(FEMA photo)

Expert: Small Ark. earthquakes could be warning

By JON GAMBRELL

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)
A series of small earthquakes that rattled central Arkansas in recent weeks could be a sign of something much bigger to come.

...Five earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 2.2 to 2.7 have hit central Arkansas this month. Quakes with a magnitude of 2.5 to 3 are typically the smallest felt by people....

The area does not have any permanent seismograph, so researchers asked the University of Memphis in Tennessee if they could use its portable equipment. The nearest seismographs aren't close enough to provide the detailed readings scientists need to determine what could be causing the tremors or properly locate their origin, said Scott Ausbrooks, the geohazard supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey.

"I don't know if you've looked at a map of where these events are located, but they've got a scatter on them," he said. "We're thinking this is probably the inherited error built in when you try to locate events of this small a magnitude from that far away."

Ausbrooks said officials would install the three seismographs around Magnet Cove, a Hot Spring County community near where a magnitude-2.7 earthquake hit on Nov. 1. Residents told police dispatchers they heard what sounded like an explosion...

"Now, it's not active, but in geologist time, that's yesterday," he said.

Ausbrooks wouldn't speculate on what could be causing the earthquakes, saying he wanted to see what data the seismographs capture. However, he acknowledged an unknown fault could be running through the area.

"There are numerous faults across the state, both known and unknown," Ausbrooks said. "This area has got a lot of faults associated with it from the mountain building of the Ouachitas, but they're considered inactive."

AP full article


We have a quake here in central Arkansas about eight years ago that was a pretty good one.

Good ol' Scott Ausbrooks...xtnyoda had the great honor of taking Scott to the throne of God's grace and salvation not long after Desert Storm. He was with the Marines and was on the front line in the liberation of Kuwait City from Saddam's madness.

God Bless him, and give him God Speed in finding any possible real and present danger.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Patients treat serious illness as laughing matter

By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press Writer Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK – The off-color jokes flew around the room. As the anecdotes got bawdier, the laughter intensified. Some recited from memory, others read from notebooks they brought along.

The setting for the hilarity was the Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center at Montefiore Hospital. The participants were cancer patients, some with advanced stages of the illness.

They were taking part in the hospital's monthly "Strength Through Laughter" therapy. It is one of several types of laughter or humor therapy being offered by medical facilities around the country for patients diagnosed with cancer or other chronic diseases.

The programs feature joke sessions, clown appearances and funny movies.

While the verdict is out on whether laughter plays a role in healing, the American Cancer Society and other medical experts say it reduces stress and promotes relaxation by lowering blood pressure, improves breathing and increases muscle function...

full report

The Scripture does say, "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Pro 17:22 (ESV)

Why should we find this medicine as a last resort?

Laugh.

shalomed

"The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed," said AN Roy, police commissioner of Maharashtra state.


Local TV images showed blood-splattered streets, and bodies being taken into ambulances.

One eyewitness told the BBC he had seen a gunman opening fire in the Taj Mahal's lobby.

"We all moved through the lobby in the opposite direction and another gunman then appeared towards where we were moving and he started firing immediately in our direction."

One British tourist said she spent six hours barricaded in the Oberoi hotel. "There were about 20 or 30 people in each room. The doors were locked very quickly, the lights turned off, and everybody just lay very still on the floor," she said.

A BBC correspondent outside the landmark Taj Mahal Palace said there were gunshots between police and the armed men, and that 11 officers were killed in the skirmishes.

Eyewitness reports suggest the attackers singled out British and American passport holders.
BBC

Happy Thanksgiving President Elect.

Are you ready for this?

Alone...but not lonely...

When that soft and nagging feeling
gnaws deep within...
comes prodding like
the traveling minster
with songs in minor key.
Solemn, somber, and gentle they lay
like soft dew
on the soft crystal lawn...
Yet crisp and cool on the feet...
Still yet demanding attention.

Do you hear the melody?
Rising through the silent dawn
like the lone whippoorwill
serenading the rising sun...
with great grace she sings.
The song of life...
lifts her heart...
lifts her head...
in splendor.

Amid the fleeing shadows we hear...

The Voice.

My child.
That gnawing hollow
in your soul...
That placid pool
of still blue water...
is my very soul...

hungering...
yearning...
longing...
for some time...

With you.

xtnyoda, shalomed

I can't help this. I've responded to a post over at Rick's place and I just have to post my response here...it was just too much fun.

The discussion was about the journalism of much of today's media being involved in promoting one persuasion over the other...often to the ignoring of negative facts about the person or situation they are promoting...

From Websters Redactionary Dictionary:

Journalist:
An Extinct American historical figure. Legend has it that these rare and valued persons were continually at the top rung of righteousness seeking truth. There was a sudden and shocking de-volution of the Journalists breed until they were transformed into mere "yes" people and "cover-up" artists for powerful political figures.

They became literal whores to the status-quo until the American public could stomach them no longer and they every one took on the reputation of fiction crafters.

America misses the extinct Journalists and scientists are currently searching for the DNA of former famed Journalists in a desperate effort to clone once again the real thing. There has been a heated debate about the impact on current culture should the blistering heat of the fabled truth-detectors ever actually be resurrected.

Current synonyms for Journalist: Migraine, Dysentery, Wormwood, Cheap Trick.

Now...wasn't that fun?

PC Strikes Again

Ho, ho, nope! FGCU to limit holiday decor

'Political correctness' cited as reason

by dave breitenstein • November 25, 2008

Christmas is just 30 days away, but Santa Claus won't be stopping by Florida Gulf Coast University this holiday.

He's not allowed on campus.

