[The law]

A man was driving through town when he saw the flash of a traffic camera. He figured his picture had been taken for exceeding the limit, even though he was certain he was not speeding.

Just to be sure, he went around the block again and passed the same spot, driving even more slowly. Again, the camera flashed.

Now he began to think this was quite funny, so he drove even slower as he passed the area again, but the traffic camera still flashed.

He tried a fourth time with the same result. He did it again a fifth time and again the camera flashed as he rolled past at a snail’s pace.

Two weeks later, he got five tickets in the mail for driving without a seat belt.

[How's this for bias in the news media?]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – ABC News commentator George Stephanopoulos denied the existence of bias in the mainstream news media during a brief run-in with a blogger at the Republican National Convention.

However, Stephanopoulos has a previously undisclosed connection to President Obama – the two were part of a small group at Harvard University that met for a period of three years purportedly to promote involvement with U.S. community institutions.

Participants at the research project, which took place between 1997 and 2000, included scores of individuals with ties to Obama, including several activists who were later appointed to positions in the Obama administration. Other participants were instrumental in promoting Obama’s political career.

At the sidelines of the RNC last week, Stephanopoulos was approached by the Media Research Center’s Joe Schoffstall, who asked the ABC host whether he believes there is a liberal bias in the media.

“I don’t,” he replied. When asked again, Stephanopoulos walked away.

Stephanopoulos is best known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News and the co-anchor of the ABC morning news program, “Good Morning America.” He is also host of the Sunday morning news program, “This Week.”

Prior to joining ABC News, Stephanopoulos was a senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and later served as Clinton’s White House Communications Director for two years.

However, an overlooked detail of Stephanopoulos’ work history is his participation alongside Obama in Harvard’s Saguaro Seminars, a long-term research project aimed at significantly increasing Americans’ connectedness to one another and to community institutions.

Saguaro’s signature effort was the 1997-2000 dialogue “on how we can increasingly build bonds of civic trust among Americans and their communities.” The dialogue resulted in a study being published in 2000 recommending Americans participate more with community groups.

The idea for the Saguaro Seminars begins with author Robert D. Putnam, who is attributed with charting the “decline of civil engagement in the USA over the last 30 years or so.”

In a January 2001 review of Bowling Alone, David Moberg explains at In These Times, a socialist-style magazine, that Putnam defines social capital as connections among individuals and “‘community’ adapted to a large-scale capitalist society.”

Social capital, Moberg explains, is “more abundant in small communities than in big cities, but networks that constitute social capital develop in churches, unions, PTAs, neighborhood clubs, fraternal organizations and even bowling leagues (which have declined in the United States, thus ‘bowling alone’).”

Saguaro Seminars consist of a number of people who have either been instrumental in promoting Obama’s agenda or have used their positions of influence on his behalf.

In 1992, Obama served on the founding board of Public Allies, an organization dedicated to training a cadre of community organizers. Public Allies cofounders Vanessa Kirsch and Katrina Browne, at Obama’s suggestion, interviewed his wife, Michelle Obama, to head a new Chicago office. Michelle Obama served as executive director from spring 1993 until fall 1996.

Obama left the Public Allies board when Michelle was hired, although he served on the Public Allies national board from 1997, when both he and Vanessa Kirsch participated in the Saguaro Seminars.

A second Saguaro Seminar member close to Obama is Rev. Bliss W. Browne. In December 1995, Browne’s United Imagination Network, also called Imagine Chicago, a collective of five elementary schools and one high school, was one of the first 35 school networks and their partners to receive school-improvement funds from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or CAC.

The CAC was founded by Weatherman domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, who served as the group’s director. With Ayers, Obama served as president of the CAC board of directors from 1995 to 1999. He continued as a member of the board until 2002.

Also at the Saguaro Seminars with Obama and Stephanopoulos was Martha Minow, then–dean of Harvard Law School.

Minow is the daughter of Newton Minow, the former chair of the FCC, who serves as senior counsel at Chicago’s firm Sidley Austin. It was Martha Minow who reportedly recommended Sidley hire Obama for a summer job in 1989, after his first year of law school.

Martha Minow told Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown in late August 2008, “So we were in the midst of one of our intensive discussions about civic engagement. … And after one of these ranging discussions, across the political sectors, he (Obama) did this tour de force summary. We just said, ‘When are you running for president?’ It became a joke. We started to nickname him ‘governor.’”

Obama named another fellow Saguaro Seminar member, Xavier de Souza Briggs, in January 2009 to serve as associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Briggs served as a team leader on the Obama-Biden transition team for the Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Housing Finance Board, and Interagency Council on Homelessness Review.

Also at Saguaro Seminars with Obama and Stephanopoulos was the Reverend Jim Wallis, publisher of Sojourners magazine.

Obama appointed Wallis as to his Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, where Wallis served a one year term.

Obama and Wallis became close at the Saguaro Seminars, Eli Saslow wrote in January 2009 in the Washington Post. Wallis told Saslow: “We hit it off. We had very similar ideas about how faith could contribute to public life. He wanted that to be a major part of his career going forward.”

Wallis is a socialist activist who has championed communist causes and previously labeled the U.S. “the great captor and destroyer of human life.”

The Associated Baptist Press described Wallis as a “politically progressive evangelical and longtime advocate for the poor.” The Huffington Post identified him as a “Christian author and social-justice advocate.”

Wallis began his activism as a protester and then later Michigan leader of the Students for a Democratic Society, the 1960s anti-war group from which Ayers’ Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization splintered.

Sojourners’ official “statement of faith” urges readers to “refuse to accept [capitalist] structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class.”

Discover the Networks notes how Sojourners originally formed a socialist commune in Washington, D.C., where members shared finances and launched anti-capitalist activism.

Saguaro Seminar member William Julius Wilson, meanwhile, also has ties to Obama.

Wilson participated in the Feb. 25, 1996, town hall meeting on “Economic Insecurity” at the Ida Noyes Hall at the University of Chicago. The meeting, titled “Employment and Survival in Urban America,” was sponsored by the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), University of Chicago DSA Youth Section, and University Democrats.

Panelists for the meeting included both Wilson and Obama, who was then running for the 13th Illinois Senate District.

Wilson was a member of the National Advisory Council of the Social Democrats USA (SD/USA). Like the DSA, the SD/USA is a member of the Socialist International, the world’s largest socialist group.

Obama’s favorite correspondent?

Stephanopoulos, meanwhile, has conducted a number of exclusive interviews with Obama.

In May 2007, thirteen weeks after Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield, Ill., Stephanopoulos conducted Obama’s first Sunday morning interview.

On Jan. 27, 2008, a second interview centered on Obama’s primary win in South Carolina.

Four months later, on April 17, 2008, Stephanopoulos defended his questions asked of Obama about Bill Ayers, during the recent Democratic presidential debate.

Also that year, Stephanopoulos hosted a presidential debate during which he asked Obama about his ties to Ayers.

On Jan. 10, 2010, Obama gave Stephanopoulos an exclusive retrospective on his first year in office. In his second interview of the year with Stephanopoulos, on April 9 on “Good Morning America,” after he had signed the START treaty, Obama slammed Sarah Palin – after Stephanopoulos set up a question for Obama to tee off:

Politico reported in January 2009 that Stephanopoulos, “has daily strategy and message chats with former Clinton administration alumni: Rahm Emanuel – Obama’s White House chief of staff – and CNN pundits Paul Begala and James Carville.”

The Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell asked at the time, “What’s worse than the liberal media’s sycophantic coverage of President Barack Obama? ABC’s George Stephanopoulos actively helping design and deliver the Administration’s strategy and message – which he is then charged with reporting.”

In an exclusive interview on Oct. 4, 2010, Stephanopoulos and Obama discussed the Democrat rendition of a jobs bill and Congress’ failure to pass it all or nothing.

Last spring, on April 13, Stephanopoulos scored another exclusive interview with Obama to discuss the deficit and the nation’s finances.

[I'm a Legal American Citizen and I must show my ID]

I'm a legal American citizen and I must show my ID when:

> 1. Pulled over by the police.

> 2. Making purchases on my department store credit card.

> 3. When I show up for a doctor's appointment.

> 4. When filling out a credit card or loan application.

> 5. When applying for or renewing a driver's license or passport.

> 6. When applying for any kind of insurance.

> 7. When filling out college applications.

> 8. When donating blood.

> 9. When obtaining certain prescription drugs.

>

> 10. When making some debit purchases, especially

> if I'm out of state.

> 11. When collecting a boarding pass for airline or train travel.

>

> I'm sure there are more instances, but the point is that

> we citizens of the USA are required to prove who we are nearly every day!

> Why should people in this country illegally, be exempt!!!!!

> Why shouldn't we guard our borders as closely as every other country in the world does?

> Go ARIZONA !!!

[When Obama stopped at a Master Lock plant in Milwaukee]

Snopes is full of S hit!http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

[Three Cheers for Obama!]

He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the  Heart of Hillarious's Presidential aspirations--something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillarious Presidency scared the daylights out of you!

He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedys trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and freedom are safer tonight!

