Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the personification of strength.
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia and raised in a devoutly Muslim household, Ali grew up in an oppressive Islamic society yet surfaced to tell her tale.
Ali, now in her 40s, has lived a life rarely fathomed anywhere but within the pages of an adventure book. After surviving genital mutilation as a child, fleeing to the Netherlands to escape from an arranged marriage in her twenties, condemning her former faith, and surviving multiple death threats, Ali is now a staunch and outspoken advocate for women and human rights in Islamic countries.
Advocating for justice in the Muslim world has not been easy. After receiving asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, Ali earned a degree in political science at the University of Leiden and served in the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 — often speaking out passionately about the plight of women in the Muslim world.
In 2004, Ali partnered with director Theo van Gogh to create a film about the Muslim oppression of women, called “Submission.” Several months after the film aired, a Muslim radical named Mohammed Bouyeri murdered van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam, stabbing a note to his body warning Ali that she would be next. Since then, Ali has been in hiding, protected by 24-hour security.
Now living, writing, and speaking out in America, Ali continues to reflect on the life she left behind. In a recent conversation with The Daily Caller, Ali explained that she never realized what a risk she was taking when she left Islam and began speaking out against it.
“When I first started publishing and responding to interviews I didn’t know that my life was in danger,” she said. “And when I got the question, ‘So are you, yourself, Muslim?’ The answer I gave was no, I’m secularized and I realized too late that that answer meant, as a Muslim, I am an apostate and inviting violence.”
According to Ali, Islam, as a template for societal organization, is a complete failure.
“If you look at nations that have adopted Sharia law, you see a number of things: you see an upsurge in the violations of human rights — rights of women, gay people, and religious minorities. You see a dictatorship at all times even though it is sometimes presented as a democracy. For instance, because Islamic law is divine law who ever takes control of government puts himself in the position of God,” she said.
Growing up in a culture that shuns women is incompatible with the ideals of feminism, Ali told TheDC, saying that she got the strength to leave Somalia and the culture in which she was raised from within herself and from circumstances in her life that were unusual for women in her situation — specifically having the opportunity to get an education.
“I was sent to school and there are so many Muslim girls who never go to school or never get to finish it,” she said. “Another circumstance which put me in a lucky position is my father left our family when I was about 10- or 11-years old and he returned when I was 21. And that’s the period when most girls get married off. So, if I had been married off at 16 or 17, I would’ve been much more vulnerable — not as strong. But at 22, after having observed what happens to these young women who are married off and how their lives get shattered, that strengthened me even more to say no to these men.”
Ali says that she never reached common ground with her father and has little idea of where her mother is, saying only that she is “somewhere in Somalia.” CONTINUED
In March Robert Krentz was murdered by someone who is suspected to be an illegal immigrant and now his widow, Sue Krentz, has been hit by a car after attending mass. She was helping an elderly woman cross the road when they were struck by a car. Let us keep both women in our thoughts and prayers.
DOUGLAS, Ariz. (CNS) -- An Arizona woman who has become the face of border-area problems since her husband's murder in March was hospitalized with serious injuries in Tucson Sept. 25 after she and another woman were hit by a car as they crossed the street after Mass at St. Luke Church in Douglas.
Krentz and Gregory were taken by helicopter to a Tucson hospital. Friends told Arizona news media that Krentz had several broken bones, including her pelvis, and had surgery. Information was not available about Gregory's condition.
Sue Krentz, 58, was crossing the street with a friend, 80-year-old Shirley Gregory, when they were struck by a car driven by Ramon Parra Saucedo, according to the Cochise County Sheriff's department. He was charged with driving under the influence, two counts of aggravated assault and two counts of endangerment.
From Reuters: UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Saturday criticized U.N. calls for increased "global governance" of the world's economy, saying the world body should leave that role to national governments.
The solution to dealing with the global economic crisis, Klaus told the U.N. General Assembly, did not lie in "creating new governmental and supranational agencies, or in aiming at global governance of the world economy."
