Islam ascending: Muslims outnumber Catholics

For the first time in history, Islam has eclipsed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion.

“… We are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Formenti was relying upon figures from 2006, which is the most recent year available. The figures for Islam came from Muslim countries by way of the United Nations, so Formenti could only confirm the Vatican’s figures, but he put Roman Catholics at 17.4 percent of the world population and Muslims at 19.2 percent.

Altogether, Christians still make up about 33 percent of the world population.

Formenti attributed the changing statistics to the fact that Muslims tend to have very large families, whereas Catholics, particularly in Europe, have been giving birth to far fewer children than they used to.

Many writers have been warning of the changing population of Europe for years. Almost since its creation, Islam has had aspirations of conquering Europe, but throughout history, there have been the Pope Urban IIs and Charles Martels who have beaten Islam back from the borders.

In the modern era, infected by liberalism and a nihilistic obeisance to “diversity,” Europe may be on the verge of cultural surrender. The crisis is so severe that European thinkers have already dubbed the future state “Eurabia.” The violent clashing of civilizations has been evident in riots in France and other countries, in death threats made to artists and politicians who resist the Muslim revolution.

In 2004, when many Americans were siding with John Kerry against the war on Islamo-fascism, artist Theo Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim fanatic for making a film critical of Islam. The pope himself has been threatened by Muslims for merely quoting the words of a Byzantine emperor, who surely had a clear-eyed view of Islamic “open-mindedness.”

And yet, Europe continues to make concessions to Muslim extremists, even so prominent a person as the archbishop of Canterbury saying Britain must make allowances for shariah law.

Is America any better off? Will we understand what the collapsing of Europe foretells in time to make a difference to our erstwhile allies? Will we have the sense and courage to fight back if “Eurabia” does come about?

Already in this country, we have enclaves of Muslim extremists who have been allowed into our borders, such as in Michigan, where Dearborn is becoming known as “Dearbornistan” to those who are watching the cultural tides shift. Or Minnesota, which sent Washington its first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, as part of the Democratic wave in 2006. In Chicago, there is the example of Barack Obama’s church, Trinity United, whose leadership kowtows to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. In Oakland, Calif., there was the recent case of Your Black Muslim Bakery, some of whose members are suspected in the 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey.

And yet, almost half the country is opposed to the war on Islamo-fascism. The opposition is so blind and uncritical that George Bush, one of a handful of leaders who has steadfastly opposed Islam’s threat to destroy Western civilization, is hated by his own people to the point of being booed just for throwing out the first ball at a Nationals game.

Atheists, relativists and liberals of all stripes will probably shrug at this statistical sea change, claiming that one religion’s the same as another, but rational people will know there’s good reason to be concerned: Islam is the only major religion founded by a warlord, and his people still bear the mark of his bloody intentions.

Earth Hour: Preview of things to come

This Saturday, cities around the world will shut off power at major public locations for one hour to show solidarity with the global warming alarmists.

The World Wildlife Fund is sponsoring the event, which is being promoted as a symbolic gesture promoting efforts to fight global warming.

(The fact that we just recently finished the coldest winter since the 1960s apparently has not cooled environmentalists’ enthusiasm for half-baked ideas.)

The more level-headed among us will see this as a highly symbolic event: There will be a lot of blackouts in the future if we rely more on intermittent power sources such as solar and wind and restrict oil use in a misguided effort to kill the global warming bogeyman.

Now that so many metropolises have announced plans to shut off the power for an hour, it may be interesting to see if crime goes up while liberals are making a statement. …

Best plan for Saturday night: lock the doors, stay inside and light a fire before it’s illegal.

Obama nation: Pastor takes on Obama

The Democratic meltdown continues.

As Hillary Clinton gets more mired in examples of her own “difficulty” with the truth, from her Bosnia sniper fable to her being a lifelong Yankees fan, Barack Hussein Obama is feeling torpedoes launched by the Rev. James David Manning, pastor of ATLAH World Ministries, a Harlem-based church.

