tagged w/ Religious Extremists
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You have to hear the full audio, but Newt included in his tirade the following:
"Now to have got a president who is pro-infanticide wage war on every right to life organization in America...it, just tells you how sick the country’s become. I think this is the most important election of our lifetime. I think if we get four more years of Obama...we won’t be the country we were in 2008 in terms of our core values."
http://veracitystew.com/?p=31548You have to hear the full audio, but Newt included in his tirade the following:... more
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It’s been a regression of intellectual thought, where intellect has been removed from the equation and cast aside as something to be ridiculed and demonized, only to be replaced with a bizarre hybrid of religion, ignorance, greed, and bloodlust. Why else would those who practice stupidity-by-choice cheer for the death of an uninsured man, or celebrate the fact that one of their beloved candidates has executed close to 300 people in his state?
http://veracitystew.com/2011/09/21/american-idiots-the-gops-aversion-to-intelligence-video/It’s been a regression of intellectual thought, where intellect has been removed... more
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This is just a partial list of American Terrorist Groups (imo) that are just one of the threats to our country. Thanks to American's United for this list. Visit theit site for the complete list.
May 2011 Featured
By Rob Boston
The Religious Right in America is lavishly funded and politically well connected. While the men who lead the fundamentalist Christian political movement hold different opinions about theology, they share a deep and abiding hostility to the separation of church and state. They seek to inject religion into public schools, obtain taxpayer funding for religious schools and other ministries, roll back reproductive choice and deny civil rights to gay people. And they enjoy extraordinary influence in Washington, D.C., and in many state legislatures.
What follows is a survey of some of the nation’s leading Religious Right organizations. Collectively, these groups raise more than three-quarters of a billion dollars annually, the bulk of it tax-exempt. Budget figures are from public tax documents and are the most recent available, in most cases from 2009 and 2010.
The Pat Robertson Empire
Christian Broadcasting Network
Budget: $295,140,001
Location: Virginia Beach, Va.
Regent University
Budget: $60,093,298
Location: Virginia Beach, Va.
American Center for Law and Justice:
Budget: $13,375,429
Location: Virginia Beach, Va.
Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism
Budget: $43,872,322
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
TV preacher Pat Robertson has for many years overseen a sprawling Religious Right empire that includes a global television network, a university and an influential right-wing legal outfit. Robertson’s flagship operation, “The 700 Club,” is a daily television program that mixes news, faith healing, Christian lifestyle features and Religious Right politics. He calls church-state separation a “myth” and a “lie of the left.” Despite his extreme views, Robertson remains well connected with the GOP power structure in Washington, and congressional leaders and presidential candidates often appear on his show. House Speaker John Boehner, for example, gave an exclusive interview in February.
Religious Right attorney Jay Sekulow runs the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a legal group founded by Robertson in 1991. Sekulow’s Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, the ACLJ under a different name, serves a similar purpose. The combined annual budget for both entities exceeds $55 million.
Regent University was originally founded to offer graduate degrees in areas Robertson most wants to dominate: government, education, law, communications, psychology and ministry. It now offers undergraduate degrees as well (many of them online) and has a satellite campus in Alexandria, Va., a Washington, D.C., suburb.
The Falwell Empire
Liberty University
Budget: $395,898,255
Location: Lynchburg, Va.
Jerry Falwell Ministries
Budget: $4,208,989
Location: Lynchburg, Va.
Liberty Counsel
Budget: $1,371,795
Location: Orlando, Fla., and Lynchburg, Va.
The late Jerry Falwell, a television evangelist and founder of the Moral Majority, was a pivotal figure in the history of the Religious Right. Falwell died in 2007 and left his religio-political empire in the hands of his two sons, Jerry Jr. and Jonathan. Falwell Jr., who serves as chancellor of Liberty University, has followed in his father’s footsteps by advancing a partisan political agenda. In December of 2007, Falwell issued an e-mail on university letterhead endorsing Mike Huckabee for president. In 2009, he used university resources to engineer the defeat of the Democratic member of the House of Delegates who represented the Lynchburg area.
