Taliban leader vows destruction of United States

The Taliban & Osama seem to like giving vague warnings with little detail. I suspect they have had a plan for something "big" to save face in case of their inevitable fall in Afganistan. After reading the Koran it speaks of the people of the left hand (non-believers)suffering a demise during the "falling of stars" and "drinking boiling water". If they (the terrorists) want to give credit to their religion I think we should expect something "big" this weekend during the meteor shower and don't forget to keep an eye on our water supply. That is if there are any cells left in North America. Are we paranoid yet? 8=P

Barbie Converts to Islam Author: A Abdullah Published on: February 17, 2001 The Barbie Doll has always been a controversial figure since she made her debut on the American scene in 1959. She was designed after Ruth Handler, one of the founders of Mattel Toys, took a trip to Europe and stumbled upon the German "Lili Doll," a busty blonde who wore lingerie and was not intended as a toy for young children but as a trinket to be sold to men in bars and other places of ill repute. Inspired, Handler bought the rights to this doll and eventually came up with the Barbie Doll concept, the all-American girl who would have it all: money, looks, career, a fancy sports car and a handsome boyfriend. In addition, it was also the first children's toy in the history of the country to have been created with an alluring woman's figure. In the years since the sale of the first Barbie Doll, many concerns have been raised about the message it conveys to young girls about their own bodies and sense of self-worth. As the US has become more diverse and more conscious about issues related to gender stereotyping, race and weight, we have seen some attempts by Mattel to turn Barbie into a more realistic representation of the all-American woman. For example, there are now Latina and African-American Barbies as well as Barbies who represent various other ethnic groups. And now the latest change: Barbie will get a more realistic figure which includes a larger stomach and a reduced bust size after harsh criticisms from feminist organizations and others who object to the traditional Barbie's exaggerated curves. As a child, I never had a Barbie doll and I have never considered buying one for my daughter who is three years old. In making this decision, I have not taken into account the legacy of Barbie's pornographic origins (which I did not know about until recently), or even the controversy surrounding her trim figure. It is just something that I have not thought about...until recently, that is, when my parents bought a Barbie as a gift for my daughter: not just any Barbie but a Princess Barbie, complete with a pink sequinned ballroom gown, shiny jewelry and all the trimmings. Needless to say, my daughter loved it. Within seconds, however, the questions started about the doll's low-cut, sleeveless dress. Why is her chest showing? Why aren't her arms covered? As Muslims, we have always taken care to teach our children about modest dress for men and women both and I could see the wheels spinning in my daughter's head as she began to suspect that this doll did not reflect a proper image of Islamic modesty. She herself does not wear short sleeves so I was not surprised at all to see her concerned about her new doll. Not exactly sure how to react without over-reacting, my son saved me with a question of his own: Where's this doll's hijab? (The term hijab refers to the Islamic dress of Muslim women and is often used in reference to the headscarf in paricular. You may read more about it here.) And that's what gave me the idea to transform Barbie into a Muslim woman. Within minutes, I found a piece of material which I sewed in order to make a long, free-flowing hijab which served to conceal the doll's hair as well as her shapely figure. Her chest was no longer exposed and suddenly Barbie had a completely different look. My daughter really loved this and said we should name this new Muslima Fatimah, the name of her best friend. She then took Fatimah and began playing with her, taking care to keep her hijab in place as she introduced her new friend to her other toys and dolls. I have always thought of Barbie as just another doll and I was not at all offended by this gift from my parents which was a kind gesture on their part. At the same time, I think it is important to make sure that a girl's dolls reflect the values which are being taught in the home because these dolls are used in intense pretend-play which include role playing: this Barbie doll, for example, is likely to be a mother, a sister and a peer to my daughter as she thinks up different games to play with her and it gives her a sense of security to have a doll which can be all of these things without having to reconcile the unsettling fact that her cleavage is exposed. Others are ahead of me in the desire to give Muslim girls an Islamic alternative to Barbie: check out the Razanne Doll, a collection of five dolls who wear Islamic dress. Razanne means Islamic beauty and modesty.

Well, I guess the good words of the day are, Duck; Cover; and Hold.

"with the Mexican border wide open they have the perfect rout into this country with little hope of being detected."

And I am not aware of any attempts by this Administration to tighten up the loopholes in our borders. I suspect that it doesn't matter anyway. I think that it may be a little like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.

