God's Revenge on Darwin? Dick Dawkins!

Basil Poledouris~ Theology & Civilization
From the soundtrack to "Conan the Barbarian"

Obviously both these guys firmly support Darwinism and even THEY see what a DICK Dawkins is. Bwaha!

See Also:

UK TV Review: Dick Dawkins: Evangelical Darwinist

Dawkins and The Seven Deadlies

Charlton Heston visits the Ministry of Science

Richard Dawkins, Atheist Evangelist: "What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right?"

Is Dawkins God's revenge on Darwin?

Next year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. For a person who was never a member of the Groucho Club and never owned a production company, Darwin has been responsible for an enormous amount of television: nature programmes, police and medical dramas, reality shows. It will also be the 150th anniversary of his reluctant publication of The Origin of Species, a book that not only changed the world, but also explained it. Television likes an anniversary, and this is a particularly auspicious one, for our greatest scientist and arguably Britain’s pre- eminent original thinker.

Unlike the ideas of Newton or Hobbes or Adam Smith, natural selection is clearly understandable and explainable. And the path that led to The Origin of Species is properly exciting. In fact, it is probably one of the few significant scientific discoveries of the past two centuries that is accessible to everyone, as well as affecting everyone. So, Darwin deserves a landmark, flog-it-round-the-world showcase series. And, just as obviously, the natural selection for a presenter should be David Attenborough.

In survival of the fittest, there is no second best: there are just winners and lunch. Richard Dawkins is lunch. In fairness, Darwin is his thing, his fundamental belief; he has been a devoted acolyte of the great bearded ape all his life. His day job is Oxford professor of science PR, so being asked to make the defining series on his hero was a big opportunity that he grasped with both hands — then dropped.

Maybe it was nerves, perhaps he’s just too emotionally involved, but the first episode of The Genius of Charles Darwin (Monday, C4) left Dawkins blinking in the headlights.

It also revealed a sorry truth. He is much happier, and much more accomplished at, knocking things down than building them. He’d rather be against something than for it. Confronting a class of quiet, respectful, eager and religious schoolchildren, he became tongue-tied and muddled about selling evolution. He was much happier attacking religion. His anger and bombast stand in stark contrast to Darwin’s quiet, inquisitive humility. Darwin was a gentle man who thought deeply and went out of his way to avoid confrontation or to incommode others. Tellingly, he managed to live his entire life with a devout Christian.

This was a great opportunity for a lush, life-affirming, invigorating series, but what we got was a confused liturgical spat. Much of the blame must fall to the producer, who really should have made sure there was a far more rigorous and inspiring script. In the end, the wisest and most memorable observation came from the mouth of a schoolboy. After a day on the Jurassic coast, discovering ammonites, he said that yes, he believed in evolution, then paused and, with a faint smile, added: “But I’ll still say my prayers.”


And then there's this:


An Atheist Plays God’s Advocate

God is omnipresent. If not in the universe, then certainly, these days, in the work of Richard Dawkins. On Monday the author of the atheist diatribe The God Delusion presented a documentary about evolution, The Genius of Charles Darwin (Channel 4). It was meant as a paean to Darwin, but somehow God kept managing to elbow His way into it.

Evolution “is one reason I don’t believe in God”, announced Dawkins at the start. Darwin “made it possible no longer to feel the necessity to believe in anything supernatural”, he added later. “It’s not God at work here in all this squalor and suffering,” he sighed while visiting a Nairobi slum. It was like listening to a teenage boy who professes disdain for the most popular girl in class, yet can’t stop talking about her.

I’m not convinced that all this anti-God stuff needed to be there, because evolution in itself isn’t proof that God doesn’t exist. Proof that the Bible is inaccurate in numerous places, yes. But it doesn’t rule out the possibility that billions of years ago, God – or a god, or gods – created the world and populated it with bacteria capable of evolving. I too am an atheist, yet Dawkins is so fanatical that I find myself playing devil’s advocate, or in this case God’s.Otherwise it was a good documentary. Lucid and enthusiastic, Dawkins is more likeable on screen than in his finger-jabbing prose.

