You've Been Warned | Ain't Complicated

Mr. Savage? Yes, He Can!

Closing out his first hour this afternoon (at least here in Oregon on 750 KXL), Michael Savage said (and I quote to the best of my recollection):

I don’t know if God Himself can save this nation.

Sir, God can save this nation!

“Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

Yes, God can save America.

But will He?

Or is the cup of iniquity of the United States of America too close to full by now?

I don’t know.

And if God chooses to bring judgment on the USA, what will I do?

Would to God that I will stand strong. And shine strongly with the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christ, a Hostage?

Something’s weird here, in my estimation:

A student at the University of Central Florida says he’s now getting death threats after he stole and later returned a wafer representing the “Body of Christ” from a Catholic Mass in Orlando.

The student senator, Webster Cook, originally claimed he merely wanted to show the Eucharist to a friend who had questions about Catholicism before consuming the host.

Cook, who was raised Catholic, said he decided to bring the wafer home June 29 after a church leader tried to physically pry it from his hand. Cook broke Church rules by failing to consume it immediately during Communion and then removing it from his mouth once seated.

The wafer was kept in a Ziploc bag until Cook returned it days later along with an e-mail stating, “I am returning the Eucharist to you in response to the e-mails I have received from Catholics in the UCF community. I still want the community to understand that the use physical force is wrong, especially when based on assumptions. However, I feel it is unnecessary to cause pain for those who are not at fault in this situation.”

Cook has reportedly been getting death threats, prompting his friend, who wants to remain nameless, to discuss the situation with local media.

“I was kind of confused because I always thought that Jesus was a pacifist, and they’re using violence in order to get back the body of a pacifist,” he told WOFL-TV.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented on the case, stating:

“For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage – regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance – is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.”

Is this on a par with “desecrating” the Koran?

Or cartooning Mohammed?

And does The Nameless Friend have a valid point on the violence angle?

And what about Bill Donohue — does he have a good point also?

PS: I reject the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Like a Mother. (And a Father.)

Over at Life in the Shoe, Dorcas Smucker as a short-but-excellent post on Looking Like a Mom:

Obviously the implication here is that looking like a mom is a bad thing. Maybe that’s because the popular perception is that looking like a mom is all physical, and all moms are sloppy and out of shape. At least that’s the impression I get when people meet me and insist that I can’t possibly have six children, which is flattering in its way, but I think the essence of a real mom shows up on her face and I hope that’s what people can see in me.

I am proud to be a mom, and I hope people can look at me and tell right off that if they have a problem they can tell me about it, that I’ve survived enough crises to know what to get upset about and what not to, that I’ll happily dispense advice, that I believe in better things for them, that I’ll drop everything to make them a cup of hot tea, that I’ll happily mother anyone who needs mothering.

And if someone stops me in a store to ask what to buy for a ten-year-old, I’ll feel honored.

Way to go, Dorcas!

While I do not wish to look like a mother (or a grandmother), I want to “feel” likewise honored in looking like a father or even a grandfather.

After all, that’s what I am.

Whether or not I look like one, let me be the best at both that I can be.

Long ago I wished for a father’s heart like the Father’s heart. My wish was sincere. And intense. And quite ignorant.

Ignorant because I didn’t know the breaking and restructuring the granting of such a wish would require.

Ignorant because I didn’t realize the fragility of such a heart. (No, that doesn’t make God fragile!)

Do I now have a heart like the Father’s? Not even close. But I’m far closer than I was before making that request of Him.

And I think I understand His heart better than I used to.

So — again — I ask: Let me look and love and lead and live like a father should.

And like the Father does.

WWW: Wild Wild Web

I use the Internet.

I depend on the Internet.

But I’m very wary of it. Or if not of it, of the way it can be used and is used by people (as individuals, as corporations, as governments, as other people groupings).

So three headlines caught my attention earlier this morning:

Congress studies how people track your online use

Executives from major Internet players — Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. — are due for a grilling about online privacy in a Senate committee Wednesday, but the company likely to get the most scrutiny is a small Silicon Valley startup called NebuAd Inc.

NebuAd has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates in recent weeks for working with Internet service providers to track the online behavior of their customers and then serve up targeted banner ads based on that behavior.

[…]

“This is analogous to AT&T listening to your phone calls all day in order to figure out what to sell you in the middle of dinner,” said Robert Topolski, a technology consultant to Public Knowledge and Free Press, two other public interest groups that have raised concerns about NebuAd.

[…]

Besides NebuAd, Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee may also examine Facebook’s “Beacon” monitoring tool, which tracked online purchases made by Facebook members and sent alerts to their friends on the site.

For the record: Congressional hearings don’t rank highly with me either. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll say it again: Trusting the Web to maintain privacy requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

OK, on to Story Number Two:

Internet flaw could let hackers take over the Web

Computer industry heavyweights are hustling to fix a flaw in the foundation of the Internet that would let hackers control traffic on the World Wide Web.