FGCU administration has banned all holiday decorations from common spaces on campus and canceled a popular greeting card design contest, which is being replaced by an ugly sweater competition. In Griffin Hall, the university's giving tree for needy preschoolers has been transformed into a "giving garden."

The moves boil down to political correctness.

"Public institutions, including FGCU, often struggle with how best to observe the season in ways that honor and respect all traditions," President Wilson Bradshaw wrote in a memo to faculty and staff Thursday. "This is a challenging issue each year at FGCU, and 2008 is no exception. While it may appear at times that a vocal majority of opinion is the only view that is held, this is not always the case."...

news-press

You know what? This is outrageous.

What this is, is appeasement. (if you've ever wondered what "is...is" there it is!)

The definition of Audacity? Audacity is for a person or a people to come to this nation, over the blood of those who have died for our liberties and the traditions they held dear enough to die for, then demand that we hide our held traditions for they might be offended by the presence of, or the reminders of, our held traditions.

HOW DARE YOU.

The definition of Appeasement? Appeasement is a symptom of the most dread disease know to mankind...cowardice. Appeasement is the anti-spirit of the sacrifice and service of those legions who marched head long into the face of tyranny and laid down their all on this nation's sacred altar...covered in scarlet red...the precious blood of our fallen.

HOW DARE YOU.

Listen carefully. Can you hear in the distance? There is a rumble...growing...can you hear it?

It is the stirring of pure disgust for the audacity of contrived offenses.

HOW DARE YOU.

Listen carefully...can you hear it?

It is the fomenting of a holy disdain toward cowardly appeasement by those who have proven themselves unworthy of a single drop of blood shed by our fallen sons and daughters.

HOW DARE YOU.

In Support of our Troops

Another prophecy about the demise of America...from a Russian.

RUSSIAN ANALYST PREDICTS DECLINE AND BREAKUP OF USA

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."

The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Drudge reporting


Seems we have heard this before out of Russian? Wasn't it Nikita Khrushchev, who on 12 October, 1960, at the UN, banged his shoe on the table and shouted that Russia would bury the US...well...good ol' Nikita has been buried and the US still stands...perhaps a little shaken...but still standing...and will continue to stand.

Now let's see, 5 regions out of our United States...sounds sort of like a five pointed star outline to me. I think on our flag that there are actually fifty of them.

Yup, this kind of challenge is just what stirs up Americans.

Keep it up...and we'll see.

shalomed

It's Thanksgiving week.


I'd like to share a thanksgiving report my lady and I received two nights ago...about America.


We traveled with Win and Dawn(husband and wife, naturalized citizens native to Vietnam. Names protected.) to hear their son sing in a state wide concert. Win is one of my favorite heroes. He was an officer in the Republic of Vietnam's Army and served along side our service men there.

After we cut and ran and snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory (I'll write about that soon enough) millions were left to deal with a hateful communist enemy. Win and family were soon overcome by the communists.

Dawn had a private school in Saigon which was quickly confiscated as well as their home. Dawn and her three little daughters were cast onto the streets. Win was locked up in a communist jail...for eight years...three in solitary confinement. Win was regularly tortured by the communists, demanding a recanting...

Their crime? They were Christians...Vietnamese Catholic Christians.

They would hang Win upside down in some type of plastic bag and beat him with rods over his entire body...demanding that he renounce Christ. His response was always the same to the guards beating him, "I love you and Jesus loves you."

After eight years he escaped one day amid bullets "popping and wising" (his words) around his head like bees. Somehow...after several days...he managed to make it to a beach ...and eventually to America. He then resolutely began a five year journey to rescue Dawn and two of their daughters from Vietnam...remember the "boat" people? Ultimately he was able to rescue their third daughter. Dawn, Win, and one of their daughters currently live in our community where I have gotten to know them.

Coming back from the concert two nights ago I was able to ask Dawn about her years in Saigon with Win in prison and their former lives shattered.

Her response took me off guard.

"Oh, Chuck...I always would dream about coming to America...it was the dream that kept me going...I would just dream about maybe one day coming to America...all the time."

"Dawn, you dreamed about coming to America?" I asked.

"Yes, Chuck, I would dream about coming to America...because America is Paradise!"

"Paradise?"

Giggling in her delightful Vietnamese voice she said, "Yes...Paradise...for you see here we can work, and own our own home, and I have my own business now...yes Chuck...America is Paradise!"

Dawn was dead serious. I fought back tears.

We live in Paradise...don't let anybody tell you different...I've a credible source.

XtnYoda, shalomed

Needed: Network bailout?
Bad economy slows ad sales
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER





They've been living on borrowed time for the better part of two decades, thanks to advertisers willing to toss in more cash each year even as ratings slowly trended ever lower.

But with the economy in a tailspin -- and the Big Three auto manufacturers, some of TV's best advertisers, near ruin -- the biz may finally have to pull the emergency cord.

"This day was going to come," says one conglom bigwig. "I don't think the business can be sustained without real change at this juncture. ... We have a gun to all of our heads."...

Gasp report!

OH MY!!! Just the most shocking thing I've ever heard!!! That the MSM is losing viewers!!!! Who would have thought it??? And they might need tax payers to bail them out????...

Maybe you all should go canvas the democratic national committee for some of their funds? You certainly worked your tails off for them...surly you deserve some remuneration?

Cow burps help Argentines study climate change

By Juan Bustamante

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine scientists are taking a novel approach to studying global warming -- strapping plastic tanks to the backs of cows to collect their burps.

Researchers say the slow digestive system of cows makes them a producer of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public attention than carbon dioxide in efforts to fight global warming.

