Pastor Feels Facbook is encouraging adultery

What do you think ???

Pastor: Facebook is encouraging adultery

A New Jersey pastor is asking married  members at his church to delete their Facebook accounts because he says it encourages adultery.

The Rev. Cedric Miller of Neptune  made the demand after 20 couples at his church ran into difficulties after a spouse reunited with an old love interest, the Los Angeles Times reported in an article.

The article, which quotes an Associated Press story, says Miller had asked married couples in his church to share their Facebook passwords with spouses, but couples still ran into problems.

Miller, pastor at the Living Word Christian Fellowship church, says he’s now demanding that 50 married church leaders delete their Facebook accounts or resign.

Anthea Butler, a columnist with Religion Dispatches magazine, says Miller is invoking an old theme in fundamentalist and conservative churches: that any new media - like movies, television and radio - is  sinful.

What is interesting to me is that the conservative Christian cry used to be stop watching porn on the internet, or  your kids would be pimped out on the internet by perverts. Now, social media has become the latest “sinful” activity.

Still, Butler in her column entitled, “Facebook: Internet Highway to Hell,” says she could sympathize with the pastor.

New Letter

Bremerton Rescue Mission Newsletter Bold New Ventures October 2010 Dear Dr.Willis Henry,   - Show quoted text - New Family Safe Camp The number of homeless in our county has risen to over 1800 and nearly 500 of them are children. Because of this, the Kitsap Continuum of Care Coalition began to discuss what they could do for the homeless to alleviate the stress of being outside during winter. Joel Adamson came forward and suggested that he had a solution similar to what has been proven in the mission field. Joel has donated the use of his land and has joined the Bremerton Rescue Mission as the 'Family Safe Camp Project Manager'. He designed a camp and is coordinatingthe construction of this facility. The camp will begin with 6-12x12 wooden structures that will be insulated and heated. The picture to the left is the location of the first 6 units.  There will be a large common tent and the camp will be totally fenced.  It will also have a playground for the children, showers and laundry facilities.  Joel has attained contract donations to bring in a road, fence the property, install concrete pads, and run water, electric and drain ponds. We need an additional $10,000 to complete the project that will house 6 families. This site will cost from $800 to $900 a month for utilities.  We are also looking for someone to donate an RV for the first few months to act as the camp hosts' residence. We are looking for camp hosts to live on the site until sufficient residents are available to run their own security.   The camp will eventually house 35 families or about 110 individuals.  That's approximately $8.20 per month for each person or $32.80 per family per month. If you would like to contribute to this encampment, just mark "Family Camp" in the remark section of your check and make it out to Bremerton Rescue Mission.  You could also be a mentor by volunteering as a camp host.  The camp hosts will run the front desk in three-hour shifts to ensure that all visitors are authorized and only residents and their guests are allowed entry to the camp.  You could also be part of the "Support Team", a group of volunteers that go through a basic course to help individuals get connected to the right sources to meet their particular needs.  All of these tasks are essential to the development of these individuals and will help them move toward permanent housing. Hillcrest Adult Safe Camp Imagine, if you would, a few tents scattered about and people coming and going in the empty lot you see.  This site could be the home to several adults who are now living in the woods or in their cars.  It would be the difference of going from living in the mountains with no amenities to living in a state park with restrooms and access to water, food and company.  This now empty lot could be their home for a while.  It is not a permanent place but a start on the road to recovery.  It will give them a place to securely keep their meager belongings while they search for work or go shopping.  It will provide sanitary conditions to improve their health in a warm place. They will assemble and learn the skills of self-governess and self-control. They will have friends, like you, coming along side of them to help them through the rough spots of life.  All of this is possible and you can be a part of it.  The cost of running this camp is about $500 a month and could supply a temporary home for up to 25 individuals.  That's approximately $20 per month for each person.  You could sponsor an adult for one month for $20 or 5 adults for just $100 a month. If you would like to contribute to this encampment just mark "Adult Camp" in the remark section of your check and make it out to Bremerton Rescue Mission.  Like at the family camp, we also need camp hosts and "Support Teams". In both camps, the primary goal is to help people attain permanent housing.  You could be part of the solution. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me or call me at (360) 813-5183.  Meal Sites Sunday- We start the week at our Red Couch site at the corner of Riddell and Wheaton Way.  The meal is served outside, under a tent if needed, and begins at 1:30 PM.  The site was visited by Mayor Patty Lent recently at the celebration of our one year anniversary. Monday - The Rocket Espresso site is also an outdoor venue that provides a meal at 6:30 PM. This site is provided by Ken and Kim Walls and provides a hot meal to some of the poor and homeless on the west side Tuesday & Thursday - The DSHS parking lot on Auto Center Way provides the site for our lunch meal at noon.  This meal offers lunch by donation for the DSHS staff and free lunches to their clients.  If you're in the area, stop in and have a sandwich or hot dog. Wednesday - Corem Deo on Hwy 303 is the location of this meal at 6:30 PM.  The church body provides all of the volunteers and the Mission provides the meal.  This meal is usually attended by 40 to 50 guests.  Friday - Hillcrest Assembly on Hwy. 303 provides us with the HUB, their community center, to serve our evening meal at 6:30 PM.  This was our first meal site and sometimes is visited by as many as 70 people. Saturday - Our newest meal site now provides lunch in the parking lot of Christ Memorial Church in Poulsbo.  The meal is served at 11:30 am and is staffed by volunteers from the church. We want to invite you to come and see your contributions and prayers at work.  If you have time, fill out a volunteer application and become a part of the men and women who give their time and talents to deliver 'Help and Hope'. God bless you! Walt Le Couteur Executive Director Bremerton Rescue Mission The Bremerton Rescue Mission is a 501(c)3 Non Profit Corporation and all contributions are tax deductable.    Our phone number is (360) 373-3428. In This Issue New Family Safe Camp New Adult Safe Camp Meal Sites Winter Warmth Drive Special Needs Volunteer Training Winter Warmth Drive  This winter is expected to be very cold and wet. It is a miserable time for those of us who can go home to a warm house but it is much worse when the only warmth you can find is going into a grocery store for a few minutes.  You can help us reduce the impact of weather on the homeless.  Throughout the county we are placing containers for you to put new or used coats, hats, gloves, socks, blankets or sleeping bags. If you don't see a container, you can drop your donations off at one of our meal sites.  Help us bring 'Help & Hope' to those in need. Special Needs Camp Site:  Sleeping Bags Tents Blankets 10x8 Tarps Propane Bottles Clothing: Coats Shoes Gloves Socks Underwear Hygiene (small):  Shampoo Body Wash Lotion Tooth Paste Tooth Brushes Featured Article RESCUE 101  Do you have a gift that you would like to use to help others? Here is your chance to find out how you can HELP! Rescue 101 is our small course on how you can be part of the Bremerton Rescue Mission Volunteers.  It will be held at the Hub, located on Hwy. 303 right across from WalMart.  The class begins at 5:00 PM this Friday, October 8.  If you have not filled out a volunteer application, you can go to our website and click on Rescue 101/Volunteer and download the handbook and application.  Bring the application with you on Friday and discover the blessing of serving others. Quick Links Visit our Web Site  More About Us