In April of this year, Liberty hosted “The Awakening,” a conference that featured former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), alongside Religious Right activists.
Liberty has experienced huge growth and now has an active online learning component. Despite Falwell’s anti-government rhetoric, Liberty students receive nearly half a billion dollars in federal aid every year.
Jonathan Falwell serves as pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and oversees the remnants of his father’s TV ministry.
Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group originally founded by Mat Staver and based in Orlando, Fla. It is now a part of the Falwell enterprise and operates in conjunction with the Liberty University Law School, where Staver is dean.
Family Research Council/FRC Action/FRC Action PAC
Combined Budget: $14,569,081
Location: Washington, D.C.
The Family Research Council has become the nation’s top Religious Right group in Washington, D.C. Led by former Louisiana state representative Tony Perkins, the FRC seeks to merge fundamentalist Christianity with government. It opposes individual reproductive freedom, engages in gay bashing and lately has sought to join forces with the Tea Party to create a massive, far-right phalanx.
The FRC is so extreme that this year it was designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Perkins has a checkered political past. In 1996, while managing the U.S. Senate campaign of Louisiana state legislator Woody Jenkins, he paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and notorious white supremacist David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list. In 2001, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization that grew out of the White Citizens Council.
Despite FRC’s unsavory reputation, the group sponsors an annual “Values Voter Summit” that draws leading GOP congressional figures and presidential hopefuls.
FRC maintains an “action” arm with a 501(c)(4) tax status that enables it to be more directly political. It also funnels money to candidates through a political action committee.
WallBuilder Presentations/WallBuilders
Budget: $1,091,531 (plus proceeds from a for-profit arm)
Location: Aledo, Texas
WallBuilders is an organization founded by David Barton, a Texan who makes his living promoting bogus “Christian nation” history to fundamentalist groups. Barton insists that church-state separation is a myth and was never the intention of the founders. He markets books, DVDs and other materials that promote this view and speaks in fundamentalist churches and other venues.
Barton helped rewrite Texas’ social studies standards, which downplay church-state separation and elevate the “Christian nation” view. Barton does not have a degree in history (his degree, from Oral Roberts University, is in Christian Education), but he poses as a historian.
Despite his lack of legitimate academic credentials, Barton’s profile has increased recently due to a number of appearances he made on the Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel. Time magazine in 2005 named him one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals in America.
Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential aspirant, is a huge Barton fan. Addressing a Religious Right gathering earlier this year, Huckabee opined that all Americans should be forced “at gunpoint…to listen to every David Barton message.”
The budget figures for WallBuilder Presentations are somewhat misleading. This organization is a small non-profit Barton runs – but he makes most of his money through a separate organization called simply WallBuilders. This group, which is a for-profit business, is not required to make its financial statements publicly available.
In my opinion, the real threat to us is not the Religious Freaks, over there, with guns and bombs that like to fly planes into buildings. Its the Religious Freaks over HERE that have tax exemption status, disposible wealth and influence in our secular government, they are the real "Terrorists"!This is just a partial list of American Terrorist Groups (imo) that are just one of... more
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A slew of recent bills would expand the ability to deny services based on personal religious or moral beliefs
Energized by the health care debate and fueled by Congress's recent pro-life fervor, state legislators have been dreaming up numerous ways to restrict women's access to abortion and other reproductive health services. One tactic they've resorted to is ramping up on conscience protection laws. The laws shields employees from punishment for refusing to perform certain job duties based on their religion or morals. This would allow government-funded health workers, pharmacists, and insurance companies to refuse to inform someone about care options, give out Plan B contraceptives, or refer a patient to a pro-choice physician, all without retribution.
These "religious refusal" laws, as they are also called, are by no means new, explains Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute. Many states have conscience laws, she says, and they exist at the federal level too. But recently, observes Brigitte Amiri, a senior attorney for the ACLU, "we've seen an onslaught of bills restricting access to abortion at a level we have not seen in the past." The inclusion of insurance companies and pharmacies in the list of those protected by new conscience laws make Amiri particularly concerned.
