Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Wikipedia Meets Its Own Climategate
Dec 31st, 2009
Climate ChangeThe American Spectator - Tom Bethell
Categories: Today's Headlines

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, had an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal drawing attention to the rise of "online hostility" and the "degeneration of online civility." He (and coauthor Andrea Weckerle) suggested ways in which we can "prevent the worst among us from silencing the best among us."

I agree with just about everything that they say. But there is one problem that Mr. Wales does not go near. That is the use of Wikipedia itself to inflame the political debate by permitting activists to rewrite the contributions of others. All by itself, that surely is a contributor to online incivility.

The issue that I am particularly thinking about is "climate change" -- or global warming as it was once called (until the globe stopped warming, about a decade ago). Recently the Financial Post in Canada published an article by Lawrence Solomon, with this remarkable headline:

How Wikipedia's green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.

Solomon draws attention to the online labors of one William M. Connolley, a Green Party activist and software engineer in Britain. Starting in February 2003, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site.  I continue with a two-paragraph direct quote from Mr. Solomon's article:

[Connolley] rewrote Wikipedia's articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug. 11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band [of climatologist activists]. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world's most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band [of activists] especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn't like the subject of a certain article, he removed it -- more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred -- over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley's global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia's blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

Online replies to this article included the following, appearing about 24 hours after Solomon's article went on line:

Recently, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee determined that "William M. Connolley has, on a number of occasions misused his administrator tools by acting while involved" and, as a consequence, "William M. Connolley's administrative privileges are revoked."

[Link: en.wikipedia.org/.../Abd-William_M._Connolley]

But three days later, on December 23, a follow-up article by Solomon said this:

How do Connolley and his co-conspirators exercise control? Take Wikipedia's page for Medieval Warm Period, as an example. In the three days following my column's appearance, this page alone was changed some 50 times in battles between Connolley's crew and those who want a fair presentation of history.

So he is still at it, apparently. Connolley has for years been involved with a website called RealClimate.org. It broadcasts the views of a group of warmist ideologues, otherwise known as "working climate scientists."  (Among them is Penn State's Michael Mann, the inventor of the "hockey stick.") My guess is that even if Connolley's Wiki privileges have been revoked, his RealClimate allies continue to labor on his behalf.

The interesting paragraph below comes from Connolley's own Wiki entry, and I suppose was written by him:

His work was also the subject of hearings by Wikipedia's arbitration committee after a complaint was filed claiming that Connolley was pushing his own point of view in an article by removing material with opposing viewpoints. A "humiliating one-revert-a-day" editing restriction was imposed on Connolley, and he told The New Yorker that Wikipedia "gives no privilege to those who know what they're talking about." The restriction was later revoked, and Connolley served as a Wikipedia administrator from January 2006. [The New Yorker article was by Stacy Schiff, July 31, 2006]

It is not surprising that Connolley should think that he knows what he is talking about and that he should be "privileged." The question is: How does Wikipedia decide between him and his allies and those who say that Connolley et al. do not know what they are talking about?

One is tempted to reply: By looking at the science. But here is an important and little-noted point. The scientific problem posed by measuring manmade global warming, if such warming really exists, is huge. There is no more complex field of science. That is because so many areas of expertise are involved -- everything from the temperature effects of oceans and of cloud cover, to the study of ice cores, to the spacing of tree rings, to the proper placement of thermometers. (How many should there be in Siberia, how close should they be to New York City? and so on.) 

Faced with the complexity of the way these variables interact -- and I could have mentioned half a dozen more -- the true scientist, at least initially, finds it difficult to be certain about the outcome. Politicians, or politicized scientists, then seized their opportunity.  Ideologues like Connolley and politicians like Al Gore filled the vacuum. Armed with world-saving missionary zeal, they milked the prestige of science to suit their own political advantage.

In so complex a field, the skeptics needed time to recover their more detached sense of what is really going on with the weather. So the warmists enjoyed a head start thanks to their political zeal and their lack of scrupulosity. Now they have come close to persuading politicians all over the Western world that we must change the way we live or sink beneath the waves.