He appears slightly ill at ease around children, though. He visited a school to spread the word about Darwin. Before he entered the classroom there was a puzzling shot, which lasted several seconds, of Dawkins peering through the window in the door at the oblivious pupils, as if they were some mysterious new species.When he did get around to addressing them, he was either stiffly earnest or unconvincingly pally, like some brilliant but remote uncle you might find in a Narnia book. Although, of course, you couldn’t put Dawkins in a Narnia book or he’d be forever lecturing the Pevensie children about the non-existence of Aslan.

Saturday Afternoon Silent Cinema

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
Directed by Robert Wiene

Cesare (Conrad Veidt)
is fed by Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss)

Plot Summary:

---

A young man named Francis recounts a fantastic story taking place in a North German town. A number of brutal murders occur there. Francis and his friend, Alan, visit a traveling fair, where one of the acts is Dr. Caligari's presentation of a hypnotized sleepwalker named Cesare, who predicts the future. Cesare predicts Alan will be dead by morning, and he is in fact murdered that night. Francis becomes suspicious of Caligari and Cesare, but another man is incorrectly charged with the crimes. However, Cesare later abducts Francis's fiancee Jane, and it becomes evident that Caligari was commanding the sleepwalker to carry out the murders. Francis chases Caligari into an insane asylum where it turns out Caligari is the director, he himself gone mad. Dr. Caligari is captured and incarcerated in his own institution. The flashback ends, and it turns out Francis is actually a patient in the asylum, as are Jane and Cesare. The benevolent Dr. Caligari is the director, and he states that Francis suffers from peculiar delusions.

Kadus, Kadus ~ Holy, Holy

Kadus, Kadus ~ Holy, Holy

Sung by the Kesim (Ethiopian religious leaders)

A Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) prayer.

It is sung in Geez, the ancient Ethiopian sacred language

The Hebrew Word for HOLY is Kedusha

CLICK ME

Missing Links Eats a Steaming Meat Demon Stanwich

Muse - City Of Delusion

Stay away from me
Build a fortress
And shield your beliefs
Touch the divine
As we fall in line
Can I believe
When I don't trust
All your theories
Turn to dust
I choose to hide
From the all seeing eye
Destroy this City of Delusion
Break these walls down
I will avenge
And justify my reasons
With your blood
You'll not rest
Settle for less
Until you guzzle
And squander what's left
Do not deny
That you live and let die

CLICK ME, MEAT DEMON!

If one views themselves as nothing more than mysteriously animated flesh, which sprang inexplicably from nothing in particular, for no higher purpose or future other than an ignominious bloody end as a feast for beasts; a fatherless, motherless magical incarnation of The Nothing ~ one is beholden to The Nothing... one's GOD can never be nobler in nature or purpose than a stinking, steaming, prehistoric stultifying swamp of mystery muck.

In this way Meat Demons are made.

If you view yourself as nothing more than meat, derived from nothing more than steaming slime, so you will eventually become nothing more than meat, derived from nothing more than steaming slime ~ and you will come to view everyone around you as nothing more than meat, derived from steaming slime, and behave accordingly.

Mysterious Demon Meat for the Steaming Stanwich.

Homo Stultus. Ta Da!

Not me, Manwiches.

Then the word of the Lord came to me [Jeremiah], saying:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew [and] approved of you [as My chosen instrument], and before you were born I separated and set you apart, consecrating you; [and] I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

Right now, in America: Oregon offers terminal patients doctor-assisted suicide instead of medical care


THE GENOCIDE OF THE SOULS

A thought regarding Pitesti:
It is important never to allow the indescribable horrors perpetrated against the victims to be forgotten. However, it is also important to discern the metaphysical nature of the evil from which those horrors flowed: the philosophy of antichrist. It is the same philosophy of antichrist that is now triumphant in much of western society (for example, the universities), triumphant without ever having had to resort to torture or "re-education". At Pitesti, the satanic, antichristic nature of "re-education" was blatant, overt - prisoners forced to commit acts of sacrilege and desecration, forced, for example, to take "communion" of faeces and urine in place of the Holy Sacraments. In the West, the same spirit of antichrist wears the mask of "humanism"; it is more dangerous because it is more insidious.
~ StrulZ

SEE ALSO: THE ANTI-HUMANS


Teenwire, Planned Parenthood's magazine for teens

A quote: "Proper use of latex condoms or female condoms (yes, many guys prefer female condoms when having anal sex with other guys) can reduce the risk of contracting dangerous infections."

