Monthly Archives: October 2010

Isaiah 49: 14-18—But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me. Your builders hurry; your destroyers and devastators will depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all of them gather together, they come to you. As I live,” declares Yahweh, “You will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.”

Old Posts

“On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen….” (Isaiah 62: 6)

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“For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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  • Read SnyderTalk the way you would a newspaper.
  • Scan the headlines and read the articles that interest you.
  • Be sure to check out the pages in the column on the right.

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Scripture of the day:

Isaiah 49: 14-18—But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”  “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.  Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.  Your builders hurry; your destroyers and devastators will depart from you.  Lift up your eyes and look around; all of them gather together, they come to you.  As I live,” declares Yahweh, “You will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.”

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“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4: 6)

News Items of Interest:

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Israeli Uncensored News

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HonestReporting

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“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” (Anonymous)

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On November 15, 1988, Yasser Arafat proudly read a declaration by his Palestinian Liberation Organization unilaterally proclaiming “the establishment of the State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory with its capital Jerusalem.” Shortly afterward the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to support the declaration; within months 93 governments had recognized the state of Palestine.

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The United States and Europe have worked cooperatively on Iran policy since President Obama took office, but a small crack might have begun to open over sanctions that are beginning to pinch ordinary Iranians.

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President Asad is within his rights to provide his critique. Let me do the same. Recent Syrian behavior and rhetoric has had a destabilizing effect on Lebanon and the region, has contributed to recent tensions. We understand that certain actors within and outside Lebanon, including Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran, may believe they stand to gain by escalating sectarian tensions in an attempt to assert their own authority over Lebanon.

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The Obama administration is justifiably proud of how it has managed to “reset” relations with Russia, and how it has managed to build international pressure against Iran after its efforts at engagement were spurned.

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Iran’s nuclear and foreign policies rely upon a worldview that takes confidence from the support lent Tehran by allies in the developing world. In a new report examining Iranian outreach to West Africa, the Critical Threats Project examines how Iran executes its foreign policy and the priorities it values in its partners.

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“Iran is not the enemy, Israel is the enemy,” the head of the Center for Strategic Studies in Saudi Arabia declared in an interview with Al Jazeera. This was his response to a question on whether the $60 billion arms deal between Riyadh and Washington was meant to deter Iran. The American efforts to portray the deal as aimed against Tehran doesn’t fit with the Saudi point of view, and it seems this isn’t the only subject over which these two countries fail to see eye to eye.

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Contrary to common wisdom, an in-depth analysis of US public opinion polls shows that most Americans increasingly understand that the radical Islamic regime in Iran must be confronted. Few believe that President Obama’s strategy of engagement and negotiation with Iran will be successful. Indeed, over the past two years, a substantial majority of Americans have come to support the use of military force against Iran – if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop the Iranian nuclear program. Poll results indicate much more public determination to stop Iran than has been evidenced in official American policy and action.

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In an interview posted on the liberal Arab website Aafaq on October 4, 2010, Palestinian reformist Zainab Rashid said that the Arab dictatorial regimes exploit the Palestinian cause in order to divert attention from their own domestic problems and suppress initiatives of democratization and reform. She also opposed the Islamization of the Palestinian cause, saying the Palestinian issue will never be resolved as long as it is construed as a religious struggle destined to continue until Judgment Day.

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The Boycott-Israel conference that ended Sunday in Montreal was supposed to show the growing momentum for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. With barely 100 activists attending the closing plenary Sunday afternoon at UQAM, it is clear that the BDS movement has no noticeable traction or support in Quebec.

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The release of the WikiLeaks logs on the Iraq War this week has led some Israelis to ask anew whether the country is the victim of a double standard in the way the international community views human rights.

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If you’ve lost faith in the current administration’s ability and mass media’s ability to respond to Middle East developments, here’s more evidence. There’s a relatively new American idiomatic expression, “Ya [you] think?” Said sarcastically, it means: Wow, duh, the answer to that question is really obvious!

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I have been heading all my life toward becoming a dropout — a Halloween dropout, that is. Even as a child growing up in the suburbs in the 1950s, I was ambivalent about the holiday. I was proud that children liked coming to our house, thanks to the inventive game my mother set up each year, and yet I felt, without being able to express why, that trick-or-treating was somehow inappropriate.

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One of the most valuable things you learn as a foreign correspondent is to watch not always the man in charge of a country, but the person who is the “second” to the leader.

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The progressive assault on America continues, and their favorite whipping boy remains Arizona. A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned that state’s requirement that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote, calling it “inconsistent” with the National Voter Registration Act. In other words, a United States court considers that proving one is an American citizen in order to vote in an American election an “undue burden.” How in the world did we come to this?

