Is America paying for it enemies to attack her? Is Congress committing treason …stupidity … or both?

From the East Coast to the “Left Coast,” America seems to be moving farther and farther from its Founders’ vision and government.

George Washington advised, “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” Yet the Obama administration just pledged $900 million in U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.

Thomas Jefferson counseled us, “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” Yet the feds have skyrocketed our national debt by trillions of dollars, and they plan much more fiscal expansion, with few expectations of resistance. George Washington admonished, “To contract new debts is not the way to pay for old ones.” But we keep borrowing and bailing out, and we watch the stock market plunge further every time we do.

By: Marcia Segelstein

Most people probably don’t picture kids when they think about who’s viewing pornography. But according to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, the largest group of viewers of Internet pornography is children between the ages of 12 and 17. And there’s more. The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11. 88% of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hardcore pornography. 90% of children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework.

Scary stuff. Especially scary because the pornography available at the click of a mouse today makes the pornography of a generation ago look positively innocent. Dr. Jill Manning, a therapist who specializes in issues related to pornography and whose patients include many teenagers, describes Internet pornography today as deviant, vile, and graphic. Picture rape and torture – to name but two – portrayed positively. Now imagine children watching such material.

Dr. Manning is the author of What’s the Big Deal About Pornography: A Guide for the Internet Generation. Beyond the moral concerns most parents would have about their children viewing pornography, there are serious risks for kids who do, according to Dr. Manning. One is that young people are introduced to sexuality in a way that is completely disconnected from relationships to other human beings, and completely disconnected from spirituality. “When a young person is being immersed in pornography they are getting expert teaching in how to objectify human beings, how to strip human beings of their feelings, personalities and needs. That’s a very dangerous road to be walking down.”

Most of Dr. Manning’s patients come from Christian homes, and she believes many Christian parents need a wake-up call when it comes to this issue. In her experience, they are sometimes too trusting of kids, and naïve about the intensely graphic and deviant nature of material accessible via the Internet.

“I know that most Christian parents desire to create a home that’s a safe haven from the world and evil influences,” Dr. Manning told me. She thinks most parents would probably be shocked to learn that approximately 80 percent of hardcore pornography viewing by young people happens in the home. “On the one hand that’s very troubling, but on the other hand it can give us some hope, because it provides leverage. If we can get a handle on that in the home, we can make a tremendous impact for good on our young people.”

Dr. Manning believes parents should have open and frank conversations with their children about the subject of pornography, in the same way they discuss the dangers of alcohol and drugs. She told me about a client of hers, a grown man, struggling with same-sex attraction.  His first sexual experience was with homosexual pornography – at the age of 9. By the time his parents sat down with him to talk about sex, he was 13 years old and already had years of exposure. She’s had clients who first encountered pornography at the age of 5 or 6. “Teaching healthy sexuality is one of the best protections and ways to arm our children. Then when they encounter the lies pornography tells them, they have a powerful reference point. They’ll be able to de-code it and say that’s absurd.” She believes young people should be told why parents disapprove of pornography, and why they believe it’s harmful.

In addition to Dr. Manning’s book, there are many resources available to parents interested in protecting their kids from online pornography. Enough is Enough provides extensive information for parents on its website, including its recently launched program “Internet Safety 101.” This new teaching series for parents brings together under one heading the expert advice, tools, and resources Enough is Enough has been compiling over the last decade.

While there’s no question that setting guidelines and putting safety measures in place are critically important, parents should keep in mind that sometimes children are introduced to pornography outside the home, away from those safety measures. Filters and other protections may not be in place at friends’ houses, hence the importance of arming kids with information.

Based on her experience as a therapist, Manning told me that many teens turn to the Internet for sexual information. Perhaps they hear a word or a term they’re curious about, so they go online to check it out. Unfortunately, they often end up at pornographic websites where they’re not only exposed to explicit and degrading images, but any actual information they absorb is completely distorted.

