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      August 17, 2008

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    It’s a Great Vindication

 

   

Joel and Victoria Osteen celebrates God's goodness by testimony, song, and praise on Sunday with 42,000 attending. After a full service of worship, every believer realized their own victories through God's promises. The wife of televangelist Joel Osteen thanked and praised God after a jury unanimously decided Thursday that she did not assault a flight attendant during an alleged tirade over a stain on her first-class seat. Jurors rejected Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown’s claims that Victoria Osteen threw her against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the left breast while attempting to rush the cockpit because she was angry that a stain on her seat’s armrest was not quickly cleaned up. Victoria Osteen began to cry after the jury’s verdict was read. She hugged her attorneys and several supporters in the courtroom as she said “thank you God” and “praise God.” The 12 jurors deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours. “I’m glad it’s over,” Victoria Osteen said afterward. “I expected it because it’s the truth and I know the truth always stands firm.” Joel Osteen said he and his family hold no ill will toward Brown. “It’s a great vindication and shows us the faithfulness of God,” he said. Brown was suing for at least $405,000 for physical and mental pain suffered as a result of the attack she alleged had occurred before takeoff aboard a December 2005 flight from Houston to Vail, Colo.  Victoria Osteen, the co-pastor of Houston’s popular Lakewood Church, testified that the alleged assault never happened, as did her husband and other first-class passengers. Victoria Osteen’s lawyer dismissed Brown’s lawsuit as a made-up story concocted to land a courtroom payday.

 
   
 
         
AVERAGE AGE OF STARTER PROSTITUTES quick reading of the measure that will go before San Francisco voters in November to decriminalize prostitution easily could leave you with the misimpression that the measure is an exercise in fairness that demands that prosecutors go after men who abuse prostitutes and implement policies "to reduce institutional violence and discrimination against prostitutes." A careful reading of the initiative, "Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers," however, shows a measure that shields child prostitution and traffickers of human beings. "If I had just heard from the proponents, I would probably vote for it myself," said the Rev. Glenda Hope, whose San Francisco Network Ministries helped found the Tenderloin AIDS Resource, in the mistaken belief the measure is meant "to protect women." But as the executive director of SafeHouse, a residential center that helps women get off the streets, Hope knows too much. Hope knows that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14. The office of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who opposes the initiative, has encountered prostituted children as young as 9 years old. Yet the San Francisco ballot measure completely ignores the prostitution of children. The measure simply states, "Law enforcement agencies shall not allocate any resources for the investigation and ...........   Pimps, Pedophiles: Welcome to S.F.
 
 

Scrapers and bulldozers began Friday filling a deep canyon to make way for a border fence in the southwestern corner of the United States after 12 years of planning, environmental reviews and legal challenges.A crew fills the Smuggler's Gulch near the U.S. Mexico border Friday under a Border Patrol official's watch.

A crew fills the Smuggler's Gulch near the U.S. Mexico border Friday under a Border Patrol official's watch. The 3½-mile stretch extends from a state park on an oceanfront cliff through a canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch. The gorge was overrun by illegal immigrants until U.S. authorities launched a crackdown in the 1990s that pushed traffic to the remote mountains and deserts of California and Arizona. At a cost of about $16 million a mile, the fence will be far more expensive than fences the U.S. government is building elsewhere along the nation's 1,952-mile border with Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the average cost along the entire border is $2 million to $3 million a mile. The stretch near San Diego will cost about $57 million under a contract awarded to Kiewit Corp. of Omaha, Nebraska, said James Swanson, a Border Patrol special operations supervisor. The lion's share will pay for filling Smuggler's Gulch with nearly 1.9 million tons of dirt and for building a concrete culvert to handle rainfall flowing downhill from Tijuana, Mexico, Swanson said. $57 million border fence finally being built

 
 

Duncan, a convicted pedophile from Tacoma, Wash., pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal charges related to the kidnapping of young Shasta Groene and her brother Dylan. A U.S. District Court jury is hearing testimony on whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole on three of the counts. The children were taken from their Coeur d'Alene home in May 2005 after Duncan fatally bludgeoned the children's mother, Brenda Groene, their 13-year-old brother Slade, and the mother's fiance, Mark McKenzie. Both children were sexually abused before Duncan shot and killed 9-year-old Dylan at a Montana campsite. Shasta, then 8, was rescued July 2, 2005, when a waitress spotted her and Duncan in a Coeur d'Alene restaurant. Duncan earlier pleaded guilty in state court to killing McKenzie and Slade and Brenda Groene. Sentencing on those charges is not at issue here. Friday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson asked Idaho State Police Detective Fred Swanson to read a letter written by Duncan to his mother. The letter, apparently never sent, was found folded in Duncan's coat pocket. In it, Duncan laments his struggles with God and says he wishes he could kill himself but his will to live is too strong. "I have once again become a medium of violence in the world," he wrote. Child Killer's Letter: 'I Am Driven by My Hatred'
 
 
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