Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Why does Valerie Plame keep changing her story?

Ex-CIA officer called on to explain varied accounts
Senator: Plame's versions add to 'misinformation'

By Richard Willing
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Former CIA officer Valerie Plame should explain "differences" in her various accounts of how her husband was sent to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate reports Iraq was trying to buy uranium there, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

Plame's differing versions have furthered "misinformation" about the origins of the case that roiled Washington beginning in July 2003, said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. Plame gave those accounts to the CIA's inspector general, Senate investigators and a House committee in March.

Read the whole thing

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Archaeology and the Bible

by Phillip Climer

The December 18, 1995, issue of Time magazine had as its cover story, “IS THE BIBLE FACT OR FICTION? Archaeologists in the Holy Land are shedding new light on what did—and did not—occur in the greatest stories ever told.” The article describes recent archaeological finds in Israel and surrounding areas, and then categorizes public and scholarly reaction to these finds into three main groupings: “Jewish and Christian Ultraconservatives,” who do not believe any part of the Bible is fiction; “Atheists,” who want to debunk the whole Bible; and “the moderate majority,” who want to be sure that the Bible is scientifically “grounded in truth.”

As Christians we fall into what Time calls the “Ultraconservative” group. We believe that the Bible is infallible not only in spiritual matters, but also in accounts with historical and geographical content.

When archaeologists excavate Biblical lands and, based on their findings, reach conclusions that differ with the historical account of Scripture, how should a Christian respond? To say that we accept the Word of God by faith, whatever the claims of archaeology or any other branch of science, is the correct reply. However, making that statement without any further explanation may sound as though we are pitting blind irrational faith against rational scientific research. This essay is intended to demonstrate that while the science of archaeology may be reasonable, it is not truthful; and a faith that provides truth is much to be preferred over a research program that does not.

Of the other two groups mentioned in the magazine article, we can easily understand the “Atheists.” We accept the Bible as true; they reject it. As Time points out, even when archaeology supports a Biblical narrative, the atheists are likely to reject both Scripture and science. Their position is one of faith, as much as is ours; it is just that the object of their faith is their own ideas. But what is one to make of the third category, the “moderate majority”?

Many Evangelicals fall into this category, for they are delighted whenever an archaeological find supports a part of Scripture, or as Time says, “strengthens the Bible’s claim to historical accuracy.” But if a supportive archaeologist enhances Scripture’s claim to accuracy, does a scientific detractor weaken the Bible’s claim to truth? And if Christians accept only those archaeological findings that they agree with, can they not be justly accused of being childish in their refusal to face up to disagreeable facts?

The whole unfortunate enterprise of trying to verify the claims of Scripture with the findings of archaeology rests on a conflict between the science of archaeology and the Christian faith on the question, “What is truth?” To focus on this dispute, let us confront the claims of archaeology with the simple question, “How do you know?” The answer to this one question reveals the principles upon which are based all claims to knowledge and truth by any science, philosophy, or religion.

To begin with, we must know what the science of archaeology is, and the type of claims it makes. Secondly, we must compare and contrast archaeological information and Biblical truth. Finally, against this background, let us review the conflict that Time calls “fact vs. faith.”

Archaeological Information

Archaeology is “the scientific study of extinct peoples through skeletal remains, fossils, and objects of human workmanship (as implements, artifacts, monuments, or inscriptions) found in the earth” (Webster’s Third International Dictionary of the English Language, 1981). Archaeologists excavate and sift through the remains of ancient civilizations and then try to piece together their findings into a coherent picture of how the people of that society lived, and how its institutions functioned.

Perhaps the most important artifact that any civilization leaves behind is its body of literature. Many societies in the ancient Middle East left their writings in stone (the hieroglyphs of Egypt), or on soft clay tablets that hardened into stone over time (the Babylonians and Assyrians). The ancient Hebrews apparently used paper or possibly animal skins. Since these materials decompose, documents written on them had to be recopied time and again. Archaeologists generally accept hieroglyphs and clay tablets as being more accurate than paper manuscripts, since the former are more likely to be the original writings. There is obviously much less room for error or editing in a document carved on stone than on a manuscript copy several times removed from the original.

The Time article gives several examples of archaeologists rejecting Biblical manuscripts in favour of their own theories based on other artifacts. The book of Joshua, chapter 6, records the destruction of the walls of Jericho, allowing the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua to conquer the city. Time tells us that after extensive excavations at the site of ancient Jericho, archaeologists have determined that the location was abandoned between about 1500–1100 BC. According to them, no walled cities existed during this time in this area of Canaan. Conservative Biblical scholars and archaeologists also disagree on the date of the Israelite entrance into Canaan, but they both agree that it falls well within the time range mentioned above. Given this chronology, modern archaeology concludes that the Hebrews moved onto vacant or sparsely populated land. This thinking allows no walls to come tumbling down, and no city to conquer. The skeptics also doubt that Joshua even existed. Without a battle, who needs a general? Now let us ask the test question: how do they know that Jericho and its walls did not exist during this time period?

Just as our society paves over old streets and erects new buildings over the remains of old foundations, so ancient civilizations built towns and cities over the debris of earlier structures. When archaeologists excavate a site they divide it into different levels, each level or layer corresponding to a defined era of human habitation or abandonment. The methods by which a date for a particular level is determined are quite involved, and a detailed explanation of them is beyond the scope of this essay.

To gain some idea of what is involved, consider a future archaeologist excavating our civilization and finding only ceramic dishes up to a certain level. Above that level, he finds plastic and ceramic dishes. Suppose he also finds some sort of preserved calendar dated “1950” with the plastic dishes. He now has his dating “key”: the calendar and the plastic dishes. This key tells him that at his initial site plastic dishes were not in use before 1950. If he encounters plastic dishes at any other site, he assumes that the level in which he finds them was inhabited in 1950 or later. At Jericho, the scientists found some sort of artifacts (probably pottery) at a certain level that allowed them to date that level at 1500–1100 BC, based upon their “key” with similar artifacts at other excavations. This particular level did not contain the foundations or remains of any city walls, buildings, or other structures that would indicate a city. How to explain this discrepancy with the Biblical account? The earliest extant manuscript of the book of Joshua dates from a period hundreds of years after the events described in the book. Skeptics theorize that such a manuscript, in being recopied from a decaying original, could have been altered by a zealous scribe, seeking to glorify his God and the history of his nation by inventing a battle that never occurred and a leader who never existed.

The archaeologists who excavated Jericho published their theory. These findings were debated and ultimately accepted by most of the archaeological community. Unless and until some new evidence comes along, the modern science of archaeology has determined that the Israelite conquest of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua is not factual. Specifically, Joshua did not fight the battle of Jericho. This is an archaeological “truth,” or more accurately, a testing by archaeological research methods of a Biblical story, and the Bible fails the test.

Conservative Biblical scholars disagree, but their objections are tainted, because they are trying to prove the Bible, instead of looking at it objectively—or so the scientists say. Now if religious bias is the problem, perhaps we could demonstrate the objectivity of archaeology in the reconstruction of ancient civilizations by examining a site that has no religious significance today, but one that has been widely excavated by numerous scientists. In such a case, there would be no believers to muddy the waters for the clear-thinking scientists. There are many such sites; perhaps the most famous is Troy.

Searching for Troy

In approximately 800 BC a blind Greek poet named Homer composed the first (and arguably the greatest) poem of European literature: The Iliad. This epic work tells of a great war fought approximately 400 years earlier, between a number of Greek city-states and the rich and powerful city of Troy, on the coast of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). Perhaps the reader recalls some of the particulars of this story. Helen, queen of Sparta, was carried off to Troy by Paris, a prince of the Trojan royal family. Outraged, a number of Greek cities combined forces, sailed to Troy, and besieged the city for ten long years. They were not able to breach the massive walls of Troy, so finally they resorted to subterfuge. By means of a giant hollow wooden idol, the famed Trojan horse, the Greeks infiltrated Troy. The gates were thrown open, and the city was lost. Those Trojans not killed were enslaved, and Troy itself was burned and demolished. The victorious Greeks sailed home with the beautiful Helen, the cause of it all, “ the face that launched a thousand ships.”

