reflections

The Dangers Of Fighting Judah

2007-01-24T20:50:00.000Z

A great shakening is going to happen, and it has just begun. Ahmadinejad is feeling the heat of it. I would say that:'It’s just a matter of time'.

If Ahmadinejad continues to make his own mistakes, will the West have waited out, perhaps unintentionally, Iran’s unyielding position on the nuclear program? These domestic rumblings suggest that even in pursuing a grand bargain with Iran (as has been suggested by several experts) it may be best to take it slow. A real negotiation could do without Ahmadinejad’s ultimatums and exclamations.

Wisdom is , be sincere, truthful, and most importantly, do not touch Judah – Touch not my Anointed. If you don’t believe the Bible, I would say, the history books are there. Judah is Judah and will always remain Judah.

Ahmadinejad is trying to play it brave in his latest attempt:

In the latest round of inflammatory comments from Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the demise of Israel is "imminent” and the U.S. will soon die as well.

This reminds me of the day the coalition forces entered Bagdad to get rid of Saddam, the then information Minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, was still playing it brave when he said :

"The soldiers of Saddam Hussein have given them a lesson they will never forget,"

It is just a matter of time, when the peace loving people in Iran will do the job.

Hasten Not A Quartet , Madam Rice

2007-01-19T18:38:00.000Z

A proposed Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, quartet gathering would not foster any meaningful solution in the middle-east giving the propaganda videos being circulated by Ahmadinejad and his generals.

New York Times reports that:

The Palestinian president and the Israeli prime minister promised to join her for three-way talks within a month, with a meeting in Washington in advance by the so-called quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — that has been trying to promote Middle East peace.
And powerful Arab states gave their blessing, however reserved, to Mr. Bush’s initiatives to try to snatch victory from the growing chaos that is Iraq — even though these wealthy nations committed nothing of their own to that effort.

Such a move should never at all be hastened even though Ahmadinejad's lieutenants seem to be deserting him now. Iran’s movement should be kept under a 24-hour surveillance. Chances are that the lieutenants are going away only to re-group again.

iOops, Cisco Actually Want Money For The Rights To The Name iPhone

2007-01-10T23:44:00.000Z

This sounds unbelievable, but :

Techdirt has posted on the above saying (Dated Wednesday January 10, 2007):

In the weeks leading up to yesterday's big announcement there was a lot of talk about how Apple couldn't even use the name iPhone because it was a registered trademark of Cisco. Thus, it was as big of a surprise as any that Apple's new converged cellphone/iPod was indeed called the iPhone. The word out of Cisco was that the night before the announcement, they sent Apple the final terms of a license that would allow Apple to use the name, and that they expected a signed agreement right away. Well, apparently Apple didn't get back to Cisco quickly enough, and now the networking giant is taking Apple to court, seeking to prevent Apple from using the name. It seems likely that this is a threat to make sure that Apple takes Cisco's demands seriously, and that things will get worked out before the lawsuit goes to trial. Still, it's really astounding that Apple would make such an important announcement without having this matter long squared away.

Yahoo has this written on the same subject this way (Dated Wednesday January 10, 2007):

Cisco Systems sued Apple Inc. in federal court Wednesday, saying the computer maker's new iPhone violates its trademark.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, came just a day after Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple iPhone in dramatic fashion at a trade show in San Francisco.

But even while Jobs was trumpeting the product during his keynote address to Apple faithful, the matter of the product's naming had not been resolved behind the scenes between two of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.

San Jose-based Cisco, the world's largest network-equipment maker, has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000, when it acquired InfoGear Technology Corp., which originally registered the name.

And three weeks ago, Cisco's Linksys division put the trademark to use, releasing an Internet phone called "iPhone" that uses the increasingly popular Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

But on Tuesday, Jobs unveiled Apple's own iPhone, a "game-changing" touch-screen-controlled cell phone device that plays music, surfs the Web and delivers voicemail and e-mail.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said she could not immediately comment on the lawsuit.

Cisco said Tuesday it had been negotiating for several years with Apple over a licensing agreement, but that Apple lawyers had not signed and returned the final contract.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, Cisco senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

Cisco is seeking injunctive relief to prevent Apple from copying Cisco's iPhone trademark.

"Today's iPhone is not tomorrow's iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand," Chandler added.

And Gizmodo has the same story also this way (Dated Wednesday January 10, 2007):

Cisco, which holds the trademark on the iPhone name, just held a press conference here at CES to announce that they distributed an agreement to Apple last night, and that they expect it to be signed today. For those who aren't up-to-speed on this kerfluffle, we learned just before Christmas that Cisco owns the trademark for the iPhone, and is in fact going to sell a product under that name. Looks like that may change after today. Here is the full press release:

Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statement that were distributed to them last night and that addressed a few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today.

To cut a long story short, Cisco wants compensation, and apparently a huge one, for the use of the name iPhone. Sound outrageous, but that is it.

Court drops Kurd charges against Saddam

2007-01-08T20:35:00.000Z

By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -
Saddam Hussein had been dead nine days but his voice resounded through the courtroom Monday as he and his cousin "Chemical Ali" discussed killing thousands of Kurds in the 1980s, according to audiotapes played at their war crimes trial.

The empty seat of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is seen during the Operation Anfal trial, in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 8, 2007. The trial of Saddam and his six co-defendants for the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s resumed Monday and the court's first order of business was to drop all charges against Saddam. Saddam was sentenced to death for the killing of 148 Shiites and hanged on Dec. 30 in a chaotic execution that has drawn global criticism for the Shiite-dominated government. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, Pool)

AP Photo: The empty seat of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is seen during the Operation Anfal...

Saddam's physical presence was gone — his chair in the white metal pen where the defendants sit was empty — but his aura still hung over the proceedings against his former regime members.

The trial reconvened Monday for the first time since Dec. 21 and a little more than a week since Saddam was hanged for the killing of 148 Shiites after an assassination attempt in the town of Dujail in 1982.

The court's first order of business was to dismiss all charges against Saddam. His co-defendants — including his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" — remain in the dock for allegedly killing 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s as
Iraq fought a protracted war with
Iran.

Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon aired graphic video during Monday's court session of scores of bodies in trucks and in piles on the street, overlaid with a voice purported to be that of al-Majid saying, "I will hit them with chemical weapons."

"Damn the international community if they say anything. I will strike them all with chemical weapons," the voice continued.

Another audiotape had a voice identified as Saddam's warning, "These weapons are only used at my orders." He also reassured colleagues that the weapons "kill by the thousands."

"It will force them out of their homes without water or food. It makes them evacuate their homes naked," the voice said.

In court, Al-Majid described the video as "painful," but said it showed the work of Iranian troops, not Iraqis. As for the audio, al-Majid did not deny the voices were his and Saddam's.

The tapes "not only condemn me, but the whole path that I was part of — the path of Saddam Hussein," al-Majid said.

Legal experts said they hoped Saddam's six co-defendants would be more forthcoming with the dictator no longer listening.

Legal scholar Tariq Harb said the trial could make more progress without Saddam, who sometimes quietly glared at witnesses, shouted at them, or launched nationalists tirades that got him thrown out of court.

"The trial will be more elastic and easy. It will clarify and expose more facts because Saddam Hussein's disappearance from the dock will encourage other defendants to mention some facts that they were afraid to divulge when he was with them," Harb said.

Also Monday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of two more American soldiers: one from combat wounds in Salahuddin province, which includes Saddam's hometown, and another from small-arms fire north of Baghdad.

And the White House said
President Bush would lay out his new approach for the Iraq war in a speech Wednesday. Bush was expected to announce an increase of as many as 20,000 U.S. troops in a bid to contain sectarian warfare.

Iraqi police, meanwhile, reported the discovery of 27 tortured bodies in the capital and the deaths of 23 other people, including nine Shiite workers gunned down in a minibus on their way to the Baghdad airport.

Aside from al-Majid, the co-defendants in the so-called Anfal trial are former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai, who was the commander of Task Force Anfal and head of the Iraqi army 1st Corps; Sabir al-Douri, Saddam's military intelligence chief; Taher Tawfiq al-Ani, former governor of Mosul and head of the Northern Affairs Committee; Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces and Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, former head of military intelligence's eastern regional office.

When al-Majid first took his seat in court Monday, he tried to turn on his microphone to speak publicly. The judge quickly shut it off.

Before the trial adjourned until Jan. 11, Al-Faroon also presented a document allegedly signed by al-Ani, calling for the execution of 10 members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party headed by current Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Al-Ani denied the handwriting was his.

"This is not my signature and I'm sure of that," he told the court. Ref. Yahoo! NEWS

Hot Air : Iranian VP in 'dancing women' controversy

2007-01-05T13:10:00.000Z

Iran arrests employees of news site which showed vice president applauding dancing women in Turkey

Yaakov Lappin
Published 01.05.07, 02:44

An editor and manager of the Iranews.org website have been arrested, after the site posted a video of the Iranian Vice President, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaee, "taking part in a ceremony in Turkey where unveiled women were dancing," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported last week.

Dance Watching Session Part I:

According to an employee of Iranews.org , the two employees under arrest were invited to meet with Vice President Rahim-Mashaee after their website posted the video. "But Mr. Mashaee did not come and some unknown people arrested" the employees, the report said, adding that "under Iran's Islamic laws men are not allowed to watch women dance and sing."

Dance Watching Session Part II:

Meanwhile, the DPA news agency reported that Mashaee has "come under fire" over the video, "which shows him watching and applauding women dancing during a ceremony in Istanbul ."

Quoting Iranian media sources, the DPA said the Iranian vice president dismissed the video as "a smear campaign."

"I am charged to have attended a private party although it was an official cultural ceremony in Istanbul attended by the city's mayor and the secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference," Mashaee added.

Dance Watching Session Part III:

'Suddenly I was faced with a dance'

Mashaee, who is also Head of Cultural Heritage, accused Iranian members of parliament opposed to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government of being behind the video,in a complaint to the Tehran Public Prosecution Officers, the Iran Mania website said .

In his complaint, Mashaee said he did not know women would be dancing during the ceremony. "I was not aware of the content of the program while it was being presented. I was suddenly faced with a dance. In a critical way, I mentioned the topic to Mr. Ebrahim Oglu, the secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Conference. He pretended that this was not a serious problem, and I think he said that this is an Erfani (mystical) dance." Ref. ynetnews.com

The Dance

U.S. Questioned Iraq on the Rush to Hang Hussein

2007-01-01T23:53:00.000Z

Wael al-Samuraei/European Pressphoto Agency

Men prayed before Saddam Hussein's grave at his funeral, which was held under heavy security in his home village, Awja, near Tikrit, on Sunday.

By JOHN F. BURNS and MARC SANTORA

Published: January 1, 2007

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 — With his plain pine coffin strapped into an American military helicopter for a predawn journey across the desert, Saddam Hussein, the executed dictator who built a legend with his defiance of America, completed a turbulent passage into history on Sunday.

Like the helicopter trip, just about everything in the 24 hours that began with Mr. Hussein’s being taken to his execution from his cell in an American military detention center in the postmidnight chill of Saturday had a surreal and even cinematic quality.

