Showing posts with label behead. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Is the Entire World Coming Apart?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the history of drug cartels and other problems. This follows this post about sex slaves. This follows this post about music. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Is the Entire World Coming Apart?

by Rex Sexton Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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North Korea recently attacked South Korea with an artillery barrage that nearly destroyed an island and killed at least four Koreans. The South might retaliate and bring about a larger scale conflict.
An all-out war on the Korean peninsula would be very costly, and a surprise attack on South Korea is possible at any time. The North reportedly has 500 artillery guns aimed at Seoul, the capital of the South. This metropolitan area has over 22 million people, which is about the same size as New York. Casualties could run into the millions quickly.

Mexican drug murders and a bailout for Ireland

Closer to home for Americans, the Mexican newspaper Reforma reported that drug cartel-related murders along the border exceeded 10,000 so far this year. This is almost twice the number of military fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and we still have several weeks to go.
The bloodletting and murder of Mexican youth, political office holders and policemen is rampant in border towns such as Ciudad Juarez, which borders El Paso, Texas. The tally includes over 800 killings after torture and more than 300 decapitations. The violence is spreading into the United States every day, and the root cause is the ever-increasing market for illicit drugs in the United States.
Ireland was on the edge of bankruptcy just days ago, but was bailed out at the last minute with huge loans that come with a high price. Why does it make sense to loan people who cannot pay their current loans more money, and then pronounce the problem “solved”?
Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy are also unable to pay their debts. As a result, the Telegraph newspaper reported that much larger bailouts are coming. “Spain's former leader Felipe Gonzalez warned that unless the European Central Bank steps into the market with mass bond purchases, the EMU system will lurch from one emergency to the next until it blows up” (Dec. 2, 2010). One has to wonder, where will all this money come from?

WikiLeaks embarrassments

As if these stories are not concerning enough, the news is full of the contents of 250,000 secret U.S. State Department communications that have been posted on WikiLeaks. Some of those messages reveal systemic corruption in Afghanistan, likely sales of 19 BM-25 long-range missiles to Iran by North Korea, covert military operations in several locations around the globe, and spying on foreign leaders and slanderous comments that are embarrassing for the U.S. government.

Cash for climate change?

While the above and much more was going on, representatives from more than 190 nations, the United Nations and the European Union were attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference at a resort in Cancun, Mexico. Most of the talk reportedly centered around money and how the G20 developed nations might be coerced into sending enormous amounts to the underdeveloped countries. What these nations have done to deserve the money is not explained.

A world gone crazy?

Is the world going crazy? Problems everywhere appear to be getting worse and seem to have no solution. Why is the world unable to deal with problems at virtually every level?
There is a very real spirit world that influences mankind more than we know. God's Word speaks specifically about “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). The prophet Isaiah tells us that this same being is one “who weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12).

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

New York hatchet jihadi called for “internal mass revolt” in U.S.

A very interesting post from www.jihadwatch.org about the NY hatchet jihadi. This follows this post about Apple, Ebola, and ISIS. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more about what you can do to get more involved click here and you can read two very interesting books HERE.
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New York hatchet jihadi called for “internal mass revolt” in U.S.

By Robert Spencer in American jihadis, Jihad in the U.S., journalistic bias, New York City with 31 Comments

This Fox report irresponsibly does not specify what kind of revolution Thompson had in mind. It doesn’t mention that he was a Muslim who wrote: “If you’re looking for ‘perfect’ Muslims who never make any mistakes in their Jihad, then you will be looking in vain! If the Zionists and the Crusaders had never invaded and colonized the Islamic lands after WW1, then there would be no need for Jihad! Which is better, to sit around and do nothing, or to Jihad fisabeelallah!”
“Terror connection not ruled out in ax attack, police say,” FoxNews.com, October 24, 2014 (thanks to Victor):

A terroristic motive is not being ruled out in Thursday’s hatchet attack on New York City police officers.
The New York City police shot and killed a man identified as 32-year-old Zale Thompson in multiple media reports, who attacked officers with a hatchet in the middle of the day in the Queens section of the city.
Videotape and witness accounts appeared to show Thompson purposely targeting four rookie New York Police Department officers, police said. The man was seen minutes before the attack pulling a hatchet from his backpack and began swinging toward the officers, police said.
A possible terror connection to the ax attack has not been dismissed, police said, as the suspect’s alleged Facebook posts could be a cause for concern.
“This early on, we really cannot say yes or no to that question,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said.
Police directed possible signs of a terrorist attack to the alleged posts that he wrote calling for a revolution on American soil.
“America’s military is strong abroad, but they have never faced an internal mass revolt,” the suspect allegedly posted on the social media site.
“They are weaker at home. We are scattered and decentralized, we can use this as an advantage. They are centralized and strong, which can be exploited as a weakness. Think of a swarm of bees (negroes) that surround and attack an elephant (America) to death.”
The suspect also calls for guerilla warfare.
“Helicopters, big military will be useless on their own soil” another post read. “They will not be able to defeat our people if we use guerilla warfare. Attack their weak flanks… If you get wounded who cares. If you die who cares. Eventually they will surrender and then the war will be over.”…

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Beheaded Steven Sotloff Story About Praying, Fasting on Yom Kippur is Fake, BS – Totally Debunked

A very interesting post from www.DebbieSchlussel.com about one of the beheaded Americans. This follows this post about Ukraine and ISIS. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more about what you can do to get more involved click here and you can read two very interesting books HERE.
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Steven Sotloff Story About Praying, Fasting on Yom Kippur is Fake, BS – Totally Debunked

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES ****
A number of people have sent me the phony story repeated all over the mainstream media claiming that ISIS’ leftist “Jewish” beheadee prayed and fasted on Yom Kippur while in captivity with ISIS. The story is completely false and unsubstantiated.

