As you know, in October, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for Israel to be “wiped out from the map.” Now, he’s restarted his “research” by breaking the IAEA seals on the Isfahan nuclear power plant.

This map (click image for original) has been cropped to show Israel and its more immediate surroundings.

I haven’t seen any mentions of the fact that if Israel were to be “wiped out from the map”, so would Palestine. Also affected could certainly be, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. Depending on what Ahmadinejad and his “goons” could possibly come up with in terms of the size of any warhead used against Israel, Cyprus, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia may be affected as well. Perhaps even Turkey.

Iran needs to be reigned in immediately.

The U.S., France, Germany, and the U.K. can not be the only ones dealing with Iran’s delusions. Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the Saudis must start bringing pressure on Iran.

Iran, News & Politics

Welcome A Lady’s Ruminations and Gateway Pundit readers! Please have a look around!

Yesterday, when the little guy and I got back from running some errands, the little guy decided to play.

I was starting the chili for dinner and he said to me, “OK, you be the scener and I will be the action and cutter.”

I asked him what he was talking about.

He said I would be the scener because I was the “guy in the scene” and he would be the action and cutter because he would say “action” and “cut”.

Then he started his directing…

I was to walk to the edge of the cliff (the kitchen rug), open the pretend door, and crawl across the bridge (one line of tiles on the floor).

I told him I wasn’t going to crawl across the bridge, but I would walk across it.

He said, “Action!”

and away we went…

Children, Family & Friends

Yesterday the temperature was in the mid-fifties.

This morning it has sleeted, and is now snow mixed with rain.

January weather…

Musings

It is happening all across the nation. The ACLU sue city counsel after city counsel over praying in Jesus name. They don’t sue to stop all prayer, but in every case the target has been Christian prayer. They even fought for the right of a Wiccan to pray at a counsel meeting. Many times it doesn’t even take a lawsuit. They just type up a threatening letter and that does the trick. This was the case in Fredericksburg. But one man isn’t taking things lying down.

Fredericksburg City Councilman Hashmel Turner has filed suit against his fellow council members, saying the council’s newly adopted prayer policy violates his constitutional rights.

Turner is being represented by the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates for free expression issues.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, asks the court to rule that the city’s prayer policy is unconstitutional, and to order that Turner be allowed back into the council’s prayer rotation.

The council voted 5-1 in November to adopt a policy of offering non-denominational prayers devoid of any Christian or other specific religious references.

Turner abstained from that vote, and Councilman Matt Kelly voted against the policy.

The vote came after Turner had been excluded from the council prayer rotation for more than a year. The council got a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union in July 2004 saying that the civil liberties group would file suit if Turner continued to invoke the name of Jesus Christ in his prayers.

Turner, who is pastor at First Baptist Church of Love in Fredericksburg, had always closed his prayers before council meetings by invoking the name of Jesus Christ before the ACLU complaint.

On the same night of the November vote for the nondenominational prayer policy, Turner asked to be put back into the prayer rotation, and to give the opening prayer before the Nov. 22 council meeting.

Mayor Tom Tomzak said today he asked Councilwoman Debby Girvan to give the prayer at that meeting instead of Turner, because, “I did not want to unleash a 1,000-pound gorilla-the ACLU-on the City Council.”

However, Tomzak said he does believe Turner’s rights are being violated, and the suit filed today is “a lawsuit that I probably agree with.”

“He’s a very passionate man, a man of faith and a man of principle, and he believes his rights have been violated,” Tomzak said of Turner.

Neither City Council members nor City Attorney Kathleen Dooley had seen copies of the lawsuit earlier today.

The suit calls the new prayer policy “an unlawful attempt by the City Council to prescribe the content of prayers given at City Council meetings by Turner and other members of City Council.”

John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, said Turner approached his organization last fall, saying he believed his rights were being violated. “All he wants is to say Jesus Christ at the end of the prayer,” Whitehead said. “He’s not asking for any money. … It’s a very simple suit.”

One would think that it would be simple, yet the ACLU don’t seem to get that. Religious expression in America is under attack. It is a shame that an organization that claims to protect our rights are the number one censor of Christian religious expression. If they were trying to get rid of all prayer at counsel meetings, we would have a different argument, but they are targeting Christian prayers and individual expression. It is good to see this man is standing up for his rights. More people should do so.

Currently there is legislation, introduced by Representative Hostettler that could put a stop to these ridiculous lawsuits. Hostettler’s proposal would amend the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to prohibit prevailing parties from being awarded attorney’s fee in religious establishment cases, but not in other civil rights filings. This would prevent local governments from having to use taxpayer funds to pay the ACLU or similar organization when a case is lost, and also would protect elected officials from having to pay fees from their own pockets.

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Crossposted at Stop The ACLU

Religion, ACLU, Law

The best ever Blonde joke at Donald Sensing’s…

Lost is back!

Tonight (ABC) at 8 eastern will be a “catch-up” episode. Then, at 9 eastern, we will see the next episode… “The 23^rd Psalm”

Mr. Eko interrogates Charlie about the Virgin Mary statue, Claire begins to lose faith in Charlie when she discovers his secret, and Jack is an interested observer when Kate gives the recovering Sawyer a much-needed haircut.

Was it really Walt on the other end of the computer communication with Michael?

We might find out tonight.

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry the other day. We saw the new (since the last time we were there) U-505 exhibit. It was wonderful. The U-505 is a German Sub that was captured on June 4, 1944. It was brought to the M of S&I in 1954 and was outside in Chicago weather for years. Tours were available, accessible from inside the museum. You didn’t see the actual sub from the outside unless you were in the Space section. Then you could see it from a courtyard.
The sub was moved from its courtyard home to a new, 75 by 300 foot, 42 foot deep pit located 1,000 feet from its previous home. It is now accessible from within the museum with a two story ramp that allows one to walk completely around the sub and view artifacts associated with the sub. They also have the Enigma machine that was captured with the sub. You can take a virtual tour here.
Here’s the little guy, driving the sub…
The old model train set in the main hall has also been completely redone. The new 3,500 foot layout features the trains running from Chicago to Seattle and back again. Here’s a picture of the downtown Chicago section, with the Sears Tower in the middle.
More on the trains can be seen here. The Museum site is here.

We’re going to the Museum of Science & Industry today. As we were driving south on the Tri-State, there was a message on an over-the-lanes electronic signboard. The message said: “for traffic info log on to NBC 5 website”

How safe is that? Now, I am writing this while in the car (Treo blogging) but I am not doing the driving…

We here at Musing Minds wish you all a healthy, happy and prosperous 2006!