Part of it was that the Americans, who turned him into a pariah and drove him from power, proved to be his unlikely benefactors in the face of Iraq’s new Shiite rulers who seemed bent on turning the execution and its aftermath into a new nightmare for the Sunni minority privileged under Mr. Hussein.

The 110-mile journey aboard a Black Hawk helicopter carried Mr. Hussein’s body to an American military base north of Tikrit, Camp Speicher, named for an American Navy pilot lost over Iraq in the first hours of the Persian Gulf war in 1991. From there, an Iraqi convoy carried him to Awja, the humble town beside the Tigris River that Mr. Hussein, in the chandeliered palaces that became his habitat as ruler, spoke of as emblematic of the miseries of his lonely and impoverished youth.

The American role extended beyond providing the helicopter that carried Mr. Hussein home. Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom — and justice — of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end.

The Americans’ concerns seem certain to have been heightened by what happened at the hanging, as evidenced in video recordings made just before Mr. Hussein fell through the gallows trapdoor at 6:10 a.m. on Saturday. A new video that appeared on the Internet late Saturday, apparently made by a witness with a camera cellphone, underscored the unruly, mocking atmosphere in the execution chamber.

This continued, on the video, through the actual hanging itself, with a shout of “The tyrant has fallen! May God curse him!” as Mr. Hussein hung lifeless, his neck snapped back and his glassy eyes open.

The cacophony from those gathered before the gallows included a shout of “Go to hell!” as the former ruler stood with the noose around his neck in the final moments, and his riposte, barely audible above the bedlam, which included the words “gallows of shame.” It continued despite appeals from an official-sounding voice, possibly Munir Haddad, the judge who presided at the hanging, saying, “Please no! The man is about to die.”

The Shiites who predominated at the hanging began a refrain at one point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!”— the name of a volatile cleric whose private militia has spawned death squads that have made an indiscriminate industry of killing Sunnis — appending it to a Muslim imprecation for blessings on the Prophet Muhammad. “Moktada,” Mr. Hussein replied, smiling contemptuously. “Is this how real men behave?”

American officials in Iraq have been reluctant to say much publicly about the pell-mell nature of the hanging, apparently fearful of provoking recriminations in Washington, where the Bush administration adopted a hands-off posture, saying the timing of the execution was Iraq’s to decide.

While privately incensed at the dead-of-night rush to the gallows, the Americans here have been caught in the double bind that has ensnared them over much else about the Maliki government — frustrated at what they call the government’s failure to recognize its destructive behavior, but reluctant to speak out, or sometimes to act, for fear of undermining Mr. Maliki and worsening the situation.

But a narrative assembled from accounts by various American officials, and by Iraqis present at some of the crucial meetings between the two sides, shows that it was the Americans who counseled caution in the way the Iraqis carried out the hanging. The issues uppermost in the Americans’ minds, these officials said, were a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id al-Adha holiday, which began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday.

A senior Iraqi official said the Americans staked out their ground at a meeting on Thursday, 48 hours after an appeals court had upheld the death sentence passed on Mr. Hussein and two associates. They were convicted in November of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Shiite townspeople of Dujail, north of Baghdad, in 1982. Mr. Hussein, as president, signed a decree to hang 148 men and teenage boys.

Told that Mr. Maliki wanted to carry out the death sentence on Mr. Hussein almost immediately, and not wait further into the 30-day deadline set by the appeals court, American officers at the Thursday meeting said that they would accept any decision but needed assurance that due process had been followed before relinquishing physical custody of Mr. Hussein.

“The Americans said that we have no issue in handing him over, but we need everything to be in accordance with the law,” the Iraqi official said. “We do not want to break the law.”

The American pressure sent Mr. Maliki and his aides into a frantic quest for legal workarounds, the Iraqi official said. The Americans told them they needed a decree from President Jalal Talabani, signed jointly by his two vice presidents, upholding the death sentence, and a letter from the chief judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal, the court that tried Mr. Hussein, certifying the verdict. But Mr. Talabani, a Kurd, made it known that he objected to the death penalty on principle.

The Maliki government spent much of Friday working on legal mechanisms to meet the American demands. From Mr. Talabani, they obtained a letter saying that while he would not sign a decree approving the hanging, he had no objections. The Iraqi official said Mr. Talabani first asked the tribunal’s judges for an opinion on whether the constitutional requirement for presidential approval applied to a death sentence handed down by the tribunal, a special court operating outside Iraq’s main judicial system. The judges said the requirement was void.

Mr. Maliki had one major obstacle: the Hussein-era law proscribing executions during the Id holiday. This remained unresolved until late Friday, the Iraqi official said. He said he attended a late-night dinner at the prime minister’s office at which American officers and Mr. Maliki’s officials debated the issue.

One participant described the meeting this way: “The Iraqis seemed quite frustrated, saying, ‘Who is going to execute him, anyway, you or us?’ The Americans replied by saying that obviously, it was the Iraqis who would carry out the hanging. So the Iraqis said, ‘This is our problem and we will handle the consequences. If there is any damage done, it is we who will be damaged, not you.’ ”

To this, the Iraqis added what has often been their trump card in tricky political situations: they telephoned officials of the marjaiya, the supreme religious body in Iraqi Shiism, composed of ayatollahs in the holy city of Najaf. The ayatollahs approved. Mr. Maliki, at a few minutes before midnight on Friday, then signed a letter to the justice minister, “to carry out the hanging until death.”

The Maliki letter sent Iraqi and American officials into a frenzy of activity. Fourteen Iraqi officials, including senior members of the Maliki government, were called at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday and told to gather at the prime minister’s office. At. 3:30 a.m., they were driven to the helicopter pad beside Mr. Hussein’s old Republican Palace, and taken to the prison in the northern suburb of Khadimiya where the hanging took place.

At about the same time, American and Iraqi officials said, Mr. Hussein was roused at his Camp Cropper cell 10 miles away, and taken to a Black Hawk helicopter for his journey to Khadimiya.

None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait. Nor would any explain why those who conducted it had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.

But the explanation may have lain in something that Bassam al-Husseini, a Maliki aide closely involved in arrangements for the hanging, said to the BBC later. Mr. Husseini, who has American citizenship, described the hanging as “an Id gift to the Iraqi people.”

The weekend’s final disorderly chapter came with the tensions over Mr. Hussein’s body. For nearly 18 hours on Saturday, Mr. Maliki’s officials insisted that his corpse would be kept in secret government custody until circumstances allowed interment without his grave becoming a shrine or a target. Once again, the Americans intervened.

The leader of Mr. Hussein’s Albu-Nasir tribe, Sheik Ali al-Nida, said that before flying to Baghdad on an American helicopter, he had been so fearful for his safety that he had written a will. Bizarrely, Sheik Nida and others were shown on Iraqi television collecting the coffin from the courtyard in front of Mr. Maliki’s office, where it sat unceremoniously in a police pickup.

After the helicopter trip to Camp Speicher, the American base outside Tikrit, the coffin was taken in an Iraqi convoy to Awja, and laid to rest in the ornate visitors’ center that Mr. Hussein ordered built for the townspeople in the 1990s. Local officials and members of Mr. Hussein’s tribe had broken open the marbled floor in the main reception hall, and cleared what they said would be a temporary burial place until he could be moved to a permanent grave outside Awja where his two sons, Uday and Qusay, are buried.

At the burial, several mourners threw themselves on the closed casket. One, a young man convulsed with sobs, cried: “He has not died. I can hear him speaking to me.” Another shouted, “Saddam is dead! Instead of weeping for him, think of ways we can take revenge on the Iranian enemy,” Sunni parlance for the Shiites now in power. Ref: NY Times

The Oud – A Masterpiece

2006-12-30T12:01:00.000Z

Talking of the Oud, it is a string instrument sometimes referred to as Lute or Barbat.

Whenever the name Oud is mentioned, some think of earlier civilizations such as Mesopotamia. Legend even has it that there are magical powers behind this instrument.

The Oud is not only played or found in Arabia, it is in Europe, Africa and the Americas not to mention others. The Czech and Slovaks adore it, Bahrainis even sleep with it, Canadians collect them etc. etc.

How or why you play your Oud shouldn’t be underestimated. People play the Oud for various reasons – whereas some play it to communicate the message of Harmony and Peace, others play it to instigate Hatred.

There is no magic in the Oud – it is, and remain an instrument, it is a tool. The purpose for which you use it, will determine the result it will bring you.

One effective use of the Oud is to express gratitude for one’s life to the Creator of life itself. When I think of the Oud in this perspective, I think of the name Judah – which means Praise.

Treasure Hunter

2006-12-29T21:10:00.001Z

Treasures are normally not so easy to come by :
But with a little determination, they can be found;
With a little perseverance, they can be acquired;
They are things often stored up for winners.

So why don't you start to hunt for your treasure now?

Rifles for Palestinians? Israel says yes

2006-12-29T20:46:00.001Z

Hopes shipment helps fight against Hamas

December 29, 2006
BY MARK LAVIE

JERUSALEM -- With Israel's blessing, Egypt has delivered a large arms
shipment to forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
officials said Thursday -- the latest Israeli attempt to boost the
embattled leader in his bloody conflict with the militant Islamic Hamas.

Though there has been a weeklong hiatus in armed clashes, Palestinians
fear the heavily armed security forces of Hamas, which runs the
Palestinian government, and Fatah could erupt in violence at any time.

Israel has been trying to reinforce Abbas' standing among his people.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Abbas is a partner for
negotiations -- unlike Hamas, which rejects the existence of Israel and
refuses to renounce violence.

Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, told Israel
Radio the military assistance was rendered to reinforce the ''forces of
peace'' against the ''forces of darkness'' threatening the region, a
reference to Islamic extremists.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Abbas, issued a statement denying any
arms deal. However, at midday Thursday, witnesses saw a truck belonging
to the pro-Fatah National Security force carrying what appeared to be
sealed boxes of weapons.

When the truck attempted to make a quick detour, one box fell onto the
ground, scattering a pile of automatic guns on the road, the witnesses
said. Security men in the truck quickly got out and collected the
weapons.

Israel approved the transfer of 2,000 automatic rifles, 20,000
ammunition clips and 2 million bullets on Wednesday, Israeli officials
said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the shipment had not
been officially confirmed by Israel, the Palestinians or Egypt.

Ahmed Youssef, a political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of
Hamas, said Egyptian officials had assured him no arms were sent. He
accused Israel of spreading false rumors about an arms shipment in ''an
attempt to increase tensions among the Palestinians.''

Seventeen people have died in this month's Hamas-Fatah fighting, which included an assassination attempt on Haniyeh.

On Thursday, the prime minister left Gaza to resume a trip to Gulf
states that had been cut short by the violence, which has since
subsided. He was headed first to Saudi Arabia, then to Kuwait, Qatar
and Jordan, where he and Abbas have been invited by King Abdullah II
for talks. Ref. : Chicago Sun-Times

Glimpses of the many sides of faith

2006-12-29T20:40:00.001Z

December 29, 2006

BY CATHLEEN FALSANI Religion Writer

As 2006 draws to a close -- an annus horribilis for some of us, annus mirabilis for others -- it's once again time to reflect on some of the more spiritually intriguing ideas I've heard this year.

