This is a reproduction of the 9th century set found in Nishapur, Persia (now Iran).
The recent saga unfolding in Georgia is but the latest move in a chess game that has been going on for many years. As you recall, Russia has defacto agreed to back Iran if tensions ratchet up to a point of nuclear hostility. By Russia warning Poland last week that its missile defense agreement with the US and western Europe could very well bring on a nuclear response from the Bear, the possibility of Russia stepping in to the current Israeli-Iranian saber rattling is more likely.
Because we have publicly cited Iran as our primary reason for deploying missile defense systems in Poland, it is by implication possible to believe that Poland could launch an attack on Iran, either as a response to a nuclear attack from Iran, or as a pre-emptive strike.
With Russia already eager to retaliate with Poland, an Israeli attack on Iran could easily escalate to a Russian attack on Polland.
Given the knowledge that one of the key ingredients of a nuclear bomb is enriched plutonium. The process to create enriched plutonium is long and complicated, but ep happens to be one of the by-products of nuclear power plants. If a country has nuclear power plants, it has one of the precious ingredients needed to arm a nuclear bomb.
Russia is helping Tehran build Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr, which will be ready to go online later this year. An Iranian flag is seen outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The United States on Friday set a weekend deadline for Iran to answer an international offer to freeze its nuclear drive and warned of new sanctions if it rejects the package.
Iran has already touted their desire to be a nuclear player in recent years. The West has reacted with alarm and caution, as Tehran has made explicit calls for the eradication of Israel in the last few years, and the destabilization of the Middle East. As a belligerent nation with a death pledge towards another country, the world community has roundly criticized Iran for beginning a nuclear program.
Besides having Russia to back their nuclear aims, Iran wages proxy wars with Israel regularly through regional attacks from Hezbollah and Hamas. These low-level attacks provoke Israel into constant bouts of respond-or-don't-respond, weakening their standing in the Middle East and with many anti-Semetic nations around the world.
The links of Iran to Hamas and Hezbollah can be seen here. They depend on the willing cooperation of Syria.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with Ahmadenijad.
Today, Iran announced that they will build many more nuclear power plants (source). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (centre) and unidentified officials are pictured at a space station at an undisclosed location in Iran on August 16. Iran has said that a home-built rocket sent into space in a move that triggered US concern over possible military use will be able to take a satellite into low orbit around the earth.
Even Kadhafi has seen the light enough to warn Iran of it's missteps.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi is pictured after he received an honorary doctorate during a ceremony held at INSAT university in Tunis. Kadhafi on Tuesday warned "arrogant" Iran that it faces military humiliation on the scale of Iraq for its refusal to respond to western powers over a nuclear impasse.
What is our response?
The U.S. response has been to avoid dire warnings of dangerous Israeli attacks, while instead showing support for non-violent solutions, such as economic sanctions and political pressure on Iran.
Washington believes economic and political pressure are the best ways to dissuade Iran from seeking atomic weapons, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday, following an appeal by Israel's defense minister to keep "all options" on the table. The comments followed a closely held meeting at the Pentagon Monday between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
This policy of the US means that candidate Obama has got to seek out something different to define himself with, so he undermines the nonviolent method of sanctions and political pressure, to instead warn Iran of Israel's plans to bomb them. (source)
Barrack reassured Israel that "America must always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself against those who threaten its people". He needs to court them. Israel seems quite anxious about a President Obama. Very uncertain, in need of his special attention.
Presumptive US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama, seen here on July 28, 2008, believes Israel will launch a military strike on Iran if nuclear sanctions fail, ABC News reported Wednesday.
Pakistani President Musharraf has resigned from his post in order to avoid impeachment. Largely seen as a secular Muslim when he seized power in 1999, Musharraf's rule has been fraught with turbulence in a nation that regularly assassinates its leaders.
Candidate George W. Bush was asked about this new leader on the campaign trail in 2000, and even though he could hardly pronounce Musharraf's name or explain the significance of Pakistan's military coup, the two leaders would become very close for the next eight years.
President Musharraf has won re-election, survived at least 2 assassination attempts, and prevented Pakistan from cascading even deeper into a theocracy...yet he is so threatened today that he must flee in exile after resigning. Here is a timeline of his tenure as President.
