THAILAND: Muslims Behead a 9-year-old Boy

Thailand- Muslim Extremists cut off the head of a 9 year old boy.

Then they hanged or beheaded the rest of his family. Yet another example of Muslim on Buddhist violence in a country where Muslims are only a small minority.

I took screen shots of the video just in case liberals found a way to take down the truth.




These are just pictures; watching the video really turns one's stomach.


More than than 4000 people from police and teachers to monks and children have been killed in the past 7 years by Muslims in southern Thailand, but hardly a word in the mainstream media.





This scene is horrible. An official holds up the child's head close to the body.


In Southern Thailand Muslim gunmen continue killing and threatening innocent citizens. The Muslim insurgents have threatened to kill 20 teachers and have distributed fliers that said, “WANTED: 20 Deaths of Buddhist teachers.” Muslim terrorists object to the education system which teaches Buddhist culture that is not acceptable in Islam. The attacks are intended to force Buddhists to leave the region because Muslims want to create an independent Muslim nation in the three southern provinces.



























You can watch the video (if it's not down yet) here:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bae_1304490155

http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/thailand-muslims-behead-a-9-year-old-boy-warning-graphic-images/

Two Conferences this Saturday: one good, one evil

~ I, THRILL, will be speaking at an AWANA Conference in El Cajon, CA on Saturday, October 1st, 2011. I will be given the blessing of sharing with a small group of people the importance of why Christians, and citizens of this Nation Under God, should support the Nation of Israel.

A lot is going on this Saturday. It's October, so you know people are Google-ing to find out where an Octoberfest is happening in their area. Some will utilize this weekend to plan Halloween parties, and maybe discuss where and with who to have these parties with. A handful will even contemplate what costume they will wear. Many friends of mine will be spending this Saturday at the Miramar Air Show. There's even a gun show happening this weekend; ....I know! We all have something going on this Saturday.

Like I said, I will be giving a speech at a Christian conference on why we should all unite and support Israel.

However, there are those who will be meeting this Saturday,...at another kind of conference.... to unite and share ideologies on why the middle east should HATE Israel. Here is the story:

Tehran to Host Intifada Conference
Hundreds of Iranian, foreign politicians are due to participate in the 5th annual international conference in support of Palestinian uprising against Israel, Fars news agency reports; Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani to chair event.

Hundreds of Iranian and foreign politicians are due to participate in an international conference in support of the Palestinian Intifada in Tehran on Saturday, the Iranian Fars news agency reported.

“Over 50 parliamentary delegations and political figures, elites and intellectuals and many state officials from Muslim and non-Muslim countries are due to attend the conference,” Fars quoted conference organizer Hossein Sheikholeslam as saying.

According to the report, Sheikholeslam said that the 2-day conference will be chaired by Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, who is also scheduled to hold separate meetings with several parliamentary delegations on the sidelines of the conference.

The news agency said that delegations from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Hungary, Colombia and many others have announced their willingness to participate in the conference.

The fifth annual event comes in light of the Palestinian bid for UN recognition, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submitted last week to the global body's Security Council.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who addressed the UN General Assembly ahead of the submittal of the PA's proposal, accused the "Zionist regime" of imposing "homelessness, terror, and mass murder on the Palestinian people."

Ahmadinejad, known for his fiery anti-Zionist rhetoric, claimed in a different speech last Friday that the creation of a universally-recognized Palestinian state would be just a first step towards wiping out Israel.

"Recognizing the Palestinian state is not the last goal. It is only one step forward towards liberating the whole of Palestine," Ahmadinejad said. "The Zionist regime is a center of microbes, a cancer cell and if it exists in one iota of Palestine it will mobilize again and hurt everyone."

Mishap at Tri-City Church

Vista, CA- Today, at Tri-City Church, a church that I am a member of, I had the honor of listening Dr. Jeff Johnson speak. Dr. Johnson was the senior pastor of Tri-City when I first arrived ten years ago. He left as pastor shortly after I started attending, but I remember being moved by the Words of God he would amplify in his sermons.

Dr. Johnson is an expert on Biblical Prophecy and End Times. In 2002, he founded the Israel Today Ministries, http://israeltodayministries.org/ This man has incredible talents and by the hand of God, is moving mountain-sized tasks worldwide.

After guest speaking at my church, there was a Q&A held upstairs, where anyone could come and further their knowledge from Dr. Johnson. He brilliantly read the questions on a given stack of cards filled out by random people and gave an educated response to each. It was well worth the $4.

Well, there was a slip up on my part. At one point, I was convinced that Dr. Johnson slammed the credibility of the [Thomas Nelson New King James Bible for American Patriots.] The blow hit my soul deep. I was furious, but tried my absolute best to stay calm. The neighboring on lookers, mostly VIPs of my church, probably thought I was a total jerk. But I had to comment.

I weakly confronted Dr. Johnson on his nonchalant way of passing off this United States of America. I took offense that he would slam The American Patriot's Bible. Apparently, I've been advised that I misunderstood him. He did rebute my comment by advising me to readjust my tone- for this would make me further efficient when "witnessing" or "representing Christ" to others. Honestly, I was just pissed at him.

Understand that Dr. Jeff Johnson is an American and a great lover of this country. The channels were lost in communication. We ended the discussion on a positive note. I even spoke with him after the $4 meeting and made sure that he understood that I support his ministry. I even thanked him for enlightening me with his knowledge. Hopefully, he'll forget me and my stern tone.

Let's not take my actions out of context. Some of you think I am a total ass. You forget that your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, your husbands and wives, are my brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, I hate gossip, but you'd have to be a fool to believe that I don't hear the lies that are being spread before and after me. If you truly observe where I walk, and what I've been fighting for, you will understand why I speak and act the way I do.

I am truly sorry that my conduct may seem unorthodox. Instead of proclaiming how wrong it is that I conduct myself the way that I do, INSTEAD, ask yourself WHY is it I conduct myself the way that I do. By learning why my born-again heart is so heavy, maybe from there we can become productive with our united evangelism.

Nelson Bibles, A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, printed a New King James Version Study Bible called, "The American Patriot's Bible."

This Bible is basically a Nelson NKJVersion. On additional pages are notes that explain the history of how The United States of America was founded. It contains stories of real evangelical events that took place throughout the ages of America's birth and progress. The study notes of this Bible capture real evidence that shows just how Christian our Founding Fathers were in the genesis of this nation.

I understand that it is inevitable that America will fall to the ground. I understand that America is not Israel. (I also understand that the majority of the bodies living in the 50 states think America is a joke...I guess 9/12 is over.)
But, by God, America was founded to be and should remain UNDER GOD. There maybe no hope for the America of tomorrow. But sources like this "..American Patriot's Bible" can help us, an original Judeo-Christian nation, suppress the escalation of evil in our land.