Heartening, maddening and challenging, here are (in no particular order) a few sound bites from the year in faith:

"The glorious thing for you always has consequences for others."

Al Gini, Loyola University Chicago philosophy professor and author of Why It's Hard to Be Good

"The world distrusts us not because we are rich and free. Many of us are not rich, and some of us aren't especially free. They distrust us because we are deaf and blind, because too often we don't understand and make no effort to understand."

Cardinal Francis George talking about how Americans are viewed by the rest of the world

"My wish is that this joyous occasion will offer hope to all of the mothers of Iraq whose children have been kidnapped. May they all be returned safely and swiftly to their mothers' arms."

Mary Beth Carroll, aunt of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, upon her niece's release after three months in captivity in Iraq

"It's not an act of God, it's an act of guys!"

Studs Terkel talking about the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia

"I'd Really Rather You Didn't Act Like A Sanctimonious, Holier-Than-Thou Ass When Describing My Noodly Goodness. If Some People Don't Believe in Me, That's Okay. Really, I'm Not That Vain. Besides, This Isn't About Them So Don't Change The Subject."

one of the Eight "I'd Rather You Didn'ts," spiritual pillars of the fanciful Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

"If you're trying to lure him onto the baseball field, you start by showing how beautiful the game is. You don't start with the infield fly rule."

the Rev. Bob Barron on evangelization and how to draw people to Roman Catholicism

"For me, spiritual concerns are totally pervasive. There is nothing separate from it. It's complete and sort of urgent."

author Anne Rice

"The people who make themselves rich in the name of God or Allah are fair game, as are the people who pretend to speak for Krishna or Y*HW*H -- usually to their own advantage. YOU may say that God said, 'touch not the apple of mine eye' -- but until God sends us the memo, you're fair game, bud."

Robert Darden, editor in chief of the religious satire magazine the Wittenburg Door

"We always think that uncertainty weighs us down. But what would it mean if we danced with uncertainty?"

Rabbi Irwin Kula, author of Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life

"The saints are imperfect, too. That strikes people as sort of heretical because what we've done is we've tamed them. And, boy, to tame someone like Francis of Assisi is quite a trick. But we've turned him into this sort of non-threatening hippie who talks to birds. That's why we could feel comfortable putting him in our garden because, ya know, he's so adorable. Like a puppy. . . . Can you imagine someone putting a statue of Dorothy Day in their garden? Ooh, she'd be mad."

the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of My Life With the Saints

"To me, justice is just a tool to get a person to the point of admission because it's good for the soul and it gets them right with God. Ultimately, our concern was that George Ryan would get right with God. If it cost us our kids . . . so that something like that might happen, who am I to tell God that that's not fair?"

Scott Willis, the father of six children killed in a fiery car crash in 1994 caused by a truck driver who paid a bribe for his license from then-Secretary of State George Ryan's office

"When people have the strongest reactions to [hypocrisy], I always take that as a red flag. It's a 'protective' response. In other words, it's too painful for me to recognize the hypocrisy in my own life, therefore I can put my energy into damning it in the other person."

Lallene Rector, dean of Garrett Evangelical-Theological Seminary

"The quest is not just believing in God, but believing in other people. Believing in ourselves as children of God, and that we are called to see other people as God sees them, not as we would like them to be."

Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche

"Poetry provides a space for a spiritual lollygag."

Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin Stein

"Part of the reason that I've had trouble going to church and staying in church is not feeling like the sermon some minister was espousing was connecting with me in any way. Whereas a good four lines from a John Hiatt song could mean so much more to me."

WXRT radio DJ Lin Brehmer

"You can't overdo it, but you can't under-do it, either."

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist lama and marathon runner

"When people ask me for advice -- and I don't know why they're so foolish as to do so, but some people do -- I say, 'Every morning, look in your bathroom mirror and say three times: 'It's not about me.'"

author Tom Robbins

Ref. : Chicago Sun-Times

Moscow Links Poisoning Inquiry to Yukos Case

2006-12-28T15:39:00.000Z

STEVEN LEE MYERS writes in NY Times (Published on December 28, 2006) - MOSCOW, Dec. 27 — Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office on Wednesday produced a startling new twist in the investigation of the killing of Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former K.G.B. officer who died in London in November of radiation poisoning. It announced that it was investigating the possible involvement of former executives of Yukos Oil, the company dismantled by a prosecutorial assault last year.

In a statement released Wednesday evening, the prosecutor’s office said its investigation indicated a link between the poisoning of Mr. Litvinenko and criminal cases under way against Yukos executives. It singled out Leonid B. Nevzlin, a major shareholder and partner of the company’s jailed chief executive, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky.

The statement did not elaborate on any evidence that might link Mr. Nevzlin and others to Mr. Litvinenko’s death, which was caused by a high dose of a radioactive material, polonium 210.

The accusation nevertheless was an effort on the part of the Russian government to tie Mr. Litvinenko’s death to accusations of a convoluted web of economic and other crimes that destroyed Yukos, once Russia’s richest company.

The prosecution of Yukos and Mr. Khodorkovsky was widely seen as a Kremlin-led campaign against a company seen as defiant of President Vladimir V. Putin and against a man seen as a potential political threat.

A spokesman for Mr. Nevzlin, a close associate of Mr. Khodorkovsky who is wanted on charges in Russia and lives in self-imposed exile in Israel, dismissed the new accusations as a continuation of that campaign.

“We all know the methods of the K.G.B.,” the spokesman, Amir Dan, said in a telephone interview, referring to the defunct Soviet security agency. “The statement is ridiculous. It is not worth any comment.”

When Mr. Litvinenko fell ill on Nov. 1, officials in Russia ridiculed the accusations of Russian involvement. But when he died on Nov. 23 from the effects of radioactive poisoning, investigators here agreed to assist British detectives, who visited for several days this month.

The statement from the Prosecutor General’s Office said the investigations of Yukos had now been combined with that of Mr. Litvinenko’s killing.

“A version is being verified according to which the contractors of these crimes may be one and the same group of people whose names are on the international wanted list” for committing grave crimes, the prosecutors’ statement said. It specified Mr. Nevzlin as one of them but did not identify any others.

Mr. Nevzlin has long evaded Russian requests for extradition — a source of diplomatic irritation between Russia and Israel. On Sunday he arrived in the United States on vacation, Mr. Dan said, prompting new demands by the Russians that the Americans arrest him.

A United States government official who has been briefed on the case and spoke on condition of anonymity because of privacy regulations said Mr. Nevzlin arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Sunday and was questioned by Customs and Border Protection officers. He had a valid visa and was allowed into the country, the official said. A Justice Department spokesman said the department had no information about Mr. Nevzlin.

The prosecutors’ statement said Russia would prepare new requests for extradition, though it did not identify the countries to which the requests would be made.

Mr. Nevzlin’s name has surfaced in connection with the Litvinenko case before. He met with Mr. Litvinenko in the weeks before his poisoning, evidently in October. After Mr. Litvinenko’s death, Mr. Nevzlin said that Mr. Litvinenko had provided him with a dossier that “shed light on most significant aspects of the Yukos affair.”

The dossier’s contents remain unclear, but Mr. Nevzlin said he had provided them to British investigators. It was also unclear how Mr. Litvinenko, who fled Russia in 2000, could have come to possess incriminating information about a case that unfolded after his departure.

In another aspect of the Litvinenko case, investigators in Germany discovered traces of polonium at places visited by Dmitry V. Kovtun, another businessman and former security officer who was one of two Russian businessmen who met Mr. Litvinenko in London on Nov. 1, the day he was evidently poisoned.

The traces found in Germany appeared to have been left in the days before Mr. Kovtun flew from Hamburg to London on that morning.

Prosecutors here say they are investigating Mr. Kovtun’s poisoning as an attempted murder committed in conjunction with Mr. Litvinenko’s killing. That would suggest that Mr. Kovtun was a victim, not a suspect.

Mr. Kovtun is said to be in a Moscow hospital being monitored for symptoms of radiation poisoning, though his condition and whereabouts are shrouded in mystery. He and the other businessman, Andrei K. Lugovoi, were questioned by Russian and British investigators. Nothing is known of the nature of their responses.

The man at the center of the Yukos affair, Mr. Khodorkovsky, the company’s former chairman, has also come under new prosecutorial scrutiny. Convicted last year on charges of fraud and tax evasion that his supporters described as politically motivated, Mr. Khodorkovsky was transferred over the weekend from the remote Siberian prison where he was serving an eight-year sentence to a regional detention center in Chita.

On Wednesday prosecutors preparing new criminal charges against him questioned him and his jailed business partner, Platon A. Lebedev, Mr. Khodorkovsky’s lawyer said in a statement. The lawyer, Yuri M. Schmidt, said investigators accused his client of laundering money by making contributions to Open Russia, a social and educational charity Mr. Khodorkovsky founded. The authorities have since closed the charity.

Mr. Schmidt said the timing of the new questioning amounted to “moral and physical pressure” on his client, whose current sentence does not end until 2012. Ref. NY Times

Islamist Forces in Somali City Vanish

2006-12-28T14:55:00.000Z

JEFFREY GETTLEMAN writes in the NY Times (Published December 28, 2006) - NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec. 27 — The Islamist forces who have controlled much of Somalia in recent months suddenly vanished from the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, residents said Wednesday night, just as thousands of rival troops massed 15 miles away.

In the past few days, Ethiopian-backed forces, with tacit approval from the United States, have unleashed tanks, helicopter gunships and jet fighters on the Islamists, decimating their military and paving the way for the internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia to assert control.

Even so, the Islamists, who have been regarded as a regional menace by Ethiopia and the United States, had repeatedly vowed to fight to the death for their religion and their land, making their disappearance that much more unexpected.

Fortified checkpoints across the city — in front of the radio station, at the airport, at the main roads leading into Mogadishu and outside police stations — were abruptly abandoned Wednesday night, residents said.

Many of the teenage troops who made up the backbone of the Islamist army had blended back into the civilian population, walking around without guns or their trademark green skullcaps.

The sudden reversal left it unclear whether a war that had threatened to consume the Horn of Africa had quickly ended, or the Islamists had merely gone underground, preparing to wage a guerrilla insurgency, as some leaders had threatened.

“The whole city is just waiting,” said Sheik Ahmed Shiro, a Koranic teacher in Mogadishu.

At 10 p.m. on Wednesday, several Islamist leaders emerged to hold a news conference at their headquarters in Mogadishu. They did not explicitly concede defeat to the transitional government, but seemed to be preparing their forces for such an eventuality. “We need our soldiers to return to their positions for the sake of the people,” said Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, one of the leaders. “Even if your positions are transferred to the government, you must stay where you are and make sure Mogadishu is as safe as it was before.”

