Yeah, lets do bong hits and pretend the whole world loves us, and if they don't we can send billions more in foreign aid.
Keep hittin the bong, Graham, it improves the quality of your posts! (Grahan seems to know an awfully lot about BONGS!)
Pretend the whole world loves us??? Or as you look at it... Pretend the whole world is an enemy!
Foreign aid? Actually Graham, if you look into "US Foreign Aid" you'll see that most of it isn't sent overseas... it's sent to US corporations in the form of 'credits'. Most never leaves the USA. A country, gets Aid Credits to buy from American corporations at inflated prices. Country 'A' can buy hammers from a US manufacturer at $2 more a hammer than he can buy them on the world market, but the aid credits keeps the price below the world market. Country 'A' gets hammers below the world market cost... US Hammer Corp. sells hammers at $2 over the world market cost... Us taxpayers pay the difference... and the best part... Graham gets to gripe about "Foreign Aid! "
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Rox....you should be prepared to defend yourself.....I will be over to first ask if you will lend me a cup of sugar...then when you give me that I will be back to ask for eggs and milk...then after that I will be back for some bread, yeah, I dont want the yeast and flour and stuff, I want it already made.. Now tell me that policy doesn't exist for either party or that either party is even right......do you not think they all go through the same college/acting wringers.....they all eat at the same trough.....and I bet after I ride your back and your grocery/heating/water bills you will toss me like a big fat engorged leech(like you should).......so do me a favor and dont think you are anymore compassionate or loving than myself or anyone else..... If you think this world will ever have peace...you better start purchasing all the zoloft and dumping it into all the water supplies...... I'm no right wing hater......but I HATE IT when folks dont do their own work and/or think others arent doing enough to do someone else's work(like theirs)..
so be prepared....I may come looking to you for that last apple....will you give it to me after I ask?.....will you just offer it?.....or keep it for yourself?
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Mosque building owners nixed $18M offer before taking $4.8M one By ISABEL VINCENT and MELISSA KLEIN Last Updated: 8:53 AM, September 5, 2010 Posted: 2:37 AM, September 5, 2010
The original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price.
The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned.
El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009 -- a job as a property manager for a son of the family, Sethian Pomerantz.
New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 -- $18 million cash -- and wondered whether money changed hands under the table, according to sources close to the deal.
Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site, had inked a purchase agreement and even had keys to the existing building, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post.
But Kukiko Mitani -- whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property -- and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek's deal disappeared, sources said.
Glodek, who owns the ChefsDiet food delivery service and several Manhattan properties, declined to comment.
The property is now at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the country -- whether it should be the location of a $100 million mosque and community center. The location two blocks from Ground Zero has been called insensitive, and questions have been raised about whether extremists will help fund the project. Recent polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers want it moved.
El-Gamal had his eye on the property for years before buying it in 2009.
He was not alone in his interest, with some 30 offers showered on the Pomerantz family in what was an overheated downtown real-estate market in 2007, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
Yet Mitani previously told The Post the building, a former Burlington Coat Factory store that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks, was a tough sell. She said she was in debt and desperate to unload it after her husband's death and insisted she had no buyers other than El-Gamal.
Some of the offers were a mere flash in the pan, but others were legitimate, including a $17 million cash deal from one developer, the source said.
The attraction in this hot market was buying real estate that could be demolished, the source said. A second downtown mosque, not affiliated with El-Gamal, considered spending $18 million for 45-47 Park Place in early 2008.
But the Pomerantz family -- for reasons that remain unclear -- rejected the offers.
Some people just hate America. That is hard for most of us to understand, but it has been crystal clear to me for years.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
No kidding......there are even some people who hate their neighbors/bosses/coworkers etc etc......
You can hate your boss and coworker all day. The minute that you, your boss, and coworker hate the company you work for and actively seek to harm the company and put them out of business, then everybody's out of a job. Same thing with hating and destroying of America. You can hate and disagree with opposing ideas and opinions during political discorse, but when you start destroying and hating America and our Constitution the very thing that allows political discourse and the exchange of ideas...Then America will be put out of business.
