News Snippets From All Beats

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has brokered a compromise deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allows the feds access to arrest records in their search for illegal aliens. The records ICE now has access to will exclude information on victims and witnesses. Nutter was concerned that subjecting illegal aliens to exposure to law enforcement would dampen their spirit towards reporting crime.¹

Never mind that this leans dangerously in the direction of creating a privileged class who are at the same time protected by the law and exempt from the law. Illegal aliens are criminals.

Remember that this is the same population of criminal crusaders upon whose backs is borne the entire Philadelphia justice system, and Nutter has previously stated that without their support that system would collapse.²

What Nutter’s compromise amounts to is a witness protection program protecting criminals; not from other criminals, but shielding them from our own federal agents. And it is the most costly of such programs in existence. A look at national figures for illegal immigrants gives some idea of those costs that are supported on the backs of American tax-payers.

The cost of incarcerating illegal aliens since 2008, $26 billion; the cost of educating children of illegals since 1996, $171 billion; the cost of social services for illegals since 1996, $397 billion.³

The costs are so devastating that illegals are literally bankrupting entire cities.⁴  What’s needed is a new protection program for Americans; such as enforcing existing immigration law. Can I get a witness?

Notes:

^1. Fox News, “Philly to Continue Sharing Arrest Records With Immigration Officials” July 17, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/17/philly-continue-sharing-arrest-records-immigration-officials/

^2. David Dansker, “Illegal Aliens Indispensible Crime Fighters,” TheNewsBeats.com/news. July 5, 2010.

^3. ImmigrationCouters.com, “Live Numbers,” July 17, 2010. http://immigrationcounters.com/

^4. David Dansker, “Different Lottery Brought Down Maywood,” TheNewsBeats.com/news. June 24, 2010. 

Think for a moment about celebrating the American culture and tradition of missions, missionaries, and ministers.  Imagine an exhibit funded by taxpayers with explicit Christian themes such as crosses.  Or, how about a stature of Jesus 26 feet high and weighing nearly fifteen tons erected in the performing arts plaza in San Francisco’s Civic Center, and across from city hall.  Certainly, the unveiling of such a work of art would be dedicated by dignitaries that would include San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom.  Consider also that the expenses for this celebration would be funded in part by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, using taxpayer dollars.

No doubt that ACLU and the term “separation of church and state” have already come to readers’ minds.  Now consider this: all the details in this account are true with the exception that the sculpture is not of Jesus, but is actually of Buddha.

The fact that Buddhism, the religion, is being sponsored by the San Franciscan government is downplayed by citing such religious iconography “is rooted in Chinese culture and tradition,” and reflects a “continuing interest in the continuity of Buddhist philosophy” by the artist who created it.¹  Do you think that would stand for a moment today if the imagined artist of the Jesus statue above cited his continuing interest in Christian doctrine as the driving force for his art?

In the mean time, American veterans had to fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep a seven foot metal cross erected in the Mojave Desert to honor American war dead.  After finally prevailing in court against challenges that it violated separation of church and state, libertarian vigilantes took matters into their own hands and went out into the middle of the desert and stole the cross.²

For people coming face to face with Buddha it doesn’t cost them anything.  A person is fine in the eyes of Buddhism so long as they are trying to do the right thing most of the time; their best is acceptable (it’s convenient that you keep your own books on this account).

To come face to face with Jesus means to acknowledge that one is a sinner, and all one’s accumulated righteousness is as filthy rags when held up to God’s standard for approval.  In this encounter that demands one accept the righteousness of Jesus and follow Him, one will either begin hating his sin, or hating Jesus.  The cross of Christ will become an offence them(Gal 5:11); even to the point that a mere cross erected out in the wilderness cannot be tolerated.  Certainly, America is in that wilderness now.

Notes:

^1. Kate Patterson, “Arts Commission Announces World premiere of Zhang Huan’s Colossal ‘Three Heads Six Arms‘,” SFAC, April 14, 2010.

^2. Katharine Russ, “So, Who Made  Off With the Mojave Cross…and Why?” CityWatch, May 12, 2010.

