I was without electricity from Sunday through Thursday because of the ice storm that hit Tulsa, and then I was briefly in the hospital. I am home now, and the power is back on.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Sunday, December 09, 2007
3 down but 50,000,000 saved
Michelle Malkin blogs These are what true religious martyrs look like telling the story of three Bible Publishers in Turkey who were murdered earlier this year
The same day I read in the British TimesOnline Demand for the Bible is soaring in China, at a time when meteoric economic growth is testing the country’s allegiance to Communist doctrine. Today the 50 millionth Bible will roll off the presses of China’s only authorized publisher, Amity Printing, amid public fanfare and celebration.
I pray for these three Turkish souls, but I rejoice at what is happening in China.
No More Mail For Any Wounded Soldier
Strategy Page reported The U.S. Army no longer accepts mail sent to "Any Wounded Soldier." In the United States, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where most wounded soldiers are cared for, has long accepted letters or parcels addressed to "Any Wounded Soldier." No longer, mainly because of the huge amount of it.
What the heck??? They would accept it if there was not enough for everyone, but because they are getting too much, they won't accept it?????Over a million pieces a year, most of it during the holiday season, are sent just to the Walter Reed hospital.
I am happy that people are sending that much, but why stop because of the volume. If the other hospitals are not getting that much, send some to them, otherwise give the wounded soldiers whatever comes in. So what if they get hundreds of letters. Don't they have time to read them? Won't it make them feel good to know people care?Instead, the American Red Cross, and the Pitney Bowes Corporation, will accept such mail for the Christmas season, assign a name to it, and get it delivered. Such mail should be sent (and arrive no later than December 27th) to:
We Support You During Your Recovery!No packages, just cards and letters. But something can be arranged via http://www.usocares.org, http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/tooursoldiers, or http://www.redcross.org.
c/o American Red Cross
P.O. Box 419
Savage, MD 20763-0419
I am happy there is someone willing to handle packages.
No Father's Day card for him
Daily Mail reported Hannah was born in Lancashire to Pakistani parents who raised her and her siblings as strict Sunni Muslims. She prayed and read the Koran, wore traditional Muslim clothes and was sent to a madrassa, a religious Muslim school. She ran away from home at 16 after overhearing her father organizing her arranged marriage.
This is not in Pakistan, but in Britain.Hannah was taken in by a religious education teacher and decided to convert to the Christian faith. Although unhappy, her parents tolerated their daughter's dismissal-of Islam as a "teenage phase".
All teenagers go through phases, but you don't kill them for them.But when she opted to get baptised, while studying at Manchester University, her family were incensed and the death threats began. Her father arrived at her home with 40 men and threatened to kill her for betraying Islam.
No Father's Day card for you."I saw my uncle and around 40 men storming up the street clutching axes, hammers, knives and bits of wood," she said. "My dad was shouting through the letter box, "I'm going to kill you", while the others smashed on the window and beat the door.... No one has been arrested or charged in connection with the death threats, but officers have put her on an "at risk" register and have given her a panic number to call if she fears for her own safety.
That is nice. And what will you do when she calls? And they succeed, will you speak harshly to them?Yesterday Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, told delegates at the launch of a religious charity that Muslims in Britain who wished to change faiths were living in fear of their lives because of Islamic hostility to conversion. A study this year found that 36 per cent of British Muslims between 16 and 24 believe those who convert to another religion should be punished by death.
36%. Not exactly a "small minority"In July an Iranian immigrant to Britain, who converted to Christianity, was saved from deportation after it emerged she would be stoned to death in her own country.
It is bad enough that it happens in those countries, but in Britain???
Is that camera on?
Did the left know the cameras were recording what they said?
Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds
Discard Kyoto
Yahoo! News reported China insisted Friday the U.S. and other wealthy nations should bear the burden of curbing global warming, saying the problem was created by their lavish way of life. It rejected mandatory emission cuts for its own developing industries.
Discard Kyoto, and anything like it. There is absolutely no way the west can stop global warming, even if it is a problem, if China and India and other third world countries are developing industries, and generating more carbon that we can possibly cut back, even if we destroy our economies.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
A free market for housing and religion
Mark Steyn wrote in OCRegister.com So now the government has stepped in and said that, if you fall into a particular category of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARMs, in the biz) and you're worried that it's getting way too adjustable, don't worry: The Nanny State is about to readjust it well inside your comfort zone. By fiat of the Treasury secretary, your adjustable-rate mortgage is henceforth an unadjustable adjustable-rate mortgage. These new UNARMs will spread their healing balm across the land until it's safe enough for the housing "market" to once again be exposed to market forces.
