Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band
Rosa Majeur

How about a kids video game where they get to shoot and kill Christians as they enter church for Sunday worship?
Nah! Probably would cause an uproar.

‘Convert Or Die’ Game Divides Christians
Some ask Wal-Mart to drop Left Behind

Liberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.

The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two online political groups, plan to demand today that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a PC game inspired by a series of Christian novels that are hugely popular, especially with teens.

The series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is based on their interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist.

Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.
…
But Plugged In, a publication of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, gave the game a “thumbs-up.” The reviewer called it “the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior — and use to raise some interesting questions along the way.”

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Image source: Guardian Unlimited Donald Rumsfeld Cartoon Humor

Oh good grief. If you want to start a fight, this is the way to do it!

Iran president says Israel’s days are numbered

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today told delegates at an international conference questioning the Holocaust that Israel’s days were numbered.

Ahmadinejad, who has sparked international outcry by referring to the killing of six million Jews in World War 2 as a “myth” and calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, launched another verbal attack on the Jewish state.

“Thanks to people’s wishes and God’s will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want,” he said.

“Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out,” he added.

His words received warm applause from delegates at the Holocaust conference, who included ultra-Orthodox anti-Israel Jews and European and American writers who argue the Holocaust was either fabricated or exaggerated.

The Vatican, Germany and the European Commission added their voices on Tuesday to others - such as the United States and Israel - who have condemned the Tehran meeting.

Iran says it organized the conference to shed light on the reasons behind the formation of the state of Israel after World War 2 and to allow researchers from countries where it is a crime to question the Holocaust to speak freely.

“Iran is your home and is the home of all freedom seekers of the world,” Ahmadinejad said. “Here you can express your views and exchange opinions in a friendly, brotherly and free atmosphere.”

More at STUFF

I’m so sure they’d admit to it if they had been…

(December 12, 2006)–The US eavesdropping agency says it never targeted Princess Diana’s phone conversations.

The National Security Agency is responding to British media reports that secret recordings of Diana’s phone talks apparently came up during the British probe into the car crash that killed her nine years ago.

The London Observer reports the US had bugged Diana’s phone without British approval, and that London was assured the tapes didn’t provide any insight about the crash.

The NSA says it has 39 classified papers with references to Diana, but that she was never the speaker or the target of any monitoring.

The documents had been previously released.

The official British report into the 1997 Paris crash will come out Thursday.

KWTX.com

President Bush offers up a “pot calling the kettle black” moment today.

While condemning Iran for convening a conference of people who deny the Holocaust happened (read my earlier post on this), Bush called the move “an affront to the entire civilized world.”

Even though this administration was quick to chide such an evil assemblage, we can’t help but note the nerve it must take to project one’s own shortcomings onto others. We can only hope that one day soon an impeachment or trial (maybe both, God willing!) will bring an end to our little “affront to the entire civilized world”.

Washington Post-ABC News Poll
The Washington Post
Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006

This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone December 7-11, 2006, among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. The results have a three-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa. Bush Iraq Poll

Source: The Washington Post

Meeting of sick minds

Iran hosts Holocaust deniers

BY KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
December 12, 2006

Iran hosted a conference yesterday of Holocaust deniers - including KKK cuckoo David Duke - prompting worldwide outrage.

“It’s beyond words in terms of being grotesque and offensive, and yet we have to deal with it because it is happening in a neighborhood that supports it,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

The two-day parlay was initiated by Israel-bashing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who billed the conference as a scholarly discussion of history.

“Its main aim is to create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust,” said Iran Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Ahmadinejad has described the slaughter of 6 million Jews by Nazi soldiers as a “myth” and “exaggerated,” and has called for the State of Israel to be abolished.

An Israeli Arab who operates a Holocaust museum claims Iran refused to allow him to attend.

Khaled Mahameed, a Muslim, said his visa application in nearby Jordan was shot down when he tried to go to Iran.

The government-backed event, dubbed “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” challenged whether Nazi Germany used gas chambers. It attracted 67 participants from 30 countries.

“There must be freedom of speech,” declared Duke, the Louisiana-bred former Ku Klux Klan head. “It is scandalous that the Holocaust cannot be discussed freely.”

It is illegal to deny the Holocaust in Germany, Austria and France.

“The most dangerous threat of the organized discussion is that it could creep into academic libraries,” said David Marwell, director of the Manhattan-based Museum of Jewish Heritage. “Clothing the conference in this serious high-minded scholarly persona makes it frightening.”

New York Daily News

Because of the rude reception this group encountered throughout the meeting by upset Iranians, next year’s meeting will be held in a more receptive area…. some US southern state. Exact location to be named later.

People amaze me. The fury, anger, hate and rage produced over a single (pagan) tree. Whole forests of trees are clear-cut yearly in the name of greed and not one word these folks will utter. God must be smiling down upon us.

Christmas trees going back up at Sea-Tac

Janet I. Tu and Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporters

The holiday trees that went away in the middle of the night are back.

Monday night, Port of Seattle staff began putting up the trees they earlier had removed from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The trees had come down Friday night after a local rabbi requested that a Hanukkah menorah also be displayed, and Port officials had said the threat of a lawsuit left them without enough time to consider all the issues.

A nationwide furor erupted over the weekend as news of the trees’ removal spread, with a flood of calls to Port officials and harshly worded e-mails to Jewish organizations.

On Monday, Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky said he would not file a lawsuit and the Port, in response, said it would put the trees back up.

“This has been an unfortunate situation for all of us in Seattle,” Port of Seattle Commission President Pat Davis said in a statement. “The rabbi never asked us to remove the trees; it was the Port’s decision based on what we knew at the time. We very much appreciate the rabbi’s willingness to work with us as we move forward.”

A menorah will not be displayed this year.

Port spokesman Bob Parker said, “we look forward to sitting down after the first of the year with not only Rabbi Bogomilsky but others as well, and finding ways to make sure there’s an appropriate winter holiday representation for all faiths. We want to find out a way to celebrate the winter holidays that is sensitive to all faiths.”

Bogomilsky, who works with Chabad-Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish outreach organization, said, “Like people from all cultures and religions, we’re thrilled the trees are going back up.”

But he said he was disappointed that Port officials chose not to put up the menorah as well, pointing out that there are still several days until Hanukkah begins at sundown Friday. “I still hope that they’ll consider putting the menorah up this year. But ultimately it’s their decision.”

The rabbi, who says he never wanted the trees removed, also said he hopes the Port will apologize for mischaracterizations that led people to believe he was against having the trees displayed.

“At the end of the day it’s not about trees, but adding light to the holiday, not diminishing any light.”

The Seattle Times