The story, originally published by left-wing, anti-Israel Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot (or as a friend calls it, Idiot Ahronot), is based on the claims of an “anonymous” alleged friend of Sotloff’s who claims he/she/it was in ISIS captivity along with Sotloff. The portion of the dubious story that has now been repeated a gazillion times by the rest of the media is below. There are so many holes in the story, it would make a great colander for halal spaghetti dinner. Sadly, the story has been repeated far and wide by many Jews and Westerners who want to make this Islamopanderer and cheerleader for Islamic terrorists into a martyr for the Jewish people. He is and was no such thing, and, again, the story is bunk. But the mainstream and Jewish media have repeated the BS as fact all over the Net and it has taken on a life of its own.

A friend who was with Sotloff in captivity told Ynet’s sister-print publication Yedioth Aharonoth that Sotloff was Jewish – a fact he hid from his captors – and even managed to observe the Yom Kippur fast while in Islamic State captivity. “He told them he was sick and didn’t want to eat, even though we were served eggs that day,” the friend said. “He used to pray secretly in the direction of Jerusalem. He would see in which direction (his Muslim captors) were praying and then adjust the angle.”

*** UPDATE: But there are only a handful of documented cases of any hostages released/freed by ISIS (even for large amounts of ransom), except for Nicolas Henin, who now says he was held ISIS but says only that he was held with James Foley, NOT Steven Sotloff. He was held together with three other French journalists and they were all chained together for a large portion of that time. And while they’ve talked publicly about Foley being beaten, none has publicly stated anything about Sotloff. And it’s unlikely if they did so, they’d choose to be anonymous, since they haven’t been anonymous in their statements thus far about the rest of their experiences in ISIS captivity. There is absolutely no evidence that any of the very few hostages released by ISIS ever saw Steven Sotloff pray on Yom Kippur or do any of the things in the fairy tale story of an “anonymous source” quoted in Idiot Ahronot. END UPDATE *** But there are a lot of people who barely knew him trying to glom onto the story (see fake “Mossad agent” Gregg Roman, who told me both he and Sotloff were Mossad agents–not true–and who described Sotloff as “the Jewish Indiana Jones”–even more blatant baloney).
The same reporter for the same anti-Israel Israeli newspaper who wrote the phony baloney Yom Kippur story on Sotloff now has a story up about Sotloff’s self-proclaimed “heroic” left-wing friends (most of whom didn’t actually know Sotloff), including fake Mossad agent Gregg Roman (who barely knew Sotloff if at all). The reporter is clearly easily manipulated into fake “scoops” without any verification whatsoever, by people who are interested in rehabilitating Sotloff’s reputation.
Anyone who believes this fantastic fairy tale is an incredibly naive and easily duped fool who ignores the facts about Steven Sotloff. A number of people who’ve sent me the story are Jews who don’t want to face the facts that Sotloff was a documented lover of Islam and a cheerleader of Islamic “rebels” a/k/a terrorists of every dangerous stripe. They want to believe he died as a religious Jew, when he never ever was one and was a documented HAMAS and ISIS lover.

Many of Steven Sotloff’s friends and classmates from college have contacted me regarding how angry they are by this phony story because Steven Sotloff was a completely secular Jew, who barely knew Hebrew, much less the Yom Kippur prayers (which even many Orthodox Jews would not know by heart). There is no way he would know the prayers, much less which day it was on the Hebrew calendar to even know which day was Yom Kippur. He reveled in his apostasy, which is why he embraced Islam and deeply loved Islamic culture, according to all press people and friends of his on the ISIS trail. All of those who know him say he was more likely to be driving around and eating a bacon cheeeseburger on Yom Kippur than praying.
And all of those who knew him tell me that the reason these stories are now out there is that the media and some of Sotloff’s friends want to make him into a martyr, rather than what he was–a panderer to and cheerleader to Islamic terrorists–which makes his story and his beheading far less compelling and sympathetic.
Sotloff went to a Reform Temple, which he did not attend regularly. Anyone who knows anything about Judaism knows that Reform Jews are completely ignorant of Judaism. Most cannot read a word of Hebrew (which is why most of their abbreviated, hippie-style prayers are in English), and none can remember the Yom Kippur prayers by heart (heck, even the most religious Orthodox Jews don’t remember those prayers without a prayer book). Most do not even fast on Yom Kippur.
The story is highly phony–there isn’t a single shred of evidence to back it up–and not a thing that makes it believable. Moreover, even in the very unlikely event that the story is true (it isn’t) and that this guy finally “found G-d” when he knew death could be near, it makes no difference with regard to–nor does it negate–Sotloff’s long history of supporting HAMAS (while he was in college at Israel and held Israeli citizenship) and his history of supporting Shi’ite terrorists in Bahrain, Sunni Muslim Brotherhood terrorists in Egypt, Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorists in Libya, and Sunni ISIS and FSA terrorists in Syria and Iraq, all of which he did.
The story simply isn’t true, though, and it’s amazing that when people and the mainstream media want to promote and believe something, they’ll run with it, no matter how phony the story is and how thin the evidence (in this case, none) there is.
Anytime you see a story with the byline of Yitzhak Benhorin, the guy who wrote this fairy tale for Yediot Ahronot, you’ll know you can’t believe a word.
***
Much has also been made of Sotloff’s reported Israeli citizenship, but here’s a tip: Sotloff obtained citizenship before going to college there at the IDC (Interdisciplinary Center). He only lived there for college, from 2005-2008, during which his classmates all knew him as an anti-Israel left-winger and apologist for HAMAS. His classmate, Hillary Lynne Glaser, said he “hated Israel” (but not enough not to come visit ONCE for a friend’s wedding). Sotloff did NOT, by the way, ever serve in the IDF (the Israeli Defense Forces) as is required of all Jewish citizens, so he was a draft dodger.
After he left Israel in 2008, Sotloff lived FOR YEARS in Yemen, where all of his friends told the media, he “deeply loved the Islamic world.” It’s funny to read stories that claim Sotloff made “aliyah” to Israel. Aliyah is the Hebrew word for “going up.” It’s the term for Jews who move to Israel permanently, but Sotloff never did that. He left in 2008, which would make what he did “Yeridah” (going down), the term used for Jews who leave Israel.
Funny how Yediot Ahronot, which “reported” in the same story featuring the BS Sotloff Yom Kippur praying and fasting fairy tale, also claimed Sotloff made “aliyah” and didn’t point out the “yeridah” part.
**** UPDATE: To give you an idea of how easily duped people are by Idiot Ahronot’s phony story about Sotloff praying and fasting on Yom Kippur and how it’s taken on a life of its own, read this e-mail message I received this morning:

From: Joel Moskowitz yoel.moskowitz@gmail.com
Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 8:37 AM
Subject: Steve Sotloff
To: writedebbie@gmail.com
I don’t know you and now certainly don’t care to. What you are doing to Mr. Sotloff who died sanctifying God’s name is a disgrace to humanity. You are taking your advocacy of a just cause to the levels of the murderers you rail against. You should repent to God and his family before Yom Kippur.
Yoel (Joel) Moskowitz
yoel.moskowitz@gmail.com

Reality check: Sotloff didn’t die “sanctifying G-d’s name.” He died just after reading an anti-American propaganda statement ISIS forced him to read and which he did, even though he knew he was about to beheaded (his being killed is part of the statement he read). He died after YEARS of living in Yemen, where he “deeply loved Islam,” according to all of his friends’ accounts in the mainstream media. He died after years of apologism for HAMAS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hezbollah Shi’ites.
Sanctifying G-d’s name wasn’t involved. Unless you consider his own family’s statement through their Muslim spokesman in Arabic in which they said that Steven Sotloff died “as a martyr for allah.”
Got that?

Friday, September 5, 2014

Commemorate 9/11 Properly. It is NOT a "Day of Service"

An interesting article from www.yaf.org about commemorating 9/11. This follows this post about increasing the amount of black police.
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9/11: Never Forget Project

September 11, 2014

Young America's Foundation began this program in 2003 when we discovered that most college campuses were either completely ignoring the anniversary or holding a politically correct event instead. Each year Young America's Foundation helps students across the country properly remember the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks through our 9/11: Never Forget Project.




*Get 3,000 flags for $390!

Establish an American flag memorial on campus consisting of 2,977 American flags representing each person tragically killed in the terrorist attacks.

Schedule a campus-wide moment of silence or prayer on September 11, at 9:11 a.m.

Host a speaker at your school such as Marc Thiessen and others.

Provide you with free buttons, posters and other materials to distribute on the anniversary.

Below are a few videos submitted to us from high schools and colleges who participated in our 9/11: Never Forget Project.

http://www.yaf.org/eventdetails.aspx?id=8924

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Is There "Just Cause" for Nations to Intervene in the Affairs of Other Nations?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about intervening in other nations. This follows this post about working and Labor Day. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Is There "Just Cause" for Nations to Intervene in the Affairs of Other Nations?

article by Graemme Marshall

Should other nations intervene in Iraq or between the Palestinians and Israelis? Increasing mind-numbing conflicts around the world raise the level of debate over this difficult question.

Was there a moral responsibility for outside powers to intervene in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Kuwait and Afghanistan? The failure of the United Nations and major powers to intervene in the conscience-shattering ethnic cleansing in Rwanda provokes the dilemma: to intervene or not to intervene? That 1994 war resulted in an estimated death toll of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Rwandans, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic group.
When mass murder, ethnic cleansing, rape and enforced starvation are out of control, shouldn't other nations intervene? But who, how and to what extent? Adding to this dilemma is global terrorism's appalling attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on New York and Washington, D.C.
A report presented to the UN outlines many of the problems. It is insightful in its recommendations.
For several years United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been urging the international community to forge a consensus on the sensitive issue of the right of humanitarian intervention. Responding to his challenge in the fall of 2000, Canada established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), with a membership of 12.
After a year of intensive worldwide consultations, research and discussions, the ICISS released its report titled "The Responsibility to Protect." The report wrestled with one major question: Should the international community accept the sanctity of state sovereignty and do nothing to stop massive human rights violations, or should it intervene to protect populations in danger?
Kofi Annan thanked Canada for establishing ICISS and lauded its work. He said, "You are taking away the last excuses of the international community for doing nothing when doing something can save lives" ( Canada World View, Issue 15, Spring 2002, p. 17).
The report outlines the intervention dilemma for the international community, stating: "'Humanitarian intervention' has been controversial both when it happens, and when it has failed to happen. Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction. The United Nations (UN) Secretariat and some permanent members of the Security Council knew that officials connected to the then government were planning genocide; UN forces were present, though not in sufficient number at the outset; and credible strategies were available to prevent, or at least greatly mitigate, the slaughter which followed.
"But the Security Council refused to take the necessary action. That was a failure of international will— of civic courage— at the highest level. Its consequence was not merely a humanitarian catastrophe for Rwanda: the genocide destabilized the entire Great Lakes region and continues to do so. In the aftermath, many African peoples concluded that, for all the rhetoric about the universality of human rights, some human lives end up mattering a great deal less to the international community than others" ("The Intervention Dilemma," 1.1, www.iciss-ciise.gc.ca ).
Our 20th-century conscience
Increasing world crises after World War II clamored for humanitarian intervention. Encarta Yearbook prods us with uneasy reminders. "Social scientists estimate that since the end of World War II at least 16 nations have attempted or committed genocide. From 1975 to 1979 in Cambodia, the Communist Khmer Rouge killed close to 1.7 million Cambodians. During Guatemala's civil war, from 1960 to 1996, an estimated 200,000 people were killed or disappeared" ( Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2002, "genocide").
How quickly we forget. Or is it that one conscience-numbing event after another makes us lose track of what has been happening in the past century? But can we forget what has happened, or is happening today? We might want to forget the horrific murder and torture caused by despotic genocide, like the killings orchestrated by Ugandan presidents Idi Amin and Milton Obote during the 1970s and early 1980s. Both Amin and Obote ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ugandans belonging to groups who had opposed, or whom they feared might oppose, their tyrannical rule.
The "right to protect and rebuild" vs. "the right to intervene"
Recognizing the need for change, the ICISS report proposes a challenging new approach. "Millions of human beings remain at the mercy of civil wars, insurgencies, state repression and state collapse. This is a stark and undeniable reality, and it is at the heart of all the issues with which this Commission has been wrestling. What is at stake here is not making the world safe for big powers, or trampling over the sovereign rights of small ones, but delivering practical protection for ordinary people, at risk of their lives, because their states are unwilling [or] unable to protect them" ("A New Approach: 'The Responsibility to Protect,'" 2.1).
Along with protecting states unable to resolve their crises, the report also recognized the need to rebuild their structure after intervention. "The responsibility to protect implies the responsibility not just to prevent and react, but to follow through and rebuild. This means that if military intervention action is taken— because of a breakdown or abdication of a state's own capacity and authority in discharging its 'responsibility to protect'— there should be a genuine commitment to helping to build a durable peace, and promoting good governance and sustainable development. Conditions of public safety and order have to be reconstituted by international agents acting in partnership with local authorities, with the goal of progressively transferring to them authority and responsibility to rebuild" (ibid., "The Responsibility to Rebuild— Peace Building," 5.1).
The problems of intervention
The report insightfully tackles the many difficulties facing peacemakers of today's world. Here are some:
• "There is no longer such a thing as a humanitarian catastrophe occurring 'in a faraway country of which we know little.' On 11 September 2001 global terrorism struck the US homeland where around 40% of the victims of the World Trade Center were non-Americans, from some 80 countries. In an interdependent world, fragile security and ill-will can constitute a risk to people everywhere" (ibid., "The Responsibility to Protect," 1.21).

