USATODAY.com - Castro relinquishes power to brother

USATODAY.com is reporting that Fidel Castro has "temporarily" relinquished power to his 75 year-old brother Raul. The reason is that Fidel had to undergo serious surgery.

I think he's beginning the inevitable transition of power to Raul, which is sort of like putting a washed up relief pitcher in for a washed up starter.

WMD Update: The Israel/Hezbollah story owns the airwaves, so I doubt General Sada will break Iraq's WMD story until there's room.

Huge WMD News Coming

Watch for General Sada on national news outlets over the next few days, especially Fox News. Iraq WMD proof has been declassified.

Georges Sada on al-Maliki's Doublespeak

LEFT: My friends Terry Law and Georges Sada

I spoke with my friend, former Iraqi General Georges Sada this morning shortly after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki addressed a joint session of the United States Congress. He made a very interesting observation.

When General Sada served as spokesman for the Iraqi government a couple of years ago, al-Maliki was his boss, so he got to know him well. al-Maliki is Shia, the same "tribe" (for lack of a better term) as the rulers of Iran, and also of the terror organization Hezbollah, who are at the center of the current Middle East firestorm.

Sada said he noticed that al-Maliki denounced "terrorism" but did not specifically denounce Hezbollah. That is because, he said, al-Maliki does not consider anything done by Shiites to be terrorism.

A story on Foxnews.com raises the same point:

During breakfast with congressional leaders Wednesday, al-Maliki said he didn’t support any terrorist group. He repeated that statement during his speech.

But Sen. Dick Durbin,D-Ill., speaking after the address, said he asked al-Maliki directly if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and the prime minister wouldn't respond, and furthermore, questioned Durbin's right to ask him the question.

"I said, you raised criticism of Israel in this conflict, I think it is logical, it is reasonable to ask him what is your impression of their enemy in this struggle, Hezbollah. He still refused to reply to that," Durbin said.

I never thought I would live to agree with Durbin on anything, because I have not regarded him as capable of principled logic. But I'm willing to eat crow this one time, because I know Georges Sada to be thoroughly committed to the truth.

"al-Maliki has to remember that he is the Prime Minister of all Iraqis," says Sada. "Shia, Sunni, Kurd, Assyrians, Muslims, Christians, all of them."

I hope the White House realizes what a forked tongue they loosed on Congress today.

A War of Networks

I wrote and posted this piece three days ago, and for the first time ever Blogger lost it. Here it is again, a little late, but still timely.

Earlier this summer I wrote that I view the war on terror as the beginning of World War 3. Now my friend Stephen Mansfield, best known for his bestseller, "The Faith of George W. Bush," has one-upped me both analytically and logically:

Those of us who study these things have long expected that the next great war was not going to be either a linear war of massive troop and materiel movements or a “push-button” war of regional nuclear devastation. We expected it would be a war of networks, culturally adapted, high-tech, guerrilla in nature and with civilian populations as the primary target. We have also expected, particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union, that this war would be with a resurgent, apocalyptic, enraged and well-financed Islam. And so it is. World War III has begun.

You should click over to Stephen's main page, and choose "blog" from the black menu bar to read the rest of this very worthwhile post. (His site works in frames, so I cannot link to the blog directly.) He gives very sound advice on what it all means for us.

The idea of a war of networks is very much akin to Donald Rumsfeld's concept of "swarm tactics" in warfare. Here's the way Reference.com explains it:

In swarm tactics, small units pass through possible enemy territory. When attacked, they try to survive, and call down immediate overwhelming showers of precision-guided air-dropped munitions for armor, and cluster bombs for enemy troops. To consolidate such a region, nearby artillery begin bombardment, and ground units rush in on safe vectors through the bombardments, avoiding them by computer-mediated navigation aids.

Thus in modern warfare, satellite navigation systems and especially computers give a decisive advantages to ordinary military personnel armed with weapons that are otherwise unremarkable.

As Donald Rumsfeld said, the biggest technological leap may not be a single weapon system, but a network connecting all forces in such a way as to revolutionize warfare.

