Monday, August 31

The play is the tragedy, "Man," and its hero, the Conqueror Worm

The Conqueror Worm

LO! 't is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years.
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight,
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible Woe.

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot;
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude:
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And over each quivering form
In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849

California's avoidable Greek tragedy

Tom McClintock would have been a much better choice as California's governor, as will become obvious upon reading his recent comments below.

California needs him as its chief executive -- and unless the current revolt against socialist tyranny grows permanent, the nation will need him too.

In the present political climate, with the Governator and the liberal Legislature breaking the Golden State and the Disaster-in-Chief's bankrupting and disarming the nation, Tom McClintock seems prescient and a God-send.
Congressman Tom McClintock offered the following remarks in Washington, D.C. last Friday to the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Pacific Research Institute that clearly illustrate why California is facing such a large fiscal mess.

[. . .]

“I know that everybody likes to poke fun at California – but I can tell you right now that despite all of its problems, California remains one of the best places in the world to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a successful large business.”

[. . .]

Laugh if you will, but let me remind you that when these policies finish wrecking California, there are still 49 other states we can all move to – and yours is one of them.

I should also warn you of the strange sense of déjà-vu that I have every day on the House floor as I watch the same folly and blunders that wrecked California now being passed with reckless abandon in this Congress.

We passed a “Cash-for-Clunkers” bill the other day – we did that years ago in California.

Doubling the entire debt every five years? Been there.

Increasing spending at unsustainable rates? Done that.

Save-the-Planet-Carbon-Dioxide restrictions? Got the T-Shirt.

To understand how these policies can utterly destroy an economy and bankrupt a government, you have to remember the Golden State in its Golden Age.

A generation ago, California spent about half what it does today AFTER adjusting for both inflation and population growth.

And yet, we had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country. California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one. We produced water and electricity so cheaply that many communities didn’t bother to measure the stuff. Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and its diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.

One thing – and one thing only – has changed in those years: public policy. The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of radical and retrograde policies that have destroyed the quality of life that Californians once took for granted.

The Census Bureau reports that in the last two years 2/3 of a million more people have moved out of California than have moved it. Many are leaving for the garden spots of Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

Think about that. California is blessed with the most equitable climate in the entire Western Hemisphere; it has the most bountiful resources anywhere in the continental United States; it is poised on the Pacific Rim in a position to dominate world trade for the next century, and yet people are finding a better place to live and work and raise their families in the middle of the Nevada and Arizona and Texas deserts.

I submit to you that no conceivable act of God could wreak such devastation as to turn California into a less desirable place to live than the middle of the Nevada Nuclear Test Range. Only Acts of Government can do that. And they have.

You can trace the collapse of California’s economy to several critical events: the rise of environmental Ludditism beginning in 1974; the abandonment of constitutional checks and balances that once constrained spending and borrowing; and the rise of rule by public employee unions . There are other factors as well: litigation, taxation, illegal immigration – but for the sake of time let me concentrate on the big three.

The first was the rise of environmental Ludditism with the election of a radical new-age leftist named Jerry Brown as governor of the state – an election that also produced overwhelming liberal majorities in both legislative houses.

Like Obama today, Brown lost little time in pursuing his vision of California – an incoherent combination of pastoral simplicity, European socialism and centralized planning. At the center of this world view was a backward ideology that he called his “era of limits” — the naïve notion that public works were growth inducing and polluting and that stopping the expansion of infrastructure somehow excused government from meeting the needs of an expanding population.

Conservation replaced abundance as the chief aim of California’s public works, and public policy was redirected to developing irresistible incentives for the population to concentrate in dense urban cores rather than to settle in suburban communities.

Brown infused his vision into every aspect of public policy, and it is a testament to his thoroughness and tenacity that its basic tenets have dominated the direction of California through both Republican and Democratic administrations.

He cancelled the state’s highway construction program, abandoning many routes in mid-construction. He cancelled long-planned water projects, conveyance facilities and dams. He established the California Energy Commission that blocked approval of any significant new generating capacity. He enacted volumes of environmental regulations that created severe impediments to home and commercial construction, empowering an incipient no-growth movement that began on the most extreme fringe of the environmental cause and quickly spread.

This movement reached its zenith with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the enactment of AB 32 and companion legislation in 2006. This measure gives virtually unchecked authority to the California Air Resources Board to force Draconian reductions in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

This has dire implications to entire segments of California’s economy: agriculture, baking, distilling, cargo and passenger transportation, cement production, manufacturing, construction and energy production, to name a few.

We, too, were promised an explosion of “green jobs,” but exactly the opposite has happened.

Up until that bill took effect, California’s unemployment numbers tracked very closely with the national unemployment rate. But since then, California’s unemployment rate began a steady upward divergence from the national jobless figures. Today, California’s unemployment rate is more than two points above the national rate, and at its highest point since 1941.

The second problem is structural: the collapse of the checks and balances and other constitutional and traditional constraints on government spending and borrowing.

Let me mention a few of them.

The State Supreme Court decision in Serrano v. Priest severed the use of local revenue for local schools and invited the state take-over of public education. AB 8 of 1979 – the legislature’s response to Proposition 13 – essentially did the same thing to local governments generally.

This means that vast bureaucracies have grown up over the service delivery level, wasting more and more resources while hamstringing teachers in their classrooms, wardens in their prisons and city councils in their towns.

Next, constitutional constraints on fiscal excesses began to fall. In 1983, Gov. George Deukmejian approved legislation to remove the governor’s ability to make mid-year budget corrections without having to return to the legislature. The loss of this provision exposed the state to chronic deficit spending by removing any ability of the governor to rapidly respond to changing economic conditions.

In 1989, Deukmejian sponsored Proposition 111 that destroyed the Gann Spending Limit that had held increases in state spending to inflation and population growth. If that limit had remained intact, California would be enjoying a budget surplus today.

The disastrous tax increases by Pete Wilson in 1991 and Arnold Schwarzenegger this year were made possible by this tragic blunder.

Finally, we’ve watched the constitutional budget process that had produced relatively punctual and relatively balanced budgets for nearly 150 years collapse in favor of an extra-constitutional abomination called the big five.

That new process, that began under Pete Wilson and has culminated under Arnold Schwarzenegger bypasses the entire legislative deliberative process in favor of an annual deal struck between the governor and legislative leaders behind closed doors and handed to the legislature as a fait accompli.

This short-circuits the separation of powers that is designed to discipline fiscal excess and it literally bargains away the line-item veto authority of the governor. It is a process that allows legislative leaders to extract concessions from the executive that would not be possible if the separation of powers were maintained.

With the checks against excessive spending broken down, borrowing became the preferred method of public finance. The Constitutional requirement that all taxpayer-supported debt be approved by voters began to erode in the 1930’s, when a depression-era Supreme Court decision allowed the state to run a temporary deficit in the event of an economic down-turn — as long as the shortfall was addressed in the following fiscal year. This practice was narrowly construed until the Wilson administration began using it to justify spreading out a single year’s budget deficit over several years.

During the 1980’s, Gov. Deukmejian began employing a legal fiction called a “lease revenue bond,” to circumvent constitutionally required voter approval.