He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!

Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit

Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit

Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit

Harry Reid - bid for re-election doesn't look good

These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will be!

In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats.

The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party.

In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate back to the Republicans.

He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are.

Every generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge.

He is bringing home the lesson very well!

Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check

Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America - check

Liberals want to take over the economy - check

Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check

Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check

He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan

In one year he rejuvenated the Conservative Movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans.

Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America !

In all honesty one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Not of the economy, but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends, strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence of the greatness and wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.

When the American People wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them!

Obama woke up these Great Americans

Again I want say Thank you Obama!

So, Lets Recap "2009".........what a year! WOW!!!

1. The American people inaugurate a half-Arab president with a total of 142 days experience as a US Senator from the most politically corrupt state (city) in America whose governors have been ousted from office. The President's first official act is to order the close of Gitmo and make sure terrorist’s civil rights are not violated. (Honest mistake?)

2. The U.S. Congress rushes to confirm a black Attorney General, Eric Holder, whose law firm we later find out represents seventeen Gitmo Terrorists. (An honest mistake?)

3. The CIA Boss appointee, Leon Panetta, has absolutely no experience.

4. We got the second most corrupt American woman (Pelosi is #1) as Secretary of State; bought and paid for. (You can put lipstick on a pig, but it still stinks!)

5. We got a Tax Cheat for Treasury Secretary who did not properly file his own taxes for 12 years. (He misspoke!)

6. A Commerce Secretary nominee who withdrew due to corruption charges. (Another honest mistake???)

7. A Tax cheat nominee for Chief Performance Officer who withdrew under charges. (Hmmm... Another screw-up?)

8. A Labor Secretary nominee who withdrew under charges of unethical conduct. (Ok, maybe this person was just plain stupid.)

9. A Secretary HHS nominee (Daschle) who withdrew under charges of cheating on his taxes. (I'm running out of excuses for these idiots!!)

10. Multiple appointments of former lobbyists after an absolute campaign statement that no lobbyists would be appointed. (Dear God, I am getting a headache!)

All this occurred just during the first three weeks. . . But who's counting?

America is being run by the modern-day Three Stooges; Barry, Nancy and Harry and they are still trying to define stimulus..."it's spending!!!"

The congress passes the $800,000,000,000 (that's $800 billion) pork-loaded spending bill where the government gives you a smidgen of your tax dollars ($13 per week), making you feel so good about yourself [stimulated], that you want to run out to Wal-Mart and buy a new Chinese-made HDTV!

Only with the Liberals...

Pray for our country.

Here's the good news though - Obama took Air Force One to Denver to sign the stimulus package, wasting as much as 10,000 gallons of fuel OR 24 JOBS FOR ONE YEAR.

Don't you just love hypocrites?

Obama went to the International Olympic Committee to have them choose Chicago for a host city, he failed.

Obama went to Copenhagen to lecture them on global warming, he failed

Obama went to New Jersey to promote the Democratic candidate for governor, he failed,

Obama went to Virginia to promote the Democratic candidate for governor, he failed.

Obama went to Massachusetts to promote the Democratic candidate for senator, he failed.

Speaking of praying, Obama has now been president for a full year and yet he & wife (first lady) Michelle, the Christian family they claim to be, have not attended church since the inauguration.

Obama is the 1st president in history who did not attend any Christmas religious observance.

He must miss Reverend Wright!

And finally, he is the 1st president to remain on vacation after a terrorist attack.

In these times 'I'll keep my God, my freedom, my gun and my money.

Anyone that supports this insanity can keep "THE CHANGE".

[Finally, a Biblical scripture for Obama]

While driving in slow-moving traffic the other day and the car in front of us

had an Obama bumper sticker on it. It read: "Pray for Obama. Psalm

109:8".

My husband's Bible was lying on the seat of the car and he got it and

opened it up to the scripture and read it. He started laughing and

laughing..... then he read it to me. I couldn't believe what it said; I had a good

laugh, too!

Psalm 109:8

"Let his days be few; and let another take his office. "

At last - I can voice a Biblical prayer for our president!

Please share this scripture.

[DIVORCE AGREEMENT]

THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce.... I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J. Wall

Law Student and an American

P. S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.

P. S. S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.

[The Bridge]

A man on his Harley was riding along a California beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, God said, 'because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.'

The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.'

God replied, 'Your request is materialistic; think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required reaching the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take! I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help man kind.'

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'God, I

wish that I , and all men, could understand women; I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, why she snaps and complains when I try to help, and how I can make a woman truly happy.

God replied: 'You want two lanes or four on that bridge?"

[Andrew Breitbart assasinated , Alfred Webre on LNM]

Brother I figure we have enough trouble here ,to go wanting to start some s hit on Mars !

[ARE YOU MAD AT PRESIDENT OBAMA?]

If we had elected a Black President , I wouldn't be mad cause he's Black . One of the very few things we know for sure about the donkey in the White House is that he isn't Black !!!!! He isn't White either thank God ,but other than that the only thing we do know for sure is he's useless !

[Rev. Sun Myung Moon Dead;]

GAPYEONG, South Korea — The Rev. Sun Myung Moon was a self-proclaimed messiah who built a global business empire. He called both North Korean leaders and American presidents his friends, but spent time in prisons in both countries. His followers around the world cherished him, while his detractors accused him of brainwashing recruits and extracting money from worshippers.

These contradictions did nothing to stop the founder of the Unification Church from turning his religious vision into a worldwide movement and a multibillion-dollar corporation stretching from the Korean Peninsula to the United States.

Moon died Monday at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong County, northeast of Seoul, two weeks after being hospitalized with pneumonia, Unification Church spokesman Ahn Ho-yeul told The Associated Press. Moon's wife and children were at his side, Ahn said. He was 92.

The church will hold a 13-day mourning period beginning Monday and start accepting mourners Thursday at a multipurpose gym at its nearby religious center, the church said in a statement. The funeral will be held Sept. 15, and Moon will be buried at nearby Cheonseung Mountain, where his home is located, the statement said.

Moon founded his Bible-based religion in Seoul in 1954, a year after the Korean War ended, saying Jesus Christ personally called on him to complete his work.

The church gained fame – and notoriety – by marrying thousands of followers in mass ceremonies presided over by Moon himself. The couples often came from different countries and had never met, but were matched up by Moon in a bid to build a multicultural religious world.

Today, the Unification Church has 3 million followers, including 100,000 members in the U.S., and has sent missionaries to 194 countries, Ahn said. But ex-members and critics say the figure is actually no more than 100,000 members worldwide.

The church's holdings include the Washington Times newspaper; the New Yorker Hotel, a midtown Manhattan art deco landmark; and a seafood distribution firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the U.S. It gave the University of Bridgeport $110 million over more than a decade to keep the Connecticut school operating.

It acquired a ski resort, a professional football team and other businesses in South Korea. It also operates a foreign-owned luxury hotel in North Korea and jointly operates a fledgling North Korean automaker.

The church has been accused of using devious recruitment tactics and duping followers out of money. Parents of followers in the United States and elsewhere have expressed worries that their children were brainwashed into joining. The church has pointed out that many new religious movements faced similar accusations in their early years. Moon's followers were often called "Moonies," a term many found pejorative.

Moon was born in 1920 in a rural part of what is today North Korea. He said he was 16 when Jesus Christ first appeared to him and told him to finish the work he had begun on Earth 2,000 years earlier. Moon, who tried to preach the gospel in the North, was imprisoned there in the late 1940s for alleged spying for South Korea; he disputed the charge.

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he went to South Korea. After divorcing his first wife, he married Hak Ja Han Moon in 1960.

In South Korea, Moon quickly drew young acolytes to his conservative, family-oriented value system and unusual interpretation of the Bible. He conducted his first mass wedding in Seoul in the early 1960s, and the "blessing ceremonies" grew in scale over the years. A 1982 wedding at New York's Madison Square Garden – the first outside South Korea – drew thousands of participants.

"International and intercultural marriages are the quickest way to bring about an ideal world of peace," Moon said in a 2009 autobiography. "People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with people from countries they consider to be their enemies so that the world of peace can come that much more quickly."

Moon began building a relationship with North Korea in 1991, even meeting with the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, in the eastern North Korean port city of Hamhung. In his autobiography, Moon said he urged Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and that Kim responded by saying that his atomic program was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people."

"The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies of hunting and fishing," Moon wrote. "At one point, we each felt we had so much to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting after a long separation."

When Kim died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home. The late Kim Jong Il, who succeeded his father as North Korean leader, sent roses, prized wild ginseng, Rolex watches and other gifts to Moon on his birthday each year. Moon said Kim Il Sung had instructed Kim Jong Il that "after I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to North-South relations, you must always seek the advice of President Moon."

The church also sent a delegation to pay its respects after Kim Jong Il died in December and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un.

Moon sought and eventually developed a good relationship with conservative American leaders such as former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Yet he also served 13 months at a U.S. federal prison in the mid-1980s after a New York City jury convicted him of filing false tax returns. The church says the U.S. government persecuted Moon because of his growing influence and popularity with young Americans.