There are many documented risk factors associated with adolescents viewing pornography. In fact, Dr. Manning testified before a Senate subcommittee on the topic of “Pornography’s Impact on Marriage and the Family.” Here are some of the risks she listed for adolescents who have been exposed to pornography:

• Lasting negative or traumatic emotional responses

• Earlier onset of first sexual intercourse

• The belief that superior sexual satisfaction is attainable without having affection for one’s partner

• The belief that being married or having a family are unattractive prospects

• Increased risk for developing sexual compulsions and addictive behavior

• Increased risk of exposure to incorrect information and overestimating the prevalence of less-common practices (e.g., group sex, bestiality, or sadomasochistic activity)

Sadly, pornography is a threat parents simply cannot ignore. The potential risks for children are too great and the chances of children being exposed to it far too high. If any further motivation is needed, read one last, chilling thing Dr. Manning shared with me:

“I believe pornography is the most successfully marketed attack on our divine nature as human beings that has ever existed. There has never been anything so calculated and widespread and effective at reaching so many people at such a young age.”

Visit Marcia Segelstein’s blog — she values your comments and ideas!

Al Jazeera Signs Deal To Air Throughout U.S.

The Al Jazeera Network plans to announce on January 22 that it has signed a deal to run its news on Worldfocus, a syndicated nightly news program produced in New York and distributed throughout the United States.  The deal would help the international news network, one of the top services in the Arabic-speaking world, broaden its reach in the United States, where it so far has been available to only a limited audience.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE WANT THE ARABIC-SPEAKING WORLD TO HAVE ITS REACH BROADENED ANYWHERE … BUT ESPECIALLY IN THE UNITED STATES?

Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, is produced by New York City public broadcaster WLIW and syndicated to a number of Public Broadcasting Service affiliates (supported with taxpayer’s dollars), as well as other stations in 60 U.S. markets, including 27 of the top 30.  Al Jazeera declined to disclose terms of the deal.

The service’s Arabic-language network is available in the United States through the DISH Network Corp.  It has been trying to increase the distribution of its English- language network through cable television, but so far is available only in Washington, D.C., Toledo, Ohio and Burlington, Vermont.

One of its English-language programs, “Witness,” reaches viewers through the LINK TV network, which is distributed by DISH Network and others.

Al Jazeera also is expanding its presence on the Internet, with a YouTube channel, a Twitter feed on the Gaza war and a free broadcast at an online service called Livestation.

The network, whose English broadcasts appear all over the world through deals with companies such as Singapore’s SingTel and Hong Kong’s PCCW, has started running ads in papers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, advertising its Web presence with the slogan, “Find out what you’re missing.”

EXACTLY JUST WHAT ARE WE MISSING? … TERRORISM INDOCTRINATION SO WE FEEL SORRY FOR TERRORISTS WHO KILL PEOPLE?  DO WE REALLY WANT THIS TYPE OF PRESENCE?

Al Jazeera has increased its marketing campaign, particularly during Israel’s air-and-ground offensive into Gaza that began about three weeks ago.  It also plans to begin running ads in several weeks that a spokesman said will address misconceptions about the network in the United States. The U.S. government criticized the network for irresponsible and biased news reporting when the United States launched the 2003 war in Iraq.

WHAT MISCONCEPTIONS?  DO YOU REALLY THINK THEY WILL BE RESPONSIBLE? … THINK AGAIN!

WAIT!  DIDN’T HITLER BRAINWASH PEOPLE?

THE GAZA NAZIS
By Cal Thomas

Hamas, a group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, are the Nazis of modern times.  Israel is right to pound military targets inside Gaza, but much of the violence Israel brought on itself by giving up land it had to know would be used to reign down death on its civilians.  That is always the pattern.

Why is anyone surprised that after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the vacuum created was quickly filled by Hamas, whose sole purpose is the destruction of the “Zionist entity,” as it likes to call Israel, and the killing of as many Jews as possible?  The fiction, which is greater than a belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, is that Israel, or the United States, or anyone else, can do anything that will deter Hamas from its objective.  What did anyone expect when Israel pulled out of Gaza?  The establishment of a Disney theme park, perhaps?

Jews are vermin and less than human, Hamas says.  Oh, wait.  Wasn’t the same said of the Jews by the Nazis?  The only difference is that today’s killers don’t speak German.

The Year 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of Israel’s re-establishment in its ancient homeland.  It also marked the 60th anniversary of the first violent response to the formation of the State of Israel.  The violence hasn’t stopped despite the efforts of diplomats and politicians.

