By Timothy Birdnow

Roger A. Pielke Sr. believes that human activity is causing climate change, but does not agree with the idea that an increase in atmospheric CO2 constitutes a ``planetary emergency`` as Al Gore so doltishly declared.  Quite the contrary, he believes that other human influences are much more important than global radiative forcing of carbon dioxide. Because he is tired of being mischaracterized, Pielke Sr. has written an explanation of his viewpoint.  Go here to read the piece.

Here is the money quote:

Policies that focus on CO2 by itself are ignoring definitive research results (such as reported in the 2005 National Research Council report) that humans have a much broader influence on the climate system than was communicated in the 2007 IPCC report.  To neglect these other climate forcings represents a failure by policymakers (and the media) to utilize this scientifically robust information.

The neglect of including the diversity of human climate forcings  indicates that the real objective of those promoting the radiative effect of  the addition of atmospheric CO2 as the dominate human climate forcing is to promote energy and lifestyle changes. Their actual goal is not to develop effective climate policies.

end quote

So, Dr. Pielke understands the political ambitions of the GW crowd.  Science is taking a back seat to a scheme to radically alter our energy usage and lifestyle. 

Lest anyone twist my point, here is what Dr. Pielke Sr. says about the broader picture:

1. Atmosphere and ocean circulations respond to regional forcings not a global average (e.g. see and see)

the diverse influence of human-caused aerosols on regional (and global)  radiative heating (e.g. see).
the effect of aerosols on cloud and precipitation processes (e.g. see)
the influence of aerosol deposition on climate (e.g. see and see)
the effect of land cover/ land use on climate (e.g. see and  see)
the biogeochemical effect of added atmosopheric CO2 has a greater effect on the climate system than the radiative effect of added CO2 (e.g. see).
end excerpt

Much of this could be solved with advances in technology or technique. The need to radically reduce emissions-meaning a radical reduction in energy usage, meaning a radical reduction in our lifestyles-is unnecessary except where carbon dioxide emissions are involved. 

Here is an analogy; on St. Patrick`s Day I went downtown to the parade, and it was crowded with beer-guzzling revelers.  The organizers, realizing that they needed to control alcohol consumption, thoughtfully provided an inadequate number of johnnie-on-the-spots, forcing the drinkers to wait in very long lines to emit waste.  The difficulty in relieving themselves naturally led to a reduction in consumption, since the parade-goers were not happy about waiting a half-hour to use the ``convenience``. 

Control of waste means control of energy usage, which means control of the individual.  People need energy, and are going to find a way of obtaining sufficient quantities.  If emissions are strictly controlled, people will have to make do with less-which has been the goal of the environmentalist movement for decades.  Since we are a carbon based lifeform, our very existence affects the carbon balance in the atmosphere, thus CO2 emissions can be used to justify regulating population growth. 

Such strict control ``to save the planet`` hands to governments-and international bodies, a point not to be taken lightly-despotic power.  Government then has the authority to regulate industry in draconian ways, to regulate how energy is used.  Is anyone surprised when California tries to control thermostats, forcing people to accept their decisions on their home environment?  Of course not; this was the goal of Anthropogenic Global Warming advocates all along! Government will be able to control your movement by forcing you to drive sub-par vehicles and perhaps demand the use of public transportation.  (I drive all day for a living, and the price of gas may force me to look for other employment.  That price is artificially high, a result of environmental policies by our government.)  Government can justify just about anything if people can be held in a high enough state of fear.  I find it interesting that many of those who are in a panic about global warming-a scientifically unsettled issue-are also bitterly opposed to the war on terror.  The terrorists are definitely real, and have killed thousands of innocent people.  The same cannot be said of global warming, which has never been verified to have killed anyone.

I also find it telling that most GW alarmists are bitterly opposed to the use of nuclear power.  Nuclear is the only high energy generation technique that does not contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. (Granted, neither does their pet favorite, solar, but solar is a low energy system, currently unsuited to maintaining our current lifestyle.  If we adopt solar we will be showering in 69* water, shivering in the winter, sweltering in the summer, and driving around like the little old lady with too many children in a shoe. 

William Tucker makes an eloquent case for nuclear energy in Imprimis, a publication I would recommend everyone receive (it`s free). There have been sweeping advances in nuclear energy, and the dangers of a meltdown of a reactor have been greatly reduced.  The Chinese have developed a system using small balls of nuclear material rather than large fuel rods, reducing the dangers of a meltdown.  The other fear-nuclear waste-is overblown, in my opinion. 

A nuclear/hydrogen economy would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet the environmentalists are dead set against it.  Why?  Because the whole isssue is about changing our lifestyles and empowering government, not about protecting the Earth. 

What is needed, from their perspective, is a ``planetary emergency``, something so dire that a frightened public will voluntarily place the yoke of enviro-fascism around their cringing necks.  Those other human factors are inconsequential; the regulation of CO2 emissions is the whole program to environmentalists these days.

As I have argued in the past, theirs is a creed which appeals to primitivism; they believe in the purity of nature.  Nature was, to their way of thinking, idyllic, and Man`s creation of technology and civilization put Man out of balance with the natural world.  This vision of Eden is the driving force to the environmentalist crowd, and the only solution is to dismantle technological civilization. That the blessings of technology were bestowed by the cruelty of said natural world is poorly understood by them, as is the great need humanity had for civilization.  Suffering and barbarism is the lot of those ``in harmony with nature``.  The environmentalist believes that some dark conspiratorial power-big oil, big government, the military-industrial complex, etc. is plotting to keep the technology which would free man from the grind of industrialism, and they have hatched up this current plan to break that bond and free humanity to live in small, isolated pockets, producing all of their own needs and living comfortably.  This is utopianism, plain and simple; many things require a large industrial base to accomplish.  Where will those solar cells, those computers and semiconducters and other such systems come from?  Without a large industrial base it is quite difficult to produce these things.  Many enviromentalists believe that they will have these things, but will be able to produce them for themselves.  Good luck with that!

So, if the alarmists were true to their principles, they would demand nuclear power, would work piecemeal on ameliorating the environmental impact made by humans through technology, not regulation and oppression.  The desperate clinging to CO2-driven warming speaks volumes.

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Here is another example of Hillary Clinton`s fantasy world, courtesy of Dick Morris and Eileen McGann at Townhall:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2008/03/29/hillarys_soccer_fantasy

Hillary's Soccer Fantasy
By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Saturday, March 29, 2008

 
Hillary Clinton’s made-from-whole-cloth fantasy about the perils of her trip to Bosnia was no unique foray into a world of make-believe accomplishments.

She’s been doing that for a long time.
 
Here’s another telling example: At a 1997 race-relations forum for teenagers in Boston, Hillary recalled the ``pain`` of a ``childhood encounter`` that helped her to grasp the injury suffered by the victims of bigotry. Her comments came as her husband was launching his second term in office by calling for a national dialogue on race and reconciliation. In an effort to empathize with her audience and inject herself into the discussion, she made up yet another incident that never happened.

``During a junior high school soccer game`` on a cold day, Hillary claimed ``a goalee told her ‘I wish people like you would freeze.’`` Stunned, the future first lady asked how she could feel that way when she did not even know her. ``I don’t have to know you,`` the goalee shot back, ``to know I hate you.``

Nice story, but it never happened.

While today’s generation of young girls routinely play on multiple soccer teams in their schools and towns, Hillary’s generation had no such opportunity. Hillary may have attended lots of Chelsea Clinton’s soccer games, but, that seems to be the sum total of her soccer career. As a school sport, girls’ soccer teams didn’t exist when Hillary went to middle or high school. In 2004, the Athletic Director for South Main High School in Park Ridge, and a 34-year veteran of the school system, confirmed that there were no girls’ soccer teams of any kind in Hillary’s school district in the 1960s.

Hillary seems to have simply conjured up the tale, like the one about the Balkans and the one about Chelsea jogging around the Trade Center on 9/11 and the one about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary, to appear more relevant to her listeners and to establish a bond of empathy with them.

Girls’ soccer was catalyzed by the passage of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act in 1972 which mandated that girls and boys sports be treated equally in public education. It was only well after that law went into effect that girls' soccer teams sprung up. Unfortunately, Hillary was 25 at the time and well past her intramural days).

These ``embellishments`` of Hillary’s biography are similar to those of Al Gore during his race in 2000. But her claims to foreign policy experience and domestic policy influence in the White House are far more important. Nobody ever questioned the experience of competence of the Vice President as he ran for the top job based on his decades of serving in federal office. But Hillary has had just seven rather uneventful years in the Senate (and she hasn’t shown up for the last year while she was campaigning for president.) We have to take Hillary’s word about what role she played in the Administration’s policy formulation. And her word has been increasingly disputed.

 
Just this week, former Democratic Congressman William Lacy Clay, one of the original sponsors of the Family Leave Act, challenged her claim that she played a major role in passing the landmark bill. Hillary Clinton ``never had anything to do with it``, he said. Clay pointed out that the bill had been passed several times by the Democratic Congress before Bill and Hillary ever arrived in Washington, but was subsequently vetoed twice by former President Bush. It was a no-brainer that Clinton would sign the bill, as he did just 15 days after taking office. And, during that time, Hillary’s official schedules never mention the words ``Family Leave Act.`` Her tight calendar in those two weeks included lots of health care meetings, attending the funeral of Thurgood Marshall, joining the president at the National Prayer Breakfast (her schedules notes: no formal role for the First Lady), attending a week-end session at Camp David with her latest new age guru, and hosting a dinner dance for the National Governor’s Association. But nothing about the Family Leave Act that she worked so hard to pass.