Since Roman times scholars have debated The Iliad. Does it describe a real war, or is it just a myth? If there was such a war, how accurate is Homer’s telling of it? In the 1850’s, modern archaeology took up the debate. For the last 140 years team after team of scientists has excavated a now deserted site on the coast of Turkey. Their very impressive and voluminous findings were reviewed by a recent documentary series on public television, In Search of the Trojan War. According to this program, the site suspected to contain the ruins of Troy was continuously occupied by humans for over 5,000 years. It contains 50 separate levels. Nine of these levels show the characteristics of true cities, that is, walls, palaces, etc. Nine of the levels also show signs of violent destruction, either by warfare or natural disaster, such as earthquakes.

What of Homer’s Troy? Which level, if any, matches the magnificent city of The Iliad? Did the Trojan War really happen? Almost a century and a half of modern scientific investigation, without any religious interference or bias, has yielded a new answer for each new investigator. The archaeological “truth” about Troy changes with each generation of archaeologists. The original excavator “proved” that The Iliad was as accurate as Christians believe the Bible to be. A later archaeological team threw out most of his conclusions and “proved” that Homer exaggerated greatly, if he told the truth at all. A subsequent generation of diggers “proved” that an earthquake largely destroyed Troy, and that pirates finished the job. And so on. The only points on which all the experts agree are that the site was inhabited for thousands of years, and it is now abandoned. But what of the sophisticated techniques for dating artifacts and levels of occupation? Each artifact was precisely catalogued by the team that found it. Each highly trained archaeologist looked at those catalogued findings, possibly made some excavations of his own, and then came up with a different interpretation to explain how all those artifacts got there.

The narrator of the documentary series takes us through these diverse theories in six hours of analysis. At the end, he makes this startling observation on the archaeological search for truth about the Trojan war: “There can never be a final word, only a new interpretation by each generation in terms of its own dreams and needs.” This is the “proof,” the “knowledge,” and the “truth” that modern archaeology gives us: “… never a final word, only a new interpretation … .”

Ever Learning … Never Able …

Returning to archaeological excavations in the lands of the Bible, let us review the case of Joshua and the battle of Jericho. The current secular view is that no battle took place there, and no walls existed. The proof is in the pottery, so to speak. But the final archaeological word is not in, and it never will come in. This is not the conclusion of a religious fanatic defending Scripture; this is a limitation of the method of the science of archaeology, as demonstrated in the search for Troy.

The skeptic may think that we are playing with words in reaching this conclusion. Perhaps he would say that the present theory of “no walls at Jericho” is substantially true, and that later excavations in the area will “fine-tune” it. The skeptic would be wrong. In archaeology any theory, no matter how well established, can be turned on its head by the next shovelful of dirt at the next dig. The Time article provides us with just such an example.

Many secular archaeologists questioned the existence of King David, because there are no records of him dating from the time of his rule (traditional dates 1025–985 BC). As with Joshua and the conquest of Canaan, these scientists speculate that the legend of David may have been added by a scribe recopying documents at a much later date, trying to “improve” the history of Israel. But in modern Israel in 1993 an inscription in stone dating from about 900 BC was found containing the phrases “House of David,” and “King of Israel.” That one inscription was enough to turn skeptical opinion around: now archaeologists generally accept that David really existed.

A monument and inscription from 1200 BC commemorating Joshua’s victory at the mighty walls of Jericho would similarly turn the archaeological world’s theory of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan on its head. Does such a monument exist? Who can say? But it is certainly true that the archaeological “truth” about Joshua and Jericho will not be the same fifty years from now as it is today, or as it was fifty years ago.

The reader may question the phrasing in saying that the truth of a past event is going to change every fifty years. How does the truth of the past change? Obviously, it never does. We have an account in writing of Joshua and the Israelites conquering the walled city of Jericho. Now that event either took place or it did not take place. The same can be said for any event for which we have record. The Greeks sailed to Troy to get Helen, or they did not. The theorizing of modern day archaeologists does not change a jot or tittle of history, because it is already past; it is out of their grasp; they can never relive or recall those events. Even if an archaeologist constructed a hypothesis that was absolutely accurate in explaining the Trojan War or Joshua and the battle of Jericho, no one could ever know it was absolutely accurate, because no one can go back in time and test the hypothesis against reality.

This may all seem very basic, but it demonstrates that archaeological research fails to give us historical truth not just occasionally, but consistently. No hypothesis of history based upon archaeological research has ever or can ever be shown to be true. The theories will continue to pour out of the minds of archaeologists, but none of them will ever be proved either. Naturally this conclusion includes written records also. We do not know if those indestructible clay tablets of the Assyrians or Hittites are true or not, and we never will. The same can be said for the Egyptian hieroglyphs and even for our friend Homer. He tells a wonderful story, but we will know if Achilles and Hector fought outside the walls of golden Troy only when we get a Word from God on the subject.

Biblical Truth

Scientifically, we do not know if the Bible is true, and we never will. That, of course, does not derogate (belittle) from the truth or authority of Scripture, for two reasons: Scripture is self-authenticating; and science cannot prove anything true.

Scripture teaches that from eternity past God predetermined everything, everyone, every action, and every moment. By His Spirit and His Word, He executed His eternal plan and brought the universe and time itself into existence. Since He is Creator of all, including time, He stands outside of it and is therefore unchanging. When He inspired the prophets and apostles to write down that portion of His eternal plan, which He chose to reveal to us, He directed them to write His unchanging Word describing His unchanging plan. When it comes to the past, how could anyone possibly imagine a more authoritative history than the Word of the One Who determined that history and then brought it to pass?

Revisiting Joshua and Jericho one last time, let us pose the same question to the Biblical narrative that we did to the archaeological theory. How do we know that the Scriptural account of the battle of Jericho is true? Because the Bible says so. No hypotheses here, no guesses, just truth, from the God of truth, who not only infallibly knows the events at Jericho, but also predetermined them and brought them to pass. To doubt the veracity of any historical event in Scripture is to doubt the very nature of God Himself.

The “moderate majority” will discount the previous argument as an evasion, circular reasoning, irrationalism, and double-talk. It is simply wrong, say they, to believe that the Bible speaks truthfully on historical matters because it says it does. The Bible itself must be checked, or “verified.” But by what can Scripture be corrected? What is the standard the moderates use to judge the Bible? Archaeological methods of research can provide us with mountains of information about—or at least mountains of—pottery and spears used in ancient Israel, and we should respect that information, and the scientists who work so diligently to extract and study the artifacts they find. But any theory they devise concerning any part of Biblical history is, by the nature of their own inductive method, tentative and inconclusive. One cannot verify any narrative with a worse theory. The “moderate majority” cannot legitimately test Biblical history with scientific methodology, and since there currently are no other possibilities with which to verify it, they must either receive the Scriptural narrative in faith or reject it for no good reason.

The reader may wonder why this discussion of archaeology and the Bible has been limited to the Old Testament, and why the subject of miracles has not been considered more extensively. Aside from time and space constraints, there are two main reasons. The New Testament manuscripts are now generally accepted, even among skeptics. (A few generations ago they were not accepted as genuine, but someone came up with a new theory and now they are.) The skeptics do not believe what the manuscripts say, but they do, at least for the moment, accept them as dating from the apostolic age. Second, archaeological methods of research cannot give us a true theory of any event that is not a miracle. Given that failure, how can archaeologists even begin to comment with any credibility upon Bible history that contains many miracles, such as the Gospels?

“Fact vs. Faith”

The notion of “fact vs. faith,” as Time put it, now can be seen in all of its absurdity. To test any Scriptural historical account by means of any theory of archaeology is to test that which cannot be false by means of that which cannot be true. It is the height of absurdity.

The Bible is the only means by which God reveals His plan of redemption to His people. As such, it is primarily concerned with spiritual matters, and when we read it we should also be primarily concerned with the spiritual knowledge it contains. But the great drama of redemption is being played out upon the stage of the visible universe and history. We cannot fully appreciate the scope and grandeur of God’s plan of salvation if we neglect the platform upon which it is presented. We must not take lightly the denial of the accuracy of Biblical history by modern archaeology. If we do not proclaim the truth about Joshua and Jericho and King David or any other historical narrative in Scripture, we are guilty of not proclaiming “the whole counsel of God.” We are in a battle for truth, and we must look to God for patience and courage to see our way through it.

When the youthful David visited his brothers on the battlefield, he heard Goliath taunting Israel. He was outraged, asking, “who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” {1Sa 17:26} David immediately volunteered to face Goliath in combat, and he slew that blasphemer.

