FOX43tv.com

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president, delivering a message to the Muslim world that "Americans are not your enemy."
The interview underscored Obama's commitment to repair relations with the Muslim world that have suffered under the previous administration.
The president expressed an intention to engage the Middle East immediately and his new envoy to the region, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, was expected to arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama told the Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel.
Obama said the U.S. had made mistakes in the past but "that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."
During his presidency, former President George W. Bush gave several interviews to Al-Arabiya but the wars he launched in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a massive backlash against the U.S. in the Muslim world.
Al-Arabiya has scored interviews with top U.S. officials in the past, including Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The Saudi-owned channel is seen by some in Washington as more balanced in its coverage than its Qatar-funded rival Al-Jazeera, which the previous White House administration complained had an anti-American bias.
Obama called for a new partnership with the Muslim world "based on mutual respect and mutual interest." He talked about growing up in Indonesia, the Muslim world's most populous nation, and noted that he has Muslim relatives.
The new president said he felt it was important to "get engaged right away" in the Middle East and had directed Mitchell to talk to "all the major parties involved." His administration would craft an approach after that, he said in the interview.
"What I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating," Obama told the interviewer.
The president reiterated the U.S. commitment to Israel as an ally and to its right to defend itself. But he suggested that both Israel and the Palestinians have hard choices to make.
"I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people," he said, calling for a Palestinian state that is contiguous with internal freedom of movement and can trade with neighboring countries.
Obama also said that recent statements and messages issued by the al-Qaida terror network suggest they do not know how to deal with his new approach.
"They seem nervous," he told the interviewer. "What that tells me is that their ideas are bankrupt."
In his latest message on Jan. 14, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden said Obama had been left with a "heavy inheritance" of Bush's wars.
Shortly after the election, the network's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri used a demeaning racial term for a black American who does the bidding of whites to describe Obama.
The message suggested the terror network was worried Obama could undermine its rallying cry that the U.S. is an enemy oppressor.

1. The earliest Spring in US history has arrived

2. A sculpture of President Obama has magically appeared on Mount Rushmore

3. Obama has started the first real full-time job in his life (He was a part-time state legislator, part-time law professor, and part-time US Senator when he wasn’t running for President-Don’t mention his “community organizing” job-trust me-you don’t want to go there.)

4. There is now nothing above Obama’s pay grade

5. I have decided to support Obama, but not his presidency. (I’m an Iraqi war vet-If the liberals can support me but not my mission, then I can support Obama but not his mission)

6. Michelle Obama is proud of her country for the second time in her adult life

7. Al Sharpton is no longer the spokesman for Black America (this one is for real, fortunately)

8. Obama has devised a clever plan to get Hillary out of the country (this one is for real too)

9. People in wheelchairs who make eye contact with Obama can now walk

10. The US tax code has been simplified enough that Obama’s own appointees can now understand it and pay their taxes

11. The plumbing problem under my sink that I was afraid to call a plumber about and hoping it would fix itself, has fixed itself

12. My chronic shyness has disappeared

13. Governor Blago has become ethical

14. The obnoxious ShamWow guy is off my television set

15. White guilt in America has disappeared. I am free at last to be a typical white person.

16. Chuck Norris has cried for the first time ever

17. New Orleans has finished rebuilding. But they still have a dumb mayor. Obama is working on this.

18. Brett Favre has retired sparing us from another teary-eyed news conferences from a grown man (I can only hope)

19. Never before seen home movie footage of Paris Hilton has been found

20. The magic force fields created by the Gun-Free Zone signs around our schools have started to work

21. Dick Cheney has returned to the 9th level of Hell

22. Left wing protestors have started looking for gainful employment

23. Cigarettes and second-hand smoke no longer cause cancer

24. The Obama’s have found a church that isn’t Afro-Leninist and prejudiced

25. Obama has kicked the Detroit Lions out of the NFL

Hey! It’s my turn to sit in the front pew.
I was so enthralled, I never noticed your sermon went 25 minutes over time.
Personally I find witnessing much more enjoyable than golf.
I’ve decided to give our church the $500 a month I used to send to TV evangelists.
I volunteer to be the permanent teacher for the Junior High Sunday School class.
Forget the denominational minimum salary, let’s pay our pastor so he can live like we do.
I love it when we sing hymns I’ve never heard before!
Since we’re all here, let’s start the service early.
Pastor, we’d like to send you to this Bible seminar in the Bahamas.
Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commitment like our annual stewardship campaign!