This source also captures which presidents have walked with God during their service to this nation. Remember, it was a U.S. President, that helped Israel become a statehood, only because that president felt the call from the Holy Spirit. The freedoms of this nation, defended by our troops worldwide, allow citizens of this land to travel anywhere and share the Gospel.

I've seen what my M-16A2 Service Rifle can do to a human being. I am convinced that our military was molded by the grace of God. The swords of this nation are coated with the blood of Christ, and cleanse the filthy terrors of this planet towards righteousness. This Nation Under God protects the Church, and allows His Bride to Journey. No, America is not above Christ. America is UNDER the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.

America may not be the chosen nation by God, but America definitely is one of the biggest, and maybe only, huge column supporting the Lord's Israel.


Dr. Jeff Johnson is brilliant with his knowledge on why we all should care and support the Nation of Israel. I invite you all to please check out his website,
Israel Today Ministries: http://israeltodayministries.org/

Dr. Jeff Johnson, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding on Sunday. I love you very much.

-Thrill

Archie Comics' First Gay Wedding

Can you believe such a comic book could have existed from Archie Comics just a few years ago?

In Life With Archie #16, which looks at the world of a twenty-something Archie cast has recently created gay character Kevin Keller returning from war to get married to his partner in Riverdale. And everyone turns up to the ceremony… just as Archie is separating from his wife, Veronica.

Is this proof that gay marriage does destroy traditional marriage after all? Written by Paul Kupperburg, drawn by Fernando Ruiz, Pat Kennedy, Tim Kennedy, Al Milgrom, Bob Smith with a cover from Batman’s Norm Breyfogle, Life With Archie #16 will be available for sale for the first week of January 2012.

Jewish activists call circumcision ban superhero anti-Semitic

A ballot measure to ban circumcision in San Francisco has taken a strange twist with the publication, by the measure’s sponsors, of a comic book in which an anti-circumcision superhero -– blond, buff and handsome -– battles evil Jewish characters who recall the stereotypical images of classic anti-Semitism.

"Foreskin Man" was written and created by Matthew Hess, one of the leaders behind the initiative to ban circumcision, the ritual cutting of foreskin on a baby's penis that, in the Jewish religion, is considered central to the covenant between the Jewish people and God. Opponents consider it painful and barbaric, akin to female circumcision rites in Africa that have attracted international condemnation.

The measure will be on the ballot in San Francisco in November. Hess is with a San Diego group, MGM Bill, which is also seeking signatures to put a similar measure on the ballot in Santa Monica.

In the book, the blond superhero takes on "Monster Mohel" -– a bearded, black-hatted man with bloody scissors. In the traditional Jewish community, a mohel is a person trained to perform circumcisions.

The publication of the comic book was first reported Thursday in the San Francisco Chronicle, which asked Hess if he considered it to be anti-Semitic. "A lot of people have said that, but we're not trying to be anti-Semitic," he said. "We're trying to be pro-human rights."
The Anti-Defamation League, which was organized to fight anti-Semitism, issued a statement Friday sharply attacking the publication, which it called "an advocacy campaign taken to a new low."

"This is a sensitive, serious issue where good people can disagree," the ADL statement said. "It is one thing to debate it, is another thing to degrade it. 'Foreskin Man,' with its grotesque anti-Semitic imagery and themes, reaches a new low and is disrespectful and deeply offensive."

Hess did not immediately return a phone call seeking further comment Friday.

CA Mother Tries to Kill Kids Before Tribulation

PALMDALE, CA - A California woman who says she wanted to protect her children from the May 21 “tribulation” is in jail after slitting the throats of her daughters’ before cutting her own back in March, KTLA reports.

Lyn Benedetto, 47, told authorities that to prevent her family from suffering, she had her daughters, 11 and 14, lie on a bed, took a box cutter knife to their throats, then cut herself March 19.

The suspect reportedly drove the victims to a friend’s home that she thought was empty, planning to die there.

Lancaster deputies say they responded to call regarding an assault with a knife around 5:30 p.m. from the owner of that home.

The mother was found at the location and arrested. The two victims were taken to Antelope Valley Hospital for “moderate though non life threatening injuries” and released to custody of Department of Children’s Services.

Benedetto is being held on a $1 million bail.

Islamic Militants Assassinate the Only Christian Member of Pakistan's Cabinet

A paramilitary soldier examines the damaged car of slain Pakistan's government minister for religious minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, outside the emergency ward of a local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, March 2, 2011. Gunmen shot and killed Mr. Bhatti Wednesday, the latest attack on a high-profile figure threatened by Muslim militants for urging reform of harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)


ISLAMABAD (AP) — Assailants purportedly sent by al Qaeda and the Taliban killed the only Christian member of Pakistan’s federal Cabinet Wednesday, spraying his car with bullets outside his mother’s driveway. It was the second assassination in two months of a high-profile opponent of blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.

The killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, a 42-year-old Roman Catholic, further undermines Pakistan’s shaky image as a moderate Islamic state and could deepen the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied state where militants frequently stage suicide attacks.

The Vatican said the assassination shows that the pope’s warnings about the danger to Christians in the region are fully justified.

Mr. Bhatti, a campaigner for human rights causes, had apparently been aware of the danger he was in and left a video-taped message with the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Al Jazeera satellite TV station to be broadcast in the event of his death.

In the farewell statement, Mr. Bhatti said he was threatened by the Taliban and al Qaeda, but that this would not deter him from speaking for “oppressed and marginalized persecuted Christians and other minorities” in Pakistan. “I will die to defend their rights,” he said on the tape. “These threats and these warnings cannot change my opinions and principles.”

Despite the threats, Mr. Bhatti, who had been assigned bodyguards, was without protection when he visited his mother in the capital of Islamabad on Wednesday afternoon, police said. The politician had just pulled out of the driveway of the house, where he frequently stayed, when three men standing nearby opened fire, said Gulam Rahim, a witness.

Two of the men opened the door of the car and tried to pull Mr. Bhatti out, Mr. Rahim said, while a third man fired his Kalashnikov rifle repeatedly into the dark-colored Toyota, shattering the windows. The gunmen then sped away in a white Suzuki Mehran car, said Mr. Rahim who took shelter behind a tree. Mr. Bhatti was dead on arrival at an area hospital, while his driver was not harmed.

In leaflets left at the scene of the shooting, al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban Movement in Punjab province claimed responsibility. They blamed the government for putting Mr. Bhatti, an “infidel Christian,” in charge of an unspecified committee, apparently referring to one said to be reviewing the blasphemy laws. The government has repeatedly said such a committee does not exist.

