Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

‘Is Everybody Blind?’
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily NewsThe Blaze
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

‘Is Everybody Blind?’: City Council Meeting Erupts in Applause After Ex-Marine Issues Dire Warning About U.S. ‘Building a Domestic Army’

A former member of the United States Marine Corps on Monday night voiced his serious concerns about the U.S. “building a domestic Army” during a local city council meeting in Concord, N.H. In his impassioned testimony, the ex-Marine said he believes that the recent push for local police forces to bulk up on military-grade equipment is disturbing and represents a very real threat to Americans.

His fears bring to mind something President Barack Obama actually suggested while running for president in July 2008:

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

That statement from then-Sen. Obama may have been on the mind of one participant at the recent Concord City Council meeting.

This past Monday night, Concord, N.H. (the state’s capitol city) held its monthly city council meeting. At the end of the fairly typical gathering, during the public session, citizens were allowed to give testimony (stand and speak to the council and the citizens gathered). One speaker’s comments have started to go viral on the web.

These comments reportedly came from a former colonel in the United States Marines Corps. The still unidentified former military man said he was concerned about the way America’s domestic police forces have started looking more and more like the U.S. military. His statements were in response to the local police chief’s request for the military grade vehicle – a Ballistic Engineered Armed Response Counter Attack Truck.

Image: Lenco BearCat Armoured Vehicles

The council was supposed to vote on this request for the BearCat during the meeting.

The speaker claimed to have worked as a military defense coordinator – someone who was training the Iraqi army.

A full transcript of what the former Marine said to the crowd reads:

We don’t need this.

I’m a retired… I was a retired Colonel in the Marine Corps.

I saw a sign hanging in the back that said we want “More Mayberry, Less Fallujah.”

I spent a year in Fallujah. You know what, when I first got there, I didn’t have armored Humvees.

I spent…I traveled over 10,000 miles over there.  Sometimes you had to deal with and go with what you had.  That’s part of the job, for one.

And second thing was… I was a Ministry of Defense Coordinator. Where job was to man, train and equip the Iraqi Army…and I can tell you right now…Somebody had the idea to get rid of the Iraqi Army…When we rebuilt it, we did everything we could to make it as strong as possible. And I’ll tell you right now, Homeland Security would kick their butts in a week.

What’s happening here is we’re building a domestic military because it’s unlawful and unconstitutional to use American troops on American soil. So what we’re doing is building a military.

My best friend, who is a SWAT officer in Nashua (NH), came to Iraq with me to train the Iraqi police, sent me a picture of him in the media, on the streets of Watertown, MASS, wearing the exact same combat gear we had in Iraq, only was a different color.

The way we do things in the military is called “task organization.” You take a command and then you attach units to it in order to accomplish the mission. What’s happening is, Homeland Security is pre-staging gear, equipment. What they’re trying to do is use standardized vehicles, standardized equipment.

I saw a picture in the Boston Globe during the Boston Marathon bombing, where there was a State police officer…actually there were two officers, they both had identical helmets, flak jackets, weapons, everything I wore in Iraq, only it was all blue. The officer on one side had a big patch that said Massachusetts State Police…the other officer next to him…his patch said Boston Police.

What we’re doing here, and let’s not kid about it, we’re building a domestic army and we’re shrinking the military because the government is afraid of it’s own citizens.

The last time more than 10 terrorists were in the same place at the same time was September 11^th. And all these vehicles in the world wouldn’t have prevented it or helped anybody.

So I don’t know where we’re gonna use this many vehicles and this many troops. Concord is just one little cog in the wheel. We’re building an army over here and I can’t believe people aren’t seeing it.

Is everybody blind? (crowd erupts in applause – “thank you” is heard from someone close to the camera).

The video posted online claims that a scheduled vote on the purchase of the BearCat truck has been postponed until a meeting on September 9th.

‘Camp Jihad’: UN - Sponsored Camps Encourage Palestinian Kids to Destroy Israel
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily Newstheblaze.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

Summer at United Nations-funded camps in Gaza and the northern West Bank include playing with parachutes, jumping on trampolines, and racing down inflatable slides.

In between those kid-friendly activities, counselors convey belligerent, anti-Semitic lessons to the children who are repeatedly taught to take back “their land” Palestine by means of war, martyrdom and jihad, as seen in a new video.

All this is being sponsored by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) which is funded predominantly by the United States and the European Union, according to a video called “Camp Jihad” released this summer by the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research, which documents some of the activities at the camps.

“Peace starts here” is the camps’ motto, according to the video excerpts of which were aired on Israel’s Channel 2 Tuesday night.

The campers are third- or fourth-generation descendants of Arabs who either fled or were forced out of their homes during the 1948 war when Arab armies attacked Israel after it declared independence. None of them has ever visited their ancestral “homes,” yet their schools and camps promote the notion that they will one day violently uproot “the Jews” whom their teachers compare to wolves.

Ahmad Souje, a counselor at the Balata camp near Nablus, told the film crew, “The only alternative to implement the ‘right of return’ is blood for blood, an eye for an eye. In the same way they expelled us, we will expel them.”

Shahed Arja, a girl attending the UNRWA camp in Gaza said, “This summer camp teaches us that we have to liberate Palestine.”

In the video, teachers paint an idyll image of their ancestors frolicking on the beach, sailing in their boats and living in “villas” before 1948.

While they were having fun, a “wolf” suddenly appeared.