Syria is taking over Lebanon


International Symbol of the Commie Circle Jerk


Pakistani Government Moves To Impeach Musharraf


Why Wolfowitz was Fired From the World Bank


Terrorists' Bill of Rights


Ossetia: Fighting reportedly raged into the night with Georgia's Interior Ministry saying early today that warplanes attacked three Georgian military bases and key facilities for shipping oil to the West


Chinese Man Kills Relative of US Olympic Coach


SHARANSKY: No peace without Democracy


Allah Squash Leaves

Sharia National Party Family Outing

You Down With OIC?

Lord of the Memes

4.5 Quake in Tokyo


Yet another 6.0 in Indonesia


Here is a passage from Archimandrite Justin Popovic's commentaries on the Epistles of St. John, translation by StrulZ:

We can find an answer here to the apparent conundrum of why "liberal progressives" have allied themselves with Islam, in spite of their conflicting ideologies: for example, "women's liberation" in the one case, and, in the other, the reduction of women to chattels and the negation of their personhood through the hijab, burqa and niqab (the face is an icon of the human person created in the image and likeness of God). The answer is not merely political - they both seek the destruction of the West and of western capitalism, a task which, in spite of the Marxist dialectic of history, the western proletariat has stubbornly refused to assume - but rather that they have a secret metaphysical affinity; they are both "philosophies of antichrist".

The atheist philosophies of Marx and, to name a couple of fashionable contemporary "thinkers", Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer are as antichrist as the "religion" of Islam. "The entire philosophy of the devil resides in not recognising God in the world, not recognising His presence in the world, not recognising His Incarnation in the world. It upholds and teaches that God is neither in the world nor in man -- and even less so in the God-man.

It claims that it is absurd to believe that God could have been incarnated in man or could have lived in man. The philosophy of the devil resides in claiming that man is wholly without God, a being in whom there is no God, nor anything that is God's, or even anything divine, immortal or eternal; it likewise claims that man is a wholly transient, wholly mortal being, who wholly belongs to the world of animals, from which he is in no way distinct, and this is why it is appropriate for him to exist as do the animals, his sole legitimate ancestors, his primitive ancestors, but also his natural brothers -- this is truly the philosophy of antichrist, and of the one who wishes at any price to replace Christ, to take His place in the world and in man.

The Theologian Saint clearly names this truth in words: "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now is already in the world." "Every spirit": this can mean a person or a doctrine, an idea, a system. Every doctrine, every idea, every concept that does not recognise that Jesus is God and Saviour, God incarnate, God-man, has its origin in antichrist, it is "antichristic".

Such persons, such doctrines, such ideas have existed ever since Christ's coming into the world. This is why the Saint and Teacher of Mysteries says that antichrist "even now is already in the world". Every man, every idea in the world that denies the Church of Christ is from antichrist -- the founder of all anti-Christian ideology is anti-Christ, directly or indirectly. In fact, all teachings can be divided into two categories: those that are for Christ and those that are for antichrist. Man is put in this world to solve a single problem, in fact: whether he is for Christ or against Christ. And every man, whether he will or no, must find a solution: either he is a friend of Christ or an enemy [un-friend] of Christ -- there is no third possibility: either he honours Christ or he hates Him."

Beethoven's 9th ~ Ode to Joy

For Emily

Bach - Crucifixus

Saints of God, come to her aid!
Come to meet her, angels of the Lord!
Receive her soul and present her to God the Most High.

May Christ, Who called you, take you to Himself;
may angels lead you to Abraham's side.
Receive her soul and present her to God the Most High.

Give her eternal rest, O Lord,
and may Your light shine upon her forever.
Receive her soul and present her to God the Most High.