Although Proposition 13 still protects property owners from unsustainable increases in their property taxes, most of the other fiscal constraints are now gone, and California has entered a period of unprecedented public debt to finance an unprecedented expansion of state government.

The third factor that also can be traced back to the 1970’s was the radical transformation that took place in the nature and power of the state’s public employee unions. Until that time, state law prohibited public employee strikes against the public and prohibited collective bargaining or closed shops.

During the Jerry Brown era, a series of collective bargaining acts handed to public sector unions all the rights and powers of private sector unions – but without any of the natural constraints on private sector unions. The unions soon brought these newly-won powers to bear to elect hand-picked officials to state and local office.

Today, political expenditures by public employee unions exceed all other special interest groups, while they hold compliant majorities in the state legislature and most local agencies.

The result has been radically escalating personnel costs and radically deteriorating performance.

The impact on governmental services has been devastating. Despite exploding budgets, service delivery is collapsing. Firing incompetent teachers has become a virtual impossibility, adding to the deterioration of educational quality. Essential services can no longer be performed because labor costs have made it impossible to sustain those services.

Today, California is like the shopkeeper who leased out too much space, ordered too much inventory, hired too many people and paid them too much. Every month the shopkeeper covers his shortfalls with borrowing and bookkeeping tricks. Ultimately, he will reach a tipping point where anything he does makes his situation worse. Borrowing costs are eating him alive and he’s running out of credit. Raising prices causes his sales to decline. And there’s only so much discretionary spending he can cut.

That’s the state’s predicament in a nutshell. California’s borrowing costs now exceed the budget of the entire University of California and it is increasingly likely that it will fail to find lenders when it must borrow billions to pay its bills at the end of this month.

Ignoring dire warnings, Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislators from both parties earlier this year imposed the biggest state tax increase in American history.

And I can assure you that the Laffer curve is alive and well. In the first two months after the tax increase took effect, state revenues have plunged 33 percent.

Although there are many obsolete, duplicative or low priority programs and expenditures that the state can – and should – do without, there aren’t enough of them to come anywhere close to closing California’s deficit.

Sadly, California has reached the terminal stage of a bureaucratic state, where government has become so large and so tangled that it can no longer perform even basic functions.

Fortunately, we have a model that we know works. A generation ago, it produced a high quality of public service at a much lower cost. It maximized management flexibility and it required accountability at the service delivery level. It recognized that only when commerce and enterprise flourish can we finance the basic responsibilities of government.

Restoring this efficiency will require a governor and a legislature with the political will to wrestle control from the public employee unions, dismantle the enormous bureaucracies that have grown up over the service delivery level, decentralize administration and decision making, contract out services that the private sector can provide more efficiently, rescind the recent tax increases that are costing the state money and roll back the regulatory obstacles to productive enterprise.

Alas, we don’t have such leaders and even if we did, the systemic reorganization of the state government can’t be accomplished overnight. Restructuring the public schools would take at least a year; prisons at least two; and health and welfare three to five years before serious savings could be realized.

This brings us to the fine point of the matter. What Churchill called history’s “terrible, chilling words” are about to be pronounced on California’s failed leadership: “too late.”

A federal loan guarantee or bailout may be the only way to buy time for the restructuring of California’s bureaucracies to take effect, but the discussion remains academic until and unless the state actually adopts the replacement structures, unburdens its shrinking productive sector and presents a credible plan to redeem the state’s crushing debt and looming obligations.

Without these actions, federal intervention will only make California’s problems worse by postponing reform, continuing unsustainable spending and piling up still more debt.

In short, if California won’t help itself, the federal government cannot, should not and must not.

And before anyone gets too smug at California’s agony, remember this: Congress is now enacting the same policies at the national level that have caused the collapse of California. So whistle past this cemetery if you must, but remember the medieval epitaph: “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now so you will be.”

The good news is there is still time for the nation to avoid California’s fate. If anything, the collapse of California can at least serve as a morality play for the rest of the nation – unfortunately in the form of a Greek tragedy.

Sunday, August 30

If Muhammad lied in order to advance Islam, then you shouldn't be surprised when Muslims do too

On what basis can a non-Muslim trust a Muslim, exactly?

Since Allah called Muhammad a "beautiful pattern of conduct for those who want to please" him, the best that you can hope for from one of his devotees is apostasy, heresy, or ignorance.  What else can a reasonable person expect?

Here, once again, is our good friend Ibn Kathir exposing Muslim deceit -- both the individual's practice of it in denying taqiyya and the "divine" mandate for such deception -- in his explanation of a chunk of Sura 3:
"(unless you indeed fear a danger from them) meaning, except those believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers. In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardlybut never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda' said, 'We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.'' Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, 'The Tuqyah [taqiyya] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.''"

Saturday, August 29

Chains of Liberty

It's time for another American Revolution.

Thomas Jefferson warned:
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
Break out those chains if you want to preserve the liberties you possess still.

Socialism is slavery.  It makes dependent those who receive the fruit of their fellow citizens' labor, whose time and talent -- in the form of their treasure -- are confiscated at the point of a gun.

Humanly-speaking -- for we can merit nothing before God, Christ is our Merit -- if the State takes your wealth and uses it even accidentally for an occasional benevolent purpose, then it is no longer to your credit.

And what of when politicians hundreds and thousands of mile away use your wealth for immoral purposes?  Regarding that, Jefferson observed:
"to compel a man to furnish ... money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."

Politicians are not engaged in charity when they take your money and limit your freedom "for the public good."  They're thieves using your resources to maintain their position.  They think you exist to provide them power.

They work for you.

Government is Leviathan.  If it is not restrained, it will devour us all.

It's time to start over as our Founders intended.  Remove all the filth politicians have codified into law and begin again from just the United States Constitution.

Let's also add term limits for Congress, end their benefits, and certify place of birth for presidential candidates, while we're at it.

The great Larry Elder nails it:
Assisting the needy in health care is a "moral imperative" – not a constitutional right. The two are as different as a squirt gun and an Uzi.

If something is not permitted under our Constitution, the federal government simply cannot do it. Period. The Founding Fathers vigorously debated the role of the federal government and defined it in Article I, Section 8 – spelling out the specific duties and obligations of the federal government. Most notably, this included providing a military for national security, coining money, establishing rules for immigration and citizenship, establishing rules for bankruptcy, setting up a postal system, establishing trademark and copyright rules, and setting up a legal system to resolves disputes, in addition to a handful of other matters.

Charity is not there.

Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison – a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution – wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

But what about the Constitution's general welfare clause?

Madison said: "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

And consider government welfare's effect on people's willingness to give. During the Great Depression – before the social programs that today we accept as givens (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) – charitable giving increased dramatically. After FDR began signing social programs into law, charitable giving continued, but not at the same rate. People felt that they had given at the office and/or that government was "handling it."

Government "charity" is simply less efficient than private charity. Every dollar extracted from taxpayers, sent to Washington, and then routed to the beneficiary "loses" about 70 cents in transfer costs – salaries, rent and other expenses. The Salvation Army, by contrast, spends 2 cents in operating costs, with the remainder going to fundraising and the beneficiary. They achieve this, among other ways, by relying on volunteers to do much of the work.

