Brutally Honest

Ground Zero Mosque Imam: Build it or else

Aren't you glad he's a moderate Muslim:

“If we move from that location, the story will be the radicals have taken over the discourse, the headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack. Our national security now hinges on how we negotiate this, how we speak about it. The battlefront is between moderates of all sides… and the radicals on all sides,” he said.

Moving the project to another location would strengthen Islamist radicals’ ability to recruit followers and will likely increase violence against Americans, the imam said.

Video and more at the link.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

An unprecedented Obama achievement

But not necessarily unexpected:

In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

...
 
When President Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt held by the public stood at 6.3073 trillion, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. As of Aug. 20, 2010, after the first nineteen months of President Obama’s 48-month term, the total federal debt held by the public had grown to a total of $8.8333 trillion, an increase of $2.5260 trillion.
 
In just the last four months (May through August), according to the CBO, the Obama administration has run cumulative deficits of $464 billion, more than the $458 billion deficit the Bush administration ran through the entirety of fiscal 2008.

The CBO predicted this week that the annual budget deficit for fiscal 2010, which ends on the last day of this month, will exceed $1.3 trillion.

The first two fiscal years in which Obama has served will see the two biggest federal deficits as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product since the end of World War II.

You tired yet of all this hope and change?

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"Americans have had our fill"

Andrew McCarthy has published a resonating piece:

A tectonic shift is in motion: How fitting that its focal point is Ground Zero, the inevitable fault line between Islam and the West.

Only the blink of an eye ago, uttering the unpleasant truth that in terms of doctrine there is no such thing as “moderate Islam” resulted in one’s banishment from what our opinion elites like to call the “mainstream,” by which they mean the narrow-minded, viciously defended circle of their own pieties and fictions. You could say it, but your skin had better have an extra coat or two of thick: You were in for a fusillade of rage, the likes of which our candor-phobic elites would never dream of unleashing at our Islamist enemies — no matter how clearly those enemies announced their intention to destroy us.

The fusillade still comes, but now its blows only glance. The elites and their mainstream have been exposed as frauds: Being on the wrong side of enough 70-30 issues will do that to you.

...

For the better part of two decades, Americans have been murdered by Islamists and then lectured that they are to blame for what has befallen them. We have been instructed in the need for special sensitivity to the unceasing demands of Islamic culture and falsely accused of intolerance by the people who wrote the book on intolerance. Americans have sacrificed blood and bottomless treasure for Islamic peoples who despise Americans — and despise us even more as our sacrifices and gestures of self-loathing intensify. Americans have watched as apologists for terrorists and sharia were made the face of an American Muslim community that we were simultaneously assured was the very picture of pro-American moderation.

Americans have had our fill. We are willing to live many lies. This one, though, strikes too close to home, arousing our heretofore dormant sense of decency. Americans have now heard Barack Obama’s shtick enough times to know that when he talks about “our values,” he’s really talking about his values, which most of us don’t share. And after ten years of CAIR’s tired tirades, we’re immune to Feisal Rauf, too.

Do read the whole thing... do pass it on... McCarthy speaks for many of us, though certainly not all of us.

There are still those who while decrying intolerance are most intolerant, there are still those who while willing to embrace Muslims with open arms will show the palm of the hand to Christians, especially conservative Christians, there are still those who are quick to charge bigotry while hurling the most bigoted of words at those who stand in opposition.

Though I still strongly condemn the Koran burning planned by the Florida church and hope that minds are changed about carrying out the act, it's clearly indicative of the America has had her fill sentiment written of by McCarthy.

Reason must prevail but reason must be paired with and married to common decency or we run the risk of becoming that which we oppose.

With props to Andrea Shea King.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Moderate Islam?

Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen.

Mike the Marine speaks for me:

As the eleventh of the month closes in on us, I think back. It’s been nine years… nine long years. But it goes back much farther than that. In 1993, it was followers of Islam that first tried to bring down the World Trade Center… but that was an isolated incident and we moved on. In 1983, 241 Americans were killed when the Marine Barracks in Beirut was blown up by followers of Islam. But again, that’s just an isolated, one-off kind of thing, so we moved on. In 1979, our embassy in Tehran fell to Islamic “students”… but that ended and the hostages were released, so we moved on.

In between all that, there were US ships bombed and hijacked, planes with US passengers hijacked or crashed, US Embassies blown up or overrun, and an entire laundry list of assaults on American property, lives, and freedoms. The list is simply too long to put here, and almost all of it was done for the greater glory of Allah. In that same time, around the world, more Muslims have died at the hands of other Muslims than any other group. Using whatever excuse necessary, those who are not following the path of the Prophet in the “correct” way are targets for other, “better” Muslims.

Thomas Jefferson knew this. He knew it, because he heard it firsthand. After talking to Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, Tripoli's envoy to London, Jefferson reported that the extortion the young United States of America was facing…

… was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

But after we went to “The Shores of Tripoli,” well, guess what? We moved on.

I’m tired of moving on. From its very creation, America has been under assault by the forces of Islam and the followers of Mohammed. It is at this point that I will throw in the usual platitudes about “not every Muslim is a terrorist.” But any more, damn near every terrorist is a Muslim. I’ve actually had people ask me if I hate Muslims, and I tell them, “No, but everyone who’s ever tried to kill me happened to be one.”

