November 29, 2006
Oklahoma Couple Celebrate 77th Anniversary
Nov 28 -Gene and Elinor Coleman celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary Tuesday _ a marriage that may be the state's longest. Official records aren't kept so no one knows for certain...
He is 96 and she is 94, and Coleman says most days "we sit here and look at each other." That, he says, is a blessing because "we're lucky that both of us are still here to look at."
And after all these years, they still sit together like newlyweds, with his arm around her.
"When we got married, people got married to be married," says Elinor.
"They made a vow, `Until death do us part,' and we didn't feel like we would break that vow."
Their marriage has never been perfect, she says, "because perfect doesn't exist."
...Coleman says he hopes they make it to their 80th anniversary.
But, says Elinor, "We can't control that. Only God knows."
Says Coleman, "But we can try. We can try."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/28/D8LMADVG3.html
Freshly Baked Handouts Forbidden in Fairfax Virginia
November 29, 2006- Under a tough new Fairfax County policy, residents can no longer donate food prepared in their homes or a church kitchen -- be it a tuna casserole, sandwiches or even a batch of cookies -- unless the kitchen is approved by the county, health officials said yesterday.
They said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people.
… a coalition of churches that provides shelter and meals to homeless people during the winter… said the strict standards for food served in the shelters will make it more difficult to serve healthy, hot meals to homeless people…
"We're very aware that a number of homeless people eat out of dumpsters, and mom's pot roast has got to be healthier than that," said Jim Brigl, chief executive of Fairfax Area Christian Emergency & Transitional Services. "But that doesn't meet the code."
...Under state and county code, food served to the public must be prepared in a kitchen that has been inspected and certified by the county Health Department. Those standards are high: a commercial-grade refrigerator, a three-compartment sink to wash, rinse and sanitize dishes and a separate hand-washing sink, among other requirements….
"We're dealing with a medically fragile population . . . so they're more susceptible to food-borne illnesses than the general population," said Tom Crow, the county Health Department's director of environmental health. "We're trying to protect those people."
(Yep, starvation would be a much better option... Also the article never said whether any homeless person actually got food poisoning from a home cooked meal.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801583.html
Chicago Christmas Festival Nixes 'Nativity Story' Ads Over Fears of Offending Non-Christians
CHICAGO - A public Christmas festival is no place for the Christmas story, the city says.
Officials have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival, the German Christkindlmarket, to reconsider using a movie studio as a sponsor because it is worried ads for its film "The Nativity Story" might offend non-Christians...
...An executive vice president with New Line Cinema, Christina Kounelias said she finds it hard to believe that non-Christians who attended something called Christkindlmarket would be surprised or offended by the presence of posters, brochures and other advertisements of the movie.
"One would assume that if (people) were to go to Christkindlmarket, they'd know it is about Christmas," she said...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232239,00.html
(Chicago) MAYOR DALEY TO PRESIDE AT MOSQUE FOUNDATION GARDEN CEREMONY
November 10, 2006 -Today the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced that this Monday, November 13, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley will preside over the grand opening ceremony of the Mosque Foundation Garden at Northerly Island, south of the Adler Planetarium. Local elected officials (elected officials? how can that be?) and members of the Chicago Muslim and interfaith communities will be in attendance.
http://www.cairchicago.org/presscenter.php?file=ma_mosque_foundation_garden11102006
(So the Mayor is using GOVERNMENT time to do this? Isn’t that endorsing Islam by ACLU standards?)
ACLU targets Christmas
From the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)
11/28/2006 -A children's Christmas program has been deemed unconstitutional by the ACLU...
...In Case #3-06-0924, Doe v. Wilson County School System, the ACLU has sued the Wilson County School District, Lakeview Elementary School, the school principal, and two teachers for what they have deemed ''illegal acts.''
The ACLU claims that the plaintiffs ''have been harmed ... injured ... and suffered irreparable damage'' through the ''Christmas program with Christian themes and songs.'' The ACLU is asking that those actions be declared ''unconstitutional and illegal.''
It gets even worse. The ACLU alleges that several KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS role-played a nativity scene of the birth of Jesus - AND HAD THE AUDACITY TO SING ''AWAY IN THE MANGER'' AND ''JOY TO THE WORLD.''