As we learn more and more about her propensity to make up stories and read herself into history, a modern Forrest Gump, we can be forgiven if we take her claims to have been central to everything from the economic recovery to the Irish peace process with a large grain of salt.

Why does she feel the need to enhance her relevance or dramatize her story with fantasies? When it comes to personal whoppers, like the soccer one, it’s likely that it’s because she’s seen how effortlessly Bill relates to his audiences, conveying empathy by biting his lip or with a tear in his eye. Hillary knows that she can’t do that. So she invents circumstances that compensate and put her in the midst of the action, at the center of events. She tries to create empathy, become close to the audience, through contrivance since she can’t project it adequately without resorting to fiction. It’s crazy, but relatively harmless.

But the stories about her fake co-president experiences are another issue entirely. Her tales of stopping the recession or speaking up for Rwanda (when no one, even the president, knew about the genocide or had any meetings about the issue) or being "instrumental" in the Irish peace process are not reminisces of her days in the White House. They’re the calculated fantasies of a person who changes her stories when the truth is too prosaic or not sufficiently politically relevant. That’s Hillary Clinton.
 

(Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com)

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By Timothy Birdnow

I hadn`t been to the Ozark Hilton lately; the roads leading to my famous luxury mansion in the hills have been closed due to flooding.  Essentially, there are two routes I can take, and both were under water last week.  Go here and here for stories and pictures of the devastation.

I decided I needed to take a look at the mess myself, so hopped in the car and drove down to the infamous cabin.  Amazingly, Piedmont was clear and I would never have noticed that anything had happened had I not been looking.  They have done an amazing job of cleaning up after the high water.

But I fear more may be coming; it started pouring rain as soon as I arrived at my property, and didn`t let up until nightfall when it took a short breather.  It rained late in the night and was still raining steadily when I left for home at 8 a.m. this morning.  My land, which sits up on a ridge and never floods, was a swamp, and I accomplished nothing on my trip-I had been planning on finishing my deck yesterday, but ended up reading the whole time instead. 

There was even some snow in Centerville, down in the valley.  I was quite surprised.

One good thing; the cabin roof (which I put on, so it shouldn`t work very well) held up wonderfully, and the cabin was dry and warm.  I had a fire going, and felt wonderful the whole night as the rain poured from the sky.  The Ozark Hilton may be a tarpaper shack made from discarded debris, but it has been a terrific structure.

At any rate, I`m home safe and sound, if a bit tired.  I really enjoy those trips; the decompress me wonderfully.  No phone, no electric, no computer, no television, nothing but the sounds of nature and myselfl-paradise!

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By Timothy Birdnow

David Selbourne bemoans the death of Britain in a piece at the U.K. Spectator.

He argues that liberty has turned to license, and corporatism is at the heart of the declining belief in Liberal Democracy.  I concur, but I think he failes in his understanding in two regards-he ignores the globalist sentiments that have been the driving force behind much of the latter part of the Twentieth and early Twenty-First centuries, and he failes to grasp the serious nature of the decline in our traditional Judeo-Christian faith. 

The move towards Globalism has been an ongoing thing, and the ambitions to create larger supra-national structures has been relentless, especially in Europe, where the horrors of the Second World War lead to the establishment of the European Commonwealth, which metastasized into the European Union.  To create this Frankenstein`s monster it was necessary to diminish national pride throughout Europe, and now those chickens are coming home to roost. 

Of course, the decline and fall of the British Empire did not help, either, as numerous peoples had to be assimilated into British society at a time when the nation was facing a crisis in pride.  Britain, along with France, Spain, Belgium, and Portugal, began dismantling their colonial empires after the war (with enormous encouragement from the United States), believing that the maintenance of them was too costly.  It was also true that many believed the lust for empire was at the core of the two world wars; it most certainly was the cause of the First, which pitted a surly Hohenzolleran Germany against Britain.  The British had a policy stipulating that their navy had to be double the size of the next rival power, and Germany`s decision to build a navy to project their colonial ambitions (they were quite angry about the Boar War, in which they were powerless to aid the Afrikaaners) lead to a furious naval arms race. Each side wanted to weaken the other to make it possible to build and maintain their colonial ambitions, and this would eventually cause the ``Great War`` which would merely be suspended until Hitler and the coming Pax Americana. 

So the French (who else) came up with the idea of knitting Europe together economically, and this was carried further into political unification.  To accomplish this, concepts like patriotism had to be removed from the populace.  A supra-nation would need the people to give it their loyalty, not their old nation-state.

The U.N., too, was a new and improved League of Nations, one with a permanent Security Council including France and Britain.  This uber-government needed teeth, and the only way it could have a healthy bite was if the nations of the Earth looked on themselves as citizens of the world first, then citizens of their nation.  This was reminiscent of the sea change in America; during the antebellum period America was THESE United States, with the citizens therein seeing themselves as citizens of their particular state first, then citizens of the central government.  The war changed all that, and with the imposition of reconstruction America became THE United States, with an imperial central state.  People no longer see themselves as citizens of their respective states so much; the states have become mere provinces. That was the hope of the United Nations as well.

It`s a big part of why America will not secure her borders now; we are in the process of building a North American nation via the E.U. route.  It will be done piecemeal, but understand it will happen.  Too many Americans see themselves as citizens of the world these days.  The British have this syndrome even worse.

But the decline of Christianity and Judaism as a central element of our culture and way of life has left a spiritual vacuum, a gaping hole that must be filled.  It is being filled with counterfeit things; sexual licence, scientism and atheism, consumerism, pop psychology, etc.  These usurpers cannot fill the need, as they do not answer the ultimate questions and lay no solid ground, and the West has slouched into moral torpor as a result.  Relativism-something popularized by a misunderstanding of the Heisenberg Principle in quantum physics and encouraged by the Globalists to ease the transition to world government-holds sway where once Christians and Jews proclaimed the truth boldly, secure in the blueprints for a stable and healthy society.  There has been a war against our Judeo-Christian heritage, a war that has been waged since the first Philosophes in the 18th Century.  Western civilization wasn`t called Christendom for nothing; it was the heart of our system of beliefs.  We have surgically removed the primary organ which gave life to our culture, and are surprised to see our culture dying. 

Islam isn`t rising for no reason; the West no longer believes in itself, has no strong passion for defending itself.  Does anybody really think that terrorism would be a problem if we were determined to defend ourselves against the Islamic Jihadists?  We would crush them like bugs, but cannot bring ourselves to do it.  Why?  Too few citizens believe in our civilization these days.  The relativists have won.

Mr. Selbourne raises a good point, one that should be seriously considered.  However, until we confront the root causes of our malaise, we will continue to slouch quietly into that good night.

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By Jack Kemp (not the politician):
 
They say that fish are not aware of water because it is all they ever know. The same with long time Clinton sycophants.

'Professional historians began lambasting Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan even before its September 30 release. Most have insisted that the book, which is populated by made-up characters and bolstered by fabricated documents, should have been marketed as fiction, not biography. According to John Demos (Yale Univ.)—who has written on history and narrative form—one of the cardinal rules of unconventional history writing is to "be as clear as possible to your reader about what you're doing." Morris and his publisher, Random House, clearly flouted this rule.

Morris played fast and loose with footnotes. The notes in Dutch refer readers willy-nilly to real archival materials as well as nonexistent documents. For historians, footnotes represent scholarly rigor, hours dedicated to dusty documents, creative links among archives, thoroughness, and depth. False footnotes cheapen the real work of writing history. As Kathryn Kish Sklar (SUNY-Binghamton) pointed out, "Historians work hard to recover evidence about the past. . . . If the rules governing their craft permitted them to invent evidence, then all their labor would be in vain." '

END OF QUOTE

So what do we have here? Jonathan Alter believes a president hated by the mainstream press - and widely known to have made movies in the Army in World War II (thus not served overseas) - willingly told a lie to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. And to add to that, Mr. Alter believes  President Reagan also lied to Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian-Jewish architect-engineer who, after World War II, studied piles of records and tracked down thousands of Nazis all over the world. These two don't seem like easy people to "get over on" with a lie or a self-delusion, to say the least. If Mr. Reagan did say something approximating this, perhaps he was claiming that his efforts to process the documentary films of the atrocities helped fight the reoccurrence of postwar Nazism. My conjecture here appears to be as good as Mr. Alter's.

Unless Mr. Alter comes up with another detailed source for his claims about President Reagan saying he liberated Nazi death camps, it is fair and plausible to assume he is quoting Edmund Morris's book, a work that introduced questionable fictional accounts disputed by many historians. Conveniently for Mr. Alter, Pres. Reagan is not alive to dispute this claim. Neither is Simon Wiesenthal. And Yitzhak Shamir is now almost 95 years old, also lives overseas, and speaks a halting English. As for Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Mr. Alter chose not to mention him in his article, perhaps on advice of his publication's lawyers. Yet while Rabbi Heir is alive and available for comment, once again, President Reagan is not alive to defend himself. Such journalistic "bravery," picking a fight with a dead person, is all too typical in the mainstream media. I dare say that Mr. Alter can now outargue even Socrates himself.

