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Selected News For Week Mar 29 - Apr 4

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news items themselves.

In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.

Of course articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there. As always, remember to excerpt heavily and to provide a link to the original source.

Related Articles:

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 12:00 am. Comments are currently closed.

153 Responses to “Selected News For Week Mar 29 - Apr 4”

wardmama4
March 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
This is disgusting and of course race baiter Al Sharpton has horned in:

At Fla. housing project, rape just another crime
Ghastly attack on mother, son puts spotlight on lawless Dunbar Village

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19698132/

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mother and son huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom — sobbing, wondering why no one came to help.

***************
So what has Al’s panties in a bunch? The sub human animals who committed this crime (July 2007) are being held (4 out of the 8 suspects have been arrested so far) without bail. . . [did I mention that the suspects are black? - victims are black] but also in FL (New Years Day) 2 teenage girls went out drinking with 5 older teenage boys - sex occurred. Those boys are out on bond [did I mention that these accused are white - victims are white].

Al’s problem - they are the ’same crime’ and have resulted in ‘different reactions’ (i.e. racism) -
although the NAACP is supporting Mr. Sharpton on his race baiting, oops implications - all is not going well. Obviously since this isn’t being covered much in the msm - as the black community is rising up against the Dunbar crime and there are serious questions/problems with the first case - only charged because of the Law in FL and the victims extreme youth. . .According to Al rape is rape and the ‘reaction’ should be the same.

I might add to Al - home invasion, beating, dousing in chemicals, cell phone photos, theft - all sort of don’t make them the same crime at all - did I also mention that our second set of suspects - all have records?!? Same crime - yeah right.
wardmama4
March 29th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I forgot - on my post of the Dunbar Villiage - it is worth a go to just read what the ‘local concerned citizen’ is quoted as saying - if you can handle her opinion of the horror that happened in her community.
wardmama4
March 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Here is a great story on what happens when socialist (and stupid) politicos (German) want to make the citizens part of the Borg - and the tekkies fight back using their own stupidity against them

CCC publishes the fingerprints of Wolfgang Schauble [Update]
News 29.03.2008 14:10 29.03.2008 14:10

CCC ) gegen die fortschreitende Verwertung biometrischer Daten. With a spectacular protest action of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) against the progressive recovery of biometric data. In der aktuellen Ausgabe der Clubzeitschrift Die Datenschleuder veröffentlichen die Hacker den Fingerabdruck von Bundesinnenminister Wolfgang Schäuble. In the current edition of the club magazine The Datenschleuder publish the hacker’s fingerprint by German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble.

The hackers want to be against the increasing collection of biometric data to defend themselves. Besonders die Speicherung der Fingerabdrücke im E-Pass stößt dem CCC übel auf. Especially the storage of fingerprints in the E-Pass bad encounters the CCC. “Wir wollen mit der Veröffentlichung ein warnendes Zeichen setzen”, erklärt CCC-Sprecher Dirk Engling gegenüber heise online. “We want to work with the publication of a warning signal,” explains CCC spokesman Dirk Engling towards heise online. Fingerabdrücke seien nicht so sicher, wie die Politik behauptet, erklärt Engling: “Sie gehören in keine sicherheitskritische Anwendung – und erst recht nicht in den E-Pass.” Fingerprints were not so sure how the policy claims Engling said: “They do not belong in safety application - and certainly not in the E-Pass.”

http://tinyurl.com/3bsol8
Noyzmakr
March 29th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Not strictly news….
Here’s a neat site for tracking everything from worldwide terrorist events, a bomb threat at your local school, illegal alien activity to suspicious vehicles seen near VP Cheney’s home in Maryland. Mouse over for info and click for more details. Double click to zoom in.

http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

Here’s an example of what I found on the terrorist events map.
From a perplexed Reuters:

Colombia seizes uranium from leftist guerrillas

BOGOTA, March 26 (Reuters) - Colombia said it grabbed at least 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of uranium from the country’s biggest left-wing rebel group on Wednesday, the first time radioactive material has been linked to the bloody four-decade-old guerrilla war.

The material was found in a rural area long considered a guerrilla stronghold just south of the capital city Bogota. It is being examined by state experts, said a Defense Ministry statement.

The statement did not say where the uranium came from or what it could be used for.

“This appears to have been part of a black market operation that the guerrillas were trying to use to make money,” said Pablo Casas, an analyst at Bogota think-tank Security & Democracy.

“This is new for Colombia and could bring the FARC into the major leagues of black market terrorist transactions,” Casas said.

Information about the uranium was found earlier this month in computer files left behind by top guerrilla leader Raul Reyes, who was killed in a Colombian bomb strike carried out in Ecuador. The March 1 raid sparked an ongoing diplomatic dispute with the neighboring country.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is funded mostly by cocaine smuggling and extortion. The group says it is fighting a communist insurgency meant to close the wide gap between rich and poor in this Andean country. The war kills, displaces or maims thousands every year. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, editing by Philip Barbara)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenew.....278599.htm

Uh….wake up call.

Here’s an example of what I found on the Illegal Alien map….
http://illegal.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

From NBC4.com news:

Alleged Illegal Immigrant Accused Of Raping 4-Year-Old

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. — A man in Prince William County has been charged with raping a 4-year-old girl and being in the country illegally.

Police said Julio Cesar Huaman-Usca, 24, was baby sitting two of his distant relatives Wednesday night when he allegedly raped one of the girls.

Police said Huaman-Usca is an illegal immigrant. He is being held without bond.

Prince William County’s strict immigration policy took effect earlier this month.

It allows law enforcement officials to check the citizenship status of anyone suspected of committing a crime.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/15725315/detail.html

They’re just here to do the jobs we won’t do.

And then there is this guy….

ARLINGTON, TX - Jose Angel Gutierrez,professor, University of Texas, Arlington; founder of La Raza Unida political party says….

“We have an aging white America. . . . They are dying. . . . They are ******** in their pants with fear! I love it!” “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”

http://www.americanpatrol.com/.....Quote.html

What a peaceful bunch of “undocumented workers” we have here.
Noyzmakr
March 29th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
From KOB.com

Bomb, Iraqi currency lure FBI into stolen-car case

The FBI is now involved in the theft of a car after it was found in Los Lunas with an explosive device and Iraqi currency inside

FBI agents say that they have ruled out terrorism

Did I miss something here? How have they ruled it out?

The car was reported stolen last week. After the theft, the car’s owner was fueling his motorcycle when he spotted his stolen car.

“While he was refueling his motorcycle, low and behold, the vehicle that he had reported stolen that belongs to him happened to pull into the gas station area also,” said Los Lunas Police Captain Charles Nuanes.

The car’s owner pulled the keys out of the ignition of his stolen car and the people in the car fled.

When police arrived, they found the explosive device and less than $1,000 worth of Iraqi cash.

“We don’t know what their intentions were,” said Nuanes. “We don’t know what they were planning on doing with any of this.”

Again; If they don’t know what they were planning then how do they rule out terrorism?

Police suspect Toby Jaramillo, who is well known to Valencia County law enforcement, was behind the car’s theft. He’s in jail charged with stealing another car.

http://kob.com/article/stories.....ml?cat=517

Where did the Iraqi money come from and what was the bomb for?
It’s not like every local criminal has $1000 worth of Iraqi cash.
I’m not passing judgement on the FBI, but I think they’re willing to say anything so as to keep the notion that we haven’t been attacked in this country since 9-11 as a badge of honor.
This is just odd to say the least.
JohnMG
March 29th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Seems pretty suspicious to me, Noyz. Since explosives were involved, BATFE is undoubtedly involved. Now we have two federal agencies fighting each other not only for jurisdiction but for any relevant evidence. Oh, yeah, don’t forget bragging rights. The other possibility is an on-going investigation where the feds don’t want to give the game away. The foreigh currency adds another dimension, also. As far as knowing what they planned to do with this, they’d probably have had their answer when they heard something go BOOM!
sheehanjihad
March 29th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
The Los Lunas police dont want to have a huge lawsuit on their hands for saying anything that wasnt politically correct. If a guy dressed in a turban with long beard sporting an AK47 and pushing a wheelbarrow full of TNT walked by city hall, people would look the other way, or say that his wheelbarrow was “green” because of the handles being made out of recycled tires. Anyone stupid enough to observe what he really was would be jailed for a “hate crime” immediately. The aclu would claim that he has a constitutional right to be there, and help him wire the detonator.