But with the leaked emails known as Climategate more people are beginning to see that deception, not science, has been their principal weapon. And we see also that Wikipedia has lent itself to that deception.

The political exploitation of science has gone on for some time -- discrediting nuclear power in addition to the use of oil and coal has been just one of its several goals. One unintended consequence, as Fred Singer said recently, is that the public may begin to disbelieve everything that begins "science says." In the present climate, that might be healthy, but in the long run it would not work to America's or the world's advantage.

A footnote: Mr. Wales may be interested to know that the responses to Solomon's article were quite civil, surprisingly so given the shocking nature of his charges. Here are two. I particularly commend the second:

[From an academic] "I will not accept any references from Wikipedia in any paper I review from here on out until this is resolved."

"I see that a banner ad is appearing on most Wikipedia pages asking for 'donations'…. I think I'll contribute to more worthwhile charities."

For myself, I shall continue to investigate this issue over the next few days, and I hope to post a follow-up next week.

The Frightening Rise of Christian Persecution
Dec 31st, 2009
Daily Newsthisistheendoftheworldasweknowit.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution;The Church

There is a widely quoted statistic that more Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than in the 19 centuries leading up to it. But as bad as the 20th century was, the 21st century is starting to make that look like a Sunday picnic. In every corner of the globe, Christians are being shot, burned, hanged, tortured and even stuffed into metal shipping containers. Christian clergy are being marked for assassination around the world, hundreds of churches are being burned to the ground along with scores of homes and businesses owned by Christians. Dozens of nations across the globe have now passed strict anti-conversion laws in an attempt to stifle the spread of Christianity. In the countries where Christians are not yet facing physical persecution, they still must deal with open discrimination, lawsuits and increasing ridicule. Christianity is now the most hated and most persecuted religion on the plant. The reality is that the words that Jesus spoke in John 15:18 ring truer today than ever: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."

Keep those words in mind as you read the following shocking reports of Christian persecution from all over the world....

China

Chinese authorities have conducted a crackdown on "illegal" Christian churches in recent months that church leaders are calling the harshest in years. Christians in China are required to worship in "churches" run by state-controlled organizations, and Christians who attempt to worship on their own are brutally persecuted.

Recently, hundreds of government police and hired thugs descended on a megachurch that served approximately 50,000 worshippers, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries. The co-pastors of the church are in prison and police vehicles remain parked on virtually every corner of the neighborhood where the church is located. Scenes such as this are regularly being repeated all over China as the Communist government seeks to eliminate all religion that is not government-sanctioned.

Eritrea

In a story that recently made headlines all over the world, thirty elderly women in Eritrea were arrested for simply praying together. But the truth is that this is just the latest episode in an ongoing persecution of Christians that is beyond brutal.

The Pakistan Christian TV website recently described the horrifc persecution of Christians in Eritrea this way....

Today some 3,000 Eritrean Christians are imprisoned for their faith. Some are in underground and solitary cells whilst some are in 'secret' prisons for the 'disappeared'. However, most are herded into unventilated shipping containers in the desert where dysentery and infectious diseases go untreated. Torture is routine.

The truth is that these unventilated shipping containers are extremely uncomfortable. The temperatures in these metal shipping containers can reach well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and in many instances Christians are not even let out of them to use the bathroom.

Assassinations Of Clergy

Increasingly, Christian clergy are being targeted for assassination all over the world. The following are just a few of the recent examples....

• A Russian priest that had been highly critical of Islam has been assassinated inside his own church.
• Leftist guerrillas in Colombia brutally executed a Christian pastor just outside his own home.
• Two masked members of the al-Shabaab Muslim militia shot and killed a Christian pastor in Somalia as he drove home from a worship service.

India

Persecution of Christians in India is getting so bad that India actually made International Christian Concern's Hall of Shame.

According to the ICC, 2008 was particularly bad, with "wave after wave of highly coordinated Hindu raids" that resulted in "the worst outbreak of anti-Christian violence in its recent history."

The statistics that the ICC quotes regarding the outbreak of persecution in India are sobering....

"In all, more than 100 Christians are confirmed dead, 4,000 homes have burned down, and over 50,000 Christians have fled their homes."