Scientists around the world are studying the amount of methane in cow burps and Argentine researchers say they have come up with a unique way.

Attaching a red plastic tank to a cow's back and connecting it through a tube to the animal's stomach, scientists say they can trap bovine burps and analyze them.

"When we got the first results, we were surprised. Thirty percent of Argentina's (total greenhouse) emissions could be generated by cows," said Guillermo Berra, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology.

One of the world's biggest beef producers, Argentina has some 55 million heads of cattle grazing on the famed Pampas grasslands.

Berra said the researchers "never thought" a cow weighing 550 kg (1,210 lb) could produce 800 to 1,000 liters (28 to 35 cubic feet) of emissions each day...

Reuters

There you have it folks...first hand information...the real culprit of Global Warming is nothing other than...cows. 35 cubic feet of methane each day for each cow?

HOLY COW BATMAN!

Moral to this story...eat more beef...it'll warm us up this winter. (Sorry Chick- fil-A)

xtnyoda, shalomed

Global Warming evidence. (for guests, this is said with irony)

Please...get ready for a very cold, difficult, and dangerous winter...

Good ol' Bob Woodard is mystified...
or is he mad?

Woodward Knocks Clinton SoS Choice

Now that it's considered a foregone conclusion that Sen. Hillary Clinton will be the next secretary of State, the chattering class is weighing in, including legendary reporter Bob Woodward. FishbowlDC has obtained an advanced transcript of this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show", in which the famed Washington Post reporter had this to say about Clinton's nomination as SoS:

Being president is about control, and tell me who ever controlled Bill or Hillary Clinton. They can't control each other. ... I think it's because Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker and others have convinced Obama, 'You're going to have to focus like a laser on the economy. That's issue Number One. And give Hillary and Bill the world.' ... I think people are fantasizing or smoking something if they think Joe Biden's going to call Hillary Clinton up and say, 'This is what we want you to do.'

coming up on Chris Matthews.

My, my, my. "Fantasizing or smoking something"...now Bod's been around DC for a while, and he sounds pretty upset with this selection. A good many folks seem to be rather surprised at the people Barack seems to be picking for different jobs...

In an effort to "reach across the isle..." whatever that means...a lot of folks think it's starting to look like the "same-old-same-old" song and dance.

But...what do I know?

Looks like we are going to be in Iraq for three more years...economy is still spiraling downward...jobs being cut...houses going down...rampant racism, crime, fear, terror, war, resentment...and now Bob thinks PE Obama is smoking something?

The supporting media just might not like feeling like they've been "played"...then turned on...

EDIT:
Actually, on thinking some more about Bob's concern...this is exactly what conservatives were most concerned about with Barack...that he would get caught up in trying to appease the enemy. Not that Hillary and others are necessarily enemies...but...this does seem to be a desire for appeasement...and when facing the kind of challenges we face with terrorism, appeasement is not the answer.

The Pope saw it coming years ago...

Pope Had "Prophec" of Market Collapse in 1985, Tremonti Says, (By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Lorenzo Totaro)

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI was the first to predict the crisis in the global financial system, a "prophecy" dating to a paper he wrote when he was a cardinal, Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said.

"The prediction that an undisciplined economy would collapse by its own rules can be found" in an article written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became pope in April 2005, Tremonti said yesterday at Milan's Cattolica University.

German-born Ratzinger in 1985 presented a paper entitled Market Economy and Ethics at a Rome event dedicated to the Church and the economy. The future pope said a decline in ethics "can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse."

Pope Benedict in an Oct. 7 speech reflected on crashing markets and concluded that "money vanishes, it is nothing" and warned that "the only solid reality is the word of God."

The Vatican's official newspaper, l'Osservatore Romano, on the same day criticized the free-market model for having "grown too much and badly in the past two decades."

bloomberg

Please forgive me, and not wanting to take anything away from the Pope by any means, but, many people have been screaming for many years that these credit debt lifestyles we have been living had a payday coming someday. Some of us screaming louder than others to be sure, but screaming non-the-less.

And many were warning long, long before 1985.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Watch Steve Harvey introduce Jesus Christ. Pretty good intro. from a comedian!

(Steve's prayer at the end is my favorite part.)

xtnyoda, shalomed

US warned of China 'cyber-spying'





China has stepped up computer espionage against the US government and American businesses, according to an influential Washington congressional panel.

In its annual report to Congress, the panel warned that China was gaining increasing access to sensitive information from US computer networks.

It said China was aggressively pursuing cyber-warfare capabilities to gain an advantage over the US in any conflict.

There has been no comment so far from the Chinese on the report.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was set up by Congress in 2000 to advise, investigate and report on US-China issues.

It alleges that the Chinese are looking for diplomatic and military secrets in government databases, and potentially lucrative industrial secrets held by American corporations...

BBC article

OK, allow me to suggest that this may not be such a bad thing, at least the part about "industiral secrets held by American corporations..."

Let's listen in on a conversation in the home of one of China's computer cyber-war hackers...