“With the blessing of Allah, the mujahedeen will send each of you to hell,” said the note, which did not name any other targets.

Government officials condemned the killing, but made no reference to the blasphemy law controversy.


Photo on Right: Shahbaz Bhatti, then head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, displays a threatening letter which a Christian resident of Charsadda town received, during a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 16, 2007. Mr. Bhatti, now a federal government minister, was shot and killed by gunmen on Wednesday March 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)

“This is a concerted campaign to slaughter every liberal, progressive and humanist voice in Pakistan,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, an aide to President Asif Ali Zardari. “The time has come for the federal government and provincial governments to speak out and to take a strong stand against these murderers to save the very essence of Pakistan.”

Mr. Bhatti, who was minister for religious minorities, had been given police and paramilitary guards, said Wajid Durrani, a senior police official. He said Mr. Bhatti asked his official guards not to travel with him while he stayed with his mother. His father died recently.

Aides and friends confirmed that Mr. Bhatti preferred to keep a low profile — without guards — while staying at his mother’s. Wasif Ali Khan, a friend, said Mr. Bhatti repeatedly requested a bullet-proof car but did not received one.

Mr. Bhatti was also nervous about using security guards, Mr. Khan said, because it was a bodyguard who in January killed Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer, another opponent of the blasphemy laws. To the horror of Pakistan’s besieged liberals, many ordinary citizens praised the governor’s assassin — a sign of the spread of hard-line Islamist thought in the country.

With the death of Mr. Bhatti, Pakistani Christians lost their most prominent advocate. Christians are the largest religious minority in the country, where roughly 5 percent of 180 million people are not Muslim. They have very little political power and tend to work in lower-level jobs, such as street sweeping.

“We have been orphaned today!” wailed Rehman Masih, a Christian resident of Islamabad. “Now who will fight for our rights? Who will raise a voice for us? Who will help us?”

The assassination drew swift condemnation from Christian leaders elsewhere.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the slaying is a “new episode of violence of terrible gravity.” He said it “demonstrates just how justified are the the insistent statements by the pope regarding violence against Christians and religious freedom.” Rev. Lombardi noted that Pope Benedict XVI had met with Mr. Bhatti in September.

In Britain, leaders of the Anglican Church expressed shock and sorrow and urged Pakistan’s government to do more to protect Christians. The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, also condemned the assassination, calling Mr. Bhatti “a Pakistani patriot.”

Several Muslim leaders in Pakistan either offered a tepid condemnation or claimed the assassination was part of foreign-led conspiracy to drive a wedge between Muslims and Christians.

The blasphemy laws are a deeply sensitive subject in Pakistan, where most residents are Sunni Muslims and where austere versions of Islam — more common in the Middle East than South Asia — have been on the rise.

Human rights groups have long warned that the laws are vaguely worded and open to abuse because people often use them to settle rivalries or persecute religious minorities.

But in a sign of how scared the largely secular-leaning ruling party is of Islamist street power, party leaders haven’t supported calls for reforming the laws. Instead, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others have repeatedly insisted they won’t touch the statutes.

After the assassination of the Punjab governor, his confessed killer, bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri, was greeted with showers of rose petals from many lawyers who went to watch his initial court hearing.

Weeks afterward, another prominent opponent of the blasphemy laws, National Assembly member Sherry Rehman, dropped her bid to get them changed. The Pakistan People’s Party member said she had to abide by party leaders’ decisions. She, too, faces death threats and has been living with heavy security.

No one has been put to death for blasphemy in Pakistan because courts typically throw out cases or commute the sentences. Still, some who are released are later killed by extremists or have to go into hiding. Others accused of blasphemy spend long periods in prison while waiting for their cases to wind through the courts.

Associated Press writers Nahal Toosi in Islamabad, Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Victor L. Simpson in Rome, and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

The Arab Revolution and Western Decline

by: Ari Shavit

Two huge processes are happening right before our eyes. One is the Arab liberation revolution. After half a century during which tyrants have ruled the Arab world, their control is weakening. After 40 years of decaying stability, the rot is eating into the stability. The Arab masses will no longer accept what they used to accept. The Arab elites will no longer remain silent.

Processes that have been roiling beneath the surface for about a decade are suddenly bursting out in an intifada of freedom. Modernization, globalization, telecommunications and Islamization have created a critical mass that cannot be stopped. The example of democratic Iraq is awakening others, and Al Jazeera's subversive broadcasts are fanning the flames. And so the Tunisian bastille fell, the Cairo bastille is falling and other Arab bastilles will fall.

The scenes are similar to the Palestinian intifada of 1987, but the collapse recalls the Soviet collapse in Eastern Europe of 1989. No one knows where the intifada will lead. No one knows whether it will bring democracy, theocracy or a new kind of democracy. But things will never again be the same.

The old order in the Middle East is crumbling. Just as the officers' revolution in the 1950s brought down the Arab monarchism that had relied on the colonial powers, the 2011 revolution in the square is bringing down the Arab tyrants who were dependent on the United States.

The second process is the acceleration of the decline of the West. For some 60 years the West gave the world imperfect but stable order. It built a kind of post-imperial empire that promised relative quiet and maximum peace. The rise of China, India, Brazil and Russia, like the economic crisis in the United States, has made it clear that the empire is beginning to fade.

And yet, the West has maintained a sort of international hegemony. Just as no replacement has been found for the dollar, none has been found for North Atlantic leadership. But Western countries' poor handling of the Middle East proves they are no longer leaders. Right before our eyes the superpowers are turning into palaver powers.

There are no excuses for the contradictions. How can it be that Bush's America understood the problem of repression in the Arab world, but Obama's America ignored it until last week? How can it be that in May 2009, Hosni Mubarak was an esteemed president whom Barack Obama respected, and in January 2011, Mubarak is a dictator whom even Obama is casting aside? How can it be that in June 2009, Obama didn't support the masses who came out against the zealot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while now he stands by the masses who are coming out against the moderate Mubarak?

There is one answer: The West's position is not a moral one that reflects a real commitment to human rights. The West's position reflects the adoption of Jimmy Carter's worldview: kowtowing to benighted, strong tyrants while abandoning moderate, weak ones.

Carter's betrayal of the Shah brought us the ayatollahs, and will soon bring us ayatollahs with nuclear arms. The consequences of the West's betrayal of Mubarak will be no less severe. It's not only a betrayal of a leader who was loyal to the West, served stability and encouraged moderation. It's a betrayal of every ally of the West in the Middle East and the developing world. The message is sharp and clear: The West's word is no word at all; an alliance with the West is not an alliance. The West has lost it. The West has stopped being a leading and stabilizing force around the world.

