Thursday, January 17, 2008

M GO BLUE - BABY!!

Great Wrestling Move

WOW!

Crocodile Tears


The Left -- Culture of Death

Another Seal from Nehemiah (Imported Article)

Jerusalem Post (props)



A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said Wednesday.

Photo: Edwin Trebels courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar

The 2,500-year-old black stone seal, which has the name "Temech" engraved on it, was found earlier this week amid stratified debris in the excavation under way just outside the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, who is leading the dig.

According to the Book of Nehemiah, the Temech family were servants of the First Temple and were sent into exile to Babylon following its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

The family was among those who later returned to Jerusalem, the Bible recounts.

The seal, which was bought in Babylon and dates to 538-445 BCE, portrays a common and popular cultic scene, Mazar said.

The 2.1 x 1.8-cm. elliptical seal is engraved with two bearded priests standing on either side of an incense altar with their hands raised forward in a position of worship.

Dr. Eilat Mazar
Photo: Dr. Eilat Mazar Expedition

A crescent moon, the symbol of the chief Babylonian god Sin, appears on the top of the altar.

Under this scene are three Hebrew letters spelling Temech, Mazar said.

The Bible refers to the Temech family: "These are the children of the province, that went up out of the captivity, of those that had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, every one unto his city." [Nehemiah 7:6]... "The Nethinim [7:46]"... The children of Temech." [7:55].

The fact that this cultic scene relates to the Babylonian chief god seemed not to have disturbed the Jews who used it on their own seal, she added.

The seal of one of the members of the Temech family was discovered just dozens of meters away from the Opel area, where the servants of the Temple, or "Nethinim," lived in the time of Nehemiah, Mazar said.

"The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible," she said. "One cannot help being astonished by the credibility of the biblical source as seen by the archaeological find."

The find will be announced by Mazar at the 8th annual Herzliya Conference on Sunday.

The archeologist, who rose to international prominence for her recent excavation that may have uncovered King David's palace, most recently uncovered the remnants of a wall from Nehemiah.

The dig is being sponsored by the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute where Mazar serves as a senior fellow, and the City of David Foundation, which promotes Jewish settlement throughout east Jerusalem.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Scientology Theology & Tom Cruise

Tom on Tom



Another Video of Tommy



The best site for Scientology CULT info...

Operation Clambake


Bat those Eyes Pretty boy

How Many Times Does he Blink?
And More Importantly... are those fake eyelashes?!




Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

I have a feeling that John Edwards just says there isn’t a war on terror for the same reason the kid the bully picks on doesn’t say anything negative about his aggressor on the schoolyard lest it get back to “said” aggressor.

Edwards in public will not say there is a war on terror because he feels he is on the school yard when talking to the media. This is just my amateur armchair poli-sci perspective with a dash of psychiatry thrown in. But I hope you will get a laugh and make the connections with the videos below.

Silky Pony

Maybe Ann Coulter Was Right?  Just a Thought… That’s All.


 

“The pacifist is as surely a traitor
to his country and to humanity
as is the most brutal wrongdoer.”

~ Theodore Roosevelt

China / U.S. Standoff

Big


Tuesday, January 15, 2008

(Reminder) Time Off to Write


I am in the process of writing a book... I will still post cartoons, videos, articles that I think people should read... but I will not comment on much. I have chosen a cover design... but my son is a budding master of photo-shop, so he is coming up with some ideas that may be chapter graphics or even in the run for the cover. I will post them later (much later?) and have a few friends pick.

Much Thought,

from the "staff" here at R-PT (i.e., PapaG)

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Gneder Feminism & Hillary

Defining Terms

To better understand what modern, or gender feminism means, we must understand what liberal feminism represents. The liberal feminist is not out to second guess what women want; if most women enjoy families, if they enjoy “la difference,” this is of no concern for them. On the other hand, the gender feminist “believes that women constitute an oppressed class within an oppressive system: what ails women cannot be cured by merely achieving equal opportunity. As a class women are seen to be politically at odds with the patriarchy that oppresses them.”[1] Consequently, the gender feminist will never accept the testimonies of ordinary women, since the gender feminist believes that ordinary women have unconsciously bought into a system that oppresses them.[2] Thus, the gender – modern – feminist simply presupposes her worldview[3] and reinterprets all contrary facts as examples of false consciousness. This worldview[4] permeates all that the modern feminist comes into contact with, including such things as history and religion. The gender feminist, then, has a radical perspective. She views social reality in terms of patriarchal “sex/gender system” that, in the words of Sandra Harding, “organizes social life throughout most of recorded history and in every culture today.[5]

The liberal feminist, on the other hand, merely seeks legal equality for women and equality of opportunity in education and in the work place. It is this type of woman who wants what any classical liberal wants for anyone who suffers bias: fair treatment. The more extreme modern view of feminism is what has been institutionalized, unfortunately, in most of the Women’s Studies programs at the university level.