But it’s the little tidbit of info I put up there amongst the rest - the almost throwaway line up to this point - that should be our focus here. It is Muslims who have killed more other Muslims (by far) than anyone else. And so I’m just going to say it –

THERE IS NO MODERATE ISLAM. IT DOES NOT EXIST. STOP PRETENDING THAT IT DOES. ISLAM IS A POLITICAL WILL WRAPPED IN THE THIN SHELL OF A RELIGION.

Go read the rest and check out his awesome homemade video, especially you ole, fellow jarheads.

Koran burning church linked to Westboro Baptist

All the more reason to stand against the event planned for 9/11 this year:

Cults tend to be very upfront about the bulk of their beliefs. There are some special bits of knowledge that you will only gain on the inside, and some of those insider tidbits can be nasty indeed, but mostly they’ll gladly tell you what they believe, and why you should believe it. Once that meant selling cassettes and getting newsletter subscriptions if you were a small operation. These days it means a web site, Facebook, your own You Tube channel, and podcasts for both your sermons and something called “The Braveheart Show.” You even have your own Blog, and that’s where I found the smoking gun:

On Sunday April 18, Westboro Baptist Church came to Gainesville. One of their stops was a liberal “Open doors, open hearts, open minds,” church near us, so we took part of our Sunday Service time and went as a church to stand with them.

The full blog post pulled up last night, but seems hard to get to today, possibly because of blog traffic. The Google cache is here. Is the opening paragraph out of context? You judge:

We have also learned that when you speak out about what God hates, you will be hated. We do not agree with all of Westboro’s methods, but we admire their determination to find radical ways to preach the truth of the Bible, as we do. Most churches and Pastors in America try to stand on neutral ground. They are lost, weak and sick and need to repent.

The parallels between this event and the Ground Zero Mosque are pretty obvious... the right to do what is desired exists beyond a reasonable doubt in either case but whether or not it's the right and decent thing to do is the bigger question.

And who the parties are linking arms with is also relevant.

As we learn more about this church in Florida, we learn more about why it is we should stand against their planned event.

Decency calls for them to stand down on the Koran burning.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Richard Cohen: The ignorant are defining Obama

A leading liberal attempts to understand what is happening to his President... and to the Presidency:

One of the unintended results of the redecoration of the Oval Office was the downsizing of Barack Obama. In last week's prime-time address to the nation, the president sat behind a massive and capaciously empty desk, looking somehow smaller than he ever has -- a man physically reduced by sinking polls, a lousy economy and the prospect that his party might lose control of Congress. Behold something we never thought we'd see with Obama: The Incredible Shrinking Presidency.

This is an amazing and, to me, somewhat frightening, turn of events. The folks who ran a very smart presidential campaign in 2008 have left the defining of the Obama presidency to others, in this case people on the edge of insanity. For example, a recent Pew poll reported that "nearly one in five Americans (18 percent) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009." In other words, the longer Obama has been in office, the more ignorant people have become about him.

This news about the growing ignorance concerning Obama's religion came not too long after yet another poll revealed that 24 percent of Americans don't think Obama was born in the United States. An earlier poll showed that 10 percent of Americans think he was born in Indonesia, where he lived as a boy, 7 percent believe he is Kenyan and still others say (correctly) that he was born in Hawaii but do not know, a notable Elvis movie notwithstanding, that Hawaii is an American state.

The conclusion drawn, at least initially, is that the President's poll numbers can be chalked up to ignorance or insanity or both.  Which of course makes as much sense as the suggestion that racism and bigotry account for Obama's negatives.  But Cohen surprisingly goes deeper and in the end, blames Obama himself for Obama's woes:

But it is clear by now that Obama has allowed others to define him. For this, Obama needs to blame Obama. His stutter-step approach to certain issues -- his wimpy statements regarding the planned Islamic center in Manhattan, for instance -- erodes not just his standing but his profile. What we thought we knew, we do not. Like a picture hung in the sun, he fades over time.

Obama is stuck with Obama -- the good and the bad. There is more of the former than the latter, so all is not lost. But what Obama can do -- what he must do -- is get some new people.

...

The president needs better speechwriters. The president needs a staff to tell him not to give an Oval Office address unless he has something worthy of the Oval Office to say. The president needs someone to look into the camera so that, when the light goes on and he says, "Good evening," he looks commander in chiefish: big. In other words, the president needs to fire some key people. Either that, or the way things are going, the American people are going to fire him.

Actually Mr. Cohen, the President could do himself and the country better.  He could resign.  He could admit the job was above his pay grade.  He could confess that his ideology has been tried and has failed in every attempt or he and his America hating wife could lift the veil and begin an internationational tour, partnering with the likes of Venezuela's Chavez or Cuba's Castro and extol the virtues of what they deem to be hope and change.

And then we the people, so ignorant and insane, could go about the business of restoring America's preeminence and position and put this sad chapter of history behind us, hoping to have learned forever the lessons of electing an affirmative action President.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Rhetorical ridiculousness

What follows is supposed to be erudition.  It's supposed to be enlightenment.  We're all supposed to rise to this level of intellect.  This is, according to the elite, what passes as brilliance:

Coming our way via John at VerumSerum who adds:

I try to deal fairly with opinions of all kinds. Sometimes people whose ideas I disagree with make a sound point. It’s self-destructive to pretend otherwise. And then there’s the kind of willful stupidity that you hear in this interview. As I’ve pointed out before, even Christian bashing author Sam Harris has called this line of reasoning a fraud. Point being, you don’t have to be a fan of religion or Christianity to see a difference between Islam and evangelicalism. You just have to be honest and sane.