“Who is the wolf? The Jews? Isn’t it true that the Jews are the wolf? What did the Jews do to us? They expelled us and deported us. They killed us and shot our families,” one of the adults tells the children.

One camper says, “Weapons will accelerate the right of return.”

Another little girl Tayma says, “I will defeat the Jews…They are a gang of infidels and Christians. They do not like Allah and do not worship Allah. And they hate us.”

Wasim Abu Shaban, another UNRWA camper in Gaza says, “I must return to my land and reconquer it. This is my right.”

A camper at the Balata summer camp sings: “When we die as martyrs we go up to heaven…in Palestine there is no childhood.”

‘Camp Jihad’: UN Sponsored Camps Encourage Palestinian Kids to Destroy Israel
Drawing the map of “Palestine” (Image source: Camp Jihad/YouTube)

The children explain that their bunks and teams are named after the cities in Israel from which their ancestors allegedly came, including Haifa, Jaffa and Acre which are Israeli cities they believe to be Palestinian. At the camp, they draw maps of Palestine which cover the entire territory of Israel and build kites inscribed with the names of “their villages.”

“We teach the children about the villages that they came from…This way, every child will be motivated to return to their village,” UNRWA camp director Amina Hinawi said.

Camper Mohammed Jamal said, “No to negotiations. Attacking stage-by-stage is not the right way. If we attack them altogether at once that will be the answer.”

The video shows one teacher leading the children in a chant: “Palestine is an Arab land from the river to the sea! We want Haifa. We want Acre. We’re going to Al Aqsa (Jerusalem).”

Campers, teachers and counselors talk about the “right of return,” going back to villages that no longer exist where Israelis live, emphasizing their state of limbo.

Campers in the video are seen chanting, “Praise Jerusalem, It is the best city on earth!” Long live Palestine!”

“We will return to our villages with power and honor. With Allah’s help we will and our own strength we will wage war. And with education and Jihad we will return,” one staffer tells the children gathered around.

“Me and my children are returning to Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) our homeland….I will not forget my promise to take back my land,” sing the campers.

In 2011, the U.S. was the largest single donor to UNRWA contributing more than $239 million. The U.S. and the European Union together provided about 42 per cent of UNRWA’s total income for its core program budget, according to UNRWA’s website.

“Since WWII, more than 50 million people have become refugees as the result of a war. UNRWA is the only refugee agency in the world that actively encourages refugees to act upon the ‘right of return,’” the film’s narrator says, asking “Do the donor nations know what values UNRWA is teaching?”

David Bedein, director of the research group that produced the video told TheBlaze, “We think UNRWA should get all the funds they want but it should be conditioned on canceling the curriculum calling for jihad, martyrdom and the ‘right of return.’”

“If UNRWA was funded by Saudi Arabia or Iran we couldn’t do anything about it, but because the U.S. leads the 28 nations supporting UNRWA, we should say ‘Excuse me. This is not appropriate.’”

TheBlaze emailed two UNRWA spokesmen seeking reaction, but received automatically generated out-of-office replies. The Israeli news site Ma’ariv reports that UNRWA is investigating whether UN funds were used for educating the children toward violence at the camps.

Just this week, UNRWA said it would investigate one of its senior officials in Jordan after he posted a photo of Hitler on his Facebook page.

Why the Mideast Peace Talks will not Work
Aug 16th, 2013
Commentarydavidhocking.org
Categories: Peace Process;The Nation Of Israel

Here’s what John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, said at a news conference in Washington, in the presence of the lead Palestinian and Israeli peace negotiators: “The parties have agreed here today that all of the final status issues, all of the core issues, and all other issues are all on the table for negotiation. 

And they are on the table with one simple goal: a view to ending the conflict, ending the claims. Our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months.”

Just to be clear, this is what will need to happen by next April, in time for the White House signing ceremony:

1. Jerusalem, the holiest city in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, will have to be divided in a way that doesn’t cause a global religious war. 

A Palestinian capital will have to be established in the eastern half of the city, and the world’s Muslims must agree to the continued control over much of the Old City, including and especially the Western Wall, by Israel. 

For their part, the Israelis must agree to cede permanent control of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, to Muslim religious authorities. That the parties must agree to international control over the so-called Holy Basin, which contains the most important sites of monotheism.

2. The Jews who live in Hebron, Judaism’s second-holiest city, must be made to leave, because the city will be part of Palestine. Or the Palestinian Authority must be convinced to grant them citizenship. The stated position of the Palestinian Authority is that Palestine will be empty of Israelis.

3. The descendants of the Palestinians who either fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 Arab attack on the fledgling Jewish state must be told that they aren’t moving to Israel. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, must also survive the inevitable attempts on his life if he agrees to give up the Palestinian claim of “return.” Also, the Palestinians will have to agree never to lodge claims against Israel again.

4. A plan must be formulated to remove anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 Israelis from the settlements on the far side of the West Bank security barrier. Among these settlers are thousands of fanatics who sympathized with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli Prime Minister, for negotiating with the Palestine Liberation Organization. 

Also, Israel will have to stop building new settlements and thickening others. The current Israeli government is possibly the most pro-settler one in the country’s history, and a good percentage of the Israeli officer corps, the soldiers who would have to remove Jews from settlements, lives in settlements.

5. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be persuaded to trust each other. As Avi Issacharoff writes in the Times of Israel, “Abbas believes Netanyahu is unwilling to make peace, while Netanyahu believes Abbas is unable to. Both are sending out pessimistic vibes, giving those around them the feeling that nothing much will come of all this. This can be seen in their decision to send representatives to Washington instead of holding a high-level summit.”

6. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, where almost half the future citizens of Palestine live, must either dissolve itself or be dissolved by force or change its ideology in such a way as to conform to the Palestinian Authority’s vision of compromise. If Hamas refuses to change, then Israel and the Palestinian Authority must have an effective plan to counter the mass acts of terrorism that often come during periods of heightened hopes for peace.

7. Hizbullah and Iran must be convinced not to start a war designed to interrupt the peace process. Also, Iran must be stopped from going nuclear, which would further destabilize an already destabilized Middle East. Also, Egypt must not collapse, the Syrian civil war must not spill over into the Israeli-Palestinian arena, Lebanon must remain a unitary state and Jordan must stay under control of the Hashemite monarchy.

I’m sure I’m missing some things. I’ll mention those later, whatever they are. I actually admire Kerry’s chutzpah a great deal. It’s important, for the sake of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, that a compromise is constructed in a way that prevents further bloodshed. I just hope that there’s a secret Plan B — some sort of interim arrangement that could forestall further tragedy even in the absence of a permanent accord.

Because if there isn’t, and Kerry’s negotiations fail, then the situation next year may be even unhappier than it is now.

THE FIVE FLAWS OF KERRY’S MIDEAST PEACE PROCESS

1) No Palestinian reciprocity at the outset. Israel agreed to release 104 convicted terrorists just to get the Palestinians to talk peace. Would the U.S. agree to release 104 Guantanamo prisoners for talks with anyone?

Israel will undoubtedly be blamed if negotiations fail, so it’s unlikely that fair judgment by the international community motivated the release. Perhaps it was the price that Israel had to pay for a U.S. promise to prevent Iranian nukes and/or support Israel’s efforts to stop them. If so, is the U.S. good for its word (despite Obama’s repeated demonstrations that his Mideast “red lines” are meaningless)?

Whatever the explanation for Israel’s good-faith opening, there were plenty of ways for the Palestinians to reciprocate: removing anti-Israel incitement from their textbooks and/or official media, recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, promising to “freeze” their anti-Israel diplomatic offensives, etc. 

But Secretary of State John Kerry preferred to establish that Palestinian reciprocity is optional: if Israel isn’t volunteering what the Palestinians demand, they need only threaten to leave the talks and Kerry will compel the Israelis to comply.

2) No Palestinian good faith. The Palestinians will be represented by Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh. Shtayyeh’s Facebook page displays a map of Israel’s internationally recognized borders, plus the West Bank and Gaza – all emblazoned with the Arabic letters for “Palestine.” 

So the person entrusted with negotiating a “two-state solution” openly admits that his Mideast map has room for only a Palestinian state. Just as alarming, during a recent sermon attended by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and broadcast on Palestinian television, Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash compared the PA’s decision to negotiate with Israel to the Prophet Muhammad’s Treaty of Hudaibiya (in the year 628 CE): “in less than two years, based on this treaty, the Prophet returned and conquered Mecca. This is the example. It is the model.”

3) No religious freedom in a future Palestinian state. Palestinians insist (ironically) that “peaceful coexistence” means no Jewish settlers in their state. But, on principle, why should Jews be banned from living in a future Palestinian state — particularly when Muslims constitute over 17% of Israel’s population? 

Will the future Palestinian state be as hostile to religious minorities as other Muslim majority states are? 
Unfortunately, recent history gives little reason to hope otherwise. Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning, Arab journalist reported the following about a year ago:

According to the Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip, at least five Christians have been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam in recent weeks…Church leaders…accused a prominent Hamas man of being behind the kidnapping and forced conversion of a Christian woman, Huda Abu Daoud, and her three daughters. 

Radical Islam, and not checkpoints or a security fence, remains the main threat to defenseless Christians not only in the Palestinians territories, but in the entire Middle East as well.

While Gaza is ruled by Islamists, the PA has also shown its hostility to Christians. On March 12, 2012, Algemeiner reported that “A week after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told an [international] audience of Evangelical Protestants…that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities, [PA] officials…informed Bethlehem pastor Rev. Naim Khoury that his church lacked the authority to function as a religious institution under the PA…[T]here is a sense among Christians in Bethlehem that anti-Christian animus has gotten worse in the city…Khoury said.”

A few weeks ago, Palestinians vandalized the Cave of the Patriarchs, Judaism’s second holiest site. How safe will non-Muslim holy sites be if there is no more Israeli presence in the West Bank? Will a future peace agreement specifically guarantee protection of and Israeli access to Jewish holy sites?

If Israel’s presence in the West Bank has helped to moderate Muslim rule there, will Israel’s complete departure mean that West Bank Christians can expect their persecution to worsen to Gazan levels (with abductions and forced conversions)? Palestinian insistence that their future West Bank state be “Judenrein” doesn’t bode well for the indigenous Christians there (or for religious freedom).

4) No Palestinian mandate to negotiate peace. There are about 2.1 million Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and 1.7 million in the Gaza Strip. But Hamas-ruled Gaza vehemently opposes peace negotiations and denies Israel’s right to exist. Islamic Jihad and Hamas recently lambasted PA leaders for meeting with Israelis to talk peace. The last time that the PA announced direct talks with Israel, Hamas announced plans to launch terrorist attacks at Israel, in coordination with 12 other Gaza terrorist organizations.