Certain lawmakers have tried to use religious refusal laws to preserve discrimination in other industries and organizations. Take Iowa, for example, where a recent measure would have allowed small business owners to refuse to sell anything to a gay couple if that businessman felt homosexuality was against his religion. (Luckily, that law "appears dead," but similar bills previously popped up in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Colorado, and more could be on the way.)
Besides further restricting access to women's health care services, broader conscience protection laws could also mean greater opportunities for protected discrimination: not just against women, but against gays and lesbians and anyone else a particular employee feels "violates" his or her personal beliefs. We've rounded up five of the worst offenders, below.
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1. Alabama
Legislation: House Bill 178 (PDF)/ Senate Bill 46, the "Health Care Rights of Conscience Act," gives "health care providers, institutions, and payers right to decline to perform any health care service that violate their consciences." This is one of the most sweeping conscience laws currently on the table, allowing any health care provider or insurance company to refuse to provide referrals, procedures, or payments. If a doctor was working with a woman seeking sterilization for family planning reasons, for instance, he could refuse to treat her, decline to inform her of her options, and refuse to refer her to anyone else if sterilization was against his own beliefs.
Because the term "ethical principle" also appears in the bill's definition of "conscience," explains Nash of the Guttermacher Institute, "you could imagine a scenario where a doctor could say 'I don't want to give you your heart medicine because I think you should lose thirty pounds.'"
Status: Pending committee action in House
2. Arizona
Legislation: HB 2565 would add a "Students' Rights" section to the Arizona Revised Statutes that would prohibit a university from punishing a student in counseling or social work who refuses to counsel another student on a topic that's against her "sincerely held religious belief or moral convictions."
This bill probably arose in reaction to a recent incident in Michigan, when a grad student filed a lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University claiming it had discriminated against her based on her religion. EMU dismissed Julea Ward from its school counseling program after she refused to work with gay or lesbian students because she said homosexuality went against her Christian beliefs. The university argued that she violated American Counseling Association's Code of Ethics, but many have spoken out in Ward's defense, including Michigan's Attorney General (PDF).
Status: Passed through the House and the Senate, but because the bill was amended, it has to come back to the House for the final vote
3. Iowa
Legislation: HSB 50 (PDF), or "The Religious Conscience Protection Act." A reaction to Iowa's legalization of gay marriage, this bill would protect individuals and small businesses from having to "provide goods or services that assist or promote the solemnization or celebration of a marriage," "provide housing to a married couple," or "provide adoption or reproductive services" if doing so went against religious beliefs.
Critics worry that in addition to encouraging discrimination against gay couples, the bill is written in such a vague way that it could have broader implications. "This bill would not just affect LGBT couples, but opens the door to discrimination against interracial and interfaith couples," Troy Price of One Iowa told The Iowa Independent.
Status: The bill is basically dead after a subcommittee meeting drew crowds protesting the legislation. But sponsor Representative Rich Anderson, who earlier this year nominated himself for a seat on the Iowa Supreme Court, told SourceMedia News "we are just going to have to continue to work on it." A month later, Anderson's spokesperson told me that the legislature was not planning to make any amendments to the bill or move it forward.
4. South Carolina
Legislation: HB 3408, the "Freedom of Conscience Act," aims at protecting health care providers who do not want to be involved with or talk about abortion or certain types of stem-cell procedures. Bills like this—aimed at doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies—"allow patients to access religious care providers who share their values," writes pro-lifer and Alliance Defense Fund legal counselor Matt Bowman. Allowing women to have unlimited access to abortions, continues Bowman, would drive "all pro-life health care providers out of business."
But the director of the ACLU's Center for Liberty, Louise Melling, believes a bill like this—which allows doctors with objections to abortion to refuse to even give out information—violates a person's basic rights. "There are certain core things that you absolutely have to get which are emergency care, information, and referrals," argues Melling. "Because with information and referrals, then at least the patient knows other options exist and they have a chance to go seek services somewhere else."