This is the real issue at play: If the ACLU wins here, it will set a precedent across the nation...
http://www.aclj.org/TrialNotebook/Read.aspx?id=426
Chapel cross issue stands 5,000 to 1, but who's counting?
The dispute over the placement of a historic cross in the Wren Chapel at William & Mary College now stands at more than 5,000 people seeking the restoration of the antique, and one against, but who's counting?
...the student group has told the Hampton Roads Daily Press that under a Freedom of Information Act request, the school was able to produce [only] a single letter from someone with a concern about the cross being in the chapel… (Gee, I wonder where that letter came from?)
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53149
Wish the ACLU a Christian Christmas
As the ACLU is working so very hard to get rid of CHRISTMAS we should all send them a nice, CHRISTIAN Christmas card to brighten up their dark, sad, little world. Not to "shut them down" but rather to show them some people still care about Christmas.
I just did. Make sure you write "Merry Christmas" on it and don't be rude or crude.
Here's the Address:
ACLU
125 Broad Street
18th F loor
New York , NY 10004
Cold set to snap city record (Inconvenient Truth : No Global Warming here )
CALGARY Canada 2006-11-28 Environment Canada says such low temperatures unusual for this time of year. The arctic deep freeze trapping Calgary is on track to break a 110-year-old weather record today... ...Calgary could break the -27C record set on this day in 1896.
But factoring in the wind chill, it will feel even colder to people who have to brave the elements, said Environment Canada meteorologist Ross Macdonald.
It's even been too frosty to ski, with Canada Olympic Park shutting the hill yesterday in the name of safety.
Spokesman Chris Dornan said, to his knowledge, it's the first year the weather has forced a November closure. "It's normally in January or February,"
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/11/28/2530545-sun.html
Would you let your child take this flight?
http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2006/11/29/would_you_let_your_child_take_this_flight
"Strangers On My Flight" (humor- PG-13)
http://beecy.net/frank/
Air Marshals decry imams' charges (read above article “Would you let your child take this flight?” at link above first)
November 29, 2006- Air marshals, pilots and security officials yesterday expressed concern that airline passengers and crews will be reluctant to report suspicious behavior aboard for fear of being called "racists," after several Muslim imams made that charge in a press conference Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Six imams, or Muslim holy men, accused a US Airways flight crew of inappropriately evicting them from a flight last week in Minneapolis after several passengers said the imams tried to intimidate them by loudly praying and moving around the airplane. The imams urged Congress to enact laws to prohibit ethnic and religious "profiling."
Federal air marshals and others yesterday urged passengers to remain vigilant to threats....
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061129-121812-1240r.htm
3-Star General Mike DeLong says intel shows Saddam moved WMD just before invasion
11-28-06 -If you want the inside story of what was being said and done at the top levels of U.S. government from the September 11th attacks until the fall of Saddam Hussein, you can ask one of two men -- Army General Tommy Franks, or Marine Corps General Mike DeLong, who was Franks' deputy.
Listen to General Mike DeLong at link.... http://www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp.php?ISBN=0895260204
Iraq had WMDs after all
November 29, 2006 -Buried in a front-page [article] in The New York Times recently was this: "Experts say that at that time, (Saddam) Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away."
"That time" was 2002. So if the experts are right, Iraq could have joined the atomic club in 2003.
That was the year President Bush and Congress decided the Hussein regime posed intolerable risk to world security and authorized an invasion by a U.S.-led coalition. Hussein was deposed...
...That the Times hid this nugget 13 paragraphs into a 37-paragraph article is instructive. What the Times found important was the Bush administration placed 15-year-old technical nuclear information, written in Arabic, on a government Web site available to anyone. The newspaper de-emphasized the near certainty that Iraq would be a nuclear entity today if the war the left insists never should have been fought had, in fact, never been fought...
...Hussein's Iraq knew how to build nukes, as well as chemical and biological weapons, in 2002. If there had been no war, Iraq would have had the time and the opportunity to build and deploy them...
http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=16064
Prenatal Screening not so Accurate as Once Thought - "Normal" Children Killed as "Defective"?
