, officials said yesterday, as the agency continued an aggressive internal search for anyone who may have discussed intelligence with the news media.

CIA officials said the career intelligence officer failed more than one polygraph test and acknowledged unauthorized contacts with reporters. The “officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information” with journalists, the agency said in a statement yesterday.

The CIA did not reveal the identity of the employee, who was dismissed Thursday, but NBC News reported last night she is Mary McCarthy. An intelligence source confirmed that the report was accurate.

McCarthy began her career in government as an analyst at the CIA in 1984, public documents show. She served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs at the White House during the Clinton administration and the first few months of the Bush administration. She later returned to the CIA. Attempts to reach her last night were unsuccessful.

I just listened to an interview with a Lebanese Arab who has been translating the backlog of documents found in Iraq from Arabic into English and posting them on his website. The information he’s found in those records is stunning. I can’t for the life of me understand why Bush has let the Democrats dominate on the issue of Iraq and Saddam’s WMD. There is clear proof that Saddam not only had WMD, but collaborated with Al Qaeda and Bin Laden to attack the United States.

I’m starting to think our government is completely incompetent. Why haven’t these documents been translated by someone in the intelligence agencies? According to Kirby Wilber on KVI his contacts in the CIA were stunned to learn about this proof. I understand that translating documents from Arabic is difficult. Ben speaks Arabic, and I know it’s a difficult language, but if a Lebanese American can translate and publish them, surely the CIA can find someone to do it for them.

If Republicans lose seats in the ’06 elections, it won’t just be because of their performance in Congress. It will also be because the President hasn’t gotten the truth out about Iraq and the war. Just a portion of the documents translated and posted on this website would make the Democrats, the anti-war radicals, and every other critic of the war look like fools. Unfortunately, I don’t think Bush is ever going to get a clue and become more aggressive in defending his policies and his handling of the war on terror. Someone in the Republican party better grow a backbone and start getting the truth out or the swing voters will have no choice but to believe the Democrat’s lies.

March 2001 Document: Saddam Regime Recruits Suicide Terrorists to Hit US Interests

March 2003 Top Secret Memo: TRANSFER OF SPECIAL AMMUNITION (POTENTIAL CHEMICAL WEAPONS) Translation

Saddam Regime Document: SADDAM MET WITH HIS NUCLEAR GROUP IN 2002

This is just a small sample of the documents he’s translated. Be sure to check out the whole site.

I love the minutemen! They’re sending a message to our government that this is OUR country and, if they won’t do the job we elected them to do, Americans can and will do it for them. The minutemen have taken it upon themselves to do something about the border problem and are promising to build a security fence along the Arizona border. Congress and the President stand to look very bad if the minutemen do what the government has thus far been incapable of doing, and for a fraction of the cost.

This should be a lesson to all of us. We don’t have to hand over all of our money to incompetent rulers, and hope that they will take care of us. The men and women who settled this great country didn’t wait for someone to do it for them, and neither should we. We’re in a war for our lives with Islamic terrorists, and there’s no time for partisan bickering and politics-as-usual.

Minuteman border watch leader Chris Simcox has a message for President Bush: Build new security fencing along the border with Mexico or private citizens will.

Simcox said Wednesday that he’s sending an ultimatum to the president, through the media, “You can’t get through to the president any other way,” to deploy military reserves and the National Guard to the Arizona border by May 25.

Or, Simcox said, by the Memorial Day weekend Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers and supporters will break ground to start erecting fencing privately.

“We have had landowners approach,” Simcox said in an interview. “We’ve been working on this idea for a while. We’re going to show the federal government how easy it is to build these security fences, how inexpensively they can be built when built by private people and free enterprise.”

Simcox said a half-dozen landowners along the Arizona-Mexico border have said they will allow fencing to be placed on their borderlands, and others in California, Texas and New Mexico have agreed to do so as well.

“Certainly, as with everything else, we’re only able to cover a small portion of the border,” Simcox said. “The state and federal government have bought up most of the land around the border. I suspect that’s why we’ll never get control of the border.”

But he said the plan is to put up secure fencing that truly will be an effective deterrent, and to show how easily it can be accomplished.

