Isaiah 49: 5-6—And now says Yahweh, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of Yahweh, and My God is My strength), He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Old Posts

Shalu shalom Yerushalayim: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. (Psalm 122: 6)

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“For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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Scripture of the day:

Isaiah 49: 5-6—And now says Yahweh, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of Yahweh, and My God is My strength), He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

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“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4: 6)

News Items of Interest:

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Israeli Uncensored News

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“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” (Anonymous)

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A FEW weeks ago, an asteroid almost 30 feet across and zipping along at 38,000 miles per hour flew 28,000 miles above Singapore. Why, you might reasonably ask, should non-astronomy buffs care about a near miss from such a tiny rock? Well, I can give you one very good reason: asteroids don’t always miss. If even a relatively little object was to strike a city, millions of people could be wiped out.

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When times get tough, it’s really important to believe in yourself. This is something the Democrats have done splendidly this year. The polls have been terrible, and the party may be heading for a historic defeat, but Democrats have done a magnificent job of maintaining their own self-esteem. This is vital, because even if the public doesn’t approve of you, it is important to approve of yourself.

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If you had a leak in your roof or in the kitchen or basement, you’d probably think it a good idea to have it taken care of before matters got worse, and more expensive.

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The mortgage mess just keeps getting messier. Last week, Bank of America announced that it had performed a “thorough review” of its processes, found nothing amiss and would soon restart 102,000 pending foreclosures. On Sunday, the bank acknowledged that it had in fact found errors in its filings, and would resume foreclosures only in a deliberate manner as new and corrected paperwork was submitted to the courts.

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A few weeks ago, the Cardozo School of Law mounted a conference marking the 20th anniversary of Employment Division v. Smith (1990), a case in which the Supreme Court asked what happens when a form of behavior demanded by one’s religion runs up against a generally applicable law — a law not targeted at any particular agenda or point of view — that makes the behavior illegal.

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One of the surprises of this year’s election is that the GOP has put together a stronger set of Latino candidates to run for major seats than the Democrats have. In fact, despite the traditional preference of Latino voters for the Democrats, the party has put forward no Latino candidates for governor or U.S. Senate — not one.

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First, a confession: I listen to NPR. Sometimes, when I have to explain this fact to my right-wing brethren, I’ll forgo trying to make the case that much of what NPR does is simply great radio and instead I’ll note that it’s more useful to listen to enemy broadcasts than more friendly fare.

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Like petulant children, millions of Illinois citizens voting Nov. 2 will refuse to believe that the state can no longer afford their wants and needs.

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I don’t know about you, but my heart sank when I read about Jon Stewart’s Million Moderate March, planned for the Mall next weekend. My heart sank further when I learned that liberal groups, lacking any better ideas, have decided to take this endeavor seriously. It’s bad enough that the only way to drum up enthusiasm for a “Rally to Restore Sanity” is to make it into a television comedian’s joke. But it’s far worse that the “moderates” in attendance will have been bused in by Arianna Huffington and organized by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

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What if President Obama and the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill had pushed through an authentic, righteous, no-holds-barred progressive agenda, perhaps with a thick overlay of pitchfork populism? How different might the political landscape look? Would predictions for the party’s prospects on Election Day still range from gloom all the way to doom? Or would triumphant Democrats be preparing to leave the GOP — or what remained of it — dazed and confused?

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From the first Sephardic settlers in North America who engaged in shipping and overseas trade, to retailing geniuses like the Straus and Rosenwald families, America’s Jewish entrepreneurs have been associated with trade and commerce. Some, however, have dreamed of founding great industrial cities.

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Heavy smoking at middle age more than doubles the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia later in life, according to one of the first long-term studies to examine the issue.

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It may be commonplace for commentators to announce that every election is “the most important election in our lifetime” or something analogous. But having never said that of a presidential election, let alone an off-year election, this commentator cannot be accused of crying wolf when I say that this off-year election is not simply the most important of my lifetime. It is the most important since the Civil War.

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Patrice Hill, chief economic correspondent for The Washington Times, reports that while the down economy has caused the rest of America to struggle, Washington, D.C., is flourishing.

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The Juan Williams story will probably go down in journalism history as much more important than it really is.