Following Hurricane Katrina, private companies, including The Home Depot and Wal-Mart, provided basic needs, such as water and shelter, faster than did government. What were their motives? Generosity? Positive public relations – a form of "selfishness"? Does it matter?

What about the issue of "moral hazard"? Does government welfare distort behavior and cause people to act irresponsibly? In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson launched a "War on Poverty." "Anti-poverty" workers literally went door to door to inform women of their "right" to money and services – provided the recipients were unmarried and had no men living in their houses. Out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. In 1960, before the "War on Poverty," out-of-wedlock births accounted for 2 percent of white births and 22 percent of black births. By 1994 – just three decades after Johnson began his "War" – the rates had soared to 25 and 70 percent, respectively.

Numerous studies conclude that children of "broken homes" with absentee or nonexistent fathers are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, do drugs and produce out-of-wedlock children. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times asked both the poor and non-poor the following question: Do you think those on welfare have children to get on welfare? More poor people (64 percent) said "yes" to that proposition than did non-poor (44 percent).

If not taxation, how then?

In 1871, the city of Chicago burned to the ground. Contributions, with virtually no money from government, rebuilt the city. After 9/11, so many Americans gave money that the Red Cross used some contributions for non-9/11 purposes. Christianity Today wrote in January 2002: "Suddenly awash in a sea of money, relief agencies such as the Salvation Army need help. So much money – $1.5 billion so far – has come in that charities are having a hard time spending it." And Americans donated an even greater sum to those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Three in four families donate to charity, averaging more than 3 percent of their income, with two-thirds going to secular charities. In total, Americans give more than $300 billion a year – more than the gross domestic product of Finland or Ireland. More than half of families also donate their time.

Absent (unconstitutional) government programs, individuals and charitable organizations can, will and – in many cases – already do provide services to the needy. A limited governmentone that taxes only to fulfill its permissible dutieswould allow even more disposable time and money.

People-to-people charity is more efficient, less costly, more humane and compassionate, and more likely to inspire change and self-sufficiency in the beneficiary. People can and would readily satisfy society's "moral imperative."

Monday, August 24

Obama was as much a socialist as he was Muslim

Which is to say, entirely.

As if his policies were not enough, Obama participated in a socialist party:
President Obama participated in a controversial 1990s political party with a socialist agenda, recalls a major member of the organization known as the New Party.

WND previously reported on newspaper evidence showing Obama was a member of the New Party, which sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

Now a former top member of the New Party recounted in a WND e-mail interview Obama's participation with his organization.

"A subcommittee met with (Obama) to interview him to see if his stand on the living wage and similar reforms was the same as ours," recalled Marxist activist Carl Davidson.

"We determined that our views on these overlapped, and we could endorse his campaign in the Democratic Party,' Davidson said.

Obama creating a second Great Depression

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Vox Day articulates clearly where our politicians' priorities lie. The FDIC is broke:

If there is one thing that has been made clear by the response of the monetary and fiscal authorities to the economic crisis, it is that they will not lift a finger to help the general public. When they could have spent millions to prevent homeowners with mortgages from falling into default and foreclosure, they instead chose to spend billions to reduce the impact of the failed mortgages on the giant zombie banks. If one looks closely at the mechanisms underlying the Homeowner Stability Initiative, the Making Home Affordable plan and the Cash for Clunkers program, one will see that they are not designed to help the homeowner or the car buyer, but rather the banks that finance the purchases.

Given recent history, it would appear to be most unwise to assume that the federal government will do much more than permit the FDIC to borrow the additional $70 billion by which its credit line was increased in May, especially should depositors become aware of the increasingly fragile state of the banking system and begin to withdraw their funds from it. Banking holidays and other restrictions on the public's ability to access its money are probably more likely than an outright bailout, especially since a bailout will cost around $225 billion merely to maintain the status quo if Meredith Whitney's calculation of 300 bank failures is correct. In any case, the ability to ask permission to borrow from an unpredictable institution already $11.7 trillion in debt and expecting a further $9 trillion in deficits is not insurance nor can it reasonably be described as a guarantee of any kind.

Walter Cronkite and his fellow apologists for tyranny stained anew with the blood of innocents

The sacrifices made by Americans in Vietnam (and Korea) matter to the victims of Communism, then and now.

The atrocities noted below are what stupid, treasonous, America-hating leftists helped bring about by attacking our military in defense of Communism/Socialism.

To all who opposed America's efforts in Vietnam and helped bring them to an end: You have the fresh blood of innocents on your hands.

Walter Cronkite and his fellow useful idiots stole from innocent people their only defense against savagery, barbarism, and brutality worthy of Hitler, Muhammad, and hell itself.

Here's the end of the Left's utopian dream, one example of what Cronkite and his fellow propagandists helped forge: 2-month-old killed to stifle 'religious' dissent.

Will Jim Webb have the integrity and the guts to condemn this? Or will he follow Dear Leader Obama's lionhearted example in the face of brutal tyranny: Bow, grovel, obfuscate, and apologize?
An international Christian group has reported a horrifying episode of Christian children being abducted and killed in an apparent effort to stifle "religious and political" dissidents in Laos during the runup to a visit by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.

Webb, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, recently visited several nations, including some that often have earned high rankings among nations that persecute Christians. His trip included visits to Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Now comes a report from International Christian Concern about the newest atrocities.

"International Christian Concern has just learned that Lao soldiers captured, mutilated and decapitated a two-month-old girl during recent military attacks against Hmong and Laotian civilians," the group said. "Survivors of the attack said the infant was used for target practice."

ICC cited reports from the Center for Public Policy Analysis that claimed eight children were captured and 26 Hmong and Laotian civilians were murdered during a series of four major attacks over the past month – apparently designed to stifle "religious and political dissidents" ahead of the visit from Webb.

"Christian Hmong were most certainly among those attacked as they are often targeted specifically by the regime," the report said.

The report included a statement from Vaughn Vang, the director of thet Lao Hmong Human Rights Council.

"We are told, by some of the Lao Hmong survivors of the recent military attacks in Laos, that the LPDR (Lao Peoples Democratic Republic) soldiers of the LPA (Lao Peoples Army) used the … Lao Hmong girl, while she was still alive, for target practice … once she was captured and tied up; they mutilated her little body and continued to fire their weapons, over and over … until her head just eventually came off after so many bullets severed her head."

The rest of the children, ranging up to 8 years old, remain missing and Vang's concern is that they likely would be tortured and killed by soldiers.

The ICC report said the decapitated child's body was found next to her mother, also a torture victim of the soldiers.

"Unfortunately," the ICC said, "this level of brutality against women and children is not uncommon for Lao soldiers. It is standard procedure for soldiers to surround and isolate pockets of Hmong people and starve them out to be killed when they venture out to forage.

"Philip Smith, the Executive Director of CPPA, told ICC of video footage smuggled out of Laos in 2004 that documents the aftermath of the killing and brutalization of five Hmong children, four of them girls, on May 19th of that year. That footage was used in an extremely graphic documentary, "Hunted Like Animals," by Rebecca Sommer," the report said.