Rumsfeld must be onto something because according to current news reports, the insurgents in Iraq also use swarm tactics effectively in their ambushes.

Bloggers are also familiar with swarm tactics, although in cyberspeak it's called a "blog-swarm." It was a blog-swarm that sunk John Kerry's swiftboat candidacy, and another that brought Dan Rather a disgraceful retirement from network news.

So I stand corrected on the nature of WW3, although I still do not rule out the possibility—and it's growing every day—that there could be a nuclear strike on Iran by Israel, if there's evidence that Iran really has a big bomb.

I just hope it doesn't take another 9/11 type of attack to awaken America's Left from their pacifistic pipe dreams.

Fetus Survives, Impersonates Human

Gianna Jessen (Left) was born on April 6, 1977. She was aborted via saline injection and miraculously survived.

Gianna was permanently adopted at four years of age, and today credits the Lord Jesus with saving her life. A sufferer of cerebral palsy, she nonetheless has become an accomplished recording artist.

A couple of months ago, at the invitation of Colorado State Representative Ted Harvey, Gianna sang the Star-Spangled Banner to begin the final day of the General Assembly Session. Harvey had introduced her as a special new friend, but did not tell her story.

After she sang, Representative Harvey told the story of her suffering, without referencing its cause. The House chamber erupted into applause for 15-20 seconds, before Harvey quieted them to tell "the rest of the story." I am taking the liberty of pasting the text directly from his website:

"The cause of Gianna’s cerebral palsy is not because of some biological freak of nature, but rather the choice of her mother. 
You see when her biological mother was 17 years old and 7 ½  months pregnant she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to seek a late term abortion.  The abortionist performed a saline abortion on this 17-year-old girl.  This procedure requires the injection of a high concentration of saline into the mother’s womb which the fetus is then bathed in and swallows which results in the fetus being burned to death, inside and out.  Within 24 hrs the results are normally an induced still-born abortion.

"As Gianna can testify the procedure is not always 100% effective.  Gianna is an aborted late term fetus that was born alive.  The high concentration of saline in the womb for 24 hrs resulted in a lack of oxygen to her brain and is the cause of her cerebral palsy.

"Members, today we are going to recognize the 90th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood,”

BANG! The gavel came down.
 
Just as I was finishing the last sentence of my speech…The climax of the morning…The Speaker of the House gaveled me down and said,

“Representative Harvey, I will allow you to continue your introduction but not for the purposes of debating a measure now pending before the House.”

At which point I said,

“Mr. Speaker I understand, I just wanted to put a face to what we are celebrating today”.

Silence…Deafening silence.

I then walked back to my chair shaking like a leaf.  The Democrats wouldn’t look at me…they were fuming.  It was beautiful.  I have been in the legislature for five tough years and this made it all worthwhile.

The House Majority Leader wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the day.

The Majority Leader, Democrat Alice Madden, told the Denver Post the next day, that she thought Harvey was "amazingly rude to use a human being as an example of his personal politics." Harvey answers her brilliantly on his website:

Yes Representative Madden, Gianna Jessen is a human being. She was when she was in her mother's womb and she was when she sang the National Anthem on the Floor of the Colorado House of Representatives.

Ted Harvey is now running for the Colorado State Senate. Sure wish Floridians could vote in Colorado.

Shock Jacques' Future Schlock

The Sunday morning news told me awhile ago that French President Jacques Chirac rebuked his fellow G8 leaders today at the summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, saying that the world faces an "inferno" if the leading nations do not begin dealing with global warming more aggressively.

The motive behind Chirac's statement has nothing to do with global warming, of course. His main reason for making it was to get a sound bite. Such blabber is France's way of trying to find importance in a world that gets along just fine without its "leadership." But there's an underlying motivation behind such statements, and I'm not sure even Shock Jacques himself has ever thought it through...

Global warming, just like nuclear winter a couple of decades back, is the current trendy eschatology of today's non-Christian cultural Left. It's their version of rapture fever, a no-Jesus-necessary warning to Turn or Burn.

