Live report from Ashdod examining how the media skewed the Gaza Flotilla event to portray Israel as the aggressors. Shraga Simmons is author of “David & Goliath,” the explosive inside story of media bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Author: Papa Giorgio
Alvin Greene: South Carolina’s Democratic Conundrum
(See the GUARDIAN for more on this) As one commentator said at the Washington Examiner:
- So much for only the Republicans are stupid, neanderthal, uneducated drones mantra, definitely the Democrats that voted didn’t bother to research the politicians. “I am Democrat and I vote Democrat….first one on the list check it off.. ” LOL.. this is truly amazing.
VIDEO INTERVIEWS:
South Carolina “mystery man” Alvin Greene speaks
The Big Picture talks with U.S. Senate Democratic candidate, Alvin Greene.
Chris Stirewalt analyzes the candidacy of Alvin Greene in South Carolina for the Fox News Channel and the recent felony charges leveled against him after being charged for showing a co-ed lewd photos.
I have yet to figure it out. This dude is just plain unexplainable. I edited this. It aired on WBTV. This is Tom Roussey Reporting.
Alvin Greene Interview with CNN Must See! 6-12-2010! “Ok this interview was totally bizarre and is a must see for any South Carolinian.”
MARK LEVIN!
Mark Levin interviews Alvin Greene – Monday June 14th.
Bottom Line Of Evolutionary Naturalism ~ Just Give Me the Raw Facts
Arnold Schwarzenegger (160 Greatest Quotes)
JPL Censors Speech, ADF Helps David Coppedge Draw a Line
I enjoy speaking with Mr. Coppedge on rare occasions when there are events in town about ID or creation. I have always enjoyed his company and conversation when the opportunity is afforded. For him to be anything but gracious in conversation is a tough stretch for me. So his drawing a line in the sand is wonderful and may change the culture at JPL closer to the one thought of in the founding documents of our nation than the culture practiced by [dialectical] Materialism found in the old Soviet Union, e.g., scientism. What Dr. Richard Lewontin, geneticist and past professor of biology at Harvard University, admitted was a metaphysical position, or, an a priori belief that interprets the evidence instead of allowing evidence to drive the interpretation:
…the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories; because we have a priori commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
Here is a recent article on the Coppedge flap:
Demoted Employee for NASA Mission Fights Discrimination
An amended complaint was filed Monday in a lawsuit against a NASA laboratory in California on behalf of an employee who was demoted for discussing his beliefs about intelligent design.
Since his demotion last year, David Coppedge, who had served as a “team lead” technical specialist on Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Cassini mission to Saturn, has been “stigmatized in such a way that career advancement opportunities have been foreclosed to him,” the complaint reads.
Last March, Coppedge was accused of “pushing religion” on his co-workers after he began engaging colleagues in conversations about intelligent design – a theory that life and the existence of the universe derive not from undirected material processes but from an intelligent cause – and offering DVDs on the subject when the co-worker expressed interest.
His supervisor, Gregory Chin, allegedly received complaints from employees and threatened the long-time employee with termination if he persisted with his intelligent design discussions.
Coppedge said he would comply with the orders not to discuss the theory, politics or religion in the office but felt his constitutional rights were violated.
He later received a “written warning” which stated that his actions were harassing in nature and created a disruption in the workplace. Thereafter, he was removed from the team lead position in order to “lessen the strife” in the work area. His demotion was announced on a memo that was distributed on April 20, 2009.
According to the amended complaint, Coppedge said he was never told by a co-worker that his discussion of intelligent design was unwelcome or disruptive to their work. He was offered no specific details of the charges allegedly made by other co-workers.
Since the incident, Coppedge continues to suffer embarrassment, emotional distress, humiliation, indignity, apprehension, fear, ordeal and mental anguish, the complaint states. Specifically, he has remained constrained in his ability to express his personal views and has been “kept a prisoner of JPL’s systemic ideological culture.” The JPL employee also “endures each working day under a cloud of suspicion and a threat of termination lest he say anything by which someone might take offense.”
Coppedge’s attorney, William J. Becker, Jr., who is part of the Alliance Defense Fund, argues, “Discussing the origins of the universe with willing co-workers is not punishable just because it doesn’t fit a prevailing view at JPL.”
Becker further contends in the amended complaint that Coppedge suffered injustice and was deprived of his constitutional right to freely speak, write and publish his sentiments.
The written warning against Coppedge that was issued last April was expunged from his personnel file this year after his supervisors and manager revisited the matter. But he was not restored to the team lead position because the company continued to believe that his conduct in distributing the DVDs and advancing his views on intelligent design was inappropriate.
ADF Senior Counsel Joseph Infranco commented, “Mr. Coppedge has always maintained that ID is a scientific theory. Regardless, JPL has discriminated against him on the basis of what they deem is ‘religion.’ The only discussion allowed is what fits the agenda. Stray, and you are silenced and punished. It just doesn’t fit with JPL’s otherwise fine reputation in the industry.”