:)

;)

how NOT tot talk to a cop - CLICK ME

"She Wasn't Driving Like a Christian," Says Driver Who Rammed Car

A driver who rammed another car at high speed outside San Antonio last week told police that Jesus had told him to do so because the other motorist was not "driving like a Christian."

In my experience, He is usually satisfied if you just give a lousy driver the finger, but in this case I guess that wouldn't have gotten the message across.

According to a news release from the county sheriff's office, the driver told first responders that the driver of the other vehicle "was not driving like a Christian and it was Jesus' will for him to punish the car." He similarly told a policeman that "God said she wasn't driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road." The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

The man claimed he had reached 100 mph before hitting the other car with his pickup, although it doesn't seem that police were able to confirm that. The two cars did end up in the median and were heavily damaged, but the fact that neither driver was seriously injured suggests that the man might have been exaggerating. On the other hand, it was a rear-end collision, so the effective closing speed might have been much less.

A police lieutenant had a different explanation for why there were no injuries. "God must have been with them," he said, "because any other time, the severity of this crash, it would have been a fatal [crash]." Well, we know God was with at least one of them, but maybe He really was trying to help rather than holding down the gas pedal.

The man did not say what the other driver had allegedly been doing that caused him to smite her.

Pa. man considered bank error ‘a gift from God’
Bank error put more than $175,000 in couple's account; pair moved to Fla.

from the AP wire

BLOOMSBURG, Pa. - A Pennsylvania man said he considered it divine providence when a bank error put more than $175,000 in his and his wife's account.

Fifty-year-old Randy Pratt and 36-year-old Melissa Pratt face trial in Columbia County Court on felony theft and conspiracy charges. They waived a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

The trouble started when a $1,772.50 deposit to the Pratts' FNB Bank account showed up as $177,250 last summer. Police say that instead of telling the bank, they withdrew the money, quit their jobs and moved to Florida.

They were buying a house in the Orlando area when the mistake was traced.

Randy Pratt told the Bloomsburg Press Enterprise he did attempt to ask the bank what happened, but was ignored. He said he considered the money "a gift from God."

The couple gave away thousands of dollars, including $25,000 to a Florida church shelter for the homeless, he said.

Randy Pratt remained in county prison. A judge denied a request to lower his $100,000 bail. Melissa Pratt, who told the court she was estranged from her husband, was free on unsecured bail.

He might not want to remember this photo

It shows him in 2003 at a St. Patrick's Day parade, brandishing a plunger—and it will be on display during his inaugural parade

Before he was even a senator, let alone president-elect, then-unknown Barack Obama was, at a 2003 St. Patrick's Day parade, a plunger wrangler. (Photo courtesy Mats Selen)

Take that, Joe the Plumber: Here's evidence that the soon-to-be leader of the free world knows his way around a plunger.

This very unpresidential photo of Barack Obama, blown up to poster size, will be rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday along with the most unorthodox participants of the inaugural parade: the World Famous Lawn Rangers, a 28-year-old Central Illinois-based precision lawn mower drill team.

"We are the whoopee cushion of the parade," declared Ranger veteran Tom Bruno, a member of the Champaign City Council.

Obama met the Rangers in 2003 at Chicago's St. Patrick's Day Parade when he was just launching his bid for the U.S. Senate. As they joked around, the little-known candidate grabbed one of the plungers that Ranger leaders use in lieu of batons. Ranger Mats Selen, a University of Illinois physics professor, snapped a picture, which everybody promptly forgot about until Obama was elected plunger-carrier-in-chief.

Then, on a lark, Ranger founder Pat Monahan of Arcola applied to march in the inaugural parade, and somebody on the parade committee apparently had a sense of whimsy.