And what happens in five years? Will there be pressure to keep the cap on for another five years? And whether that happens or not, will money still flow as rapidly to the mortgage business, or will it go overseas where it can grow faster?... As America demonstrates, faith thrives in a free market. In Europe, the established church, whether formal (the Church of England) or informal (as in Catholic Italy and Spain), killed religion as surely as state ownership killed the British car industry. When the Episcopal Church degenerates into wimpsville relativist milquetoast mush, Americans go elsewhere. When the Church of England undergoes similar institutional decline, Britons give up on religion entirely.
And Secular Europe is about to find itself Islamized from within, and when it is no longer available to them, just think how many will pray for the churches they lost.Instead of a state church, Europe believes in the state as church – the all-powerful beneficent provider of cradle-to-grave welfare.
The funding of which is not created in Heaven, or freely donated in the collection plate, but taken unwillingly in the form of high taxes.... in Europe big government has led naturally to small religion.... I would rather we talked less about religion in America (which can take care of itself) and more about government, which seems to be trending in an alarmingly European direction, Democrats and Republicans disagreeing merely on the speed at which we'll get there.
Amen.Yet the two are explicitly connected. Europe's religious decline derives in part from the state's usurpation and annexation of so many of the other supporting structures of society, including the church. I am in favor of a free market in religion and a free market in housing, but right now I'd like a conservative candidate with a clear-headed commitment to both.
I agree completely.
Thanking Our Troops
NBC has apparently declined to run ads thanking our troops because the ads mention Freedom Watch's Web site. I have certainly seen other ads on NBC that mention a web site, so I don't know why they object to Freedom Watch but here vis the ad they refused:
and the other ad is
Hat tip to PowerLine and Glenn Reynolds
Friday, December 07, 2007
Nuclear Power
Wired reported Former 'No Nukes' Protester: saidThe only way to rescue our plug-hungry planet from catastrophic global warming is to embrace nuclear power, and fast.
Hat tip to Bryan who said As the joke goes, more Americans have died in Ted Kennedy’s car than from nuclear accidents. Read the rest of the article. It’s interesting stuff.
Hat tip to Bryan who said As the joke goes, more Americans have died in Ted Kennedy’s car than from nuclear accidents. Read the rest of the article. It’s interesting stuff.
Decorated Trucks
Oomsa has 7 pictures of (European) semi-trucks whose trailers are decorated to look like the sides are missing and the products they are hauling are painted on the sides and back. You have got to see this.
Islam’s Silent Moderates
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a very good article in NYT. I urge you to read the entire article, and then ask yourself, are Islam's moderates just silent, or is it possible to believe in Islam and be modern and moderate.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Freedom of Speech
Mark Steyn wrote in The Corner One of the critical differences between America and the rest of the west is that America has a First Amendment and the rest don't. And a lot of them are far too comfortable with the notion that in free societies it is right and proper for the state to regulate speech. The response of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security to the Danish cartoons was to propose a press charter that would oblige newspapers to exercise "prudence" on, ah, certain controversial subjects. The response of Tony Blair's ministry to the problems of "Londonistan" was to propose a sweeping law dramatically constraining free discussion of religion. At the end of her life, Oriana Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland and sundry other jurisdictions by groups who believed her opinions were not merely disagreeable but criminal. In France, Michel Houellebecq was sued by Muslim and other "anti-racist" groups who believed opinions held by a fictional character in one of his novels were not merely disagreeable but criminal.
If you can't even talk about it, you better figure out some other way to address the problem, or all of Europe will find themselves wearing burkas and having women stoned for extramarital sex.
Lobbyist to nowhere
Remember the "Bridge to Nowhere" that kept coming up? They have not given up. Now they want to pay a lobbyist $25,000 to $50,000 to get it slipped in as an earmark.