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When workers in the former East Germany had the temerity to rise up against their Marxist masters in 1953, members of the communist Writers Union distributed leaflets demanding that the workers labor twice as hard to win back the confidence of the government. Even poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, a committed Marxist, recognized the absurdity of blaming the people for the failure of their leaders.

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While we had not yet squandered a trillion dollars on a useless stimulus and had not begun handing over health care to the government, the America of the Bush and Clinton years still leave much to be desired in the explosion of the size, scope and cost of government. If we are going to wrestle much of that government from the hands of Democrats who have shocked even their own voters with their radical recklessness, I surely do not want the reins handed over to the type of Republican willing accomplices who set the stage for them.

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I have this strange feeling that we are about to be badly misled about the political climate in this country. We are going to look at the returns on the biggest Republican victory in 16 years and think that it spells doom for the Democrats and a shift to the right in our politics. And we will be wrong.

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The hills are alive with the sound of liberal Democratic contempt for the electorate. So are the valleys, the prairies, and the coasts. For months, voters have been signaling their discontent with the president, his party, and their priorities; in less than a week, they appear poised to deliver a stinging rebuke. Yet rather than address the voters’ concerns with seriousness and respect, too many Democrats and their allies on the left have chosen instead to slur those voters as stupid, extremist, or too scared to think straight.

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It has been said that American politics and professional wrestling share a paucity of honest emotions. But Linda McMahon, who as chief executive built World Wrestling Entertainment into a billion-dollar company, might think comparing wrestling to politics insults wrestling. As she seeks the Connecticut Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd, she says the honesty deficit concerns not emotions but facts.

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It looks like the great “what-if” is about to happen. With all of the media attention focused on Tuesday’s midterm election, Republicans are faced with a greater task than winning a majority in the House of Representatives or getting at least close enough to a majority that they will be able to halt or slow the Obama agenda.

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At a time when Congress is scrambling for ideas to cut spending, National Public Radio has helpfully stepped up to the chopping block.

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Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. It’s the Democrats’ coping mechanism for midterm election voter fraud. Faced with multiple reports of early voting irregularities and election shenanigans across the country, left-wing groups are playing dumb, deaf and blind.

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Democratic Rep. Jim Himes says he isn’t afraid of the Tea Party. Specifically, the Connecticut freshman doesn’t worry about the anti-bailout fervor endangering his Democratic colleagues.

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SINCE the end of August Germany has been roiled by waves of political turmoil over integration, multiculturalism and the role of the “Leitkultur,” or guiding national culture. This discourse is in turn reinforcing trends toward increasing xenophobia among the broader population.

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President Obama is likely to suffer a pummeling defeat on Tuesday. But the road map for his recovery is pretty straightforward.

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For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Wall Street bankers, traders and executives get paid so much money year after year for doing jobs that rarely require them to innovate, enlighten or put their own capital at risk, and have the nasty habit of periodically sinking our economy.

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There are many close races for the U.S. Senate this year, and many strange ones, but the bitter contest between two unlovable candidates in quirky Nevada is, for my money, the closest, strangest race of all.

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About 25 years ago, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. naval intelligence analyst, betrayed his country by providing highly classified information to Israel. Even though Israel was and still is a U.S. ally and is routinely supplied with U.S. intelligence, Pollard deserved to be severely punished for his actions. However, the punishment should fit the crime. In his case, it does not.

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Fundamental change usually proceeds from the bottom up, which is why it often blindsides most politicians and much of the media.

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The traditionally blue state is drowning in red ink — budget deficits in excess of $10 billion, massive shortfalls in the pension funds — and the Republican candidate for governor says he knows how to staunch the flow.

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Know this, though: Both Democrats and Republicans are playing this secret money game. “Nearly four of every 10 dollars spent by independent groups last week was aimed at helping Democratic candidates,” The Washington Post reported Wednesday. “Once spending by the parties themselves is added into the mix, Democratic candidates are getting the benefit of nearly half — 46 percent — of independent spending reported to the Federal Election Commission.”

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The world’s economic powers are pursuing what was once called the Sinatra Doctrine: doing it their way, despite paying lip service to coordinated action to bolster a stuttering global recovery. Financial unilateralism is erupting along a broad front, dimming the promise that meaningful action will emerge from the Group of 20 summit in Seoul next month.

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In a radio interview that aired Monday on Univision, President Obama chided Latinos who “sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.’ ” Quite a uniter, urging Hispanics to go to the polls to exact political revenge on their enemies – presumably, for example, the near-60 percent of Americans who support the new Arizona immigration law.

