A quick post because I’m getting around for work. Tieki Rae just called this morning to tell me about this. She was there just a couple days back, but is now up north. Pray for the victims of this attack and of course take note that it was an off duty IDF soldier who ended the attack.

At least four people were killed and 44 were wounded - one seriously, one moderately and 42 lightly - on Wednesday afternoon when a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem.

Police said that the driver plowed his vehicle into two public buses, toppling them over, and slammed into several cars.

A off-duty soldier took the gun from an elite policeman at the scene and shot the terrorist dead. The soldier, Moshe Klessner, 18, is the brother-in-law of IDF officer David Shapira, who killed the terrorist in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack, Channel 2 reported.

Klessner was assisted in neutralizing the attacker by another elite policeman.

Another elite policeman was lightly wounded, apparently by gunfire, indicating that the terrorist was armed.

Police said the incident was definitely a terror attack, emphasizing that the terrorist, Jabr Duwait, a 32-year-old father of two from Jebl Mukaber, was carrying an Israeli identity card. The Mercaz Harav attacker was from the very same east Jerusalem town.

“My son never spoke of plans to carry out such an attack, if he had I would have tried to prevent it, Duwait’s father, Tayseer told The Media Line as police officers were about to question him.

The attack, at the junction of Jaffa Street and Rechov Sha’arei Yisreal, set off a panic in the area.

Dozens of people ran through the streets to flee the scene of the attack and a car was dragged several meters by the bulldozer before being crushed under the vehicle.

A baby was being treated in Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital and his parents were yet to be tracked down. The indication was that the baby was thrown out of the car by one of his parents before the vehicle was crushed.

The bulldozer was apparently being used for construction work on the Jerusalem light rail project.

Asaf Shalev, who was near the scene of the attack, told the Jerusalem Post that he heard about “an accident” and ran to the area. He described how he saw a “path of destruction” leading from the construction site and numerous policemen “examining the bulldozer.”

The Media Line News Agency contributed to this report

Also, thanks for continuing to keep Tieki in your prayers for safety.

UPDATE: They acted precisely how they were taught

UPDATE 2: From Ynet News: 3 Killed as Palestinian Bulldozer Driver Goes on Killing Spree in Jerusalem:

According to an assessment by the Gaza Strip organizations, as well as by sources in the Palestinian Authority, the Jerusalem attack was an independent act carried out by the driver alone; However, a Hamas spokesman said Wednesday that the Jerusalem attack was “a natural reaction to Israel’s aggression,” adding the group did not know who was behind the attack.

The Islamic Jihad issued a statement praising Wednesday’s attack:“The attack is a clear message to the enemy from the person who carried it out and the entire Palestinian people, that it should expect more attacks for as long as it continues its crimes against the Palestinian people and the aggression against our people, our land and our places.”

From the Dodge City Daily Globe. I’m posting the story in its entirety, mostly for my own benefit. Lee and Tamie Hawes are good personal friends of ours from when we lived in Dodge City. Our Tieki was a few years younger than their 3 children, but they all went to the same school together in Bucklin, KS when Tieki was in Kindergarten through 2nd graded. This area in Southwest KS is home to numerous other friends of ours — just awesome people.

Lee and Tamie have been enormously blessed financially since we’ve left KS. They’ve earned it with their faithfulness to the Lord and hard work.  Does anybody get the channel that these shows are aired on? If so, I’m jealous. 

DODGE CITY —

As the hunting world advances technologically, game stands less and less of a chance against the modern marksman. But at what point does technology come between the sport and its original spirit and purpose?
For Lee Hawes, that point has already come and gone. The owner and operator of Hawes Ranch Outfitters in Ford takes clients on buffalo hunting adventures in the winter and spring months, but he lodges them in tipi camps and arms them only with old-model black powder rifles.
“If you use these modern scope rifles and vehicles, it’s just not sporting,” Hawes said. “It’s just not enjoyable for me. But when you take an iron-sided rifle and you’re hunting on horseback, it’s what hunting was meant to be.”
He also said Hawes Ranch Outfitters is the only outfitter in the nation that can basically recreate the 19th-century experience of buffalo hunting on the Great Plains. He keeps nearly 300 head on his 2,000-acre ranch in unincorporated Ford County.