"On the contrary, this is the time for international organizations, including the United Nations, to reduce their expenditures, make their administrations thinner, and leave the solutions to the governments of member states," he said.
Klaus appeared to be responding to the address of the Swiss president of the General Assembly, Joseph Deiss, who said on Thursday at the opening of the annual gathering of world leaders in New York that it was time for the United Nations to "comprehensively fulfill its global governance role."
Deiss suggested the world body should get more involved in economic and financial issues and not leave them solely in the hands of forums like the Group of 20 club of key developed and developing nations.
Klaus, a free-market economist who oversaw a wave of privatization in the 1990s after communism collapsed in his homeland, also said the world was "moving in the wrong direction" in combating the economic crisis.
"The anti-crisis measures that have been proposed and already partly implemented follow from the assumption that the crisis was a failure of markets and that the right way out is more regulation of markets," he said.
Klaus said that was a "mistaken assumption" and it was impossible to prevent future crises through regulatory interventions and similar actions by governments.
That will only "destroy the markets and together with them the chances for economic growth and prosperity in both developed and developing countries," he said.
The Czech president, a vocal skeptic of global warming, said the United Nations should also keep out of science, including climate change. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made fighting climate change one of his top priorities. (Editing by Paul Simao)
Chris Coons is so out of touch with the American people that on his website he states that matters such as his following Marxism and promoting the Marxist agenda are a distraction. He wants us to consider it a distraction since it reveals his extremist views and policies which are very much aligned with Obama's extremist policies, which are harming America. He'll have to talk to Dingy Harry about the "pet" thing and his strange fetish with thinking of Coons as a "pet".
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. of the American Spectatorgives us some insight into how Coons became a "Bearded Marxist" and exposes some of his extreme beliefs. He also reveals one of Coons broken promises: "As county executive of New Castle County, Coons promised voters he would keep taxes down. Once elected, he raised property taxes by 5% in 2006, by 17.5% in 2007, and by 25% in 2009. He loves taxes. Lord tells us he has proposed to raise hotel taxes, paramedic taxes, and something heretofore unheard of. Lord tells us that Coons has a proposal to raise taxes on 911 calls. Lord discovered that by reading Byron York's report in the Washington Examiner."
"College is supposed to be a time of change, a time to question our assumption about the world and define our basic values. For me, the transformations of the last few years have been especially acute. I came to Amherst from a fairly sheltered, privileged, and politically conservative background. I campaigned for Reagan in 1980, and spent the summer after freshman year working for Senator Roth (of Kemp-Roth tax-cut fame.) In the fall of 1983, I was a proud founding member of the Amherst College Republicans. In November 1984, I represented the Amherst Democrats in a hotly contested pre-election debate against my former roommates, co-founders and leaders of the Republicans. As the debate progressed it became obvious how unreconcilably different our opinions had become. What caused such a shift in only one year?
I spent the spring of my junior year in Africa on the St. Lawrence Kenya Study Program. Going to Kenya was one of the few real decisions I have made; my friends, family, and professors all advised against it, but I went anyway, My friends now joke that something about Kenya, maybe a strange diet, or the tropical sun, changed my personality; Africa to them seems a catalytic converter that takes in clean-shaven, clear thinking Americans and sends back Bearded Marxists.
The point that others ignore is that I was ready to change. Experiences at Amherst my first two years made me skeptical and uncomfortable with Republicanism, enough so that I wanted to see the Third World for myself to get some perspective on my beliefs. Certainly Kenya provided a needed catalyst; I saw there poverty, and oppression more naked than any in America, and I studied under a bright and eloquent Marxist professor at the University of Nairobi. Nevertheless, it is only too easy to return from Africa glad to be an American and smugly thankful for our wealth and freedom. Instead, Amherst had taught me to question, so in return I questioned Amherst, and America.
