More from "Why I left Jihad" - Walid Shoebat

This is such a good book. I HIGHLY recommend it. He delves into theology, history and prophecy. His "take" on prophecy makes so much sense, you really do have to read it. OT, here is a tidbit from "With Lawrence of Arabia" by Lowell Thomas (1925), regarding muslims respect for their holy sites (not):

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"Hussein supervised the attack on Mecca, and while Faisel and Ali were in command of the force directed against Medina, the Grand Shereef was successful at Mecca. The forts on the three hills overlooking that forbidden and sacred city were garrisoned by the sultan's most faithful Circassian mercenaries and by picked Turkish troops. On the day of the attack, the Arabs swept through the gates and captured the main bazaar, the residential section, the administration buildings, and the sacred mosque of the Holy Kaaba. For a fortnight the battle raged around the two smaller forts, which were finally taken.

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During all this fighting the aged Shereef remained in his palace directing operations in spite of scores of Turkish three inch shells that riddeled his residence. The Turks might have been able to hang on for many months had it not been for their own folly.

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The Ottoman seems to be a Muhammadan in theory only, occasionally adhering to the ritual and even less frequently adhering to the spirit of the Koran. Heedless of the deep set religious feelings of their enemies and co-religionists, they suddenly began to bombard the mosque of the Kaaba, the most sacred shrine of all Islam. One shell actually hit the black stone burning a hole in the holy carpet and killing nine Arabs who were kneeling in prayer. Hussein's followers were so enraged by this impious act that they swarmed over the walls of the great fort and captured it after desperate hand-to-hand fighting with knives and daggers."

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I guess that would be a holey holy carpet....

The Eagle Nebula in Infrared

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/N. Flagey (IAS/SSC) & A. Noriega-Crespo (SSC/Caltech)
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Explanation: In visible light, the whole thing looks like an eagle. The region was captured recently in unprecedented detail in infrared light by the robotic orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope (SSC). Shown above, the infrared image allows observers to peer through normally opaque dust and so better capture the full complexity of the Eagle Nebula star forming region. In particular, the three famous pillars near the image center are seen bathed in dust likely warmed by a supernova explosion. The warm dust is digitally assigned the false color of red. Also visible, near the bottom of the image, is ten light-year long pillar sometimes dubbed the Fairy of Eagle Nebula. The greater Eagle emission nebula, tagged M16, lies about 6500 light years away, spans about 20 light-years, and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of Serpens.

Our BSF leader said this yesterday, speaking of when we encounter troubles in this life, but somehow this picture makes me think of it:

The "Go To" Principle: "When my life is out of focus, I remind myself that I am not a body with a soul, but a soul with a body."

I also liked this one: "When we encounter trouble, we can break down, break out, or break through."

NGC 602 and Beyond

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA) - ESA/Hubble Collaboration

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Explanation: Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

Moon God Allah

Hadrian Crescent and Star

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Okay, this is really interesting, from “Why I left Jihad” by Walid Shoebat (I highly recommend this book):

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"Revelation 17 presents a snapshot of the entire Babylonian influence and of human sin, stretching over time to encompass the empires of Daniel with their false religions. Islam's crescent moon, in reality, stems from Babylonia, modern day Iraq. In 217 AD, Emperor Caracala was killed after he was returning from visiting the Temple of the Moon God in Harran, Iraq. In 363 AD, Emperor Julian paid his respects to the temple of Sin. The Moon God, in fact, was the most worshiped god in Roman times. It is reasonable to connect the Roman Empire's religious worship from Babylon to Islam, which adopted this symbol. "

.................. Flag of Pakistan

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“Islam is simply a revival of a Babylonian religion. The Moon god with the crescent moon and star symbol originated in Babylon (Iraq) and was one of the 360 idols in the Kaaba (Mecca) before Muhammad destroyed them. In Babylon, the Moon god was called “Sin”. Caton Thompson’s book, “The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha, discusses the uncovering of a temple of the Moon-god in southern Arabia. The symbols of the crescent moon and no less than 21 inscriptions with the name “Sin” were found in this temple. An idol, which may be the Moon god himself, was also discovered. The Arabic word for “god” is ‘Ilah” and the Moon god became synonymous with ‘al-Ilah’, meaning ‘the god;” pagan Arabia believed that the Moon god was the greatest of all the gods, hence the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” meaning “Allah is greater.”
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Revelation 17:8 (~90AD): "The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come."

McNaught Now Brightest Comet in Decades

Credit & Copyright: Jens Hackmann

Explanation: The brightest comet in decades is unexpectedly now visible. The most optimistic predictions have Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) shortly becoming one of the brightest comets of the past century. For the next few days, its short tail and bright coma can be spotted with the unaided eye close to the Sun and near the horizon in both evening and morning skies. This dramatic picture of the comet shining through cloudy skies was taken near sunset on January 7 from Bad Mergentheim, Germany.