Michael Moore Equates Obamacare with Slavery

by Connie Hair

documentary filmmaker Michael Moore every once in awhile as a stark reminder of the tyranny offered by the "mainstream" leftists in this country.  This just out from RightNetwork.com -- Michael Moore on CNN, a cable news dinosaur no-one watches. Moore compares Obamacare to slavery, but not for the reasons normal people think.
 

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Connie Hair writes daily as HUMAN EVENTS' Congressional correspondent. She is a former speechwriter for Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and a former media and coalitions advisor to the Senate Republican Conference. You can follow Connie on Twitter @ConnieHair. 

Signs of the Failure of the Times

Attempts by Democrats to have the government tax, borrow and spend this nation into prosperity are a dismal failure.  Perhaps nothing more epitomizes the arrogance of the Democrats’ reign than the Obama administration’s self-congratulatory propaganda signs, an effort that would make a dictator like the late Saddam Hussein or Kim Jung Il of North Korea proud.
Citizens from around the country are taking photos and sending them into stimulussigns@mail.house.gov to help out the oversight effort.  For a larger view of the map click here.

Signs of President Obama's failed $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – also known as the "stimulus" – are popping up all over the country.  The White House wants Americans to believe that these taxpayer funded billboards are signs of an improving economy created by government spending instead of the cold, hard reality that more than 14.9 million Americans can't find jobs. By focusing on creating jobs through government spending, the Obama Administration has failed to recognize that government doesn't create the jobs that power our economy – private business does.  If stimulus signs posted the truth, they'd say that the White House promised the American people that the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%: today it stands at 9.6% and runs much higher in some states.  Instead, as many as $192 million stimulus dollars are being spent on these signs that try to sell Americans on the wisdom of a political agenda that has failed to deliver promised job creation.  Signs don't put America back to work, but they are being bought and paid for with your tax dollars in an effort to help President Obama and his pro-stimulus spending allies in Washington keep their jobs.  This is an outrage and we need your help to hold them accountable.

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the committee, have doggedly pursued answers to accountability questions surrounding everything from requirements for the signs to qualify for the taxpayer money to the cost accountability for the millions of dollars wasted on the propaganda efforts.
You can help them in their efforts.  Take a photo, email it in.  It’s that simple! stimulussigns@mail.house.gov

Reader Comments: (

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Well, we have signs like these all over the EU (roads, buildings, etc), so at least Americans now at least know where is their county headed...

However, EU recognized the failure of the overboard spending and most countries adopted rules about government spending in debt - but Obama keeps marching ahead towards bankruptcy, driven by agenda only...