The Chicoms have been working hard for at least a year, now, to scrub clean Beijing of all its pollution. They have established a perimeter around the city which is reported to be free of air contaminants, water-born toxins, and even cigarette smoke.
China has been making sure that it presents a modern face to the world community during these weeks of Olympic attention. But, to the south in China, we see that things are churning along as normal: the Chinese communists have confiscated 300 bibles from a small group of Christian missionaries who just flew into Kunming, China yesterday. (source)
Were the Chinese language bibles containing subversive rhetoric meant to incite the Chinese into overthrowing their government? Hardly.
But for communists, it doesn’t matter. (read about China’s persecution of Christians here.) The book itself represents competition for the hearts and minds of its people. This is the communist way, as practiced in the U.S.S.R. and North Korea. “Religion is the opiate of the masses”, and all that. In fact, the only places you can find this hate of Christianity is in leftist circles, where trust-fund babies sit and mock the commoners and their superstitious ways.
But the will of the people is a deep well that’s source the State can never obliterate. There are many stories of Russians who kept pictures of Jesus Christ hidden beneath the state-mandated pictures of Stalin on their walls. Try as they might, darkness lost to Light. Score Christ 1, U.S.S.R. 0.
The condition for Christians in China is perilous, just as it was for John Birch 70 years ago. But, because of their passion and faith, the missionaries in the East are as important to China as Pope John Paul II was to Poland.
Ukraine said it was ready to give both Europe and America access to its missile warning systems after Russia earlier annulled a 1992 cooperation agreement involving two satellite tracking stations. Previously, the stations were part of Russia's early-warning system for missiles coming from Europe. -- Telegraph of UK, source
As Europe quietly tenses up in reaction to Russia's power grab in Georgia this past week, we have seen two notable responses: Ukraine and Poland. Both have emerged from what must have been an almost paralysis of fear, to join in partnership with the US, and the rest of free Europe against the early intimidation of Russia.
These two enter agreements with the West at great peril. Russia immediately answered these developments with a belicose pledge to place Poland on it's list for retaliation, even nuclear. We must remember WWII, where Poland was promised support against Hitler, then nothing came their way as Poland fell in weeks.
BEIJING - AUGUST 16: Erinn Smart (L) of the United States competes against Victoria Nikichina of Russia in the Women's Team Foil Gold Medal Match at the Fencing Hall on Day 8 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 16, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
This past week should have given all Americans reason for pause. As we watch the Olympics, hibernate from high gas prices, and drink beer, there is a quickening of events taking place in Europe. This is rapidly developing into something that will deserve great leadership for many years to come. We are seeing the return of the U.S.S.R. in the Georgian mountains, Poland, and the Ukraine. There are many analysts who will tell you that they never really went away in 1992.
Only regrouping for the next century.
In a way, it seems refreshing to enter battle again with an old nemesis, far different, and, dare I say, more respectable than the sinister bedouins we've been fighting since the Soviet Bear entered its hibernation. At least Russia (mostly) wears it's uniforms, lives in designated camps separate from it's civilians, and doesn't run and hide behind it's boys and women. No, this foe has a bit more dignity and evolution than the tribal goats we chase, currently.
See, we're used to fighting people like the communists, who present us with a sobering reality: instant destruction via nuclear holocaust. Both we and the Russians could turn this world upside down, if we were so unreasonable. So fanatical. But we don't do that. Yet. I can't say the same for the current jackals we hunt down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and various other places in in the world, today.
If they had the tools of destruction to the degree we do, what fool doesn't believe that these jihad-driven, brainwashed, mutants would have unleashed them on the infidels long ago?
For the past 18 months, Poland and America have been in stalled negotiations. We want to place missile interceptors in their country, for defense against any rogue states (like Iran), that may launch an airborne attack against them. Poland has been dragging their feet on allowing us to spend our money and hardware for their sake, because of fear about how this may be perceived by Russia. Their fear is understandable, as the Kremlin feels this protection is aimed at Russia’s missile force, and warns it will worsen tensions.
This is just one of the reasons that these former Soviet bloc nations still live under a cloak of fear of their communist oppressor.
Finally, though, Poland gave way to allow us to install these defense systems in their country, in an agreement signed with the U.S. yesterday. Do you think the Russian vacation in Georgia this week had anything to do with it?