Unlike Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who hates America, Pastor Manning’s preferred targets appear to be Obama and a whole list of self-appointed “black leaders,” including Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and even President Clinton. (Remember the “first black president”?)

It’s Manning’s rantings against Obama that have been getting attention. Among other things, he has called Obama a “pimp” who kicked off his campaign by bringing out “a couple of white women” with “54 double D’s,” has called Obama’s father a black man “who went whoring for a white woman,” accused Obama of throwing his white grandmother “under the bus” of his campaign, and insisted that he’s “not trashing Obama — Obama was born trash.”

It’s tempting to suggest that Manning has been promoted to news organizations by the Clinton campaign, but Manning appears to have no love for the Clintons either.

And it is becoming increasingly difficult to see how either Clinton or Obama will emerge from this ongoing bloodbath as a viable candidate in the general election.

Call me paranoid if you will, but these events are starting to suggest a third party behind the scenes. George Soros hand-picked Obama in 2004 and has been the man behind the curtain in Obama’s success, so it’s not likely to be him sabotaging his own candidate. The Clintons have powerful Chinese and media interests floating their boat.

It’s conceivable the current bloodshed could reflect some Soros-Chinese conflict, but there’s another possibility: According to recent news reports, former vice president Al Gore is deep in talks with other Democratic Party big wigs about how to broker a party convention to pick the Democrats’ candidate without the violence that some people are fearing among supporters of the two frontrunners. There is also a growing “draft Gore” campaign waiting in the wings. Could the recent Nobel prize winner be making a stealth grab for the office he was denied eight years ago?

Democrats’ meltdown: Break out the popcorn

The politics of change are continuing, and it’s quite a show.

After the broadside Barack Hussein Obama’s campaign took when America suddenly could no longer ignore his pastor’s hate-filled message, the frontrunner for Democratic messiah apparently decided to spread the pain.

Last week, his campaign released to the New York Times a picture of Bill Clinton shaking hands with Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, implying, of course, that Clinton — and by extension his wife, Hillary — was a racist.

Then just in case the Clintons had missed that implication, Obama’s campaign sent out retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, armed at the lip. President Clinton had commented to a North Carolina veterans’ group that “it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people (meaning Hillary and the GOP’s Sen. John McCain) who love this country and were devoted to the interests of the country.”

The Obama campaign, still smarting from the Rev. Wright’s now-infamous “God damn America speech,” as well as Mrs. Obama’s oft-repeated comment about having never before been proud of her country, counterattacked. McPeak actually compared President Clinton to Joe McCarthy for leaving Obama out of his praises.

“I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors,” McPeak said, “so I’ve had enough of it.”

The Clinton campaign picked up the gauntlet and unleashed James Carville to go after Obama’s newest big-name supporter, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who had held positions in the Clinton administration and formerly supported Hillary. Carville fired a shot across Obama’s bow when he called Richardson a Judas, on Good Friday no less, then flatly refused to apologize when the Obama camp whined to the news media.

Not to be out-smacked, the Obama camp posted a video on YouTube that clearly showed Hillary was lying about her version of a trip to Bosnia in which she had said her group came under sniper fire. The video showed instead a calm, celebratory event and had Hillary pleading sleep deprivation for her previous version of events — a version which she had told at least twice.

Hillary — with all the subtlety of Popeye yelling out “I’ve had alls I can stands, I can’t stands no more” and popping open a can of spinach — finally came out swinging and gave Obama a well-deserved press whuppin’ over his association with Jeremiah Wright.

“He would not have been my pastor. You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend,” Hillary said, echoing the thoughts of what is probably the majority of Americans.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton feigned offense. “It’s disappointing to see Hillary Clinton’s campaign sink to this low,” said the belly of the snake.