The 48-mower contingent will include one topped with a 5-foot replica of the Washington Monument, another with a well-endowed mannequin wearing a T-shirt declaring "D.C. or bust," and another called "Obama the self-starter." It features two hands emerging from the mower and grabbing the starter rope.

The group, which calls the new president "Mow-Bama," is selling the photo on T-shirts, aprons and the like at www.zazzle.com/tombruno.
Also available is kitsch with the Ranger inaugural credo: "Bringing dignity back to Washington."

It's ironic that Barack Obama chooses to infuse these opening days of his presidency with the imagery of Abraham Lincoln.

I don't think there could be two more different men. Understanding why may help us think about what to expect in the days ahead.

Beyond his trademark "change we can believe in," Obama's defining theme has been unity and inclusiveness. "...There's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America....We worship an awesome God in the Blue States...and have gay friends in the Red States."

Obama, of course, does not suggest that we don't have differences. His point is that those differences are not critically important and they're getting in our way. Let's put differences aside, get practical, and solve our problems.

The inaugural ceremonies have pastors for everyone. A white evangelical that opposes same-sex marriage, a white homosexual, a left-wing black male, and a left-wing black female.

His economic stimulus plan has large government expenditures to please Democrats and tax benefits to please Republicans.

Lincoln, too, sought unity. But Lincoln's notion of where national unity would lie was far different from Obama's.

He prophetically stated the challenge after accepting the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1858.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved. I do not expect the House to fall. But I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

As historian Harry Jaffa points out, "For Lincoln, as for Jefferson and for all genuine supporters of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the distinction between right and wrong is antecedent to any form of government and is independent of any man's or any majority's will."

Lincoln knew that some principles are so fundamental they cannot be compromised. He knew that we couldn't ignore our key differences. Unity could only come from facing them and making the hard choices.

He knew that even though there were competing religious claims on the issue of slavery -- some found biblical sanction in it -- we would still have to choose and decide who we are.

As Americans killed each other, he observed: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God....The prayers of both could not be answered...."

We have many Americans today who read the same Bible but see the truths that define this country very differently. And, of course, we have Americans who do not see the Bible as relevant to those truths at all and those who would claim that there are no truths.

As Lincoln observed, the prayers of all cannot be answered. Unless we're resigned to meaninglessness, we must believe that our future will reflect today's choices.

On the hardest moral dilemma of his day, Abraham Lincoln stepped up to the plate and took a stand. He did not say that it was above his pay grade. And this is what makes Abraham Lincoln very different from Barack Obama.

Each time has its challenges. Americans feel betrayed by what they see as unethical behavior in American business and in Washington. Yet few seem to appreciate that moral problems lie at the root of our faltering economy.

Sanctity of life and sanctity of property are cut from the same cloth of eternal law.

In the view of many, including me, it's this law that defines our free country.

Our new president, who sanctions both abortion and massive government intrusion into our economic lives, sees things very differently.

So let's not pretend these fundamental differences don't matter. How we choose will define our future. As Lincoln said, the nation "will become all one thing, or all the other."

from ABCNews

Obama's Inauguration Has Been Financed Partially by Bailed-Out Wall Street Executives

The country is in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, which isn't stopping rich donors and the government from spending $170 million, or more, on the inauguration of Barack Obama .

The actual swearing-in ceremony will cost $1.24 million, according to Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

It's the security, parties and countless Porta-a-Potty rentals that really run up the bill.

The federal government estimates that it will spend roughly $49 million on the inaugural weekend. Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland have requested another $75 million from the federal government to help pay for their share of police, fire and medical services.

And then there is the party bill.

"We have a budget of roughly $45 million, maybe a little bit more," said Linda Douglas, spokeswoman for the inaugural committee.

That's more than the $42.3 million in private funds spent by President Bush's committee in 2005 or the $33 million spent for Bill Clinton's first inaugural in 1993.

Douglas said that this will be the "most open and accessible inauguration in history," with members of the general public able to participate on a greater scale than ever before.