The Arab liberation revolution will fundamentally change the Middle East. The acceleration of the West's decline will change the world. One outcome will be a surge toward China, Russia and regional powers like Brazil, Turkey and Iran. Another will be a series of international flare-ups stemming from the West's lost deterrence. But the overall outcome will be the collapse of North Atlantic political hegemony not in decades, but in years. When the United States and Europe bury Mubarak now, they are also burying the powers they once were. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, the age of Western hegemony is fading away.

Israel Finds Common Cause with Evangelicals

by: Michele Chabin

JERUSALEM (RNS) - When Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee wrapped up a visit to Israel on Monday (Nov. 15) with 40 pastors in tow, he sought out the places where Jesus walked, preached and prayed some 2,000 years ago.

But there was another meeting on the itinerary that was a must-not-miss event for Hagee and his host: a sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.



The fact that Netanyahu -- knee-deep in contentious talks with Palestinians over a freeze on Israeli settlement construction -- found time to meet Hagee's contingent speaks volumes about the ties between Israeli officials and evangelical Christians.

Christian Zionist support for Israel is at an all-time high, observers say, and Israelis, American Jews, and Palestinians are all taking notice -- some favorable, some not.

While Israel has long courted financial and political support from evangelicals, many Jewish American leaders have viewed the alliance with suspicion, leery about potential proselytizing and uncomfortable with evangelicals' domestic agenda at home.

Recently, though, the American Jewish community has found a new appreciation for evangelical support at a time of mounting international criticism of Israeli policy and financial hardships for many prominent Jewish groups.

Hit hard by the economic downturn and the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme that decimated Jewish charities, American Jewish groups are sending less money to Israel. Dozens of evangelical groups "have definitely stepped in to fill some of the void," said Dan Brown, creator of the website e-jewishphilanthropy.com.

One of those groups is the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), a Chicago-based evangelical group that has donated as much as $70 million to Israel in 2009 alone, and another $30 million to Jewish causes in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.

Five years ago, Hadassah magazine, a mainstream Jewish women's magazine, rejected an ad from Eckstein's group. But this year, after a large donation to a Hadassah-affiliated hospital in Jerusalem, Hadassah honored Eckstein's group at its annual gala.

"We still haven't been embraced by the establishment Jewish organizations, but I do think there's a growing admiration because we've been able to grow by leaps and bounds over the past three years while the Jewish federation system and other sources of Jewish philanthropy have suffered declines," said founder Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein.

Evangelical leaders say their reliance on thousands of small donors -- rather than a few mega-givers -- has helped them weather the recession and actually increase their funding to Israel. No one knows how much Christian Zionists give Israel in total, but the amount is substantial.

The organizations, including many based in the U.S., support Israeli hospitals, schools, and social welfare programs. A few pay for bomb shelters and ambulances, and assist elderly Holocaust survivors and victims of terror attacks. Hagee's San Antonio-based group has donated more than $50 million since 2006, including $8.5 million this year.

Monetary support, however, is just part of the equation.

For the past four years, another Hagee group, Christians United for Israel, has held an annual Washington summit to push Israeli concerns on U.S. lawmakers. Christian Zionist groups sponsor letter-writing campaigns and are active on college campuses.

Joshua Reinstein, director of the seven-year-old Knesset Christian Allies Caucus in the Israeli parliament, said there has been "an explosion of support" from evangelical political leaders. The group now has pro-Israel "legislators of faith" caucuses in 18 countries, including the U.S.

Palestinian Christians, who have successfully cultivated their own powerful and wealthy allies in the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, are vocally opposed to Christian Zionism. Many of their church allies are active in the so-called Global BDS movement -- boycotts, divestment and sanctions of Israeli goods and citizens.

Christian Zionism is "a heretical and false interpretation of Christian theology" that "justifies violence and oppression in the name of God," said Jonathan Kuttab, chairman of the West Bank's Bethlehem Bible College.

Ari Morgenstern, a spokesman for Christian United for Israel, reads the Bible differently.

"The biblical mandate for Christian Zionism is Genesis 12:3," he said, referring to a verse where God promises to bless those who bless Israel, and curse her foes. "As Pastor Hagee has said, Christians should support Israel because it is simply the right thing to do."

Ironically, just as American Jewish groups have warmed to Christian Zionist partners, several prominent ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbis have forbidden their followers from accepting funds or services from organizations funded -- even in part -- by evangelicals.

David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said hard-line rabbis pressured Israeli dignitaries not to attend the recent opening of a home for Holocaust victims that was partially funded by Parson's group.

"It's a real shame they tried to spoil the event," Parsons said. "We don't missionize, and the focus should have been on the needs of destitute Holocaust survivors."

Shimon Sebag, whose charitable group Yad Ezer L'Haver runs the home, said it "never crossed my mind" to refuse the Embassy's assistance. Sebag said the 55 elderly residents now have "a warm home, meals and medical care."

"The Talmud says, `When you save one life, you save a world,'" Sebag said. "The Embassy saved 55 worlds."

In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue

By: JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER
Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.

That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.

Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.

There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran’s most heavily guarded project. Others doubt the Israelis were involved and say the word could have been inserted as deliberate misinformation, to implicate Israel.

“The Iranians are already paranoid about the fact that some of their scientists have defected and several of their secret nuclear sites have been revealed,” one former intelligence official who still works on Iran issues said recently. “Whatever the origin and purpose of Stuxnet, it ramps up the psychological pressure.”

So a calling card in the code could be part of a mind game, or sloppiness or whimsy from the coders.

The malicious code has appeared in many countries, notably China, India, Indonesia and Iran. But there are tantalizing hints that Iran’s nuclear program was the primary target. Officials in both the United States and Israel have made no secret of the fact that undermining the computer systems that control Iran’s huge enrichment plant at Natanz is a high priority. (The Iranians know it, too: They have never let international inspectors into the control room of the plant, the inspectors report, presumably to keep secret what kind of equipment they are using.)

The fact that Stuxnet appears designed to attack a certain type of Siemens industrial control computer, used widely to manage oil pipelines, electrical power grids and many kinds of nuclear plants, may be telling. Just last year officials in Dubai seized a large shipment of those controllers — known as the Simatic S-7 — after Western intelligence agencies warned that the shipment was bound for Iran and would likely be used in its nuclear program.

“What we were told by many sources,” said Olli Heinonen, who retired last month as the head of inspections at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, “was that the Iranian nuclear program was acquiring this kind of equipment.”