One of the more bizarre chapters in Moon's relationship with Washington came in 2004, when more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers attended a "coronation ceremony" for Moon and his wife in which Moon declared himself humanity's savior and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be "reborn as new persons." Some of the congressmen later said they had been misled and hadn't been aware that Moon would be at the event.

In later years, the church adopted a lower profile in the United States and focused on building up its businesses. Moon lived for more than 30 years in the United States, the church said.

As he grew older, Moon also handed over day-to-day control of his empire to his children, but in 2009 he married 45,000 people in simultaneous ceremonies worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years, the church said. Some were newlyweds and others reaffirmed past vows.

Moon married an additional 7,000 couples in South Korea in February 2010. The ceremonies attracted media coverage but little of the controversy that dogged the church in earlier decades.

Moon and Hak Ja Han have 10 surviving sons and daughters, according to the church.

One of Moon's sons reportedly sued his mother in 2011 demanding the return of more than $22 million allegedly sent without his consent from a company he runs to his mother's missionary group. Yonhap news agency reported that a court ruled the money was a loan but ordered it returned.

Another son committed suicide in 1999, officials said, plunging to his death from the 17th floor of Harrah's hotel in downtown Reno, Nevada. Two other sons reportedly died in accidents, one in a car accident and another in a train wreck.

Moon's U.S.-born youngest son, the Rev. Hyung-jin Moon, was named the church's top religious director in April 2008. Other children run the church's businesses and charitable activities in South Korea and abroad.

Hyung-jin Moon told The Associated Press in February 2010 that his father's offspring do not see themselves as his successors.

"Our role is not inheriting that messianic role," he said. "Our role is more of the apostles ... where we become the bridge between understanding what kind of lives (our) two parents have lived."

___

AP writer Sam Kim contributed to this story from Seoul.

[Gottfrid Warg, Pirate Bay Co-Founder, Arrested In Cambodia]

One of the co-founders of notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay has been arrested in Cambodia, months after he was due to begin a one-year prison sentence in Sweden.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 27, was arrested Thursday in Phnom Penh, the country's capital.

Warg, known online by his nickname "Anakata," was among four administrators of The Pirate Bay who were convicted in 2009 in a Swedish court on charges of contributory copyright infringement, the Associated Press reported.

According to NBC News, Warg -- unlike the three other defendants in the case who got their sentences reduced during appeal -- did not attend the appeal hearing and his sentence was upheld by the Swedish government.

When Warg didn't show up to serve the prison term, an international warrant was issued for his arrest. He has reportedly been missing for several months.

But Cambodian police confirmed on Sunday that Warg had been arrested.

"His arrest was made at the request of the Swedish government for a crime related to information technology," Cambodia's police spokesman Kirth Chantharith told AFP. "We don't have an extradition treaty with Sweden but we'll look into our laws and see how we can handle this case.”

The Swedish foreign ministry has yet to confirm Warg's arrest, saying only that a Swedish man "in his thirties" had been arrested in Cambodia, Swedish news website The Local reports.

The Wall Street Journal notes that this case will "potentially reignite" the debate over how the Internet should be used to share copyrighted information.

Fredrik Neij, one of The Pirate Bay's other co-founders who was convicted in 2009, took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in May, claiming his conviction "violates his freedom of speech," The Local reports.

The Pirate Bay, which was founded in 2003 and claims to have more than 31 million users, lets people download music, movies and other digital files online from other users without having to pay the creators of the content.

Despite repeated attempts to close The Pirate Bay down, the popular file sharing site is still in operation.

[When Obama stopped at a Master Lock plant in Milwaukee]

Yota my man , sorry I posted this like 2 days ago. As President Moron !

[Obama's UN Gun Ban sneak attack]

David,

Dudley has an answer to Hillarious Clinton's anti-gun agenda.

And that's to get hundreds of thousands of Americans to Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda before the UN announces their plans September 7th.

And we've already raised over $87,000 towards our goal of $250,000 before the 7th!

With your help, we'll hit the ground running and send a message to UN Bureaucrats everywhere:

The American people will NEVER submit to global gun control!

If you haven't already, please read Dudley's email below for all the details.

Then, I hope you'll join me and Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda right away.

Thank you,

-- Ashley

From: Dudley Brown [dudley.brown@nationalgunrights.org]

To: Ashley [ashley@nationalgunrights.org]

Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 9:18 AM

Subject: Obama's UN Gun Ban sneak attack

Dear Ashley,

The United Nations' Programme Against Small Arms meeting is in full swing in New York City.

And my sources inside the UN report countries such as Mexico continue pushing for a UN Gun Ban by the close of this year.

Both the "Small Arms Treaty" and the Programme Against Small Arms provide endless ways to accomplish this goal.

As you may remember, heading into the "Small Arms Treaty" Conference last month, anti-gun international bureaucrats were bragging that the conference would craft "the most important initiative ever regarding arms regulation . . ."

But thanks to your sustained grassroots pressure, no treaty was passed, likely because the Obama Administration could not get all the gun controls it wanted.

However, the gun-grabbers are back at it again this week and next, working to put together yet another anti-gun agreement -- and this time, such an agreement WOULD NOT require a vote in the U.S. Senate.

You and I know what these international anti-gunners really want . . .

Full-scale GLOBAL gun registration followed by confiscation, especially in the U.S.

And, as a reminder, to make matters worse, Hillarious Clinton has already given this anti-gun nightmare the Obama administration's full blessing.

They're working to make it a reality in America.

But I have an answer to Hillarious Clinton's schemes.

I need you and tens of thousands of other pro-gun Americans to Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda by the end of their meeting, September 7th.

You see, with the November elections rapidly approaching, the gun-grabbers believe they're watching the perfect storm develop . . .

First, President Obama knows without every portion of his left-wing base energized and mobilized in November, there's no way he can win.

He simply must pay back his anti-gun pals to have any hope.

Secondly, as we've seen with his grandstanding after Seal Team Six's killing of Osama Bin Laden and the recent national security leaks coming out of the White House, President Obama has proven he'll stoop to virtually any level to appear "tough on terrorism."

Well, from day one, fighting terrorism has been the number-one excuse behind the "Small Arms Treaty."

In fact, the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs states, "Insurgents, armed gang members, pirates, terrorists - they can all multiply their force through the use of unlawfully acquired firepower."

These bureaucrats see your gun rights as a "loophole."

And of course, the Obama administration has already labeled Second Amendment supporters as "terrorists" in Janet Napolitano's infamous Homeland Security report.

The solution? According to the United Nations, government bureaucrats need to crack down on the Second Amendment, and everything will be fine.

Third, with the recent tragedy in Colorado, anti-gun Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already taken to the airwaves demanding President Obama publicly exploit the shooting in favor of gun control.

And with a sinking economy and lackluster campaign, President Obama is looking for any advantage he can muster.

Make no mistake -- this is a dangerous time right now for our gun rights.

That's why I need you to Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda.

And as we've seen time and again, gun registration is always a major step toward full-scale gun CONFISCATION.

Worse, Hillarious is calling for "consensus" to "avoid loopholes." In other words, she's demanding that the UN seek input from third world dictators on how to best shut down YOUR Second Amendment rights, and the UN is only too willing to oblige.

Once the finishing touches are put on the United Nations Programme Against Small Arms on September 7th, I'm afraid the UN's Gun Ban could also include provisions that would force the United States to:

*** Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;

*** Confiscate and destroy "unauthorized" civilian firearms (all firearms owned by governments are excluded, of course);

*** Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons including shotguns and other firearms commonly used for hunting;

That's why there's no time to waste. After the United Nations' meetings, I'm afraid you and I will not have much time to react.

In fact, we will only have a few weeks to kill the UN Gun Ban once the anti-gunners make their move on September 7th -- all while the White House and the national media continue falling all over themselves to sell the United Nation's Gun Ban as an anti-terrorism measure.

That's why we must sound the alarm NOW.

So please Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda right away!

“Suggestions” from the Programme can be rapidly implemented by the Obama Administration via executive order, Department programs, “internal” policies and in countless other ways.

The number of options Hillarious and her global gun-ban cronies have at their disposal makes my blood run cold.

And now in the wake of the recent shootings, the anti-gun crowd is screaming for a new “assault weapons” ban, along with bans on conventional ammo and standard capacity magazines.

That's why, with this fight heating up and time running out, I'm counting on you to act IMMEDIATELY.

So won't you please Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda right away?

Pro-gun champion Senator Rand Paul will use your pledge and the 1.4 million signed surveys we have gathered to prove that America opposes the UN Gun Ban.

If a UN Gun Ban gets to the floor of the U.S. Senate before the year is out, it is going to take more than just the signed pledges of NAGR members alone.

Contributions from members like you will help pay for a massive, nationwide mail, phone and internet program to turn up the pressure on the handful of Senators whose votes WILL decide passage or failure of the U.N.'s Gun Ban.

And if funds allow, in the days before the final vote, I'll launch hard-hitting newspaper, radio and TV ads calling on targeted U.S. Senators by name to vote to DEFEAT the Treaty.

Of course, you and I both know the gun-grabbers will spend MILLIONS to win this fight.

