Christmas Tree Bomber Acted Alone- e-mailed Pakistan

No- They're never alone....

From the AP:

 The teenager accused of attempting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., was acting on his own initiative and not at the direction of any foreign terrorist organization, a law enforcement official said Saturday.


Boy that was quick figurin', eh? We're on it! But wait....


Mohamud, a student at Oregon State University, e-mailed a friend living in Pakistan.....(who)  referred him to another associate....


...The friend Mohamud was e-mailing was in Pakistan's northwest frontier province, an area known to harbor terrorists, but the law enforcement official said there is no indication that any foreign terrorist group was behind the plot.


Well, that clears up everything. Don't you feel better?

Reclaiming the Church Year

From STR:

Sunday begins the season of Advent, and with it a new year in the Church's liturgical calendar....


...That this transition will go unobserved in many Christian churches is regrettable, not because Christianity entails certain holy days of obligation--as St. Paul writes, "One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike"--but because the Church Year provides such a useful framework for the worship life of a Christian.... more

UK-based Taliban

From the Guardian:

British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time inAfghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban.

A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan last month told the Guardian he lived most of the time in east London, but came to Afghanistan for three months of the year for combat. More here

Obama gets 12 stitches after elbowing on hoops court

In a Friday morning pickup game,President Obama was accidentally elbowed by one of his fellow players, forcing him to get 12 stitches in his lip, the White House said. Obama received the stitches under local anesthesia in the doctor's office on the ground floor of the White House after he returned home from the game at Fort McNair, a military base where he often plays. (more from the WaPo)


Though the White House wouldn't release a full list of players (or suspects), incoming House majority leader John Boehner was known to be playing, though he denied any fouling on his part. While speculation continued as to the person responsible for the presidential "fat lip" Mr Obama was heard to mutter, upon leaving the court, "I knew inviting Pelosi was a bad idea."

Girl, 15, Arrested Over Alleged Koran Burning

Yes its in Britain...for now:

From AOL News:

LONDON (Nov. 25) -- A 15-year-old British girl has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after she allegedly set fire to an English-language copy of the Koran and posted footage of the incident on Facebook.  more

Wiki Treason

From the WaPo:
U.S. embassies around the world are warning allies thatWikiLeaks might be poised to release classified cables that could harm relations by revealing sensitive assessments and exposing U.S. sources, a State Department spokesman said Thursday. More

International Business Times adds the following while adding a pretty good overview of the whole mess :

The Pentagon has already warned the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees that the leaks will “touch on an enormous range of very sensitive foreign policy issues.” “We anticipate that the release could negatively impact U.S. foreign relations,” Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Elizabeth King said in an e-mail to the defense committees. More

"the brink of war"

NORTH Korea is believed to have fired more artillery shells near Yeonpyeong Island last night in a training drill after warning that the Korean peninsula is on "the brink of war".

The move came as South Korea appointed a new Defence Minister, Kim Kwan-jin, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to toughen its response after Tuesday's fatal shelling of Yeonpyeong.

President Lee Myung-bak also moved to beef up weapons systems in the Yellow Sea islands and restore confidence in his government's ability to deal with North Korean threats. more from the Australian

Giving Thanks is Good For Your Health

Science catching up to scripture. From the WSJ:

A growing body of research suggests that maintaining an attitude of gratitude can improve psychological, emotional and physical well-being.

How Grateful Are You?

Take a test.

View Interactive

Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They're also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.... More

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day

October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.  To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.  In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.  Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.  Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people.  I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.   And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln

U.S. Sends Aircraft Carrier for Joint Exercises

A U.S. aircraft carrier strike group set off for Korean waters Wednesday after President Obama
pledged America would stand "shoulder to shoulder" with South Korea and stage joint military
exercises in response to what the White House branded a provocative, outrageous attack by
North Korea on its neighbor.

Read more: here

George Washington Thanksgiving Proclamation

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.
(signed) G. Washington

What Security SHOULD Look Like

H/T ACT! for America

North Korean dictator-in-waiting linked to deadly artillery attack

Consider this an update to the previous post. The most disturbing aspect of this article is the statement,quoted in an Australian paper that:
A North Korea expert at Beijing's Central Party School, Zhang Liangui, told the Herald that Kim Jong-un was deliberately destabilising the environment in order to mobilise the military and consolidate his power.

Peter Singer Says Full Moral Status Not Earned by Babies “Until After 2 Years”

I wonder what Mr Singer sees when HE looks into the mirror?