David had to battle the enemies of Israel militarily. Our war with the enemies of Christ is spiritual and intellectual in nature, but it is just as real, and even more deadly. As Christians our posture should be one of righteous indignation against the giant of skeptical archaeology that slurs the truth of the Word of Almighty God. Who are these archaeologists who think they can disprove Scripture with a piece of broken pottery dug out of the mud? Who are the “moderate majority” who dare tell us what parts of the Bible are “reasonable” to believe? Let us be as eager to confront the giant of archaeology, as David was to confront the Philistine champion. In the struggle between the eternal Word of God and secular theories, we know by revelation that God will crush all anti-Christian arguments and imaginations under our feet.

“Is not my word like fire?” says the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” {Jer 23:29}


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Phillip Climer is a free-lance writer living in California.

This article was first published by the Trinity Review, Number 170, April 1999. Used by permission. Copyright (c) 1999, John W. Robbins, P.O. Box 68, Unicoi, Tennessee, 37692. Tel: 423-743-0199.

Recommended resources

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Available online at:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/arch.asp
COPYRIGHT © 2006 Answers in Genesis

Monday, May 28, 2007

EMERGENCY AMNESTY ALERT

WE NEED 100,000 telephone calls into the SENATE - THIS TUESDAY (5/29) and every day the week of June 4th.

I spent all last week in DC contacting senators’ offices.

I found that they will NOT register calls that do not come with a city and zip code. All callers MUST have their city and zip code at the ready.
I ASK that you post a LINK to the website http://www.dolz.com/call

The LINK contains ALL THE SENATORS phone numbers, states, cities and zip codes IN ONE EASY PLACE.
In the coming hours and days I will populate the site with the DISTRICT OFFICE numbers, the staff and committee numbers.

In fact if people send me “SPECIAL” numbers like the Senator cell numbers or staff cell numbers that you happen to have, I will add them to the list.

We need 100,000 people to call those senators.

Make those senators, states, cities and zip codes available in this ONE PLACE, the simple and easy location to make the calls.

PLEASE SUBMIT this LINK for Posting in Every Website that we read.
Post to every NEWS GROUP. Post to every PATRIOT GROUP. Post to every VOTER GROUP.

BROADCAST to every on your CONTACT LIST. Call it into RADIO SHOWS. I welcome any other group to put the link on their website.
http://www.dolz.com/call
ALSO enclosed with this email is an EXCEL spreadsheet with ALL THE SENATOR FAXES in a comma delimited format for easy importing into your FAX software. CALL, CALL, CALL – FAX, FAX, FAX.

Best Wishes,

Tony
www.dolz.com

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Was John McCain Brainwashed By His North Vietnamese Captors To Destroy This Nation?

By Dave Gibson on May 22, 07


It is amazing that a combat veteran who has claimed to be a conservative Senator is now leading the fight to reward with amnesty, the millions of Mexican and Central American criminals who have invaded our nation. While the betrayal of the American people on behalf of foreign invaders by Sen. John McCain may be puzzling to most, the former POW has a history betraying his fellow citizens in favor of a foreign enemy. In light of the looming vote to turn this country into a Third World nation, the question of McCain’s true motives should be examined.


On October 26, 1967, U.S. Navy Lt. John McCain was shot down over North Vietnam by a Soviet-made surface-to-air missile. As a result of ejecting from his plane, McCain suffered two broken arms and a broken leg. He was immediately captured by an angry mob and turned over to NVA soldiers, who broke his shoulder with a rifle butt and stabbed his foot with a bayonet. He was then taken to the infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton.’


Once in a cell, he was beaten and interrogated daily. Still being refused medical treatment and in severe pain, McCain agreed to talk in exchange for medical treatment. He was then taken to a nearby hospital. McCain described the events in his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers, in which he said: “Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate any medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant.”


The North Vietnamese Army discovered that Lt. McCain was the son of Adm. John McCain Jr., commander of the Pacific Fleet, and his grandfather was Adm. John McCain Sr. who commanded aircraft carriers under Adm. Bill Halsey in the Pacific during World War II. Because of his family’s powerful military heritage, the NVA believed that Lt. McCain would one day hold a prominent position in the U.S. government. He then became the target of incredible torture and attempts at re-education, some sessions were reportedly conducted by Soviet officers.


McCain has said that he was regularly visited by senior communist Vietnamese officials. One visitor was famous NVA Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap.


Eventually, McCain signed a letter claiming to be a war criminal and apologizing for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He also did many radio and television interviews, some with foreign correspondents which is a severe violation of the military code of conduct.


Despite John McCain’s years of painful torture at the hands of the NVA, he has been Hanoi’s strongest advocate in the U.S. Senate. For years, he pushed for the normalization of relations with communist Vietnam, even though that country has never fully cooperated on the issue of American POW’s.


In 1992, John McCain was serving on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. Vietnamese officials began to complain that American POW/MIA activists (mostly family members of the missing men) were causing too many problems and posed a threat to lifting the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam. Incredibly, Senator and former POW McCain then went on a campaign against the POW/MIA activists and accused them of fraud. McCain once said of the families: “The people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are criminals and some of the most craven, most cynical, and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam.”


Sen. McCain demanded and received a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the two major POW/MIA activist groups. Of course, no fraud as McCain alleged was ever found. The families were left angry and mystified as to why McCain had betrayed them. McCain succeeded and the trade embargo against communist Vietnam was lifted, and there has never been a full accounting of North Vietnamese atrocities against American POW’s.


In 1992, NVA Col. Bui Tin, who interrogated McCain in the Hanoi Hilton, testified before the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. He told the Senators (including McCain) that Soviet officers regularly interrogated and tortured American POW’s. During a break in the proceedings, Sen. McCain and Col. Tin enjoyed a hug and exchanged the kind of longing looks that a man would usually share with his long-lost father, or perhaps in McCain’s case...His comrade?


Just as John McCain has collaborated with the Vietnamese enemy, he has been collaborating with the leaders of the Mexican Reconquista movement for some time. Among other outrages, he was the keynote speaker at the 2004 annual conference of the National Council of La Raza. He told the racist crowd: “It is in our national interest to bring the 8 to 12 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and allow them an opportunity to become citizens of this great nation.”


After the massive illegal alien protests last year, McCain made the following statement: “If such demonstrations continue, I think we will have a bill for the President to sign soon. The more debate, the more demonstrations, the more likely we will prevail.”


Under Sen. McCain’s immigration bill, even members of Mexican drug gangs would receive amnesty by simply signing a statement in which they renounce their gang affiliation; the so-called ‘background checks’ that illegal aliens would receive are only of the 24-hour variety, which reveal very little (if anything) and would then be given a six-month worker card; Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would travel around the country handing-out amnesty applications to suspected illegal aliens (Not kidding!), and all immigration enforcement would end.


McCain’s plan would spell the end of the United States. So why would the son and grandson of fiercely proud American warriors, and he himself a combat veteran who suffered tremendous torture a the hands of the criminal North Vietnamese so readily come to the aid of that enemy and attack the families of the men with whom he served? Why would this same man so incredibly betray his own countrymen in favor of Mexican criminals?


The answers to the aforementioned questions lie deep with Sen. McCain’s psyche, which should now be subject to examination. I am not suggesting that McCain set out to betray his country when he began his career at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1954, nor as he flew 23 missions over North Vietnam. However, it would appear that under extreme torture and indoctrination at the hands of his communist captors, he may have been turned...Turned against his own country and sent back to dismantle that country. It is a possibility that now needs to be investigated.


When someone with the background of Sen. John McCain is ready to sell-out his fellow POW’s and turn the United States into a Third World nation...No other explanation could truly suffice.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Bill Clinton continues to be paid by scam artists who rip off the elderly and disabled

BILL'S UGLY BUDDY

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN


May 24, 2007 -- EVERY year since he left the White House, former President Bill Clinton has been paid by InfoUSA - an Omaha, Neb., company now identified as a key provider of databases that enable criminals to defraud the unsuspecting elderly.

Senate rules don't require Hillary Clinton to reveal exactly how much - or for what - the company has paid her husband over the past five years. But former presidents - especially Bill Clinton - don't come cheap. And, just months after he left the presidency, InfoUSA paid Bill Clinton $200,000 to give a speech in Omaha. Since then, it has paid him an undisclosed amount each year - listed only as "more than $1,000" for "non-employee compensation" on Sen. Clinton's financial-disclosure forms. (Her latest Senate disclosure isn't yet public, so we don't yet know if the firm paid him anything last year.)

