Iran: Suicide Superpower?!?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Pajamas Media's Politics Central article, SUICIDE SUPERPOWER:

October 30, 2006 5:36 AM [/] SUICIDE SUPERPOWER: Martyrdom as a Weapon of Mass Destruction [/] By Craig S. Karpel

abombelt_featuredimage.jpg - Last summer, Lebanon, wearing Hezbollah as a bomb belt, became the world’s first suicide state. [[Use link above to see image and to read full article with interesting comments.]]

In an op-ed after the war in the Beirut daily An-Nahar (The Day), Dr. Mona Fayad, a Shi’ite who chairs the psychology department at Lebanese University, the country’s largest institution of higher learning, said that to be a Shi’ite in Lebanon is to let Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei “command you, drive you, decide for you what he wants from the weapons of Hezbollah, and force on you a victory that is no different from suicide.”

Mshari al-Zaydi, opinion editor of the Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq al-Awsat (The Middle East), wrote: “Has Israel won the war or have the forces of development and enlightenment been defeated? Is a victory achieved when the media proclaims so? … What will be made of the 1,000 dead, the one million displaced and the widespread destruction? Are they considered victories as well?” [/] The answer to al-Zaydi’s last question is-from the standpoint of Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran: Yes.

Iran considers death, displacement and destruction in Lebanon victories because Israel’s deterrent posture was impaired by the war, an outcome Tehran regards as being well worth any damage to Lebanon and the Lebanese. It would be appropriate for the Iranian funds that have been disbursed through Hezbollah to Shi’ite residents of Beirut’s leveled Dahiya al-Janubiya (Southern Suburb) and the country’s south to come from the same budget line as the Iranian funds that have been disbursed through Hamas to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Life imitates the art of martyrdom [/] [...] Not open to question, however, is the extent to which the discourse of the Iranian regime is suffused with the traditional Shi’ite emphasis on martyrdom, the fate suffered-or, depending on one’s theological viewpoint, relished-by the fourth Islamic caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, assassinated in 661 A.D, whose posthumous adherents were known as Shi’at Ali (Partisans of Ali).

* Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the Islamic regime’s founder and first Rahba-e Moazzam (Supreme Leader), wrote, “Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom.” “The martyrs,” said Khomeini, “are the quintessence of our strength.”

* Khomeini’s successor and current supreme leader, former president Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Khamenei, who is incomparably more powerful than Ahmadinejad, has said, “Martyrdom operations are the pinnacle of a people’s strength and the pinnacle of an epic.”

* Ahmadinejad on the subject of art: “Art reaches perfection when it portrays the best life and best death. After all, art tells you how to live. That is the essence of art. Is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom? A nation with martyrdom knows no captivity.”

* When a decrepit Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) transport plane crashed in Iran on January 9, 2006, killing 108, after it was ordered to fly despite warnings by its pilot, Ahmadinejad said, “The government will hold a serious investigation… . But what is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow.”

Khamenei eulogized at the funeral of IRGC ground force commander Maj. Gen. Ahmad Kazemi, who died in the crash,

“Two weeks ago martyr Kazemi came to see me. He told me, ‘I would like to ask you to do me two favors. First, pray to almighty Allah that I will end up as an honorable person. Second, pray that I will attain martyrdom.’ I told him, ‘It will really be a pity if you and others like you die an ordinary death. You and others who have passed through all those crucial stages should not die. You should all end up as martyrs. However, it is not yet time for this, since our country and our Islamic system still need you.’ I further said, ‘The day when I was informed about the martyrdom of Gen. Sayad Shirazi, [deputy chief of Joint Staff Command, assassinated in 1999 by the Marxist/Islamic Mujahedin-e Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors)] I said that he was worthy of martyrdom, that he deserved to be martyred. It would have been a pity if he had died an ordinary death.’ When I said this, the eyes of martyr Kazemi became filled with tears, and he told me, ‘God willing, you will receive the news of my martyrdom too!’”

Iranian nuclear strategy: Heads we win, tails you lose [/] The U.S. has about 10,000 nuclear warheads. Tehran cannot hope to deter retaliation by attaining numerical parity. In the grim game of nuclear strategy, will trumps numbers. The Iranians can leverage possession of a relatively small arsenal of weapons into geopolitical power by providing clearly discernible evidence that they are prepared to use them even though doing so means being themselves atomized. The mullahs read the West as being unwilling to sacrifice anything to secure its power, and as being dependent on others feeling the same way. Iran’s unstated purpose in turning Lebanon into an unstate is to display to the world’s nuclear strategists Shi’ite-and, by extension, Iranian-willingness to commit national suicide.

