‘Ex-Jihadi” Baptist Seminary President Removed

Self-described Jihadi-turned-Christian evangelist Ergun Caner will not have his contract renewed as President of Baptist Liberty University Seminary. He was caught telling little white parables as Gospel truth.

Liberty U was founded by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, who also started the Moral Majority. He who selected Dr. Caner to head the seminary in 2005. The current LU Chancellor is Jerry Falwell, Jr., son of the founder; it was he who removed Dr. Caner from his post.

Ergun Caner claimed he was born into a strict Muslim family in Turkey, learned to hate America and Christians, and was instructed in jihad before his conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. Praise the Lord — except that Dr. Caner was born in Sweden, moved to Ohio when he was 4 years old; when his parents divorced, he lived with his mother, a Lutheran. He became an evangelical Christian as a teen, so perhaps that was the jihad he meant.

Palin School Speech

Former Temp-Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin delivered her long-awaited academic address at California State University at Stanislaus on Friday, raising $200,000 for a private foundation run by university employees. While the university’s books are open to the public, the foundation’s records are not. A bill before the state legislature seeks to correct that anomaly.

Ms. Palin entertained the $500-a-plate crowd by ridiculing the enterprising Stanislaus students who unearthed parts of her speaking contract in a campus dumpster. Sarah Palin would never have used such tactics at any of the five schools she attended in her six-year college career.

Judge Sold Exxon Stock 5 Hours Before Lifting Drilling Ban

Federal Judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman engaged in an oil spill cleanup of his own last week. Five hours before he rendered his decision blocking the six-month moratorium on deep-water Gulf oil drilling, Judge Feldman sold his personal holdings of Exxon Mobil stock. Exxon was not a party to the case under consideration but will directly benefit from the Judge’s action.

Judge Feldman may have lost a few dollars on the sale; he definitely lost much more in credibility. ”The judicial canons require that judges be aware of their investments,” wrote Steven Mufson and Joe Stephens in the Washington Post:

“Judicial ethicists said that, had he been aware of his holdings, Feldman should have disclosed the ownership or recused himself at the case’s outset if he thought it posed a conflict or raised questions about his impartiality. The court docket indicates that Feldman signed several orders before the sale.

“‘I’ve never heard of a situation like this,’ said Jeffrey M. Shaman, a judicial ethics specialist and law professor at DePaul University.

“The judge may have thought the stock did not create a substantial conflict, legal analysts said, but the fact that he apparently felt compelled to sell the stock and disclose it could be seen as indicating otherwise.

Fort Reno Concert Series

Get high in DC this summer – go to Fort Reno. The park is 429 feet above sea level, the highest point in the District. This season you can get high on music, too. Fort Reno Summer Concerts are on Mondays and Thursdays at 7PM to 9:30PM, starting June 28th with The Public Good, American Hearts, and Tiny Bombs. The outdoor concerts are free. Bring a blanket, balloons, picnics, glass bottles, soft drinks, alcohol, the family, drugs and friends.

Fort Reno was built in 1861 as part of Washington’s Civil War defenses. It guarded the Tenleytown Whole Foods or something like that — ask the kids from Wilson High School down the street; it was probably on the final exam. The Fort Reno Summer Concert Series has been a Tenleytown tradition for four decades, starting right after the Civil War, showcasing whatever they called loud, fast music back then (“Indy Rock” or “Reconstruction-Core,” maybe).

Fort Reno Concert Series
Mondays and Thursdays (weather permitting)
June 28 – August 12, 2010 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM
Fort Reno Park, Chesapeake Street and Nebraska Avenue, NW

Schedule  – Map

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

The 2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival begins today on the National Mall. The free event is a highlight of Washington’s summer. Dates: June 24 to 28 and July 1 to 5.

This year, visitors can experience the cultures of Mexico and the DC area’s Asian Pacific American communities and peek into the workings of the Smithsonian itself. There are special evening events, including this Saturday’s concert by Haitian artists Boukman Eksperyans and Tines Salvant (Saturday, June 26, 6PM). Be sure to pick up a program book and learn more about the people you meet and what you see, hear, and taste.

C Street Summer Fun

 

The organization behind Capitol Hill’s notorious C Street house has been sending conservative congressmen overseas to pray with foreign leaders, reports Paul Singer in Roll Call.  Since 2000, the Fellowship Foundation spent over $100,000 on 13 of these foreign prayer trips. More than half the money went to Alabama’s Robert Aderholt (R, AL-4), who took six trips to bring Jesus to leaders of countries like Sudan, Serbia, and Kazakhstan.  Other C Street trippers:  Reps. Mike Doyle (D, PA-14), Frank Wolf (R, VA-10) , Joe Pitts (R, PA-16) and John Carter (R, TX-31) and Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Both Senators have lived at the C Street house; Congressman Doyle still does.

Steve Eldridge Signs Off

DC radio veteran Steve Eldridge passed away last weekend, reports Dave Hughes at DCRTV.The radio veteran was 52, and succumbed to cancer. If you live in the Washington area, Steve Eldridge was a familiar, cheerful voice on your car radio, reporting transportation news for Metro Networks and WTOP. 

Comment on DCRTV:

“I worked with Steve Eldridge at his final job, preparing NBC Radio newscasts in the evening, and I saw firsthand Steve’s courage and good spirits despite incredible suffering. We should all hope to meet our end with half the grace.”

– Jim Bohannon, Westwood One

Services are today in Gaithersburg.

 

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Louisiana Judge Deep Into Offshore Oil

Federal Judge Martin L.C. Feldman blocked President Obama’s six month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Feldman knows lots about offshore drilling: he invests in it.

According to his last financial disclosure form, Reagan appointee Martin Feldman owns shares in Deepwater owner/operator Transocean and drilling service providers Parker Drilling and Rowan Companies, Inc. as well as offshore developer ATP Oil & Gas Corporation. During the report period, Judge Feldman cashed in his shares in Deepwater Horizon contractor Halliburton and Hercules Offshore.

“If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are?” wrote Judge Feldman. Obviously, the judge has not invested in Cameron International Corp., the company that manufactured the Blowout Prevention Valves on the Deepwater Horizon.

U.S. Funds Afghan Warlords

A new Congressional report outlines U.S. protection payoffs to Afghan warlords. Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan was just issued by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, chaired by Rep. John Tierney (D, MA-6). The subcommittee will hold hearings on the topic today.

Truck convoys supply Forward Operating Bases throughout Afghanistan under DOD’s $2 billion Host Nation Trucking (HNT) program, and the contractors are responsible for providing their own security. They end up “hiring” the warlords and insurgents who would be prone to attacking them.

BP Cooks!

Keep your skillet good and greasy with BP. The oil giant has recipes for disaster mighty good eatin.’ Read “The BP ‘I Hate to Clean Up’ Cookbook” by Patricia Marx in The New Yorker.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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