The videos are available at RebeccaSommer.org, but ICC warns the clips are "highly graphic." The website warns that no children should view the clips.

[. . .]

According to the RebeccaSommers.org website, the Hmong people of southeast Asia, many of whom cooperated with American forces during the Vietnam War, still are hunted and killed for actions of four decades ago.

Open Doors USA ranks Laos No. 8 on its 2009 World Watch List of nations that persecute Christians.

[. . .]

"It is certainly not a shock that North Korea is No. 1 on the list of countries where Christians face the worst persecution," said Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors USA. "There is no other country in the world where Christians are persecuted in such a horrible and systematic manner."

The organization estimates 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation.
Islam. Nazism. Communism. Any form of totalitarianism. "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

B. Hussein Obama's new health care plan* unveiled

Finally, some of that much-hyped, often-promised, but impossible-to-find transparency!



This also happens to be his strategy for dealing with the elderly, Independents who skew downward his public opinion polls, country music fans, babies, the Founding Fathers, military veterans (American, not jihadist prisoners-of-war, they get a dream vacation in the Caribbean, relocation in the newly-expanded federal witness protection program to somewhere in the continental United States, and a position in his administration), everyone who refuses to address him as "Your Highness," and other "right-wing extremists."

When asked what he'd do if this proposal is rejected also by Americans-Who-Are-Paying-Attention, he admitted with a smirk that he did have a fallback plan, one that would strive "To Serve Man."

The President denied charges from Obviously-Racist-Republican-Operatives that he's taking his domestic policy ideas from Rod Serling.

*Our God-given, unalienable rights are never "obsolete."

Obama is god

The blaspheming tyrant has done it again.

And you thought Rush was only joking.

Being "ready to rule from Day 1," was bad enough, for with that, Obama made himself a king over free men.

Now, he's made himself equal with God:
"We are God’s partners in matters of life and death . . . ."
This is evidence of Obama's pathological, self-deifying narcissism.

It's also proof that Obama thinks that the devout are idiots to be manipulated.

Isn't this also an expression of the fact that liberals worship the State as god? Power above all else?

Good news, for now, for Rifqa Bary

Despite the efforts of jihad's propagandists, outright liars like Mohamed Fadly and BMZ who obfuscate and silence the truth about Muhammad, and Islam's Useful Idiot dhimmis, like Rory Graycrow Underclass, Dovod, and the entire Western Political-Media Complex, one life has been snatched from the gaping maw of hell, from her own Muslim parents, at least temporarily.

Note also the example of Wafa Sultan. Raised Muslim, she recognized the "violent, hateful Islamic doctrines embedded in the Shariah," rejected Islam, and now works for human rights in order to save Muslims and non-Muslims alike from Islam.

And I am criticized for pointing out what the texts say, what Wafa Sultan recognizes, for exposing the most hateful ideology in the history of man, one that sends Muslim souls to hell and for non-Muslims, creates hell on Earth.

Good news, for now, for Rifqa Bary:
Geller reported the girl's friends had accompanied her to the school counselor after they noticed bruises covering her arms and legs that allegedly resulted from beatings by her father and brother. "The middle school, in a serious dereliction of duty, did not report these beatings to child welfare services," Geller reported. "Beatings were random, violent, unprovoked. Take, for example, when Rifqa and her father Mohamed were driving in the car. He would force her to wear the hijab (head covering), which she hated. In her discomfort she would slouch down, embarrassed, and her father would haul off and sock her in the face so that she never forgot to sit up straight in her costume. The beatings were regular and so much a part of the landscape of Rifqa's life, she became inured to them …"

Geller said the teen's case "is a public relations nightmare for Islamist groups, as her plea validates everything that scholars such as Ibn Warraq, Robert Spencer, Dr. Andrew Bostom, Wafa Sultan, etc., have written and said."

Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist, human rights activist and author, wrote on JihadWatch.org that the case "highlights the danger of creeping jihad in the Western world. "This is not only because of the imminent danger the teenage girl may face right here in the U.S., had the court decided to have her return to her parents' home, but also because of the mainstream media's weak response to the severity of this case.

"I was born and raised as a Muslim in Syria. I practiced Islam for thirty years of my life. Now I am a known human rights activist striving to save our future Muslim generations from the impact of the violent, hateful Islamic doctrines embedded in the Shariah," she continued.

"My life is also threatened, not only by my own extended family, but bycountless men who consider themselves devout Muslims. Under Shariah, if a Muslim leaves Islam or converts to another religion he/she is an 'apostate,' to be killed. Under Shariah every Muslim has the right to kill such an apostate without any questions asked," she warned.

Wednesday, August 19

Obama now scared of own shadow -- and the elderly

Instead of being concerned about Muslims seeking to overthrow the Constitution through both violent and non-violent means, he's worried about "right-wing extremists," which in his mind include our military, those who oppose slaughtering the unborn, the Founding Fathers, and -- Grandma.

In other words, the "President" of the United States is worried about American citizens expressing their concern over the expansion of government his power at the expense of their own God-given rights (yes, I realize that's redundant: You can't have an expansion of government without a proportionate loss of Liberty).

We don't want Nazi Germany. We don't want the Soviet Union. We don't want the Caliphate. We don't want the Twilight Zone's "Obsolete Man."

We want America.

All this just goes to show how depraved the Media are: While most Americans are up in arms over Obama going so far left into socialist tyranny, the media are upset that he hasn't gone far enough!

Chris Matthews will have to find someone else to make him tingle. It's so retro, but perhaps, Adolph Hitler?

From here:
Media coverage of Obama has taken a sudden sour turn over the past few days – especially from the more unapologetically leftist crowd – since the president hinted over the weekend that the so-called 'public option' could be scrapped from his health care reform plans.
"How did we get here?" objected MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. "How did we get to the foretold 'death' of the public option? ... We got here through a collapse of political ambition."
In an eight-minute advocacy piece for government-run health care, blasting Big Business and free market insurance coverage, Maddow turned her ire on the president and congressional Democrats for backing down from drafting a socialized health care system like those adopted by some European nations.

Saturday, August 15

We know that Jesus is the Son of God because that is what He said of Himself

When Someone Who committed no sin, spoke only the truth, healed the sick, raised the dead, died for the sins of the whole world, and overcame death by His resurrection makes an objective truth claim, you ought to listen to Him.

Alen writes in defense of Muhammad:
How? Show us your proof. How cna messenger/prophet Jesus be a son of god? And how come there is a clear difference between Jesus and God in The Bible, NT?
Jesus was a human, he was put in the womb of the virgin Mary, got born, lived, delivered The Message from God and was raised to Heaven.
Jews think they crucified him.
Oops.
A few quick points
1) It is a bit ironic that someone who believes that a blaspheming, genocidal, murdering, raping, mutilating, enslaving, vandalizing, extorting, thieving, lying pedophile was a prophet of the living God is asking for "proof."

What proof do you have for believing Muhammad? Is it the gratuitous beheadings, chronic child rape, or rampant slavery?

2) It is not "a" son of god, it is the Son of God.