The following is just one example of what is going on in India. This story was originally posted by The Voice of the Martyrs....

----

On April 25, Pastor Mohan Babu and two other believers were severely beaten by 35 Hindu extremists for holding a Vacation Bible School (VBS) near Bangalore City, in Karnataka State. According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts in India, the three-day VBS was organized by Ragigudda Baptist Church. VOM sources said, "Around 60 children from different backgrounds were attending the VBS. As they were worshiping, about 35 people belonging to a Hindu extremist group forcefully entered the hut chanting slogans and demolished the hut. The extremists mercilessly beat Mohan, Samuel and Krishna, alleging forceful conversion. The perpetrators chased the children without any courtesy and tore the Bibles. Mohan was severely injured on his lips and was profusely bleeding. The believers are living in fear and did not lodge complaint with the police."

----

Egypt

Hundreds of Muslim villagers in southern Egypt recently burned and looted scores of Christian-owned shops. Christians in Egypt live in a constant state of fear and thousands are being forced to relocate. In fact, the forced deportation of Egyptian Christians from their homes by the government in order to "protect" them is rapidly increasing.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, of course, strictly forbids the conversion of any Muslim to Christianity. The penalty for conversion is death. Back in 2008, The daughter of a man who works for Saudi Arabia's religious police became a Christian after she joined an Internet chat group. He responded by cutting out her tongue and burning her to death.

The United Kingdom and Europe

All across Europe, "anti-proselytising" laws are being passed. Not only that, but other laws are being adopted that force Christians to deny their beliefs. For example, the U.K. government is being forced by the European Commission to eliminate exemptions that allow churches to refuse to employ homosexual staff.

North Korea

North Korea is one of the most brutally repressive governments in the history of mankind. Tonight more than 200,000 Christians will try to stay warm in horrific North Korean labor camps.

Christians there are considered little more than dogs as the following story from The Voice Of The Martyrs illustrates.....

----

The young brown-eyed girl looked up at her mother. What would she decide?

Earlier that morning, the young girl's mother, their pastor, and twenty-six others in her North Korean village of GokSan were bound and taken before a screaming crowd of Communists.

One of the guards ordered Pastor Kim and the other Christians, "Deny Christ, or you will die." The words chilled her. How could they ask her to deny Jesus? She knew in her heart he was real. They all quietly refused.

Then the Communist guard shouted directly at the adult Christians, "Deny Christ, or we will hang your children." The young girl looked up at her mother. She gripped her and knowing how much her mom loved her. her mother then leaned down. With confidence and peace she whispered, "Today, my love, I will see you in heaven."

All of the children were hanged.

The remaining believers were then brought out onto the pavement and forced to lie down in front of a huge steamroller. The Communists gave them one last chance. "Deny this Jesus or you will be crushed." The Christians had already given up their children; there was no turning back.

As the driver started the heavy piece of equipment, the singing from the villagers started softly. "More love, O Christ, to thee, more love to thee."

----

United States 

Even with everything that has happened, the United States still offers Christians more freedom than virtually anywhere else on earth. But that is quickly changing as well. Christians in the U.S. just do not have the same level of freedom that they used to experience. 

For example, school teachers in Florida say that they are being forced to hide in closets to pray after a controversial court ruling. All expressions of Christian faith are being ruthlessly pushed out of the public sphere by very powerful interest groups.

Calls for government repression of Christianity in the United States have grown louder than ever before. The Huffington Post even published a deeply disturbing article that calls evangelical Christianity the number one source of domestic terrorism in the United States and that calls on the Secret Service and the FBI to investigate and "infiltrate" pro-life and evangelical Christian groups.

Not only that, but many of the hottest best selling books in recent years have publicly mocked Christianity....

Just consider the titles of a few recent New York Times bestsellers.....

• "God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything" by journalist Christopher Hitchens.
• "The End of Faith" by atheist author Sam Harris.
• "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

But this anti-Christian sentiment is just not held by a few elitists. The reality is that it has spread to much of the general population.

For example, the following are the titles of just a few anti-Christian threads on one of the most popular political discussion forums on the Internet....