The attempt to suggest that America's evangelicals pose as big a threat as radical Islamists accomplishes at least two things.

First, and perhaps foremost, the danger posed by extremist Muslims is minimized, an incredibly stupid and perilous thing to do, an act that emboldens the enemy and leads to the loss of innocent life.

Second, and more obvious, it cements the notion that so much of leftist thought today is vaccuous, shallow and unthinking.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted"

Less than a year ago, we were inundated with reports like this one:

"If the current trend continues or gets worse, Antarctica could become the largest contributor to sea level rises in the world. It could start to lose more ice than Greenland within a few years," said Jianli Chen, of the University of Texas at Austin.

Chen's team used data from the Nasa mission to see how Earth's gravitational pull varied month to month between April 2002 and January 2009. Measurements taken over the south pole reflect changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheets.

The survey confirmed the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting rapidly with the loss of around 132bn tonnes of ice a year, but revealed unexpected melting in the larger East Antarctic ice sheet.

10 months later, we're hearing the scientific equivalent of never mind:

Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists.

In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica around 132 gigatonnes annually.

...

This movement, though, is not just a single vertical motion, lead researcher Bert Vermeersen of Delft Technical University, in the Netherlands, said in phone interview with AFP.

"A good analogy is that it's like a mattress after someone has been sleeping on it all night," he said.

The weight of the sleeper creates a hollow as the material compress downwards and outwards. When the person gets up, the mattress starts to recover. This movement, seen in close-up, is both upwards and downwards and also sideways, too, as the decompressed material expands outwards and pulls on adjacent stuffing.

Often ignored or considered a minor factor in previous research, post-glacial rebound turns out to be important, says the paper.

It looks at tiny changes in Earth's gravitational field provided by two satellites since 2002, from GPS measurements on land, and from figures for sea floor pressure.

These revealed, among other things, that southern Greenland is in fact subsiding, as the crust beneath it is pulled by the post-glacial rebound from northern America.

With glacial isostatic adjustment modelled in, the loss from Greenland is put at 104 gigatonnes, plus or minus 23 gigatonnes, and 64 gigatonnes from West Antarctica, plus or minus 32 gigatonnes.

These variations show a large degree of uncertainty, but Vermeersen believes that even so a clearer picture is emerging on icesheet loss.

"The corrections for deformations of the Earth's crust have a considerable effect on the amount of ice that is estimated to be melting each year," said Vermeersen, whose team worked with NASA's Jet Propulsation Laboratory and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

"We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted."

I've concluded that these people are guessing... and that in fact they haven't a clue as to what's going on... In fact, I'll go out on a limb and predict that a year from now, they'll be revising their estimates once again...

Any takers?

"the most profound victims of the Obama Hoax - poor, young, unemployed blacks"

Lee Cary at American Thinker:

The Fourth Great Awakening in American history continues to expand among those who drank the Obama Campaign Kool-Aid. Statistically, the most zealous believers in hope and change are the most profound victims of the Obama Hoax - poor, young, unemployed blacks.

"A sense of disappointment, bordering on betrayal, has been growing across the country, especially in moderate states like Indiana, where people now openly say they didn't quite understand the President they voted for in 2008." TIME magazine, "How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular," Michael Scherer, September 3, 2010

TIME magazine shilled for Senator Obama during the election campaign. Displaying near-religious fervor, the cover of TIME was a repetitive hymn for Obama the Candidate. But now, a TIME writer reports on a widespread national "sense of disappointment" with Obama the President. 

TIME wasn't alone in mixing the Obama Kool-Aid for public consumption.

The whole thing should be read and passed on. 

The saddest part of all this is that the poor, young, unemployed blacks would still vote for Obama in droves should the opportunity present itself suggesting that an additional adjective or two ought to be used to describe the demographic.

Ignorant... and sad.

Petraeus is right

Christian Science Monitor:

The United States' top commander in Afghanistan has warned that a planned Koran-burning event in Florida could put US troops in danger.

Gen. David Petraeus added his voice to mounting protests from both the US and abroad over the Dove World Outreach Center's plans to burn Korans on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks. His comments ratcheted up the pressure on once-obscure pastor Terry Jones to call off the event.

The controversy comes as some 120,000 US and allied troops are waging a counter-insurgency campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, a campaign whose goals include winning support for the US-backed government from the largely Muslim population.

General Petraeus said that burning Korans "is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems – not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community," according to CNN.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan," Gen. David Petraeus said in a statement issued Monday ...

"Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday," he said. "Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult."

Mr. Jones, the pastor of the center in Gainesville, Florida, has touted the activity as "International Burn the Koran Day." Jones also authored a book titled "Islam is of the Devil," which has a Facebook page and Twitter account.

In remarks published by Florida radio station WOKV on Tuesday morning, Jones insisted he would not be deterred.

Regular readers know of my issues with Islam.  I've been hard on the faith and will likely continue to be.  It seems the more I learn about the religion, the more issues I'm finding with the belief system... but a mass burning of Korans is as problematic on a number of levels.