11/24/06 TORONTO, November 24, 2006- New research has found that more genetic differences exist among people than previous research had indicated. In 2000 the international team of scientists working on the Human Genome project said that there was only a miniscule percentage of difference between people.
At about the same time, genetic screening was introduced as a common feature of prenatal care and as part of artificial procreation in IVF facilities. The new research shows, however, that this screening is not as accurate as previously thought.
…the researchers found that the genetic continuance from parents to child is not as straightforward as previously thought. In fact, the conclusion seems to be that there is really no such thing as "normal" in genetic inheritance.
This means that screens for genetic abnormality are unrealizable without a reliable standard of "normal." The report, published in the journal Nature suggests that prenatal screening may have incorrectly diagnosed genetic abnormalities as defects…
...Disability rights groups and pro-life advocates have decried the practice but most hospitals now offer "genetic counselling" to give parents the opportunity to abort a child who is deemed to be imperfect.
(I'm glad that was not available when I was born, though I'm sure others wish it was) More at http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112403.html)
In England Islamic Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes
9/11/2006 -Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain claims...
...the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, 29, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.
Mr Yusuf said a group of Somali youths were arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim's family told the police it would be settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail...
...Mr Yusuf told the programme he felt more bound by the traditional law of his birth than by the laws of his adopted country. "Us Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law," he said. (Then go back to Somalia if Islamic law is so wonderful)
...In his book Islam in Britain, Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says..."Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions," he says. (Oh, that sounds great.)
Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks...predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/29/nsharia29.xml
Christians See 'War on Christmas' Momentum Shift
November 29, 2006 While the city of Chicago is distancing itself from a movie on the nativity for fear of offending non-Christians, stores across the country are embracing the "Merry Christmas" greeting and Christian groups are claiming minor victories in what some have called the "war on Christmas."
Chicago officials this week acknowledged they had asked the organizers of an annual Christmas festival - the German Christkindlmarket - to reject sponsorship money from New Line Cinema, which was using the festival to promote its upcoming release, "The Nativity Story." The film depicts the biblical account of the birth of Jesus Christ...
...while Christian groups continue to argue with Chicago over the film, they are seeing some victories in the "war on Christmas" as some companies that had once rejected Christmas terminology are beginning to embrace the holiday.
Among the most prominent stores now wishing shoppers a "Merry Christmas" rather than the generic "Happy Holidays" are Wal-Mart and Macy's.
Others like Target, Dillard's and J.C. Penny also make Christian advocacy groups' "nice list" as they are this year allowing employees to say "Merry Christmas" and are advertising Christmas sales and selling Christmas products.
While Christian activists are seeing victories in some areas, there are still numerous U.S. retailers that shun Christian terminology and symbols. Liberty Counsel's list of "naughty" and "nice" stores include 12 that are using "Christmas" and 14 that prefer to use more generic terms.
Spokesmen for Best Buy, Eddie Bauer and Barnes and Noble, all of which are on Liberty Counsel's "naughty list" of stores that avoid Christmas, did not respond to requests for comment Monday...
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200611/CUL20061129a.html
Hoaxbuster Snopes makes Ten Commandments changes
But pastor who found inaccuracies says clarifications still needed
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53141
Laws prohibit smoking around children
States, citing the health risks, move to ban lighting up in homes, cars Anti-tobacco forces are opening a new front in the war against smoking by banning it in private places such as homes and cars when children are present...
...Arkansas and Louisiana passed laws this year forbidding anyone from smoking in cars carrying young children. Courts are ordering smoke-free environments in custody and visitation disputes.
"We are very rapidly moving to protect children from secondhand smoke," says John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health.
"Even from their own parents and grandparents."
...Former smoker Bob Mathis, a Democratic state representative in Arkansas, sponsored a law that bars smoking in a car carrying a child young enough to require a car seat. It took effect in July. A violator can be fined $25 but can get out of it with proof of participation in a smoking-cessation program. A similar law took effect in Louisiana in August.
"We have laws on the books in every state of the union against child abuse," Mathis says. "This is a form of child abuse."
...Some courts are ordering parents in custody and visitation disputes not to smoke around their kids...
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061128/1a_bottomstrip28.art.htm
Don't worry, the fat police are gearing up too...
