Considerettes

Are we making progress in Iraq? Streiff at Redstate displays the map for all to see of the areas that were under Iraqi police control starting in January ‘05 and continuing through July ‘05, January ‘06 and up to August 23rd ‘06. The area just keeps getting bigger and bigger. As Bush has said before, as they stand up, we’ll stand down, and that’s precisely what’s being done. We’re training them, we’re helping out with the hotspots, and preparing them to hold their own.

We’re still not going to be out of there anytime soon. Gen. George W. Casey Jr. says, “In 12 to 18 months Coalition presence will be decided by the Iraqi government.” But it will be their decision to make. No one’s saying that the insurgency will be over and done with, but Iraq will be dealing with it themselves. We’ll still probably maintain a presence there (as we do in quite a number of countries around the world). But we will have accomplished the mission of giving control of Iraq to the Iraqis. A republic, if they can keep it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Coalition

More religious openness in China? Could be happening.

A Christian author has been permitted to sign his books at a press conference at the Beijing International Book Fair, a first, according to Chinese officials.

“This is the first time in the history of China that an international religious leader has been permitted to sign copies of his book in a large public secular venue,” said Shen Weiping of the China Association for International Friendly Contact.

The signing was by evangelist Luis Palau, whose book, “Riverside Talks: A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian,” was released Wednesday at a Beijing news conference cut short when the crowd of journalists, photographers and television crews rushed the stage to get autographed copies and interview the authors.

It’s the first time such a book has been issued in China, according to Craig Chastain of the Luis Palau Association, because it has a clear statement of the beliefs of Christianity and a description of how to become a Christian.

There were 500 copies of the book prepared for the book fair, but they were snatched up immediately.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9% [?]

Technorati Tags: China, Luis Palau, Christian

Joseph Farah, on why the recent ruling requiring the condoning of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality in California institutions that get government money is a big deal.

I don’t want to overstate this, but this is the end of religious freedom in the biggest state in the union. The only alternative left for Christians and Jews and people of other faiths in California is quite literally to drop out. That means homeschooling. It means creating new institutions that won’t touch any public funding - even when it is as tenuous as one student accepting a state grant. When you submit yourself or your institution to government regulation in California now, you tacitly accept the official state religion of paganism.

And don’t think it will end here. It never does.

When more people choose to drop out, as they inevitably will, the coercive state will find new creative ways to come after them as well.

Just ask German homeschoolers. Yes, Farah’s editorials are generally overheated, but this time I think he’s really on to something. How far of a stretch is it, really, to imagine a law that makes this sort of coercion required for any business or institution simply operating in California, regardless of whether it gets state money? Not that much, in my mind.

Technorati Tags: homosexuality, California, education

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sam’s Club has brought back “Christmas”.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: Christmas

It’s now illegal in California schools to criticize homosexuality.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tossed out all sexual moral conduct codes at colleges, private and Christian schools, daycare centers and other facilities throughout his state, if the institutions have any students who get state assistance.

The governor yesterday signed a bill that would require all businesses and groups receiving state funding — even if it’s a state grant for a student — to condone homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality.

Note the phrase I bolded. Not only does this affect state-run schools, but it affects any private institution that has students who get state education grant money.

There is no exception for faith-based organizations or business owners with sincerely held religious convictions, critics note.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: California, Schwarzenegger, homosexuality

This sounds like the title of a bad sci-fi flick, and the following sounds like an overused plot–on the run from government compulsion–but it’s happening today in Germany. They don’t trust their citizens to do what’s best for their childrens’ education, even the highly qualified ones.

Hamburg- A German couple who are determined to educate their six children entirely at home have fled the city of Hamburg after the father, Andre R, 44, was jailed for a week for refusing to enrol his offspring in a public school. The R family are evangelical Christians who believe that public schools are a bad moral influence on children. Father R has a university degree in teaching, so he thought he could teach his five daughters and one son their reading, writing and arithmetic at home.

But the couple have hit a brick wall with German school authorities, who say they will apply the full power of the state until the R family yields to compulsory-education laws.