Status: Currently residing in the House
5. Utah
Legislation: HB 353 replaces Utah's freedom of conscience law with a "new and expanded freedom of conscience law." As the Deseret News reports, State Representative Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D) doesn't think this bill is necessary, and finds it "very disconcerting."
The bill's sponsor, Representative Carl Wimmer (R), also engineered a bill that charges a woman who has a miscarriage caused by an "intentional or knowing act" as a murderer. Wimmer isn't exactly covert about his intentions; as he told Alternet: "The goal is to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would allow states more authority to make a decision on abortion."
Status: Signed into law on March 23
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/5-scary-religious-refusal-billsA slew of recent bills would expand the ability to deny services based on personal... more
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5 Religious Organizations You Should Hate | The Beast
It’s a list. You love lists.
A common response to criticisms of religion is that its adherents can sometimes do good things, even if it’s for irrational reasons. That’s fair enough, but at the same time it’s useful to remember that while some good can be mixed in with the bad, sometimes religions create institutions of pure evil. Here are a few of them:5 Religious Organizations You Should Hate | The Beast
It’s a list. You love... more
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A 65-year-old Pacolet Mills woman is accused of hanging and burning a 1-year-old pit bull after the animal chewed her Bible.
Miriam Fowler Smith, of 410 John Worthy Road, Pacolet Mills, is charged with ill treatment of animals in general, torture, according to an arrest warrant. Smith's nephew told officers he left the animal at the home he shared with his aunt during the recent winter weather. After returning, he could not find the dog, named Diamond, and he assumed she had broken the chain that kept her on the home's front porch, according to a report filed by a Spartanburg County environmental enforcement officer.
The man later told officers his aunt admitted to killing the animal, calling it a “devil” dog, and authorities were called to investigate.
After officers responded to the home, the woman told them she killed the dog because it had chewed her Bible and she feared for the safety of neighborhood children.
Officers found the dog's body, which had been partially burned, lying in a pile of dried grass. An orange extension cord had been tied tightly around the dog's neck and in its mouth.
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20110124/ARTICLES/110129857/1088/sports?Title=Woman-accused-of-hanging-burning-pit-bull-that-chewed-her-Bible&tc=arA 65-year-old Pacolet Mills woman is accused of hanging and burning a 1-year-old pit... more
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Home grown terrorist. Its all about support our troops until you get a chance to get yourself on TVHome grown terrorist. Its all about support our troops until you get a chance to get... more
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mik661
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Washington state has reversed its stance, choosing to review its regulations and find a way to permit pharmacists with religious objections not to stock emergency contraceptive drug “Plan B”, among other medications.
In 2007, the Washington State Board of Pharmacy responded to complaints of pharmacists refusing to provide birth control pills, emergency contraception, and other medications by instituting a regulation requiring pharmacists all lawfully-prescribed drugs. The regulation permitted those with religious objections to ask a colleague to fill the prescription instead, but did not allow pharmacists to turn customers away.
In the case of Stormans v. Selecky, two pharmacists and a corporate pharmacy sued the state under the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. The district court agreed with the plaintiffs; the case was then overturned on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The plaintiffs requested a re-hearing, which was granted, with the same result.
The plaintiffs requested a stay of enforcement in legal proceedings against pharmacists refusing to comply; the State of Washington and the plaintiffs have agreed to suspend proceedings in the case while the Washington State Board of Pharmacy reviews its regulations. It is likely that the Board will adopt something similar to a proposal from 2006, which allows for a “facilitated referral” — that is, a pharmacist who does not want to dispense a particular medication must provide a referral to a pharmacist who will fill the prescription.
This proposal was opposed by both Governor Christine Gregoire and Planned Parenthood in 2006. Wrote Gregoire in 2006, “no one should be denied appropriate prescription drugs based on the personal, religious or moral objection of individual pharmacists. Let me be clear: a lawful prescription should be filled unless there are clinical or patient safety issues.”
The National Catholic Register reports:
In a stunning reversal, the Washington State Pharmacy Board has decided to allow pharmacists with conscientious objections to filling certain prescriptions to merely refer patients to other nearby pharmacies.