As he spoke, Mogadishu was rapidly descending back into the clan-based anarchy that had been its hallmark for most of the past 15 years, before the Islamists came to power and pacified the city.

Witnesses said bands of armed thugs swept through the markets, smashing and stealing at will. Gunfire rattled from neighborhood to neighborhood as the disparate clan-based militias that had joined forces to form the Islamist movement began to fragment and turn on one another.

With the war going badly for them, clan elders had been rapidly losing faith in the Islamist leaders, residents said. The quick defeat the Islamists suffered earlier on Wednesday at Jowhar, the last major town on the road to Mogadishu, seemed to be the final straw.

The Islamists started out as a grass-roots movement of clan elders and religious leaders who banded together earlier this year to rid Mogadishu of its notorious warlords, earning them a lot of public support.

But much of that good will seems to have been sapped by their decision to go to war against the transitional government and the Ethiopian forces protecting it.

The Islamists attacked Baidoa, the seat of the transitional government, on Dec. 20; a few days later, they announced that Somalia was open to Muslim fighters around the world who wanted to wage a holy war against Christian-led Ethiopia.

That provoked a crushing counter-attack by the Ethiopians, who command the strongest military in East Africa. For the past week, the Islamists have lost one battle after another, their adolescent soldiers no match for a professional army.

By Wednesday, the Islamists were cornered. Thousands of troops from the transitional government were closing in on the seaside capital from two directions.

Mogadishu was coming unhinged. The ports and airports had closed, leading to a shortage of just about everything, sending prices for food, medicine and fuel skyward. A gallon of gas in Mogadishu now costs $8.

The once feared Shebab, the devout young Islamic fighters, began deserting in droves. (Shebab is the Arabic word for youth.) “We can’t resist,” said Musa Abdullahi, an 18-year-old Shebab who quit his unit after half his comrades were cut down by Ethiopian helicopter gunships. “We thought this fighting would be like the others. It’s not.”

Ahmed Nur Bilal, a retired Somali general, said the war had been a horrible miscalculation.

One of the first things the Islamists did after the fighting started was to close all schools in Mogadishu in order to send more young people to the front. “They’ve misled our children to their deaths,” Mr. Bilal said.

Residents said that crowds in one slum threw rocks at the Islamists’ pickup trucks as they drove by on Wednesday. Some people openly celebrated in the streets by hoisting up pictures of the transitional government’s leaders and gleefully chewing khat, a mildly narcotic plant the Islamists had outlawed.

The demonstrations helped prompt the clan elders, who are regarded as the pillars of Somali society, to act. According to residents in Mogadishu, the leaders of several major clans — and some businesspeople who had been financing the Islamists — demanded that the Islamist leaders return the armed pickup trucks that had been lent to the movement.

Faced with the loss of support from their counterparts, other clan leaders saw the coalition begin to crumble and withdrew their trucks as well, leaving little of the organized force that once lent the Islamists their power.

One adviser to Western diplomats who has close contacts with both the Islamists and the transitional government described the unraveling as an “organic process that rose up from the people, in an unorganized way, Somali style.”

Disappointment in the Islamists, however, does not necessarily translate into widespread enthusiasm for the transitional government, which until last week had been considered weak and divided by many Somalis. Thousands of people in Mogadishu, a war-weary city of two million, have begun to pack up and leave, residents said, afraid not only of the possibility of heavy urban fighting but also of a return to warlord rule, which kept Mogadishu in anarchy for years.

The transitional government has sent mixed signals about what it plans to do next.

Until now, Mogadishu had been considered too dangerous as a headquarters for the transitional leaders, themselves a mix of clan elders and former warlords. But transitional government leaders have always said they eventually planned to base their government in the capital, and this week they vowed to keep fighting until Mogadishu was theirs.

Several Mogadishu residents said on Wednesday night that they expected the Ethiopian-backed forces to march into the city at dawn. That has been a pattern since the fighting began, with the Islamists retreating from cities across Somalia during the night and the transitional government troops arriving in the morning. But some analysts believe there will be a few days of negotiations before that happens.

Ethiopian officials have said that occupying Mogadishu is not part of their plan. But they have also said that rooting out Islamist extremists is their priority. Ref: NY Times

The Substance To Making Good Decisions

2006-12-27T13:45:00.000Z

Decisions normally set in when we are faced with choices. Whenever we are handed an array of choices, we can be sure that some elements of fairness are embodied with it - for instance, the Freedom of Choice when options are available. As a matter of fact, our decisions follow when we have weighed the choices at hand. Freedom of Choice although has been abused every now and then by mankind, it still remains a freedom that nature has installed for all.

Whatever our decisions may be, they would be nothing unless we find the Substance to arriving at them - the Substance to our Decision Making.

The following are some favorite quotes from some famous Statesmen from around the world when they addressed the subject of ‘Faith’:

Henry Mencken :“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

Nachman of Bratslav: “Faith is not only in the heart; it should be put into words.”

Martin Luther King Jr.: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Saint Augustine: “Unless you believe, you will not understand.”

Saint Augustine: “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”

Mark Twain: “Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.”

Leo Tolstoy: “Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?”

Without divulging further, I honestly believe that what a person need, in order to be ' so sure’ of one’s beliefs is ‘Faith’ and nothing less. True Faith, comes from hearing and hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Actually ‘the truth’ is not ‘in the search itself’. As a matter of fact, the truth is the GIFT of God to mankind, and that GIFT is Christ Jesus. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The GIFT is the reason for all the festivities around the whole world at this time of the year.

Again, when people give and share during this time of the year which is Christmas, they are actually trying to emulate God when He gave His greatest GIFT, which is, Christ Jesus, to mankind - for God is a Giver. One wise man once put it this way “Christmas is not about gifts, it is about the GIFT, which is Christ Jesus”.

You may read this post of mine.

He Is Celebrated Everywhere

2006-12-25T12:37:00.001Z

Breaking News : Even in Dubai, Bahrain, Lebanon, Russia, Iran, Iraq and in China, the GIFT - Christ Jesus - is celebrated and will continue to be celebrated to all corners of the world. The GIFT of God to mankind is Christ, He is Lord and He is Saviour. Merry Christmas!

[ An Emarati man looks at a giant Christmas tree at Wafi shopping mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday Dec. 24, 2006. ]

Iran President Facing Revival of Students’ Ire

2006-12-21T12:21:00.000Z

Protesters at Amir Kabir University mocking President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit there.

By NAZILA FATHI

Published: December 21, 2006

TEHRAN, Dec. 20 — As protests broke out last week at a prestigious university here, cutting short a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Babak Zamanian could only watch from afar. He was on crutches, having been clubbed by supporters of the president and had his foot run over by a motorcycle during a less publicized student demonstration a few days earlier.

But the significance of the confrontation was easy to grasp, even from a distance, said Mr. Zamanian, a leader of a student political group.

The student movement, which planned the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy from the same university, Amir Kabir, is reawakening from its recent slumber and may even be spearheading a widespread resistance against Mr. Ahmadinejad. This time the catalysts were academic and personal freedom.

“It is not that simple to break up a president’s speech,” said Alireza Siassirad, a former student political organizer, explaining that an event of that magnitude takes meticulous planning. “I think what happened at Amir Kabir is a very important and a dangerous sign. Students are definitely becoming active again.”

The protest, punctuated by shouts of “Death to the dictator,” was the first widely publicized outcry against Mr. Ahmadinejad, one that was reflected Friday in local elections, where voters turned out in droves to vote for his opponents.

The students’ complaints largely mirrored public frustrations over the president’s crackdown on civil liberties, his blundering economic policies and his harsh oratory against the West, which they fear will isolate the country.

But the students had an additional and potent source of outrage: the president’s campaign to purge the universities of all vestiges of the reform movement of his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami.

Last summer the newly installed head of the university, Alireza Rahai, ordered the demolition of the office of the Islamic Association, which had been the core of student political activities on campus since 1963 and had matured into a moderate, pro-reform group.

Since then, students say, more than 100 liberal professors have been forced into retirement and many popular figures have been demoted. At least 70 students were suspended for political activities, and two were jailed. Some 30 students were given warnings, and a prominent Ph.D. candidate, Matin Meshkin, was barred from finishing his studies.

The students also complain about overcrowded and crumbling dormitories and proscriptions against women wearing makeup or bright colors, rules that were relaxed when Mr. Khatami came to power in 1997.

Amir Kabir University of Technology, a major polytechnic institute, has been a hotbed of student activism since before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. Drawing on networks at universities around the country through an office that links their Islamic associations, students can organize large protests on a moment’s notice. There are also student guilds, which are independent, and more than 2,000 student publications.

Mr. Zamanian, the head of public relations of the Islamic Association at Amir Kabir, said that while the situation had not been ideal in the Khatami years, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s antireformist campaign had led students to value their previous freedoms.

They were permitted to hold meetings and invite opposition figures to speak, he said, and could freely publish their journals. Now, he said, their papers are forbidden to print anything but reports from official news agencies.

The students also complain about the president’s failure to deliver economic growth and jobs. At last week’s protest, which coincided with a now infamous Holocaust conference held by the Foreign Ministry, students chanted, “Forget the Holocaust — do something for us.”

A student who identified himself only as Ahmad, for fear of retribution, said: “A nuclear program is our right, but we fear that it will bring more damage than good.”

Another student said: “It is so hard and costly to come to this university, but I don’t see a bright future. Even if you are lucky enough to get a job, the pay would not be enough for you to pay your rent.”

Mr. Zamanian said that the protest had not been planned ahead of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit, but that students were further enraged when they saw supporters of the president being bused in.

Although the auditorium was almost filled with the president’s supporters by the time any students were let in, the protesters forced their way inside, chanted, “Death to the dictator,” and held banners calling him a “fascist president.” They also held up posters of the president with his picture upside down and set fire to three of them. Many of the students are now in hiding.

At one point, the head of a moderate student guild complained to Mr. Ahmadinejad that students were being expelled for political activities and given three stars next to their names in university records, barring them from re-entering. The president responded by ridiculing him, joking that the three stars made them sergeants in the army.

The president was eventually forced to cut his speech short and leave. But angry students stormed his car, kicking it and chanting slogans. His convoy of four cars collided several times as they tried to leave in a rush. Eventually the students were dispersed.

An entry on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Web log, posted Wednesday, played down the scale and significance of the protest, writing that the president had a “good feeling when he saw a small group amid the dominant majority insulting him without any fear.”

A few days after the protest, former Amir Kabir students affiliated with the Islamic associations’ coordinating office wrote a letter to Mr. Ahmadinejad. In it, they turned down what they said was his invitation to share their problems with him, because they believed that he wanted to use the occasion to bolster his candidates in the local elections.

The students also wrote that the president had insulted their intelligence by talking to them in the same language he uses in remote villages on his provincial trips.

“You should know that what happened at Polytechnic University was the voice of universities and the real voice of the people,” they wrote. Tehran Polytechnic was the university’s name before the revolution. Ref. NY Times

A Dose of Reality TV for Congress

2006-12-20T14:56:00.001Z

Published: December 20, 2006

If Democratic leaders truly want to put some nip into the new Congress, they should finally free up television coverage of floor debates so citizens can see the unvarnished state of the people’s forum. Current TV restrictions allow only static head-on shots of whoever has the floor, lending chamber proceedings all the excitement of a postage stamp.