The incoming Obama administration has announced it will make a Middle East peace agreement a high priority.  It might as well announce plans to defy gravity.  Peace can only come once Israel’s enemies are defeated. No “infidel” diplomat is going to stop Palestinian schools from teaching a new generation of children to hate the Jews and to regard all of Israel as occupied Arab land.

Hamas and its terrorist cousins know how to play the public relations game.  Most recently we saw it in Lebanon with Hezbollah, as we have seen it in so many other places.  The terrorists operate within civilian areas so that when Israel strikes and unintentionally kills civilians, the bodies are paraded before Western media.  In some cases, in order to embellish the drama, bodies have been planted in rubble, along with a child’s toy.

Most of the big media don’t focus on the occasional rocket attacks inside Israel; only on Israel’s attempts to stop them.  So much of Western thinking continues along the delusional line that only “adjustments” by Israel have a chance of bringing peace by diminishing the passions of her enemies.  If that were so, given all of Israel’s concessions, shouldn’t those passions have diminished by now and serious negotiations begun?

Instead, the more Israel concedes, the more violence it gets.  At some point you would think people would say, “this isn’t working” and try another approach, such as striking back in a manner that would not simply stop the present threat, but persuade Hamas and the others that there is no benefit in their continued aggression.

Iran is behind Hamas, supplying it with rockets, some of which are made in Russia, and with other weapons.  The goal of the Obama administration ought not to be “peace,” per se.  Peace is like happiness: a byproduct of something else.  Israel’s goal should be peace through strength.  The U.S. should commit to building up Israel, militarily and diplomatically, as a deterrent to Israel’s enemies, many of whom also hate and wish to destroy America.

Israel already has given up too much.  Every concession has been met with more war.  It is time to finish the job.  No more delays; no more cease-fires or truces, which merely allow Hamas now (and Hezbollah before) to dig new tunnels and smuggle in reinforcements and more weapons with which they kill more Israeli civilians.

Total victory or death should be Israel’s slogan and goal.  It is the slogan and goal of Israel’s enemies.  Is there an Arabic equivalent of “Seig (SIEG) Heil”?

What Do You Do When The Guy Across the Negotiating Table Wants to Destroy You?

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings are underway in the Senate today.  A good question for any senator who is interested in being honest about the real problem in the Middle East is this:

“Senator Clinton, imagine that you’re the Israeli Foreign Minister:  What do you do when the other party at the ‘peace table’ is openly committed to your destruction?”

This is the question that all our political and foreign policy elites who are demanding that Israel immediately agree to a “cease fire” with Hamas in Gaza should be asking.

And this is the fact that the anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic mobs that are taking to the streets in London, Edinburgh, Berlin and Washington, DC should know: (This is a negotiating partner?)

Two Facts of Violence in Mid-East: Hamas and Iran

There are two main facts of the violence in the Middle East that all Americans – and particularly our leaders – have to be aware of:

1.  Hamas exists to destroy Israel.  Its leaders wake up every morning with one goal – to eliminate what they call the “Zionist entity.”  They do not care about the civilians they shield themselves with.

2.  The fact of violence in the Middle East is the ongoing effort by Iran (using Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas as its proxies) to undermine pro-American governments in the region.

“A New Emphasis on Respect” in Relations with Iran?

On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, President-elect Obama repeated his campaign pledge to negotiate with Iran.  He also promised that there would be a “new emphasis on respect” in his administration’s dealings with Tehran.

President-elect Obama may want respect but Iran’s theocratic rulers want victory. This is a dangerous mismatch of goals for America and a potentially nuclear, aggressor regime to have.

The Policy of the United States Must Be That Israel’s Right to Survive is Unequivocal

There are no easy solutions in Gaza.  But there are a few milestones that Israel should achieve – and the United States should support before any ceasefire with Hamas is granted:

1.  Hamas’ capacity to inflict violence on the state of Israel must be destroyed, or at least significantly reduced.

2.  No missiles – period – must be fired from Gaza into the sovereign state of Israel.

3.  The border between Gaza and Egypt must be sealed and verified by an Israeli and/or independent verifier.

The policy of the United States of America has been and must be that Israel’s right to survive is unequivocal.  Therefore, the greatest danger to Israel in the long run is for it to experience violence followed by a false truce which allows its enemies time to rearm and initiate yet another cycle of violence.