Meanwhile, every last white woman within six blocks over the age of 70 would be searched for explosives and detained for a week with no charges. THAT is our country now.
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Asa Hilliard A Child Of God

From:
Chicago Defender
Date:
November 9, 2007
Author:
Wright, Jeremiah A Jr

Eulogy lor Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from Cod our Father and from Jesus Christ our Savior.

The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; oh my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

To Queen Mother Honorable Mayor, Patsy Jo Hilliard, Baba Asa’s partner in marriage and ministry, life, labor and love, the mother of Asa IV, Tricia, Robi and Hakim. (Hakim, Otis Moss III says you are a couple of years older than he, but you all were in Kemet here at Morehouse together and he asked me to greet you.) To Pastor Durley, our presiding “Poor Time Keeper”; to the president of Morehouse, Reverend Dr. Robert Michael Franklin; to Dean Carter and the members of the trustee board, faculty, alumni, students and staff at the Morehouse College; to the program participants in this service of celebration; to the guests of the Hilliard Family, ministers of the Gospel, members of Asa’s family, the Morrisons and the Hilliards, and to the members of Trinity United Church of Christ who were in Kemet with me and Asa, and who have come to be here with you in this service of celebration; to the members of my own family who are here, my wife and my two oldest daughters; to the brothers and sisters of the Ashanti community, the Ghanaian chiefs, members of the Liberian community, brothers and sisters of the Kemetic community; to our brothers and sisters of the academic community, and to the members of the household of faith, I greet you.

She has been acknowledged by the children, but I want to thank, again publicly, Dr. Iva Carruthers, who came and got me from the dinner table in Cairo and said, “You need to come to Asa’s room now,” and who stayed with Patsy from that moment until the moment they came back home to Atlanta with Asa’s body.

I want you to think with me for just a moment this afternoon on the subject “Asa Hilliard: A Child Of God.” There are two different passages of Scripture and in both passages, in three different places, either John himself the Apostle, or one of John’s disciples, uses language that for me best summarizes the life of Dr. Hilliard.

In John I verses 11, 12 and 13 the text says, “He came to what was his own, (This is the Revised Standard Translation.) and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood (That’s your biology.), or of the will of the flesh (That’s your sociology.), or of the will of man (That’s your anthropology.), but who were born of God (That’s your theology!).

Those who believed on His name, John says … He gave power to become “children of God.”

Then in the letters of John, in John’s first letter to those in the first century community of faith, those whom biblical scholars call the Johannine communities, the small groups which gathered from Capernaum to Kemet, in John’s first letter to those communities in Chapter 3, John says in verses 1 and 2, “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

To as many as received him, who believed on his name, he gave power to become children of God.

See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are.” Those are the first two verses. Beloved, we are God’s children. That is the third verse. In two different passages and in three different verses, John uses language that for me best summarizes the life of Asa Hilliard.

Asa Hilliard was a child of God. Asa G. Hilliard III was a child of God. Baba was a child of God. “Sub” was a child of God. Nana Baffour Amankwatia II was a child of God, and in the language of “he mama” (as the Gullah and Maroons in the low country would say), in the language of the Reverend Dr. Lois Otha Williams or her daddy Bishop Lowe, in the language of the saints of the Church of God in Christ, Asa’s religion of origin, it is put this way: “If anybody asks you who I am, who I am, who I am… If anybody asks you who I am, tell ‘em I’m a child of God.”

Now what does a child of God look like? You can see it in the thirty-three year life of Jesus and you can see it in the seventy-three year life of Dr. Hilliard. First there is the issue of identity. A child of God gets his or her identity from God.

Jesus refused to be defined by others. He knew what other people said about Him. He knew how other people defined Him. Jesus lived His whole life under Roman oppression. The Italians ran everything in Jesus’ day from the local government to the Roman Empire.

From Pontius Pilate to Caesar (pronounced “Kaiser”) Augustus… from the circumstances surrounding his birth, a decree from the Roman government caused Joseph to have to leave Nazareth to go to his Bantustan in Bethlehem to get a passbook to legitimize his ethnicity… from the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said His daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ death on a cross, a Roman cross, a public lynching Italian-style…

From birth to death, Jesus lived under Roman oppression, but Jesus refused to be defined by an oppressive government. Jesus got His identity from an omnipotent God. He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others.

In Bay City, Texas; in Marlon, Texas; in Houston, Texas; in Denver, Colorado; in San Francisco, California; in Monrovia, Liberia; in Abu Simbel, in Aswan or Cairo, in Kemet, in Accra, in Cape Coast, in Kumasi, in Ghana, Asa refused to be defined by others.

On August 22, 1933, in Galveston, he was born. From his birth to his death, like Jesus, Asa lived his whole life under the oppressive heel of white supremacy. From his birth in 1933 in the segregated South, in Galveston, Texas!

Texas! That’s the state that did not want to be a state. The state that tried to pull out from the United States, tried to force Mexico to return the runaway Africans. The Battle of the Alamo was fought over the issue of African slaves.

Texas said yes to slavery and the Mexicans spoke in Whitney Houston “tongues” and said “Hell to the Naw” to slavery; and so the Battle of the Alamo had nothing to do with General Custer. It had to do with Kwame, Akosua, Kojo, Kofi and Yaa who refused to be slaves in a sick system of white supremacy.

Asa was born in Texas. Bay City, Texas is near Jasper, Texas. Jasper Texas of Rodney King and James Byrd infamy. Both Rodney King and James Byrd, distant cousins of Asa’s, were from Jasper, Texas. Asa was born in a climate of white supremacy.

Jim Shankle! You heard Hakim (or “Kimi”). Jim Shankle left Mississippi to go to Texas because of white supremacy. With his wife sold to another slave holder in another state… he swam the Mississippi and walked four hundred miles to find his wife whom he valued even though the system of white supremacy devalued her.

Asa was born in a climate, a context and a country controlled by white supremacy. From its founding fathers some would say “fondling fathers” who defined Africans as non-persons, from its original government to its current government hell-bent on leaving every Black child behind. From his birth in the cradle of dehumanization to his death in the cradle of civilization, Asa lived under a government that like Rome in Jesus’ day saw itself and sees itself as an empire.

The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an omnipotent God.

Asa Hilliard was a child of God. A child of God, when it comes to identity, refuses to be defined by others.

Then a child of God refuses to be limited by what the world says about him or her, or thinks about him or her. Jesus refused to be limited by other folk’s low expectations of him. Some of his own folk (Jesus’ folks) thought he was a little “touched in the head.”

Some of his own people tried to limit him to what they thought he ought to be doing in Nazareth. They asked, “Ain’t this the carpenter’s kid?” Some of his own colleagues tried to track him for failure.

His disciple, Nathaniel, just heard where Jesus came from: Nazareth? (The Red Light District in Houston? The projects in Denver? Manual Training High School for the Colored?) and Nathaniel said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” That was Nathaniel’s question. Trying to limit the Lord.

His enemies had their opinions about Him. The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans. His enemies had their opinions about Him. Pon-ti-us Pi-la-te. Y’all call him “Pontius Pilate.” In Italiano, Pontius Pilate looked at the Palestinians as peasants. His enemies had their opinions about Him. His Jewish enemies! Yup, Jesus had enemies among His own people.

Why do people under oppression always seem to turn on each other rather than turning to each other? Could a part of it be the way they are taught to hate themselves and hate each other? What Reuben Fuerstein the Jew and Asa Hilliard the African call “socially mediated learning”

What Carter G. Woodson called the Miseducation of Africans in America, what Baffour Amankwatia called the making of a sheep dog? Not because of benign neglect but because of malignant intent. Does being fed a constant diet of self-hatred cause people under oppression to turn on each other? Jesus had folk who looked just like he looked. These were not Italians. These were Palestinians who were His enemies.

Those of us in the Christian church, when we read the sacred texts, we really get ticked, because we find out that one of the hardest pills to swallow is the fact that most of Jesus’ staunchest enemies were “church folk.” Not the “Bros” who hung out in the brothels and the bars, and the Jerusalem taverns, but the saints who hung out in the Synagogue and the sacred precincts of the Jerusalem temple!

Jesus’ enemies tried to limit Him by what they said about Him and what they thought about Him, but Jesus’ identity was intact because He knew He was a child of God and He refused to be limited by what the world said about Him or thought about Him.

And Asa? Asa was just like Jesus-”a sacred text,” Wade Nobles says-”to be exegeted.” Asa refused to be limited by what the world said about him or thought about him. Asa refused to be limited by other folks’ low expectations of him.