In the 1991, the New York Times assigned the rising Maureen Dowd to write a book review on another biography, this one Kitty Kelly's trashing of Nancy Reagan. According to NYU journalism professor Edwin Diamond's "Behind the Times (p. 17-18)," Ms. Dowd was told to "write it out straight" - without Dowd's interpretation. To further quote Mr. Diamond's book, pages 18-19,

'The Dowd story started out high-mindedly, then jumped to innuendo. Kelly's book described Nancy Reagan's and Sinatra's long, closed-door "lunches" in the White House private quarters, with quote marks around the word to imply what Kelly - and the publishers' lawyers - weren't willing to say directly: that Nancy Reagan and Sinatra were having an affair in the White House. Down's article brushed by Kelly's previous publishing history, as well as her habit of conflating rumor and fact. Mike Wallace, the CBS newsman (and Nancy Reagan friend), complained to the Boston Globe about Dowd's complaisant treatment of the Kelly methodology. "If you're going to be used the way the Times was, then you check your facts...or you take the five most scandalous stories and check them out.'

END OF QUOTE

Mike Wallace gives some good journalistic advice here that is as applicable to Mr. Alter's statements about Mr. Reagan's alleged actions as it was to Ms. Dowd's statements about Mrs. Reagan alleged actions. As things stand, Mr. Alter's attempt at a rough equivalence between questionable remarks made by FDR and Ronald Reagan does not stand up to scrutiny. Mr. Alter's article is proof of exactly the type of reporting that Mrs. Clinton was depending on to get away with her "Tuzla landing under fire" story. Although Mr. Clinton no longer can entertain a fantasy of saying in the future that Harlem was all white before he moved his office up there, I suspect many exaggerations will still slip by Mr. Alter and the mainstream/driveby media without challenge.
Jack Kemp

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Solar Cycle 23 doesn`t want to go away, with three new sunspots forming under the old regime, while Cycle 24 remains tepid.

How do we know these spots are from the old cycle? They give the characteristic magnetic ``signiature``; scientists can tell based on their magnetic polarity.

It`s not uncommon for two cycles to comingle at this juncture.  Eventually the old cycle will disappear while the new cycle will take over.  This particular new cycle started to appear then crapped out-something that happened at the time of the Dalton Minimum, which kicked off the Mini Ice Age.  Now, Cycle 24 is likely merely tardy and will flower in due course, but it is something to consider. 

At any rate, we are witnessing the remains of eleven year-old Cycle 23, and should raise a toast to the last days of an era!

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By Timothy Birdnow

My chum 7lb. Dave sent me this e-mail which has been making the rounds. Thought it was worth a look:

A Tale of Two Houses

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By Timothy Birdnow

Over at Newsmax, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann chronicle the many lies of Hillary Clinton.

Among them:

Admitted Lies

-Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)

-Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)

-She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)

-She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn't cover the market back then.)

Whoppers She Won't Admit

-She didn't know about the FALN pardons.

-She didn't know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.

-Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.

-She didn't know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.

-She didn't know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.

-She opposed NAFTA at the time.

-She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.

-She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.

-She played a role in the '90s economic recovery.

-The billing records showed up on their own.

-She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.

-She was always a Yankees fan.

-She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).

-She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

These, coupled with Hillary`s rather odioous personality, has been sinking the good ship Clinton, while the racist Churchgoings of Barack Obama have been leading to a McCain surge. 

The Democrats seem to have developed a case of Lesche-Nyhan Syndrome; they are actively eating themselves. Between Hillary`s inability to tell the truth, and her cut-throat attacks and Obama`s passive-aggressive approach, it is possible that the Democrats` Convention could split the party asunder, giving the doddering John McCain the Presidency. 

I have to admit that I find some comfort from that thought; the Democrats will probably carry both houses of Congress, something nigh-unto unimaginable for a Congress with approval ratings in the single digits.  That illustrates the total bankruptcy of the Karl Rove/George Bush moderate approach to politics.  The astounding weakness of the Republican Party is a direct result of the Rockefellarian wing taking back control while conservatives were not looking.  John McCain`s recent speech promising Son of Kyoto and other left-wing feel-good policies such as kowtowing to the U.N. make him perhaps the weakest candidate the Republicans have fielded since Bob Dole-in fact, weaker.  The only hope for the GOP is this cannibalism by Democrats. 

Of course, our victory will be hollow; we`ll be stuck with con `em John McCain.  I`ve got his slogan for his base ``Down the drain with John McCain``.  We should chant it proudly!

At any rate, honesty is going to play a pivotal role in this election, and Hillary certainly has none.  People used to believe that Obama was an honest man, but his prevaricating of late has tarnished that image.  McCain is a lying SOB, in my opinion, but the public may perceive him to be more honest than the other candidates, or at least a known factor. 

This is one of the most glum election cycles I can remember.

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By Jack Kemp (not the politician):

The Arizona Republic reports today that Phoenix has rejected the claim of the Gotbaum family in relation to 45 year old Carol Gotbaum, daughter-in-law of New York City Advocate - and Democrat - Betsy Gotbaum, who in turn, is the former wife of one-time New York municipal union (AFSCMEDistrict Council 37) president Victor Gotbaum.  http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0326gotbaum0326-ON.html

 
Carol Gotbaum, on her way to an alcohol rehabilitation program in Tucson, was sent unattended on a commercial flight where she landed in Phoenix, drunk and disorderly, screaming at police. Her death in a holding cell could have been either an attempt to loosen the bonds on her arms - or a suicide attempt. No one may ever know for sure. But if there is forensic evidence of a successful suicide attempt, I would advise the state to formally charge her with the crime of suicide to back up their legal and civil position.
 
When this incident first was reported in September 2007, I recall reading accounts that Mrs. Gotbaum had tried to commit suicide previous to her flight to Phoenix, but I cannot readily find documentation on the internet for that claim now.
 
Legalisms aside, what type of a family puts a very troubled alcoholic on a plane (where they serve liquor) with no one to watch over her? It is not known whether Mrs. Gotbaum purchased liquor on the plane or brought her own on the flight. The Arizona Republic article said her autopsy showed her to have a blood alcohol level of .24 percent, around three times the legal driving limit.
 
I would guess it is a liberal family who believes the State has become the Parent of Everybody and thus real family responsibility, particularly in a challenging situation, is not required because the State will take care of it. Thus, they sees no contradiction in sending this very ill woman across the US without a family member or a paid attendant/nurse. It is fair to say that they took the attitude that other people would be 100 percent responsible for the troubled Mrs. Gotbaum in transit, aided in this belief system by the knowledge that they could afford high priced lawyers to sue if they failed to live up to the family's perceived level of concern of what the All Encompassing State should provide. That public safety officers on the ground in Phoenix were more concerned about public safety than Mrs. Gotbaum's comfort was something not fully considered by her family.
 
Years ago, before she starred in "Sex and the City," the actress Sarah Jessica Parker once crowed to the press that she had accumulated $30 million. She later went on to voice her disapproval of George W. Bush in the press, saying that her working class family in Ohio, if they got laid off, would be forced to live on "a Bush administration's" meager unemployment checks. First of all, unemployment benefits are generally a state government program. Secondly, the press pointed out that Ms. Parker had just admitted that she would not share her wealth with her poor relatives in Ohio if they were in dire need, leaving them to the tender mercies of government programs. This is a perfectly reasonable attitude if you don't want to become an adult and assume responsibility for your family because you sincerely believe that is rightfully the job of the State, i.e., Big Brother (or Big Sister). Since no deaths of family members or pending lawsuits followed from this, Parker was loudly ridiculed in the media.
 
They say the Gotbaums will now sue. It is like the Menedez brothers, who killed their parents, suing their estate for lack of providing security in their home. I hope I haven't given another lawyer a new idea with that last remark.
 
In an ironic twist, there is this added detail:
 
"Meanwhile, an expert on the Gotbaum legal team faces criminal charges in Pittsburgh. Forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, 77, a former Allegheny County coroner, is accused of 41 counts of theft and fraud stemming from charges that he used public employees to handle his private-consulting work.

A jury is deliberating the case."
 
END OF QUOTE
 
Their medical expert is on trial. This troubled family truly doesn't yet realize what type of value system they have bought into. This may not be the best paraphrasing of Shakespeare you ever read, but the fault lies not in the Phoenix officers who wear stars, but in themselves.

Jack Kemp

Here is an excerpt from the article:

City fires back at N.Y. family

Jahna Berry
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 27, 2008 12:00 AM

Phoenix officials rejected an $8 million wrongful-death claim from the family of Carol Gotbaum an hour after it was filed Wednesday, and they issued a strongly worded letter laying the blame on her husband for letting the troubled New York woman fly to Arizona alone.

Gotbaum, a 45-year-old mother of three, died in a Phoenix police holding cell at Sky Harbor International Airport last September after being taken into custody over a disturbance at a departure gate.

Shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, attorneys for her husband, Noah Gotbaum, filed the wrongful-death claim, a precursor to a lawsuit.

The claim alleges that police violated national police procedures and their own internal rules by using "excessive and unreasonable force on Carol, as if she was a dangerous criminal, rather than as the sick, intoxicated and vulnerable person she was." It also alleges that Gotbaum was improperly cuffed.

An hour after the claim hit the city clerk's desk, officials released an icy letter that marks a dramatic shift for Phoenix leaders, who, in the past, have called Gotbaum's death a tragic accident.

"So, with Carol reportedly screaming her hatred of 'American cops,' the Gotbaum family believes that these same hated officers should have put their arms around her shoulders . . . and given her some attention," wrote Stephen Craig, a city attorney. "One would ordinarily expect that role to fall to a spouse. But Carol was alone."

Battle evolves

Gotbaum was from an influential New York City family. Her mother-in-law is an elected official in New York City, and her father-in-law was a prominent labor leader.

She was flying through Phoenix on her way to Tucson, where she had intended to enter a 30-day alcohol-rehabilitation facility. However, she missed her connection and, according to the claim, believed she would also be bumped from a later flight. She began screaming and running through the terminal, police say.

Video from airport-security monitors shows police pulling her through the airport as she apparently went limp and refused to cooperate. She was found slumped over in her cell minutes after she had been shackled and left alone. A Maricopa County medical examiner concluded that Gotbaum accidentally strangled herself with her restraints.

Gotbaum's blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit for driving, the examiner wrote. She also had the prescription antidepressants Celexa and Cymbalta in her system, the county's report said.

Phoenix attorney Michael Manning, who represents Noah and his three children, said the city's harsh response to the claim indicates it is vulnerable.

"Whenever people in litigations head in that direction, that means that they are trying to divert attention away from the facts and circumstances," he said.

He added that, because the city has denied the claim, he will now proceed with a suit.

The city's letter didn't respond to several issues, including allegations about the use of force and how officers should deal with sick, intoxicated and mentally ill suspects, Manning said.

"That is the key to this case," he said. "(Did) they follow their own policies, procedures and training in how they dealt with her?"

Mayor Phil Gordon responded that the officers did follow the rules.

"Her death is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to the family, but our officers did nothing wrong," he said.

In denying the claim, the city disputes Manning's argument that Gotbaum was left in her cell for too long. City policy says prisoners can be left for up to 15 minutes, and Gotbaum was alone for less than that, the city argues.

"Fifteen minutes, according to our research, so far is probably one of the shortest times that there is for any police department," said Sgt. Andy Hill, a police spokesman.

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Israelinsider puts the pieces together regarding Barack Obama`s Moslem roots:

From the article:

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12745.htm
 
Is Barack Obama a Muslim wolf in Christian wool?
By Reuven Koret  March 27, 2008
 
 
 
The glib handling of criticism of his relationship with the anti-American ("God Damn America!") and anti-Israel ("a dirty word for Negroes") Reverend James Wright may have bought him a little time. But the legacy of dissimulation about his long-concealed identity is about to come crashing down around the ears of Barack Hussein Obama, courtesy of the assembled testimony of his family, friends, classmates and teachers.

The accumulated research indicates that Obama was in his childhood a devout Muslim, the son of a devout Muslim, the step-son of a devout Muslim and the grandson and namesake ("Hussein") of a devout Muslim. He was registered in school as a Muslim and demonstrated his ability to chant praise to Allah in impressive Arab-accented tones even as an adult. Just as he has not disavowed his "uncle" Jeremiah, neither has he disavowed his Muslim faith that he was born into, raised with, celebrated and never abandoned. He just covered it over with a thin veneer of his own self-styled "Christianity."
**********************

According to Tine Hahiyary, one of Obama's teachers and the principal from 1971 through 1989, Barry actively took part in the Islamic religious lessons during his time at the school. "I remembered that he had studied "mengaji" (recitation of the Quran)" Tine said.

The author of the Laotze blog writes from Jakarta: "The actual usage of the word 'mengaji' in Indonesian and Malaysian societies means the study of learning to recite the Quran in the Arabic language rather than the native tongue. "Mengagi" is a word and a term that is accorded the highest value and status in the mindset of fundamentalist societies here in Southeast Asia. To put it quite simply, 'mengaji classes' are not something that a non practicing or so-called moderate Muslim family would ever send their child to. To put this in a Christian context, this is something above and beyond simply enrolling your child in Sunday school classes."

"The fact that Obama had attended mengaji classes is well known in Indonesia and has left many there wondering just when Obama is going to come out of the closet."

"As I've stated before, the evidence seems to quite clearly show that both Ann Dunham and her husband Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo were in fact devout Muslims themselves and they raised their son as such."

********************

That's not what his friends and classmates have said. Classmate Rony Amiris describes young Barry as enjoying playing football and marbles and of being a very devout Muslim. Amir said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong, he looked funny," said Rony.

Amiris, now the manager of Bank Mandiri, Jakarta, recently said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. His birth father, Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim economist from Kenya. Before marrying Ann Dunham, Hussein Obama was married to a woman from Kenya who had seven children. All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims"

Emirsyah Satar, CEO of Garuda Indonesia, was quoted as saying, "He (Obama) was often in the prayer room wearing a 'sarong', at that time."

"He was quite religious in Islam but only after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion."
So Obama, according to his classmates and friends was a Muslim until the confluence of love and ambitious, caused him to adopt the cloak of Christianity: to marry Michelle and to run for President of the United States.

************************

In "Dreams," Obama sheds light on his formative years and the political views of his mother, an anthropologist and Islamophile who hated America and subsequently "went native." (It was her mother -- Barry's "other" grandmother who cared for him in his druggie teenage years -- that he would describe as a "typical white person" who was, he said scoldingly, fearful of black men and prone to making stereotypical racial remarks.)

Obama Senior also had three sons by another woman who are all Muslim. Although Obama claims Senior was an atheist, Senior was buried as a Muslim.

Barack Obama's brother Roy opted for Islam over Christianity, as the Senator recounted in his book when describing his 1992 wedding. "The person who made me proudest of all," Obama wrote, "was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."Abongo "argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urged his younger brother to embrace his African heritage.

In Kenya while he was a Senator, Obama stumped for his cousin, opposition leader Raila Odinga, the son of Senior's sister, a direct first cousin and nephew of Obama's father.
On August 29, 2007, Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which it pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila's election. In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees ... within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions [and] within one year to facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters -- everywhere in Kenya, not just in "Muslim declared regions" -- and to popularize Islam, the only true religion ... by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes.

In an interview with the New York Times, published on April 30th, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's younger half sister, told the Times, "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim."

*************************

end excerpts

Don`t miss the entire piece; it is an eye opening look at something that Mr. Obama wants to keep hidden.

Thanks to Contributor Jack Kemp for sending this our way.

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President Bush, showing the internationalist tendencies many have always suspected he harbored and a soft spot for Mexican criminals for which he is infamous, has had his orders to a Texas court to reopen a capital rape and murder case overturned.

From the AP article by Mark Sherman:

In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas and rebuked Bush by a 6-3 vote.

Bush, who oversaw 152 executions as Texas governor, disagreed with the decision. But he said it must be carried out by state courts because the United States had agreed to abide by the world court's rulings in such cases. The administration argued that the president's declaration is reason enough for Texas to grant Medellin a new hearing.

end excerpt

Medellin was convicted of raping and murdering Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16 of Houston in 1993, but the World Court ruled American justice out-of-order because, when reading him his rights, the police failed to give him the added right to consultation with his Consularate.  In essence, since Medellin is a foreign citizen he was entitled to extra rights, according to the United Nations World Court. 
Mr. Bush, complying with the ``Court`` ruling, ordered a new hearing for Medellin over Texas objections, and the U.S. Supreme Court spanked the DOJ order.

Again from the article:

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, disagreed. Roberts said the international court decision cannot be forced upon the states.

The president may not ''establish binding rules of decision that pre-empt contrary state law,'' Roberts said. Neither does the treaty, by itself, require individual states to take action, he said.

end excerpt

Of course, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsberg dissented, although Stevens agreed but asked for a voluntary state reopening of the case to comply with our ``obligations`` to the U.N.

Mr. Medellin`s case went through the usual appeals process with no success (for him).  It wasn`t until Mexico sued in the World Court in 2003 on behalf of Medellin and 50 other Mexican citizens on death row that there was any doubt as to the final disposition of the matter.

I have a question; if Mexico can sue the U.S. for failing to inform one man that he has the extra-constitutional right to consult with his country of origin (despite being clearly guilty) why do we not have the right to sue Mexico for illegally invading our sovereignty?  We have a great many documented examples of flagrant violations of our territory by Mexico.  Would the World Court be so generous in that instance?  Somehow I seriously doubt it.

This is internationalism run amok.  The state of Texas has final say-not some hodgepodge anti-American body in the Hague.  The World Court rarely (if ever) rules in the U.S. favor and is, like the rest of that corrupt institution (the U.N.), merely another club with which to beat America.  It`s time we withdraw from the whole rotten mess.

