No Kidney For You!!!

Cairo, Aug 22, 2008 / 10:42 am (CNA).- The Doctors’ Union of Egypt, led by the “Muslim Brothers,” a extreme faction of Islam, has decided to prohibit the transplant of organs between those who profess the Islamic faith and Christians, generating a series of protests and unrest in both communities.

According to the EFE news agency, a spokesman for the Coptic Church said in response to the decision, “We all have the same Egyptian blood, and if the purpose of the measure is to prohibit the traffic of organs, we reject it because that could occur as well among the faithful of the same religion.”

The spokesman said the union’s decision was “very grave,” since it could lead to other steps such as the prohibition of blood donations between Christians and Muslims or prevent a doctor from examining a patient of a different faith.  “We fear that in the future there will be hospitals for Christians and hospitals for Muslims,” he said.

The director of the union, Hamdi El Sayed, said the new norm aims “to protect poor Muslim from rich Christians who buy their organs and vice versa” and “to prevent any attempt to deceive the infirm and rob them of their organs, especially if this occurs between Christians and Muslims, because in this case it does open the door to a crisis between both communities.”

McCain Replaces Palin with Startled Deer

Hoofed Running Mate Could be Game-changer

With less than a week to go before the crucial vice-presidential debate, GOP presidential nominee John McCain announced today that he was replacing his running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, with a startled deer.

According to campaign insiders, the decision to select a hoofed mammal to replace Gov. Palin evolved after Sen. McCain watched his running mate's performance in a series of interviews with CBS's Katie Couric.

"Good Lord, a startled deer could do better than that," Sen. McCain reportedly said, prompting his aides to draw up a shortlist of startled deer.

The Arizona senator supposedly brushed aside concerns that a startled deer would wilt under the pressure of a televised debate, telling aides, "At least a goddamn deer won't go on about Alaska being close to Russia."

The McCain campaign said today that Sen. McCain's new running mate, Bucky the Red Deer, would not be made available to the press prior to the debate.

"Bucky is very much a work in progress," said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. "Right now we're working on keeping him from bolting off the stage."

Bucky's opponent in the upcoming debate, Delaware senator Joseph Biden, appeared today to be trying to manage expectations for the high-stakes face-off with his four-legged rival.

"Bucky the Red Deer is articulate, bright and clean," Sen. Biden said.  "That's storybook, man."

Elsewhere, former "American Idol" star Clay Aiken revealed that he was gay in an exclusive interview with Duh magazine.

Poll: Obama Faring Poorly Among Racists

Bigots Oppose Barack by 1000-1 Margin

In a potentially ominous sign for the presumptive Democratic nominee, a new poll shows Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) trailing far behind G.O.P. standard bearer Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) among voters who identify themselves as racists.

Pundits and pollsters alike have wondered about the role racists might play in the 2008 presidential contest, but the new survey released today was the first concrete attempt to take the pulse of this key voting bloc.

The poll, conducted by Duh Magazine, suggests that Mr. Obama faces an uphill battle in his effort to win the votes of dyed-in-the-wool bigots.

"We wanted to know, why isn't Barack Obama closing the deal among racists?" said Charles Plugh, editor-in-chief of Duh.  "The answer seems to be, because he's black."

In a head-to-head match-up, likely bigots chose Sen. McCain over Sen. Obama by a margin of one thousand to one, with a majority of racists saying they "strongly disagree" with Sen. Obama's decision not to be white.

Asked under what conditions they would conceivably vote for a black presidential candidate, 95% of racists responded, "Only if he was running against someone from a group I hated even more, such as Arabs."

Duh editor Plugh says the poll indicates that Sen. Obama "has his work cut out for him" if he is going to make up lost ground among racists.

"Sen. Obama made a choice at the beginning of this campaign to run as a black man," Mr. Plugh said.  "He could change his position on that, but racists might see that as too little, too late."

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is once again coming under attack because of her Christian faith.

A recent Los Angeles Times story claimed that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin espoused young-earth creationism. The report prompted liberal Internet columnist Robert Paul Reyes to brand Palin a "religious fanatic" with a "Neanderthal faith" who "thinks that 'The Flinstones' is a reality show."
 