Since its inception, the Islamic Republic of Iran has used Lebanon as its proving ground for the weaponization of suicide. The first modern suicide attack was Tehran’s November 11, 1982 truck bombing of the Israeli military headquarters in Tyre, Lebanon, in which 141 died. The second was its suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983, which resulted in 63 deaths. The third was Iran’s suicide truck bombing of the Beirut U.S. Marine barracks on October 23, 1983, which killed 241 and caused the United States to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Iran’s present defense minister, Mustafa Muhammad Najjar, is believed to have commanded Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps expeditionary force in Lebanon at the time of those bombings.

Iranian willingness to accept nuclear retaliation against itself as a form of martyrdom -or, if that willingness is not actually present, other countries’ belief that it is-will allow Tehran to use the implicit threat of a suicidal first strike to get its way:

We are prepared to nuke you first even though you are certain to respond by nuking us. You, in contrast, are not prepared to nuke us first because we are certain to respond by nuking you. Therefore we need only to possess the ability to nuke you in order to induce you to bend to our will.

The prospect of an Iran that can wield nuclear strategic power without having to launch a single missile, though not as spectacular as the Ahmadinejad-as-All-Four-Horsemen-of-the-Apocalypse scenario, is daunting. The distance from Iran to Saudi Arabia, between which lies Shi’a-populated, oil-endowed southern Iraq, is less than 200 miles. Saudi Arabia’s oilfields are in its Eastern Province, much of whose populace are Shi’ites, who are suppressed by, and hostile to, the House of Saud. The goal of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is to enable Iran to attain hegemony over the entire littoral of the very aptly named Persian Gulf and, by exercising control of virtually all of the Mideast’s oil reserves, become a global power.

Or die trying. [My ellipses and emphasis]

AIDS and Leprosy: A Tangled Web?!?

O what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practice to deceive. - Walter Scott

N.B. HIV is a fabulous monster, actually. Read all about it in Inventing the AIDS Virus and at Virus Myth (Delphi) Forum and at Alive and Well.

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a New York Times article, Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy:

Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy [/] By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. [/] October 24, 2006

With affordable AIDS drugs arriving in many poor countries, experts say a startling and worrisome side effect has emerged: in some patients, the treatment uncovers a hidden leprosy infection.

No one knows how widespread the problem is. Only about a dozen cases have been described in medical literature since the first one was found, in London in 2003. But AIDS specialists in Brazil, India, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere are reporting that some patients on life-saving antiretroviral drugs are developing painful facial ulcers or losing feeling in their fingers and toes.

N.B. These "life-saving" drugs are highly toxic. The observed "good" effects are ephemeral and may be mostly due to other well-known health providing factors such as hospital care. See links in N.B. at top.

And in the third world, where 300,000 new cases of leprosy were discovered last year and where 38 million are infected with the AIDS virus, the problem will inevitably get worse, experts say.

N.B. The evidence indicates that AIDS is a lifestyle disorder and is not infectious. "HIV" is either harmless or cellular debris. Official AIDS statistics are 90% world and national health establishment hype. See links in N.B. at top.

“This is just the peak of the iceberg,” said Dr. William Levis, who treats leprosy patients at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. “It’s early in the game. Most physicians don’t even think about leprosy, so there’s probably much more around than we know.” [/] Dr. Gilla Kaplan, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and one of the first to study connections between AIDS and leprosy, agreed.

Antiretroviral treatment, she said, “is going to flush out the silent leprosy by making it symptomatic.”

Because leprosy, a bacterial disease, can be treated with specialized antibiotics that are supplied free by the Novartis pharmaceutical company, there is little prospect of a worldwide epidemic or large numbers of deaths. “It’s a matter of concern for the individual patients,” said Dr. Denis Daumerie, who leads the efforts by the World Health Organization to eliminate leprosy. “It’s not a matter of concern for public health.”

Still, the disease requires taking multiple pills for six months to two years — an added burden for people who typically already take three AIDS drugs. And because the problem is little known, it often takes doctors weeks to figure out what new ill is besetting their AIDS patients. [/] Experts say the problem arises when the AIDS drugs cause the immune system to recover. It then generates new white blood cells that carry the bacteria from old, silent leprosy infections to the skin of the face, hands and feet.

N.B. This last statement is most probably conjecture based on the "tangled web". See links in N.B. at top.

That is a new twist on a medical paradox that has confounded tropical-disease specialists for 20 years. [/] In the mid-1980’s, as it became clear that AIDS was not primarily a disease of gay American men but was killing millions of people — men, women and children — in poor countries, many public health doctors prophesied that it would be a double disaster for those with leprosy. [/]

It seemed a logical assumption since leprosy is caused by a germ from the same family of waxy-walled bacteria as those that cause tuberculosis and mycobacter avium, two major killers of AIDS patients. But it proved a false alarm.

