News

FBI investigating public school teacher for supporting terrorism

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From the radically leftist Minneapolis Star Tribune. (H/T Verum Serum via Power Line)

Excerpt:

The homes of five Twin Cities activists, including three prominent leaders of the Twin Cities antiwar movement, were raided Friday by the FBI in what an agency spokesman described as an “investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.” The office of an antiwar organization also was reportedly raided…

Among the homes raided were the apartments of Jessica Sundin, who was a principal leader of the mass antiwar march of 10,000 on the opening day of the Republican National Convention two years ago, and Mick Kelly, who was prominent in that protest and among those who announced plans to march on the Democratic National Convention in Minneapolis, if the city is selected to host it in 2012. Neither has been arrested.

A raid was also conducted on the home of Meredith Aby, another local antiwar leader who was frequently the spokeswoman for the march on the GOP convention.

But Morgen at Verum Serum has a lot more.

Excerpt:

The other thing I wanted to point out, which is really the headline here, is that Meredith Aby, the activist named in the last paragraph above, is actually a public high school teacher in Bloomington, MN. Her official school web site is here (and another one here). Not surprisingly she is a social studies teacher.

Aby is apparently a long-time leader of the anti-war movement in Minnesota, with her activism centered around an organization called the Anti-War Committee. While I think most people would agree that this alone should not preclude her from teaching young people, I think it does raise legitimate concerns about her objectivity. Especially given that the courses she teaches include US Government, Civics, and World History.

More troubling, Aby is apparently also quite active in promoting her political beliefs, which lean about as far left as you can get. She is a frequent contributor on Fight Back! News, the media arm of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and has been a speaker at numerous events organized by other overtly socialist groups, including the new incarnation of the SDS (Bill Ayers’ old group).

In short, she’s a commie. And unless Minnesota is more “progressive” than I realize, I can’t imagine there are very many parents who would be comfortable with her teaching their children about world history and political philosophy.

Here’s a little bit about her from one of her web sites:

Meredith Aby grew up in Worthington, Minnesota (the turkey capital of the world!). She graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota with a degree in history, women’s studies, and Spanish. She is the head debate coach at Jefferson and has coached speech at Jefferson and at Kennedy. Aby teaches debate, philosophy, civics, world history, U.S. government, and AP U.S. government. She has been teaching in Bloomington Public Schools since 1997 and is the proud mother of the cutest baby in the world!

No mention of a husband there.

Can you imagine entrusting your children to a left-wing radical like this? And letting her have the power of grading them based on their agreement and compliance with her value system? Yet we have to fund these government schools whether we like it or not – they’re paid for with taxpayer money.

Podcasts

William Lane Craig lectures on failure in the Christian life

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I found this audio on Brian Auten’s Apologetics 315 web site.

Here is the MP3 file.

Here is the video.

And here is my summary.

Intro:

  • the topic of failure is not one that is often discussed by Christians
  • failure #1: failure in the Christian life which is the result of sin
  • failure #2: when a Christian is defeated while trying to serve God
  • the consequences for failure #1 can be worse for the Christian
  • the consequences for failure #2 can be worse for the world as whole
  • how is it possible for a person to fail when they are obeying God? (#2)
  • how can it be that God can call someone to a task then let them fail?
  • failure is not persecution – persecution is normal for Christians
  • failure is not trials – testing is normal for Christians to grow

Bill’s failure:

  • Bill had submitted all the coursework for his second doctoral degree
  • but he had to pass a comprehensive oral examination
  • he failed to pass the comprehensive exam
  • Bill and Jan and his supporters had all prayed for him to pass
  • how could God allow this to happen?

Solution to the problem:

  • God’s will for us may be that we fail at the things we try in life
  • there are things that God may teach us through failure
  • Bill learned that human relationships are more important than careers
  • we need to realize that “success” in life is not worldly success
  • true success is getting to know God well during your life
  • and failure may be the best way to get to know God well
  • it may even be possible to fail to know God while achieving a lot
  • the real measure of a man is loving God and loving your fellow man

Practical:

  • give thanks to God regardless of your circumstances
  • try to learn from your failure
  • never give up

The ending of Bill’s story:

  • Bill spent an entire year preparing for a re-take of his exam
  • Bill was awarded his second doctorate “magna cum laude” (with great distinction)
  • Bill learned that American students are not well prepared for exams
  • the year of studying remedied his inadequate American education
  • in retrospect, he is thankful for the failure – he learned more

If you like this, you should pick up Craig’s book “No Easy Answers”.

News

Tea Party uncovers massive voter fraud in Houston

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Story from Fox News. (H/T The Blog Prof, Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

When Catherine Engelbrecht and her friends sat down and started talking politics several years ago, they soon agreed that talking wasn’t enough. They wanted to do more. So when the 2008 election came around, “about 50” of her friends volunteered to work at Houston’s polling places.

“What we saw shocked us,” she said. “There was no one checking IDs, judges would vote for people that asked for help. It was fraud, and we watched like deer in the headlights.”

Their shared experience, she says, created “True the Vote,” a citizen-based grassroots organization that began collecting publicly available voting data to prove that what they saw in their day at the polls was, indeed, happening — and that it was happening everywhere.

“It was a true Tea Party moment,” she remembers.

Like most voter watchdog groups, she said, her group started small. They decided to investigate voting fraud in general, not just at the polling places, and at first they weren’t even sure what to look for — and where to look for it.

“The first thing we started to do was look at houses with more than six voters in them” Engelbrecht said, because those houses were the most likely to have fraudulent registrations attached to them. “Most voting districts had 1,800 if they were Republican and 2,400 of these houses if they were Democratic . . .

“But we came across one with 24,000, and that was where we started looking.”

Click through to find out who was responsible for the voter fraud. Ot is it called “community organizing” now?