And it’s not even clear that West Bank Palestinians favor these talks. Last Sunday, they rallied against peace until PA police violently suppressed the protest. Human Rights Watch has urged the Palestinian government to investigate the police beatings. Moreover, Abbas himself has no legal mandate, as his term of political office expired long ago yet he continues to rule with no elections in sight.

At best, the PA can deliver only half of any peace that it promises, which lets Palestinians have their cake and eat it too: the PA can extract painful territorial concessions from Israel at the negotiating table, while Hamas can continue terrorist attacks to achieve the one-state solution embraced on Facebook by PA “peace negotiator” Mohammad Shtayyeh.

5) Transferring the West Bank could be Israel’s geostrategic undoing. Jordan could collapse any day from a flood of about 500,000 Syrian refugees (and growing daily); severe poverty; popular discontent over corruption, inequality, and lack of freedom; acute water shortages; and/or Muslim Brotherhood action to overthrow King Abdullah’s monarchy. 

These factors make the Abdullah regime’s survival increasingly uncertain. After Israel militarily withdraws from the West Bank, will Hamas topple the PA there as it did in Gaza (two years after Israel’s 2005 Gaza withdrawal)? 

What if the Hamas-allied Muslim Brotherhood then takes over Jordan? If Jordanian-Palestinians — the largest ethnic group in Jordan — create a Palestinian state there (as advocated by this Jordanian-Palestinian writer), would Palestinians effectively have two states? 

The range and severity of threats to Israel from the combination of a post-Abdullah Jordan and a Palestinian West Bank state are considerable. Is it even possible to address these Israeli security concerns in a way that leaves Palestinian negotiators satisfied enough to sign a peace treaty?

With so many inherent defects in the current peace talks, why would the U.S. push its most reliable Mideast ally (and the only Middle East democracy) into such perilous waters or inevitable blame? One explanation is the increasingly fashionable idea (promoted by Arab governments) that settlements are blocking a peace deal that would produce Mideast stability. But inconvenient facts completely contradict this idea: Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen (etc.) would remain the same conflict-torn mess as they are now after any Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Time Magazine Promotes a Childless Lifestyle As the Path to the Good Life for U.S. Couples Read More
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily Newsendoftheamericandream.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

There is a relentless assault on the family in America today unlike anything that we have ever seen before. For decades, the entertainment industry and the mainstream media have been portraying marriage as the time “when your fun is over” and they have been encouraging young adults to put off marriage for as long as possible. 

So now the marriage rate in the United States is at a record low and the average age for a first marriage is at a record high. Meanwhile, the entertainment industry and the mainstream media have been heavily promoting the philosophy that having fewer children is better, and they have been teaching our young people that abortion is a really good option if an unwanted pregnancy comes along. The whole idea is that children are going to keep you from enjoying the kind of life that you really deserve to have.

This philosophy is taken even further in a new Time Magazine article. The article is entitled “The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having children“, and it openly promotes a “childless lifestyle” as the path to the good life for young U.S. couples. The following is how the article begins…


One evening when she was 14 years old, Laura Scott was washing dishes in the kitchen with her mother when she decided she didn’t want to have a child. At 26, Scott got married and waited for her mind to change. “It never happened,” she says. “And I realized I was going to be fine.” 

Now 50, Scott is more than fine: she’s fulfilled. And she’s not alone. The birthrate in the U.S. is the lowest in recorded American history. From 2007 to 2011, the most recent year for which there’s data, the fertility rate declined 9%. A 2010 Pew Research report showed that childlessness has risen across all racial and ethnic groups, adding up to about 1 in 5 American women who end their childbearing years maternity-free, compared with 1 in 10 in the 1970s.

The article goes on to point out that the average cost of raising a child born in 2011 to adulthood will be approximately $234,900, and it suggests that women should think long and hard before making such a commitment.

Well, what is a woman to do if she gets pregnant and she decides that raising that child will ruin her life?

According to the entertainment industry and the mainstream media, abortion is a very simple answer to that problem.

In America today, the vast majority of abortions are done for the sake of convenience. Abortion is essentially a human sacrifice to our own selfishness, and there are millions upon millions of Americans that will go to any lengths to justify the murder of their own children.

In fact, it has gotten so bad that now many liberal thinkers are even postulating that life may not even begin at birth unless parents decide that it does.

Yes, that sounds absolutely insane, but that is apparently what MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry believes…

MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry thinks she has the answer to the ages old question of just when life begins. Her answer: life begins whenever parents “decide” it does.

Practically since the beginning of the national abortion debate the most fought over question between the pro-abortion and pro-life sides is just when does life begin? In an attempt to avoid the arbitrary, most try to utilize some sort of scientific reasoning to decide when life is life. The pro-life side says life begins as soon as the egg is fertilized while the pro-abortion side often contends that life isn’t life until it is self-sustaining, meaning a fetus isn’t “life” until it can survive outside the womb.

But here comes extreme left-winger Harris-Perry to offer the most arbitrary criteria of all: whenever anyone feels like life begins, then that is “life.”

“When does life begin? I submit the answer depends an awful lot on the feeling of the parents. A powerful feeling–but not science,” Harris-Perry said on her July 21 MSNBC show.

As a result of our national obsession with selfishness, our population growth has now fallen below replacement rate. The following is from a recent article by Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton…

Meanwhile most Western nations are now facing a “baby bust,” with population growth falling well below the replacement rate. The global fertility rate has fallen to 2.42 births in 2011 numbers (with 2.1 needed for statistical replacement, or, an equilibrium of human births). The United States, like other Western nations, has already fallen below replacement rate, with a population growth rate of 0.9% and falling, insufficient for continuity, which in turn affects the possibilities for economic growth.