Iran and Hamas will not voluntarily end this cycle of violence.  They must be brought to the point where they have no choice.

Time is running short to avert a major disaster for our country. That disaster’s name is President Barack Obama. But this disaster can be averted – even though the slanted media are overstating Obama’s inevitability.

The stakes have never been higher for the future of the country. We will either patriotically turn the country over to a man who has proudly served his nation in war time and peace – or we face electing a man who has a checkered past, a man who has counted domestic terrorists among his friends, and a man who spent 15 years in a church where his pastor regularly damned and condemned the United States.

Barack Obama is not simply a risky choice as our next president – he is a dangerous one.

The latest reports show Obama outspending McCain by 3-to-1 in key states. Millions of dubious new voters with the help of groups like ACORN are being registered to put a socialist in the White House.

In the closing weeks of this election, Obama is trying to remake himself as a moderate to win over lower-income, white, Democratic and independent voters. He wants to hide the facts about his record. He is the most extreme liberal ever to be nominated by a major party. Remember his 100% liberal rating in Congress, his support for the total gun ban in Washington, D.C., his opposition to protecting babies born alive, and his support for tax increases.

He also supports giving illegal aliens driver’s licenses and almost all Americans agree that Illegal aliens should not be given driver’s licenses.

Did you know that Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 ring leader, had a valid Florida driver’s license? Did you know 13 of the 19 hijackers had obtained valid driver’s licenses? Armed with these licenses, eight of the hijackers even registered to vote – and they were illegal. What about the 20 million illegal aliens in America right now? How many of them will vote anyway?

Obama strongly supports giving illegal aliens in America driver’s licenses. Even Hillary Clinton backed away from Obama’s radical driver’s license plan. Obama’s position is not a new one. Obama has been a major proponent of driver’s licenses for illegals since his days as an Illinois state senator. There is no doubt that Obama will also champion this radical plan.

With Osama bin Laden still at large, with al-Qaida promising “spectacular” attacks on the U.S homeland, with the threat of them using weapons of mass destruction against our cities – biological, chemical, and nuclear – can we risk putting such a man in the Oval Office?

Doesn’t he remember what happened on 9/11? More than 3,000 Americans were murdered. Or, does he just not care?

You can prevent that from happening just by the way you vote.

Random House paid $100,000 for The Jewel of Medina, Sherry Jones’ racy historical novel about Muhammad and his nine-year-old wife, Aisha, only to withdraw the book just days before its scheduled August 12 publication date. Random House deputy publisher Thomas Perry explained that they decided to drop the book after receiving, “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” They decided “to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.”

This craven capitulation to violent intimidation came without any actual violent intimidation at all. Random House was smart enough to figure out, in these post-Salman Rushdie, post-Muhammad cartoons, post-Pope Rage days that publishing a book that Muslims find offensive could be hazardous to the health of a good many people.

It is curious that they let Jones work on The Jewel of Medina for six years only to remember Rushdie when her book was about to be published. That may be due to pressure from Denise A. Spellberg, an Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. When Spellberg received an advance copy of the book, she became “frantic” and contacted Shahed Amanullah, editor of the popular website altmuslim.com. “She was upset,” said Amanullah, because the book “made fun of Muslims and their history.” She later declared that The Jewel of Medina was a “very ugly, stupid piece of work…. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”

Spellberg denies charges that she was the “instigator” of Random House’s decision to deep-six Jones’ book. She says, “I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel’s potential to provoke anger among some Muslims.” Yet Spellberg also maintains: “I do not espouse censorship of any kind, but I do value my right to critique those who abuse the past without regard for its richness or resonance in the present.”

Spellberg does seem to be right about The Jewel of Medina. The book rather improbably depicts the nine-year-old Aisha, at the moment of the consummation of her marriage to Muhammad, as finding “the bliss I had longed for all my life.” As evidenced by trash like this, the actual “richness and resonance in the present” of Muhammad’s marriage to the child Aisha is probably lost on both Spellberg and Jones. But due to Muhammad’s status in Islamic tradition as the supreme example of human conduct, child marriage is quite prevalent in some areas of the Islamic world today.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that over half of the girls in Afghanistan and Bangladesh are married before they reach the age of eighteen. In early 2002, researchers in refugee camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan found half the girls married by age thirteen. In an Afghan refugee camp, more than two out of three second-grade girls were either married or engaged, and virtually all the girls who were beyond second grade were already married. One ten-year-old was engaged to a man of sixty. In early 2005 a Saudi man in his sixties drew international attention for marrying fifty-eight times; his most recent bride was a 14-year-old he married in the spring of 2004.