Let us pray:

We commend Emily to you, Lord.
Now that she has passed from this life,
may she live on in Your presence.
In Your mercy and love, forgive whatever sins she
may have committed through human weakness.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

James T Kirk For President

Hat Tip: James T Kirk

Shabbat Hazon ~ The Sabbath of Vision

SUPERTRAMP: Child of Vision

All embedded links in the following added by me:

Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vaetchanan Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11

By Shlomo Riskin
Tisha B'Av 2004 / 5764

Efrat, Israel - The Torah portion for this week is Vaetchanan which always comes out on the Sabbath after Tisha B’Av, the Sabbath of comfort, the bleak black fast in commemoration of the loss of our Temples and loss of our national sovereignty in Jerusalem. It is very strange however, that the Torah reading for Tisha B’Av is also taken from this portion of Vaetchanan. I would like to analyze a number of strange features surrounding Tisha B’Av which will illuminate the portion of Vaetchanan which has become so deeply associated with the fast we have just experienced.

The Sabbath before Tisha B’Av, the Sabbath of last week - is called Shabbat Hazon, the Sabbath of vision. But why is it called the Sabbath of Vision? Yes, I understand that it receives its name from the first word of its prophetic reading (haftorah) for last week’s Sabbath, Hazon Yeshayahu, the vision of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1), a description of an Israelite nation which substitutes empty ritual for heartfelt righteousness, self - seeking indulgences for support for indigents. But the very word hazon really means an uplifting, prophetic vision of a better future. Why call the Sabbath before Tisha B’Av with a name Hazon, which suggests exalted sights?

Furthermore, which Torah portion do we read on the fast day of Tisha B’Av itself? Our tradition records that during the forty-year desert sojourn, each Israelite would dig his/her own grave and enter into it on the night of Tisha B’Av; the next morning, those who were alive would walk out upright, but thousands were left dead in their graves each year. During the Mishanic period (100BCE - 200CE), the Tisha B’Av reading was the episode of the sin of the scouts, the evil report which turned the Israelites away from the conquest of the Land of Israel, the initial loss of the land which is a reflection of our two subsequent losses of our land.

But then the Men of the Great Assembly changed the reading to the historiosophy in the portion of Vaetchanan, a prophecy of exile and return (Deuteronomy 4:25-40) which concludes with the repentance of the Israelites “in order that you may have long days on the land which the Lord your G-d gave to you forever.” I understand reading the cause of our desert doom on this day of destruction and dispersion. I find it difficult to understand why we read of return and repentance on such a day!

My final question is a textual - contextual one from this week’s Torah reading. The fifteen verses of historiosophy are a quintessential kaleidoscope of Jewish history, beginning with our return from the Babylonian exile, the period of reconstruction and transgression in Israel re-claimed, destruction, dispersion and assimilation throughout the world (worshipping word - the cross of Christianity - and stone - the El Aksa mosque of Islam, (Deuteronomy 4:28), our repentance and our miraculous return to Israel, which we are expressing today. But strangely enough, this magnificent account opens with the words, “When you will bear children and children’s children, and live a long time on the land….” (Deuteronomy 4:25). Why open the historical fate and destiny of a nation with its population growth? And if our nation at that point in time would have been at a zero or less than zero population growth (as is most of Europe today), would it have made a difference in terms of our Jewish historical experience?

I believe that the answer to our questions can be found in a fascinating interpretation of a Mishnah in Avot that I recently heard from Rav Shalom Gold. When Rav Yohanan ben Zakkai asked each of his disciples to express what he believed to be the most exemplary personality trait, Rav Shimon said, “one who sees that which is born.” Ha’ro’eh et ha’nolad (Mishnah Avot, 2, 13). This is usually taken to mean, one who sees the results of his actions before he does them, and on that basis decides what to do. Rav Gold gave this teaching another twist: one must see from whom one was born, we must be aware that we did not emerge from a vacuum, and that we must pay our debts to our past by accepting responsibility for our future.

Rav Avigdor Amiel ztz”l, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv during the period of the establishment of the State of Israel, cites the following poignant Tisha B’Av midrash:“When the Holy Temple was destroyed, the Holy One Blessed be He wept. He said, ‘My children, where are you? My loved ones, where are you? My priests, where are you? The Holy One said to Jeremiah, ‘I can only be compared today to an individual who had an only son, who led him under the nuptial canopy, and found him dead beneath the canopy. Call Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses from their graves, for they will be able to weep with me. Jeremiah went to the Cave of the Couples in Hebron woke them from their slumber, telling them they had been summoned by the Almighty.They said to him, ‘Why?,” for they had not heard of the destruction.Jeremiah said, ‘I don’t know,’ because he feared lest the forefathers lay upon him the charge, ‘How did you allow such a tragedy to befall our children in your life-time’?”