When I first arrived at Amherst, I was somewhat of a Republican fanatic. I fit Churchill’s description, namely, that a fanatic is “Someone who can’t change their mind, and won't change the subject.” While other freshman share care packages from home, I was equally generous with my inherited political opinions giving them to anyone who would listen. It was in this manner that I soon met a creature I had never known before—a Democrat, several of them. Some of the “Leftists” that I met early on were terrifyingly persuasive, although I never admitted that. A few became my friends and provided a constant nagging backdrop of doubt, for which I am now grateful.
More importantly, during sophomore year, several professors challenged the basic assumptions about America and the world relations with which I had grown up. Cultural Anthropology inspired a fascination with other peoples, and undermined the accepted value of progress and the cultural superiority of the West. In examining the role of myths in “primitive” cultures, we also studied the myth of equal opportunity in this country, a myth I had never questioned. A course on the Vietnam War painted in gory detail a picture of horrible failures made possible by American hubris and dogmatism. I came to suspect, through these and other courses, that the ideal of America as “a beacon of freedom and justice, providing hope for the world” was not exactly based in reality. So, I went to Africa, hungry for a break from Amherst and eager to gain some broader political insight from the brutally real world. What do other nations think of us? Can private enterprise and democracy solve the problems of developing nations? Is Marxism an evil ideology, leading millions into totalitarian slavery? These were some of the questions in the back of my mind as I left for Kenya.
What I learned in Africa unsettled me. I saw the deprivation and oppression of the poor and the politically disfavored in a way not possible in the U.S. In Kenya, my position was not at stake; I was not directly benefiting if the underprivileged had little hope of advancement. I lived with the struggling African family for a month and came to know the hardships that they face. What surprised me was the attitude of the elite; I became friends with a very wealthy businessman and his family and heard them reiterate the same beliefs held by many Americans; the poor are poor because they are lazy, slovenly, uneducated. “Kenya is a land of opportunity,” they said, “those who work receive their just reward.” I knew this was not true in the case of many black Kenyans; this story merely served to justify the position of many who had done well only by working for the British colonialists. I realize that Kenya and America are very different, but experiences like this warned me that my own favorite beliefs in the miracles of free enterprise and the boundless opportunity to be had in America might be largely untrue.
When I returned last summer, I traveled all over the East Coast and saw in many ways a different America. Upon arriving at Amherst this fall, I felt like a freshman at an unfamiliar school all over again. Many of the questions raised by my experiences of the last year remained unanswered. I have spent my senior year reexamining my ideas and have returned to loving America, but in the way of one who has realized its faults and failures and still believes in its promise. The greatest value of Amherst for me, then, has been the role it played in allowing me to question, and to think. I had to see the slums of Nairobi before the slums of New York meant anything at all, but with out the experiences of Amherst, I never would have seen either."
This essay certainly displays Coons youthful naivete. It looks like ever since then, he has adhered to what is an utterly irresponsible and naive philosophy. On Chris Coons website he talks about supporting the right for every student to have a quality public education and strengthening Head Start, Early Head Start and high-quality pre-K programs. This is fine and well but his site states nothing on school vouchers and no specifics on how he is going to strengthen the public school system. Is he planning on just throwing more money at the Teacher's unions and schools or is he actually planning to implement policies to make sure that children actually receive a quality education? The policies of the teachers unions and the Democrats have not helped children and their public educational system over the years but in fact their programs have hurt our public education system with more layers of bureaucracy and continues to hurt our students chances of receiving a good public education.
Chris is calling for a nationwide cap and trade program that will help establish a price on carbon and unleash the creativity of American ingenuity to help solve this crisis. Chris is for Cap & Trade which will tax us out of existence, tax our country out of prosperity. This is an extreme view especially in light of further proof that man made climate change is a hoax. Lord Monckton exposes lies of those who follow Al Gore the Environmental Whore. Here are 70 scientists who do not believe the global warming hysteria. More information here that exposes the global warming hoax. A scientist, named Andrew Montford, debunks the hockey stick that global warming hystericists claim "proves" man made global warming exists. Obama even says that "prices will skyrocket" and will cause unemployment among those working in the coal industry.