"Honey, we have been lied to by our government!"
"Goodness, what do you mean we have been lied to?"
"Well, you know how we have been told over and over the superiority of our People's Republic way of State Ownership over all property, life and business...compared to the West's way of Free Enterprise? And, you know the way we have been told that when one of our glorious country's leaders goes to visit in the US how they always take him to a 'prepared' location in an American city so they can control what our leader sees? How they stock the store shelves with much merchandise and stack the store shelves with rich and abundant food goods...even wonderful meat selections in many varieties...to give the false impression that Americans all have similar options for a rich variety of foods and consumer goods?"
"Yes dear, the deceptive captors!"
"Well, dear, it is our government that has been lying to us! America does have a genuine abundance of not only manufactured goods and services...but they actually do have a tremendous abundance of a marvelous variety of foods on their store shelves over the entire country! I have now seen it with my own eyes while spying on their companies computer information networks!!! It is unbelievable the abundant resources that the Free Enterprise System has brought to the American Public! I am in total shock at the abundance in America!"
"No! You must tell me that you are kidding me!"
"I cannot tell you a lie my dear, I am telling you the truth! And you know how our government touted the new deal they made with the American chicken producing company, Tyson Foods, how we were going to be getting the blessing of their prized chicken feet to ensure that we and our children will have at least the meat of one chicken foot a week for our bodies meat needs, and how much healthier we would be to each have a chicken foot a week? The American's think of chicken feet as somehow undesired leftovers from the remains of the chicken! They only eat the legs, thighs, breasts...but some do now seem to like the wings of the chicken! I actually ran across this article while spying on the Tyson company!"

...Tyson started working with China in 1991 exporting chicken and chicken parts to China. The company recognized early on that product considered waste, such as chicken feet and wing tips, were prized in China....

article

"We have been lied to my dear."

"Then we must do something!"
"What can we do?"
"We must start telling the truth about the American blessing and our despair."
"But, who will listen, and how can we escape our governments harsh reaction to our information drive?"
"Honey, you are the computer spy expert, you can figure out a way to let people know the truth at last. You must get the information out to our people about the wretched way we have been lied to...and start a movement toward the truth. I will stand by you, even to the point of imprisonment and even death if necessary so that our people will know. Chicken feet are not a delicacy!"

xtnyoda, shalomed ;-)

Former Vice President Al Gore makes an interesting assessment on his blog site...

A new study suggests the Mayan civilization might have collapsed due to environmental disasters:

"'These models suggest that as ecosystems were destroyed by mismanagement or were transformed by global climatic shifts, the depletion of agricultural and wild foods eventually contributed to the failure of the Maya sociopolitical system,' writes environmental archaeologist Kitty Emery of the Florida Museum of Natural History in the current Human Ecology journal."

As we move towards solving the climate crisis, we need to remember the consequences to civilizations that refused to take environmental concerns seriously.

Al Gore's site

So...the Mayans mismanaged their eco-system? Isn't that a little judgmental and racist?

Now I wonder just what the Mayan's did to disturb the global climate situation of their day? Burn too many camp fires? Cut down too many trees? Eat too many fish? Kill too many monkeys? And, whatever they did caused change in the earth's climate and environmental situation?

Come on now...seriously...this is dipping pretty deep into the blame barrel. There just isn't anything coming up from this scraping for blame...not a thing...except perhaps a not so subtle effort to invent a crisis...

xtnyoda, shalomed

H/T once again to Rick at Brutally Honest!

From a medical Dr. who is...fed up with the afterglow of embracing the culture of death we live in...

...There is an alternative to our current cultural narcissism with its corrosive, calloused, destructive bent. It is not a new government program, nor a political movement; no demonstrations in the street, no marches on Washington. Its core ideology is over 2000 years old, and the foot soldiers of the revolution are already widely dispersed throughout the culture.

This revolutionary force is called Christianity, and it’s long past time to raise the banner and spring into action.

The true antidote to the nihilism and corruption of the age will be found, as it has always been, in the church. It has since its inception been a revolutionary force, transforming the hopeless and purposeless anarchy of the pagan world of its infancy by bringing light, hope and joy where there was none before.

It can happen again.

The church, of course, has to no small degree been co-opted by the culture it should have transformed. From TV evangelists preaching God-ordained health and wealth to liberal denominations rejecting the core truths of their foundation and worshiping instead the god of government and humanistic socialism; from pederast priests to episcopal sodomy, Christianity in the West has whored itself to a prosperous but decadent culture. Its salt has lost its saltiness, and it has, not surprisingly, been trampled underfoot by men.

It is time to return to our First Love. It is time once again to become light to an dark and stygian world. It is time for a revolution of the soul.

We must, first and foremost, be about grace and truth. We must begin with the truth of our calling: to be holy, transformed by the power of Christ and the work of the Spirit. We are, by nature of our new birth in Christ, His ambassadors: we are to be the face, the hands, the heart, the words, the compassion of Him who saved us.

The task is enormous, yet for each of us, the steps are small, easily achievable yet enormously powerful.

It must begin with a renewed commitment to obedience and submission to Christ, a willingness to fully subject ourselves to His will, rather than trying to bend His will to ours. It means getting serious about church attendance — not merely as a consumer but as an active participant. We need to renew our devotion to prayer, to Scripture reading, study, and memorization, to fellowship with other Christians. These are simple steps which ground us in truth, and give us access to that power which can first of all transform us, then radiate out to all around us.

Then we must act like the counter-culturists we claim to be....

The Dr. in In

Please...go read the entire article...then join with those prepared and preparing to stand..."and having done all to stand, stand therefore..."

xtnyoda, shalomed

cobra pic site













My prayer for one being threatened by one with psychotic neurosis

GOD!

I CRY OUT to you!

This one is your child
Dedicated to your mission...
Chosen by your hand...
In your hands.

Yes, for wisdom I CRY OUT!
Yes, for protection I CRY OUT!
Yes, for solace I CRY OUT!

Like the mother whose heart aches...
every breath laden with anxiety...
knowing her child is on the front lines of battle...

As the father whose hands clinch...
grasping agony...
as his child is taken down the long hallway to surgery...

I CRY OUT to you.

GOD!

Arise!