One of his teachers thought he was too dumb to learn Algebra Some of his college classmates firmly believed in the ideology of “Old Black Joe.” The city of Denver conspired to constrict him, consigned him to an education of the hand-Manual Training School-not an education of the head.

Like Jesus, Asa’s enemies had their own low opinions about him. White Egyptologists recoiled at the very notion of everything that Asa taught, from Educational Psychology to Cultural Anthropology.

His white enemies in academia and in the media, they could not conceive of the fact that Cush or Nubia was the cradle of civilization, that Drusilla Dunjee Houston was right, that Iva Elaine Carruthers was right, that Peggy Brooks-Bertram was right, that John Henrik Clarke was right, that Charles Finch, Theophile Obenga and Runoko Rashidi were right, that Cheik Anta Diop was right, that Ivan Van Sertima was right, that Carlos Moore was right, that Anderson Thompson, William Leo Hansberry and Jacob Carruthers were right, that Molefi Asante, Nzinga and Na’im Akbar were right, or that Yosef benJochannan, Dr. Bobby Wright, Gerald Massey and Dr. Wade Nobles were right.

Asa’s white enemies cringed at the creation of the Association for the Study of Classical African Societies and the Association of Black Psychologists. They had apoplexy over the fact that even the Greek historian whom Asa quoted, a guy called Herodotus, said that the ancient citizens of Kemet were Black and that Kemet (which was renamed Aegyptos by the Greeks) came out of the womb called Cush or Nubia, the country of Black people.

Asa’s white enemies tried to limit his awesome expertise, his encyclopedic knowledge and his incredible intellect to the cubbyhole they had designed for him long before Schlesinger and Ravich who were and are, incidentally, Afro-phobic. Asa had white enemies in academia and white enemies in the corporate-controlled media who tried to limit his brilliance to the cesspools of mediocrity in which they live.

They would die and go to hell before admitting that Kemet was culturally, linguistically, sociologically, anthropologically and theologically cut from the same cloth as the Bantu, the Ashanti, the Akan, the Wolof, the Peul and the Yoruba. White Egyptologists even hated the word “Africanist.” They took Egypt out of Africa and they created an eighth Continent called “the Middle East,” an oxymoron which we still use today.

Asa’s white enemies tried to limit Asa’s expertise to what they thought he was capable of and like Jesus, all of Asa’s enemies were not whites. Some of his enemies looked just like he looked.

I have told our congregation for thirty-five years, “Everybody your color ain’t your kind and everybody not your color is not necessarily your enemy.” Some of Asa’s enemies are Africans.

We’ve got some Ghanaian chiefs here. We’ve got the Council of Ghanaian chiefs here, yeah! But we also got some Africans who can out-white, white folks. Make no mistake about it. They’re British all down in their bones, born raised and living (as Ashanti) in Ghana not just Liverpool!

White supremacist brainwashing passing itself off as education, is not restricted to the United States of America or white European cultures. White supremacy is not restricted to any particular country or any particular color. We got some Africans who are whiter in their thinking than George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Some of Asa’s enemies are African. Some of Asa’s enemies are African Americans. Some teach at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Georgia State. Don’t laugh too loud ’cause some teach at Morehouse and some teach at Spelman!!!

Some of Asa’s enemies are negroes, colored or just confused, and some of Asa’s enemies are church-folk. I know a whole bunch of saved and sanctified folk who never have understood Asa. “Why all that Black stuff?”

“Why can’t he wear regular clothes like Bishop ‘Whatcha-nama?’ Regular means European. And, why he always talking about Hotep, Hotep, Hotep? Why can’t he just say, ‘Praise the Lord, Saints?’ You know his mama didn’t raise him that way!”

Like Jesus, Asa had enemies of another race and Asa had enemies of his own race, but Asa’s identity was intact. Asa knew who he was. Asa knew Whose he was. Asa was a child of God and Asa refused to be limited by what the world said about him or what the world thought about him. Asa refused to be defined by others.

He refused to be limited by the world’s expectations of him. But there is yet another aspect of identity that goes beyond refusal and that is acceptance or embracing Jesus personified it and Asa exemplified it.

Jesus embraced who He was and he used what God gave Him to bless others. Everything that Jesus did was a manifestation of how He took what God gave Him and used that to bless others. A child of God embraces who he or she is and uses what God gives him or her to bless others. Asa took the mind that God gave him. He embraced the life of the mind. He embraced the life of scholarship.

Asa took the mind that God gave him and used what God gave him to bless others. He embraced the life of a scholar and he embraced the life of a servant; a life of service to others, helping others, blessing others. Dr. Janice Hale, Dr. Crystal Kuykendall have both said to me over the past few days, had it not been for Asa Hilliard, their scholarship would not be where it is today. And how many other scholars, Black and white, have that same testimony?

Asa took what God gave him and used those gifts to bless others. I did not find out until the day Asa died just how far-reaching and personal that quality of his really was. We were sitting in Patsy’s room in the hotel after Asa died. I knew about Donald Young one of my play sons in Chicago. He said after I turned him on to Asa, that he contacted Dr. Hilliard and Dr. Hilliard walked him through his master’s program in education.

I knew about Donald, but I did not know until the day Asa died that my daughter, Janet, who got her master’s in early childhood education administration, had also been blessed by Dr. Hilliard. Janet said (on the day he died) that Asa emailed her every day sending her something else to help her get her master’s .

And, as we had family prayer in Patsy’s room, my daughter, Nikol, my number three daughter, broke down in tears because she thanked God for the way that Asa, as a psychologist, had helped her when she was in crisis. I did not know that until the day he died

Asa’s identity was intact. He knew he was a child of God. He refused to be defined by others. He refused to be limited by what the world said about him and thought about him, and he embraced who he was and used what God gave him to bless others.

What does a child of God look like? First there is the issue of identity and then there is the issue of integrity. Asa was a man of integrity.

He loved his family-a man of integrity. Last night we had representatives from all over the world at the celebration of Asa’s life because of his love for the African community, but that love started with the love he had for Patsy Jo, for his children and his grandchildren. Asa was a man of integrity.

He loved his family. He loved his family and he lived his faith. A man of integrity-he now lives forever because of his faith. A man of integrity. Now, that “lived his faith” point and characteristic of this giant is very important. A lot of us like to talk our faith. A lot of church folk like to argue faith.

A lot of former church folk, some in the Kemetic community, some in the Ashanti community, some in the African American Yoruba community, they like to fuss about faith, fall out over faith and put other folk down because of their faith. But a child of God living a life of integrity is a person who lives their faith. Asa lived his faith.

Last night Runoko Rashidi said that Asa was a genuine human being That’s because Asa lived his faith. He could be there for Runoko. He could be there for my two daughters. He could be there for Moses Hananiah. He could be there for me. He could be there for people of other faiths.

He could be there for people of no faith, because he lived his faith. He did not preach his faith or push his faith, pedal his faith or play with his faith. He lived his faith. There were times when some of us in the Christian family wished that he would have talked more about his faith publicly.

I never will forget when I stumbled up on just how deep his roots in our Christian faith were and are. It was in Chicago. I was on the Board for the Centers for New Horizons, an inner city child development program. Back then they had over five hundred students and Sokoni Karanja had Asa come in to lecture to the teachers and teach the teachers in an all-day workshop.

I had a funeral that morning, so I was late for the lecture. I didn’t come in, therefore, in front of Asa (at Wendell Phillips High School). I sneaked in the back and came in, and sat up on the stage with the staff and the Board members behind Asa, and I heard Asa tell a story about living in Liberia.

One night he said he heard some drumming and he could not sleep. He tried to go to sleep. He tossed and he turned, but he kept hearing this music and he got up and went to find out where the music was, and just at the edge of the Bush he walked up on a religious ceremony.

And Asa said, “I understood for the first time in my life what I had grown up seeing in East Texas, in my sanctified Pentecostal grandfather’s church and never understood ’cause I had not seen it in its natural setting.”

I sat behind him on the stage that day in awe; and after questions and answers, and all the fellowship, I said to him, “Are you trying to tell me that you a Christian?” He said, “Absolutely! I am not trying to tell you. lam telling you!”

To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, that’s how you live your life and live your faith. The forty-two confessions and the Book of Coming Forth are all about how you lived your life. The fortytwo generations of the prophets through which Jesus rode to get off in a barn in Bethlehem was God coming into the world to become flesh, to live a life to show you how to live your life!!!

