Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog

Catch the latest thoughts, recipes and information from the recently updated Jesus is Lord, Home Comforts Page.

Well of course the crazy Iranian president doesn’t care about U.N. resolutions or sanctions. He learned really well from Iraq.

Iran’s deputy nuclear chief said Saturday that Tehran would agree to United Nations supervision of its uranium enrichment process and intrusive inspections of its atomic facilities if its case was referred back to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The offer came a day after the U.S. called a summit of foreign ministers from Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York on May 9 to discuss a united response to Iran’s nuclear program.
But Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Iran would not yield to UN demands that it abandon uranium enrichment, and criticised the report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
ElBaradei said UN checks in Iran had been hampered and Tehran had rebuffed requests to stop making nuclear fuel.
“The report was not completely satisfactory for us and we believe that the report could have been done better than that,” Saeedi told state television.
However, Saeedi insisted Iran would be able to answer ElBaradei’s concerns about the access granted to UN inspectors if Tehran’s nuclear dossier were dropped by the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
Besides standing firm on enrichment, Saeedi also said Iran was pushing forward with further technological developments.
Iran was installing two more 164-centrifuge cascades at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, central Iran.
“[Uranium enrichment in] Natanz is continuing its work well… two other cascades [of 164-machine centrifuges] are being installed,” Saeedi said.
Scientists were also studying more advanced centrifuges than those Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced research on earlier this month. The more sophisticated equipment speeds up the enrichment process.
“What we are conducting research on is not only P-2 but even more advanced machines,” Saeedi said, adding that Iran had not moved beyond using the P-1 centrifuges.
“Our efforts are to use the most sophisticated machines, like in Germany, Netherlands, Japan and Brazil,” he said.
The talks called by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice followed the release Friday of the IAEA report. (Click here for excerpts from the report)
“The report and the Iranians’ actions that produced it really compel some form of action now by the international community… We think this will lead to consideration of a sanctions regime,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns as he announced the meeting.
The IAEA findings also effectively reflected a standstill between Iran and agency inspectors pursuing open questions linked to possible attempts by Iran to make nuclear arms.
Burns and other political directors from UN Security Council members Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany are to lay the groundwork for the foreign ministers’ meeting with talks on Iran in Paris on Tuesday.
There is no agreement yet, but “the Security Council, to maintain its credibility, is going to have to find a way to act in a countervailing way” against Iran, he said.
The Council’s three veto-wielding Western nations immediately announced plans to introduce a new resolution next week which would make Iran’s compliance with the demands mandatory. To intensify pressure, they want the resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which means it can be enforced through sanctions or military action.
China and Russia, the two other countries with veto power, oppose sanctions and military action and want the Iran nuclear issue resolved diplomatically, with the IAEA taking the lead, not the Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton took the toughest line, saying “the IAEA report shows that Iran has accelerated its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons although, of course, the report doesn’t make any conclusions in that regard.”
He told reporters the United States hopes to move “as a matter of urgency” and introduce a Chapter 7 resolution next week, which will give Iran “a very short” period to comply and halt enrichment.
“We’re ready to proceed; we’re ready to move expeditiously,” Bolton said. “And what comes after that is largely in Iraq’s hands… They have to comply or the Security Council is free to take other steps.”
Britain’s UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry called it “a calibrated approach which is reversible if Iran was prepared to comply fully with the wishes of the international community.”
“Then, the next stage of activity would not follow,” he said.
“A diplomatic solution is what we’re all working for, and our patience must be pretty consistent there in order that we achieve that,” Jones Parry stressed.
China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya echoed the need for a diplomatic solution “because this region is already complicated… and we should not do anything that would cause the situation [to be] more complicated.”
He said the implication of a Chapter 7 resolution is clear: It will lead to a series of resolutions, complicating the situation and creating uncertainty. “I
think whatever we do we should promote diplomacy,” Wang said.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Konstantin Dolgov told the Itar-Tass news agency that Moscow still sees no reason for a Chapter 7 resolution. He said the IAEA should stay in the lead on Iran and the Security Council should provide “political support” to the IAEA.
“Sanctions are not the way of resolving the Iranian problem, at least at the current stage, bearing in mind the information available,” Dolgov was quoted as saying.