Like the flaring King Cobra...
Ripe with poignant venom...
and determined focused eye...
make this intruder...see you well.

Like the raging Lion...
voice rushing through flashing tusks
and mane bristled with wrath...
cause this intruder...hear you well.

Guard our sister.

Grant the mercy of repentance to the intruder...
lest you strike...valiantly.

Oh Dear God.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Get ready President Elect Obama as you are getting ready to actually be dealing with absolute madness...

(photo courtesy of axisglobe)

The second-in-command of Islamic militant network al-Qaeda has called on Muslims to harm "criminal" America.

In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy accused US President-elect Barack Obama of betraying his Muslim roots.

He likened him to a "house slave" - who had chosen to align himself with the "enemies" of Islam....

"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews."

This is undoubtedly a message aimed at sustaining anti-American sentiment among Muslims in the face of Barack Obama's election, says the BBC's defence correspondent Rob Watson.

But it is a risky approach, our correspondent says.

Barack Obama is hugely popular world-wide and his colour and background make him a much tougher target to attack than President George W Bush in the eyes of a global audience, he says....

Mr Obama's election did not mean that US policy towards the Muslim world had changed, Ayman al-Zawahiri said, according to the 11-minute message...

He warned Mr Obama of failure if he followed the policies of the Bush administration.

The change of leadership in the US did not mean that America should be perceived differently, he added.

"America, the criminal, trespassing crusader, continues to be the same as ever, so we must continue to harm it in order for it to come to its senses," he said.

Zawahiri also criticised Mr Obama - whose father is Muslim - for betraying the Islamic world.

"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," he said.

Mr Obama was not an "honourable black American" like Malcolm X, he said, but an "abeed al-beit" - a word that translates as house slave but was rendered "house negro" in the message's English subtitles....

from the BBC

President Elect Obama, you have my prayers...seriously. You are going to be dealing with pure madness...insanity. Truly love this country, the USA, and defend her and the freedom loving peoples of our race...the human race.

A tremendous trust has been placed in your care.

You can do it...yes you can.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Not Evil Just Wrong web site.

The Irish are fighting mad, and are fighting back. It's going to be interesting to see what the public's reaction is going to be as we start to realize how duped we have been.

h/t to Brutally Honest for the lead.

brutally honest report

A sign of the times is falling...

photo courtesy of accuweather
mid afternoon today

Heavy lake-effect snow hits Great Lakes states

CONSTABLEVILLE, N.Y. – A blast of cold wind spread snow along the Great Lakes from Michigan to New York on Monday, dumping 2 feet on this central New York town.

Snow doesn't usually fall this early in Constableville, librarian Dorothy Valenti said.

"Yesterday morning we had none. So it's quite a transition to go from no snow to all this. When you open the door, it's amazing," she said in a telephone interview. "It's strange to have a snow day before Thanksgiving."

Moisture from the lakes produced lake-effect snow on the eastern and southern shores of the lakes.

The deepest was in this snow-prone section of New York, where the National Weather Service said 24 inches had fallen at Constableville, at the east end of Lake Ontario on the Tug Hill Plateau. In western New York, moisture from Lake Erie had turned into 23 inches of snow by midmorning at Ellicottville, south of Buffalo.

In northwest Pennsylvania, Erie reported as much as 14 inches of snow Monday morning and several schools districts in the region closed or delayed classes.

Police reported numerous accidents on slippery roads in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.

The weather system producing the snow was moving toward the southeast, and a foot of snow was forecast in parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio on Tuesday.

It wasn't the first snowstorm this season in the Northeast. In late October, a storm spread just over a foot of snow over parts of northern New Jersey, northeast Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains and New York's Catskill Mountains, and heavy snow also fell at higher elevations of northern New England.

yahoo news report

Get ready folks for a cold winter...it is coming.

And, this from the National Weather Service

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
1027 AM EST MON NOV 17 2008

...FIRST SIGNIFICANT LAKE EFFECT SNOW STORM OF THE SEASON...

.MUCH COLDER AIR WILL CONTINUE TO SPREAD SOUTH ACROSS THE GREAT LAKES INTO TUESDAY. ONGOING LAKE EFFECT SNOW SQUALLS WILL CONTINUE TO EXPAND AND INTENSIFY ACROSS SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN AND NORTHERN INDIANA THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING WITH LOCALLY HEAVY SNOW EXPECTED TONIGHT AND TUESDAY. LAKE EFFECT SNOW SQUALLS WILL MAINLY AFFECT PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON WITH SEVERE RESTRICTIONS TO VISIBILITY TO NEAR ZERO...

NWS warning

Murdock is calling the hand of the arrogant MSM...exposing them for the elitist power mongers they would like to be...and calling the chickens that are coming home to roost for what they are...

Murdoch to media: You dug yourself a huge hole
Posted by Charles Cooper

With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers.

"My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it's not newspapers that might become obsolete. It's some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper's most precious asset: the bond with its readers," said Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp. He made his remarks as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Australian Broadcast Corporation.

Murdoch, whose company's holdings also include MySpace and the Wall Street Journal, criticized what he described as a culture of "complacency and condescension" in some newsrooms.

"The complacency stems from having enjoyed a monopoly--and now finding they have to compete for an audience they once took for granted. The condescension that many show their readers is an even bigger problem. It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product. Newspapers are no exception."

The 77-year-old Murdoch, recalling a long career in newspapers that began when his father's death forced him to take over the Adelaide News in 1952, said the profession has failed to creatively respond to changes wrought by technology.

"It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news-and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren't satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven't always responded well when the public calls them to account."

