Pope Remarks and Muslim Reaction

In the middle of September, 2006 Pope Benedict of the Catholic Church made a speech at the University in Regensburg, Germany.
The core of the speech has been characterized as a criticism of modern western civilization for committing itself too much to reason and cutting God out of science and philosophy.
Ian Fisher of the New York Times said that Pope Benedict started out ‘by recounting a conversation on the truths of Christianity and Islam that took place between a 14th- century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, and a Persian scholar.’
Even the New York Times seems to have gotten the message wrong that Pope Benedict was sending.
Pope Benedict did not start by recounting the conversation. The quotation that caused the stir was far into the speech but that is only a minor point.
He was speaking about how reason has polluted faith to such an extent that the message of peace that Jesus brought was being lost in modern society. In fact the speech contained elements of his inaugural lecture at the University in Bonn from 1959.
It is a speech of love, the message of Jesus, the word of God and of and for humanity.
The media reported on a reference to a statement made by Emperor Manuel II Paleologus hundreds of years ago and sparked off a bitter response from the Muslim community around the world.
I am going to begin this evening with a short history so that we have a background for Emperor Paleologus.
The Fall of the Roman Empire took place over a long period of time. During one period the Empire broke into two pieces. There was the western empire which fragmented further into several countries like France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal - et cetera with a central church whose head of state was in Rome.
The Eastern Empire retained its government and shape but was slowly over run by barbarians from the north and the Muslims from the east who were considered savages at the time.
Eventually the capital of the Eastern Empire at Byzantium was conquered and the Eastern Emperor, of which Manuel II was one of the last, ceased to be a governing power. The Eastern Churches are called Orthodox and range from the Greek Orthodox to the Russian Orthodox with other churches formed from what were formerly mainly Roman provinces.
Each of these orthodox churches has a different internal governing system and until Pope John Paul II made overtures they did not even speak to the Catholic Church in Rome.
During the Fall of the Western Empire a pantheon of gods was replaced by belief in the One True God. Much of the material from that time was preserved and passed down through the ages to the present day. Much of it was also destroyed.
Some of the most holy places in Rome to Catholics were once the same places used to worship Apollo, Diana, Zeus and Hera. Those are the ancient gods of Rome. Their statues were moved it of the buildings and the interiors redesigned to reflect the Catholic faith. A lot of this art is still in existence.
To the east of the Roman Empire - to the east of the Eastern Empire in fact, was in ancient times a nation called the Parthian Empire. After much fighting the Parthian Empire eventually ended up as the Persian Empire.
What happened when Mohammad came along was more bitter, divisive and destructive than the slow and thorough absorption of the old Roman religions by the Catholic religion.
Mohammad declared a campaign of destruction. When the Muslims entered Riyadh they attacked the pantheon of the Parthian or Persian Empire. They destroyed every statue and image they found. The priests were killed along with faithful trying to make a defense. Families were destroyed, the city burned and all the wealth and weapons taken for the continued fury of the spread of the Muslim faith.
The result is that the Muslim faith seemingly has no memory. There was a complete and willful break from the past which, rather than supplanting what was before it replaced it with another more insecure and fragile arrangement. Where local Parthian or Persian tax payers used to collect money now armed priests called Imams collected what is referred to as the ‘poor-tax’ which finds its way these days rarely to the tables of the poor and more often to the makers of guns, rockets and mortars. Osama Bin Laden for example had access to billions of dollars and rather than using it for constructive projects he used it to attack the World Trade Center in order to disrupt trade.
Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and other governments controlled in this way whine to the west about helping the poor while they sit on oil, gold, silver, tin and other natural resources controlled by a few religious leaders as in Iran or by Kings and princes as in Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
It was a terrible time and unlike the slow change that took place in Rome it has never seemed to end. In fact the same behavior that the early Muslims showed to the art and culture of their own people was repeated when the Muslim Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the 18 story tall statues of Buddha with dynamite.
This sort of destructive, irresponsible behavior was echoed again when a Danish cartoonist drew a caricature of Mohammed wearing a bomb for a hat.
These are two well known incidents in modern times but the destructive behavior has been repeated time and time again through history. Muslims sometimes say it is to defend their faith but lately it has started to seem a little like the fanaticism of men like Billy Sunday and Billy Graham who pull an enemy out of the hat so the donations of the faithful will keep pouring in.
The problem is that the violence that is unleashed through the old interpretation of the Koran is extreme.
Now to return to modern times. What exactly did Pope Benedict say?
Here it is. The Pope is referencing an edited text of Emperor Paleologus’s remarks :
"But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.
God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. ""
The sentence that drove the Muslim world into a blood frenzy is : "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The press did not dwell on the next sentence which reads, "The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
The response of the Muslim community was almost instant. As if they had been sitting in wait for anything to set them off. If their reaction had not been so violent, apparently unthinking and illogical it might have been humorous.
But several people died apparently as a result of their reaction.
The onus was put back on Pope Benedict and it was intimated that his remarks caused the violence. I heard one radio talk show host on a local religious radio station in Detroit talk about the ‘behavior’ of the Pope and yet she admitted that she had not seen the text of the speech. She was acting just like the Muslim fanatics that opposed him. The text was available online at that time but this Christian fanatic decided to remark on items she did not take the time to investigate.
The problem for the Muslim world is that even though he did not intend to paint the modern Muslim religion as bloodthirsty and violent the response and reaction from Muslim leaders around the world can only lead a responsible, logical adult to conclude that this may be so.
In the meantime the response from the Muslim world began to deteriorate.
Here is what the Pope said in response, ""These were in fact quotations from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. The true meaning of my address in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect."
Following are some of the things that were said and done by the Muslim community in response to Pope Benedict‘s speech in Regensburg. You can make your own decision about whether they responded correctly or not. I do not feel that they did and that, rather than proving what Pope Benedict had to say, they underscored the words of Emperor Manuel II Paleologus himself.
Iraqis burned an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI during a protest in Basra. Basra is a city that has seen thousands of political and religious assassinations since the occupation of Iraq began. The Shiites and Sunnis are slaughtering each other but took a break to join together and burn a paper puppet of Pope Benedict.
The New York Times tells us that "an Iraqi group linked to Al Qaeda posted a warning on a Web site threatening war against "worshippers of the cross.""
Ayatollah Ali Khameni, the top Muslim in Iran, is reported to have called Pope Benedict’s remarks "the latest link" in the "chain of conspiracy to set off a crusade."
A Turkish man with a fake gun attacked a Protestant church in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
In Somalia, gunmen shot an Italian nun and her bodyguard to death outside a children's hospital in the capital. It is not clear whether the shooting of Leonella Sgorbati, 64, was related to the papal controversy, but Somalian Islamic extremists had threatened to attack Catholics.
Reuters news agency reported, "She was shot three times in the back."
Reuters goes on to say, "There is a very high possibility the people who killed her were angered by the Catholic Pope's recent comments…"
Somalia was recently taken over by a Muslim government whose first actions were to disarm or kill anyone that opposed them. They have maintained order with violence.
In Sudan the attacks on the Christians in Darfur by armed agents of the Sudan government continue. In a weakly worded statement Condoleeza Rice said that the violence in Darfur is "getting worse".
The concept of spreading Islam by the sword is alive and well in the 21st century.
The Islamic government in Sudan’s north is pushing south with guns and bombs. They are clearing out the Africans who have lived there for thousands of years in order to sell oil contracts to Communist Chinese and even European and American companies.
In Somalia the Muslims are killing anyone that opposes them and replacing local governments with a government based on Muslim law called Sharia.
In Afghanistan the Islamists continue to spread their influence by killing anyone who opposes them.
Active cells of terrorists and Islamic preachers in Pakistan continue to incite violence in western India, Afghanistan and central Asia.
The western parts of Communist China are also feeling the sting of this renewed military expansion.
All through north Africa, the shores of East Africa and even eastern Europe Muslim extremists seemingly resort to violence first.
These are real expansions and they are not being addressed by international diplomacy.
Indonesia, a major trading partner with the United States, continues to be ruled by a military style government heavily steeped in Muslim influence. Three apparently innocent Christians were recently executed for anti-government activities just before the Muslim holy days of Ramadan in what appears to be an insult to the West in that the Muslim cleric and men who killed so many in a bombing in Bali have still not been sentenced.
The executions were scheduled for early August, but were postponed following an appeal by Pope Benedict. Then the scheduled executions of the Bali bombers, who murdered 202 people, was also postponed. They may have a new date set in October but there is no telling with the Indonesian government.
Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, the second largest Islamic organization in Indonesia said, "It is obvious from the statements that the Pope doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam. Whether the Pope apologizes or not, the Islamic community should show that Islam is a religion of compassion."
Fauzan Al-Anshori, spokesman for the Indonesian Mujahideen Council, said "Muslims can't eliminate jihad from the Islamic discourse, the same way Christians can't do away with the doctrine of Trinity,"
The Associate Press stated that "Al Qaeda in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world…"
Protests broke out in South Asia and Indonesia
The Mujahedeen Shura Council in Iraq released a statement addressing the pope as "a cross-worshipper" and saying, "You and the West are doomed, as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. You infidels and despots, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism, when God's rule is established governing all people and nations."
Another Iraqi group said on the internet, "If the stupid pig is prancing with his blasphemies in his house then let him wait for the day coming soon when the armies of the religion of right knock on the walls of Rome."
In Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, "Those who benefit from the pope's comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests."
Islamic Defenders' Front said in Jakarta, India said, "His comments really hurt Muslims all over the world. We should remind him not to say such things which can only fuel a holy war."
Malaysia's foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, said Benedict's apology was "inadequate to calm the anger."
President Bush weight in and said that Pope Benedict was sincere in his apology for comments on Islam that have sparked outrage in the Muslim world. I can’t figure out which side he is on because according to the Catholic Church Pope Benedict did not apologize. Bush was with the Malaysian Prime Minister at the time so politics may be taken into account.
Another statement out of Iraq was, "We shall break the cross and spill the wine."
In Palestine a church in Tulkarem was attacked with gasoline bombs followed by an attempted attack on a church in Tubas, near Jenin along with gasoline bomb attacks on three churches in Nablus, as well as an attack on a church in Gaza.
In Turkey, a recipient of much American aid money, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Pope Benedict to apologize for his "ugly, unfortunate statements."
In Morocco King Mohammed VI sent a written message to the pope denouncing his "offending statements."
Pakistan's National Assembly voted unanimously a resolution condemning the Pope Benedict’s comments.
The Pakistani National Assembly wrote, "This statement has hurt sentiments of the Muslims. This is also against the charter of the United Nations. This house demands the Pope retract his remarks in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world."
In New Delhi, India, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque said, "No Pope has ever tried to attack the glory of Islam like this Pope. Muslims must respond in a manner which forces the Pope to apologize."
Meanwhile, violence continued in Somalia where the Muslim extremists attempted to assassinate the new President. The President lived by 8 people including his brother were murdered. The attack came as the President of Somalia has been trying to work out an agreement to reign in the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts which wants to run Somalia on Muslim Sharia law.
Protests occurred in South Asia and across Indonesia.
Muslims extremists said the pope's comments proved that the West was in a war against Islam.
The Pakistani government made a big noise about Pope Benedict’s comments but they didn’t say anything about the fact that violence and religion don’t mix. In fact, neither did the Indonesians, Malaysians, Morrocans, Egyptians, Sudanese, Iraqis, Iranians or any of the Muslim dominated governments.
To harken back to the past in Delhi, India in 1398 Chinggis Khan invaded the city. He had Hindu and Muslim prisoners separated. He then ordered all the non-Muslims to be killed. Over 100,000 Hindus were killed that day.
The battle between Buddhism and the Muslim religion which caused the destruction of the statues in Afghanistan dates back to the 1300’s as well.
Koran quotations :