Under Coons-Obama-Reid-Pelosi's policy of Cap & Trade your energy bills will skyrocket and there will be higher unemployment caused by this legislation. Do you really want to pay prohibitive costs for all your energy bills? Do you want a higher unemployment rate? If not, then don't vote for the EXREMIST, Chris Coons!
Chris Coons supports public funding of all reproductive health services for women who depend on the federal government for their health care. He supports the federal funding of abortion. Do you want to fund the killing of innocent unborn life? He believes in forcing others, who believe it is morally wrong to kill an unborn child, to fund other persons' abortions. This is unconscionable!! This is immoral!!
"Chris opposes proposals such as the Child Custody Protection Act; gag rules that prohibit health-care professionals from counseling patients; and bans on safe procedures that protect the life and health of the mother."
Chris Coons believes it is okay for a stranger to take your daughter across state lines in order for her to be able to have an abortion without your knowledge or consent.
Chris Coons is way too EXTREME to be Senator of Delaware.
Yesterday, I returned home and to my chagrin I found that my power was out, yet again. This was really, really annoying. Geesh, I was planning on hitting all of my usual blogs, and couldn't again. Is this some conspiracy or something? LOL! Well, off to commenting. I hope everyone had a great Friday night!
Last night my power went out somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 pm and it wasn't restored until the wee hours of the morning. I wish that I could have visited everyones blogs yesterday but I couldn't. I'll be visiting shortly, though. I have never seen rain that came down in sheets like it did yesterday. I couldn't even see my car! Other than that, it was so, so boring yesterday without any electricity available. I am just thankful that my power is up and running again. From Tribune-Review - "Wind gusts estimated at nearly 70 mph sent trees crashing onto cars in Mt. Lebanon and Banksville, according to National Weather Service reports and emergency dispatchers. Small hail was reported across the South Hills, the weather service said."
"About 100,000 Duquesne Light and Allegheny Power customers lost power at the height of the storm.
Lightning shattered the steeple at a former South Side church housing the Pittsburgh Action Against Rape offices, sending the wooden, brick and copper structure through the roof and ceilings of the three-story building on South 19th Street."
'"There's a steeple on my chair," said Leah Vallone, the center's supervisor of crisis intervention, who escaped injury because she was in a meeting. "I was religious, but I think I will be even more so now."'
On September 19th, John Henry Newman was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI during his closing mass in England. A man studying to be a deacon, named Jack Sullivan, who was crippled by a rare spinal condition, was cured after he prayed to Cardinal Newman. This is the miracle that set Newman's cause for sainthood in motion. An estimated 55,000 Brits braved the damp to see Pope's Beatification Mass.
While researching and learning more about the life and works of Blessed John Henry Newman I came across a poem called "The Dream of Gerontius" which was written by Newman. I found it interesting and am posting the First Phase of the poem below.
FIRST PHASE
Gerontius: JESU, MARIA - I am near to death,
And Thou art calling me; I know it now. Not by the token of this faltering breath, This chill at heart,, this dampness on my brow,— (Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!) 'tis this new feeling, never felt before, (Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!) That I am going, that I am no more. ‘Tis this strange innermost abandonment, (Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,) This emptying out of each constituent And natural force, by which I come to be. Pray for me, 0 my friends; a visitant Is knocking his dire summons at my door, The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt, Has never, never come to me before; ‘us death,—O loving friends, your prayers!— ‘tis he! As though my very being had given way, As though I was no more a substance now, And could fall back on nought to be my stay, (Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole Refuge, Thou,) And turn no whither, but must needs decay And drop from out the universal frame Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss, That utter nothingness, of which I came: This is it that has come to pass in me; O horror! this it is, my dearest, this; So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray.
ASSISTANTS
KYRIE eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison. Holy Mary, pray for him. All holy Angels, pray for him. Choirs of the righteous, pray for him. Holy Abraham, pray for him. St John Baptist, St Joseph, pray for him. St Peter, St Paul, St Andrew, St John, All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him. All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him. All holy Innocents, pray for him. All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors, All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins, All ye Saints of God, pray for him.
