Author: Parker

Wingnuts ‘Persecution Complex’

Have you noticed how wingnuts thrive on their perceived notions of persecution?

Check out Redstate… poor me… woes me… I am being persecuted by dem evildoer libruls.

It is really fascinating…Kremplasky was on C-Span and the only thing he could comment on afterwards was those nasty emails he received…

These jokers really have a persecution complex.

I was thinking that what they really need in love and attention…

Let’s change tactics… a revised version of the recipe tactic on dKos. Whenever a wingnut troll appear (cough jcassity cough) let’s shower them with LOVE AND ATTENTION… I swear they are just a bunch of lonely homeschooled morans

Summer Event Offers Teens a Taste of Religious Persecution
By Allie Martin
May 13, 2005

(AgapePress) – Christian youth groups nationwide will have a chance this summer to experience a small sample of what believers in persecuted nations endure on a daily basis.

Open Doors USA is giving young people the opportunity to participate in “Night of Persecution,” a program that is designed to help them understand what life is like for persecuted Christians by showing them in a vivid way. According to Jeff Shreve, who coordinates “Underground,” Open Doors’ youth ministry, the “Night of Persecution” experience is intense.

“The youth leader will announce as the event starts that for the next three hours, the young people are a part of the persecuted Church,” Shreve explains. “They’ll be sent off to find their prayer meetings, and in the process, if they’re trying to find where their church is meeting underground, hidden in their church building or facility, they’ll be raided. They’ll be caught by security personnel and forced to give account for why they believe in Jesus Christ.”

Held during the summer months, the Night of Persecution event involves teens in role playing and other engaging and educational activities. “Their eyes are opened to the reality of Christian persecution,” Shreve notes. And meanwhile, he adds, many of the young people learn a lot about themselves and about their own faith.

The Underground coordinator describes an aspect of this innovative youth activity that he found surprising. In the course of their ordeal as “persecuted Christians,” he says, “a lot of young people are forced through the interrogation and the intimidation that they face, the intense pressure, to really give an account for why they believe what they believe — not so much to the interrogator but for themselves.”

And what many young people learn, Shreve continues, “is that why they believe is just because their parents believe. So they realize at the end of the event, ‘You know what — my faith needs to be more real.'”

Open Doors is sponsoring the “Night of Persecution” in the hope that, for many young Christians, it will help them begin to develop that deeper, more real faith as they learn about their brothers and sisters in the persecuted Church. Twenty-five dates are being booked for the summer months, with a small admission fee charged for each participant.

   

This summer take your youth group into the Persecuted Church! Open their eyes! Challenge their faith! Show them that the battle is real!

The Night of Persecution event, presented by Underground, an initiative of Open Doors, has been called one of THE MOST EFFECTIVE missions tool available today.

You will see two things happen with your young people: 1. Their eyes will be open to the reality of Christian Persecution. 2. They will see the need to take their own faith more seriously.

How will your young people stand in the face of persecution? This summer, give them the opportunity to find out!

A night of prayer for the Persecuted Church

A night of surprise as their prayer group is invaded

Intimidation…interrogation…realization…

What Others Have Said:

The quality of the program is exceptional. Thank you for helping us to make our students more aware of the value of their faith. We look forward to praying for the needs of our persecuted brothers and sisters and keeping abreast of needs worldwide.

– Gordon, Youth Leader North Carolina

Learning about persecution was an eye opening experience for our students. Our day concluded with 73 students holding an Underground worship service in a dark, musty basement below a building downtown.

– Richard, Student Minister Alabama

I was really touched by what the persecuted church goes through. Many are killed for saying, “Yes I DO believe.” How awesome is that? I’m so glad we had this opportunity to help our brothers and sisters in Christ who want the Word of God so much.

– Deanna, Student California

Our church high school group participated in the Underground and were just blown away. Thank you for opening our eyes to the plight of our brothers and sisters who are in need of God’s Word…

– Corey Smith, Youth Director Washington

Top 5 best outreach programs available!
– Outreach Magazine

There’s no question that communities with bases taking big “hits” in these recommendations will mobilize congressional allies to oppose them. And the BRAC process will give them every opportunity to make their case: in the four previous rounds, the BRAC made significant changes in the Pentagon recommendations based on extensive and intensive public hearings. There’s no reason to think the current BRAC will do otherwise.