Sep 17, 2010 @ 12:07 PM

Longanlon, Bulgaria

I do love the idea of mirroring your stimulus signs with the photos of grinning Congress folks at ribbon cuttings for projects they voted against.

Having just driven halfway across the country and back, I came across many stimulated construction projects badly needed as much for safety/maintenance as for jobs. What I don't get is how all these businesses who use these roads to transport their goods don't take care of them themselves. If government is such a waste, who will step up? Tolls to pull out of your driveway? Neighborhood fund-raisers to plow winter streets? As a 50grander, I'm glad our government does/protects the things that we don't, can't or won't. Save the BWCA.

Sep 17, 2010 @ 02:21 PM

Bosco, Philly

Yes, the same progressive agenda to hand over our country to the "global community" that has been at work for the past 100 years. The signs (and I've seen plenty of them) remind me of the old saying, "tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth."

Sep 17, 2010 @ 02:24 PM

Lee, Michigan

 We cannot lose our hope. As strong Amerians we need to unite and be a driving force in purging Washington of people who have no sensitivity left except to themselves. From the Arizona/Texas Borders to signs along the highway and people despairing because of no work - all of these must and will bring about a change. Americans are great at coming together in a crisis and America is facing a monumental crisis in leadership.
I believe that a strong defense is in seeing that the leaders of our country are held accountable in allowing our country to be invaded - this is treason at the highest level. They are playing our borders like a political board game while precious officers of the law are being killed. They should not even be able to continue leading. My prayer is that someone or someones in congress and the senate will bravely step up to the plate and say - you are fired. You are a threat to our country both economically and criminally. May God bring forth strong individuals to lead the march for these leaders - one in particular - to be given their walking papers. This must be done immediately before any more damage is done that is past the point of no return.

Sep 17, 2010 @ 02:26 PM

virginia pritchard, indiana

Every time I see one of those signs I get angry all over again. My spouse is sure I will suffer cardiac arrest before November 2 gets here. The signs are a vivid reminder of just how this administration and congress have ignored the real problems in this great country. The economy, unemployment, border security and illegal aliens should be at the forefront of our government spending. Instead we are subjected to continuous and ongoing propaganda that would have made Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin proud, at our expense.

Sep 17, 2010 @ 03:24 PM

okiejim, Oklahoma

these signs are all over Virginia...as though the state needed reminding that just north of our border is the out-of-control Washington, Congress and Obamaniacs.

Sep 17, 2010 @ 03:26 PM

edw, virginia

One thing I found kind of interesting in the first couple of pictures I saw. There where no people actually working and any some cases no signs of work actually being done. So I guess the signs where the first priority on these projects as well. Also, what's with the presidents personal seal, that is so shameless.

Sep 17, 2010 @ 03:26 PM

Glen, Ren

Do Values Issues Still Matter?

by Gary Bauer

The 60-day sprint to Election Day is underway, and many Republicans are making the familiar argument that the election should be about one thing and one thing only: the economy.
With unemployment still rising and GDP growth still slowing in response to the Democrats’ failed economic policies, Republicans would be remiss not to focus on the economy. But they should reject the advice to focus only on pocketbook issues.
Instead, Republicans should highlight the Democrats’ dreadful record in all policy areas, including on the values issues that continue to inspire and motivate millions of voters.
At a recent event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Republican Governor’s Association Chairman Haley Barbour cautioned GOP candidates against raising social issues in the final weeks of the campaign.