The first is simple and seemingly obvious.  Burning the Koran is a provocative act that goes against the grain of Christian thought.  I can't find a single tenet upheld by this sort of action.  I cannot imagine Christ exhorting His followers to do this under any circumstance.  It is stooping unnecessarily to a level matching that of the Islamists.

The second is as important, perhaps more so. Mass burning of Korans is offensive and provocative and will do more to inflame the ignorant than it will to persuade them to change their ways.  Although I continue to believe that the extremists will have to be dealt with in the extreme, there is the hope, albeit slight, that moderates within Islam would do what is necessary to reform the faith, to live up to this rather weak notion that they practice a religion of peace.  This will do nothing to embolden the so called moderates to step up and assume some responsibility.  Quite the contrary.  And in that respect, I believe Petraeus to have nailed this.

This brand of Christianity, if it can even be called that, needs to go.  Quietly and quickly.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Obama whines before partisan Union crowd in Milwaukee (UPDATED)

Poor little Puppy-in-Chief:

More telling, Obama offered an aside that spoke to his diminished state and captured the mood of a president and party under assault.

“They talk about me like a dog,” Obama said with a chuckle of his political opponents. “That’s not in my prepared remarks but it’s true.”

Such a leader eh?

Crossposted at Wizbang.

UPDATE: Video found:

The enemy is among us

Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime

Fourteen minutes of enlightenment and an expose of what is truly afoot in this country. Pay particular attention to the excerpts of George Galloway, former UK MP, terrorist abettor and expediter of Islamic infiltration and murder world wide.

The new racial jihad in America

Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime.

Watch the video then go here and read the information for yourself. Alex Jones is issuing a warning to America of the racial war that is being stoked by Rodriquez and others.

He calls it a government sponsored "PsyOp" and having seen the trailers to this film, I have to agree. And it is already in a theater near you!

"Are they unbelievers?"

They used to call this material suppport

And there was a time when it was dealt with harshly.

Today... not so much:

Iran is paying Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they kill in Afghanistan, according to a report in a British newspaper.

The Sunday Times described how a man it said was a "Taliban treasurer" had gone to collect $18,000 from an Iranian firm in Kabul, a reward it said was for an attack in July which killed several Afghan government troops and destroyed an American armored vehicle.

...

The newspaper's correspondent, Miles Amoore, said he met and interviewed the treasurer, who he said had been an illiterate farmer who was taught to read and write, plus basic accountancy, by the Taliban last winter.

"We don’t care who we get money from," the treasurer was quoted as saying. He described the relationship with Iran as a "marriage of convenience." Iran is a predominantly Shiite country, while the Taliban is dominated by Sunni Muslims.

'For jihad'
"Iran will never stop funding us because Americans are dangerous for them as well. I think the hatred is the same from both us and Iran. The money we get is not dirty. It is for jihad," the treasurer told Amoore.

In addition to the $1,000 bounty on U.S. troops, the unnamed man said Iran paid $6,000 for the destruction of a U.S. military vehicle.

In the mean-time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is up to his old tricks:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned the accepted narrative of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, saying it was still not clear who was behind them.

"Something happened in New York and still nobody knows who the main perpetrators of that act were," Ahmadinejad told diplomats and newspaper editors late on Sunday while on a brief visit to Qatar.

"No independent people were allowed to try and identify the perpetrators," he charged.

Iran is a blight that the world will have to deal with... sooner or later.  Prior to their having nukes would seem to be best but... what the heck do I know.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

The Work of Holiness

Posted by guest blogger Fr. D.

Trinity 14

Galatians 5:16–24
St. Luke 17:11–19

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Last Sunday, we began a series on the several forms of service that we, as adopted sons of God and members of Christ’s holy Church, are called upon to perform. The first form, considered last Sunday, was Love. Today we move on to the second form, Holiness, or as it is often described, Purity of Life, a formation of the heart under the guidance of the Holy Ghost.

Our Epistle lesson for today begins with these words from St. Paul, Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. It is immediately evident that he is contrasting on the one hand a worldly life with all the lusts of the flesh, and on the other hand, a life filled with the Holy Ghost.

Following the lusts of the flesh leads simply to destruction; it spoils all that it touches. The life of such a person is total confusion. This is what St. Paul is pointing to when he says, Galatians 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. A man with such confused internal state and holding such self contradictory thoughts cannot accomplish anything good in life. Confusion is perhaps the most common tool of the devil because it is so apparently harmless; who can blame someone who is confused? And yet, we ought not be confused, when we have the plain Word of God, set clearly before us. The confusion is from the devil, as a means to lead us toward the worldly life and away from the Holy Ghost.

When we give in to sin, we are immediately “under the Law,” in the sense that the judgement of the Law applies to us at that point. We are no longer in step with God, we are out of step with His Law in which we now read our own condemnation. The Law of God is now for us a burden, a limitation, a constraint upon our lives because we have placed ourselves on the wrong side of that relationship with God. It is only by following the Holy Ghost that we can come again to a right relationship in which we find pleasure in doing the will of God, so that it is no longer a burden upon our lives but instead is again our guiding principle.