The cameras should be liberated to pan the floor and look for reaction shots. Who but working
politicians would suspect there’s a risk to showing real life? C-Span watchers were deprived of a much needed touch of humanity during President Clinton’s impeachment trial when one weary senator listened to the interminable proceeding with his shoes off.

The speaker’s office has been wary of allowing free-ranging cameras since coverage was permitted 28 years ago. Visitors to the chamber galleries can plainly see scenes denied to TV watchers — sideline wheeling and dealing; the representative more interested in the newspaper than the debate; the senator nodding off, understandably perhaps; and the near-empty chamber surrounding the orator speaking for the stationary camera.

Politicians should be the first to realize the possibilities of open viewing. There’s no shortage of them working the camera angles during the president’s annual State of the Union address, that rare night of free-rein TV. Imagine if there had been a roving camera eye at the debate over Medicare drug subsidies three years ago when the Republican leader, Tom DeLay, kept the vote open beyond the time limit. All C-Span viewers could see was the droning scene of time being killed. What was really happening was Mr. DeLay roaming the floor and arm-twisting members to vote for passage.

That’s the reality of politics. Americans should be allowed to see it on TV. - Ref. : The New York Times

Apple to get a month of security bugs

2006-12-20T14:07:00.000Z

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Apple will soon be a member of the “month of bugs” club.

On Jan. 1, two security researchers will begin publishing details of a flood of security vulnerabilities in Apple’s products. Their plan is to disclose one bug per day for the entire month, they said Tuesday.

The project is being launched by an independent security researcher, Kevin Finisterre, and a hacker known as LMH, who declined to reveal his identity.

Some of the bugs “might represent a significant risk,” LMH said in an e-mail interview. “Others have a lower impact on security. We are trying to develop working exploits for every issue we find.”

The two hackers plan to disclose bugs in the Mac OS X kernel as well as in software such as Safari, iTunes, iPhoto and QuickTime, LMH said. Some of the bugs will also affect versions of Apple’s software designed to run on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, he added.

LMH was one of the brains behind the recent Month of Kernel Bugs project, which exposed flaws at the core of several different operating systems. It was inspired by an earlier effort, called the Month of Browser Bugs, which was kicked off in July.

This latest Apple project is being launched to raise awareness of security vulnerabilities in Apple’s products and to “stomp smugness,” Finisterre said via e-mail.

While the Macintosh is generally considered to be more secure than the Windows PC, many security researchers believe that this reputation is not attributable to any superior security practices on the part of Apple. They say attackers have been deterred by the Mac OS X’s more secure Unix kernel and the product’s less widespread adoption.

Apple enthusiasts and security researchers have been at odds since last August, when David Maynor and Jon Ellch claimed to have discovered a flaw that affected Apple’s wireless device drivers. They played a video at the Black Hat conference demonstrating how this flaw could be used to run unauthorized code on a MacBook. However, their claims have been slammed because the demonstration used a third-party wireless card rather than the one that ships with the MacBook, and because the two hackers still have not published the code used in their attack.

LMH said the Apple community’s negative response to Maynor and Ellch’s claims played a role in the decision to launch the Month of Apple bugs.

“I was shocked with the reaction of some so-called ‘Apple fans,’” he said. “I can’t understand why some people react badly to disclosure of issues in their system of choice. … That helps to improve its security.”

A similar effort to disclose flaws in Oracle’s software had to be abandoned before it was ever launched last month. The man behind the Week of Oracle bugs, Cesar Cerrudo, of Argeniss Information Security, said he pulled the plug when it became clear that the project could damage the relationship between one of his customers and Oracle. “This customer realized that they could have had serious business problems, so they changed their mind and asked to cancel it,” he said via instant message on Tuesday.

LMH said he didn’t expect any legal problems from Apple. “I keep talking to a guy from the Apple security team and I’m willing to help whenever necessary,” he said. “I’m far away from any illegal activity.”

Apple, for its part, did not seem to be upset with the project. “We always welcome feedback on how to improve security on the Mac,” said Anuj Nayar, an Apple spokesman.

Tara Conner -> Miss USA

2006-12-19T18:22:00.001Z

hmm..

Tara's Walk of Shame

2006-12-19T17:03:00.001Z

Posted Dec 19th 2006 10:37AM by TMZ Staff

Filed under: Train Wrecks, Awards/Awards Shows

Today could mark the end of Tara Conner's reign as Miss USA.

TMZ spotted the besieged beauty queen as she arrived at Trump Tower in New York City, where she is meeting with The Donald to discuss her fate. A press conference is expected later this morning where Conner's status as Miss USA will be announced.

Conner is under fire with allegations of drug use
and excessive partying. New York Daily News reported that she failed a
drug test for cocaine. Sources tell TMZ that the blonde Kentucky beauty
will be officially replaced by Miss California, Tamiko Nash.

Miss
USA 2001, Kandace Krueger, was standing outside of the Trump Tower this
morning and told TMZ, "This is very disappointing to me if the
allegations are true. Tara Conner should have the crown taken away.
When you become Miss USA, you have to take the title seriously and you
have to make good decisions and Tara obviously didn't." More...

AOL Re-Org Unveiled: Six Business Units Will Report To COO Ron Grant

2006-12-19T16:03:00.001Z

Posted by Staci D. Kramer

via www.paidcontent.org
Mon 18 Dec 2006 05:27 PM PST

I’m sure this will spread fast but you probably are reading it here first ... As we reported Friday, AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco is unveiling the Time Warner unit’s new structure today. From the Falco memo that just went out to AOL employees:

“I want to focus first on the functional areas that I will have reporting to me. I will have eight direct reports, beginning with Ted Leonsis, our Vice Chairman, and of course Ron (Grant) as COO. Steve Swad, Finance; Ira Parker, Legal; Lance Miyamoto, Human Resources; and Tiane Mitchell Gordon, Diversity and Inclusion will all report to me. Additionally, reporting to me will be Tricia Primrose Wallace, who will step up to become head of Corporate Communications. ... In addition, we will be appointing a Chief Marketing Officer to help us manage the AOL brand and oversee the company’s consumer marketing efforts.

Reporting to Ron will be our business units: Products, Programming, Platforms, AOL Media Networks, Paid Services, and International. And because smoothly integrating our technology resources into the business units has been such a priority, Ron also will have the Chief Technology Officer report to him.”

The structure, which I was told last week would be logical, is just that. The old AOL had a lot of criss-crossing wires; this version—at least on the proverbial paper—appears to be more clear cut. The business unit heads (the memo doesn’t include titles for these posts.):

-- Products: Kevin Conroy. “In addition to driving continued improvements in mail, the client, portals, video and video search, storage, and our safety and security products, Kevin’s group will now oversee our AIM and mobile products. Kevin’s group will also include the technology resources recently assigned these product areas.”

-- Programming: Bill Wilson, as expected. “ Bill will focus on improving our existing programming experiences while developing new ones, either internally or through partnerships on the model of TMZ and Lat34.”

-- Platforms: TBD. Search, commerce, local-based services including MapQuest. “We are currently in discussions with possible candidates for this role and hope to make an announcement soon.”

-- AOL Media Networks: Mike Kelly. I wasn’t sure this would work out this way given Falco’s advertising backbround and the usual new-exec temptation to bring in someone familiar. “Mike Kelly continues in his role as head of AMN, which includes advertising sales, client solutions and Advertising.com. Mike has done an outstanding job rebuilding and re-energizing AOL’s ad sales, and the results—46% growth in Q3, for example—bear this out.”

-- Paid Services: Kim Partoll. “Even with our shift to an advertising business model, managing our relationship with our millions of subscribers, as well as offering them new services, remains an important element of our strategy.”

-- International: TBD. Perhaps the most gaping strategic hole. “We already have strong portals in the UK, France and Germany, and just launched portals in Austria and the Netherlands. We are also looking to launch our India portal soon and are pursuing other opportunities in Asia, South America, and so on. We will be announcing a new leader for International in the near future.”

Not a business unit but new CTO Balan Nair also will report to Grant; Nair, a recent hire, was chief information officer.

The memo makes official what we’ve already reported: the departures of Jim Bankoff, Randy Boe, John Buckley and Joe Redling. John McKinley is included in the group but he had already announced plans to leave.

-- Falco acknowledges the most recent re-org by former Chairman and CEO Jon Mille. Falco: “I believe that there were many important and correct decisions made regarding the structure of the organization as announced by Jon Miller earlier this fall. At the same time, having reviewed the structure, Ron and I believe that it can be tighter, clearer, and better focused on operations. It’s our desire to instill greater focus on execution.”

more..

Apple buffs up the Mac

2006-12-19T12:26:00.000Z

The Mac was back at Apple in 2006.

A generation of technology buffs has come to know Apple Computer as a music company, but Apple spent most of this year overhauling its core lineup of desktops and notebooks with Intel's processors, to favorable results. The company logged perhaps its best financial year in its 30-year history, with record revenue and profits and a hefty stock price by the end of the year.

But that news was tempered by the warning that past financial results might have to be restated as Apple works its way through an investigation of its stock option award process, part of the wider re-examination of stock option backdating that tripped up dozens of Silicon Valley companies this year (including CNET Networks, publisher of CNET News.com). CEO Steve Jobs has managed to avoid any fallout from the investigation, but longtime executive and board member Fred Anderson stepped down from Apple's board in October as part of the inquiry More....

Crossing over to a New Life

2006-04-20T15:52:00.000Z

Tensions are mounting all over the world. Quick and smart decisions have to be made. For those of you who don't know yet, it's time you read "A New Life" here posted below. For time is running out.

Are you a Saul?

2006-04-20T14:00:00.000Z

Just in case you are a Saul, I have a message for you. Read the posting, " You could be a Paul too".

You could be a Paul too.

2006-04-20T13:35:00.000Z

Your may not be Saul, as it is known, however, I want to address you personally.

You have not come to this website per chance – your coming here is for a purpose. I want to present to you once again the love of God that once dwell among us in the form a human being. Even Jews who once rejected his Kingship, have started to acknowledge Him. He is the Saviour who was expected, and came, and is coming again. His name is Jesus Christ.

Time is running out, His second coming is very near. This may be your last chance to know Him and invite Him into your heart.

As I have stated earlier on, your name may not be Saul, however, your story may be similar to that of Saul.

Read what my dear friend, Oral Roberts , has to share with you today :

A New Life – By Oral Roberts :

If anyone was ever a living example of his own words, it was Paul when he wrote, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (II Corinthians 5:17) .

Although you may not have been impressed by Saul's small stature had you noticed him on the road to Damascus that day mentioned in Acts 9, you undoubtedly would have been awed by his big reputation and the number of persons he had put in prison, the number of families he had separated, and the lives that had been taken, all because of his zeal against the church of Jesus Christ. Yet here he was again on his way to the Pharisees in Damascus to seek their help to arrest any follower of Christ found there.

