September 28, 2006
Gas Down to $1.77 in Missouri
http://www.missourigasprices.com/
Ever wonder why every time there is good news, it is "unexpected?" Maybe it's because their analysis and fear mongering was wrong to begin with...
Consumer Confidence Higher Than Expected...
… sending a gauge of consumer sentiment higher than analysts expected…the New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 104.5 from a revised reading of 100.2. in August.
The private research group's Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about economic conditions, rose to 127.7 from 123.9. Its Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, rose to 89.0 from 84.4 last month.
"A more favorable assessment of current conditions coupled with a less pessimistic short-term outlook boosted consumer confidence this month," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a statement.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060926/D8KCJMAG0.html
Unexpected rise in US home sales
Sales of new US homes unexpectedly recovered in August, rising 4.1% from July, official figures show.
The annual rate of new home sales totaled 1.050 million last month, compared to 1.009 million in July, the Commerce Department reported.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5385508.stm
Stocks Rise; Dow Nears All-Time High
Sep 27, Blue chip stocks rose and the Dow Jones industrial average neared its record high close Wednesday as investors shrugged off a lackluster durable goods report and appeared satisfied with an increase in new home sales. In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 18.41, or 0.16 percent, at 11,687.80, just over 35 points away from its record high close of 11,722.98.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060927/D8KD8N4O0.html
Notice it's not Christians or Buddhists anyone is fearful of...
Opera withdrawn over Islamist threat
Indignation erupted across Germany’s political spectrum on Tuesday after a renowned opera house said it had dropped a controversial production of Mozart’s Idomeneo from its programme because it feared becoming a target of Islamist extremists...
...The cancellation was prompted by concerns that a scene in which Mohammed’s severed head is brandished on stage could be viewed as blasphemous... [In the production, directed by Hans Neuenfels, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon and the Prophet Mohammad, which sit on chairs.]
Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister, attacked the decision by Berlin’s Deutsche Oper not to show the 200-year-old work as “crazy”, “ridiculous” and “unacceptable”. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8e25081c-4d7b-11db-8704-0000779e2340.html
Sounds a bit racist to me...
Oprah does not hire Blacks
[regarding her show on XM radio] ...Among many, many other things, Oprah talked about her humble beginnings in Mississippi, and particularly about how her mother's highest aspiration for her was that she might end up cleaning white people's houses, because "they give away nice clothes." And then Oprah pointed out that now that she's Oprah, she has "all these white people" working for her, and that in fact there's only one black person on the staff… (anyone else would be investigated for racism)
http://www.tmz.com/2006/09/25/oprah-lords-over-white-folk-talks-poop-on-xm/
'Voices of Heaven' ordered not to sing sacred music
September 26, 2006The all-star choir visiting from Europe was called "Voices of Heaven" but members were told by a Michigan school district not to sing sacred songs while on campus, leaving the artists bewildered and district parents enraged that the German singers would return home with such an impression of the United States.
The order came recently from Supt. Charles Breiner of the Howell School District in Michigan just as the Eberbach, Germany, choir arrived for its scheduled concert at Howell High School.
In a report in the Livingston County Press, parents said Breiner's administration had ordered the choir to leave out music deemed too religious.
...Even the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan confirmed that including religious music in a high school's choir program is allowed.
"The courts have said that having some religious music in serious choral concerts in public schools is OK, as long as the purpose is not to promote religion," said Michael J. Steinberg, of the ACLU...
..."We are outraged at Mr. Breiner's most recent antics. He has apparently moved from promoting a gay agenda to embarrassing our community internationally," said Vicki Fyke, a spokesperson for the Livingston Organization for Values in Education committee…
…Fyke also noted that Breiner had ruled that the Scouting programs that meet in district buildings would not be allowed to send information home with students at the beginning of a school year, as they have in the past and as other groups were allowed to do.