The indulgence of the flesh often destroys the home by breaking the marriage bond, the basis for the home, as St. Paul indicates when he says, Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, referring to a variety of gross sexual sins. In our present day, when sex is used to sell everything from toothpaste to real estate, the lures to this form of impurity are all around us every day. Television is especially noteworthy for its contribution to the general degradation of our society, along with many popular magazines and the Internet. Despite these many social influences, the evil must still be resisted; it is just as much evil today as it ever was before.

We actually see religious faith being compromised in many places today to accommodate the whims of society. On a moment’s reflection, such a “faith” cannot be much more than entertainment and organization for social action. Those thus engaged have frequently found it useful or necessary to reinterpret or discard significant parts of the Bible as simply being no longer relevant to “their mission.” These people are no longer practicing Christianity at all, but rather they have invented some new religion, even if they have kept a historic name.

As St. Paul says, Galatians 5:20-21 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The sin of lust breaks up the whole of society, dividing everything. St. Paul is saying that all of the things that divide a man from his neighbor, all wrath, all heresy, all hatred, all strife, etc. these things are the result of following the lusts of the flesh, and he warns again that those who do them will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It is not just the Church that is divided as a result of sin; no, sin causes division and chaos throughout the entire world. Evil passions break out from time to time resulting in drunkenness, revellings, and sometimes even murder. If we have any question about the extent of the evil of the lusts of the flesh, all we need do is to look at the results which we can see plainly in the world around us.

For the man who lives the life of holiness, the fruits of the Spirit will be made manifest in his life. This includes nine graces that we may consider in groups of three.

Love, Joy, Peace
These serve the man’s own heart. Love is the restored relation with God, joy and peace are the constant realization of that fact. This man is at peace with himself because he is at peace with God.

Long–suffering, Gentleness, Goodness
These are for the man’s home and friends. He accepts evil as it comes in long–suffering; in gentleness he bears himself so as to give least possible offense. In goodness, he overcomes evil with good.

Faith, Meekness, Temperance
These are for man’s work in the world. By faithfulness a man makes it easy for others to work with him; by meekness he is able to work with others. Temperance is the power of self–control, so this means the ability to abstain from things forbidden and refrain from excess in things allowed in any good for his own benefit or the benefit of others.

Galatians 5:23-24 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. There is no law against such things because the Law exists to constrain the bad behavior of men. But there is no need to constrain the fruits of the Spirit which are in no way contrary to the Law. The graces given by the Holy Ghost can never be out of place or out of date as they are always Christian virtues. They enable us to fulfill the Christian life that we began with our Baptism when we were crucified with Jesus Christ. These graces are universally needed, but only Jesus Christ can provide them.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus is traveling through Samaria and Galilee when He comes upon a group of ten lepers. Leprosy is a visible skin disease, and it was understood to represent complete moral defilement painted visibly on the surface of the body. Because of this sense of moral defilement, they were considered not so much sick but rather morally unclean. For this reason, lepers were complete social outcasts, forbidden to enter the towns and cities, and required to cry out a warning whenever they approached anyone. Thus they roamed the country in groups of outcasts, seeking to survive together.

When Jesus encounters the ten lepers, they stood far off Luke 17:13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. They are conscious of the rule that they must not approach, but that does not stop them from calling out to Jesus, the one of whom they have no doubt heard, to ask for healing. They are not presumptuous, but rather they come humbly, reverently, entreating healing.

Jesus does the most amazing thing. He simply says, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. These men are still in their leprosy, and yet He tells them to go and announce their cure! This is a real test of faith! It is only as they are on their way to show themselves to the priests that the cure is effected. They must start the journey in faith that the cure will happen, or else they will not be cured at all. As they start out, they have nothing at all to show, but by faith they are cured along the way. To believe that prayer has been granted is to receive it.

The part that follows the miracle is just as important as that which goes before. When suffering has driven man to Christ, gratitude must likewise send him back to Christ. The rescue from sin and death must be followed by a continuing fellowship with Christ, and those once blessed must be forever returning for a renewal of that blessing.

It is notable that this Sunday, the one who turned back to give praise to God is a Samaritan, just as the central figure of last Sunday’s Gospel lesson was the Good Samaritan. It is significant that we consider the Samaritans at a time when our theme is “true and laudable service” and we look to the Samaritans as models, even though their formal religion was a bit confused and they worshipped they knew not what, but their character and conduct was in many ways better than that of the Chosen People. We may be assured that our Lord did not choose His examples carelessly.

Our growth in holiness, the process of sanctification, comes about only through the continued experience of God’s grace in our lives through the action of the Holy Ghost. With this growth, we see our own wills coming ever more into conformity with the will of God and the level of peace in our lives growing more and more.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.g to you

Brief, bright and relevant

And poignantly true... Ann Coulter on liberalism:

In the druidical religion of liberalism, not separating your recyclables is a sin, but abortion is just a medical procedure.

She may at times be over the top... you can't count this as one of those times.

H/T Mr. Freeberg.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Hope floats

The hope represented by more Americans seeing this President for what he is:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-five percent (45%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 (see trends).

...

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. This matches the lowest approval rating yet measured for President Obama. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove.

I can't help but focus however on the 24% who strongly approve.  What exactly are they approving of?  On what basis are they claiming that the man is doing a good job?  What are their standards?

What are they smoking?

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"Never gonna stand for this"

Coming our way via Vanderleun, something the notes at YouTube introduces thusly:

Nashville based songwriters Jamie Teachenor and "Banjo" Ben Clark team up for this exclusive release, aimed to raise-the-hair and boil-the-blood of every liberty-loving American ready to make a difference this fall...one vote at a time.