As best we can determine, this is one of only two companies with whom the ex-president has an ongoing, formal relationship.

As The New York Times reported on Sunday, InfoUSA compiled and sold lists of elderly men and women who would be likely to respond to unscrupulous scams. The company advertised lists such as: "Elderly Opportunity Seekers" - 3.3 million older people "looking for ways to make money "Suffering Seniors" - 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease; "Oldies but Goodies" - 500,000 gamblers over age 55. It described one list: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."

Internal e-mails show that InfoUSA employees were aware that they were selling this data to firms under investigation for fraud - but kept on selling the information, even as the scammers used the lists to bilk millions from the elderly.

Last week, Hillary Clinton sought and obtained an extension of time to file her financial-disclosure statement for the presidential race. This will tell us more than her Senate statements - she's required to list not just the sources of Bill's income but exactly how much they paid him. While Sen. Clinton offered no reason for the postponement, we can't help suspecting that she hopes to conceal InfoUSA's payments to her husband while the company is under fire.

The relationship between Bill Clinton and Vinod "Vin" Gupta, InfoUSA's CEO and chairman, is longstanding and deep.

A frequent donor to Bill's campaigns, Gupta stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom in the Clinton years. He admits donating $1 million to the Clinton Library and in 1999 gave $2 million for Hillary Clinton's Millennium New Year's Eve bash. He has raised over $200,000 for Hillary's Senate campaigns and given thousands to other Democratic funds.

Gupta's company has also been generous to Clinton causes. It was a sponsor of the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative, and of last summer's Aspen Festival of Ideas, where Bill and Hillary Clinton both spoke. It put Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton's longtime money man, on the board of a subsidiary firm, videoyellowpagesusa.com

President Clinton returned some of the favors - he nominated Gupta as consul general of Bermuda and U.S. ambassador to Fiji, but Gupta was never confirmed. In his last days in the White House, Clinton appointed Gupta to the Kennedy Center's board of trustees.

This connection between the Clintons and InfoUSA only underscores the necessity of full disclosure of income sources and amounts by all the presidential candidates and the release of their income tax returns - a step that Sen. Clinton has, thus far, refused to take.


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Dramatic "Religion of Peace" Update

WARNING: GRAPHIC

Torture, Al-Qaeda Style - Drawings, tools, and photographs seized from Iraq safe house in U.S. military raid

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Comprehensively Bad: Faux Immigration Reform

May 23, 2007, 6:45 a.m.
By John Fonte


Deputy White House chief of staff, Joel Kaplan, a key negotiator in the Senate immigration bill, told the Washington Post that there are “things in this bill that Republicans and conservatives have wanted for a long time.”

Did he have any of the following items in mind?

One-day amnesty: Once the bill is enacted illegal aliens can apply for and receive probationary legal status immediately. Criminal/terrorist background checks are required to be completed by the “end of the next business day.” Illegal Monday, legal Tuesday, now that’s almost instant amnesty.

Tax amnesty: Unlike last year’s Senate amnesty bill, which required the illegal immigrants to pay three of five years back taxes, this year’s bill does not require them to pay any back taxes. Senator Kennedy wanted them to pay some taxes, but the White House insisted upon a complete tax amnesty.

Faux enforcement “triggers”: The so-called “enforcement” measures do not require that the border be secure. They only require that a few thousand more Border Patrol agents be hired (not deployed); that about half (370 miles) of the already authorized 700 miles of border fence be built; and that a few other bureaucratic inputs are announced. Then DHS will authorize the second phase of the amnesty by awarding the Z visas. Can anyone imagine Michael Chertoff declaring that these phony “triggers” have not been met?

Weak employer verification: This is not the long-promised “tamper proof” identity for employment. No serious fingerprint digital system is required, massive fraud will continue.

No exit system for guest workers: The guest workers are supposed to be “temporary” and required to eventually leave. But there is no way to enforce their leaving because there is still no Entry-Exit system in place.

Trust criminal gang members: As former Ashcroft deputy Kris Kobach notes there are more than 30,000 illegal immigrant gang members “trafficking in drugs, arms, and people.” They get a Z (amnesty) Visa if they simply sign a “renunciation of gang affiliation.” I guess the Senate-administration “negotiators” trust these M-13 guys.

“Section 136: Nothing in this section may be construed to provide additional authority to any State or local entity to enforce Federal immigration laws.” Why not? The illegal aliens who were part of the Fort Dix terrorist conspiracy were stopped by local law enforcement 56 times but their immigration status was never checked. This bill does nothing to ensure cooperation between local and federal officials in combating terrorism.

No real merit or skills-based (point) system instead current extended family chain migration is accelerated: The chain migration of extended family members will continue and be greatly expanded for the next eight years and only then would a skills-based merit (points) system supposedly go into effect. That is, if you really believe that after eight years a skills system would be adopted against strong business and liberal opposition.

Costs over $2 Trillion: Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has estimated that the costs to American taxpayers for low-skilled immigrant households is $19, 588 per household, per year. The lifetime costs for the Senate amnesty are estimated to be over 2 trillion dollars.

Okay, maybe Kaplan was not referring to any of the above. Perhaps he meant that the Senate bill has begun a serious effort at assimilation, which many of us “have wanted for a long time.” After all, the White House press office trumpeted, “Strengthening the Assimilation of Immigrants.”

Title VII: Section 707 spells out the details. The term “assimilation” disappears; the concept of “Americanization” never appears; and the Euro-speak weasel word “integration” enters the text. Thus, 100 million federal dollars will be given to states and cities to award grants to “nonprofit organizations with experience working with immigrant communities” for “effective integration of immigrants into American society.”

In plain language this means that the State of Illinois’s Office of New Americans funnels federal funds to groups like La Raza and MALDEF. The type of “integration” that the new citizens will be learning can be gleaned from remarks of Jose Luis Gutierrez, the head of the Illinois Office of New Americans as reported in the Chicago Tribune April 6, 2007.

“The nation-state concept is changing. You don't have to say, `I am Mexican,' or, `I am American.' You can be a good Mexican citizen and a good American citizen and not have that be a conflict of interest. Sovereignty is flexible.”

Gutierrez is a dual citizen who is actively involved in Mexican politics. He votes in both the US and Mexico and is active in political campaigns in both nations. His political allegiance is clearly divided. He will not choose the United States over Mexico. Remember this is the guy in charge of assimilation; sorry, I mean “integration.” In short, the Senate bill can’t even get assimilation right.

There is almost nothing in this bill that “Republicans and conservatives,” Democrats and liberals, or Americans of any political persuasion “have wanted for a long time.” What the American people have “wanted for a long time” in the five and half years since 9/11 is for the Bush administration to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to “provide for the common defense” by securing the borders and interior of the United States of America — in this solemn duty the administration has failed miserably.

National Review Online

— John Fonte is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Bush blamed for bestiality

"...in a way, it's a classic Western, except here it's the horse riding the man."

In July 2005, a 45-year-old man died of internal bleeding after being anally penetrated by an Arabian stallion during a bestiality weekend in the US state of Washington.

The victim, a Boeing engineer working on top-secret defence projects named Kenneth Pinyan, suffered a perforated colon.
Cannes - 22/05/2007 12:42 - (SA) - A semi-documentary about a group of US men who had sex with horses has taken the title as the most shocking movie at the Cannes film festival.

But while Zoo has drawn big, curious crowds at its screenings, the real unsettling quality about the movie is its approach: it depicts the men in a sympathetic light, one that tries to push the viewers to understanding their sexual perversion.

Obviously deeply inspired by these events, "Independent filmmaker Robinson Devor shies away from prurient imagery, instead enveloping the story in rich photography that gives it a dreamlike beauty..."
Now, enter George W. Bush, President of the United States of America who's been blamed for lotsa things such as:Now, here's the kicker (no pun intended):
Indeed, the only judgement seemingly expressed in the documentary is not on the matter in the stable at all. It is in fleeting radio references to US President George W Bush's "war on terror" and the presumed complicity-for-profit of big companies such as Boeing.

John Paulsen, who played Pinyan, said he believed the engineer had been on a self-destructive streak linked to his defence work, a divorce and injuries from a motorcycle accident.