That's why I'm determined to raise at least $250,000 before the UN Programme Against Small Arms meeting adjourns on September 7th.

That way, your National Association for Gun Rights can spring into action IMMEDIATELY.

Defeating the UN Gun Ban won't be easy.

And with his reelection riding on support from his anti-gun buddies, you and I both know President Obama will do everything he can to renew efforts to push the UN Gun Ban before the November elections.

So can I count on you to chip in $20 TODAY? If that's too much, please agree to send $10 or at least $5.

Please understand just how important this fight is -- and how important it is that you and I fight back NOW while we still can.

The truth is, unless we can succeed in turning up the heat on the U.S. Senate now, there could be no stopping this gun control freight train once it gets to D.C.

Unless you and I want to see our Second Amendment rights DESTROYED, we must fight back now.

So please Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda -- and chip in $10 or $20 TODAY.

For Freedom,

Dudley Brown

Executive Vice President P.S. The United Nations' Programme Against Small Arms meeting is in full swing in New York City.

The number-one item on the gun-grabbers' agenda is enacting GLOBAL gun registration -- setting the stage for international firearm confiscation.

So won't you please Pledge Opposition to Hillarious's Global Agenda right away!

And in addition to your signed Pledge, will you help me reach my goal of raising $250,000 before September 7th the day the meeting ends?

With your contribution, I can spring into action IMMEDIATELY and launch the plan we've been developing for years.

So please chip in $10 or $20 TODAY!

The National Association for Gun Rights is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens' organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the Constitutionally protected right-to-keep-and-bear-arms through an aggressive program designed to mobilize public opposition to anti-gun legislation. The National Association for Gun Rights' mailing address is P.O. 7002, Fredericksburg, VA 22404. They can be contacted toll-free at 1-877-405-4570. Its web address is

www.NationalGunRights.org/

Not produced or e-mailed at taxpayer expense.

To help the National Association for Gun Rights grow, please forward this to a friend.

To view this email as a web page, please click this link: view online.

Help fight gun control. Donate to the National Association for Gun Rights!

[Do you have a gun in the house?]

GOOD TO KNOW!

When I had my gangrene gallbladder taken out and spent 10 days in the hospital for what should have been an overnight stay the insurance company kicked me out. I had home nurse visits for two weeks and was asked if I had guns in the house. I respond that if I did I would not tell them. So the below has some merit.

FYI, I am passing this along... there are comments from two other people I have also been asked if we keep guns in the house. The nurse just kinda slipped it in along with all the other regular questions. I told her I refused to answer because it was against the law to ask.

Everyone, whether you have guns or not, should give a neutral answer so they have no idea who does and who doesn't. My doctor asked me if I had guns in my house and also if any were loaded. I, of course, answered yes to both questions. Then he asked why I kept a loaded gun close to my bed. I answered that my son, who is a certified gun instructor and also works for Homeland Security, advised me that an unloaded, locked up gun is no protection against criminal attack.

The Government now requires these questions be asked of people on Medicare, and probably everyone else.

Just passing this along for your information: I had to visit a doctor other than my regular doctor when my doctor was on vacation.. One of the questions on the form I had to fill out was: Do you have any guns in your house?? My answer was None of your darn business!!

So it is out there! It is either an insurance issue or government intervention. Either way, it is out there and the second the government gets into your medical records (as they want to under Obamacare) it will become a major issue and will ultimately result in lock and load!!

Please pass this on to all the other retired guys and gun owners... Thanks. From a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer: I had a doctors appointment at the local VA clinic yesterday and found out something very interesting that I would like to pass along. While going through triage before seeing the doctor, I was asked at the end of the exam, three questions: 1. Did I feel stressed? 2. Did I feel threatened? 3. Did I feel like doing harm to someone?

The nurse then informed me that if I had answered yes to any of the questions I would have lost my concealed carry permit as it would have gone into my medical records and the VA would have reported it to Homeland Security.

Looks like they are going after the vets first. Other gun people like retired law enforcement will probably be next. Then when they go after the civilians, what argument will they have? Be forewarned and be aware. The Obama administration has gone on record as considering veterans and gun owners potential terrorists. Whether you are a gun owner, veteran or not, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED !

If you know veterans and gun owners, please pass this on to them. Be very cautious about what you say and to whom.

They are coming for us, so unless you're an ostrich, do not stick your head in the sand..........

[Puzzling answer]

Three elderly men are at the doctor’s office for a memory test.

The doctor asks the first man, “What is three times three?” “274,” came the reply.

The doctor rolls his eyes and looks up at the ceiling, and says to the second man, “It’s your turn. What is three times three?” “Tuesday,” replies the second man.

The doctor shakes his head sadly, then asks the third man, “Okay, your turn. What’s three times three?” “Nine,” says the third man. “That’s great!” says the doctor. “How did you get that?”

“Simple,” he says, “just subtract 274 from Tuesday.”

[2 consenting adults and a cow ...]

A trial that has become a symbol, in Wisconsin and across the U.S., of government criminalization of farmers for providing food directly to consumers has been rescheduled for January.

But the delay from the previously scheduled September court date is expected to focus even more attention on the dispute that has dragged Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger to the court’s defendant’s table in the Sauk County Circuit Court, presided over by Judge Guy Reynolds.

The state’s case against the Loganville farmer has him accused of four misdemeanor counts of violating Wisconsin’s food and dairy code.

Officials with the Farm to Consumers Legal Defense Fund said Hershberger will be represented by the fund’s attorneys in the case, which already has created ripples across the industry.

In Wisconsin, while the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection “once supported farmers who offered raw dairy through direct-to-consumer sales,” officials said the state agency reversed its position under pressure from the Food and Drug Administration.

When the state legislature tried to block the newly developing crackdown on farmers who provide their products directly to consumers, the governor vetoed the proposal.

That leaves Hershberger facing the January trial on the four misdemeanor counts. He will be represented by Elizabeth Rich, the vice president of the fund, and a Wisconsin attorney.

“Hershberger has been charged with operating a retail food establishment without a license,” explains the fund, “operating a dairy farm as a milk producer without a license and violating a holding order issued by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. The holding order prohibited anyone from removing food products from coolers that had been taped in Hershberger’s farm store.”

The organization explained that whatever the result of the case, it could “have a huge impact on the availability of raw milk for Wisconsin consumers.”

The state agency “has been attempting to limit consumer access to raw milk; a ruling in Hershberger’s favor would be a major setback for the agency.”

Likewise, a ruling in favor of the state’s regulations could leave consumers without access to some of the natural farm products they desire.

In short, the state of Wisconsin is arguing it can regulate when consumers gain access to such products through private deals.

Pete Kennedy in a Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund commentary on the case wrote that the evidence will reveal that Hershberger had private contractual arrangements with the purchasers to provide the food.

“If Hershberger is convicted of the charges against him, it could have a chilling effect on consumer access to raw milk for those who don’t own and board their own cows. The farmer currently is leasing his cows to the Right to Choose Healthy Food Buyers Club,” he said earlier as the case was beginning to develop.

Kennedy noted that in a similar argument, a Dane County Circuit Court judge ruled simply that “owners of cows boarded at the Zinniker farm in Elkhorn could not legally obtain raw milk produced by their own cows at the farm.”

Hershberger earlier told the Weston A. Price Foundation that, “There is more at stake here than just a farmer and his few customers. This is about the fundamental right of farmers and consumers to engage in peaceful, private, mutually consenting agreements for food, without additional oversight.”

WND previously reported when the Price Foundation criticized a federal study about outbreaks of illness blamed on raw milk. The Centers for Disease Control report said outbreaks because of raw milk were 150 times greater than outbreaks attributed to pasteurized milk, citing statistics from a 13-year period ending in 2006.

But the Price Foundation said the results were skewed because of the way federal report authors “cherry picked” data.

Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, said the study listed an average of 315 illnesses a year “from all dairy products for which the pasteurization status was known.”

“Of those, there was an average of 112 illnesses each year attributed to all raw dairy products and 203 associated with pasteurized dairy products,” she said of the study period ending in 2006.

“The CDC’s data shows that there were significant outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to pasteurized dairy products the very next year, in 2007: 135 people became ill from pasteurized cheese contaminated with e.coli, and three people died from pasteurized milk contaminated with listeria,” the Price Foundation report said.

And shortly before the time frame for the study, there were 16,000 confirmed cases of Salmonella traced to pasteurized milk from a single dairy, the foundation reported.

The foundation suggested that the time frame was picked by government reporters to portray raw milk in a negative light.

It was in another case that the judge ruled that Americans simply do not have a right to choose their food, not even when they own the cows and the milk.

The judge decided in a fight over families’ access to milk from cows they own that Americans “do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow.”

Circuit Court Judge Patrick J. Fiedler said the families who reported they were boarding their cows for a fee and then getting the milk instead were running a “dairy farm.”

“It’s always a surprise when a judge says you don’t have the fundamental right to consume the foods of your choice,” said Kennedy.