Barbour, who is also governor of Mississippi, was asked to respond to comments made earlier this year by Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who had urged social and fiscal conservatives to reach a “truce” for the purposes of 2010 election.
“I think what Mitch said is very similar to what I have responded to today,” Barbour said. “The voters have on their mind the economy, jobs, spending, debt and taxes and good campaigns are about the issues that are on the people’s minds.”
Barbour added: “I’ll put my bonafides up against anybody as a social conservative… But that ain't going to change anybody's vote this year because people are concerned about job, the economy, growth and taxes.... You are using up valuable time and resources that can be used to talk to people about what they care about.”
Barbour and Daniels are solid social conservatives, but I can’t say I’m surprised by their advice to de-emphasize social issues. The political class has always been dismissive of cultural issues like abortion, marriage and religious freedom. An August poll conducted by the consulting firm Penn Schoen Berland underscores the phenomenon.
The poll found that 83% of the “general population” surveyed felt “family values” issues were important, while 15% felt those issues were not important. Among “D.C. Elites” interviewed, the split was 57% to 42%. 
That 26-point “importance gap” between regular Americans and “D.C. elites” (politicians, journalists, et. al.) represented by far the largest gap of any of the 14 issues polled. The next largest difference was just seven points.
This is not to say that the electorate doesn’t want candidates to talk about how they’re going to fix the economy—the poll showed that the “general population” felt economic issues were most important. It’s just that, despite what some politicians believe, the dismal economy hasn’t wiped all other issues off voters’ lists of concerns.
Deciding which issues to focus on isn’t an either-or proposition. Many issues related to the sanctity of human life, for instance, are linked with the economy and our foreign policy.
Consider the Democrats’ yearly gift to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion-seller, makes millions in profits every year. Yet it has received more than $650 million in taxpayer subsidies over the last seven years, according to Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind).
Pence, who has proposed legislation to de-fund Planned Parenthood, has said, “In these tough economic times, there is simply no reason why taxpayer money should go to fund the activities of abortion providers and equip them with the resources they need to end innocent human life.”
The same could be said about the Obama Administration’s funding of human embryonic stem cell research. In 2009, Obama signed an executive order expanding taxpayer funding of the life-destroying research and subsequently sent hundreds of millions of dollars to researchers across the country. A suit challenging the policy is pending in federal court.
Then there’s the administration’s promotion of abortion abroad. It plans to spend $63 billion over the next six years on the Global Health Initiative, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the “centerpiece” of the Obama foreign policy. Much of that money will be spent on reproductive services, including abortion.
The Democratic-led Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars for abortion and family planning. And in Kenya, the administration’s recent abortion advocacy may be illegal.
Federal law prohibits foreign aid (that’s U.S. taxpayers’ money) to be spent on lobbying for or against abortion. But the administration is accused of illegally encouraging Kenyans to vote “yes” on a new constitution that codifies abortion-on-demand. The new constitution passed by referendum in early August.
The administration spent at least $23 million in the effort. Vice President Joe Biden even visited Kenya and told voters that they needed to approve the constitution in order to “allow the money to flow” from foreign governments.
This is only a partial list, but you get the point: Values issues and pocketbook issues are not mutually exclusive. Democrats’ unprecedented efforts to force taxpayers to underwrite abortion at home and abroad are relevant not only to pro-lifers but also to voters concerned about our exploding government debt.
Also, spending billions of dollars we don’t have is a moral issue as well as an economic issue. Our housing collapse was caused in part by greed. Some buyers lied about their finances, while many lenders were reckless in taking risks in the hopes of turning bigger profits.
There are, of course, many other issues GOP candidates can spotlight. Polls show 60%to 70% of Americans support Arizona’s commonsense immigration law. Highlighting the administration’s negligence in enforcing our immigration laws, as well as its absurd decision to sue Arizona, will hurt most Democratic candidates.
Polls also show deep opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, including, according to one CNN poll, among 70% of independents and a majority of Democrats.
Liberal judges threaten 2nd Amendment rights and continue to push for a radical redefinition of marriage and to exclude unborn children from constitutional protection. Any Republican who can explain that to voters will increase their chances of getting elected, not decrease them.
In short, a Republican agenda that emphasizes free markets and self reliance works only in a culture with a strong moral foundation and stable families. Adam Smith understood that. I wish more Republicans did, too.

School Trip to “Moderate” Mosque: Inside Video Captures Kids Bowing to Allah

Brigitte Gabriel has been warning Americans about inappropriate and potentially unlawful activities that promote Islam in our public schools. Last December we told you about a furor that erupted in an Indiana elementary school where students were being prepped to sing a song praising Allah during the “winter festival.”

Please forward this email to everyone you know!

Today, Americans for Peace and Tolerance released a video showing 6^th graders from Wellesley, MA as they rise from prostrating themselves alongside Muslim men in a prayer to Allah while on a public school field trip to the largest mosque in the Northeast. Teachers did not intervene. Parents have not been told.

The video was taken inside the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center – Boston’s controversial Saudi-funded mega-mosque – during a Wellesley Middle School social studies trip to the mosque, ostensibly taken to learn about the history of Islam first-hand. Yet the video reveals that the students are being blatantly mis-educated about Islam. A mosque spokesperson is seen teaching the children that in Mohammed’s 7th century Arabia women were allowed to vote, while in America women only gained that right a hundred years ago. This seems to be an increasingly recurring theme in American schools – the denigration of western civilization and the glorification of Islamic history and values. In fact, just recently, the American Textbook Council revealed that the New York State high school regents exam whitewashes the atrocities that occurred during the imperialistic Islamic conquest of Christian Byzantium, Persia, the African continent, and the Indian subcontinent, even as it demonizes European colonialism in South America.

The mosque spokesperson also taught the students that the only meaning of Jihad in Islam is a personal spiritual struggle, and that Jihad has historically had no relationship with holy war. As far as we know, the school has not corrected these false lessons.

For the past three years we’ve been sounding the alarm about the radical leadership and Saudi funding of the Boston mega-mosque and the organization that runs it, the Muslim American Society, which has been labeled by Federal prosecutors as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.”

The Islamic Society of Boston was founded by Abdulrahman Alamoudi, who is currently serving 23 years in jail on terror charges. For years, its board of trustees included Yusuf al Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was banned by Bill Clinton from the United States in 1999. Qaradawi now chairs the Muslim American Society’s university, which offers classes inside the mosque. Over half the mosque’s $15.5 million price tag was funded by wealthy Saudis and since it opened, several of its leaders, donors and members have been implicated in Islamic extremism.

