On Fire...

The state of Oklahoma is up in flames again today. The picture was taken at night by the Channel 9 television crew from the last big wildfire breakout that we had.

While I was driving to class that awful sounding alert 'thingy' broke in on the radio. It was a warning and an evacuation alert for Lincoln County.

As the emergency alert system message stated, "...an out-of-control fire in Lincoln County... persons near Highway 18 and 18b are advised to evacuate."

It was kind of unnerving to hear the emergency message come across the radio like that. I don't recall the last time I have heard an emergency message. With all the television stations tracking the tornadoes, I don't guess there has been any reason to send out any alerts.

Shortly thereafter, Carrie called me on my cell. She asked me if I knew about the fire and where it was. I could hear the anxiousness in her voice.

She asked, "Is it close to us?"

"No, it isn't close to us. We're okay."

And so we are. We're okay.



Chris Christner's blog has a link to a story about a Beaumont, Texas, man who has made a sign of one of the Mohammed cartoons and stuck it in his front yard.

As reported by the Beaumont Enterprise, Mr. John Caffery has pretty much had his fill of the Muslim's rioting and murdering over the controversy. He also called the American press cowards.

"It's not that I'm anti-Islam," he said. "It's that I'm anti-anybody who says you have to do as they insist or they're going to kill you."

Sounds logical to me.


Here's part of the response by the local Imam guy:

Imam Muhammad Humayun, a spiritual leader of Beaumont's Islamic Society of the Triplex, said the worldwide protestors, the cartoonist who created the images and the newspapers who published the drawings all have their rights.

But publishing the cartoons was irresponsible, he said. So, too, is putting up upsetting images, and therefore he didn't even discuss the cartoons in religious meetings, he said.


There was a little excitement at the University of California.

A student panel discussion that included a display of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons descended into chaos, with one speaker calling Islam an "evil religion" and audience members nearly coming to blows.

Organizers of Tuesday night's forum at the University of California, Irvine, said they showed the cartoons as part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism.

But several hundred protesters, including members of the Muslim Student Union, argued the event was the equivalent of hate speech disguised as freedom of expression.

Although there were numerous heated exchanges, no violence was reported.



I'm still waiting on the 'local-American' Islamic folks to stand up and say:

"The Islamic rioters are wrong to burn, kill, and destroy."

But I'm still not hearing that.

Don't they understand that their silence condones the violence?

They probably do and so, in their silence, they are lending their support.



Are there any sane Muslims out there?

I guess there's only a snowball's chance in ...

Well...

...you know what I mean.

later...