The judge wrote:

The court denied plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, which means the following:

(1) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a diary (sic) herd;

(2) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;

(3) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;

(4) no, the Zinniker plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the state’s police power;

(5) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice; and

“(6) no, the DATCP did not act in an ultra vires manner because it had jurisdiction to regulate the Zinniker plaintiffs’ conduct.

Kennedy said, “The judge said people have no fundamental right to acquire, possess and use your own property.”

[Swing states told 2012 is life-or-death choice]

In an unprecedented attempt to protect traditional marriage and save preborn children’s lives, an alliance of America’s top pro-family and pro-life organizations, known as the Life and Marriage Coalition, is concentrating on the strategic swing states of Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina to make sure voters know what stands Barack Obama has taken.

Obama, in fact, has been staging an aggressive attack against the sanctity of human life and the protection of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, according to the coalition’s concerted effort to alert voters via radio commercials, billboards, phone calls and bus tour events.

Prominent national organizations behind the effort include FRC Action (the legislative arm of the Family Research Council), the Susan B. Anthony List, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, the National Organization for Marriage and Common Sense Issues, while Iowa’s The Family Leader and the North Carolina Values Coalition are among state groups leading the charge.

Obama, meanwhile, has ushered open homosexual behavior into the U.S. military, spent untold hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars supporting abortion and has refused even to defend federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

The influential conservative groups believe that the stakes of the upcoming presidential election have never been higher, calling their epic stand for life and marriage a potential game-changer.

“This is a historic coming together of premiere social conservative groups to coordinate efforts in three swing states most likely to determine the outcome of this fall’s presidential election,” said FRC Action President Tony Perkins. “Many supporters of life and marriage do not realize that their votes could determine the outcome of the election, which in turn could determine the future of marriage and life in this country. We’re working together to ensure they understand that President Obama is anti-marriage and anti-life.”

Life and Marriage Coalition member FRC Action emphasizes that the current administration’s staunch anti-life platform is not just another leftist political position taken by the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history; it’s a direct assault on Americans’ constitutionally protected religious liberty.

“President Obama has made clear, in his legislation, public remarks and his lawsuits, that he believes religion and conscience should take a back seat to his pro-abortion, sterilization and contraception agenda,” FRC Action Senior Vice President Tom McClusky declared. “The president might think that violating one’s conscience ‘is not a big deal’ but to many Americans it is impossible.”

Informing voters about the true nature of the anti-Christian policies championed by the Obama administration is the key component behind the Life and Marriage Coalition’s campaign rallying voters to get the president out of the White House.

“We will work together as national groups and partner with local pro-family organizations to make sure that voters know that if we value marriage and want to stop government funding of abortion groups, we must defeat Barack Obama,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the 330,000-member Susan B. Anthony List. She was not only referring to Obama’s unwavering support of taxpayer dollars funding abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood but also the passage of Obamacare, which forces Americans to pay into the program that funds abortion.

And even though the major part of the Republican Party’s platform is focusing on Obama’s dismal report card on the economy – from the 8.3 percent unemployment rate to the failed stimulus and trillions of dollars added to the national debt over the past three years – organizers of the Life and Marriage Coalition want voters to realize that this election is about much more than their pocketbooks; it’s about safeguarding timeless principles that form the backbone of society.

“For millions of Americans, this election is about more than the economy, it’s about the direction our nation takes on foundational principles, like what constitutes marriage, and whether unborn children have a right to life,” National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown asserted.

Coalition members want people casting their ballots this fall to see the dynamic relationship of how the president’s economic policies ultimately fund immoral and socially destructive practices.

“Fiscal and social issues are not separate issues and it is our goal to educate voters of this indisputable truth,” said Common Sense Issues Executive Director Patrick Davis. “In fact and in practice they are inseparable principles fortifying and empowering each other much like the fiscal, spiritual and emotional union of a man and woman in marriage or the life-long relationship between a mother and father and their child. All fiscal issues have a social element to them.”

Davis warns voters that this election is just not a one-time event that will seal a long-lasting victory or defeat.

“Our coalition members are determined to defend American values on marriage and life for the long haul,” Davis pointed out. “The 2012 election is critical, but it is also important to lengthen the horizon to make sure that we have marriage and life champions running in critical races over the next several election cycles. We’re beginning to talk to prospective candidates now.”

As part of its efforts to counter the pro-Obama tide that swept over North Carolina four years ago, the North Carolina Values Coalition is heading up the “Charlotte 714″ event on Sept. 2, right before the Democratic National Convention in that city. The NCVC reports that on this day, thousands from churches across North Carolina will gather to ask God to forgive and restore a nation that has rejected His Word, with 2nd Chronicles 7:14 set as the event’s central theme.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” ─ 2 Chronicles 7:14

The pro-family rally calling for youth groups, Sunday School classes, family and friends to attend will see Christian artists leading worship and pastors exhorting attendees with the message of hope declared in the event’s theme verse.

“The North Carolina Values Coalition is proud to get behind this event, which will provide the church a national platform from which to ask God to heal our own hearts and our land,” NCVC officials wrote on their website about the upcoming gathering at Charlotte’s Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. “What could be more appropriate than corporate repentance and prayer on the eve of and in the very city where the Democrat Party’s National Convention will decide its party platform and confirm its nominee for president?”

Meanwhile, in Iowa ─ one of the latest states to adopt same-sex “marriage” ─ The Family Leader President Bob Vander Plaats also is making waves going into the election. He admonished GOP leaders at the Republican National Convention to adhere to the Christian values and policies that have bonded and strengthened American society for centuries, giving special attention to Iowa’s lieutenant governor, who was recently appointed as secretary of the RNC.

“I am urging Lt. Governor Reynolds to put aside the establishment expectations and to stand in the gap and lead for the sake of the pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family and pro-freedom conservatives,” Vander Plaats stated Tuesday. “It is our hope and prayer that those authentic conservatives will be inspired by the unwavering spirit of our Founders to implement all measures to keep the power-hungry establishment in check.”

Yet despite Vander Plaats’ concerns that the Republican Party might digress from the principles that have been at the core of the GOP’s platform for generations, Perkins states that his fears have recently been put to rest after working with representatives of presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign.

“I was very concerned with the distancing from the moral and the social issues, that the platform might take or veer or careen to the left and so I ran as a delegate from my home state of Louisiana and I ended up being selected as a delegate and selected for the platform committee,” Perkins shared Monday on the Janet Mefferd Show. “I worked on the platform last week [and] in fact inserted the language as it pertains to marriage and some other key issues and we have one of the most conservative platforms that the Republican Party’s ever had, so I’m very encouraged by that.”

[Iran turns up heat on pastor sentenced to death]

Jailed Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani reportedly will face new charges at his next court appearance next week.

The English language site for the Farsi Christian News Network says that Nadarkhani will be charged with banditry and extortion.

The network report says Nadarkhani was supposed to appear in court on August 27, but there’s no record the hearing took place.

The Assist News Service reported that an Iranian website claimed Nadarkhani was accused of “security crimes.”

“The article claimed that Youcef Nadarkhani is accused of rape and repeated extortion,” Assist reported.

Assist said the Iranian site quoted Gholamali Pezvani, deputy governor of Gilan for security, stating, “Youcef Nadarkhani has committed security crimes and had set up a house of corruption. This individual is a criminal and his crime is not inviting some to the religion of Christianity, but he has security crimes. Nadarkhani’s death sentence has been issued for security crimes.”

American Center for Law and Justice President Jordan Sekulow says that he is aware of the charges, but none of the ACLJ’s contacts in Iran can verify the accuracy of the report.

“As of today, the Iranian judiciary has not publicly released any new charges against Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani. Although there are some reported rumors that new charges are to be brought against Pastor Youcef, neither we at the ACLJ, nor any of our Iranian contacts close to the case, have been made aware of any new charges,” Sekulow said.

Sekulow said the summons for the next hearing, however, hints at the possible new charges.

“We do, however, know that the court has called Pastor Youcef to appear for a hearing on Sept. 8, 2012. The court summons vaguely stated only that the hearing was for the charges brought against him,” Sekulow said.

WND reported in June that Pastor Nadarkhani was spending his 1,000th day in prison.

The possibility of new charges was raised even then, with a report from Middle East Concern that new counts were being developed for “activities against the state.”

He was arrested in 2009 and is on Iran’s death row for refusing to abandon Christianity and adopt Islam.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier unanimously passed Senate Resolution 385, demanding that Iran’s government release the jailed pastor.

Authored by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter and supported by 10 co-sponsors, the bill cites the pastor’s time in prison.