The parents' group also noted that in the past Breiner had formally recognized the hanging of a "gay pride" flag in the school, but banned the national motto, "In God We Trust," from school walls...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52155
Sheik: 'Only dialogue we want is when all religions agree to convert to Islam'
JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's meeting this week with a delegation of Muslim leaders and his calls for interfaith dialogue following earlier remarks about Islam are really "Crusader conspiracies" to subjugate the Islamic faith and force "Christian-Zionist" worldviews upon Muslims, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily in an interview.
Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious said, "The only dialogue we will accept is when all other religions agree to convert to Islam."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52167
British Cemetery to bury all, Christians too, facing Mecca
Headstones aligned toward northeast so dead can look toward Islamic holy city
September 24, 2006
…A new, $4.7 million cemetery in Nottingham is the first public graveyard in the UK to have all its burial plots aligned with Mecca and to inter those of all faiths in the Muslim tradition.
All headstones at the 40-acre burial site will face northeast, enabling the dead to look over their shoulder toward Mecca, the manner prescribed for followers of Islam in the UK.
Church leaders have criticized the decision by local officials, saying that imposing a Muslim model on Christians, who traditionally are buried facing east, is discriminatory.
"This is a sensitive issue to all people. I hope the situation will be reviewed with wide consultation and a policy introduced that takes account of the needs of all," the Rt. Rev. George Cassidy, bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, told the London Daily Mail…
…Nigel Lymn Rose, past president of the National Association of Funeral Directors, said he had been surprised when he asked Dowling if the new cemetery had made accommodations for Muslims and Dowling answered, "Oh yes, we're burying everyone so they are aligned to Mecca. It will make things easier."
Even Raza Ul Haq, imam at the Madni Masjid Mosque, is bewildered by the decision.
"It is part of our religion for the dead to be aligned with Mecca. It is very important. But for Christians, if they want to face somewhere else we support them," he said.
Muslims make up less than five per cent of the Nottingham region's 500,000 population.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52126
Flood Made Britain An Island 'In 24 Hours'
9/24/2006
Britain may have become an island after a Biblical-style flood split it from Europe in less than 24 hours, according to new geological research…
…The theory could rewrite British prehistory, as current text-books teach that Britain - once a peninsula of continental Europe - split from the great land mass after a long process of erosion and rises in sea levels.
However, surveys of the Channel bed using new sonar techniques have revealed the remains of a huge valley, running south-west from the Strait of Dover.
The sonar survey, led by Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College, London, uncovered deep bowls, scour marks and piles of rubble on the sea bed that may have been caused by a torrent of water.
Dr Gupta said in a paper published at an academic conference: "In places, this valley is more than seven miles wide and 170 ft deep, with vertical sides.
"This suggests the valley was created by a catastrophic flood following the breaching of the Dover Strait and the sudden release of water from a giant lake to the north."
According to Dr Gupta's theory, France and Britain would have been linked by a high ridge of chalk hills, running roughly between Dover and Calais. To the north would have been a freshwater lake, fed by rivers, and deepened over thousands of years.
The lake, hundreds of feet above sea level, finally overflowed the chalk ridge and swept down towards the Atlantic. The water washed away the soft chalk hills and left the British Isles a separate land mass.
Dr Gupta's work is outlined in his book Homo Britannicus: the Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain, to be published next week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/25/nflood25.xml
Hmmm…sounds like a flood of Biblical proportion…
HEALTH INSURANCE MORE EXPENSIVE? PERHAPS THAT'S BY DESIGN!
We have reports that health insurance costs are on the rise ... again. Since 2000 health insurance rates for families have gone up by over 60%.
Now .. here's what you don't hear in the news. Just why is health insurance getting so expensive? There are a few good reasons:
First .. mandates. Year after year state governments across the nation add mandates to health insurance coverage. This means that the health insurance companies are mandated to provide certain coverage to the insured, no matter what the consumer wants.
A prime example here would be maternity benefits. Have you ever tried to buy a health insurance policy that doesn't include maternity benefits? In many states you can't do it. State law forbids it...