David Bennett <><
http://www.freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove
Nov 28 -Gene and Elinor Coleman celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary Tuesday _ a marriage that may be the state's longest. Official records aren't kept so no one knows for certain...
He is 96 and she is 94, and Coleman says most days "we sit here and look at each other." That, he says, is a blessing because "we're lucky that both of us are still here to look at."
And after all these years, they still sit together like newlyweds, with his arm around her.
"When we got married, people got married to be married," says Elinor.
"They made a vow, `Until death do us part,' and we didn't feel like we would break that vow."
Their marriage has never been perfect, she says, "because perfect doesn't exist."
...Coleman says he hopes they make it to their 80th anniversary.
But, says Elinor, "We can't control that. Only God knows."
Says Coleman, "But we can try. We can try."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/28/D8LMADVG3.html
Freshly Baked Handouts Forbidden in Fairfax Virginia
November 29, 2006- Under a tough new Fairfax County policy, residents can no longer donate food prepared in their homes or a church kitchen -- be it a tuna casserole, sandwiches or even a batch of cookies -- unless the kitchen is approved by the county, health officials said yesterday.
They said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people.
… a coalition of churches that provides shelter and meals to homeless people during the winter… said the strict standards for food served in the shelters will make it more difficult to serve healthy, hot meals to homeless people…
"We're very aware that a number of homeless people eat out of dumpsters, and mom's pot roast has got to be healthier than that," said Jim Brigl, chief executive of Fairfax Area Christian Emergency & Transitional Services. "But that doesn't meet the code."
...Under state and county code, food served to the public must be prepared in a kitchen that has been inspected and certified by the county Health Department. Those standards are high: a commercial-grade refrigerator, a three-compartment sink to wash, rinse and sanitize dishes and a separate hand-washing sink, among other requirements….
"We're dealing with a medically fragile population . . . so they're more susceptible to food-borne illnesses than the general population," said Tom Crow, the county Health Department's director of environmental health. "We're trying to protect those people."
(Yep, starvation would be a much better option... Also the article never said whether any homeless person actually got food poisoning from a home cooked meal.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801583.html
Chicago Christmas Festival Nixes 'Nativity Story' Ads Over Fears of Offending Non-Christians
CHICAGO - A public Christmas festival is no place for the Christmas story, the city says.
Officials have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival, the German Christkindlmarket, to reconsider using a movie studio as a sponsor because it is worried ads for its film "The Nativity Story" might offend non-Christians...
...An executive vice president with New Line Cinema, Christina Kounelias said she finds it hard to believe that non-Christians who attended something called Christkindlmarket would be surprised or offended by the presence of posters, brochures and other advertisements of the movie.
"One would assume that if (people) were to go to Christkindlmarket, they'd know it is about Christmas," she said...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232239,00.html
(Chicago) MAYOR DALEY TO PRESIDE AT MOSQUE FOUNDATION GARDEN CEREMONY
November 10, 2006 -Today the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced that this Monday, November 13, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley will preside over the grand opening ceremony of the Mosque Foundation Garden at Northerly Island, south of the Adler Planetarium. Local elected officials (elected officials? how can that be?) and members of the Chicago Muslim and interfaith communities will be in attendance.
http://www.cairchicago.org/presscenter.php?file=ma_mosque_foundation_garden11102006
(So the Mayor is using GOVERNMENT time to do this? Isn’t that endorsing Islam by ACLU standards?)
ACLU targets Christmas
From the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)
11/28/2006 -A children's Christmas program has been deemed unconstitutional by the ACLU...
...In Case #3-06-0924, Doe v. Wilson County School System, the ACLU has sued the Wilson County School District, Lakeview Elementary School, the school principal, and two teachers for what they have deemed ''illegal acts.''
The ACLU claims that the plaintiffs ''have been harmed ... injured ... and suffered irreparable damage'' through the ''Christmas program with Christian themes and songs.'' The ACLU is asking that those actions be declared ''unconstitutional and illegal.''
It gets even worse. The ACLU alleges that several KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS role-played a nativity scene of the birth of Jesus - AND HAD THE AUDACITY TO SING ''AWAY IN THE MANGER'' AND ''JOY TO THE WORLD.''