I’m blogging late, and not sure how much I’ll get done. Today was the big appointment with the spine surgeon. Praise God, I finally found one who isn’t afraid to operate on my back a 6th time. He may even operate later and fix my neck, too. Woohoo! It probably seems weird to be excited about surgery, but I’ve been dealing with this for a long time and I’m looking forward to one of those big breaks I get after they operate and fix things. I have one more test to get done and then we’ll know what part of my spinal fusion bit the dust and needs repaired. I should have a lot more time to blog now. It usually takes a while to schedule a big surgery like that, so I can relax for a bit. I hope to get some new things added to the CM site soon, as well. Thanks to those who’ve been praying. It’s very much appreciated.

I would love to see Tony Snow accept the position of Press Secretary for President Bush, but I wouldn’t blame him if he turned it down. After a recent battle with cancer, he’s probably wanting to enjoy life, not work insane hours and deal with a bunch of liberal journalists.

With a few personnel shifts going on in the White House, there’s speculation that presidential spokesman Scott McClellan may be looking to step down.

One of the people the White House has approached as a possible replacement for McClellan is FOX News Radio host Tony Snow. The White House discussed the possibility with Snow as recently as this week.

Snow, who hosts “The Tony Snow Show,” once served as a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush.

Other people have also been approached about the position, including former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark and Dan Senor, the former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman in Iraq, who served the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer.

While students in public schools are failing on national tests, teachers (products of our liberal Universities) are teaching them about gay weddings. Sadly, parents aren’t even allowed to opt their children out of the indoctrination session. If only parents would wake up and send a strong message to our public schools that we aren’t paying them to indoctrinate our kids and turn them into little “progressive” robots with no hope of getting through college or getting a good job. Better yet, everyone who can should be homeschooling their children.

While two parents in Lexington, Mass., are upset about the fact their second-grade son was read a fantasy book in school about two princes getting married, what makes them even more angry is the fact the boy’s teacher said because same-sex marriage is legal in their state there is no way a mother or father can opt out a child from such experiences.

“We are outraged,” parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin told the local Article 8 Alliance. “This is a highly charged social issue. Why are they introducing it in the second grade? And we cannot present our family’s point of view to our children if they don’t tell us what they’re saying to them.”

According to a statement from the traditional-values organization, March 24 the Wirthlins’ second-grade son came home from Estabrook Elementary School and repeated to his mother the story read to him earlier that day about men getting married to each other. His teacher had read the book “King and King” to the class, in which a prince doesn’t want to marry any princesses, but instead falls in love with a princess’ brother and marries him in a big palace wedding.

The Wirthlins say they immediately contacted the teacher, Heather Kramer, who acknowledged she had read the book to the class and admitted that it was not part of the curriculum.

It was explained to the couple that since same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, discussion of the matter is fair game — parents do not have to be informed before or after the issue is presented. Kramer reportedly told the Wirthlins that the theme of the day was “weddings” and the teacher wanted to present all points of view on the subject.

Those crazy Muslims. They come up with some knee-slappers.

A PROMINENT HAMAS member of parliament has explained why most American Christians support Israel. The churches are run by “converted” Jews who are exploiting Christians for Zionist purposes. “Even the churches where the Americans pray are led by Jews who were converted to Christianity, but they were converted to keep controlling the Americans,” Sheikh Mohammad Abu Tir explained on an American radio show on April 7.

A Gallup poll released on April 6 shows that religious Americans tend to be more pro-Israel. But Gallup, according to Abu Tir, did not understand the real reason for this. “I made a study and I know very well that all this radicalism in some parts of the Christianity, [including] the Anglicans who are being led by Bush, is because of the control of Zionists,” said the orange-bearded Abu Tir.

Bush is leading the Anglicans? Who knew? All this time I thought Bush was a Methodist. Heh.

Jewish control of the media is, of course, old hat. Jewish control of the churches, however, is a new twist. Thanks partly to the antics of Hamas officials such as Abu Tir, Americans sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians by 59 percent to 15 percent, according to the latest Gallup poll. But 64 percent of regular churchgoers sympathize more with Israel, compared to 45 percent of Americans who never attend church.