On July 7 Judge Ronald Leighton of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington said that state attorneys had asked that the trial, due to start two weeks later, be postponed “to allow the Pharmacy Board time to complete its rulemaking processes” in rewriting the regulation in question.
http://www.ncregister.com/register_exclusives/pharmacy-board-reverses-itself-on-pharmacists-right-of-conscience-case/Washington state has reversed its stance, choosing to review its regulations and find... more
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Ah, the NWO conspiracy theory. Remember the late 1990's, when the New World Order referred to Pro Wrestling?
That was back when we were all simply jaded and playfully dark, instead of angry, paranoid, and mind-numbingly stupid. Good times.
Now, NWO stands for the conspiracy theory that you see people talking about on the Internet. JJ is a believer. You can tell that lots of intelligent thought went into her thoughts about the upcoming solar storms:Ah, the NWO conspiracy theory. Remember the late 1990's, when the New World Order... more
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This week, most Somalian radio stations abruptly stopped playing music or international news programs.
According to the New York Times:
At least 14 radio stations...stopped broadcasting music on Tuesday, heeding an ultimatum by an Islamist insurgent group to stop playing songs or face "serious consequences." ...
The insurgent group, Hizbul Islam, issued its ultimatum 10 days ago and set Tuesday as the deadline to comply, saying that music was “un-Islamic.” In other parts of the country, insurgents have taken over or shut down some radio stations. Last week, the Shabab, the country’s most powerful insurgent group, said it was banning foreign programs like those broadcast by the BBC and Voice of America, calling them Western propaganda that violated Islam.
I interviewed the leader of Hizbul-Islam, Sheikh Hassan Aweys, back in 2006 when Kaj and I were in Somalia shooting "Mogadishu Madness" for Vanguard.
Back then he was the spiritual leader of the Islamic Court Union. In the piece, we covered his earlier attempts at helping the ICU implement Sharia law and the reaction from the Somali community when he did so.
We captured exclusive footage of the uneasy peace that prevailed, albeit briefly, and interviewed other Islamist leaders who held the city, exposing the stated goals and fears of people the U.S. government branded as terrorists.
Shortly after we returned to the U.S. to show viewers what we had seen, Ethiopian troops, backed by U.S. forces, invaded Somalia and drove the Islamists into hiding. The country returned to a state of war. In retrospect, was the U.S. justified in backing Ethiopia to invade Somalia so they could overthrow the Islamic government that Aweys had helped establish?
Things certainly got a whole lot worse. As a journalist, of course I cringe at the idea of banning a free press. But if 20 years of fighting has taught us anything, its that its time to start thinking outside the box when it comes to bringing stability to Somalia.
I wonder if Aweys would grant us an interview today or if we’d be banned along with the rest of the press. Certainly makes me look at this whole radio ban differently.This week, most Somalian radio stations abruptly stopped playing music or... more
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Hey Religious Extremists, Why is Your god Such a Wimp? (or, A Male's Guide to the Impending Lesbian Apocalypse)
I've never understood the common usage of the word macho.
To be clear, I'm referring to the dictionary definition (ultimate masculinity) and not the informal one popularized by The Village People (ultimate gayness.) The word macho is intended to define the pinnacle of tough, but it ends up representing supreme insecurity.
Understanding that contradiction, it's clear that extreme religion is precisely macho. Because I live west of the Prime Meridian, extremist Muslim behavior is more easily noticed, since Islamic tradition isn't intertwined with our culture and considered a part of just how things are. Examples of Islamic macho/insecurity may be more obvious to us Westerners, but anyone who opens their mind even slightly will notice there is little if any difference among Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the extreme.
At their distant ends, all three focus their restrictions on women. When it comes to the religious fringe, it's all dudes all the time. Yet these are the same people who are also violently homophobic.
Another paradox, yes, and it gets worse. Even the gods of extremism reflect the bi-polar nature of macho. A classic example is when the Taliban claimed they had to destroy Buddhist statues in Afghanistan because the statues were just too much for the mighty Allah to gaze upon. (Link.)
