Nidal Malak Hasan

This is the name of the man who killed a dozen soldiers today at Ft. Hood. He injured 31 others. He was killed in the incident. It is an interesting name, Nidal Malak Hasan. We have been assured that this was not an act of political terrorism. Certainly they wouldn't lie to us. Would they? I hope not, but I know better. At least Nidal knew the difference between a combatant and a civilian.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and injured in this attack. May God comfort them and bring healing. My thanks are extended to all who honorably serve our nation in the armed forces. Today's tragic events are a reminder that whether home or abroad these folks put their lives on the line for us every day. God bless and protect the people of our military.

No One To Defend The Helpless

I don't know if you heard about the Muslim girl who converted to Christianity who has been (somewhat) in the news lately. She ran away from home because she feared that her family would kill her. Today I was saddened to read the following headline:

Judge Orders Christian Convert Runaway to Return to Ohio

My sister in the Lord is being forced back into a situation where she had reason to believe that she would be murdered by her own family. Perhaps the judge is grossly ignorant of the practices of Islam. After all we've been told that Islam is a "peaceful religion." But I've heard too many stories of Muslim converts to Christianity who find themselves "resting in peace" at the hands of those who should have undying love for them.

I am curious what grounds the judge had for forcing this young woman to go back. She is 17 years old - only months from her 18th birthday. Hopefully, those few months will not be her last. I will have to do more research.

The law is to protect the helpless, but in this country it never seems to. Where is justice? Where is the protection for the widow and the orphan? I am convinced that the state of our justice system makes God want to vomit.

I will be praying for this sister. I have been praying - but perhaps not diligently enough. But one thing is sure: God - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Great I Am, The Sinner's Hope - will be glorified by this young woman's life.

Lord God,

I ask you to protect my sister's life. I ask you to give her courage and strength to face this unjust decision and to trust Your sovereignty and Your goodness. Defend her life, Lord, and soften the hearts of every lost soul that she knows to come to the knowledge of you.

Father, I know that this outcome does not surprise You, and I know that You have prepared her for this moment from before the foundation of time. Let Your Spirit hover close to her. Let her sense Your closeness and Your love. May Your angels encamp around her to keep her from even dashing her foot against a stone.

Fill her with Your word and help her to not worry about what to say or what to do, but to trust that You will give her the words to say and the courage to face whatever comes. Lord God, I place her into Your hands.

Amen.

God be with you, sister. I will be praying for you.

UPDATE:

In another article I read, the father says he loves his daughter and has no plans to harm her. I hope he is telling the truth.

But according to another article the young lady sure seems to think something else:

"If I had stayed in Ohio, I wouldn't be alive," she said. "In 150 generations in family, no one has known Jesus. I am the first — imagine the honor in killing me."

"There is great honor in that, because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It's in the Koran,"

So who do you believe? I think you probably ought to err on the side of life. If it is possible that they may want to kill her then I think she should be allowed to protect her life. We'll see how it plays.

If There Really Is No God, What Are You So Afraid Of?

Here's a scary thought: Atheist Extremists

Religion Must Be Destroyed, Atheists Say

According to the linked article, a recent conference of atheists took a very militant tone.

Some of the luminaries who spoke at the conference, held at the Crown Royal Hotel in Crystal City, Va., over the weekend, included Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, author Sam Harris and journalist Christopher Hitchens. The Atheist Alliance International describes itself as "the only democratic national atheist organization in the United States."

While most attendees on Friday night were adamant that God was a myth, the convention, attended by hundreds of people, brought into focus a divide among atheists as to their identity as a movement and the nature of the enemy they faced.

In his speech, Dawkins portrayed a black-and-white intellectual battle between atheism and religion. He denounced the "preposterous nonsense of religious customs" and compared religion to racism. He also gave no quarter to moderate or liberal believers, asserting that "so-called moderate Christianity is simply an evasion."

"If you've been taught to believe it by moderates, what's to stop you from taking the next step and blowing yourself up?" he said.

I find the language used to be interesting: "the nature of the enemy they faced," "intellectual battle between atheism and religion," "He also gave no quarter..."

