The Truth about Catholicism: Mother of Harlots

(An excerpt of the article follows)

“The Holy Roman Catholic Church” (the accepted earthly title for that ungodly abomination, according to the news media and governments of the world) is called by the Lord, “the great whore”. [This institution is truly “Roman” and “catholic” (meaning “universal”), but it is in no wise “Holy”, and can rightly be called “the church” only when referred to as the church of Satan. Some salient points follow.

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Satan's Goal: Destroy All Sabbathkeepers

Says the great deceiver: . . . "Our principal concern is to silence this sect of Sabbathkeepers. . . . We will finally have a law to exterminate all who will not submit to our authority."--TM 472, 473 (1884). {LDE 255.4}

It is the purpose of Satan to cause them to be blotted from the earth in order that his supremacy of the world may not be disputed.--TM 37 (1893). {LDE 255.5}

The remnant church will be brought into great trial and distress. Those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus will feel the ire of the dragon and his hosts. Satan numbers the world as his subjects. He has gained control of the apostate churches; but here is a little company that are resisting his supremacy. If he could blot them from the earth, his triumph would be complete. As he influenced the heathen nations to destroy Israel, so in the near future he will stir up the wicked powers of earth to destroy the people of God.--9T 231 (1909). {LDE 256.1}

Last Day Events, pp.255-256.

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Influence and impact of the King James Bible

The culture-shaping King James Bible is remembered on it's four-hundred year anniversary.



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Meat Eating

Sunnyside, Cooranbong, Nov. 5, 1896.

Dear Brother and Sister Maxson:--


I have had the letter of August 12, written to you for a long time, but I decided to send that which I have already sent you, withholding that which I now send. You cannot understand how much more effectual your services in the religious interest would be, and how much more satisfactory to yourself, if you would follow the light which has been given you. But it is a phase of your character to strenuously hold to your own ideas, and if possible, carry them out. Every soul of us is in danger, and if we refuse the light, darkness will come upon all. We never proposed to establish sanitariums to have them run in nearly the same grooves as other institutions. If we do not have a sanitarium which is in many things decidedly contrary to other institutions, we can see nothing gained. Shall our appetites, habits, and practices be of that order that you will educate those who are connected with you to make excuses similar to those you have made for the indulgence of eating the flesh of animals? {SpM 45.2}

The Lord intends to bring His people back to live upon simple fruits, vegetables, and grains. He led the children of Israel into the wilderness where they could not get a flesh diet; and He gave them bread from heaven. Man did eat angel's food. But they craved the flesh pots of Egypt, and mourned and cried for flesh, notwithstanding that the Lord had proposed that if they would submit to His will, He would carry them into the land of Canaan, and establish them there, a pure, holy, happy people, and there would not be a feeble one in all their habitations, for He would take away all sickness from among them. But although they had a plain "thus saith the Lord," they mourned, and wept, and murmured, and complained, it displeased the Lord; and the Lord burnt among them and consumed them that were in the uttermost part of the camp. And the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched. And he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burnt among them. And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt so freely; and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away; and there is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes." Because they were so determined to have the flesh of dead animals, He gave them the very diet He had withheld from them. {SpM 45.3}

The Lord would have given them flesh had it been essential for their health, but He who created and redeemed them led them the long journey in the wilderness to educate, discipline, and train them in correct habits. The Lord understood what influence flesh-eating would have upon the human system. He would have a people that would, in their physical appearance, bear the divine credentials, notwithstanding their long journey. {SpM 46.1}

When I read your letter, I was forcibly reminded of the complaining of the children of Israel because they were not favored with a meat diet. The diet of the animals is vegetables and grains. Must the vegetables be animalized, must they be incorporated in the systems of animals before we get them? Must we obtain our vegetable diet by eating the flesh of dead creatures? God provided fruit in its natural state for our first parents. He gave to Adam charge of the garden, to dress it and to care for it, saying, "To you it shall be for meat." One animal was not to destroy another animal for food. After the fall, the eating of flesh was suffered, in order to shorten the period of the existence of the long-lived race. It was allowed because of the hardness of the hearts of men. One of the great errors that many insist upon is that muscular strength is dependent upon animal food. But the simple grains, fruits of trees, and vegetables have all the nutrition necessary to make good blood. This a flesh diet can not do. {SpM 46.2}

When a limb is broken, physicians recommend their patients not to eat meat, as there would be danger of inflammation setting in. Condiments and spices used in the preparation of food for the table, and in the digestion (cause indigestion?) in the same way that tea, coffee, and liquor are supposed to help a laboring man to prepare his tasks. After the immediate effects are gone, they drop as low correspondingly below par as they were elevated above par by those stimulating influences. The system is weakened, the blood is contaminated, and inflammation is the sure result. {SpM 46.3}