Oussama Ziade, a big donor to the mosque, is now a fugitive in Lebanon after being indicted in 2009 for dealing in the assets of an Al Qaeda financier. Ahmad Abousamra, the son of the Boston Muslim American Society’s former vice-president Abdulbadi Abousamra, is now a fugitive in Syria, fleeing the country before being indicted in 2009 on charges of aiding Al Qaeda. One of the mosque’s imams, Abdullah Faaruuq, was captured on tape in 2010 telling followers to “pick up the gun and the sword” and to defend another local terrorist Aafia Siddiqui from the U.S. government. Siddiqui, who was one of the imam’s congregants, is an MIT graduate and Al Qaeda member awaiting sentencing for attempting to murder FBI agents in Afghanistan while shouting “death to America.”

The mosque leadership continues to be embraced by top Massachusetts political and religious leaders. These include Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, as well as a group of local progressive rabbis and Christian clergy, who all insist despite evidence to the contrary that the mosque is moderate and its critics are just bigots.

Indeed, this is a familiar refrain by leaders nationwide in response to the increasing public realization that Islamic leaders are not as moderate as they present themselves. Radicalism is growing and many moderate Muslims have been silenced. In various parts of the country, public schools are allowing Muslim extremists to promote Islam to our children. Something’s broken here. Our leadership is failing. It’s now up to ordinary citizens to fix it.
 

  

Up Close with Homeschoolers

by Jedediah Bila

Homeschooling has been on the rise across the country for some time. And with conventional schools engaging in the likes of providing free condoms to elementary school students, asking students to turn their American flag T-shirts inside-out, and preaching about barrier methods of contraception to fifth-graders, homeschooling is likely to become even more prevalent.

In December of 2008, The Heritage Foundation disclosed that, according to the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, “approximately 1.5 million children (2.9% of school-age children) were being homeschooled in the spring of 2007, representing a 36% relative increase since 2003 and a 74% relative increase since 1999.”

According to Christopher J. Klicka, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association, “Standardized test results for 16,000 home-educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray.… Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.”

There’s no question that statistics provide great insight into trends and success vs. failure rates. However, as someone who has taught at the middle school, high school, and college levels, I’ve found that sometimes being up close and personal provides an awareness that no statistic could ever dream of eliciting.

With that in mind, I set out to speak to parents who home-school their children, most of whom transitioned them from the public school system. Why did they make the switch? How has the performance of their child/children changed since?

Sven Larson, who home-schooled his son in New York, said the public middle school his son attended “was big, bureaucratic, and failed to stimulate his academic curiosity.” He continued, “There was also an unacceptable level of violence at the school. The principal and the school administrators were uninterested in either issue.”

Larson added, “Getting the right to home-school was not easy. I had to fight the public school bureaucracy, who obviously fought back—in their own interest, of course. They raised hell about the very idea when I first notified them. They regularly sent arrogant letters to homeschoolers who did not submit their quarterly progress report to the school district on the minute, threatening to send child protective services after them.”

“He was already a top student, and he excelled even more,” Larson said with respect to his son’s homeschooling. “We put together a tough history course that, according to my son, was the most in-depth learning experience he has had thus far in school.”

Paul (last name omitted at his request) and his wife just began the fourth year of homeschooling their two children, ages seven and ten. Paul’s wife is certified in the Texas to teach general education K-12 and taught in public school for ten years. They became concerned when their kindergartener—then in public school—was bored in class.

Paul said, “One of her unsolicited comments about school was, ‘I don't want to color during math, I want to learn math. I don't want to color during science, I want to learn science.’”
“The time spent learning in school seemed to be shrinking. Too much time in public schools is wasted on disciplining other students, getting organized and getting in line, or on other tasks deemed important by local school officials,” Paul added.

“The main benefit homeschooling provides is that you can teach to the learning styles of your children,” Paul said. “By understanding how your children learn best, you can craft an educational environment that will help them flourish. They can move at their own skill levels, not an arbitrary state-defined timeline that holds them back.”

Lennie Jarratt and his wife currently home-school their two children in Illinois. They made the decision to home-school when their oldest was in public school and they “met a lot of resistance when we asked questions about why things were done a certain way,” and had “bad experiences with long-term tenured teachers.”

Since homeschooling, Jarratt said “Their performance has improved greatly. They understand the basic processes—foundation—so whatever is given to them, they can figure it out methodically instead of guessing as taught in public schools.”

Laurie (last name omitted at her request), a former public high school teacher, currently home-schools her four children in Virginia. Three of her children formerly spent one year in public school.

“My fifth-grade son came home one day asking—of his social studies lesson—‘Which political party is the one that doesn't care about the environment, again?’” she said. “He also ended up, after his public school study of American ‘history’, saying things like, ‘I'm ashamed to be an American’.”

Laurie said homeschooling is effective because of “the one-on-one attention” and because “it allows each child to progress at his or her own academic pace.”

