Free Republic

Washington's hopes that U.S.-led forces would be welcomed into Iraq as liberators bled into the sand on Sunday, the fourth day of war, as Iraqi troops fought back with determination and guerrilla tactics.

Oh gee, but the Bush administration told us that everyone in Iraq would love and adore us.(Set Sarcasm=Off)

"Conservatives" have long pointed out that there is all the difference between banning guns with a law, and actually getting them out of the hands of criminals. So what can't "conservatives" on Free Republic (which I abandoned years ago as no longer conservative) understand that lashing out with hatred and violence at other nations, fomenting backlash and long-term animosity even while you seize an occasional weapons lab, etc., just makes the problem worse in the future?

Real progress in peace and security worldwide will be built from foundational principles lived out consistently by people who are sincere in desiring such, and by living out those principles to create a winsome atmosphere that others will seek to learn and replicate. A childish rambo mentality will not solve difficult problems, it will aggravate them. Shame on FR. You are just another faction of liberals now.

The Old Testiment has passages in it that give God's consent for his "chosen people" to commit genocide vs the gentiles.

It does not have any such passages, that being another of our atheistic society's anti-Christian and anti-Semitic myths. It does contain specific instructions to the Jews of the Exodus to kill one particular population, the Canaanites. Archaeology has revealed the Canaanites to be a particularly despicable bunch of human-sacrificing, sexually perverted demon-worshippers. That command did not extend to anyone who is not a Canaanite.

Death is our fault due to our rebellion and sin. God manages death, which we brought upon ourselves, according to His wisdom and for the best possible end result. In all cases His purpose is the preservation of all that can be salvaged from this wreck of a world, His love the driving motivation. Please, do not despoil your own soul by disparaging God and his word or by inventing fallacious comparisons with humanistic writings of hateful intention.

Yes, I think this is just what Keyes did. To my mind it vindicates him, and his point in doing so.

Without agreeing with 11B3 in the slightest, I have to take issue with your call for a "Reformation" of Islam. The Reformation was a call within Christendom to clean up corruption and return to Scripture as the foundation of Christianity, to return to the faith of the church Fathers.

In the context of Islam, what would this mean? A return to the much more highly engaged, much more aggressive wars of conquest, pillage and slaughter that Mohammed and his immediate descendants engaged in. No thank you. I much prefer the heretics of Islam, who pay more attention to their conscience, or at least to the possibility of retribution, than their religious dictates.

Someone should ask the anti-Christian bigots: If Islam is such a wonderful, loving religion of peace, and Christianity so viciously hateful and anti-Semitic then why after more than a millennia are most Jews still living in historically Christian lands rather than Islamic or other lands?

Har har. What threw me is that the other news on the page was identical to what really is in the Detroit News online today. But, I'm an auto industry quality engineer, and figured I couldn't have been *that* blind if such huge layoffs were in the works....
;-)

Since I don't know the full details (and don't trust the mediabigots further than I can kick them with a broken leg) it is hard to reach a solid conclusion on this article. But Bush really should have made clear the distinction between Muslims (as human beings) and Islam (as a particularly hellish set of beliefs).

Some thinking recently has alerted me to a key difference between Secular Humanist and Christian/Theistic thinking. Humanists do not believe in a soul. To them a person's beliefs are not just externals; they are what makes a person what they are. To attack a belief is to attack the person holding them.

By contrast, Christians believe that at the core of a human being is not their beliefs but their soul. Beliefs can impact the soul - they can condemn it to Hell or be a vehicle for Heaven. And this means it is imperative to Christians that wrong beliefs in others be confronted and dealt with, if possible, to the salvation of the person themself.

So this is a big source of conflict, I perceive. The Christian criticizes wrong beliefs out of honest love, but that same criticism is interpreted as "hate" and an attack on the person themself by humanists.