Now I'm just a mortal, but I'm proud of the fact that I'm secure enough not to demand my friends blow up anyone who doesn't worship me. Hey, that's their loss!
So here's my question for religious extremists: If your god is such a badass, why does he need mortals like you to fight his battles? Why is your god scared of statues? Or cartoons? Or same-sex love and marriage? Or women thinking, saying and doing what they want?
Silly extremists! Either your faith in your god's power is lacking or your god is a total wimp.
Actually, we all know the real reason for macho's split-personality, why men (and male-like gods) talk tough but act fragile. I'll break the rules and say it out loud: Because females have all the power. They can do anything a male can except make sperm.
That's not to say I would complain if the world was taken over by women and we men were used simply for sperm harvesting. To the more sultry and flexible of our female conquerors, I say harvest away! Sadly, with advances in reproductive technology, even sperm isn't necessary.
A lot of reports and studies appear to support the idea that extremism is on the rise. How much is being fueled by insecure men, aware of their accelerating (or already present) obsolescence? I swear it's only a matter of time before lesbians take over. Name me a single lesbian that isn't damn good at what she does. You can't do it! That's right, men. We are biologically useless! Accept it! Or make a fool of yourself by acting macho.
One who works against the efforts of power-hungry people of their same "race" are often referred to as race traitors. So, being a male who admits to male pointlessness, does that make me a sex traitor?
I hope so, because frankly, I'm down with that. Oh wait, I thought you said trader. Dang it.Hey Religious Extremists, Why is Your god Such a Wimp? (or, A Male's Guide to the... more
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At the above link, click on the video titled:
"Secret Jesus Bible Codes on U.S. Military Weapons"
For anyone who doubts the insidious presence of Religious Fanaticism within the U.S. Government and the U.S. Military.
For anyone who doubts or denies that these wars are a Fanatical "Christian" Crusade to the ideologues in positions of power and influence within U.S. Government and it's subsidiaries.At the above link, click on the video titled:
"Secret Jesus Bible Codes on U.S.... more
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UK, September 17, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)- Could anyone imagine as a result of your own actions you are killing your own troops and your own population? This is now the case in Israel.
Many weapons used by the IDF in Gaza contained uranium components and upon impact set off huge volumes of aerosol particles that then drifted back over the border into Israel with devastating results.
It has been some time since the Israelis bombed Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and in both cases the weapons used left behind a trial of misery for all those that lived downwind. We can now start to see the results of those actions and I must say the term "What goes around comes around" rings true in the ears of the residents of Israel. Some interesting health statements have been released that prove when you play with dirty weapons it can all come back to you. It would now appear that we have a situation whereby Israelis are killing Israelis.
In May this year we saw the following headline appear in the Haaretz:
"Quality of Israeli sperm down 40% in past decade" The quality of Israeli sperm has declined alarmingly in the last decade, according to recent research conducted at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital, Mount Scopus. The cause for the decline is not known, but it's believed by some researchers to be connected to the exposure of children and pregnant women to hormones and other contaminants in food and water.
This month started to see some more statistics appear out of Israel which again indicates that contamination by DU may well be the cause. The next headline was even more alarming: "More women diagnosed with cancer in Israel than in Europe" Israel's health ranking is dropping compared to those of developed European nations, the Israel Medical Association said yesterday. Israel lags behind the European average in disease prevention.
The report gave a clear message that something in the environment may be causing these dramatic increases. The comparison gave the number of new female cancer patients as follows: 290 per 100,000 compared to an average of 179 in Europe. The report went of the say that for men the average was much the same but again was showing a steady rise since 2005.
When you think you have heard the last of the bad news you are then confronted with another shocking headline from the IMA: Hodgkin's lymphoma is a distinct primary solid tumour of the immune system that shows wide variation in incidence among different geographic regions and among various races. It was previously suggested that susceptible people living in certain parts of Israel had a higher risk of HL because of exposure to unidentified environmental factors in these regions. Compared with other parts of Israel, these regions were characterized by a higher proportion of Israeli-born Jews.