GERONTIUS:
ROUSE thee, my fainting soul, and play the man; And through such waning span Of life and thought as still has to be trod, Prepare to meet thy God. And while the storm of that bewilderment Is for a season spent, And, ere afresh the ruin on thee fall, Use well the interval.
ASSISTANTS:
BE merciful, be gracious; spare him, Lord. Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him. From the sins that are past; From Thy frown and Thine ire; From the perils of dying; From any complying With sin, or denying His God, or relying, On self, at the last; From the nethermost fire; From all that is evil; From power of the devil; Thy servant deliver, For once and for ever. By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross, Rescue him from endless loss; By Thy death and burial, Save him from a final fall; By Thy rising from the tomb, By Thy mounting up above, By the Spirit’s gracious love, Save him in the day of doom.
GERONTIUS:
SANCTUS fortis, Sanctus Deus De Profundis oro te, Miserere, Judex meus Parce mihi Domine. Firmly I believe and truly God is Three, and God is One; And I next acknowledge duly Manhood taken by the Son. And I trust and hope most fully In that Manhood crucified; And each thought and deed unruly Do to death, as He has died. Simply to His grace and wholly Light and life and strength belong, And I love, supremely, solely, Him the holy, Him the strong. Sanctus fortis Sanctus Deus, De Profundis oro te Miserere, Judex meus Parce mihi Domine. And I hold in veneration, For the love of Him alone, Holy Church, as His creation, And her teachings, as His own. And I take with joy whatever Now besets me, pain or fear, And with a strong will I sever All the ties which bind me here. Adoration aye be given, With and through the angelic host, To the God of earth and heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, De Profundis oro te, Miserere, Judex meus, Mortis in discrimine. I can no more; for now it comes again, That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain, That masterful negation and collapse Of all that makes me man; as though I bent Over the dizzy brink Of some sheer infinite descent; Or worse, as though Down, down for ever I was falling through The solid framework of created things, And needs must sink and sink Into the vast abyss. And, crueler still, A fierce and restless fright begins to fill The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse, Some bodily form of ill Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and flaps Its hideous wings, And makes me wild with horror and dismay. 0 Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray! Some angel, Jesu such as came to Thee In Thine own agony.... Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me. Mary, pray for me.
ASSISTANTS
RESCUE him, O Lord, in this his evil hour, As of old so many by Thy gracious power: (Amen.) Enoch and Elias from the common doom; (Amen.) Noe from the waters in a saving home; (Amen.) Abraham from th’ abounding guilt of Heathenesse; (Amen.) Job from all his multiform and fell distress; (Amen.) Isaac, when his father’s knife was raised to slay; (Amen.) Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment-day; (Amen.) Moses from the land of bondage and despair; (Amen.) Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair; (Amen.) And the Children Three amid the furnace-flame; (Amen.) Chaste Susanna from the slander and the shame; (Amen.) David from Golia and the wrath of Saul (Amen.) And the two Apostles from the prison-thrall; (Amen.) Thecla from her torments; (Amen:) —so, to show Thy power, Rescue this Thy servant in his evil hour.
GERONTIUS:
NOVISSIMA hora est; and I fain would sleep, The pain has wearied me.... Into Thy hands O Lord, into Thy hands ....
THE PRIEST:
PROFICISCERE, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo! Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul! Go from this world! Go, in the name of God The omnipotent Father, who created thee! Go, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Son of the living God, who bled for thee! Go, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who Hath been poured out on thee! Go, in the name Of Angels and Archangels; in the name Of Thrones and Dominations; in the name Of Princedoms and of Powers; and in the name Of Cherubim and Seraphim, go forth! Go, in the name of Patriarchs and Prophets; And of Apostles and Evangelists, Of Martyrs and Confessors; in the name Of holy Monks and Hermits; in the name Of holy Virgins; and all Saints of God, Both men and women, go Go on thy course; And may thy place to-day be found in peace, And may thy dwelling be the Holy Mount Of Sion :—through the Same, through Christ, our Lord.
