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Religion
Politics
Miscellany
- Are suicide bombers the new High Priests of Islam? - the theological relationship to Judaism and Christianity - Donald Sensing
What jihadism has done within an Islamic framework is effectively to assign to suicide shahidi, martyrs, the role of high priest. Islam, never having fallen under the sway of Roman law and culture like Christianity did, has more affinity to Judaism than Christianity; both religions developed from a Semitic ethnicity, anyway. A suicide shahid performs in micro functions very similar to the Temple s High Priest: he earns his own salvation and intercedes, priestlike, to guarantee salvation for others - 70 others, according to the Egyptian imam. The difference between a suicide shahid and the Temple s High Priest the two are enormous, of course. The Temple High Priest committed no murder and shed no human blood. Yet that is what the shahidi do. - NRD says they are Buddhists - Deborah Loh
They are Christians but are recorded as Buddhists in the National Registration Department’s database. Pos Malaysia Because of this, Lee Tien Tien, 52, and her son Ng Hoong Ern, 17, have been forced into a bureaucratic merry-go-round to convince the NRD that they are Christians.
Politics
- And Then They Came After Us - Victor Davis Hanson
First the terrorists of the Middle East went after the Israelis. From 1967 we witnessed 40 years of bombers, child murdering, airline hijacking, suicide murdering, and gratuitous shooting. We in the West usually cried crocodile tears, and then came up with all sorts of reasons to allow such Middle Eastern killers a pass. - The NYT Drops a Bombshell... Sort Of - Leon H.
The layers of this Rove story are peeling away one by one, and I'll be the first to admit that the news gets weirder the further down one goes. It still looks fine from a legal standpoint (provided Rove did not lie to investigators), but as the information leaks out, it seems that one question is emerging out of the ether that will be crucial to my continued defense of Rove - did he see the memo that marked Plame's identity as secret? If so, did he see it (or some other piece of information that clearly identified Plame's status as secret) before he spoke with Novak? - Australian Prime Minister John Howard
Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq. And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq. Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that? When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan? - Miss Universe against law
Canadian Miss Universe Natalie Glebova was forced to take off her official sash at a local festival celebrating Thailand when Toronto authorities invoked a law against sexual stereotyping. - USAFE helps Rwandan troops deploy to Darfur - Capt. Morgan J. O'Brien III
A C-17 Globemaster III departed here July 18 carrying 95 Rwandan troops deploying to help ease the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. The airlift started the 86th Aerospace Expeditionary Group’sinvolvement in NATO’s support to the African Union expanded mission inthe region. The airlift is expected to last 30 days. “The people of Darfur need help,” said Col. Scott Schafer, the groupcommander. “This first airlift means that Rwandan troops are on theway.” - First Things First - Stephen L. Carter
The state has no right to tell the church what to say. The idea that a government benefit—such as a church's tax-exempt status—might be conditioned on speaking the right words from the pulpit is odious. Christians everywhere should protest any attempt by the state to shut down anybody's religious speech, especially a pastor's. At the same time, we should exercise our freedoms with caution. Yes, a congregation should be free to kick out members for their political views. But is that really what is required of us in the light of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary? - Good news from Iraq, part 31 - Arthur Chrenkoff
Nation-building is never quick and never easy; hard-work and heartache are today, and the results often only years if not decades ahead. But the Iraqi people, with the assistance of the Coalition, have commenced their journey, and despite all the hardships, every day is another step forward. Below, some of these often much under-reported and unappreciated steps from the past three weeks. - Moral equivalence: now and then - Gene
I was reminded of some of the sordid history of "moral equivalence" by this Max Boot column in The Los Angeles Times. Boot cites a 1942 article by George Orwell asserting that "the greater part of the very young intelligentsia are anti-war … don't believe in any 'defense of democracy,' are inclined to prefer Germany to Britain, and don't feel the horror of Fascism that we who are somewhat older feel." This drew responses from three British pacifists: D.S. Savage, George Woodcock (later a friend of Orwell) and Alex Comfort (who went on to fame and fortune by writing "The Joy of Sex"). The whole colloquy can be found in Volume 2 of Orwell's "Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters."
Miscellany
- 70 Truckloads of Treasures - Gordon Govier
Some of the dirt went to Jerusalem's municipal dump, where it was mixed with the city's garbage. Some of it was discarded in the Kidron Valley. The remodeling was done without archaeological supervision. Bar Ilan University archaeology professor Gabriel Barkay called these events "an archaeological tragedy." The Temple Mount is the third holiest site in Islam and is known as Al Haram al Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. It is also the holiest site in Judaism. - Planarity
Arrange the vertices such that no edges overlap. - Carnival of The New Jersey Bloggers, Number 9 - Sluggo
To the right is the first concrete highway built in New Jersey, in New Village. Anybody know where that is? Well, it's where we're starting.
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