“Dirty, Filthy, Christians”: Treatise On The Most Dangerous Death Cult In Human History

How can we destroy Christians?

Christians should not participate in politics

Why Christians are so ******* lame...

Attention Heterosexuals! Repent! Jesus Can Finally Make You Gay!

Christian are sub-humans

The truth is that hatred for Christians and Christianity is rapidly increasing.

Jesus warned us that these days would come.

In Matthew 24:9, Jesus told us how the world will treat Christians in the end times....

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."

The times ahead of us are not referred to as "the Tribulation" for nothing. It will be an absolute bloodbath for Christians. The entire world system will be geared towards eliminating all traces of the true Christian faith. Members of the same family will even betray one another to the authorities. 

The truth is that things are not going to get any easier for Christians from here on out. Someday soon there will be no place to hide from Christian persecution.

When that day arrives, what will you do?

The Coming Great Slaughter of Believers
Dec 31st, 2009
ProphecyArt Sadlier
Uncategorized

Jesus warned of a coming time of tribulation that would be unparelled in the history of the world. Jesus went on to say that if that day had been longer than the proscribed seven years no flesh would remain alive on the earth. Matthew 24:21-22.

John tells us in the book of Revelation that an inumerable number of men and women will be saved during that time. He goes on to tell us that a vast host of those tribulation saints will be martyred for their faith in Christ. Revelation 7:13-14. 

We know from scripture that the closing days of this present age will be a climax in the age long warfare between God and Satan. We know also that Satan will be unleashed by the Lord and allowed to exercise his power over men. We know that Satan and his man, the Antichrist will be insane with the desire to kill every believer alive on the earth.

Jesus warned His own that the world would hate them and seek to kill them.

I believe that we are now seeing all around us the climate developing for the coming of Antichrist,and the preparation for the slaughter of countless of millions of tribulation saints.

Tribulation,  persecution and martyrdom has been the lot of believers all down the long church age. The intensity  has ebbed and flowed, but I believe that today we are seeing an unprecidented persecution of believers world wide. The mind set of the Great Tribulation is being established. The stage is being set for the environment that will prevail during the tribulation period.

We are told that every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world. We are told that more than 165,000 Christians will die this year for their faith in Christ, most of them in Muslim countries. It is estimated that 200-300 million Christians are now being persecuted.

In the Gaza the bodies of Christians are being dug up by Hamas, they state that these dead Christians are polluting the earth. Such hatred is the fuel for the incredible tribulation period and the slaughter of God's people.

 In America and Canada the hatred for believers is growing. Christians are being slandered, mocked and censored. This climate has been changing with lightening like speed.

In Germany the parents of homeschoolers have been sent to jail. In the UK there is a proposal before the Parliament which calls for a mandatory criminal background check for parents who want to homeschool their children.

Statistics tell us that more Christians died for their faith in the 20 th., century than in all the 19 centuries that preceeded it. Now we are seeing a tremendous escalation in the killing of believers in the early years of the 21 century.

In China the Communist government is seeking to eliminate all church activity that is not sanctioned by the state.

In Eritrea thirty elderly women were arrested for praying together.

The following are some quotes from  "This is the end of the world as we know it" website.

"Today some 3,000 Eritrean Christians are imprisoned for their faith. Some are in underground and solitary cells whilst some are in 'secret' prisons for the 'disappeared'. However, most are herded into unventilated shipping containers in the desert where dysentery and infectious diseases go untreated. Torture is routine."

"Increasingly, Christian clergy are being targeted for assassination all over the world. The following are just a few of the recent examples...".

*A Russian priest that had been highly critical of Islam has been assassinated inside his own church.

*Leftist guerrillas in Colombia brutally executed a Christian pastor just outside his own home."

*Two masked members of the al-Shabaab Muslim militia shot and killed a Christian pastor in Somalia as he drove home from a worship service."

"In India, more than 100 Christians are confirmed dead, 4,000 homes have burned down, and over 50,000 Christians have fled their homes."

