Dr. Sanity's tribute to the crew of the Challenger

Twenty-five years and three days ago we lost the crew of The Challenger. The Blogosphere's own brilliant psychiatrist Dr. Sanity was the Crew Surgeon. She wrote this riveting account of that experience here. If you do not know Dr. Sanity's blog, I urge you to read it. She nails it time and time again, and when we have a President who is so good at rhetoric, we need a Dr. Sanity to help us see through the non-stop b.s. not only from Obama, but also from the bureaucrats who run NASA.

I like his odds better here.

via Innominatus

More on the slick rhetoric of the left and their spokesperson Obama at Dr. Sanity

$150,000.00?

Is it really true that Dennis Kucinich is suing the cafeteria at the House of Representatives for $150,000.00, because he bit into an olive pit?

Dodging antibiotics and vaccines

Scientists have studied a strain of pneumonia bacteria, and learned how it has evolved to thwart vaccines and antibiotics.

McCain for President...of Egypt?

John McCain sounds as though he has decided to run again for President; but this time for President of Egypt! "This is a real democratic awakening," he said on CNN. How is he so sure? Does he consider the Muslim Brotherhood a real democratic awakening? Go ahead and run, John, I hope you get elected this time.

R.T. Kendall - How To Obtain Power

And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power. —Luke 4:32, KJV
In a sense, most of us want spiritual power—to experience signs and wonders. However, we often lack spiritual power because the Word is woefully lacking within our lives. What then is the basis of God's giving spiritual power to His followers?
1. Personal reading of the Scriptures
We have to ask ourselves a question: "Have I read my Bible completely through?" A poll was taken suggesting that the average clergyman spends an average of four minutes a day alone with the Lord. Then we wonder why the church is powerless. Personal reading of the Scriptures is the first step to power.
2. Personal revelation of the Scriptures
When is the last time the Scriptures got hold of you and shook revelation knowledge into your life? Spurgeon said, "If a text gets hold of you, chances are you've got hold of it."
3. Personal rethinking of the Scriptures
Many of us have accepted uncritically a hand-me-down point of view, secondhand Bible revelation, and secondhand doctrine. There is no personal rethinking by which we acquire the real meaning of the verse.
4. Personal release of the Spirit
Release of the Spirit comes from the Spirit Himself. If you want power, then it's going to have to come from the Spirit. The Bible is just about His finest accomplishment. It's His product. He likes it when you like His Word.
The scope for power will be found to the degree that we value His own Word. Power that flows from His name will be in proportion to our love for His Word. When that love is expressed, don't be surprised to see healings and miracles. There may be no need for people to line up to be prayed for. It will happen right where they are.
Excerpted from The Word and the Spirit (Charisma House, 1998).

Experts on Egypt

From Sisu: "Ambassador John Bolton is putting cold water to this growing sense among the media that this is a “pro-democracy movement.” This is a nation that has not seen democracy in centuries …

This is a protest percolated by the Muslim Brotherhood. As Big Peace revealed on its blog, What Do the Egyptian Crowds Want? Caliphate Dreams and Strict Sharia." Any time John Bolton speaks, I listen.

But wait, here is someone who belittles Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, and who tells us in this clip that the Panama Canal is in Egypt! I give you Chris Matthews! What would he say if either Palin or Bachmann made such a mistake?

The truth about the Colorado school mentioned by Obama in the State of the Union address

Chicks on the Right nails this one. The school is succeeding precisely because the principal was allowed to operate completely autonomous from federal, state and local bureaucrats and teachers unions.

STRATFOR: Report on Egyptian Situation

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak remains the lifeblood of the demonstrators, who still number in the tens of thousands in downtown Cairo and in other major cities, albeit on a lesser scale. After being overwhelmed in the Jan. 28 Day of Rage protests, Egypt’s internal security forces — with the anti-riot paramilitaries of the Central Security Forces (CSF) at the forefront — were glaringly absent from the streets Jan. 29. They were replaced with rows of tanks and armored personnel carriers carrying regular army soldiers. Unlike their CSF counterparts, the demonstrators demanding Mubarak’s exit from the political scene largely welcomed the soldiers. Despite Mubarak’s refusal to step down Jan. 28, the public’s positive perception of the military, seen as the only real gateway to a post-Mubarak Egypt, remained. It is unclear how long this perception will hold, especially as Egyptians are growing frustrated with the rising level of insecurity in the country and the army’s limits in patrolling the streets.

There is more to these demonstrations than meets the eye. The media will focus on the concept of reformers staging a revolution in the name of democracy and human rights. These may well have brought numerous demonstrators into the streets, but revolutions, including this one, are made up of many more actors than the liberal voices on Facebook and Twitter.

After three decades of Mubarak rule, a window of opportunity has opened for various political forces — from the moderate to the extreme — that preferred to keep the spotlight on the liberal face of the demonstrations while they maneuver from behind. As the Iranian Revolution of 1979 taught, the ideology and composition of protesters can wind up having very little to do with the political forces that end up in power. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) understands well the concerns the United States, Israel and others share over a political vacuum in Cairo being filled by Islamists. The MB so far is proceeding cautiously, taking care to help sustain the demonstrations by relying on the MB’s well-established social services to provide food and aid to the protesters. It simultaneously is calling for elections that would politically enable the MB. With Egypt in a state of crisis and the armed forces stepping in to manage that crisis, however, elections are nowhere near assured. What is now in question is what groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and others are considering should they fear that their historic opportunity could be slipping.

One thing that has become clear in the past several hours is a trend that STRATFOR has been following for some time in Egypt, namely, the military’s growing clout in the political affairs of the state. Former air force chief and outgoing civil aviation minister Ahmed Shafiq, who worked under Mubarak’s command in the air force (the most privileged military branch in Egypt), has been appointed prime minister and tasked with forming the new government. Outgoing Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, who has long stood by Mubarak, is now vice president, a spot that has been vacant for the past 30 years. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi (who oversees the Republican Guard) and Egypt’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Sami Annan — who returned to Cairo Jan. 29 after a week of intense discussions with senior U.S. officials — are likely managing the political process behind the scenes. More political shuffles are expected, and the military appears willing for now to give Mubarak the time to arrange his political exit. Until Mubarak finally does leave, the unrest in the streets is unlikely to subside, raising the question of just how much more delay from Mubarak the armed forces will tolerate.

The important thing to remember is that the Egyptian military, since the founding of the modern republic in 1952, has been the guarantor of regime stability. Over the past several decades, the military has allowed former military commanders to form civilian institutions to take the lead in matters of political governance but never has relinquished its rights to the state.

Now that the political structure of the state is crumbling, the army must directly shoulder the responsibility of security and contain the unrest on the streets. This will not be easy, especially given the historical animosity between the military and the police in Egypt. For now, the demonstrators view the military as an ally, and therefore (whether consciously or not) are facilitating a de facto military takeover of the state. But one misfire in the demonstrations, and a bloodbath in the streets could quickly foil the military’s plans and give way to a scenario that groups like the MB quickly could exploit. Here again, we question the military’s tolerance for Mubarak as long as he is the source fueling the demonstrations.