Now, the Clinton campaign has begun circulating an article from the American Spectator that accuses Gen. McPeak of being a drunk and an anti-Semite.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, who ably survived the New York Times’ last attempt to slime him, is sitting back and counting the defectors from the Democrats.

Global warming: Bearing up

The assault on reason in the name of global warming continues.

While efforts to declare polar bears an endangered species have temporarily been stalled in Washington, the PR campaign has not let up.

Now there is a book called “The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World” by photographer Steven Kazlowski.

As the title implies, Kazlowski tries to create a picture of polar bears desperately clinging to life as the evil humans destroy the Arctic ice pack, leading to the bears’ inevitable doom.

As is often the case when global warming enters the conversation, the seriousness of the situation is greatly exaggerated.

There are an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 polar bears in Alaska, and up to 17,000 in Canada.

Al Gore has sold countless books and DVDs with his familiar wail about the polar bears — that as the ice melts, they won’t be able to hunt their favorite food — seals — and they will be likely to drown.

But polar bears are excellent swimmers, known to swim up to 300 miles without trouble. Their prowess is such that they are classified as Ursus maritimus, or “maritime bear,” and even considered by some biologists to be a primarily marine mammal.

When Gore made his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he claimed that many polar bears were drowning as they swam up to 60 miles in search of ice, one of nine claims that helped a British court decree that his film was a political movie and required a disclaimer before it could be shown in schools. According to British Justice Michael Burton, “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.”

The polar bears, like other bears, are also quite adaptable and able to find other food sources when seals are not available. Except for some localized populations that have been studied, polar bears seem to have been increasing in number in recent years, although an accurate picture is difficult to obtain because there is no exact count how many bears exist now or existed in the past.

Further, the existence of hybrids from the mating of polar bears with brown bears suggests that polar bears may simply be brown bears adapted to Arctic living.

Also, this past winter saw an icepack that was much larger than it has been of late, part of the coldest winter in the northern hemisphere since the 1960s. Nearly all of the ice “lost” to global warming came back this winter, which will no doubt have a positive impact on both the seal and bear populations.

None of those facts is likely to stop the hand wringing by environmentalists. As Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace, said, environmentalists long ago abandoned reason.

Obama points a finger

Now that Barack Obama’s speech the other day has him back in the good graces of the Kool-Aid drinkers who swoon at the mere sound of his voice, the presidential hopeful is trying to win over the more discerning folk among the Democrats.

While the liberal press coos over Obama’s “honesty” in addressing his pastor’s racism, the Obama campaign has resorted to some classic underhanded diversionary finger-pointing by releasing a picture to the New York Times showing President Clinton shaking hands with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s racist, anti-American pastor.

The event was an annual prayer breakfast with religious leaders, at which President Clinton discussed his personal experience with sinning, just hours before the Starr report was released detailing his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Al Gore is visible in the background of the photo, and Hillary Clinton was also in attendance at the breakfast. Notably, President Clinton was asking for forgiveness, something Obama refused to do the other day.

Wright was among many pastors invited, and he received a thank-you note for his support some six weeks later. The note read:

Dear Pastor Wright:

Thank you so much for your kind message.
I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.

You have my best wishes.

Sincerely,
Bill Clinton

The message of Obama’s speech was “I’m not a racist despite hanging around a racist kook for 20 years, because blacks can’t be racists, and you must be a racist if you think I’m a liar, even though I’ve clearly lied about my association with Pastor Wright.”

The message of the photo’s release at this time is “Bill Clinton must be a racist because he shook Pastor Wright’s hand once — and we all know that Bill Clinton is married to Hillary. Gasp! Hillary must be a racist! … (but I’m not!)”

If somehow there are still people who don’t question Obama’s judgment and character, the fact that his campaign is actually suggesting that a hand shake by the husband of a presidential candidate is equivalent to a candidate who himself supported and followed a racist, anti-American nut for 20 years, should clarify the issues.

