Monthly Archives: December 2007

Integrity

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While Politico’s bogus hit piece on Fred Thompson is being widely debunked, Fred Thompson showed biased hack Roger Simon the true meaning of integrity with his honest assessment of farm subsidy programs while talking to reporters in Iowa’s Bremer County:

AKD: What will you do for the farmers of Bremer County?

FT: (laughs)

AKD: You knew this was coming, right?

FT: I would continue to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I’ve been looking all over Iowa for a bad steak and I can’t find it. Been trying my best. It’s not a matter of what I would do for the farmers. Farmers are not looking for a president to hand them something. Farmers want fair treatment and a chance to prosper in a free economy and that’s what I would help ensure. There’s a lot of programs we’ve got out there, some of which are good programs, some of which are not. And I think that we need to work our way through that and make sure we’re doing what’s good for the country, not just the farmers, not just the people of Iowa, not just the people of Tennessee. But good for the country. A sound policy that makes sense. I think there’s a lot more that we could do for the working farmer in terms of ecological programs and environmental programs – land conservation, soil conservation – that would be fair and it would be beneficial to the nation and to Iowa and to our country. We’re going to have to phase out the corporate welfare system we’ve got, however. There are extremely rich people living in skyscrapers in Manhattan that are receiving subsidy payments. I think that’s wrong. I’d put a stop to that if it was within my power. That still continues in this latest Farm Bill and it’s not right. There ought to be a cutoff at some level and it’s not right ot have millionaires receiving farm subsidies.

Wow! Most politicians running would have been vague and supportive but Fred told the farmers of Iowa what they needed to hear to make a fair decision, even the things that some of the most powerful farmers wouldn’t like.

That’s integrity. Roger Simon told his readers what he wanted the story to be, disregarding the facts in the process. Simon isn’t unique in this as the MSM is constantly “interpreting” facts for the public. But Simon, as much as he’s just one of thousands of journalists who practice the same sort of fictionalizing, has presented himself as especially lacking in that one virtue I, and many other Americans, want in a leader. Integrity.

This act will unfortunately cost Fred some support, and Ace of Spades thinks it’s an example of Fred being more interested in proving his integrity than winning. But I guess that’s what integrity is sometimes, putting it ahead of personal gain.

For this especially I’m With Fred!

Anti-Christian Hate Crime in Oregon

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Merry Christmas Oregon:

EUGENE, Ore. — Vandals stole baby Jesus figures from two nativity scenes in Eugene, leaving severed pigs heads in their places.

Police are calling it a possible bias crime, because the vandalism was aimed at a religious icon.

Both incidents occurred sometime during the night at residences within a few doors of each other on Elmira Street.

David Stahl, one of the two homeowners, said various lawn ornaments have been stolen or vandalized in the past few years, but the latest incident went too far.

Stahl said it was apparent the act was intended to offend.

“The vandals didn’t disturb anything else in the yard,” Stahl told the Register-Guard. “They just took the baby Jesus and left the pig’s head.”

Jennifer Cooper, the daughter of the other couple whose nativity scene was defaced, said a neighbor told her what was in the display as she was on her way outside with her 18-month-old cousin to visit the scene.

“The child likes to kiss the baby Jesus before going home. I told her it was too wet,” Cooper said.

But Cooper said several neighborhood children saw the nativity scene before she knew what had happened and were very upset by the sight.

I guess when there’s a radical atheist movement demonizing Christians specifically and the devout of all faiths in general you have to expect an upswing this sort of outrageousness. I’m not a Christian myself, far from it, but even I was angry when reading this.

Kids saw this.

So Merry Christmas out there from all your more “rational” atheist neighbors. I guess that whole Atheism promotes immorality argument isn’t just bunk…

41% of Al-Qaeda in Iraq are Saudi Arabian Nationals

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Food for thought from Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most al Qaeda fighters in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and Libya and many are university-aged students, said a study released on Wednesday by researchers at the U.S. Army’s West Point military academy.