Meanwhile, the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) conference held at Georgetown University in March offered helpful advice on how pro-Palestinian activists can penetrate American church groups. A report from the American Jewish Congress provided an account of the PSM event.

Somehow, I think a pro-Palestinian PSM activist is going to stick out like a sore thumb at a Christian church. Not to mention you first have to find one willing to set foot in a church.

Activists were encouraged to “look Christian,” to “study Christian culture, understand it, so you can create Christian solidarity to then reach out to Palestinian solidarity,” to dress conservatively, maintain proper grooming and a good social demeanor, and to “become the Ned Flanders (a Simpsons’ character) of your church.”

PSM activists were also instructed to avoid profane language, say “God blesses you” after a sneeze,” and act “Christian like.” They were told to provide gifts of Holy Land holy water and rosaries and talk about children dying at the hands of the Israelis. Above all, the PSM told their activists-in-training to speak in the language of spirituality and not politics, to ask the priest or pastor to pray for Palestinians during worship, and to hook up with anti-Iraq war groups.

Yup, sore thumb.

Read it all. It’s hilarious.

Continuing their tradition of appointing dictators and terrorists to positions of authority on U.N. commissions, especially those tasked with enforcing global security, the United Nations has made the brilliant decision to give Iran a vice-chair position on the U.N. Disarmament Commission. So, a country who is currently facing sanctions (it’ll never happen and be enforced) for trying to build nuclear weapons is now in a position of leadership on a commission whose mission includes preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Nothing ever changes at the U.N., does it?

Under threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions for its own nuclear program, Iran has been elected to a vice-chair position on the U.N. Disarmament Commission, whose mission includes preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

The commission’s deliberations began last Monday and are scheduled to continue until April 28. On the first day of the commission meeting, Iran along with Uruguay and Chile was elected as one of three vice-chairs.

It happened on the same day that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised his people “good news” about the country’s nuclear program.

The following day, Iran announced that it had managed to enrich uranium, a key ingredient in the production of a nuclear bomb.

On Monday, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that his country would continue to enrich uranium, and dismissed the idea that the U.S. might attack nuclear facilities in Iran.

“We are certain that Americans will not attack Iran because the consequences would be too dangerous,” Rafasanjani was quoted as telling the Kuwaiti parliament.

Dr. Dore Gold, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. said that electing Iran to a leadership position on the UN Disarmament Commission was like asking the “cat to guard the milk.”

“Clearly the Iranians have an interest in establishing disarmament rules that protect their clandestine nuclear weapons program,” said Gold, author of Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos.

“For the last decade and a half, Iran has appointed a very large diplomatic mission to the U.N. and has sought to obtain appointments to as many U.N. bodies as possible,” said Gold in a telephone interview.

It is not a surprise, therefore, that Iran would find a place at the table of even the most sensitive committees, he said.

According to Gold, the various commissions at the U.N. establish the “background noise” and “international norms” that are adopted for dealing with problems worldwide.

“They have a way of penetrating the judgments of the U.N. secretariat and other U.N. bodies,” he said. . . .

The U.N. is worthless, and we’re wasting precious time by taking Iran before the Security Council in the hopes that it will result in a diplomatic solution. The U.N. is a terrorist supporting organization that ALWAYS takes the side of evil in any conflict. Bringing our enemies before their allies only buys them more time to build and hide (or transfer to Syria) nuclear weapons. The stage is definitely being set for the war of Gog and Magog. All of the countries prophesied to be involved are in place, and the U.S. hasn’t learned a thing about truly preemptive action that might actually end a crisis.

If this is any indication of how Olmert’s government will respond in the future to Hamas-supported terrorist attacks, Irael will be seeing many more of the terror attacks that killed 9 on April 17 in a Tel Aviv shopping corner. In response to the Hamas government’s justifification of the attack as “self defense”, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and defense minister Shaul Mofaz rejected the advice of military leaders and decided to abstain from military action. Olmert’s only response was to promise a worldwide “information drive”. The world is never going to sympathize, support, or defend Israel no matter how many innocent Jews are killed. History makes that painfully obvious. Israelis only have themselves and, occasionally, the United States on their side. Sadly, Israel continues to send the message that terrorism works and there are no consequences. What is it with the Left and their aversion to facing reality and basing their decisions on fact rather than naive idealism and self hatred?