Reyes suggests that during tonight's vice-presidential debate, Palin should be questioned about her reported belief that God created the earth 6,000 years ago and that dinosaurs and men coexisted.
 
Mark Looy is co-founder of the creation apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis. He says many members of Palin's church, Wasilla Bible Church, are supporters of Answers in Genesis and believe that humans and dinosaurs did coexist. Looy says although it is unclear whether Palin also holds that view, such a belief is not extreme.
 
"That is not that bizarre a concept, especially when you note that there are pictures of dinosaurs that appear in caves all around the world, [and] that three years ago a T-Rex bone was found in Montana -- it was broken open and had soft tissue and blood vessels in it, indicating that that dinosaur was around in relatively recent times," Looy explains. "And plus, the Bible, I think, refers to dinosaurs when it discusses dragons and also the creature called 'behemoth' in Job, Chapter 40."
 
Looy points out there are many scientists, albeit a small minority, who believe that dinosaurs have been around in the last few hundred years. (See related video from Answers in Genesis, "The Bible Explains Dinosaurs")

If a school board decision stands, San Francisco would become the first city to remove a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. But supporters, including many college-bound Asian-American students who make up the majority of cadets here, initiated an advisory measure on the November ballot. They hope it will persuade a new school board to save JROTC.

Board members who decided to kick JROTC out of town see it as arm of the military that reaches into schools, discriminating against gays by enforcing the "don't ask, don't tell" mandate, and recruiting teenagers for an unpopular war.

"It's a broader issue about the Bush administration and military recruiting through JROTC," said board member Eric Mar. "It's clear with the military, if you're gay and out, you don't get the same opportunities," he said.

He was among board members who voted two years ago to phase out JROTC and replace it with programs not linked to the military. The deadline was set for 2008, but the board later extended JROTC until next June because an alternative was not developed in time.

If the aim is recruitment, however, JROTC in San Francisco is a failure. Only two of the 1,465 cadets there signed up for the armed forces after graduation in 2006-2007, the latest year for which numbers are available.

Supporters view the elective course as valuable self-improvement — teaching them discipline, responsibility and leadership skills they say they do not get in other classes. JROTC rules prevent instructors from trying to recruit participants.

"It's helped me stand up for myself, have more confidence, and to fight for what I want," said Trina Mao, 16, standing on a corner in Union Square passing out fliers about the program.

They also say the arguments about the war in Iraq and the Pentagon's policy toward gays miss the point: The program in San Francisco is inclusive, with 90 percent minorities and 40 percent women, they say.

Some gay and lesbian student groups have come out in support of JROTC and the ballot measure, saying some of their members have found a home in the program.

Even as the debate went on and board members held their ground, students and their parents gathered enough signatures to put an advisory measure on the ballot asking voters to show their support for keeping JROTC.

With confusion over the future of the program, enrollment in San Francisco's JROTC has declined by about two-thirds in the past year.

But participation in JROTC has climbed steadily around the country, with additional funding approved by Congress. The program reached 3,351 schools and 503,306 cadets in 2006 — the latest numbers available from the Pentagon — and there is a waiting list of more than 700 schools that have requested JROTC.

"We're watching the San Francisco situation very closely," said Curtis Gilroy, an official in the Defense Department's office for personnel and readiness.

The U.S. Department of Defense does not keep track of how many cadets later enlist in the military, but ROTC critic Mar said that, no matter the numbers, "14- and 15-year-olds are too young to be susceptible to their recruitment."'

The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Friends Service Committee agree that military-backed programs are not appropriate for public schools.

The ACLU intervened in cases where entire classes were enrolled in JROTC without giving students a choice, or where cash-strapped schools used JROTC to substitute for physical education, said Jennifer Turner, a researcher with the group's Human Rights Program.

"The United States is unique in the world in having this type of program that targets kids as young as 14 operating in public school, where students sometimes don't even have a choice," she said. "It is apparent that the JROTC program is a recruiting tool."

Gabriel Garnica, Esq.

We have all seen how guilty children deal with the truth. They either pretend that it does not exist or call the one telling the truth a "liar" and act really angry. We have all seen how those same children deal with those trying to tell on them. They either try to stop them from telling or call them "liars" when they do. Do we see a pattern here? More importantly, do we see a familiar strategy elsewhere?