“People expected a big surge in leprosy, but it didn’t happen,” said Dr. Diana N. Lockwood, a leprosy expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

When the predictions did not come true, she said, “we assumed that co-infected people just died before their leprosy became manifest.” The incubation period for the most easily diagnosed form of leprosy is 8 to 13 years, while the incubation period for AIDS is 8 to 10. [/] But leprosy in people known to have been already infected did not seem to worsen when those patients developed AIDS, too, showing that the two diseases can apparently coexist without reinforcing each other. [/] So it came as a shock to doctors when AIDS treatment caused hidden cases of leprosy to appear.

N.B. A shock to those who rely on the official "tangled web". Not to those who realize that much of the AIDS suffering and death is a result of the official medication. In the developed world, heavy drug users, including promiscuous male homosexuals, particularly the anal receptive who are prone to all sorts of ill health, remain most at risk. See links in N.B. at top.

The first such patient described in a medical journal was Dr. Lockwood’s, a Ugandan exile in London who was being treated for both tuberculosis and AIDS, and suddenly developed a swollen lesion on his face. [/]

“It took us a while to realize it was leprosy,” Dr. Lockwood said. “Since then, we’ve seen more cases in people from Brazil and India.” [/] Depending on symptoms, leprosy is often initially misdiagnosed as arthritis or lupus. Painful facial lesions, which are less common, can have many causes; in the Uganda man’s case, doctors said, his immune system probably formed nodules around bacteria next to a facial nerve.

[…] [My ellipses and emphasis]

America: A Dangerous Nation From the Beginning?!?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a WSJ Opinion Journal article, Outward Bound:

BOOKSHELF [/] Outward Bound [/] The U.S. has always been a "dangerous nation" on the world stage. [/] BY BRENDAN SIMMS [/] Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

[...] Yet as Robert Kagan shows in his brilliant and absorbing "Dangerous Nation," the U.S. has always been an empire and a "menace," not only to its ill-governed neighbors but also to tyrants and hegemons across the world. Americans broke with Britain not because it was an empire but because it was not imperialist enough. As Mr. Kagan notes, London gave mortal offense to the colonists through the Proclamation Line of 1763, which banned any further expansion that might come at the expense of the Indian tribes. It imposed this restriction some time before it seriously attempted to put British hands in American pockets.

After independence, there was a fundamental divide between Thomas Jefferson's ambition for an expanding--but agrarian--territorial empire and Alexander Hamilton's vision of a commercial state with a European-style apparatus of government, including a standing army and a central bank. America compromised: It would be both. From then on, as Mr. Kagan shows, "big government" was to be as American as empire and apple pie.

In the early 19th century, Americans became enthusiastic supporters of national independence movements in Poland, Greece and especially Latin America. U.S. governments lagged somewhat behind, but presidents such as James Monroe in the 1820s saw the world very much in terms of international republican solidarity.

This penchant caused considerable unease among conservative powers such as Austria, Prussia and Russia, who did not welcome the emergence of an ideological and strategic competitor in the West. John Quincy Adams remarked approvingly that "the universal feeling of Europe in witnessing the gigantic growth of our population is that we shall, if united, become a very dangerous member of the society of nations." Hence Mr. Kagan's ironically approving title.

Mr. Kagan is much too subtle a writer to make direct comparisons with our own times, but they are ubiquitous in "Dangerous Nation"--hiding, as it were, in plain sight. Thus he speaks of Benjamin Franklin's plans for a "pre-emptive strike" against the French in the 1750s, by expelling them from Quebec before they could overrun the 13 colonies. There are clear echoes of Mr. Bush's Second Inaugural when Mr. Kagan writes that the Founding Fathers "believed their own fate was in some way tied to the cause of liberalism and republicanism both within and beyond their borders."

The question of whether Latin America was "ready" for representative government, which so vexed 19th-century Americans, is surely intended to remind us of the debates today over whether the Middle East is suited to democracy. And Mr. Kagan's handling of the Spanish-American War of 1898 reads like an extended analogy to the NATO intervention in Kosovo a century later--great powers must sometimes intervene in nonvital zones, to lessen suffering and contain oppressive regimes.

The purpose of Mr. Kagan's project--this is the first volume of two on the history of American foreign policy--is never made explicit, but its outlines are clear: to craft an intellectual and historical lineage for what is today loosely described as neoconservatism. Without saying so, he demonstrates that the principles that led to the removal of Saddam Hussein, and that underlay the plan for a democratic transformation of the Middle East, were not just cooked up in some Washington coven but sprang from the mainstream of American history.

[...] But the book is also intended for Democrats, who may at first hate it. They will bristle at the breezy triumphalism with which Mr. Kagan chronicles the annexations that completed the union. They will think it no coincidence that Mr. Kagan's 19th-century heroes are mostly Republicans, and they will sharpen their knives for the second volume.