• "[If the international community] stays disengaged, there is the risk of becoming complicit bystanders in massacre, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide. If it intervenes, it may not be able to mitigate the abuses" (ibid., 1.22).

• Disarmament has been one of the most difficult tasks to implement. It has been extremely hard to collect all weapons, disarm warlords or prevent a trade in small arms long after withdrawal.
Problems for achieving consensus
The nature of the United Nations often precludes achieving a united front in handling conscience-shattering crises.
• The veto power of the five permanent members of the Security Council is too often exercised to serve individual ends. There is a need for a "code of conduct" among them so that they will not use that veto when there is a significant humanitarian crisis.

• Only the UN can authorize military action, yet the UN does not have its own military or police force. Most countries have shrinking military budgets since the post-Cold War era and peacekeeping states are often unable to maintain military commitments. Even Canada, as affluent a nation as it is, was unable to replace its military detachment on withdrawal from Afghanistan because there was no fresh operational unit available. UN peacekeeping peaked in 1993 at 78,000 troops but at the time of the report, including both NATO and UN missions, the number of soldiers in international peace operations had soared by 40 percent to 108,000.

• UN membership has grown from 51 member states in 1945 to 189 today. This brings a whole new array of voices, interests and competing aspirations. o The "CNN effect" of media with satellite images of suffering from troubled states can make it difficult for the UN and Security Council to take the time to properly assess what action to take.
Will the world respond?
Will our world meet the challenge? The ICISS report champions civilized aspirations. Notice their heartfelt warning. "Meeting this challenge is more than a matter of aspiration. It is a vital necessity. Nothing has done more harm to our shared ideal that we are all equal in worth and dignity, and that the earth is our common home, than the inability of the community of states to prevent genocide, massacre and ethnic cleansing. If we believe that all human beings are equally entitled to be protected from acts that shock the conscience of us all, then we must match rhetoric with reality, principle with practice. We cannot be content with reports and declarations. We must be prepared to act. We won't be able to live with ourselves if we do not" (ibid., "Meeting the Challenge," 8.34).
"Won't be able to live with ourselves"! We give full credit to all with a humanitarian heart who are trying to ease suffering in this world. But will they be successful?
Bible prophecy shows that human attempts to solve the ongoing crises will eventually fail. In fact, crises will worsen to the point of bringing the earth to the brink of self-annihilation. See our booklets You Can Understand Bible Prophecy and Are We Living in the Time of the End?
God will intervene
We learn by hard experience that man often needs outside intervention to bring him back to decent values in life. However, God gives man the freedom of choice, and that choice does not always involve God. Man does not want his Creator intervening in his life or the lives of the nations, and mostly God has accommodated mankind's wishes. He lets people write the painful lessons that hopefully will eventually result in repentance. "Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you" (Jeremiah:2:19).
Soon God will step into human affairs by sending Jesus Christ to establish and rule over a world government. Only then will peace come to the nations. Zechariah shows how God will intervene in the affairs "of all the nations" who fail consistently to respond to His way. Chapter 14 tells us that when Christ returns, God will act when needed on all "the families of the earth" who refuse to worship Him at the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah:14:16-19). We might say His withholding of rain is a way of imposing economic sanctions to bring people around.
God's soon-coming intervention will enable all nations to be prosperous and secure. —WNP

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Friday, December 13, 2013

Sets of Eight and “Decorations”: Celebrating Christmas, Mexican-Style

A timely post from http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com about Christmas in Mexico. This follows this post about the Ryan-Murray Budget deal's dangers to the U.S. In the meantime, you can get more involved if you like here and read an interesting book HERE.