Read the rest of the article here.

Well of course the crazy Iranian president doesn’t care about U.N. resolutions or sanctions. He learned really well from Iraq.

Iran’s deputy nuclear chief said Saturday that Tehran would agree to United Nations supervision of its uranium enrichment process and intrusive inspections of its atomic facilities if its case was referred back to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The offer came a day after the U.S. called a summit of foreign ministers from Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York on May 9 to discuss a united response to Iran’s nuclear program.
But Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Iran would not yield to UN demands that it abandon uranium enrichment, and criticised the report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
ElBaradei said UN checks in Iran had been hampered and Tehran had rebuffed requests to stop making nuclear fuel.
“The report was not completely satisfactory for us and we believe that the report could have been done better than that,” Saeedi told state television.
However, Saeedi insisted Iran would be able to answer ElBaradei’s concerns about the access granted to UN inspectors if Tehran’s nuclear dossier were dropped by the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
Besides standing firm on enrichment, Saeedi also said Iran was pushing forward with further technological developments.
Iran was installing two more 164-centrifuge cascades at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, central Iran.
“[Uranium enrichment in] Natanz is continuing its work well… two other cascades [of 164-machine centrifuges] are being installed,” Saeedi said.
Scientists were also studying more advanced centrifuges than those Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced research on earlier this month. The more sophisticated equipment speeds up the enrichment process.
“What we are conducting research on is not only P-2 but even more advanced machines,” Saeedi said, adding that Iran had not moved beyond using the P-1 centrifuges.
“Our efforts are to use the most sophisticated machines, like in Germany, Netherlands, Japan and Brazil,” he said.
The talks called by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice followed the release Friday of the IAEA report. (Click here for excerpts from the report)
“The report and the Iranians’ actions that produced it really compel some form of action now by the international community… We think this will lead to consideration of a sanctions regime,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns as he announced the meeting.
The IAEA findings also effectively reflected a standstill between Iran and agency inspectors pursuing open questions linked to possible attempts by Iran to make nuclear arms.
Burns and other political directors from UN Security Council members Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany are to lay the groundwork for the foreign ministers’ meeting with talks on Iran in Paris on Tuesday.
There is no agreement yet, but “the Security Council, to maintain its credibility, is going to have to find a way to act in a countervailing way” against Iran, he said.
The Council’s three veto-wielding Western nations immediately announced plans to introduce a new resolution next week which would make Iran’s compliance with the demands mandatory. To intensify pressure, they want the resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which means it can be enforced through sanctions or military action.
China and Russia, the two other countries with veto power, oppose sanctions and military action and want the Iran nuclear issue resolved diplomatically, with the IAEA taking the lead, not the Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton took the toughest line, saying “the IAEA report shows that Iran has accelerated its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons although, of course, the report doesn’t make any conclusions in that regard.”
He told reporters the United States hopes to move “as a matter of urgency” and introduce a Chapter 7 resolution next week, which will give Iran “a very short” period to comply and halt enrichment.
“We’re ready to proceed; we’re ready to move expeditiously,” Bolton said. “And what comes after that is largely in Iraq’s hands… They have to comply or the Security Council is free to take other steps.”
Britain’s UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry called it “a calibrated approach which is reversible if Iran was prepared to comply fully with the wishes of the international community.”
“Then, the next stage of activity would not follow,” he said.
“A diplomatic solution is what we’re all working for, and our patience must be pretty consistent there in order that we achieve that,” Jones Parry stressed.
China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya echoed the need for a diplomatic solution “because this region is already complicated… and we should not do anything that would cause the situation [to be] more complicated.”
He said the implication of a Chapter 7 resolution is clear: It will lead to a series of resolutions, complicating the situation and creating uncertainty. “I
think whatever we do we should promote diplomacy,” Wang said.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Konstantin Dolgov told the Itar-Tass news agency that Moscow still sees no reason for a Chapter 7 resolution. He said the IAEA should stay in the lead on Iran and the Security Council should provide “political support” to the IAEA.
“Sanctions are not the way of resolving the Iranian problem, at least at the current stage, bearing in mind the information available,” Dolgov was quoted as saying.