But they may want to think before they strike. As it happens, Democrats have special reason to look forward to the 20th-century sequel, for Mr. Kagan's narrative of American power is, in many ways, the story of their own party. Soon enough, the torch will pass to Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and, if we think of NATO's belated Balkan intervention, even Bill Clinton. There should be something in this project for almost everyone.

Mr. Simms teaches modern European history at the Centre of International Studies, Cambridge University. Purchase a copy of Mr. Kagan's book "Dangerous Nation" at the OpinionJournal bookstore here. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Was Hillary Named For Hillary?

The problem with political jokes is that too many of them get elected. - Will Rogers

* - Did Hillary lie about a lie?

* - Is "lying about lying" the earmark of the Clintons?

* - Was Hillary's mother prescient?

* - Was Hillary's mother dishonest?

* - Was Hillary's mother overly good hearted?

* - Will Hillary run in 2008?

* - Will Hillary become the next president of the United States?

Inquiring minds want to know!

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From an American Spectator article, Lie, Lady, Lie:

Lie, Lady, Lie [/] By Jay D. Homnick [/] Published 10/20/2006 12:07:29 AM

Well, I have news, not necessarily of the good variety. The Second Coming will happen in 2008. Yes, Hillary is running for President. How do I know for sure? Simple. The lying about lying has begun, and that is a surefire sign that the Clintons are back in business. Everyone in politics lies, but only the Clintons have perfected the art of lying about their lies.

The proof is in the putting out of an old fire and a new story. Hillary, it turns out, was not really named for Sir Edmund Hillary. But, her office assures us, she thought she was. It was her mother that lied to her about it. Yes, folks, she threw her mother under the bus. Except that she adds a word of understanding, a sense that her mother had good intentions. Why, that wonderful Hillary! She forgives her lying sack of an old lady. Ya gotta love it! The carnival is back in town: it's Clinton Time!

Here is the synopsis, to bring our latecomers up to snuff. Back in 1995, the then-First Lady was visiting New Zealand and met the great adventurer, Sir Edmund Hillary, then 75 years old. Naturally, her true excitement expressed itself in a lie: she told him that her mother had named her after Sir Edmund, in admiration for his scaling Mount Everest. It did not take long for researchers to discover that Hillary Rodham was born in 1947 while Sir Edmund did not make it up the hill until 1953. This quickly became a synecdoche for all her other fabrications, obfuscations and tergiversations. How big a liar do you have to be to lie about your own name?

Later, she prudently left this gem out of her autobio. Then Bill imprudently included it in his. So this week we get the lie about the lie. Her office announces that her Mom told her this little white lie, but she did it in the hopes of encouraging her to scale great heights in her own life. The New York Times duly passes on the word, although the reporter is struggling desperately to keep his tongue from lodging in his cheek. Done. Hillary is now a) an innocent, b) a victim, c) honest enough to set the record straight, d) big enough to forgive her Mom.

You have to stand back and admire the beauty. To lie is easy enough. You say something about a past event guided by convenience rather than accuracy. What then happens if you get caught? Some hardy blogger looked it up, wrote it up and the jig seems to be... well, up. Here is where the men are told from the boys. A Republican wuss will own up, fess up and pack up. Not a Clinton, no way. A Clinton will keep it up; more than that, dress it up. This is the fun part, where you tell a lie about why you lied that garners more sympathy than had the original lie stood. The second lie makes us feel bad that they had to lie the first time.

Bill did this constantly and skillfully. One classic example: he lied to say he had desperately tried to make a middle-class tax cut to cover the earlier lying promise that he would deliver such a cut. Most famously, he lied about why he lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He did it to be a gentleman, he explained, and any decent man in his position would have done the same; this, despite the fact that he told the lie in a courtroom in an effort to undo a suit against him for ungentlemanly conduct.

Remember this lesson, my friends. The art of being a good liar is in the second response. Who said not to dig a deeper hole for yourself? On the contrary, the deeper it is the more wiggle room you have. Who said not to compound a crime? Oh, no, you will collect compound interest. As Bill Clinton himself has often demonstrated on the golf course, with a little creativity you can always improve your lie. If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again. ("Hey, wait a second, Smith is not your real name!" "Yes, my real name is Jones, but since Jonestown my family is embarrassed.")

If we believe Hillary's latest, her mother not only told a false story about her naming, she obviously withheld the real story. Perhaps now when she scales the heights of the presidency, she will be rewarded with that bit of knowledge. You know the old Mount Everest joke. The teacher asks the kid where's Mount Everest and the kid says he doesn't know. "Then stand in the corner," the teacher reprimands. After a few minutes there, the kid calls out: "Teacher, I still can't see it."