Sets of Eight and “Decorations”: Celebrating Christmas, Mexican-Style

By Nicholas Stix

Originally published at VDARE
(At the time, I only published part of this at my own blog, as a fund-raising teaser for VDARE.)

If there’s one thing John McCain and the President-select now calling himself Barack Hussein Obama agree on, it’s the need to abolish the border and meld with Mexico, even though anyone explicitly stating the idea is hooted down as a “nativist,” “xenophobe,” booger-eater, etc. As Brenda Walker wrote on Christmas Eve, illegal immigrant Mexicans in America have developed a Christmas celebration, “Las Posadas,” in which they pervert the story of Jesus’ birth, in order to serve invader propaganda.

On the other side of our increasingly virtual border, Mexicans have another sort of Christmas celebration. As preparation for what is to follow, keep in mind that Mexican drug smugglers have their own patron saint and an entire popular culture of song, that is, when the troubadours aren’t being murdered by Mexico’s Really Tough Music Critics.

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico -- Eight bodies were found stuffed in plastic garbage bags and dumped on a rural road near the Guatemalan border in an area plagued by drug violence, authorities in southern Chiapas state said Tuesday. The victims have yet to be identified, but police believe they may include Mexicans, Guatemalans or Colombians. A state Justice Department official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said the bodies were discovered by a farmer. At least one had bruises and marks indicating he may have been tortured. The bodies were found near the town of Tuxtla Chico, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of another border settlement where Mexican and Guatemalan drug traffickers engaged in a series of gunbattles that killed 17 people last month. Brutal slayings by drug cartels are on the rise in Mexico, and officials estimate that more than 5,300 people have died in organized crime-related slayings this year. On Sunday, the decapitated bodies of eight army soldiers were found along an urban boulevard in the southern state of Guerrero. In a press statement on Tuesday, Mexico's Defense Department slammed what it called "inappropriate and hurtful" comments on the soldiers' deaths. While the department did not specify what had offended it, one Mexican newspaper ran an editorial cartoon Tuesday titled "December Decorations" that showed the hand of a drug trafficker hanging severed heads with military-style haircuts on a Christmas tree as if they were ornaments.

[8 bodies found in plastic bags in southern Mexico, by Manuel de la Cruz, Houston Chronicle/Associated Press, December 24, 2008]

Christmas ornaments. Excuse me, “December decorations.” (A War Against Christmas sighting below the Rio Grande: You don’t mess with narcoterrorists, but Christmas is a safe target.) Obamaand McCain both seek to satisfy The Nation Formerly Known as America’s dire need for more such vibrancy, family values, and devout Christianity. I hope Manuel de la Cruz’ failure to suppress the Bad News of diversity doesn’t land him on the enemies’ list of the SPLC, which could result in his being targeted by its subscribers, country music scholar Max Blumenthal (also here), Herr Keith Olbermann, Alex Altman, et al. Eight tips ‘o the headless hat to Blog of the Gods, and another eight to latte island, where I first came across these sad tidings.

Friday, December 6, 2013

How not to talk about Brazilian soccer beheadings

A timely post about from http://isteve.blogspot.com about beheadings in Brazil in the run-up to the World Cup. This follows this post about the GOP & the nuclear option. In the meantime, you can get more involved if you like here and read an interesting book HERE.

Grantland: How not to talk about Brazilian soccer beheadings

In 1978, my father and I went to a soccer game at Rio de Janeiro's Maracana Stadium, which I knew about from the Guinness Book of World Records because 199,854 paying spectators had crowded in to watch Brazil lose the 1950 World Cup final match to Uruguay. (Maracana has been upgraded at vast expense to host the World Cup final next year.)

The Maracana Moat, RIP

Neither my father nor I had paid much attention to the threat of crime. We'd been traipsing all over Rio that day, walking through a favela in the early morning, taking city buses all over. When we wound up in the Maracana neighborhood, I suggested seeing if there was a soccer game at the famous stadium. Sure enough, Santos (Pele's old team) was visiting from Sao Paulo and their late afternoon game was just about to start. We paid $0.55 each, which got us below-field standing room next to the deep moat that discouraged spectators from expressing their disenchantment by storming the field and lynching the ref.

The sun went down while we were watching the game, so as a rare gesture toward prudence, we decided to take a cab back to our hotel at the beach. But, when we came out we found that there were no cabs around. Cabbies weren't crazy enough to go to the Maracana neighborhood after dark in 1978.

I was starting to get a little concerned, when a four-foot tall bodybuilder walked up and told us that American tourists shouldn't be wandering around here after dark. The short but extremely muscular Brazilian said he was a tour guide for a large group of Germans and we should ride back to Copacabana Beach on his bus. So, we got on with all his German clients.

On the bus ride, our rescuer asked where we were from and when we said Los Angeles, he said, "You'll probably think me a freak, but I've always wanted to visit Muscle Beach in Venice." This was 1978 when the ideal had been for several years to look like Bruce Dern. I was going to tell him that my impression was that in L.A. weightlifting was becoming big, very big, but I never said it -- maybe I got tripped up trying to remember how to pronounce the name of that guy, you know, the one with all the muscles and all the consonants in his name, S, w, z, n, r, etc. -- and ever since, I've felt bad that I couldn't reassure this very nice fellow that he wasn't a weirdo, he was on the cusp of the Next Big Thing.

A lot of things have changed since 1978, and I'm sure that when Maracana hosts the 2014 World Cup final, Steps Will Have Been Taken to make sure that tourists are perfectly safe. But what about all the other cities in Brazil where matches will be held?

But, don't even think about it. Thinking is bad.

ESPN gave sportswriter Bill Simmons his own magazine, Grantland, because Simmons, as one of my commenters once said, is a master at reproducing in text the feel of what a really good discussion about sports with your college buddies is like.