To make his point, Murdoch criticized the media reaction after bloggers debunked a "60 Minutes" report by former CBS anchor, Dan Rather, that President Bush had evaded service during his days in the National Guard.

"Far from celebrating this citizen journalism, the establishment media reacted defensively. During an appearance on Fox News, a CBS executive attacked the bloggers in a statement that will go down in the annals of arrogance. '60 Minutes,' he said, was a professional organization with 'multiple layers of checks and balances.' By contrast, he dismissed the blogger as 'a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.' But eventually it was the guys sitting in their pajamas who forced Mr. Rather and his producer to resign.

"Mr. Rather and his defenders are not alone," he continued. "A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let's be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves."...

cnet report

Fool me once...shame on you...fool me twice...shame on me.

We'll see who the "foolish" are in this.

I wake this morning to Rick's post via Michelle about a school girl attacked in Afghanistan...her crime being that she wants to go to school.



Afghan acid attack victim vows to continue schooling

RAFIQ MAQBOOL/AP, Nov 16, 2008 04:30 AM, Mohammad Aziz, Reuters News Agency

KABUL–A victim of an acid attack on schoolgirls in Afghanistan says she is determined to stay in school even if that means risking death.

The girl, who gave her name as just Shamsia, was the most seriously injured of a group of girls attacked outside their school by unidentified men in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday.

"I'll continue my schooling even if they try to kill me. I won't stop going to school," Shamsia said from her bed at a Kabul military hospital.

Shamsia, 17, suffered damage to one of her eyes when the men pulled off the girls' head scarves and threw acid in their faces...

origional report from Canada

And this follows my last report from Iraq.

We are dealing with a sub-human enemy is this war on terror. One day the ultimate solution is for the Muslim peoples of the world to decide that the madness of radical Islam has run it's course.

Until then...we will kill them...the radicals...and we will know the people at large have decided that enough is enough...when they turn on the radicals and expose them...regardless of their fears.

That is xtnyoda's prayer...for the likes of Shamsia...a real hero for humanity.

The terrorists are killing and targeting Christians in Iraq according to a high school student whose blog I follow. The student is a Muslim but has an obvious compassion for the Christian population there. I've noticed that there is no news about this targeting of Christians in the MSM...so I thought I would share a few paragraphs with you here from the post one day this past October...less than a month ago. I'll not post the blog site...to keep the students identity as secure as I can...one never knows...

...beside being busy with school, and homework, this week was really bad, the situation became unbearable, the terrorists killed many Christians, and bombed their houses for no reason but trying to separate us from each other (which won't happen, our hearts are with the Christians in Mosul, we are praying for them continuously), many families left their city, and went to country side, I am so worried about all Christians I know, my neighbors, teachers, and friends, my best friend in the whole world is Christian, I don't know what will happen to me if terrorists hurts her or her family, I hope she'll remain safe, I pray for her and all Iraqis every single day..

I can't imagine that my neighbors, friends, and teachers who taught me for years, in kindergarten, primary and secondary were forced to leave and that they are living in the villages or churches, I heard that my favorite teacher is living in the tent, with her family and kids who left school, such a respectful loving and caring woman who taught generations for over than 30 years shouldn't live in a tent and be treated this way, nor the other Christians ..

What...is...(my edit here) the government is waiting for? 2000 families left Mosul last week, the terrorists are everywhere killing and threatening innocent Iraqis who belong to different religions and casts...

We might add the Christians in Iraq to our prayers.

Climate Lies Part 2...part one below

EU facing revolt over climate change target enforcement

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Last Updated: 6:22PM BST 16 Oct 2008

The European Union is facing a revolt from poorer members over tough climate change targets at a time when the global economy is heading for recession.

Italy has teamed up with seven east and central European countries - Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia - to threaten a veto over Brussels legislation that implements an EU target to cut Europe's CO2 emissions 20 per cent by 2020.

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, attacked the target as an unnecessary burden on European businesses at a time when recession was intensifying international economic competition.

"I have announced my intention to exercise my veto," he said.

"We do not think that now is the time to be playing the role of Don Quixote, when the big producers of CO2, such as the United States or China, are totally against adherence to our targets."

As well as agreeing to cut CO2 emissions, the EU is trying to enforce a target requiring European countries to produce 20 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020...

climate revolt EU

Talk is talk...but when the governments actually get to the place their pandering to the "Climate Change" hoaxers becomes hard cash taxation...suddenly government better have something more than talk to point to...let alone the lies exposed in the previous article.

Al Gore and his gang of thieves and mind control mobsters better pay attention right now or...Al is going to look very, very foolish to the entire world.

Can that prize he won for the information in "An Inconvenient Truth" be rescinded and officially labeled as the hoax it is? Will Al give the prize money back? Will he do the honorable thing and confess that he is a power hungry idiot and ask forgiveness of the world? Or...Al...would that be a little too...inconvenient?

xtnyoda, shalomed

The lies are catching up with them.

The world has never seen such freezing heat
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/11/2008

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

A sudden cold snap brought snow to London in October
This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

unfolding blatant lies

So..."Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures..." has been cooking the books on Global Warming? Now...isn't that a surprise?

And to all you folks who have been and are being hoodwinked...it's time to wake up and call this incredible myth of credibility to account for the lies and misinformation.

And...don't let them try to plead ignorance...the information has been coming down for several years now...years...they knew.

Get ready for the old "end-around" game...take the money and run!

Like Grand-pa said..."You can fool all the people some of the time...some of the people all the time...but you can't fool all the people all the time."

Hey Al...time's up.

xtnyoda, shalomed

A group of our "society heavyweights" have awarded a well meaning person a wish...and that wish is to start a website, and hopefully a world wide movement to do away with hatred and war through following the "golden rule" of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you...