Judaism believes that the Almighty guarantees redemption. That is why this Sabbath, after Tisha B’Av is called the Sabbath of Comfort. Mostly because of the first words of its prophetic reading, “Take comfort, take comfort my people”(Isaiah 40:1). Indeed, the next six Sabbaths will all have a prophetic reading relating to national comfort and redemption leading up to Rosh Hashanah, which begins the Ten Days of Repentance. Yes, G-d guarantees redemption. But when and how depends upon the actions of His children, upon our political, moral and ethical deeds. We were elected by G-d to fulfill the special mission of bringing the message of ethical monotheism to the world. We were born to special patriarchs and matriarchs, we were granted unique forbears who were prophets and teachers, and the Almighty Himself forged us as a nation out of the furnace of Egypt and amidst great wonders and miracles. Now our destiny is in our hands, dependent upon our repentance and return to our homeland. All of this is expressed in the historiosophy read on Tisha B’Av beginning with a reminder that we were born into a special family, granted special miracles by G-d, and so slated for special responsibility.

The formative and formidable challenge of Tisha B’Av is the word Eicha, the first word of the Scroll of Lamentations, which means Wherefore (wherefore is the Sacred City alone and desolate ), our challenging question to G-d after the destruction. But the Hebrew letters Eicha also spell Ayeka, where are you, i.e. G-d’s challenge to us: where are you in these fateful times fraught with possibility for redemption?

Tisha B’Av is not merely a day of desolation and despair. The prophet Zechariah tells us that Tisha B’Av will one day become a Festival of great rejoicing. When? It depends upon us. That is the exalted vision of the Sabbath before Tisha B’Av, when the prophet Isaiah concludes his chastisement with a ringing declaration of faith - in G-d, but first and foremost in humanity. That is also why our Sabbath after Tisha B’Av is the Sabbath of comfort. But we will only be comforted and redeemed when we turn towards G-d with all our hearts and listen to His voice, when we begin our days of repentance.

The one agonizing question we must face on Tisha B’Av is Ayeka, where are you? Jeremiah was frightened to give an answer before those who formed and bore him. We will only be able to accept Isaiah’s comfort of this week’s prophetic reading if we can respond that we are on the road to repentance.

Shabbat Shalom.

Beaten to Death in Iran for the Crime of Breathing While Christian

KORN ~ Innocent Bystander

... they ain't breathing no more. And their daughter is in custody, GOD help her. You know what must be happening to her as I type this. Pray for her.


Iranian Christian Couple Dies from Police Attack

Hosts of house church succumb to injuries following raid; daughter still in custody.
By Michael Larson

ISTANBUL (Compass Direct News) -- An Iranian Christian couple in their 60s died last week from injuries sustained when secret police raided a house church service hosted at their house and severely beat them, a source told Compass.

Less than a week after Abbas Amiri's funeral, his wife died from similar injuries and stress from her husband's death, according to Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN).

Police beat and arrested Amiri on July 17, along with seven other men, six women and two minors who were attending the service, the source said. Amiri died in a hospital on July 30 from injuries sustained from the beating.

Amiri's wife, Sakineh Rahnama, died on Sunday (Aug. 3) from stress-related causes, according to FCNN.

Secret police raided the house church meeting hosted by Amiri and his wife in Malek Shahr, just outside the central Iranian city of Isfahan. They beat and arrested all those in attendance, including the two minors and the hosting couple.

Violence against Amiri reportedly intensified when the policemen discovered that he had taken a pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam required of all devout Muslims, before he had become a Christian. He was also a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, a strong source of Iranian national pride, so his conversion further infuriated police, according to FCNN.

All those arrested at the house meeting are reportedly still in custody, including Amiri's daughter and the two minors.

Three days before his death, Amiri was moved to the Sharieti Hospital of Isfahan. Family members who saw him said his chest was severely bruised and believe that was the cause of his death, a source told Compass.

Amiri was buried the day after his death in a cemetery in his birthplace of Masjid-Soleiman, located near the Iran-Iraq border, on Thursday (July 31). Many friends and supporters attended the funeral, though security officials reportedly attempted to prevent their attendance.