From Secondhand Smoke:


...at a  Princeton conference around the abortion question, in which (Mr Singer) claims that human beings don’t possess full moral status until after the age of two. :

Q (beginning at 1:25:22): When discussing at which point after birth we would give full moral status, you gave…a legal or public policy point about practicality… Forgetting the practical or public policy questions, if a person is a self aware individual and self awareness isn’t conferred by birth, and we use mirror tests to determine self awarness…at what point do you think an infant would pass the mirror test and therefore be self aware and be considered a person.
Singer (beginning at 1:27:18: … My understanding is that it is not until after the first birthday, so somewhere between the first and second, I think, that they typically recognize the  image in the mirror as themselves…Really, I think this is a gradual matter. If you are not talking about public policy or the law, but you are talking about when you really have the same moral status, I think that does develop gradually. There are various things that you could say that are sufficient to give some moral status after a few months, maybe six months or something like that, and you get perhaps to full moral status, really, only after two years. But I don’t think that should be the public policy criteria.

.....The position that allows abortion also allows infanticide under some circumstances…If we accept abortion, we do need to rethink some of those more fundamental attitudes about human life....


More here...

Artillery Fire Exchanged- UPDATED with STRATFOR Input

The timing of the North’s firing at Yeonpyeongdo, then, seems to contradict the other actions currently under way in inter-Korean relations. With the ongoing leadership transition in North Korea, there have been rumors of discontent within the military, and the current actions may reflect miscommunications or worse within the North’s command-and-control structure, or disagreements within the North Korean leadership.

Read more: North Korean Artillery Attack on a Southern Island | STRATFOR 

from   NY Times  :
SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire on Tuesday after dozens of shells fired from the North struck a South Korean island near the countries’ disputed maritime border, South Korean military officials said. Two South Korean soldiers were killed, 15 were wounded and three civilians were injured, said Kiyheon Kwon, an official at the Defense Ministry....


This of course after the weeks startling revelation of  2,000 centrifuges producing uranium for a new reactor. More here

The Los Angeles Times proclaims:

North Korea's newly revealed nuclear facility should surprise no one, and Washington must no longer be played for a fool.

I say, "too late."

How Many Nuclear Bombs Can N.Korea Produce?

Sweet Potato

I've been on a roll lately if I do say so myself. I do most of the cooking for the household and over the last couple of weeks I've had a string of successes with some new recipes. Now, I'm not much on originality but I do like to try new things. Sometimes these work out better than others and you are free to chalk that up to the recipe itself or the skills of the cook. sometimes its both and sometimes neither and sometimes some combination of that and/or personal taste(s).
It is a point of aggravation with my wife that I critique the meal as we eat it. This has been made worse by the fact that I often invite my neighbor who is French, and has many years in the food service industry, to try new dishes. We are birds of a feather when it comes to critiquing food and I know I will always get an honest critique from him.
I get an honest critique from my wife as well, only more subtle. If she goes back for seconds then I've done very well. The scale then descends to a clean plate, food left on the plate, and then those miserable failures when we go for a bowl of cereal. It happens.
So, just in time for Thanksgiving I offer to you a recipe I found in the local paper from Nigella Lawson. apparently she is a cooking figure of some reputation. I have not heard of her but am tempted to visit her site and buy her book if this recipe is any indication. Its easy and tastes great and would work as a main meal (we've had it twice already) or as aside dish. (it has been requested for Thanksgiving)

Here it is. I hope you enjoy it. Bon appetite. Oh yeah, the Frenchman liked it too.
note- I use a cast iron skillet and plain old Canola oil. and lots of garlic. Because its whole it does not impart a strong flavor to the dish. Its nicely roasted when its done and you just squeeze it out- yum.

Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home

Sweet Potato Supper

2 sweet potatoes (washed and dried but not peeled), each cut into quarters

8 oz. (1 cup) smoked lardons, cubed pancetta or 16 slices smoked bacon (optional) snipped

8 oz. asparagus tips

6 cloves garlic, unpeeled

a few sprigs fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried thyme

3 Tbsp. cold-pressed canola oil

salad leaves (optional)

salt to taste

chili sauce

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees, Arrange the sweet potato chunks in the pan and then drop in most of the lardons or bacon, followed by the asparagus tips and garlic cloves and, finally, the remaining lardons. Sprinkle with the thyme, pour the oil over, then bake in the oven for 30 minutes, before turning the sweet potatoes over and baking for another 30 minutes. Let everything cool before dividing between 2 plates, strewn with salad leaves if desired. Sprinkle with some salt or chili sauce, or both to taste.

