Ivory Dome

 AFTER BATHING in the warm, fuzzy glow of the Mandela years, South Africans today are deeply demoralised people. The lights are going out in homes, mines, factories and shopping malls as the national power authority, Eskom – suffering from mismanagement, lack of foresight, a failure to maintain power stations and a flight of skilled engineers to other countries – implements rolling power cuts that plunge towns and cities into daily chaos.

Major industrial projects are on hold. The only healthy enterprise now worth being involved in is the sale of small diesel generators to powerless households but even this business has run out of supplies and spare parts from China.

The currency, the rand, has entered freefall. Crime, much of it gratuitously violent, is rampant, and the national police chief faces trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice as a result of his alleged deals with a local mafia kingpin and dealer in hard drugs.

Newly elected African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, the state president-in-waiting, narrowly escaped being jailed for raping an HIV-positive woman last year, and faces trial later this year for soliciting and accepting bribes in connection with South Africa’s shady multi-billion-pound arms deal with British, German and French weapons manufacturers.

One local newspaper columnist suggests that Zuma has done for South Africa’s international image what Borat has done for Kazakhstan. ANC leaders in 2008 still speak in the spiritually dead jargon they learned in exile in pre-1989 Moscow, East Berlin and Sofia while promiscuously embracing capitalist icons – Mercedes 4×4s, Hugo Boss suits, Bruno Magli shoes and Louis Vuitton bags which they swing, packed with money passed to them under countless tables – as they wing their way to their houses in the south of France.

It all adds up to a hydra-headed crisis of huge proportions – a perfect storm as the Rainbow Nation slides off the end of the rainbow and descends in the direction of the massed ranks of failed African states. Eskom has warned foreign investors with millions to sink into big industrial and mining projects: we don’t want you here until at least 2013, when new power stations will be built.

More of what the liberal multi-cult press is trying so hard to bring here.

A top Hillary Clinton adviser on Saturday boldly predicted his candidate would lock down the nomination before the August convention by definitively winning over party insiders and officials known as superdelegates, claiming the number of state elections won by rival Barack Obama would be “irrelevant” to their decision.

Ickes said superdelegates must “exercise their (I wonder who the "their" is? Moveon.org? George Sorros? .) best judgment” about who can win the White House.

In essence, he argued the party’s 795 superdelegates (Connecticut Independent-Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman recently was stripped of his superdelegate status) were in a better position to assess electability and suitability for the presidency than party regulars who will attend the national convention in late August as pledged delegates. …full story

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This is so laughable, so full of irony. The frothing Elitist of the far left will now bring reality to the lies they slobbered and wailed about, during the Bush V. Gore election in Florida. Only now their rabid lies will fall on their own self admitted, unknowing and, illiterate underlings.

After all, only they can decide suitability for the Presidency. Seems there might be a tad more racism among the leftist Kings and Queen  of the grand ol’ ass party, than ever has been dared to be thunk! Just as with Bush v. Gore the majority is irrelevant. 

I wonder if a now, conservative supreme court vice the lib court during Florida, will decide who the dem candidate will be? I wonder if something like this will come out of the Dem convention? ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Al Qaeda’s latest display of terror has made its way onto the Internet, showing horrifying images of what appear to be prisoners in Iraq being doused with an inflammatory liquid and then burned alive.

The video, which appears to have been posted first on Google last December in an alleged anti-Al Qaeda Web film, shows five insurgents standing behind three blindfolded prisoners kneeling at the edge of a burning pit. ….. more

Again we see the truth and evil of Islam. We see what awaits us if we continue to allow the liberal, politically correct, "Religion of Peace propaganda". We see what awaits us if we don’t name the enemy, Islam.

Recently Imad Mughniyeh, who was one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, was killed in a car bomb in the Syrian capital Tuesday night. He was accused of masterminding attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon, and hundreds if not thousands in other areas of the world in the 1980s.

The response from the religion of peace?

Thousands and thousands fill the streets swearing revenge against Israel and the US. Need more examples mostly of Muslims already massed in Europe?

Essentially not reported by the American MSM;

Muslim Youth Violence in Danish Cities Continues for 6th Night; 43 Arrested

COPENHAGEN, Denmark —  Groups of youths torched schools and cars in a sixth consecutive night of violence across Denmark, mostly in immigrant neighborhoods, police said Saturday. Forty-three people were arrested.

The spate of vandalism started last weekend and some believe it intensified with the reproduction of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers Wednesday.

The unrest spread across Denmark, with youths torching dozens of cars and buildings and lobbing rocks at police and firefighters in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Ringsted, Slagelse and other cities, officials said. ….more

NANCY, France  —  Dozens of hooded youths attacked two police vehicles with metal bars, set fire to more than a dozen parked cars and torched a community center in northeast France, officials said Friday.