Read the rest of the article here.

I can’t see where this is going to help the illegal immigration’s cause any. After the last round of protest, their support actually went down. I guess we’ll have to see.

(AP) SACRAMENTO California’s state senators on Thursday endorsed Monday’s boycott of schools, jobs and stores by illegal immigrants and their allies as supporters equated the protest with great social movements in American history.
By a 24-13 vote that split along party lines, the California Senate approved a resolution that calls the one-day protest the Great American Boycott 2006 and describes it as an attempt to educate Americans “about the tremendous contribution immigrants make on a daily basis to our society and economy.”
“It’s one day … for immigrants to tell the country peacefully, ‘We matter … (we’re) not invisible,’” said Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, the resolution’s chief author. She said immigrants make up a third of California’s labor force and a quarter of its residents.
Opponents said the nonbinding resolution was misleading because it failed to mention a goal of the boycott was pressuring Congress to legalize millions of undocumented people.
“It is a disingenuous effort to put the government of California on record supporting open borders,” said Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside.
The boycott, also called “A Day Without Immigrants,” grew out of huge pro-immigrant marches across the United States in recent weeks. Organizers are urging people to stay home from school and jobs and avoid spending money on Monday to demonstrate their importance to the U.S. economy.
California’s top education official appeared with school officials in several cities Thursday to urge students to stay in school on Monday.
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Jack O’Connell encouraged students interested in the immigration issue to voice their opinions by participating in protest activities but only after attending their classes.
“If students need to protest, they should feel free to do so after school,” O’Connell told students and reporters at San Jose High Academy. “We want students to exercise free speech, but not at the expense of their education.”
Rallies are planned for Monday in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Gardena, Bell, Santa Ana, Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland, Concord and other cities.
School officials in San Leandro, meanwhile, said Thursday that rising tensions over the immigration issue may have contributed to a series of brawls between Hispanic and black teenagers.
Over a dozen San Leandro High School students were taken into custody Wednesday following the fights that started on campus and spilled over into the parking lot of a nearby convenience store.
While educators theorized that the stress children of immigrants are under while the immigration debate roils may have played a role in the violence, students said that racial tensions predated recent developments.
Several senators equated the protest with the civil rights movement of the 1960s and other major events in American history.
Segregation was ended in part because of the public bus boycott by blacks in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, said Romero.
Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, likened the debate over immigrant rights to the fights over slavery, women’s suffrage, the internment of Japanese during World War II, and the Vietnam War.
America wouldn’t have been created without illegal action, said Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys. “They dumped a bunch of tea in Boston harbor, illegally. God bless them,” he said.
But Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, said lawmakers should not encourage lawbreakers even if they disagreed with the law.
“It is irresponsible for this body to advocate that students leave school for any reason,” Cox said.
He introduced a bill that would require a special school attendance audit on Monday, so that schools would not receive state aid for any student who was truant. School funding is based on attendance levels. O’Connell said the state would not grant waivers to schools that lose funding if students were absent while out protesting.
The debate was personal and emotional for some senators.
Sen. Nell Soto, D-Pomona, recalled watching as a child as immigration police swept up brown-skinned farmworkers, “not even asking if they were legal or illegal.”
Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Norwalk, described how her grandfather remained in the country illegally after overstaying a work permit during the 1940s, when he picked fruits and vegetables while American men were fighting World War II.
“This happened 60 years ago. And you know what? The story still continues,” Escutia said, choking up as she described her 11-year-old son asking her about the controversy. She said the Great American Boycott should be renamed “the Great American Secret, and that is we all rely on someone who is here illegally.”
Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, while citing immigrants’ contributions, said the nation’s goal should be assimilation: “From many people, one people, the American people. One race, the American race.”

After reading “The Da Vinci Code” and with the imminent release of the movie with the same title, I felt it necessary to write a bit about what Christians may need to expect and how to use the openings the movie will create to give truthful testimony about Jesus.
Over the next several weeks leading up to the release of the movie, I will be compiling information in an attempt to arm our readers with helpful responses.

Click here to read the rest of the article

Ah yes, the muslim opportunist emerge. You know, y’all can be sent back to your countries too.