Last week Amy Bishop, a biology professor at University of Alabama, was arrested for the fatal shootings of three other professors.  Reports are now surfacing that indicate Bishop also killed her brother in 1986 by shooting him.  While not diminishing the scope of this tragedy, the question has been put as to why the above headline is not being used in the media for reporting on this story.¹  If it were a Baptist, Fundamentalist, or Christian, who was involved; some are of the opinion that these appellations would have been included ad nauseam in the news.

Yet, perhaps there is a slight compliment in this disparity.  Absent a faith in the Creator, Evolutionists may not be held to a very high standard of morality in the public mind.  One random chance life-form randomly took another out of the evolutionary soup.  There is nothing sacred about the life-forms, in the evolutionary scheme of things, and nothing wrong with chance; which is to be celebrated as the acceptable explanation for all things.

^1. “Why Don’t They Call ‘Professor’ in Alabama Shooting an ‘Evolutionist’?” Fundamental Baptist News. February 13, 2010. http://www.fundamentalnews.com.php5-15.websitetestlink.com/why-dont-they-call-professor-in-alabama-shooting-an-evolutionist/

The costs of enacting restrictions on energy use to combat humans in order to prevent the theory of global warming are about to run into the very real costs of finding food to feed them in the reality of global cooling.

A farmer and his tractor in Denshaw near Oldham, as heavy snowfall continues across most parts of the UK. Photograph: John Giles/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

Read it: Food costs to soar as big freeze deepens

Superman: Man has thought he has become powerful enough to destroy the world in his own time; man must become powerful enough to save it in his own eyes.

Several articles have appeared here chronicling the global warming hoax and the motivations for perpetuating that hoax. Many developments in the scandal have made the news lately, and the unraveling of the fraudulent science and associated conspiracies has been rapid fire.  The following link is provided here for a concise topical overview:

Copenhagen and “ClimateGate“

Leaders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) claim to have the Ark of the Covenant, in which were kept the tablets of the law, Aaron’s rod that budded, and manna God feed the Israelites on in the wilderness.  There was even talk this week of displaying the Ark in a museum, but it appears that the EOC is going to fail to deliver on its promise.  And for good reason; they don’t have it.  The EOC does not, nor does anybody else, for that matter, have the Ark of the Covenant for the same reason that the Shroud of Turin was not used in Christ’s burial.

The Lord demonstrated what would happen when the Ark was handled contrary to His instructions, and what would befall people who would illegally possess it.  If it were being kept in Ethiopia for the last 3000 years, then by now all of Africa would not only have been incapacitated with hemorrhoids, they would all have died of AIDS or some other plague.  The Ark is God’s design for the purpose of foreshadowing the redemptive work of Christ Jesus.  As such, it is holy; set aside for His use, and would not be carelessly left to be bandied about by the unconverted.  Neither is there a need for it to remain on earth after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Christ Jesus, the Lord.

The only way anyone is going to see the Ark today is: 1) to be saved by the blood of the Lamb of God, 2) to die.  Unless the Rapture of the Church happens first, these are the only ways one is going  get to heaven, and that’s where the Ark is, and here is how we know: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament [covenant]: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (Rev 11:19).  This scene was revealed to the Apostle John in AD 96.  The accompanying revelation revealed events that would transpire, during the time of Jacob’s Trouble, or the Tribulation Period lasting seven years.  The Ark is there now.

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

(Mat 19;4-5; emphasis added)

It has been said that competition brings out the best in people.  Of course, it also brings out the worst, or else what, sometimes, would there be to compete against? For Carrie Prejean, Miss California, It was the best.  Poised to be crowned the next Miss USA, Prejean was instead destined for a far greater victory.  Asked by Perez Hilton, one of the judges in the contest and also a homosexual, her views on same-sex marriage, Prejean pulled the gold ring and told the truth.

In what may be the end of here competitive career for earthly beauty crowns, Prejean was pitted against the worst.  The jackboot of the homosexual lobby is a temporal front for Satan’s spiritual attack on God’s word and design for humanity, and he controls the kingdoms of this world.  Prejean held here head high, blinked once as she watched the title slip by, and fixed her gaze:

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1Pe 1:4-5)

The cause for the creation of male and female by God has never altered.  There is no ambiguity on this point throughout scripture, or deviation from it except by unrepentant sinners. The truth is beautiful.  Let not the redeemed of the Lord waiver; let them be able to say:

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2Ti 4:7-8; emphasis added)