Pope’s Speech from Regensburg :
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a moving experience for me to stand and give a lecture at this university podium once again. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. This was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves.
We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas: the reality that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason-- this reality became a lived experience.
The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the whole of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical skepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on-- perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara-- by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was probably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than the responses of the learned Persian.
The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship of the three Laws: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur'an. In this lecture I would like to discuss only one point-- itself rather marginal to the dialogue itself-- which, in the context of the issue of faith and reason, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.
But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.
God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.
As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the logos. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts with logos.
Logos means both reason and word-- a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist.
The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: Come over to Macedonia and help us! (cf. Acts 16:6-10)-- this vision can be interpreted as a distillation of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.
In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and declares simply that he is, is already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates's attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: I am.
This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature.
Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria-- the Septuagint-- is more than a simple (and in that sense perhaps less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.
In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which ultimately led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.
As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language (cf. Lateran IV). God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love transcends knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is logos. Consequently, Christian worship is worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).
This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history-– it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.
The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity-– a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the program of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.
Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the fundamental postulates of the Reformation in the 16th century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this program forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.
The liberal theology of the 19th and 20th centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this program was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal’s distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue. I will not repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack’s central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favor of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. The fundamental goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ’s divinity and the triune God.
In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant’s "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature’s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.
This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.
We shall return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology’s claim to be "scientific" would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science" and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter.
This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.
Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.
And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvelous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application.
While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.
Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology.
Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought: to philosophy and theology.
For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".
The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably (with logos) is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.


Koran Quotes
Chapter 8:12 "…Verily I am with you; wherefore confirm those who believe. I will cast a dread into the hearts of the unbelievers. Therefore strike off their heads, and strike off all the ends of their fingers."
Chapter 8:67 reads, "It hath not been granted unto any prophet, that he should possess captives, until he hath made a great slaughter of the infidels in the earth."
Chapter 9:123 reads, "O true believers, wage war against such of the infidels as are near you; and let them find severity in you: and know that God is with those who fear him."
"Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush" (Sura 9.5).
"Those that make war against Allah and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the land. They shall be held up to shame in this world and sternly punished in the hereafter." (Sura 5.33-34)
"Allah revealed His will to the angels, saying: 'I shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers!' That was because they defied Allah and His apostle. He that defies Allah and his apostle shall be sternly punished by Allah." (Sura 8.12-13)
"In order that Allah may separate the pure from the impure, put all the impure ones one on top of another in a heap and cast them into hell. They will have been the ones to have lost." (Sura 8.37)
"Muster against them all the men and cavalry at your command, so that you may strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them who are unknown to you but known to Allah." (Sura 8.60)
"Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and deal harshly with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate." (Sura 9.73)
"When We resolve to raze a city, We first give warning to those of its people who live in comfort. If they persist in sin, judgement is irrevocably passed, and We destroy it utterly." (Sura 17.16-17)
"When you meet the unbelievers in jihad, chop off their heads. And when you have brought them low, bind your prisoners rigorously. Then set them free or take ransom from them until the war is ended." (Sura 47.4)
"Mohammed is Allah's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another." (Sura 48.29)
IV. Excerpts of Verses
"And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers."
"Yea! if you remain patient and are on your guard, and they come upon you in a headlong manner, your Lord will assist you with five thousand of the havoc-making angels."
"Fight then in Allah's way...rouse the believers to ardor maybe Allah will restrain the fighting of those who disbelieve... "
"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned"
"...fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah…"
"O Prophet! urge the believers to war; if there are twenty patient ones of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a hundred of you they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people who do not understand ...if there are a hundred patient ones of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a thousand they shall overcome two thousand by Allah's permission... "
"...fight the polytheists all together as they fight you all together... "
"...when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them, then make prisoners, and afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom until the war terminates…"
"Be not fainthearted then; and invite not the infidels to peace when ye have the upper hand: for God is with you, and will not defraud you of the recompense of your works... "
" ...surely from among your wives and your children there is an enemy to you; therefore beware of them"
"So obey not the unbelievers and fight strenuously with them in many a strenuous fight. "