Muslims in Los Angeles and elsewhere are being urged to join millions of Latino protesters in the streets May 1 to demonstrate in favor of leniency toward illegal aliens currently living in the United States unlawfully.
“In solidarity with immigration activists around the country, the Muslim Public Affairs Council as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Los Angeles, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, the L.A. Latino Muslim Association, the Muslim American Society - Los Angeles, and the Muslim Students Association - West are calling on American Muslims to participate in a day of action on May 1, 2006,” says a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
“Islam’s message is one of social justice, economic fairness, and fair treatment in the workplace. The Quran urges the proper treatment and respect of workers.”
Choosing May 1, the day Communists worldwide celebrate the worker, activists have vowed to “close” major American cities as millions of Latinos, both legal and illegal, mark what some organizers are calling “a day without an immigrant” and others refer to as the “Great American Boycott.” They are urging supporters not to go to work, school or spend money on that day.
“It is to show the amount of work, the purchasing power, the contributions that illegal and undocumented workers make on a daily basis,” Chris Banks, a volunteer for ANSWER, or Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, told the Desert Dispatch in California.
“RealIy, it is no different from the transit strike that took place in New York last December, and they shut the city down and it was to show the value of their work – the labor that they do,” he said. “The labor they (illegal aliens) do for our collective well being is enormous.”
The Muslim organization pushing participation is urging the faithful in Southern California to attend a march near downtown Los Angeles at 4 p.m. Monday.
“American Muslim organizations are calling for a comprehensive immigration reform that includes provisions for a pathway to lawful permanent residence for the undocumented currently in the United States, a temporary worker program that matches willing workers with willing employers, and a reduction in the current backlogs in family-based immigration to the United States,” said the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Failing to agree on an immigration reform bill earlier this month, members of Congress and President Bush continue to push various measures meant to deal with the flow of illegals into the country and those already here.
Jorge Rodriguez is a union official who helped organize earlier pro-illegals rallies.
“We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here (illegally),” Rodriguez told Reuters. “That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1.”
As WorldNetDaily reported, large protests held by pro-illegal-alien activists early this month actually had a negative effect on the demonstrators’ cause, a poll found.

What else could we expect to spew from the mouth of a slimy pali terrorist?