Edward Elgar turned the text from Blessed John Henry Newman's poem into an oratorio, called Gerontius. I found this video on youtube which was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra:
This is a shocking and most disturbing situation!! How dare Wellesley School lie or misrepresent the field trip to the parents. This kinda crap has got to stop!! Any mention of God in our public schools is outlawed but yet this is allowed. Oh! NO! This kind of indoctrination of our youth must stop!! Stop the Islamization of America!! This is yet another reason to homeschool your kids.
Christine O'Donnell is the right candidate at the right time for Delaware and our nation at this time. She has answered the rumors - the myths - on her website and I am posting her responses to her critics below. I would rather have someone who has had financial struggles, had to deal with real life issues, had to work hard to get where she's at today, than a person who has been handed pretty much everything on a silver platter. People complain about her having had financial issues. I say, so what? So have many people and that shouldn't disqualify a person from entering public service or from entering politics. We are all human and we have all made mistakes in our past. Mistakes, especially admitting your mistakes, is no reason for a person to be disqualified from serving in the political arena. IMO, that is a breath of fresh of fresh air and I would rather have a person like Christine O'Donnell representing me than the likes of those who are self-serving bureaucrats serving in Congress today.
Here are Christine's counters to the myths:
MYTH: Did not get college diploma
■FACT: Americans are struggling and I understand those struggles, because I’ve also faced difficult times, but in the end, I persevered. It took me over ten years to pay off my tuition bill. As a result my diploma was delayed. As FOX News, the Wilmington News Journal, and numerous other media sources have confirmed, I have a degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University and am a very proud alumna.
MYTH: Not a Delaware resident
■FACT: While some individuals might try to intimidate me to get out of the race, I will never back down from what’s right for Delaware citizens. During my 2008 campaign, both my home and campaign office were vandalized, broken into, and files were stolen. Threatening messages were left and nasty names were scrawled across my front door and porch. For security reasons, I simply do not want my Delaware home address made public this time around.
MYTH: Lost home in foreclosure
■FACT: Over the last few years, the American real estate market crashed and many families were faced with tough decisions. Contrary to what others are saying, I was lucky to survive this economic turmoil and my home was not foreclosed upon. My home was privately sold in 2008 through a realtor and private mortgage company, not a public foreclosure.
■FACT: The following is an excellent example of our bloated government and the need for a simplified tax code in America. The IRS says the erroneous tax bill was a “computer error.” During my previous campaign against then Sen. Joe Biden, I was audited by the IRS. After a long appeals process; the issue was supposed to have been wrapped up this past spring. Yet, in March, rather than a letter finalizing the appeals process, I received an erroneous tax lien claiming I had not responded to their previous correspondence. The IRS admitted the letter was a mistake, issued a Certificate of Release of Federal Tax Lien on May 19, 2010 and chalked it up to a “computer error.” The remaining balance was paid in full on May 16, 2010.
Here is the document proving the release of her federal tax lien:
The following document shows that Christine was complying with the IRS during the appeals process. This proves that the lien was erroneous and a “computer error” since you can’t get a tax lien placed on your home while under the appeals process (especially one you sold 2 years ago).
She is believes jobs are created when freed from both excessive taxation and bureaucratic red tape. She believes terrorism is an act of war and that terrorists should not enjoy the privilege of constitutional rights which are in fact rights granted to American citizens. She is against the excessive taxation of the American people and is pushing for a simplification of the tax code. She is pro-life and believes in protecting the sanctity of life at all stages. Christine supports a market-based approach to energy solutions that will keep competition high and energy prices low.
Christine believes our country was founded on core values of faith, family and freedom and will fight to defend those values. Will always fight for maximum choice for parents about where to educate their kids, including private, parochial and charter schools or in the home.
She believes unrestrained government spending is eroding our freedom, destroying our economy and ceding our sovereignty to foreign debt- holders like China.