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Ali Baba and the TSA

Ali Baba and the TSA :
TSA CLERK: What is your name?
TRAVELLER:Ron Smith.
TSA CLERK: Is Ron your first name?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: What is your last name?
TRAVELLER:Smith.
TSA CLERK: Have you been here before?
TRAVELLER:Yes, last week.
TSA CLERK: Have you ever used another name besides ‘Ron Smith’?
TRAVELLER:No.
TSA CLERK: We don’t have a Ron Smith going through here last week.
TRAVELLER:Maybe it’s under ‘Ronald Smith’.
TSA CLERK: I thought you never used another name besides ‘Ron Smith’.
TRAVELLER:Well, yes, but my full name is Ronald. Maybe they have it under Ronald instead of Ron.
TSA CLERK: Who is they?
TRAVELLER:They. Them. You. The lady that took my information last week when I was flying out of here.
TSA CLERK: Whoever took your information would only take the information you gave them. If you gave them Ronald they would type in Ronald. If you gave them Ron they would type in Ron. You just gave me Ron so I typed in Ron. If you gave them another name other than Ron I need to know what it is.
TRAVELLER:It might be under Ronald.
TSA CLERK: I’ll check Ronald. No, nothing under Ronald.
TRAVELLER:I don’t know what to say.
TSA CLERK: Do you have any identification on you?
TRAVELLER:I have these cards.
TSA CLERK: Anything with a photograph. Do you have something with your name on it and your photograph?
TRAVELLER:Yes, here is my driver’s license.
TSA CLERK: This says your name is Ronald. Is that you?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: I’ll have to change your name in the system then because I have you in as Ron. We’ll have to start again. This will just take a moment.
(Ten Minutes Pass)
TSA CLERK: Okay, so is this your picture?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Is that you in the photo?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Is this your name here? Ronald Smith?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Have you been through here before?
TRAVELLER:Yes, last week.
TSA CLERK: I can’t find you in here. Did you perhaps give them another name?
TRAVELLER:No. Ronald Smith or Ron Smith.
TSA CLERK: Which is it?
TRAVELLER:Ronald Smith.
TSA CLERK: Just like on the driver’s license?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Spelled the same way?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: I still can’t find you in here. Anyway, we’ll just start fresh. Do you have any carry on baggage?
TRAVELLER:No. It’s all been checked.
TSA CLERK: Would you like to check anything now?
TRAVELLER:No. I checked it already.
TSA CLERK: I still can’t find you in here from last week. Do you have another piece of identification with your picture on it?
TRAVELLER:Yes, here you go.
TSA CLERK: Is this your picture?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Is this your name?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: This one says Ron Smith and the Driver’s License says, Ronald Smith. I’ll have to put in a variance for you.
(Five minutes pass)
TSA CLERK: You didn’t sign this card, sir.
TRAVELLER:Oh, I must have forgotten.
TSA CLERK: Please sign the card, sir.
TRAVELLER:Okay.
(Signs card)
TSA CLERK: Is this you, Ron Smith?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: You signed it Ronald Smith.
TRAVELLER:Oh, my, does that make a difference?
TSA CLERK: Well, not here, but someone might have a problem with that. They are sticklers for detail on the other end. I hope they let you off the plane.
TRAVELLER:I could resign it.
TSA CLERK: That wouldn’t be proper. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
TRAVELLER:I see.
TSA CLERK: Would you mind taking off your shoes?
TRAVELLER:Sure. Here you go.
TSA CLERK: Place them on the counter please.
TRAVELLER:Okay.
TSA CLERK: Did you buy these shoes here in the airport?
TRAVELLER:No. I bought them at the mall near my house.
TSA CLERK: Has anyone approached you and offered to give you money to wear shoes on this flight?
TRAVELLER:No.
TSA CLERK: Has anyone unknown to you asked you to wear shoes as a favor for them on this flight?
TRAVELLER:No.
TSA CLERK: Okay. We are just about done here. After you put your shoes on you can proceed over to the check-in screening booth and speak to Mr. Da'uud Mikha'iil Muusa standing over there next to Mrs. Faaima Ali Aa'isha for your final flight approval.

DDT and United Nations

Doctor Arata Kochi was the head of the World Health Organization to eradicate tuberculosis.
It is widely reported that erratic behavior and domineering influence caused many problems in the organization before he was forced out.
He is now in charge of the project to eradicate malaria in Africa and is insisting on using massive amounts of DDT to kill mosquitoes.
Some people say that because while he was there the number of TB cases fell is evidence that he did a good job.
They do not give any weight to the increased effectiveness of new drugs, the improved distribution network and education. These same supporters never acknowledge the increased involvement of those most at risk, improved infrastructures and general rise in lifestyle resulting in the drop in TB cases.
They also do not recognize the fact that as the organization he led broke up correct statistics were no longer kept.
On paper it looks like everything is going well but who can say because there doesn’t seem to be anyone keep accurate track of what happened or what is happening with TB.
In a terrifying move Doctor Arata Kochi has shown up as head of the Malaria project that is being sponsored by the World Health Organization.
He is forcefully advocating the increased use of DDT in third world countries. Even though other pesticides would be more appropriate to control the mosquito populations Doctor Arata Kochi is determined to use DDT.
DDT is a very dangerous chemical.
It will kill all insects and impact the entire food chain.
Fish, birds and animals will lose a major part of their diet.
People that need game to live will starve.
It causes cancer in humans.
It causes mothers to have premature births and to spontaneously abort babies.
It causes babies to be born with horrible birth defects. It is know as a mutagen. The word mutagen means ‘monster-maker’.
DDT is manufactured in India, Communist China and though it is not used in the United States it can be and is manufactured there for sale elsewhere. It is cheap to make and is a very profitable product.
India, Communist China and the United States are in favor of Doctor Arata Kochi’s idea regarding DDT. They support the World Health Organization in forcing the idea on poor nations to use DDT.
Malaria kills a great many people each year. A common number given is that 800,000 African children die from it each year.
Doctor Arata Kachi has been quoted as saying that he does not want to fail.
It seems he is willing to spray a chemical that kills insects, birds, animals and humans in order to fulfill his apparent destructive desire.
Many nations that are suffering from this scourge are also at war. They are using guns and ammunition that has been manufactured in Communist China, the United States, Russia and Europe. These wars are being fought over natural resources. The reason there is fighting over the natural resources is because Communist China, the United States, Russia and Europe are paying a lot of money to take the natural resources.
It has become impossible to hide the misery that these wars and this exploitation has caused.
There is a general hysteria to do something about it.
Stopping the sale of weapons from so-called rich nations to poor nations would alleviate much of the suffering. Paying honest prices for the natural resources that are being taken - like oil from Nigeria, gold from the Congo and other items - including fish and agricultural products - would also alleviate much of the suffering.
The local governments could then do more to ensure that the people are living in safe and clean environments.
Spraying DDT may bring short term relief but as was discovered in the United States and Italy it will bring long term misery.
The mosquitoes also will become resistant to the chemical.
They have already done so in many locations.
The mosquitoes that DDT is most effective against on an ongoing basis are not the ones that carry malaria. The ones that carry malaria in Sri Lanka have already obtained resistance. DDT is no longer used in Sri Lanka because the mosquitoes and other insects there have already mutated into forms that it will not effect.
DDT still attacks humans in Sri Lanka along with animals that live there - both domestic and wild.
Doctor Arata Kachi, from what I have read, acts in an erratic manner.
The United States has recently taken a stand against the United Nations and up to now has apparently resisted the activities of the World Health Organization. Now a man is in place who looks like he will destroy the reputation of the World Health Organization completely and possibly pollute large swaths of the earth.
The short term economic gain provided by spraying for DDT will cause a massive number of birth defects.
It is possible to eradicate mosquitoes using other chemicals.
The World Health Organization is giving unfair advantage to chemical companies that manufacture DDT and the DDT impregnated netting. Communist China and the United States stand to profit from this apparent rage of irresponsible behavior erupting from Doctor Arata Kachi.
Using DDT across Africa to try and eradicate malaria is like using the atomic bomb to eradicate cancer in Japan.
Anyone alive with cancer at the time of the explosion will die and cancer would be effectively wiped out - but 20 years down the line cancer from radiation will grow up and the people would be in the same state with a different disease.
If DDT is used to eradicate malaria across Africa without support of alternate chemicals and improved sanitation Doctor Arata Kachi’s solution may provide short term relief - but after he is dead and buried the monstrous results of his fevered activity will plague the world health community for decades and last for centuries.
The one thing more destructive than the mosquito in fighting malaria today is, in my opinion, Doctor Arata Kachi.
I hope you will think long and hard about allowing DDT to be used heavily in your nation without further studying the matter and doing everything you can to avoid it.
Look at a part of the ‘Policy Series’ at the World Health Organization.
See who funds it?
1. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
2. David and Lucile Packard Foundation
3. Unrestricted educational support from Abbott Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and Pfizer Inc.
Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are international chemical companies specializing in agricultural chemicals and drugs.
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ADDITIONAL
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PFIZER AS SUGAR DADDY
Pfizer took over Pharmacia.
During the 2002 elections, Pfizer contributed $1.2 million to federal parties and candidates, more than two-thirds going to Republicans. Pharmacia contributed just under $1 million during 2001-02, mostly to Republicans.
Apparently an FDA medical officer was ordered to delete information on risks of antidepressant drugs.
The information to be concealed was in records being submitted to Congress. The FDA's Office of Chief Counsel urged him to delete the material.
Apparently they repeatedly prevented Mosholder from reporting his conclusions that the medications increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior among children.
Two FDA analyses have concluded that the drugs may double the risk of suicide among some children.
As far back as 1996, an FDA official had suggested an increased risk of suicide among children taking Zoloft.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) asked why the finding had not been followed up.
FDA officials stated that a letter sent at the time to Zoloft's manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., is no longer in the agency's files.
Joe Barton apparently received $10,000 dollars from Pfizer his 2004 campaign.
Pfizer has also showered cash on Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay and Senator Frist.
The FDA claims they were worried about frightening families away from buying the drugs. Many industry clinicians believe the drugs are effective.
Several studies have found that most of the drugs are no more effective than sugar pills.
The House Ethics Committee recently produced a 72-page report providing a "public admonishment" of both Representative DeLay of Texas and Representative Candice S. Miller of Michigan. (R-Mich.) concerning their improper behavior in pressuring Representative Nick Smith of Michigan to change his vote on the Medicare prescription drug benefit bill.