“We are homeschooling because homeschooling works so much more effectively to produce well-rounded, intelligent students who can think, reason, and express coherent thoughts, because said students understand ethics, morality, and integrity to be important issues,” said Laurie. “Because they are able to learn—really learn—the material, instead of just cramming SOL [Standards of Learning] facts into their brains for tests, only to forget them as soon as the tests are over.”

Homeschooling is undoubtedly a tough job. It involves a great sense of commitment, discipline, and diligence on the part of parents. Many parents are nonetheless embracing it, believing that it is a step in the right direction for their children’s education.

Of course, there are many wonderful public and private schools—and a number of great teachers in those schools who create a healthy learning environment for America’s children.

But as someone who has witnessed plenty of indoctrination in education firsthand, plenty of revisionist history and brainwashing as kids are not-so-subtly encouraged to think one way over another, I can’t help but empathize with the instinct by parents to take matters into their own hands.

Islamic Schools Following Left’s Template

by Rachel Marsden

While eyes and battles are currently focused on the Islamic center proposed for the Ground Zero neighborhood, an Islamic school—Zaytuna College in California—has quietly applied for university accreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
Granted, the member directory for WASC includes various theological seminaries and religious institutes, including Jewish, Catholic, and others.  But unlike Zaytuna, these schools aren’t making the centerpiece of their education the study of a form of law (Sharia, in this case) that isn’t recognized, or in many cases compatible, with U.S. courts.
Under Sharia Islamic law, women face death by stoning and lashings—as recently highlighted in Iran with the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, convicted of adultery.
Until men can also be similarly punished for adultery, I’ll be withholding my enthusiasm.
Private religious high schools and universities have always been around: schools for Jews, Catholics, etc. Personally, I always figured that religion was something to learn on your own time—outside of math, sciences, and languages.

As a child, I went to school during the day, then to the local Catholic church one night per week to learn about my religion. Anyone I knew who went to a Catholic high school or university was still learning the same curriculum, but the difference was that they had perhaps one religion class thrown in as a substitute for one of the more silly elective courses.
Catholic school didn’t mean that they were immersed in Catholicism all day. But you had to wonder if the “curriculum with a dash of religion” might ultimately be inversed at some point, with the main course becoming a side-dish, if only because the controls on such a move were so slippery.
Brooklyn’s Khalil Gibran publicly funded Islamic school chewed through the bridle when it opened in 2007—a middle school focused on teaching Arabic language and culture.
At the university/college level, full-ideological immersion under the guise of “education” has long been fully embraced. Courses in Islamic law are already taught at various universities—UCLA, University of Washington, Harvard, Emory University, University of Toronto, and many others—as part of perhaps a religious studies, law or arts degree program.
University curricula have long been oriented towards the indoctrination of one’s choosing, with the possibility of graduating with a degree in spectacularly lesbionic “women’s studies” or the likelihood of graduating from any given college with little knowledge of any other worldview than that sanctioned by Noam Chomsky.
A glance at the Zaytuna College four-year program shows that out of the 43 courses, 25% at most appear to have the potential to be unrelated to Islam—although there’s no way to tell if subjects like “astronomy,” “cosmology,” “introduction to rhetoric,” “English Composition,” and “American History” won’t actually feature Islamic teachings, much in the same way that “critical thinking” courses at your average college almost always mean emerging with the requisite leftist brainwashing.
But we really have to ask ourselves, is the ideological full-meal deal offered by Zaytuna College really any different from the leftist indoctrination allowed—and indeed encouraged—by the many state-funded colleges across America beyond the very few “core courses” mandated in every curriculum?
Can we really say that we have anything left to salvage with respect to the integrity and objectivity of our post-secondary institutions? And is Zaytuna really any different from the rest of them beyond being more up-front, open, and honest about their goals?
Zaytuna’s mission is to “educate and prepare morally committed professional, intellectual and spiritual leaders, who are grounded in the Islamic scholarly tradition and conversant with the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.”
It really sounds no different than the average American or Western university mission, if replaced by “grounded in the LEFTIST scholarly tradition.”
Segregationist? Perhaps in effect—because of its open dedication to a single theology. But this isn’t a new or unique phenomenon.
One can’t even evoke fear of Islamic extremists, given the number of identifiable extremists currently in reputable tenured positions at American colleges. University of Colorado professor, Ward Churchill, who toured North America promoting anarchy and hatred for America and held a faculty position for 17 years, comes to mind.
America has defined itself in part by religious freedom. It’s what sets the nation apart from Islamic theocracies. It’s either a strength of democracy, or an exploitable weakness, depending on how one looks at it.
Are we then going to debate whether it should be selectively suppressed against certain religions? Or perhaps it’s just a better idea to acknowledge the inherently non-objective nature that has long been prevalent in the American educational system, and realize that this is but an extension of it.
These special interest groups aren’t throwing punches—they’re just capitalizing on what already exists in practice and principle, and fighting to make sure those freedoms are defended to the hilt and that we keep going in that direction.