3) It is not a "clear difference between Jesus and God," but a clear distinction made between God the
Son and God the Father.

4) YHWH created the universe. Is incarnation too difficult for Him?

5) Everyone who witnessed Christ being crucified thought Christ was crucified because . . .
Christ was crucified.

6) You do know that early in Islam's history, variant readings of Qur'an were collected and destroyed? That Muhammad tried to change revelations?
Proof

We know that Jesus is the Son of God because that is what He said of Himself.

His Father, the Prophets, and the Apostles all testify to this.

Your false prophet
correctly stated that what Moses, the Prophets of YHWH, and Christ preached originally was true. His error was in claiming that Jews and Christians had corrupted those revelations.

Christ referred to the Biblical texts of His day (the Old Testament) as perfect and permanent --
"Father, Your word is truth" and "the Scriptures cannot be broken."

Muhammad has a problem: We have reliable -- not "corrupted" -- copies of the original inspired and perfect Old and New Testament documents, including written records of what Christ actually said and did.

Since we know what Jesus said, you must listen to Him.

The trustworthiness of Scripture

We have copies of Old Testament texts
dating to more than a century before Christ, including a complete scroll of Isaiah from around 125 B.C. These demonstrate that the Sacred Texts have been transmitted faithfully down through the centuries to us.

In fact, the body of manuscripts is so reliable that the Bible we possess today is nearly 99% pure. Remaining issues involve mainly spelling errors, word omissions (articles, conjunctions, etc.), and other copyists' mistakes. None of these copying errors affect doctrine.

What do the uncorrupted, reliable Biblical texts say about the Son of God and His crucifixion?

Contrary to your claim, there is no distinction
between Christ and God in the New Testament making Jesus only human.

Since "God" in the New Testament refers usually to God the Father, the distinction being made in those cases is between persons of the Trinity, between the Son of God and His Father.

By the way, Christ refers to God as "my Father" dozens of times in the Gospels.

A true prophet, Isaiah, foresaw that the promised Messiah would be God Incarnate:
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).
Note that in this statement alone, the Child to be born is given the name of God the Father ("Everlasting Father"), God the Son ("Prince of Peace"), and God the Holy Spirit ("Wonderful Counselor").

And as Moses stated, "Hear O Israel . . . the LORD is one," so too the Messiah will be called "Mighty God."

Isn't that odd? The Triune God named in the Old Testament.

Both Isaiah and David foretold the Messiah's torturous scourging and crucifixion, to which there were many witnesses:
"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:3-6).

"For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet-- I can count all my bones-- they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots" (Psalms 22:16-18).
More on the deity of Christ

The Apostles testified to Christ being God. Here is the opening of John's Gospel. Note the distinction between the Father and the Son: Two distinct persons, one nature:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men . . . He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth . . . from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known" (John 1:1-18).
Jesus used the name by which the One, True God, YHWH (not Allah) revealed Himself to Moses:
"So the Jews said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?'

"Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.' So they picked up stones to throw at him . . . " (John 8:57-59).
The religious leaders would not have tried to stone Him for blasphemy unless He were claiming to be YHWH.

Notice in the next passage both that Christ calls God "My Father" and that the religious authorities wanted to kill Him for "making Himself equal with God.":
But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:17-18).
The Father says directly of His Son:
"And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him'" (Luke 9:35)!

"And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased'" (Matthew 3:16-17).
One last proof of Christ's deity: In Revelation 22 we find GOD speaking:
"And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment" (Revelation 21:5-6).
And in the very next chapter, we read:
"Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:12-13).
Who is speaking in the second passage? Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

If Jesus was only a man as you claim, then how in the world would He have the same name as the omnipotent GOD?

Many other passages show Jesus Christ to be the Son of God.

Trust in Christ, Who forgives your sins freely, not Muhammad.

A God Who wails aloud for His children is not a god which creates them for Hell

God Incarnate sobs over Jerusalem, the very same souls Bob says that in His "sovereignty" He created for hell.

So, Calvin's god has gone from being a capricious monster to being a criminally-insane capricious monster.

By the way, the ESV heads the passage in question: "Lament over Jerusalem."

In response to Bob's comments (regarding Matthew 23) here:
if you check the actual context of the passage you'd find that there is no weeping involved

[. . .]

If you're basing the whole "jesus weeping" thing on the word longing; you've completely ignored the context. The pronouncement of woes is before this and after this passage

[. . .]

No weeping at all.
What makes you think that YHWH's pronouncing woes precludes His feeling sorrow over His children's unbelief and their resultant doom?

Unlike Calvin's god, Christ loves us all.

This is the same God Who prayed for those who crucified Him: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).

This is the same God Who calls out to all people: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other" (Isaiah 45:22).

This is the same God Who declares: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

This is the same God Who promises:
". . . God . . . desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all . . ." (1 Timothy 2:3-6).
No, the God Who lamented:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not" (Matthew 23:37)!
(Did you read that? What is the hen's attitude toward her offspring? Does she delight in pronouncing woes against them? Is she indifferent to their destruction? And that's not my analogy, it is the LORD's.)

Is the same God Who weeps for Jerusalem in Luke 19:
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation" (Luke 19:41-44).
The word translated here "wept" (klaio) is "wail aloud, sob, bewail," not silent tears or misty eyes.

If the Son of God wails aloud for the physical destruction of the people of Jerusalem -- and their rejection of Him, for they "did not know the time of [their] visitation" -- what makes you think He would be indifferent to (or pleased with!) their unbelief in Matthew 23?

But no. Your god is licking his chops at the chance to put some reprobates on The Machine in The Pit of Despair.

Bob concludes with:
As far as all of the other things you've stated; God creating people on whimsy, God capricously sending people to Hell..

Those are straw men and you know it.

You don't have to like Calvinism, but at least represent what the doctrines say accurately; that's only fair.

The fact is; God IS sovereign...yes, even in the matter of one's salvation and your anger at it doesn't change that.

If you want to be taken more seriously in the future; you'd be better off to lose the Ad Hominems and misreprestation of Calvinism.
"God IS sovereign" is code for "God creates people for Hell." The only problem is, that is not the God of the Bible. A God Who wails aloud for His children is not a god which creates them for Hell.

And it can't be ad hominem if the point of my argument is that Calvin's god is a monster, which makes him a blaspheming heretic.

Speaking of misrepresentation, as to the false claim that I've lied about Calvin, here is the heretic in his own words, from the Modern History Sourcebook: John Calvin: On Double Predestination:
"In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of the Scripture, we assert, that by an eternal and immutable counsel, God has once for all determined, both whom he would admit to salvation, and whom he would condemn to destruction. We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on his gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit; but that to those whom he devotes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehensible, judgment. In the elect, we consider calling as an evidence of election, and justification as another token of its manifestation, till they arrive in glory, which constitutes its completion. As God seals his elect by vocation and justification, so by excluding the reprobate from the knowledge of his name and the sanctification of his Spirit, he affords an indication of the judgement that awaits them."
Calvin taught (and so do all who teach and defend TULIP) that God predetermines who goes to Heaven and Hell (Unconditional Election,"U"), that Christ died for only some, not all, people (Limited Atonement, "L"), and that God's grace is irresistible (Irresistible Grace, "I") which, if true, means that God does not shower His grace on all.