"We have crossed the Rubicon," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. It is a big deal to Poland, of course. Russia doesn’t play around with other countries.
Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said today that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes Poland to an attack, possibly even a nuclear one. If you doubt the gravity of this situation, I advise you to spend some time reading up on this site.
"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.
He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them." Nogovitsyn said that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, according to Interfax.
It didn’t take too long, eh? I was wondering how long it would be until the nervous little bedwetters in our country start their smug nattering about whether or not America has the authority to criticize Russia for its invasion and slaughter of Georgia. For liberal cartoonists like Oliphant, Toles, and Rall, there is no shred of patriotism as common Americans define it. They are the type who have never worn the uniform, but are sure they know how to criticize those of us who have. When the chips are down, and America has its back to the wall, it is the cowards who throw stones at the men who do the fighting. Does America really deserve to be slandered like this?
Honestly, I don’t feel as if President Bush needs to be defended for criticizing Medvedev, Putin, and Russia, for their imperialistic invasion of Georgia, but, for the faint of heart in our country, allow me to remind you: Russia’s pattern of behavior for the past 100 years should scare every moral judge who dares to read their history. They have rolled their tanks into innocent countries whose only crime was to resist the godless communism that Russia wanted to inflict on them. When America sends its good men and women into a country, it’s to help liberate their people. Just because you’re too lazy to study American history, compared to Russia’s, doesn’t mean that everything is the same in this world.
Iraq started their reign of terror over thirty years ago, when Saddam Hussein rose to power. As a Sunni, he savaged the Shi’a and Kurds in Iraq, feeding innocent people into wood chippers (while alive), raped and indiscriminately killed hundreds of thousands of his people, a’la Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. We only started our “brutal, stupid, war” with them in 1990, after Saddam turned his murderous gaze outside his own country, towards Kuwait. Since then, Iraq has defied UN resolutions 16 times, fired on our men in no-fly zones, attempted to assassinate one of our presidents, and supported Islamic suicide bombers throughout the world.
Now, when you can find a similar example that Georgia has committed against Russia or the world, then maybe there would be an argument to make. Until then, we patriotic Americans shake our heads in shame at the Oliphant’s of this great nation.
Now that Russia has claimed to observe a cease-fire with Georgia as they drop rounds and keep up suppressing fire on their civilians, the time has come for the Bear to stage their next step: the Ukraine. See, Russia is not only trying to seize control of all major fuel sources on the continent(s), they are also trying to reassert their empire in the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. One problem: Many of them want to be in NATO. Namely, Georgia and Ukraine. Their admission into NATO has been stalled for various reasons, but the relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe is getting more tense. International analysts are warning of a possible intimidation from Russia towards Ukraine, now that the Georgian people have been slaughtered and are terrified under the military control of Russian President Medvedev in their fractured sovereign nation. To refresh our memories, this is the handiwork that Russia (Putin) has already committed in Ukraine:
This is the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko. If you recall, during their Orange Revolution in late 2004, the Ukrainians chose the side of light in a high-profile run-off election. The choice was between Viktor Yushchenko and Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovych, and in true Soviet style, the game pieces on the chessboard were moved while the opponent wasn’t looking. Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin before the elections and very nearly killed by the Russians, according to him, and foreign policy experts from the Ukraine and around the world. It is a miracle that he survived, but it looks like the Bear is mounting its final blow. For world politics enthusiasts, here are a couple of maps that may come in handy in the next few weeks:
Highlighting Ukrainian places of interest that Russia may be targeting soon:
For the past four days, the nation of Georgia has been pummeled by a Russian reaction that has left at least 2,000 people dead, many more wounded and displaced. Early reports are that despite the long-brewing clashes between ethnic Russians living in Southern Ossetia and the rest of the Georgian population, (where the fighting has been limited to small arms skirmishes for the past two years), the Russians decided that the global timing was right to mount a prolonged incursion into Georgia, using as an excuse one of the many random instances of Russian military forces claiming they needed to intervene to protect the beleagured renegade enclave. [and that "enclave" is a sizeable population of agitated citizens who often shoot weapons at the Georgian police, army]
Is this the same declaration of authority that Stalin and Kruschev showed in Eastern Europe? As Prime Minister Putin flexes his muscle through the proxy of his hand-picked sucessor, President Dmitry Medvedev, is the Iron Curtain far behind? Time will tell. One thing is sure: the Soviet Bear still lives.