Cotton Sleepwear

During the 1970’s a serious issue was tackled by our government legislators.
It was one of those problems that government - a good government - is good at solving.
The problem was children being burned while sleeping or while wearing cotton garments during regular play at home. The solution was to mandate that children’s sleepwear - especially that intended for infants should be flame resistant. As a result polyester became a popular material for children’s sleep and house wear rather than cotton which is highly flammable.
This result stood for a long a time and save many lives.
It also kept many children and adults from being needlessly burned and maimed from simple household and playtime accidents.
Well - those days are over.
About two years ago the Consumer Product Safety Commission quietly relaxed the regulations regarding this severe safety issue.
In spite of the evidence pointing out that this regulation reduced burn-related injuries and fatalities and was widely supported by fire and safety officials around the country this small commission with a big mouth undermined the safety of children, our families and our homes.
The new rules allow companies in Communist China to manufacture garments using nontreated cotton. This new rule allow companies in Communist China to directly compete with and destroy their competition in the United States.
The main problem is, however, what is happening to the children.
It’s a quiet way that these people have circumvented our laws in order to benefit Communist China. This quiet and sneaky change of rules has allowed cotton farmers to imagine they have gained a victory, when, in fact, the price of cotton has not changed much over the course of the last 30 years. That hasn’t stopped the National Cotton Council from butting their nose in.
Why would they do such a thing?
More than 70 percent of each year’s cotton crop is packed up into bales, loaded on ships and sent over to Communist China to feed their textile mills.
That is one reason they might do such a thing.
Seventy-five to eighty percent of the children’s sleepwear market is manufactured in places like Communist China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
This change was clearly made to please the cotton farming industry. It certainly wasn’t done to ensure that Americans companies, which for decades had obeyed the rule, kept any jobs in the United States.
Phillip Wakelyn a man identified as a scientist at the National Cotton Council called those who support the regulations "misguided" and attempted to say that the regulatory changes simply increased choices for shoppers to buy different kinds of cotton pajamas. He seems to believe that this can be done without putting children at risk.
The National Cotton Council collects money from each bale of cotton produced in the United States that is involved in United States Department of Agriculture programs. This money during some years is invested in stocks and bonds. They have often experienced considerable financial loss while doing this with someone else’s money. In my opinion it would be no surprise to me if they treated the lives of other people’s children with the same cavalier attitude they have toward other people’s money.
The original regulation which was hard fought for, originated as I mentioned in the 1970s. It required children's sleepwear to be flame resistant. The intention was to lessen burns and deaths for youngsters exposed to open flame originating from candles, gas stoves, matches, cigarette lighters, fireplaces and other fire sources.
The standard favored fabrics that did not ignite quickly and spread fast like cotton.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission quietly revised the regulation in 1996. They said that nontreated cotton clothing, as long as it is tight-fitting, may be labeled and sold as children's sleepwear.
The commission also supported selling nontreated cotton sleepwear for infant sizes 9 months or smaller as it does not pose a danger because babies of this age are insufficiently mobile to expose themselves to sources of fire.
The National Center for Health Statistics has reported that all clothing- related thermal burn fatalities declined sharply for all age groups after the federal regulation took effect in the early 1970s. Among children under age 15, there were 60 deaths in 1970; 15 in 1975; seven in 1980; six or fewer in each year from 1981 to 1992, and three or less each year from 1993 to 1996.
It was a law and regulation that worked and was good for the nation.
But not good for the folks on the Consumer Product Safety Commission or over at the National Cotton Council.
A representative of the cotton industry, Mr. Wakelyn, said, "Some say the cotton industry will be making a profit at the expense of children's lives. That is an absolute lie. "There is no data to show this change diminishes the effectiveness of the safety standard," he is quoted as saying "And the cotton industry would not do anything to increase its legal liability, and it would not support anything that would be harmful for children."
First of the cotton industry itself has no legal liability. It is a corporate non-entity. So, in my opinion, Mr. Wakelyn is making a misstatement to say the least about their financial liability.
As for his contention that no data shows this change increases danger to our children then he must not have seen the data or does not believe it. Before the standards were enacted, for example, about 1,000 children per year were burned seriously in clothing related fires.
As for me accepting Mr. Wakelyn’s word on this I want to tell a story about a spokesman for the tuna industry. He is so supportive of tuna and his job that he feeds tuna to his children every day. Morning, noon and night, apparently, if his wife lets him, in order to prove that Federal regulations regarding mercury poisoning are too strict.
That’s a little silly don’t you think?
I do. I also think that sort of behavior is dangerous.
I won’t be toasting any marshmallows with Mr. Wakelyn.
The commission claims it made the change because the old rules were difficult to enforce or unnecessary.
It is typical of this commission that they could not make up their mind why they bent the rules to please the cotton industry and put our children at risk.
Were the rules too difficult to enforce? They were successfully enforced for nearly 30 years before they were changed. The clothing industry - except for the cotton farmers - seemed to gladly enforce themselves in this matter and for a while children were safe in our nation because of good choices we made as citizens.
As for the rules being unnecessary that is beyond an insult and should not be allowed to stand as reasoning for abandoning this rule. In fact it smacks of child abuse.
So the commission believed that by putting a tag or label on the garments this would be enough.
You can go to any Walmart, Sears, Target, JC Penney, Lord & Taylor’s, Macy’s or other department store and see the tag in some of the garments manufactured for children.
It reads :
"WEAR SNUG-FITTING
NOT FLAME RESISTANT"
That label is supposed to direct parents to understand that loose fitting garments are dangerous and could cause serious injury. Children are being burned even today because they go to sleep or wear loose fitting cotton garments around the house.
Commission spokesman Russell Rader said there is concern for the 200 to 300 children a year who go to hospital emergency rooms for burns related to loose-fitting clothing.
"Our job and our mission is to save lives and prevent injuries, and injuries have been occurring when kids are dressed in loose-fitting T-shirts and sweatshirts as sleepwear," said Rader.
"The change in the sleepwear standard gives parents another safe choice. They can put kids in flame-resistant pajamas or they can put kids in cotton garments if they are snug fitting.", he is quoted as saying.
What Mr. Rader fails to mention is that cotton garments that are not sold as sleepwear do not carry the label. As for the idea that the garment should be snug fitting this is ridiculous considering that children are dressed in dress like garments when they are young. An argument can be made about what snug means as well. When you visit the mall you may find clothing with snug fitting bands at the writs and the neck or you may find garments with loose wrists and necks but snug around the body.
There is a problem with encouraging parents to dress their children in tight clothes but that is another issue entirely.
The commission actually argued on behalf of cotton farmers that pajamas that cling close to a child's body make it less likely for an accidental fire than pajamas with dangling sleeves.
The commission seems to have attempted a jump from being a responsible body to a body politic of fashion designers as well as fire and safety professionals.
A serious issue about this situation is that some of the clothes are not labeled as they should be.
There is supposed to be an additional yellow tag attached to the garment.
That tag is supposed to read :
"FOR CHILD’S SAFETY,
GARMENT SHOULD FIT SNUGLY.
THIS GARMENT IS NOT FLAME
RESISTANT. LOOSE-FITTING
GARMENT IS MORE LIKELY
TO CATCH FIRE. "
It is less likely you will see the yellow tag than you will see the tag inside the garment.
On recent trips to the mall I have seen on more than occasion garments of the same cut, size and make but of different colors side by side. Both one hundred percent cotton - but one labeled :
"WEAR SNUG-FITTING
NOT FLAME RESISTANT"
…while the other one was not labeled at all. It clearly identified itself as being one hundred percent cotton but the warning did not appear anywhere.
In many departments the yellow label did not accompany the garment.
I began to wonder why Carter’s, the children’s clothing company, seemed to rarely include the warning and even less rarely the yellow label while the Sesame Street brand seemed always to carry it.
I concluded that the Sesame Street brand being associated with Public Television needed to obey the law while Carter’s needed only to make money.
Their slogan is ‘If they would only stay small until their Carter’s wear out.’
Let us hope that they stay healthy before their Carter’s scorch their skin.
But to be fair I also found a majority of the Disney children’s clothing to be what I considered to be incorrectly labeled.
I have to say ‘what I consider to be’ because the Disney company might take offense that I am intimating that they are taking liberties with the safety of children. I am not going to go into a lengthy discussion about the children that have died on Disney rides at Disney Land and Disney World - I am merely talking about their attitude towards children in their textile products.
I saw clothing made by Disney for 9 month old babies and 6 month old babies. They were 100 percent cotton. They did not contain the warning nor carry the yellow label. They were loose fitting garments that had little booty feet on them. I imagined that Disney did not obey the law because they figured the 6 or 9 month old would use their booty suits for athletic gear and probably jog in them.
The fact is that many of the major manufacturers who are producing these items from American cotton shipped to foreign lands for processing and then returned to the United States for sale prices far above their relative worth are not obeying even the simplest of laws that has been left by the weak and undignified Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Rader is quoted as saying that a study of emergency-room burn accidents since 1993 involving children found no cases involving tight-fitting cotton pajamas. Notice he did not say sleep wear nor did he say t-shirts, body shirts, sweatshirts. He said tight-fitting cotton pajamas which could mean tight-fitting untreated cotton pajamas. My point here is that the National Cotton Council has a different vocabulary for their world and it only comes in contact with ours when they want money.
A review of the manner in which cotton is priced would shortly bring you in contact with just how disconnected they are from the real world not to mention real trade but that is another matter entirely.
Steve Lamar who is the director of government relations for the American Apparel Manufacturers Association, is quotes as saying that the change will "ensure the safest possible sleepwear choices for our children."
I wonder if any of these people have children. Then again, I should not wish these folks as parents on anyone lest they become victims of experimentation like the children of the tuna industry spokesman who stuffs his children full of potentially tainted tuna each day.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is the government agency responsible for protecting the American public from unreasonable risks of injury associated with products used in or around the home.
The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission is clearly failing in its duties at the most basic level.
Infants (0 to 9 months)
All infant sleepwear in sizes to nine months may now be made from either flame resistant or non-flame resistant fabrics.
Children (9 months to size 14)
Children's sleepwear larger than size 9 months must either be flame resistant or worn snug-fitting.
Flame resistant sleepwear does not ignite easily and must self-extinguish quickly to meet the U.S. CPSC flammability requirements for children's sleepwear. Flame resistant garments may be worn either loose fitting or snug- fitting.
Snug-fitting sleepwear which meet CPSC sizing guidelines and are made from natural fabrics (such as cotton) which are non-flame resistant will not create an unreasonable risk of burn injuries to children.
What to look for when buying sleepwear:
All snug-fitting sleepwear garments manufactured or imported after
June 28, 2000 must have a permanent warning statement in the neck label:
WEAR SNUG-FITTING
NOT FLAME RESISTANT
Look for the yellow hang-tag or label on package with the following warning:
FOR CHILD’S SAFETY,
GARMENT SHOULD FIT SNUGLY.
THIS GARMENT IS NOT FLAME
RESISTANT. LOOSE-FITTING
GARMENT IS MORE LIKELY
TO CATCH FIRE.
Parents :
It is advised that you do not allow your children to sleep in loose-fitting or oversized garments such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, or other apparel items made from non-flame resistant fabrics especially cotton. These garments ignite more easily and may cause severe burn injuries.
Please be advised that :
"Certain industry groups, such as the National Cotton Council and the American Apparel Association, as well as individual companies, such as Carter's, have given assurances they will mount an information and education campaign, with CPSC guidance to force consumers to understand why the cotton sleepwear garments that are being allowed on the market must fit their children snugly; why certain types of sleepwear garments will remain polyester; and, why loose fitting cotton garments should not be used as sleepwear."
Please note that I have never seen any of this material in written, spoken or picture form and that it is my opinion that I, Alfred Brock, not the National Cotton Council, the American Apparel Association or company’s like Carter’s have brought these dangers and the cold and calculated actions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to your attention.
I thought I should tell you about one person who has served on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Her name is Mary Gall.
During her bureaucratic career I learned she served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
She was also counselor to the director of the Office of Personnel Management.
During the Reagan administration she was the deputy policy advisor to Vice President Bush and as such participated in the President's Cabinet Council meetings and contributed to the development and implementation of the President's domestic policy agenda.
She also was a consultant to the Reagan-Bush Presidential Campaign and as director of research in the George Bush for President Campaign.
The Present President Bush wanted to appoint her to be the director of the Commission. Her salary would have been about $134,000.00 a year.
She had been a critic of the previous Chairman’s style, accusing her of promoting a "federal Nanny State."
In one case concerning baby bath seats there were at least 67 deaths associated with the seats which were advertised as making it easier for parents to bathe infants 6 to 9 months old. Some babies slipped out of the seats and drowned when left unattended even for a short time.
The Chairman of the Commission wanted to ban the seats while Gall argued that it was the parents' responsibility to use the seats safely. To paraphrase it was the parents’ responsibility to use the dangerous product safely.
It was also reported that Gall voted against regulating certain baby walkers and said it is not the manufacturers' fault if parents fail to supervise their children and let them fall down a flight of stairs while using the walkers.
Gall was also instrumental in moving towards denying a ban on Chromated Copper Arsenate for use in Playground Equipment.
Gall’s replacement and now Acting Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is Nancy A. Nord.
President Bush nominated her for a term that would end in the year 2012. That is six years from now. That is quite a long time.
She is a lawyer.
She worked at the United States Chamber of Commerce which is a group dedicated to opposing Federal Regulation and letting businesses do pretty much whatever they want to.
She is married to James S. Halpern who is a judge on the U.S. Tax Court.
The attitude of the National Cotton Council, Cotton Incorporated, the Cotton Farmers of America, the Cotton Ginners of America and importers like JC Penney, Sears, Walmart, Kohl’s, K-Mart, Target, Lord & Taylor’s and Macy’s was summed up for me by a 100 percent cotton t-shirt I saw as I left the mall the other day.
It said, ‘It’s hard to act like I care, because I don’t.’
It seems they just don’t care.