The problem is, Mr Rudy is that Islam IS to blame for 9-11. That terrorist attack WAS DONE IN THE NAME OF ISLAM. Or have your forgotten jihad? Geez, learn your recent history.
And I'm so dang sick and tired of hearing "would we prohibit a Catholic church near the the site of the federal building bombed by Tim McVeigh." Gee whiz, people learn your history. McVeigh NEVER said he is bombed the buidling "in the name of Roman Catholic God." His bombing was not a religious war of any sort.
Tell us people, would YOU accept the KKK builing an office across the street from where MLK was killed?
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
building this mosque is like a dog that revisits it's own vomit!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Imam: Moving Islamic center will embolden extremists 'Anger will explode in the Muslim world' if situation is not handled carefully, says imam behind proposed NYC facility Lorenzo Bevilaqua / AP updated 1 hour 51 minutes ago
NEW YORK — The imam behind a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero cautioned Wednesday that moving the facility could cause a violent backlash from Muslim extremists and endanger national security. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told CNN that the discourse surrounding the center has become so politicized that moving it could strengthen the ability of extremists abroad to recruit and wage attacks against Americans, including troops fighting in the Middle East. "The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack," he said, but he added that he was open to the idea of moving the planned location of the center, currently two blocks north of the World Trade Center site.
"But if you don't do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world," he later said, predicting that the reaction could be more furious than the eruption of violence following the 2005 publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Opponents say the center, which would include a Sept. 11 memorial and a Muslim prayer space, should be moved farther away from where Islamic extremists destroyed the World Trade Center and killed nearly 2,800 people. Supporters say religious freedom should be protected.
Rauf, 61, has largely been absent since the debate over the center erupted earlier this year. He has been traveling abroad, including taking a State Department-funded 15-day trip to the Middle East to promote religious tolerance. In the interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien, his first since returning to the U.S. on Sunday, Rauf responded to a number of questions that have been raised about the project.........................>>>>.................>>>>.................http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39073267/ns/us_news/#
Muslims didn’t just kill, they were killed on 9/11
I’ve heard a lot of people complaining about the building of the mosque so close to where the Twin Towers were, where the planes crashed into those once-imposing buildings. Those who object are basing their objections on the fact that those who directed the jets were Muslims, never considering the fact that more than 40 of the victims were Muslims. One who died was a New York City police cadet and EMT [emergency medical technician] trainee whose remains were found with his medical bag tending to victims of the attack. Another was a waiter at the Windows on the World restaurant whose wife gave birth two days after the attack. And so it goes. So I don’t understand the bigots who think that all Muslims were responsible for 9/11.
Mosque man blinks By TOM TOPOUSIS Last Updated: 5:46 AM, September 14, 2010 Posted: 3:44 AM, September 14, 2010
With tension mounting over plans to build a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the project's prime mover, said yesterday he's considering delaying the venture over the controversy.
"Our advisers have been looking at every option, including that," Rauf said during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations on the Upper East Side, where he delivered a speech and took questions from the think tank's audience.
Rauf's statement was in response to a question from audience member Kathwari M. Farooq, chairman of the Ethan Allen furniture company, who asked if it wasn't a good idea to put the project on hold to allow for more discussion.
"We are exploring all options as we speak right now, and we are working through what will be a solution, God willing, that will resolve this crisis, defuse it and not create any unforeseen or untoward circumstances that we do not want to see happen," he said.
Pressed by Richard Haass, president of the council, for details about possible compromises, including relocating the mosque, Rauf said, "Everything is on the table," declining to be more specific.
But Rauf remained adamant that there is a need for an Islamic community center, including a mosque, to be built in lower Manhattan.
Sep 18, 3:01 AM EDT Muslim summit planned over NYC Islamic center By DAVID B. CARUSO Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- A proposed Islamic center near ground zero is slowly being embraced by some Muslims who initially were indifferent about the plan, partly in response to a sense that their faith is under attack.