Frankly, the Obama campaign's familiar pattern of trying to smash or defame anyone trying to tell the truth about their candidate, of calling such people "liars" and of generally playing pretend is getting quite old. A case in point is David Freddoso's The Case Against Barack Obama, which has spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The Obama people have tried to keep Freddoso off a popular Chicago radio show, characterized both the author and his work as spreading "dishonest, extreme hate-mongering."

The candidate himself has set the tone for this kind of juvenile reaction to the truth. Faced with the clear evidence that he has been the champion against "Born Alive" legislation and the worst enemy of infants who survive abortions, Obama has resorted to the infantile reaction of calling people discussing his stance in this area liars as well, despite the fact that there is tons of evidence that, for Barack Obama, an abortion survivor is more a nuisance than anything else.

Any of us who have ever witnessed spoiled children know that behind every spoiled child there is an enabling adult pandering to that child in some way, directly or indirectly, consciously or not.

The spoiled children of the Obama campaign and their equally spoiled leader are no different. Their pandering enablers are the mainstream media, who have done everything in their power to present us with the fairy-tale Obama. This pretend version of the Marxist Messiah is suave, sophisticated, social, spiritual, friendly and might even be able to walk on water if asked enough times.

The truth is, faced with trying to sell someone with enough background issues to re-sink the Titanic; the liberal media has decided that it is not enough to simply favor their candidate over the other. It now blatantly ignores anything about its candidate which might not sit well with the American public, which would be about half of his background. It now blatantly winks at lie after lie about the opponents of its prized politician, as the entire despicable array of lies and myths about Sarah Palin sold as fact proves.

I would laugh if it were not for the fact that crying makes so much more sense. We have reached the point in this country where a blatant liar who cannot even face up to his scheming past and who calls everyone who tries to reveal it dishonest is taken seriously. The problem here is that this country is no cookie jar; it is our home and hopefully that of our children. We have a duty to protect, defend and fight for it. That includes exposing hypocrisy and deception from someone who wants to take the controls of this nation's security and welfare, both internal and external.

Someone please tell me why any candidate for the White House exhibiting a pattern of distorting, hiding from and twisting the truth is not a matter of national security. Better yet, someone please tell me that it is not the height of absurdity that someone who represents the kind of ideology that our brave men and women have fought and died to stop is now on the brink of taking the helm of our government. If we let this man win this election, we will make a mockery of the blood they shed to keep precisely his kind of thinking out of this country.

A former Reagan Defense Department official and founder of a conservative military think tank believes radical Islam's threat on the U.S. is more than just people flying airplanes into buildings.

Frank Gaffney served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under Ronald Reagan. As president of the Center for Security Policy, he is trying to spread awareness about a concept known as "soft jihad."
 
According to Gaffney, since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, most Americans have been very aware of what he calls the "hard jihad" being waged on the United States, as witnessed by efforts of mass destruction. He notes the concept of soft jihad is less understood.  
   
"You now have foot baths that are being demanded; you have time off for prayers. You have holidays -- a group of Somali refugees who now work with Tyson foods decided they wanted to have one of the Muslim festivals replace Labor Day as a paid holiday. And that wouldn't apply just to the Somali workers in the plant; that was initially going to apply to all workers," Gaffney explains. "And so it's that kind of activity that is 'soft jihad' that is moving us inexorably in the direction..., unless it's countered, of accommodating and enabling a seditious program aimed at the destruction of our government and our society."
 
Gaffney says radical Islamists believe that, when the violent part of jihad is either unworkable or impractical, all Muslims are obligated to engage in, at the least, the soft jihad to bring about the destruction of nations that stand in the way of their goals of destruction and domination.

From The Great www.nysun.com.

Ideal of the Scoop

It is my duty to report today that Ira Stoll and I and our partners have concluded that the Sun will cease publication. Our last number will be the issue dated September 30, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I want you to know that Ira and I, and our partners, explored every possible way to avoid having to cease publication.

We have spoken with every individual who seemed to be a prospective partner, and everywhere we were received with courtesy and respect. I tend to be an optimist and held out hope for a favorable outcome as late as mid-afternoon today. But among other problems that we faced was the fact that this month, not to mention this week, has been one of the worst in a century in which to be trying to raise capital, and in the end we were out not only of money but time.