"The money is going toward providing events which we hope are going to connect people, make them feel like we are all in this together and reinforce the notion that when we pull together, we're stronger," Douglas said. "And we need to pull together to face the challenges that are before us today."

Among the expenses: a Bruce Springsteen concert, the parade, large-screen TV rentals for all-free viewing on the national Mall, $700,000 to the Smithsonian Institution to stay open and, of course, the balls, including three that are being pitched as free or low cost for the public.

But there are plenty of rich donors willing to pick up the tab.

"They are not the $20 and $50 donors who helped propel Obama through Election Day," said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. "These are people giving mostly $50,000 apiece. They tend to be corporate executives, celebrities, the elite of the elite."

Best Seats in the House

The biggest group of donors were none other than the recently bailed-out Wall Street executives and employees.

"The finance sector is well represented, despite its recent troubles," Ritsch said. "Those who worked in finance still managed to pull together nearly $7 million for the inauguration."

The donors will get some of the best seats in the house for the inauguration, as well as admittance to some of the best balls and other events.

"I don't think that they're going to get a whole lot of face time with the new president himself," Ritsch said, "but they are certainly establishing themselves from day one as his biggest financial supporters. And if there's something they need or to tell him down the road, they will have an easier time doing that than everyone else."

Besides Wall Street firms, a large chunk of the money came from employees at companies such as Microsoft, Google and DreamWorks Animation, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer and his wife, Connie, each gave $50,000. So did Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and his wife, Marilyn, each gave $50,000. Filmmaker and DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate, both also gave $50,000. And DreamWorks employees gave a total of $275,000.

Billionaire investor George Soros and his family contributed $250,000 to the inauguration, and Google co-founder Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt each donated $25,000.

Other big-name donors who gave $50,000 include filmmaker George Lucas, artist Dale Chihuly, Los Angeles Dodgers President Jamie McCourt. Citigroup managing director Raymond J. McGuire; Oracle President Charles E. Phillips Jr.; actresses Halle Berry and Sharon Stone; and Melvin Simon, co-founder of Simon Property Group, the largest mall owner in the United States.

Despite all the donations, Obama's team has made donations much more restrictive than in the past.

Obama capped donations at $50,000 per person, which is still more than 10 times what individuals could give to his campaign, but a lot less than the $250,000 cap President Bush had at his last inauguration. Contributions from corporations, labor unions, political action committees and registered lobbyists are not being accepted by Obama.

The Real Money

For Bill Clinton's second inaugural in 1997, contributions were capped to $100. But that committee had some leftover money from the previous inauguration and charged people up to $3,000 for inaugural tickets.

"We have the broadest fundraising restrictions in inaugural history," Douglas said.

The inauguration team is also posting all donations of $200 or more on the Internet almost as quickly as they are coming in. The law only requires it to disclose the information 90 days after the actual swearing-in.

"The transparency of this inaugural fundraising effort is unprecedented as far as we can remember," Ritsch said. "We see that as a positive step and hope it's an indication that President Obama will use technology to make government more responsive and transparent to people."

That's all the play money. The bulk of cash will actually be spent on security and logistics.

In a letter to members of Congress, the governors of Maryland and Virginia, and the mayor of Washington said that their combined costs could exceed $75 million. That's on top of the $49 million the federal government is spending, again mostly for security.

"The historical significance of inaugurating the first African-American president of the United States alone makes the event unprecedented," they wrote. "Given its political significance, we expect that the event will be attended by hundreds, if not thousands, of elected U.S. government officials and foreign dignitaries. Turnout by the general public for the swearing-in ceremony alone is likely to exceed 2 million. Transportation officials estimate that roughly 10,000 charter buses will enter the District with approximately 500,000 riders alone, a number which nearly matches the city's population."

The emergency managers for the three jurisdictions said they expect this to be the most complex and challenging inaugural in history.

"The mass of attendees expected will challenge fire, law enforcement, emergency medical and mass transit capabilities," the governors and mayor wrote. "Moreover, the high volume of buses/traffic, weather factor and other threats will create additional demands."