For Israelis, Tuesday, the eve of the last day of Passover, was a day of funerals, mourning for 9 Israelis, foreign workers and tourists who lost their lives when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a busy shopping corner in Tel Aviv on Monday, April 17.

It was the most murderous outrage committed by Palestinian terrorists in 20 months, the first since the Hamas terrorist group took office and a test of the mettle of the incoming prime minister Ehud Olmert.

After the Hamas government justified the attack ludicrously as “self defense,” few doubted he would order a swift, punishing blow to the Palestinian government as a deterrent to further outrages. Instead, Olmert, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and defense minister Shaul Mofaz decided to abstain from military action, rejecting the advice of military leaders to declare the Hamas government an enemy authority. The generals and security chiefs argued that without this declaration, their hands were tied in fighting off terror, because of the developing situation whereby the terrorist entity ruling the Palestinian Authority was in the process of taking over its official security organs.

After hours of debate, Olmert and his interim cabinet stated that the Hamas government was responsible for Palestinian acts of terror, but nonetheless no military action against its institutions were authorized. Dodging the military’s requests, the meeting produced the perfect recipe for indecisive action.

1. The Hamas government is held responsible for acts of terror. Indeed this government defended the Tel Aviv attack as “self-defense”. Therefore, Olmert and his aides decided, Israel will embark on… a worldwide information drive.

I hope Olmert at least has the sense to complete the unfinished sections of the security wall, through which this latest suicide bomber was able to travel unhindered. I’m not holding my breath.

The recent attacks on Don Rumsfeld by 6 retired Generals is nothing more than an egotistical temper tantrum by 6 generals who didn’t get what they wanted in the military’s transformation from a Cold War fighting force to a force capable of fighting the new terrorist enemy of the 21st century. Generals are used to getting what they want. They are set in their ways, and they don’t like change, especially when that change affects who and what falls under their command. Their coordinated media campaign against the Secretary of Defense is revenge for damaged egos and having their conventional military toys taken away in favor of a lighter more mobile military.

I also find it interesting that the media is eagerly putting so much stock in a tiny fraction of the retired generals in this country, while downplaying the 4 retired generals who’ve come out in support of Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war and the military realignment.

The most prominent of the retired generals calling for the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appears to have reversed his estimation of the former Saddam regime’s threat to the world.

Anthony Zinni, former CENTCOM commander in the Clinton administration, says now that in the Iraq, “What bothered me … [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.”

But as noted by Fox News Channel host Brit Hume, Zinni told Congress in 2000, “Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region.”

The general told lawmakers that Iraq “probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions.”

Even if Baghdad “reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities,” Zinni said in 2000, “it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months.”

Zinni is one of six retired generals calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation.

Today, President Bush defended his Pentagon chief, saying he’s doing a “fine job.”

The president told reporters in the Rose Garden after introducing his choice for budget director, Rob Portman, he was issuing a vote of confidence to stop the rampant speculation.

“I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision,” Bush said. “And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He’s not only transforming the military, he’s fighting a war on terror. He’s helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld.”

[. . .]

The generals accuse Rumsfeld of ignoring advice from senior officers on how to execute the war in Iraq. In response, four retired generals came to Rumsfeld’s defense in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal Monday.

Lt. Gen. John Crosby, retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, retired Maj. Gen. Buron Moore and retired Maj. Gen Paul Vallely contended Rumsfeld’s critics don’t understand the war on terror.

“Much of the acrimony expressed by Secretary Rumsfeld’s military critics appears to stem from his efforts to ‘transform’ the military by moving to a joint expeditionary force that is lighter and more mobile in nature to meet the nation’s current and future threats,” the generals said.

“Many senior officers and bureaucrats did not support his transformation goals – preferring conventional weapons of the past … which prove practically useless against lawless and uncivilized enemies engaged in asymmetric warfare,” the writers continued.