...Are the other mandates? You bet! How about a mandate for drug and alcohol rehab. Many states have enacted just such a mandate. Do you use drugs? Are you a drunk? No? Then what do you need with this coverage? Answer: You don't need this coverage. Tough. You're getting it anyway, and you're going to have to pay for it, courtesy of your friendly local politician.
Ditto for other mandates such as psychological treatment and counseling.
As long as we treat what we call health insurance as a medical payment plan, it is going to continue to get more and more expensive. Start treating it like insurance again .. something to cover unexpected medical costs ... and watch the prices start to come down.
--Neal Boortz
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
As War Over Leak Grips Washington, Al Qaeda Quails
September 27, 2006
...the military quietly released an intercepted letter from Al Qaeda complaining that the terrorist organization was losing ground in Iraq.
The letter, found in the headquarters of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, after he was killed on June 7, was sent to Zarqawi by a senior Al Qaeda leader who signs his name simply "Atiyah." He complains that Al Qaeda is weak both in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and in Iraq.
A former jihadist who fought in Algeria in the 1990s, Atiyah appears from the text to be speaking for Al Qaeda's Shura Council — the group's decision-making panel chaired by Osama bin Laden. In the letter, he sharply criticizes Zarqawi's leadership, saying he alienated key allies necessary for the implementation of jihad in Iraq.
"Know that we, like all the Mujahidin, are still weak," he wrote in the letter dated December 11, 2005. "We are in the stage of weakness and a state of paucity. We have not yet reached a level of stability. We have no alternative but to not squander any element of the foundations of strength, or any helper or supporter."
That assessment from Al Qaeda is in stark contrast to the key findings of a declassified national intelligence assessment released to the public by President Bush yesterday. While the National Intelligence Estimate says America has disrupted Al Qaeda's global leadership, it cautions, "Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion."
http://www.nysun.com/article/40461
David Bennett <><
http://www.freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove
http://www.missourigasprices.com/
Ever wonder why every time there is good news, it is "unexpected?" Maybe it's because their analysis and fear mongering was wrong to begin with...
Consumer Confidence Higher Than Expected...
… sending a gauge of consumer sentiment higher than analysts expected…the New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 104.5 from a revised reading of 100.2. in August.
The private research group's Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about economic conditions, rose to 127.7 from 123.9. Its Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, rose to 89.0 from 84.4 last month.
"A more favorable assessment of current conditions coupled with a less pessimistic short-term outlook boosted consumer confidence this month," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a statement.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060926/D8KCJMAG0.html
Unexpected rise in US home sales
Sales of new US homes unexpectedly recovered in August, rising 4.1% from July, official figures show.
The annual rate of new home sales totaled 1.050 million last month, compared to 1.009 million in July, the Commerce Department reported.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5385508.stm
Stocks Rise; Dow Nears All-Time High
Sep 27, Blue chip stocks rose and the Dow Jones industrial average neared its record high close Wednesday as investors shrugged off a lackluster durable goods report and appeared satisfied with an increase in new home sales. In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 18.41, or 0.16 percent, at 11,687.80, just over 35 points away from its record high close of 11,722.98.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060927/D8KD8N4O0.html
Notice it's not Christians or Buddhists anyone is fearful of...
Opera withdrawn over Islamist threat
Indignation erupted across Germany’s political spectrum on Tuesday after a renowned opera house said it had dropped a controversial production of Mozart’s Idomeneo from its programme because it feared becoming a target of Islamist extremists...
...The cancellation was prompted by concerns that a scene in which Mohammed’s severed head is brandished on stage could be viewed as blasphemous... [In the production, directed by Hans Neuenfels, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon and the Prophet Mohammad, which sit on chairs.]
Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister, attacked the decision by Berlin’s Deutsche Oper not to show the 200-year-old work as “crazy”, “ridiculous” and “unacceptable”. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8e25081c-4d7b-11db-8704-0000779e2340.html
Sounds a bit racist to me...