Considerable strain is building on the only force within the country that stands between order and chaos as radical forces rise. The standing theory is that the military, as the guarantor of the state, will manage the current crisis. But the military is not a monolithic entity. It cannot shake its history, and thus cannot dismiss the threat of a colonel’s coup in this shaky transition.

The current regime is a continuation of the political order, which was established when midranking officers and commanders under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a mere colonel in the armed forces, overthrew the British-backed monarchy in 1952. Islamist sympathizers in the junior ranks of the military assassinated his successor, Anwar Sadat, in 1981, an event that led to Mubarak’s presidency.

The history of the modern Egyptian republic haunts Egypt’s generals today. Though long suppressed, an Islamist strand exists amongst the junior ranks of Egypt’s modern military. The Egyptian military is, after all, a subset of the wider society, where there is a significant cross- section that is religiously conservative and/or Islamist. These elements are not politically active, otherwise those at the top would have purged them.

But there remains a deep-seated fear among the military elite that the historic opening could well include a cabal of colonels looking to address a long-subdued grievance against the state, particularly its foreign policy vis-à-vis the United States and Israel. The midranking officers have the benefit of having the most direct interaction — and thus the strongest links — with their military subordinates, unlike the generals who command and observe from a politically dangerous distance. With enough support behind them, midranking officers could see their superiors as one and the same as Mubarak and his regime, and could use the current state of turmoil to steer Egypt’s future.

Signs of such a coup scenario have not yet surfaced. The army is still a disciplined institution with chain of command, and many likely fear the utter chaos that would ensue should the military establishment rupture. Still, those trying to manage the crisis from the top cannot forget that they are presiding over a country with a strong precedent of junior officers leading successful coups. That precedent becomes all the more worrying when the regime itself is in a state of collapse following three decades of iron-fisted rule.

The United States, Israel and others will thus be doing what they can behind the scenes to shape the new order in Cairo, but they face limitations in trying to preserve a regional stability that has existed since 1978. The fate of Egypt lies in the ability of the military to not only manage the streets and the politicians, but also itself.
from: STRATFOR

The Road to Hell

I believe Andrew Klaven's monologue here is spot on. However, I got distracted by the highway lines.

"You can't judge a revolution by its theatrics"

Look at what is happening in the Arab world! Strategy Page has an analysis here. Michael Ledeen wonders here whether the tumult will really change systems of rule and replace them with new ones. Will the new systems separate mosque and state, as he believes would happen in Iran if the Green Revolution prevails, or will secular systems be replaced by Islamic systems, as Hezbollah is trying to do in Lebanon? Ledeen believes that Obama is "totally bamboozled" by all the tumult, and so is Hillary. He also wonders about Panetta's C.I.A. Will the C.I.A. know whom to support? And what about the true martyrs, those who are being killed in Iran's prisons at the rate of three per day!

Obama tells reporters: "Combat operations in Afghanistan have ended."

Well, this will surely be news to our soldiers who are fighting, dying, getting injured, risking their lives in combat operations in Afghanistan. This may be Obama's biggest gaffe yet.
UPDATE:An Instapundit reader says this is proof that Obama is just a puppet for Joe Biden!

The Race Begins for 2012

Who is ready to be in the starting block?

Since the Sputnik Moment speech is finally done, aren't we looking to begin the big race for a GOP presidential candidate for  2012? Too soon? Heck no! Looks like frontrunners are Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and maybe Newt Gingrich. Many of the hopeful are looking to Christ Christie to jump into the fray, but that is unlikely. Tim Pawlenty looks like he is interested in running, but suffers from lack of name recognition for now. And then there's Sarah Palin. I actually saw a picture of her drawn up as some sort of SuperWoman a couple of days ago. I think the way she makes progressives and the media go high and to the right is all we need from her. If she runs for the 2012 nomination she'll squander the best thing she can do for Tea Party types and the GOP, which is raise cash and support candidates. I expect Rick Perry, three time elected Governor of Texas to be in the fray of it all as well. Think of that for a second. He is in a growing state with considerable experience in just the things America needs right now. Of course, I love the great state of Tejas, having grown up there. Who knows who might come out of the woodwork to lift the tide for us all. As for me, the time now is for prayer, and that's no joke. Alright, get your running shoes, it's time!

Going after Sarah Palin

Although there is no dearth of potential candidates for the GOP to consider to run against Barack Obama, it is clear that the one whom the left is trying hardest to discredit or embarrass is Sarah Palin. The latest effort has even attracted the National Enquirer, which is always ready to capitalize on the stupidity of celebrities without regard to the political leanings of said celebrities. Lefty bloggers, including the Huffington, Puffington Post, are trying to tie Todd Palin to a massage therapist who was arrested in March in Anchorage, and police there charged her with operating a house of prostitution. The Associated Press is, of course, trying to get her rolodex, whiAlthough there is no dearth of potential candidates for the GOP to consider to run against Barack Obama, it is clear that the one whom the left is trying hardest to discredit or embarrass is Sarah Palin. The latest effort has even attracted the National Enquirer, which is always ready to capitalize on the stupidity of celebrities without regard to the political leanings of said celebrities. Lefty bloggers, including the Huffington, Puffington Post, are trying to tie Todd Palin to a massage therapist who was arrested in March in Anchorage, and police there charged her with operating a house of prostitution. The Associated Press is, of course, trying to get her rolodex, which is now in police custody, hoping to find Todd's name on it. According to the Enquirer, the woman's massage parlor allegedly provided free massages to members of the 2006 Palin gubernatorial campaign.

The National Enquirer, without any proof of misconduct by Todd Palin, has this headline this week: SARAH PALIN'S HUSBAND CAUGHT UP IN SEX SCANDAL. "SEX SCANDAL" is in bright yellow, which, if you'll notice, is used by every gossip magazine at your grocery store, to attract attention of shoppers having to wait in line. Below that main headline at the top of the Enquirer, is this one: THE WOMAN WHO THREATENS THEIR MARRIAGE. Under that headline, in bright yellow, is this one: PHOTOS INSIDE. Yep, inside there is a photo of the woman whom the police arrested last March, and the strip mall (pardon the expression) where she did her bidness.

Does the Enquirer offer one shred of evidence of inappropriate behavior by Todd Palin? NO! Still, they can legally get by with those screaching headlines?

UPDATE The new issue of The National Enquirer is out with headlines in yellow, white and red, but still no evidence whatsoever. It quotes the "massage therapist" as saying "I SLEPT WITH SARAH'S HUSBAND," although the Enquirer has not talked with the "massage therapist," only to a "pal" of the "massage therapist

State of the Union in one glance!

from: House of Eratosthenes

State of the Union Cartoons

Research firm: iPad makes Apple third-largest PC maker

Apple was the world’s third-largest PC vendor during the fourth quarter last year if iPad shipments are included, research firm Canalys said in a study released Wednesday.

With iPads included, Apple’s worldwide PC shipments grew 241 percent, which put the company in third place behind Hewlett-Packard and Acer, Canalys said. Apple held a 10.8 percent PC market share with 11.5 million PC units shipped and was neck-and-neck with Dell, which also held a 10.8 percent market share with 11.4 million units shipped.