But, Grantland publishes a lot of non-Simmons articles that sound like they were written by authors whom nobody would want to be buddies with. For example,

A Yellow Card

As the 2014 World Cup looms, how should we talk about the problems in Brazil?

By Brian Phillips

So far in Brazil in 2013, there have been two soccer-related decapitations, which apparently might remind people that Brazil will host the World Cup next year, and the movie City of God was filmed in Rio, and, oh, yeah, there's a lot of crime in Brazil.

But, remember, Noticing Is Bad.

... How do you feel, hearing these stories? I don't mean how do you think you're supposed to feel; I mean how do you feel, in fact? Are you intrigued? Disturbed? Sad? Curious? Titillated, in the way that horrifying real-life stories can sometimes leave you titillated? You don't have to answer. Just think about it.

Two points make a trend. Here are two gruesome stories about soccer-related beheadings in Brazil. On the surface, they have little in common. One is — best guess — about gangs sending a message. The other is about a local conflict that warped into mass insanity. But, well, 2014 is a World Cup year, and Brazil, you might have heard, will be hosting. The second decapitation story had barely hit the wire before a portion of the Western media lined up the horrors and drew the only logical conclusion: Tourists must be in danger.

Of course, they couldn't just come out and say so. There's an art to these things. "Beheadings raise concern of violence in Brazil," USA Today announced in a headline.1 CNN declared that "experts say" (they don't quote any) that the concerns thus raised "might make fans think twice about bringing their families to Brazil." Bleacher Report furthered the mystery experts' speculations on the raised concerns, arguing that the violence "may" affect "the type of tourist that decides to come to Brazil to witness football's greatest tournament, with families unlikely to take young children." "How will this affect the World Cup?" was the golden thematic arch bridging countless articles about a story that's only indirectly tied to the World Cup at all, and after reading enough of them, you could almost appreciate the dead-soul directness of this Buzzfeedy link bait–shriek from PolicyMic, posted after the Pio XII decapitation: "This Horrific Video Will Completely Change Your View of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil."2

This is all, of course, code language, and it's not especially subtle code language.

It's a code that pops up again and again when a developing or newly industrialized country hosts the World Cup. The code works on three, possibly four, levels, and it makes me want to throw my desk through a brick wall, so I'll try to be as precise as possible about the various sleights of late-colonialist hand I think I can trace here.

Take the following sentence; it's from USA Today, because of course it is, but it could be from anywhere. It goes: "The news of a second decapitation this year in Brazil has raised questions about whether such heinous crimes may deter foreign visitors considering a trip for next summer's FIFA World Cup." What is this sentence trying to do, apart from draw the brightest, straightest line between "the news of a second decapitation" and "next summer's FIFA World Cup"? Is it really aiming to tell you that Questions have been Raised about World Cup attendance?

3 Maybe; but I submit that in this instance, the surface level of the code — "questions raised" — is just slippery journalistic-ethics-ese for "Hey, if you go to the World Cup you might get your head chopped off." That's the second level, the primal fear bit. It's not safe down there. Those people are crazy. And note that we've been led to this level by a turn of phrase insinuating the possibility of a World Cup disaster — ostensibly because of attendance problems ("deter foreign visitors"), but what you're actually imagining at this point is a bloodbath ("heinous crimes"). You're being invited to construct a fantasy in which several hundred thousand tourists less well-advised than USA Today readers like you make the trip down to Brazil and are slaughtered in their replica kits. That's the third level. Blood-spattered Wayne Rooney jerseys strewn throughout the streets.4

And I'm sorry, but that's not the only fantasy you're being invited to construct.

The top level of the code is the one in which you feel yourself to exist within a protective bubble of law and security, outside which all is madness. Here in this Holiday Inn Express in Lincoln, Nebraska, you are safe; in South America, life is cheap. That is not simply a fleeting implication, my friends, that is a media strategy and a worldview, and it is not one in which you are encouraged to regard all your fellow humans as equals.

Sidebar here: Murders involving decapitation are vanishingly rare in the United States (they are vanishingly rare everywhere), but they happen. In 2012, a New Jersey woman cut off her son's head and put it in the freezer before stabbing herself to death. In 2013, a 49-year-old school nurse was found headless in a South Florida sugar cane field. Two points make a trend. Concerns have been broached about whether Germans will still come to Disney World.

Of course, foreigners interested in visiting America destinations other than Disney World are concerned about crime Here's the Washington Post's summary of the French government's warnings to their nationals about where to avoid in the U.S.: "16 American cities foreign governments warn their citizens about," including this alert for visitors to Washington DC: "Le quartier Anacostia n’est pas recommandable de jour comme de nuit."

Second, two points do suggest which way the probability distribution might be shifted. The fact that this guy can't find two beheadings in the U.S. in this decade that are tied together thematically the way Brazil's soccer decapitations are suggests that decapitations aren't really a Thing in contemporary America, the way beheadings are a Thing are in, say, contemporary Mexico. (Of course, in Brazil, everything is related to soccer.)

The reality of course is that all these lectures about "How to Talk" aren't going to change the fact that, according to Wikipedia's list of the 50 cities in the world with the worst murder rates, Brazil has 13 of them. To put that in perspective, the U.S. holds down four positions in the Top 50, and if I gave you six or seven guesses, you'd probably get all four right: New Orleans, Detroit, St. Louis, and Baltimore. (Talk about stereotypes ...)

Friday, May 24, 2013

Inherent Beliefs

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about examining one's beliefs. This follows this post about dealing with conflict. For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.