What's this old boy so threatened by? If there is no God, he has nothing to fear. But then again, that IS the point, isn't it?

The Real War

This past January my pastor distributed a sheet of paper that contained a graphic similar to the one below. It depicts a comparison of the numbers of people killed in each of America's wars. Each ! represents 25,000 deaths.

The Revolutionary War: (25,324) !

The Civil War: (498,332) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

World War I: (116,708) !!!!!

World War II: (407,316) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Korean War: (54,246) !!

Vietnam War: (58,655) !!

Global War On Terror: (7,500) .

War On The Unborn (In The United States): (46,500,000+) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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By now there are probably several more exclamation points. Every one of those marks represent TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND deaths. Compare that to the mere "." representing the American dead in the Global War on Terror since 9/11/01. People are protesting in Washington over a very successful war with relatively few casualties, but not since the 80s have we seen any widespread protests of the ongoing murder of MILLIONS of AMERICANS.

Abortion is a greater scourge to this nation that slavery ever was. It is a greater dishonor than any of our broken treaties with the Native American nations. In 34 years we have decimated a generation. In 34 years we have all but assured the bankruptcy of Social Security with abortion on demand.

You want to see what abortion destroys? Go HERE and start clicking play.

Abortion is not a right. Abortion is murder. Don't call it freedom of choice. That isn't what it is. Freedom of choice is deciding that if you don't want to have a baby that you don't engage in sexual intercourse. That is freedom of choice.

I get really tired of everyone pointing to the church and identifying its hypocrites. Sure, we have them, but so do you. Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest.

Alan Sears recently wrote an article that outlined some of Planned Parenthood's obvious hypocracies:

Planned Parenthood’s Recent Hypocrisy
By Alan Sears
Saturday, September 8, 2007

Planned Parenthood and its cheerleaders have long claimed they want abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.”

Let’s examine the recent evidence. Do they promote things that make abortion “safe, legal, and rare” or do they actually support dangerous practices, ignore legal restrictions, and make decisions likely to increase the rate of abortion?...

This summer the Missouri Legislature – an entity charged with acting in the interest of its citizens – passed Senate Bill 370 to protect women’s health and safety. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Matt Blunt.

You’d think Planned Parenthood – which says it wants abortion to be “safe” for women – would applaud the new law. Its provisions require abortion clinics to be held to the same kinds of standards for cleanliness and safety required of other surgical facilities, so that a woman suffering the gruesome misery of an abortion at least has the same standard of care as she would for a tonsillectomy. The legislature after hearing a LOT of testimony understood that abortion of any kind, but especially one in the latter stages of pregnancy, can be an intrusive, even dangerous “procedure”—one that by its very nature has risks associated with it (not to mention what’s intended for the unborn child). And Planned Parenthood knows that the surprise complications of even the most “simple” abortions can quickly endanger the health, even the life, of the mother.

But rather than applauding and supporting this effort to increase health protection for their clients, Planned Parenthood asked a federal judge to strike down the law--to overturn the health and safety requirements--apparently because more safety means lower profits for abortionists.

Planned Parenthood also asserts that since some of their clinics mostly issue the abortion-performing drug mifepristone, they don’t need to follow the law either. In making this argument, they ignore FDA evidence that such chemical abortions may require surgical intervention – sometimes on an emergency basis – and for one out of every 12 women in clinical trials. A 2005 report showed 607 “adverse events” related to the abortion drug over a four-year period, including 237 cases of hemorrhage, 68 which required transfusions, and 42 characterized as life-threatening.

Planned Parenthood complains that enhanced health and safety would require some clinics to close while being retrofitted to standard. (Can you imagine a restaurant chain refusing to take time out from serving food to correct flagrant health code violations? Or a manufacturer refusing to retrofit its plants to install mandated equipment in their automobiles because doing so is too expensive?) And while bemoaning its potential loss in profits, Planned Parenthood is silent about its national gross income of nearly $900 million during 2005-2006, which yielded a tidy $63 million profit. They also fail to mention the $3.9 billion in taxpayer money they have received since 1987. Their spokesperson estimated that upgrading a heavily used surgical abortion clinic in Columbia, Missouri, to the 2007 standards would only cost $600,000.