That last paragraph is the key. They’re having a hissy fit over lost pet projects, and changes that put control in the hands of a younger, more technologically advanced military

I wondered when this would become an issue. Even our dating system, which uses AD and BC, is being cleansed from school text books in Kentucky because of its connection to Christianity. The school board didn’t have a problem with the days of the week, however, even though they were named for Greek gods. What’s next? Before long, students graduating from public schools will be sending in their resumes to Burger King with their work history listed using dates from the Islamic calendar.

The Kentucky State Board of Education has recommended textbooks in the state include the secular dating abbreviations of B.C.E. and C.E. alongside the traditional Christian-based B.C. and A.D.

B.C.E., or Before Common Era, and C.E., for Common Era, have become popular among academics and some historians, largely because B.C., or Before Christ, and A.D., Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord, are based on Christianity.

According to a report in the Lexington Herald-Leader, one member of the Kentucky panel, David Webb, attempted to pass an amendment that would prevent the inclusion of the new terms, but the majority of board members voted against it last week.

“Dates throughout history have been referred to as B.C. and A.D.,” Webb, who abstained from the curriculum vote, told the local paper. “It’s also some degree of a faith-based issue. Especially this Easter season, I thought it was inappropriate for us to reference this.”

The Kentucky recommendation proposes the use in textbooks of both designations, so a reference, for example, might be notated 700 B.C./B.C.E.

“I would want my child to have familiarity with both terms,” board member Hilma Prather is quoted as saying. “I could not vote for the deletion of one or the other; I would like the inclusion of both.”

Anissa Willis, a Lexington, Ky., parent, told the Louisville Courier-Journal using C.E. and B.C.E. is “more in keeping with academia.”

“That seems appropriate to me, and it’s also much more universally recognized,” said Willis, an Episcopal priest.

The recommendation now has to go through a public hearing process. It could go into effect as soon as the 2006-2007 school year.

If anyone thinks the crisis with Iran is going to be settled through diplomacy, they’re just as nuts as Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinnerjacket considers himself a major player in Islams end-times events, and just like the terrorists his regime funds and supports, the more infidels they can kill along the way, the better. I sincerely hope that all options really are still on the table.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during an armed forces parade on Tuesday that any aggressor would regret attacking the Islamic Republic, which is embroiled in a nuclear dispute with the West.

The president declared Iran a nuclear power last week after he said it had successfully enriched uranium to the level used in power stations. Iran insists its program is civilian despite accusations by the West that it wants atomic bombs.

The United States has said it wants a diplomatic solution to the standoff but has not ruled out military action.

“Today, Iran’s army is one of the most powerful armies in the world and it will powerfully defend the country’s political borders and the nation,” Ahmadinejad said in a brief speech before troops and missiles took part in an annual parade.

“It will cut off the hands of any aggressors and will make any aggressor regret it,” he said.

Ahmadinejad took the salute of thousands of army, navy and air force troops. Battle tanks were towed past on trucks, while helicopters and Russian-built warplanes flew in formation overhead. Parachutists sailed down from the sky.

Torpedoes and small submarines were also towed before the president, as were Nazeat 10 and Zelzal 1 missiles.

[. . .]

Analysts say much of Iran’s military equipment is outdated but that its forces could still disrupt oil shipping routes in the Gulf, which they said was the message behind the man oeuvres.

That Iran will cut off shipping routes in the Gulf, is a real risk. It’s a risk the anti-war types will never consider. They will never give a second thought to the little guy who will be hurt by sky rocketing oil prices. They don’t care that grocery stores, small businesses, and low to middle income families will be affected greatly by an oil shortage. The corporations the left hates so much will be hit hard by this economic catastrophe and jobs will be lost. Liberals aren’t really the compassionate souls they like to portray themselves as. They’re heartless, self absorbed, and delusional. They don’t care who suffers as long as they get to have their issue, and they can feed their BDS.

So, a thousand dollars later, we can use our toilets and shower again, but it’s just a temporary fix. Eventually, we’ll have to spend 5 thousand dollars to get about ten feet of sewer pipe replaced. Naturally, the part of the sewer system that hasn’t been replaced with PVC yet, and that’s causing our problem is located under the sidewalk and part of the street, so it’s more expensive to replace. At least we have some time to save for it.