Please help the powerful voice of "We The People" ring through the halls of Congress by forwarding this to any and all who are fed up with the Elites in Washington who consistently ignore our cries.

If you're not registered to vote, PLEASE do so now, and may God bless America now and forever.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"Obama's military leadership can only be called scandalous"

Charles Krauthammer brings a column that ought to enrage us:

Many have charged that President Obama's decision to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan 10 months from now is hampering our war effort. But now it's official. In a stunning statement last week, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway admitted that the July 2011 date is "probably giving our enemy sustenance."

A remarkably bold charge for an active military officer. It stops just short of suggesting aiding and abetting the enemy. Yet the observation is obvious: It is surely harder to prevail in a war that hinges on the allegiance of the locals when they hear the U.S. president talk of beginning a withdrawal that will ultimately leave them to the mercies of the Taliban.

How did Obama come to this decision? "Our Afghan policy was focused as much as anything on domestic politics," an Obama adviser told the New York Times' Peter Baker. "He would not risk losing the moderate to centrist Democrats in the middle of health insurance reform and he viewed that legislation as the make-or-break legislation for his administration."

If this is true, then Obama's military leadership can only be called scandalous. During the past week, 22 Americans were killed over a four-day period in Afghanistan. This is not a place about which decisions should be made in order to placate members of Congress, pass health care and thereby maintain a president's political standing. This is a place about which a president should make decisions to best succeed in the military mission he himself has set out.

Read the entire piece, understand that we've elected a rodeo clown for President and know that our troops are paying the price for this folly.

It's an outrage.  It's a tragedy.  It's definitely not change to believe in. 

"I can only imagine why Mr. Beck conjoured that up"

Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime.

 

Interesting how Robert Gibbs responds to this question. The answer immediately becomes an indictment of Glen Beck, rather than an answer to the question. Is Gibbs being obtuse? Not a doubt in my mind about it. The man is purposely arrogant and obtuse on a daily basis in my opinion.

The man knows what and who his president was affiliated with for twenty years prior to winning the presidency, as he equally knows what liberation theology is and what it represents in the black communities of America. And he equally knows that Jeremiah Wright's church (Obama's church) was, is and remains an anti American Marxist revolutionary breeding ground for radicals and anti America sentiments.

A church by the way, that Barack Obama has referred to as being a "typical" black church in Chicago. He uses that word a lot when you look back over what he has had to say over the past few years. His grandmother was referred to as a "typical" white woman when he spoke of her and her perceived prejudices.

So I am beginning to wonder myself. Is Barack Obama a "typical" (post civil rights movement educated) black man in America today? And what about his wife Michelle? Is she a "typical"(post civil rights movement educated) black woman in America? Are they both filled with angst and a feeling that they have been chosen by their god to lead "their" people? It certainly could appear that way.

Perhaps these are questions that Glen Beck can proffer to his audience in the near future. And mr. Gibbs can respond to later on.

How the enemy sees the Ground Zero Mosque

Coming our way via this link sent by Steve Schippert in email who adds:

Not many seem to understand (or get the importance) of how the enemy sees the mosque.

It's not just about freedom of religion or property rights.

Crossposted by Wizbang.

"They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back"

The Department of Justice has brought suit against Arizona sherriff Joe Arpaio:

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, is the latest chapter in a bitter feud between Justice and Sheriff Arpaio, who is accused of failing to turn over documents sought since March 2009 that federal prosecutors say comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against those with limited English skills.

Sheriff Arpaio, during a press conference in Phoenix, described the lawsuit as "harassment," saying thousands of pages of documents have already been turned over by his office to federal prosecutors.

"These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this sheriff, is Washington's new whipping boy. Now it's time to take the gloves off," he said.

"As for today's lawsuit against my office: These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails. They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit."

...

The sheriff, first elected in 1992 and re-elected four times since, said the Obama administration "intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it," adding that "it's time Americans everywhere wake up and see this administration for what it really is: calculating, underhanded at times and certainly not looking out for the best interests of the legal citizens residing in this country."

Americans everywhere are waking up Sheriff Joe... and their voices will soon be heard.

We can see November from our back yards.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Obama: Mr. Unpopular

Michael Sherer at Time magazine has penned a piece that must've been painful for him... certainly painful for many Democrats and many more of their psychopantic supporters in the media.

Obama is no longer The One:

When Obama arrived in office in January '09, his Gallup approval rating stood at 68%, a high for a newly elected leader not seen since John Kennedy in 1961. Today Obama's job approval has been hovering in the mid-40s, which means that at least 1 in 4 Americans has changed his or her mind. The plunge has been particularly dramatic among independents, whites and those under age 30. With midterm elections just nine weeks off, instead of the generational transformation some Democrats predicted after 2008, the President's party teeters on the brink of a broad setback in November, including the possible loss of both houses of Congress. By a 10-point margin, people say they will vote for Republicans over Democrats in Congress, the largest such gap ever recorded by Gallup.

White House aides explain this change as a largely inevitable reflection of the cycles of history. Midterms are almost always bad for first-term Presidents, and worse in hard times. "The public is rightly frustrated and angry with the economy," says Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's communications director, explaining the White House line. "There is no small tactical shift we could have made at any point that would have solved that problem." In more confiding moments, aides admit that the peak of Obama's popularity may have been inflated, a fleeting result of elation at the prospect of change and national pride in electing the first African-American President. As one White House aide puts it, "It was sort of fake."