Jesus said in one of His last conversations with His clergy colleagues, “When I was hungry you fed Me. When I was naked you clothed Me. When I was sick you visited Me. When I was in prison you ministered unto Me. In as much as you have done it unto the least of these, my little ones (in Surinam, my little ones in the favelas of Bahia, my little ones in the townships of South Africa, my little ones in the projects in Denver, my little ones in Ghana and Benin, my little ones in Sudan and in Aswan), you have done it unto Me.”

Faith is about how you live your life. Asa is a man who lived his faith. He loved his family, he lived his faith and he now lives eternally - a man of integrity. Asa Hilliard was a child of God.

What does a child of God look like? To all who received Him, He gave power to become children of God. What does a child of God look like? Look at Asa. Beloved, we are now the children of God. A man of identity and a man of integrity.

But then, being a child of God is also a matter of constancy. Now for Jesus that meant he was the same every day. He wasn’t one way, one day and then some other way the next day. That was constancy.

And for Asa that meant you pressed each day proceeding on the basis of the evidence you have before you. That was Asa’s philosophy both as a scholar and as a child of God In one of his last lectures to the members of our church in Aswan last week (I think we were still in Cairo for that lecture.), he pointed out that there was no historical evidence of Hyksos, Habiru, Israeli or Palestinian slavery in the written records of the Kemites.

And, one of the Christian ministers traveling with our church said, “Areyou trying to tell us that what the Bible says is not true?” Asa said, “No, I’m trying to tell you that there is no historical evidence in the written records of Kemet about any such slavery as described in the Book of Exodus.”

My oldest grandson, a senior at Howard University, was sitting in the class in Cairo and he said to Dr. Hilliard, “Dr. Hilliard, what are we as Christians supposed to believe? Are you telling us not to believe the Bible?” Asa cut him off.

Dr. Hilliard said, “I’m not telling anybody what to believe. I’m not telling anybody what not to believe. I am talking about historical evidence. You proceed in drawing your factual conclusions on the basis of factual evidence.”

Only a child of God like Asa, a man sure of his identity, a man of integrity and a man of constancy could pull off that delicate balance of living continuously and confidently in the contradictions of life, in the disparate claims of facts and faith.

Asa proceeded each day as a scholar on the basis of the evidence of fact, but Asa also proceeded each day living a life of constancy. He proceeded each day as a saint on the basis of the evidence of his faith. Faith! The faith that he lived.

Faith! His sacred text, our sacred text says “is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Amon was not seen. Ra was not seen. Olodumare was not seen. Olurun was not seen. Unkulunkulu was not seen. Lesa was not seen. Modimo was not seen. Nyame was not seen. Yahweh was not seen. Jehovah Shalom was not seen. Allah was not seen. The orisha are not seen. The “I am that I am” was not seen and is not seen; but Asa had evidence of things not seen.

What evidence? Well, Asa knew that God was faithful. (The evidence of things not seen.) Every time that he looked at his own life, Asa knew that God was a God of mercy. Every morning when he could roll over and look at Patsy Jo, Asa knew that God was a God of grace. Asa knew God personally and because he believed in His name he now lives in a new house.

One of the things I used to talk with Asa about, one of the things I’ve never talked with Wade or with Na’im about, never got a chance to talk to Bobby Wright about, was why it is in Kemetic faith y’all don’t sing nothing Almost like that brother who got discredited by Louis Farrakhan who broke away from the Nation of Islam, I think his name was Khalid Muhammad. He said that if the Nation had had some Gospel music (Laughter), y’all would have swept the Black community!

We look at all of the serious teachings of Ptah-hotep. We look at the fight between Tuthmosis and Hatshepsut, but them people sang y’all. They had some music.

Hakim when you were studying for the Bar, what was Daddy doing? He was driving and listening to some music. Wonder what those songs were like that we don’t know.

We’ve got 150 songs right in the middle of our Bible. But we’ve never heard any of them sung. We call them the Psalms.

Life wasn’t all about being serious and deep thought. Life means that they had babies just like when Asa and Patsy Jo went to Liberia. They did more than just sit around thinking deeply.

Brother Shankle didn’t walk four hundred miles barefoot to engage in deep thought. What were those songs that they sang in Kemet like? I don’t know what songs they sang when Ptah-hotep was alive.

I don’t know what songs they sang when Hatshepsut was alive. I don’t know what songs they sang when Nefertari was alive. But, I know early on Monday morning when Asa crossed over, not the Nile, but that other river, there was another song It wasn’t the song they sang in the Valley of the Kings. It was the song Sister Otha was singing in the presence of the King of Kings. It was an old Pentecostal praise song sung for the victory God gave Asa “Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! Yeah, Lord!”

Yesssssssssss, yessssssssss, yessssssssss. Yesssssssssss, yessssssssss, yesssssssssssss. Has he been good to you? Been so gooooooood, been soooooooo good. Been soooooooooo goooooodd…

Applause! ”

http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;5282479

Another plant/gift with the compliments of the Clintonites. I just love that site at the moment…lol
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 12:52 am
HankReardon (1 posts) Sat Mar-29-08 07:01 PM
Response to Reply #1
37. “Out-Whiting, White Folks”

I’m not sure Italians slurs is the only thing here; the good Rev also takes the time to stick-it-to-the-man a few more times; maligning the usual suspects (Bush, Cheney, the Founders, whitey, et al):

“Asa lived his whole life under the oppressive heel of white supremacy.”

“Asa was born in a climate, a context and a country controlled by white supremacy. From its founding fathers some would say “fondling fathers” who defined Africans as non-persons, from its original government to its current government hell-bent on leaving every Black child behind”

“The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge,…”

He then goes on to a dozen or so times ranting about “white enemies” & “white supremacy”, but he also takes the time to rip some Blacks:

“But we also got some Africans who can out-white, white folks…White supremacist brainwashing passing itself off as education, is not restricted to the United States of America or white European cultures. White supremacy is not restricted to any particular country or any particular color. We got some Africans who are whiter in their thinking than George Bush and Dick Cheney.”
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;5282479

Hi-lights!
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Pigwidgeon (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-27-08 01:40 PM
Response to Original message
18. But it’s only 30 seconds of bigotry in a half-hour sermon from the Holy Spirit!
The Holy Spirit, in Christian belief, is the agency that creates inspired speaking and preaching. I am not sure that the Holy Spirit is uncharitable toward “Italianos” and “Garlic Noses”.

“Garlic noses” — ?

Then there’s the lynching reference, especially since there were a couple of large and notorious group lynchings of Italian immigrants in the 1800s, and the Klan went after them, too.

1891: On 14 March in New Orleans, 11 Italian immigrants are killed by a lynch mob of more than 6,000 after a court finds them not guilty in the murder of a police superintendent. The mob is further incited when it is learned that blacks are allowed to patronize Italian shops and were politely addressed as “Mister.” It is the worst mass lynching in American history. Italians are killed in other parts of America, but most of the murders (in the form of lynchings) occur in the South, where the Ku Klux Klan begins a campaign of terror against Italians. Academics and social scientists set out to “prove” that Italians are violent, corrupt, lazy, and untrustworthy by nature. Italian stereotypes stimulate the spread of American nativism.(Emphasis mine –p!)

http://www.sicilianculture.com.....rience.htm

I’ve defended Rev. Wright a couple of times already, but this is becoming a steady thing. I’m still not ready to trash the man (unlike Team Obama’s hard-core, which are intent on destroying everything that stands in their way), but he’s got some bad habits. As do all of us. Some serious R&R — repentance and reconciliation — is needed, all around.

Obama has put his rival on trial in the press for every trivial lapse imaginable. Perhaps it is time that somebody owned up to this and made some Changes.
http://www.democraticundergrou…..15;5282479

“(unlike Team Obama’s hard-core, which are intent on destroying everything that stands in their way),”

I agree with this poster - the Obamists are nasty…
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 2:04 am
An atheist weighs in on Rev Wright and the UCC

Worth supporting their ad, I think. I got the following from a WA state email list–

For Obama supporters, the equal rights community, and people nurturing alternatives to fundamentalism – it is in our collective best interests to help UCC advertise the welcoming, theologically humble, inquiring, and inclusive nature of their denomination.

Note: UCC’s ad a couple of years back got turned away by major media stations because it showed a congregation welcoming a gay couple along with others including families from various ethnic heritage groups.

