HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2006
December 31, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | No Comments
A Happy New Year to all our readers. To you and your family we wish a prosperous and safe 2006.
We want to thank you for your loyalty and interest and we look forward to a growing and momentous 2006. There are a lot of issues for us to address in the coming year and we hope you are there with us every step of the way.
Predictions for 2006?
Always a dangerous road to travel, but I will offer a few:
-G.W. Bush will continue his bounce back IF he continues presenting his case to the people
-The MSM (Mainstream Media) will continue falling with a few major newspapers having further troubles and ever lower subscription rates
-The internet will increasingly be the focus of the Political parties
-Iraq will look better and better for Democracy
-Iran will get further isolated
-Michael Moore will get fatter and uglier still
In any case, have a great holiday and we will get back to posting some of our great Op Eds on Monday morning.
Thanks again,
Warner Todd Huston- proprietor, Publius’ Forum
Iraqi-American Teen, Travels to Iraq to Help Democracy
December 31, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | No Comments
Teen’s empathy led him to Iraq
Journey draws world’s spotlight, stuns his parents.
He was born into money and privilege, the son of immigrant parents who came to this country from Iraq looking for freedom and a better life.
But Farris Hassan, a tall and lanky straight-A student who loves to debate world politics and shuns typical teenage hangouts, didn’t want it.
After leaving for the Middle East, Hassan sent out an e-mail in opposition of terrorism, saying more people needed to get involved in the Iraqi struggle for democracy
He left his bedroom unadorned, kept his friends few and, two weeks ago, stunned those who knew him by walking away from his life here. The teen boarded a plane to the Middle East alone, knowing the journey he embarked on might kill him. His ultimate destination: Baghdad. His plan: to stand with those struggling for democracy in Iraq.
As family and schoolmates awaited his safe return from Baghdad this weekend, they described a young man who feels guilty about the comfort he enjoys, who is brilliant but foolhardy, a boy brimming with idealism and the desire to make a difference.
According to his father, an anesthesiologist, the teen spent two weeks traveling from Kuwait City to Beirut to Baghdad. He interviewed soldiers and everyday citizens to understand their plight, before walking into a war zone office of The Associated Press news agency, which called the U.S. Embassy, already on the lookout for him. Officials took him into custody Wednesday and put him on a plane to begin the long trip home Friday.
“He wouldn’t take it from anyone else. He had to see for himself,” said his mother, Shatha Atiya, a psychologist, who said she was furious and terrified when she first learned where her boy was headed.
According to family and schoolmates, he is an honors student at Pine Crest School, an expensive preparatory in Fort Lauderdale that is often a gateway to the Ivy Leagues. A junior, standing 6-foot-2, he is enrolled in several advanced-placement classes, is a member of the debate team, the Renaissance Club, and a vocal Republican.
“He was kind of unusual,” said Chris Rudolf, 17, who eats lunch with Hassan. “He wasn’t really popular, but everyone knew him. He was shy about most things until you started talking about something he was passionate about. He was very passionate about the war in Iraq.”
After leaving for the Middle East, Hassan sent out an e-mail in opposition of terrorism, saying more people needed to get involved in the Iraqi struggle for democracy — people like him. He wrote:
“To love is a not a passive thing. … When I love, I do something, I function, I give myself. When I do that, I am freed from guilt. Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. … I want to experience during my Christmas the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience everyday.”
A Muslim, his interest in Iraq grew from his family background — both of his parents were born there — and his voracious appetite for books and current events. The only reason he joined the football team his sophomore year, his uncle said, was to round out his college resume:
“He’s not your typical teenager,” said Ahmad Hassan.
When rumors about his trip began spread at school — Hassan skipped a week of classes before winter break started — classmates were dubious.
“We thought it was a little joke. I mean, we get in trouble for sneaking out of our house to go to the movies,” said Anjali Sharma, who attended classes with Hassan last year….
See the rest of the story- Sun-Sentinal News
_________________
Now HERE is a teen to be proud of.
Our Newest Op Ed
December 31, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | No Comments
The Fourteenth Generation
- By Hans Zeiger
The first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel opens the New Testament with a genealogy. It is a Christmas list-not a wish list, but a Providential list. It is the outworking of God’s Hand in the generations through history, culminating in the birth of Christ.
Matthew 1:17 summarizes the genealogy. “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.” Fourteen is a Providential number.
Today, two thousand years after the incarnation, we are no less a part of God’s great story than the Old Testament prophets and kings, or the New Testament disciples. What wonders might God have in store for America at the brink of 2006? Is there a Fourteenth Generation somewhere in the nation’s wings, ready to act upon some great plan of destiny? ………
Click HERE To Read On
Our Newest Op Ed
December 30, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | No Comments
BABEL ON
- By Resa LaRu Kirkland
Speaking of Speaking
The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well someday become the foundation of a common citizenship
-Winston Churchill
Much has been made of words in recent years, and we can lay every outcry at the feet of Political Castration. Every single one.
The first has to do with language itself. We live in a nation where approximately 215 million people (A PDF file) speak English. That’s right; out of the approximately 300 million in America, the vast, vast, vast majority speaks English, and in case you’re retarded or liberal-a bit redundant, I know-the majority is the rule in this nation, and has been since its inception.