When Obama claims he’s going to change Washington, apparently he means for the worse.

Iraq war: Long fight, short sight

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war.

As protests were staged around the country, President Bush defended the war and the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

The Democratic candidates for president both discussed withdrawal of troops, though Hillary Clinton was more cautious about withdrawing without throwing away everything that has been accomplished in Iraq. Sen. John McCain made a case for continuing to see things through until democracy is firmly established.

The major feeling among supporters of the war was one of weariness, not so much of the war, but of the constant energy drain of listening to liberals who would have preferred to leave the Iraqi people under the heels of a tyrant.

Said Obama: “Where are we for all of this sacrifice? We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained.”

If anyone knows about dividing people, it’s Barack “black racism is justified” Obama. That issue aside, since 9/11 the divisiveness has come from the liberal side of the aisle. The line about us straining our alliances has been repeated so often in the media that people assume it’s a fact. But the strange thing is, all our allies are still allies, and the people who hate us now are the people who hated us before. With the exception of Spain, European countries have been voting in more conservative leaders in recent years. America still leads.

Incredibly, there are many people who think terrorism is not a threat, that groups like al-Qaida are just some bogeyman, nothing to be afraid of, as if 9/11 never happened. Yet U.S. authorities are known to have stopped dozens of terrorist plots on American soil in recent years, and there are suggestions of many cases that haven’t made the media.

And just in time for the anniversary of the war, Osama bin Laden poked his head out of his gopher hole long enough to threaten Europe with terrorist reprisals because a few Danish newspapers ran a cartoon bin Laden didn’t like.

They republished the 2-year-old cartoon because police uncovered a plot to murder the artist, and the newspapers were showing their solidarity and devotion to freedom.

Bin Laden made it clear that he regards our silly notions of freedom of expression as poor excuses for offending Islamo-fascists: “If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.” The message was accompanied by an image of bin Laden aiming a rifle.

We may have forgotten why we’re fighting, but rest assured bin Laden and his ilk have not.

Land of the smoke-free

Anybody remember “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?

Shia LaBeouf, star of “Transformers” and the upcoming “Indiana Jones” movie, might be wondering what happened to those once-guiding principles of our country.

On Wednesday, he pleaded not guilty to an unlawful smoking charge.

Let me say that again: unlawful … smoking … charge.

He failed to appear at a hearing Tuesday but showed up a day after a judge issued a $1,000 arrest warrant for this menace to society.

There will be a hearing on April 24. If convicted, LaBeouf could face up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

For smoking.

Now, I personally hate cigarettes. But $1,000 and six months?

Apparently, tobacco’s not the only thing going up in smoke these days.

Obama’s sleight of hand

Well, nobody can say Barack Obama doesn’t give good speech. (In case you missed it, here’s the transcript.)

Obama addressed the nation this morning and did a superb job of glossing over his little problem with his racist, anti-American pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Like a stage magician who gets you to watch his right hand while he palms a card with his left, Obama “addressed” Wright’s speeches that have recently gotten his campaign in trouble without ever really addressing them.

Last week, when the controversy over videos of his pastor first broke, Obama initially denied that he ever heard words like that from his pastor, but he condemned the words anyway. Then as more of Wright’s anti-Americanism came out, the Obama campaign quietly removed Wright from its committee, but still Obama did not renounce the man he has called a friend and mentor.

Then, Newsmax found in its archives a story that placed Obama in the pews, nodding in agreement, during one of Wright’s profanity-laced sermons at Trinity church in Chicago. Almost immediately, the Obama campaign, echoed by all the major liberal blogs on the Internet, said the senator was in Florida that day and produced a video and travel schedule to back it up. The Newsmax writer who attended the sermon with Obama appeared to back off a bit from the date, but insisted the story was true.

When it was shown that the Washington Post had Obama in Chicago the morning of July 22, the campaign finally admitted the senator was in town, but insisted he didn’t go to church.