The Charter for Compassion project...springs from a "wish" granted this year to religious scholar Karen Armstrong at a premier Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in California.

"Tedizens" include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin along with other Internet icons as well as celebrities such as Forest Whittaker and Cameron Diaz.

Wishes granted at TED envision ways to better the world and come with a promise that Tedizens will lend their clout and capabilities to making them come true.

Armstrong's wish is to combine universal principles of respect and compassion into a charter based on a "golden rule" she believes is at the core of every major religion.

The Golden Rule essentially calls on people to do unto others as they would have done unto them.

"The chief task of our time is to build a global society where people of all persuasions can live together in peace and harmony," Armstrong said....

article

...so some reflections on this and other such efforts...

Help us create a Charter for Compassion

People of all nations, all faiths, all backgrounds, are invited to contribute.

By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you'd like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion.

Charter for Compassion home page

The late John Lennon thought the way to peace was to do away with all religion...and nations...and possessions...

Imagine by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

Yoko Ono has a peace pleading web site that by far predates this current effort by our media elite.

Yoko's site

It is pretty normal for humans to desire peace and tranquility...but some humans are simply sick psychopaths bent on mayhem...and there are, unfortunately, a great number of humans who just can't figure this out.

Before God does whatever God is going to do to wrap this thing up...there is going to remain the sword. One can try to "imagine" it away...or one can attempt to "charter/legislate" it away...and what one will always end up with is a lot of deflated hopes and disappointed expectations.

One cannot imagine away, nor charter away hatred.

The only real hope for the world is Jesus because only Jesus can transform the human heart.

Take a glimpse at all the rage and hatred...then take it to the foot of the cross...and ourselves also...then take a deep breath and stand up against tyranny...regardless the cost.

Tyranny knows no boundary nor appeasement nor solace...but...must bow in the face of free men and women willing to pay all for their freedom...this is the legacy left us by Christ.

The rest is just talk.

xtnyoda, shalomed

The previous post about a lady was pretty sad...so how about a great achievement by a lady?!!!






Dunwoody becomes first female four-star general

WASHINGTON (AP) - Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.

At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform, said it was a credit to the Army—and a great surprise to her—that she would make history in a male-dominated military.

"Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding," she told a standing-room-only auditorium. "Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.

"It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession," she added. "So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?' I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.'...

AP report

My salute to General Dunwoody for a life well done.

I've always said that if one needs to get something done...put a lady in charge!

Just repulsive...the "reporting"

Barbara Walters Exclusive: Pregnant Man Expecting Second Child

Thomas Beatie, the controversial "pregnant man" who gave birth to a daughter earlier this year, reveals to Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview that he is pregnant again with his second child.

Thomas Beatie, a transgender, welcomed a baby girl, Susan, June 29. Since sharing the story of Susan's birth with ABC News, he and his wife, Nancy Beatie, hadn't spoken to the media until they sat down last month with Walters.

Thomas Beatie, who is in his first trimester, tells Walters he did not go back on the male hormone testosterone after Susan's birth so he could have another baby.

"I feel good," he said. "I had my checkups with my hormone level, as far as the HCG. And everything is right on track..."

abc conflab

Thomas Beatie is not a "man"...Thomas Beatie is a mutilated woman. She was born a woman, grew up a woman, and for her own reasons has paid to have her body mutilated and filled with hormones to attempt to "look" like a man...but make no mistake about it...she is a she.

The MSM is desperately deceptive in their attempt to make this into some kind of...human interest story about a "transgendered" human. Thomas was not a "transgendered" person by birth, and obviously still is a woman of child bearing capability.

EDIT:
She say's in the interview that she longed to have a child and that desire she stresses is a "human" desire...now that is truly trying to blur the gender lines...the "longing" to conceive and carry and deliver a child is a "female" desire, not a "man" desire. Dear lady, you are a female through and through...even your emotions are those of a precious lady. It will take more than surgery to change your heart.

God...bless her heart...and her children.

SM Lockridge is one of our last centuries greatest preachers...make no mistake about it. I've had the privilege of hearing him twice live...I have been blessed!

Give this great one...used of God...four minutes.

Hats off to Rick at Brutally Honest for the heads-up!

Post-Veteran's Day

I always dread Veteran's Day somewhat...not totally...but somewhat...and here's why.

I am a combat veteran of Viet Nam. Not to disparage those who have never served in the military nor those who did serve and aren't combat vets...but I think there is a peculiar solemnity to the celebrations on Veteran's Day by those who have served in combat.

We all owe our lives to someone who died in our place, and that not a phrase...but the ones who died have a face and a name in our memories.

On April 19, 1971, on a combat mission as a door gunner on a marine helicopter we were suddenly and rather dramatically shot down. The details of that are not important other than we were shot down and by the grace of God and some heroic actions by fellow marines we were rescued, the dead, the wounded, and the rest of us were rescued.

After arriving back at our base those of us that could went through debriefing. After debriefing we had some lunch then back to work on the flight line...but we were not allowed to fly the rest of the day for obvious reasons.

Anyway, I was scheduled to fly another mission that afternoon, and since I was grounded for the rest of the day another marine took my place. It was one of my best friends, George V.

George and two other marines died on that mission.

I struggled for years knowing that George died where I was scheduled to die. My only consolation came a few years later when I decided that I needed to live my life for some worthy purpose since I lived...and I decided that I needed to live in such a way that George's death would not have been in vain...in a way I live two lives...mine and George's. That became my only comfort at having lived.