Proverbs 16:9 NKJV says, a man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. And so it was with Saul. On his way to Damascus, a great light from heaven shone down upon him. Falling to the ground, Saul heard a voice saying, "Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?" "Who are you, sir?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus," the voice said, "the one you are persecuting!" And, according to his own testimony, that day Paul was turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God and given an inheritance among those who were sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ ( Acts 26:18 ).

Who would have guessed, looking at Saul's past, that he would someday become Paul the apostle, the chosen prince of the Gospel? But that's how it is when you are in Christ. When you're in Christ, God looks at you through the eyes of His Son Jesus. When you're in Christ, your future is not limited by your past. That's because when you're in Christ, the old life is gone. A new life has begun!

BREITBART.COM - Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated

2006-04-17T12:46:00.000Z

What this lunatic president is trying to achieve is not different from what is being prophesied. I would encourage readers to get the book ' Jerusalem Countdown ' by Pastor John Hagee or listen to the following Part One and Part Two messages as Pastor Hagee talks about the latter.

Dr. Creflo Dollar - The Second Coming of the Lord

2006-04-15T22:09:00.000Z

I do listen to Dr. Dollar almost every day at www.icf-aachen.org . He is a great man of God, endowed with the wisdom of God to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You should listen to the message : The Second Coming of the Lord

Creflo may the Lord continue to bless and expand your ministry.

Bush acknowledges declassifying Iraq intelligence | Reuters.com

2006-04-12T11:48:00.000Z

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush acknowledged on Monday he ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq to respond to critics who alleged he manipulated intelligence to justify the war.Bush offered his first comment on a prosecutor's disclosure last week that he authorized Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to declassify Iraq intelligence.The disclosure prompted a firestorm of criticism from Democrats who charged Bush was a hypocrite who denounces leaks of information while becoming the "leaker-in-chief." A Republican ally, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, urged Bush on Sunday to "tell the American people exactly what happened." At issue is the administration's release in July 2003 of parts of an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that alleged Iraq under Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was trying to develop a nuclear weapon.Bush said he declassified parts of the document to answer questions raised about why the United States invaded Iraq."I wanted people to see what some of those statements were based on. I wanted people to see the truth. I thought it made sense for people to see the truth. That's why I declassified the document," he said.Bush, answering questions from an audience after a speech in Washington, would not comment on the allegation that he authorized Libby to release the information to reporters.But a senior administration official said Bush did not designate Libby or anyone else to release the information, trying to distance Bush from any tactical decisions made on how to release the information.

Google sees large revenue growth in China

2006-04-12T11:44:00.000Z

BEIJING (Reuters) - Internet giant Google Inc. expects substantial revenue growth in China and will eventually have thousands of software engineers working there, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday.
"I don't know where (Chinese) revenue growth will be, but it will obviously be large," Schmidt told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference.
Google would have 100 software engineers in China by the middle of 2006, Schmidt said. Asked how many the Web search leader ultimately planned to have, he said: "Eventually thousands."
Google came under fire in February from U.S. law-makers and some in China for accepting Chinese censors' demands that its new service in the mainland block links about sensitive topics, such as the 1989 anti-government protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
But Schmidt, speaking at the news conference, said Google had a responsibility to abide by the law in every country in which it does business.
"It is important to operate Google's worldwide service based on local law and local custom. It is not an option for us to broadly make information available that is illegal or inappropriate or immoral," he said.

Read more at today.reuters.com/news/...

Haaretz - Israel News - Olmert to intervene in pending deportation of Ghanaian father-Haaretz - Israel News

2006-04-11T10:02:00.000Z

Israeli Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert to intervene in pending deportation of Ghanaian father By Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent.

Officials from the office of Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert said on Monday that Olmert has asked to personally intervene in the pending deportation of Ghanaian worker Joel Manar.Sources close to Olmert said he instructed government officials to find a way to keep Manar in Israel should there be a legal justification for doing so.The Interior Ministry is to send on Wednesday its official position to the Tel Aviv District Court on the matter of Manar, currently in custody.

Hamas pleads with EU

2006-04-10T12:18:00.000Z

Read how they cleverly argue it out " ...Political blackmail against our people and their government to make political concessions is unjustified and rejected by the Palestinian people... "

TIME.com: "Israel Should Not Be on the Forefront of a War Against Iran" -- Page 1

2006-04-10T10:44:00.000Z

They can change their rhetoric but they can't change substance.......

Benny Hinn Ministries

2006-04-09T18:33:00.000Z

Experience This Is Your Day today

Walking In The God-Kind Of Love

2006-04-08T13:30:00.000Z

Learning to walk in love is the most important thing we’ll ever do in the area of faith. Often in studying the subject of faith, we’ll go to Mark chapter 11. To tell you the truth, everything we need to know about faith is found right there.

MARK 11:22-25 22 “Have faith in the God,” Jesus answered. 23 “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it , and it will be yours. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

We rejoice in Mark 11:23 and 24, and we’re quick to quote those verses, but did you ever stop to think that Mark 11:25 goes right along with them? Verse 25 begins with the word ‘and,’ a conjunction. In other words, verse 25 joins what Jesus is about to say with what he just said. “And when you stand praying….” He is still talking about praying in faith, just as He was in verse 24. And what are we to do as we pray? “..If you hold anything against anyone, forgive him...” I know from teaching along this line for more than sixty years that unforgiveness is the main reason why faith doesn’t work and why people fail to receive healing.

Many know it is wrong to hold something big against someone, but they say it doesn’t hurt if you hold just a little something against someone. This text says, though, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him….” (Mark 11:25). Did you look up the word ‘anything’ in the dictionary? It means anything at all – little, big or middle-sized! An Old Testament verse says, “…the little foxes that ruin the vineyards..” (see Song of Solomon 2:15). So many times, it’s not the big things in Christians’ live that keep their faith from working and their prayers from being heard. Rather, it’s the little things – just a little ‘anything.’ I have said it for more than sixty years so I’m not going to quit saying it now, because it’s true: If my prayers and my faith didn’t work, unforgiveness would be the first thing I’d look for.

Though all these years, I’ve refused to allow into my life the least bit of animosity towards anyone. I won’t allow it to touch me for a moment. I’m just as careful about that as I would be with a rattlesnake, because wrong feelings toward someone else can be just as deadly as a rattlesnake bite. Once when I was a pastor I invited a certain evangelist to hold revival meeting in our church, and I won’t go into detail, but he didn’t treat me right. And the devil said to me, “If I were you, I wouldn’t receive another offering for him. I’d just wait until Sunday night.” Now, ordinary, when we had a visiting evangelist for revival meetings, we received an offering for him Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday nights. On the other nights, we’d receive offerings to cover revival expenses such as advertising and the evangelist’s room and board. But the devil said to me, “I’d just wait until Sunday night.

And then I wouldn’t make much of it. I’d just get up and say, ‘This is Brother So-and-so’s offering. We’re going to pass the plate.’” But that’s that old “get-back-at-him” attitude. You still have that in your flesh even though your spirit is born again and has become a new creature in Christ (see Second Corinthians 5:17). That evangelist wronged me; there was no doubt about it. The devil wanted me to take revenge on him, and my flesh wanted to side with the devil. But the Bible says, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay, ‘ says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). It is better to let God do it. He’ll do a better job than you will. If I had tried to take revenge, I would have gotten that evangelist and myself in a mess. Instead, I said, “Now just for that, Mr. Devil, I’m going to receive an offering for him every night. In this last week of the meeting, I’m going to give him twice as many offerings as we ordinary would. And if you say anything else to me about it, I’ll receive two offerings for him every night.” The devil never mentioned it to me again. He doesn’t want any preacher to get two offerings a night! He’s angry about them getting even one! Now that evangelist usually preached in large and medium-sized churches. Because our church was medium-sized, I asked him what his average income was. When he told me, I gave him three times as much as he was used to getting, and a third of that came out of my own pocket. I sent him away feeling good. And I felt good. No, I never would allow the least bit of ill will or wrong feeling toward anyone, no matter what he had done to me or said about me. Instead of fussing and fighting, I’d just keep walking in love and preaching the Gospel and enjoying the blessings of God.

There is another text that helps us understand the connection between Mark 11:25 and the verses preceding it. Notice what Paul said in Galatians 5:6. GALATIANS 5:6 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Faith works by love. If there is no love, faith won’t work. And forgiveness has to do with love, doesn’t it? God loved us and forgave us. Did He forgive us because we deserved it? No.He forgave us because He loved us. In Ephesians chapter 4 we read, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (v.32).

Why would Paul have to write to the Christians and tell them to be kind to one another? He had to tell them because they were living in unredeemed bodies. Paul told them to forgive each other “…just as in Christ God forgave you.” We can forgive even as God forgives. Why? Because the Bible says, “..God is love” (1 John 4:8,16) and “…God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Rom. 5:5). The kind of love that God is has been shed abroad in our heart – our spirit, our inward man. That love is in there. We don’t have to pray and fast for it. If we’re saved, we have it. If we don’t have it, we’re not saved. It’s just that simple. First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers….”

Now we haven’t passed from physical death yet. Thank God, physical death will be put under feet someday. It is the last enemy. But John is talking here about spiritual death. And how do we know that we have passed from spiritual death unto spiritual life? We know “…because we love our brothers.” That is how you know you’re saved. In my hometown, I knew a businessman who had a light stroke because of high blood pressure and wasn’t able to function very well. He walked with a cane and dragged one foot, and people had to help him sit and stand get in and out of a car.This man was in his sixties. His wife was quite a bit younger, and they had a little nine-year-old daughter.

Well, this little girl got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost at the Full Gospel Tabernacle. Neither her daddy nor her momma ever went to church, though the mother had been born again. Because of that little girl’s simple faith in God, that businessman and his wife decided to go to church with their daughter. And during the first service they attended, his wife went to the altar, rededicated her life to God, and was filled with the Holy Ghost. The businessman didn’t get saved right away, but he kept going along with them, and, eventually, during a revival meeting, he was born again. Because he couldn’t kneel, he just bowed his head on the pew in front of him and asked the Lord to come into his heart and save him.

On another night during that revival, everyone was kneeling in prayer except the businessman. The evangelist may not have known that he couldn’t kneel and went back and asked him, “Are you saved?” “Yes sir!” he replied. “How do you know that you are saved?” asked the evangelist. “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you how I know. I’ve been coming here to church for the past three years. Every Wednesday night they have a testimony meeting. And you can count on it – there’s a certain old man who’s always the first one up to testify. He’s just an old codger. He doubles up his fist and says, as if he’s challenging folks, ‘I’m saved and sanctified and baptised by the Holy Ghost!’ And I’d get so mad, I’d sit there and quietly cuss under my breath. “And then you could count on the same old lady the very next one up to testify.Her husband used to work for me.