Even the government claims there are 5000 Muslim terrorist sleepers already in place in America What is being done to root them out? What about all the Muslims that live here peacefully, but still appear to be on Bin Laden's side?

The Japanese that lived on the West Coast at the time of Pearl Harbor were erroneously sent to concentration camps just for being Japanese. It turned out that none were spies and many of their young men died fighting for the U.S. as volunteers from the camps. They were outspoken patriots. I don't hear or read that the Muslims in the U.S. are make similar protestations and taking real actions of patriotism as did the Japanese internees in the '40's.

Barbie dolls were a bit unrealistic. I'm glad your daughter and you were able to fix one up with a costume that reflects your faith. I can't sew buttons on a shirt! When I was little, my mother crocheted dresses for our little dolls. Wish I had kept one.

I had to laugh at your joke. Once, at a nephew's wedding, I was wearing yellow slacks and a puppy actually peed on my leg. One of those wonderful things you never forget!

Please avoid putting words in my phrases. I don't recall saying anything about "significant" numbers of Chinese in Mexico. I merely reported the assertion that numbers of Chinese soldiers had been seen with Mexican soldiers at the border--possibly firing at American personnel--from an interesting article or two. I have yet to check it out with my San Diego friends.

I don't know when I'll talk to them on the phone next. Not a raging priority.

Never minimized the challenges the Chinese will face.

I can think of a number of things that will make their efforts easIER. But they are not all that daunted by missions impossible. Their pride etc. convinces them they just need to throw more patience at it or more people at it. Everyone else = barbarians, remember.

I don't have any real need to prove anything. I would like to see some discussion of possibilities have an easier time of it.

YOU are the one blocking off whole classes of sources. You are the one preferring to limit your inputs. You are the one bothered by various types of data. I'm comfortable leaving that as your problem. I consider the diversity of data in life fascinating. The sorts of things that seem to cause you to break out in hives and LOUD SHRIEKS with your word choices (compare to my fonts and colors) have proven more than interesting in my life the last at least 45-50 years. I can understand your perspective without such experiences. I can't deny the truth of my experiences just because I don't know all the therefore what's.

And as a sociologist and a librarian as well as psychologist, I have learned at least a little bit about sorting and sifting data. . . evidently things which you have not learned. . . no big deal . . . I consider your perspective a variation on tunnel vision. You seem to consider my perspective as allowing anything claiming to be truth to be accepted as truth. Your impressions of my sifting and sorting criteria etc. seem to be wholesale NONSENSE.

I don't know how many of the more plausible docs I've read are unalterable predictions and how many are warnings to pray that such not happen at all or not as severely. I'm convinced that China will invade at some point for some few years. I believe the length of time and the severity of their reign will depend on the Christians responsible during those times and to some degree the behavior of the U.S. citizens as a whole as well as to some degree to the ruthlessness and cruelty of the Chinese overlords.

But I've been thinking, One could "MERELY" take the Biblical predictions and hypothesize roughly the outline so many hundreds and hundreds of prophecies ancient and current have been giving us. One doesn't really need thousands of pages to arrive at pretty similar conclusions. I do find it fascinating when thousands of pages, personal stories etc. add up to essentially the same thing.

Of course, one is reasonably free to stick one's head in the sand and pretend all that is lunacy. The Roman church tried to do that with certain kinds of annoyingly uncomfortable data eons ago. A lot of churches and spiritual leaders seem prone to doing something similar in our era. Othes are screaming warnings for all they're worth--some off the wall and some very conservative.

By the way, I've known Mexico would be invading to reclaim the South West for more than 33-35 years. I used to know some of the people who knew where some of the arms were stored in waiting. . . . BUT MORE convincing to me was what I felt in my bones, in my spirit.

Many of the documents I've read are merely confirmation of things I've felt for decades. I don't usually have many dreams or visions. I do have impressions of things that kind of wander into my awareness as a new "fact" that I'd not been aware of before. When the criteria of such impressions reach a certain threshhold, the probability goes up rather high.

But you need not believe a bit of it. You can continue whistling Dixie or Tiajuana Trot or whatever lights your fire. . . Far be it from me to give a shred of advance warning to someone who is not the least bit interested or open to it.

Actually, it's wise to have reverential awe toward God and avoid fearing anything else.

But if you want to be concerned about some humans, you could be concerned about the demonized puppet masters pulling Bin Laden and Taliban's strings.