I'm really glad we have a national Veteran's Day celebration, but for combat vets whose friends died and thus we lived...every day is Veteran's Day. There is literally not a day that goes by that I do not remember...

I'm reminded of this passage from Romans 5:7, "For one will scarcely die for a righteous person...though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die..." (ESV)

Of course Paul is pointing out how great Christ's and God's love for us is in that Jesus died for us even though we were not his best friend...nor were we all that "good" that he should die for us. Paul is pointing to the greatness of Jesus.

George died in my place...and I have never, nor will I ever get over that fact. Now, George didn't choose to die for me, nor did he die because I was that "good" that he would die in my place...but he did die where I was scheduled to die...

Would that we all could get a sense of the reality of Christ dying in our stead...then every day would be a "Spiritual Veteran's Day"...God's people living with the acute awareness that we live for two people...ourselves and Christ.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Following is a video from CBS news that demonstrates the depravity of freedom's current great enemy, radical Islam. Be warned, you will actually see a teenager radicalized by the militants kill himself and some of our coalition forces to the cheers of his despicable handlers. Their video.



So...you going to negotiate with...this?

No...you kill them.

A story for Veteran's Day, November 11, 2008






Acevedo diary from CNN article

LOMA LINDA, California (CNN) -- Anthony Acevedo thumbs through the worn, yellowed pages of his diary emblazoned with the words "A Wartime Log" on its cover. It's a catalog of deaths and atrocities he says were carried out on U.S. soldiers held by Nazis at a slave labor camp during World War II -- a largely forgotten legacy of the war.

Anthony Acevedo served as a medic during World War II. He was captured and sent into a Nazi forced labor camp.

Acevedo pauses when he comes across a soldier with the last name of Vogel.

"He died in my arms. He wouldn't eat. He didn't want to eat," says Acevedo, now 84 years old. "He said, 'I want to die! I want to die! I want to die!' "

The memories are still fresh, some 60 years later. Acevedo keeps reading his entries, scrawled on the pages with a Schaeffer fountain pen he held dear.

He was one of 350 U.S. soldiers held at Berga an der Elster, a satellite camp of the Nazis' notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. The soldiers, working 12-hour days, were used by the German army to dig tunnels and hide equipment in the final weeks of the war. Less than half of the soldiers survived their captivity and a subsequent death march, he says.

Acevedo shows few emotions as he scans the pages of his diary. But when he gets to one of his final entries, the decades of pent-up pain, the horror witnessed by a 20-year-old medic, are too much.

"We were liberated today, April the 23, 1945," he reads.

His body shakes, and he begins sobbing. "Sorry," he says, tears rolling down his face. "I'm sorry."...

CNN story with video

Lest we forget.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Our sacred oath:

I, (name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Happy 233rd birthday Marines...

And, how about a little Marine humor?

The Aisle Seat

Two Radical Arab Terrorists boarded a flight out of London . One took a window seat and the other sat next to him in the middle seat... Just before takeoff, a U.S. Marine sat down in the aisle seat...

After takeoff, the Marine kicked his shoes off, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Arab in the window seat said, 'I need to get up and get a coke.' 'Don't get up,' said the Marine, 'I'm in the aisle seat, 'I'll get it for you.'

As soon as he left, one of the Arabs picked up the Marines shoe and spat in it. When the Marine returned with the coke, the other Arab said, 'That looks good, I'd really like one, too.' Again, the Marine obligingly went to fetch it. While he was gone the other Arab picked up the Marines other shoe and spat in it. When the Marine returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight.

As the plane was landing, the Marine slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened. He leaned over and asked his Arab neighbors... 'Why does it have to be this way?' 'How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and peeing in cokes?'

THE FEW. THE PROUD. THE MARINES

Semper Fi...and, God Bless America.

UK's Brown: Now is the time to build global society

LONDON (Reuters) - The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.

In his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Brown -- who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions -- will say Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," an excerpt from the speech says.

Brown and other leaders meet in Washington next weekend to discuss longer term solutions for dealing with economic issues following a series of coordinated moves on interest rates and to recapitalize banks in the wake of the financial crisis.

"Uniquely in this global age, it is now in our power to come together so that 2008 is remembered not just for the failure of a financial crash that engulfed the world but for the resilience and optimism with which we faced the storm, endured it and prevailed," Brown will say in his speech on Monday evening.

"...And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society."...

From the UK

As much as I hate to say it...this talk is becoming just a little troublesome.

We already see how the close world we live in caused by access to rapid transportation and instant communication gives great ease of access to expressions of hatred such as terrorism, war, and genocide.

Now we are to celebrate the thought of bringing our hatreds even closer together through some imagined economic unity, that implies of course some governing unity...

I'm remembering Robert Frost today, "good fences make good neighbors" and I think his counsel is still valid...perhaps more so than ever.

Elect Obama talking to world leaders by phone report from yahoo news...notice the words, "climate change."

...The financial crisis, the Afghanistan war, climate change and the North Korean and Iranian nuclear crises dominated the talks, according to accounts from the various capitals....

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that he and Obama discussed "our resolve to act together on dealing on the global financial crisis and also working closely together on the great challenge of climate change."

Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to work "closely" on Iran's disputed nuclear programme, Afghanistan, climate change and the financial crisis, her government said.

Reforming the financial system also featured strongly in Obama's talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and a 10-minute telephone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, their spokesmen said.

Aso also raised Afghanistan, climate change and North Korea, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

yahoo news

When you read "climate change" what you are actually reading is an attempt to unjustly tax the working people of our world...to tax them into submission.

This is "hope and change." It's not taking long to see the direction we are headed.

Put on your seat belts...it looks like it is going to be a bumpy ride.