It wasn't sort of fake... it was fake period.  Obama was sold to the American people as something that he wasn't.  And the American people are no longer buying the lie.

Back to the piece:

The fear most often expressed is that Obama is taking the country somewhere they don't want to go. "We bought what he said. He offered a lot of hope," says Fred Ferlic, an Obama voter and orthopedic surgeon in South Bend who has since soured on his choice. Ferlic talks about the messy compromises in health care reform, his sense of an inhospitable business climate and the growth of government spending under Obama. "He's trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other way," continues Ferlic, a former Democratic campaign donor who plans to vote Republican this year. "The entire American spirit is being broken."

No sir... the American spirit is awakening... the American spirit is what's fighting Obama and his minions now... the American spirit is finally putting up her dukes and saying enough is enough... the radicals in power today will in November be feeling the onslaught of the American spirit...

It's actually an inspiring and moving thing.

It's hope and change to believe in.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

The President's friends

Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime.

An interesting little piece...

UK Honor Killing

Guest posted by tim, aka The Godless Heathen.

Another Christian honor killing…no wait…just an isolated incident, nothing to see…move along…ya’ hatin’ Islamaphob…

Via JihadWatch:

Parents held over death of Shafilea Ahmed," from BBCNews, September 2:

The parents of so-called "honour killing" victim Shafilea Ahmed have been arrested on suspicion of her murder, police sources have said.

Shafilea went missing from her home in Warrington in September 2003, aged 17. Her decomposed body was found in the River Kent in Cumbria in January 2004.

A coroner ruled in 2008 she had been unlawfully killed. No-one has ever been charged with her murder.
Iftikhar, 50, and Faranza Ahmed, 47, were arrested in Warrington earlier.

The rest here.

RIP Shafilea.

Judging the judge's judgment

Posted by guest blogger BroKen.

Are you religious? Then you should be offended by the federal ruling on California's Proposition 8. Maybe you're not very religious. But do you believe in morality? That is, do you believe that some things are wrong and some things are right? If you do, then you should be offended by the decision. Even if you agree with the conclusion, you should be offended by its “rationale”.

Proposition 8 is an amendment to the California constitution passed by voters there last year. It simply states “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The amendment was required because a similar law was declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court.

Last month, Federal Judge Vaughn Walker declared the amendment violates the “equal protection” clause of the U.S. Constitution. He finds in that clause a right to marry any person of your choice. (This case involves persons of the same sex, but there is no reason in this decision to exclude marrying more than one person, your cousin or your child, or even your dog, if you really “loved” them.)

Walker writes in his decision, “The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.”(emphasis mine) Now, I didn't hear the evidence. It does seem that the proponents of Proposition 8 saved their big guns for the inevitable fight before the Supreme Court. But couldn't the judge find one piece of biological evidence like, I don't know, reproduction maybe, as a basis for differences that even a child can see?

Walker concludes, “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”(emphasis mine) Got that? Walker can see only religious and moral reasons for Proposition 8 and those reasons, according to his conclusion, are irrational. Every religious and moral thinker should find that offensive.

Yet he doesn't stop there. Walker divorces himself not only from moral and religious thought, but also from logic itself. A bedrock of logic is that a thing is what it is and not something else. A bird is a bird. Trees are trees. The technical name for these statements is “tautology”. They are so obvious that we rarely think about them. They must be true.

Lawyers for the amendment argued that the state should uphold the traditional definition of marriage. But Walker writes that the “asserted state interests in tradition are nothing more than tautologies and do not amount to rational bases for Proposition 8.”(emphasis mine) Things have to bend in the mind in order to call that which is not a marriage, a “marriage”. So truth and logic twist underneath the judge's powerful decree. Logic's foundations do “not amount to rational bases.”

Thank God this decision is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court. Please God, may those nine judges be wiser and think clearer.

By the way, if you agree....

...go here and sign on.

"...what happens when this narrative isn’t true?"

A most thoughtful piece has been posted at Whosever Desires by Anthony Lusvardi deserving of your attention.  Teaser excerpt follows:

In the spring of 2000 I spent a semester in Jerusalem, taking classes at Bethlehem University (a Palestinian institution) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Shortly before becoming a Jesuit I made another pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in the spring of 2006.

While in the Holy Land the second time I heard two Western tour guides, on separate occasions, tell an encouraging story about inter-religious cooperation.  When Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass in Bethlehem’s Manger Square in the spring of 2000, the guides said, the mosque on the edge of the square silenced the call to prayer it normally broadcast at noon so as not to disturb the papal liturgy.  According to the guides, doing so was an unprecedented gesture of goodwill.

There’s only one problem with this cheerful tale:  it isn’t true.

I was in Manger Square that morning when the pre-recorded call to prayer came blasting over the Mosque of Omar’s loudspeakers midway through the Prayers of the Faithful.  The lector paused, everyone stared at their feet in embarrassment for a few moments, and, when the recording finished, we went on with the Mass.  When I visited six years after the fact, I had a conversation with a local Christian who told me that the interruption of that liturgy is still seen as a painful reminder of that community’s minority status.