This morning, from Obama’s speech:

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

In other words, Obama lied about never hearing his pastor spout his racist, anti-American views. And he lied about not being in the church, when and where Newsmax placed him.

Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

He “disagreed” with his pastor, yet he was there in the pew, nodding in agreement, and he has been returning to that church for 20 years. I don’t know about you, but if I “strongly disagree” with a pastor, I don’t attend his church for two decades. So, Obama is lying again, we may assume. That’s three lies just in the space of one paragraph.

In the next breath, he summarizes what he has “strongly disagreed” with from the pew for the past 20 years:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

And yet, the man who holds those views has been his mentor and adviser for years. Liberals are cooing over Obama’s bravery at dissing his pastor publicly like this, but note Obama still hasn’t distanced himself from the man. It’s one of those “non-denial denials” politicians are so good at, designed to appeal to conservatives, whites and Jews. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent the rest of the day kissing up to his Muslim supporters.)

Then, Obama lists all the reasons his pastor is really a swell guy, including being a Marine veteran, studying at various universities, providing day care, etc. I’m sure David Duke probably has some fine qualities as well, but any politician who claimed him as an adviser never would have made it past the first primary. At the risk of being dubbed racist like Geraldine Ferraro, it’s obvious the media excuse a lot because of Obama’s skin color.

And Obama spent much of the rest of the speech explaining why they, and the rest of America, should gloss over Wright’s overt, and Obama’s implicit, anti-American racism. To be sure, he does make some valid points, but they are only partial truths. For example, blaming the sad state of schools: a valid complaint in all communities, but especially in poor — not black, poor — neighborhoods. Lousy public schools encourage ignorance, crime and an unending cycle of misery. But now ask yourself: Who’s running the schools? Liberals. Whose beliefs shape school curricula more than anyone else’s? Liberals’. Whose representatives fight hardest to keep the status quo in schools? Liberals.

Our schools do need radical change, but it won’t happen just by throwing money at them, as the Democrats, including Obama, are wont to do.

Then Obama cites lack of opportunity, also something that rings true:

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.

And whose party is the biggest supporter of welfare, and the biggest opponent of policies to shore up families? Liberals’.

Incredibly, at one point, Obama calls Wright’s views conservative. Then he tries to draw a connection between the anti-American, racist views of a Jeremiah Wright and the sort of resentment workers (Obama specifies white workers) when corporations cut jobs, steal pensions and get away with illegal business practices.

Noticeably lacking from Obama’s snow job was anything approaching an apology for his poor judgment. When President Bush gave one speech at Bob Jones University, liberals in Congress demanded he apologize for spending an afternoon there. One would think a few words of apology, therefore, might be owed by Obama for his 20 years of endorsing Wright’s radicalism.

But you aren’t likely to get it. When he couldn’t lie his way out of association with Wright, Obama finally made one thing clear: he sees black racism and anti-Americanism as justified.

If you could get the truth from this man, I suspect you would learn he feels those views are justified because they are his own views.

Update: Obama WAS in Chicago

A controversy has erupted over a Newsmax article that places Barack Obama in the audience during one of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-American, racist rants. (See my previous post and the comments.) The Obama campaign this morning claimed the senator was in Florida on the day in question, July 22, 2007, strongly implying he was in Florida all day.

Newsmax issued a clarification in which they asserted the truth of the story but appeared to back off a bit from certainty about the date. The writer, Jim Davis, now says he attended several services at Obama’s church that month, and Obama was in the audience, nodding in agreement to the pastor’s words during the sermon as reported. Also present were members of the Secret Service.

The Washington Post campaign tracker shows Obama was in Chicago on July 22, 2007.

The Obama campaign now says the senator was in Chicago that morning, but he didn’t go to the church.

The Washington Post also shows Obama was in Chicago all day the week before, July 15, 2007. No comment yet from the campaign whether he went to church then.

Time to come clean, Mr. Obama.