Inherent Beliefs

by Whitney Creech

One of the most important things I’ve learned in my three years of marriage is that everyone has grown up learning different ways to do daily tasks: washing the dishes, doing the laundry, folding clothes, etc. I had to learn that my husband’s way of folding a t-shirt is just as effective as mine. In fact, his way actually saved some time. So I put my pride aside and quickly learned a more effective way to get laundry done. This is a simple example of how learning something new can actually be good, even though it’s not the way I was raised.

When it’s simply a difference in how our t-shirts are folded, changes don’t seem that big of a deal. However, there are things we might have been taught growing up that could potentially keep us from personal growth. This concept occurred to me as viewers have been calling in to the front desk here at UCG after seeing the recent Beyond Today episode “Has Religion Lied to You?”, which challenges the doctrine of the Trinity. Are we afraid to look at the hard questions that come up when they question our long-held beliefs?

The book Is God a Trinity? states, “Most people assume that everything that bears the label ‘Christian’ must have originated with Jesus Christ and His early followers. But this is definitely not the case. All we have to do is look at the words of Jesus Christ and His apostles to see that this is clearly not true” (page 11) . It’s difficult to realize that what we have learned from our parents, society, or mainstream Christian churches might not be what the Bible actually teaches. Are we willing to start proving what we believe from the Bible?

I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks that the answer is sometimes no. When some start to see that the Bible does not support ideas that they’ve grown up with, such as the celebration of Easter, or the belief in the Trinity, I’ve been confronted with statements like, “I’m not comfortable going against what I’ve always been taught” or “I don’t want to become more confused by adding in a different idea that goes against what I think.” I realize this isn’t easy. I realize it takes a lot of faith and perseverance to find the truth.

2 Timothy 3:16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

See All... says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” This says scripture is profitable for correction when what we’ve always been taught goes against what the Bible teaches. When we read a verse that points out a flaw in our behavior, attitude or something we’ve learned, do we read over it or take time to look into how we might need to change?

Personal growth can only come from realizing the flaws in ourselves or our beliefs and making a commitment to becoming more like Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:5 says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ.” In order to have the same mind of Christ, we need to allow God’s Spirit to work in us to make the changes in our lives and overcome the fear of personal evaluation.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Wknd Box Office: Lincoln, A Late Quartet, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Simon & The Oaks, The Loneliest Planet

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: Lincoln, A Late Quartet, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Simon & The Oaks, The Loneliest Planet

By Debbie Schlussel

Even though it’s a movie made by leftists for lefists, there’s one movie I liked out of the five I saw which are opening in theaters today, and it is . . .

* “Lincoln“: This is a great movie, but beware that it has a very liberal, Obama-esque vibe to it. Beware also, as I’ve told readers before (after another reader alerted me), that Daniel Day-Lewis is a self-hating, anti-Israel Jew who sides with the HAMASniks in Gaza. Especially now–with HAMAS rockets killing innocent Jews on a more regular basis than normal, it’s something you must take into account whenever you consider whether or not to support a movie and the actors who are in it. Ditto when it comes to this movie’s screenwriter, Tony Kushner, another anti-Israel, self-hating Jewish creep, who supports HAMAS (which would filet his gay ass) and the boycott of Israel. Also keep in mind that the movie is based on a book about Lincoln by known plagiarist and liberal Doris Kearns Goodwin. Yup, these are the people that director Steven Spielberg a/k/a “Abu Spielberg” loves to hang with.

I wondered how historically accurate the movie is, and a very interesting piece on liberal Slate does a pretty good job at itemizing and documenting all the accuracies of the movie (DON’T READ IT UNTIL AFTER YOU SEE THE MOVIE), as it has many spoilers. I’m no Lincoln expert, and that’s at whom the movie is aimed: those of us who love America, love American history, aren’t experts, and would enjoy knowing and seeing the nitty gritty of Lincoln’s life at the White House during the period of Civil War in which emancipation of slaves was being pushed by Lincoln, at the same time he was also seeking to make peace with the Confederacy and end the war. I wonder about the historical accuracy of three things:

1) Did Black soldiers who fought for the Union really lecture Lincoln and essentially yell at him because they weren’t free? Although in those days, anyone could easily approach the President and tell him of their problems (we see more of that, later on in the movie), I wonder if Blacks would feel free to tell the President off in that day and age. I don’t believe that scene, in the beginning of the movie, ever really happened. 2) Did Tad Lincoln really have an obsession with the glass plates bearing photos of Blacks, to the point that he played with the plates late at night? Doesn’t seem likely. 3) Would Blacks be allowed to sit in the House gallery along with Whites at that time in history? 4) Did Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), the Pennsylvania Congressman who vehemently fought for freeing the slaves, have a relationship with his Black female housekeeper, with whom he lived? The movie says yes and shows him in bed with her. But history has never proven that. History shows that the allegations were used by pro-slavery opponents of abolition against Stevens when he fought for freeing the slaves, but that isn’t shown in the movie. It was a rumor, just like the rumor that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, something that’s never been proven (contrary to conventional wisdom). 5) The movie does show him in bed and also on a bed with men, but not in a gay way (at least, that’s not the way I saw it). He was working with them late into the night to pass the bill freeing slaves.

The movie explores how Lincoln got Congress to vote for freeing the slaves, when most had no intention of doing so. It shows the nimble balance between doing that and also getting Confederate leaders to make peace, despite Lincoln repeatedly being warned that he could not have both–that the Southerners would not make peace if slavery would be abolished, and that Congress would not vote for the abolition of slavery if it meant the Civil War would not be ended, and more Union boys would be killed. On the other hand, once Congress began hearing that Confederate leaders were negotiating a peace with Lincoln, they had no incentive to get rid of slavery, since their aim was to end the war. The movie is also a very interesting discussion of states’ rights versus federalism that goes on not only on the floor of the House, but also in the discussions Lincoln holds with his top advisers, including Secretary of State William Seward (who was very much against freeing the slaves, as he thought it would prolong the Civil War), played by David Strathairn.