Hillary Rodham Clinton can see it [[(Mount Everest and / or the presidency)]] lying there in all its splendor. Her quest answers the age-old question: Why lie about Mount Everest? Because it's there.

Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Must We Ask For Forgiveness After Each Sin?

Matthew 15:6 KJV [...] Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

From another thread:

{{___ but in your statement below do you believe that all future sins are forgiven without asking forgiveness for commiting them?

{{___ [||] >All sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven for those who are born again.> [|| - my .10 ] }}

Yes, I believe that all the future evil in the walk of the born again has been unconditionally forgiven through the blood sacrifice of the Savior on the Cross.

A requirement to ask for forgiveness after having a bad conscience about a specific thought, word, or act, is works righteousness. It is a form of the universal error, the error of the Galatians.

The requirement for asking forgiveness is based on misinterpretation and mistranslation of a single verse. Nothing is found elsewhere to support it. The whole of the Gospel, properly understood, is against it.

1 John 1:9 KJV If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

John Nelson Darby, known to some as "the greatest expositor of Church truth since Paul", has written in his Synopsis of the Books of the Bible that the "sins" in view may reasonably be taken as sins committed before conversion. Darby is marvelous in avoiding giving offense to those who hold different views. He suggests that we take John as one who writes abstractly. In this later statement, I believe that he is speaking as a responsible Christian leader, avoiding giving unnecessary offense. The first statement may well represent his opinion as a scholar. The usual interpretation is at odds with the rest of the epistle, and, indeed, the rest of scripture.

1 John 3:6 KJV Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

1 John 3:9 KJV Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

1 John 5:18 KJV We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

The almost universal explanation is that continuous or intermittent sinning is in view in these three verses. In my opinion, this is errant pedantry bordering on the logically ludicrous.

The biblical definition of "sin" is much narrower than the dictionary or even the Bible dictionary definition. The Hebrew and Greek words mean "missing the mark". In biblical context, coming short spiritually. It is impossible that the new and new kind of human spirit that is the result of being born again should come short of that spiritual glory which God (who "is a spirit") intended for a creature made in His image.

Romans 2:9 KJV Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;

In situations where any man, including the born again, is bothered by conscience, this verse is applicable.

The Greek is precise. The evil works its way out of the man. The soul suffers. The case of the born again is detailed later in Romans 7 and 8, highlights:

Romans 7:20 KJV Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Romans 7:25 KJV I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Romans 8:2 KJV For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

This freedom certainly frees those possessing the spirit of that life which is in Christ Jesus from any traditional rule that requires any work of confession after noticing an activity of the sin that still dwells in their already crucified flesh.

Only the traditions of men say otherwise.

The full form of this particular error is known as the sacrament of confession. It is still at least partially in effect among almost all Christians. The sacrament and confessor parts have been removed by the Reformation. More flexibility has been allowed by others, including most of baptized humanity.

1 John 1:9 Geneva If we acknowledge our sinnes, he is faithfull and iust, to forgiue vs our sinnes, & to clense vs from all vnrighteousnes.

The Geneva translators, men driven from England for their beliefs, seem to stay partly clear of the common error in this verse. The inner apprehension of evil thought, word, or deed, as indeed evil, and as already forgiven through the blood sacrifice of the Cross, is the work of the mind of Christ in the believer.

The too much neglected Love Is Now by Peter E. Gillquist expands on this interpretation. I am indebted to this book and to a noted Christian counselor in Houston for starting me in the right direction on this verse. My present understanding has been a great blessing. May it be a blessing to others.

Violence By a Lady Clergy-Person Anti-Violence Activist?!?

Say it ain't so, Reverend Joy Powell!!!

With apologies to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, the Chicago White Sox, and Major League Baseball, for the implied comparison.

Historical note: Rochester, New York was the site of the second women's rights conference in history and the home town of Susan B. Anthony, the great women's rights leader, honored on a U.S. dollar coin.

As always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Democrat and Chronicle .com [Rochester, New York] article, Rev. Joy Powell charged: Burglary, assault:

Rev. Joy Powell charged: Burglary, assault [/] Victoria E. Freile [/] Staff writer [/] October 10, 2006

Local community activist Joy Powell this morning turned herself in to Rochester Police, after being accused of breaking into a relative's home and attacking her cousin, about 30 hours earlier. [/] The Rev. Joyce E. Powell, 44, of 127 First St. was charged with first-degree burglary and second-degree assault, both felonies, said Rochester Police Officer Deidre Taccone. Powell was also charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, Taccone said.

According to court records, Powell, an anti-violence activist, and several other people broke a window at 61 Copeland St. Sunday evening and entered the house. Once inside, Powell and the others allegedly repeatedly beat her 44-year-old female cousin with a small baseball bat and allegedly sprayed mace in the woman's face.

