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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

On Thursday and Friday, I'll be with my family celebrating Christmas, so we've got a special gift for you, we'll be playing your favorite Christmas music here on KKLA commercial-free instead of the Frank Pastore Show, thanks to Mortgage Restructuring Solutions and America's Christian Credit Union.  But, I'll be back on Monday, till then, Merry Christmas!
400-408 Rodney Stark, is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University and Co-Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion (ISReligion.com), he's the author of 30 books, including his excellent The Victory of Reason, and he's out with his latest, entitled God's Battalions: The Case For the Crusades (rodneystark.com).  The prevailing wisdom is that "during the Crusades, an expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam."  However, in God's Battalions, Stark deconstructs longstanding misconceptions about the Crusades, and provides the historical backdrop to what precipitated them–the Islamic conquests of the seventh century following Mohammed's death in AD532, the forced conversions of millions of Christians and Jews, and the technological advances these converted millions brought to their Muslim rulers.  In the book, Stark defends three primary claims:  1) The Crusades (there were seven between 1095-1248) were not unprovoked attacks led by the nobility seeking material gain; 2) Pope Urban II did not initiate the Crusades in an attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity; and 3) Christian Crusaders did not brutalize a tolerant, advanced, and blameless Muslim culture.  Bottom line, the Crusades were a "just war."

413-423Rodney Stark

428-437Hormoz Shariot, "the Billy Graham of Iran," he is the founder of Iran Alive Ministries (iranaliveministries.org) he founded the Iranian Christian Church in 1987 which has grown to five churches and over 400 members – all converts from Islam, and he's the host of ICTV, a Christian call-in show in Farsi, beamed into Iran via satellite.  In 1979, he was in the streets of Iran chanting "Death to America" as a good radical Muslim, then he came to USC to get a Ph.D. in computer engineering.  He was spiritually empty, with a divorce imminent, and he reads the Koran one more time, not getting any direction.  Then he read the Gospel of Matthew and was confronted with the person of Jesus.  As a result, he came to faith in Christ at Church of the Open Door here in LA.  He's happily married, and lives in the Bay Area, with his three children.  Today, Iran has a population of 70 million, and 70% of the them are under the age of 30.
• Fox News (12/23/09) Iran Police in Fierce Clashes With Cleric Mourners.  The spiritual leader of the Iranian reformist movement, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, died on Sunday, and thousands braved state persecution to mourn him in Isfahan, 200 miles southeast of Tehran.  Unrest continues after opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's questionable defeat by Ahmadinejad in June.
• Nina Shea, NRO (12/23/09) The Middle East's Embattled Christians: Christians struggling to survive in hostile lands deserve all the help we can give them.  She highlights three men making a difference.  1) Habib Malik, a lay Roman Catholic, director of the Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights–Lebanon.  2) Bishop Thomas of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church.  And 3) Canon Andrew White, the Anglican priest of St. George's Church in Baghdad, Iraq.
438 [2:00] Let's check in now with the pros over at Applied Financial Planning, "The Money Guys" Robert Micone and Bill O'Connor at 866-SEEK-COUNSEL.  (1) "I understand you're getting a lot of calls regarding the one-time Roth Conversion opportunity for 2010... tell us about it." 401K and IRA.  (2) "Do you have to pay the tax now?"  (3) "How can the listeners find out if they qualify for this program?" –– Get the independent, unbiased advice you're seeking on your investments & retirement planning from the pros in the investment world here in Southern California for decades, "The Money Guys" – Robert Micone & Bill O'Connor – at Applied Financial Planning, by calling 866-SEEK-COUNSEL or visiting them on the web at SeekCounsel.com.

443-452 Hormoz Shariot.

458-508Jeff Vines, senior pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley in San Dimas (ccvnow.com), and author of Dinner with Skeptics:  Defending God In A World That Makes No Sense.  We talk about his current series, "Spiritual Winter," and Jeff shares the story of his mother.

512-523 Jeff Vines

528-538Jeff Vines

544-554 – • Natalie Regoli (12/3/08) The Top Selling Toys of All-Time By Decade: Which One Was Your Favorite?

• Breitbart (12/23/09) Balloon boy parents get jail time, tough probation. Judge sentences balloon boy's father to 90 days in jail, mother to 20 days; both banned from receiving money from media regarding hoax.
558-608Rodney Stark,

612-623Rodney Stark,

628-638Hormoz Shariot,
644-652Hormoz Shariot,
• Richard A. Epstein, WSJ (12/22/09) Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility: The health bill creates a massive cash crunch and then bankruptcies for many insurers. Mr. Epstein is a professor of law at the University of Chicago and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. This article is based on a longer study released by the Manhattan Institute at www.medicalprogresstoday.com.
• Randy Barnett, Nathaniel Stewart And Todd F. Gaziano, Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum #49 (12/23/09) Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional: A legal analysis of the interstate commerce clause and the Supreme Court's most expansive precedents. Mr. Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Stewart is a lawyer at the firm of White & Case, LLP. Mr. Gaziano is the Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.


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