Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/washington/28detain.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

It appears that we are sorting through the many captive enemy combatants we have collected and maintained at great taxpayer expense, and repatriating them back to their homelands.

While it is good to finally see some of these long time prisoners set free - and released from being a burden on our soldiers and our taxpayers… it makes me ponder the entire necessity of having had to warehouse these humans for so long, and if indeed it has done much good.

Will their captivity have truly made a difference? Will they yet still attack us, and yet all the more because of their captivity? Or can we truly expect that they will “peaceably” go home, and not be beholden to the Wahabbist preachings emanating from their local mosques every Friday?

Only time will tell.

And I pray that we will never again repeat either the circumstances of an unconstitutional war or the summary, multi-year detention and/or torture of people without hope of trial… or ever realize the more chilling possibility that someday, thousands or hundreds of thousands of American citizens be so inequitably carried off into captivity or tortured for being of the wrong political beliefs.

Now I have to admit that I have little sympathy for either Russia or Georgia (the former Soviet territory and current independent, sovereign state). I might be inclined to be slightly more biased in favour of the “little guy”, Georgia… as I am not confident that the press either has, or is telling, the full story with regards to what touched off the recent Russian invasion.

Regarding the airlifting of Georgian troops back to their homeland, well, that was the right thing to do: when another nation’s armed forces are deployed out-of-country at the behest of the World’s Lone Hyperpower™ to help it along on its wars of empire, and that other nation is suddenly troubled by another former empire that would like to perhaps not-so-kindly remind the rest of the world that it has much of the military hardware from its superpower days, and the will to use them on a pipsqueak former satellite state, it behoves us of the aforementioned Hyperpower™ to shuttle them back to their homeland at the very least.

Beyond that, and some statements attacking Russia for her impropriety at militarily badgering her neighbours … we really have no room to speak too heatedly against Russian military actions in her own back yard.

That, and we really shouldn’t have (a) made promises to Georgia that we really aren’t able to, or willing to keep and (b) either backed the Russians into a corner or given them an excuse to use their new-found resource wealth to re-grow their military back to Cold War levels with our courting of all those newly “free” former Soviet states into NATO (which is something of a defunct and increasingly irrelevant alliance).

Unless of course, that is exactly what the military-industrial complex wants: a new Cold War to keep the revenue streaming into their pockets.

A rather well written article over at the American Thinker by Randall Hoven.

Inside of it is the case for a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq - which will be a good thing regardless of who is in the Oval Office when it is ordered.

And God willing, we will see the mission in Afghanistan brought to a successful conclusion as well.

Sometimes parody can be closer to the truth than what we care to think: the Onion, a widely read satire news site read by the 18-44 year old demographic recently published an article about the recent string of economic bubbles (namely the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble).

The article suggests several possible alternatives around which a bubble could form, including this one, which sounds like a bubble which may have already long since burst:

The most support thus far has gone toward the so-called paper bubble. In this appealing scenario, various privately issued pieces of paper, backed by government tax incentives but entirely worthless, would temporarily be given grossly inflated artificial values and sold to unsuspecting stockholders by greedy and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

“Little pieces of paper are the next big thing,” speculator Joanna Nadir, of Falls Church, VA said. “Just keep telling yourself that. If enough people can be talked into thinking it’s legitimate, it will become temporarily true.”

Funny thing. Last I checked, there was quite the bubble for paper - Federal Reserve Notes or the US Dollar since 1913.

Big h/t to the Big Lizards Blog, and his sources as well, for these photos and the story.

I repeat it here if only because people need to know what the Red Chinese Dragon does with its minority populations when trying to get the world to look the other way.

The Chinese (principally the Kuomintang a.k.a. KMT) did it during the Japanese military occupation of Nanking, and now, their apt pupils in the Red government are doing it now in Tibet.

Although this time, they are the occupiers rather than the occupied: Red Chinese soldiers of the People’s “Liberation” Army dressed in monk’s robes of the adherents to the Buddhist faith of the Dalai Lama.