The assault left the woman with multiple injuries, including numerous cuts and bruises, a fractured vertebra and a bruised liver, officers said. [/] The victim was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital on Sunday for treatment. She was listed today in satisfactory condition.

The incident stemmed from a family dispute, Taccone said. [/] Powell, who turned herself in to police about 2 a.m., pleaded not guilty in City Court today. [/] She was remanded to the Monroe County Jail in lieu of $3,000 cash bail, according to court documents. [/] VFREILE@DemocratandChronicle.com [My ellipses and emphasis]

Limbo in Limbo??

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a [London] Times Online article, Pope tries to win hearts and minds:

Pope tries to win hearts and minds by saving souls of unbaptised babies [/] By Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen [/] The Times October 04, 2006

THE Pope will cast aside centuries of Catholic belief later this week by abolishing formally the concept of limbo, in a gesture calculated to help to win the souls of millions of babies in the developing world for Christ.

All the evidence suggests that Benedict XVI never believed in the idea anyway. But in the fertile evangelisation zones of Africa and Asia, the Pope — an acknowledged authority on all things Islamic — is only too aware that Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to Heaven. For the Church, looking to spread the faith in countries with a high infant mortality rate, now is a good time to make it absolutely clear that stillborn babies of Christian mothers go direct to Heaven, too.

Anyone who deludes themselves that Muslims do not know about limbo would be wrong. Dante put Jerusalem’s conqueror Saladin in limbo in his Inferno, along with Ovid and Homer and other pre-Christian villains and heroes.

Even though it has never been part of the Church’s doctrine formally, the existence of limbo was taught until recently to Catholics around the world. In Britain it was in the Penny Catechism, approved by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, that declared limbo “a place of rest where the souls of the just who died before Christ were detained”. [/] But its lack of doctrinal authority has long failed to impress the Pope. who was recorded as saying before his election: “Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis.”

This week a 30-strong Vatican international commission of theologians, which has been examining limbo, began its final deliberations. Vatican sources said it had concluded that all children who die do so in the expectation of “the universal salvation of God” and the “mediation of Christ”, whether baptised or not.

The theologians’ finding is that God wishes all souls to be saved, and that the souls of unbaptised children are entrusted to a “merciful God” whose ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known. “In effect, this means that all children who die go to Heaven,” one source said.

The commission’s conclusions will be approved formally by the Pope on Friday. [/] Christians hold that Heaven is a state of union with God, while Hell is separation from God. They have long wrestled, however, not only with the fate of unbaptised children, but also with the conundrum of what happened to those who lived a “good life” but died before the time of Jesus.

The answer since the 13th century has been limbo. What remains in an uncertain state, though, is the status of all the pre-Christian and unbaptised adult souls held by some still to be in this halfway house between Heaven and Hell.

The Pope is expected to abolish only “limbus infantium”, where the souls of unbaptised infants go. The precise status of “limbus patrum”, where the good people went who lived before Christ remains . . . well, in limbo.

Although it is the latter that has been subject to such dramatic representation in art and literature, no Christian mother today who miscarries, has a stillborn child or otherwise loses a baby before baptism can bear to view without a purgatorial shudder the traditional images, such as those by Giotto, of Christ freeing Old Testament figures from limbo. [/] In propelling limbo out of its own uncertain state, the Pope is merely acknowledging the distress its half-existence causes to millions and is bringing his characteristic Teutonic sense of righteous clarity to the matter.

One of the reasons Baptists and some other Protestant denominations resist infant baptism is because they believe the souls of babies are innocent and that it is for adults to choose a life in Christ or otherwise. The Early Church father Tertullian opposed infant baptism on these grounds. But the teachings that took hold of the imagination and the faith of the early Christians were those of the Greek fathers such as Gregory of Nazianzus who wrote: “It will happen, I believe . . . that those last mentioned [infants dying without baptism] will neither be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment, since, they are not wicked.”

This seems lenient compared with St Augustine, who in 418 persuaded the Council of Carthage to condemn the British Pelagian heresy that there was an “in between” place for unbaptised babies. He persuaded the council that unbaptised babies share the general misery of the damned. The most he would concede was that their misery was not quite as bad as that of wicked dead adults.