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I appeared on a public radio program, “On Point,” this week with National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia Shepard and listened to her defend NPR’s firing of Juan Williams. NPR, the listener is invited to conclude, has no bias, but Williams, a liberal with occasionally heterodox views, is too conservative for NPR.

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A letter to the editor struck a chord the other day. It was from a reader who’d just returned from London. While there, riding the Underground, he’d encountered a member of that country’s chattering class — the bloke said he was teaching at Oxford — who was blaming all the troubles in the world on America. So what else is new? He sounded much like his counterparts on many a politically correct American campus.

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Back in January, David Plouffe was brought back to the White House to set a “winning” strategy for Democrats for the midterm elections. Plouffe, the chief strategist of Barack Obama’s 2008 winning campaign, was called upon to see if he could re-create a winning strategy this time around. He’s had nearly a year to turn the Democrats’ fortunes around. How’s that working out?

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Assume the polls are correct and Republicans win control of the House, and perhaps even the Senate, in next month’s elections. What lessons will the White House learn? Will Barack Obama interpret the vote as a repudiation of much of his agenda, or will he conclude that he made a few tactical errors but was still right on the big issues?

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Why would intelligent voters leave the Democratic Party that they endorsed so heavily two years ago in the 2008 presidential election? The reason is obvious — deep, deep disappointment in the record of President Obama. The President has wasted many opportunities in his term to date, and has lost by his own admission almost every battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate in pushing through Congress monumental legislation that he signed into law.

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In May of 2009, Democratic strategist James Carville published a book in which he predicted the election of Barack Obama as president presaged the “emergence of a Democratic majority that will last not four but 40 years.”

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Now is the time for all good Democrats to come to the aid of their party, and they should look under the front porch to round up all the reluctant yellow dogs they can find.

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Most people whom we elect to Congress are either ignorant of, have contempt for or are just plain stupid about the United States Constitution. You say: “Whoa, Williams, you’re really out of line! You’d better explain.” Let’s look at it.

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Thirty-six years ago when he first ran for Congress, Lake Jackson, Texas obstetrician Ron Paul rented billboards depicting a seriously obese Uncle Sam with the caption: “Put Big Government on a Diet.”

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Classic songs from years past are sometimes referred to as “golden oldies.” There are political fallacies that have been around for a long time as well. These might be called brass oldies. It certainly takes a lot of brass to keep repeating fallacies that were refuted long ago.

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An entertaining adjunct to Benjamin Sarlin’s Daily Beast post today listing five excuses parties start making when they know they’re headed for destruction at the polls. Number five on Sarlin’s list: “We Totally Wanted to Lose Anyway.”

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I have never seen a candidate stoop as low as was seen last night in Alaska’s senatorial debate…

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Willful ignorance and/or dishonesty have a firm grip on many so-called “Christians” and people in the media who insist on portraying Islam as a “peaceful religion” despite mountains of hard evidence to the contrary.

The other day, a friend sent me this YouTube video: Dr. Jeffress Responds to Dallas News Columnist.

Take a few minutes and watch it.  In the video, Dr. Robert Jeffress who is pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas defends comments he made about Islam, and he responds to a reporter from The Dallas Morning News named Steve Blow who wrote an article about Dr. Jeffress’ criticism of Islam.

Blow’s article is titled “Dallas pastor’s broad-brush criticism of Islam goes way too far”.  It’s very short — the kind of thing you can knock out in a few minutes if you know anything about writing.  You should read it.

In Blow’s article, he says, “I asked Jeffress for the evidence to back up his accusation of condoned, widespread pedophilia and he could only say that he had ‘read references’ to it in a few places.”  In the Jeffress video above, the pastor talks about his conversations with Steve Blow.  Judging by the pastor’s remarks, Mr. Blow was very selective about what he chose to write.  That’s a polite way of saying that it appears Mr. Blow didn’t tell the whole truth.

In the article, Mr. Blow quotes Robert A. Hunt, a professor of theology at Southern Methodist University and a scholar on Islam.  Blow asked Hunt if he was “aware of any evidence to support Jeffress’ statements on pedophilia”?   According to Blow, Hunt said, “None whatsoever.”  But Hunt didn’t stop there.  Referring to Dr. Jeffress, Hunt told Blow, “Lying is never helpful, and he was lying.”

