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ABC is reporting that an authentic ancient text, apparently the Gospel according to Judas, has been found.
...the final test of authenticity meant taking a radical step -- destroying tiny pieces of the document to carbon date it.
"I will have to burn the Gospel of Judas in order to be able to date it," said Timothy Jull, a carbon-dating expert at the University of Arizona's physics center.
Fifteen hours later, he had a final answer. The text was real. The Gospel according to Judas, written between the third and fourth century, was believed to be a copy of a much older document written in Greek in the second century.
"Radio carbon dating of the papyrus from the Gospel of Judas confirms that it's from the third to the fourth century A.D.," Jull said, "and this supports the authenticity of the Gospel of Judas."
It appears that in the document Judas says Jesus asked Judas to betray him.
So what is in the Gospel of Judas? It is a dialogue that claims to be a conversation between Jesus and Judas in which Jesus asks Judas to betray him.
"Judas has the terrible task of taking it upon himself to turn him over to the authorities for this reason," Pagels said. "Now, the Gospel of Judas also has Judas say to Jesus in fear and terror that he has a dream that the other disciples will hate him and will stone him to death, will attack him.
"And Jesus says, 'Yes, in fact, they will think that you are a terrible person because of what you did. This is part of the burden that you bear. But they will be wrong about that.' So it is an extraordinary transformation of the ordinary understanding of Judas Iscariot."
Well, what else would you expect Judas to say in his account of what happened? Of course he's going to make up some story in which he's blameless and he's right and everybody else is wrong. According to Judas, who presents himself as being the best friend of Jesus, Jesus faked out all the other apostles and everybody on earth in a way that just happened to make Judas look like a villain.
Yeah, right.
If this is really the written word of Judas, by this scurrilous portrayal of Jesus, Judas has attempted to betray Jesus a second time.
But this discovery appears to be additional evidence that Jesus really lived and that the events described in the Gospels really took place.
Immigration Legislation Compromise Announced:
Compromise Struck Last Evening; Deal Has Bush Support
...Under the agreement, the Senate would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove -- through work stubs, utility bills or other documents -- that they have been in the country for five years. To attain citizenship, those immigrants would have to pay a $2,000 penalty, back taxes, learn English, undergo a criminal background check and remain working for 11 years.
Those who have been here a shorter time would have to return to one of 16 designated ports of entry, such as El Paso, Tex., and apply for a new form of temporary work visa for low-skilled and unskilled workers. An additional provision would disqualify illegal immigrants who have been in the country less than two years.
This sounds acceptable, as a way of dealing with the illegal immigrants who are already here. I particularly like its provisions that support assimilation: to attain citizenship, immigrants must pay "back taxes, learn English, undergo a criminal background check and remain working for 11 years."
But it's only half of the answer.
We can't permit illegal aliens to continue flooding into this country; we must control the borders.
Yesterday, Bush demanded "a bill that will help us secure our borders, a bill that will cause the people in the interior of this country to recognize and enforce the law, and a bill that will include a guest-worker provision that will enable us to more secure the border, will recognize that there are people here working hard for jobs Americans won't do, and a guest-worker provision that is not amnesty, one that provides for automatic citizenship."
Per Dick Morris, writing last week:
One must separately consider the three key elements of immigration reform under discussion: The border fence, the guest-worker program and the criminalization of illegal aliens and those who employ them.
The GOP base wants a fence. It is vital to the entire concept of whether or not we can control our borders. All efforts to beef up manpower on the border have failed to stem the daily flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico. A fence is the only way to do it. By backing a fence and demonstrably taking control of our southern border, the Republican Party will appease the demands of its base.
But to prevent disaster among Latino voters, it must accompany the fence with a more liberal policy on guest workers and criminalization.
Simply put, the fence must have a gate that swings open for immigrants we want and need. To avoid permanently antagonizing our southern neighbors and to keep the labor supply on which so much of American business and prosperity depend, we need a guest-worker program.
It looks like we've got the guest-worker program. Now we need the fence.
According to a Reuters headline:
But if you read the article, all McKinney said was this:
"I am sorry that misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize," the Georgia Democrat said in a short speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
That's not much of an apology. She hit a cop. Where's the misunderstanding? Did she misunderstand that Black people have to abide by the laws of the land like everybody else?
Where's her apology for hitting a police officer that was trying to protect the lives of our elected officials?
Presumably lots of Libs today are trying to figure out if they can make a big fuss about this:
Pentagon finds wrongly collected surveillance data
WASHINGTON (AP) - As many as 260 reports in a classified Defense Department database on suspicious people or activities were improperly collected or kept there, the Pentagon said Wednesday in a review that also found the system to be a valuable tool in terrorism investigations.
The review was ordered last December after reports that the database collected information on anti-war groups and U.S. citizens - prompting members of Congress and others to raise questions about possible domestic spying.
I suppose all the Libs are scratching their heads trying to see if they can do their usual three-ring-circus act based on this, and accuse the U.S. of all manner of wrongdoing.
But any large organization is going to make mistakes. People are rarely perfect in every single action they do, regardless of party, creed, purpose of their organization, or anything else.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there are about 13,000 entries in the database, and that less than 2% either were wrongly added or were not purged later when they were determined not to be real threats.
The Lib view that any error of any kind is some sort of reprehensible action is is nonsensical.