As for repentance and salvation, Shock Jacques' version of repentance would be not so much a turn-around as a sharp turn to the left. That would lead to salvation, aka socialism, the same old worker's paradise that Marx and Lenin were promising to Russian peasants nearly a century ago. Western Europe's leaders (particularly German and French) saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as their chance to turn the EU into a super state. Yep, they took their red coats and dyed them green.

Even as I started writing this little piece a global-warming commercial came on Fox News Channel. (If the Left can't beat the Right, they can at least buy airtime from them!) Sober-faced children urged viewers to find out what they can do to fight global warming by going to Environmental Defense's website. Then the web location is flashed in red letters on a black screen, and the ad ends as a sweet little voice intones, "while there's still time."

Why is THE END so important to everyone from Jacques Chirac to Jacques Van Impe?

Eschatology is important for the same reason baseball games have final scores. Managers and players know that "the end is near," specifically in the form of the last out in the ninth inning. So they formulate a strategy for winning the game. In other words their vision of the future determines their present course. Let me say that again:

People's vision of the future determines their present course.

This is why so many millions of American Christians have packed their intellectual bags, and are waiting to evacuate the planet. Sensationalist preachers have told them that the world's too far gone to fix, so like the guy who traded in his car because the ashtrays were full, they've abandoned any vision for the next generation.

Let me insert my usual disclaimer here: I don't know when Jesus is coming and neither does anyone else. In fact, "concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32, emphasis added). I can guarantee you that if Jesus Himself was not privy to that information—and apparently not worried about not knowing—then neither is any blow-dried teleprophet.

Fortunately Mssr. Chirac and various prophets of capitalist doom—like pseudo-scientist Jeremy Rifkin—will be proven wrong in the same way every single Rapture predictor thus far has been proven wrong: The End won't come on time. That's right. LaHaye and Jenkins may as well put their furtune in "Left Behind" royalties into long-term bonds.

As for Chirac and his collectivist comrades in Western Europe and South America, if they do not acknowledge their folly and Christ's lordship, they will take their place on Ronald Reagan's ash heap of history.

Sure, Jesus is coming sooner or later. But sooner isn't as soon as it used to be. So why not unpack those bags and roll up those sleeves, and do what heirs are supposed to do: Let's get to work spit-shining our inheritance.

2nd Excerpt from 1st Draft

Following is an excerpt from my first draft of "The Power of Praise and Worship" by Terry Law with Jim Gilbert. It's from chapter six, which is about the blood of Jesus, by which we overcome Satan, whom Revelation calls "the accuser of the brothers." This section is the top of the chapter, dealing with the spiritual stronghold of guilt.

The San Francisco Bay area of California is known for its landmark eccentricities, from the pyramidal Transamerica Building, to snaky Lombard Street, proudly advertised as the “crookedest street in the world.” But no area attraction is stranger than the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.

Sarah Winchester started building her mansion in 1884, shortly after the deaths of her only child, the infant Annie, and her husband, William, principal owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The widowed heiress moved from Connecticut to California and undertook the project at the direction of a psychic, who told her that the Winchester family was under a curse, brought on by the thousands of deaths caused by their invention, the repeating rifle. The spirits of the dead were seeking vengeance, the medium said, and Sarah’s only relief would come from building them a home. But once the construction began, it must never stop.

So the widow Winchester bought a home already under construction, and then built and built and rebuilt. She added dozens of rooms and included features that no human could use: stairways leading into ceilings, closet doors that opened to blank walls, and upstairs portals that opened precipitously onto the lawn below. She also built mazelike hallways to confuse the ghosts, and if a room’s construction went wrong, she simply stopped building it and erected a new one around it. Surely the ghosts would know she was doing it all for them.

With a twenty million dollar fortune that would be worth twenty times as much today, plus a tax-free income of a staggering one thousand dollars per day, Sarah Winchester eventually wasted a quarter of her wealth trying to appease her haunts and assuage her guilt. But the tortured woman never found relief, and the thirty-eight year project came to its end only after she died in 1922. Now a tourist attraction on San Jose’s Winchester Boulevard, the one hundred sixty room mansion is a sad monument to the ravages of one of Satan’s favorite weapons: Guilt.