Also, starting in the summer of 2009, the Iranians began having tremendous difficulty running their centrifuges, the tall, silvery machines that spin at supersonic speed to enrich uranium — and which can explode spectacularly if they become unstable. In New York last week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shrugged off suggestions that the country was having trouble keeping its enrichment plants going.

Yet something — perhaps the worm or some other form of sabotage, bad parts or a dearth of skilled technicians — is indeed slowing Iran’s advance.

The reports on Iran show a fairly steady drop in the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the main Natanz plant. After reaching a peak of 4,920 machines in May 2009, the numbers declined to 3,772 centrifuges this past August, the most recent reporting period. That is a decline of 23 percent. (At the same time, production of low-enriched uranium has remained fairly constant, indicating the Iranians have learned how to make better use of fewer working machines.)

Computer experts say the first versions of the worm appeared as early as 2009 and that the sophisticated version contained an internal time stamp from January of this year.

These events add up to a mass of suspicions, not proof. Moreover, the difficulty experts have had in figuring out the origin of Stuxnet points to both the appeal and the danger of computer attacks in a new age of cyberwar.

For intelligence agencies they are an almost irresistible weapon, free of fingerprints. Israel has poured huge resources into Unit 8200, its secretive cyberwar operation, and the United States has built its capacity inside the National Security Agency and inside the military, which just opened a Cyber Command.

But the near impossibility of figuring out where they came from makes deterrence a huge problem — and explains why many have warned against the use of cyberweapons. No country, President Obama was warned even before he took office, is more vulnerable to cyberattack than the United States.

For now, it is hard to determine if the worm has infected centrifuge controllers at Natanz. While the S-7 industrial controller is used widely in Iran, and many other countries, even Siemens says it does not know where it is being used. Alexander Machowetz, a spokesman in Germany for Siemens, said the company did no business with Iran’s nuclear program. “It could be that there is equipment,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we never delivered it to Natanz.”

For now, it is hard to determine if the worm has infected centrifuge controllers at Natanz. While the S-7 industrial controller is used widely in Iran, and many other countries, even Siemens says it does not know where it is being used. Alexander Machowetz, a spokesman in Germany for Siemens, said the company did no business with Iran’s nuclear program. “It could be that there is equipment,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we never delivered it to Natanz.”

But Siemens industrial controllers are unregulated commodities that are sold and resold all over the world — the controllers intercepted in Dubai traveled through China, according to officials familiar with the seizure.

Ralph Langner, a German computer security consultant who was the first independent expert to assert that the malware had been “weaponized” and designed to attack the Iranian centrifuge array, argues that the Stuxnet worm could have been brought into the Iranian nuclear complex by Russian contractors.

“It would be an absolute no-brainer to leave an infected USB stick near one of these guys,” he said, “and there would be more than a 50 percent chance of having him pick it up and infect his computer.”

There are many reasons to suspect Israel’s involvement in Stuxnet. Intelligence is the single largest section of its military and the unit devoted to signal, electronic and computer network intelligence, known as Unit 8200, is the largest group within intelligence.

Yossi Melman, who covers intelligence for the newspaper Haaretz and is at work on a book about Israeli intelligence over the past decade, said in a telephone interview that he suspected that Israel was involved.

He noted that Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, had his term extended last year partly because he was said to be involved in important projects. He added that in the past year Israeli estimates of when Iran will have a nuclear weapon had been extended to 2014.

“They seem to know something, that they have more time than originally thought,” he said.

Then there is the allusion to myrtus — which may be telling, or may be a red herring.

Several of the teams of computer security researchers who have been dissecting the software found a text string that suggests that the attackers named their project Myrtus. The guava fruit is part of the Myrtus family, and one of the code modules is identified as Guava.

It was Mr. Langner who first noted that Myrtus is an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively.

“If you read the Bible you can make a guess,” said Mr. Langner, in a telephone interview from Germany on Wednesday.

Carol Newsom, an Old Testament scholar at Emory University, confirmed the linguistic connection between the plant family and the Old Testament figure, noting that Queen Esther’s original name in Hebrew was Hadassah, which is similar to the Hebrew word for myrtle. Perhaps, she said, “someone was making a learned cross-linguistic wordplay.”

But other Israeli experts said they doubted Israel’s involvement. Shai Blitzblau, the technical director and head of the computer warfare laboratory at Maglan, an Israeli company specializing in information security, said he was “convinced that Israel had nothing to do with Stuxnet.”

“We did a complete simulation of it and we sliced the code to its deepest level,” he said. “We have studied its protocols and functionality. Our two main suspects for this are high-level industrial espionage against Siemens and a kind of academic experiment.”

Mr. Blitzblau noted that the worm hit India, Indonesia and Russia before it hit Iran, though the worm has been found disproportionately in Iranian computers. He also noted that the Stuxnet worm has no code that reports back the results of the infection it creates. Presumably, a good intelligence agency would like to trace its work.

Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Israel, and William J. Broad from New York.

Disturbing Pictures Show Taliban Militants Allegedly Stoning Woman to Death in Pakistan

by: Charlotte Wilkins

A rare video reportedly smuggled out of northwest Pakistan allegedly shows a woman being stoned to death by Taliban militants in the upper region of Orakzai.

A woman lies tied to the ground as a group of men gather round her, repeatedly throwing stones at her.

She appears to plead for help but despite her cries, they continue to rain stones down on her until she lies still.

Disturbing pictures today released to ABC news purport to show Taliban militants stoning a woman to death in north-west Pakistan.

Stoning is a routine punishment for adultery in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Under the rule of the Taliban however, being seen alone with a man is sufficient crime alone to warrant the death penalty.


The woman was thought to have been executed because she was seen out with a man.

The execution allegedly took place two months ago in the upper region of Orakzai.

The grainy cellphone footage of the execution was reportedly smuggled out by a Taliban member who witnessed the stoning and then passed to it Al Aan, a Dubai-based pan-Arab television channel that deals with women's issues in the Arab world.

ABC news was unable to independently confirm the authenticity of the video, which is so graphic that it cannot be shown in its entirety.


The grainy cellphone footage was smuggled from north-west Pakistan by a witness to the stoning who then passed it to Al-Aan TV.

In Iran, the case of Ms Sakineh Ashtiani, 43, who has been convicted of murder and adultery under Sharia law, has drawn worldwide attention and international outrage.

EC minister Jorge Barroso described it as ose Manuel Barroso, who called it "barbaric beyond words".

Speaking in France earlier this month, Mr Barroso said: "We condemn such acts, which have no justification under any moral or religious code."



Protestors in Paris demonstrate against the death-by-stoning sentence of Iranian mother Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

It is thought that the international outrage caused by her case has led her sentence to be commuted from death by stoning to hanging.