The rampage in a tough neighborhood in Saint-Dizier, about 120 miles east of Paris, revived memories of a wave of car burnings, vandalism and clashes with police by youths in 2005.

Authorities were not sure what sparked the violence by 30 to 40 youths late Thursday, which erupted as firefighters escorted by police entered the troubled Vertbois neighborhood in response to a report of a fire…more

Notice the PC thought police substitutions of "youths" instead of Islamic faithful?

The thought police use many words to try to minimize the reality of Islam but most often we see Islamic fundamentalism. What does the word fundamentalism mean?

From dictionary.com  as applied to Islam;

And what are some of the more fundamental aspects of Islam?

From the Qu’ran: – Regarding infidels (unbelievers), they are the Muslim’s "inveterate enemies" (Sura 4:101). Muslims are to "arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush everywhere" (Sura 9:5) for them. They are to "seize them and put them to death wherever you find them, kill them wherever you find them, seek out the enemies of Islam relentlessly" (Sura 4:90). "Fight them until Islam reigns supreme" (Sura 2:193). "Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers" (Sura 8:12). More proof, and more.

The last, a speech by the Pope, set of violence and murder around the world, including shooting a Nun in the back four time’s. Remember the one where he said Islam is a religion of violence.

I guess you could add burn them alive in a pit. And much, much more. There are no innocent’s that adhere to the Qu’ran and the teachings of Mohammed (the name is spelled many ways).

The history of Islam from it’s very beginning has been a history of brutality (to its women and to any form of infidel) and extreme intolerance.  

Wake up people! It’s not about Iraq or Iran or Saudi, it’s about Islam. We will kill them or they will kill us.

Everyone be sure you know where your wives and daughters are. Oh, and you might want to lock away your cigars also.

A few posts back I was rightfully reminded that there is no such thing as a separation clause. There is an establishment clause. I quickly read back and to my embarrassment, it was true. I had repeated the lie of separation of church and state so relentlessly hammered down the throats of Americans by the MSM. I beat myself up about that for days afterward. Are they even getting to me, I thought? I, of course knew the proper wording and the true intent, but still I repeated the false words.  I had the need to purge this lie that had slipped from my mind and into the blogosphere.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; (shortened for relevance)

The words and meaning is clear, even in the less sophisticated vernacular of today.

I started to think about what lib appointed, commie, atheist Judge, legislating from the bench first used the word "separation".  It was neither lib or judge but Thomas Jefferson. 

The phrase "building a wall of separation between church and state" was written by Thomas Jefferson in a January 1, 1802  letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. But it didn’t take long to see that his meaning was intended to be a guarantee that people would be able to worship God in anyway they felt right. It was reaffirmation of the establishment clause. Jefferson said and believed this:

I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests. I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another’s creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives for it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read. — (My opinion, he was thinking and speaking of Christians only)

He also said;  Thus, for example, it is a religious duty to obey the laws of our country; the teacher of religion, therefore, must instruct us in those laws, that we may know how to obey them.

Well we certainly know that don’t happen any more. In fact, and correct me if wrong but political statements of any type can cause a church to lose it’s tax free status. Unless of course it’s from the Reverend Jackson or Sharpton.

Another early user of the term was James Madison. He said; "Strongly guarded is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote, and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." (again IMO speaking of Christianity)

So when did Separation become a road block to religion instead of a guarantee of freedom to worship?

The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of church and state metaphor more than 25 times, first in 1878. In Reynolds v. the US, the Court denied the free exercise claims of Mormons in the Utah territory who claimed polygamy was an aspect of their religious freedom. 

The Supreme Court recognized that under the First Amendment, the Congress cannot pass a law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. However it argued that the law prohibiting bigamy did not fall under this. The fact that a person could only be married to one person had existed since the times of King James 1 of England in English law on which United States law was based.

Although the constitution did not define religion, the Court investigated the history of religious freedom in the United States.

In the ruling, the court quoted a letter from Thomas Jefferson in which he stated, that there was a distinction between religious belief and action that flowed from religious belief. The former "lies solely between man and his God," therefore "the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions." The court argued that if we allowed polygamy, how long before someone argued that human sacrifice was a necessary part of their religion, and "to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."

The version of Jefferson’s Danbury letter which the Court used was in fact a mistaken transcription. While the Court quoted Jefferson as writing, "the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions", Jefferson’s original handwriting reads "the legitimate powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions." .

Polygamy right or wrong? A religious obligation, or an act against law? My opinion is that if all agree and there is no harm, that  prohibiting, the free exercise thereof, is exactly what happened to Reynolds. Being married to multiple willing participates hardly equates to human sacrifice. Yeah, lines should be drawn. Few would disagree. The difference, should be is the act harmful or not harmful.

The Court in 1878 believed the true spirit of the First Amendment was that Congress could not legislate against opinion but could legislate against action.