A total of 4812 Jewish cases of HL were reported to the Israel Cancer Registry during the study period 1960-2005. There has been a persistent increase in the age-standardized incidence rate of HL, all subtypes pooled, in Israeli-born Jews in both men and women. The age distribution pattern in both genders was bimodal in all periods. The highest incidence was observed in the 20-24 year age group: for women (9.13 per 100,000 per year) during the period 1988-1996, and for men (6.60 per 100,000 per year) during the period 1997-2005.UK, September 17, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)- Could anyone imagine as a result of your own... more
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AUSTIN, Tex. — In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday upheld teaching evolution as accepted mainstream science.
But social conservatives on the board, using a series of amendments tailored to particular school subjects, succeeded in requiring teachers to evaluate critically a variety of scientific principles like cell formation and the Big Bang.
The debate over new curriculum requirements, to take effect in 2010, stands to influence educational standards nationwide. Once every decade, major textbook publishers revise their offerings to match the requirements newly set forth by Texas, which is one of their largest bulk customers.
More than 80 years after the biology teacher John Scopes was tried on charges of illegally teaching evolution in Tennessee, the controversy here has played out with more subtlety, involving political code words and efforts to undermine the theory itself.
The debate has centered on a longstanding clause that requires teachers to address the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Teachers quietly ignored the requirements for decades.
The board tentatively decided in January to drop the “strengths and weaknesses” language. On Thursday, Democrats and moderate Republicans on the board blocked a proposal by social conservatives to reinstate it. Even with one moderate board member missing, the measure was blocked with a preliminary 7-to-7 vote.
End of Excerpt
Source: The New York Times OnlineAUSTIN, Tex. — In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday... more
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Intelligence agencies caution against saying terror group's demise too soon!!!
Top U.S. counterterrorism officials Monday said al-Qaida is "imploding" and that its violent tactics have turned Muslims worldwide against the organization.
"It's imploding. It's imploding because it's not a message that resonates with a lot of Muslims," said Dell Dailey, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism.
Al-Qaida still remains the most dangerous threat to the United States, according to U.S. intelligence officials and reports. But of growing concern are organizations like Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, which combine social services, local governance, national politics with extremist attacks, Undersecretary of State James Glassman said.
Intelligence agencies caution against saying terror group's demise too soon!!!... more
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Extended promo for the new TV series God Loves ME Best! in which the cast members get to know each other a little bit. Volume 2 of the God Loves ME Best! series. The roomies become acquainted. The Wiccan explains Witchcraft, The Christian covers his porn with a bible, The ladies discuss the sexual potential of their male counterparts, and the guys argue over prayer space and spiritual practices.
http://www.godlovesmebest.com
http://www.youtube.com/godlovesmebestExtended promo for the new TV series God Loves ME Best! in which the cast members get... more
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Extended trailer for the new TV series God Loves ME Best! featuring a belly-dancing transvestite Muslim extremist. In this volume, The Wiccan attempts to woo the Buddhist with home-made pizza while the Atheist makes a frightening discovery about her Muslim roommate. Starring Allegra Cohen, Khrystyne Haje, Eric Kirchberger, Nasry Malak, Michelle Maryk, Ron McClary, Ann Scobie, and Sam Rodd.
http://www.youtube.com/godlovesmebest
http://www.godlovesmebest.comExtended trailer for the new TV series God Loves ME Best! featuring a belly-dancing... more
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A barber in Saudi Arabia faces beheading for the crime of using God's name in vain. Sabri Bogday, a Turk who cuts hair in the Saudi port cityof Jidda, is awaiting appeal on his sentence.
Press reports say Bogday cursed during an argument with a neighbor, who later complained to police. This nation is ruled by a strict Wahabi brand of justice that doles out lashings and public beheadings for crimes including murder, rape and heresy.
Bogday has been in jail for 13 months. Turkish President Abdullah Gul has asked Saudi King Abdullah to spare the barber. But the Arab News daily reported that there could be complications hinging on arcane interpretations of Wahabi religious law by fundamentalist judges.A barber in Saudi Arabia faces beheading for the crime of using God's name in... more
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