President Bush shows yet again that he, and many of our monied classes in general, believes in a coming world government.  I`ve argued this for some time; there is more kinship between the international business class than between fellow citizens of countries, and Mr. Bush, by virtue of his wealth and oil connections, feels more at home among Saudi princes and European beaurocrats than his own people, and is quite happy to empower an institution with global reach.  This also suggests yet again a planned North American Union; Bush wants Mexico to be able to force changes in our laws. 

America has traditionally had good government, freedom (both political and economic), and plurality-things alien to Mexico and especially the corrupt Europe.  Experience should have taught us that the good rarely uplift the bad, but, rather, the bad generally degrade the good in this world.  Man is easily corrupted while raised up with terrific effort. These international institutions will do nothing but kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  Instead of the best of America becoming part of a larger order, the failings of the larger order will become part of America.  Certainly, the World War Two coalition promoted profound changes in America after the fall of the Axis, and America would be unrecognizable in many ways to a man from 1908, say.  While some aspects of America-notably American pop culture-was absorbed by the Europeans, America adopted many of the economic and social views held by the left-leaning Continentals.  Our leftward drift would never have happened had it not been for our participation in post-war alliances and organizations.  We may have won the war physically, but the leftism of Europe ultimately conquered America. We are all socialists now to some degree.

Aunschluss with Mexico will give us the worst of both worlds, yet President Bush has been dilligently working toward the creation of a North American Union.  This entity is not a goal in and of itself alone, but would be preparation for the creation of a still larger entity under the auspices of the United Nations.  Africa has begun working towards an African Union, for example, and that should not go unnoticed.  There are many throughout the world who believe we would be better off with one government calling the shots.  Such amalgamation would do nothing but bring despotism and plague, a pox upon our people. The larger the entity, the greater likelihood of abuse.  A world government may start weak, but it would eventually become very, very strong. 

We should reject all of this.  We have the greatest country in human history, and have no reason to surrender aspects of our sovereignty to international bodies.  The Supreme Court did the right thing here.

Unfortunately, we have a choice of three internationalists for president in the next election, so I suspect we should get used to the idea. 

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By Jack Kemp (not the politician):

Tonight I heard NY Times business reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner (for general reporting) Gretchen Morgenson talk about the subprime mess at a meeting of the NY Investors Business Daily Meetup Group. Depending on your point of view, I was either lucky to hear such a good writer and speaker - or unlucky to not hear a pompous gaffe by someone like Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich.
 
Previous to attending, I read an article of hers from her website and frankly, I think she deserved the Pulitzer. What she said wasn't that new, not worth writing up for a news site. She did emphasize the irresponsibility of Wall St. investment houses and hedge funds - and the passivity of the regulatory agencies "overseeing" them. After she said that banks are now short of capital, I did ask her about the government's role in soaking up liquidity with their ballooning expenses for an aging populations' Medicare and Social Security bills, and she nodded in agreement. She also answered a question calling for another layer of government regulation by stating it was just as corruptible as the current layers. Frankly, I was impressed with her.

Concerning the way the government and press puts out phony figures, a questioner got Ms. Morgenson to state that the so called 4 percent subprime home loans at risk is a total figure, but 40 percent of US homes have no mortgage, so the figure is really part of the remaining 60 percent of homes with mortgages. That works out to about just under 7 percent of US home loans being at risk subprime loans.
 
Jack

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Another hit from Our Man Kemp (Kemp, Jack Kemp):

Secret Agent Gal

 (to the tune of Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man"}

There’s a woman who leads a life of danger.
With every tale she tells, she sounds stranger
With every fib she makes, another chance she takes.
Odds are her campaign will end in sorrow.

Secret Agent Gal.  Secret Agent Gal.
You've become a Clinton - and now you have no shame.

Beware of pretty faces that you find.
A pretty face will blow you husband's...mind.
Ooh be careful what you say, or you give yourself away.
Odds are your lies won't hold up 'til tomorrow.

Secret Agent Gal.  Secret Agent Gal.
You've become a Clinton - and now you have no shame.

Swinging through Pennsylvania one day
Lying to the media the next.
Oh don’t let the wrong word slip, and watch your widening hips.
Odds are your lies won't hold up 'til tomorrow.

Secret Agent Gal.  Secret Agent Gal.
You've become a Clinton - and now you have no shame.

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In a recent post, I published this piece forwarded by contributor Jack Kemp about De-Islamification entitled ``the big untold story of the middle east``.  Tom Joseph pointed out that the Joshua Fund story`s description was not exactly correct:

(Untold)???
 
Well, not really.  American Thinker got there on 5-3-06, "Six Million African Muslims leave Islam per year" by James Arlandson, and again on 5-4-06, "What six million
ex-Muslims" by Joseph Crowley, followed by a littlegreenfootballs comment on 5-5-06.  I'm sure there's been more.
 
An important point is the lack of coverage by our MSM and Islam's attempt to censor this information.  What's the saying?  "Birds of a feather."
 
As with all things, there is always more.  I remember an article reporting that there were less Muslims in America than the number that Muslim organizations often use.  And still another article reporting that close to half of American Muslims were leaving Islam for other religions or no religion at all.
 
Now, who's the strong horse?

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By Timothy Birdnow

Our old friend Al of Alnot, proprietor of Love is Tough Enough, has forwarded this e-mail to me about a sunsetting of the authorization to build the border fence.  There is a petition available online that I would encourage everyone to sign.

Al lives in Arizona, and is a member of the Yuma Patriots, a citizen patrol group similar to the Minutemen whose purpose is, of course, to assist border agents in securing our largely non-existent borders.  Al has seen first-hand the chaos that our government has given its blessing.  Frankly, a nation that does not control her borders is no longer a nation, and America may seem mighty and eternal, but it is a country like all those before it and will eventually fall if this situation isn`t addressed.  Unfortunately, both political parties have little desire to address the mess they have made, since they both want to absorb the illegals into their own political machines.  America is truly lacking in statesmen.

If the border fence is killed, we will be unprotected at a time we are engaged in a worldwide war.  Such folly is beyond stupidity, and George W. Bush will take great blame for this.  Unfortunately, the next president will be an open-borders guy, and it will take a great wrath to force whoever becomes POTUS to act.

At any rate, here is the e-mail Al forwarded:

> Our research team just got off the phone with one of our key
> contacts in Rep. Duncan Hunter's office and learned more
> disturbing news about the border fence.
>
> According to our contact, the fence-gutting provision that was
> put into the omnibus spending bill just before Christmas also
> causes the Department of Homeland Security's authority on
> constructing new border fencing to expire at the end of this year.
>
> In essence, the sun sets on the border fence on December 31 of
> this year! In fact, our contact tells us the bill language
> could be interpreted as a prohibition against any fence
> construction after December 31 of this year.
>
> Here's the exact provision from H.R. 2764:
>
> 'In carrying out this section, the Secretary of Homeland
> Security shall --
>
> '(i) identify the 370 miles, or other mileage determined by
> the Secretary, whose authority to determine other mileage
> shall expire on December 31, 2008, along the southwest
> border where fencing would be most practical and
> effective...'
>
> Think about what this means...
>
> The next President -- whether it be Obama or Clinton or
> McCain -- will have no clear legal authority to build any
> of the border fence at all...
>
> We will have a pro-amnesty president who not only
> doesn't want to build the double-layer fence, he or
> she legally does not have to!
>
> As a result, this fall's elections could prove less important for
> border security than what you and I do right now to restore the
> Secure Fence Act.
>
> + + Please notify your friends about your petition
>
> In three weeks, Ron De Jong and I will take part in a major press
> conference with Members of Congress on Capitol Hill to present
> your petition to Restore the Secure Fence Act.
>
> Right now, we have 117,969 signers. We simply must have
> 250,000 petitions in three weeks.
>
> Please forward this message to 10 or 20 friends today and
> ask them to join you in signing the petition to restore the
> Secure Fence Act.
>
> http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=5542&PID=15639395
>
> Again, what you and I do NOW could prove more important for border
> security than the November elections.
>
> Thank you so much for signing the petition and spreading the word.
>
>
> Steve Elliott, President
> Grassfire.org

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By Timothy Birdnow

For some time I have been complaining about our appeasing foreign policy toward China.  China may no longer be purely communist, but they have kept the worst elements of their philosophical roots and coupled them with an economic fascism fueled primarily by American money.  That the U.S. abandoned competition with the Red Dragon-a policy that worked tremendously against the old Soviet Union-in favor of the untried theory of ``engagement`` in which American blue jeans and tennis shoes would somehow trigger a demand for liberal democracy in China.  It doesn`t work; the Chinese are the ones selling tennis shoes and blue jeans to the Americans, because they can make them cheaper.  There are no unions in China, no OSHA regulations, no concerns about treating labor fairly. 

But the Coca-Cola company sees every one of those Billion+ Chinese as a potential Coke drinker, Anheuser-Bush hopes to foist Bud Select on every one of those Chinese, McDonalds dreams of golden arches along with red stars and pandas.  In spite of the Chinese economy being a whopping 40% smaller than we believed and her prosperity being largely reliant on trade with America, the lust for profit outweighs an understanding of the dangers that our erstwhile friend and trading partner poses.  We see them as a market-they see us as an enemy.  The Chinese leadership is serious about becoming the superpower in the 21st century, and, like Japan during the late 1930`s, one thing is standing in their way.