Path to 9/11

Walt Disney is a big company.
A big American company to be exact.
They own ABC.
ABC is the American Broadcasting Company.
They are going to put a bit of anti-American propaganda on television shortly.
The title of the show is ‘The Path to 9/11’.
They are not going to have any commercials with it. They are saying they are not having commercials because airing this two part fiction is a ‘public service announcement’.
During time of war it is inappropriate for a national television company to throw dirt on our country by turning the 9/11 assault into a two part soap opera - commercial free or not.
This five hour movie is scheduled to be broadcast this coming Sunday and Monday.
September 10th and September 11th.
That’s right - ‘The Path to 9/11’ will play on 9/11 as a product of the Disney Corporation.
Who is responsible for this travesty and insult to America?
Let’s take a look at one of the writers.
This 40 million dollar project was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh.
He wrote a scene where a high level government official slams down the phone on a concerned CIA agent.
He admits he made the scene up.
He admits he made most of the dialog, situations and action up.
The only thing that remains real is apparently the date, 9/11, and the tragedy that unfolded that day when the maniac terrorists flew airplanes loaded with innocent people into the World Trade Center in broad daylight in New York City.
“Sandy Berger did not slam down the phone,” Mr. Nowrasteh is widely quoted as saying, “That is not in the report. That was not scripted. But you know when you’re making a movie, a lot of things happen on set that are unscripted. Accidents occur, spontaneous reactions of actors performing a role take place. It’s the job of the filmmaker to say, ‘You know, maybe we can use that.’ ”
Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, who was head of the 9/11 commission that came to all those conclusions that were eventually ignored was apparently paid as a senior consultant to the mini-series.
Here is more about Cyrus Nowratesh - the writer that Disney is going to help make Osama Bin Laden a heroic figure for millions of Americans on 9/11/2006 after his murderous rampage on 9/11/2001.
Nowrasteh first broke into the entertainment business 1983 when he rewrote a project called ’Bikers’ for Universal.
He is quoted as saying that his first job was a disaster because he tried "to please everybody."
Well, ‘The Path to 9/11’ should be a success in the mind of Nowratesh who seems to have taken great pains to please Osama Bin Laden.
He wrote television series scripts for about 5 years and then started writing things like 'Murder At Nha Trang' which seems to have been about American soldiers murdering their officers in Vietnam.
He also wrote a screenplay called 'Norma Jean, Jack, And Me', about a bum who washes up on an island and finds Marilyn Monroe and JFK alive and well.
Not to stay out of American politics long, Cyrus Nowrasteh wrote and directed the Paramount/Showtime production The Day Reagan Was Shot.
He seems interested in the criminal, murderous mind and is said to be working on a four-hour mini-series on John Dillinger - noted bank robber and murderer - a terrorist himself from 1930’s rural America.
His wife, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, is also a well connected screenwriter.
Her contribution to modern cinema and literature is a movie called ‘Bad Day on the Block’.
It is about a decorated Los Angeles firefighter who saved a baby's life in a crack-house fire but left the baby's mother to die in the fire because he believed any mother who takes a baby into a crack-house is an unfit mother.
On 9/11 how many innocent victims were left to die by the firemen who rushed to their deaths in the World Trade Center inferno?
Mr. and Mrs. Nowratesh seem to be making a life out of feeding off of a certain type of American despair. Perhaps it is all part of the new Disney image that includes anti-American propaganda.