What’s Going On?

While Concerned Women for America have about 600,000 members, the National Organization of Women (NOW) has dwindled to less than 56,000 members. One of the reasons, I believe, for the resultant loss of a nationally known organization such as NOW, is to be found in the current movements direction. As an example, in the January 1988 National NOW Times, the newsletter for the organization, said: “The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist.” This may sound extreme, but in fact, this type of radical thinking has more to do with politics than with civil rights and equality. This political movement looks forward to the overthrow of the family unit as well as capitalism. Well-known feminist author and co-founder/editor of Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem, said the following about feminisms “end game” (if you will): “Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole... patriarch!”[6]

How, though, can a civil rights movement be interested in capitalism? According to Tammy Bruce, who was the former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW as well as being a former member of NOW’s national board of directors puts it: “What Gloria Steinem, Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland and all the rest have presented to you over the last 15 years (at least) has not been feminist theory.”[7]

Ms. Bruce goes on to show that Betty Friedan and Patricia Ireland, ex-president of NOW, (and others) are members of the Communist Party. In fact, Gloria Steinem is honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, which boasts of being the largest socialist organization in the United States and is the principle U. S. affiliate of the Socialist International. Now the political goals become clearer as we understand the intent of these “posers,” as Tammy Bruce calls them.[8] One of the signs of an over oppressive movement is well illustrated in The Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Napoleon, one of the main characters, concerns himself with the education of the young, and forcefully takes two litters of puppies away as soon as they're weaned, saying he'll educate them. In effect, the “State,” or those who are in charge raise them.

Now compare this to a statement made by feminist Mary Jo Bane (assistant professor of education at Wellesley College and associate director of the school's Center for Research on Woman) and the lesson taught in Animal Farm, “In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.” Alternatively, In The Saturday Review of Education,[9] Gloria Steinem declared: “By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.” NEA president/feminist Catherine Barrett wrote in the same issue:

  • “Dramatic changes in the way we will raise our children in the year 2000 are indicated, particularly in terms of schooling...We will need to recognize that the so-called basic skills, which currently represent nearly the total effort in elementary schools, will be taught in one-quarter of the present school day...When this happens- and it's near- the teacher can rise to his true calling. More than a dispenser of information, the teacher will be a conveyor of values...We will be agents of change.”


[1] Christina Hoff Sommers, “Feminism and Philosophy,” APA (American Philosophical Association) Newsletter, 91, no. 1 (Spring 1992), p. 85.

[2] Francis J. Beckwith, Ed., Do the Right Thing: A Philosophical Dialogue on the Moral and Social Issues of Our Time, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Boston: MA [1996], p. 587.

[3] worldview: People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realize. By “presuppositions” we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. People’s presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions. “As a man thinketh, so he is,” is really profound. An individual is not just the product of the forces around him. He has a mind, an inner world. Then, having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it. People are apt to look at the outer theater of action, forgetting the actor who “lives in the mind” and who therefore is the true actor in the external world. The inner thought world determines the outward action. Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what worldview is true. When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, “not many men are in the room” – that is, although worldviews have many variations, there are not many basic worldviews or presuppositions – Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Crossway Books, Wheaton [1976], pp. 19-20.

[4] Ronald H. Nash, Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas, Zondervan, Grand Rapids: MI [1992].

[5] Sandra Harding & Merrill Hintikka, Ed., Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Science, p. 312 – excerpted from Do the Right Thing, see footnote #55.

[7] Tammy Bruce, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, Random House Inc, New York: NY [2001], p. 123

[8] Ibid., p. 142

[9] February 1973

George Soros Money Trail


650,000 Dead… NOT

This, of course is old news, but the new twist is that Soros paid for it. I want to here point out the Drudge Report (props) here. Another blow to the Lefties! Aaawwww, poor little liberal… here, have a “sucker” (i.e., Obama)

From The Sunday Times

January 13, 2008

Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study

Brendan Montague

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.

His team surveyed 1,849 homes at 47 sites across Iraq, asking people about births, deaths and migration in their households.

Professor John Tirman of MIT said this weekend that $46,000 (£23,000) of the approximate £50,000 cost of the study had come from Soros’s Open Society Institute.