JERUSALEM - Daniel Wultz, a Florida teenager lying in a coma after being critically injured last week in a suicide bombing at an Israeli restaurant, is the “best target combination we can dream of - American and Zionist,” Abu Nasser, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups responsible for the deadly blast, told WorldNetDaily.
Abu Ayman, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, which also took responsibility for the April 17 bombing in which Wultz was injured, threatened all Americans and Jews worldwide and expressed regret Wultz is still alive.
Wultz, 16, was one of over 60 people injured in the attack in which a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded section of Tel Aviv as Israelis celebrated the fifth day of the Passover holiday. The blast ripped through a falafel restaurant just outside the city’s old central bus station, killing nine. The same restaurant was hit by a suicide attack in January, wounding 20 people.
Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Brigades, the declared military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Wultz is a resident of Weston, Fla. He was on Passover vacation in Israel along with his family. The teenager was seated with his father, Yekutiel, at an outside table of the targeted restaurant when the bomb was detonated.
Described as an avid basketball player, Wultz lost his spleen and a kidney in the attack. Last Friday, one of his legs was amputated, and doctors at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital have reportedly been fighting to save his other leg, which is suffering from severely reduced blood flow.
Wultz’ father suffered a fractured leg in the attack.
Wultz has been lying in a coma in the intensive care unit since the bombing, though he briefly was aroused earlier this week.
His story has generated extensive media coverage and has prompted a flurry of e-mails across the Internet asking people worldwide to pray for the young terror victim.
In a WND exclusive interview yesterday, Abu Nasser, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank, rejoiced in Wultz’ injuries. Abu Nasser is part of the Brigades leadership in the Balata refugee camp suspected of plotting the attack.
“We are sorry there was not more of this stuff. American and Zionist - this is the best target combination we could dream of. This is the ideal target. He is a young American who came to encourage the enemy to continue his war against us,” Abu Nasser said.
The terror leader went on to blast America’s role in the Middle East, which he said was aimed at achieving Jewish world domination:
“I want to use this occasion of speaking to the American people to tell them that the unfair support of your people to Israel is the reason that you are targeted almost everywhere in the world. Second, I want to bring to your knowledge that the most cruel settlers are those who came from America. It is known that the Jews are sly and not honest, and they are leading into this trap of the Middle East in order to carry out their plan of controlling the world.”
Also speaking to WND, Islamic Jihad senior member Abu Ayman warned Americans are now enemies of the Palestinian people.
“The Americans are now the typical enemy of the believers like it is mentioned in the holy Quran. They think that they are all mighty and invincible, and they seem to not have the right conclusions from what happened to them in the last few years. The Americans are now the best representatives of the devil on earth,” Abu Ayman said.
Asked whether his terror group would target a restaurant here if they were informed it contained American civilians and not Israelis, Abu Ayman replied, “This is a hypothetical question, but in my opinion at the execution step [of an attack] nothing changes.”
He said Jews of all backgrounds are targets:
“The meaning and the goal of our lives is to fight the devil spiritually and physically. The Jews are the expression of both kinds of devil. No mercy for devils.”
Abu Ayman expressed regret Wulz wasn’t killed in last week’s terror attack.
“The only sorrow that I feel is that the Jewish parents of this Daniel Wultz did not suffer like an average Palestinian family who lost its child. Maybe if their child was killed they and the Americans would have to pay attention to the suffering of thousands of Palestinian families who lost their children.”
Waltz opened eyes as Rabbi wrapped him with Scripture
Waltz last night returned to a coma state. He had been temporarily aroused earlier this week. His situation remains very critical, said a source close to the family.
WND reported that on Monday the teen opened his eyes for the first time since the attack seven days prior just as his rabbi donned him with teffillin, or Jewish prayer phylacteries.
Yisroel Spalter of the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish outreach movement, had flown in from Florida this week to be with the Wultz family. He described the moment during which Wultz opened his eyes to Chabad newssite Shterum.net.
“I started to put the tefillin on his hand and right before our very eyes Daniel opened his eyes and stared at us despite his comatose state. Maybe it was just a reflex, maybe not, but the fact that it happened precisely when the tefillin were placed on his hand shocked us all. Even the doctors were surprised.
“The family members who were present could not hold back their tears and were full of emotions. I cannot describe to you the electricity that flowed through the room then. It was one of the most moving and emotional experiences I ever witnessed.”
Spalter the next day again put tefillin on Wultz, who soon after opened his eyes again and for the first time began showing signs of communication to his doctors, including blinking his eyes in response to questions. But he returned to a coma yesterday.
Tefillin are leather objects with black straps containing biblical verses that are worn on the head and on one arm by Jewish men during weekday morning prayers. The verses inside the tefillin are hand-written by a scribe and consist of the four sections of the Torah in which tefillin are commanded.
One of the main commandments for wearing tefillin comes from the biblical verse in Deuteronomy: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. … Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a frontlet between your eyes.”
Tefillin have been directly connected to war and terrorism, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Lewin, a Tel Aviv rabbi, explained to WND.
A verse in Deuteronomy states, “Then all the people of the earth shall see that the name of God is proclaimed over you and they will fear you.”
The Talmud explains the biblical verse is referring to the donning of tefillin, which contains the name of God.
In response to the verse, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the revered leader of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, promoted a tefillin campaign in Israel and around the world following the 1967 Six Day War, in which the Jewish state was attacked by several Arab countries.
“After the Six Day War the Rebbe [Schneerson] recognized the power of tefillin and its connection to war against Israel and the desire of its enemies to annihilate the Jewish state, and he started an enormous tefillin campaign,” said Lewin.
Spalter and Wultz’s family have requested people around the world pray for Daniel Wultz. Prayer sessions have been held by Chabad in Florida and by Wultz’s high-school friends. Hundreds of e-mail alerts have been sent to the Florida Jewish community and to lists worldwide asking recipients to pray for “Haim Meir Naftali, son of Sara and Yekutiel,” the Hebrew name of Daniel Wultz.