Killer germ set to 'emerge in force'

My mom sent this article this morning. Quite interesting...

Sharon Kirkey
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, January 02, 2007

A superbug that causes infections from large, boil-like lesions to hemorrhagic pneumonia and, in rare cases, flesh-eating disease is poised to "emerge in force" across Canada, a new report warns. While the prospect of a flu pandemic has governments scrambling to develop emergency plans, an epidemic of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or CA-MRSA, is raging in the U.S. and beginning to entrench itself here, infectious disease experts report today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In the U.S., clusters have been reported in groups from NFL players to toddlers in day care.
In Canada, outbreaks have occurred in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. The Calgary Health Region sees between 40 and 70 cases per month. Infections are also being reported in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City. Doctors are now investigating the possible transmission of the community-acquired staph strain among a small group of Calgary hospital patients, which would be one of the first cases of CA-MRSA being transmitted between hospital patients.

"Not a day goes by where I'm in clinic that I'm not pulling out a scalpel to drain one of these things," says Dr. John Conly, co-author of the report and an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of Calgary.

"We're seeing far too many of them." The organism is an "old foe with new fangs," a pathogen that is virulent, drug-resistant and has an uncanny ability to "disseminate at large," according to the CMAJ report. So far, its prevalence is thought to be low, but rising in most parts of the country.

"Front-line physicians need to be aware of the increasing prevalence and the potential severity of CA-MRSA infection," the researchers write. The germ killed a healthy 30-year-old Calgary man and a three-month-old baby in Toronto in 2005. Both died of necrotizing pneumonia, or lung abscesses. The infection begins with what looks like a spider bite, a red, very tender area that rises up and comes to a head just like a small boil. If not treated promptly, the lesions can develop into large, spreading abscesses in the soft tissues that can grow to the size of a baseball "or even a grapefruit in some settings," Conly said in an interview. People develop fever and flu-like symptoms. In some cases, MRSA can cause bleeding in the lungs.

"For some reason, there are people who are predisposed to develop what looks like standard pneumonia and very quickly they begin to cough up blood," Conly said. Previously confined to hospital patients, the staph infection is now occurring in healthy people. The community strain "doesn't carry as much genetic baggage" as the hospital strain and is sensitive to other antibiotics, Conly says.

"But it seems to have a propensity to cause very large abscesses in the soft tissues with copious drainage, and seems to spread much more readily than the hospital strain has done."
It's also moving out of the traditional risk groups, such as intravenous drug users, the homeless, First Nations, the military and people infected with HIV.

The staph infection is spread by physical contact, through open cuts and scrapes, poor hygiene and sharing personal items, such as soap, towels, creams, razors and clothes.
Athletes are particularly prone: It has affected college and high-school-aged football players, wrestlers and rugby players. A Miami Dolphins football player lost a season because of a severe MRSA infection. The Canadian Committee on Antibiotic Resistance and the Coaching Association of Canada has launched a campaign to educate coaches, parents and athletes about staph infections.

Pets, too, can be reservoirs for infection. New Canadian guidelines to control MRSA recommend regular hand washing, covering any draining skin lesion and not sharing potentially contaminated personal articles. Doctors are urged to report suspected outbreak to public health authorities and to limit the use of antibiotics, because their over-use drives resistance.
The guidelines recommend alcohol-based hand sanitizers in sports facilities where there are no sinks, showering after every game or practice, avoiding sharing towels or equipment, cleaning equipment regularly, ideally after every use. Anyone with an open sore should avoid contact sports, and should stay away from common whirlpools or saunas. Children with open or infected sores should also be kept away from day care or school until they're treated.

Hate Speech?

This is pretty good, from the Religion of Peace website:

Hate Speech?
(Not According to CAIR)

“Muslims are the vilest of animals…”
“Show mercy to one another, but be ruthless to Muslims”
“How perverse are Muslims!”
“Strike off the heads of Muslims, as well as their fingertips”
“Fight those Muslims who are near to you”
“Muslim mischief makers should be murdered or crucified”

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Hate speech? Incitement to violence? Sounds like it to us, but a knowledgeable Muslim would have to disagree. Why would Muslims not consider this to be hate speech? How is it that we can post these quotes with full certainty that CAIR won't be contacting the media (or Congress) with wild-eyed accusations of Islamophobia? Well, for one thing, we don’t actually agree with any of these statements, of course. But the real reason is that Muslims themselves honestly believe these quotes to be the literal, eternal word of Allah. In fact, CAIR is promoting this hate speech on their own website! It is actively propagating the very literature that contains these comments, even while sanctimoniously claiming that it is working against hate and violence. Read more....