Research firms IDC and Gartner have not included tablets in their worldwide PC shipment numbers, and their quarterly studies have not listed Apple as one of the world’s top five PC vendors. But Canalys said that tablets, just like netbooks, are becoming popular enough that they need to be included in PC shipment numbers.

Worldwide PC shipments during the fourth quarter grew by 19.2 percent to 105.8 million units, Canalys said. In addition to strong iPad sales, Apple also recorded strong Mac sales, which helped push the company into the third spot(read the whole thing).
from: MacUser/MacWorld

Thoughts on...Prager's "God And Congress"

I was challenged to do things differently by Dennis Prager's article entitled "God and Congress." He mentioned the fact that the motto "In God We Trust" is engraved in stone over the Speaker's podium and that when the President does his State of the Union address he is looking at a statue of Moses. I had never seen either of these things before and so I looked for pictures of them on them web, and so here they are:

I also found out that along with Moses there are reliefs of twenty two other famous lawgivers on the Chamber wall. I just think that is really cool. The one thing you notice is that all eleven of the lawgivers on the right and the left all look to the center point where Moses, as the first and chief lawgiver of history is situated. 

I was also challenged to go ahead and watch the State of the Union address on C-SPAN instead of my usual "fair and balanced" choice. It was neat to get the whole thing, with all of the ceremony and pomp and circumstance.  I threw in my two cents and jeers, and I think one cheer, and turned over to my usual choices for commentary afterword. Overall, Mr. Prager's recommendations were very helpful and educational. 

Portrait of Hitler Discovered in French Church Window

A stained glass window in a small church has caused a sensation in France. Unveiled in 1941, it depicts Adolf Hitler executing a saint who symbolizes the Jewish people. Local priests have praised the work as a brave act of resistance against the Nazi occupiers.

In the popular imagination, the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation of France is associated with heroic acts of guerrilla warfare, such as blowing up bridges or derailing trains. But in one small town near Paris, two artist brothers also resisted the occupation in their own quiet way -- with a politically charged stained-glass window.

Local historians in the town of Montgeron have rediscovered a stained-glass church window that criticizes the Nazi occupation by depicting Adolf Hitler as an executioner. The dictator is shown in the act of killing St. James, who was one of Jesus' 12 apostles.
Although Hitler's distinctive hairstyle can easily be recognized in the portrait, his trademark moustache has been left out. "The glassmakers hid it behind his arm, to avoid any trouble," local priest Dominique Guérin told the French newspaper Le Parisien.

Political Message

The church's stained-glass windows were unveiled in July 1941, during the Nazi occupation. Locals believe that the two artists, the Mauméjean brothers, deliberately depicted Hitler as the executioner of St. James, whom the church is named for, as an act of artistic and religious resistance.

Guérin's predecessor Gabriel Ferone told Le Parisien that the saint represents the Jewish people, as his name in Hebrew has the same etymology as Jacob, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Stained-glass windows created by the brothers in other churches also mix political and religious messages, according to historian Renaud Arpin.

Authorities in the town are now hoping that the media attention will turn the church into a tourist attraction. Montgeron is only 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Paris and is easily reachable by train.

dgs/SPIEGEL

Ethiopian Muslims: 'Convert, Leave or Die'

Ethiopian Muslims: 'Convert, Leave or Die'

Convert, leave the city or face death.


That’s the message Ethiopian Muslims are sending the Christians in Besheno.

According to International Christian Concern (ICC), Muslims are posting notices on the doors of Christian homes. So far, three Christian leaders have reportedly been forced to flee the city and two Christians have been forced to convert to Islam.

Only about 30 Christians remain in the Muslim majority city.

“We are alarmed by the posting of threats on Christian homes and the attacks against Christians in Besheno,” says Jonathan Racho, ICC’s Regional Manager for Africa. “We urge Ethiopian officials to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice, protect the Christians from further attacks and grant them permits to build a place of worship as well as a cemetery,”

Evangelist Kassa Awano remains in critical condition after Muslims attacked him on November 29, 2010. A few days after the attack, nearly 100 Muslims surrounded a vehicle carrying Christian leaders on their way to negotiate for peace with Muslim leaders. Two men, Tesema Hirego and Niggusie Denano, were seriously wounded, and the other leaders suffered minor injuries. On January 2, Muslims assaulted Temesgen Peteros with a knife after he testified about the attacks on these Christians in court.

Christians in Besheno have been targeted by Muslims for many years. On May 21, 2004, Muslims murdered the seven-year-old daughter of Evangelist Tesfaye Hobe. Muslims continuously attack Christians for listening to Christian songs and watching Christian videos, ICC reports.

The local Muslim officials of the city refuse to protect the Christians. According to ICC, officials ignore their appeals for justice, declining repeated requests for the building of a place of worship and a cemetery. On January 19, a Christian mother was forced to bury her deceased daughter in a town more than 20 miles from Besheno, due to the absence of a cemetery for Christians.

Besheno is a city located in the province of Alaba in Southern Ethiopia. According to the 2007 national census, 93.84 percent of the population of the province is Muslim. Christians make up 5.82 percent of the population.
from: Charisma News Online

Abortion A Manifestation Of A Culture Of Self

Great comments by Texas GOP Vote blogger Larry Perrault about a Culture of Self:

"Cultural conservatives have often spoken of a “culture of death.” But death is not the objective. It’s the consequence of a “culture of SELF.” At the bottom of this is that a selfish irresponsibility sits at the disposition that human life, even that of our own offspring, is a matter of convenience. This baby doesn’t fit with my plans or my preference at this time. Both here and in Europe which has also long practiced casual sex and open abortion, we are now in an economic crisis; finally at the end of our fiscal rope. My strong belief is that that is no accident. It is the same selfish and irresponsible spirit. I think such a consequence could have been predicted for a people who so long ago amputated the natural instinct to prize and care for its children in the womb, or at least countenanced such and its consequence of death. And if they face bankruptcy and some deprivation of what they have come to expect, will that possibly bring a general cultural repentance? Or might there be great further calamity to come?"

Mr. Perrault makes a convincing connection of the culture of self to the culture of death. Disturbing is it not? I wonder if we would be in such a mess culturally, or even fiscally, if the children that have been sacrificed to the god of Convenience were allowed to live and what a different nation we might have, given Mark Steyn's excellent study and findings on demographics? - Cliff

There is Hope!

I'm not sure Michelle Obama is right about us Americans being so out-of-shape. Let me explain. The other day I was in our local big box store and the woman in front of me was getting ready to pay for her groceries, when she realized she left her wallet in her car. The clerk asked her how far away her car was parked, and the woman replied, "Oh, it is right in front, in the Handicapped area." With that, the woman sprinted out the door ala Jesse Owens, and within just a few more seconds, sprinted back in with her wallet in hand! If our handicapped Americans can run like that, we must not be in such bad shape after all!

I AM JON

I am a boy who likes candy.

I wonder about life.

I see my family a lot.

I want a PS3.

I am a boy who likes his mom.


I pretend to be in the army.

I feel objects.

I touch my donut.

I worry when I'm in danger.

I cry when I get badly hurt.