But we strongly urge critics of the Bush administration’s overall national security strategy — among whom we count ourselves — to avoid the temptation to turn the BRAC into a symbolic fight over unrelated issues. We share the concerns of most Democrats about the administration’s deplorable failure to deploy enough troops to perform the missions we have given them without a “back-door draft” involving extended tours of duty and excessive reliance on Guard and Reserve units, and about its parallel failure to support military personnel and their families. But more and better-supported troops do not require more redundant bases, and indeed, the savings that BRAC could produce will help make it possible to meet the armed forces’ actual needs.

May 13 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. military proposed closing its submarine base in New London, Connecticut, and Fort McPherson in Georgia, and returning 14,000 overseas personnel to domestic bases in the first round of base closings and realignments in a decade.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=709078

President Bush proposed allowing oil companies to build new refineries at abandoned military bases and encouraging new nuclear power plants in steps that critics said would do nothing to address America’s immediate problem of high gasoline prices.

“The problem is clear. This problem did not develop overnight, and it’s not going to be fixed overnight,” Bush said in lowering expectations for immediate relief.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Bush’s announcement “amounts to little more than half-measures and wrongheaded policies that will do nothing to address the current energy crisis or break the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our nation.”

Bush, speaking to a friendly crowd of small business leaders, urged Congress to include in energy legislation now moving on Capitol Hill a plan to let oil companies use former military bases to build new refineries.

No new U.S. oil refineries have been built since the 1970s, mostly because of the lengthy process to obtain environmental permits from state regulators and opposition from local communities.

Pentagon Is Asking Congress to Loosen Environmental Laws

WASHINGTON, May 10 – After three unsuccessful tries, the Pentagon is asking Congress again this year to loosen major environmental laws to allow military training exercises around the country to proceed unimpeded.

Military officials say the requested changes, hich could be approved this week as part of the defense authorization bill for 2006 ,[WAS THIS APPROVED????] are essential to preserve the quality of training and to avoid lawsuits over possible violations of statutes that govern air, water and waste.

With more than 100,000 American military personnel in Iraq, training issues have taken on a heightened sense of urgency, giving the request a better chance of passing this year despite opposition from environmental advocacy groups and state and local governments.

“Workarounds, while sounding reasonable and feasible, cannot sacrifice realistic combat training,” Paul W. Mayberry, a deputy under secretary of defense, said in a speech last month, referring to interruptions to military exercises. “All too often, such workarounds chip away at basic fabric and underpinnings of the training objectives.”

Mr. Mayberry cited several examples, including the way troops headed for Iraq learned to roll up their tents, a security issue at night because of the way light reflects off the material. In training, he said, they were faced with “an environmental requirement” not to disturb desert tortoises in the training area.

Someone please tell me I have my tinhat screwed on too tight…please…

An irate father is demanding that Bozeman High School present students with a rebuttal to what he called “extremely biased religious dogma” delivered by an assembly speaker who warned teens against the dangers of drugs, drinking and premarital sex.

…

Wells demanded the school give equal time to rebut the “misinformation” his son heard: that condoms lead to cancer, that birth control pills are only 20 percent effective, that sexually transmitted diseases are spread by skin contact alone, that third-trimester fetuses can be aborted, that video games lead to homicide, that human papilloma virus can be transferred through condoms and that teens can achieve “second virginity” through abstinence.

She maintained it’s true that there are cancer-causing agents in latex condoms; that 80 percent of teenage girls who seek abortions are already on birth-control pills; and that human papilloma virus is small enough to pass through condoms. She said she does promote the idea of second virginity.

The school paid Holewinski paid $1,500 for her talk and expenses.

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA –  A wayward plane from Lancaster County sparked a brief panic in the nation’s capital Wednesday afternoon when it crossed into restricted airspace near the White House.

A wayward plane from Lancaster County sparked a brief panic in the nation’s capital Wednesday afternoon when it crossed into restricted airspace near the White House.

The pilot, Hayden “Jim” Sheaffer Jr., 69, of Lititz, and his passenger, Troy D. Martin, 36, of Akron, were taken into federal custody and questioned for several hours before being released.

No charges were filed against the two men after Secret Service agents determined they simply got lost on their way to an air show in North Carolina.

…

Sheaffer was not required to file a flight plan before departing, according to the airport owner.

…

Youmans said Sheaffer is a Republican and campaigned for President Bush.

“He’s a big President Bush supporter,” Youmans said. “He’s a good person that made a terrible error.”

“I am concerned that every time something happens that is not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism.  His whole campaign is based on the notion that, ‘I can keep you safe (therefore in times of difficulty for America) stick with me.’ And then out comes Tom Ridge.”

– Howard Dean

Meanwhile, former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean suggested a political motivation for the terror alert — an allegation denounced as “outrageous” by Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of Dean’s early rivals in the race for the Democratic nomination.