Last week’s discussion of the proposed Park 51 mosque reminded me of the tour guides’ story.  The original post argues, quite rightly, that a greater knowledge of Islam and of things religious more generally, would be a good thing.  But underlying this argument runs an implicit narrative that goes something like this:  we’re all pretty much decent folks and share the same basic human values regardless of superficial differences (say race or religion) and once we learn more about each other our suspicions and conflicts will melt away.

This story is one of the late twentieth century’s great narratives and is implicit in many of the stories we read and movies we see.  It’s present, in slightly different ways—to pick two recent films at random—in Invictus and Avatar.  It’s the “story” implicit in John Lennon’s “Imagine.”  It’s a particularly powerful story because quite often it is, thankfully, true, and it certainly shapes the way we understand our own history.  The civil rights movement—the great national story for many generations of Americans—is a version of this narrative.

This narrative is a good story in every sense.  When it’s true, then things turn out better for everyone:  prejudices are overcome and we take a step toward a more peaceful world.  The narrative is a good story in the other sense of being a compelling tale:  there are both internal and external struggles to be waged and usually there are Good Guys and Bad Guys it’s easy to root for or against.  (The villain in the Park 51 posting isn’t too hard to spot, is she?)

But what happens when this narrative isn’t true?

Finish this up at the link then consider passing it on... it's well worth the time it'll take.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Jewish settlers killed and maimed, MSM yawns then goes back to Jew bashing

Phyllis Chesler:

Four young civilians — human beings, fathers, mothers, one of whom was also pregnant, collectively the parents of seven children — were brutally gunned down by armed, masked terrorists. Their murders were openly celebrated in the streets by their attackers and by thousands of their supporters.

You would think that the world would recoil in horror — or that those who report the news, worldwide, would do so. Think again. These four precious souls were Israeli “settlers” and, as such, have already been so demonized that they are now seen as having provoked their bloody, pitiless deaths.

First, they came for the settlers. Then, they came for the secular Israeli pro-peace demonstrators in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. And then they came for ….you and me.

Predictably, sadly, my three local area New York City newspapers present this tragic news in very different ways.

Allow me to first quote from the Bible of the intelligentsia, aka the New York Times, which presents this incident on page 4, not on page 1; the early pages are usually reserved for all incidents in which Israelis fight back so that Israeli “evil” is seen immediately and framed as among the most “important” world news of the day. The accompanying Times headline? Unbelievably, it is this: “Killing of 4 Israeli Settlers on the Eve of Peace Talks Rattles Leaders on Both Sides.” It’s really not clear who killed the “settlers.”  What is clear is that “both sides” are “rattled.” The piece opens with a paragraph that made me see red, both literally and metaphorically. It reads as follows:

“The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations.”

Note: This opening paragraph literally blames the past and future peace failures on the Israeli settlements. The Timesneither blames nor characterizes Hamas accurately. It does not say the Arab Muslim terrorist group, Hamas — the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, probably also backed by Iran and Hezbollah, and the group which is claiming responsibility for the attack — is also responsible for a deadly civil war with the not-so-moderate President Abbas; an Islamist war on Palestinian women, homosexuals, and dissidents; and a jihadic war against the Jews, which began a long time ago and which will never stop until either such terrorist leaders and their propaganda are utterly vanquished militarily or until the Jews have been driven out of the Holy Land once again.

Ms. Chesler has more, all of it worthy of your time. 

Since she's penned the piece, more of the same has occurred but it's difficult to find related MSM articles yet this is understandable, it's just Jews that are being killed, just Jews that are being critically injured.  Just Jews.  Joooos.

Move on folks... nothing here to see...

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Should we ignore Imam Rauf's own words?

The Wall Street Journal has dug up a couple of letters to the editor written by 'moderate Muslim' and Ground Zero Mosque champion Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf:

Much has already been made of the imam's comments on "60 Minutes" following 9/11, when he called America an "accessory to the crime" and announced that "Osama bin Laden is made in the USA." He has also refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization. We've now come across two letters to the New York Times that reveal more about the imam's worldview.

In a letter published on November 27, 1977, Mr. Rauf commented on Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic trip to Israel and encouraged his fellow Muslims to "give peace a chance." That John Lennon lyric sounds good. But he added: "For my fellow Arabs I have the following special message: Learn from the example of the Prophet Mohammed, your greatest historical personality. After a state of war with the Meccan unbelievers that lasted for many years, he acceded, in the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, to demands that his closest companions considered utterly humiliating. Yet peace turned out to be a most effective weapon against the unbelievers."

He's referring to a treaty in the year 628 that established a 10-year truce between the Prophet Muhammad and Meccan leaders and was viewed by Muslims at the time as a defeat. But Muhammad used that period to consolidate his ranks and re-arm, eventually leading to his conquest of Mecca. Imam Rauf seems to be saying that Muslims should understand Sadat's olive branch in the same way, as a short-term respite leading to ultimate conquest.

To drive that point home, he added in the same letter that "In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure. . . . In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority."

Go read the excerpts from his second letter... just as disturbing as the first. 

We'll be asked to dismiss his writings, to view them from the perspective that he was young and more idealistic and that we should focus more on what he has to say today and the hope he now represents.

That's worked out well for us all with Obama hasn't it?

H/T Dan Friedman in email.

Crossposted at Wizbang.