Oprah does not hire Blacks
[regarding her show on XM radio] ...Among many, many other things, Oprah talked about her humble beginnings in Mississippi, and particularly about how her mother's highest aspiration for her was that she might end up cleaning white people's houses, because "they give away nice clothes." And then Oprah pointed out that now that she's Oprah, she has "all these white people" working for her, and that in fact there's only one black person on the staff… (anyone else would be investigated for racism)
http://www.tmz.com/2006/09/25/oprah-lords-over-white-folk-talks-poop-on-xm/
'Voices of Heaven' ordered not to sing sacred music
September 26, 2006The all-star choir visiting from Europe was called "Voices of Heaven" but members were told by a Michigan school district not to sing sacred songs while on campus, leaving the artists bewildered and district parents enraged that the German singers would return home with such an impression of the United States.
The order came recently from Supt. Charles Breiner of the Howell School District in Michigan just as the Eberbach, Germany, choir arrived for its scheduled concert at Howell High School.
In a report in the Livingston County Press, parents said Breiner's administration had ordered the choir to leave out music deemed too religious.
...Even the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan confirmed that including religious music in a high school's choir program is allowed.
"The courts have said that having some religious music in serious choral concerts in public schools is OK, as long as the purpose is not to promote religion," said Michael J. Steinberg, of the ACLU...
..."We are outraged at Mr. Breiner's most recent antics. He has apparently moved from promoting a gay agenda to embarrassing our community internationally," said Vicki Fyke, a spokesperson for the Livingston Organization for Values in Education committee…
…Fyke also noted that Breiner had ruled that the Scouting programs that meet in district buildings would not be allowed to send information home with students at the beginning of a school year, as they have in the past and as other groups were allowed to do.
The parents' group also noted that in the past Breiner had formally recognized the hanging of a "gay pride" flag in the school, but banned the national motto, "In God We Trust," from school walls...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52155
Sheik: 'Only dialogue we want is when all religions agree to convert to Islam'
JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's meeting this week with a delegation of Muslim leaders and his calls for interfaith dialogue following earlier remarks about Islam are really "Crusader conspiracies" to subjugate the Islamic faith and force "Christian-Zionist" worldviews upon Muslims, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily in an interview.
Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious said, "The only dialogue we will accept is when all other religions agree to convert to Islam."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52167
British Cemetery to bury all, Christians too, facing Mecca
Headstones aligned toward northeast so dead can look toward Islamic holy city
September 24, 2006
…A new, $4.7 million cemetery in Nottingham is the first public graveyard in the UK to have all its burial plots aligned with Mecca and to inter those of all faiths in the Muslim tradition.
All headstones at the 40-acre burial site will face northeast, enabling the dead to look over their shoulder toward Mecca, the manner prescribed for followers of Islam in the UK.
Church leaders have criticized the decision by local officials, saying that imposing a Muslim model on Christians, who traditionally are buried facing east, is discriminatory.
"This is a sensitive issue to all people. I hope the situation will be reviewed with wide consultation and a policy introduced that takes account of the needs of all," the Rt. Rev. George Cassidy, bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, told the London Daily Mail…
…Nigel Lymn Rose, past president of the National Association of Funeral Directors, said he had been surprised when he asked Dowling if the new cemetery had made accommodations for Muslims and Dowling answered, "Oh yes, we're burying everyone so they are aligned to Mecca. It will make things easier."
Even Raza Ul Haq, imam at the Madni Masjid Mosque, is bewildered by the decision.
"It is part of our religion for the dead to be aligned with Mecca. It is very important. But for Christians, if they want to face somewhere else we support them," he said.