Whereas, in October 2009, Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Christian, protested an Iranian law that would impose Islam on his Christian children;

Whereas, in September 2010, a local court in Iran accused Youcef Nadarkhani of abandoning the Islamic faith of his ancestors and condemned him to death for apostasy;

Whereas the court sentenced Youcef Nadarkhani to death by hanging;

Whereas, on December 5, 2010, Youcef Nadarkhani appealed his conviction and sentence to the Supreme Revolutionary Court in Qom, Iran, and the court held that if it could be proven that he was a practicing Muslim in adulthood, his death sentence should be carried out unless he recants his Christian faith and adopts Islam;

Whereas, from September 25 to September 28, 2011, a local court in Iran held hearings to determine if Youcef Nadarkhani was a practicing Muslim in adulthood and held that he had abandoned the faith of his ancestors and must be sentenced to death if he does not recant his faith;

Whereas, on numerous occasions, the judiciary of Iran offered to commute Youcef Nadarkhani’s sentence if he would recant his faith;

Whereas numerous Government of Iran officials have attempted to coerce Youcef Nadarkhani to recant his Christian faith and accept Islam in exchange for his freedom;

Whereas Youcef Nadarkhani continues to refuse to recant his faith;

Whereas the Government of Iran continues to indefinitely imprison Youcef Nadarkhani for choosing to practice Christianity; and

Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran has reported that, at the time of his report, on March 6, 2012, the Government of Iran had secretly executed 249 people in 2011, and in 2010, the Government of Iran secretly executed more than 300 people:

The bill includes an unconditional demand for the pastor’s release.

[Airlift to rescue 2,000 behind Shariah Curtain]

The human rights group Barnabas Aid is announcing plans to fly about 2,000 South Sudanese from Khartoum in Sudan to Juba, the capital of the recently formed South Sudan.

The plan is billed as a humanitarian effort to rescue the South Sudanese who are trapped in the predominantly Muslim country.

Barnabas Aid Director of International Relations Julian Dobbs says the project is going ahead even amid the military conflict on the border region.

“There continues to be considerable unrest along the border. That’s why this project has become necessary. We’re very aware obviously of the challenges that have come from the north,” Dobbs said.

“Christians have been impoverished and are extremely vulnerable. President Omar al-Bashir has made it clear that Christians are not welcome in Sudan. Frankly he’s repeatedly declared his intention to make the constitution of Sudan 100 percent Islamic,” Dobbs said.

“It makes Christians who are living in these regions in the north very vulnerable. Thus we’re having engagement with our partners in the Africa Inland Church,” Dobbs said.

Dobbs says the organization has enough resources to assist the people once they arrive in South Sudan.

“We do have some resources at our victims of violence fund which we can make available for this emergency project,” Dobbs said. “But we are calling on Christians in the West to support us and to support this initiative in this project.”

“Anyone who’s followed the tragedy of Christians in Sudan can see this as a way to help stand alongside their brothers and sisters in Christ,” Dobbs said.

Dobbs says that despite the policy of the Khartoum regime, the government hasn’t put any barriers in the way of the project.

“We haven’t had any difficulty at this time. We’re working with our partners – the African Inland Church,” Dobbs said.

“They’re developing this project for us. They’re the ones that have assisted and really put together the evacuation process for these 2,000 Christians, mostly women and children,” Dobbs said.

The website to help the airlift project is Barnabasaid.org/US/Home.

Conflict has been raging between the Muslims in Sudan and the mostly Christians and some tribal populations in South Sudan for years. The split into Sudan and South Sudan was supposed to address some of the concerns.

But Muslims in the north still repeatedly have attacked and expelled Christians living there.

The rescue project is in aid of those who have not yet been able to flee the Islamic north.

[Feds flinch, drop Arpaio probe]

NEW YORK – In a setback to the Obama administration’s determined efforts to discredit Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix has announced that a criminal investigation against the only law enforcement officer who has publicly challenged Barack Obama’s eligibility be dropped.

The announcement also boosts Arpaio’s re-election campaign in which he already holds a substantial lead both in fundraising and in the polls, running for his sixth term as sheriff against three lesser-known challengers.

The legal victory for Arpaio is also a blow against Attorney General Eric Holder in what is shaping up to be an epic political battle between Obama and the sheriff over illegal immigration and his probe of presidential eligibility requirements.

The Department of Justice announcement came on Friday, typically a slow news day, especially going into the Labor Day weekend, while Arpaio was flying home to Phoenix from the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

“I’m glad they threw it all off,” Arpaio said in a news conference from his office. “I’ve been a federal official all over the world and I know how the federal system operates. I never had any doubts. I’m happy the Department of Justice local U.S. attorney and FBI who were involved in this prolonged investigation came out and found those allegations could not be substantiated and cleared my office of any wrong-doing or abuse of power.”

“If I had done something wrong, there would be indictments all over the place,” Arpaio said. “The bottom line is that we were cleared. We should stay with that and not get into all the politics involved.”

A terse three-paragraph press release issued by U.S. Attorney John S. Leonardo in Phoenix gave no reason for dropping the investigation into allegations of criminal conduct by Arpaio, former county attorney Andrew Thomas and top aides.

A four-page letter from attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel in Leonardo’s office detailed the specifics of why there was insufficient evidence in a list of wide-ranging allegations to bring criminal charges involving Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office extradition policies, travel policies and cash-handling policies.

The allegations trace back to efforts Arpaio’s office has made, often in conjunction with the Maricopa county attorney’s office, to bring corruption charges against various Arizona state officials, including two members of the Board of Supervisors, the governmental body responsible for oversight over the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office – Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley, both determined Arpaio foes.

As WND previously reported, pressure to bring federal criminal charges against Arpaio began to mount after the the disbarment of Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas and Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Aubuchon, in a series of complicated moves involving corruption charges against Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe and the two members of the Board of Supervisors.

The corruption charges against Wilcox and Stapley were never adjudicated after a Pima County judge dismissed the case due to prosecutorial misconduct.

But as many as 11 Maricopa County employees have been terminated in recent months for allegedly accepting bribes in a court tower construction scandal. The case was one of the Thomas investigations that was terminated by the counter-attack that resulted in the disbarment decision.

In addition, a grand jury brought more than 100 charges against Stapley for a wide variety of alleged criminal activities, including failing to file financial disclosures and accepting expensive gifts, such as three-week Hawaiian vacations and expensive ski trips for himself and his family.

Arpaio’s opponents in Arizona had been pressing for a federal criminal grand jury to press charges against Stapley for his involvement with Thomas in trying to root out corruption in Maricopa County.

Arpaio still faces a class-action civil-rights lawsuit brought by a small group of Latinos as well as a federal civil case in which Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice has charged Arpaio with implementing in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office a systematic policy of racial discrimination against Hispanics.

The Obama administration, under the leadership of DOJ civil rights division head Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, has decided to support an Arizona-based coalition of open-border activists led by professional “community organizer” Randy Parraz.

Last year, Parraz masterminded the campaign to defeat Russell Pearce, the long-time president of the Arizona state senate, the architect of Arizona’s tough immigration law known as SB 1070.

More recently, Parraz has announced his intention to remove Arpaio from office.

WND has cited evidence of possible coordination between Perez and Parraz:

On December 14, 2011, radical attorney/activist Randy Parraz appeared with about 100 members of his Citizens for a Better Arizona at a meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to get his complaints against Arpaio placed on the agenda, all as part of a strategy to force the Board of Supervisors to vote to demand Arpaio’s resignation.

The next day, Dec. 15, 2011, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez held a surprise national press conference first announced that morning to present a 22-page complaint charging the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office with systematic violations of the civil rights of Hispanics.

“People’s lives have been damaged and hurt and violated by the sheriff,” Parraz told the Arizona Republic upon learning no federal criminal charges would be brought against Arpaio.“It is unfortunate that they are going to walk away and not pursue any of these things. It sends the wrong message that they haven’t done anything wrong, which serves [Arpaio] well in an election year.”

At a press conferences held in Phoenix March 1, Arpaio announced the Cold Case Posse investigating Obama’s eligibility to be president had probable cause to suspect Obama’s long-form birth certificate and his Selective Service draft registration card were forgeries.

At a second press conference held in Phoenix July 17, Arpaio announced two computer experts, independently performing over 600 tests each, were unable to replicate without manipulating the files the various anomalies observed in the electronic PDF long-form birth certificate the White House released on April 27, 2011, providing additional evidence Obama’s birth certificate is a computer-generated forgery, not a scan of an original 1961 document.

Mike Zullo, the lead investigator in the Obama investigation, has affirmed to WND that Sheriff Arpaio’s investigation into Obama’s eligibility to be president is continuing, with additional findings expected to be made public before the Nov. 6 election.

[Syrian war empowers long-oppressed Kurds]

– MAREA: A fighter from the Free Syrian Army fires rounds into the air yesterday, during the funeral of 17-year old Ahmed Hamoudi, who allegedly died during a fighter jet attack on the northern Syrian city of Marea. At least 24 people were reported killed nationwide as the regime pressed its onslaught on rebel areas a day after US President Barack Obama warned Damascus over its chemical weapons arsenal.- AFP

BEIRUT: Last month, while the world’s attention was focused on battles raging in Syria’s two largest cities, a quiet transformation was taking place in the country’s oil-rich northeast where about 2 million minority Kurds live. In mid-July, regime forces began pulling back from several towns and villages near the Turkish border. They ceded de facto control to armed Kurdish fighters who have since set up checkpoints, hoisted Kurdish flags, and began exercising a degree of autonomy unheard of before.

