I've Moved!

I've decided to stop blogging here and have moved to The Enduring Church blog. At this blog, I'll be devoted to making the world aware of the persecution that the Christian Church faces around the world. I hope to encourage fellow believers to support their brothers and sisters who are enduring threats, torture, and imprisonment. The most important form of support is prayer.

Also, I will cover stories of the increasing hostility that American Christians are experiencing, acknowledging, of course, that it is generally nothing compared to the suffering of Christians in other countries.

Please visit and leave a comment or two.

God Bless,

Mike

A Working Strategy

Clifford D. May writes on NRO.com about how General Petraeus' strategy is working in several ways, not the least of which is on a religious level.

The truth, he [Hassan Mneimneh, a scholar and director of the Iraq Memory Foundation] discovered is that most Iraqis, unlike so many Westerners, do blame al Qaeda for the carnage al Qaeda has carried out. And most Iraqis have not embraced al Qaeda’s brand of Islam, with its barbarism — e.g. the murder of children to teach their parents obedience — and ultra-fundamentalism.

What’s more, Iraqis were deeply offended by al Qaeda leaders — almost all of them foreigners — saying their interpretation of Islam is flawed and inadequate, as has been that of their families and clans for generations. Mneimneh reports that Iraqi clerics have responded by calling al Qaeda’s version of Islam “excessive and unfair.”

“Note that the troops taking part in the surge have not been attacked by the Iraqis who live in the neighborhoods where they are now posted,” Mneinmeh said. “On the contrary, those Iraqis have been bringing the troops the intelligence they need to succeed.” Accepting a tactical alliance with such people does not violate Islamic doctrine, Iraqi religious scholars are daring to assert.

“The longer this persists,” Mneinmeh said, “the more Iraqis’ views will be changed. As these new views are expressed, disseminated and reinforced, it becomes less likely that they will be abandoned later.”

Body Counts

Finally, U.S. leadership is announcing the numbers of terrorists killed in Iraq. Hugh Hewitt has the quote from President Bush's speech...

In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. (Applause.) We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life.

Doing the quick math, that comes to 10,500 dead terrorists since January (not counting any in August). If the Administration would continue to put these numbers out and if the media would publish them, there would be 2 effects: the American public would start to take heart that we're making progress and the surviving terrorists would become disheartened and lose hope (and maybe prospective terrorists would think twice when faced with the odds of quickly becoming part of the body count.

Newt on Illegal Immigrant Crime at Home

Newt on the failure of Congress and the President to take illegal immigration seriously, in the wake of the execution-style killing of 3 young people in Newark, New Jersey a few weeks ago by an illegal from Peru and the killing of 15-year-old Dani Countryman by 2 brothers illegally here from Mexico...

It’s time for the American people to present Congress and the president with a defining choice: Either Congress and the President want to defend innocent Americans from violent illegal aliens or they don’t.

Either Congress will pass a bill to establish a new system for winning the war here at home and protecting Americans from criminal illegal aliens or Congress will fail to act and we will know we need a new Congress.

Killing For Congress

Ralph Peters from the New York Post has an excellent column about how the latest massacres committed by the terrorists in Iraq are a sign that they're getting desperate and trying to send a message to Congress.

al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Yazidis were just props: The intended audience was Congress.

Al Qaeda has been badly battered. It's lost top leaders and thousands of cadres. Even more painful for the Islamists, they've lost ground among the people of Iraq, including former allies. Iraqis got a good taste of al Qaeda. Now they're spitting it out.

The foreign terrorists slaughtering the innocent recognize that their only remaining hope of pulling off a come-from-way-behind win is to convince your senator and your congressman or -woman that it's politically expedient to hand a default victory to a defeated al Qaeda.

Congress needs to see the big picture--and it's not about the election in 2008. It's about having the intestinal fortitude to finish what we started. To send a message to our allies and enemies that it is a mistake to mess with the U.S. And that we'll stick by our friends, that we can be trusted to stick it out.

Here's how Gen. Petraeus summed it up for The Post on Tuesday: "Right now, we're on the offensive, striving to build on the gains made in the past two months by conducting strike operations to retain the initiative against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, to address the challenge of the Iranian-supported Shia extremists and to try to reduce further the level of ethno-sectarian violence in Baghdad and other fault line areas."

Al Qaeda down, Iran out and sectarian violence reduced. Sounds like a plan.

Amen, Brother!

One of my brothers-in-arms has created this video clip that is sure to get you fired up and proud to be an American. Hot Air is saying that this clip is 10 months old, but it just made it big today when it showed up on the homepage for Foxnews. God Bless the Marines.

A Good Baseball Story

Dean Barnett, who sometimes fills in for Hugh Hewitt on his radio show, has a great post, contrasting this past week's big story on Barry Bonds hitting number 756 with a story you might not have heard about.

BARRY BONDS, THE NEW HOME RUN KING! Zzzzzzzz. There are a few things that some people may have forgotten about Bonds, or that young people may be unaware of. Back in the early 90’s, Bonds was by consensus the best player in baseball. He could do it all. And even then, he was extremely unpopular. Why? Because he was an arrogant jerk. Back in the day, there was an extremely popular video of Pittsburg Pirate manager Jim Leyland getting in Bonds’ face during spring training because of Bonds’ hideous attitude. Sports fans everywhere enjoyed the image of a righteous manager letting an obnoxious superstar have it with both barrels.


