>> This thread is definitely awesome - even if scary at times. <<
My rock climbing bros and I have a saying:
Fear is your friend. It will keep you alert and focused. The key is to control the fear, don't let it control you.
Being on a rock face 200' up will keep you focused. LOL
SNIP:Al-Jazeera, the Arab news service growing by leaps and bounds worldwide and spreading its reach into the western world, has a new name for suicide bombings – "Paradise Operations."
Canada more dangerous to US than Mexico
SNIP:All one need do is peruse the News services to see that Al Qaeda is coupled together with Canada far, far more often than it is with Mexico. In fact, it is by magnitudes of hundreds, not dozens, of reports.
Starting with the attempt to bomb Seattle in the year 1999 and going right up to this very day, Canada has proven a danger to the security of the USA. Members of Al Qaeda have told investigators that they prize Canadian members of their group as some of their most valuable assets.
The first widely publicized bomb plot against the USA with a Canadian connection occurred in 1999. Two extremist, Islamofascists from Algeria, Ahmed Ressam and Abdelmajid Dahoumane, attempted to come across the Canadian-US border with a van full of bomb making materials to be used to blow up the Seattle Space-Needle during the year 2000 Millennium celebrations. And this was just one of the first in a steady stream of such reports, plots, arrests and threats since 1999.
Nearly every week we are finding more evidence that Al Qaeda considers Canada to be a prime launching ground for future attacks against the US.
SNIP:“We see the actors called terrorists, fighters, militants, radicals, rebels, insurgents, extremists and fundamentalists, while the ideology itself is called Islamic, Islamist, Wahabi or jihadist. The use of these and other such terms interchangeably not only leads to hyper-confusion, but also creates problems from a counter-terrorism perspective. Moreover, the use of the Al Qaeda label as a generic term for any and all types of Muslim militants has created the perception of a global monolith, despite efforts to nuance the term with phrases such as ‘Al Qaeda-linked,’ ‘Al Qaeda-inspired,’ ‘affiliated with the Al Qaeda network’ and such,” the analysis points out.
Thousands of English joining the religion of Mohammad
SNIP:An article published in a magazine called Radiance Weekly in March 2004 (posted at Free Republic) estimates that 14,000 English white people have converted to Islam. Many converts have been inspired by the writings of Charles Le Gai Eaton, a former Foreign Office diplomat and author of Islam and the Destiny of Man, who says: I have received letters from people who are put off by the wishy-washy standards of contemporary Christianity and they are looking for a religion which does not compromise too much with the modern world.
Now isn't that amazing? In the name of modern values such as secularism, equality, tolerance, and unlimited personal freedom, the British gave up their Christianity, or, rather, turned it into watered-down left-liberalism; they gave up their national identity, one of the oldest and proudest in the world; they gave up their traditional English ethos, an object of admiration to the whole world; and they gave up their racial identity as a white country. And in the process of giving up everything they have ever been for the sake of secularism, equality, tolerance, and unlimited personal freedom, they let in and welcomed millions of unassimilable Muslims, whose non-secular, non-egalitarian, unfree, and intolerant religion now attracts many Britons who are looking for something solid and moral to give structure and meaning to their empty lives!
Bend E-Coli outbreak linked to one in Washington
SNIP:Dan Peddycord, the county's health services administrators, said DNA "fingerprinting" on one of the local E. coli cases matched an outbreak in Washington that's been traced to parsley used at restaurants and grocery stores there.
Peddycord said the Washington outbreak was believed to have impacted two restaurants and a grocery store and that at least two positive E. coli cases were reported.
In Deschutes County, three cases of E. coli have been confirmed in patrons of McGrath's Fish House in Bend in the past week. The county is waiting for results on eight more possible cases, after more than 70 people complained of symptoms after eating at the restaurant.