Today we look around and wonder where we will get the trillions of dollars of retirement benefits that we have promised to the Baby Boomers.

Well, if we had not aborted more than 50 million babies since Roe v. Wade was decided, perhaps we would have enough workers to pay the bills.

And as I mentioned earlier in this article, our obsession with selfishness has also resulted in the U.S. marriage rate dropping to an all-time record low…

The marriage rate has fluctuated in the past, with dips in the 1930s and 1960s, but it has been in steady decline since the 1970s. Now, researchers report that the marriage rate has dropped to a new low of 31.1, meaning there are about 31 marriages in the U.S. for every 1,000 unmarried women, researchers found. In 1950, that number was 90.2. In 1920, it was 92.3.

In America today, young men and young women are both taught that they need to put off marriage until their educations are done and their careers have started.

So instead of entering into committed relationships at a young age like previous generations did, our young people are being encouraged to embrace “the hookup culture”. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Mona Charen entitled “The New Brainwashing: Women Like Hookups“…

Fifty years on, we have this dispatch from the University of Pennsylvania: “Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game Too,” a New York Times account of the way women at one Ivy League school are supposedly “hooking up” in preference to having relationships. It’s not that the sexual revolution actually favored men, the Times reassures its readers, it’s just that women are too focused on careers to make time for men. They pursue sex with “hookup buddies” without a flicker of regret.

This is the new brainwashing. Women have been sold (and sold and sold) on the notion that happiness and fulfillment are to be found in careers. Marriage and children are items to be calendared after the MBA, J.D., or Ph.D. Sex is recreation. Getting attached to the human being behind the sex organ can limit your internship options.

Cheerleading articles like Hanna Rosin’s 2012 Atlantic piece, “Boys on the Side,” argue that far from enduring the “hook-up culture,” women are enjoying their promiscuous freedom. The New York Times piece is in that mold.

In this type of environment, anyone that embraces the “old ways” is considered to be abnormal.

In fact, MTV plans to do a new “freaks on display” reality show about virgins that they hope will get very high ratings…

This as-yet-untitled show follows the lives of several abstinent young people (ages 18 to 25) trying to handle their love lives, parental sex talks, sexually active friends, and the pressure to give in to their temptations. Throughout each episode, MTV chronicles v-card-carrying cast members from across the country, all “plagued with the overwhelming question of keeping their virginity… or losing it.”

Sadly, our entire society is rapidly rejecting traditional values regarding marriage, sex and family. If you can believe it, Barack Obama recently even nominated someone for a federal judge position that believes that abstinence education is “unconstitutional“.

Pollard Breaks His Silence
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Elad Benari
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Jonathan Pollard, who has spent more than 27 years and more than 10,000 days in American prison, is breaking his silence.

In an opinion piece sent to the Jerusalem Post, which will appear on Friday, Pollard criticizes the Israeli government “over the past 60 years” on issues such as evicting Jewish communities, releasing murderous terrorists and his own situation.

"Israel is the only country in the world that ever voluntarily evicted citizens from their homeland in order to give the land to its enemies, and the only country that ever voluntarily destroyed the homes and businesses of its citizens, broke promises and shattered their lives,” Pollard told the Jerusalem Post.

Referring to his personal story, he told the newspaper, "Israel holds the world record for betraying those who were loyal to it. It is the only country in the world that ever willingly cooperated in a lawsuit against its intelligence agent, refused to give him asylum, turned over documents to incriminate him, denied knowing him and then allowed him to rot in prison for decades.”

Pollard also spoke about Israel releasing terrorists as a “gesture” to the Palestinian Authority ahead of peace talks, saying, “A sovereign state which can desecrate the dead by releasing murderers and torturing bereaved families, in principle, gives up and throws away the moral foundation of its existence."

He added, "Many of those released were serving life sentences for multiple heinous crimes. The blood of the victims cries out from their graves over the lack of human decency. Their cries are not being heard. The bereaved families of the victims asked and begged not to release the savage murderers of their loved ones. Their pleas were ignored. No one in Israel sees the broken hearts that are bleeding continuously over their losses.”

Obama to Sign UN Arms Treaty This Month While Congress is in Recess
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily NewstThe Daily Caller
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

President Obama will move forward with adding his signature to the UN Arms Treaty before the end of this month according to Press Secretary Jay Carney.

It is feared and predicted by many gun rights groups and advocates that the treaty, if ratified, could open up the US gun market to international regulation.

According to a letter written by CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gotlieb,

The uncertainty begins in the discussion of small arms. Where will the regulations on our small arms start, and where will they stop? They are even trying to include ammunition regulations in the Arms Trade Treaty! Will the United Nations try to impose international licensing requirements, an international registry, or international?

The last negotiations for an Arms Trade Treaty took place in July 2012, just four months before the Presidential election. Obama did not want to take a big stance for global gun control just months before his re-election but now he has made it clear he is for total gun control. He also told voters he would not be re-visiting negotiations for an Arms Trade treaty but here we are.

Since his re-election it has become clearer than ever what is at the top of his agenda; taking our guns away! The Obama Administration has been exploiting tragedies since the election to push gun control at the city, state, federal, and now GLOBAL level.

Our Senate took a stance before the Presidential election when 51 of them wrote Obama a letter saying they would not support an Arms Trade Treaty. We must let our entire U.S. Senate know we do not support international gun control. They must not ratify this international treaty.