Yeah, I tend to block off whole classes of input on a lot of subjects. For example, I tend to not bother asking post-modernist deconstructionism professors for advice on optimizing the performance of an Apache web server in conjunction with a Sidewinder firewall; that's because I'd probably be more likely to get usable information from an Apache sysadmin who maintains his server behind a Sidewindr firewall. Likewise, I don't bother listening to fruitcake theories on warfare from people who spout all kinds of gibberish and gratutious insult, and can't be bothered to supply such tedious things as EVIDENCE, and who admit that they are ignorant about what armies do and how they do it.

Well.

I see I'm going to have to excommunicate you from the Church of Clancy, you heretic!

A pox of caterpillar drive boomers on your house.

Hey, I read Clancy for enjoyment, but I note that he does have to have people act like idiots early on in his stories; a little competent decision-making on page 30 or so would turn off the war!

Well, we do have an open house in this nation with all comers welcome. I don't see it changing any time soon.

Dear superstud, as I recall,

You were the one getting irate that I dared to consider some things worth dialogue about.

YOU ARE THE ONE setting yourself up as top arbiter of sanity and allowable dialogue, logic, sources. Please excuse me if I don't bow and scrape!

I don't recall ever pretending to be some military expert. Most of my Navy time was spent in Radioman school or in a human relations project--as staff--by the way.

I do consider myself above average widely read on more topics and deeper into more topics than most people I know. I do consider myself to be an above average sorter and filterer of information. Actually, it's a bit interesting (to me) to see what God has done with me over my life in terms of information.

I don't think I was making military observations per se as much as I was making observations about different centers of power; different forces moving in different ways in these end times. . . . yes, that involved China's military force moving against the U.S. of A. I'm aware of all the reasons your logic decrees it's impossible. I was aware of such before I knew of your existence. Your tirades have not added much at all to my awareness or understanding.

I've had well trained men--American, Chinese, Taiwanese explain all manner of reasons why such scenarios as I've mentioned simply could never happen. I just checked again this past month or so with an American who lived here training Taiwanese for 5 years. He's a believer of similar stripe as I am with some appreciation for the prophetic in dreams, visions and otherwise. He's still mostly incredulous at the idea.

But God has trained into me an incredibly tenacious something. Once a certain level of understanding settles into my bones, my spirit--it's a bit hard to shake it. But this is not all that uncommon. People had such experiences throughout The Bible.

God told them something or led them to an awareness. Then the years of desert life followed when everything possible to make the message appear to be the absolute opposite of sanity or reality flooded their lives. Abraham and Sarah having a child in their 90's couldn't have been a very plausible thing to anyone. That's partly to blame for the problem we have with the Arabs currently.

Lots of things are not as they appear in our era. Some physicists seriously assert that there are n parallel universes wherein all the possible significant choices we could make are made in one or another of our own n number of parallel universes.

You are welcome to go on assuming that life as you have known it and evaluated it is going to go on more or leass as you expect it to. Please feel free to ignore whatever is connected with me at all and certainly whateve you consider to be lunacy from me.

Perhaps it is your destiny to travel along as you are into the coming chaos. . . . expecting your normal definitions of reality; your normal analysis of significant dynamics to do you just fine.

I'll tell you flat footedly and unabashedly--they won't. Whether some months or years from now, you will reach a point where your analyses and your definitions will just run out of seeming to have much of any connection with the realities then confronting you--probably on life or death terms. . . . you'll have to make a number of life/death decisions but feel something like you're trying to do so based on what the sound of pink is; the color of a siren is; the tactile texture a bell sound is; . . . almost nothing fitting your experience . . . almost nothing fitting your senses . . . almost nothing fitting your logic or definitions.

Then we shall learn who feels and acts how insane. . . . men's hearts will not fail them for fear in conventional terms alone. . . . but fear arising because it's too great a stretch to wrap one's mind and emotions around the realities assaulting one's senses.

Enjoy your smugness. It has an expiration date.

I would prefer that you wake-up sooner and prepare your heart, mind, life and family sooner. But a human part of me doesn't much give a flip. You insist on making your own bed, you can jolly well lie in it.

Another part of me is tolerably happy to give you provocative inputs to jangle your sensibilities in the expectation that eventually you'll have an experience wherein you'll be compelled to go something akin to "UT OH--THE CRAZINESS REALLY HAS BEGUN." MAYBE THEN you'll at least be a few hours to a few days or weeks more alert and tracking, making better surviving decisions for yourself and those you love than you otherwise would have had your sensibilities been unjangled this early.