Isn’t it enough that the Red Chinese have interfered with the internal affairs of a religion by disappearing the young 11th Panchen Lama chosen by lot under the auspices of the Dalai Lama, and replacing him with a pretender, a son of two Red Chinese Communist Party operatives?

That of course, was nothing more than an attempt to undermine (if not destroy) the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism, arguably the most influential faith in that region; it is the Panchen Lama who would have some large degree of say in determining the 14th Dalai Lama’s successor upon his death. In fact, by matter of tradition, the Dalai Lama confirms the succession of the next Panchen Lama, as the Panchen Lama would for succeeding Dalai Lamas.

No, for whatever reasons they have, principally the historic and doctrinal aggressive hatred that Reds (Communists) have for any expression of religion or faith. Indeed, Communism is very much a religion in its own right, and any man-made religion given political power invariably falls into a particular lust for power of those it would hold in obeisance - in this case, the Tibetan “Chinese”.

Not able to content itself with fiddling in the internals of an ecclesiastic order, they have now moved to repeat the infamy of their forefathers, who used fauxtography - faked photos - to convince the world of all manner of tyrannies and wickedness being perpetrated by the then-Japanese Empire. While Imperial Japan of the early Shōwa period (1925-1945) era was not completely innocent of atrocities, these were magnified by volumes of fake news and photos of supposed Japanese atrocities. I won’t labor long on those items, since they are only germane so as to establish a past pattern of Chinese behaviour; here is a link to a site that discusses this in much greater detail.

Other links here…

… and some YouTube videos here, here, here, and here.

Detailed academic review of the Nanking Incident by Professor Shudo Higashinakano, The Nanking Massacre: Fact versus Fiction: A Historian’s Quest for the Truth

In more recent history, we can see the almost Clinton-like deception and dissimulation of the so-called Palestinians, with the fauxtography approved by Reuters. I mean, they could not even be bothered to try waiting for nightfall, as they hold a “session” of their “parliament” under “candlelight”, under the pretext that the Israelis had cut off their power. If you look at the curtains over the windows, they were drawn closed, but daylight is still flooding through. And the candles? I might be wrong, but they appear suspiciously bright for candles. Perhaps battery powered or LED lights? But wouldn’t that be just a bit too unlikely in an area completely cutoff from power and otherwise under siege?

Or the 2006 incursion by Israel into Lebanon to stop Hamas from firing its Iran-sponsored arsenal at Israeli cities: EU Referendum Blog has more on the exploits of the 2006 phenomenon, including the infamous Green Helmet Guy.

Or multiple reports of random 65-year old Palestinian farmers riding donkeys getting capped by those not very nice IDF soldiers.

But to get back on topic… China’s latest outrage is against the Tibetans, and have picked a particularly bad time to go about bashing them, with the Beijing 2008 Olympics just around the corner. The Big Lizards Blog has the details behind this staged photo here:

Also refer to the Japanese-language blog, the Epoch Times, for more source photos, including the particular agent-provocateur with his Communist friends.

… to mark the passing of a great American, an exceptional actor (from before Hollywood took a nose dive into the sewers of sensuality and depravity) and a great citizen of this Republic - a stolid defender of the Second Amendment:

Charlton Heston.
(4. October, 1923 – 5. April, 2008)

HotAir has commentary here.

Rest in Peace, until the Lord Jesus receives your soul to glory.

And here I thought the NYT was only capable of promoting anti-American defeatism and lavishing itself in its overdone estimation of itself as the Sole Rmaining Beacon of Rational Thinking™, they let loose with something that actually reflects the real progress we are making — especially in winning the hearts and minds of the next generation that will be able to stand up and govern a new Iraq, one that answers neither to tribalists, Islamist extremists, or other tyrants who would usurp the right of the people to govern themselves….

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/world/middleeast/04youth.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Quite possibly the best (if not altogether accurate) explanation (and certainly humourous) of what is behind the Sub-prime mortgage failure: (warning - some strong language)

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true

(h/t’s to Nick Douglas, managing editor at Gawker, and to the commenter “ADismalScience”, who provided some additional insights into the sub-prime debacle.)