Well, actually there is another detail to clean up; the Buddhists of Tibet have never played ball with Beijing, and once again China has rolled in the guns against rioting monks who seek to freely practice their religion.  The West is, as usual, paralyzed in the face of such blatant aggression on the part of Beijing, and America is sitting on the sidelines for fear of queering our ``engagement`` with them.  This, despite the poisoned food, toys, and other commodities which the Chinese gleefully ship to us. 

I`m not the only one making this case; the U.K. Spectator has a piece railing against this dunderheaded policy of appeasement.

From the article:

It is one thing to behave cravenly toward the appalling Saudis in order to ‘protect our security interests’; it is another to suck up to the even worse Chinese simply because they are bigger than us and we want a slice of their burgeoning economy. Gordon Brown mentioned human rights, as a sort of afterthought, of course, the last time he visited Beijing  and was told by his cheerful hosts, ‘Oh, don’t you worry yourself about that, everything will be fine.’ This seemed to keep Gordon happy. He did not visit opponents of the world’s most long-lived totalitarian communist regime; he did not raise the plight of human rights lawyers imprisoned in China, nor the dissidents, nor the journalists. He did not so much as mention Tibet. He posed with ping-pong players and visited interesting power plants instead  conveying, every time he grinned that weird rictus grin of his, British support for a regime which 50 years ago visited genocide upon the Tibetans and continues to oppress, torture, detain and murder those who voice the mildest objection to its policies.

It is estimated that the Chinese murdered one million Tibetans and destroyed 6,000 monasteries back in the 1950s. It would take too long to catalogue the crimes against humanity committed in every year since then by a succession of China’s Communist party leaders; it would take decades worth of Spectator issues to list the names of those murdered or starved to death or imprisoned for so-called ideological crimes, for believing in a God of one kind or another, or those forcibly relocated from their homes. We are enjoined to understand that China has changed; that it is embracing, to a certain degree, a liberalism. But ‘liberal’ means many different things to different people, from Tariq Ali to Milton Friedman  to the extent that it means very little at all. China is, if anything, worse today than before, combining the most oppressive aspects of state Marxism with the most brutally rapacious aspects of capitalism. In this new improved China there are still no independent trades unions, scores of Catholic clergy have been arrested for proselytising, hundreds of human rights activists bundled into the back of police vans to disappear for ever; journalists censored and detained; lawyers roughed up by police thugs. Minorities, such as the Uyghur Muslims, are persecuted and find their leaders arrested and executed. Those beneficial, if accidental, consequences of capitalism  improved standards of living, better health and safety and so on are denied to the vast majority of Chinese people. So too, with the connivance of greedy Western corporations, is freedom of information. We now have the Great Firewall of China, which is one reason why those protests in Tibet take so long to reach the West.

End Excerpt

Craven is right, and astoundingly foolish to boot.  Even more than the old Soviet Union, China is a nation that would respond well to a policy of containment.  The Chinese need the technology and money the West has been providing.  The Chinese would have remained mired in the 1950`s had we not opened the markets.  Bill Clinton, to obtain campaign funding in the `96 elections, waived a number of technological restrictions, including allowing Loral Aerospace to solve the Chinese problem with launching satellites-essentially giving ICBM technology to a nation that considers us the enemy!  The troubles in N. Korea are not isolated; the Chinese could solve them any time they like.  How did a backward fiefdom develop atomic weapons?  Duhh.  Little happens in Pyongyang that China does not approve.  N. Korea is a proxy for the Chinese (``Let a barbarian fight a barbarian``) and are ultimately expendable.  America is forced to play these ridiculous games with the North Koreans while the Chinese chuckle and continue to sneak up on us. 
We have created this monster, a scarlet dragon intent on our demise. Yet we still do not grasp the implications of what we have wrought, and I fear that we will dither until the alliance against us-China, Russia, and radical Islam-overwhelms us.  Our ``friends`` in Europe are more intent on shafting the upstart America than on securing our mutual survival, and many inside this country would delight in the end of the very thing which gave them the liberty to hate their kin and country.  Times are dire.

But it`s not too late to change course, and a more aggressive policy with the Chinese is possible.  Do I advocate suspending all trade?  No. Do I advocate changes in monetary policy, in trade policy, in diplomatic policy to isolate the Chinese?  You bet your life.  We are their main trading partner, and we can squeeze them if we wish.  If America wants to hold the moral high ground we should support the Tibetan independence movement.

Our hopes to reform China via trade has proven foolish.  It`s time for a stronger policy.

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There is a piece by Eric Trager at Commentaries about the tepid value of Dick Cheney`s visit to Israel.  I concur, and seriously doubt the value of the ``peace process``.

Mr. Trager sums up with this:

Of course, as I’ve long argued, success in the Annapolis ``process`` remains highly improbable, beset by weak leaders, a lack of commitment to resolving the conflict’s substantive issues, and the disinterest of key regional players. Yet the Bush administration has invested heavily in promoting it, including through recent visits by the President and Vice-President, as well as rounds of shuttle diplomacy undertaken by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. With barely nine months remaining in office, the administration will have to address both sides’ strategic concerns more directly, and thereby bridge the widening gap between them, if it hopes to receive any bang for this substantial diplomatic buck. Indeed, when the parties openly talk around each other in the presence of the Vice-President, the entire American peace enterprise, with its repetitive calls on leaders to make ``tough decisions`` looks like a complete sham.

An argument erupted on the way to proceed, and I jumped in with the following:

As long as Syria and Iran continue to promote terrorism in the region, Israel will be at risk. The issue of Palestinian terrorism really is moot; without state resources they would be impotent. There will be no peace until the terror-masters are brought to heel, and Israel cannot do that alone. The problem is that the great powers keep intervening. The U.S. should promote a policy which will empower the IDF to fight as needed. We keep holding Israel`s hands behind their backs.

Until the sponsors of terrorism are dealt with the pot will simmer.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and every new peace initiative is trumpeted with much fanfare, but is ultimately a loser, as the Palestinians-and their patrons in Damascus and Tehran (and Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang)-have no desire for peace, but wish to drive Israel into the sea, and the process is merely a strategic endeavor to attain that end.  The only hope for peace is the removal of the terror masters, and the restraining of those who help them (Russia, China, North Korea.)  That restraint can be accomplished diplomatically and economically.  It will not be easy, but haven`t we had enough of poisoned toys, medicines, and pet food coming to America anyway?  Aren`t we full yet on Russian oil and gas?  There are other markets, and we should develop them.  Remember, Port wine was developed not by the Portuguese but by the British, who were at war with France and so developed another wine supplier for themselves. We can do it if we would only try.  With economic leverege we can restrain the Great Powers, and with direct pressure-including allowing Israel to carry the war to it`s conclusion-we can clean out the rats nest. 

Will there still be terrorism? Of course; terrorism is like an infestation of roaches in a huge apartment complex, controlled but never conquered.  The point is, it will become increasingly dangerous to be a terrorist, increasingly futile.  This is a matter for American security as much as for Israel.  If we are serious about the War on Terror  we need to secure Israel, and that will only happen if Syria and Iran are dealt with.  We do not currently have the stomach for dealing with them.

On the anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, I was driving through a well-to-do suburb in St. Louis (Clayton) and saw about 50 largely middle-aged protestors waving ``out of Iraq`` and ``Bush=War Criminal`` signs.  Now, these were almost entirely white people, well dressed and clean, undoubtedly former hippies who have prospered despite a healthy dislike for their nation.  I rolled down the window and shouted at them to grow up, something they did not much appreciate.  

What is the moral of the story?  Too many Americans live in complete denial of the danger we are facing as a country, and too many are foolish enough to think that soothing words and ``playing nice`` will solve the problem.  These are the types who never go into bad neighborhoods but who claim that criminals are merely misunderstood.  They hold the same view of terrorists; we are the cause of their hatred, and if we were just nicer to them we could all be friends.  They are fools, to put it bluntly.  Unfortunately, a great many Americans ARE such fools, completely naive to the realities outside of their comfortable lives. 

Yes, there are people who would kill us solely because we aren`t them. The radical Moslems are just such people; they want to reassert themselves, raise Islam into a world religion in complete dominance.  This isn`t about justice-it`s about power, and a clash between civilizations, and an old score to settle.  Unfortunately, those well-dressed protestors are clueless to that reality.

With friends like these, is it any wonder Israel is constantly in mortal peril?

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By Jack Kemp (not the politician):

Over a week ago, I left my home to get lunch in a local Greek restaurant. In my neighborhood in New York, most every Saturday, a group of around ten anti-war protesters unfurl their banner and set up a table in front of the local Citibank. They are mostly in their sixties and a product of the Sixties as well. They dress casual but not too scruffy, like a group out for a bike trip in Vermont. Few neighborhood people stop to talk with them, just passing by their signs and occasional voiced slogans. That Saturday, I figured I'd be smart and avoid them altogether by walking down a different street to approach my lunchtime site. But...
 