Following Rahnama's death on Sunday, secret police in Masjid-Soleiman put the Amiri family's house under surveillance. They ordered the family not to have a memorial or funeral service for Rahnama and said they had to leave the city immediately.

Amiri's son then yelled at the security officers, who proceeded to beat him, according to FCNN. Rahnama was buried on Monday (Aug 4).

Arrests and violence against Iranian Christians have intensified in recent weeks. Twelve Christians traveling to Armenia via Tehran were arrested on July 12 at the Kerman airport in south-central Iran. Two Christian converts have been jailed for two months in Shiraz, one of whom is diabetic and in critical condition.

In February the Iranian parliament proposed a draft penal code that demands the death penalty for leaving Islam. Under current Iranian law, "apostasy" is considered a capital offense, but punishment is left to the discretion of the judge.

The draft penal code is scheduled to be reviewed in the next parliamentary session.

BTW Iranian Dissident Bloggers will be subject to the death penalty under this law too when it passes

IRAN: Mullahing Over the Death Penalty for Bloggers


SEE ALSO: Arrested in Iran for the crime of breathing while Christian

I also saw that the woman was drunk...drunk with the blood of the saints (God's people) and the blood of the martyrs [who witnessed] for Moshiach Yeshua. And when I saw her, I was utterly amazed and wondered greatly.
~ Revelation 17:6

Behold the Mighty Zo

Zo on Reality

Hat Tip: Urban Infidel

In case you can not see the video - some browsers are not supporting it ...
here's the DIRECT LINK

Missing Links on the Brink of Tisha B'Av

Alice in Chains ~ Them Bones

This weekend is Tisha B'Av


Erdogan and Assad. Erdogan and Ahmadinejad… Erdogan mediates between Israel and Syria. Erdogan mediates between Israel and the Palestinians. Erdogan mediates between Iran and the US…

SEE ALSO: Rise of the Biblical Jive Turkey


Seetheapalooza Fridays!


Hudna, Hudna, Hudna KABOOM!


Israel backs Georgia in Caspian Oil Pipeline Battle with Russia


RELATED SPLEEN FROM LAST YEAR: Enter the King of the North


Russia’s ignorant still hate Solzhenitsyn


'UGLY ART" is no accident, nu?

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

Slippery Slope Dept: PLEASE, I beg you, do not clone the owner


THREE SoCal Hospitals "Bum of the Month Clubs" busted


A website that I find very scary

/Greater Good my ASS - this is stealth eugenics site


Strongly Worded Letter Professor Moonbat vs Terrorist PETA Moonbats


California Legislature Approves 'Gay Day' in Public Schools


In the no shit, Sherlock department:
Weed Helps Neuropathic Pain sufferers
(but only if it's "medical marijuana" dispensed by the State don't ya know)


Thirteen things Holy Science has zero credible explanation for



Hizb ut-Tahrir in Gaza


Hizb ut-Tahrir PARADES in Gaza

WhoTF are Hizb ut-Tahrir you may ask? I'll tell you!

Spleen Search: Hizb ut-Tahrir

Somalia's Presidential Palace Attacked by Islamists



UK: LORD TEBBIT: If the head of our church can't uphold the standards that shaped us, what hope is there?

"Of course the grubby British National Party will attempt to pose as a home for the moral majority, promising a return to the traditions and certainty of the past. Fortunately, its gruesome pedigree means that it has no credibility among the vast majority of people."

Gay ties like marriage - Rowan Williams

Sharia in UK "Unavoidable" - Rowan Williams



If our strength in military power and decisive actions worldwide stops getting stronger and stronger; If we don't keep our best Allies who are tested worldwide with us; If we turn to a European model of Society, then we will be paralyzed from the strikes of the unions, the huge government and the leisure that the left wing is promising to the non-productive, but demanding individuals
~ Admiral P. Kikareas



Christian protesters dragged from Tiananmen Square


Iraq Christians consider joining Kurdistan



Meantime, "There are 13 Turkish military bases as well as 3,235 Turkish officers, spies and gendarmerie inside KRG territory" .... with US consent



We quiely let the Turks bomb the Kurds in 2007


More than 3,500 Christians have protested in Jayapura, the capital of Indonesian Papua, against the introduction of sharia, Islamic law, in the region


One Nation, Under a New Obama Salute

LOOKS MORE LIKE THE NEW UNIVERSAL SYMBOL FOR ASSHOLE TO ME....