While Ms Ashtiani's lawyer, Mohammed Mostaefi, has been forced to flee to Europe for his safety, Ms Ashtiani's fate, as she waits in Evin prison, remains uncertain.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1315408/Taliban-militants-allegedly-stoning-woman-death-Pakistan.html#ixzz10mcGbo8k

Gaza: Hamas Weds 450 Child Brides in Mass Wedding

Do these girls look over 18?

Any AWANA leader, or decent person could tell you that nearly all of these girls are no where near ten years old!

“Now where did Hamas get the idea that prepubescent girls were of marriageable age? Could it be from Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, the “excellent example” of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21)? “The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).” (Bukhari 7.62.88)”

SHEIKH ZAYED CITY, Gaza Strip — Nearly a thousand Palestinians celebrated marriage on Thursday night in a ceremony organised by Hamas in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas dignitaries including Mahmud Zahar, one of the militant group’s top leaders, were on hand to congratulate 450 grooms who took part in the carefully stage-managed event.

“We are saying to the world and to America that you cannot deny us joy and happiness,” Zahar told the men, all of whom were dressed in identical black suits and hailed from the nearby Jabalia refugee camp.

Each groom received a present of 500 dollars from Hamas, which said its workers had also contributed five percent of their monthly salaries to add to the wedding gift.

The 450 brides shared none of the glamour, taking seats among the audience of around 1,000 party guests: most couples had already taken part in religious ceremonies elsewhere, with more marriages planned for the next few days.

“We are presenting this wedding as a gift to our people who stood firm in the face of the siege and the war,” local Hamas strongman Ibrahim Salaf said in a speech….

Authorities Search Calif. for 13 from 'Cult-like' Sect; Families Believe are 'Brainwashed'

Sept. 18: Los Angeles County Sheriffs officers sit outside the home of Reyna Chicas, the possible leader of a "cult-like" group who has been reported missing along with 12 other members in Palmdale, Calif.

PALMDALE, Calif. – Deputies searched a wide swath of Southern California early Sunday for a break-off religious sect of 13 people that included children
as young as three and left behind letters indicating they were awaiting an apocalyptic event and would soon see Jesus and their dead relatives in heaven, authorities said.

The group of El Salvadoran immigrants, described as "cult-like" by sheriff's officials, was led by Reyna Marisol Chicas, a 32-year-old woman from Palmdale in northeast Los Angeles county, sheriff's Captain Mike Parker said.

The group left behind cell phones, identifications, deeds to property, and letters indicating they were awaiting the Rapture.

"Essentially, the letters say they are all going to heaven to meet Jesus and their deceased relatives," sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "Some of the letters were saying goodbye."

The items came from a purse that a member of the group had left with her husband Saturday and asked him to pray over. He eventually looked inside and he and another member's husband called authorities, Parker said.

The men told investigators they believe group members had been "brainwashed" by Chicas, and one expressed worries that they might harm themselves, Parker said.

An address listed in Chicas' name, a two-story green stucco residence with a three-car garage in a suburban subdivision in Palmdale, a high-desert city of 139,000, appeared to be empty early Sunday. A sheriff's deputy sat in a car parked in front and kept reporters from walking on to the property.

Whitmore said the major crimes unit, helicopter patrols and many other deputies were looking for missing people.

They were searching for three vehicles: a silver Toyota Tundra pickup, a 1995 Mercury Villager and a 2004 white Nissan.

Parker said the materials the group left behind suggested they would be in the Antelope Valley area not far from their homes.

About six months ago, the group had planned to head to Vasquez Rocks, a wilderness area near Palmdale, to await a catastrophic earthquake or similar event, but one member of the group revealed details of the trip to relatives, Parker said. The trip was called off and the member kicked out.

The group had broken off from a mainstream Christian church in Palmdale.

Parker did not know what church they had belonged to previously, and it does not appear that they had given their sect a name.

"We've got a group here that's practicing some orthodox and some unorthodox Christianity," Parker said. "Obviously this falls under the unorthodox."

According to an emergency bulletin put out by the governor's office, in addition to Chicas, the missing include: Norma Isela Serrano, 31, Alma Alicia Miranda Pleitez, 28; Martha Clavel, 39; Jose Clavel, 15; Crystal Clavel, 3; Roberto Tejada, 18; Jonathan Tejada, 17; Hugo Tejada, 3; Ezequel Chicas, 15; Genisis Chicas, 12; Bryan Rivera, 17; Stephanie Serrano, 12.

The Double-standards of Muslims and Liberal/Passive Christians

Derek Fenton, the protester who burned pages from the Qur'an on Sept. 11th, 2010 near the site of a planned mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, was fired from his job at NJ Transit, officials there said yesterday.

His bosses said Fenton "violated New Jersey Transit's code of ethics."

Whatever. People are afraid of what Muslims will do. So, instead of taking a stand, people cater to Muslim hypocrites.

Meanwhile,


In Iran, Afghanistan and India, demonstrators accuse US, Israel of "orchestrating Zionist plot," chant "Down with Qur'an desicrators."

Thousands of Iranians reportedly took to the streets on Wednesday, to protest Qur'an burning in the US. According to PressTV, the protesters gathered at Teheran's Palestine Square, and shouted slogans accusing both the US and Israel of "orchestrating the Zionist plot."

Placards held by the demonstrators urged Jews and Christians to promise that such acts would not be repeated.

We should all ask Christians to stop preaching John 14:6 then!

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, police fired warning shots to disperse hundreds of stone-hurling protesters in the latest in a series of protests against Qur'an burning in the US.

At least 35 police officers and 10 protesters were wounded on Wednesday, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. Hospital officials said two of them had gunshot wounds. They appeared to be from ricocheting bullets.

The topic of Qur'an burning has stirred outrage among millions of Muslims and others worldwide after a small American church in Florida threatened to destroy the holy book to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Although that church backed down, several copycat burnings were posted on the Internet and broadcast in the Muslim world.

Up to 800 protesters gathered at a square on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, chanting "Death to America" and listening to fiery speeches from Muslim clerics demanding the ouster of the Afghan government and calling for foreign troops to leave the country.

The protesters burned tires and hurled stones at police officers, who responded with assault rifle firing into the air.

In India the Qur'an issue also resurfaced Wednesday, when thousands of protesters assembled close to a Christian school in the town of Mendhar, 115 miles (180 kilometers) southwest of Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's main city, chanting "Down with Qur'an desecrators" and "We want freedom."

Wow. Christians just sit back in silence when Bibles get burned. Burn one Qur'an and everyone under the sun hates he who holds the match and Qur'an.