The Accuser of the brethren

All of us are troubled by recurring guilt problems of some sort, though probably not to the degree of Sarah Winchester. For centuries, Christians have thought—and sometimes have even been taught—that guilt feelings are the voice of God. Yes, if I’m feeling miserable God must be dealing with me. But a clear conscience? That’s just the devil lulling me into a spirit of complacency.

We confuse guilt feelings with a spirit of conviction. True conviction takes place when God clearly shows us our sins and invites us to repentance. Guilt, on the other hand, is a weapon Satan uses to keep us from learning to live consistently as Christians. It drives us away from God, not towards Him.

Revelation 12:10 calls Satan the “accuser” of the saints for a very good reason: Accusation is the devil’s primary weapon against Christians. He wants to keep us as aware as possible of our shortcomings. In fact, he wants sin, not innocence, to be the light in which we see ourselves. As a result sin consciousness holds millions of Christians in bondage. They never really come into a revelation of righteousness and the realities of the new creation.

Mankind as a whole is dominated by a spiritual inferiority complex, a profound sense of unworthiness, as is plainly evidenced by the sheer existence of the world’s thousands of religions. People know there’s a God, and that they are estranged from Him. St. Paul alluded to this sin consciousness in Acts 17, when he pointed out the myriad idols that dotted the Athenian landscape, and then told the local leaders that were “groping” about, trying to find the God whom they freely admitted not knowing.

The word “gospel” is an old English contraction for words meaning “good news.” St. Paul knew that evangelism does not mean telling people they are sinners. They already know it, as proven by their efforts to justify themselves, from ritual sacrifices to “alternative lifestyle” activism. Rather, Jesus came (and commissioned us) to “heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18). Likewise Paul designed his message—as should we—to remove people’s shame, not compound it. He turned the bad news that they did not know God into the good news that they could know Him. And several people on Mars Hill came to Christ that very day.

Fasting the News

This is my first post in eleven days. I have been buried up to my eyeballs in finishing the first draft of The Power of Praise and Worship, the Terry Law book I am coauthoring. (Finished it this morning!)

But I've also been trying something new: a news fast. What triggered me to go cold turkey on my addiction?

I discovered a book called "How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society," by Professor C. John Sommerville. I bought it, frankly, because Sommerville teaches here in Gainesville at the University of Florida, and because the title sounded like something the late Neil Postman might have written. If I like it, I'll probably invite the good professor for coffee. Actually it's already gotten me, with a single line from page 12:

The only reason for making news daily is to create an information industry.

That thought probably isn't "news" to you, but it was an epiphany for me.

I've seen what happens to the Gospel I have given my life to proclaiming when it is turned into a product, as hucksters plea for "thousand-dollar vows," and good bookstores are reduced to selling "Christian" kitsch. I even own a little, but only because my little Lexi insisted on wearing the "whole armor of God." (Who knew it was plastic!)

I have also seen how society is harmed when law becomes a product. The explosion in American litigation has caused major headaches such as much higher costs of living, and minor ones, like the stupid disclaimers printed on everything from little girls' dolls to MacDonalds coffee cups.

Some goods and services work better as products. Education comes to mind, and it's a pity that our nation continues down the sluice of socialism in that field, instead of doing for schools what Honda has done for cars. Public schools churn out illiterate walking Yugos, and the only good result will be that today's homeschoolers will at least have more choices in hiring servants in the future.

I appreciate the breath of fresh air that Fox News has been, and how they've forced other networks, such as CNN's Headline News, to raise the bar (as their recent hiring of Glenn Beck demonstrates).

But I also realize that I don't need to hear John Gibson's "word" every day, or Bill O'Reilly to stop spin for me. They make for nice vicarious fellowship for a conservative living here in the People's Republic of Alachua County, Florida. But I don't need them. What I need is a break from them.

So I'm taking one.

Later…