If Jones really wanted to offend Muslims, she could have made her novel a negative portrayal of Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha and a denunciation of the devastating effects child marriage has had upon untold numbers of girls in the Islamic world ever since. That would certainly have brought her opprobrium and threats, but she would have had the satisfaction of knowing that she was standing up for the dignity of the human person. As it is, her book does indeed seem to be as Spellberg describes it: a “very ugly, stupid piece of work.”

That being the case, however, since when has Random House or any American publisher refrained from publishing a book because it was ugly and stupid? When has any American publisher passed up a book because they thought it cheapened Jewish or Christian sacred history? Put down your copy of The Da Vinci Code and ponder that one for a minute.

It is becoming increasingly common for Americans to bow to pressure from Muslims to accommodate Islamic practices and mores.  It is also becoming common for the specter of violence to inhibit discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify terrorism. Where will all this accommodation end? It will not end until America is a Sharia state, unless enough Americans begin to resist. Or, even if America never becomes anything remotely approximating a Sharia state, how much of our freedoms and rights will we allow to be eroded away before we stand up and call a halt to this?

If Random House had axed Jones’ book because it is silly and stupid, that would be no problem. But to explain that they did so because of the possibility of violence is only to reinforce the lesson that threats and violence work. And with that lesson re-taught, our freedoms will continue to erode.

New Yorker Cover: Obama as Muslim

Monday, July 14, 2008 9:00 AM

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s campaign says a satirical New Yorker magazine cover showing the Democratic presidential candidate dressed as a Muslim and his wife as a terrorist is “tasteless and offensive.”

The illustration on the issue that hits newsstands Monday, titled “The Politics of Fear” and drawn by Barry Blitt, depicts Barack Obama wearing traditional Muslim garb – sandals, robe and turban – and his wife, Michelle – dressed in camouflage, combat boots and an assault rifle strapped over her shoulder – standing in the Oval Office.

The couple is doing a fist tap in front of a fireplace in which an American flag is burning. Over the mantle hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden.

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

A spokeswoman for The New Yorker did not immediately return a call to The Associated Press.

The magazine’s editor, David Remnick, said in a statement to the Daily News in New York that he was surprised by the reaction.

The cover “combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them (the images) for the obvious distortions they are,” he said.

“Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd,” Remnick said.

Republican John McCain’s campaign spokesman, Tucker Bonds, agreed that the cover was “tasteless and offensive.”

Already the cover was generating controversy on the Internet.

The Huffington Post, a left-leaning blog, said: “Anyone who’s tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who’s tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism – well, here’s your image.”

Associated Press.

How many stupid things can one country do?  Well, France does it best to stay on the top of stupid.  Their country is fast becoming overtaken by Islam.  The Muslims in France have ,and continue to riot, and make demands of France.  Yet, here France is negotiating with the Hamas terrorists, behind the back (until found out) of the the European Union, America and others who have taken a stand again terror which includes Hamas.  It won’t be long before France will be taken over by Islam.  Watch and see.

France Admits Contacts With Hamas

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/world/europe/20france.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

This should surprise no one!

An internal Federal Bureau of Investigation presentation states that counterfeit Cisco routers imported from China may cause unexpected failures in American networks. The equipment could also leave secure systems open to attack through hidden backdoors. The scope of the problem is broad and results from a complicated supply chain originating in Shen Zhen.

From a narrow project failures perspective, network problems caused by this equipment should be treated as any other hardware malfunction. Of course, the entire concept of third parties using compromised hardware to infiltrate public and private systems in the United States is another matter entirely.

Faulty networking hardware can be a nightmare to troubleshoot and fix. For example, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) location at Los Angeles Airport (LAX) suffered a failed router last year; the problem delayed 20,000 passengers before technicians successfully isolated and repaired the issue.

The following slides, pulled from the larger presentation, indicate how seriously the FBI is taking this threat to national security.

Check it out.