Major software and hardware makers worked in secret for months to create a software “patch” released on Tuesday to repair the problem, which is in the way computers are routed to web page addresses.

“It’s a very fundamental issue with how the entire addressing scheme of the Internet works,” Securosis analyst Rich Mogul said in a media conference call.

“You’d have the Internet, but it wouldn’t be the Internet you expect. (Hackers) would control everything.”

The flaw would be a boon for “phishing” cons that involve leading people to imitation web pages of businesses such as bank or credit card companies to trick them into disclosing account numbers, passwords and other information.

Attackers could use the vulnerability to route Internet users wherever they wanted no matter what website address is typed into a web browser.

[…]

On Tuesday the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), a joint government-private sector security partnership, issued a warning to underscore the serious of so-called DNS “cache poisoning attacks” the vulnerability could allow.

[…]

“Consequently, web traffic, email, and other important network data can be redirected to systems under the attacker’s control.”

[…]

Automated updating should protect most personal computers. Microsoft released the fix in a software update package Tuesday.

[…]

Hackers using the vulnerability to attack company computer networks would also be able to capture email and other business data.

And “they” want me to trust the Internet for data storage and data back-up?! Ha!

And “they” think I’m paranoid for warning even about plain ole email communications?! Hmph!

And “they” still think I’m a TechnoPetriefied Kook. Fine. Here’s Story Number Three:

Google ventures into virtual reality with ‘Lively’

…Google Inc. hopes to orchestrate more fantasizing on the Web.

[…]

Google thinks Lively will encourage even more people to dive into alternate realities….

The Lively application already works on Facebook, one of the Web’s hottest hangouts, and Google is working on a version suitable for an even larger online social network, News Corp.’s MySpace.

[…]

Lively’s users will be able to sculpt an avatar that can be male, female or even a different species. An avatar can assume a new identity, change clothes or convey emotions with a few clicks of the mouse.

The service also enables users to create different digital dimensions to roam, from a coffeehouse to an exotic island. The settings can be decorated with a wide variety of furniture, including large-screen televisions that can be set up to play different clips from YouTube.com, Google’s video-sharing service.

Lively users can then invite their friends and family into their virtual realities, where they can chat, hug, cry, laugh and interact as if they were characters in a video game.

As a precaution, Google is requiring Lively’s users to be at least 13 years old — a constraint that hasn’t been enough to prevent young children from running into trouble on other social spots on the Web.

“As a precaution…” — oh, please!

Anyway, Lively is further good news for those wishing to exploit and expand the depravity of man. Stay away from it!

OK, now you may virtually stick your virtual head back in the virtual sand.

Ahmadinejad: Act MMVIII

This morning Joel Rosenberg asks: War in November?

War clouds continue to build in the epicenter. Last month in Rome, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that the United States and Israel would soon be “annihilated,” language he had not used so explicitly since October 2005 when he promised to wipe Israel “off the map” and urged Muslims to “envision a world without the United States.” This week, his regime authorized a new series of Iranian war games. He ordered the digging of 320,000 graves to bury the enemies of Islam. He is calling for the unification of the Islamic world politically and economically, including the creation of a single currency.

Top Israeli intelligence officials, meanwhile, increasingly believe that time is running out. They believe that Iran could have nuclear weapons within a year and one former Mossad chief is urging his country’s leadership to launch a massive series of air strikes against Iranian nuclear and other military facilities before it is too late. Israel’s Air Force just conducted a test run of such a bombing mission.

[…]

The U.S. does not want Israel to strike. After all, the repercussions of such a war with Iran would be global in nature. Israel would face tens of thousands of incoming missiles not just from Iran but likely from Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and possibly the West Bank. Some of these missiles could be have chemical and/or biological warheads, even if the nuclear warheads in Iran are not yet ready. Ballistic missiles would also be likely fired from Iran at the oil fields in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, at oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Straight of Hormuz, and at U.S. bases and forces in Iraq. Tens of thousands of suicide bomber cells could be activated in the region — especially in Iraq and Israel — and perhaps even in Western Europe and the U.S. and Canada. Iranian efforts to topple Jordan’s King Abdullah II and/or Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in favor of radical Islamic regimes friendly to Tehran could also be set in motion. Oil prices could shoot from $140 a barrel to $300 a barrel or more. U.S. gas prices could spike to $7-$10 or more, with horrific domestic and global economic repercussions.