"Hundreds of Muslim villagers in southern Egypt recently burned and looted scores of Christian-owned shops. Christians in Egypt live in a constant state of fear and thousands are being forced to relocate. In fact, the forced deportation of Egyptian Christians from their homes by the government in order to "protect" them is rapidly increasing."

"Saudi Arabia, of course, strictly forbids the conversion of any Muslim to Christianity. The penalty for conversion is death. Back in 2008, The daughter of a man who works for Saudi Arabia's religious police became a Christian after she joined an Internet chat group. He responded by cutting out her tongue and burning her to death."

"All across Europe, "anti-proselytising" laws are being passed. Not only that, but other laws are being adopted that force Christians to deny their beliefs. For example, the U.K. government is being forced by the European Commission to eliminate exemptions that allow churches to refuse to employ homosexual staff."

"North Korea is one of the most brutally repressive governments in the history of mankind. Tonight more than 200,000 Christians will try to stay warm in horrific North Korean labor camps."

"Christians there are considered little more than dogs as the following story from The Voice Of The Martyrs illustrates.....
The young brown-eyed girl looked up at her mother. What would she decide?

Earlier that morning, the young girl's mother, their pastor, and twenty-six others in her North Korean village of GokSan were bound and taken before a screaming crowd of Communists.

One of the guards ordered Pastor Kim and the other Christians, "Deny Christ, or you will die." The words chilled her. How could they ask her to deny Jesus? She knew in her heart he was real. They all quietly refused.

Then the Communist guard shouted directly at the adult Christians, "Deny Christ, or we will hang your children." The young girl looked up at her mother. She gripped her and knowing how much her mom loved her. her mother then leaned down. With confidence and peace she whispered, "Today, my love, I will see you in heaven."

All of the children were hanged.

The remaining believers were then brought out onto the pavement and forced to lie down in front of a huge steamroller. The Communists gave them one last chance. "Deny this Jesus or you will be crushed." The Christians had already given up their children; there was no turning back.

As the driver started the heavy piece of equipment, the singing from the villagers started softly. "More love, O Christ, to thee, more love to thee."

"Calls for government repression of Christianity in the United States have grown louder than ever before. The Huffington Post even published a deeply disturbing article that calls evangelical Christianity the number one source of domestic terrorism in the United States and that calls on the Secret Service and the FBI to investigate and "infiltrate" pro-life and evangelical Christian groups.

Not only that, but many of the hottest best selling books in recent years have publicly mocked Christianity....

Just consider the titles of a few recent New York Times bestsellers.....

*"God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything" by journalist Christopher Hitchens.

*"The End of Faith" by atheist author Sam Harris.

*"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

But this anti-Christian sentiment is just not held by a few elitists. The reality is that it has spread to much of the general population.

For example, the following are the titles of just a few anti-Christian threads on one of the most popular political discussion forums on the Internet....

“Dirty, Filthy, Christians”: Treatise On The Most Dangerous Death Cult In Human History

How can we destroy Christians?

Christians should not participate in politics.

Attention Heterosexuals! Repent! Jesus Can Finally Make You Gay!
Christian are sub-humans.  (End of quotes)

The tribulation period has not begun as yet, but I believe that we are seeing stage being set for that awful day. I am reminded again and again of the words of Jesus, "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (rapture) draweth nigh." Luke 21:29.

The hour is late! The Lord is at hand! The trumpet is soon to sound!  ARE YOU READY?

Israel's Right to the 'disputed' Territories
Dec 31st, 2009
Wall Street News
Categories: Today's Headlines

The recent statements by the European Union's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel's rights to what are generally called the "occupied territories" but what really are "disputed territories."

That's because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered "occupied" in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel's conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years.

The name "West Bank" was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan. The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan's insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations." (Italics added.) This boundary became the famous "Green Line," so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map.

After the Six Day War, when once again Arab armies sought to destroy Israel and the Jewish state subsequently captured the West Bank and other territory, the United Nations sought to create an enduring solution to the conflict. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is probably one of the most misunderstood documents in the international arena. While many, especially the Palestinians, push the idea that the document demands that Israel return everything captured over the Green Line, nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution calls for "peace within secure and recognized boundaries," but nowhere does it mention where those boundaries should be.

