Theodorus Gaza

I just love this quote:

"The gift I am sending you is called a dog, and it is in fact the most precious and valuable possession of mankind."

- Theodorus Gaza

btw, That's my Howitzer shell from 1944 next to my canine friends:>)

"Why I Left Jihad" - Walid Shoebat

I’m reading “Why I left jihad” by Walid Shoebat. He was a terrorist from the West Bank who bombed a Bank near Bethlehem, amongst other things. I thought it would be interesting to read something from the perspective of an ex-Islamic terrorist. Check this out:

“Today, in response to what has become a mantra since September 11, -- that “true Islam is a religion of peace,” I say no. I grew up there. I was there at the mosques, the Friday Madrassa, listening to sermons by Ikrima Sabri, tapes by Abdul Hamid Kishk. They taught only the destruction of the Jews and hatred of the West. To kill, to maim, to hate, these were all the same as getting an “A” on your report card.

What the West does not understand about Islamism is that jihad has stages. If Muslims have the upper hand, then jihad is waged by force. If Muslims do not have the upper hand, then jihad is waged through financial and political means. Since Muslims do not have the upper hand in America or Europe, they talk about peace in front of you while supporting Hamas and Hezbollah in the back room. The whole idea of Islam being a peaceful religion emanates from that silent stage of jihad. As Sheikh Qaradawi taught Muslims in Chicago, when Salahu Deen Al-Ayubi (Saladin) was asked to concede to peace with the verse, Quran 8:61, “And if they incline to peace, then incline to it and trust in Allah.” However, from Quran 47:35, he replied, “And be not slack so as to cry for peace and you have the upper hand.”

In Islam, conceding to peace means that the Islamic Umma, nation, is weak. So as soon as Islam becomes the dominating force, it switches into war gear.”

This all jives with the “peaceful” verses in the Koran being written in Mecca when mohammed was the under-dog, and then the violent verses being written when he had taken over by force in Medina.

Here's his website: http://www.shoebat.com

NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula

Credit & Copyright: T. A. Rector (U. Alaska), WIYN, NOAO, AURA, NSF

Explanation: Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula. Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch's Broom Nebula. The rampaging gas gains its colors by impacting and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon. The bright star 52 Cygnus is visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova.

"The Unifying Theory of Everything: Koran & Nature's Testimony"

Too FUNNY. I was looking for a specific version of the koran the other day on Amazon, and I saw this book in the suggestions:

"The Unifying Theory of Everything: Koran & Nature's Testimony".

HA! HA! HA! HA!

It's 150 pages long.. HA! HA! HA!

So, the koran and Mr Asadi came up with what Einstein struggled with his entire life unsuccessfully, and sum it all up in 148 pages! LOL! LOL!!!

OMGosh, that is just too funny.

Fear No Evil

This is a story from a book I’m reading by Natan Sharansky, “Fear No Evil” (1988) about his trial and time in the Soviet Gulag. He was a Soviet Refusnik who eventually was released (1986) and emigrated to Israel:

“Harold Kivilio was an Estonian whose cot was next to mine in the barracks. When the secret police came to his farm in the late 1940s to transport the entire family to Siberia, he and his brothers managed to join the partisans, but the KGB sent his parents and sister into exile. One after another, his brothers and friends were killed, and Harold remained alone in the forest. For years he lived with his girlfriend in a bunker. When she became seriously ill, he sent her to friends in the city. When troops combed the forest and surrounded it, he kept moving from one spot to another.

He had become a beekeeper, and each time he moved he carried the beehives on his shoulders. In 1957, when capital punishment was abolished for a brief time, he was one of the last to come out of hiding. He was given 25 years of camp and was serving the last 2 years when I met him. He served with dignity.

Each afternoon when Harold returned from work he would read his 2 favorite magazines, “Floriculture” and “Beekeeping”. They even permitted him to tend a small flower bed, and although it was forbidden to cultivate any food products in the camp, Kivilio managed to plant grasses that were high in vitamins, which he surreptitiously fed to me and other starved dissidents who had arrived from prison or the camp lockup. Without attracting attention, Kivilio shared his enormous camp experience with me, telling me who could be trusted, how the system of informers worked, and so on.

Years later an eyewitness described Harold’s release when his 25 years were up. He was met by his sister, his sole surviving relative. As they drove away she began to explain that her children knew nothing about why Harold had served time, and she asked him not to involve her family in politics.

“Stop the car,” Harold ordered. As he got out he added, “You don’t know me and I don’t know you. Good-bye.” Refused permission to settle in Estonia, he finally went to a Latvian village and returned to his occupation, beekeeping.”

Isn’t that an amazing story? We’re so blessed to have been born in the USA, and not the USSR! Don’t ever forget it. BTW, Sharansky was in prison for 9 years for simply wanting to emigrate to Israel.

Your Lying Eyes

I got this from a comment section on another blog that was discussing the koran. They had an email address, but no blog address, or I'd give them hat tip:>)

"There is an old joke: a wife returns home suddenly to find her husband in bed with another woman. Unfazed, the husband looks up from the sheets at her and, with great indignation, demands: Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?

It seems to me that right now almost the entire world is like that wife, looking down at that husband, who represents Islam. As we look around the world at the veritable orgy of violence directed at Infidels - from the killings of 200,000 Christians in East Timor, the murders of Christians in the Moluccas, the bomb in Bali directed mostly at Australian Christians, the attack on Filipino Christian peasants in the Philippines, the plots uncovered in Singapore, the Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus persecuted and often murdered by Muslims in Kashmir and Pakistan, the attacks on Jews all over the Muslim world, but especially in the Arab world, the attacks on non-Muslims, 800 of whom were held hostage in a Moscow theatre, the attacks in New York and Washington, that killed 3000, the plots uncovered in Spain, and Italy, and France, and Holland, and Norway, and Germany, and almost everywhere in the Infidel world - all tell us one thing. Yet, the world of organized Islam, including those we are repeatedly told are "moderate", keep telling us: Who are you going to believe? Us, or your lying eyes?"

Happy New Year to all my blogger friends!