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President Obama travels to India next week for the longest visit to a foreign country of his presidency. His goal is to strengthen India-U.S. cooperation, but standing between the recent heady past and a future full of promise is a highly problematic present.

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It comes as little surprise that Palestinian-Israeli negotiations are at an impasse. The lesson after nearly two decades of bilateral negotiations is that direct talks alone are not enough to guarantee peace. A principled, unshakable commitment to international law is also required.

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Last Sunday, the New York Times described a crude scene that smacked of not exactly petty graft. There was Afghanistan’s presidential plane on the Tehran airport tarmac, waiting for one last passenger before wheels up to Kabul. The missing passenger was Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan. The ambassador, Feda Hussein Maliki, climbed aboard and took his tardy seat next to Umar Daudzai, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff and closest adviser. Maliki then presented Daudzai with a plastic bag bulging with about $1 million in packets of euros.

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In case you didn’t know, Assange is the Australian computer programmer behind WikiLeaks, a massive — and massively successful — effort to disclose secret or classified information. In a series of recent dumps, he unveiled thousands upon thousands of classified documents from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military and other government officials insist that WikiLeaks is doing serious damage to American national security and is going to get people killed, including brave Iraqis and Afghans who’ve risked their lives and the lives of their families to help us.

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Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or particular personalities. But these issues don’t mean as much this year– not because they are not important, but because this election is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come.

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I am as delighted as any conservative could be about predictions for Tuesday’s election. But the exultation among some on the right is making me nervous. It’s not just superstition. The votes haven’t even been counted, and yet some are already over-interpreting Republican victories as a thorough repudiation of everything Democratic, socialist, and liberal. The era of big government is over … again.

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In our quest to place blame for the “foreclosure mess”, let’s not forget greedy borrowers who thought the game of musical chairs would never end.

In an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson said, “Don’t blame the lawyers. The crisis over faulty or fraudulent paperwork in mortgage foreclosures – which is either a big deal or a humongous deal, depending on which experts you believe – is the fault of arrogant, greedy lenders who played fast and loose with the basic property rights of homeowners.” (See Lawyers got it right on the foreclosure mess.)

That’s not the whole truth.  It’s not even a good half-truth.  Without a doubt, banks are guilty of handling paperwork too casually, but the primary instigator of the “foreclosure mess” was the Congress of the United States and the presidents who failed to take decisive action to address an obvious problem.

Thanks to pandering politicians like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, people who didn’t even have jobs were able to secure loans for real estate, and they bought homes that they couldn’t afford.  Making things worse, they paid inflated prices, and they borrowed up to 110% of the purchase price thus enabling them to walk away from closing with cash in their pockets.  It seemed like a deal that was too good to be true, and it was.

In our quest to place blame for the “foreclosure mess”, let’s not forget greedy borrowers who thought the game of musical chairs would never end.  For many if not most of them, their investment in real estate was little more than a get rich quick scheme, and our elected officials merely inspired them to think they could get away with it.  When the music finally stopped playing, there weren’t enough chairs to go around.

It’s difficult for me to feel sorry for people who speculated on a hyper real estate market and lost.  No one held a gun to their heads and forced them to borrow money to finance overvalued real estate.  They made terrible decisions, and now it’s time for them to pay the fiddler.

The foreclosure process, as unpleasant as it is, must continue at a brisk pace.  The real estate sector of the economy won’t return to normal until after those properties are off the market, and weakness in housing continues to be the major hindrance to long-term economic growth.

I may sound callous, but I live in the real world – a world where facts matter.  Anything we do to delay the foreclosure process will retard economic recovery and cause unemployment to remain at an unacceptably high level.

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Natural Healthcare Store, Live the Natural Life!TM

If you haven’t been there already, you should take the opportunity to visit Natural Healthcare Store.  Each product selected for sale at Natural Healthcare Store undergoes rigorous research to make sure that it is the highest quality at an affordable price.

Natural Healthcare Store carries skin care, hair care, and oral care products.  Be sure to check out the Dead Sea products imported from Israel and support the Israeli economy with your purchases.  Natural Healthcare Store carries makeup, deodorant, and detoxification products.  It also carries supplements, weight loss products, and loose leaf tea.  Rounding out its product mix, Natural Healthcare Store carries natural household cleaning products.

Katie and I believe strongly in healthy living, and we use the products.  We’re proud to say that our daughter Melanie owns the store.

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His Name is Yahweh:

There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is Yahweh.  His Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5.  If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should.  The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org