The study was based on 606 personnel records collected by al Qaeda in Iraq and captured by coalition troops in October. It includes data on fighters who entered Iraq, largely through Syria, between August 2006 and August 2007.

The researchers at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center found that 41 percent of the fighters were Saudi nationals.

Libyan nationals accounted for the second largest group entering Iraq in that time period with about 19 percent of the total, followed by Syrians and Yemenis each at 8 percent, Algerians with 7 percent and Moroccans at 6 percent.

On a per capita basis, Libyans accounted for the greatest share of foreign fighters entering Iraq.

Previous studies found Libyans accounted for a far smaller percentage of foreign fighters in Iraq, the West Point researchers said. They concluded the U.S. military either underestimated the Libyan contribution of fighters or that the pattern has shifted since a Libyan Islamic militant group strengthened ties with al Qaeda.

“The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked (to) the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qa’ida, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qa’ida on November 3, 2007,” wrote authors Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman.

With Al-Qaeda making inroads into Libya and their support staying strong on the Saudi street, it may be time for America to take a hard line with our “friends” the Saudis and put some more pressure on Libya to clean up it’s underground.

h/t JamieWearingFool

Satan’s Servant Saves Lives!

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Or at least Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore did when he passed along information to the F.B.I. that ended up saving the lives of an unsuspecting elderly couple whose grandson may have been plotting to murder them.

From Newsnet5.com:

CORTLAND, Ohio — A northeastern Ohio high school senior who sent an e-mail to the Church of Satan threatening to kill his grandparents was taken out of school this week and remains in police custody, police said.

Andrew Culver, 18, told police the e-mail, detailing his intention to kill his grandparents and steal their money and car, was a joke, said Bazetta Township police Chief Charles Sayers.

According to police, Culver wrote he had access to an arsenal of weapons and wanted to “kill in the name of our unholy lord Satan.”

Culver sent the message on Wednesday to Peter Gilmore, the high priest of the New York City-based Church of Satan, Sayers said. Gilmore then alerted the FBI, which notified local police. Culver was taken out of class on Thursday and questioned by police, Sayers said.

“To send an e-mail making specific threats, to sign your name, that to me is not a joke,” Sayers said.

Gilmore said his church discards most of the hundreds of e-mails it receives a day. But Culver’s message stood out, he said.

“I thought it could be a joke, but with recent events in Colorado and Nebraska, I thought it was better to play it safe,” he said.

So the High Priest of the Church of Satan stepped up and did what every American should do but most don’t: get involved. He didn’t have to risk his life or put himself out, just shoot off an e-mail to the proper authorities.

Many Americans won’t even do that. Compare the Gilmore story to this atrocity in Minnesota where a woman was beaten and raped for an hour in an apartment complex hallway while security cameras filmed at least 10 of her neighbors witnessing what was happening and doing nothing.

Compare this to the horror of Dunbar Village, a crime ridden project in Florida where a gang of teens gang-raped and tortured a mother and her 12 year old son for three hours while neighbors ignored their cries for help. The area around Dunbar Village is a rape zone reminiscent of the French banlieues, and the people there and worse the citizens of Florida do nothing.

I wrote a post once called The High cost of Liberalism that ran down several disturbing crime stories, all of which were made possible by American tolerance for criminality and the inaction of the common man. I put forward that it is modern “Liberalism”, with it’s insistence on acquiescence to the state and extollation of passivity, that enables this sort of criminality. This story is the opposite of that phenomenon, where an iconoclastic “religious” leader did the opposite of what the prevailing societal wisdom would dictate, with remarkable results.

The High Priest of the Church of Satan saved the lives of two strangers by alerting the authorities to suspicious behavior, while the majority of Christians, and “social justice” activists and the hordes of people who claim to be doing a good deed when they slap a John Edwards bumper sticker on their car or sign a petition to stop a Wal-mart from being built continue to stand by and do nothing.

If that doesn’t shame us all into doing more to help our communities, nothing will. Peter Gilmore should be thanked, and congratulated, not just for saving that couples lives but for reminding us all of what it takes to be a good American.

h/t Dreamin’ Demon