Politics has a way of following me around. As some of you may have guessed, when I got to the restaurant and sat down, I heard the clear conversation of four of the protesters at a table less than fifteen feet away. They were three men and a woman, presumably a wife of one of them. I've never seen her or another woman protesting in front of Citibank.
 
What they said was informative, as they discussed the topics of the day: Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic primary race, and the Presidential election. They covered the travails of Mr. Spitzer and what how he hurt his family, the effect it would have on Hillary's chances, and sounded fairly reasonable and intelligent. As they got further into the conversation, one man mentioned that he was a Communist - and later said he had served in Vietnam as a soldier. He claimed, perhaps accurately, that body counts were done by small groups of US soldiers counting simultaneously as they walked a battle site, not marking the enemy dead, so double or triple counts of some North Vietnamese were common. Not surprisingly, he also mentioned the impressiveness of a war hero, John McCain, to the electorate, implying he would be a solid opposition candidate.
 
At one point, a waiter I know asked me to explain what exactly Eliot Spitzer did that was illegal. I mentioned the money transfers and also that his wealthy family and his sense of entitlement. The protesters/lunch group overheard me, yet chose not to engage in a conversation. They knew they couldn't assume that someone disdainful of Spitzer would automatically agree with their worldview. This middle-class neighborhood isn't Manhattan's Union Square in the 1920s. In fact, Union Square got relandscaped and yuppified to drive out the rampant drug dealers years ago.
 
Were these protesters changing hearts and minds, to use a Vietnam Era term, against the War in Iraq by coming to my neighborhood on Saturday? I doubt it - and I suspect they doubted it too. This appeared to be as much a social gathering for them, a type of outdoor club meeting where they relived the "glory years" of the Sixties, as much as anything else.
 
I once saw a sign in a Bronx candy store, many years ago - when there were candy stores with soda fountains. It read, "If You Have Nothing To Do, Don't Do It Here." That fits this situation to a "t."
 
Jack Kemp

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By Timothy Birdnow

Patrick Buchanan takes a very frank look at racial politics in a piece at Human Events.

He is, of course, replying to Barack Obama`s speech excusing the Radical Wright Reverend and the Black Liberation Theology of his church, as well as Barack`s tossing of his white grandmother to the wolves to save his political fortunes. As Mr. Buchanan so eloquently points out, the excuses offered by Barack are no excuses at all, and if Mr. Obama truly wants an honest, open discussion of race he will listen to whites and not merely lecture them about how bad they have been.

That America is guilty of slavery is beyond question, but that sin was paid in blood, something that other former slave-holding nations did not have to endure.  It further should be pointed out that there is plenty of blame to go around, starting with African tribal chieftains who started the pipeline by enslaving prisoners of war and selling them to Arab middlemen, who sold them to European slavers.  It is indisputable that slavery flourished in America long after it had ended in Europe, but there were a number of reasons for that.  Slaves were very expensive-as much as $100,000 in antebellum money-and the matter of compensation alone could have started a war.  (When the French began producing rum on their islands the triangle trade-the movement of slaves to the Indies, sugar to New England, and rum to buy more slaves in Africa-ended and New England suddenly found her moral conscience over the matter of slaves.) Northerners refused to compensate slaveholders, who refused to relinquish their slaves since so much of their wealth was tied up in them.  Only 8% of Americans owned slaves, and 2% of Southern slaveholders were black freedmen, so the guilt, while being collective in that non-slaveholding Americans acquised through their failure to act, was reasonably limited.

Does that excuse the horror of slavery?  Not in the least, and the children of former slaves have carried a generational burden that stemmed from the enforced ignorance and stigma to which they had been bound.  But virtually all people were slaves at some point in history, and America is about second chances if it is about anything.  Times have changed, but many in the black community refuse to admit that-even to themselves-because it means they will have to face any failures they meet and accept their own responsibility for their lives.  People like Reverend Wright prefer to blame others for their problems rather than work to overcome their own inadequacies. 

But Black Americans were discriminated against AFTER slavery, we are told.  Very true, but so were Irish, Italians, Mexicans, Germans, etc. etc.  Japanese Americans were imprisoned in concentration camps during the Second World War, but they got over it.  I understand; blacks were SYSTEMATICALLY discriminated against, and that is true, but it ended because of the good will of white America.  A man like Reverend Wright undoubtedly believes that whites were forced to end legal discrimination by the marches and protests of black people, and that the majority whites (who were 90% of the population at that point) had power taken from them in some way.  This is a ridiculous viewpoint to hold; the advances made after Martin Luther King and other black protestors came because white America felt guilty, and there was a movement among whites to right the wrongs done to the blacks.  Had white Americans not done so the marches and protests-and riots-would have simply been crushed by the police.  Newspapers, television, radio would have ignored them as random acts of violence.  It took a change of heart by the white majority in this country to advance the cause of the black community.

Since Brown Vs. the Board of Education and the Fair Housing Act there have been a plethora of laws passed to aid and assist the black community, and preferences in hiring have been given to them.  Reverse discrimination has become a way of life; between two candidates, the less qualified will often be chosen if that candidate is a member of a protected class.  Has it ever occured to someone like Pastor Wright that this is equally offensive and repugnant?  Does he understand how it feels to a white person trying to, say, get a teaching position at a university and being denied because they aren`t the right color?  If discrimination is wrong, then it is wrong.  Two wrongs do not make a right, and discriminating for someone is as bad as discriminating against, since the net effect is the same.

This idea, espoused by Barack Obama (who is, essentially, a spoiled white kid with a black father who had no experience with the tradition of slavery) that white America still owes a tremendous debt to the Black community is the source of much of the problems faced by black America.  It is a crutch which many blacks have become incapable of relinquishing. Much is made about the number of black men in prison, but the fact that most of them are there because of crimes perpetrated against other blacks is ignored.  That the black community has failed these young men never occurs to a Reverend Wright; it is white racism that puts them there.  Illegitimacy, drug abuse, rampant sexuality, a rejection of education as ``too white`` and an acceptance of violence and crime as ``authentically black`` destroys the black community and oppresses the decent people in that community. 

One of the great enablers of this oppression are ``churches`` like Reverend Wrights; they preach anger, bigotry, and dependency.  The Protestant doctrine of Justification through Faith is distorted into an excuse of sin, and church services become an experiential exercise in which emotional outbursts substitute for real faith.  If the Reverend Wright were truly a Man of God he would be more concerned with salvation then with rebellion. 

Eventually, any community-and any individual-must learn to stand on their own two feet, must take responsibility for the conditions under which they live.  It is easy to blame others, it is easy to excuse bad behavior because of disagreeable circumstances, but that road leads to failure and despair.  Immigrants to this country-including many black Africans-have managed to pull themselves out of their morass.  Why is it that a Reverend Wright has an audience at all?  Anger sells, as does rebellion.  Reverend Wright has found a willing audience.

I work with a man from Eritrea, and he immigrated to America for a better life.  Now, this man is undisputably black, and he loves his adoptive country, having just gotten his citizenship.  He has had a hard go; working three jobs and struggling to bring his (mail order) wife to be with him.  He once asked me why many black people hold views similar to Jeremiah Wrights, and I had to give a long, pedantic explanation which did not satisfy him.  To this fellow, America is a wonderful blessing, and he is one lucky guy to have made it here.  Everything is his for the taking if he works hard and plays by the rules, at least from his viewpoint. 

Should the black community forget the past?  Absolutely not! Their past is part of them, and they have much to offer this country, many good things to contribute to the American experience.  It is necessary, however, to toss out the things which have been holding them back.  The black subculture-poor use of English, rejection of education and the work ethic, acceptance of crime and drugs and extramarital sex, etc. are things they must part with if they are to fully integrate into society.  Many black people have done exactly that, and they have prospered.  However, the successful blacks are held back by those who would hang onto a culture of grievance, and by the knowledge that their success may not have been earned but may be the product of affirmative action-in other words, given to them as a gift.  How can one be proud of ones-self with such a cloud hanging over everything?  Is it a victory to win a race in which you are given a healthy head start? 

White guilt has lead to not just an acceptance of the black subculture but an adoption of many of the less admirable traits by whites; consider the popularity of gangster-rap among white teens, for instance.  Human beings all suffer from Original Sin, and we tend not to elevate but to degrade one another. White guilt is degrading the white community as surely as black anger is degrading the black community.  We both need to let go, to move forward rather than backward.  A Barack Obama will not move us forward, nor will a Jeremiah Wright. 

What is needed is a general, nationwide act of forgiveness.  All races should forgive the other, and try to move beyond skin color to work for the common good.  I know what will be said ``what do whites have to forgive?`` A great deal; we had Native Americans killing us since the first English colony at Roanoak, and we fought back, eventually winning a centuries-long war, for instance.  Was the final victory righteous?  Of course not; death or the Reservation was a terrible choice.  But it is doubtful that the many Indian tribes would have treated the whites any better.  Consider the enslavement, torture, and mutilation of captives by the ``noble red-man``.  Blacks, too, while having been historically relatively powerless, have been guilty of crimes against whites, rapes, robberies, murders, carjackings.  Many whites have been discriminated against on the basis of race; jobs, loans, etc. that are reserved for minorities. Many whites feel that black Americans hate and resent them, and this despite strong efforts by many white Americans to help and encourage the black community.  Jeremiah Wright is a poster boy for all that white America sees as cause for blame.