According to your man's own words in the passage above, Calvin's god denies its spirit to the many it created for hell. It denies those it created for destruction knowledge of it.

How can the god which denies its spirit to the people it's created for perdition be the same God Who wails for doomed unbelievers, prays for the forgiveness of His executioners, desires that all should be saved, and dies for all people to reconcile them to His Father?

It can't.

Post scriptum:

So, how do you know whether or not you're going to Heaven?

The answer is, you can't know, because Calvin's god chose in its "divine sovereignty" to create some for heaven and some for hell.

So, which is it? Are you one of the elect, or are you one of those of whom at the end of your life others will say -- just like I've heard leading evangelicals say -- "He never was really a Christian."

I hope for your sake that your flip of the cosmic coin turned up the right face.

Or, you can trust in the Son of God Who died for the sins of the whole world.

That "whole world" would include you, which means that you know your sins are forgiven, you have been reconciled to the Father, Heaven is opened, and eternal life is yours.

Believe Christ, not Calvin.

Friday, August 14

Obama on Health Care being Like Post Office, Private Insurance like UPS and FedEx

Ronald Reagan observed correctly that government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.

Every once in a while, despite the best of efforts, the truth slips out:

Thursday, August 13

Republicans more vile than the devout Muslims who carried out 9/11

I haven't heard of anyone saying that of even Bill Clinton, and he had several opportunities to retire UBL.

(Of course, since the problem is not one person but the ideology, bin Laden's death would have only delayed our first Black Tuesday.)

In response to claiming that the GOP's (alleged) exploitation of 9/11 was worse than the barbarism carried out that day, from here:
Ghost of Violet,

Your minimizing large-scale slaughter in service to Allah in comparison to alleged political calculations (that look like effective self-defense nearly eight years since the attack) is vile, disgusting, and libelous.

I suppose you'd prefer a big hole in the ground and thousands more dead in downtown Los Angeles, for that is what we'd have endured if waterboarding (so torturous that our military undergo it in training) hadn't been used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (to you, one genocidal Muslim terrorist's feelings are more important than innocent American lives, right?).

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Rather than shedding light on what motivated 9/11 (one devastating day in nearly fourteen hundred years of global jihad -- including 14,000 Muslim terrorist attacks since 9/11 alone), you obfuscate with shameless political ad hominems.

So much for the "GOP dictatorship." And how do you explain the fact that despite "stifling censorship," your excretion here is still online?

When did Obama save your 'blog? Was it before or after demanding that jihad's victims "respect" Islam? Was it before or after he bowed to the Saudi tyrant, ruler of one of the most repressive shari'a states on Earth? Was it before or after he apologized to Islam at al-Azhar, whose president endorses suicide bombings?

No one should be blamed for 9/11 but the people who carried it out and the ideology that motivated their bloodlust, Islam.

And those who aid its advance, whether through malice or ignorance, have a share in the bloodguilt.

Open your eyes, or we'll all be ghosts.

Monday, August 10

If you have a voice, you have a weapon in defense of Liberty. Use it!

The opposition to socialized medicine is not a "conservative, right-wing thing."

It is a "Liberty thing," which is why leftists and other cowards don't get it.

It's a matter of life-and-death:



Mike Sola is a hero.

Here's the article to which he refers.

Those on the Left care about politics, because they want to exercise power over others.

The rest of us don't want politics, we care about Right and Wrong, about Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

You'd think that at least a few of our elected officials would actually believe in that.

And this what you see in the video below: Members of AARP, older citizens who would seem most easily-tempted by collectivist promises of security, realizing the danger of encroaching government tyranny, waking up and talking back.

Notice also the speaker's condescension to her audience: The "public" has to be quiet while she tells them what they are to think.

Just like the president, "ready to rule from Day One."

We need patriots of all ages to wake up to politicians' decades-long-but-recently-exploded usurpation of our Constitution.

Don't wallow in self-pity lamenting, "What can someone like me do?"

The fight has commenced. Go to fighting or get away! (And start digging your grave.)

The unborn and the elderly are ObamaScare's first victims. Only one has the voice to engage in this fight:



If you have a voice, you have a weapon in defense of Liberty. Use it!

The concentration camps are next.

Obama's vision of America: Somewhere between Stalin and Hitler.

The New World has its Chamberlain; what we need desperately is our Churchill

At least Neville Chamberlain groveled to the devil before London was blitzed.

Much like the British prime minister's appeasement of Hitler with the Munich pact of 1938 -- which gave the monster a portion of Czechoslovakia -- today we have our nation's "leader" apologizing to, appeasing, and continuing the payment of jizya to Islam.

Here is Churchill's blunt condemnation of Chamberlain's malfeasance:
"I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat . . . instead of snatching the victuals from the table, [Hitler] has been content to have them served to him course by course."
Our Chamberlain bows to Saudi tyrants, apologizes to the ideology of our demise, and seeks to feed Israel to the dogs.

The result of Chamberlain's policies, major German advances and the retreat of more than 300,000 of its soldiers from France, England stood alone and outgunned, with Churchill in the lead.

From here:
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
The "New World" has its Chamberlain; what we need desperately is our Churchill.

Only one thing justifies the events of September 11th, and everyone with at least a modicum of awareness and common sense knows what that is

You don't need a degree in comparative religion or fluency in Arabic to understand what motivated 9/11 and the fourteen thousand Islamic terrorist attacks since then.

That being said, it seems all major world leaders lack even a modicum of awareness and common sense.

Simple truth attributed to Tony Blair in response to Amerca's first Black Tuesday.

The only part he left out? Just Five Little Letters.
So what do we do?

Don't overreact some say. We aren't.

We haven't lashed out. No missiles on the first night just for effect.

Don't kill innocent people. We are not the ones who waged war on the innocent. We seek the guilty.

Look for a diplomatic solution. There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime.

State an ultimatum and get their response. We stated the ultimatum; they haven't responded.

Understand the causes of terror. Yes, we should try, but let there be no moral ambiguity about this: nothing could ever justify the events of 11 September, and it is to turn justice on its head to pretend it could.

The action we take will be proportionate; targeted; we will do all we humanly can to avoid civilian casualties. But understand what we are dealing with. Listen to the calls of those passengers on the planes. Think of the children on them, told they were going to die.

Think of the cruelty beyond our comprehension as amongst the screams and the anguish of the innocent, those hijackers drove at full throttle planes laden with fuel into buildings where tens of thousands worked.

They have no moral inhibition on the slaughter of the innocent. If they could have murdered not 7,000 but 70,000 does anyone doubt they would have done so and rejoiced in it?

There is no compromise possible with such people, no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror.

Just a choice: defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.
The "causes of terror," Mr. Blair? "Justification" for September 11th?

It is Islam, of course.

And because Muhammad believed -- and acted upon the belief -- that no "unbeliever" who rejects Islam is "innocent," there are no innocents in the minds of these monsters.

But you can't say that.

There's nothing to see here.

There's no global jihad.

No 14,000 terrorist attacks since 9/11 alone.