Some players grow out of such immaturity. Bonds instead grew worse. As a young superstar, he was the most insufferable player in baseball. As an old superstar, he has solidified his grasp on that crown. Even if he had never taken a performance enhancing substance, no one would care about Barry Bonds supplanting Hank Aaron because no one feels like celebrating Barry Bonds.


If he had retired before his head swelled up like a beach ball, he would have gone down as one of the best players ever. And you know what? Still, no one would have missed him when he left. In time, people who didn’t have to endure his personality will marvel at Bonds’ incredible accomplishments on the field. I don’t think many baseball fans would mind taking a ride in a time machine to see the even viler Ty Cobb play a few games. But for the contemporary audience, Barry Bonds cannot leave the game soon enough.


NOW THE FEEL-GOOD STORY OF BASEBALL 2007.


Some call it going haywire. Others call it Steve Blass disease. The fashion obsessed and malaprop-prone call it Bill Blass disease. It happens when a major league baseball player or other athlete suddenly loses the ability to do a simple thing that he has done all his life. In pitcher Steve Blass’ case, he couldn’t throw the ball over the plate anymore. When it struck catcher Mackey Sasser, he couldn’t accurately throw the ball back to the pitcher. Second baseman Steve Sax, who had been a great player, could no longer make the short throw to first base.


In all these cases, some sort of mental block triggered the breakdown. When you go haywire, it’s virtually impossible to make it back to normal. Steve Sax once memorably said that people would tell him just not to think about it. He said that’s like telling someone, “Don’t think of an elephant!” When someone tells you not to think of an elephant, what do you do? You think of an elephant.


Perhaps the saddest case of going haywire is the one that hit St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Rick Ankiel. In 2000, Ankiel was a 20 year old prodigy. The St. Louis Cardinals had signed him to a contract that included a $2.5 million bonus a couple of years earlier. Just barely out his teens Ankiel racked up an 11-7 record in the big leagues. He was 9th in the league in E.R.A., and 7th in the league in strikeouts.


The Cardinals made the playoffs that year, and there things went tragically wrong for Ankiel. With the nation watching, Ankiel threw five wild-pitches while allowing four runs in the 3rd inning of the Cards’ first playoff game. The Cardinals nevertheless advanced to the National League Championship Series, and Ankiel’s wildness continued to plague him. He didn’t make it out of the first inning in Game 2; out of the 20 pitches he threw that night, 5 got past the catcher. Ankiel returned to face four batters in Game 5 of that series; he threw 2 more wild pitches and walked two men.


Rick Ankiel never got back to normal. He never even came close He tried for what had to be five painful years until finally surrendering before the 2005 season. But Rick Ankiel is a great athlete, and was determined to make it back to the Major Leagues. He decided to do so as an outfielder.


Having started over as a 26 year old, Ankiel improbably became a very successful minor league outfielder. Last year, Ankiel suffered another setback, missing the entire season due to a knee injury. This year, as a 28 year old, Ankiel led all Triple A players with 32 homeruns.


The St. Louis Cardinals once again brought Rick Ankiel up to the big leagues this week, this time as a power-hitting outfielder with a cannon for an arm. Ankiel made his return to the Cardinals’ lineup last night. Penning yet another unlikely chapter in the Rick Ankiel Story, Ankiel returned with a bang, hitting a homerun in the 7th inning. Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa said that except for winning the World Series, Ankiel’s homerun was the happiest moment he had ever had in uniform. Ankiel called the experience “unbelievable.”


"You almost can't put it into words,” he continued. “I couldn't have written that any better. No way. It felt so good I can't describe it. It's almost ... euphoric."


Ankiel’s homerun wasn’t his first in the big leagues. He hit others as a pitcher back in 2000. But he got the ball back from last night’s homerun, and he’s keeping it. As well he should - that ball didn’t come easy.

A Preventable Murder

This is infuriating. Michelle Malkin tells the story of Dani Countryman, a 15-year old girl who was sexually assaulted and killed by two men who admit that they entered the U.S. illegally about 6 months ago.

As 15-year-old Dani Countryman struggled beneath Gilberto Arellano Gamboa, pinned to the floor with her pants down, he called on his cousin to help subdue the girl. Alejandro Rivera Gamboa responded by stepping on Countryman’s throat until she stopped moving.
That’s how investigators described Countryman’s death in a court document released Tuesday. Evidence outlined in the document included statements by the defendants and a bloody shoe that matched an imprint on Countryman’s chest.
Gilberto Javier “Gabe” Arellano Gamboa, 23, who is also known as Rivera Gamboa, and Alejandro Emeterio “Alex” Rivera Gamboa, 24, were arraigned Tuesday in Clackamas County Circuit Court on charges of aggravated murder. Through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, they acknowledged the charges against them and asked for warmer jail clothes.

It's time to write and call your Congressman and Senators and let them know how sick and tired you are of seeing stories like this because they don't have the guts to get serious about closing our nation's borders to sick and twisted pieces of poo-poo (gotta keep it PG) like these scumbags who have nothing positive to offer our country. Whew, that was a long sentence...