- Adapted from `Nigella Kitchen'

Couple uses internet poll to decide whether to abort or not

The depths of our brokenness continue to astound and sadden. Just when you think it can't get any worse...

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, November 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A young couple from a Minneapolis suburb is leaving it up to internet users as to whether they will abort their baby or not. Pete and Alisha Arnold, whose baby is in its 17th week, are using an internet poll to ask readers, “Should we give birth or have an abortion?” The couple says that they will use the results of the poll to help make their decision about whether to keep the child.
more here

Why The Hands In The Pants?

A very good point

"...I may be wrong ... but I cannot find one single instance where the TSA has actually stopped anyone at any airport screening station who was attempting to board a flight with the intent of harming the flight or any person on the flight. All of the metal detectors, all of the groping, all of the full body scanners ... and throughout all this the TSA has never stopped one single terrorist at any screening station at any airport in the United States. Now you may say ... and accurately so ... that the very presence of the TSA has kept the MUSLIM terrorists away .. and you are undoubtedly right. But if that's the case, and if the screening procedures used thus far were doing that job ... why the sudden intensification? Why the groping? Why the hands in the pants?

Just sayin' " from Neal Boortz

Things might get real cold- Super La Nina

From Pajamas Media:

A super La Nina is developing.

Historically, these strong La Nina events drop the Earth’s average temperature around one degree Fahrenheit, and the drop comes quickly. As a result, some of the same places that had record heat this summer may suffer through record cold this winter.

...

Right now the Pacific Ocean is in the beginning of a thirty year cooler spell called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. There is a strong, potentially super La Nina developing. The sun is still quiet with very few sunspots. When these conditions exist, the first two months of the cold season (December and January) tend to be cold from Montana to Iowa to Florida up to the Great Lakes and most of New England. In addition, temperatures tend to be very cold from central and western Canada to Alaska. China could suffer a bitterly cold December and January if historic temperature patterns are consistent with current conditions. Much of central and western Europe are cold in these situations as well.

The second half of the cold season (February and March) typically experiences some changes in the global temperature patterns in these types of winters. More...

Jack Russell chases mountain lion up tree

"He trees cats all the time," Mr Strenge told The Argus Leader newspaper. "I suppose he figured it was just a cat."

More

UPDATE: Hundreds-of-riders-with-us-flags-escort-cody-alicea-to-school-today-

From Gateway Pundit:

Hundreds of American Legion Riders and fellow patriots escorted Cody Alicea to Denair Middle School this morning. They all had American Flags on their bikes.


The school getting educated in civics....

School Makes Boy Take American Flag Off Bike

From Fox40

13-year-old Cody Alicea rides with an American flag on the back of his bike. He says he does this to be patriotic and to honor veterans, like his own grandfather, Robert. He's had the flag on his bike for two months but Monday, was told to take it down.

A school official at Denair Middle School told Cody some students had been complaining about the flag and it was no longer allowed on school property.

Order since rescinded but the fact that it could be made with a straight face to begin with speaks volumes...

From HotAir

255 million: The number of Americans with existing health insurance coverage.

20 million: The number of Americans without any health coverage at all due to economic circumstances.

375,000: The number of Americans with pre-existing conditions HHS said would apply for coverage in the first year of ObamaCare, one of the main political arguments for its implementation.

8,011: The number that actually did.

Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

Back in February we wrote about Facebook’s secret Project Titan — a web-based email client that we hear is unofficially referred to internally as its “Gmail killer”. Now we’ve heard from sources that this is indeed what’s coming on Monday during Facebook’s special event, alongside personal @facebook.com email addresses for users. More

Amazon selling several child molestation books

Moral myopia. Time to shop- somewhere else...

After suffering a public relations nightmare yesterday, online marketer Amazon.com removed "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure" from its virtual bookstore – but the company continues to sell at least seven pro-molestation titles that are even more offensive.

Amazon is still offering two books written by a Dutch professor and pedophile, and five by an unapologetic pro-"boylove" American, David Riegel, who compares himself to human rights crusader Andrei Sakharov in the introduction to one of his books.

In fact, Amazon devotes an entire web page to Riegel and his work. Riegel, in turn, credits Amazon for keeping his book, "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers," available to the public for nearly a decade....

..."Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable," the company wrote to critics.

Greaves acknowledged in "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure" that sex between adults and boys can be harmful to the boys.

"This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain rules for these adults to follow," wrote Phillip Greaves.