Note: They are the only denomination I know of that actually paid for a media campaign rebuking bibliolatry (worship of the Bible as literally perfect and complete revelation of Divinity): the “God is Still Speaking” campaign. You might recall seeing churches with a banner that said, “Never put a period where God has put a comma.” Several other denominations share their priority on inclusion and social justice: United Methodists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Congregationalists, most prominently. But none that I know of have publically taken on their fundamentalist Christian brethren about the source of their moral corruption – the fact that they make an idol of the Bible including river-of-blood parts.

Note: Two of the right wing strategies for bringing down Obama have been (1) to link him in people’s minds to Islam or now (2) to link him in people’s minds to radical Christian racial militancy. UCC, by showcasing who they actually are, have the power to create a competing frame that neutralizes either one of these.

As a non-theist, I don’t share their theology, but they share my moral, spiritual, and social values. So I figured I’d shoot the campaign a little help.

V

http://www.ValerieTarico.com
http://www.spaces.live.com/awaypoint

We want to place a full-page ad in The New York Times - perhaps as early as next Wednesday - to proclaim the truth about who we are as the United Church of Christ. Will you help make this a reality?

One week ago, I received a call from the Rev. Tom Stiers of Riverside Church in Manhattan, who said his congregation was sending a check for $6,000 for the purpose of supporting the purchase of a prominent, full-page ad. He encouraged us to invite others to join this effort.

The vision for the ad is to speak proactively to the breadth and diversity of our denomination, while also acknowledging the hurt that many in our country have experienced in recent weeks, including the members of Trinity UCC in Chicago.

This will be an occasion to explain the uniqueness of our polity, to acknowledge the freedom of our pulpits, and to affirm the rights of our members to agree or disagree in love. The statement will speak to our oneness in Christ, who strengthens us to be agents of justice, peace and reconciliation.

Of course, the cost will be significant, perhaps in excess of $120,000. That’s a lot of money. But the potential positive impact of such a statement is worth much, much more.

People are looking at the UCC like they never have before, and that’s why it’s critical that we respond proactively and tell our church’s story. Otherwise, we will let others continue to define us in narrow and distorted ways.

We have a few days to raise a significant amount of money. Can we count on your support? https://secure.ga3.org/03/ucc_tell_our_story
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;5303725

Hmmm, now why would an ‘atheist” get so involved? We are in for the fight of our lives in more ways than one.
BillK
March 30th, 2008 at 3:11 am
From the Los Angeles Times:

Exam cheating goes high tech, but its causes are nothing new

Students invent new methods, schools counter with new safeguards. But the underlying issue of honesty has changed little.

By Carla Rivera

When six Harvard Westlake students were expelled last month for stealing midterm exams at the academically rigorous school, the incident highlighted an old problem facing educators: cheating.

A 2006 national survey found that more than 60% of high school students said they had cheated on a test, and the number of self-admitted cheaters has steadily risen over the years.

Students today can use an array of high-tech gadgetry, challenging schools to keep pace. One click of the Internet opens a world of possibilities and temptations, devious and ingenious, with Web sites devoted to the best cheating practices, and cheating tutorials on YouTube.

One YouTube compilation offers such strategies as taping answers under a tie and designing a T-shirt with a cheat sheet printed on the front in a form that can be overlooked as a logo.

In another, a young man recounts his method of stretching a rubber band over a textbook and writing answers on it. When the rubber band isn’t stretched, his writing looks like harmless ink stains. Yet another video explains how to remove a wrapper from a drink bottle and create a duplicate carrying test answers.

Although camera phones with pictures of an answer sheet, and text messages from friends outside the classroom are still the most ubiquitous electronic techniques, many schools have caught on and now ban devices such as cellphones and iPods during tests.

More recent innovations are button cameras, which have a wireless connection to a laptop computer that can then capture stolen test items, and pens capable of scanning a test and sending a video signal to a remote laptop to save the images.

One 17-year-old senior, who attends a Westside high school, said he once turned in an essay for English class that he had taken off a Web site. He said he probably would not do it again because he believes it is now easier to get caught plagiarizing.

The student, who gave only his first name, said he receives good grades and didn’t feel the need to cheat now, but admitted that sometimes there is a lot of pressure.

“I don’t think there’s as much [cheating] going on as people think, but yeah, it’s happening,” said Christopher, interviewed at the Howard Hughes Center in Westchester. “It’s mainly because society puts all this pressure on teenagers, saying you better do good or you won’t get to college or you’ll be second-rate.”

Motivating students to cheat, educators said, are factors such as the pursuit of admission to the ‘best’ colleges and the fear that not cheating will put them at a disadvantage.

And add to that the stories in the news — dishonest athletes, politicians and even parents ready to behave unethically, for example, to obtain Hannah Montana tickets.

In the last few weeks, married New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a sex scandal, and the supposed gang memoir of a mixed-race foster child named Margaret B. Jones turned out to have been written by Margaret Seltzer, a white woman from the San Fernando Valley who attended Campbell Hall, a private school in North Hollywood.

“It’s a mistake to talk about school cheating without referring to society at large,” said Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit consulting and training firm. “We need to connect these dots and ask what is our attitude toward cheating, because kids are going to absorb that attitude. . . . And cheating learned in school is habit-forming.”…

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....7092.story

Can we step up and name the political leanings of most of those who have so cheapened society as to make cheating more prevalent than ever?

Hint: the same as those who caused a large uptick in rates of oral sex because it was “not really sex.”

Not that Republicans haven’t occasionally been just as bad, but as a general rule when caught Republicans at least see they’ve done something wrong…
BillK
March 30th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Today’s “Iraq is lost” article from the Los Angeles Times:

In Iraq, U.S. caught in middle of Shiite rivalry

With the Iraq government cracking down on Sadr fighters in Basra, the U.S. military’s own gains with the militia are at risk.

By Ned Parker

BAGHDAD — The biggest surprise about the raging battles that erupted last week in southern Iraq was not that the combatants were fellow Shiites, but that it took this long.

Enmity has long festered between the two sides: one a ruling party that has struggled against the widespread perception that it gained power on the back of the U.S. occupation, the other a populist movement that has positioned itself as a critic of the U.S.-backed new order.

As they vie for power before October provincial elections that will determine who controls the oil-rich south, the stakes are high not only for the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest Shiite faction in the Iraqi coalition government, and the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr.

The conflict also poses great difficulties for the Americans, who are widely seen as siding with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party against Sadr.

The Iraqi government’s offensive in Basra has spelled the end to a seven-month cease-fire by Sadr’s militia in all but name.

In an ominous sign Saturday, Sadr in a rare TV interview praised armed resistance. Separately, he urged his followers to defy Maliki’s ultimatum to surrender their weapons.

Iraqi forces battling the Mahdi Army called in U.S. airstrikes Saturday in Basra, and two American soldiers were killed in a mostly Shiite area of east Baghdad.

Sadr’s cease-fire, which he imposed in August after his loyalists clashed with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council’s militia in the southern city of Karbala, was widely credited with helping calm Baghdad.

The U.S. military now risks forfeiting gains with the Sadr group, arguably the most popular Shiite political movement across Iraq. Already, U.S. officers have reported an increase in the number of attacks against them in Baghdad, where soldiers had benefited from the Mahdi Army’s tacit cooperation.

“It would be disastrous if the United States ended up as supporters on a crackdown on the Sadrists for reasons mainly to do with internal Shiite politics,” said Reidar Visser, editor of the southern Iraq-related website historiae.org.

“The fight in Basra shows the folly of trying to control all the Shiites of Iraq through a small minority, which appears to be the current U.S. policy.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....9302.story

“A wonder it took so long.” “US occupation.” No biased reporting there.

Where are the US’ snipers? If Sadr can show up at a studio for an interview, certainly a sniper can take him out.

He’s not the “leader” of anything but an insurgent group, so it’s not “illegal” to target him for assassination.

“You shoot at US soldiers, or recommend that action, you die.”

That policy worked really, really well in past wars, I just wish someone would have the guts to make it apply here.
SG
March 30th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
“Today’s “Iraq is lost” article from the Los Angeles Times…”

The LAT must of posted that at about the same time Mr. Al-Sadr was effectively surrendering.
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Random Evidence of a Cluttered Mind

[...]

“Richard Williams, juggling his roles as tennis father, professional loose-cannon and (how to put this delicately?) repelling ”eccentric,” said the following in a recent interview with the Deccan Herald while in India attending the Bangalore Open:

“The white man hated me all my life and I hate him. That’s no secret. I’m not even an American, it just so happens I was born in America. People are prejudiced in tennis. I don’t think Venus or Serena was ever accepted by tennis. They never will be. But if you get some little white no-good trasher in America like Tracy Austin or Chris Evert who cannot hit the ball, they will claim this is great.”