In February, Andre R and wife Frauke, 39, were hauled into court and fined 840 euros (1,090 dollars) for defying education laws. This month, five police showed up at the family’s rented, suburban row- house and hauled Andre R off to the Hamburg city prison.

Andre R refused to give in, so after a week among murderers and drug dealers, he was released and the authorities tried a new tack.

Officials last week began fetching the children each morning from the R home and taking them to school. Custody of the children is to taken away from the parents and the children will become wards of the state.

On Monday, no one answered when officials came knocking at the door of the R home.

Armin Eckermann, president of the German Home-Schooling Association, who is advising the family, said, “They have left Hamburg.” He declined further details.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11% [?]

Technorati Tags: Germany, education

Now that I have all my Blogger posts imported into WordPress, I’m doing what we call in the computer biz a parallel test.  I’m posting the same thing in both environments to keep the WP blog up-to-date as well as learn any of its quirks and make sure the tool I typically use for blogging (w.bloggar, who’s website seems to be MIA) will still work with WP and how it’ll works with it.  I’m adding categories to each new post, so the category list will be populated with a few things when I go live (but I’m not going back through the previous 1,829 posts to do that; they’ll just have to stay Uncategorized).

Lots of fun!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Looks like the Plame game may have gotten started by a little innocent chit-chat by a moderate in the Bush administration, not someone with an axe to grind.

[Richard] Armitage’s central role as the primary source on Plame is detailed for the first time in “Hubris,” which recounts the leak case and the inside battles at the CIA and White House in the run-up to the war. The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

Indeed, Armitage was a member of the administration’s small moderate wing. Along with his boss and good friend, Powell, he had deep misgivings about President George W. Bush’s march to war. A barrel-chested Vietnam vet who had volunteered for combat, Armitage at times expressed disdain for Dick Cheney and other administration war hawks who had never served in the military.

Betcha’ no one’s going to ask for Armitage to be “frog marched” out of the White House. That’s because this whole issue has been nothing but a hope for a full-blown scandal. But the fireworks never went off because there was no powder in them.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Technorati Tags: Plame, Armitage

While they may talk big about wanting a time table to get troops out of Iraq, Democratic politicians are campaigning in the opposite direction.

Most Democratic candidates in competitive congressional races are opposed to setting a timetable for pulling US troops out of Iraq, rejecting pressure from liberal activists to demand a quick end to the three-year-old military conflict.

Of the 59 [tag]Democrats[/tags] in hotly contested House and Senate races, a majority agree with the Bush administration that it would be unwise to set a specific schedule for troop withdrawal, and only a few are calling for substantial troop reductions to begin this year, according to a Washington Post survey of the campaigns.

The large number of Democrats opposed to a strict timeline for ending the military operations runs contrary to the assertion by President Bush and top Republicans that Democrats want to “cut and run” amid mounting casualties and signs of civil war. At the same time, the decision by many Democrats to refrain from advocating a specific plan for withdrawal complicates their leaders’ efforts to convince voters that they offer a new direction for the increasingly unpopular war.

The assertion by Republicans that Democrats want to “cut and run” is consistent with the rhetoric the Dems have been laying out. They elevated John Murtha to media darling. They agreed with timetables in press conferences. So Bush’s assertion fits the Democrats’ public pronouncements.

What it doesn’t agree with is how the Democrats act, regarding their voting almost unanimously against the Hunter Amendment which was a virtual copy of the Murtha plan, and regarding how they’re now campaigning. When this group says one thing and does another, it’s inevitable that any criticism will wind up missing the mark with either the words or the actions. But that’s not Bush’s fault. The fault lies with the Democrats, who are pandering to both sides of the issue. They’re not sitting on the fence, they’re trying to stand firmly on both sides.

However, as their actions show, they realize that, generally, the American public does not want to leave Iraq until the job’s done. So, to appease both the public and the increasingly powerful left-wing groups within the party, they’re talking out of both sides of their collective mouths. You can’t trust the words.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: Iraq

A very interesting article by Cathleen Falsani of the Chicago Sun-Times on how religion, specifically Protestant Christianity, and more specifically the typical social events, is making folks fat. I can attest to the fact that much of the article’s observations are right on, and it’s something really worth thinking about.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Technorati Tags: religion, fat

Happy 7th Birthday, Blogger! I’ve been with them for 4.5 of those years.

