IgnoRants

You might think it was a bad idea for the Palestinians to elect Hamas to run their..what?..country? Is it a country? a nation? An idea?

It may not be such a bad idea after all. First, because it doesn’t really matter who runs Palestine - they produce nothing - no industry, no natural resources, no GDP; nothing but bombs and babies - boy, do they produce babies. That’s how they can afford to waste so many by teaching them to throw rocks at people with guns. They are not even getting the $25,000 per suicide bomber that Iraq used to send them. Their economy is entirely dependent on the U.N. and the U.S..

That kind of “quasi-detente” where Israel has to pretend that Palestine is a legitimate nation and Palestine has to pretend that they don’t want to blow Israel off the map can be put aside now and Israel can face her enemy as her enemy. And that could be a very good thing. Not for Palestine, though.

So, why did they do it? Why did they overwhelmingly elect Hamas to run their govenment? I believe it is a direct result of Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal and capitulation to the terrorists. Disingagement indeed! Their enemies emboldened, they seek now to confront Israel directly. Hamas has made no secret that they believe terrorism is the resaon Gaza was given to them and they intend to stay the course until they control Jerusalem.

In Palestinian-controlled Gaza last week, virtually everyone The Sunday Telegraph spoke to said that Israel’s indihar, or retreat, had been forced by the scores of young suicide bombers who have killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians in the five-year-long intifada, or uprising.

In Beirut, a Hamas spokesman, Khaled Mashaal, was defiant. “The resistance and the steadfastness of our people forced the Zionists to withdraw,” he declared last week. “The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses. As long as Palestinian lands remain under occupation, Hamas won’t lay down its weapons.”

With many Palestinians genuinely believing that the intifada forced Israel’s withdrawal in Gaza, there is widespread support for using similar terror tactics to prompt the Israelis to withdraw from the West Bank.

news.telegraph

The best part of a Hamas run government , however, may be that even the most liberal politicians in Israel must now face reality. Iran’s intentions towards them are clear. Their arch nemeses now control their closest neighbor. the UN is feckless and impotent and the U.S. is busy engaging their common enemy elsewhere in the world.

Only a fool would stand and throw rocks at a tank, unless they knew for certain the tank would not fire on them.

Push the red button Mr. Tank Driver!! Push the red button!!

I have 2 sons - very dissimilar in many ways. First off, the youngest is a mental sponge. He remembers everything, quotes everyone, and his vocabulary passed mine when he was in high school. The other is extremely athletic and can play any kind of game you throw at him immediately and kick your butt soundly on the second try.

The one thing these two like to do together is play Scrabble. Now you would imagine that my youngest would be an automatic scrabble guru with his vocabulary, but not so. Likely as not, the oldest whips him by strategically playing “ax” or “qat”. (He doesn’t know what it means, but it’s worth 36 points on a triple word score block).

Scrabble is not unlike geo-politics in this way - you don’t have to be as smart as the guys you are playing with as long as you know how to win.

The rap, of course, is that President Bush is a dummy. How dumb can you be as a Yale grad? That notwithstanding, it’s irrelevant. He plays this particular game better than anyone in modern history. A democracy in the Middle East? Who would have predicted THAT even when the Berlin wall fell?

And now with a lunatic in charge of Iran, and a whole party of lunatics in charge of Palestine, It is clear that the President knew exactly what he was doing by taking out Saddam Hussein. This president has not been deterred by any amount of critisism and neither of these extremist governments can be sure that they won’t be drug out of a hidey hole by a US Marine if they don’t behave.

The Republicans control both houses and the White house, the Democrats don’t even control the Democrats and they have no more hope of owning an issue in the near future than Ted Kennedy does of being sober on Saint Patrick’s day.

Not only is Bush no dummy, he’s winning. Not only is he winning, he’s setting up a win for his replacement.

That’s right - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the middle eastern equivalent of Larry the Cable Guy but with automatic weapons and a pathological hatred for Jews.

The former Revolutionary Guardsman has made a string of verbal attacks on Israel since taking office in August.