That’s how my day started out. Then I had an injection done in my neck. It’s supposed to help my neck pain, but so far it’s just succeeded in making me throw up all evening long. Needless to say, I’ll be resuming blogging tomorrow when, hopefully, I won’t risk spewing on my laptop. Life is going to calm down soon. I just know it.

First it was the right to choose to kill a baby if the mother’s life was in danger, then it was a right to kill your baby in the case of rape and incest, then mothers were justified in killing their babies if it would be a financial burden or interfere with their plans for the future, and then women had a right to kill their baby even after the birth process had begun. Europe took it a step further and generously gave all people the “right to choose” death if they were sick. Now, not wanting anyone to be left out or denied the “right” to kill themselves or others, one suicide doctor wants to extend that “right to choose” to the mentally ill and people who are depressed (as if a person suffering from clinical depression is in the right frame of mind to choose whether they want to live or die). Who will this right to choose be extended to next? Will mothers who give birth to children with deformities have the right to choose death for their new babies? I predict that, eventually, they will. Once people have been desensitized and guilted into accepting death as a merciful end to someone’s depression, anything can be justified. If only they knew what awaits them on the other side, and that they have the “right to choose” eternal life with no pain and suffering as an alternative.

The founder of Dignitas – a Zurich, Switzerland, clinic that assists those with illnesses end their lives – says he wants to open a chain of “suicide clinics” in other countries to give everyone, including the mentally ill, the “the choice of a choice.”

The founder of Dignitas – a Zurich, Switzerland, clinic that assists those with illnesses end their lives – says he wants to open a chain of “suicide clinics” in other countries to give everyone, including the mentally ill, the “the choice of a choice.”

Ludwig Minelli, a Swiss lawyer, told the London Sunday Times he has already opened an associated Dignitas office in Germany and he intends to lift the “taboo” against suicide by lobbying other countries to set up clinics to offer information on effective methods of suicide and to alert people to the risks of doing it incompetently. Denying people the right and the information necessary to take their own lives, Minelli, said, exposes them to “huge collateral damage” – the costs of emergency services, police, medical treatment and possibly living with further impairment.

There you have it. Suicide is the answer to costly emergency services and medical treatment. I can just hear a poor, unwed mother claiming her right to choose based on this exact same argument.

Minelli, who has helped over 40 Britons, who traveled to Zurich, die is undeterred, insisting the mentally ill have the same right to choose their own manner of death as the mentally healthy.

“The idea of a terminal illness as a condition for assisted suicide is a British obsession,” he said.

Minelli, an agnostic, said his passion for astronomy helps him put the death of a client into perspective.

Maybe Al Qaeda should just claim a right to choose to rid the world of Christian and Jews.

The religion of peace continues to kill people over “offensive” line drawings. Coptic Christians have been persecuted in Egypt for a long time, so the cartoon jihad is really nothing new for them. Just as is always the case in Islamic countries, the authorities responded to the incident by making excuses for the murdering Jihadists and threatening to crack down on those who threaten unity in their country – unity under Islam, that is. The murder of innocent civilians isn’t the problem. The problem is the Christians who won’t convert to Islam when threatened with death.

Police fired tear gas on Saturday to stop clashes between Christians and Muslims which broke out during the funeral of an elderly Copt killed in Alexandria a day earlier, witnesses said.

Hundreds of Christians turned out for the funeral of the 67-year-old Coptic man, who died on Friday after he was stabbed by a Muslim in an attack at two churches. Five other people were knifed and wounded in the attack.

[. . .]

An Interior Ministry source said the 25-year-old man who carried out Friday’s attack said he was taking revenge for insults to the Prophet Mohammed — a reference to cartoons published mainly in European newspapers lampooning the Prophet.

The authorities say the attacker is mentally ill.

But Christian demonstrators in Alexandria said the authorities were trying to make excuses for what some Copts saw as increasing attacks by Islamists on Copts.

And, here’s the familiar spin that liberals choose to believe despite the death and destruction around the world that proves it’s a lie.

President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt would confront any attempts to harm national unity.

“Egypt is considered a model of national unity and religious tolerance,” Mubarak said in comments published in state press. “The occurrence of an individual incident or problem cannot disturb the serenity and strength of this relationship between the two elements of the nation,” he said.