A hunting showcase

Hawes’ rustic hunting methods have been on display for two years to a television audience through his show “Classic Hunts,” which had been airing on the Sportsman Channel. But for the third season, which starts Monday, Hawes has increased his potential audience by signing on with the Pursuit Channel, which is available on DirecTV.
The difference between “Classic Hunts” and other hunting reality shows, Hawes said, is that his show emphasizes the hunt and the adventure, not necessarily the kill.
Hawes controls the direction of the show with his production company Jeremiah 16:16. The Bible verse about God sending forth the hunters rings especially true for Hawes, who calls himself a hunter of beasts and men.
“The atmosphere of the hunt makes people very spiritualistic, and it becomes a door to discussions of that nature,” Hawes said. “A lot of problems have been solved in my cook shack.”
Though most of Hawes’ clients during his time guiding hunts are experienced hunters themselves, most of them live in urban areas and come from hundreds of miles away to get the entirely vintage experience Hawes offers. So he understands if he becomes a part of a client’s religious experience.
Hawes can think of little else that he’s ever been deeply involved with aside from hunting, ranching, family and faith. He learned to trap and bow hunt at the age of 9 from his grandfather, Amos Hawes, on the same ranch that Judge Hawes settled in the late 1800s and Lee owns today.
He runs Hawes Ranch Outfitters from that land, which will be the setting for the first episode of the coming season of “Classic Hunts,” which will feature tandem buffalo hunters who happen to be women.
“It’s sort of a young women, old rifles type of feature,” Hawes said of the season premiere.
But buffalo hunting is not all Hawes Ranch Outfitters has to offer Hawes also has a pheasant preserve on his ranch, and he leases an 840-acre tract of land in Meade, on which he and his clients hunt Russian boar (which are comparable in size to smaller bears), wild sheep, elk and deer.

Close calls

In his three years of taping hunts for television and 10 years of leading hunting expeditions in the Kansas wild, close calls and brushes with death have become somewhat commonplace for Hawes.
“I spend a lot of time in prayer,” said his wife, Tamie Hawes.
In 2002, Lee contracted West Nile virus, which developed into equine encephalitis. When Lee was in a coma, doctors told Tamie that if he lived at all, he would have to re-learn to communicate and walk.
He walked out of the hospital five days later, he says, and was fairly unchanged by the whole experience.
“The only way it affected him was that he quit drinking coffee after that,” Tamie said.
“I’ve never been a daredevil or an adrenaline junkie type of guy,” Lee said. “These things just sort of happen.”
While in Russia for a taping of “Classic Hunts,” Lee was not allowed to bring his own guns into the country. After being assured that appropriate weapons would be distributed to him and his team, the hunters were given .308-caliber rifles to hunt grizzly bears in Siberia.
Needless to say, the .308s were not Lee’s first choice, given the size of the game he was stalking. As his team made their way into the bears’ den, an adult male charged at Lee but was distracted by one of the team’s dogs, giving him just enough time and space to place one bullet in the side of the bear’s head.
“Those Russian boars are almost more stubborn than bears, too,” Lee said. “Shoot them once, and they get torqued up and then they really start to charge at you.”
He recalls one March on his property in Ford when he was walking near a stream and noticed something strange barely protruding from the water. It was too early for water snakes, he thought, so he went closer to investigate.
As he inched up to the water’s edge, a boar jumped up and charged at Lee, forcing him to dispatch the animal or be dispatched himself.
“He’s got to be on his toes at all times,” said Tamie, who keeps the outfitters’ books.
Though she realizes the danger her husband routinely puts himself into, she has faith in his skill and the precautions he takes.
“I’m always focused on making sure clients get to harvest an animal, but I’ve always got to be aware of our surroundings as well, from slippery surfaces to snakes to bears,” Lee says.
After hunting in South Africa, Russia and all over the U.S., his favorite hunting ground is still the plot in southwestern Kansas that his great-grandfather settled.
“I hope that ‘Classic Hunts’ can draw some attention to western Kansas and give it some well-needed publicity,” Lee said. “We like to do some historical segments on our show, and it gives us a platform to draw people in here. Without the show, we were already drawing several hundred people a year to the area, and we’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg.”

From OneNewsNow:

Aren’t you glad they’re the tolerant ones?

President Bush is honoring a retired Marine General who came under attack from radical homosexual groups for calling that lifestyle immoral. Pro-homosexual groups, notes one veteran observer, are “going nuclear” about the award.

President Bush has honored General Peter Pace with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award- and Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness says the award is richly deserved.

In May 2007, Pace told the Chicago Tribune: “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts, including adultery.” That upset groups like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays.

How many adulterers are pitching fits about the General’s judgments?

“The ensuing criticism caused him to forego another term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but President George Bush has chosen to honor him with this special award,” says Donnelly. “Now we have two homosexual activist groups going nuclear, using nasty epithets aimed at the general ….”

She says the reaction of the two groups demonstrates that they – not General Pace – are intolerant. “The reaction of these two groups, in my opinion, is disrespectful to millions of people who do not share their views,” chides Donnelly. “These groups claim to advocate tolerance, but the attitude of the [LGBT individuals] … take intolerance to an extreme.”

Donnelly commends President Bush for not being afraid to honor a man who publicly stood for morality in the face of such criticism.

You have to admit, little moments like must these make serving your last term as President a good time. 

I have to be honest. Pit Bulls are not my favorite breed of dog and I can’t see the purpose in ever trusting them around children. Just because they are not my favorite, does not mean they cannot possibly be sweet or loving. Take Leo, for instance. He’s just cute, and I believe his cushy life is well deserved.

I’d post a picture, but Wordpress is being strange about it. So, click on the link and take a look at his cuteness.

Have a fantastic Wednesday.