In October he called Israel a “tumor” which should be “wiped off the map .” In subsequent speeches he suggested Israel should be moved to Europe or North America and called the Holocaust a myth.

ynet news

He is all the redneck stereotypes; ignorant, racist, violent, a bully. But unlike the worst American redneck, this guy is so racist he advocates the destuction of an entire country.

If you were this good ole boy’s neighbor and he was fixin’ his shotgun so he could come git ya, what would ya do? Break his shotgun or his head?

Israel should take her pick and…git ‘er done!

Death Toll Rises to 345 in Hajj Stampede

Breitbart.com

Imagine if, every Easter Sunday, tens of thousands of Christians gathered in St. Peters Square, then crushed each other like European soccer fans by the hundreds trying to get a look at the Pope.

Well, first of all, it wouldn’t happen. The first time that rush resulted in a death, measures would be taken to assure it never happened again. The incongruity of death being associated with a religious occasion that celebrated life would be anathema to Christians everywhere.

On the other hand, witness the “Hajj”; a pilgrimage to Mecca required of all Muslims if they are able. Once there, The faithful perform various rituals prescribed for them which include cutting your hair, running, walking around a large black monolith, praying and “stoning the Satan”.

In the course of these rituals, EVERY year, hundreds of pilgrims are crushed. Death at the Hajj is so common it is addressed as a component of the pilgrimage in most written and printed materials.

I have no gripe with the Hajj or the way Muslims care to conduct it (or not as the case appears to be), but let’s not miss the simple fact that these annual deaths are just another manifestation of a culture of death.

Whatever Islam was meant to be by it’s inventor, whatever was practiced by Muslims for hundreds of years prior, whatever the occasional pacifististic Imam may say, Islam is now consumed with death, inside and out - the death of infidels, the martyrdom of it’s faithful. There is no regard for human life in Islam.

If the NSA hears me talking to my wife, If a prisoner in Guantanamo is too cold, if a couple of enemy combatants have to endure panties on their heads to protect the U.S. from their babarous assault…there will be no gripe from me

Here are a few stats that are hard to ignore:

• Online porn earned 2.5 billion dollars last year
• All pornographic sales last year earned 76 billion dollars
• There are 68 million search requests per day for sex related words and phrases
• The 2 largest bandwidth buyers in the US are for pornography
• 60% of all internet site visits are sex related
• 20% of men admit visiting porn sites at work
• 40 million adults admit visiting porn sites weekly
• 10% of adults admit to online pornography addiction

• 81% believe obscenity laws should be enforced vigorously!

Obviously there is a disconnect here; some 25% of the adult population admit to going to porn sites weekly (how many do you think didn’t admit it?) and yet 80% support obscenity laws. Is this a cry for help or what?

I believe that pornography (especially online) viewing is so ubiquitous that few people want to talk about it and I don’t think we as Christians are exempt. One poll done at 3 Christian colleges found that 68% of students admitted accessing online pornography.

The average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old.

As Christians, we need to be able to call ourselves to account first in addressing this problem so we can speak to our society with authority. Here is a great place to start: www.xxxchurch.com . There are a lot of resources for your church or mens group here to help address this issue.

Online pornography is easily containable. Designate .xxx for any sexual content unsuitable for children under 13. This makes it easy for parents to restrict access, does not interfere with anyone’s first amendment right to free speech and makes it much easier to regulate, and prosecute violations.

As for foreign porn sites - the US regulates everything else coming into the US. It should be no problem whatsoever to divert foreign porn on .com, .net or .org to .xxx or restrict it entirely. Besides, if we opened up .xxx as the new redlight district of the web, most vendors would voluntarily move out to where the customers are going.

Why hasn’t this been done before now? I said 76 billion dollars. More than the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, ABC, CBS, NBC, Rock AND Country music combined earned last year. If this industry ever organizes to significant degree, it will be all but impossible to stop with those kinds of numbers.

Christians have been quite successful in recent years in the fight against abortion by winning the hearts and minds of individuals in addition to court fights and arguments. It will be the same with pornography, but we have to clean our own house first.

It is a radical problem and here is the start to a radical solution.