George Bush had his three-fingered W salute that supporters flashed when greeting him at presidential campaign events in 2000. And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc.

Husong tells me that he got the idea after seeing the famous Obama-Progress poster by artist Shepherd Fairey. "We wanted to get involved some way," he says. So, the agency came up with their own a symbol of hope and progress that also plays off Obama's name. "We thought, 'Let's try and start a movement where even while walking down the street, people would hold up the O and you would know that they were for Obama,' " says Husong. Much thought went into the relatively simple idea. "You interlace your hands in a circle, the interlacing being a symbol of different types of people coming together and the circle a symbol of unity," he says. Their design, unlike Fairey's, is free, and Husong is urging people to download it and print it on posters and T-shirts. "We want to see it everywhere, but more importantly we want this sign to take the world by storm."

Aside from being the Asshopium symbol

Notice please that Obama's "symbol"

is a giant fucking

ZERO


ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY NOTHING

TISHA B'AV

BREAKING NEWS:

Georgia cabinet minster says Georgian troops are in control of capital of South Ossetia, four Russian warplanes shot down; Russian military officials claiming 10 "peacekeepers" killed, 30 wounded in fighting

Hundreds reported dead in fighting in South Ossetia province

WFRL Early Morning Open Thread

Bert Jansch - Angie

Spin by Mean Gene

Michael Rubin on the Burnt Out Bush

CHEAP TRICK ~ Surrender ~ 1978

Bush's Disastrous Flip Flop

by Michael Rubin
Bitterlemons International
August 7, 2008


Press and pundits applauded George Bush's decision last month to send a representative to Geneva to join a meeting with Iran's nuclear negotiator. Barack Obama, the 2008 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said, "Now that the United States is involved, it should stay involved with the full strength of our diplomacy." Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said the decision might be "the most welcome flip flop in diplomatic history".

To bring the Islamic Republic into compliance with its international commitments through peaceful means is a noble goal. Nevertheless, the White House reversal was the wrong move at the wrong time. Just as democracy is about more than elections, diplomacy is about more than just a willingness to talk. Absent the preliminary work necessary for its success and attention to timing, diplomacy can accelerate conflict.

Washington's insistence that Tehran cease its nuclear enrichment makes sense. While proponents of diplomacy call this a precondition, abandoning such a demand both unilaterally sets aside three UN Security Council resolutions and enables Iranian officials to run down the clock as they near irreversible nuclear capability.

Even if the White House waffles back to its earlier position, the damage is done. By establishing--and then voiding--the redline laid down by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the United States would not talk until the Islamic Republic suspended its uranium enrichment, the Bush administration undercut the credibility of future redlines. Indeed, this is the message that many Iranians have taken. On August 1, 2008, for example, Ali Reza Hosseini, an employee at the Strategic Studies Institute at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, urged the Iranian leadership "not to take the secretary of state's ultimatums seriously".

This raises the probability that Iranian officials will misread the determination of Bush or his successor administration to prevent the Islamic Republic from achieving a military nuclear capability. Where self-described realists and progressives see flexibility, Iranian officials see weakness. "America has no other choice but to leave the Middle East region beaten and humiliated," stated Mohammad Ja'far Assadi, newly-appointed chief of the Revolutionary Guards' ground forces, on July 16, 2008.

Diplomacy absent opponent sincerity does more harm than good. The West has already suffered for its efforts to accommodate Tehran. Between 2000 and 2005, European Union engagement with Iran led to a near-tripling of trade. Rather than use its hard currency windfall to build civilian infrastructure and improve the economy, the Iranian leadership invested perhaps 70 percent of its hard currency and oil windfall into its military and nuclear programs.

Such an allocation is not the result of regime hardliners controlling appropriations, for the bulk of the work on Iran's covert nuclear program coincided with a period of reformist resurgence and so-called dialogue of civilizations. On June 15, 2008, the semi-official Fars News Agency provided lengthy excerpts from a panel discussion with Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Khatami-era government spokesman. He lambasted not the content of President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad's nuclear policy but rather its style, and urged a return to Khatami-style diplomacy. "We had an overt policy that was one of negotiation and confidence-building," he explained, "and a covert policy that was continuation of [our nuclear] activities." He recommended that the Iranian government should "prove to the entire world that we want the power plants for electricity [but] afterwards we can continue with other activities."