I believe that another “9/11″ type of attack will occur, here in the United States, but this time with weapons of mass destruction. With our wide open borders, there really is no other conclusion to come to.

Al-Qaida has already obtained nuclear suitcase weapons from the Russian black market, weapons tested in Afghanistan in 2000, and they may have already been forward-deployed inside the U.S., according to the only journalist to interview Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in the wake of Sept. 11.
Last week, Hamid Mir’s credibility skyrocketed when he accurately predicted in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin and later in WND the imminent release of a new recorded communiqué from bin Laden through al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV network. Two days later, bin Laden’s tape was the focus of international news coverage.
“If you think that my information and analysis about bin Laden’s location is correct,” said Hamid Mir, “then please don’t underestimate my analysis about his nuclear threat also.”
Mir said that he met with an Egyptian engineer last week who lost an eye after one of bin Laden’s nuclear tests in the Kunar province of Pakistan. The Pakistani journalist said the encounter with the engineer greatly disturbed and depressed him since it provided further assurance that a nuclear nightmare for America is about to dawn.
Mir believes that an “American Hiroshima” will occur as soon as the U.S. launches an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Al-Qaida and Iran,” he says, “have a long, secret relationship.” “American Hiroshima” is the name al-Qaida leaders chose for their long-planned nuclear attack on the U.S.
The relationship between Iran and bin Laden dates back to June 21, 1996, when bin Laden attended a terror summit in Tehran. The gathering attracted terror leaders from various places throughout the world, including Ramadan Shallah (the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), Ahmad Salah (Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Imad al-Alami and Mustafa al-Liddawi (Hamas), Ahmad Jibril (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Abdallah Ocalan (the Kurdish People Party), Muhammad Ali Ahmad (al Qaida), and Imad Mugniyah (Hezbollah). The summit resulted in the creation of the “Committee of Three” that would meet on a regular basis for the “coordination, planning and execution of attacks” against the United States and Israel. The committee members were Ahmad Salah, Imad Mugniyah and bin Laden.
Mir’s position that al-Qaida’s nuclear weapons may have already been forward-deployed to the United States confirms the report of Sharif al-Masri, a key al-Qaida operative who was arrested in Pakistan in November 2000.
Al Masri, an Egyptian national with ties to al-Zawahiri, said that al-Qaida had made arrangements to smuggle nuclear weapons and supplies to Mexico. From Mexico, he said, the weapons were to be transported across the border and into the United States with the help of a Latino street gang.
Mir also maintains that numerous sleeper agents are in place in major cities throughout the United States to prepare for the nuclear holocaust. Many of these agents, he says, are Algerians and Chechens who obtained European passports and are posing as Christian and Jews.
He further says that many of these agents have been in the United States since bin Laden’s issuance of his “Declaration of War on Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Holy Places.” That fatwa was issued Aug. 23, 1996.