I see. It was the dead guys fault. His murder disturbed the Islamic serenity in Egypt.

Iran’s unbalanced, unhinged, hardline Muslim president is flapping his gums again about destroying Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes that the Twelfth Imam, Imam Madi, will arrive on the earth following a global jihad. He sees himself as the one who can bring this about. You recall that he previously stated that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” He’s still unhinged:

TEHRAN, Iran — The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was “heading toward annihilation,” just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a “permanent threat” to the Middle East that will “soon” be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

“Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation,” Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. “The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm.”

Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be “wiped off the map.”

On Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: “If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?”

Many in the MSM have tried to “mainstream” Hamas since they gained control of the Palestinian Authority. They want us to believe that Hamas really ISN’T a terrorist organization. After all, they primarily kill innocent Israelis – not Westerners. In the realm of the MSM, this is an important distinction. However, Hamas continues to prove they are NOT simply a political party. How many political party leaders make a point of meeting with Al Qaeda leaders?

In an another sign of the Palestinian leadership growing alliance with al-Qaida, Damascus-based Hamas head Khaled Mashaal recently met in Yemen with a representative of Osama bin Laden’s organization who is wanted by the US for his involvement in supporting and funding global terror, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

During a visit to Yemen two weeks ago, the local Hamas branch organized a fund-raising event to recruit financial aid for the new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government. During the event, Mashaal met with Sheikh Abd al-Majid al-Zindani – suspected by the US as being a “loyalist to Osama bin Laden and supporter of al-Qaida” – who even donated 200,000 Yemenite rials to Hamas, the equivalent of a little over $1,000.

“This meeting reinforces the fact that Hamas and al-Qaida come out of the same ideological well-spring of global jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold, whose Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs carefully followed the meeting and recently published a paper on the Hamas-al-Qaida alliance. “They still share the same financial infrastructure to this day.”

At the fund-raising event, Zindani praised Hamas suicide bombers and called on his followers to donate money to assist the Palestinian people. “The Hamas government is the Palestinian people’s government today,” he told the crowd of several thousand. “It is the jihad-fighting, steadfast, resolute government of Palestine.”

In 2004, US authorities designated Zindani as a terror supporter and a spiritual figure for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Zindani, the authorities claimed, played a key role in the 2004 purchasing of weapons on behalf of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

“The US has credible evidence that Zindani, a Yemeni national, supports designated terrorists and terrorist organizations,” a statement released by the US Treasury Department said. “Zindani has a long history of working with bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders. In this leadership capacity, he has been able to influence and support many terrorist causes, including actively recruiting for al-Qaida training camps.”

Senior IDF officers have confirmed that al-Qaida has already established terror cells in the Gaza Strip and has begun working on creating a similar infrastructure in the West Bank. Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Harel, head of the IDF’s Planning Directorate, told the Post recently that al-Qaida was operating within the PA territories.

I can’t help but be amused by this. Bill Gates paid big money to make sure the Palestinians who were to take over Gaza would get the Israeli green houses that supplied Israel with 75 percent of its produce. The green houses had some of the most technologically advanced agricultural equipment and accounted for more than $100 million per year in exports to Europe.

I’m sure Bill Gates thought his gift would be used to help the Palestinians FINALLY begin to take care of themselves and build their own, self sustaining country. He told Worldnet Daily that he thought it would “enhance the peace process”. Boy was he wrong! The Palestinians did the only thing they know how to do. They looted them and then destroyed them. Yep, that was quite an investment there, Bill. I’m sure, somehow, it’s still the Jews fault that the Palestinians have no money or jobs.

In a revelation that surprised many here associated with the deal, it emerged this week the charitable foundation of Microsoft founder Bill Gates largely was responsible for transferring to the Palestinians the high-tech Jewish greenhouses of the Gaza Strip prior to Israel’s evacuation of the area.

The greenhouses, passed in a private charity deal last summer, reportedly have been stripped and looted by Palestinian gangs and Palestinian security officers hired to protect the structures.

“I wish I would have known it was Bill Gates who paid for the greenhouses. I would have sent him a thank you letter,” Ahmed Al-Masri, current manager of the Gaza greenhouses, told WorldNetDaily.