Let the Headlines Speak
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines

Video: Obama Backed Militants Execute Teenage Boys
A shocking new video out of Syria shows Obama-backed militants executing two teenage boys whom they accused of supporting the Assad regime, yet another reminder that the White House is arming jihadist extremists.  

Rodger Wilson volcano overview of August 15
Veniaminof volcano (Alaska Peninsula) (station VNWF) rumbles-on today with strong volcanic tremor and presumably, eruptive activity. Earthquake activity continues both at and near Cascade arc (WA and OR) volcanoes: Mounts Saint Helens, Rainier and Hood. Earthquake activity has recently also become more frequent near Lassen Peak volcano (Cascade arc) (CA). Small earthquakes continue along the southern boundary of Long Valley Caldera (CA) (station MCM) today as well.  

EU officials to hold crisis meeting on Egypt   High-level European officials will hold a crisis meeting to consider actions to take in response to Egypt's bloody crackdown on protesters, a spokesman said. The decision to hold the Monday meeting came the same day Britain, France and Germany summoned the Egyptian ambassadors in their respective countries, and EU member Denmark said it cut off $5.3 million in annual job aid to Egypt.  

Islamists take to streets across Cairo in ‘Day of Rage’ against army
Tanks deploy around capital ahead of expected return to violent clashes between pro-Morsi supporters and Egyptian forces  

Quantum Teleportation: Transfer of Flying Quantum Bits at the Touch of a Button
By means of the quantum-mechanical entanglement of spatially separated light fields, researchers in Tokyo and Mainz have managed to teleport photonic qubits with extreme reliability. This means that a decisive breakthrough has been achieved some 15 years after the first experiments in the field of optical teleportation. The success of the experiment conducted in Tokyo is attributable to the use of a hybrid technique in which two conceptually different and previously incompatible approaches were combined.  

COLORFUL SPRITES OVER NEBRASKA
First documented in 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota who photographed strange flashes coming out of the tops of thunderstorms, sprites remain a mystery today. Neither their basic physics nor their effect on the surrounding atmosphere is well understood.  

GEOMAGNETIC UNREST
A high-speed solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, and this is causing minor geomagnetic storms around the poles.  

Greek unemployment hit new record in May of 27.6%
Greece's jobless rate hit a new record high of 27.6 percent in May, official national data showed on Thursday as the country staggers under austerity linked to its international bailout. Record joblessness is a nightmare for Greece's two-party coalition government as it scrambles to hit fiscal targets and show there is light at the end of the tunnel after years of unpopular tax rises and cuts to wages and pensions.  

World powers condemn Egypt bloodshed, as death toll rises to 525
Egypt’s military rulers on Thursday faced international condemnation over the bloody crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protesters, with France warning of the threat of “civil war” and Turkey demanding UN action. At least 525 people were killed in Wednesday’s assaults on two Cairo protest camps of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in the worst violence the country has seen in decades. The United States led global condemnations overnight against the “deplorable” violence, while Paris, London and Berlin have summoned Egypt’s ambassadors to voice their strong concern. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting over Egypt’s “massacre” of Morsi supporters.  

If This Guy Is What The Future Of America Looks Like, We Are In Big Trouble
Should taxpayer dollars be used to buy sushi and lobster for a young man whose future plans consist entirely of surfing and partying as much as he possibly can? When I first saw the video that I am about to share with you, I was absolutely floored.  

Indonesia: Evangelists Sentenced to Three Years in Prison
Kashfi and Jalaudin, two Christian brothers, were sentenced to three years in prison on Aug. 2, 2013, after being convicted of "evangelizing Muslims," Voice of the Martyrs reports. On March 20, 2013, their home was attacked by an angry mob of about 200 Muslims. Police stopped the attack on their home and then arrested the two brothers. The brothers were convicted despite their lawyers' insistence in court that the trial violated their human rights.  

Edward Snowden documents show NSA broke privacy rules
The US National Security Agency (NSA) broke privacy rules and overstepped its legal authority thousands of times in the past two years, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The incidents resulted in the unauthorised electronic surveillance of US citizens, according to documents published by the Washington Post. Mr Snowden, a former NSA contractor, has leaked top secret documents to the US and British media.  

Egypt crisis: Defiant Muslim Brotherhood plans marches
The Egyptian capital Cairo is poised for renewed protests by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi. They are expected to take place two days after authorities broke up Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo with the loss of at least 638 lives. Mr Morsi's supporters plan to converge on central Ramses Square from city mosques after Friday prayers.  

Obama tells Egypt 'traditional cooperation cannot continue'
US President Barack Obama notified the Egyptian military by phone on Thursday that “traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual” between the two nations so long as civilian demonstrators are being shot and killed in the streets of Egypt. ...Obama lamented that Egypt’s military has chosen to walk down a “dangerous path,” as the death toll climbed past 550 and thousands more were reported wounded in two days of bloodshed.  

Iran appoints new nuclear program chief
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed outgoing Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi to head the Atomic Energy Organization on Friday...replacing a hardliner with a so-called pragmatist to take charge of Tehran's nuclear program. Rouhani, described a relative moderate ...has pledged to improve Iran's ties with the outside world and ease stringent international sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.  

Major earthquake rocks New Zealand
WORKERS have fled New Zealand's capital, Wellington, after a severe earthquake measuring a magnitude of 6.6 rocked the nation. New Zealanders huddled under desks as strong tremors struck the country -- as far north as Auckland and as far south as Dunedin -- at around 2:31pm local time. 