… from President Bush, commenting on conservative animosity toward presumptive Republican nominee John McCain:

“There’s probably some personal animosity toward me. You can’t please all the people all the time…” Bush said.

in a statement found in today’s LA Times online.

In the rest of the article, President Bush pledged to assist Sen. McCain’s campaign, should he get the nomination. President Bush also noted that McCain has some “work to do” to convince conservative Republicans to get behind him.

Indeed, “Dubya” is a true master of understatement.

For those who believe in “luck”, New Life Church, in Colorado Springs has not had much of it.

I tend to see it as a lack of God’s blessing on a megachurch which may not be getting the more subtler hints that God has been trying to send to it (and other megachurches like it) which have traded the Great Commission for a rock band and a corral of “praise and worship pastors”, and the meat of the Gospel and the pure milk of God’s word for the empty platitudes of the many “feel-good” messages and a “seeker-friendly” atmosphere which more often than not coddles sinful behaviour and ungodly attitudes within the fellowship of the beloved, and seeks to be friends with the world (dangerous territory!) instead of seeking the friendship of the One who was lonely in the Garden, and One Who, while on this earth, had no place to lay His head.

Shall I stretch it to say that last year’s departure of the (formerly) Rev. Ted Haggard in scandal, or even the December 9th shootings which felled the 24-year-old Matthew Murray felled several parishioners of this church, as well as two others at a missionary training facility in Arvada (Youth with a Mission) are a mark of God’s judgment on lukewarm churches, like the Laodicean Church which He wrote to in Revelation 3, shall be rejected like one who spits out lukewarm water?

While I grieve with those Christians who have lost kin and friends last Sunday, as we ought to share each others’ hurts as one Body in Christ… I hope and pray that this event causes some megachurch-goers to seek their God closely, and seek answers from His Word. I think that beyond the more obvious reasons of the gunman choosing a megachurch to hose down with bullets (publicity/kill as many Christians as possible before the Police or other LEOs take him down) - was that God wants His people not to slumber under the homogenized, watered-down prosperity gospels and do-nothing gospels and vacationing-rock-n-roller gospels.

The Bible says:

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”
1 Peter 4:17, KJV)

Indeed, God calls us to come out her (those churches that preach a false or errant gospel) that we receive not of her plagues. While initially, this speaks of the end-time worldwide heretical church-cult headed up by the Antichrist, this may also apply to any church (small “c” for emphasis) that goes far astray of the Truth.

Now, however, departing from the general exhortation for believers to stay true to God’s Word, we point out the one parishioner, also an (armed) security guard, a female who with the courage of the Holy Spirit (per her account) boldly advanced upon the gunman and killed him with her handgun.

I commend her bravery, which I will on her account, also glorify God and her obedience to the Holy Spirit within her, and her trust in the Lord Jesus.

Reading the Denver Post write-ups on these events, as well as the editorial commentary seems to show a curious mix of apathy, derision of Christians, and the usual outcry of “let’s ban all guns” that rises like a shrill siren call every time a mass shooting occurs.

It occurs to me also, that no matter who we ban from handling, owning, or even looking at guns on TV… that bad people will generally do bad things, and people with a mind to slaughter large numbers of people gathered in one place at one time will somehow find themselves a semi-automatic weapon (or handguns with spare clips full of ammo) with which to do their foul deeds.

Never mind the law abiding citizenry, who, if allowed to either open-carry or concealed carry, just might be enough to dissuade a would-be mass-murder from wreaking havoc some Sunday morning at a church service.

At the same time we are outraged over a lack of police protection, which in other circumstances would also become the same force that might one day bolt your church doors closed (given the well-publicized opinions and the seeming increase in the onrushing tide of anti-Christian expressions along with railings against God and His believers, well expected in the last days)… should we not see fit to elect men to office who will preserve our second-amendment right to possess, carry, and if necessary, use a firearm to defend our life, limb, and property?

Just some food for thought.