Wow. Now I won’t muster the gall to try to tell a black man his feelings about racism are unjust. They are his. Although I do think sweeping proclamations (”People are prejudiced in tennis”) tend to damn everyone, help nothing, and beg examples, please.

But Williams calls Evert ‘’some little white no-good trasher” who can’t hit the ball and this is OK? Can you imagine if Earl Woods had said that of Jack Nicklaus? And Tiger not even being asked about it?

Venus and Serena Williams have gotten a free pass on the nonsense of their father. It’s time for these young women to publicly repudiate his garbage, or to endorse it with their silence.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/gre.....75799.html

Typical Black Person! plus enabling family)
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Video: Olbermann: McCain Out “Buying More Depends”
http://www.conservativepunk.com/articles/489/

This typical white person finds Olbermann an obnoxious POS. Doesn’t he have parents of his own? Paybacks a bitch - karma’ll get him and I hope I’m around to see it.
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Video: Olbermann: McCain Out “Buying More Depends”
http://www.conservativepunk.com/articles/489/

This typical white person finds Olbermann an obnoxious POS. Doesn’t he have parents of his own? Paybacks a bitch - karma’ll get him. I hope I’m around to see it.
JohnMG
March 30th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Petra; ……”Olbermann an obnoxious POS. Doesn’t he have parents of his own?…..”

If I had to guess I’d say he was a self-made man. ;-}
Noyzmakr
March 30th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Petra… I’m suprised anyone heard him say anything. No one watches that show. I won’t even watch NBC sports when he’s hosting. What a gas bag!
wardmama4
March 30th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I am deeply saddened - and will go to his funeral. It is the very least I can do. Now his family will have him home and can bury him. That is possibly the only blessing to come from his ordeal. Let us not forget (the msm certainly has) the other 3 American POWs in OIF:
SPC Ahmed Altaie 12/11/2006
SPC Alex Jimenez 5/15/2007
PVT Brian Fouty 5/15/2007

AP
Remains ID’d as missing Ohio soldier’s

BATAVIA, Ohio - The father of a soldier listed as missing-captured in Iraq since 2004 said Sunday that the military had informed him that his son’s remains were found in Iraq.
ADVERTISEMENT
click here

Keith Maupin said at a news conference in suburban Cincinnati that an Army general told him DNA testing had identified the remains of his son, Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, or “Matt” as he was commonly known.

http://tinyurl.com/3a946v

**************************

RIP SGT Keith ‘Matt’ Maupin - some of us haven’t forgotten you.
Noyzmakr
March 30th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
-a moment of silence-
Petra
March 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I’ll remember them in my prayers.

May they R.I.P.
Noyzmakr
March 30th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Al-Qaeda grooming ‘western-looking’ militants: CIA
March 31, 2008 - 5:00AM

CIA director Michael Hayden said al-Qaeda was training operatives who “look western” and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks.

General Hayden said the terror network over the past 18 months has established a safe haven in tribal areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan where they are preparing militants for attacks against the West.

“They are bringing operatives into that region for training - operatives that, a phrase I would use, wouldn’t attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles (airport near Washington DC) with you,” Hayden told NBC television.

The new recruits “look western” and “would be able to come into this country … without attracting the kind of attention that others might”, he said.

In an annual threat assessment released in February, US intelligence reported that it had detected an influx of new western recruits to al-Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas since 2006.

Hayden said the improved intelligence techniques in the region were due to “good cooperation from a variety of allies” that the CIA has received in Pakistan’s tribal regions.

He also stressed that while he was confident al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was still hiding out near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Saudi-born fighter no longer has operational control over the terror network.

This now lies with Egyptian militants, he argued, although he said bin Laden remains an “iconic figure”, and the Central Intelligence Agency is making every effort to “kill or capture” him along with his al-Qaeda lieutenants.

“Let me use (the term) iconic figure. His presence … gives a certain punch, a certain image, to the global movement,” Hayden said.

“But he’s not operationally involved. An awful lot of the operational force of al-Qaeda — the Arabic name is the name and then often finished by the country they are from — an awful lot of them are the Egyptians.”

Al-Qaeda’s number two is the Egyptian militant Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who the US director of national intelligence Michael McConnell last September called “the real intellectual leader of al-Qaeda.”

Hayden said bin Laden, Zawahiri and others remain top targets for US forces.

“Operationally, we are turning every effort to kill or capture that leadership from the top to the bottom,” he said.

Bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, which killed nearly 3000 people and prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/wor.....38505.html

Damn! There goes racial profiling. I guess we’ll have to search every seasoned citizen and two year old crumb cruncher at the airport now.
Clarissimus
March 31st, 2008 at 12:00 am
Anyone could’ve seen that coming. Racial profiling might be useful in reducing overall crime but when it comes to catching a needle in a haystack it fails miserably. Not that it’s a very just policy anyway.
Petra
March 31st, 2008 at 12:11 am
World Tour 1997-98 - Louis Farrkhan

February 20-22, 1998 in Chicago.

Louis Farrakhan:
Beginning in early December 1997, Louis Farrakhan and his 24 member delegation embarked upon the third “World Friendship Tour.” Farrakhan stated that he “…would like to demonstrate how diplomacy and friendly relations should be carried out” while paying visits to 52 nations on the tour; in the end, the total number of nations visited was 37. Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Russia, the Far East, Australia, and Cuba were among the areas visited by Farrakhan and his delegation.
http://www.adl.org/travels_wit....._97_98.asp

Obama’s Pastor Quoting Farrakhan?
How is it that Ottis, a Christian, and Farrakhan, an Islamist, take the same Biblical tale of vague intent and no specifics, and interpret it in the same way? Why is it, that within days of one another, they both refer to Obama in exactly the same terms, choosing out of the thousands of Biblical narratives and metaphors, the ones referring to the Coming Days, to the Apocalypse, to the Messiah?

Are Wright/Otis/Trinity and Farrakhan/NOI on the same page, or are they reading from a text they’ve written together?

Even assuming there is a shared religious heritage, wouldn’t proximity -Farrakhan and Otis and Wright within walking distance of one another- be an even stronger heritage? A heritage coalescing around the Black Power Movement in Black Chicago, represented equally in the Ethnocentric Islamic Ministry of Farrakhan, and the Ethnocentric Evangelical Ministry of Wright/Otis. Both being more related to Malcolm X, the Panthers, and mythological Afrocentrism, than the religious practices of millions of other Christians and Muslims?

At Stop Obama, it’s been more than a month we’ve been intending to write up Obama’s religion, his religiosity, and his religious message to right-wing Evangelical voters. We just can’t get to it, and I encourage other researchers to do so.
http://www.stop-obama.org/?p=321

..and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Barack Obama:
“We should not be afraid to talk to anybody,” Obama said. “When we talk to our enemies, they may not like to hear what I have to say.”
From: Omaha World-Herald, August 7, 2007
http://www.barackobama.com/200.....to_win.php
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/ite.....issue_id=2

Obama seems to have read the diplomatic strategy of Louis Farrakhan.
Petra
March 31st, 2008 at 12:25 am
World Tour 1997-98 - Louis Farrkhan

February 20-22, 1998 in Chicago.

In mid January, Farrakhan arrived in Khartoum, Sudan and met with Sudanese President Omar al Beshir, Islamic leader Hassan al Turabi (Secretary General of the Popular Islamic Conference), and other officials. The Nation of Islam’s web site reported that Farrakhan claimed that “Islamic militants were not to blame for the massacres carried out in Algeria and were the victims of anti Islamic machinations.”

He reportedly told worshippers at a Khartoum mosque that “It is a challenge and a test for Muslims in Sudan to be the target of plots and conspiracies that aim at obstructing the spread of Islam in Africa.” It is important to note that the Minister continues to be a supporter of this Islamic extremist dictatorship and continues to ignore reports of Black enslavement in the country. He also apparently said nothing about the widespread starvation going on in the Sudan.
http://www.adl.org/travels_wit….._97_98.asp

This was 1998 on his diplomacy tour! He had an opportunity to save tens of lives but since that time there’s been millions of Darfurians raped, pillaged, ENSLAVED and displaced and blamed it on “plots and conspiracies aimed at obstructing the spread of Islam in Africa.” Wright, that renegade priest, Otis, and possibly Obama all give this disgusting creature recognision and insodoing credibility. Yet one of Wrights bulletins had a page about Darfur.