Prior to Israel’s August withdrawal, the residents of Gaza’s Gush Katif slate of Jewish communities ran greenhouses known for producing high-quality insect-free vegetables. The Gush Katif gardens featured some of the most technologically advanced agricultural equipment and accounted for more than $100 million per year in exports to Europe. The greenhouses also supplied Israel with 75 percent of its own produce.

The hothouses, worth several hundred million dollars, were passed to the Palestinians in September in a $14 million deal brokered by former World Bank President James Wolfenson. According to reports, Wolfenson personally contributed $500,000 of his own money and the rest was ponied up mostly by American Jews, including billionaires Mortimer Zuckerman and Leonard Stern.

But an article in Forbes Magazine stated the $29 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s biggest charity, provided most of the money – $10 million – to purchase the greenhouses.

Unilateral land give-aways aren’t working out so well for Israel. Shocker! Dragging Jews from their homes and giving their land to Palestinian terrorists was supposed to make defending Israel easier. It was supposed to free the military from the impossible task of protecting settlers in the Gaza Strip. But, just as many of us predicted, it only moved the borders and the battle against Palestinian terrorism closer. I can’t imagine Olmert going ahead with the West Bank transfer in light of the disaster they’re now facing as a result of the first pullout. But, we should never underestimate the backwards thinking and self destructive policies of the Left. They don’t learn from history. They just rewrite it, spin it, and continue down the path toward Dhimmitude.

Eight months after the Jewish state evacuated its forces and communities from the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops today briefly entered Gaza to conduct an anti-terror operation, marking the first incursion into the area since Israel’s withdrawal this past summer.

Critics of the Gaza evacuation had long warned the retreat would prompt an onslaught of terrorism requiring the Israeli Defense Forces to re-enter the territory.

Israel is currently planning a second withdrawal from most of the West Bank, which borders Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the country’s international airport.

An IDF spokesperson told WND a small force inside an armored tank today crossed a dividing fence in the central part of the Gaza Strip near an Israeli military base to sweep for possible bombs after the army received information terrorists may have planted explosives in the area.

The troops crossed through the Kissufim Junction, which until last August was the main entrance to Gaza’s Gush Katif slate of Jewish communities. They traveled in about 150 feet. The soldiers remained in Gaza for about two hours. They did not find explosive material.

Yesterday in the same location the IDF killed two Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists armed with rifles, ammunition clips, grenades, a two-way radio and barbed wire cutters. Security officials told WND they suspect the terrorists either planned to attack an IDF base stationed in the Israeli Negev desert, which borders Gaza, or carry out a Passover attack against a nearby Jewish neighborhood.

[. . .]

This says it all:

Since Israel withdrew from Gaza last August over 300 rockets have been fired toward adjacent Jewish communities. Fourteen rockets have been fired in the last week alone. Israel has retaliated with artillery barrages, but has been unable to stop or even slow the rate of rockets launched from Gaza.

This is a perfect example of the double standard in this country when it comes to religion. It’s perfectly acceptable to offend Christians with truly offensive images of our Savior, offensive artwork, and hate speech, but a simple line drawing of Muhammad is forbidden. No one has a problem with Muslims censoring them by threatening Jihad and mass murder in retaliation. Even more absurd, many on the left will say that Christianity is the more intolerant religion.

The Comedy Central television network barred its popular “South Park” series from showing an image of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in last night’s episode but allowed a scene in which an image of Jesus Christ defecates on President Bush and the American flag.

Earlier today, conservative weblogs speculated about whether the episode’s reference to censorship was part of the edgy cartoon show’s gag, but a Comedy Central spokesman told Stephen Spruiell of National Review’s Media Blog the network itself made the decision to not show the image.

The network issued a statement, saying: “In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision.”

In the second of a two-part episode, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker played on the Danish newspaper’s publishing of caricatures of Muhammad, which sparked widespread rioting by Muslims earlier this year who considered it blasphemy.

In last night’s episode, “South Park” character Kyle tries to convince a Fox network executive to air, uncensored, an episode of “Family Guy” that includes an image of Muhammad.

“Either it’s all OK, or none of it is,” Kyle said. “Do the right thing.”

A clip can be viewed here, via Michelle Malkin’s weblog.