I am a boy who likes his dad.


I understand Harry Potter.

I say I want a PS3.

I dream happy dreams.

I try my best.

I hope I'll pass fifth grade.

I am a boy who likes food.
from Bob's Blog

"Where all the men are good-looking, all the women are strong, and all the children are above average"

I know Garrison Keillor is not fond of George W. Bush, but is there a better story- teller anywhere than Keillor? I picked up several of his Lake Wobegon books-on-tape at the library, and am thoroughly enjoying them. Having lived the first 17 years of my life in Iowa, I appreciate his dry midwestern sense of humor. He has books-on-tape under the Lake Wobegon titles, which feature his story-telling, and he also has books-on-tape under the Prairie Home Companion titles, which feature more music and less story-telling.

Questions of God: Shall I Hide From Abraham What I Am Doing? pt.3

Gen. 18:17 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?

By now you're thinking, are there really that many things you can learn from one question? And the answer to that question is: Duh!

  I'm sure by now you know that when God asks a question, He may be really saying something rather profound in the asking. Information is not what He is after. He is trying to get me, and you, to consider something from His point of view, and He is doing it in a relational way that helps us along in the process. It is a process of growth, and not just teaching to the test.

A smart guy named John Wimber was known to often say "God offends your mind to reveal your heart." I think this is the true essence of God's questions to us. He is showing us our own hearts.

One aspect of this question, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?" is a major test of just Who or What you think of God Himself. Is the God you know, worship, and even love, worthy of that worship and love? Is He able to back it up with some real muscle? Is He in fact the Almighty God that reigns over all of the universe and, more to the point, are you willing to submit to this God once you know how awesome He is, no matter what?

So back to the story; God is asking Abraham what He thinks about what He is about to do, which is...(ta-da! Cue dramatic music here) Judgment! God is about to judge a group of people for desperately wicked deeds and for making that the way of life in the city they were in. Now here's an interesting thought: if God is all-knowing, why did He need to make sure for Himself that they were as evil as He had heard?

OK, put that on pause for a second. Let's look at the dictionary definition for the word "judgment."
-the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.
-an opinion or conclusion.
- a decision of a court or judge.
 -a monetary or other obligation awarded by a court.

So if we consider God as a judge, then, if God were to answer a prayer for healing, for instance, that would be a judgment on behalf of the sick person. Just like a judge awarding a cash settlement on behalf of the victim of a crime, God makes judgments all of the time on behalf of people who seek him. In fact, the most awesome judgment God makes is to answer someone's prayer for salvation. God saving a person is basically God's ultimate judgment on our separation from Him and it is also His best statement about the future of the human race. God in effect says, "Alright, I am not counting your sin against you any more because I take into account what My Son did on your behalf. It is my judgment that you be saved from the consequences that those willful acts would have wreaked in your life."

God also needs to be able to judge in order to really be God. If your God is a God of love only, then your god is something like Santa Claus. He might get a little red in the face at the mention of your darkest secret sin, but he would just say, "Oh well, I'll just look the other way and pretend nothing is really wrong. Let's all have hot chocolate!"

God is not the cosmic cop, or the cosmic killjoy, or the ultimate Santa Claus, but He is able to judge unrighteousness because He is perfectly righteous, and all of His judgments are rooted in perfect love as well as perfect justice. He is the standard of righteousness and His standards are the only ones that count. We know right from wrong because He has revealed it to us in Himself and in His word. And all of this leads somewhere you wouldn't expect; to mercy.

Mercy? Yes, because every time God judges He has in mind a mercy. Here's just one example of this thing in the Bible:
Judgment:
Gen. 19:24-25 Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
Mercy:
Gen. 19:29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

[Warning: Extensive Bible Passages Ahead]
In scripture judgment and mercy are linked. Judgment is the door to mercy. In Deuteronomy 7:12 it says “Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers." Do you see the connection here between judgment and mercy? The prophet Habakkuk prayed that the Lord would remember His goodness, that in wrath He would remember mercy.(Hab. 3:22) The prophet Jeremiah, in the book of Lamentations, declared that "Through the LORD’S mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not."(Lam. 3:22) And then in verse 29 of that same chapter he continues, "Though He causes grief, Yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. (Lam. 3:32) The New Testament also confirms this in very strong terms. Paul, the apostle, said "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

God has a plan to turn situations around from judgment to mercy. Romans 8:28, oft quoted as it is, really does bring light to this concept: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." It is God's purpose to cause even bad things that happen into His redemptive plan. This is how an infamous slave trader can become the famous writer of the song "Amazing Grace." This is how a murdering religious zealot can become the great apostle to the gentiles. And this is how you and I can be changed from a total wreck to a real total success. Don't be afraid of God's judgment, because it is His plan to bring mercy, grace and love.

from: JavaJazzJesus

Lollipops and rainbows, puppy dogs and unicorns...Awwwww!

Tonight our Dear Leader will deliver his yearly blessed homily and believe you me there will be plenty of smug to go around the world. Apparently in a spirit of mutual love and deep appreciation of one another in an ether of warmth and moonbeams, Barack H. Obama will deliver a missive from the mount of All-knowingness, called, in the common speech, the State of the Union address. Mr. Obama, ever the uniter and not a divider, will not politicize or take advantage of this opportunity to interrupt our favorite television programming to paint his political friends on the other side(read: enemies) with a little bit of off-color rhetoric(read:demonize). And, of course, "Birds will sing, the skies will part," and the planet will heal and we'll all walk hand in hand in the Promised Land, which we all know is really Chicago, Illinois. And in response members of Congress will be sitting together in bipartisan arrangement, as they pass out the Kool Aid and marmalade.
Well, here's what's really going to happen. Teen Mom and and Dancing with Hollywood Idiots will get greater ratings than this speech will. America will yawn in boredom after the first ovation, and click over to Sportscenter or watch Despicable Me on video with the kids.
No lollipops, no rainbows, no puppy dogs, and no unicorns will be able to save this man's lost leadership and fumbled fame. He is now like Saruman in the Lord of the Rings, his staff is broken and he is powerless, but his speech may yet be dangerous. Be wary. He may put a spell on us.

Dennis Prager: God and Congress

God and Congress
The one thing you won’t see at the State of the Union tonight

Tonight, when you tune in to the networks to watch President Obama give his State of the Union address, you will see four things: the president entering the hall, the president ascending the rostrum to be greeted by the vice president and the speaker of the House, the president giving his speech, and the reactions of members of the Congress and others in the hall.

Here is the one thing you will not see, and probably have never seen. You won’t see what is behind the president and above the vice president and the speaker of the House. And because you won’t see it, you won’t know that you are missing something of surpassing importance.

Think about it for a moment. Why have almost no Americans (excepting those who watch on C-SPAN) ever seen what is located above the president, the vice president and the speaker of the House? Why do network television cameras never pull back and give a wide-angle view of the president delivering his speech? That is certainly routine for TV: It is considered uninteresting to TV viewers to have a fixed view of a subject.

I discovered the answer when I attended President Obama’s speech on health care to a joint session of Congress.

I saw chiseled in the marble wall behind the speaker and vice president, in giant letters, the words, “In God We Trust.”