By Alan Sears
Alliance Defense Fund

A popular children’s book once pondered the perils of giving a mouse a cookie.
If you give a mouse a cookie, it reasoned, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk-followed by a straw to drink it with, a mirror to check for a milk mustache, scissors to give himself a trim, and numerous other items that trap the generous giver in an endless stream of overwhelming cause and effect.
The demanding rodent seems sweet and innocent enough, but his desires become “needs,” and his “needs” soon become a long and absurd list.
The situation in American society isn’t much different, except the “mouse” has been replaced with minority fringe groups and individuals at best make up between 2 and 4 percent of the population,[1] and the “cookie” is an unending list of legislation, laws, special benefits, and demands that must be passed, granted, or met in the name of “tolerance.”
Bolstered by their perceived successes in the fight to reshape the family and other laws that attempt to provide special funding and privileges to people who engage in homosexual behavior, including “transsexuals” and “transgendered” individuals, some left-leaners have dredged up a silly old “cookie” from the feminist era and plopped it into a modern context: the push for gender neutrality.
The premise is that the usage of terms like “man,” “woman,” “boy,” “girl,” “male,” and “female” have not only outlived their usefulness, but are borderline “intolerant.” In other words, if it looks like a duck and talks like a duck, it better be a duck, or a lawsuit could find its way to your pond.
Leading the charge to strike down Joe and Jane is none other than atheist Michael Newdow, the infamous atheist who not only sought to have the word “God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, but now wants “In God We Trust” removed from American currency.
Newdow, who claims the pledge ruling was only the beginning of his campaign to eliminate references to God in the public square, wants to replace the male and female pronouns of “he” and “she” with the gender-neutral “ree,” “rees,” and “erm” as a means of promoting “gender equity.”[2]
He’s not alone on this one.
Welcome to political correctness, circa 2006, where using the wrong gender pronoun, even in error, could have you labeled “insensitive,” “intolerant,” or even “heteronormative.”
Heteronormative? This new, ridiculously “PC” term refers to a person’s “misguided” reinforcement of the traditional gender roles of man and woman-the ones practiced by the majority of Americans. In other words, don’t assume that when someone is referring to their “date” that that person is of the opposite sex from the speaker…or that there’s even an opposite sex.
The term gained attention not long ago when it was used by the editorial board of a school newspaper at Pomona College. A staff-written Nov. 14, 2005, article urges the college to stop being “heteronormative” and install “gender neutral” bathrooms at a campus center, rather than assuming bathrooms designated for “males” and “females” alone are adequate.[3]
Actress Jada Pinkett Smith was branded “heteronormative” after delivering a speech at Harvard that focused solely on relationships and marriages between men and women. She was criticized for having a focus that was too “narrow” and which caused some in the audience to feel “left out.”[4]
On college campuses and in workplaces, a renewed push is on to eliminate bathrooms reserved solely for those subscribing to normal sexual roles. Such “stereotypes” could “alienate” those who subscribe to neither or both “roles.” Bowling Green University in Ohio has already installed such facilities. Some students and activists at other institutions, such as Beloit College and the University of Chicago, are pushing for the same.[5]
No mention is given to how much taxpayers-including those who oppose homosexual behavior-are anteing up to fund the “special” facilities, or whether they would agree with allowing their children to attend an institution that celebrates such beliefs, which may well be contrary to their own.
The moral of the lesson? If you give a mouse same-sex benefits, he’s going to ask you for the gender-neutral bathroom and oh so much more.
Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor who held various posts in the departments of Justice and Interior during the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org), a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

[1] “Homosexual groups back off from ‘10 percent’ myth.” Family Research Council, Nov. 23, 2005.
[2] “Mr. Newdow Goes to Washington.” Brown Alumni magazine, May/June 2004.
[3] “All students deserve safe SCC restrooms.” Student Life editorial board, Nov. 11, 2005.
[4] “The Tyranny of the Minority.” Boston Globe, March 14, 2005.
[5] “Beloit students pushing for ‘gender-neutral’ bathrooms.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 11, 2004 ().

