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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (42082)	4/10/2004 7:23:30 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

Lets HOPE the young thief..gets the same judge Jeb Bush's daughter did........... If not.. I fear... It's..The Big House

To: lurqer who wrote (42082)	4/10/2004 7:39:14 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

Can they deliver a "Big Gulp"............ People in Hell want ice water.. Jewish Group: Mormons Still Baptize Dead Fri Apr 9, By MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY - Researchers say that Mormons have continued to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims into their faith despite a promise to discontinue the practice. "We are very hopeful that we will be able to convince the church to stop," Ernest Michel, chairman of the New York-based World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said Friday. If not, Michel said, his group will consider other options, "possibly legal steps." Church spokesman Dale Bills said in a statement Friday evening that church officials "do not know what may come of these discussions, but we welcome the involvement of any who seek to resolve amicably the concerns expressed by some of our Jewish friends." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long collected names from government documents and other records worldwide for posthumous baptisms. Church members stand in to be baptized in the names of the deceased non-Mormons, a ritual the church says is required for them to reach heaven. The practice is primarily intended to give salvation to the ancestors of Mormons, but many others are included, since the church believes that individuals' ability to choose a religion continues beyond the grave. Non-Mormon faiths have objected to the baptisms. "It's ridiculous for people to pretend they have the key to heaven," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "And even if they say they want to do somebody a favor ... it's not a symbol of love. It's a symbol of arrogance." In 1995, the Mormon church acceded to demands by Jewish leaders that the denomination stop posthumously baptizing Jews. But Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City researcher, said on Friday that the process still hasn't ended. She said she has found posthumous baptism records for 268 Dutch Jews killed in Polish concentration camps, which she described as a "small sampling." All the death camp victims, incorrectly listed in the Mormon database as dying in "Auschwitz, Germany," were posthumously baptized well after the 1995 agreement. Mormon leaders reaffirmed the 1995 pact in December 2002, after Radkey found at least 20,000 Jews in the church's International Genealogical Index. The church says proxy baptisms have been performed for nearly every one of the 400 million names in the database. "The Jews have to either accept what the Mormons are doing or take legal action," Radkey said. Michel's group asked Sen. Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) to intervene in the matter and the New York Democrat met last month with Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and LDS member, though neither side would comment on the session. The church directed its members after the 1995 agreement to not include the names of unrelated persons, celebrities and non-approved groups, such as Jewish Holocaust victims, for the baptisms, according to documentation the Mormon church provided Friday to The Associated Press. The church also assumes that the closest living relative of the deceased being offered for proxy baptism has consented. The pact, however, "did not guarantee that no future vicarious baptisms for deceased Jews would occur," according to church documents. In a Nov. 14, 2003, letter, church elder D. Todd Christofferson wrote Michel that the church did not agree to find and remove the names of all deceased Jews in its database of 400 million names. "That would be an impossible undertaking," Christofferson wrote. ___

To: lurqer who wrote (42082)	4/10/2004 11:16:36 AM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Iraqi leaders demand a cease-fire HAMZA HENDAWI BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a split between U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders and American administrators, the Governing Council demanded an immediate cease-fire across the country Friday and a halt to military operations that punish civilians. A Shiite member of the council also met with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is battling U.S.-led forces in the south, and announced he was suspending his membership in the Iraqi Governing Council until the "bleeding in all Iraq" ends. Another member, Ghazi al-Yawer, threatened to quit the council over the Marines' bloody siege of the city of Fallujah, aimed at uprooting Sunni insurgents. U.S. forces have been fighting a two-front battle this week -- against Sunni militants in Fallujah and al-Sadr's militia in the south -- that has killed more than 460 Iraqis and 45 Americans. Friday's halt in the Fallujah assault was requested by the council to allow for talks on reducing the violence, U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor said. But a top commander, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, insisted the talks "are not negotiations." Al-Yawer, a Sunni member of the council, and the representative of another Sunni member met Friday with city leaders in talks at a Marine base outside Fallujah, council member Mahmoud Othman told the Associated Press. Al-Yawer said that while he has not taken any formal steps, "I will quit (the council) if the problem is not solved peacefully, because God will not bless a position of power that does not benefit its people." "If negotiations fail because of the stubbornness of the American side or the failure to adhere to a cease-fire, I will quit 100 percent," he told Al-Jazeera television. The council's request for negotiations pointed to the eagerness of the Iraqi leaders to distance themselves from the assault, which has angered many Iraqis and become for some a symbol of resistance against the Americans. In a statement issued early today, the council demanded "an immediate cease fire" and political solutions for the "situations around the country, particularly in Fallujah." It also called for an end to the "military solution" and "collective punishment that falls on innocent civilians" -- a reference to the Fallujah siege. Shiite council member Abdul-Karim Mahoud al-Mohammedawi met Friday with al-Sadr, the cleric U.S. commanders have vowed to capture. "I will not go back to the council until we enter a constructive discussion about Iraq ... to achieve what the Iraqi people really want and to stop the bleeding in all Iraq," he told reporters outside al-Sadr's office in Najaf. One of the strongest pro-U.S. voices on the council, Adnan Pachachi, denounced the U.S. siege, launched after Sunni insurgents killed four U.S. contract workers. "These (U.S.) operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah," Pachachi told Al-Arabiya television. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal." chron.com lurqer