For the record, I googled “Islam and pedophilia” and got 266,000 results; I googled “Islam and child brides” and got 62,400 results; and I googled “Islam and abuse of women” and got 9,250,000 results.  This little exercise provides more than enough information for me to draw these conclusions:

  1. It’s obvious that Steve Blow didn’t do much “research” for his article.  I think he wanted to write a provocative piece.  Columnists do that to attract readers and attacking the pastor of a prominent church in Dallas would certainly enable him to do that.
  2. My “quick and dirty” Google searches reveal that very little effort on Blow’s part would have provided more than enough information to support Dr. Jeffress’ claims.  The fact that Dr. Jeffress didn’t give Mr. Blow a bibliography on the spot isn’t surprising.  Few people have sources close at hand when they engage in conversation or when they are being interviewed by reporters.  It was disingenuous for Mr. Blow not to include information in his article about the sources Dr. Jeffress gave him after the interview.  This leads me to conclude that Mr. Blow is intellectually lazy and/or that he wanted to make a point and he wasn’t going to let facts stand in his way.
  3. Professor Hunt’s remarks are more than disturbing.  He teaches at a respected university, and he claims to be a scholar.  His biographical sketch on SMU’s website says that his “teaching specialties” are world religions, inter-religious dialogue, Islam, and mission studies.  It says that his “research interests” are interfaith dialogue, contemporary Muslim movements, theology of religions, Christian identity in a pluralistic world, and world Christianity.  A real scholar specializing in Islam and other world religions wouldn’t need to do research to answer a quizzical reporter’s simple question about Islam and child brides.  To a true scholar, those facts are like a hammer to a carpenter.  They are tools of the trade.  If Professor Hunt is ignorant about those facts, it speaks volumes about his qualifications to teach at any university, much less SMU.  A bona fide scholar would have those facts at his fingertips all the time, and he wouldn’t mind sharing them.  Professor Hunt’s assertion that he knows of no evidence to support Jeffress’ statements about pedophilia suggests to me that he’s not up-to-speed in his chosen discipline, either that or he knows the facts and doesn’t care to divulge them.  Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t bode well for Professor Hunt, but even worse, the professor accused Dr. Jeffress of lying.  Well, someone may have lied, but it wasn’t Dr. Jeffress.  He told the truth.

My purpose here isn’t to delve deeply into the intricacies of Islam.  My goal is to show that willful ignorance and/or dishonesty have a firm grip on many so-called “Christians” and people in the media who insist on portraying Islam as a “peaceful religion” despite mountains of hard evidence to the contrary.  For example, see “Baptist leaders meet with Holder, denounce Baptists trashing Islam”.

I don’t suffer from Islamophobia, but I do realize that the entire world is at war with radical Islamofascists whether we like it or not.  They are committed to imposing Sharia law on the world, and they are willing to die for their cause.  Pretending this isn’t true is dangerous and counterproductive.

For the benefit of my readers, below I have included a short article that contains video footage of a Hamas sponsored mass wedding ceremony in Gaza and several pictures of the event.  I hope Mr. Blow and Professor Hunt take the opportunity to examine the evidence.  I have many readers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  Maybe one or some of them will pass this information along to them.

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Natural Healthcare Store, Live the Natural Life!TM

If you haven’t been there already, you should take the opportunity to visit Natural Healthcare Store.  Each product selected for sale at Natural Healthcare Store undergoes rigorous research to make sure that it is the highest quality at an affordable price.

Natural Healthcare Store carries skin care, hair care, and oral care products.  Be sure to check out the Dead Sea products imported from Israel and support the Israeli economy with your purchases.  Natural Healthcare Store carries makeup, deodorant, and detoxification products.  It also carries supplements, weight loss products, and loose leaf tea.  Rounding out its product mix, Natural Healthcare Store carries natural household cleaning products.

Katie and I believe strongly in healthy living, and we use the products.  We’re proud to say that our daughter Melanie owns the store.

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His Name is Yahweh:

There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is Yahweh.  His Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5.  If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should.  The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org

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