Christine believes in accountability. She denounces corrupt pork-barrel politics, including earmarks, and will fight for increased transparency and performance information for every Federal program.
She believes that the solution to the healthcare crisis is less government meddling in the doctor/patient relationship, more competition in the insurance market and more choice for families about their health plan.
Christine is a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment rights, and this has earned her an “A” rating from the NRA.
Regardless whether some of us have some reservations or not about Christine O'Donnell as a candidate we need to put things into perspective and remember what our priority is this election cycle, to defeat the Obama agenda. I had some reservations about Scott Brown but I supported him because I knew he would be better than the other candidate who was tied at the hip with Obama and his policies. WE must all step up to the plate and work together to defeat Obama and the Obama agenda. Every freedom loving conservative should be standing in line to support Christine O'Donnell so that we can stop and eventually reverse Obamacare, whereas her opponent Chris Coons supports Obamacare, the Obama agenda, and is a Marxist who supports excessive taxation and spreading the wealth.
Christine O'Donnell is the right candidate at the right time. Let's all support her so she can win against the Coons, the candidate in Delaware who is out of touch with the American people, supports high taxes which will lead to higher unemployment, wants to rob from the job creators and stifle their means to create employment to those who need jobs, and he wants to continue keeping the underprivileged reliant on the government.
PLEASE SUPPORT CHRISTINE O'DONNELL FOR U.S. SENATE IN DELAWARE ALONG WITH OTHER FREEDOM LOVING CANDIDATES AND TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THE OBAMA REGIME!!!
From the Telegraph: The boy and girl cubs, which arrived in July, were the first to be born at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park in Devon for six years.
Julian Chapman, senior head keeper of mammals, said he hoped visitors would be able to see the cubs out and about in the next few weeks.
''With its rusty red coat and a long bushy tail, it resembles a raccoon more than a panda.
''It is mainly nocturnal and spends most of its time curled on a branch with its tail over its head. It lives in pairs and forms small family groups.'
The cubs were born to parents Randy, aged three, and six-year-old mother Mandy.
Randy came to Paignton from Dortmund Zoo in Germany in September 2008 and Mandy arrived from Dublin Zoo the previous January.
The red or lesser panda comes from the mountains of Bhutan, China, India, Laos, Myanmar and Nepal.
It lives in high altitude forest and eats bamboo shoots, grass, roots, fruit, acorns and occasionally mice and birds.
The panda has fur on the pads of its paws to help keep heat in and to prevent it slipping on wet or snowy surfaces.
The female has one or two young after a gestation period of 90 to 150 days and the young stay with the mother until they are a year old.
The red panda is classed as ''vulnerable'' by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which means it is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.
It has legal protection in Nepal and China, and can be found in several national parks.
Conservation breeding programmes in zoos are co-ordinated worldwide.
Ibn Warraq has written two articles about the Imam, his multiple messages - mixed messages - and the two faces of Imam Feisal Rauf - the good Imam and the bad Imam. I am posting both articles below.
From Ibn Warraq: Journalist and author Fareed Zakaria has made some grave accusations against those who oppose the building of the Islamic center near Ground Zero, and has predicated his own approval of the project on the moderateness of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Zakaria wrote that Abdul Rauf “has said one or two things about American foreign policy that strike me as overly critical — but it’s stuff you could read on The Huffington Post any day.”
Yes, indeed — you are likely to read similar “stuff” on the Huffington Post, since Rauf has written there. But how can that possibly constitute a convincing defense of Rauf? Many Huffington Post writers are anti-American, and believe that the U.S. had 9/11 “coming to it.” They still have not learned that 9/11 had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy.
Rauf evidently has not learned that lesson either. On Sept. 30, 2001, 60 Minutes host Ed Bradley asked him if he thought the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks. Rauf replied, “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. . . . We have been an accessory to a lot of — of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it — in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the U.S.A.”