My immediate reaction was to wonder: Why had I never seen that before? I have, after all, been watching State of the Union addresses for about 40 years.

Here is my theory — and I say “theory” because I cannot prove it.

A generation of Americans has been raised to regard any mention of God outside the home or church as a violation of the deepest principles of our country. To the men and women of the left-leaning news media, in particular, “In God We Trust” is an anachronism at best, an impediment to moral progress at worst. The existence of those giant chiseled words so disturbs the media that, consciously or not, they do not want Americans to see them.

I do not for a moment believe that there is any conspiracy here. In some ways, I actually wish there were. I wish a handful of media executives had gotten together and conspired to instruct their various cameramen to avoid a wide angle view of the president. But, alas, no such conspiracy is necessary. The words “In God We Trust” emblazoned in giant letters behind the president of the United States just don’t sit well with the secular media. So you won’t see them.

We have been led to believe that America is supposed to be a secular country. But that was never the case. We were founded to be a God-centered, God-based country with a non-denominational government. And that is what those chiseled words affirm.

Yet millions of Americans — religious and secular alike — would be stunned to see what every member of the House sees almost every working day.

When I mentioned this to some congressman after I addressed the Republican members of the House two weeks ago, they told me that just as remarkable is the fact that when the president is speaking in the House chamber, he is facing a giant sculpted image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments.

Imagine how this scene would go over in American homes — behind the president of the United States are the words “In God We Trust,” and in front of him is Moses carrying the Ten Commandments.

This would astound and even confuse an America raised to believe that the words “separation of church and state” are in the Constitution, that those words prohibit the government from acknowledging even a non-denominational God, and that no speaker at any public-high-school graduation ceremony may say “God bless this graduating class.”

That is why, I am convinced, no camera tonight will give you a long or wide view of the president. It might change more than Americans’ views of the presidential rostrum. It might change Americans’ views of America.

— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website,dennisprager.com.
from: National Review Online

NRO Editors: Ho-Hum Horror

Ho-Hum Horror
Roe at 38.

The case of Kermit Gosnell reached the newspapers just a few days before the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. President Obama did not mention Gosnell in his official statement celebrating the anniversary. But the case sheds more light on Roe’s import than the statement did.

Obama did not refer to the word “abortion,” preferring instead to discuss “reproductive freedom” and the “fundamental principle” that “government should not intrude on private family matters.” The stories about Gosnell were a little less abstract. They told of a clinic where dirty instruments spread venereal disease, cats roamed and defecated freely, and some patients died. The state government conducted essentially no oversight; administrations of both parties wanted to keep abortion as free from governmental intrusion as possible.

Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic’s lack of hygiene is not the detail that has captured the most attention, or inspired the most outrage. It turns out that Gosnell frequently, perhaps hundreds of times, fully delivered intact fetuses and then used scissors on the newborn. In his words, he engaged in “snipping” to “ensure fetal demise.” In many cases, the fetuses were in the third trimester.

This procedure, sometimes called a “live-birth abortion,” is illegal. But not thanks to President Obama. As a state legislator in Illinois, he argued that the law should offer no protection to neonates if they had been delivered before viability. He said that protecting them would violate Roe v. Wade and undermine the right to abortion. What looked like infanticide to most people was for him, it must be inferred, a “private family matter.” When Gosnell applied his scissors to pre-viable children, he was, on Obama’s terms, merely exercising a cherished freedom.

Credit Obama with a real insight: The physical location of a human being conceived five months ago may mark the difference between whether he is considered a “fetus” or an “infant,” but it cannot mark a moral difference. Nor can it make a moral difference whether this being is partly inside the womb. When Congress moved to ban partial-birth abortion, most liberals took the view that any prohibition had to include a health exception: If in the judgment of the abortionist the safest method of . . .  ensuring fetal demise . . . was to partly deliver the fetus, crush its skull, vacuum its brains, and then deliver the rest, then he had to be free to do so — at any stage of pregnancy. President Obama favored this health “exception.”

A few liberals — notably Supreme Court justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg; also the celebrated intellectual Richard Posner in his role as a judge — made the moral point as well: What difference could it possibly make whether the fetus was partly out of the birth canal when its life was ended? Start with the correct view that location does not matter; add the liberal view that partial-birth abortion is justified whenever an abortionist says so; and it is hard to escape the conclusion that a live-birth abortion is justified whenever an abortionist rules it the safest method of killing.

We don’t know that Gosnell has closely followed the Supreme Court’s opinions or the president’s statements. We can say that his actions perfect the logic of the mainstream of the pro-choice movement. He has followed premises shared by the president and by four Supreme Court justices to their unavoidable conclusion.

In the academy, as well, liberals have been notoriously unable to articulate defenses of abortion that do not justify infanticide, and not particularly eager to try. Still less can they justify prohibitions on abortions late in pregnancy. The culpability of someone involved in an abortion may vary with the stage of pregnancy: The later it is, the less excuse there is for not recognizing the humanity of the unborn child. In gauging the immorality of an act we may rightly consider these subjective elements. But the objective injustice of abortion lies in the deliberate killing of a human being acting peaceably, and that injustice is identical regardless of the being’s age.

Concluding his statement, President Obama said, “I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” Let us commit ourselves to ensuring that our sons and daughters have the opportunity to live; an opportunity cruelly snatched away from more than 50 million human beings since the day the president commemorated.

from: National Review Online

Who won?

Via Theo Spark

Questions of God: Shall I Hide From Abraham What I Am Doing? pt.2

Gen. 18:17 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing…

So, last time we saw how God and Abraham were friends and that God is a real giver when He hangs out with His friends. But there is another real awesome thing to discover in this question, which has to do with a call that God places on the lives of those that know Him.

  You know the story right? God is really on the way to treat Sodom and Gomorrah with the whole fire and brimstone treatment. But interestingly, He comes by to see what Abraham, the friend of God, thinks about this. There has been reports of great evil being done in Sodom and Gomorrah, and as a last chance to make sure, God is going to appear to the town as a man or angel and see for himself whether things are as bad as he's heard. Abraham has a last chance to influence God and His judgment in the wicked city.

  So Abraham speaks up just what anyone would in that situation, saying, "No way are You going to judge the righteous among the wicked!" God's answer is interesting. Maybe you already know the story from this point, because you've seen the movie. Abraham convinces God to spare the city if there are at least ten righteous people in it, starting at fifty and talking God down to ten. Abraham stops at ten, because he figures his nephew Lot and his family and maybe a few friends are well more than ten people. Well, he was wrong, which is sad, but there is something about God that we can learn from this situation that is very interesting. Apparently from this story, we learn that God is willing to let people influence Him in His decisions. Can you imagine that? God, the God, sovereign and all-powerful, is willing to let the opinion of His friends be heard and considered in the outworking of His will in history. In fact, there are several of these situations in the Bible, times when God had a friend that He listened to and even sided with. David the King and Daniel the Prophet had this kind of relationship with God.