So it is important for Christians to make clear that it is the teachings of Islam we oppose, and FOR THE SAKE OF the people enslaved by such teachings (literally and figuratively). Mediabigots may underplay or ignore all mention of Islam-inspired violence, slave-raiding and tyranny, but Christians can respond by continually pointing back to the facts of history (and daily events) and the teachings that inspire them. It is not Christians who fly planes into buildings, bomb innocent targets, take slaves in the name of religion and assert totalitarian rule as the "will of God."

Islam is a religion of evil, Mr. President. It is Satan's greatest monotheistic counterfeit, one cleverly designed to be fueled by the human passions of lust and violence that are so cleverly exploited by the Koran. That is, by promising crassly pornographic sexual pleasures in Heaven and justifying violent attacks on infidels Islam creates a powerful engine for aggression. The amazing thing is that Muslims have not been even more violent in history. Thank God for the fact that most Muslims have been as heretical as most western "Christians" of the past generation.

But what will the Atheistic West do if that changes?

Marathon (who has been studying the Koran and birthrate figures by nation lately...)

I agree that this weapon would be most useful in small-scale engagements. It's been developed in collaboration with the Israeli army (this is the same system that has shot down 25 Katyusha rockets, including salvo launches, in tests). Just the sort of thing needed to prevent Hezbollah from an occasional terror strike over from Lebanon.

I read in another article (I work for TRW, and read a daily news digest pertaining to our company) that the Joint Strike Fighter is "expected" to have a laser weapon as part of its arsenal. Apparently the most likely form for it to take will be as a standalone unit that can be attached in place of those external fuel tanks. Unfortunately I don't recall more details.

Hmmm, this article is astonishingly late in coming. Dr. Thomas Barnes first publicized this in 1973, and the data was available before then. A recent article on the subject of the rapid decay of the magnetic field can be found here: The Earth's Magnetic Field is Still Losing Energy by Dr. D. Russell Humphreys.

What's worth pointing out is that the claimed timescales (250,000 years, etc.) are wildly out of whack with the empirical data (approx. an 8% decay in only 170 years). The reversals in the magnetic field are reversals in orientation and, as the linked article points out, are distinct from the overall decay in the field strength. Once the field dies down to nothing there is no reason to believe it will ever start back up again. This is the primary finding of the linked article.

I should also point out the reversals happened quickly, not slowly. Humphreys predicted in 1986 that if reversals were rapid substantial portions of a reversal would be recorded in lava flows within the time it took a single lava flow to solidify. Exactly this evidence was found at Steens Mountain (Oregon) in 1989 and subsequently other locations have been reported in the literature, showing the reversals took place in days or weeks. A mechanism for such reversals was later found in the catastrophic plate tectonics work of Dr. John Baumgardner.

We may have a bit more than 1,000 years, too, since the decay is almost certainly logarythmic not linear. Still, the long-range weather forecast is a bit unsettling. ;-p

They aren't out of touch with reality (well, they are, but not in the way Gingrich is thinking). They are just playing out the logical defense of the state religion (secular humanism) that they have established in contempt of Christianity and other religions. Censoring the Pledge of Allegiance is just the inevitable outworking of their goal to completely eliminate any challenge, criticism of, contradiction to or dissent from the state religion.

SH never has been able to defend itself on logical or empirical grounds, so the reliance on totalitarianism, censorship and other forms of non-rational persuasion (movie propaganda, historical revisionism, etc.) is necessary in their "evangelistic" outreach.

Hi LiB, might I suggest another option: A Hyundai Elantra or Sonata. You can probably get a new one for the price of a used Toyota or Honda. Hyundai has made dramatic improvements within the last few years, while holding their prices down. Throw in their 10 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty (and 5/60 bumper to bumper, these are the best in the business) and it's hard to go wrong. (They even include 5 year roadside assistance in that).