Another part of me keeps having the vain fantasy that it's possible to have a vigorous, healthy, mutually respectful dialogue about information from almost any remotely plausible source with people of a great diversity of perspectives, backgrounds etc. toward multiplying the learning, the creative thinking, the insights.

It's sad you seem to enjoy undermining such a possibility so tenaciously but it doesn't really cost me a great deal. It's moderately curious that you have such a compulsion but it's not overly costly to me.

In terms of gratuitous insult, I had the impression you pretty well had a corner on that market. I still merely challenge sometimes with sarcasm some aspects of the way you present yourself and your logic. I don't persistently accuse you of being a gibberish speaking lunatic fruitcake as you seem so compelled to label me virtually every message.

I would add, however, that it appears that I'm a great deal more qualified to talk about lunacy than you are. I realize arrogance needs no credentials.

I also suspect that as "outlandish" as my notions, perceptions, understandings, sensings are to you . . . I suspect my wildest conjectures and imaginations will be quite inadequate to describe what will relatively soon be upon us all the world over.

The Bible says there has never been a time like it and never will be again. You are welcome to call God a lunatic if you wish, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I expect the fabric of reality as we know it--in terms of most any measure of it--to be stretched, shuffled, diced, turned inside out, upside down and sideways. The ONLY way to know--not only which way is up--but who one is and remotely where one is going--will be to have one's hand firmly in God's and one's ear keenly listening to His voice and Obeying what HE SAYS.

Of course, if one knows it all, I guess one could imagine God to be superfluous.

He, of course, probably has another perspective on such an attitude and stance.

Perhaps it is your destiny to travel along as you are into the coming chaos. . . . expecting your normal definitions of reality; your normal analysis of significant dynamics to do you just fine.

Hasn't failed me yet.

I'll tell you flat footedly and unabashedly--they won't. Whether some months or years from now, you will reach a point where your analyses and your definitions will just run out of seeming to have much of any connection with the realities then confronting you--probably on life or death terms. . . . you'll have to make a number of life/death decisions but feel something like you're trying to do so based on what the sound of pink is; the color of a siren is; the tactile texture a bell sound is; . . . almost nothing fitting your experience . . . almost nothing fitting your senses . . . almost nothing fitting your logic or definitions.

Thank you for explaining your problem to me. I didn't realize I was talking to an flaming acid-head. Get help BEFORE you decide that Newton's Law of Gravitation is not applicable to you.

A predictable response.

In terms of getting help . . . I've found it's more blessed to give than receive. . . that normally being why people see a psychologist.

However, I'm uncommonly happy to receive input from a 4 year old if God sends it and affirms it.

Never done illegal drugs in my life. Never been drunk in my life.

Professionals who know me are usually taken aback at the amount of stress, crazy circumstances etc. I can handle without fraying around the edges. . . . uncommonly odd, strange, you bet. . . . crazy in your sense of the word. . . thankfully, hasn't fit.

Like I said, I seem to be much more qualified to use those labels than you are. You confuse conceptual bias with sanity. Doesn't sound like good reality testing to me.

In any case . . . Que Sera Sera. . . we shall certainly see.

I am a little curious how the sailors/marines or kids under you enjoyed your censorious attitude/personality. . . . a real contributor to intimacy was it?

Generally, a Marine does not seek "intimacy" with his fellow Marines. Must've been something you learned in the Clinton-era Rump Ranger Navy.

If a marine father doesn't seek intimacy with his son in a healthy, God-led way, then he's not a good father.

We saw plenty of Marines at the human relations project like that. First mangled by their dads. Then mangled by the Corps.

They may have made great killing machines before they crashed and burned. . . . but little else worth talking about . . . and given their lack of control . . . their expertise as wonderful killing machines was somewhat problematic as well. . . . It was a sad thing seen too often.

I was out of the Navy 20 years before Clinton came on the scene. . . . guess your analysis faile you this time.

BTW if the Marine Corps wasn't sacrificing the lives of America's finest in behalf of great family relationships and great friendships . . . too many were dying for very silly reasons. . . . and America didn't really need more trained mass murderers. . . . gone bad, gone wild. . . . How many Marine Corp officers and Noncoms have you seen become truly looney? How many have you seen become chronic wife beaters? I hope they've solved that problem. . . I bet they haven't. . . . Your quickness to label someone looney becomes more understandable all the time. . . . but you don't have to stay that way. . . You can learn to relate to people differently.

At least the mangled Marines I used to know could learn.