Muslims make up less than five per cent of the Nottingham region's 500,000 population.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52126
Flood Made Britain An Island 'In 24 Hours'
9/24/2006
Britain may have become an island after a Biblical-style flood split it from Europe in less than 24 hours, according to new geological research…
…The theory could rewrite British prehistory, as current text-books teach that Britain - once a peninsula of continental Europe - split from the great land mass after a long process of erosion and rises in sea levels.
However, surveys of the Channel bed using new sonar techniques have revealed the remains of a huge valley, running south-west from the Strait of Dover.
The sonar survey, led by Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College, London, uncovered deep bowls, scour marks and piles of rubble on the sea bed that may have been caused by a torrent of water.
Dr Gupta said in a paper published at an academic conference: "In places, this valley is more than seven miles wide and 170 ft deep, with vertical sides.
"This suggests the valley was created by a catastrophic flood following the breaching of the Dover Strait and the sudden release of water from a giant lake to the north."
According to Dr Gupta's theory, France and Britain would have been linked by a high ridge of chalk hills, running roughly between Dover and Calais. To the north would have been a freshwater lake, fed by rivers, and deepened over thousands of years.
The lake, hundreds of feet above sea level, finally overflowed the chalk ridge and swept down towards the Atlantic. The water washed away the soft chalk hills and left the British Isles a separate land mass.
Dr Gupta's work is outlined in his book Homo Britannicus: the Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain, to be published next week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/25/nflood25.xml
Hmmm…sounds like a flood of Biblical proportion…
HEALTH INSURANCE MORE EXPENSIVE? PERHAPS THAT'S BY DESIGN!
We have reports that health insurance costs are on the rise ... again. Since 2000 health insurance rates for families have gone up by over 60%.
Now .. here's what you don't hear in the news. Just why is health insurance getting so expensive? There are a few good reasons:
First .. mandates. Year after year state governments across the nation add mandates to health insurance coverage. This means that the health insurance companies are mandated to provide certain coverage to the insured, no matter what the consumer wants.
A prime example here would be maternity benefits. Have you ever tried to buy a health insurance policy that doesn't include maternity benefits? In many states you can't do it. State law forbids it...
...Are the other mandates? You bet! How about a mandate for drug and alcohol rehab. Many states have enacted just such a mandate. Do you use drugs? Are you a drunk? No? Then what do you need with this coverage? Answer: You don't need this coverage. Tough. You're getting it anyway, and you're going to have to pay for it, courtesy of your friendly local politician.
Ditto for other mandates such as psychological treatment and counseling.
As long as we treat what we call health insurance as a medical payment plan, it is going to continue to get more and more expensive. Start treating it like insurance again .. something to cover unexpected medical costs ... and watch the prices start to come down.
--Neal Boortz
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
As War Over Leak Grips Washington, Al Qaeda Quails
September 27, 2006
...the military quietly released an intercepted letter from Al Qaeda complaining that the terrorist organization was losing ground in Iraq.
The letter, found in the headquarters of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, after he was killed on June 7, was sent to Zarqawi by a senior Al Qaeda leader who signs his name simply "Atiyah." He complains that Al Qaeda is weak both in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and in Iraq.
A former jihadist who fought in Algeria in the 1990s, Atiyah appears from the text to be speaking for Al Qaeda's Shura Council — the group's decision-making panel chaired by Osama bin Laden. In the letter, he sharply criticizes Zarqawi's leadership, saying he alienated key allies necessary for the implementation of jihad in Iraq.
"Know that we, like all the Mujahidin, are still weak," he wrote in the letter dated December 11, 2005. "We are in the stage of weakness and a state of paucity. We have not yet reached a level of stability. We have no alternative but to not squander any element of the foundations of strength, or any helper or supporter."
That assessment from Al Qaeda is in stark contrast to the key findings of a declassified national intelligence assessment released to the public by President Bush yesterday. While the National Intelligence Estimate says America has disrupted Al Qaeda's global leadership, it cautions, "Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion."
http://www.nysun.com/article/40461
David Bennett <><
http://www.freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove
posted by David Bennett | 3:52 PM
<< Home