It is an extraordinary development for a community that has long been oppressed and discriminated against by the Assad regime, one that threatens to upset a decades-long geopolitical balance involving Syria, Turkey and Iraq, and challenge old regional alliances. “The Kurds are emerging as one of the major winners of the crisis in Syria,” said Fawaz A Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. “They have begun laying the foundation for an autonomous region like their counterparts in Iraq. It’s a dream-like situation for them.”

Kurds see their chance to win the kind of autonomy that their ethnic brothers enjoy in Iraq. But this raises alarm bells for Turkey, one of the key state backers of the rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad and a country where Kurdish rebels have been fighting a violent struggle for self-rule for the last 28 years. Turkey is increasingly worried that the chaos in Syria will open up a new base for Kurdish rebels to press their struggle for self-rule. The government in Ankara has warned it would “not tolerate” any rebel threats from Syrian territory and has staged a number of military drills across the border to put a fine point on it.

The tensions feed myriad concerns that Syria’s civil war could spill across borders into a wider regional conflagration. Turkey has emerged as one of the most vociferous critics of the Assad regime and serves as a base for generals of the Free Syrian Army rebel group and the Syrian National Council opposition group. In relinquishing border areas to Kurdish fighters, the Syrian regime may have had a dual motive – diverting forces from there to shore up overstretched troops fighting in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo and other parts of the country as well as sending a warning to Turkey.

“With the Syrian government’s control over northern parts of the country diminishing … Ankara’s primary concern is that the Syrian Kurds may seek to establish an autonomous state in the region,” an August security briefing by British based risk analysis firm Maplecroft said. Already, large parts of northern Syria, including a long stretch of the border with Turkey, have fallen under rebel control. In addition to that, the Assad regime has suffered a series of setbacks over the past month that point to a loosening of its grip on the country.

The regime forces pulled back from the Kurdish areas along the border last month shortly after rebels struck in the capital Damascus with unprecedented attacks and a bombing that killed four of Assad’s top security aides. There has also been a steady stream of high-level defections by government officials, diplomats and generals, though Assad’s inner circle and military have largely kept their cohesive stance behind him. And the regime has been unable to fully subdue rebel challenges in the two major cities, Damascus and Aleppo.

At the same time, Syria’s civil war has increasingly taken on deeply sectarian undertones, pitting Assad and his Alawite minority – an offshoot of Shiite Islam – against an opposition dominated by majority Sunni Muslims. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria and make up around 10 to 15 percent of the country’s 23 million people. Most of them live in the northeaster Hasakeh province near the border with Turkey. Large neighborhoods of Damascus and Aleppo also are Kurdish-dominated.

Kurds have long complained of neglect and discrimination. Assad’s government for years argued they are not Syrians, but Kurds who fled from Iraq or neighboring Turkey. With the uprising, both the Syrian government and opposition forces began reaching out to the long-marginalized minority whose support could tip the balance in the conflict. Early on in the revolt, Assad ceded ground on a major Kurdish demand, granting citizenship to some 200,000 members of the ethnic minority who were registered as aliens before. Mindful of provoking the Kurds, security forces have refrained from using deadly force to put down protests in Kurdish regions.

The opposition has courted the Kurds, staging demonstrations under Kurdish names in hopes of rallying the community against Assad. In June, Abdelbaset Sieda, a Kurd, was elected as head of the Syrian National Council. The Kurds in turn took part in the anti-Assad protests staged every Friday, but carried their own flags and chanted their own slogans. In this way, they distanced themselves from the Turkey-backed, Sunni-dominated opposition movement, fearing they would not fare much better if the rebels came to power.

Last month, villagers say, Syrian security forces simply abandoned posts in several border towns and villages outside Qamishli including Amouda, Dirbasiyeh, Al-Malkia – as well as Ayn El-Arab and Afrin north of the city of Aleppo. The government forces were quickly replaced by Kurdish fighters from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD. The group is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast region of Turkey. The PKK maintains bases in northern Iraq from where they launch hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets. “The regime is sending messages to Turkey through the PYD,” said Mustafa Osso, a Kurdish lawyer and activist in the city of Qamishli. “The main message is that the Syrian regime has the capacity to spread chaos in the region.”

The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union and has long been suspected of having close ties with Assad’s Baathist regime. If Kurds in Syria seek greater autonomy, this in turn could trigger a strong separatist drive from Turkey’s Kurds in the east and south-east of the country, a potential crisis for the government in Ankara. Gerges called the regime pullout a win-win situation for the Syrian regime. “They know they cannot take on the Kurdish community and they realized that they have common interests with the PYD because the common enemy for both of them is Turkey,” Gerges said.

PYD officials deny they are affiliated with the PKK or that they coordinate with the Syrian regime. They say they will not allow Syrian authorities to return to the areas they relinquished – but nor will they allow Syrian rebel fighters to enter their areas. It is a unique opportunity for the Kurdish community in Syria, and residents say a politicization process has already started. For the first time, Kurdish flags have replaced Syrian flags in towns and villages near the border areas. Cultural centers have sprung up and some people have begun taking up classes in the Kurdish language, which was forbidden by Assad. Kurdish parties also are beginning to build networks with their Kurdish counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, confirmed last month that Syrian Kurds had received training in Iraqi Kurdistan although he said they had not taken part in fighting in Syria. Also last month, Barzani brokered an agreement between rival Kurdish factions PYD and the Kurdish National Council, the main Kurdish umbrella group, to control the vacated areas together. Osso says the reports of Kurdish empowerment and growing autonomy are exaggerated, adding that Syrian forces may return at any minute. “But what is sure is that there will be no going back to the previous era of subordination and oppression,” Osso said.

Although every Kurd aspires for statehood, Syria’s Kurds say their goal is rather to become more autonomous. They realize they are not even a majority in the areas where they live, where they coexist with ethnic Arab Muslims and Christians. The presence of oil wells in the fertile region may also be a cause of future friction with the Arabs in the region. “A separate state is every Kurdish person’s dream,” said Siro Issa, a 24-year-old activist and singer, from the town of Amouda. “But we realize the difficulties. “All we want is our rights, nothing more.” – AP

[Ex-Navy SEAL behind Bin Laden book faces threats]

Ex-Navy SEAL behind Bin Laden book faces threats – Name, photograph posted on Qaeda website WASHINGTON: Navy Adm Bill McRaven, commander of the US Special Operations Command addresses the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) in Washington in this file photo.

WASHINGTON: The former US Navy SEAL who authored a soon-to-be-published book about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden is now facing threats against his life in addition to possible criminal prosecution. An official Al-Qaeda website yesterday posted a photograph and the name of the former Navy commando responsible for the book, calling him “the dog who murdered the martyr Sheikh Osama bin Laden.”

The head of US Special Operations Command told current and former troops that the military would take legal action against anyone found to have exposed sensitive information that could cause harm to fellow forces. “We will pursue every option available to hold members accountable, including criminal prosecution where appropriate,” Admiral Bill McRaven wrote in an open, unclassified letter emailed to the active-duty special operations community, and obtained by Reuters on Friday. “As current or former members of our special operations community, authors have a moral obligation, and a legal duty, to submit their works for pre-publication security review,” the admiral wrote.

Fox News made public on Thursday what it said was the real name of the former SEAL who, with a journalist co-author, wrote “No Easy Day,” using the pseudonym Mark Owen. The book is due to be released next month on the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States. By early on Friday, the man’s name, photograph and age had been posted on the “the Al-Fidaa Islamic Network” online forum, one of two websites officially endorsed by Al-Qaeda, according to Evan Kohlmann, founder of the New York-based security firm Flashpoint Global Partners.

It was followed by comments that called for the man’s death, including one response that said, “O’ Allah, kill every one of them,” and another that said, “O’ Allah, make an example of him for the whole world and give him dark days ahead.” The Navy SEAL was also identified by other US media. Reuters has confirmed his name but is not publishing it, given concerns about his safety. US military officials have said the former Navy SEAL could face investigation because he failed to clear the book with the Defense Department before publication, even if it does not disclose specific classified details.

‘DISTINCT LINE’

McRaven’s letter said books and films about special operations teams could be useful educational tools, and the military would work with potential authors, but current and former service members would be held accountable if they endangered the safety of US forces. He said there was “a distinct line between recounting a story for the purposes of education or entertainment and telling a story that exposes sensitive activities just to garner greater readership and personal profit.”

Kohlmann said the former Navy SEAL could now be in physical danger from Al-Qaeda sympathizers seeking revenge for bin Laden’s death, or hoping to gain prestige for themselves. “They have a photo of the individual, they have his name, his age,” Kohlmann said. “I wish that all this was bluster, but there are a lot of would-be jihadists out there, including some in North America. This is the ideal opportunity for those kind of people.” The book’s publisher, Dutton, said the author was “one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader’s hideout and was present at his death.”

It is not known whether “No Easy Day” contains details of commando operations that the US government considers secret, but US government officials said the account had not been submitted for a required pre-publication review. “Even if there is nothing classified disclosed, it should have been reviewed, and it was not,” said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity. On Wednesday, the publisher said the book had been vetted “for tactical, technical, and procedural information as well as information that could be considered classified by compilation” by a former “special operations attorney.”