By Joseph Lindsley
The Weekly Standard

IMAGINE a Republican congressman defending traditional marriage by saying, “I am inspired in my public service by St. Paul’s admonition against sodomy in his first letter to the Corinthians.” Surely, many liberals would raise the alarm of impending theocracy. But House minority leader Nancy Pelosi–a self-described “conservative Catholic” despite her status as a pro-gay marriage, pro-choice San Francisco lefty who as a young girl thought she would rather be a priest than a nun–has lately been encouraging members of her party to couch their political arguments in Biblical terms so as to appeal to the God-fearing.
In a St. Patrick’s Day speech on the genocide in Darfur, a topic that unites religious conservatives and liberals, Pelosi said, “The gospel of Matthew is something that drives many of us in our public service.” In September of last year, she gave a speech in favor of strengthening the Endangered Species Act, in which she said, “In Isaiah in the Old Testament, we are told that to minister to the needs of God’s creation–and that includes our beautiful environment–is an act of worship.” And Pelosi, who could be speaker of the House next January, was one of 55 Catholic Democrats in the chamber who signed a “Statement of Principles” in which they expressed union with the “living Catholic tradition.” In the statement, released in February through the office of Connecticut’s Rosa DeLauro, the signers admit the “undesirability of abortion,” without actually committing to changing their party’s pro-choice agenda.
Marco Grimaldi, head of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the liberal Center for American Progress, suggests that this new tic is less a strategic move and more an act of frustration with the perception that Democrats are opposed to religion. “There is a great deal of conversation around a handful of moral issues. I think people who see things differently are really frustrated,” he said.
This statement of frustration seems to be an outgrowth of the “Faith Working Group,” an effort to coordinate discourse between House Democrats and churchgoers that Pelosi initiated just over a year ago, when the “values voters” of 2004 were still the subjects of liberal nightmares. She chose as the group’s chairman Rep. Jim Clyburn, an African Methodist Episcopalian from South Carolina’s 6th district, whom she has subsequently selected to serve as chairman of the House Democratic caucus as well. That promotion suggests the importance Pelosi places upon political fellowship with the faithful. The Faith Working Group looks mostly like a behind-the-scenes endeavor, but the “faith page” of the caucus’ website provides a glimpse into its undertakings. There, one finds a press release announcing the group’s meeting with the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, a link to Rep. Sherrod Brown’s speech on “Faith, Holy Writ and Social Justice,” an October statement from the presiding Episcopal bishop calling the Republican budget proposal “tantamount to blasphemy,” and, of course, the Catholic “Statement of Principles.”
IN AN EARLIER DAY, American Catholics in public life sought to distance themselves from Rome. Now Catholic Democrats wish to appear as though they agree with the church even when they do not. Attempting to avoid having to reconcile this tension with the Church on abortion (and other matters), they express a desire to “speak to the fundamental issues that unite us as Catholics.” Citing the “primacy of conscience,” but ignoring the Church’s view that a good conscience is one in accord with the Church. Instead, they have created their own version of the “fundamental issues” that unite Catholics, excluding the topics on which they dissent.
Using talk of a “consistent moral framework for life,” for instance, they create the possibility of making the simple, total rejection of abortion into a complex matter of moral reasoning. Using the Church’s complex social teachings, they craft simple admonitions against war and tax cuts. This bit of political alchemy is an inversion of what Alexis de Tocqueville noticed about Catholic Americans 200 years ago. Back then, they portioned their “intellectual world” into two: “in the one [part] they place the doctrines of revealed religion, which they assent to without discussion, in the other they leave those political truths which they believe the Deity has left open to free inquiry.” Today, liberal Catholics give unquestioning allegiance to the Democratic party, while maintaining independent minds in matters of Church doctrine.
Pelosi, 66-years-old and a mother of five who did not run for office until her youngest child was nearly an adult, is certainly proud of her faith. In her speech on Darfur, she mentioned a friar in San Francisco whose work with the homeless has inspired her. She has fondly recalled her education at, and maintains relations with, Washington, D.C.’s Trinity College, formerly a Catholic institution, but which has over the years abandoned its faith, even going so far as to shut the doors of its chapel.
But Pelosi also acknowledges that Democrats must make a more concerted effort to convince devout voters that the party is not hostile to them. Catholics, who voted 51 to 48 percent in favor of a second term for President Bush, make up a sizable portion of that demographic. Additionally, liberal Catholic politicians may foresee a need to respond preemptively to critiques from prelates, such as the threats in 2004 to exclude John Kerry from Communion, or the denunciation of Pelosi’s support of abortion by the archdiocese of San Francisco in 2002.
The Faith Working Group has made strides in helping Democrats use the language of faith, but will this translate to winning religious votes? Perhaps Howard Dean has the answer.
After Tim Kaine, a religious Catholic, won the Virginia governorship following a campaign during which he frequently and proudly spoke of his faith, Dean told NPR, “We want, like Tim Kaine, to be talking about our faith, and if we’re not comfortable talking about our faith, then talk about our moral values.” Lurking in that statement, in Pelosi’s references to her “conservative Catholicism,” and in the “Statement of Principles” is a dilution of the substance of faith so that it becomes something less real, enabling a rhetoric of religion doesn’t hold politicians accountable to any tenets but their own. Behind this smokescreen, Nancy Pelosi is able to call her liberal plan to save the environment–over which, according to Genesis, God gave man dominion–an “act of worship,” but opposing abortion, which according to the Catholic church her conscience should compel her to do, is an act of intrusion.

Nancy, even Satan can quote the Bible, out of context of course, in order to try to make it support his point of view. Been taking lessions, have you? -ed.