It is best to understand the intentions of the drafters of the resolution before considering other interpretations. Eugene V. Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967 and a drafter of the resolution, stated in 1990: "Security Council Resolution 242 and (subsequent U.N. Security Council Resolution) 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to "secure and recognized borders," which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 194."

Lord Caradon, the British U.N. Ambassador at the time and the resolution's main drafter who introduced it to the Council, said in 1974 unequivocally that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial."

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, made the issue even clearer when he stated in 1973 that, "the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal." This would encompass "less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel's prior frontiers had proven to be notably insecure."

Even the Soviet delegate to the U.N., Vasily Kuznetsov, who fought against the final text, conceded that the resolution gave Israel the right to "withdraw its forces only to those lines it considers appropriate."

After the war in 1967, when Jews started returning to their historic heartland in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as the territory had been known around the world for 2,000 years until the Jordanians renamed it, the issue of settlements arose. However, Rostow found no legal impediment to Jewish settlement in these territories. He maintained that the original British Mandate of Palestine still applies to the West Bank. He said "the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors." There is no internationally binding document pertaining to this territory that has nullified this right of Jewish settlement since.

And yet, there is this perception that Israel is occupying stolen land and that the Palestinians are the only party with national, legal and historic rights to it. Not only is this morally and factually incorrect, but the more this narrative is being accepted, the less likely the Palestinians feel the need to come to the negotiating table. Statements like those of Lady Ashton's are not only incorrect; they push a negotiated solution further away.

Iranian Mullah: Kill the Protesters
Dec 31st, 2009
ISN
Categories: Today's Headlines

He's Ba - Ack! Ayers Calls for Boycott of Israel
Dec 31st, 2009
WND -Aaron Klein
Categories: Today's Headlines

JERUSALEM – Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, a close associate for years of President Obama, is one of 431 academics to sign a petition calling for divestment, boycott and sanctions against Israel.

"As educators and scholars of conscience in the United States, we fully support this call," reads the online petition by an organization calling itself the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

"We urge our colleagues, nationally, regionally, and internationally, to stand up against Israel's ongoing scholasticide and to support the non-violent call for academic boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions," states the petition.

The petition claims Israel persistently violates international law and carries out "illegal" discriminatory policies comparable to apartheid in South Africa.

(Story continues below)

The text fails to note that about 20 percent of Israel's population consists of Arabs who have democratic rights as citizens, including full representation in the Knesset. Indeed, Arabs living in Israel have more fundamental rights than Arabs living anywhere else in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, institutionally discriminates against Christians and Jews. Israel was required to evacuate all Jews from the Gaza Strip before handing the territory over to the Palestinians. Any future Palestinian state will be Jew-free.

The petition does not once mention Palestinian terrorism.

The text also claims all "forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law." The petition does not mention that Israel multiple times offered the Palestinians a state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem only to have the Palestinians turn down the gesture without a counter offer. After such an offer during U.S.-brokered talks ending in September 2000, for example, the PA initiated a terrorist intifada that killed 1,078 Israelis.

The Twitter feed of the Republican Jewish Coalition first noticed that Ayers' name was among the list of academics on the boycott petition.

Ayers became a name in last year's presidential campaign when it was disclosed the radical worked closely with Obama for years.

Ayers helped launch Obama's political career with a fundraiser in his home. Obama served on the board of a Chicago nonprofit alongside Ayers. The terrorist later hired Obama to serve as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a job Obama later cited as qualifying him to run for public office.

While at the CAC, Obama and Ayers both granted funds to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

WND columnist Jack Cashill has produced a series of persuasive arguments that it was Ayers who ghostwrote Obama's award-winning autobiography, "Dreams from My Father."

Ayers, and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were two of the main founders of the Weather Underground, which bombed the New York City Police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972. The group was responsible for some 30 bombings aimed at destroying the defense and security infrastructures of the U.S.

Characterizing Weatherman as "an American Red Army," Ayers summed up the organization's ideology: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents."

"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers recalled in his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days." "The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them."