Jennifer Aniston In Heineken Commercial
Alan Grayson Wishes To Lock Up Dissenters
Media’ITE captured this story in a post entitled: “Alan Grayson Wants Michael Steele To Go To Jail For Causing The Gulf Oil Spill” (Jun 4th, 2010: ).
Here Dennis Prager plays audio from the Stephanie Miller Show where Alan Grayson discusses their bias against views that differ with them.
My Vimeo account was terminated; this is a recovered audio from it.
(Some will be many years old, as is the case with this audio.)
Andrea Bocelli Sings A Story About A Brave Mother
MORE:
Following the popular video in which he recounts how his mother ignored the advice of doctors to have an abortion, tenor Andrea Bocelli said he does not want his testimony to be considered as merely anti-abortion, but also in support of life.
“Because of my personal convictions as a devout Catholic, I am not only fighting against something, I am fighting for something – and I am for life,” he told the Italian newspaper, Il Foglio.
Bocelli said he wants his video “to help comfort those who are in difficult situations and who sometimes just need to feel that they are not alone. Life is hard, but we need to listen, we need to open our ears” to embrace them.
Bocelli said he has been surprised by the calls he has received following the video. “I said those things a year and a half ago in a video message for Father Richard Frechette, a missionary who works with children in Haiti and deserves to have a book written just about him. I gave a concert to help him build the Home of the Angels and he asked me to say a few words of hope for mothers in difficult circumstances and I decided to tell the story of my birth.”
Jon Stewart On Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas, Dean of the White House Press Corps, and Jon Stewart of The Daily Show both approached the issue of the Israeli attack on the aid flotilla to Gaza Strip in very different ways and not just because one is a reporter and the other a comedian.
Some “Ghey Talk” Regarding Same-Sex Marriage
- “We’re not married, Let’s get that straight. We have a civil partnership. I don’t want to be married! I’m very happy with a civil partnership. The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.” — Elton John
You may view my critique on same-sex marriages being the same, ontologically, as heterosexual marriages, this paper is entitled, “Epicurean Romanism: Natural Law & Romans.” Also see this case study, “Redefining marriage or deconstructing society: a Canadian case study,” by homosexual psychologist, Paul Nathanson (it is multiple pages and I must h/t Come Reason Ministries via there podcast for this study).
Tammy Bruce — a pro-choice lesbian, agrees with Elton John as explained in this article on her site, “Gay Marriage: Why Not?“ (this article has disappeared [except for here], however, there is a more in-depth link that is connected with the article):
The political debate rumbles on, and we’ve heard the principle arguments repeated endlessly: On one hand, the right of gays to seek the same legal protections available to straights, and on the other hand, the mainstream desire to preserve an ancient and fundamental institution. Perhaps there’s a more appropriate way to look at this. Seems to me there’s an element of narcissism on both sides of the standard argument: On one hand, MY rights; on the other hand, MY tradition. But maybe it’s not about YOU. Marriage may make us happy (or miserable, as the case may be), but its primary purpose is to create a stable environment into which children will be born and nurtured through adolescence. Certainly both our statistics and common sense tell us that children do vastly better if they grow up with loving parents, a mother and a father. For this reason, I’d rather view the battle for marriage as a children’s rights issue, rather than a ME ME MINE issue.
Looked at from this perspective, the problem with gay marriage isn’t that it’s objectively any worse than (and it may actually be better than) the broken homes and single parents and all the other indications that modern marriage is a ruined institution. The problem with gay marriage is fundamentally symbolic: It’s the societal acknowledgement of how far marriage has fallen. If not for the specter of gay marriage, we could continue to pretend that we’re still functional. We could pay our hypocritical respects to our ideal, even if that ideal no longer translates into any semblance of reality.
If you get past the politics and the rants, you’ll hear many conservative Christians acknowledge as much. They understand that winning the battle against gay marriage doesn’t mean a thing unless marriage itself once again becomes respected and meaningful.
Just as the 2nd Amendment wasn’t adopted to protect your right to hunt, so the institution of marriage wasn’t created to deliver spousal health insurance and inheritance. Don’t let the politics distract you from the big picture. This battle is in one place but the war is elsewhere.
In ancient times before Abraham, pagans sacrificed their children to idols. This is a matter of historical record. Then, as our tradition would have it, God gave us the example of Abraham and Isaac to declare an end to ritual human slaughter. In our modern, enlightened era, it seems we’ve created a new form of child sacrifice. Children have become disposable. Most of us know this is our fundamental problem. Some say that the government must step in and pick up the slack with day care and the like. Others argue that the parental commitment must be enforced. The liberal/conservative divide forms roughly along these lines. This is where the war is.
Bottom line: If we’ve lost marriage, then it really doesn’t matter what becomes of gay marriage. Think about this before you jump back into the culture war.