Now the hippy press would have you believe that this is because we are an arrogant, racist society that crushes the individual spirit by demanding that everyone conform to us. They see this as a “How dare Americans make us speak their language in their land!” scenario rather than what it really is: an absolute necessity for the creation and maintenance of a healthy nation and a cohesive citizenry. They utterly ignore the most glaring fact of all that is logical and reasonable. No nation, group, race, or religion can expect to come together for a cause if they can’t even do the first act necessary to find like-minded compatriots: communicate. This is why all successful nations have met that initial requirement of affiliation by endorsing one national language; without it, no one would ever get past the original idea, because there would be no way to come together and begin the process of building a country. ………
Click HERE To Read On
Assumptions about Katrina victims may be incorrect, data reveal
December 29, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | No Comments
NEW ORLEANS - Four months after Hurricane Katrina, analyses of data suggest that some widely reported assumptions about the storm’s victims were incorrect.
For example, a comparison of locations where 874 bodies were recovered with U.S. Census tract data indicates that the victims weren’t disproportionately poor. Another database, compiled by Knight Ridder of 486 Katrina victims from Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, suggests they also weren’t disproportionately African-American.
Both sets of data are incomplete; Louisiana state officials have released no comprehensive list of the dead. Still, they provide the most comprehensive information available to date about who paid the ultimate price in the storm.
The one group that was disproportionately affected by the storm appears to have been older adults. People 60 and older account for only about 15 percent of the population in the New Orleans area, but the Knight Ridder database found that 74 percent of the dead were 60 or older. Nearly half were older than 75. Many of those were at nursing homes and hospitals, where nearly 20 percent of the victims were recovered.
Lack of transportation was assumed to be a key reason that many people stayed behind and died, but at many addresses where the dead were found, their cars remained in their driveways, flood-ruined symbols of fatal miscalculation.
The addresses where bodies were recovered were compiled by Louisiana state officials and released earlier this month. Knight Ridder charted the locations on a map of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, then compared them with census data on income in those neighborhoods. The analysis excluded 216 bodies that were recovered from hospitals and nursing homes, as well as 63 recovered at collection points where people had dropped off bodies in the days after the storm; those victims probably came from locations other than the census tracts where they were found.
The comparison showed that 42 percent of the bodies found in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes were recovered in neighborhoods with poverty rates higher than 30 percent. That’s only slightly higher than the 39 percent of residents who lived in such neighborhoods, according to the census data.
Similarly, 31 percent of the bodies turned up in areas with poverty rates below 15 percent, where 30 percent of the population lived.
The median household income in neighborhoods where Katrina victims were recovered was about $27,000 a year, just under the $29,000 median for the overall area.
One-fourth of Katrina deaths fell in census tracts with median incomes above $35,300. One-fourth of the area’s pre-storm population lived in tracts with median incomes above $37,000.
About 67 percent of the mapped deaths fell in the central and western portion of New Orleans, an area thought to have flooded primarily because of the failure of man-made structures.
The separate Knight Ridder database of 486 Katrina victims was compiled from official information released by state and federal authorities and interviews with survivors of the dead. It cataloged deaths according to location, race, age, name and cause of death.
In that database, African-Americans outnumbered whites 51 percent to 44 percent. In the area overall, African-Americans outnumber whites 61 percent to 36 percent.
In Orleans Parish, 62 percent of known Katrina victims were African-American, compared with 66 percent for the total parish population. In St. Bernard Parish, 92 percent of the identified victims were white. Census figures show that 88 percent of parish residents identified themselves as white.
Among hurricane victims on the Knight Ridder list, men outnumbered women 51 percent to 49 percent, about the same as in the overall area before the storm.
See full report at Myrtle Beach On-Line
__________________________________________
Well, anyone who is smart enough to doubt everything the News talking heads say knew this even while it was going on!
Our Newest Op Ed
December 29, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Dr. Hollyweird Enviro Barf Alert!
- By Warner Todd Huston
I have just come back from seeing the trailers shown before The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe(as well as the movie itself, of course). Before I go on with this I simply must encourage you all to go see this movie at the theater. Don’t wait for the DVD release. The richness and excitement of this film must be seen on the big screen. I took my nine year-old and he says go, go, go.
Now… on with the show. Boy, what a cliche. And this won’t be the only one.
Of course we are all familiar with the wonderful world of movie trailers, those snippets, those commercials for upcoming films we are treated to for at least one half hour before we get to see the film we really came to see. It has been my experience that the trailer is unfortunately often far better than the full film.
Anyway, that aside, I saw a few trailers tonight, but few that made me interested enough to watch for the release dates of the full film. We saw the trailers for a few comedies that seemed boringly familiar and cliched. A few action pictures that seemed, well, boringly familiar and cliched. A few cartoon films that … well, I think you see a pattern here…………..
Our Newest Op Ed
December 28, 2005 | Filed Under Uncategorized | No Comments
The Flight of the White
- By David Tatosian
Apparently the desire of white parents to provide the best education they can for their children is racism. Even if you’re a self-loathing liberal who shudders involuntarily at the mere mention of the word “white”; If you remove your child from a school with a significant or overwhelmingly Hispanic (in this case) student body, you’re Tom Tancredo.
Get used to it gringo.
But what are we to think when liberals, alternately blustering or swooning at the Ka’ba of Multiculturalism, remove their offspring from an educational environment that they insist is good for the rest of us?
Minority parents seeking to enroll their children in the best possible school is good parenting. Why is it racism when white parents do the same thing?…………
Click HERE To Read On