No stealth jihad in the West to out-breed, out-litigate, out-legislate, out-intimidate America and other nations in Dar al-Harb (the "Abode of War" in Islam, lands in which shari'a is not in effect).

Think of how your poor, nice-until-you-quote-Muhammad-then-all-hell-breaks-loose Muslim in-law feels.

Don't talk about Hitler, or the Nazis will get upset.

I've got three letters for those who would burn down, enslave, rape, and slaughter in the name of their Beast and its Anti-Christ all that we hold dear: FMo

Churchill, brilliant and mischievous

Is this true?

We know Churchill was a man among boys, but this puts him way above that (though who would have gotten his sleight-of-tongue but dedicated etymologists and the most hardcore Churchillophiles?). I can just imagine his self-satisfaction and amusement.

From Wikipedia (I know, but since this is saying something good about the good, it might be credible):
In the most famous passage, beginning "We shall fight on the beaches..." and ending "...we shall never surrender", the assertions consist entirely of Germanic words descending from Old English, while the only French-derived word or concept is the thing rejected: "surrender".

Saturday, August 8

In Allah's War Against Humanity, Truth is the deciding blow

theoldadam observes . . .
God sent His Son Jesus to die for mankind.

Allah sends his sons to kill mankind for himself.

That sounds more like the devil than a loving God.

Word frequency is the other god's best defense

But DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, pay attention to what the words actually mean.

In response to more Islamic apologia in the Comments here at ACM:
Rory,

I didn't realize it was you, Graycrow.

So, "in the interests of fairness and LOVE," you libel the Son of God, defend doctrines from hell "sacralizing" blasphemy, genocide, murder, pedophilia, rape, slavery, vandalism, extortion, theft, and deceit, and defame Reb.

You've gone from saying "Christianity is just as bad as Islam," to "Mohamed used a word twice as much, so he wins."

That is not progress.

You've got one problem:
Jesus commanded, "Love your enemies."

Muhammad commanded and practiced, "kill the idolaters wherever you find them."

Jesus poured out His blood for the sins of all.

Allah demands the blood of all who refuse to submit be poured out.

Jesus died on a cross to give Heaven to all.

Allah promises Paradise to all who kill for him.
And you count words. Why would you do that?

Such "analysis" is antithetical to truth.

Using your criterion, since Mr. Fadly and I were discussing the commands of Allah and the example of Muhammad, his double use of the word "love" means that Mohamed was only half-as-truthful as I was.

But then, this little exercise was not about me or Mohamed (it is dishonest of you to engage in ad hominem).

This debate was about what Muhammad and his allah commanded and practiced as defined by Islam's "sacred" texts.

Though how often a word is used means nothing apart from how that word is used, a search of Qur'an at The Compendium of Muslim Texts turns up 70 passages using the word "love."

A search of the ESV turns up the word 552 times.

Does that mean that YHWH is almost eight times more loving than than Allah?

One God died for the sins of all.

The other god requires that "unbelievers" die for him.

The other god commands blasphemy against the God Who is love.

The other god commands genocide, murder, pedophilia, rape, slavery, vandalism, extortion, theft, and deceit against all who refuse the "invitation" to its religion.

Is that love?

Devout Muslim terrorists say, "We love death."

According to your "analysis," they're winners.

Speaking of an "existential wasteland."

Friday, August 7

Exposing apologists for evil

The evil of Islam.

Well said, Mr. Condell.



Sounds familiar.

Thank you, Steve.

Thursday, August 6

The great feminist Muhammad on women (and little girls -- literally): Rape them, beat them, stone them, cheat and mistreat them

This goes a long way toward explaining why he allegedly forbade killing female babies -- he didn't want others to have all the fun.

Muhammad must have a special place in hell.


As always when discussing Islam, I focus on how Muhammad and his allah defined the religion.

Any references to individual Muslims in Islamic history, current events, or personal experience are offered as evidence of how Muslims understand and obey those texts.

Fortunately for non-Muslims trying to understand Islam, its "sacred" texts are understood literally by well over ninety percent of the world's Muslims.

Unfortunately for non-Muslims trying to survive Islam, those texts are understood literally by well over ninety percent of the world's Muslims.

You'll notice a difference in style and substance between Mr. Fadly and me . . .

I focus on what Allah commanded and Muhammad said and did.

Mohamed focuses on everything but what Allah commanded and Muhammad said and did.

We're not concerned with Islam-as-Mohamed-Fadly-wants-us-to-think-it-is, we are concerned with Islam.

Without even reading what Mr. Fadly has written regarding women in Islam -- something like Western women are treated like whores, but Muslim women are "elevated and revered," their honor "protected and defended," right? -- let's see just exactly what Allah and his apostle think about women . . . and women-to-be, posted here:

In speaking of divorcing girls who've not yet reached puberty:
"And for such of your women as despair of menstruation, if ye doubt, their period (of waiting) shall be three months along with those who have it not. And for those with child, their period shall be till they bring forth their burden. And whosoever keepeth his duty to Allah, He maketh his course easy for him" (Qur'an 65:4).
On Mohammed's raping of his nine-year-old "wife;" Allah ordained it!:
“My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old” (Tabari 9:131).

“Narrated 'Aisha [Mohammed's six-year-old "bride" and nine-year-old sexual "partner"]: 'Allah's Apostle said (to me), "You were shown to me twice in (my) dream [before I married you]. Behold, a man was carrying you in a silken piece of cloth and said to me, 'She is your wife, so uncover her,' and behold, it was you. I would then say (to myself), 'If this is from Allah, then it must happen.'"'" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 87, Number 139 and 140).
On beating wives, "plowing the field," the legal value of a woman's testimony, polygamy (and raping your slaves), the penalty for "lewdness," a daughter's inheritance, and what to do with a woman caught in adultery:
“. . . good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them . . . " (Qur'an 4:34).

“Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will” (Qur'an 2:223).

"Allah's Apostle said, "If a husband calls his wife to his bed (i.e. to have sexual relation) and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number 460).

“Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (Qur'an 2:282).

“If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice” (Qur'an 4:3).

"If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way . . ." (Qur'an 4:15).

“Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children’s (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females” (Qur'an 4:11).

"There came to him [Muhammad] a woman from Ghamid and said: 'Allah's Messenger, I have committed adultery, so purify me. He [Muhammad] turned her away. On the following day she said: Allah's Messenger, Why do you turn me away? Perhaps, you turn me away as you turned away Ma'iz. By Allah, I have become pregnant. He said: Well, if you insist upon it, then go away until you give birth to (the child).

"'When she was delivered she came with the child (wrapped) in a rag and said: Here is the child whom I have given birth to. He said: Go away and suckle him until you wean him. When she had weaned him, she came to him [Muhammad] with the child who was holding a piece of bread in his hand. She said: Allah's Apostle, here is he as I have weaned him and he eats food. He [Muhammad] entrusted the child to one of the Muslims and then pronounced punishment. And she was put in a ditch up to her chest and he commanded people and they stoned her. Khalid b Walid came forward with a stone which he flung at her head and there spurted blood on the face of Khalid and so he abused her. Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) heard his (Khalid's) curse that he had huried upon her. Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Khalid, be gentle . . . .'" (Muslim Book 17, 4206).
And this doesn't [even] address the "divine" right to rape [married infidel women], or murdering [a poetess while she's] nursing just because she mocked the monster Muhammad.