California Considers Punishing Youth Groups Against Homosexuality As ‘Bathroom Bill’ Becomes Law Rea
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily Newschristiannews.net
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

On the same day that the governor of California signed a bill into law mandating that boys who identify as girls be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and vice versa, a California committee approved legislation which would cause any non-profit organizations that do not embrace homosexuals to lose tax-exempt status.

Senate Bill 323 (SB323) was first introduced in mid-February by Ricardo Lara, a Democratic state senator from Los Angeles. Lara is himself an open homosexual, as well as a member of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus. According to the bill’s introduction, SB323 would “provide that an organization that is a public charity youth organization that discriminates on the basis of gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or religious affiliation is not exempt from [state taxes].”

Later in the legislation, approximately 25 youth organizations are specifically listed as entities that would have to embrace these “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” guidelines, or else lose their tax-exempt standing. Little League, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Young Men’s Christian Association, Young Women’s Christian Association, Future Farmers of America, Future Homemakers of America, 4-H Clubs, Boys’ Clubs, and Girls’ Clubs are all included.

On Monday afternoon, California’s Committee on Revenue and Taxation held a hearing on SB323, and eventually approved the legislation by a 6-3 vote. Now the bill moves forward to the Committee on Judiciary.

Proponents of SB323—commonly referred to as the “Anti-Boy Scouts Bill”—herald the legislation as a long-overdue measure to end unfair discrimination in many organizations. John O’Conner of Equality California said the bill would “make it clear … that discrimination has a real cost,” and Senator Lara described his bill as a means to end organizations’ “outdated practices.”

“Our state values the important role that youth groups play in the empowerment of our next generation,” Lara stated. “This is demonstrated by rewarding organizations with tax exemptions supported financially by all Californians. SB323 seeks to end the unfortunate discriminatory and outdated practices by certain youth groups by revoking their tax exemption privilege should they not comply with our non-discrimination laws.”

However, a news release from Lori Arnold of the California Family Alliance argued that the “Anti-Boy Scouts Bill” is both self-contradicting and unconstitutional.

“The irony of the proposed law,” Arnold wrote, “is that its blatant use of extortion—by holding nonprofit groups financially hostage—instills its own form of discrimination by trampling individual and organizational religious beliefs by labeling them ‘outdated practices,’ practices that are protected by the First Amendment.”

Similarly, Matthew McReynolds of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) stated that “the bill’s imposition of ‘gender identity’ acceptance on virtually all youth sports in California is untenable and out of step with the reasonable privacy expectations,” and also “establishes a gender-blind scheme that most parents believe to be absurd.”

On the very same day as the SB323 committee hearing, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1266 into law—a bill that allows boys who identify as girls to use girls’ bathrooms at school, and vice versa. As previously reported, California lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the “Bathroom Bill” last month, even though the bill’s author—Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano—admitted that the new measures will “perhaps” make some children “uncomfortable.”

“I don’t want to minimize that,” Ammiano said, according to the BBC, “but new experiences are often uncomfortable. That can’t be an excuse for prejudice.”

However, Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, told Christian News Network that the enforcement of AB 1266 will lead to instances of “extreme violation of [students’] privacy,” with “horrendous” mental and emotional ramifications.

Dacus further said that both SB323 and AB 1266 are being driven by those who want non-traditional sexual behavior accepted and protected in every arena.

“The common motive,” he explained, “is to inoculate anyone who has any objection to homosexuality or transsexuality, and [both bills are] specifically targeting young people. The goal is to make transsexuality, cross-dressing, and homosexuality a cultural norm—not just as a matter of tolerance, but as a matter of socially-mandated acceptance.”

“It’s a massive demoralizing campaign which is being engaged in at the expense of countless young people who will be unquestionably impacted,” he said.

Airmen Punished for Objecting to Gay Marriage
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily Newsfoxnews.com - Todd Starnes
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

A 19-year veteran of the Air Force said he was relieved of his duties after he disagreed with his openly gay commander when she wanted to severely punish an instructor who had expressed religious objections to homosexuality.

“I was relieved of my position because I don’t agree with my commander’s position on gay marriage,” Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk told Fox News. “We’ve been told that if you publicly say that homosexuality is wrong, you are in violation of Air Force policy.”

The Liberty Institute is representing the Christian airman in case the Pentagon decides to retaliate.

“Are we going to have a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy for Christians so we don’t get harassed for our beliefs?” attorney Hiram Sasser asked Fox News. “Here’s a guy who wants to have his religious liberty and serve in the military. He shouldn’t have to believe in gay marriage in order to serve.”

A spokesperson for Lackland Air Force Base public affairs told Fox News Monk was not punished and that he was simply at the end of his assignment.

“They did have a disagreement, but supposedly, they agreed to disagree,” the spokesperson told Fox News. “But the wing commander said there was no punishment.

Monk has served as a first sergeant at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio since 2011. He recently returned from a deployment and discovered he had a new commander – an open lesbian.

“In one of our first meetings, she was talking about her promotion and she mentioned something about a benediction,” Monk told Fox News. “She said she wanted a chaplain but objected to one particular chaplain that she called a bigot because he preached that homosexuality is a sin.”

“She then said, ‘I don’t know what kind of people actually believe that kind of crap,’” Monk said, recalling the meeting. “I knew I was going to have a rough time in this unit and I would have to be very careful what I said.”