I wonder if President Bush is seeing into his soul at this point:
With Soviet era-like grip, the BTC Pipeline (BP operated) is attacked in Georgia: Read about it here. The article highlights the fact that the BTC pipe is the only major pipeline for Central Asian resources in the Eastern European region not under Russian control.
But wait! I thought that Russia was only bombing civilians in an effort to protect those renegade enclaves? You can read the Pravda-like party line recited in this official-sounding blog, called russianblog.org, then see for yourself: the pipeline barely skirts into southern Georgia, yet the premise for this entire "intervention" was a humanitarian rescue effort involving the northern region of South Ossetia. Uri has been drinking too much vodka if he expects me to believe that Russia and Putin are galloping into Georgia for the sake of some villagers.
Russia's new attempt at empire may be less built on the 20th-century practice of land grab, and more on the consolidation of an ever-increasingly precious commodity: fuel. Just last year then-President Putin repeated his claim of north pole territory that, according to the UN, is international.
In fact, let's take a look at the citizens caught in the crosshairs of the Russian peacekeepers in Georgia for the past four days:
Shall I call the UN to deal with this, or will you?
Well, Vince from Sham Wow is quite a spokesman. This skinny, meth addict-ish squirell just twists and twists his way into history. He wore a headset while being filmed for his national spot, but I hardly think he'll have to continue on the phone bank crew for very long. He's famous now. Goodbye cheap headset, polo t-shirt, and eye-twitch. It's time to realize your glory.
Much like Obama. I mean, before last year, who really knew anything about him? His star has risen quickly. From his own books we know that he was raised for five years in Indonesia at a parochial school dominated by Islamic teachings. Some refer to it as a madrassa. However, the Obama camp is quick to refuse to call it that, as Barrack says that the academy allowed some students of different faiths to attend. We also know that he spent 5 more years in Hawaii. The private school he was admitted into is reportedly attained at an annual fee of $20,000. Read on to see a confirmation from the savvy, trusted buster of urban legends, lies, rumors, and untruths, we know of as Snopes.
Of his first father, we know this from Snopes: "[My father] was as African, I would learn, a Kenyan of the Luo tribe, born on the shores of Lake Victoria in a place called Alego. The village was poor, but his father, my other grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama; had been a prominent farmer, an elder of the tribe, a medicine man with healing powers. My father grew up herding his father's goats and attending the local school, set up by the British colonial administration, where he had shown great promise. He eventually won a scholarship to study in Nairobi; and then, on the eve of Kenyan independence, he had been selected by Kenyan leaders and American sponsors to attend a university in the United States." Obama has written (and spoken) at length about his father's returning to Africa from America to work for the Kenyan government, with that country's political turmoil eventually leaving him a "bitter drunk" and "a defeated, lonely bureaucrat."
Of his mother, we know this from Snopes: "For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.This isn't to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world's great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part. Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways — and not necessarily the best way — that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist she would become; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well."
From Snopes, we know this: "Barack Obama's parents separated when he was two years old, his father moving to Connecticut to continue his education before returning to Kenya. When the younger Obama was six years old, his mother married again, this time to Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager. Barack and his mother moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama spent 4-5 years attending both Muslim and Catholic schools before his mother sent him back to the United States to live with his maternal grandmother. The school Barack Obama attended in Indonesia was "Muslim" primarily in the sense that the preponderance of its student body was Muslim (because Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country), but both the Muslim and Catholic schools he attended in Indonesia offered a few hours of religious instruction each week.In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia; not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances: "During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables."
Isn't it curious how much the author tries to assure the reader that attending these religious schools was by no means a testament that he received any religious instruction of any sort? Quite the opposite, in fact: his mother, a rebel in herself, after purposely avoiding any American, nay, Western choice for fathering her child, chooses to pay a lot of money to have her son attend not a secular academy or prepatory school befitting of someone who wouldn't take to receiving religious indoctrination, but these self-described schools of religious indoctrination indeed.What's interesting about Snopes, however, is how earnest they seem to be at disputing the notion that Obama IS a Muslim. I've been hearing for many months, now, about how ridiculous it is to think that he is a Muslim.