Bestiality flick shocks Cannes
Once again, I am truly amazed at how the stupidest man ever to hold the office of President of the United States of America has been the source of just about every major and minor event in the history of the world! Awesome.

Illegal Immigration: Thomas Sowell, Froma Harrop, Brit Hume

The Amenesty Fraud by Thomas Sowell

The Working Class Is Not Stupid About Immigration
by Froma Harrop


Brit Hume's Special Report Roundtable on Immigration

Monday, May 21, 2007

Jimmy Carter Is Wrong: Bush Popular Worldwide

by Doug Wead
Monday, May 21, 2007

Presidential historian Doug Wead returns from an around-the-world trip and finds to his surprise that U.S. President George W. Bush is more popular worldwide than the United States is led to believe.

Wead shares his thoughts on this most recent trip and his insights on comments made by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter about the public relations image of Bush and the United States among foreign nations.
You have just returned from your third round-the-world trip in 10 months and you say that George W. Bush is actually more popular worldwide than the public perception.
Yes, George W. Bush and his whole family are very respected, even popular, with the man on the street in China. It is a country he visited as a teenager and a country that respects both he and his father. China is the largest nation on earth, population 1.3 billion.

India is the second most populous nation on earth, with 1 billion, and George W. Bush may be the most popular American president ever in that country. I have made many visits to India over the years and written a book about it. His respect among the majority Hindu population runs very deep. They see him as the first Western leader to understand the threat of militant Islam.

This administration is widely respected in Eastern Europe, very popular in Poland, for example, and Slovenia. I just came back from Saratov, Russia, my third trip in a year to that country, Bush is respected by Russians everywhere who see him as a gutsy guy, a leader, and they like that.
And yet Jimmy Carter describes this administration as the worse ever for public relations around the world.
[On May 19, 2007, Carter told the Arkansas-Democrat Gazette, "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."]

Well, there is that perception, but it isn't technically true. I have nothing against President Carter, I have met with him on numerous occasions and always respected him, but in this case his criticism plays to a widely held perception in America and Western Europe that is not accurate.
So why does the idea persist that Bush is so hated? Is this a Western European thing?
Yes, his unpopularity in Western Europe is wider and deeper than it may have ever been there. If Carter were talking only about Europe he may have been right. When I give a speech in Sweden and mention his name the audience will snicker.

And then part of the perception comes because he is unpopular with some pockets that have been traditionally pro-American. Gaullists in France, for example, or whites in South Africa. There is a shifting of sympathies and attitudes taking place and it is very complex, different for each country.
I suppose it is primarily dictated by the war with militant Islam.
That's a big part. But even that is far more complicated than it appears. For example last November, Indonesia, the fourth largest nation on earth and the largest Muslim nation in the world, offered to send peace keeping troops to Iraq, to take a stand against terrorism.
Some see Sarkozy's election in France as an example of latent pro Americanism.
Sarkozy's election was not a referendum on America, nor was it a rejection of a woman candidate, as some are saying here. Actually, Segolene Royal was a remarkable candidate. Rather, this election was a rethinking of French immigration policy, which some people in France see as creating an Islamic state within a state.

Remember, in the 1960s France had its own war with Islam over Algeria. They had bombs going off in Paris for a decade, with people blown out of department store windows and they learned the lesson that you cannot win a war with a religion. It is part of why they didn't help us in Iraq.

The Sarkozy election was an internal French recalibration, it wasn't about us.
How unprecedented is it for a former U.S. president to attack an administration in war?
I know that some historians are saying it is unprecedented. All I can say is that they are poor historians.

Theodore Roosevelt criticized Woodrow Wilson during World War I.

Buchanan, Tyler, and Fillmore criticized Lincoln during the Civil War (Tyler during the period leading up to the war.)

Adams criticized Madison during the War of 1812.

It is not unprecedented but then, keep this in mind, in 1979 Jimmy Carter abandoned the Shah of Iran, who was pro-American and had the backing of the three most powerful generals in that country, and the whole slide into Islamic militancy began. It has now spread around the world and we face a virulent Iran, a potential nuclear power that threatens the region and the world.

Doug Wead is a New York Times best-selling author and presidential historian who has interviewed 10 first ladies and presidents. Among his 30 books is "The Iran Crisis," which details the rise of Islamic militancy.


Reprinted from NewsMax.com
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

CALL THESE GOP SENATORS ASAP AND TELL THEM NO AMNESTY!!!

Posted by Hugh Hewitt


Alexander, Lamar- (TN) (202) 224-4944 alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Allard, Wayne- (CO) (202) 224-5941 allard.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Bennett, Robert F.- (R - UT) (202) 224-5444 bennett.senate.gov/contact/emailmain.html


Bond, Christopher S.- (MO) (202) 224-5721 bond.senate.gov/contact/contactme.cfm


Brownback, Sam- (KS) (202) 224-6521 brownback.senate.gov/CMEmailMe.cfm


Bunning, Jim- (KY) (202) 224-4343 bunning.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Email


Burr, Richard- (NC) (202) 224-3154 burr.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Chambliss, Saxby- (R - GA) (202) 224-3521 chambliss.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactU...


Coburn, Tom- (OK) (202) 224-5754 coburn.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Cochran, Thad- (MS) (202) 224-5054 cochran.senate.gov/contact.htm


Coleman, Norm- (MN) (202) 224-5641 coleman.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm


Collins, Susan M.- (ME) (202) 224-2523 collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=Contact...


Corker, Bob- (TN) (202) 224-3344 corker.senate.gov/Contact/index.cfm


Cornyn, John- (TX) (202) 224-2934 cornyn.senate.gov/contact/index.html


Craig, Larry E.- (ID) (202) 224-2752 craig.senate.gov/email/


Crapo, Mike- (ID) (202) 224-6142 crapo.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm


DeMint, Jim- (SC) (202) 224-6121 demint.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Dole, Elizabeth- (NC) (202) 224-6342 dole.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInformation.C...


Domenici, Pete V.- (NM) (202) 224-6621 domenici.senate.gov/contact/contactform.cfm


Ensign, John- (NV) (202) 224-6244 ensign.senate.gov/forms/email_form.cfm


Enzi, Michael B.- (WY) (202) 224-3424 enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInform...


Graham, Lindsey- (SC) (202) 224-5972 lgraham.senate.gov/index.cfm?mode=contact


Grassley, Chuck- (IA) (202) 224-3744 grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Gregg, Judd- (NH) (202) 224-3324 gregg.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.cfm


Hagel, Chuck- (NE) (202) 224-4224 hagel.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Hatch, Orrin G.- (UT) (202) 224-5251 hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact


Hutchison, Kay Bailey- (TX) (202) 224-5922 hutchison.senate.gov/contact.html


Inhofe, James M.- (OK) (202) 224-4721 inhofe.senate.gov/contactus.htm


Isakson, Johnny- (GA) (202) 224-3643 isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm


Kyl, Jon- (AZ) (202) 224-4521 kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm


Lott, Trent- (MS) (202) 224-6253 lott.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Email


Lugar, Richard G.- (IN) (202) 224-4814 senator_lugar@lugar.senate


Martinez, Mel- (FL) (202) 224-3041 martinez.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactIn...


McCain, John- (AZ) (202) 224-2235 mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Contact.Home


McConnell, Mitch- (KY) (202) 224-2541 mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm


Murkowski, Lisa- (AK) (202) 224-6665 murkowski.senate.gov/contact.cfm


Roberts, Pat- (KS) (202) 224-4774 roberts.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInf...


Sessions, Jeff- (AL) (202) 224-4124 sessions.senate.gov/email/contact.cfm


Shelby, Richard C.- (AL) (202) 224-5744 senator@shelby.senate.gov


Smith, Gordon H.- (OR) (202) 224-3753 gsmith.senate.gov/webform.htm


Snowe, Olympia J.- (ME) (202) 224-5344 snowe.senate.gov/contact.htm


Specter, Arlen- (PA) (202) 224-4254 specter.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInfo.Home


Stevens, Ted- (AK) (202) 224-3004 stevens.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Em...


Sununu, John E.- (NH) (202) 224-2841 www.sununu.senate.gov/webform.html


Thomas, Craig- (WY) (202) 224-6441 thomas.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Thune, John- (SD) (202) 224-2321 thune.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home


Vitter, David- (LA) (202) 224-4623 vitter.senate.gov/?module=webformIQV1


Voinovich, George V.- (OH) (202) 224-3353 voinovich.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact....