This is the real issue at play: If the ACLU wins here, it will set a precedent across the nation...
http://www.aclj.org/TrialNotebook/Read.aspx?id=426
Chapel cross issue stands 5,000 to 1, but who's counting?
The dispute over the placement of a historic cross in the Wren Chapel at William & Mary College now stands at more than 5,000 people seeking the restoration of the antique, and one against, but who's counting?
...the student group has told the Hampton Roads Daily Press that under a Freedom of Information Act request, the school was able to produce [only] a single letter from someone with a concern about the cross being in the chapel… (Gee, I wonder where that letter came from?)
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53149
Wish the ACLU a Christian Christmas
As the ACLU is working so very hard to get rid of CHRISTMAS we should all send them a nice, CHRISTIAN Christmas card to brighten up their dark, sad, little world. Not to "shut them down" but rather to show them some people still care about Christmas.
I just did. Make sure you write "Merry Christmas" on it and don't be rude or crude.
Here's the Address:
ACLU
125 Broad Street
18th F loor
New York , NY 10004
Cold set to snap city record (Inconvenient Truth : No Global Warming here )
CALGARY Canada 2006-11-28 Environment Canada says such low temperatures unusual for this time of year. The arctic deep freeze trapping Calgary is on track to break a 110-year-old weather record today... ...Calgary could break the -27C record set on this day in 1896.
But factoring in the wind chill, it will feel even colder to people who have to brave the elements, said Environment Canada meteorologist Ross Macdonald.
It's even been too frosty to ski, with Canada Olympic Park shutting the hill yesterday in the name of safety.
Spokesman Chris Dornan said, to his knowledge, it's the first year the weather has forced a November closure. "It's normally in January or February,"
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/11/28/2530545-sun.html
Would you let your child take this flight?
http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2006/11/29/would_you_let_your_child_take_this_flight
"Strangers On My Flight" (humor- PG-13)
http://beecy.net/frank/
Air Marshals decry imams' charges (read above article “Would you let your child take this flight?” at link above first)
November 29, 2006- Air marshals, pilots and security officials yesterday expressed concern that airline passengers and crews will be reluctant to report suspicious behavior aboard for fear of being called "racists," after several Muslim imams made that charge in a press conference Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Six imams, or Muslim holy men, accused a US Airways flight crew of inappropriately evicting them from a flight last week in Minneapolis after several passengers said the imams tried to intimidate them by loudly praying and moving around the airplane. The imams urged Congress to enact laws to prohibit ethnic and religious "profiling."
Federal air marshals and others yesterday urged passengers to remain vigilant to threats....
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061129-121812-1240r.htm
3-Star General Mike DeLong says intel shows Saddam moved WMD just before invasion
11-28-06 -If you want the inside story of what was being said and done at the top levels of U.S. government from the September 11th attacks until the fall of Saddam Hussein, you can ask one of two men -- Army General Tommy Franks, or Marine Corps General Mike DeLong, who was Franks' deputy.
Listen to General Mike DeLong at link.... http://www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp.php?ISBN=0895260204
Iraq had WMDs after all
November 29, 2006 -Buried in a front-page [article] in The New York Times recently was this: "Experts say that at that time, (Saddam) Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away."
"That time" was 2002. So if the experts are right, Iraq could have joined the atomic club in 2003.
That was the year President Bush and Congress decided the Hussein regime posed intolerable risk to world security and authorized an invasion by a U.S.-led coalition. Hussein was deposed...
...That the Times hid this nugget 13 paragraphs into a 37-paragraph article is instructive. What the Times found important was the Bush administration placed 15-year-old technical nuclear information, written in Arabic, on a government Web site available to anyone. The newspaper de-emphasized the near certainty that Iraq would be a nuclear entity today if the war the left insists never should have been fought had, in fact, never been fought...
...Hussein's Iraq knew how to build nukes, as well as chemical and biological weapons, in 2002. If there had been no war, Iraq would have had the time and the opportunity to build and deploy them...
http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=16064
Prenatal Screening not so Accurate as Once Thought - "Normal" Children Killed as "Defective"?
11/24/06 TORONTO, November 24, 2006- New research has found that more genetic differences exist among people than previous research had indicated. In 2000 the international team of scientists working on the Human Genome project said that there was only a miniscule percentage of difference between people.