VISIONS OF AN ETERNAL HALFWAY HOUSE

# Dante’s The Divine Comedy describes limbo as the first circle of hell, inhabited by unbaptised children and virtuous pagans born before Christianity. Among them are Homer, Ovid, Socrates and Plato

# In his novel The First Circle, Alexander Solzhenitsyn compares life in a Stalinist prison camp to limbo. The prisoners are unlikely to reach “heaven”, but still enjoy relative freedom within the Gulag system, avoiding the worst of this “hell”

# Shakespeare uses “Limbo Patrum” (Limbo of the fathers) as a metaphor for prison in Henry VIII

# To Samuel Taylor Coleridge, limbo is not a place, but a frightening state, “where Time & weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mair sense of fleeing Strive for their last crepuscular half-being”

# In The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope locates the stage between heaven and hell in the lunar sphere, where all things lost on earth find their place. There, “smiles of harlots” are preserved with “the tears of heirs”, broken vows and prayers [My ellipses and emphasis]

Say It Ain't So, Bill!

With apologies to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, the Chicago White Sox, and Major League Baseball, for the implied comparison. As always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a ninemsn [Australia] article, Clinton had eyes for Demi:

Clinton had eyes for Demi, says Kutcher [/] Monday Oct 2 10:00 AEST

Former US president Bill Clinton tried to 'hit on' actress Demi Moore, her husband Ashton Kutcher has said.

Kutcher, the star of the hit MTV show Punk'd, told chat host Jay Leno that Clinton made eyes at his superstar wife during a recent function. [/] Kutcher said although the three were all sat at a table next to each other he felt like "the invisible man". [/] Kutcher says Clinton didn't say one word to him the whole evening as he was so engrossed with Ghost actress Moore.

"I met Bill Clinton once but he didn't really talk — he was hitting on my wife," Kutcher told Leno. [/] The 28-year-old Butterfly Effect actor — who celebrated his first wedding anniversary with Moore, 43, on Sunday — said Clinton completely ignored him as he chatted to Demi. [/] "I don't think he looked at me the whole time," Kutcher said. [/] "I was like the guy that wasn't there." [My ellipses and emphasis]

Child Molesters: Special Moral Duties Regarding "Disorders"

Even when the report is a post on another thread, and even when I am the author, as always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From Delphi Adult Christian Forum Thread 102716 - "Molesting Children", Post 125:

{{___ Is there help for child molesters? Do we understand them at all? […] [\] [...] I don't know of any groups that help, [\] [...] How can we minister to these? Many are killed in prison when they are found out. [\] [...] I would like to help these folks but don't know where to start.}}

Thanks for your expression of concern for a group that has had the iniquity of ancestors, including Adam, visited on them in an egregious way.

As one with a great number of mental and emotional shortcomings, leading to membership in several groups that fall short, in special behavioral ways, of the spiritual glory that God requires of those made in His image, I am thankful for your concern.

I have not had time to read the many entries on this thread, nor do I have the special knowledge that you require.

There has been much potentially helpful knowledge developed by authentic science about these specialized clusters of sins, known to the specialists as "disorders".

I believe that those who suffer from "disorders" of whatever kind, have a duty to become experts on their "disorders" by diligent study. The depth and length of study depending upon personal capacity and the extent of future danger.

Family, friends, and fellow adherents of a local assembly have a similar duty to become knowledgeable. It is part of loving one's neighbor.

Parents have a special similar obligation for themselves and for informing their children of the nature of their defects and of the duty of the children to continue the study, particularly while danger exists.

Groups and professional specialists have five shortcomings.

One. They do not have a continuing and complete relation with the complete individual.

Two. Their knowledge is limited by lack of full knowledge of the individual.

Three. Their knowledge is limited in comparison with what is available in the now extraordinarily massive extraordinarily specialized information available to all from the scientific literature and individual posted and written experiences.

Four. Their knowledge is limited to the soul. The science of interest to the born again is spiritual, not soulish knowledge, "pneumatology" not psychology.

Five. The "spiritual" ones, the born again, are "by no one discerned".

The born again behold the glory of the Man on the right side of the throne of God. And are changed thereby into His image, "from glory unto glory".

1 Corinthians 2:15-16 YLT (15) and he who is spiritual, doth discern indeed all things, and he himself is by no one discerned; (16) for who did know the mind of the Lord that he shall instruct Him? and we--we have the mind of Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Should House Speaker Hastert Resign?

I suspect that the Washington Times has ulterior motives in this suggestion. No resignation is expected. But the Times would like to have the moral superiority of the Republicans demonstrated. And the Times has been generally disappointed in the performance of the Republican House leadership. And the Times would like to remind everybody of Democrat and Clinton moral rottenness by the elevation of the chairman of the committee that investigated and impeached a known sexual predator and probable rapist. But, as always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Washington Times article, Resign, Mr. Speaker:

Resign, Mr. Speaker [/] TODAY'S EDITORIAL [/] October 3, 2006

The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.

Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, the Republican chairman of the House Page Board, said he learned about the Foley e-mail messages "in late 2005." Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the leader of the Republican majority, said he was informed of the e-mail messages earlier this year. On Friday, Mr. Hastert dissembled, to put it charitably, before conceding that he, too, learned about the e-mail messages sometime earlier this year. Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Hastert insisted that he learned of the most flagrant instant-message exchange from 2003 only last Friday, when it was reported by ABC News. This is irrelevant. The original e-mail messages were warning enough that a predator -- and, incredibly, the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children -- could be prowling the halls of Congress. The matter wasn't pursued aggressively. It was barely pursued at all. Moreover, all available evidence suggests that the Republican leadership did not share anything related to this matter with any Democrat.

Now the scandal must unfold on the front pages of the newspapers and on the television screens, as transcripts of lewd messages emerge and doubts are rightly raised about the forthrightness of the Republican stewards of the 109th Congress. Some Democrats are attempting to make this "a Republican scandal," and they shouldn't; Democrats have contributed more than their share of characters in the tawdry history of congressional sexual scandals. Sexual predators come in all shapes, sizes and partisan hues, in institutions within and without government. When predators are found they must be dealt with, forcefully and swiftly. This time the offender is a Republican, and Republicans can't simply "get ahead" of the scandal by competing to make the most noise in calls for a full investigation. The time for that is long past.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

A special, one-day congressional session should elect a successor. We nominate Rep. Henry Hyde, also of Illinois, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee whose approaching retirement ensures that he has no dog in this fight. He has a long and principled career, and is respected on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Hyde would preside over the remaining three months of the 109th Congress in a manner best suited for a full and exhaustive investigation until a new speaker for the 110th Congress is elected in January, who can assume responsibility for the investigation. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Drudge Sets News Media Tone

Book Compares Online Newsman to Walter Cronkite

I felt that it was my duty to contradict the obvious and egregious errors of this article with double bracketed inserted comments. Otherwise, as usual, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From an ABC News article, Drudge Report Sets Tone for National Political Coverage:

ABC News [/] Drudge Report Sets Tone for National Political Coverage [/] Book Compares Online Newsman to Walter Cronkite

Oct. 1, 2006— - In the crucial congressional elections, now about five weeks away, one of the strongest weapons in the Republican arsenal is a man running a Web site out of his apartment in Miami. His name is Matt Drudge. [/] Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story and has had a tremendous influence on what you know about politics ever since. [/] From the comfort of his apartment, Drudge can send shock waves through newsrooms and campaign headquarters nationwide with breaking news often heralded by his trademark siren.

"If Drudge has a siren up, people know it's something they have to look at," said Mark Halperin, ABC News Political Director. [/] Democratic strategist Chris Lehane agreed. [/] "Literally, it goes up on Drudge and the phones start ringing," he said.

Mark McKinnon, one of President Bush's top campaign consultants, said he checks the site 30 to 40 times per day. [/] "When there's a siren, that's a three-alarm news deal," he said. [/] Republican operatives keep an open line to Drudge, often using him to attack their opponents. [/] "I know that we'd have meetings and that information would find its way to Drudge," McKinnon said. [/] And then the mainstream media often picks it up.

One classic example: the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign, the group made often unfounded [[(actually well founded and well motivated and never substantially contradicted)]] claims about John Kerry's war record, which were pushed hard by Drudge and then investigated by major newspapers and TV networks [[(with obvious bias and ignorance or distortion of the evidence and reasonable analysis, which continues to this day as evidenced by this article)]].

A new book, The Way to Win, co-authored by Halperin, compares Drudge to Walter Cronkite. [/] "Today Matt Drudge can influence the news like Walter Cronkite did," Halperin told ABC News. "If Drudge says something, it may not lead everybody instantly in the same direction, but it gets people thinking about what Matt Drudge wants them to think about." [/] Though Cronkite was described as the "most trusted man in America" Drudge has estimated that 20 percent of his reporting [[("reporting" is a misleading word, Drudge very rarely "reports", Drudge links to or copies reports, a rather new internet activity that we all practice)]] is wrong. He was sued for falsely accusing a Clinton aide of beating his wife. [/] Drudge is also accused of favoring the Republicans.

"I'm a sucker for a good story," Drudge said. "I go where the stink is. I'm a partisan for news."Drudge's coverage affects the media's political coverage, Halperin said. [/] "Matt Drudge is not doing stories on policy, on welfare, on healthcare. He's doing stories on the most salacious aspects of American politics," he said. "When that drives the dialogue, that's where the country heads, that's where our political coverage heads." [[ The notion that the concentration of the media on the "most salacious aspects of American politics" is the fault of Matt Drudge is preposterous. The media has had this concentration before Drudge and it has not increased. Drudge is probably below the average in the salatious focus except in the case of mainstream media cover ups. In these cases he merely forces them to come clean about the dirt.]] [My ellipses and emphasis]