Warner, John- (VA) (202) 224-2023 Web Form: warner.senate.gov/contact/contactme.cfm

There have been SEVEN illegal alien amnesties passed into law since 1986!

From Michelle Malkin

·The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens

·1994: The "Section 245(i)" temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens

·1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty

·1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America

·1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti

·2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed eligibility under the 1986 act

·2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal aliens]

Guess what? None –not one—of those amnesties was associated with a decline in illegal immigration. On the contrary, the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since President Reagan signed the first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic US citizenship.

And as I've noted before, there is no such thing as a "temporary" amnesty.

Immigration “Reform” Will Be National Security Disaster

Counterterrorism Blog

By Bill West

Last year it appeared we dodged the bullet when proposed immigration reforms died on “The Hill.” Unfortunately, the mad rush to “do something” has taken over the common sense of too many of our political leaders and we may actually see some form of immigration reform become law in the near future. Most unfortunately, if this “reform” includes the proposed legalization and guest worker provisions currently being touted, whatever euphoria the politicos and the media may experience won’t last long because nothing passed in that context will work in the real world. In a nutshell, here’s why.

The Federal immigration bureaucracy that will be tasked with administering any of these reforms will be the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CIS is already unable to effectively deal with its existing benefit adjudication missions. Virtually all internal and external Government reviews of CIS performance have established significant problem areas, including lack of resources and management performance. The bad ghosts of the old INS, from where CIS sprang, linger in a big way. To expect an already overburdened and poorly managed Federal agency to properly deal with a sudden huge increase in mission workload is a fantasy.

CIS has indicated it would need to bring in private contractor personnel to help deal with the monumental workload increase from reform legislation. Such contractors will invariably be quickly hired, poorly trained, probably low-bid, barely vetted and far more subject to bribery and corruption than permanent Government employees.

Not that bribery and corruption will necessarily be that necessary. In short order, the system will be overwhelmed. Whatever minimal fraud detection and prevention safeguards might be erected won’t last long in the face of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of applications and petitions to be adjudicated. What that means is the information provided on those applications and petitions, and whatever supporting documents they may have (if any), will essentially be taken at face value. Whatever the applicant alien tells the adjudicator will essentially be taken at face value. There will be little time or process available to verify anything, perhaps beyond running the applicant’s name through a standard battery of computer databases (and, even that may become so time consuming some will slip through the cracks).

And those names of the applicant aliens...those aliens who, for whatever time period they have been “undocumented” (illegal) in the United States, wherein so very many have procured and utilized false and fraudulent identification documents often in false identities...suddenly the Government will accept as true whatever those applicant aliens tell the Government on those applications and in those interviews. An undocumented alien who procured and used false documents would lie? Well, not when applying for genuine status in the US...right? So, we can be absolutely certain of who all these newly legalized persons truly are, correct? Their statements will be truthful and their support documents not fraudulent and false, right? So, when the overburdened CIS personnel...to include those minimally trained contractors...quickly process all those applicant aliens, with the primary mission of reducing the huge case backlog, the American public can feel confident in the integrity of that process that no foreign criminal or terrorist will possibly slip through the system and be granted legal status...a “path to citizenship”...like so many others have during normal immigration times.

Add to the inevitable processing breakdowns will be the inevitable “me too” class action lawsuits. Large segments of excluded illegal alien populations will invariably obtain savvy legal counsel who will initiate Federal Court legal challenges to the law, claiming their clients should also be entitled to the benefits extended to others under the statute. This happened as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the other supposed one-time only legalization/amnesty, and those lawsuits lasted more than a decade resulting in many tens of thousands more illegal aliens ultimately being allowed to remain in the US. It will surely happen again.

The devil truly is in the details. Conveniently for the politicians on both sides of the aisle pushing for a feel good bill, they are ignoring real world details in all this. If what is being proposed on the Hill becomes law, contrary to what some political leaders claim, there will be significant security risks emanating from the process.

By Bill West on May 17, 2007 3:12 PM

Senate Amnesty Bill Finalized. Senate Rushes to Pass Bill. Your Action Needed NOW!

In a blatant attempt to silence debate on immigration reform, the Senate has finalized their "Amnesty-for-all" legislation and is ramrodding it through the Senate before Memorial Day.

Grassfire.org is calling for a MASSIVE CITIZEN REVOLT in the form of tens of thousands of faxes to ALL Senate offices. Don't let Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid silence the voice of the people, schedule your personalized faxes today opposing this amnesty legislation.

Schedule your Faxfire faxes to the Senate right now

FAXFIRE RECIPIENT LIST WITH FAX NUMBERS

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics

Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics. The names included below are just a sampling of the prominent scientists who have spoken out recently to oppose former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media driven “consensus” on man-made global warming.

The list below is just the tip of the iceberg. A more detailed and comprehensive sampling of scientists who have only recently spoken out against climate hysteria will be forthcoming in a soon to be released U.S. Senate report. Please stay tuned to this website, as this new government report is set to redefine the current climate debate.

Read the truth

Bamboozled

>
Bamboozled: How Americans are being Exploited by the Lies of the Liberal Agenda

Al-Qaida Plan: Islamic World in 13 Years

I received this in 2005.

It looks like we are in Phase 3 at this point!
Al-Qaida has a master plan to take over the world and turn it into an Islamic state - by the year 2020.

Wishful thinking? Not in the minds of the top terrorist lieutenants interviewed by Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein for a new book - including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, mastermind of many atrocities in Iraq.

The plan, which is revealed for the first time in the Australian publication The Age, has seven phases:

Phase 1: The "awakening" in the consciousness of Muslims around the world following the 9/11 attacks, which were aimed at provoking the U.S. into declaring war on the Islamic world and mobilizing Islamic radicals.

Phase 2: "Opening eyes," the current period, which should last until 2006. Hussein said the terrorists hope to make the "Western conspiracy" aware of the "Islamic community" as al-Qaida continues to form its secret battalions.

Phase 3: "Arising and standing up," which should last until 2010 and bring increasingly frequent attacks against secular Turkey and archenemy Israel.

Phase 4: Lasting until 2013, this phase will see the fall of hated Arab regimes, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Oil suppliers will be attacked and the U.S. economy will be targeted with cyber terrorism.

Phase 5: An Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared between 2013 and 2016.

Phase 6: "Total confrontation," beginning in 2016, will see the Islamic army begin the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" that has been predicted by Osama bin Laden.

Phase 7: "Definitive victory."

Hussein writes that this phase should be completed by 2020, and that the terrorists believe the caliphate will prove victorious because the rest of the world will be beaten down by an army of "one and a half billion Muslims."


Monday, May 14, 2007

PBS CENSORS IMPORTANT FILM

PBS won't show 'Islam vs. Islamists,' but you should see it
says ROD DREHER

Moderate Muslim voices silenced

Sunday, May 13, 2007

TWO VIDEOS YOU WON'T LIVE WITHOUT


PRODUCED BY THE DAVID HOROWITZ FREEDOM CENTER:


WHAT EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT JIHAD


THE NAZI ROOTS OF JIHAD


Saturday, May 12, 2007

Allies!




What Clinton knew about bin Laden in 1998

Declassified and Approved
for Release, 12 July 2004

4 December 1998

SUBJECT: Bin Laden Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft And Other Attacks

Read declassified documument




Ignorance is Us

by Dick McDonald

www.dickmcdonald.blogspot.com
www.riseupwarrior.com


No sooner had the six Muslims been arrested for planning an attack on Fort Dix, than the left-wing media was pimping the concept that the six had absolutely nothing to do with al Qaeda; no connection, no alliance, no nothing (no mention of Islam). Of course we Americans are so terminally ignorant we swallow this traitorous lie as if it were written in the Bible; and we sigh in relief comforted by this “liberal cabal’s” continuing propaganda to separate our minds from reality.

Folks these guys are Muslims. You know part of that 1.2 billion-man community of “peace-loving” “can’t we just get along” Islamic - until we take you over and install our caliphate and Shari’a law - Muslims. Now gasp and repeat the left’s mantra – these people don’t represent Islam but a small misguided splinter group. Muslims, as a whole, don’t believe in hating anyone – the pigs and monkeys reference in every Muslim textbook is merely a misprint.