  There are even a bunch of people running around on the planet now who have this job of hanging out with God and consulting with Him on occasion. They call them intercessors. Intercessors are people who stand before a great leader on behalf of another leader or an individual. People who pray are also called intercessors when they pray on behalf of others. So that would be you, too, right? You talk to God on behalf of others, don't you? Sure you do. We all do. And He hears you because you and He are friends. And, by the way, that’s a good thing.
from: JavaJazzJesus

Are you a wimp? Bully? Polite and Powerful?

How are you on positively confronting other people? I've been wondering about myself in that area. I have been proud of myself for not allowing self-pity to get a foothold in my life over this past year. However, I wonder if in accomplishing that, I may have inadvertantly become a wimp. I take abuse, avoid resentment and retaliation, keep a positive attitude and practice kindness toward others, but in taking the abuse, I wonder if I am becoming a wimp.

Barbara Pachter has written a book on the subject, entitled The Power of Positive Confrontation.. She advocates that we learn how to be polite and powerful. I've got the polite part down, but I don't think I am very powerful. Do you sometimes want to just whack the other person? Well, Ms. Pachter advocates we WAC them, instead.

The "W" stands for what. What are you upset about? What do you want from the other person? What do you want to say? She advocates that we take the time to write down those "whats." Preparing allows us to be specific. Writing it down is just for our use, not to give the written thing to the other. It allows us to describe the behaviors that are upsetting us. In doing so, we are advised by Ms. Pachter to avoid harsh words, avoid exaggerating, avoid "you" statements, unless they are descriptive, rather than accusatory, use softening statements that show the other person you are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The "A" stands for asking. Clearly define what you want, then ask the person. The "C" stands for checking in with the other person. Ask, "Can you do that? or "Okay?" Come across in a way that communicates, "I'm confident we can find a solution." It is important to avoid self-discounting language, and, of course, the other extreme of screaming and yelling. I'll have more to write about this important subject later.

Olbermann Leaves ‘Countdown’ on MSNBC

12:05 a.m. | Updated Keith Olbermann, the highest-rated host on MSNBC, announced abruptly on the air Friday night that he was leaving his show, “Countdown,” immediately.

The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the network for some time, especially since he was suspended for two days last November, came to an agreement with NBC’s corporate management late this week to settle his contract and step down.

In a closing statement on his show, Mr. Olbermann said simply that it would be the last edition of the program. He offered no explanation other than on occasion “all that surrounded the show – but never the show itself – was just too much for me.”

Mr. Olbermann thanked his viewers for their enthusiastic support of a show that had “gradually established its position as antiestablishment.”

In a statement, MSNBC said: “MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.”

NBC executives said the move had nothing to do with the impending takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast. With viewers and fans of Mr. Olbermann suggesting that Comcast was responsible for forcing Mr. Olbermann out, Comcast also released an official statement late Friday night:

“Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBC Universal and has no operational control at any of its properties including MSNBC. We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBC Universal’s news operations. We have not and we will not.”

MSNBC announced that “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell would replace “Countdown” at 8 p.m., with “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz taking Mr. O’Donnell’s slot at 10 p.m. Mr. Olbermann did not discuss any future plans, but NBC executives said one term of his settlement would keep him from moving to another network for an extended period of time.

Mr. Olbermann signed a four-year contract extension in 2008 for an estimated $30 million. He had hosted “Countdown” at 8 p.m. since 2003 and it became the foundation of the channel’s surge to its status as the second-ranked news channel on cable television, after Fox News, surpassing the one-time leader CNN.

Mr. Olbermann’s outspoken, and sometimes controversial, support of liberal positions and Democratic candidates redefined MSNBC from a neutral news channel to one that openly offered a voice to viewers on the left, much as Fox News has done for conservatives.

Mr. Olbermann challenged Fox News publicly on numerous occasions, especially the top-rated cable host Bill O’Reilly.

Ratings for Mr. Olbermann’s show grew, though he never approached Mr. O’Reilly’s level of popularity. But he helped expand the MSNBC brand by his frequent invitations to Rachel Maddow, who was eventually offered her own show on MSNBC.

Ms. Maddow became the 9 p.m. host following Mr. Olbermann and has built such a successful show that some NBC executives felt less concerned about losing Mr. Olbermann as the signature star of the network.

According to several senior network executives, NBC’s management had been close to firing Mr. Olbermann on previous occasions, most recently in November after he revealed that he had made donations to several Democratic candidates in 2010 — one of them, coincidentally, was Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who has been the subject of many of his recent shows after being shot in an assassination attempt.

The top MSNBC executive, Phil Griffin, said the donations had violated NBC News standards and ordered Mr. Olbermann suspended. His fans responded with a petition to reinstate him that attracted over 250,000 signatures. Mr. Olbermann returned two days later. In his response he said the rules on donations had been “inconsistently applied.”

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 22, 2011

An earlier version of this post referred imprecisely to Keith Olbermann's comments on why he was leaving his program on MSNBC. Mr. Olbermann said "all that surrounded the show" was what was occasionally "too much" for him.

from: NY Times media blog

LibriVox.org: Public Domain Audio Books For Free!

I wanted to share a cool tool I found on the web the other day. It's called Librivox. It is a site completely composed of books in the public domain recorded by volunteers and distributed in common formats for you to listen to absolutely for free. How awesome is that? For example, since Mark Twain has been in the news lately, I downloaded a collection of his short stories. Then I found three classic books by Saint Augustine; Confessions, the Enchiridion, and City of God. I have a warning, though. If you already have and are used to professionally recorded audio books you will need to dial down your expectations of the recording and reading, but only a little.  So, if you are like me and you love old books, this is a great find.
So if you see me in my car or on a break chuckling to myself, I'm laughing at a Mark Twain story.

Billy Graham- "What would you do differently?" - part 2

If you could, would you go back and do anything differently?
Yes, of course. I'd spend more time at home with my family, and I'd study more and preach less. I wouldn't have taken so many speaking engagements, including some of the things I did over the years that I probably didn't really need to do—weddings and funerals and building dedications, things like that. Whenever I counsel someone who feels called to be an evangelist, I always urge them to guard their time and not feel like they have to do everything.
I also would have steered clear of politics. I'm grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn't do that now.

This excerpt is from a Christianity Today article that you can check out here.

The Truth About Abortion

Most abortions serve as nothing more than birth control.

Bronx Democrat Michael Benjamin, a New York State assemblyman, feels bad that 41 percent of New York City pregnancies ended in abortion last year. He feels bad enough to help set up a program that would try to convince pregnant women not to have abortions, he told my colleague Brian Bolduc. He just doesn’t feel bad enough to change his belief that abortion should be allowed — that is, his belief that unborn children don’t deserve legal protection.

There is an obvious tension between thinking that unborn children are in some sense human lives worth saving, and also thinking that these human beings should have no formal right not to be harmed. But just as troubling is Benjamin’s apparent belief that trying to talk pregnant women out of abortions — while supporting abortion in myriad other ways, including Medicaid funding — is a good way to attack the problem.

He’s not the only person to think that, thanks to a common misconception: the belief that for the most part, abortions happen because sympathetic women — women who are deeply conflicted about aborting their children — find themselves in trouble and just need someone to help. We see this in pro-lifers when they insist that while abortion is murder, we shouldn’t prosecute women for it (an argument they often make on the grounds that the women are victims, too). We see it in moderate abortion-rights supporters when they claim they hate abortion and want to work with pregnant women to lower the abortion rate, but still want to protect a woman’s choice in desperate times.