Related Links:
- Tammy’s column from 2004 on the issue: Respecting Marriage and Equal Rights;
- The Tammy Bruce Interview,
…in this interview Tammy says the following:
….So it is a self-obsession based in victimhood. Now I was raised on the left to believe that in fact this was life and death, that we’re going to destroy you before you destroy us. Now that is almost non-existent on the right, if you will. I don’t see that kind of – there’s certainly some paranoia when it comes to the extreme right – but the level of paranoia and narcissism really drives all the decision making (on the left).
I’ll give you an example when it comes to gay marriage. If Christians are against gay marriage, the gay elite don’t believe that’s because the Christian is concerned about tradition, concerned about the future of this nation, or has a series of issues (with it) surrounding their faith, instead, of course, the gay elite says, “Oh, they’re homophobes.”
They’ve made a decision because they hate me, that they’re thinking this way because of me, that they’re making that decision because they want to hurt me – as opposed to, that they may be against gay marriage because, again, of faith, because of the importance of the tradition of marriage. In fact, God forbid should they ever consider that it might not have anything to do with homosexuals at all, but it has everything to do with (people’s) families, that kind of deeper thinking beyond one’s self, they’re incapable of….
Likewise, Al Rantel in his article entitled, “Gay Talk Show Host Opposes Gay Marriage,” makes the point that as a gay man, he opposes gay marriage [he has since changed his opinion, however, these arguments still are valid as it shows one in the gay community can hold them]:
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling by four of the seven justices that the state must allow gays full marriage rights by May 17th raises a myriad of questions that some are afraid to ask in this time of political correctness run amok.
First and foremost of those questions is who said gays want to get married in the first place? Lets look at the numbers. The highest number of same sex households in America is ironically in Massachusetts, however even then it is under 2 per cent of all households. If gays make up five to ten per cent of the population as is often claimed, one would expect this number to be five times larger.
As distressing as the state of the American family is today with the high rate of divorce and adultery, the situation is far less stable among gays. This is not a slur against gays as individuals, but rather the reality of what occurs when you have what I call the all gas and no brake environment of male/male sexuality. I should know. I am a gay male.
To say that unfortunately the gay world is in a general state of hyper-sexuality that is not conducive to relationships which marriage was intended to foster is to put it mildly. Further, almost all of the issues the gay left claims it is justifiably concerned about like property, health, and financial partnership issues have already been dealt with by many states and can be dealt with through further legislation as needed. Such legal changes would encounter far less political opposition.
Why then the seeming obsession by the gay left and their activist judicial allies like the Massachusetts justices to force gay marriage on an unwilling public?
There is an answer.
Forcing a change to an institution as fundamental and established by civilization as marriage is deemed by gay activists and other cultural liberals as the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for homosexuality itself. The reasoning goes that if someone can marry someone of the same sex then being gay is as acceptable and normal as being short or tall.
While I certainly do not think people should be judged by who they choose to love or how they choose to live their lives, the cultural liberals in America are after more than that. They want to force others to accept their social view, and declare all those who might have an objection to their social agenda to be bigots, racists, and homophobes to be scorned and forced into silence.
The gay left has still not matured into a position of self-empowerment, but is still committed by and large to the idea that the rest of society must bless being gay in every way imaginable. This includes public parades in all major cities to remind everyone else of what some people like to do in their private bedrooms while in the same breath demanding to be left alone.
What more certifiable blessing than state sanctioned marriage of two men or two women, even for a group that has offered no indication that most even desire to enter into the kind of commitments that marriage ideally entails, or that serves the real purpose of marriage. Marriage exists in order to create a stable and structured environment for couples to reproduce and raise their offspring.
And so we have come to yet another chapter in the story of those who would portray themselves as victims in need of another sanction from the state. This time the price of social acceptance of gays is the redefinition of an institution that is thousands of years old and a cornerstone of society. Does that really seem like a wise and prudent choice for America to make at the wish of a handful of judges, and at the behest of those whose real goals are more political than anything else?
Al Rantel recently retired from radio hosting on Los Angeles’ KABC.
Paul Nathanson, a sociologist, a scholar, and a homosexual writes that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are (source | Also worth mentioning is this):
- Foster the bonding between men and women
- Foster the birth and rearing of children
- Foster the bonding between men and children
- Foster some form of healthy masculine identity
- Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults
Note that Nathanson considers these points critical to the continued survival of any culture. He continues “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm ‘that limits marriage to unions of men and women’.” He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”
Early Vacuum Chamber Tests of Space Suit
The instantaneous effects on a human when exposed to near-vacuum conditions
(BBC) James May steps into the US Air Force’s deadly vacuum chamber with only his spacesuit to keep him alive.
Prager, Santorum, Palin, Thune – All Endorse Carly Fiorina
Dennis Prager Interviews Carly Fiorina – Part I
Dennis Prager Interviews Carly Fiorina – Part II
Thune Backs Fiorina In California Primary
California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina (R) continues to rack up endorsements from establishment Republicans.
On Friday she rolled out the endorsement of Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). The first-term senator, who gained fame when he defeated then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) in 2004, is a darling of the conservative movement….
Rick Santorum on Greta Van Susteren
More Dennis Prager on why he endorsed Fiorina