“I don’t think anybody who has any fairness or is in their right mind would think the president or the secretary of homeland security would raise an alert level and scare people for political reasons,” Lieberman said. “That’s outrageous.”

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry — who received a briefing on the intelligence behind the warning from Ridge — has not faulted the administration for its handling of the situation, and his campaign declined yesterday to make an official available to comment.

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.
Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or “high” risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation’s homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to “debunk the myth” that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

“More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it,” Ridge told reporters. “Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert). … There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, ‘For that?’

There are those who complain that Congress does not care about the concerns of the little guy. But those people do not attend Alaska Christian College.

The school, founded five years ago and affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, has 37 students. It is not accredited and does not grant degrees. It offers, instead, certificates in biblical studies at the end of a student’s first year and certificates in biblical and general studies to those who complete a second. Over the past two years, Congress has given the school more than $1 million.

Senator Kit Bond says enough is enough – the Saudi Arabian government has to stop funding fundamental Islamic schools that teach students to hate Americans. He says these madrasses need to be shut down before another generation of terrorists grow up with that mindset. And, Bond says while he’s sure behind-the-scenes talk has been going on between the U.S. and the Arab world, it’s time to end the quiet diplomacy with the Saudis on this subject. Bond says it is also concerning how big of inroads these madrasses have made in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia. He wants American efforts to offer an alternative education stepped up.

DLC | New Dem Dispatch | May 9, 2005

Blair’s Accomplishment

To fully appreciate Tony Blair’s accomplishment in winning a third consecutive general election victory last week, you have to understand what the pre-Blair Labour Party was like. Well into the 1990s, Labour remained stubbornly committed to an Industrial Era politics of class resentment and public-sector expansion. (Remember these are fucking Democrats not REpublicans writting this shit) Its party platform embraced the hoary socialist goal of nationalizing most key industries. Its foreign policy views were quasi-pacifist and quasi-isolationist, hostile to both the United States and the European Community. Old Labour was broadly perceived, even by its supporters, as completely dominated by interest groups, and its activist base was so left-bent that a noisy Trotskyist faction was taken seriously. Electorally, the party was completely feckless, losing four straight general elections despite growing public unhappiness with Margaret Thatcher’s radicalized Tory Party.

The modernization of the Labour Party, first tentatively undertaken by Neil Kinnock, became the central focus of Blair’s New Labour project, which was explicitly modeled on our own New Democrat movement. Like Bill Clinton, Blair understood that the revival of progressive politics depended on a willingness to take seriously and address fundamental voter concerns about the values and goals of the historic center-left parties. And like the New Democrats, the New Labourites concentrated on exhibiting the toughness to govern. That’s why Blair insisted on establishing Labour as a party that would be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime,” that could be trusted to wisely manage public finances while encouraging private enterprise, and that had a positive vision of Britain’s role in the world as a bridge between the United States and Europe. And while the Tories and many Labour traditionalists misunderstood New Labour as a “shift to the right,” Blair, like Clinton, consistently argued that this comprehensive message and agenda represented a basic commitment to speak and act as a serious governing party rather than a coalition of interest groups clinging to the progressive accomplishments of the past (ie Social Security, Overtime pay, Medicaide, Public Education, Right to Unionize, the Constitution… yunno those progressive accomplishments of the past).

Thanks to Britain’s parliamentary system, Blair and his New Labour colleagues were able to briskly reform the Labour Party and government itself in a way that was simply impossible for their American counterparts. And this third straight electoral victory (the first ever for a Labour prime minister), despite its modest outlines, showed the fruits of their efforts. Many commentators in Britain and elsewhere have focused on Labour’s reduced majority in the House of Commons, or have attributed Labour’s success to the haplessness of the Tories. But our (DELUDED) take is that the results show Labour is now the natural governing party of the United Kingdom, leaving the Tories to wander in a political wilderness of ideological division and demagogic opportunism.

The May 5 election could hardly have come at a worse time for Labour, given broad public unhappiness with Blair’s decision to participate in the invasion of Iraq (which unfairly but naturally identified him with the Bush administration’s incoherent and unilateralist rationale for that invasion), and the natural “incumbency fatigue” that affects any party that has been in power for a while. That Labour still managed to comfortably win is a testament to the underlying strength Blair has bestowed to his party.

We’re proud that Tony Blair went to school on the New Democrat movement before initiating New Labour. Now is a good time for Democrats to go to school on how he has managed to maintain a modernized progressive party in government in the toughest possible circumstances.