A summit of U.S. Muslim organizations is planned for Saturday and Sunday in New York City to address both the project and a rise in anti-Muslim sentiments and rhetoric that has accompanied the nationwide debate over the project.
It has yet to be seen whether the groups will emerge with a firm stand on the proposed community center, dubbed Park51. The primary purpose of the meeting is to talk about ways to combat religious bigotry.
But Shaik Ubaid of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, one of the groups organizing the gathering, said he has a growing sense that some American Muslims who initially had trepidation are now throwing their support behind the plan.
"Once it became a rallying cry for extremists, we had no choice but to stand with Feisal Rauf," he said, referring to the New York City imam who has been leading the drive for the center.
Groups scheduled to participate in the summit include the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Alliance of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Gauging support for the center among U.S. Muslims is difficult. As a group, they are diverse, ranging from blacks who found the faith during the civil rights movement to recent immigrants hailing from opposite ends of the globe. They rarely speak with one voice.
Yet after a pastor in Florida injected himself into the debate by threatening to burn copies of the Quran, U.S. Muslims stirred.
"I think most Muslims outside New York City are more concerned about the backlash than the actual center, which most of them will never directly benefit from," said Shahed Amanullah, the editor-in-chief of the website altmuslim.com and a group of other Islam-themed sites.
"Grass-roots support is indeed building," he said, "but that is probably more due to the pushback against the general hostile climate."
The center's proposed location two blocks from the World Trade Center site has upset some relatives of Sept. 11 victims and led to angry demands that it be moved. Critics say the site of mass murder by Islamic extremists is no place for an Islamic institution.
Rauf has called for the 13-story Islamic center to be open to people of all faiths, while his co-leader of the project, Manhattan real estate developer Sharif El-Gamal, has stressed its non-religious aspects, which include a health club and culinary school.
The summit comes as some supporters of the center have encouraged its organizers to include prayer space for Jews, Christians and other religious groups as a way of countering critics who say it will be a monument to Islamic supremacy.
Julie Menin, the chairwoman of the Manhattan community board that endorsed the project months ago, said she will meet with Rauf to discuss the interfaith possibility in the coming weeks.
"They had always talked about giving the center an interfaith concept," she said, "like having classes in Buddhism."
"It's one thing to have panel discussions, but if you really want to bring these factions together ... have a nondenominational interfaith space, like the chapel at the Pentagon, where local rabbis and priests could hold services on different days of the week."
There has always been some interfaith support for the center.
Its backers modeled their concept for the center after the city's two popular Jewish community centers and consulted at length with the managers to learn how to make their model work downtown, and reached out to some neighborhood politicians for support.
There was much less outreach to Muslims, Ubaid said.
Rauf, he said, may have been a regular talking head for the national news media on Muslim world affairs, but among New York City imams he was something of an outsider, Ubaid said.
"He was not that involved with the local Muslim community," Ubaid said. He said that included a general failure to round up support for the center before going public with his plans. "Had we consulted us, we probably would have told him, gently, no.".............................>>>>...................>>>>......................http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....=2010-09-17-15-59-06
Mosque man blinks By PERRY CHIARAMONTE and HELEN FREUND Last Updated: 6:28 AM, September 27, 2010 Posted: 2:58 AM, September 27, 2010
The religious leader behind the proposed mosque near Ground Zero promised yesterday to allow the US government to sign off on anyone who donates to the $100 million project.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told "60 Minutes" that to reduce fears that terror organizations would contribute to the project, he'll ask US officials to approve the sources of funding.
Rauf added that the mosque and Islamic cultural center will have a board of directors that will include Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The olive branch from Rauf came as another proposed mosque in the city -- this one in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn -- became embroiled in controversy yesterday with dozens of protesters waving anti-Islamic signs at the site.
"We are not racist. We are not bigots. We are not Islamophobic," insisted Gennady Kalman, president of the Bay People Association, as he led the rally at the mosque site on Voorhies Avenue.
"We are people concerned about our community. Anyone who supports Hamas is not allowed in our community," he said.
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