I Think This Means The Terrorists Have Won

by Erick Erickson




This is a shot of the top of Google News right now.

If korans are burned in Florida by some moron preacher, the terrorists will get new recruits.
If the Ground Zero Mosque is moved in New York, the terrorists will get new recruits.
In other words, we either bow to the demands and wishes of radical Islamists or else.
This is madness. No. This is Barack Obama’s Arica.

Ground Zero Mosque: It's The Sharia, Stupid

by Deroy Murdock

The Ground Zero mosque controversy focuses excessively on that proposed venue’s proximity to the scene of the September 11 massacre. The Park 51 Islamic center would stand 560 feet from that revered site. Would moving it 5,600 feet away calm this storm?

Far more important is what would happen inside this mosque. That should determine if it should be even closer to Ground Zero, or if it even should open anywhere in America.

Imagine if the mosque’s imam said this:

Our mosque will be the world headquarters of a new Islam which is at peace with the 21st Century and which strives to do for Islam what Martin Luther did for Christianity in 1517. That’s when he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg, Germany’s Castle Church, launched the Protestant Reformation, and helped Catholicism correct its excesses.

We will pray every day to save the 2,752 innocent souls slaughtered at the World Trade Center in the name of a militant Islam that we wholeheartedly reject and endeavor to overcome.

We will pray every day to condemn the souls of September 11’s 19 evil perpetrators. May they roast in Hell forever, each morning hotter than the last.

We will pray every day for the rapid defeat of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other violent, Islamic-extremist terrorist groups.

We will pray every day for Islam to be a faith equal — but not superior — to other religions that people freely may choose to practice.

We will pray every day for the freedom, equality, and longevity of every human being — regardless of belief, gender, or sexuality.

We invite Jews, Christians, non-believers, and everyone else to join our efforts. And we humbly ask to pursue them adjacent to where radical Islam committed its greatest modern atrocity. May the light of our example drive the darkness from that day.

If this mosque’s imam so preached, many — and perhaps most — Americans would agree that his antidote to al-Qaeda’s poison should stand 56 feet from the scene of its most heinous crime.

Instead, doubts grow about the moderation of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s voice. Rather, it seems as if the words above would leave him tongue tied.

•Just 19 days after September 11 — while Ground Zero still was a flaming, smoking ruin — Rauf told CBS’ 60 Minutes: “I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”

 •Rauf said in 2005 that “the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims.” Never mind the millions of Muslims who America has liberated, or at least tried to rescue from tyranny, in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Somalia. America assisted millions more Muslims after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and is aiding Muslims today in flood-ravaged Pakistan.

•Rauf repeatedly has refused to identify Hamas as a terrorist group.

•Most worrisome, Rauf embraces Sharia, the fundamentalist Islamic Law responsible for too much of Earth’s totalitarian barbarism.

“What Muslims want is to ensure that their secular laws are not in conflict with the Quran or the Hadith, the sayings of Muhammad,” Rauf wrote in an April 24, 2009 Huffington Post essay titled “What Sharia Law Is All About.” Rauf added:  “What Muslims want is a judiciary that ensures that the laws are not in conflict with the Quran and the Hadith.” He also has written that he wants to secure “religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves, according to their laws.”

Sharia relies on the Koran, Hadith, and other Islamic texts to punish offenders, too often with sentences that stink of the 7th Century A.D.

•A Saudi Sharia court is seeking a hospital to enforce its penalty against an unidentified man who paralyzed Abdulaziz al-Mutairi, 22, in an assault with a meat cleaver. Under Sharia’s “eye for an eye” principal, Judge Saoud bin Suleiman al-Youssef wants to paralyze the attacker by severing his spinal cord. To their credit, Saudi doctors so far have refused to cooperate in this carnage.

•Under Iran’s Islamic Law, The Guardian reports, 12 women and three men face death by stoning for adultery. After international criticism, Iranian jurists recently announced that several of these individuals instead would be hanged. •Since Muslims implemented Sharia in northern Nigeria in 2000, at least 12 people have received death sentences for homosexuality and adultery. Most, however, have been commuted to mere jail time.

•Since January, women in West Aceh, Indonesia must wear long skirts rather than jeans or trousers. Police enforce this rule, sometimes by cutting the pants that women are caught wearing.

“It’s my obligation as a leader to help the people so they won’t suffer in the afterlife,” West Aceh Regent Ramli Mansur said in August 18’s Jakarta Globe. “Besides, when women don’t dress according to Sharia law, they’re asking to get raped.”

•Once a Muslim, always a Muslim, according to Sharia. “Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished,” the Muslim Brotherhood’s influential spiritual leader, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, declared about Islamic converts to other faiths. The Qatari said these “apostates must be executed.”

•Even snacking can be deadly under Sharia. In November 2004, a 13-year-old Iranian boy violated the Ramadan fast. He received 85 lashes, which killed him.

