This and That

The UK’s Guardian shows us how the Brits may have (once again) affected the course of history:

Fresh and apparently incriminating documents have come to light under the Freedom of Information Act on the way Britain helped Israel obtain its nuclear bomb 40 years ago, by selling it 20 tonnes of heavy water.

Kudos to the British. I suppose.

I wonder if they will be made to pay today.

Is it Fox News that claims to be “fair and balanced”?

And “we report; you decide”?

Maybe this story is just World Net Daily going further off the deep end:

A Saudi prince who owns shares of the Fox News Channel claims he persuaded network chief Rupert Murdoch to change a screen banner during a broadcast that identified the recent unrest in France as “Muslim riots.”

During the violent street protests in France one month ago, the prince said, Fox News ran a banner at the bottom of the screen that said “Muslim riots.”

“I picked up the phone and called Murdoch … [and told him] these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty,” al-Walid said.

“Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots.”

If accurate, it sounds like they reported, he decided, and they changed their reporting.

Maybe that’s where “fair and balanced” gets you.

Now let’s have a news source that’s just and truthful.

We may well have to wait for the Millennium for that.

And that may not be such a long wait, come to think of it.

I just read a new detail in yesterday’s tragic shooting at Miami International Airport:

Alpizar, who worked in the paint department of a home supply store, was returning from a missionary trip in Ecuador, according to a neighbor who was watching his ranch-style house in the Orlando suburb of Maitland.

Another source said he and his wife were returning from a trip to Peru.

So our knowledge of such things is still sketchy and seemingly-contradictory.

But I wonder what will be made of this missionary element!

Yesterday we learned the Islamic terrorists extended their deadline by 48 hours. To what purpose, I wonder. Maybe they need more time to figure out a way to save face. Maybe they want to get the most terror-mileage out of this whole thing. Maybe they don’t want to be hasty in their actions. Who knows.

I am sure the extension was received well by those more directly affected. It for sure gives me and you more time to pray, if we’re so inclined.

A day or two ago I read the CPT December 6 statement with some head-scratching interest:

It is our most sincere wish that you will immediately release them unharmed.

While we believe the action of kidnapping is wrong, we do not condemn you as people. We recognize the humanity in each person, and respect it very much. This includes you, our colleagues, and all people.

We believe there needs to be a force that counters all the resentment, the fear, the intimidation felt by the Iraqi people. We are trying to be that force: to speak for justice, to advocate for the human rights of Iraqis, to look at an Iraqi face and say: my brother, my sister,

Perhaps you are men who only want to raise the issue of illegal detention. We don’t know what you may have endured.

As you can see by the statements of support from our friends in Iraq and all over the world, we work for those who are oppressed.

We also condemn our own governments for their actions in Iraq.

We served as missionaries in Mexico. A clear threat developed against me. We eventually followed local advice and left the field. (Temporarily, we thought, but that’s a different issue…even 15 years later.) I know a bit about unease, discomfort, and outright fear.

I serve as chairman of the board of Hope Mennonite Missions. Several years ago we established a no-ransom policy regarding kidnapping of “our” workers abroad.

I wrote those two paragraphs to try to establish a certain degree of empathy for what CPT leaders may be experiencing. I believe I can understand at least somewhat why they issue a statement like that.

So now I say this: I’m intrigued that they do not condemn the terrorists for their actions, but they do condemn others for their actions.

Furthermore, in the fourth paragraph I quote above, they seem to engage in shifting blame again.

I could say they should instead follow the example presented by the early church in Acts when Peter was in prison, awaiting execution. But maybe that’s a shoe I wouldn’t wear either if I were in their place.

May the captives find in God the grace they need at this precise moment.

Yeah, I know. It’s one of those “black helicopter” reactions, the knee-at-jerk response of a quivering kook.

OK. I agree. 🙂

But the thought flickered briefly in my mind when I read this breaking story:

A passenger who claimed to have a bomb in a carry-on bag was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday on a jetway to an American Airlines plane that had arrived from Colombia, officials said. No bomb was found in the bag, a U.S. official said.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said the dead man was a 44-year-old U.S. citizen. It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, he said.

“Yeah,” this theory goes, “the guy was probing airline security and the presence of federal air marshals. His job was to test their alertness, their procedures, and their willingness to use force (and what kind of force). They weren’t supposed to shoot before…something.”

The theory fizzles with this next paragraph:

According to a witness, the man frantically ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757 while his wife tried to explain that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.

Oh. The wife is alleged to have said her husband was bipolar (a mental illness also known as manic-depression).

Well, maybe that lays the probe theory to rest.

Wait! Maybe the woman is in on the plot also.

I don’t believe any of it for a bit. But in case it turns out to be true, I (and perhaps you) read it here first.

All that aside, pray for the widow and any other families that may be involved. Pray for the federal agents involved (and be thankful for them). Pray for others who witnessed the tragedy.

Because even if it was an Al-Qaeda probe, it is still a human tragedy. That should never be overlooked or forgotten.

If you haven’t known about something else to consider worrying about, World Tribune offers this:

Unfortunately, that scenario is not far fetched. It is the conclusion of a report issued in 2004 by a blue ribbon commission created by Congress. The commission found that a single nuclear weapon, delivered by a ballistic missile to an altitude of a few hundred miles over the United States, would be “capable of causing catastrophe for the nation.”

How is that possible? By precipitating a lethal electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

In 2000, concerned about EMP technology, Congress created the “Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack” (the EMP Threat Commission, for short). In its final report, presented in summer 2004, the panel warned that terrorists could indeed execute such an attack by launching a small nuclear armed missile from a freighter off the coast of the United States.

Maybe World Tribune isn’t a credible source.

Maybe the EMP Threat Commission overstated its case.

Maybe EMP ranks alongside Y2K.

Maybe EMP and Y2K co-exist with solar flares as catastrophic cripplers.

Maybe. Maybe not.

God knows. I don’t. I rest in Him.

Can this man survive? I’m harassed with doubts.

Here’s a little of what Reuters is reporting:

“I swear by God I walked by a room and on my left I saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath,” said 38-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who said he had been kept in room 63 at the Hakmiya intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.

Hassan, the first witness to face Saddam in court, said he was 15 when Saddam visited the village in July 1982 and Shi’ite militants tried to assassinate him.

. . .

Hassan risked reprisals by letting his face appear on television as he gave evidence.

Courageous, I would say.