Iraq and the Bible

Fact : On September 11, 2001 a group of men who were mostly of Saudi Arabian citizenship flew airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon and destroyed one airplane over Pennsylvania.
Looking at George Bush at this time we can see a lot.
I used to wonder why he was doing the things he was doing. It sure was vexing. It never was clear what he up to. Add in Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and it just became a mess that just could not be cleaned up.
Then, on August 21, 2006 in the White House he said that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
That meant to me that Iraq is not part of the war on terror.
The next day, August 22, 2006, in Salt Lake City, Utah, he reversed it and told a bunch of veterans that Iraq is the biggest part of the war on terror. He must think veterans can’t read.
Then I started to wonder if indeed George Bush weren’t the biggest liar I had ever heard.
Now I don’t wonder why, I just wonder what he’s going to do next.
I reckon it won’t be too surprising. For some reason - when there is something that he needs to do for the good of the country he won’t do it.
I am not worried about ‘why’ anymore.
I am pretty sure that we have got a Judas Priest on our hands. Some folks have called him a ‘Witch-King’ but I think that’s going a bit too far. After all - lots of nice folks voted for him. Of course - he seems to have deceived a lot of folks so it all balances out.
He seems so brave to some. Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice too all speak the brave talk.
When I hear them beating their chests I remember something from Job in the Holy Bible, “Job xli. There is no power on the earth which can be compared with him, who was created that he should fear no one.”
The Bible says that.
Another connection to the one who was created to fear no one spans back in recent American history.
To a man by the name of Billy Sunday. He was an evangelist who lived during the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a driving force behind Prohibition and influenced men like Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson and other modern evangelists and their preaching styles.
He started as a baseball player and there begins the link to President Bush. President Bush in his early career owned part of a professional baseball team in Texas. The company he was involved with arranged to have land condemned so that a new stadium for the Texas Rangers could be build. He made a pretty penny on the deal while he was still Governor of Texas.
That brings new meaning to the phrase ’Play Ball!’.
More like hard ball.
In any case, a close associate of Billy Sunday was a man by the name of Mister Peacock.
He was in charge of various duties for Billy Sunday’s Crusade and involved himself heavily in the area of communications. This was long before mass communication had become a big business commodity - Mister Peacock was well ahead of his time as he reached out to Americans everywhere while working through Billy Sunday.
Today there is a war in Iraq as we are all painfully aware of.
Islam - the religion of Muslims - is broken up into various sects. Just like Christianity is broken up into different sects and churches - like the Catholics, Baptists, Anglicans and others - Islam is broken up into Shiites, Sunnis and others. Shiites and Sunnis make up the larger population of active Muslims.
Shiites in Iraq lean towards Iran for leadership which is a Shia country.
Sunnis in Iraq look towards Saudi Arabia for leadership as Sadam Hussein, a Sunni leader, has been put in jail by the United States. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni nation. The men that flew their airplanes into the World Trade Center on 9/11 in New York City were Saudi Arabians of the Sunni religion.
The third major group in Iraq is not aligned to either the Sunnis or the Shiites. They are called Kurds. They want their own nation. They want to call it Kurdistan. Part of their nation lies in Iraq, part in Iran and part in Turkey. Irag, Iran and Turkey all want to keep the Kurds out of the way. The Shiites, Sunnis and even Christians and Jews have a religious reason to keep the Kurds from realizing their dream of national unity.
The Shiits, Sunnis, Christians and Jews are opposed to Kurdistan because of a central religious belief that the Kurds have. They believe in something called ‘The Peacock Angel’. The Peacock Angel to them will return one day and rule the world. To the Kurds he will be a new God. To Christians, Muslims and Jews the Peacock Angel is the devil. The Peacock Angel is supposed to be active in the world and working towards his own reconciliation with God at which time God will allow him to rule the world.
This brings us to the connection with Mister Peacock and modern evangelism and its association with President Bush.
The Peacock Angel seems to have power in this modern political world out of proportion to what people in general know about him.
One of the primary reasons if not the main reason given for invading Iraq (not including the lies about the Weapons of Mass Destruction) was to free the Kurds from the oppression of the Muslims.
Why would any God fearing agent like the President of the United States be intent on freeing devil worshippers unless there were some connection between them?
The connection between them, of course, is deeply rooted and flows through the evangelical speeches of men like Billy Graham and Pat Robertson like poison through the vine of life. From their mouths they spew not only hatred for specific persons that oppose them politically but they provide support for the worst among us. They seem to advocate that if you kill, maim and murder that if you merely think about Jesus Christ then you are saved.
What these men are doing is building an army for the devil and that army is now in the field.
Many good people believe that they are acting in the name of God when their very thoughts and actions are not only tainted with the evil of the Peacock Angel they are derived directly from that Satanic influence.
Look at how Pat Robertson tried to cover up the evil of the Sunni Saudi Arabians on September 11 by blaming America. Look at how he now supports the war in Iraq to free the Kurds and allow the worship of Lucifer, the Peacock Angel, to spread across the face of the earth like a plague.
Look how our President, the poor, pathetic man, one day claims that 9/11 and Iraq are not connected and the next claims that they are, and indeed, he claims Iraq is the number 1 priority of the United States.
Meanwhile the legacy of Mister Peacock lives on through the mass communication empires of Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and others.
When President Bush and Dick Cheney speak of evil being alive and well in the world today they are right but in pointing it out they are accidentally hiding its origin and its place among us. The evil is not only in the shadowy terrorists they point out but in the struggle of the Peacock Angel to gain control of this world through the actions of Saudi Arabians, the Sunnis, the Shiites and Kurds.
The evil in the world is being injected into our automobile gas tanks each day and showing up in our paychecks each week and in our taxes each year.
Jesus walked the earth and spoke about false preachers. The warnings are in the Bible. They are before us and the present actions of our so-called leaders have led to empowerment of devil worshippers, occupation of Iraq and militarism in Israel and Syria and Lebanon. They have led us here and told us we were going elsewhere.
We have war in the name of peace.
We have charity of the closed fist.
We have leaders who lie.
We are being told we have enemies we cannot see when in fact they are hiding in plain sight.
What are you going to do about it?
Will you work with the devil in the world or will you live up to your own ideals and learn about your enemies before it is too late?
They stand at the gates already. They are holding the door open.
President Bush and Dick Cheney are telling us we have to fight them in Iraq before they come to the United States - six years after 9/11 when the Saudi Arabians flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, USA.
Has your own fear paralyzed you so that you will stand aside and let them destroy us without a word in protest? Without a hand against the Peacock Angel?
Job :
7 ¶ Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?
8 Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
10 Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
12 They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
14 Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?
16 Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

NASA and the CIA

Northrop and Boeing were expected to win the contract to build the ‘Orion’ moon module because they ran the Apollo program in the 1960‘s. They have experience moon landing. The contract for the 8.1 billion dollar contract ended up with Lockheed-Martin on August 31, 2006.
We could probably chalk it all up to Mike Griffin. Who is he?
He walked into the White House on 9/15/2005 and presented his plan to replace the dangerous space shuttle. Two of the shuttles disintegrated and exploded killing their occupants.
Mike Griffin is a rocket scientist and has a Masters Degree in Business Administration.
That may be why his new plan is to use rockets to replace the poorly designed shuttles. It may also be why approval was given without any figures or information on how to pay for it.
Griffin’s new fleet of rockets will be a rework of rockets used during the moon shots in the 1960’s.
The rockets will draw on design information and experience the United States has had in building and deploying nuclear weapons.
Mike Griffin served as CEO of In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is described by it’s first CEO Gilman Louie as being formed "...to ensure that the CIA remains at the cutting edge of information technology advances and capabilities."
Mike Griffin is taking NASA ‘Back to the Past’.
Several board members of In-Q-Tel apparently have connections with Lockheed-Martin Corporation.
Why should we continue to pay these folks to do this? What happened to the NASA we used to know?