Ayers brandished his unrepentant radicalism for years to come, as evidenced by his now notorious 2001 interview with the New York Times, published one day after the 9/11 attacks, in which he stated, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

Ayers posed for a photograph accompanying the New York Times piece that showed him stepping on an American flag. He said of the U.S.: "What a country. It makes me want to puke."

Global Warming and the Carbon Tax Scam,fraud
Dec 31st, 2009
YouTube
Categories: Today's Headlines

Binyamin Netanyahu Must Decide Whether to Strike Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
Dec 31st, 2009
Times Online Dec 14, 2009
Categories: Today's Headlines

The moment is fast approaching when Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, may have to make the most difficult decision of his career — whether to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and risk triggering a conflagration that could spread across the Middle East.

Israeli experts believe the point of no return may be only six months away when Iran’s nuclear programme will have — if it has not already — metastasised into a multitude of smaller, difficult-to-trace facilities in deserts and mountains, while its main reactor at Bushehr will have come online and bombing it would send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf nations.

Mr Netanyahu has consistently called Iran the most serious threat Israel faces. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has called for Israel to be obliterated and his Revolutionary Guards supply training, money and weapons to both Hezbollah in Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, and to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, whose missiles are believed to be capable of reaching Tel Aviv.

In the run-up to his election this year, Mr Netanyahu promised that “under my Government, Iran will not be allowed to go nuclear”. Yet Mr Ahmadinejad has promised to produce 20 per cent enriched uranium: a big step towards weapons-grade fuel.

With the Iranian threat at the front of his strategic thinking, Mr Netanyahu has surrounded himself with old comrades from Israel’s most prestigious military unit, the Sayeret Matkal, or General Staff Reconnaissance. Mr Netanyahu served in the elite unit in the 1970s under Ehud Barak, who went on to become Israel’s most decorated soldier and later Prime Minister in his own right.

When Mr Netanyahu came to power, he made great efforts to recruit his former commander as Defence Minister. Mr Barak serves with another former leader of the unit, the Deputy Prime Minister, Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon. The Israeli Prime Minister has hard-wired his core Cabinet with so much military experience for a good reason. Striking Iran’s nuclear facilities would be a huge military and political gamble. Although Russia has delayed supplying Iran with S300 anti-aircraft missiles, which could weaken any Israeli attack, the air force would have to mount one of its largest long-range attacks to have a chance of disabling Iran’s nuclear installations.

Earlier this year a report by Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, warned that “a military strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities is possible . . . (but) would be complex and high-risk and would lack any assurances that the overall mission will have a high success rate”.

At roughly the same time, Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, went on a covert visit to Israel to seek assurances that the new Government would not surprise the Obama Administration with a sudden unilateral attack.

In 2007, in what is often seen as a trial run for an attack on Iran, an Israeli squadron flew undetected through Turkish airspace and over Syria’s unprotected border to destroy what was thought to be a nuclear facility under construction with Iranian and North Korean support.

In June 2008, the air force staged exercises over the Mediterranean, with dozens of fighters, bombers and refuelling tankers flying roughly the same distance as between Israel and Iran. Earlier this year, Israeli jets again carried out a long-range bombing mission, hitting trucks in Sudan that were believed to be bringing Iranian weapons to Hamas via Egypt.

In the immediate term, the threat of a strike has receded. Israel is satisfied that Iran’s hostile stance towards the international community has increased the chances of serious, crippling sanctions. Officials noted that for the first time Russia seemed to be serious about isolating Tehran.

But that international front could easily crack, and then Mr Netanyahu would be faced with the decision on whether to order his bombers into action. Iran has already threatened to bomb Israel’s cities with its long-range missiles should its nuclear facilities come under attack.

It could also, in stages, order Hezbollah to launch rockets across the northern border. The attack could come in conjunction with a Hamas assault from the Gaza Strip.

Alternatively both sides may choose to do nothing. Some analysts believe that Israel might tolerate Iran as a “threshold nuclear state”, capable of building a bomb but not testing it.

Iran could opt for the path chosen by Syria in 2007, if Israel strikes at isolated facilities miles from an urban areas, where the only casualties would be technicians and guards. After the strike against Syria, neither side admitted what had happened, thereby avoiding a war and saving face.