Don Surber blogged The bridge-to-nowhere people have a job opening. My Washington bureau chief is fit to be tied. He found a government job opening and he filed this report:
Don Surber blogged The bridge-to-nowhere people have a job opening. My Washington bureau chief is fit to be tied. He found a government job opening and he filed this report:
Alaska’s Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority (KABATA) is soliciting “professional services” that include lobbying the federal government to support funding for Alaska ’s still remaining “bridge to nowhere” project, also know as the Knick Arm Bridge or Don Young’s Way. This controversial bridge would connect Anchorage with a nearly deserted port.
Obama’s wife supports gun rights — sometimes
Baltimore Sun reported Here was Obama's discussion of gun ownership and his wife's thoughts during a campaign stop at a middle school: "We should be able to combine respect for those traditions with our concern for kids who are being shot down. This is a classic example of us just applying some common sense, just being reasonable, right? And reasonable would say that lawful gun owners – I respect the Second Amendment. I think lawful gun owners should be able to hunt, be sportsmen, protect their families.
If they live in the country,"And by the way, Michelle, my wife, she was traveling up, I think, in eastern Iowa, she was driving through this nice, beautiful area, going through all this farmland and hills and rivers and she said 'Boy, it's really pretty up here,' but she said, 'But you know, I can see why if I was living out here, I'd want a gun. Because, you know, 911 is going to take some time before somebody responds. You know what I mean? You know, it's like five miles between every house.'
And you think that in the city the police respond immediately, even in the rough neighborhoods?"So the point is, though, we should be able to do that, and we should be able to enforce laws that keep guns off the streets in inner cities because some unscrupulous gun dealer is, you know, letting somebody load up a van with a bunch of cheap handguns or sawed-off shotguns and dumping them and selling them for a profit in the streets."
Do you object to them selling them on the street, or the fact that they make a profit doing it. If it is selling on the street, then crack down on that, not legal gun owners.
What has Congress done?
Republican Congressman Eric Cantor's team has put out this video to look back on the first year of the Democratic Congress.
Hat tip to Betsy Newmark
Hat tip to Betsy Newmark
It's a big universe
SPACE.com reported For years scientists have wrestled with a puzzling fact: The universe appears to be remarkably suited for life. Its physical properties are finely tuned to permit our existence. Stars, planets and the kind of sticky chemistry that produces fish, ferns and folks wouldn't be possible if some of the cosmic constants were only slightly different.
The "Intelligent Designer", a.k.a. God, does good work.Well, there's another property of the universe that's equally noteworthy: It's set up in a way that keeps everyone isolated.
Obviously He wanted it that way. I can't wait to "Go Home" and learn why, and learn what He will be having us do for eternity.We learned this relatively recently. The big discovery took place in 1838, when Friedrich Bessel beat out his telescope-wielding buddies to first measure the distance to a star other than the sun. 61 Cygni, a binary star in our own back yard, turned out to be about 11 light-years away. For those who, like Billy Joel, are fond of models, think of it this way: If you shrank the sun to a ping-pong ball and set it down in New York's Central Park, 61 Cygni would be a slightly smaller ball near Denver.
British imam's daughter under police protection after converting to Christianity
Times Online reported A British imam's daughter is living in fear of her life under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity.
And this is not in a Muslim country, it is in BritianThe young woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in the north of England, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago. Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times how she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to escape an arranged marriage.... The latest threat was a text message from one of her brothers, warning he could not be responsible for his actions if she did not return to Islam.
Isn't it wonderful to have a brother like that?Hannah said she was looking forward to getting married so she could change her name and escape detection by her family. Not all Muslims in Britain are this extreme, she believes.
Or hopes"It is representative of some Muslims. I know the Koran says that anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate so in some ways my family are following the Koran.
You are right Surah 16:106 says Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief,- except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty. and "Whoever changes his religion, kill him" is called for in Bukhari, Abu Dawud, and many other Haddith that are not online, including Muslim, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, An-Nasai, the Muwatta of Imam Malik, Tayalisi, Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Hibban, the Sunan al-Kubraa, Bayhaqi, Abu Ya'laa, Humaidi, Abd al-Razzaq, and Ibn Abi Shaybah but is that the way Britain wants its residents to behave?They are following Islam to the word. But I do not think every Muslim would actually act on that." Earlier this year, a Policy Exchange study found that 36 per cent of British Muslims aged between 16 and 24 believed those who converted to another religion should be punished by death.
You must be kidding
CNET News reported The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face fines of up to $300,000.