Iraq and 9/11 NOT Connected

President Bush had a press conference on August 21, 2006.
I read something from it today that I think is very important.
The exchange between the President and a reporter went like this :
President Bush : “You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.” Reporter’s Question : “What did Iraq have to do with that?”President Bush : “What did Iraq have to do with what?”Reporter’s Question : “The attack on the World Trade Center?”
President Bush responded : “Nothing…”
He then went on in what reads like a fluster about how no one in his administration ever suggested that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.
He said something else that is cause for concern.
Talking about the recent invasion of Lebanon by Israel he said, “Today, I'm announcing that America will send more aid to support humanitarian and reconstruction work in Lebanon, for a total of more than $230 million.”
He said, “The funds will help the Lebanese people restore key bridges and roads.“
Those ‘key’ bridges and roads were the ones destroyed by the Israelis.
He is proposing $42 million to train and equip Lebanon's armed forces.
At the same he said, “…I'll also work closely with Congress to extend the availability of loan guarantees to help rebuild infrastructure in Israel, infrastructure damaged by Hezbollah's rockets.”
Israel and Lebanon have received billions in American funds already through many different channels. What did they do with that cash? The Israelis spent it on invading another country.
President Bush’s paying off both sides.
He is forgiving these peoples for hating and killing each other even though they do not forgive each other. He does not look like a big man when he does this. He does not make the United States look like a benevolent and wise country - he makes us look the fool.
What is happening here is like paying the murderer and the victim’s family.
It is like giving money to a rapist and the person who has been assaulted.
You can’t buy the world with money.
If you stand for everything you stand for nothing.
What will they do next? The answer is that after years of occupying Iraq no one can predict that.
They are undependable.
There is another issue at hand.
In this post cold war world - the weapons the Israelis were using were American made for the most part.
The weapons fired at them from Lebanon were primarily Russian made.
The United States and Russia should both be held responsible for the murders and deaths their weapons have caused. The makers of these weapons have sold them at a profit to people spending aid money and living in countries that are still living in the past.
These people were killing each other and innocent civilians in full knowledge and cold blood.
There is no excuse.
They should not get any money.
They should be punished.
They have not acted in a civilized manner and they spat at the world in general so that they could slake their thirst for blood.
Today I was talking with an acquaintance and I saw on her computer a picture of a city in Japan. I asked what city it was and she told me Hiroshima.
Hiroshima is where one of the atomic bombs was dropped by the United States on Japan in World War 2.
There was a gate in the water so I asked what that was. I think I might have been changing the subject but I could not escape the answer.
The gate in the water marked the entry way to a Shinto shrine on a sacred island just off the coast of mainland Japan.
I had seen photos of Hiroshima from the other side but never from the water - never from this holy island.
So I considered the enormity that was done and I pictured the fireball rising over the sleeping city and I wondered what the monks living on the holy island must have felt as hell was unleashed before their eyes. I wonder what they felt as they realized that this murder had been done directly before the eyes of God.
Then I considered the murder and rapine in the Middle East. I considered how the most holy Christian places are in Jerusalem and nearly every day the Jews and Moslems living there commit atrocities upon each other within sight of them. Even though they are descended from the same wandering tribes they tear at each other with a fury that is unholy.
Instead of calming this situation and demanding that they stop profaning our most holy places George Bush is giving them money so they can do it again.
The Republican Party has lost its head, its heart and its soul.
During the Civil War the Republicans could have taken money from the British and allowed the United States to slide down into anarchy and finally come to rest like the fat and lazy Canada to the north, but they did not. The Republicans of those days fought tooth and nail for freedom and the right to preserve our nation.
What would have happened if President Lincoln had taken a handout from Britain and stepped aside?
What would have happened if Britain supplied both the North and the South with arms and ammunition?
No sane person would consider a situation like that.
Yet our President has not only proposed it he is acting on it with the help of the Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Whatever happens in the next election is of no long term concern for me but I have an unnerving feeling that these actions are not going unnoticed by the highest power and that the wrath of God will be swift and sure to right these wrongs against humanity.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060821.html

Global Trade

Global Trade isn’t that hard to figure out.
Maybe British Petroleum wouldn’t be pouring American oil all over the Alaskan tundra, blowing up workers in Texas or controlling more than 80 percent of the oil and gas reserves in the entire state of Wyoming.
How about a few suggestions?
Any company doing business in the United States should be charged a premium on their taxes equal to that of the loss to their American competitor.
Any company doing business in the United States that employs union workers in their home country will be required to provide union jobs and benefits to their American workers equal to that provided to their home country employees and adjusted to match the cost of living in the United States.
Any American company moving manufacturing off shore and them importing or moving finished goods back to the United States for sale will be charged a tax import fee equal to that amount to bring the product in line with prices provided by its nearest competitor based in the United States.
No foreign based company shall be allowed to own land in the United States. 7 year rental contracts may be provided to the owners of the land but no transfer of ownership will take place to a person, entity or corporation outside of the United States or with home offices in a foreign nation.
Any foreign based company will surrender all title and deeds to lands upon which their facilities are currently located and will pay all costs and fees for transferring the titles and deeds to local government and the rent collected from the land and for the real goods and manufacturing machinery will be used by the local government for off setting taxes of American citizens for a period of not less than and not more than 7 years. At the end of the 7 years the local government must surrender the lands in a closed auction that only American citizens will be allowed to participate in. At no time will these deeds and titles be transferable to an individual, entity or corporation outside of the United States.
No foreign company or American company owned all or in part by a foreign individual, entity or corporation shall be able to be engaged in real estate transactions in the United States nor shall they be able to conduct any commercial or home building businesses of any kind.
No foreign company or American company owned all or in part by a foreign individual, entity or corporation shall be able to own or operate farms in the United States for the purpose of growing and exporting from or selling within the United States.
Any American company hiring off shore workers to prepare work or goods to be used and sold in the United States shall pay a tax fee equal to 100 percent of the cost of hiring and paying the off shore worker.
Any foreign company importing materials or goods into the United States through a NAFTA or CAFTA partner shall pay a tax fee equal to 100 percent of the cost of manufacturing, shipping and selling the good in the United States of 1 and a half times the suggested retail price whichever is greater.

Amway Republicans

Who is the Republican Party putting in the field for 2006 and the Michigan Governor’s office?
Well – actually Dick (Dick) DeVos, President of Amway, has chosen the Republican Party to be his personal vehicle.
Dick is the son of Richard (Dick) DeVos and Helen Van Wesep.
In 1949, Richard (Dick) DeVos and Jay Van Andel formed the Ja-Ri Corporation and began distributing products on a direct sales basis. In 1959, he founded Amway Corporation with a man by the name of Van Andel.
Dick (Dick) DeVos worked for Daddy and inherited his position at Amway by working ‘hard’ as a salesman.
What is Dick (Dick) DeVos selling Michigan and what has the Republican Party bought? The Ada Christian school web site states that Richard (Dick) DeVos, Dick’s father produced "Selling America," a tape recorded talk he gives now and then, and that he has written three books: “BELIEVE!” , “Compassionate Capitalism”, and most recently “Hope From My Heart: Ten Lessons for Life” which he wrote after his heart transplant.
What his son, Dick, who is running for Governor has done, isn’t exactly clear. It appears he went to work for Dad, then worked for Dad and then pretty much took Dad’s place at Amway.
In the year of our Lord 2000 the Grand Rapids Christian Schools built the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Arts and Worship – so you can guess that the Christian Crowd will be pulling the lever for DeVos.
Clearly Michigan needs something more than an salesman.

Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof, ‘Sir Bob’ as he is known in some circles has been very active in raising money to feed the hunry.
Band Aid has become internationally famous.
Band Aid is the British and Irish charity founded by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in 1984 in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. The result of the charity drive was to collect millions of dollars in money and food that was sent to Ethiopia to help relieve the famine. It also extended the war in the region by helping to feed the soldiers who stepped up their attacks after securing food and supplies. The instability of the region continues to this day as a new war threatens to erupt because Ethiopia is invading neighboring, starving and poor Eritrea.
That is not really talked about.
Neither is that while Bob Geldof, who was apparently educated by Jesuits at a small school called Blackrock, near Dublin, is helping to feed the hungry an oil company by the name of Tullow Oil is helping to take that food out of their mouths.
The Company was founded in Dublin around 1985 and now has company headquarters registered in London. It is very much an Irish company.
Tullow began working in African market, not unlike Geldof. Like Geldof they soon found out that high profiles and large profits lie in the poorer regions of the world.
Aidan Heavey is the Group's Chief Executive. In 1986 Tullow signed a license to work in Senegal and began gas production and sales in 1987. At around the same time representatives from aid organizations that have loose ties with Bob Geldof’s project were entering the area. They were developing large scale irrigation projects to assist the local farmers bring their desert land back to life.
Within a short period of time OFADEC (Office for Development and Cooperation in Africa) and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) were providing money and technical assistance to build irrigation projects. The water came up from the ground and soon the people were growing their own food. Then they were encouraged to plant bananas. Nearly 30 percent of Senegal’s banana crop now grows on the regions that were irrigated by the aid agencies but the people that lived on the land were pushed off. In fact Senegal has widespread hunger and disease. At the same time is has a reliable banana market that not only feeds the capital of Senegal it is used to export as a cash crop.
In 1989 they were listed on the London and Irish Stock Exchanges and later that same year started UK development.
In 1990 Tullow again took strides in the third world by taking up its first license agreement with Pakistan.
The people of Pakistan in many regions live on a near starvation diet. Their lack of planning and brutal backward government had led to US sanctions for many years. Sanctions were recently lifted and grain began flowing into Pakistan from the United States. Excess grain was diverted to North Korea. North Korea has been using their currency to buy grain on the world market but with the grain from Pakistan they were able to transfer currency to buy missile and nuclear technology from Pakistan.
Today Pakistan is ruled by a dictator and its hinterland is controlled by religious and racist fanatics.
In 1994 Tullow discovered the Sara gas field in Pakistan and started exporting from it some time in 1999.
Fueled by success and seemingly walking in the footsteps of Bob Geldof in 1996
Tullow entered Bangladesh and Côte d'Ivoire and took over rich gas and oil fields.
Hunger and starvation are not new to Bangladesh. In 2003 a report from Dhaka, Bangladesh stated that because of the region's severe droughts came with a 400 percent increase in the prices of essential left about two million people in northwestern at starvation levels. The people were subsisting on boiled weeds or banana leaves.
What was Bob up to? In 2003 Bob Geldof appeared on the television show, ‘Grumpy Old Men’.
In the year 2000 Tullow began taking over gas fields and other items in the UK Southern North Sea from British Petroleum.
In 2004 Tullow grew again by acquiring Energy Africa for $570 million and now controls another source of production and cash that used to circulate in the African economy.
Tullow Oil is becoming a leader in gas in the UK Southern North Sea and oil in West Africa. They continue to press and expand their operations in South Asia.
They are active in 16 countries most of which have chronic starvation, poor education and high levels of corruption.
Bob Geldof has had nothing but nice things to say about the American administration of George Bush, "You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy."
George Bush had this to say about Africa, “To meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa...I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean." (State of the Union address, January 28, 2003)
Then :
"Next week, I will go to Africa to meet with leaders of African countries and with some of the heroic men and women who are caring for the sick and are saving lives...They deserve our help, without delay. And they will have our help." (White House news conference, July 7, 2003)
Apparently President Bush promised $15 billion over 5 years which works out to $3 billion a year to fight AIDS. It has been pointed out that in the 2004 budget request that he asked for less than half a billion dollars ($450 million) for 2005.
Instead of $3 billion per year most of the money will not be requested until 2005 and beyond. That is after President Bush has left office.
Unless Bob Geldof was making a sick joke about the fact that the United States sent a man to the moon 7 years after President Kennedy promised to do it (he had been dead those 7 years) I find it hard to understand what he was talking about.
Bob Geldof has likewise been effusive in his praise of Tony Blair and Chancellor Brown in their effort to relieve African debt by talking the poorest nations in the world to sell their debt (in bonds) on international markets in London and New York.
Bob Geldof has made some interesting music. He has brought together a wide variety of people and has brought light on starvation in suffering in many areas of the world. As soon as he has done that, however, his neighbors at Tullow have moved in and taken up their own positions – in Bangladesh, East Africa and other distressed areas of the world.
It would be right to ask what is going on when a man who is supposed to be dedicated to world hunger takes on the appearance of being an advance man for the very people he is reportedly opposing.
Geldof had three children with his first wife. They are Fifi Trixabelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Pixie. His ex-wife killed herself after a long and protracted custody battle.
Speaking of his ex-wife and her new husband Bob Geldof is quoted as saying, “They thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. In fact they were more like Tom and Jerry.”
If the result of Bob Geldof’s operations are only to move people off their land and turn it over to international oil and banana companies (and that certainly seems to be the case) I can only look at him as a modern Pied Piper leading the future of our humanity into a cold, dark void in the side of a mountain.