(OK, and I’m planning on leaving them soon.)

Popularity: 30% [?]

The stifling of dissent, Democrat-style.

…[T]his week in one of the boldest moves yet by a sitting liberal, Democrat California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez proclaimed, “The real purpose of SB 1437 is to outlaw traditional perspectives on marriage and family in the state school system.”

He continued, “The way you correct a wrong (perspective) is by outlawing. ‘Cause if you don’t outlaw it, then people’s biases tend to take over and dominate the perspective and the point of view.”

Nunez’s solution to the people he disagrees with is to outlaw their ability to disagree with him.

And Nunez’s viewpoint is one that pervades liberals in his party and in the nation. That is why Nunez and his fellow Democrats in the California State Assembly voted in unison to pass four bills that are all designed to punish people who disagree with them. To incarcerate someone for daring to criticize a different point of view � over a purely behavioral issue.

The bills in question have passed both houses and await Gov. Schwarzenegger’s signature or veto. The bills were unanimously embraced by the Democrats and universally denounced by the Republicans.

Read the whole thing for the details on those four bills. In summary, they are designed to promote homosexuality as a lifestyle in the schools (in rather graphic detail), and to punish anyone who dares speak against it.

Some have said that it’s just a matter of time before the public accepts homosexual marriage. Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before it’s fully forced on the public, and the public loses its will to fight.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

Popularity: 31% [?]

Blog Upgrade Update: Things are moving along nicely. I’ve settled on WordPress, I’ve settled on a theme (Tiga), and I’ve got the theme working. I had a big problem in customizing it until I made a small change to the files. (Geek Speek: The theme has a special page it adds to WordPress theme administration where you fill in values for the stylesheet, which it then uses in the dynamic stylesheet style.php. Problem was that style.php was calling PHP’s output buffering routines, and for some reason, possibly related to my hosting system, nothing at all would come out. Thus, my page had no styles at all. I commented out the buffering calls, and voila. I’ll probably do what the theme author suggests and, once I have my layout pretty much set, run style.php, save the output as style.css, and then use that for the style sheet. Static pages, of course, respond faster than program output, and I have noticed that sometimes the program is too slow and again no style it output.)

WordPress has an option to require you to register (just nickname & e-mail) before you can post comments, and as annoying as I know that can be, I also know how much spam is a problem, even with countermeasures. (I’ve been the main spam handler at Stones Cry Out.) At the start, I’m going to make registration optional; anyone will be able to post as long as they enter a name and e-mail. Your first post will be automatically moderated, but once you have an approved post, you’ll be able to post unmoderated (well, depending on content, of course) as long as you use the same e-mail address. I’ve added a plug-in to allow you to subscribed to comments to a post (you’ll get an e-mail when they come in), so if you’re really interested in a topic, you can keep up with what other folks are saying.

You’ll still be able to register, and that’ll bypass (I think) the first-post-moderation step. It’ll also remove the requirement to put your name and e-mail address in every time you want to comment. And you’ll have a leg up if the spammers force me to the step of requiring registration.

Don’t worry about remembering all this, because I’ll give a full description of it again once the new format starts. We’re getting there!

Popularity: 31% [?]

It’s about time, but at least it’s happening

The U.S. “catch-and-release” immigration policy has ended, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today.

Law enforcement authorities are holding nearly all non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught in the U.S. until they can be deported to their home countries, Chertoff declared.

The new “catch and detain” policy, he noted, does not apply to Mexicans, who are to be sent back immediately after being stopped by Border Patrol agents.

“Although we’re not ready to declare victory – we’ve got a lot more work to do – it is encouraging and it is something that ought to inspire us to continue to push forward,” Chertoff told reporters.

This has certainly been one of the major issues conservatives have had with the Bush administration. If they follow through with this, it’s a great step in the right direction.

Popularity: 30% [?]

While you slept last night, the solar system lost a planet.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is - and isn’t - a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Will Mickey Mouse’s dog have to be renamed “Neptune”?

Popularity: 31% [?]