Redstate blogged The House just overwhelmingly passed the "Securing adolescents from online exploitation act," a stupid and obnoxious piece of lunacy.... This bill would require people with a wireless site to catalog all the people who use their site, and report anything anyone might call a lascivious site using photos of young people.
First off, it's an unfunded mandate, second, no hard drives exist big enough to do this, third, it is illegal for private citizens to spy on one another, and if the images are kept then the person with the wireless service is violating the law.
forth, you cannot get landlords to search the rooms of their renters as a roundabout way to violate the constitution, this is the same thing.
But only two members of congress voted against it. Ron Paul of course (he votes against everything), and Paul Broun, whom I assume is the only one who actually read the bill.
What a cheap way to pretend you care about children: Pass a blatantly unconstitutional piece of crap, force some poor businessmen to defend themselves in court, watch the bill get thrown out, and the public picks up the tab.
Is it any wonder the public is cynical and holds the government in utter contempt?
I am glad they are doing something, but this is over broad. A library, coffee shop, etc providing free wifi can't monitor all of the images served up by the service, and call the cops when obscene cartoons or drawings are served up.That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for subsequent police inspection.
Redstate blogged The House just overwhelmingly passed the "Securing adolescents from online exploitation act," a stupid and obnoxious piece of lunacy.... This bill would require people with a wireless site to catalog all the people who use their site, and report anything anyone might call a lascivious site using photos of young people.
First off, it's an unfunded mandate, second, no hard drives exist big enough to do this, third, it is illegal for private citizens to spy on one another, and if the images are kept then the person with the wireless service is violating the law.
forth, you cannot get landlords to search the rooms of their renters as a roundabout way to violate the constitution, this is the same thing.
But only two members of congress voted against it. Ron Paul of course (he votes against everything), and Paul Broun, whom I assume is the only one who actually read the bill.
What a cheap way to pretend you care about children: Pass a blatantly unconstitutional piece of crap, force some poor businessmen to defend themselves in court, watch the bill get thrown out, and the public picks up the tab.
Is it any wonder the public is cynical and holds the government in utter contempt?
High income taxes in Denmark worsen a labor shortage
International Herald Tribune As a self-employed software engineer, Thomas Sorensen broadcasts his qualifications to potential employers across Europe and the Middle East. But to the ones in his native Denmark, he is simply unavailable. Settled in Frankfurt, where he handles computer security for a major Swiss corporation, Sorensen, 34, has no plans to return to the days of paying sky-high Danish taxes. Still, an unknowing headhunter does occasionally pass his name to Danish companies. "When I get an e-mail from them, I either respond negatively but politely," Sorensen said. "Or I don't respond at all." Born and trained at Denmark's expense, but working - and paying lower taxes - elsewhere in Europe, Sorensen is the stuff of nightmares for Danish companies and politicians searching for solutions to an increasingly desperate labor shortage.
I hope the Democrats, who are so interested in raising taxes, will take note of this.People like Sorensen, and there are many, epitomize the challenges facing the small Nordic country, long viewed across Europe as an example of how to keep an economy thriving and a society equal.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Spiegel Online reported Former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali is worshipped by foreign intellectuals, but not always welcome at home. Her opinions provoke Muslims as well as the European left, and she's been living in very public exile from the Netherlands for over a year. Even her clothing is provocative, though not at first glance. Ayaan Hirsi Ali wears a soft brown designer jacket with an embroidered floral pattern. When she takes off the jacket, though, there's a black T-shirt. A black T-shirt underneath reads, in several languages (including Arabic): "Neither Whore Nor Submissive." She smoothes the T-shirt, stretches and says: "It's a fantastic slogan, isn't it?"
Fantastic and provocative.Who can be surprised that this woman polarizes people? That some consider her a kind of Joan of Arc, while others see her as an incorrigible radical? As someone who says that she wants to help oppressed Muslim women, and yet may do more damage to them than good?
In what way can bringing out what happens to a woman under Islam can it do them damage. It might result in her death, but she seems prepared for that.The daughter of a Somali opposition politician who fled to the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage, Hirsi Ali is an expert at offending others. A rebellious spirit lurks beneath her graceful exterior and designer clothing.... She's discovered, she now says, that even those who claim to be fighting outdated dogmas are quick to impose their restrictions on thought. From public life she's learned that minorities should not be rebuked; that there are also racists among non-whites; and that "tolerance of the intolerant is nothing but cowardice."
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