Sure and what internet café seat did you fall off of? When pushed against the wall the apologists for Islamic terrorism will concede that maybe only 10%-15% of the Muslim world believes in this tortured version of the Koran in which there is no figurative translation; the words are to be taken literally as they were uttered by God himself. The left’s propaganda machine completely passes over the mathematics that 10-15% of the Muslim population is 120 to 180 Million nut cases holding deep beliefs that we “infidels” should be slaughtered in the name of Allah – that is what the Fort Dix Six wrote down in their papers for everyone to understand.

Apparently what we don’t understand is that this “tiny” group has been using the separation of church and state in America to work their plan to separate our heads from our bodies. The left in America is so intent in not discriminating against any culture that they have failed to fulfill their role to uncover the truth and relate that truth to the America people. That is what the First Amendment to our Constitution has charged them with doing and they are failing miserably.

I have often said that the American media is the second most powerful on Earth – let me retract that - they are the most powerful force on Earth and they are the key to the reformation of Islam. Presently the media is intent on not offending “good” Muslims – you know the “silent” ones. So they hide their knowledge of the murderous terrorists of Islam and don’t print the truth – the classic mistake that parents make when they don’t discipline the child. The truth brings sunshine; our media brings a darkness that has allowed us to approve losing another war to the forces of evil in this world; a loss to this “tiny” splinter group.

The truth in my prescription of the power of our media came like a bolt of lightning when Islam decided to use “Mickey Mouse” as a recruiter for ISLAMIC SUICIDE BOMBERS on their TV stations. The right-wing blogosphere descended on Islam like a vulture on a new kill the force of which caused our left-wing media to reluctantly drop their deception and highlight a few clips. Bang! What happened? No fight! No fuss! The commercial was lifted from their airwaves immediately. Sunshine from our media has that effect on people.

As a people Americans continue abiding by some ignorant proscription that truth is not the great cleanser. They are happy in their ignorance of what this tiny group has in mind. They are happy not to face the truth and support the discipline the “religion” of Islam deserves and in reality is crying for. Like the Afghani women said when the Americans finally arrived “What took you so long”. In fact, the entire population of Iran is saying the same thing – when will America save us?

We have a responsibility as a free people to free the world of despotic men and their regimes. We can’t shirk that responsibility or we will follow Rome into the abyss. Our media has put blinders on us and we suffer for it – when changing the course of world history would be so easy for this “elite” group of Americans to effect. A little dose of sunshine and less political power plays would help. Darkness is a bitch.

Friday, May 11, 2007

What Republicans and Democrats Want - Is There Any Common Ground?

by Dick McDonald http://riseuptheoryofeconomics.com

Faced with the competing interests of right and left - Republicans and Democrats – it was up to me if I was to construct a new economic theory to meet certain basic requirements of both philosophies. The right had recently been obsessed by the need to increase the flow of capital into the equity markets to keep the economy growing. They had devised both the Fair Tax and the Flat Tax to free segments of our society from punitive taxation to increase that flow. Neither was advocating a reduction in the tax load Americans have to bear. They were both just adjusting which Americans were going to do the carrying.

Democrats, on the other hand, and their many distinct special interest groups were continuing to look to the state for answers to many social and economic needs. They were pushing to tax the rich more to finance the programs redressing their myriad of grievances of their constituents.

I concluded that both sides were fighting for money. Republicans were fighting to keep what they had and make more of it and Democrats were fighting the rich to share “some” of it. It boiled down to man’s reason for creating governments in the first place – property – who has it and how can I get it.

These philosophies differ in their way to get property. The Democrats, even the wealthiest of them, come down on the side of compassion and are willing to take from the rich to redistribute to the poor. On the other hand, Republicans know that the rich pour their funds into the capital markets to create jobs and business that makes our capitalist system keep pace with our expanding population and improving quality of life. It also makes the rich, richer.

How can one economic theory meet the “property” demands of both parties? How can it increase the property of the “have-nots” while at the same time increase the property of the “haves”?

I hit on this approach. Let’s create an economic theory that does both. It must let the have-nots become rich and at the same time let the rich get even richer. To travel that road I had to think outside the box. Religious texts have for millenniums preached that there always will be poor people. If I was to create an economic and societal fix that made the poor rich I would be flying in the face of established religious and political doctrine. That will be the cross that I - and if they agree to it - the American people will have to bear if they want to free themselves from the “big government” nightmare that is confiscating and wasting “their property” in the form of “taxes”..

As a veteran of 40 years of fighting to keep taxes low for the rich, I said why not adopt what my Dad had told me when I was four and what I had been doing for 40 years; let the people keep their taxes and invest them for themselves in the capital markets to eventually become wealthy. Letting government take their money is like flushing it down the toilet.

So the question came up how can we pump money into the capital markets to make the Republicans happy and at the same time make the poor and middle class rich in order to make the Democrats happy? To me that was simple. (1) Repeal our entitlements, (2) guarantee that the entitlement benefits now in place would all be honored and (30 create involuntary personal investment accounts out of the 15% of payroll taxes deducted every year from working Americans. Then invest those personal account funds directly into the capital markets to put the economy into hyper drive. Viola everyone is happy; ordinary Americans, political parties and most of all the citizens of the world who look to America to guide them to a better life.

There you have it; a solution that satisfies the needs of both parties. I call it the “rise up theory of economics” and it is the big brother of the “trickle down theory” that has worked wonders for the rich in the last 25 years. However “rise up” doesn’t just voluntarily “trickle down” from the rich to the middle class and poor. It is going to be an involuntary rain storm of mammoth proportions for all classes of Americans and substantially close the gap between the rich and the poor.

If you are interested go to:

www.makethepoorrich.com

Good news in Iraq!

May 11, 2007
www.siteinstitute.org
Terrorism Headlines of the Week


Al Qaeda's terrorists in Iraq now face a new enemy: Sunni tribesmen in Anbar Province. These tribal leaders in the heart of the insurgency are now backing coalition and Iraqi forces against the terrorists.

You want good news from Iraq? There it is, in flashing neon.

These Anbar leaders aren't just jawing. Thousands of Sunnis have rushed to join local police forces, with tribal leaders' encouragement. "The progress has inspired an optimism in the American command that, among some officials, borders on giddiness," The New York Times reported. "There are some people who would say we've won the war out here," one Marine officer said.

That's a phrase you don't hear often in Iraq.

While the Sunni tribal leaders probably haven't developed a sudden fondness for U.S. forces, they have apparently developed a deep disgust for the Al Qaeda agenda. The Sunnis don't want what Al Qaeda is peddling: a soul-crushing fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Thursday, May 10, 2007

It Takes a Muslim Village - Hillary

by Dick McDonald

"In 1999, the Clintons attacked and bombed Yugoslavian Christians to defend Islamic settlers who had been invading their country. Slobodan Milosevic was sent to the Hague charged with genocide and Yugoslavia was split into Serbia and Kosovo, giving that land to the Muslims. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Clinton for defending the very people who had been attacking us for the past 15 years.

Now we find out that the Clintons bypassed all immigration protocol including background checks and health screening, and imported thousands of Kosovo Muslims to sanctuary at Fort Dix, New Jersey where their camp was named "The Village" in honor of Hillary who was instrumental in setting up the deal. An internet communications network was set up to provide communications between the refugees and their friends and relatives overseas in Muslim countries which undoubtedly still operates, possibly providing useful communications to Islamic terrorists now in our country. These Islamics are still in our country and indoctrinating other "white Muslims" to jihad.

Three of the recently arrested terrorists were illegal aliens, two had green cards, and the last had been granted citizenship. The terrorist plot against Ft. Dix was no coincidence, it was a chosen target intended to inflict mass casualties on American military personnel. Had it succeeded, it would have been the largest terrorist attack on our country since 911. The Clinton "spin room" will be working all night on this one." - Great American Journal.
The Democrat Party is cursed. First they ran Al Gore who "invented" the Internet then compounded our misery with Global Nonsense. Then came John Kerry, the most traitorous of liars, who invented the story that American soldiers were all little "Eichmans". Now comes Hillary, she of the "village", who is a loose canon that will ruin our economy with central planning and our defenses with the moral relativism that (1) insists all people are good, (2) that evil must be "talked to" and (3) Muslims must be given a "village" of their own, right here in the USA, from which to mount an attack against us. How "presidential" can she get?