But the fact is that the majority of abortions — far from all, but the majority — serve as nothing more than routine birth control: Most women who have abortions became pregnant by willingly engaging in high-risk sexual activity, and many resort to abortion more than once. For a solid pro-choicer, this presents no problem; if unborn children have no rights, there is no harm done. But pro-lifers and moderate pro-choicers like Benjamin need to face the fact that while programs designed to talk women out of abortion are one useful tool in a pro-life strategy, they will not significantly lower the abortion rate by themselves. Those who are truly concerned about abortion should have two priorities: first, overturning Roe v. Wade so that states may ban abortion; and second, in the meantime, designing an anti-abortion program that will appeal to women who use the procedure as birth control.

The single most damning statistic about abortion in America was presented in Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s book Freakonomics: Following Roe v. Wade, conceptions rose by almost 30 percent, while births decreased by 6 percent. This quite clearly indicates that some women (and men) took the existence of legal abortion as a license to be less responsible in their sexual behavior; indeed, it suggests that a large majority of terminated pregnancies wouldn’t have existed in the first place if abortion hadn’t been legally available as a backup.

And the overwhelming majority of women who have abortions did behave irresponsibly. According to a survey by the Guttmacher Institute, nearly half of them didn’t use any form of contraception at all in the month they got pregnant. Of those who did use contraception, three-quarters of pill users and half of condom users admit they used their method “inconsistently.” Only 13 to 14 percent of pill and condom users claim they got pregnant despite “perfect” use.

It’s not as if they don’t know better. In the Guttmacher survey, most women who didn’t use contraception in the month they got pregnant had used it in the past. And as Benjamin notes, “comprehensive sex ed” classes that encourage contraception seem to have no effect whatsoever.

The prevalence of multiple abortions is another indicator that women who have abortions do not see the practice as a highly regrettable but sometimes necessary option. If they saw it that way, one imagines, they would be particularly careful after needing a first abortion. And yet each year, of the 2 percent of women aged 15 to 44 who have an abortion, half are not having their first.

For those who oppose abortion, overturning Roe v. Wade clearly needs to be the highest priority. In the meantime, programs that encourage women not to have abortions can work in some cases, and there’s evidence that various state laws (informed consent, restrictions on Medicaid funds, etc.) can reduce abortion, too — between 1990 and 2005, the abortion rate declined 25 percent, in part because of these laws. But what can we do to persuade women who use abortion as birth control to carry their babies to term?

I have made the case (in The American Spectator), as has my colleague Kevin D. Williamson (in National Review), that we should simply pay them to give their kids up for adoption. The specifics are debatable — I envision a program (funded by donations, fees from adoptive parents, and possibly the government) that offers a payment of a fixed amount for a healthy infant; Williamson essentially proposes a free market in babies. But the basic premise is the same: If a woman doesn’t value her child, and if the Supreme Court forbids us to pass a law protecting that child, perhaps a little cash will do the trick.

This may be crass, and it won’t work in many cases. Disturbingly, in a Guttmacher survey of women having abortions — a survey that didn’t specifically ask about adoption — “more than one-third of interview respondents said they had considered adoption and concluded that it was a morally unconscionable option because giving one’s child away is wrong.” In addition, there will be racial complications: Black women are more likely to have abortions, while black children are less in demand on the adoption market; also, some identity-politics activists oppose giving black children to white families. But this would save lives, and it would certainly be more effective than trying to talk women out of abortions.

If the pro-life movement is to have any success without overturning Roe v. Wade, it has to see the problem clearly. And thus it has to face the fact that many women use abortion as birth control.

— Robert VerBruggen, a National Review associate editor, runs the Phi Beta Cons blog.
from: National Review Online

Michelle Malkin: The Philadelphia Horror: How Mass Murder Gets a Pass

Let's give the "climate of hate" rhetoric a rest for a moment. It's time to talk about the climate of death, in which the abortion industry thrives unchecked. Dehumanizing rhetoric, rationalizing language and a callous disregard for life have numbed America to its monstrous consequences. Consider the Philadelphia Horror.

In the City of Brotherly Love, hundreds of babies were murdered by a scissors-wielding monster over four decades. Whistleblowers informed public officials at all levels of the wanton killings of innocent life. But a parade of government health bureaucrats and advocates protecting the abortion racket looked the other way -- until, that is, a Philadelphia grand jury finally exposed the infanticide factory run by abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D., and a crew of unlicensed, untrained butchers masquerading as noble providers of women's "choice." Prosecutors charged Gosnell and his death squad with multiple counts of murder, infanticide, conspiracy, abuse of corpse, theft and other offenses.

The 281-page grand jury report released Wednesday provides a bone-chilling account of how Gosnell's "Women's Medical Society" systematically preyed on poor, minority pregnant women and their live, viable babies. The report's introduction lays out the criminal enterprise that claimed the lives of untold numbers of babies -- and mothers:

"This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy -- and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels -- and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it."

Echoing the same kind of dark euphemisms plied by Planned Parenthood propagandists who refer to unborn life as "fetal and uterine material," Gosnell referred to his deadly trade as "ensuring fetal demise." Reminiscent of the word wizards who refer to the skull-crushing partial-birth abortion procedure as "intact dilation and evacuation" and "intrauterine cranial decompression," Gosnell described his destruction of babies' spinal cords as "snipping." He rationalized his macabre habit of cutting off dead babies' feet and saving them in rows and rows of specimen jars as "research." His guilt-ridden employees then took photos of some of the victims before dumping them in shoeboxes, paper bags, one-gallon spring-water bottles and glass jars.

They weren't the only ones who adopted a see-no-evil stance:

-- The Pennsylvania Department of Health knew of clinic violations dating back decades, but did nothing.

-- The Pennsylvania Department of State was "repeatedly confronted with evidence about Gosnell" -- including the clinic's unclean, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers, unsupervised sedation, underage abortion patients and over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street -- "and repeatedly chose to do nothing."

-- Philadelphia Department of Public Health officials who regularly visited Gosnell's human waste-clogged offices did nothing.

-- Nearby hospital officials who treated some of the pregnant mothers who suffered grave complications from Gosnell's butchery did nothing.

-- An unnamed evaluator with the National Abortion Federation, the leading association of abortion providers that is supposed to uphold strict health and legal standards, determined that Gosnell's chamber of horrors was "the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected" -- but did nothing.

Meanwhile, the death racketeers have launched a legislative and regulatory assault across the country on pro-life crisis pregnancy centers from New York City to Baltimore, Austin and Seattle that offer abortion alternatives, counseling and family services to mostly poor, vulnerable minority women.

Already, left-wing journalists and activists have rushed to explain that these abortion atrocities ignored for four decades by abortion radicals and rationalizers are not really about abortion. A Time magazine writer argued that the Philadelphia Horror was "about poverty, not Roe v. Wade." A University of Minnesota professor declared: "This is not about abortion."