Police fired tear gas and swung batons as the protesters tried to enter the school and used live ammunition when the crowd refused to disperse, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters. At least four protesters were killed and 30 others wounded, six of them critically, he said.

Here at home, when a Christian patriot has the audacity to burn a Qur'an and a porno-mag, liberal and cowardly Christians will bash that patriot for burning the Qur'an, but not say a word about a burning of the porn-magazine. The Qur'an produces more evil than pornography!

Does the modern Christian church tolerate a religion that hates the one true God? How embarrassing.

Mexico Gay Marriage: Supreme Court Orders All Mexican States To Recognize Weddings Performed In Mexico City

Mexico City- Mexico's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in the capital, though its decision does not force those states to begin marrying gay couples in their territory.

In a 9-2 decision, the tribunal cited an article of the constitution requiring states to recognize legal contracts drawn up elsewhere.

It did not specify what degree of recognition must be granted to same-sex couples.

Mexico City's same-sex marriage law, enacted in March, extends to wedded gay couples the right to adopt children, to jointly apply for bank loans, to inherit wealth and to be covered by their spouses' insurance policies. Some of those may end up applying only in the capital.

The Supreme Court ruled last week that same-sex weddings are constitutional – though it is holding separate discussions this week on the adoption clause.

One of the justices, Sergio Aguirre, argued against adoptions by same-sex couples Tuesday, saying children might suffer discrimination as a result.

Eat Pray Zilch: The Cult of "Eat Pray Love"

by: Sara Stewart


“If you’re lucky enough, you will find a living Guru. This is what pilgrims have been coming to India to seek for ages.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, “Eat Pray Love”

“Eat. Pray. Fall in Love with [our] Inspirational India Tour. Starts at $19,795 per person, based on double occupancy.” — Micato Safaris

Marta Szabo’s spiritual journey started off a lot like Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling 2006 memoir, “Eat Pray Love.”

“I was at a point in my life,” recalls Szabo, now 53, “when I didn’t have a lot of options.”

Like Gilbert — who’s played by Julia Roberts in the movie, out Friday, based on the book — Szabo had endured a bad breakup. Like Gilbert, she was a writer in her 30s, unhappily living in New York City, unsure what she wanted to do with her life. She, too, needed to find herself. (Unfortunately, unlike Gilbert, she didn’t get a generous book advance with which to do the finding.)

Both Gilbert and Szabo discovered an international organization called Siddha Yoga — specifically, its gorgeous, charismatic female leader, known as Gurumayi. “My heart skipped a beat and then flat-out tripped over itself and fell on its face,” Gilbert writes, in her book, of the first time she saw a photo of the guru. “Then my heart stood up, brushed itself off, took a deep breath and announced, ‘I want a spiritual teacher.’ ” Both women ended up at the group’s ashram, Gurudev Siddha Peeth, in Maharashtra, India.

Getting a guru: For Gilbert, this decision was a lifesaver. For Szabo, it derailed her life for more than a decade. And for thousands of women entranced with the “Eat Pray Love” phenomenon — the movie, predicted to be a major box-office contender, has spawned more than 400 retail tie-ins — it could fall somewhere between overpriced self-help and good old-fashioned fraud.

“If you see an organization that’s personality-driven, focused on this individual leader who members seem enthralled with, and who can do no wrong, you may be dealing with more of a cult than enlightenment,” warns cult expert Rick Ross, who’s spent more than two decades chronicling the dark side of so-called spiritual salvation.

New Yorker Daniel Shaw, another former Siddha staff member, explained the group’s near-instant appeal. “Initially, my experiences were very powerful, like Gilbert’s,” says Shaw, now 58. “I was at a turning point in my own life. I was pretty unhappy. And when I encountered Siddha it was like magic — the experience of stillness, the music, the incense. I found myself feeling peaceful for the first time in a very long time.”



Marta Szabo warns women searching for enlightenment not to fall into an ashram con game.


Szabo, who moved from those regular meditation sessions to an eventual staff position in India as Gurumayi’s personal assistant, says ashram attendees often end up broke, and broken. Rather than using their inner-peace revelations to spur them on to happier lives, they become enlightenment junkies, spending all their time and money in pursuit of what they come to believe is the path to happiness: more and more meditation and Guru worship.

“People would charge accommodations and bookstore items and courses up on their credit cards that they couldn’t afford,” says Szabo, who now resides in Woodstock, NY and chronicles her ashram years at the-guru-looked-good.blogspot.com. “There was always the sense in the ashram that money you spent in the ashram — even if it put you in debt — was money well spent. The guru would handle the consequences. She would be there for you since you’d put your faith in her.”

America’s reverence for gurus is a bit of a joke in India, says Gita Mehta, author of the scathing 1979 journalistic expose “Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East,” in which she chronicles the first big wave of naive Westerners seeking instant enlightenment.

“People who are coming to us, by and large, think the guru is the whole idea of India,” she says. “That’s where it gets dangerous. If your guru is a con man and you think of him as a father figure, then you’re certainly going to be in trouble.”

In 1994, the New Yorker published a major exposé of Siddha Yoga, headquartered in the Catskills town of South Fallsburg. Among other things, the story alleged that the group’s leaders had covered up sexual abuse of female disciples and used “disturbing . . . strong-arm tactics used to hush up ex-devotees or punish them for disloyalty.” The group did not respond to our request for comment.

Not all ashrams are hiding dark secrets, of course. Sometimes they’re just a big letdown.

One 29-year-old Manhattanite, who asked to remain anonymous, read “EPL” when it came out, and credits it with introducing her to meditation and yoga. Years later, she says, she went to an ashram after a breakup.

Lacking the funds to jet to India, she headed to one upstate instead — only to find herself bored, lonely and mired in that depressing time between fall and winter.

Ultimately, she says, “the people there were interesting, but it didn’t have that overwhelming sense of spirituality and enlightenment that I think people associate with an ashram.”

These cautionary tales are not nearly as catchy, though, as the “Eat Pray Love” lobby, buoyed by Oprah Winfrey’s stamp of approval. The talk-show host picked “EPL” as a must-read for her viewers, and Gilbert was a guest on her show twice.

Now that the movie’s coming out, “EPL” is poised for a second wind. The message many — including Winfrey — seem to take from the book says you should spend whatever you have to and travel as far as you need to, in order to achieve happiness.

“I was wondering how many bored women will see the movie and think that the answers to all of their problems will be solved by spending a weekend in an ashram,” says 37-year-old blogger Cindy Vaughn, who recently embarked on a meditation course herself (unrelated to “EPL,” she swears). At the end of the course, she did a one-day silent meditation retreat, which, unlike Gilbert’s, did not result in a profound spiritual awakening.