Today Prayer, Crosses, the Ten Commandments, Christmas, everything Christian is under attack if readily viewed by the public. All, are things that do no harm and are acts that violate, the "free exercise thereof clause".

It would seem that all of this has flowed from an incorrect reading of Jefferson’s letter, as these are not legislative acts by congress but illegitimate acts legislated by the judicial branch of government.

A mistake that modern secular, lib appointed, commie, atheist judges, seized upon and perpetuated. Illegitimate law that would never never have passed in congress.

Perhaps now, I won’t again repeat the lie of separation of Church and State again. 

In surviving accounts of Arthur, there are two originally separate legends about the sword’s origin. The first is the "Sword in the Stone" legend, originally appearing in Robert de Boron’s poem Merlin, in which Excalibur can only be drawn from the stone by Arthur, the rightful king. The second comes from the later Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, which was taken up by Sir Thomas Malory. Here, Arthur receives Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake after breaking his first sword in a fight with King Pellinore. The Lady of the Lake calls the sword "Excalibur, that is as to say as Cut-steel," and Arthur takes it from a hand rising out of the lake.

As Arthur lies dying, he tells Sir Bedivere (Sir Griflet in some versions) to return his sword to the lake by throwing it into the water. Bedivere is reluctant to throw away such a precious sword, so twice he only pretends to do so. Each time, Arthur asks him to describe what he saw. When Bedivere tells him the sword simply fell into the water, Arthur scolds him harshly. Finally, Bedivere throws Excalibur into the lake. Before the sword strikes the water’s surface, a hand reaches up to grasp it and pulls it under. Arthur leaves on a death barge with the three queens to Avalon, where as his legend says, he will one day return to rule in Britain’s darkest hour.

Malory records both versions of the legend in his Le Morte d’Arthur, and confusingly calls both swords Excalibur. The film Excalibur attempts to rectify this by having only one sword, which Arthur inherits through his father and later breaks; the Lady of the Lake then repairs it.

England (pronounced /ˈɪŋglənd/) (Old English: Englaland, Middle English: Engelond) is the largest and most populous constituent country^[1][2] of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Its inhabitants account for more than 79% of the total population of the United Kingdom,^[3] whilst the mainland territory of England occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel.

England became a unified state during the 10th century and takes its name from the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes who settled in the territory during the 5th and 6th centuries. The capital of England is London, which is the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.^[4]

England ranks amongst the world’s most influential and far-reaching centers of cultural development.^[5] It is the place of origin of both the English language and the Church of England, and English law forms the basis of the legal systems of many countries; in addition, London was the center of the British Empire, and the country was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.^[6] England was the first country in the world to become industrialized. England is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England was the world’s first parliamentary democracy^[ and consequently many constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.

The Kingdom of England was a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain,^[8] with the Principality of Wales already in the English state.

Today England is about to be transformed into a Islamic state. Political correctness, the insanity of multiculturalism, and liberal ideology has  been taken to extremes beyond what we witness even here, in the US.

Liberal lunacy daily moves England towards it’s final fate. The roots of England have long been dead. Little is left of what once was the center of Western civilization and one of the greatest military powers in history.

Societies flourish in connection with their communal piety. Disbelief is the ground of multiculturalism. England is the host which tolerates all because it believes nothing. Christianity is under attack in every way possible, while many in power, and even more of the ordinary English people convert to Islam and are celebrated and made into celebrities. Even children are converting. The recently chosen Miss England is Muslim.

The more England tries to accommodate Islam the greater the threat grow. Even fairy tales are being banned in an effort to appease a religion that has always been birthed in blood.

The list of efforts to appease Islam in England is endless. Even  the flag the flag of England, the banner of St. George is headed for the trash heap of history.

In the story of King Arthur, it is said that in a time of England’s greatest need, Arthur and Excalibur will return. Arthur, Excalibur England needs you now. All of Western civilization needs you.

Harmony, perhaps another word for Roots? Harmony is what the nation needs. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Harmony for all.

There is one thing that could provide that for us. One thing that could bring us together as a nation. One thing that erases the boundaries between the sexes and the races that have that been so firmly entrenched by the left.

That one thing already exists. It was created over 200 years ago. A time when among the elite, reason, not emotion ruled. That thing is called the American Constitution. The most perfect form of government in history laid out in simple easily understood language.

Through the trickery and and outright lies of the left, combined with the unbelievable apathy of the American voter that document essentially no longer exists. A document created in the highest ideals of moral and Christian ethic, lies in ruin. Battered and worth little more than the roll of paper next to your toilet. A worthless document mirrored by the current leaders of this Nation.