I really don't care as much about a person's faith if they're upfront about it, but the more I'm implored to NEVER believe something, I become a bit suspicious. When I read a supposedly bona fide rumor-busting source on these subjects such as Snopes, though, I expect to see unassailable sources in order to back up their claims.
I loose faith in Snopes when I see this: "Claim: Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical. [Snopes response] Barack Obama never stated that he "was once a Muslim" (radical or otherwise), so his "handlers" have nothing to "conceal." Obama communications director Robert Gibbs noted that "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim. As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism." Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition."[end Snopes explanation]"
And that is that? Snopes "debunks" a myth by asking a campaign public relations specialist whether it's true or not?
To further buttress their contention, Snopes turns to these unbiased news organizations: CNN and AP: "Claim: Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. [Snopes response] The claim that Obama attended a radical Wahabbist school in Indonesia in the mid-1960s is exceedingly far-fetched, given that: The large Indonesian community resident in Mecca was a medium through which knowledge about Wahhabism reached Indonesia, but the community itself appears to have remained virtually immune to Wahhabi influences. In reality there was little direct influence of Wahhabism on Indonesian reformist thought until the 1970s.
So Snopes is satisfied that elements of dangerous, radical belief didn't waft through the halls of a mainly-Islamic school in Indonesia because A) philosophy books written in Indonesian reformist thought don't reflect a violent, jihad-centered movement's credo; and B) things in Indonesia APPEAR to be immune to Wahabiism! Move on, folks, no story here! It's "far-fetched" to look beneath the surface of philosophy tracts and magazines. Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, has over 8,300,000 people in it alone, a literacy rate over age 15 at 64%, with a religious breakdown at 77% Muslim, the rest a showing of Hindu and Christian, with only a scant 1.9% claiming to be nonreligious, so don't fault me if the authors of Snopes' claim that by their estimation, as Westerners who may or may not know this massive city's many layers, there doesn't APPEAR to be any influence of a brotherhood that has moved silently in the shadows of the Middle East for hundreds of years.
[Snopes admits] "Insight magazine claimed in a January 2007 article that Barack Obama spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a "Muslim seminary" in Indonesia, but CNN has more recently reported that its own investigation found those claims to be false: [R]eporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.
This should feel "odd", already, to the careful student of politics. Before I examine the naive notion that the leaders of this school, Basuki, wouldn't have quickly "adjusted" the appearances of this school for the famous visitors from CNN, I must voice my concern for unbiased reporting from CNN. I don't trust CNN because of a few things, among them being Ted Turner himself, and his outspoken attitude of America.
One of the other reasons is because of the fact that CNN and the New York Times were the only two American news companies to remain in Iraq after the first Gulf War. See, even though we won that war, we allowed Saddam to stay in place as a ruler. One of his privileges as supreme ruler of Iraq was the ability to censor all media video and script before it was to be broadcast or printed. When CBS, ABC, NBC, Reuters, AP, UPI, etc learned that they would have to submit all copy from their Iraq beaureau's to Saddam himself, they rightly opted to leave the country, citing journalistic integrity issues. They, of course, were used to an American way of looking at the news.
However, two American "journalist" firms allowed this relationship with the monster Saddam Hussein to exist. For 12 long years, the New York Times and CNN submitted all information coming out of their offices to Saddam before printing or airing. Any attempt to "uncover the truth" by these two organizations known as CNN and NYT should be met with high suspiscion from the beginning.
[Snopes continues] "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.
Well, case closed, then! I mean, if the teachers were in slacks and Oxford shirts, there MUST be no story, here! Deep investigative methods at CNN allow them to conclude what's in a student's heart by watching them play at recess. I feel relieved! :-)
[Snopes quotes] "I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the 'Situation Room.' "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."
Ok, we'll just take your unbiased word for it. Thanks for flying over there to Jakarta to clear this up for us.
[Snopes continues] "Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto [real hardcore investigative journalism at work, here, to find someone who is probably all too happy to paint an innocent picture for the famous news agency], who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it." "It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."