No wonder Washington doesn’t want a war with Iran. No wants such a war. I certainly do not, nor do the Israelis. Yet, the U.S. does not have a convincing plan to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program in time. Nor does the U.N., or the E.U. Diplomacy isn’t working. Economic sanctions have been imposed on Iran since 1979 to little strategic effect. Unfortunately, the words of Sen. John McCain keep echoing in my head this week. In April 2006, the senior Senator from Arizona appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press. He warned, “there’s only one thing worse than using the option of military action, and that is the Iranians acquiring nuclear weapons.” For if Iran gets the Bomb, he said, “I think we could have Armageddon.”

If this were in one of Mr. Rosenberg’s novels, some people would be looking over their shoulders wondering when it would come true. But it’s not, so they can breathe a sigh of relief. 😐

That aside, here’s a bit from Joel’s most recent Flash Traffic email:

As Israel faces the possibility of war with Iran in the next year — possibly as early as this fall — The Joshua Fund is stepping up efforts to stockpile food, water, medical equipment and other emergency supplies. Over the weekend, our leadership hosted the head of a leading evangelical Israeli relief organization to develop detailed contigency plans and we have a staff team heading to Israel at the end of the month to meet with other key allies. Over the course of the next few days, I will be holding conference calls with evangelical pastors throughout the U.S. to brief them on the latest developments and discuss ways they can help.

There are a few urgent prayer requests we would like to share with all of you:

1) First and foremost, please pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the entire region. Pray for the leaders of the region — and our own national leaders — to make wise choices in the days and weeks ahead. While diplomacy and sanctions haven’t worked so far, they still could. So let’s pray that the Lord would spare all the people of the region another war. They have, after all, suffered so much already.

2) Pray especially for peace on Israel’s southern border. Every day, rockets and mortars from Gaza are striking fear into the hearts of some 500,000 Israeli residents. Pray, too, for the staff of Barzilai Medical Center, the only hospital treating Israelis in the southern tier. Pray for wisdom and comfort for the doctors, nurses, administrators and volunteers. Pray that they would have all the equipment, pharmaceuticals and other essentials they need to treat those affected by the on-going terror attacks.

3) Please pray for evangelical Christians and Israeli Jews to join forces to bless the people of Israel in real and practical ways. Pray that historic tensions would subside, and that Christians would truly show unconditional love and unwavering support to the Jewish State. Pray, too, that Israeli leaders at all levels of society would be open to and accepting of such support, and that The Joshua Fund could play a positive, helpful role in all of this.

4) Please pray for members of Israeli churches and congregations and their leaders to have wisdom and discernment to know how best to love their neighbors and their enemies. Please particularly pray for their courage and patience. While harassment of believers in Israel is nothing like the terrible persecution ongoing in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran or elsewhere, attacks against followers of Jesus in Israel have increased in recent months. As I have reported before, the 15-year old son of an Israeli pastor was nearly killed this spring when a bomb was sent to the pastor’s home disguised as a Purim gift. Ami Ortiz is slowly, steadily, miraculously recovering. But he definitely needs your prayers for the many surgeries he is having to go through. Please also pray that the authorities in Israel would be truly diligent in tracking down and catching those responsible for this horrific crime. The police have now definitively ruled out Palestinian terrorism. This was done by Jews who hate Israeli believers in Yeshua, they believe. But there have been concerns that the police were not doing as much as possible to solve the case. Pressure from Christians around the world writing to Israeli embassies insisting on action has helped. Please keep praying and pressing for justice. Unfortunately, there have been other attacks as well. A deputy Mayor of an Israeli town recently organized Orthodox youths to round up New Testaments and other Christian literature and burn them in a huge bonfire. Christian workers in the country are being denied visas. Some Israeli officials are harassing immigrants who believe in Yeshua and trying to strip of their Israeli citizenship. The Lord is being gracious in all these areas, and a national discussion has ensued over whether Israeli believers in Jesus have a right to live peaceably in the Jewish State, especially since they are very loyal citizens. They fight in the army. They pay their taxes. They serve their communities. They care for the poor and needy. They want to help build a strong Israel for the future. They also want the right to worship the Lord and unashamedly express their belief that Yeshua is the Messiah and the hope not only of the Jewish people, but the whole world. Let’s continue to pray for these brothers and sisters during these challenging times.

5.) Finally, please pray that we evangelicals around the world would have the courage to stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel and that we would not hesitate in any way to help them have enough food, water, clothing, medical equipment and other needed supplies to care for their own communities as well as their neighbors when the next war breaks out. As Paul wrote in Romans 15:25-27, “Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.” We do owe it to our brethren in Israel to help them in their nation’s time of need. This summer, therefore, TJF is seeking the Lord to provide an additional $1 million above and beyond our current financial commitments to accelerate our efforts to stockpile these goods, acquire the needed warehouse facilities to store them, and vehicles to move them around the country. Our board will meet this weekend to discuss several urgent new projects and make decisions on how to proceed based, in part, on our sense of whether we believe we can afford accelerating our work in Israel. We are bringing in several experts to advise us, including a former top U.S. military commander who is a dear brother in Christ and has decades of experience praying for peace yet preparing for war. I’ll report more next week on what comes out of these discussions.