How could Wright give a prestigious award to someone who gave the Khortum government a free pass?
Petra
March 31st, 2008 at 12:30 am
Farrakhan Said to Pledge Support to Sudan
•
REUTERS
Published: February 10, 1996

The leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, was quoted today as saying American Muslims backed the Sudan against “unjust plots.”

Mr. Farrakhan, who met with President Umar Hasan al-Bashir and the spiritual leader Hassan al-Turabi during a five-hour visit, was quoted in the Government-owned newspaper, As Sudan al Hadeeth, as calling on Muslims throughout the world to confront “Western attempts” against Islam.

The Sudan says a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding the extradition of three men suspected of trying to kill President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt last year is a plot to impose sanctions. The Government today asked the three suspects to surrender within a week. The newspaper also quoted Mr. Turabi as saying that Mr. Farrakhan’s visit, which comes as the United States is withdrawing its diplomats from Khartoum for security reasons, showed that the American people supported the Sudanese.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A960958260

How could Wright give a prestigious award to someone who gave the Khortum government a free pass?
Petra
March 31st, 2008 at 12:34 am
JohnMG

March 30th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Petra; ……”Olbermann an obnoxious POS. Doesn’t he have parents of his own?…..”

If I had to guess I’d say he was a self-made man. ;-}”

Just what we need - another god. :)

Noyzmakr
March 30th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Petra… I’m suprised anyone heard him say anything. No one watches that show. I won’t even watch NBC sports when he’s hosting. What a gas bag!

I needed a laugh. Tx. I wonder why they keep him on…
JohnMG
March 31st, 2008 at 12:49 am
Petra; ….”Just what we need - another god…..”

I was thinking along the lines of maybe he’d gone and done what a lot of people told him to do, and that’s how he got here. ;-}
Noyzmakr
March 31st, 2008 at 1:18 am
From Global Research

MONTREAL, CANADA - The Deployment of US Troops inside Canada

“On February 14th, Canada and the US signed an agreement which allows for the deployment of US troops inside Canada.

There was no official announcement nor was there a formal decision at the governmental level.

In fact the agreement was barely mentioned by the Canadian media.

The agreement, which raises farreaching issues of national sovereignty, was not between the two governments. It was signed by military commanding officers.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/i.....p;aid=8323

This is just a little snippet of a very large story. It’s an interesting read.
Petra
March 31st, 2008 at 1:44 am
Liberal evangelicals hope to link faith, social justice
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;3082522

It’s happening a lot…yet another Marxist church in the offing…

Obama first to use the race card:
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;5323594

Those people at the DU are sickkk:
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;5323572
Petra
March 31st, 2008 at 1:55 am
I meant to post this earlier…to go along with the Farrakhan, Wright, Otis, Obama - linkage….
http://www.chicagoreader.com/f.....rackobama/

Now to find out about the Muslim Brotherhood. Was the author of that letter to Oprah an MB member? How about the one who posted the Palestinian Protocols? Lots of questions - few answers but they all appear to have the same talking points.

Interesting article Noyzmakr - I didn’t see it around.

Not sure what you mean MG - tired I guess…now to bed. Nite all.
Noyzmakr
March 31st, 2008 at 2:03 am
From The Hartford Advocate:

How to Handle Illegal Aliens
Thursday, March 27, 2008
By Daniel D’Ambrosio

On March 7, Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts and Mayor Eddie Perez announced a new set of protocols concerning the arrest of illegal immigrants that puts the city squarely in the same camp as New Haven, which has been a leader nationally on the question of how to handle undocumented residents.

From now on, Hartford cops will not arrest a person based solely on his immigration status unless there is a federal criminal warrant out for his arrest. Going a step further, police won’t honor any request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain a person on a civil or administrative warrant.
http://www.hartfordadvocate.co.....m?aid=6765

Typical liberals. The story goes on for quite a bit, but what caught my eye is the response posted by somebody named zeezil.
I love this person.

Posted by zeezil on 3.25.08 at 13.47

You should now be painfully aware that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. The most recent tragedy of four Cottonwood, MN children killed (and the many injured) by an illegal alien driver is a terrible reminder of the failure of our government to simply enforce existing immigration laws. At least on two occasions, local police encountered the perpetrator for infractions of the law, yet did nothing. Due to their ?don?t ask, don?t tell? approach which is obviously supported by the police chiefs, city administrators and even the state legislature, four innocent American children are now dead. State legislators must take charge of their own constituent?s welfare and work to require ALL laws are followed and enforced. Obviously, American citizens cannot pick and choose which laws they will follow, but illegal aliens, with government and law enforcement complicity, can. Following the law, abiding by the law and supporting the law is “work” that illegal aliens just won?t do. Two different groups have emerged in America today due to the effect of illegal immigration, those who have to obey the law (citizens) and those who don’t (illegal aliens). How shameful that is.

It is not racist, bigoted or xenophobic to demand that our country?s borders be secured and to support immigration law enforcement. It is racist, bigoted and xenophobic by illegal aliens, their facilitators and advocates to demand that we allow them free reign with impunity in our country, simply because of who they are. Don’t fall for their ploy, exhibit a staunch backbone and tell them we are the most diverse nation on the face of the earth and welcome more LEGAL immigrants that the rest of the entire world combined does every year. However, where we draw the line is with the “illegal” portion of the term illegal immigrant. Those who want to come to America legally, play by the rules, pay taxes and be a productive contributor to our economy and society, obey the law and assimilate into our culture will be welcomed by all citizens. Those that don?t not only will not be welcomed, they should be told to leave.

Political power is the real reason immigration advocacy groups are opposed to immigration law enforcement and successful immigration enforcement programs. Any failure by legislators to act and take away the sanctuary status of cities will ultimately lead to a radical shift and upheaval in American demographics resulting in the disenfranchisement of many American citizens.

Have you heard the saying, when California sneezes, the rest of the country catches the flu? Generally what starts in California eventually spreads to the rest of the country. That is, unless a state takes measures to resist it. Unless every state realistically tackles illegal immigration by instituting Comprehensive Immigration ENFORCEMENT, which California has refused to do, this is what you can expect:

As of 2006, California contained greater than 25% of the total illegal alien population within the U.S. Many of these illegals concentrate in Los Angeles. New statistics from the Department of Public Social Services reveal that illegal aliens and their families in Los Angeles County collected over $37 million in welfare and food stamp allocations in November 2007 ? up $3 million dollars from September. Twenty five percent of the all welfare and food stamps benefits are going directly to the children of illegal aliens. Illegals collected over $20 million in welfare assistance for November 2007 and over $16 million in monthly food stamp allocations for a projected annual cost of $444 million. “This new information shows an alarming increase in the devastating impact Illegal immigration continues to have on Los Angeles County taxpayers,” said Antonovich, LA County Supervisor. “With $220 million for public safety, $400 million for healthcare, and $444 million in welfare allocations, the total cost for illegal immigrants to County taxpayers far exceeds $1 billion a year ? not including the millions of dollars for education.”

Just keep in mind that the $37 million a month is for only one county in one state and is only welfare and foodstamp benefits. It doesn’t include hospital care, education, fraud, wage depression, crime, depreciation of housing values, the portion of bad loans given to illegal aliens by banks, insurance costs and the myriad of other burdensome expenses that illegal aliens put on the backs of American citizens. There are 29 sanctuary cities in California and because of that there should be little wonder why so many illegal aliens stay in this state. They basically operate with impunity and even if they get arrested for a serious crime there is little chance of them being deported. They can sign up for welfare and food stamps with no questions asked and the hospitals provide them with free care as long as there are still emergency rooms that can?t turn them away for lack of funds. All things considered, California has rolled out the welcome mat for them.

Is there any wonder that California is right now in a fiscal crisis emergency with a budget deficit greater than $14 billion and growing? Reliable estimates calculate illegal aliens cost the state $10.5 billion each year! So what?s Schwarzenegger?s solution? A 10 percent across-the-board reduction in state agency funding,, transferring $2 billion in spending to the next fiscal year and increasing taxes. Why not cut all public services to those not in the U.S. legally? Just a simple thought on my part that would go a long way to putting California back on its feet. A bell should be ringing in you head about right now that tells you this is what is coming throughout America if you refuse to take action.