I regret to remind the weary reader that these same Western reporters never bother to parse denominations, seemingly mollifying the oppressive qualities of Islam here in this story, when they report on Christianity. We never hear about Eric Rudolph, who shot an abortion doctor, about which particular twisted, insane sect or version of the Bible he followed, but only that he was a "Christian activist".
[Snopes] "The Associated Press reported similarly [surprise]:A spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said claims that Obama studied at an Islamic school are groundless."SDN Menteng 1 is a public primary school that is open to people of all faiths," said the spokesman, Sutopo, who goes by only one name." [One name, eh? How reassuring for a high official]
[Snopes] "Moreover, he studied earlier at Fransiskus Assisi, which is clearly a Catholic school."Obama later transferred to SDN Menteng 1 the elite, secular elementary school at the center of the controversy. The school is public but is very competitive and has exceptionally high standards. It is located in one of the most affluent parts of Jakarta and attracts mostly middle- to upper-class students, among them several of former dictator Suharto's grandchildren.Indonesia is home to several of the most radical Islamic schools in Southeast Asia, some with alleged terrorist links. But Akmad Solichin, the vice principal at SDN, who proudly pointed to a photo of a young Barry Obama, as he was known, said his school is not one of them.
No story here, just move on. Don't even think about tracing the lives of a wide sampling of past graduates from this school, or anything complicated like that.
[Snopes]"Moreover, [this press release] by the Obama campaign affirmed that." [Ah, I see. A politician's campaign website is to always be trusted.]
[Snopes] "In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for "at least four years" in an Indonesian "Madrassa". The article says the "sources" believe the Madrassa was "espousing Wahhabism," a form of radical Islam.All of the claims about Senator Obama's faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama's stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school. To be clear [because we just want to pound it into your brain], Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa."
So quit asking, allright? It's not like this is a rumor about, say, a *gasp* Republican, who may have gone AWOL from a national gaurd drill weekend 30 years ago. No, that deserves the press' devotion and tireless search for the truth. CBS didn't stop in 2004 when the Bush campaign told them there was no proof of official accusation of going AWOL from his or any gaurd unit when he was serving his time for America. Dan Rather researched and dug DEEP to discover the document which "proved" the truth in that case.
Here, though, in 2008, in the case of Barrack Hussein Obama, campaign spokesmen carry a lot more weight, or water, as the Sham Master Vince might show us.
Just your average Zen Baptist, admitting upfront to being a (mostly) reconstructed hillbilly.
If you can't understand the attitude or perspective I come from, it's safe to say that we're from different realities.
If you can't start off the conversation with a respectful question about how/why I came to the particular perspective I did, and then find some way that you can relate to it, then I don't have any time to entertain your issues.
Give respect, get respect.
Stella Lefty’s Personality Vacuum
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
Website - http://twoshacks.com.
From: joecartoondotcom
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This is a reproduction of the 9th century set found in Nishapur, Persia (now Iran). 
An Iranian flag is seen outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The United States on Friday set a weekend deadline for Iran to answer an international offer to freeze its nuclear drive and warned of new sanctions if it rejects the package.
+shakes+hands+with+Iranian+President+Mahmoud+Ahmadinejad+(R)+after+a+joint+press+conference+in+Tehran.jpg)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (centre) and unidentified officials are pictured at a space station at an undisclosed location in Iran on August 16. Iran has said that a home-built rocket sent into space in a move that triggered US concern over possible military use will be able to take a satellite into low orbit around the earth.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi is pictured after he received an honorary doctorate during a ceremony held at INSAT university in Tunis. Kadhafi on Tuesday warned "arrogant" Iran that it faces military humiliation on the scale of Iraq for its refusal to respond to western powers over a nuclear impasse. 
Washington believes economic and political pressure are the best ways to dissuade Iran from seeking atomic weapons, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday, following an appeal by Israel's defense minister to keep "all options" on the table. The comments followed a closely held meeting at the Pentagon Monday between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Presumptive US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama, seen here on July 28, 2008, believes Israel will launch a military strike on Iran if nuclear sanctions fail, ABC News reported Wednesday.
Obama with former Israeli PM Shimon Peres. 
Pakistani President Musharraf has resigned from his post in order to avoid 