Abortion

Abortion.
Yuck!
Who wants to talk about it?
A lot of priests and ministers want to talk about it.
Then they shake their tambourine in your face.
On top of the money they get from their ‘flock’ and on top of the money they have as tax-free organizations.
Politicians talk about it too.
Yesterday I saw an 11 year old girl wearing an ‘Abortion Kills Kids’ t-shirt.
But what if the baby is already dead?
Abortions of fetuses that have expired in their mother’s womb are covered in their attacks as are pregnancies caused by rape, child abuse and incest.
In fact, under Mr. Bush’s laws this nation is expected to try and imprison rapists, child molesters and incest attackers, pay for their room and board, give them education and training AND raise their kids.
Does that make sense to you?
As I watched that 11 year old girl walk around in her t-shirt I wondered just what was going on in her life for her parents to use her as a human billboard.
Did she know about cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, birth defects, rubella, polio, incest, rape and prison?
What was this little girl being told? That the people most likely to attack her were protected by the people who made her t-shirt?
It’s not the popular topic anymore because abortion rates have been falling in the United States for nearly 20 years.
As the economy worsens however, this may reverse.
We should free our nation foreign trade dependence.

Afraid of Government

There’s a wicked lie aflame in the world and it spreads from head to head as fire leaps from tree crown to tree crown in wild woods.
The lie is printed on bumper stickers, appears in pamphlets and on the tongues of men and women that normally are cool of temper and even in temperament.
It goes like this, ‘I love my country. It’s my government I fear.’
On the surface it sounds like a statement of truth, but like most lies its appeal is only skin deep. One bite into it reveals its rancid flesh and the acid juice of this fruit.
For consider – this is our country and our nation and it is ruled by our government – which is a government for the people and by the people.
This is our government – and so when someone tells me they are afraid of the government I can only feel they fear themselves and their relationship with me.
The people that mouth this misshapen logic are those among us most likely to worship a flag – no matter what colors are flying and to follow the commands of some monarch or tyrant no matter where he draws his so-called powers from.
I am not afraid of my government. I am part of my government and invite everyone to participate in it to make it stronger, so that the weakness of fear will not tear down what we have built up with courage.
There are better words for us – ‘We the people…’

Mitt Romney Big Death

I was horrified to see that a woman had been killed by falling tiles in the ‘Big Dig’ Tunnel under Boston.
I am troubled to see that Governor Mitt Romney is moving to gain control of inspections of the tunnel. I suppose for the State of Massachusetts.
It occurs to me that giving Mitt Romney’s office more control over the tunnel will be about as effective as Governor Bush’s control over the border in Texas. During Mr. Bush’s governorship in Texas over 5 million illegal immigrants entered Texas alone.
The tunnel is a Federal project. The tunnel problems cannot be adequately overseen by the office of the Governor of Massachusetts.
In light of the fact that Mr. Romney is considering a run for the presidency I look with doubt on his basic reasons for wishing to take over the inspections of the tunnel project. The results of any inspections will then be unavailable to the national audience.
Americans from coast to coast will be unable to fairly determine whether or not Governor Mitt Romney could have and should have done much more to ensure that the project was on time, within budget and most importantly - safe. It seems he didn’t do much of anything about it - until, finally, this woman was killed.
Predictably the Republicans in the Massachusetts House and Senate followed along.
A Federal level review of the project, I feel, is in order.
Romney’s apparently politically motivated investigation will, I believe, yield little and hide much.

Buffet and Gates

Well, he’s gone.
Or good as gone.
Bill Gates is out.
Mr. Buffett, the second richest man in the world, is giving him billions of dollars for his charity foundation.
That is probably the best thing that Mr. Buffett has done for the world.
By getting Bill Gates out of the corporate world and into charity Mr. Buffett has done great things for the world economy.
There is no guarantee that things will change at Microsoft.
Maybe the new CEO Steve Ballmer will run things the same.
My friends call him ‘that screaming, hopping, monkey-man’ - in an affectionate sort of way, of course.
Perhaps now we will begin to see real advances in software for business and scientific use.
Can we look forward to a flowering of software companies across the nation that will now be free of a company whose main product seems to have become litigation rather than innovation?
Mr. Buffett has given Mr. Gates a chance to correct what he wrought with his army of lawyers. He will dole out cash to hungry and starving men and women that might be doing well right now if his company hadn’t worked so hard to stifle competition and interfere with the operation of our court system.
The man with the golden touch is going to touch the poor.
Let us hope they do not wither and die under his attention like competition and fair trade have done.
‘Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch.’

Elvis and Japan

So why is Japan‘s economy slowing down?
Why are they so dependent upon the United States that they have actually been buying oil from us since the end of World War II instead of making their own energy arrangements?
Why haven’t they been able to convince the world they are reasonable enough to have their own army and navy again 60 years after World War II?
I think Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has shown us a good reason.
He played the fool for President Bush not only at the White House but in Tennessee. President Bush took the Prime Minister of Japan to the late Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland.
The Prime Minister of Japan sang Elvis songs in the White House and at Graceland.
President Bush and the Prime Minister visited and then the Prime Minister started acting a little nuts.
What are these guys getting paid for?
You can call it diplomacy or whatever you want but they were sidestepping the duties they have towards their people. I call it wasting time.
It’s not unusual for this Prime Minister of Japan. He seems intent on ending Japan’s economic miracle in the same wasteful manner in which Elvis ended his life. The Japanese have auto plants in San Antonio, Texas and Canton, Mississippi. Most of the Americans that live near them can’t work them because they have no skills and are getting pushed out.
The people of Japan should be ashamed at this adolescent behavior.
Elvis has been dishonored.

Citgo Republicans

Citgo was provided with 250,000 barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
That is, the Federal government lent them the oil to refine into other products so that you and I can go motoring around during the summer and ensure that there is plenty of business at places like Diamond Head in South Carolina and also to make sure that our pizza and hamburger industries are kept healthy and strong.
What’s good for Ronald McDonald is good for America.
Then Citgo spilled nearly 50,000 barrels of oil into the Calcasieu Ship Channel in Louisiana.
There was little wind and sunny weather allowed some of the spill to evaporate. The rest sank to the bottom of the water.
David McCollum, a spokesman for Citgo said this, "If you have to have a spill, this is the weather you want."
That’s what he said.
If you have to have a spill.
When was the last time you had to have a spill?
The oil came from storage tanks along the shipping channel. Rain seems to have caused a failure of the pumps Citgo uses to keep rain from causing a failure.
Louisiana isn’t bothering to sample the seafood from the area.
The state said, "The most prudent action is not to consume dead fish, fish with oily residue or a petroleum odor and fish harvested directly from the oil spill-affected waters."
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is intended for the defense of our nation.
The Republicans seem to have forgotten that.