While some of the candidates for president are good men, only one promises, and indeed has lived and preached and pushed hard his entire public life for a return to strict compliance with the constitution as written and intended by the founders. That one man is Ron Paul. He is not perfect, but his single promise and unswerving dedication to restore this nation to strict compliance with the Constitution as meant and intended by the founders is worth more than all the promises of all the other candidates combined. 

Our constitution, if followed can restore our roots as a nation. It can restore harmony.

From Wiki Also this weeks list of new words and terms all dealing with music.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813, Leipzig; 13 February 1883, Venice) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas" as they were later called). Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner always wrote the scenario and libretto for his works himself.

Wagner’s compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies and orchestration, and elaborate use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with specific characters, locales, or plot elements. Wagner pioneered advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, which greatly influenced the development of European classical music.

He transformed musical thought through his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"), the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, epitomized by his monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876). Wagner even went so far as to build his own opera house to try to stage these works as he had imagined them.

Wagner’s music dramas are his primary artistic legacy. These can be divided chronologically into three periods.

Wagner’s early stage began at age 19 with his first attempt at an opera, Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), which Wagner abandoned at an early stage of composition in 1832. Wagner’s three completed early-stage operas are Die Feen (The Fairies), Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), and Rienzi. Their compositional style was conventional, and did not exhibit the innovations that marked Wagner’s place in musical history. Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these immature works to be part of his oeuvre; he was irritated by the ongoing popularity of Rienzi during his lifetime. These works are seldom performed, though the overture to Rienzi has become a concert piece.

Wagner’s middle stage output is considered to be of remarkably higher quality, and begins to show the deepening of his powers as a dramatist and composer. This period began with Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), followed by Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. These works are widely performed today.

Wagner’s late stage operas are his masterpieces that advanced the art of opera. Some are of the opinion that Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Iseult) is Wagner’s greatest single opera. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) is Wagner’s only comedy still in the repertoire (his early Das Liebesverbot is forgotten) and one of the lengthiest operas still performed. Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring cycle, is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Teutonic myth, particularly from later period Norse mythology. Taking 26 years to complete, and requiring roughly 15 hours to perform, the Ring cycle has been called the most ambitious musical work ever composed. Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal, which was written especially for the opening of Wagner’s Festspielhaus in Bayreuth and which is described in the score as a "Bühnenweihfestspiel" (festival play for the consecration of the stage), is a contemplative work based on the Christian legend of the Holy Grail.

Wagner drew largely from Northern European mythology and legend, notably Icelandic sources such as the Poetic Edda, the Volsunga Saga and the German Nibelungenlied. Through his operas and theoretical essays, Wagner exerted a strong influence on the operatic medium. He was an advocate of a new form of opera which he called "music drama", in which all the musical and dramatic elements were fused together. Unlike other opera composers, who generally left the task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems". Further, Wagner developed a compositional style in which the orchestra’s role is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra’s dramatic role includes its performance of the leitmotifs, musical themes that announce specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interleaving and evolution illuminates the progression of the drama.

Wagner’s musical style is often considered the epitome of classical music’s Romantic period, due to its unprecedented exploration of emotional expression. He introduced new ideas in harmony and musical form, including extreme chromaticism. In Tristan und Isolde, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system that gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th century. Some music historians date the beginning of modern classical music to the first notes of Tristan, the so-called Tristan chord.

The man was truly a genius, music being the greatest of his many talents. His work named, Siegfried funeral march is one of the most moving songs I know. The quality of the video is not great but the music is fantastic as well as the composure of the conductor when at 5.50 his stand falls and he loses his sheet music, he never bats an eye.

Perhaps the most devastating thing brought to this nation by liberalism is the destruction of roots. And most likly this si their intent.

We witness a nation growing ever more violent, ever more in conflict on just about every issue of National importance. Congress spends most of it’s time demonizing the other side of the isle.

Criminals run amok. Even the language, the single most important aspect of any Nation continues to become more and more a copy of the Biblical tower of Babel.

There is nothing that ties the nation together that is not ridiculed and mocked by the left. The military is vilified because of supposedly causing innocent deaths in Iraq, while each day thousands of children are gleefully put to death in the Nations abortion mills. Christianity is scoffed at, ridiculed and blamed for all, while Islam is promoted at every opportunity.

Women are against men, black against white, brown against black. All the fault of the old dead White guys. Our cities, states, and the entire nation slowly becomes Balkanized. We drift aimlessly in the world, all values and moral principal stripped, in a futile effort to legislate equality. Even the most debase cultures any one can dream up are raised to hero status by the left.

The death of Heath Ledger is a good example. Here was a man who was not gay, but for money he was willing to play the part to the hilt. He stood on stage at the MTV awards and joyfully accepted, to the screams of delight from that audience the award for, "Hottest Kiss of the year".

The roots of our nation are dead. Soon the rest of all that has made this country great will die with them. "Show of hands" a band from Englandistan sings well of the danger we face.