So we are at this sad moment. It is sad for any newspaper to go out of publication, and it is particularly sad for one that is as loved as much as all of us here love The New York Sun and the readers we have won in our six-and-a-half years of publication. But I want you to know that the decision to close the paper has not been an acrimonious one. It is a logical decision following a hard-headed assessment of our chances of meeting our goal of profitable publication in the near future.

This was always a risk, and all the greater is the heroism of our financial backers. Even at the end they were offering millions of dollars if we could find the partners we needed. I don't mind saying to you, as I have to them, that I very much regret — I will always regret — that we were not able to return to them the capital that they invested in us. Yet we have not heard a single regret from any of them on this head, which underscores the fact that it was not only for the possibility of profit that they invested in this newspaper. They invested also for other ideals, as well.

They invested in the ideal of the scoop, the notion that news is the spirit of democracy, and in the principles for which we have stood in our editorial pages — limited and honest government, equality under our Constitution and the law, free markets, sound money, and a strong foreign policy in support of freedom and democracy. They liked the way the Sun reflected the dynamism of our city and spoke for its interests in the national debate.

They invested, too, in the joy with which you illuminated the cultural life of New York, in our willingness to spring to the defense of so many who are not always defended, in the thrill of our sports coverage, the verve and warmth of our society coverage, and in our efforts to bring together a community and give it voice.

Our backers asked me to tell you that they are enormously proud of what you accomplished, a sentiment that was expressed for all our partners pointedly in the most recent meeting by our founding chairman, Roger Hertog. I am sure the reference was not only to our reporters and editors, who come in for the public attention, but the advertising, circulation and business departments, whose staffers have gone out every day into the an environment in which most newspapers are losing advertising and circulation and yet managed to produce consistent gains. This month, our last, was a record month for advertising revenues, which were up more than 60% over the year earlier month and ahead of the budget goals, with year-to-date advertising revenues up nearly 25%.

* * *

We have all been taken aback and, I would say, humbled by the surge of support that has been conveyed since the announcement a month ago that we might have to close. Mayor Bloomberg, despite our differences on many issues, was our constant reader and encourager. We had messages from some of our greatest rabbis, and from His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan. Three of New York's former governors spoke of the importance of the Sun, including Governor Pataki, who called what you have created "the best paper in New York." Much as I appreciated the remark, I wouldn't want to make too much of it — for me, it was privilege enough to be simply one among the newspapers in this magnificent newspaper town.

Some of the messages that touched me most were readers who sent in checks, with letters about what the Sun meant to them, and calls or comments from those with whom we don't often agree on policy. The Central Labor Council and the president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, or Speaker Quinn or Comptroller Thompson, the Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, and all the others who talked to our reporters, or wrote, or called to let us know how much they appreciated the intelligence, the passion, and the energy you brought to your beats. I sense in some of my conversations with them that they appreciated the fact that you covered their important work at all and that you dealt with them on the substance, and they will miss you as much as you will miss them.

* * *

It is in the nature of things that there are going to be some jeers as we go out, as there were when we came in. Do not be discouraged by this. To those who say to you, "I told you so, I knew you would fail" you can say this: "No wonder you didn't join us." And you — reporters, editors, critics, photographers, secretaries, sales executives, book-keepers, circulation staff, technology geniuses, drivers — all of you will be able to tell your children and your grandchildren or simply your friends that not only did you appear in arms in a great newspaper war but that you did so on your own terms, for principles you believed in, and worked with some of the greatest newspaper craftsmen and craftswomen of your generation — and you covered yourselves with distinction.

At our last board meeting, Ira Stoll mentioned that this is not the first time he and I have lost a newspaper we loved. We learned, in the years after the Forward, that one great newspaper adventure can lead to another, even greater one. As we shook hands after the meeting, Ira said to me that he wanted just to thank me for giving him these seven years at the Sun. He said he wouldn't trade them for anything. I thanked him in return. I couldn't have had a more magnificent partner. I wouldn't have traded these years for anything, either. Ira and I thank you all as well. It has been the honor of our lives to have been in harness with you, and I am positive you all will go on to ever greater assignments.