You hypocrites! You murderous, lying, greedy, evil sons of the devil! You claim that these children are unwanted when THOUSANDS of Americans have to go to China to adopt children every year. Don't talk to me about paying for your social security. You destroyed it with your own hands. You tell teenagers that they can't possibly be expected to curb their sexual urges. You tell them that they should use a condom to protect themselves - to have "safe" sex. Yet the very condoms you give away are among the very worst on the market! What are you trying to do? Drum up some more business? On top of that you manage to forget to mention that even used 100% correctly 100% of the time condoms are only 90% effective at preventing pregnancy. Sperm are bigger than viruses. How effective and "safe" are those condoms at preventing herpes and HIV?

There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
- Proverbs 6:16-19

Well, 6 out of 7 ain't bad.

Kennedy Claims New Recruits 'Extremists'

I understand why Cox and Forkum and so many of the other conservative bloggers that I often read are getting away from politics - it is as messy as the Augean stables and as hard to clean.

Ted Kennedy has managed to tack a hate crimes amendment onto the pending defense authorization bill. In his defense of the amendment he claims that "military recruiters, struggling to meet quotas, are enlisting extremists these days, 'putting our soldiers at higher risk of hate-motivated violence.'” So now (according to Kennedy) our new recruits are 'extremists' and bigots and homophobes.

Check below for some other articles with more details about this bill:

Iraqi Insider

Kennedy's Defense Priorities by Byron York

Senators Add Hate Crimes Measure To Defense Authorization Legislation

And finally an article at World Net Daily

I have always wondered why the left is so all-fired hot for hate crimes bills. I think that they are patently absurd. All crimes are hate crimes. Have you ever heard of a "love" crime? Yes, there are crimes of passion, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Why do we need a special federal law for crimes against "protected" groups? Are there not laws against murder? Are there not enough laws protecting people from assault? Can we not find any legal protection against slander?

I think that at the core of this whole issue is homosexuality. Apparently it hurts people's feelings to find out that their lifestyle is immoral. This isn't terribly surprising. Adulterers, fornicators, liars, cheaters, thieves, rebels, gossips and all other manner of sinful people don't particularly like to be told that what they are doing is not OK with God. Apparently Senator Kennedy doesn't like for people in the military to have first amendment rights. It would seem that he would rather trample on the constitution, causing our military's freedom of expression and religion to no longer be considered "protected" so that a few people don't get their feelings hurt.

It would seem that the whole purpose of this amendment is to benefit the homosexuals serving in the military. Kind of makes you wonder... If being a homosexual isn't a bad thing or an immoral thing, then is it slander to call someone "gay?"

Well, it hurts my feelings when people call me fat. Nevermind the reality that I am, in fact, overweight. Being called fat hurts my feelings. It also hurts my feelings that I am judged by people before they even know me based on my size. Besides, there are more fat people in America than there are homosexuals. This being said, I demand that obesity be included in this hate crimes legislation as a protected class. As a protected classmember, I should be shielded from my condition by the eradication of the words obese, fat, corpulent, etc from all dictionaries. Big and tall ads should never have anyone under 250 pounds in them. All clothing stores should be required to carry large sizes. Ads suggesting that being overweight is bad or not attractive should be banned as hate speech. And doctors should face civil penalties for suggesting that their patients should lose weight. Nevermind that it might save their life.

Of course I'm not serious, but Kennedy's amendment is just as absurd as the last paragraph.

The thing that really irks me is that Congress can manage to pass stupid amendments like this one while really beneficial ones can't get a sponsor. The system is so broken. I know of a proposed amendment right now that would be a huge benefit to all Americans. It would not cost American taxpayers one red cent, but would save them millions - if not billions - once implemented. But can it see the light of day in the Senate? Not when there are much more important matters to tend to - like making sure no one's feelings get hurt by being confronted with the truth.

Would you like to see how your Senators voted on this issue? Click HERE and check them out. Let them know what you think.