I got a 2001 Sonata a few months ago. I was going to buy an Elantra (slightly smaller) but found a great deal in another state for the Sonata. Absolutely no problems so far, and where else could I get a Taurus-class vehicle for $12,800 new? The 2001 Sonata was less refined than the Elantra (which I would have a hard time coming up with even minor quibbles), but I think they may have redesigned the Sonata for 2002 which will probably address what design/styling shortcomings it did have. (Little things like the radio buttons & display being hard to see, armrest being too short, imperfect cupholder design, etc.)

Fuel efficiency is comparable to Japanese vehicles as well, and superior to Big 3 vehicles.

So if being a quality engineer in the automotive industry counts for anything, that's my advice to ya! ;-)

This article works on the line of reasoning that anyone who is a car hobbyist, will own a 1964 Mustang (or whatever). On the contrary, different values and interests will lead some car hobbyists to focus on Model T's, others on Mustangs, and others on Studebakers, and so on.

It's not sane, and is merely an irrational prejudice, to claim that Osama bin Laden and Mother Teresa (for example) are just the same with only trivial differences. On the contrary, fundamental differences in their premises and values, their worldview and goals - all things that this author ignores - lead to profound differences in how their faith works out in the things they do in life.

Athiests have values too, just self-righteous values (by definition), so it's pointless to blame "religion" (foundational beliefs) as if they don't have one. Their values drive their behaviors just as much as any theist. Some religious worldviews will work themselves out in violence, and some in love. It's sloppy and historically ignorant to pretend that they are really just all the same or lead to the same ends.

(IMHO, the real reason Wolfe doesn't "get it" is because of his Marxist/Humanist premise that there is no Truth in a divine/absolute sense, and thus only Power to be contested and fought over. This is why all godless societies have always devolved into violent power-plays leading to either genocide or tyranny (given the chance), or both. Wolfe doesn't grasp the theistic emphasis on truth and submission to a higher power that judges the actions of people, checking the natural human tendency toward greater sin. Or to put it another way, many false theistic religions will lead to violence and evil, but so will all non-theistic ones because they only see things in terms of power struggles, and not in terms of absolute moral truth with accountability and judgment on sinful leaders.)

Rather than just being vaguely critical, then, could you explain what you mean by the term? The article appears quite consistent with the primary dictionary definitions of the term (a denial of meaning/value to life, and of moral truth, particularly).

I don't know that it's a "growing" problem, but it's real enough. I work for an automotive electronics manufacturer as a quality engineer. One time we did get back an airbag crash sensor module from warranty that, when opened, was crawling with cockroaches. Not that that's common, but it was definitely unsettling.

I know a lot of people are saying the pilots should be armed - but a gun, at least a big one, doesn't seem to be safe. But why limit them to guns? Pepper spray, stun guns, maybe even keep some stun grenades on the flight attendants in back (to toss into the cockpit area if it does get taken over)... you get the idea.

Get with the Program. I understand, and share, the horror everyone is feeling right now. But the way many people are reacting is unconcionable. I am seeing knee-jerk Fascism, about as contrary to liberty and the ideals and principles of this country as may be. So they hate us. Forgive them. So they cheer these horrible acts. How many of you have I seen cheer when some tragedy struck someone you've scapegoated? Should you die for it?

All;
I know this may not be popular at this moment, but here it is: We are called not to vengeance, but to forgiveness. ("Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord" - not ours.)

Likewise, JUSTICE is what our government should seek, not blind, furious retribution. To kill one more innocent in response to these murders would simply enlarge the injustice perpetrated here. So let's cool the talk of throwing nukes at whomever your pet scapegoat happens to be. This act was the responsibility of a reasonably small group of people (in all likelihood); they, but ONLY they - should be held fully accountable. That said, let Justice be done, Marathon

Thanks for the information Jim. I just got a call canceling a teleconference at CTC (Chrysler Tech Center) due to the evacuations. They corroborated your report. I hope the bomb threats at WSU are just a sick hoax; my father is a professor there. Praying, Marathon