“I am not sure I could do anything longer than a day,” she says. “It was hard. It was draining and long, and it didn’t solve anything for me.”

Vaughn’s candor is unusual. As Szabo has observed, friends who spend tons of hard-earned money to pursue inner peace generally try to at least pretend they’ve found it.

“I ask them how it was, and they say, ‘I didn’t have the experiences that everybody seems to have, but it’s really great!’ ” she says. “It’s hard for them to go, ‘The emperor has no clothes.’ It’s hard to expose themselves to what really happened there.”

As the industry isn’t regulated, anyone can claim the title of guru. And it’s a potentially lucrative gig, especially in a culture where we're encouraged to pay any price to make ourselves feel better . . . about ourselves.

“It’s almost like it’s become a sport that is dependent on paying the most money to go to the best ashram, to write the most amazing experience,” says Texas journalist Joshunda Sanders, who coined the term “priv-lit” (for “privileged literature”) in a recent article for Bitch magazine about Gilbert’s book.

And it’s never been a better time to compete in the Enlightenment Olympics. To coincide with the release of the film, numerous travel agencies are offering “Eat Pray Love”-themed tours to Italy, India and Indonesia (the three countries Gilbert visits in the book). Even Lonely Planet, the handbook for cheapskate travelers, offers suggestions on its Web site for re-creating Gilbert’s trip at Roman gelaterias, Indian meditation courses and Indonesian surf beaches.

This, of course, negates the real point of Gilbert’s book: that one needs to carve out one’s own path to peace.

“It does go against the yogic principle of looking inside rather than outside of ourselves for happiness,” says 28-year-old Jennilyn Carson, creator of the blog YogaDork, who’s been chronicling “EPL” mania over the past year. “[But] people want to be happy, and if something can be purchased to facilitate that happiness, they’ll do it.”

Prop 8: Judge Walker's Bias Will Be Overruled

by: Maggie Gallagher
Despite the media hoopla, this is not the first case in which a federal judge has imagined and ruled that our Constitution requires same-sex marriage. A federal judge in Nebraska ruled for gay marriage in 2005 and was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in 2006.

The Proposition 8 case on which the Ninth Circuit's Judge Vaughn Walker ruled Wednesday was pushed by two straight guys with a hunger for media attention, lawyers with huge egos who overrode the considered judgment of major figures in the gay legal establishment, thinkers who feared exactly what we anticipate: the Supreme Court will uphold Prop. 8 and the core civil rights of Californians and all Americans to vote for marriage as one man and one woman.

Judge Walker's ruling proves, however, that the American people were and are right to fear that too many powerful judges do not respect their views, or the proper limits of judicial authority. Did our Founding Fathers really create a right to gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution? It is hard for anyone reading the text or history of the 14th Amendment to make that claim with a straight face, no matter how many highly credentialed and brilliant so-called legal experts say otherwise.

Judge Walker has added insult to injury by suggesting that support for marriage is somehow irrational bigotry, akin to racial animus. The majority of Americans are not bigots or haters for supporting the commonsense view that marriage is the union of husband and wife, because children need moms and dads.

Judge Walker's view is truly a radical rejection of Americans' rights, our history and our institutions that will only fuel a popular rebellion now taking place against elites who are more interested in remaking American institutions than respecting them.

If this ruling is upheld, millions of Americans will face for the first time a legal system that is committed to the view that our deeply held moral views on sex and marriage are unacceptable in the public square, the fruit of bigotry that should be discredited, stigmatized and repressed. Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents' views and values.

Those in power will call it tolerance, they will call it pluralism, but in truth same-sex marriage is a government takeover of an institution the government did not make, cannot in justice redefine, and ought to respect and protect as essential to the common good.

Judge Walker is off-base: same-sex marriage is not a civil right, it is a civil wrong. The Supreme Court and Congress will reject his biased view.

Maggie Gallagher is the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage.

Prime Minister Cameron’s Slander Against Israel

by: Peter Wehner


In a speech in Ankara, Turkey, British Prime Minister David Cameron said this:

I know that Gaza has led to real strains in Turkey ’s relationship with Israel. But Turkey is a friend of Israel. And I urge Turkey, and Israel, not to give up on that friendship. Let me be clear. The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told PM Netanyahu, we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp. But as, hopefully, we move in the coming weeks to direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians so it’s Turkey that can make the case for peace and Turkey that can help to press the parties to come together, and point the way to a just and viable solution.

Prime Minister Cameron’s claim that the “Israeli attack” on the Gaza flotilla was “completely unacceptable” is utter nonsense. As I argued at the time:

The blockade was justified by international law. (Egypt , by the way, had also imposed a blockade on Gaza because of the threat from the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which illegally seized control of Gaza in 2007.) The Israeli navy first tried to warn the ships off verbally. The “peace activist” on board assaulted Israeli commandos (who were armed with paintball guns) with clubs, knives, metal pipes, stun grenades, and handguns; it turns out that many of them were recruited specifically to attack Israeli soldiers. The “humanitarian relief” the flotilla was supposedly bringing to Palestinians in Gaza was in fact no such thing (food, medicine, relief supplies, and electricity continue to pour into Gaza on a daily basis). And the “charity” that helped organize the flotilla was in fact the radical Turkish group IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi), which has longstanding ties to Hamas and the global jihadist movement. Yet somehow, some way, it is Israel that is condemned when it acts in its own self-defense.

All of these facts are highly relevant, yet Cameron mentions none of them. I wonder why.

As for Gaza being a “prison camp”: if that’s what it is, Gaza is a prison camp of the Palestinian leadership’s own making.

It cannot be said often enough: in 2005, Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — in unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza — did for the Palestinians what the Turks (and, among others, the British, Egyptians, and Jordanian rulers of Palestine) never did: it granted them sovereign control in Gaza. Rather than build a peaceful and prosperous state, however, Hamas — which seized control of Gaza — decided to launch thousands of rocket and mortar attacks against unarmed Israelis. Israel responded as any sane, sovereign state would with measures including a blockade. Yet Cameron has no words of condemnation for Hamas. This sounds like midsummer madness.

The truth Cameron cannot abide is that the responsibility for the suffering in Gaza lies not with the Israelis but with Hamas and the Palestinians. And for the Prime Minister of Great Britain not only to deny this truth but also to engage in a smear of an estimable and admirable nation like Israel — all to establish a “new partnership” between Britain and Turkey and, in the process, to win applause from Turkey’s increasingly radicalized leadership — is troubling and disappointing. Prime Minister Cameron’s approach is morally offensive and strategically foolish.

On this matter at least, the British prime minister knows not of what he speaks.