Riegel, in contrast, claims boys are almost never harmed by "consensual" sex with men. According to his Amazon web page, Riegel "earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology from a fully accredited state... More

Obama Praises "Toleration" as Indonesian Churches Burn

For those Christians whose experience of Indonesian "toleration" is not limited to childhood memories, Obama’s words are likely to elicit sorrow and pain. According to the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum (FKKJ), religious violence has been on the increase since Indonesian independence, and Christians have been the target of much of that violence. According to an October 26 report at Persecution.org:

From the New American

The latest violent incident occurred in Sukoharjo, Central Java, on Oct. 13, when 12 people on motorcycles set fire to a Protestant church, said Theophilus Bella of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum (FKKJ), which documents sectarian violence in Indonesia. A day before, an attempt to set fire to St. Joseph Catholic church in Klaten, Central Java, was foiled and caused only minor damage, he said in a report made available to The Jakarta Post. On Oct. 17, radical Muslims threatened to attack a Catholic church in Karanganyar, Central Java.

Last month, an unidentified group attacked a Catholic church in Pasir regency, East Kalimantan, it said.

Most of the incidents over the last several years took place in Greater Jakarta and West Java, including attacks and forcible church closures that occurred with little or no intervention from the government, the report said....

Creeping Sharia Slides Over Britain

Mohammed is now the most popular name for baby boys in Britain, according to new data released by the United Kingdom's Office of National Statistics (ONS) -- reflecting the growing influence there of Islam.

The name Mohammed has overtaken Jack, which had topped the list for the past 14 years but has now been relegated to third spot.

The new data (which covers all births in 2009 in England and Wales), is not, of course, politically correct, and therefore it is not surprising that the ONS has resorted to creative accounting to obscure the statistical reality.

Creeping Sharia Slides Over Britain

‘I Had an Abortion’ Twitter Campaign

But a new campaign on Twitter asks women to say "I had an abortion" and summarize that experience in 140 characters or less. The campaign was started by Steph Herold, a pro-abortion activist who launched the website Iamdrtiller.com to honor the murdered abortionist Dr. George Tiller, who killed children through the ninth month of their gestation. Ms. Herold's Twitter name for the "I had an abortion" campaign is "IamDrTiller," and her aim is to destigmatize abortion. One poster said the tweets also were a way to "silence" the men and women of Silent No More. But they will no longer be silent. Nor can the story of any abortion be told in just a few words.
more


Thankfully there are those speaking out about the pain oaf abortion in far greater numbers. 

Kathryn B. drove 600 miles and overcame an almost debilitating attack of nerves to be at the National Memorial for the Unborn in Chattanooga, Tenn., last month to tell the story of the choice she had made 19 years earlier to abort her baby.

"I actually believed the choice was somehow humane," said the Cleveland resident. "Like a lamb to the slaughter, I signed the form."

What followed was self-recrimination and regret, inconsolable grief and unbearable guilt and "a wound that would never heal." (more)

CONTINUED ATTACKS TARGET IRAQI CHRISTIANS

From Zenit:
 Bishops of Iraq are appealing to their brothers in France to "stay with us," affirming that prayer and fraternal support are more necessary than ever.

The Iraqi appeal comes in the wake of anti-Christian attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday that closely followed an Oct. 31 massacre that killed 58 in Baghdad's Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation. http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-30931


BAGHDAD, Iraq, NOV. 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Further anti-Christian attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday have closely followed the Oct. 31 massacre that killed 58 in Baghdad's Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation.

Bombs went off at three Christian homes on Tuesday evening, and mortar bombs exploded Wednesday throughout Christian neighborhoods such as Dora, in southern Baghdad, Aid to the Church in Need reported.

Vatican Radio reported Wednesday that at least six are dead. Some 26 were injured, including a four-month-old baby. Another Church was damaged.

Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, said that the terrorists "are hunting Christians of all the neighborhoods of Baghdad." more

Poppy-burning Muslim protesters mar Armistice Day commemorations as millions fall silent to remember war dead

Islamic protesters sparked fury today after they burned a model of a poppy and deliberately broke the silence at Armistice Day commemorations in central London.

As millions of Britons fell silent to remember those who have died in war, members of a group called Muslims Against Crusades clashed with police during an 'emergency demonstration' in Kensington, west London....

They held banners which read 'Islam will dominate' and 'Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328703/Remembrance-Day-Poppy-burning-Muslim-protesters-mar-Armistice-Day.html#ixzz150xDgzEJ