I knew that old woman was always trying to get everyone saved. She’d be out trying to win souls, and he’d go home and find the kids running up and down the back alley, the beds not made, the house not swept, and supper not cooked. I was sure that old lady didn’t have anything spiritually, as she claimed, and it would make me mad hear her testify. I’d sit there and curse under my breath. “But I bowed my head on the back of the pew during this meeting, and the Lord saved me. And ever since then, I just dearly love to hear that dear old brother testify!” (Before he was saved he called him “that old man”) “Oh, he’s a little eccentric, but he loves the Lord! “And I love to hear that dear sister testify too!” (Before he was born again, he called her “that old lady.”) “Now I know that she may not be a hundred percent perfect, but then, none of us are.

Right on the other hand, her husband, who worked for me, would tell me. ‘I’m going home. If my wife has supper on the table, I’m going to get mad and cuss her out and knock it off the table. And if she doesn’t have supper ready, I’m going to whip her!’ Naturally, she’d be gone when he got there. I tell you, I dearly love to hear that dear sister testify!” (I noticed later that that sister got all of her children and her husband saved. I went back there to visit, and all of them were sitting on one pew. Glory to God!) Now how did this businessman know that he was saved? That is what the evangelist asked him. Does the Bible say “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love them that love us or are good to us?” No. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers” (1 John 3:14). If we’re born again, we have the life and love of God in us. Hallelujah! Thank God I learned early the importance of walking in love.

More than sixty years ago I pastored a little church in north Texas. In a larger metropolitan area about forty-five miles away, one of the ministers got into a moral difficulty and was dismissed by our denomination. And at a sectional convention in our church, the sectional superintendent preached him right into hell, as it were. He didn’t call his name, but we all knew who he was talking about. I was about twenty-four years old. Some of the men from my church heard about it and asked me if I thought the sectional superintendent was right in what he did. I repeated some of what he said , then added, “”Yes, I concur with him.” The convention ended and a week or two later my father-in-law and mother-in-law came down for the weekend. They lived about firty miles away.

After the Sunday night service, my wife and two small children went home with them. I planned to drive up after Wednesday night’s service, because I had some church business to attend to. Monday night I was alone in the parsonage. I’d finished the business that I needed to take care of. I listened to the news on the radio, then turned the lights off and knelt immediately by the foot of the bed and prayed. Suddenly, the whole room lit up! I could see every piece of furniture. It was a bright light. And out of the light I heard “Who art thou that condemneth another man’s servant?” I knew it was the Lord. I said, “Lord, I didn’t condemn Your servant!” I knew immediately who the Lord was refering to. He was talking about that minister who’d gotten into trouble. “Who art thou that condemneth another man servant?The Voice asked again.“Lord, I never condemned Your servant!” I repeated. “Who art thou that condemneth another man’s servant?” the Voice of the light asked the third time. “Lord, I didn’t condemned Your servant!” I exclaimed. “Didn’t you say such-and-such about Brother ___?” He called him “brother.” We wouldn’t call him brother – that dirty rascal! That buzzard! I said, “Lord, I was just quoting the sectional superintendent.” “Yes, but when you repeated what he said, that was tantamount to your saying it. Who art thou that condemneth another man’s servant?” The Lord was quoting Romans 14:4: “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

He knocked the props out from under me. I said, “I thought that minister who was dismissed was wrong. I mean, didn’t he do wrong?” The Lord never told me whether he did or didn’t. Instead, He asked me, “Whose servant is he – Mine or yours?” “If he is anyone’s servant, he’s Yours,” I answered. “He sure isn’t mine.” “Well, if he’s My servant, I’m able to make him stand.” And He did. The Lord made him stand, and that man became the most outstanding minister in that part of the state. He was highly respected even though he had missed it at one time. From that day to this, if I hear something negative about another minister, I keep my mouth shut. I won’t speak against anyone.

Such things cause people ill health. About the same time this happened, I had another experience along this same line. My wife and I were holding a meeting in a Full Gospel church down in east Texas. We were going from that meeting to a convention of our Full Gospel denomination. I had heard that one of the minister in that part of the state got into difficulty and had to leave his church. He didn’t lose his credentials, but he messed up. The pastor I was holding the meeting with was on the sectional committee, so I asked him, “What did he do? When he told me, without thinking, I said, “Looks to me like anyone with any sense would know better than that.”

And never thought any more about it. We closed that meeting and went on to the convention, and we were having services all day long and at night. Now, ordinarily, I feel good physically, but at that time I just didn’t feel up to par. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t know why. And after two nights in a convention, going all day long and then not able to sleep at night, I just fizzled out!During the third sleepless night, I said, “Lord, I can’t go tomorrow to the convention. I’m just worn out.” I got out of bed and got down on my knees. I said, “Lord, what is wrong with me? I’m not making a connection here.”

You see, I’d been making all the right things, but something wasn’t right. And the Lord spoke to me in my spirit, in that still small voice in which He speaks to believers. He said, “Didn’t you say such-and-such about Brother ___? (He named the pastor who had messed up.) I said, “Lord, all I said was, ‘It looks like anyone with any sense would know better than that.’” (I was telling the Lord that I thought what I said wasn’t so bad.) “Do you know what pressure he was under?” the Lord asked. “No,” I said. “Do you know the circumstances that surrounded this situation? “No.”Then He said to me, “If you’d been in the same position, you might not have done as well as he did.” With tears, I said, “Oh God, forgive me. My God, forgive me! I repent!” Instantly, I was well, and I climbed into bed and slept.

It is easy to criticize the other fellow, isn’t it? But Jesus told me that I might not have done as well as that other minister did under the same circumstances. Walking in love makes a difference! Every step out of love is sin. If you missed it – and being human, we are prone to miss it – just get back as fast as you can to walking in love. It is unsafe to walk out of love because Satan can attack you. So don’t wait until you go to church.

When you see that you’ve missed it, stop right then and say, “I’ve missed it. Forgive me, Lord.” Get back to walking in the God-kind of love. Have no ill or unforgiveness toward anyone. Your faith will work when you walk in love! (Credit : Kenneth E. Hagin, The Word Of Faith, Issue December 2000)

Questions & Answers (2):

2006-04-08T13:19:00.000Z

Q: What Will Happen To You When You Die ?

A: If you are unsure of the answer to this question, or if you are afraid you will not spend eternity in Heaven, there’s good news for you : “….God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believeth in Him should not perish. But have EVERLASTING LIFE “ (John 3:16). Because God loves and values you so much, He made a way for you to be saved. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die so mankind could be redeemed from sin. The Bible says concerning salvation : “….Except a man be BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God “ (John 3.3). Salvation does not come by joining a church, following a certain religion, doing good deeds, or living a good moral life.The Bible says there is ONLY ONE WAY to receive salvation. You must be born again by accepting Jesus Christ as your Saviour. Settle the most important question of your life! Pray the following prayer and receive Jesus as your Saviour :Dear Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus. You said in Your Word, “….if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, andshalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him fromthe dead, THOU SHALT BE SAVED “ (Romans 10:9).I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe He was raised from the dead for my justification. Your Word says, “….with the HEART man believeth unto righteousness;and with the MOUTH confession is made unto salvation ” (Romans 10:10).I do believe with my heart, and I now confess with my mouth Jesus asmy Lord. Therefore, I am saved ! Thank You, Lord ! Welcome to the family of God ! If you have prayed this prayer sincerely from your heart, then the Bible says you are now saved !. To grow in your new Christian life, it is important to study the Bible and to pray every day to your Heavenly Father. You also need to belong to a good, Bible-based church where you can be taught the Word of God.( Credit :KENNETH HAGIN MINISTRIES The Word Of Faith,NOV. 2000 )

Questions & Answers (1):

2006-04-08T13:01:00.000Z

Q: Does The Bible Provide Any Insight About Praying For Our Leaders ?

A: First Timothy 2:1-2 tells us we should pray and give thanks for all our leaders, so that we might live in peace : “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” According to Romans 13:1, our leaders are ordained of God: “Let every soul be subjected unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Verse 4 says they are ministers for our good, but they don’t manifest that ordination any more than they do because of our lack of prayer on their behalf.

You see, if by prayer we will invite God into our governments, He’ll take control of those in positions of authority. As Proverbs 21:1 says: “The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” God has reserved the right to override the will of a nation’s leader, if need be, to see that His people are governed according to His will. What’s more, God will hear the prayer of any government leader, even if he’s the worst reprobate in the whole world. He heard the prayer of King Nebuchadnezzar, despite his status as a heathen king of a heathen nation. God intervened repeatedly in his life and heard him when he finally cried out for help, because he had God’s people under his control.

That same principle still holds true today. If we’ll open the way through prayer, God will deal with our leaders! He’ll turn the hearts of everyone from the White House **on down to make sure His children are governed justly. In fact, if we’d just be obedient to 1 Timothy 2:1-2, there’s no council of any kind on earth, no king, no president, no congress, not anyone who could overthrow God’s purpose for His people. As believers, we have total authority over the powers of Satan. We have been given a Name that is above every name, and at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven, in earth and under the earth (Philippians 2:9-10 ).

Jesus said in Matthew 18:18, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on the earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Jesus was referring to the heavens, or atmosphere, surrounding this planet where wicked spirits operate and attempt to rule the nations to which they’ve been assigned. But God has given us power to bind the wicked spirits in heavenly places and to loose the angelic powers of God to work in our behalf.

We can take authority, in the Name of Jesus, and pull down the strongholds of evil spirits that are trying to destroy this nation ( 2 Corinthians 10:4 ). Since the day Jesus gave us the Great Commission, the life or death of the world has been in the hands of the Church. We are the ones whose prayers can change every office of authority in this land. If we want a nation of “godliness and honesty,” it’s up to us to begin to intercede right now and use the power God has given us. [Courtesy : Kenneth Copeland,BVOV, VOL. 28 NO. 11, DECEMBER 2000 ].

** Put the name of the seat of government in the country in which you live here!

Walking In The God-Kind Of Love

2006-04-08T12:59:00.000Z

We rejoice in Mark 11:23 and 24, and we’re quick to quote those verses, but did you ever stop to think that Mark 11:25 goes right along with them? Verse 25 begins with the word ‘and,’ a conjunction. In other words, verse 25 joins what Jesus is about to say with what he just said. “And when you stand praying….” He is still talking about praying in faith, just as He was in verse 24. And what are we to do as we pray? “..If you hold anything against anyone, forgive him...” I know from teaching along this line for more than sixty years that unforgiveness is the main reason why faith doesn’t work and why people fail to receive healing. Many know it is wrong to hold something big against someone, but they say it doesn’t hurt if you hold just a little something against someone. This text says, though, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him….” (Mark 11:25). Did you look up the word ‘anything’ in the dictionary? It means anything at all – little, big or middle-sized! An Old Testament verse says, “…the little foxes that ruin the vineyards..” (see Song of Solomon 2:15).

So many times, it’s not the big things in Christians’ live that keep their faith from working and their prayers from being heard. Rather, it’s the little things – just a little ‘anything.’ I have said it for more than sixty years so I’m not going to quit saying it now, because it’s true: If my prayers and my faith didn’t work, unforgiveness would be the first thing I’d look for. Though all these years, I’ve refused to allow into my life the least bit of animosity towards anyone. I won’t allow it to touch me for a moment. I’m just as careful about that as I would be with a rattlesnake, because wrong feelings toward someone else can be just as deadly as a rattlesnake bite.