At about the same time, genetic screening was introduced as a common feature of prenatal care and as part of artificial procreation in IVF facilities. The new research shows, however, that this screening is not as accurate as previously thought.
…the researchers found that the genetic continuance from parents to child is not as straightforward as previously thought. In fact, the conclusion seems to be that there is really no such thing as "normal" in genetic inheritance.
This means that screens for genetic abnormality are unrealizable without a reliable standard of "normal." The report, published in the journal Nature suggests that prenatal screening may have incorrectly diagnosed genetic abnormalities as defects…
...Disability rights groups and pro-life advocates have decried the practice but most hospitals now offer "genetic counselling" to give parents the opportunity to abort a child who is deemed to be imperfect.
(I'm glad that was not available when I was born, though I'm sure others wish it was) More at http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112403.html)
In England Islamic Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes
9/11/2006 -Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain claims...
...the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, 29, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.
Mr Yusuf said a group of Somali youths were arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim's family told the police it would be settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail...
...Mr Yusuf told the programme he felt more bound by the traditional law of his birth than by the laws of his adopted country. "Us Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law," he said. (Then go back to Somalia if Islamic law is so wonderful)
...In his book Islam in Britain, Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says..."Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions," he says. (Oh, that sounds great.)
Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks...predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/29/nsharia29.xml
Christians See 'War on Christmas' Momentum Shift
November 29, 2006 While the city of Chicago is distancing itself from a movie on the nativity for fear of offending non-Christians, stores across the country are embracing the "Merry Christmas" greeting and Christian groups are claiming minor victories in what some have called the "war on Christmas."
Chicago officials this week acknowledged they had asked the organizers of an annual Christmas festival - the German Christkindlmarket - to reject sponsorship money from New Line Cinema, which was using the festival to promote its upcoming release, "The Nativity Story." The film depicts the biblical account of the birth of Jesus Christ...
...while Christian groups continue to argue with Chicago over the film, they are seeing some victories in the "war on Christmas" as some companies that had once rejected Christmas terminology are beginning to embrace the holiday.
Among the most prominent stores now wishing shoppers a "Merry Christmas" rather than the generic "Happy Holidays" are Wal-Mart and Macy's.
Others like Target, Dillard's and J.C. Penny also make Christian advocacy groups' "nice list" as they are this year allowing employees to say "Merry Christmas" and are advertising Christmas sales and selling Christmas products.
While Christian activists are seeing victories in some areas, there are still numerous U.S. retailers that shun Christian terminology and symbols. Liberty Counsel's list of "naughty" and "nice" stores include 12 that are using "Christmas" and 14 that prefer to use more generic terms.
Spokesmen for Best Buy, Eddie Bauer and Barnes and Noble, all of which are on Liberty Counsel's "naughty list" of stores that avoid Christmas, did not respond to requests for comment Monday...
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200611/CUL20061129a.html
Hoaxbuster Snopes makes Ten Commandments changes
But pastor who found inaccuracies says clarifications still needed
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53141
Laws prohibit smoking around children
States, citing the health risks, move to ban lighting up in homes, cars Anti-tobacco forces are opening a new front in the war against smoking by banning it in private places such as homes and cars when children are present...
...Arkansas and Louisiana passed laws this year forbidding anyone from smoking in cars carrying young children. Courts are ordering smoke-free environments in custody and visitation disputes.
"We are very rapidly moving to protect children from secondhand smoke," says John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health.
"Even from their own parents and grandparents."
...Former smoker Bob Mathis, a Democratic state representative in Arkansas, sponsored a law that bars smoking in a car carrying a child young enough to require a car seat. It took effect in July. A violator can be fined $25 but can get out of it with proof of participation in a smoking-cessation program. A similar law took effect in Louisiana in August.
"We have laws on the books in every state of the union against child abuse," Mathis says. "This is a form of child abuse."
...Some courts are ordering parents in custody and visitation disputes not to smoke around their kids...
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061128/1a_bottomstrip28.art.htm
Don't worry, the fat police are gearing up too...
David Bennett <><
http://www.freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove
posted by David Bennett | 5:34 PM