Jeffrey Carr, a cyber security expert, said Al-Qaeda officials were adept at using the Internet for recruitment, training and other searches, and he fully expected them to target the former Navy SEAL now that his identity had been disclosed. “He’s going to become the poster child for recruitment and assassination,” Carr said, noting that the case underscored the need for anyone in a high-risk profession to take great precautions with any information available on the Internet. Carr said the man’s relatives and former Navy SEAL colleagues could also be in danger if they could be traced through the Internet.- Reuters

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[Zoo offers rare meeting point for Jews, Arabs]

–JERUSALEM: Israeli and Palestinian families take turns on a swingset in Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo. — AFP

JERUSALEM: Gripping the guardrail by a small lake in Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo, six-year-old Zeinab and seven-year-old Tali gaze in fascination at Siamang gibbons swinging from vines and screeching at visitors. After a while, the girls turn away and join their respective families picnicking a few meters from each other on the lawn nearby. The now-sprawling zoo, founded in 1939 when the country was still under British mandate, was set up with the aim of gathering together all the animals mentioned in the Bible. It has also brought together two groups who rarely rub shoulders at recreational sites in the Holy City-Jewish and Arab families.

“Here Jews and Arabs mix, we work together,” said zoo staffer 20-year-old Ulfat Abu Katish who greets visitors with a broad smile at the zoo’s main gate. “We forget politics for a moment, even though each has his own ideas and no one is willing to give them up,” said Katish, in a purple headscarf as well as the dark green t-shirt worn by all employees at the zoo. Young Zeinab has come with her parents Sherihan and Mohammed Abu Sbitan, from Al-Tur on the Mount of Olives in largely Arab east Jerusalem. And Tali, who lives in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Geula, is with her sister Shira, 16, who is watching over her five younger siblings.

“We do everything to accommodate our Arab visitors. Our explanatory notes are translated into Arabic and many of the zoo staff are Arabs, especially among the guides,” said Sigalit Dvir-Hertz, a spokeswoman for the zoo. Originally set in central Jerusalem, the zoo was founded by the late Aharon Shulov, a professor considered one of the pioneers in zoology at Hebrew University. It switched locations several times, notably after the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 – the year the state of Israel was created and a milestone in the conflict over land ownership that still opposes the two sides today.

In 1993, the zoo moved to its current home, 250 dunams (25 hectares, 62 acres) on the slopes of a sweeping valley overlooked by pine-covered hills in south Jerusalem. ‘The conversation ends there’-The facility has preserved several species of animals that are mentioned in scripture but considered endangered in the modern-day Holy Land, including the Asian lion, the Syrian brown bear, the cheetah and the Nile crocodile. It has even reintroduced some species back into the wild, notably the Persian fallow deer. More than 120 species of animals are named in the Bible, according to Dvir-Hertz who said it is difficult to give an exact figure because the ancient Biblical names are not always accurate.

Dozens of these are represented in the zoo today. The lush vegetation of the site was also carefully selected from the trees and plants spoken of in the Bible, the spokesman said. But even the relaxing pastoral setting of manicured lawns, flower beds and waterfalls is not always enough to break down years of mutual suspicion and barriers between Jews and Arabs. “An Arab family? Where?” asked Shira, the ultra-Orthodox teenager babysitting her siblings and pretending not to notice the Abu Sbitans sitting under a tree nearby. Throughout the park, there are countless references to the Zionist ideas of Jews returning to their ancestral lands.

Yet Mohammed, a security guard, said “it’s nice here.” “I come mainly for my daughter to have fun on the grass and to see the animals,” he said with little Zeinab perched on his lap. “If the Jews speak to me I reply, but the conversation ends there. Everyone goes their own way, with their family. We don’t really have contact,” he said. There are also hints of disharmony among the staff at the zoo. “There is no conflict between Jewish and Arab workers, but as usual in Israel there is wage discrimination against the Arabs,” said one embittered gardener, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity. “When there is peace the Arabs will be treated the same as the Jews.” – AFP

[Court clears Israeli army over death of US activist]

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HAIFA: Cindy (right) and Craig Corrie, the parents of Rachel Corrie (seen inset), a pro-Palestinian activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, sit together with their daughter Sarah in the courtroom just before the district court’s ruling yesterday. – AP

HAIFA: An Israeli court yesterday cleared the military of any responsibility for the death of US activist Rachel Corrie who was killed by an army bulldozer in 2003, rejecting a civil suit filed by the family. The ruling sparked an angry reaction from the Corrie family, with Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie, accusing the Israeli authorities of a cover-up. “The state has worked extremely hard to make sure that the full truth about what happened to my daughter is not exposed and that those responsible for the killing are not held accountable,” she told reporters after the hearing. And a British peace activist who witnessed her death first hand, insisted it was “inconceivable” that the driver of the bulldozer did not see her, as found by the judge.

“I reached the conclusion that there was no negligence on the part of the bulldozer driver,” said Judge Oded Gershon at the District Court in the northern city of Haifa. Corrie’s death, he said, was the result of “an accident she brought upon herself”. “The deceased put herself into a dangerous situation, she stood in front of a giant bulldozer in a place where the operator could not see her. She did not distance herself as a reasonable person would have done,” he said.

According to eyewitness accounts, the 23-year-old was killed by a military bulldozer in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 16, 2003. At the time, she was acting as a human shield with a group of activists from the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement to prevent troops from demolishing a house. The verdict echoed the findings of an internal investigation by the Israeli military in 2003 which was concluded just four weeks after her death and cleared troops of any responsibility, saying the bulldozer crew did not see Corrie.

Following the hearing, the family vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court. “The verdict is based upon distorted facts and could have been written by the state’s attorney,” their lawyer Hussein Abu Hussein told reporters as Corrie’s father Craig stood by stony-face while her mother looked heartbroken and close to tears, an AFP correspondent said. Cindy Corrie said the family was “deeply saddened and deeply troubled” over the verdict. “We believe that Rachel’s death could and should have been avoided,” said the white-haired American, her voice breaking with emotion. “We knew from the beginning that a civil suit would be an uphill battle. “This was a bad day, not only for the family, but a bad day for human rights, for humanity, for the rule of law and for the country of Israel,” she said.

Tom Dale, a former ISM activist who was 10 m away when Corrie was crushed, insisted it was not possible that the driver did not see her. “On 16 March 2003, Rachel could not have been more visible: standing, on a clear day, in the open ground, wearing a high-visibility vest,” he said in a statement emailed to AFP. “It is inconceivable that at some point the driver did not see her, given the distance from which he approached, while she stood, unmoving, in front of it. Just before she was crushed, Rachel briefly stood on top of the rolling mound of earth which had gathered in front of the bulldozer: her head was above the level of the blade, and just a few metres from the driver.”

Anyone familiar with the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories was unlikely to be surprised by this verdict, “which reflects a long-standing culture of impunity for the Israeli military,” he said. Craig Corrie expressed similar sentiments. “We’ve seen from the highest levels of the military that they thought they could kill people on that border with impunity,” he said.

In Washington, the US State Department reiterated its condolences to Corrie’s family.

“We’ve worked with the family all through this process and we will continue to provide consular support. We understand the family’s disappointment with the outcome of the trial,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. Asked if the State Department shared this disappointment, Nuland noted that the family could yet appeal. “It’s probably not productive to get into the middle of a legal process that may be ongoing,” Nuland said. Corrie’s mother, who struggled to hold back her tears, said she felt let down not just by the Israeli legal system but also by US diplomacy.

The family first launched their civil action in 2005, for a symbolic sum of $1, plus costs, but court hearings only began in March 2010. Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi denounced the verdict as “a miscarriage of justice” and said the judge had ignored “overwhelming proof that Rachel was deliberately murdered”. “This proves that once again, the occupation has distorted the legal and judicial systems in Israel, and that the lack of accountability for its violence and violations has generated a culture of hate and impunity,” Ashrawi said in a strongly-worded statement. She also lashed out at Washington over its “deafening” silence on the matter, saying it made the US administration complicit in Israel’s crimes. “In their lack of engagement and human empathy, both the legislative and executive branches are complicit in compounding the crime,” Ashrawi charged.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas which currently rules the Gaza Strip, told AFP that “we in Hamas severely condemn this unjust Zionist decision that exonerates murderers. It would be a victory for the wild crimes perfected by its soldiers and leaders”. A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Corrie’s death “an unnecessary tragedy,” but said the court ruled in accordance with the evidence that “the Israeli side was not responsible, and on the contrary, if there was irresponsible behaviour – it was by the activists.”

He also rejected the criticism leveled by Corrie’s family against the Israeli legal system. “Though I understand their pain, their criticisms of the Israeli justice system are not objective and are not factual,” he said. “In Israel the judiciary is fiercely independent, there are numerous cases where the judicial branch rules against the executive branch.” Corrie was killed at the height of the second intifada, or uprising (2000-2005) and quickly became an symbol of foreign support for the Palestinian cause and the subject of a 2005 play based on her emails and diary. – Agencies

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