That moment came when Monk was called in to advise the commander on a disciplinary matter involving an Air Force instructor accused of making comments objecting to gay marriage.

The instructor was investigated and the members of his trainees were asked if the instructor had slandered homosexuals and whether he created a hostile work environment.

Monk said he quickly determined the instructor meant no harm by his public comments – comparing the United States with the fall of the Roman Empire.

“He said in spite of our differences, we can’t let that happen to the United States,” Monk said. “He then used homosexual marriage as an example – saying that he didn’t believe in it – but it doesn’t matter because he was going to train them the same way.”

Seven people filed complaints about the remarks. It then became Monk’s job to advise the commander on disciplinary action.

A Middle East Without Christians
Aug 16th, 2013
Daily Newsfrontpagemag.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

Islamist terrorists have exploited the lawless Sinai to perpetrate vicious attacks on Egyptian Christians there, as reported earlier this week in the New York Times. Indeed, throughout Egypt, the Copts continue to be targeted and scapegoated for the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As defenseless and abandoned as Mideast Christians seem today, it is worth remembering their historical roots, and recognizing just how much the plight of Middle East Christians has deteriorated. 

Over 2,000 years ago, Christianity was born as a religion and spread from Jerusalem to other parts of the Levant, including territories in modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. The Christian faith flourished as one of the major religions in the Middle East until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century.

Despite Muslim domination of the region, Christians comprised an estimated 20% of the Middle East population until the early 20th century. Today, however, Christians make up a mere 2-5% of the Middle East and their numbers are fast dwindling. 

Writing in the Winter 2001 issue of Middle East Quarterly, scholar Daniel Pipes estimated that Middle East Christians would “likely drop to” half of their numbers “by the year 2020″ because of declining birth rates, and a pattern of “exclusion and persecution” leading to emigration.

The “Arab Spring” has only worsened conditions for the indigenous Christians of the Middle East. Like the Kurds, Middle East Christians are a stateless minority, struggling to survive in the world’s toughest neighborhood. But the Kurds at least have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991 and most of them are Sunni Muslim, making it easier for them to survive in the Muslim-dominated Middle East. 

Christians, on the other hand, are a religious minority that controls no territory and is entirely subject to the whims of their hosts. These host countries – with the exception of Israel – offer a grim future to Middle East Christians. Home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, Egypt also has the largest Christian population in the Middle East, totaling 8-12 million people. 

But because Christian Copts make up only about 10-15% of Egypt’s estimated 80 million people, they have for decades lived in fear as second-class citizens, subjected to attacks on churches, villages, homes, and shops; mob killings; and the abduction and forced Islamic conversion of Christian women compelled to marry Muslim men. 

Such abuse took place under the staunchly secular regime of Hosni Mubarak, but grew much worse under the rule of Mohammed Morsi, the jailed Muslim Brotherhood activist who succeeded Mubarak, and they are now being blamed for Morsi’s ouster.

In Lebanon, Christians represent a bigger portion of the population, so their fate is for now less precarious than that of their Egyptian coreligionists, but their long-term prospects are worrisome. The Christian population is estimated to have dropped from over 50% (according to a 1932 census) to about 40%. 

Over the last few years, the de facto governing power in Lebanon has become Hezbollah, the radical and heavily-armed Shiite movement sponsored by Iran. With all of the spillover violence and instability produced by the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah’s open involvement in it, and/or the next war that Hezbollah decides to start with Israel, the emigration of Christians out of Lebanon will probably only increase in the coming years, leaving those who stay increasingly vulnerable.

In Syria, 2.5 million Christians comprised about 10% of the population and enjoyed some protection under the secular and often brutal regimes of the Assad dynasty. But as jihadi groups fighting Assad extend their territorial control, the past protection of Christians is often the cause of their current persecution by resentful Sunnis who revile the Assad regime and seek to impose Sharia law wherever they can. 

Christians have been regularly targeted and killed by rebels, and the sectarian chaos and violence that will likely prevail in Assad’s wake will only increase the number of Christians fleeing Syria.

In Iraq, the bloody aftermath of the 2003 invasion demonstrated how dangerous life can become for a Christian minority when a multicultural society in the Middle East explodes into sectarian violence. By 2008, half of the 800,000 Iraqi Christians were estimated to have left, rendering those remaining even more insecure. 

In 2010, Salafist extremists attacked a Baghdad church during Sunday Mass, killing or wounding nearly the whole congregation. Such incidents turn any communal gathering into a potential massacre, forcing Christians across the Middle East to ask the ultimate question of faith: “Am I prepared to die for Christian worship?”

The so-called “Arab Spring” threatens to exacerbate matters in much of the Middle East, as Islamists now either control the government or influence it enough to persecute Christians with impunity. As new Islamist regimes in the Middle East condone religious intolerance and introduce Sharia and blasphemy laws, the long-term trend for Christians in their ancestral lands will only grow bleaker.

The one bright spot is the state of Israel – “the only place in the Middle East [where] Christians are really safe,” according to the Vicar of St. George’s Church in Baghdad, Canon Andrew White. Home to Christianity’s holiest sites and to a colorful array of Christian denominations, Israel has the only growing Christian community in the Middle East.

Because Israel is the only non-Muslim state in all of the Middle East and North Africa, it represents a small victory for religious minorities in the region, and serves as the last protector of freedom and security for Jews, Christians, Bahai, Druze, and others. Without Israel, how much more vulnerable would Christians in the Middle East become?