Does Imam Rauf embrace such brutality? Who knows? But the fact that he wants the U.S. to be “Sharia compliant” rather than Sharia-free should worry every liberty-loving American.

While America battles militant Islam, should a pro-Sharia mosque be allowed on our soil? The First Amendment may permit Sharia advocacy, much as counseling Marxism-Leninism remained legal, even as Americans shivered through the Cold War.

Nevertheless, there is no excuse for leaders like Gotham Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama (before his spectacular flip flop) to applaud a mosque that would enshrine the grotesque and deadly doctrine of Sharia. Even 5,600 miles away, such a facility would not be far enough from Ground Zero.

Stimulator-in-Chief Strikes Again!

by Deroy Murdock

NEW YORK — For all of this week’s talk about President Obama’s “second stimulus,” why do so many Americans feel less stimulated than chafed? The parade of stimuli that President G.W. Bush launched and the Stimulator in Chief has accelerated has left America impoverished, indebted, and increasingly jobless. And now, Obama wants more.

Obama unveiled an attractive item or two while attempting to defibrillate the dreary economy and Democrats’ dismal electoral prospects. Supply-siders long have wanted to scrap the depreciation tables and let businesses immediately deduct capital purchases. Too bad Obama wants to permit this tax-and-simplification benefit for only one year.

Perhaps seeking the Nobel Prize in Alliteration, Obama Tuesday proposed $50 billion for “Roads, Rails, and Runways.” This plan supposedly will help some of America’s 14.9 million unemployed citizens.

However, that expenditure would span six years, despite the touted “shovel readiness” of public-works projects. Even if one applauds such spending, shouldn’t it happen right now? What about Obama’s previous magnum opus? In February 2009, he signed a $787 billion stimulus that has swelled to $814 billion. The Congressional Budget Office on August 24 estimated that this measure “created or saved” between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs while spending, so far, about 70 percent of this money. Assuming the rosiest scenario, these $570 billion created 3.3 million jobs at a stunning $172,727 each.
Paradoxically, these alleged jobs have grown even as jobs have disappeared. Unemployment somehow has risen from 7.4 percent when Obama was sworn in to 9.6 percent today. Obama’s rosy scenario seems choked with weeds.

Further figures are as jaw-dropping as they are aggravating.

The Heritage Foundation examined data from the U.S. Labor Department, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Haver Analytics. In January 2008, one month after the Great Recession officially began, President Bush and a Democrat Congress spent $168 billion to give every American a $600 tax rebate to go buy something pretty. July 2010 was the middle of President Obama’s much heralded “Recovery Summer.” Between those dates, Heritage calculates, private-sector employment plunged by 7.8 million jobs — a 6.8 percent slide. Meanwhile, federal-government employment soared by 198,100 positions — a 10 percent increase. So, while Americans do less with more, the feds have spent 30 months stimulating themselves in a Jacuzzi of taxpayer dollars.

Obama’s “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles” plan is not his “second stimulus,” as claimed by journalists who barely can count to three. After Bush’s first stimulus and his $700 billion TARP bailout, Obama followed his first stimulus with Cash for Clunkers ($2.85 billion), Cash for Caulkers ($5.7 billion), Home Buyer Tax Credits ($23.5 billion), mortgage assistance ($75 billion), up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits ($34 billion), the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program ($25 billion), and last month’s sop to government-school teachers and other public-sector-union members ($26 billion — “paid for” with phony offsets that “would be easiest for Congress to reverse later, such as Food Stamps,” explains Heritage Foundation budget analyst Brian Reidl.)

Add Obama’s so-called “second stimulus,” and these nine stimuli total almost exactly $1 trillion. What has this bought us? Auto and home sales collapsed when these temporary rebates and credits expired. Meanwhile, Gross domestic product growth has sputtered to 1.6 percent. This economy has walking pneumonia.
“This most recent stimulus is the last desperate gasp of Obama’s failed Keynesian economics,” says Chris Edwards, editor of the Cato Institute’s downsizinggovernment.org. “More government deficit spending will steal more resources from the private sector, and would be another kick in the teeth of future taxpayers.”

Obama still lusts for a $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund to pay community banks to lend to small companies. Obama has learned nothing from Bush’s blockheaded policy of spending on banks, in hopes that they would lend to private enterprises. Instead, banks used this money to purchase low-risk Treasury bonds, thus sending hard cash right back to Washington. Meanwhile, credit has evaporated as borrowing by non-financial corporations fell 62 percent — from $754.7 billion in 2007 to a seasonally adjusted $ 288.7 billion in 2010’s first quarter. In terms of lending, Bloomberg News describes this as “the deepest contraction in more than 35 years.”

Rather than continue Bush’s folly, Obama permanently should slash or scrap income and corporate tax rates so entrepreneurs and companies can keep more of the money already in their pockets. Never mind the banks.

So, thank you, Mr. President, for offering to stimulate America yet again. But not now; we’ve got a headache.