Indeed, he signaled that Tehran may see the incentive package the White House signed on to in an entirely different light than the western diplomats who offered it. "As long as we were not subjected to sanctions, and during our negotiations, we could import technology," Ramezanzadeh explained. "We should have negotiated for so long, and benefited from the atmosphere of negotiations to the extent that we could import all the technology we needed."

Iranian officials gloat. They welcomed US concessions as affirmation that defiance succeeds. Meanwhile, with 6,000 P-1 centrifuges and a 4.8 percent enriched feed Tehran can produce 20 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium in just 16 days, a period between International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

Iranians play chess while Americans play checkers. That Tehran's nuclear program has progressed so far is a testament to the Iranian strategy. In contrast, Bush's move has little to do with a well-thought out strategy and is more a flailing attempt to change legacy. As Iranian centrifuges continue to spin, the price of Bush's flip-flop will be high: Iranian overconfidence, erosion of future UN Security Council resolution effectiveness and forfeiture of future redline credibility. With its diplomatic card wasted, the next US president will have a stark choice: allow the Islamic Republic to go nuclear or accelerate the application of far more costly measures.


Michael Rubin, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School

BTW?
They starting talking to Iran over a year ago
SPLEEN SEARCH: BUSH / IRAN

Thursday Afternoon Wholly Open Thread

David Axelrod - Holy Thursday

CLICK ME


HOLY THURSDAY
From "Songs of Innocence"
~ William Blake

'T was on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two & two, in red & blue & green,

Grey-headed beadles walk'd before,

with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul's

they like Thames' waters flow.

O what a multitude they seem'd,

these flowers of London town!

Seated in companies they sit

with radiance all their own.

The hum of multitudes was there,

but multitudes of lambs,

Thousands of little boys & girls

raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind

they raise to heaven the voice of song,

Or like harmonious thunderings

the seats of Heaven among.

Beneath them sit the aged men,

wise guardians of the poor;

Then cherish pity,

lest you drive an angel from your door.

HOLY THURSDAY
From "Songs of Experience"
~ William Blake

Is this a holy thing to see

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduc'd to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak & bare,

And their ways are fill'd with thorns:

It is eternal winter there.

For where-e'er the sun does shine,

And were-e'er the rain does fall,

Babe can never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

Warriors of God .... For the Cause of Allah

Walid Shoebat & Stuck Mojo For the Cause of Allah

CNN is re-running "Warriors of GOD" this weekend,
which also happens to be Tisha B'av

CLICK ME, WARRIORS OF HASHEM

Here are my posts ripping it a new asshole from August of 2007:


Warriors of God my ass Behold Christiane Amanpour Agitprop Whore of the Caliphate!



More on Amanpour, the Caliphate's Whore


RELATED:GOD's War on Terror ~ Walid Shoebat

Missing Links ~ Many Rivers to Cross

Ike & Tina ~ Proud Mary ~ 1971

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
~Amos 5:24

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him
~John 7:38



Obamanable Snowjobman seeks "Muslim Outreach Adviser"


Queen Condi of the Amalekites digs the Obamassiah - maybe she can take the job


Rick Santorum: Obama's Faith Is Phony



ROBERT SPENCER ON GROVER NORQUISLING



The Remnant Principle (Part 5)



Dhimmified Whores of Churchianity Harmonize with Beasts of Islam



Olmert to free another 150 terrorists



ZOG'S NIGHTMARE



CAIR Assassination Plot?



EU exports to Iran rising despite sanctions



EU to connect to UN carbon credit registry before December



Remembering The Eternal Dissident





IF IT'S NOT SCOTTISH, IT'S CRAP!



ANOTHER 5.0 quake in China



3.4 in Al Andalus



ANOTHER 5.7 in Indonesia

In necessariis unitas
(in essentials unity)

In dubiis libertas
(in doubtful things liberty)

In omnibus autem caritas
(but in all things love)

~St. Augustine of Hippo

Jimmy Cliff: Many Rivers to Cross
Glastonbury 2008