To make matters worse, the son of a Muslim, is making the biggest noise on the stump for Democrats - good God what is wrong with these people?

Meet the "Father of Climatology"

[Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education.]

"Father of Climatology" Stuffs Gore

by Dick McDonald

I know it is against liberal orthodoxy to speak the truth, but this global warming fiction is getting out of hand. From building inefficient cars to one-sheet toilet paper proposals, Al Gore's business model of selling environmental credits to an unsuspecting world is so much more Ponzi than Ponzi could ever have dreamed. But don't take my word for it, let's consult the Father of Climatology - he is still alive and kicking.

“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” (you got that morons - ok)

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

"Absurd?" You mean greenhouse gas worries are absurd. You mean that all these scientists supporting Al Gore's night terrors about a 20 foot rise in the Atlantic Ocean are absurd? Of course they are. These scientists are the worst hypocrites on the planet. They will sell their soul for a grant and if you don't believe me read Michael Crichton's State of Fear for the science and the politics of global warming and a great thriller as well.

We ask Bryson what could be making the key difference:

Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?

A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay? (is he making his poimt yet)

Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…

A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

Wow that's a relief. Carbon dioxide is 1/1,000th as important as water vapor in mucking up the atmosphere. Someone should inform Governator Schwartenbopper that the $3 Billion of taxpayer money he plans to spend will just be flushed down the California taxpayer's toilet. How lucky we are to have such dim bulbs instructing us at every turn. Read the full article if you still believe in Gore's business plan and still want to be his next "sucker".

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Excerpt: "The Age of Abundance"




An excerpt from the new book


THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE

How Prosperity Transformed
America's Politics and Culture


by Brink Lindsey



Published by the Cato Institute

and reprinted here with permission



ISBN: 0060747668

List Price: $25.95

LFB Price Only $17.50

You Save 33%!






The Age of Abundance is the winner of the May 2007 Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing
the Literature of Liberty. For more information about the Lysander
Spooner Awards, CLICK HERE.



To go to our full review, or to go to purchase the book, CLICK HERE.



The excerpt, below, is the beginning of the Introduction of the book, The Age of Abundance. Enjoy!



_______________________________________________



THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE

How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture




by Brink Lindsey




FROM THE INTRODUCTION:




In the years after World War II, America crossed a great historical threshold. In all prior civilizations and social orders, the vast bulk of humanity had been preoccupied with responding to basic material needs. Postwar America, however, was different. An extensive and highly complex division of labor unleashed immense productive powers far beyond anything in prior human experience. As a result, the age-old bonds of scarcity were broken. Concern with physical survival and security was now banished to the periphery of social life.



To employ, with all due irony, the terminology of Karl Marx, America left behind the "realm of necessity" and entered the "realm of freedom."



Marx, of course, had imagined that this great transformation would be achieved under communism. But the dream of a centrally planned Utopia turned out to be an unrealizable fantasy. Instead, the realm of freedom came as a new stage of capitalist development. And where America led, the rest of the world began to follow. The advanced societies of the English-speaking countries, western Europe, and Japan were closest behind. And in the recent decades of so-called globalization, many less-developed nations, including those of the former communist bloc, have entered or are fast approaching the golden circle of widespread prosperity. Yes, poverty is still a cruel scourge for billions of the world's inhabitants; in those less-fortunate regions of the globe, the path of capitalist development remains strewn with obstacles. Yet there are sound reasons to hope that the realm of freedom will continue to expand, and that one day in the not terribly distant future, the mass affluence that Americans have enjoyed for over a half century will extend around the world. As America's experience makes clear, such a state of affairs would by no means constitute a Utopia. It would, however, represent an immense expansion in the range of life's possibilities and the scope of its promise.



This ongoing revolution cries out for greater attention and understanding. The liberation from material necessity marks a fundamental change in the human condition, one that leaves no aspect of social existence unaffected. As a result, many age-old verities no longer apply: truths and rules that arose and obtained during the 10 millennia when subsistence agriculture was the main business of mankind have been rendered obsolete. We are in uncharted territory. Consequently, we are in need of new maps.



In the six decades since the end of World War II, Americans have been busy exploring the new environs of mass affluence. Those decades have witnessed both exhilarating discoveries and tragic errors, as well as a great deal of blind groping and simple muddling through. There is much to be learned from a careful examination of this accumulated experience—not only about the altered nature and course of American life, but also about the broad direction in which the rest of the world is moving. This book represents an attempt to organize America's experience with mass affluence into some kind of coherent narrative, from which at least some hints for future mapmakers might be gleaned.



"Let me tell you about the very rich," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. "They are different from you and me." Indeed they are. Born and raised in the bosom of material plenty, they face an environment far removed from that which confronts the common lot. Living in that rarefied environment, they become adapted to it. And as a result, their motivations, aspirations, morals, and worldviews diverge markedly from those of people who struggle every day in the shadows of deprivation.



While Fitzgerald was referring to the tiny Jazz Age upper crust, his words apply as well to postwar America's affluent society. Living amidst unprecedented material abundance, Americans in the age of abundance have been operating in an environment utterly different from that inhabited by the overwhelming majority of their fellow human beings, past and present. Specifically, the central and abiding imperative of human existence since the dawn of the species—securing the food, shelter, and clothing needed for survival—could now be taken for granted by all but a dwindling minority. As a result, Americans have become a different kind of people.



The story of postwar America is thus the story of adaptation to new social realities. Adaptation, in particular, to mass affluence. At the heart of this process was a change in the basic orientation of the dominant culture: from a culture of overcoming scarcity to one of expanding and enjoying abundance. From a more rigid and repressed social system focused on achieving prosperity to a looser and more expressive one focused on taking wider advantage of prosperity's possibilities. American capitalism is derided for its superficial banality, yet it has unleashed profound, convulsive social change. Condemned as mindless materialism, it has burst loose a flood tide of spiritual yearning. The civil rights movement and the sexual revolution, environmentalism and feminism, the fitness and health-care boom and the opening of the gay closet, the withering of censorship and the rise of a "creative class" of "knowledge workers"—all are the progeny of widespread prosperity.



Gifted contemporaries caught glimpses of these changes as they were unfolding. At the dawn of the postwar boom, David Riesman, in his 1950 classic The Lonely Crowd, revealed how economic development was promoting a shift in American social psychology: away from the absolutist "inner-directed" sensibility of the country's Protestant bourgeois tradition, and toward a more relativistic, "other-directed" outlook. Although Riesman was concerned that the new ethos tended toward conformism, he was alert to more liberating possibilities. "The more advanced the technology, on the whole, the more possible it is for a considerable number of human beings to imagine being somebody else," he wrote. "In the first place, the technology spurs the division of labor, which, in turn, creates the possibility for a greater variety of experience and of social character. In the second place, the improvement in technology permits sufficient leisure to contemplate change—a kind of capital reserve in men's self-adaptation to nature—not on the part of a ruling few but on the part of many."





[Footnotes have been omitted.]



_____________________________________________



To go to our full review, or to go to purchase the book, CLICK HERE.



__________________________________________________




From The Age of Abundance by Brink Lindsey. Copyright © 2007 by Brink Lindsey. Reprinted here by permission of the publisher.




CLICK HERE TO GO NOW TO PURCHASE BOOK



Feinstein and Pelosi: It's a law firm...it's a comedy team...it's just a couple of corrupt politicians!

We recently found out about Ms. Feinstein's "resignation from a Military Construction Appropriations committee after a conflict of interest involving her husband, tens of millions of dollars in defense and construction contracts, etc. surfaced in January."

Culture of Corruption: Dianne Feinstein Edition?


Now, we are hearing more and more about Nancy Pelosi...


(Feinstein and Pelosi continue to top the list of the richest members of Congress.)


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used her clout to get lawmakers to back a San Francisco redevelopment project near her multimillion-dollar rental properties, disclosure documents reveal.

Pelosi got House members to authorize $25 million to improve the Embarcadero port area, clearing the way for cruise-ship-dock development and other improvements to aid the neighborhood's comeback.
PELOSI WATER-BILL BID DRAWING FIRE


MORE...


Powerful, greedy politicians push aside low-income families in order to feather their own nests. A sort of "Robin Hood" rip-off in reverse.
Pelosi Culture of Corruption - Presidio Partners, Hunters Point Redevelopment and more

Funnies