Update: I had no idea Mohamed Fadly would defend Muhammad's abominable violations of little nine-year-old Aisha with, "She liked it," a shameful, disgusting, stomach-churning violation of even the most barbaric moral sensibilities.

But what can you expect from someone who defends Muhammad as a "prophet," as the "Ideal Man"?

And potentially, more than one billion others agree with him.

Originally posted on 7/20/09 at 12:25 AM

Monday, August 3

Religion of Perpetual Paranoid Rage and Misplaced Priorities burns alive Christians in Pakistan

Slaughtering Christians over "defiling" a Qur'an. Even if it were true, which is more valuable, paper or people?

How is it possible to defile that which is already profane, again?

From here:
Paramilitary troops patrolled the streets of a town in eastern Pakistan yesterday after Muslim radicals burned to death eight members of a Christian family, raising fears of violence spreading to other areas.

Hundreds of armed supporters of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed Islamic militant group, burned dozens of Christian homes in Gojra over the weekend after allegations that a copy of the Koran had been defiled.

The mob opened fire indiscriminately, threw gas bombs and looted houses as thousands of frightened Christians ran for safety. “They were shouting anti-Christian slogans and attacked our houses,” Rafiq Masih, a resident of the predominantly Christian colony, said. Residents said that police stood aside while the mob went on the rampage. “We kept begging for protection, but police did not take action,” Masih said.

Police and local officials said that at least eight people, including four women and a child, were killed in the fires. Two others died of gunshot wounds. Residents said that the casualties were much higher; one claimed that the number of dead could be in the dozens as many bodies were still buried under the rubble. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, said that 40 Christian homes were torched in rioting. He said there was no truth to allegations that a Koran had been defiled, and accused the police of ignoring his appeal to provide protection to Christians.

Tension started mounting last week after Muslims accused three Christian youths of burning a copy of the Koran. They denied the allegations, but clerics called for their death. On Saturday, hundreds of supporters of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed Sunni sectarian group, poured into the town from surrounding districts. The group is believed to have close links with Al Qaeda and has been involved in several terrorist attacks targeting security forces in recent years.

Television footage showed armed men running through the streets, gunfire, and women and children wailing. Blackened furniture lay outside burning homes, while a group of people rushed a man suffering from burns on a cart through the streets. Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, said that the paramilitary troops were sent after police and the local administration failed to control the situation. Security forces were also placed on high alert to prevent violence from spreading to other towns of Punjab.

The language of death and where to learn how to speak it

I. The vocabulary of Islam

Ahl al-Kitāb: See the "People of the Book."

ayah
: (plural, ayat): Literally, "sign" or "miracle;" a verse in Qur'an

caliphate: The rule of the Caliph, the supreme leader over all of Islam. Only he has the authority to call for offensive jihad; since the caliphate was destroyed by Kemal Ataturk in 1924, today's jihadists cast their violence against non-Muslims as "defensive."

Dar al-harb: The "Abode of War," i.e., all non-Muslim lands, lands where shari'a is not in effect

Dar al-Islam: The "Abode of Islam," i.e., all lands under Islamic rule

dhimma: The "protection" offered to non-Muslims willing to submit to the egregious, vile, discriminatory abuses and humiliations required toward non-Muslims by shari'a. Offered to the "People of the Book" (mainly Jews and Christians), it was a recognition by Muhammad that living slaves are more useful than corpses.

He probably also wanted to punish them for their refusal to accept his "revelations."

dhimmi: A non-Muslim living under dhimma.

female genital mutilation (FGM): Though not specifically commanded in Qur'an or Sunnah, the practice is widespread throughout the lands of Islam. It flows naturally from the position of the female in Islamic society as a piece of meat whose primary purpose in life is to gratify on-demand the "marital urge" of her husband.

ghazi/razzia: Originally, battles in which Muhammad participated personally. Later, battles to expand Muslim territory. Al-Ghazali, “acclaimed in both the East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad," observed with regard to jihad:
"[O]ne must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year . . . one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them . . . If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book – primarily Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked . . . One may cut down their trees . . . One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide . . . they may steal as much food as they need . . . .
hadith (plural, ahadith): Saying of or about Muhammad. Since Allah calls him a "beautiful pattern of conduct for those who want to please" him, what Muhammad said and did is determinative for Islamic doctrine and practice. Several collections considered traditionally most reliable include Bukhari, Muslim, Abu-Dawud, and Muwatta.

honor killings: Sunni Islam says that parents (and grandparents) will not be punished for murdering their own children:
A manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).
Couple that with Muhammad's totalitarian demand for absolute obedience, and you've got a recipe for horror, as can be seen in growing numbers of Islamic honor killings in the West.

jihad: Literally, "struggle," it refers primarily to warfare against non-Muslims, though one questionable hadith has Muhammad referring to the much-hailed "inner struggle" as the "greater jihad."

jizya: Oppressive Muslim poll tax demanded of non-Muslims under dhimma, the second of three options allowed to some non-Muslims facing Islam: "invite . . . demand the jizya . . . fight."

infidel: In Islam, a non-Muslim.

Islam: Literally, "submission," as in: "You submit."

kitman: Mental reservation and dissimulation or concealment of intentions, including malevolent ones

mujahid (plural, mujahideen):

Muslim: "One who submits" to Allah.

pagan: idolaters, non-Muslims who are not "People of the Book." They were allowed conversion or death.

People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitāb): Jews and Christians (and some others included later, for example, Zoroastrians, Mandeans, and, in some areas, Hindus and Buddhists). Significantly, this group was allowed -- in addition to conversion or death -- a third option when facing jihad, slavery as dhimmis.

Qur'an: "Recitation;" The perfect, verbatim word of Allah, revealed to Muhammad over the course of his prophetic career. It's chapters are organized by size, with Sura 9 being Allah's (second to) last word before Muhammad died (too late).

razzia: See ghazi.

shahada: The Muslim declaration of faith: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." When you hear the Obamination that Causes Desolation pronounce it during a State of the Union or a press conference, run for the hills.

shari'a: Islamic law as derived from Qur'an and Sunnah.

sira: The biography of Muhammad. The oldest was composed by Ibn Ishaq, portions of which have survived over the centuries in the Sirat Rasul Allah.

Sunnah: Literally, "trodden path." The example of Muhammad, ahadith and sira.

sura: A chapter in Qur'an

taqiyya: Precautionary dissimulation or deception and keeping one's convictions secret

ummah: the whole Muslim world


II. Book recommendations for anyone desiring facts, not propaganda:

Anything by Robert Spencer, especially:
The Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer

The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion, also by Robert Spencer
The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, by Andrew Bostom

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, also by Andrew Bostom

Bat Ye'or has done outstanding work.

Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries, by Paul Fregosi


III. Online resources

Compendium of Muslim Texts

Tafsir Ibn Kathir

Jihad Watch

Muslims Against Sharia