It is worth noting Rauf’s words carefully. The atrocity is characterized in the passive: “a crime that happened.” This allows Rauf to avoid stating that it was Islamists who committed it. In his book What’s Right with Islam, Rauf even objects to the term “Islamism” — one that was actually concocted to avoid indicting Islam directly — since, he argues, it falsely implies that Islam is the source of the militancy. CONTINUED
The problems with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s book What’s Right with Islam begin with the title. As Andrew McCarthy noted on National Review Online, the book, whose full title is now What’s Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West, was previously called What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America; before that, it was published in Malaysia as A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America post-9/11. In one edition published by HarperCollins, the copyright page told us that the “edition was made possible through a joint effort of The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the office of Interfaith and Community Alliance of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Funding for this project was provided by IIIT.” The HarperCollins edition no longer contains this telling information, and with reason. McCarthy reveals that both ISNA and IIIT have promoted Hamas, and were demonstrated “by the Justice Department [to be] unindicted co-conspirators in a crucial terrorism-financing case involving the channeling of tens of millions of dollars to Hamas through an outfit called the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. For the last 15 years, Hamas has been a designated terrorist organization under U.S. law.”
Dawa is the invitation, addressed to men by God and the prophets, to believe in the true religion, Islam. The term can mean propaganda, but more specifically, it refers to Islamic missionary work, which is not limited to efforts to convert individuals but includes efforts to convert entire societies and establish Islamic states. Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, predicts that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe” through Dawa.
In the book’s chatty and ostentatiously friendly preface, Rauf tells us that he is an American and a Muslim, and proud to be both. Then comes this sentence: “September 11, a day that will live in infamy for having provoked the United States into a war, confused and frightened many non-Muslim Americans about Islam.” Note that in this description of why 9/11 will “live in infamy,” there is not a word about Islamic terrorists killing 2,976 people. We saw earlier how Rauf characterized 9/11 as “a crime that happened”; now it is a provocation.
It is not unusual for Rauf to dismiss or ignore the victims of 9/11. During a lecture he gave in Australia in 2005, Rauf said, “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was secretary of state and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.” CONTINUED
Imam Rauf is by no means a moderate Muslim. His words have in fact revealed the true Imam Rauf - extreme in his beliefs. Rauf is much, much too radical and terrorist sympathizing and must not be allowed to build a mosque at Ground Zero, where Muslim extremists murdered 3000 innocents. Through his words, as seen in the articles above, Imam Rauf has revealed that he is more akin to our enemy than he is a friend to the U.S.
I can remember September 11, 2001, almost like it was yesterday. I remember that I was driving in my car from Pittsburgh to Steubenville since I was taking classes at Franciscan University, and what I heard on the radio while driving seemed like fiction to me. I really wasn’t sure whether what I had heard on the radio was real or not. Then, I heard a verification that the United States of America was under a terrorist attack. I was in this state of shock and disbelief asking how can this be happening? I was scared! Shortly after I entered onto campus I found my honey, Kevin and we hugged. Kevin was so worried because he has some relatives who are NYC firefighters and police officers. We said a prayer for their and everyone’s safety. I attended my Theology class where we prayed for the people who tragically lost their lives on 9/11 and their loved ones who have had to endure their loss.
We must never forget 9/11. And, yet somehow there are people today who have forgotten about 9/11 and believe that day shouldn’t have changed our lives. It did. It will forever. That would be like saying Pearl Harbor shouldn’t have changed our mode of thinking. It did. We entered WWII to defeat our enemy. Our troops are deployed all across the world trying to defeat our enemy much in the same way that we defeated our enemies in WWII. These people who have forgotten about 9/11 need to wake up and stop burying their heads in the sand. The terrorist attacks that happened 9 years ago today were in fact an act of war. Prior to that date America was targeted with terrorist attacks that occurred mostly overseas with the exception of one attack taking place in America in 1993-- the World Trade Center bombing. Those were treated as if they were mere matters of law enforcement when in fact they were attacks on our nation - acts of war.God rest all those souls who died that tragic day.God Bless our troops who are serving overseas. God Bless the USA!