The Congressional Budget Office in December 2007 (CBO: The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments) stated the tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants. Illegal immigrants are a NET COST LOSS and a burden to the budgets of all states. This cost is largely borne by the states and citizen taxpayers.
Federal payments allocated by Washington fall far short in reimbursing state and local government expenditures.

The annual cost for uncompensated emergency care to Mexican Border States (California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas) is $200 million. California taxpayers paid $79 million for illegal alien health care. Texas paid $74 million. ?Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Center.

The average annual cost per child for education is $7,161, totaling $109 billion to educate illegal aliens annually. The average cost of bilingual education is $1,200 per illegal student. U.S. schools annually educate 1.1 million illegal children. -Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Center.

A major cost factor in the conduct of school operations relates to the vast number of children of illegal immigrants in our classroom and the special-training dictates for many of those students being taught in their native language ? some 82 languages in San Diego County, 112 languages in Los Angeles County. ? North County Times, March 2008. In New York City alone, more than 200 languages are spoken in the public schools. ?NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

$108.2 million is spent each year by U.S. border counties in the four state region to pay for law enforcement, criminal justice and emergency healthcare services to illegal immigrants, states a February 2008 report from the United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition (USMBCC). Current federal reimbursement returns only 11.5 cents on the dollar to counties for handling criminal illegal immigrant services.

From 1999 through 2006, the 24 counties along the U.S.-Mexico border spent a cumulative $1.23 billion on services to process criminal undocumented immigrants through the law enforcement and criminal justice system. In fiscal year 2006 alone, the cost was $192 million. Yet, the federal government has only reimbursed these 24 counties $4.7 million for detaining criminal undocumented immigrants for fiscal year 2006 (and $54.8 million since 1999). These are staggering costs considering the rural nature and poverty level of most of these border counties. The costs to process undocumented immigrants come at the expense of basic, vital services to county residents. (Undocumented Immigrants in U.S. Border Counties: The Costs of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Services; U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition February 2008)

The average illegal immigrant family uses $2,700/year more in services than it pays in taxes. In 2002, this amounted to a $10.4 billion drain on the federal budget. Some of the greatest federal costs included: Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion). According to the CIS report, since most of the illegal aliens currently in the workforce do not have a high school diploma, they only qualify for low paying jobs. That translates into low federal tax payments. Should illegal aliens ever receive an amnesty, it is estimated that net deficit costs would triple to $7,700 per household due to eligibility to all federal, state and local services. http://www.cis.org/articles/20.....lease.html

Furthermore; nationwide, 40% of households headed by an illegal alien receive welfare benefits and 56% have no health insurance. Standard & Poor?s reports that education of illegal alien children costs the states and federal government $11 billion dollars per year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hduG9Dw0oYg

Heritage Foundation research shows in FY 2004, at the state and local level, the average low skill immigrant household received $14,145 in benefits and services and paid only $5,309 in taxes (those that actually paid taxes). The average low skill immigrant households imposed a net fiscal burden on state and local government of $8,836 per year. That is approximately $9000 for EACH immigrant household of which at least 50% are illegal aliens.

In California, each illegal immigrant will take $50,000 in services from the state beyond what he will contribute in taxes during his lifetime. -The Immigration Solution; Manhattan Institute, 2007

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation calculates that each immigrant who is a high school dropout, as most Mexican immigrants are, will end up costing taxpayers $85,000 over his lifetime.

Taxpayers in our country pay more than $100 billion every year on health care and other services for illegal immigrants, including education, law enforcement costs, and housing. ? Congressman Dean Heller-Jan. 2008 http://www.nevadaappeal.com/ar...../729401847

A Harvard University study released in January 2008 found that illegal aliens depressed wages in Arizona by $1.4 billion dollars. Hardest hit were low skilled legal workers whose wages fell by 5%. Wage suppression of American workers is a consistent effect throughout the country due to the employment of illegal aliens. http://www.azcentral.com/busin.....10-ON.html

40% of the decline in employment of black men is due to immigration. Foreign workers are taking American’s jobs and depressing wages. And while Americans from all backgrounds are being harmed, lower to middle income African American workers are being disproportionately affected. ?Dr. Frank Morris, former Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation; February 2008.

This alone could be cause for a race war.

The World Bank reports (Worldwide Remittance Flow to Developing Nations Report) for 2006, $68.1 billion dollars were sent by migrant workers (more than 50% illegal aliens) mostly from the U.S. to Latin America. Mexico received 24.4 billion, South America 24.4, Central America 11 billion and the Caribbean 8.4 billion. This is a direct transfer of a huge portion of our economy to the third world; largely by a group of people (illegal aliens) who are not even authorized to work in our country much less have an established presence here.

The U.S. government estimates that since 2003, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have repatriated $22 billion to Mexico from the U.S., which is 20% of all money sent to Mexico from it?s citizens residing, legally and illegally here during this interval. Drug money remittances have accelerated since 2002 when the U.S. government allowed banks to accept the Mexican Matricula Consular ID card. This has enabled these crime groups to engage in money laundering. (U.S. State Department report; March 2008)

Questions you should be asking include “Why is even $1 of taxpayer money being consumed providing services and paying for the huge cost burden of illegal aliens in every state of America? Why are we allowing business and corporations to import cheap foreign labor (both legal and illegal) to drive down wages and put Americans out of work? Why are we importing a foreign workforce that transfers a significant amount of money from our economy to foreign nations?”

If the illegality of illegal immigration and the tremendous cost burden to American taxpayers, our economy, our society and our culture doesn?t infuriate you, then look over just a few studies that put illegal alien crime in focus:

(1) Violating the immigration law is a CRIME
(2) Forging documents is a FELONY CRIME
(3) Passing forged documents is a FELONY CRIME
(4) Stealing ID is a FELONY CRIME
(5) Using stolen ID is a FELONY CRIME

A US GAO study found in a study population of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated, on average, each had been arrested 8 times for a total arrest figure of at least 459,614 times. If that isn’t astounding enough, these 55,322 illegals in the study population had been arrested for committing 700,000 criminal offenses, which averages 13 crimes per illegal alien. So, each illegal alien incarcerated had been arrested 8 times and had committed at least 13 crimes.

And this alone should be reason enough to stop the madness!

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, in 2005, 25% of prisoners in federal prisons were illegal aliens, and 4% were legal aliens. This proportion has not gone down; if anything, it has gone up markedly. Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Institute states that today, illegal aliens make up twenty nine percent of the U.S. prison population. Bill O’Reilly is on record more recently stating that illegal aliens account for 32% of the federal and state prison population.

The US Justice Department reported that in 2003, alone, 270,000 illegal immigrants had served prison time. The Federation for American Immigration Reform reports: “In March 2000, Congress made public Department of Justice statistics showing that, over the previous five years, the INS had released over 35,000 criminal aliens instead of deporting them. Over 11,000 of those released went on to commit serious crimes, over 1,800 of which were violent ones; including 98 homicides, 142 sexual assaults, and 44 kidnappings. In 2001, thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court, the INS was forced to release into our society over 3,000 criminal aliens who collectively had been convicted of 125 homicides, 387 sex offenses, and 772 assault charges.” http://www.newsmax.com/archive.....shtml?s=ic

According to the well-respected U.S. Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org), incarcerated convicted illegal aliens make up 29 percent of federal, state and local prisons at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. This number doubles when the costs for apprehension, the justice system, public defenders, interpreters, prosecutors and the courts add to the total.

Illegals represent about 8 percent of Arizona’s population and the Arizona Department of Corrections reports that Mexican nationals make up 12 percent of the state’s 37,200-inmate prison population.

In Fresno, California 20% of county jail inmates are illegal immigrants. Riverside County, California: illegal aliens are as much as 25% of their jail population. ?The Immigration Solution; Manhattan Institute 2007

Undocumented aliens, mostly from Mexico and Central America, now total 1953 inmates in the Maricopa County Sheriff?s jail system. That number represents 21 percent of the overall inmate population of men and women housed in the nation?s third largest jail system. Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that is just small part of the story about those incarcerated in his jails. He says that recent figures show that serious crime (class four felonies and above) are committed substantially by illegal aliens. During two recent surveys, between 27 and 53 percent of all suspects booked into the jail on serious felonies had immigration holds placed on them. The vast majority of those with holds were in the United States illegally. According to the Sheriff?s figures, illegal alien inmate population numbers have grown steadily in Arizona and other border states over the last several years. In March 2005, the illegal alien population in Arpaio?s jails totaled approximately 700. (Borderfire Report 2/28/08)

A new study shows one in five i

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