But we all must move beyond this.  Forgiveness is an amazingly powerful form of healing, and if black Americans would stand up, would offer forgiveness, then perhaps they can be the leaders of twenty-first century America rather than continue in the shadows. 

Forgiveness and self-sacrifice are the hallmarks of nobility, and America has seen that commodity in very short supply in recent years. White America has largely lost that trait, and someone needs to lead the way.  A rejection of the Jeremiah Wrights, of the Jesse Jacksons, the Al Sharptons, and the legion of white race-hustling liberals would be a good start.  An end to the failed path offered yet again by Barack Obama, in which blame is heaped on the cringing heads of white Americans and in which government`s exercise of power-which ultimately means taxes and the sword-is used to advance one group at the expense of another.  This cannot and will not work-it never has. 

Booker T. Washington offered the harder path to the black community; he wanted a self-sufficient existence for them.  His reasoning was that if one makes a deal with the devil, the devil will collect his due.  If Blacks accepted help and assistance from the government, or from anyone other than themselves, they would be beholden to that entity, never entirely free.  Washington wanted Black excellence.  He understood that black excellence would shame white mediocrity, and that the ``colored`` people would earn their place and their pride.  But Man is weak, and all people tend to choose the easy path; the NAACP offered not toil and sweat but political action and rebellion.  This was the quick route, the broad and easy path.  Black America has paid for this choice every day since.

Fortunately, one can change paths, and the easy path of easy defeat can still be scorned for the hard path which leads to a worthier place.  No good things in life come easy, and if something is to be worthwhile it requires sacrifice and discipline.  Pride cannot be bought, or voted for, contrary to what the Democratic (sic) Party has to say.  It must be earned. 

That is a lesson that all Americans need to understand.

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 I just got this email from Joel Rosenberg's organization, the Joshua Fund.

Jack Kemp:

Easter 2008 Update

(Washington, D.C., March 24, 2008) -- "I will build my church," Jesus said, "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

The lead story on Drudge over the weekend was the Pope baptizing a prominent Egyptian author who converted from Islam to Catholicism, and for good reason. It's a huge story in Italy and the Muslim world, especially coming as it did the week that Osama bin Laden accused the Pope of waging a "crusade" against Islam. But this particular baptism is just the tip of the iceberg.

Despite unprecedented press coverage of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East since September 11, 2001, one big story is generally not being told by the mainstream media. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are converting to evangelical Christianity and will be celebrating their first Easter this year, even amidst widespread persecution and the very real threat of death.

I first began reporting this story in 2005 after interviewing some three dozen Arab and Iranian pastors and evangelical Christian leaders in the U.S. and the Middle East. Over the last three years, however, I have had the privilege of traveling to Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, the West Bank, Turkey, and Morocco. What's more, I have had the honor of meeting with and interviewing more than 200 Arab, Iranian, Kurdish, Sudanese and other pastors and Christian leaders. With more data, the trend lines are becoming even more clear and the story is even more exciting.

The God of the Bible is moving powerfully in the Middle East to draw men, women and children to His heart and adopt them into His family in record numbers. More Muslims have come to faith in Jesus Christ over the last thirty years -- and specifically over the last seven to ten years -- than at any other time in human history. There is a revival going on among the ancient Catholic, Coptic, and Chaldean churches. Today, the Church is being truly resurrected in the lands of its birth.

Consider the latest evidence:

* AFGHANISTAN -- In Afghanistan, for example, there were only 17 known evangelical Christians in the country before al-Qaeda attacked the United States. Today, there are well over 10,000 Afghan followers of Christ and the number is growing steadily. Church leaders say Afghan Muslims are open to hearing the gospel message like never before. Dozens of baptisms occur every week. People are snatching up Bibles and other Christian books as fast as they can be printed or brought into the country. The Jesus film, a two hour docudrama on the life of Christ based on the Gospel of Luke, was even shown on television in one city before police shut down the entire TV station."God is moving so fast in Afghanistan, we're just trying to keep up," one Afghan Christian worker told me, requesting anonymity. "The greatest need now is leadership development. We need to train pastors to care for all these new believers."

* UZBEKISTAN -- There were no known Muslim converts to Christ there in 1990. Now there are more than 30,000.

* IRAQ -- As I shared on Fox & Friends on Easter morning, in Iraq, there were only a handful of Muslim converts to Christianity back in 1979 when Saddam Hussein took full control of that country. Yet today, there are more than 70,000 Iraqi Muslim background believers in Jesus (MBBs), approximately 50,000 who came to Christ as refugees in Jordan after the first Gulf War in 1990-91, and another 20,000 who have come to Christ since the fall of Saddam Hussein. John Moser, the executive director of The Joshua Fund, and I just returned from nine days traveling through five provinces in Iraq. We met with 19 Iraqi evangelical Christian leaders. I had the privilege of preaching in a church of more than 100 MBBs from Baghdad -- a church that didn't even exist in 2002 before liberation. We also had the privilege of meeting and interviewing numerous former Islamic jihadist terrorist who have come to Christ and are now pastors and church planters.

* KAZAKHSTAN -- In Kazakhstan, there were only three known evangelical Christian believers before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today there are more than 15,000 Kazakh Christians, and more than 100,000 Christians of all ethnicities.

* EGYPT -- More than 1 million Egyptians have trusted Christ over the past decade or so, report Egyptian church leaders. The Egyptian Bible Society told me they used to sell about 3,000 copies of the Jesus film a year in the early 1990s. But in 2005 they sold 600,000 copies, plus 750,000 copies of the Bible on tape (in Arabic) and about a half million copies of the Arabic New Testament. "Egyptians are increasingly hungry for God's Word," an Egyptian Christian leader told me. Last Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting the largest Christian congregation in the Middle East, which meets in an enormous cave on the outskirts of Cairo. Some 10,000 believers worship there every weekend. A prayer conference the church held in May 2005 drew some 20,000 believers.

* IRAN -- In 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini led the Islamic Revolution, there were only about 500 known Muslim converts to Christianity. Today, interviews with two dozen Iranian pastors and church leaders reveals that there are well over 1 million Shia Muslim converts to Christianity.

* SUDAN -- Despite a ferocious civil war, genocide and widespread religious persecution, particularly in the Darfur region -- or perhaps because of such tragedies -- church leaders there tell me that more than 1 million Sudanese have made decisions to follow Jesus Christ just since 2001. Since the early 1990s, more than 5 million Sudanese have become followers of Jesus. Seminary classes to train desperately-needed new pastors are held mountain caves. Hundreds of churches have been planted, and thousands of small group Bible studies are being held in secret throughout the country.

In December 2001, Sheikh Ahmad al Qataani, a leading Saudi cleric, appeared on a live interview on Aljazeera satellite television to confirm that, sure enough, Muslims were turning to Jesus in alarming numbers. "In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity," Al Qataani warned. "Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity." Stunned, the interviewer interrupted the cleric. "Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have six million converting from Islam to Christianity?" Al Qataani repeated his assertion. "Every year," the cleric confirmed, adding, "a tragedy has happened."

One of the most dramatic developments is that many Muslims throughout the Middle East and even in the United States are seeing dreams and visions of Jesus. They are coming into churches explaining that they have already converted and now need a Bible and guidance on how to follow Jesus. This is in fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Hebrew Prophet Joel told us that "in the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days....And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved." (Joel 2:28-32)

In Epicenter: Why The Current Rumblings In the Middle East Will Change Your Future, I devoted an entire chapter to these dramatic trend lines and why Muslims are converting in record numbers. I am currently working on a new non-fiction book and documentary film called Inside The Revolution, to be release during Easter 2009, with much more detail on this subject, including first person accounts of former Muslim terrorists who have become the new Apostle Pauls of our time -- murderous religious zealots who had visions of Jesus Christ and are now pastors, evangelists, church planters and powerful Christian leaders. Other books I would highly recommend on this subject are Light Force: A Stirring Account of the Church Caught in the Middle East Crossfire by Brother Andrew and Al Janssen; and Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe In Christ.

Is life easy for these Muslim converts? By no means. They face ostracism from their families. They face persecution from their communities. They face being fired by their employers. They face imprisonment by their governments. They face torture and even death at the hands of Muslim extremists. But they are coming to Christ anyway. They are becoming convinced that Jesus is, in fact, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father in heaven except through faith in Jesus' death on the cross and powerful resurrection from the dead.

One of the reasons my wife and I began The Joshua Fund was to educate the Church around the world at what God of the Bible is doing in the epicenter. We want to mobilize a global movement of Christians praying for these dear brothers and sisters. We want to find ways to encourage and strengthen them. We want to provide them with Bibles and Christian literature, and with humanitarian relief supplies so they can love their neighbors and their enemies, as Jesus tells us to do. Their stories are typically being told by the mainstream media, but they are important stories nonetheless. Theirs are testimonies of the greatness of our great God.

end piece

(Jack Kemp is a writer in New York and regular contributor to this site.  It should be pointed out that Mr. Kemp is Jewish.) 

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