Islam: What Will You Not Say?

The Erosion of Free Speech

Although the headline of the June 8th article in the Daily Times of Pakistan read “Pakistan to ask EU to amend laws on freedom of expression,” the request from high-level government officials was in reality a threat. The six-person Pakistani delegation was set to deliver a warning that unless blasphemy against Islam stopped, terrorist attacks against European assets could escalate. Their cited example was the suicide bomb attack this June 2 on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan in which eight people died and 27 were injured as a result of possible renewed backlash to the 2005 publication of 12 editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Islamabad informed the European Union countries that the backlash to perceived insults to the “religion of peace” could jeopardize “inter-religious harmony” and result in uncontrollable attacks on other diplomatic missions abroad. A high-level delegation representing the Pakistani government was to travel to Brussels to further warn EU officials of the liabilities of free expression.

This apocryphal grandstanding, in which Islamabad seeks to eradicate free speech and reclassify it as an offensive hate crime, is part and parcel of the insidious Islamic effort to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate under shariah law. Paradoxically, in most of the Muslim world, the right of free speech is nonexistent. Verbal and physical attacks on non-Muslims are rampant, as is death for apostates, terrorism training for youth, hate indoctrination of non-Muslims in mosques and schools and the oppression of Christians, Hindus and Jews. But Muslims feel free to use democratic precepts in the service of their own radical ideology to, ultimately, overthrow liberty, eliminate individual rights and destroy freedoms in Western societies. They seek prohibitions on free expression to strengthen Islam, pave the way toward Islamization and keep the Western public ill informed and unaware of potential threats to the democratic way of life. By couching this effort as merely the elimination of offensive speech, they conceal their true goal of undermining the laws of Western societies, specifically the very foundation of democracy – free speech.

This goal was dramatically illustrated in March of 2008, when the 57 Muslim states that make up the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) struck a blow against free speech by successfully forcing through the United Nation’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC) an amendment to a resolution on Freedom of Expression. The amendment, requiring extensive changes to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, officially characterizes as abuse and an act of religious discrimination any criticism of Islam. It also calls for the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to report any individuals and news media issuing negative comments about Islam.

In June, this limitation on free speech was further underscored when representatives of two non-governmental organizations sought to address stonings, honor killings and female genital mutilation sanctioned under shariah law. As part of the effort to mute criticism of Islam, the Egyptian UNHRC delegate demanded that the speakers be silenced, proclaiming, “Islam will not be crucified in this Council.”

Thus, banned from UNHRC sessions is criticism of shariah laws that oppress women, condemn homosexuals and threaten converts and non-Muslims. Also banned are statements against Islamic law-sanctioned child marriage, honor killings, the hanging of homosexuals and the murder of apostates.

The United Nations is not the only front where Islamic gag orders are in place. Canada’s Human Rights Act….

Be sure to read more (if not all) of the full article.

HT: Persecution.org

A Huge, Negative Experience

OK, here’s the story, with my very own headline:

Stand Up and Be Taped

The third-grade teacher who taped a disobedient child to a chair last month will be disciplined but not fired, the Oakridge School District said.

What type of action will be taken against Jill Tomchak has not been disclosed because personnel decisions are confidential, the Associated Press reports.

She had been placed on administrative leave following the May 28 incident in which a 9-year-old boy was secured to a chair with masking tape after repeatedly refusing to stay seated. The boy’s unwillingness to sit had been a problem throughout the school year.

The boy’s mother, Becky Faile, told The Register-Guard newspaper in this story that she was satisfied with Superintendent Don Kordosky’s decision and will not pursue legal action.

“We’re trusting that since Don got to hear all sides that they’re doing the right thing,” she said.

Faile said her son will stay home for the remaining four days of school, but she expects to send him back to Oakridge Elementary in the fall. Tomchak, a long-time Oakridge teacher did not return a phone call made by the Register-Guard.

Faile told the paper “we decided that would be the worst thing for Austin, to drag this out.” She said another parent contacted the media about the taping and that she “never intended it to be such a huge, negative experience.”

“I was just trying to protect my son,” she said. “When you have your child come home and tell you something like this, you want to defend him.” She said she told Kordosky that she, her husband and Austin would be willing to meet privately with Tomchak this summer to try to put the matter behind them all.

The teacher was disciplined. Why not the child? Oh, wait. He was disciplined…by the teacher. In a manner unacceptable to the parents.

So the mother sets out to defend him.

Did she punish the child, too?

The boy already had a track record for disobedience and uncooperation at school. If that isn’t disciplined out of him by his parents and his teachers, he is in for worse things in life than getting taped to a chair.

Poor little boy.

(I resisted a few urges to call him a brat.) 🙂