But the grand jury itself pointed out that loosened oversight of abortion clinics enacted under pro-choice former GOP Gov. Tom Ridge enabled Gosnell's criminal enterprise -- and led to the heartless execution of hundreds of babies. Mass murder got a pass in the name of expanding "access" and appeasing abortion lobbyists.

As the report made clear: "With the change of administration from (pro-life Democratic) Gov. Casey to Gov. Ridge," government health officials "concluded that inspections would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay."

Deadly indifference to protecting life isn't tangential to the abortion industry's existence -- it's at the core of it. The Philadelphia Horror is no anomaly. It's the logical, bloodcurdling consequence of an evil, eugenics-rooted enterprise wrapped in feminist clothing.

Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
from Townhall.com

Questions of God: Shall I Hide From Abraham What I Am Doing? pt.1

Gen. 18:17 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing,
Gen. 18:18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
Gen. 18:19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

  Did you ever go over to a friend's place or meet someone somewhere just to spend a little time together and end up spending all day together? Some of my favorite memories are of times just hanging out with a friend and spontaneously killing time and developing the relationship we had together. This is really what is going on here between God and Abraham.
  The Lord is just on the way to an appointment and He decides to pop in on his friend Abraham, just for a meal or something. The time goes so well that God decides it's time to pass out gifts for Abraham and Sarah's hospitality. This happens a lot with God. When He has a good time He starts giving out the gifts. He's just like that, I guess, a real giver.
     The Lord then says something like, "Hey Abe, do you remember that time you asked why you hadn't had a son to be heir of your house? Well, I remember, and the time has come for this promise to be fulfilled. So by the next time I visit you you will have a true son of your own, and better yet, through your wife Sarah. Now look here, don't laugh, because this is serious. I can do this for you. Alright, smarty-pants, just because this really is funny, I want you to name this son of promise Isaac, because we laughed together today about this situation, and because I am really serious about this promise to give you your very own son."
    So later on, in Genesis 21, the fulfillment of God's friendly promise is recorded:
Gen. 21:1 And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken.
Gen. 21:2 For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
Gen. 21:3 And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac.
Gen. 21:4 Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
Gen. 21:5 Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Gen. 21:6 And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.”
Gen. 21:7 She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age.”
    Now, in Biblical terms, this a hoot and a holler. God plays a trick on His old friends Abe and Sarah after promising them a son years before. All of this just because God was in a giving mood one day. Of course, He is always in a giving mood, isn't He?
     So, what about you? You spend time with God. He likes that. He even likes you. I have that on good authority, by the way. So is there something you have been waiting a really long time for? Go ahead, ask for it!
     One time I was driving around and I was listening to this very cool Christmas album by Stan Kenton. And the tape got eaten up in my cassette player. I was crushed. And then I prayed, "God, I know that this album is obscure and discontinued by ten to fifteen years at least, but if this album ever comes out on CD please save me a copy."
     Fast forward about ten years later. It's about Christmas time and I am out shopping, and I feel this pull, this impression, to go into my neighborhood Rite Aid. I figure, "Well, maybe there's a nice Christmassy thing in there. So I look around and, well, nothing! I got a box of those chocolate cherries and was in line to pay when I look over and see on a little singular shelf of Christmas music a CD version of the Stan Kenton album I had prayed about many years ago! I'm serious! Right next to Amy Grant Christmas, Kenny Rogers Christmas and the Chipmunks, was this obscure jazz Christmas album. Less than a mile from my house. And for only six dollars and ninety-nine cents. I was shocked. I paid for it, and the chocolates, and got to my car and wept, remembering having prayed about this years before. As I sat in the car I heard that gentle voice of the Father saying, "Cliff, I hear your prayers, and nothing is too small and inconsequential to me. If it's important to you, it's important to me, because I love you. Anyway, I like that album, too!"

Funnies say it best sometimes...

Senate investigation of televangelists' finances concludes with no definitive findings

NEW YORK - A senator's high-profile investigation of spending by televangelists wrapped up after more than three years Thursday with no penalties for the pastors who refused to cooperate and no definitive findings of wrongdoing.

The report released by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley raises questions about the personal use of church-owned airplanes, luxury homes and credit cards by pastors and their families, and expresses concern about the lack of oversight of finances by boards often packed with the televangelists' relatives and friends.

However, the senator draws no specific conclusions about whether the ministries violated IRS rules that bar excessive compensation for leaders of religious nonprofits.

Grassley, a Republican, began the investigation in November 2007 and released the report at the end of his tenure as the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. The senator will remain on the Finance Committee, but will become the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

The six televangelists targeted in the investigation preach some form of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches. Ministers in this tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works.

Many conservative Christians condemn the prosperity gospel and consider the televangelists an embarrassment. Still, leading evangelical organizations worried that Grassley's inquiry could lead to changes in tax rules for all religious nonprofits, so the groups protested. The flagship magazine of centrist evangelicals, Christianity Today, editorialized in 2008 that the Grassley investigation amounted to an "oversight overstep" that risked delving improperly into theology.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty legal group founded by James Dobson of Focus on the Family and other influential evangelicals, protested. The National Religious Broadcasters, a trade association, said the questions Grassley asked were too broad.

All six of the targeted televangelists insisted they comply with tax regulations for religious nonprofits. Two — Joyce Meyer Ministries based in Missouri and Benny Hinn Ministries based in Irving, Texas — told Grassley they have made changes in how they govern their ministries or set compensation.

But four of the televangelists would not provide full information to Grassley. Some pastors questioned whether Grassley had the authority to conduct the investigation. Others accused him of violating their religious freedom.

Grassley's staff said in the report that they did not issue subpoenas to further the investigation because witnesses feared retaliation if they spoke out publicly and the Finance Committee did not have the time or resources to enforce the subpoenas.

The four ministries that refused to provide full information are:

_ Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Texas;

_ Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International and Creflo Dollar Ministries of College Park, Ga.;

_ Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries of Tampa, Fla.

_ Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and Bishop Eddie Long Ministries of Lithonia, Ga.; Long was recently sued by four young men who claim he coerced them into sexual relationships. The bishop has denied the allegations.

Meyer released a statement Thursday affirming her pledge of financial transparency. Hinn said in a statement that his ministry's experience with the Finance Committee "has caused us to renew our commitment to always honor our partners' sacrificial giving." Long said he was "relieved" that the inquiry was done and said New Birth has always operated with integrity.

Representatives for the other ministries did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Grassley said he hoped the review would lead to an update in tax rules governing religious groups so abuses don't occur. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, an independent accrediting group for churches and religious nonprofits, plans to create a national commission in response to the Grassley report to lead a review on accountability and policy.

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Online:

Senate report: http://bit.ly/evhJVQ

Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability: http://www.ecfa.org/

Benny Hinn Ministries: http://www.bennyhinn.org/

Joyce Meyer Ministries: http://www.joycemeyer.org/

Kenneth Copeland Ministries: http://www.kcm.org/

New Birth Missionary Baptist Church: http://www.newbirth.org/

Without Walls International Church: http://www.withoutwalls.org/

World Changers Church International: http://www.worldchangers.org/

from AP via Startribune.com