Day-Lewis really looks and sounds like Lincoln, and a funny story he tells–a very funny story!–turns out to be a story he actually told and just as he told it. Sally Field is Mary Todd Lincoln, and while she isn’t really “nutty” per se, as history portrays her, she’s a bit overbearing and always crying, whining, and nervous. But who wouldn’t be, having lost two sons and having another who wants to go to war and could die on the battlefield? On the other hand, she believes an “accident” with their carriage was really no accident, but an attempt to assassinate Lincoln. The movie doesn’t delve into whether or not she was correct, which would have been interesting, since we know that there were constant plans and perhaps failed attempts to kill Lincoln, before the one that was ultimately successfully carried out by John Wilkes Booth. Robert Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose parents founded an anti-Israel group for Jews–yup, this movie is populated by self-haters) is shown to be a very patriotic son, who desperately wants to fight for the Union and make the same sacrifices for the country as other Union sons did. And then there are those who worked with Seward to help secure the votes for Lincoln and how they “lobbied” in very interesting ways, ways not much different than today, minus the technology and tickets to sporting events. The legislators and their machinations, including those of Stevens, are explored. It’s pretty clear that the makers of this movie took great pains to not only present an accurate version of history, but also to make the actors look a lot like the real-life figures they played, down to Thaddeus Stevens’ wig.

It’s, overall, a great cinematic version of a particular time in American history that I enjoyed thoroughly. You won’t be bored for a second. Wonderfully done. But, again, don’t forget that this Lincoln is a HAMAS-lover. And take that into account when you decide where to spend your movie dollars.

THREE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

* “A Late Quartet“: I love symphonic, classical music. But if you go to see this movie for that reason, you’ll be thoroughly disappointed. Although it’s about a quartet consisting of violinists, a cellist, and so on, it’s really just another soap opera melodrama, the bittersweet ending of which doesn’t justify why I had to sit through non-stop melodrama chock full of crying, yelling, cheating, and an adult sleeping with the daughter of another woman he once slept with. Ick. This movie is aimed at the highbrow lefty culturatti crowd, but it’s really just lowbrow crap dressed in organic fine chocolate and tofu. The only good thing about this movie–cool, really–is that one of the main actors, Mark Ivanir, a Ukrainian Jew, was a top Israeli soldier in real life. (He was involved in a secret mission rescuing Ethiopian Jews and was repeatedly recruited by the Israeli Secret Service, but took a job as a clown instead, and later became an actor.)

Christopher Walken is the cellist in a longtime quartet that performs around the world. One of the quartet is his adopted daughter (Catherine Keener). Her husband is the second violinist (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The first violinist is her former boyfriend (Ivanir). Walken soon learns that he has early-stage Parkinson’s disease and decides to leave the quartet. (He’s the only decent, likable character in the whole movie.) Then, all hell breaks loose with infighting, drama, crying, yelling, and so on. Didn’t need it. Not my idea of a nice, escapist, relaxing movie. On the other hand, I can’t say it isn’t entertaining. It is, but not worth ten bucks and two hours of your life. Not even close.

TWO MARXES

* “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2“: OY. I hated this movie. Prime Gitmo torture stuff. But then I hated all the “Twilight” movies, except the first one–and that must have been a moment of drunkenness or something. It’s silly, confusing, and incredibly violent. Multiple people are beheaded and a baby is thrown into a fire to burn to death. And, yet, this is the crap aimed at young kids. Last night, as I was coming out of another movie screening, I saw two mothers with several of their kids and kids’ friends–whose ages I asked (8, 11, and 12)–waiting in line for two hours for the 10:00 p.m. early showing of this movie. I was surprised that they didn’t bat an eyelash when I told them that they were about to expose their kids to a movie with a lot of very graphic beheadings and a baby thrown into a fire. They just smiled. Yeah, that’s smile-worthy.

I didn’t get this absurd story. The sullen, brooding human chick (Kristen Stewart) became a vampire in the last movie so she could marry her effeminate vampire love (Robert Pattinson). She now is stronger than all the male vampires and must resist her urge to kill humans and drink their blood. Plus the angry council of vampire rules is upset that she and the other vampires are friends with a werewolf. Oh, and they must prove to the vampire council that their half-human, half-vampire daughter isn’t a threat to vampires and is not an immortal . . . or is an immortal? I don’t know. I got lost and just didn’t care to figure it out. The movie is long, boring, and a waste of time. Yes, I know I’m not the target demo for this absurdity, but even if I were, I think I’d hate it nonetheless.

Thank G-d, this is the last of the Twilight saga vampires on film. Or is it? Hollywood loves sequels of excrement.

THREE MARXES

* “Simon and the Oaks [Simon Och Ekarna]“: At the beginning, I thought this would be an interesting movie. A Swedish kid from a wealthy Jewish family is sent to the country to live with his friend Simon and Simon’s gentile family when the Nazis invade the country. But, after that, nothing really happens. We’re shown that the Jewish dad keeps trying to seduce the gentile mom, and that the gentile dad resents the wealth and generosity of the Jewish dad. And then, very late into the movie, we learn something new about Simon, who is the kid raised by the gentile family. It still isn’t interesting. A total tease and waste of time wrapped in classy costumes and cinematography. In Swedish with English subtitles.

ONE MARX

* “The Loneliest Planet“: More like the stupidest moviegoer, cuz if you waste ten bucks and 1.5 hours of your time on this long, boring, absurd waste of time, you’re an idiot. You were forewarned that this is 1.5 hours of footage of a woman and her fiancee hiking Georgia’s Caucuses Mountains with very little dialogue. Boooooring. There’s no plot to speak of. Not sure what the point of this movie was . . . other than to make me very angry. A total waste of time I’ll never get back.

FOUR MARXES

brianlee

Wednesday, August 19, 2015