Once when I was a pastor I invited a certain evangelist to hold revival meeting in our church, and I won’t go into detail, but he didn’t treat me right. And the devil said to me, “If I were you, I wouldn’t receive another offering for him. I’d just wait until Sunday night.” Now, ordinary, when we had a visiting evangelist for revival meetings, we received an offering for him Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday nights. On the other nights, we’d receive offerings to cover revival expenses such as advertising and the evangelist’s room and board. But the devil said to me, “I’d just wait until Sunday night. And then I wouldn’t make much of it. I’d just get up and say, ‘This is Brother So-and-so’s offering. We’re going to pass the plate.’” But that’s that old “get-back-at-him” attitude.

You still have that in your flesh even though your spirit is born again and has become a new creature in Christ (see Second Corinthians 5:17). That evangelist wronged me; there was no doubt about it. The devil wanted me to take revenge on him, and my flesh wanted to side with the devil. But the Bible says, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay, ‘ says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). It is better to let God do it. He’ll do a better job than you will. If I had tried to take revenge, I would have gotten that evangelist and myself in a mess.

Instead, I said, “Now just for that, Mr. Devil, I’m going to receive an offering for him every night. In this last week of the meeting, I’m going to give him twice as many offerings as we ordinary would. And if you say anything else to me about it, I’ll receive two offerings for him every night.” The devil never mentioned it to me again. He doesn’t want any preacher to get two offerings a night! He’s angry about them getting even one! Now that evangelist usually preached in large and medium-sized churches. Because our church was medium-sized, I asked him what his average income was. When he told me, I gave him three times as much as he was used to getting, and a third of that came out of my own pocket. I sent him away feeling good. And I felt good.

No, I never would allow the least bit of ill will or wrong feeling toward anyone, no matter what he had done to me or said about me. Instead of fussing and fighting, I’d just keep walking in love and preaching the Gospel and enjoying the blessings of God. There is another text that helps us understand the connection between Mark 11:25 and the verses preceding it. Notice what Paul said in Galatians 5:6. GALATIANS 5:6 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Faith works by love. If there is no love, faith won’t work. And forgiveness has to do with love, doesn’t it? God loved us and forgave us. Did He forgive us because we deserved it? No.He forgave us because He loved us. In Ephesians chapter 4 we read, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (v.32).

Why would Paul have to write to the Christians and tell them to be kind to one another? He had to tell them because they were living in unredeemed bodies. Paul told them to forgive each other “…just as in Christ God forgave you.” We can forgive even as God forgives. Why? Because the Bible says, “..God is love” (1 John 4:8,16) and “…God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Rom. 5:5). The kind of love that God is has been shed abroad in our heart – our spirit, our inward man. That love is in there. We don’t have to pray and fast for it. If we’re saved, we have it. If we don’t have it, we’re not saved. It’s just that simple. First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers….” Now we haven’t passed from physical death yet. Thank God, physical death will be put under feet someday. It is the last enemy.

But John is talking here about spiritual death. And how do we know that we have passed from spiritual death unto spiritual life? We know “…because we love our brothers.” That is how you know you’re saved. In my hometown, I knew a businessman who had a light stroke because of high blood pressure and wasn’t able to function very well. He walked with a cane and dragged one foot, and people had to help him sit and stand get in and out of a car.This man was in his sixties. His wife was quite a bit younger, and they had a little nine-year-old daughter. Well, this little girl got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost at the Full Gospel Tabernacle.

Neither her daddy nor her momma ever went to church, though the mother had been born again. Because of that little girl’s simple faith in God, that businessman and his wife decided to go to church with their daughter. And during the first service they attended, his wife went to the altar, rededicated her life to God, and was filled with the Holy Ghost. The businessman didn’t get saved right away, but he kept going along with them, and, eventually, during a revival meeting, he was born again. Because he couldn’t kneel, he just bowed his head on the pew in front of him and asked the Lord to come into his heart and save him.On another night during that revival, everyone was kneeling in prayer except the businessman. The evangelist may not have known that he couldn’t kneel and went back and asked him, “Are you saved?” “Yes sir!” he replied. “How do you know that you are saved?” asked the evangelist. “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you how I know. I’ve been coming here to church for the past three years.

Every Wednesday night they have a testimony meeting. And you can count on it – there’s a certain old man who’s always the first one up to testify. He’s just an old codger. He doubles up his fist and says, as if he’s challenging folks, ‘I’m saved and sanctified and baptised by the Holy Ghost!’ And I’d get so mad, I’d sit there and quietly cuss under my breath. “And then you could count on the same old lady the very next one up to testify.Her husband used to work for me. I knew that old woman was always trying to get everyone saved. She’d be out trying to win souls, and he’d go home and find the kids running up and down the back alley, the beds not made, the house not swept, and supper not cooked. I was sure that old lady didn’t have anything spiritually, as she claimed, and it would make me mad hear her testify. I’d sit there and curse under my breath. “But I bowed my head on the back of the pew during this meeting, and the Lord saved me.

And ever since then, I just dearly love to hear that dear old brother testify!” (Before he was saved he called him “that old man”) “Oh, he’s a little eccentric, but he loves the Lord! “And I love to hear that dear sister testify too!” (Before he was born again, he called her “that old lady.”) “Now I know that she may not be a hundred percent perfect, but then, none of us are. Right on the other hand, her husband, who worked for me, would tell me. ‘I’m going home. If my wife has supper on the table, I’m going to get mad and cuss her out and knock it off the table. And if she doesn’t have supper ready, I’m going to whip her!’

Naturally, she’d be gone when he got there. I tell you, I dearly love to hear that dear sister testify!” (I noticed later that that sister got all of her children and her husband saved. I went back there to visit, and all of them were sitting on one pew. Glory to God!) Now how did this businessman know that he was saved? That is what the evangelist asked him. Does the Bible say “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love them that love us or are good to us?” No. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers” (1 John 3:14). If we’re born again, we have the life and love of God in us. Hallelujah! Thank God I learned early the importance of walking in love.

More than sixty years ago I pastored a little church in north Texas. In a larger metropolitan area about forty-five miles away, one of the ministers got into a moral difficulty and was dismissed by our denomination. And at a sectional convention in our church, the sectional superintendent preached him right into hell, as it were. He didn’t call his name, but we all knew who he was talking about. I was about twenty-four years old. Some of the men from my church heard about it and asked me if I thought the sectional superintendent was right in what he did. I repeated some of what he said , then added, “”Yes, I concur with him.” The convention ended and a week or two later my father-in-law and mother-in-law came down for the weekend. They lived about firty miles away. After the Sunday night service, my wife and two small children went home with them. I planned to drive up after Wednesday night’s service, because I had some church business to attend to.

Monday night I was alone in the parsonage. I’d finished the business that I needed to take care of. I listened to the news on the radio, then turned the lights off and knelt immediately by the foot of the bed and prayed. Suddenly, the whole room lit up! I could see every piece of furniture. It was a bright light. And out of the light I heard “Who art thou that condemneth another man’s servant?” I knew it was the Lord. I said, “Lord, I didn’t condemn Your servant!” I knew immediately who the Lord was refering to. He was talking about that minister who’d gotten into trouble. “Who art thou that condemneth another man servant?
The Voice asked again.“Lord, I never condemned Your servant!” I repeated. “Who art thou that condemneth another man’s servant?” the Voice of the light asked the third time. “Lord, I didn’t condemned Your servant!” I exclaimed. “Didn’t you say such-and-such about Brother ___?” He called him “brother.” We wouldn’t call him brother – that dirty rascal! That buzzard! I said, “Lord, I was just quoting the sectional superintendent.” “Yes, but when you repeated what he said, that was tantamount to your saying it. Who art thou that condemneth another man’s servant?” The Lord was quoting Romans 14:4: “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

He knocked the props out from under me. I said, “I thought that minister who was dismissed was wrong. I mean, didn’t he do wrong?” The Lord never told me whether he did or didn’t. Instead, He asked me, “Whose servant is he – Mine or yours?” “If he is anyone’s servant, he’s Yours,” I answered. “He sure isn’t mine.” “Well, if he’s My servant, I’m able to make him stand.” And He did. The Lord made him stand, and that man became the most outstanding minister in that part of the state. He was highly respected even though he had missed it at one time. From that day to this, if I hear something negative about another minister, I keep my mouth shut. I won’t speak against anyone. Such things cause people ill health. About the same time this happened, I had another experience along this same line. My wife and I were holding a meeting in a Full Gospel church down in east Texas. We were going from that meeting to a convention of our Full Gospel denomination. I had heard that one of the minister in that part of the state got into difficulty and had to leave his church. He didn’t lose his credentials, but he messed up.

The pastor I was holding the meeting with was on the sectional committee, so I asked him, “What did he do? When he told me, without thinking, I said, “Looks to me like anyone with any sense would know better than that.” And never thought any more about it. We closed that meeting and went on to the convention, and we were having services all day long and at night. Now, ordinarily, I feel good physically, but at that time I just didn’t feel up to par. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t know why. And after two nights in a convention, going all day long and then not able to sleep at night, I just fizzled out!
During the third sleepless night, I said, “Lord, I can’t go tomorrow to the convention. I’m just worn out.” I got out of bed and got down on my knees. I said, “Lord, what is wrong with me? I’m not making a connection here.” You see, I’d been making all the right things, but something wasn’t right. And the Lord spoke to me in my spirit, in that still small voice in which He speaks to believers.

He said, “Didn’t you say such-and-such about Brother ___? (He named the pastor who had messed up.) I said, “Lord, all I said was, ‘It looks like anyone with any sense would know better than that.’” (I was telling the Lord that I thought what I said wasn’t so bad.) “Do you know what pressure he was under?” the Lord asked. “No,” I said. “Do you know the circumstances that surrounded this situation? “No.”Then He said to me, “If you’d been in the same position, you might not have done as well as he did.” With tears, I said, “Oh God, forgive me. My God, forgive me! I repent!” Instantly, I was well, and I climbed into bed and slept. It is easy to criticize the other fellow, isn’t it?

But Jesus told me that I might not have done as well as that other minister did under the same circumstances. Walking in love makes a difference! Every step out of love is sin. If you missed it – and being human, we are prone to miss it – just get back as fast as you can to walking in love. It is unsafe to walk out of love because Satan can attack you. So don’t wait until you go to church. When you see that you’ve missed it, stop right then and say, “I’ve missed it. Forgive me, Lord.” Get back to walking in the God-kind of love. Have no ill or unforgiveness toward anyone. Your faith will work when you walk in love! (Credit : Kenneth E. Hagin, The Word Of Faith, Issue December 2000)

International Christian Fellowship Aachen (ICF Aachen), Germany - Events

2006-04-07T01:13:00.000Z

The Good News Corner

>>Come to think of it >>

2006-04-07T00:47:00.000Z

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places....