The less condiments and desserts are placed on our tables the better it will be for all who partake of the food. All mixed and complicated foods are injurious to the health of human beings. Dumb animals would never eat such a mixture as is placed in the human stomach. Hot bread and biscuit, fresh from the oven, is not healthful. The heated gases need to be evaporated. Hot soda biscuits are often spread with butter and eaten as a choice diet. But the enfeebled digestion can not but feel the abuse placed upon it. Unhealthful habits of eating are killing their thousands and ten thousands. Food should be thoroughly cooked, nicely prepared, and appetizing. My brother, after all the light that has been given on the diet question, your lamentations because you can not exercise freedom in meat-eating is apparently similar to the complaining lamentations and weeping children of Israel in the ears of the Lord. I tell you that from the light the Lord has been pleased to give me there is a continual taxing of the human stomach with a wrong quality of food, also with too large a quantity. The stomach is overloaded and worn out when it should be capable of performing good work. The amount of cooking done is not at all necessary, neither should there be any poverty-stricken diet, either in quality or quantity, but the richness of the food and complicated mixtures are destroying. Highly seasoned meats, followed by rich pastry, is wearing out the vital organs of digestion of children. Were they accustomed to plain, wholesome food, their appetites would not crave unnatural luxuries and mixed preparations. Education, habit, and custom make it difficult to reconstruct the family arrangements. Meat given to children is not the best thing to insure success. Make fruit the article of diet to be placed upon your table which shall constitute the bill of fare. The pieces of fruit mingled with the bread will be highly enjoyed. Good, ripe, undecayed fruit is the thing we should thank God for because it is beneficial to the health. Try it. To educate your children to subsist upon a meat diet would be hurtful to them. It is much easier to create an unnatural appetite than to correct and reform the taste after it has become second nature. {SpM 46.4}

Our sanitariums should never be conducted after the fashion of a hotel, I am very sorry that it is such a difficult matter for you to deny your appetite and reform your habits of eating and drinking. A meat diet changes the disposition, and strengthens the animalism. We are composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat-eating, the intellectual diminish proportionately. A religious life can be more successfully gained and maintained if meat is discarded; for this diet stimulates into intense activity lustful propensities and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature. The flesh warreth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. We need to greatly encourage and cultivate pure, chaste thoughts and to strengthen the moral powers, rather than the lower and carnal powers. God help us to wake from our self-indulgent appetites. {SpM 47.1}

The idea of eating dead flesh is abhorrent to me. One living animal eating the flesh of another animal is shocking. There is no call for it. All your excuses made in regard to faintness is an argument why you should eat no more meat.

Cancer, tumors, and all inflammatory diseases are largely caused by meat-eating. From the light which God has given me, the prevalence of cancers, and tumors is due to gross living on dead flesh. I sincerely and prayerfully hope that as a physician you will not forever be blind upon this subject. For blindness mingled with a want of moral courage to deny your appetite, to lift the cross, which means to take up the very duties that cut across the natural appetite and passion. Feeding on flesh the juices and fluids of what we eat passes into the circulation of our blood, and as we are composed of what we eat, we become animalized. Thus a feverish condition is created because the animals are diseased and by partaking of their flesh we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood. Then when exposed to the changes in a malarious atmosphere, these are more sensibly felt. Also when we are exposed to prevailing epidemics and contagious diseases, the system is not in a condition to resist the disease. I have the subject presented to me in different aspects. The mortality caused by meat-eating is not discerned. If it were, we should hear no more arguments and excuses in favor of the indulgence of the appetite for dead flesh. We have plenty of good things to satisfy hunger without bringing corpses upon our tables to compose our bill of fare. I might go on to any length upon this subject, but I will forbear. {SpM 47.2}

I do hope that you, as a physician, will come to your senses, and will not, by precept and example, counterwork that which the Lord has given to enlighten minds and bring in thorough reforms. I am working earnestly on these lines and shall never cease to work against the practice of meat-eating. I have had opened before me the stumbling blocks which this diet question has been to your spiritual advancement, and what a stumbling block you have placed in the way of others and all because your own sensibilities were blunted through selfish gratification of appetite. For Christ's sake look deeper; study deeper, and act in accordance with the light God has been pleased to give you and others on this subject. I forbear writing more. I love your souls, and I want you both to accept every ray of light that the Lord has been pleased to give, and then cooperate with the Great Teacher by giving that light to others.


In love,


E. G. White

Spalding and Magan Collection, pp.45-48.

Conspicuous Consumption

Greenspan might call it Irrational Exuberance?
However, it's just another demon-stration of aristocracy flaunting their special privileges.

While the world is submerged in a myriad of cataclysmic conditions, and war and famine are rampant; A royal British couple exhibit their "we're above it all" attitude on the streets of the bastion of anachronistic double standards: The UK or United Kingdom; What an anachronism it is - in the 21 st Century? The U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals and the Vatican calling for WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION... While NATO, the EU, and the U.N. (of which Britain plays a pivotal role) are pounding Libya to ensure that Kadaffi the dictator is defeated, the English nobility displays its pomp and so-called glory by conducting a spectacle of a wedding. Simply smashing, old chap! Positively marvellous!

The amount of irony in this act is abysmal.

Arsenio.

Communist Antonio Gramsci Resides In The White House

by Kathy Barkulis

Posted on November 24 2010 10:00 am


I live in Illinois, which is like living in a gulag for conservatives. A little over a year ago, I confronted CNN reporter, Susan Roesgen, for unfairly reporting the Chicago Tea Party protest. I continue to detest the corrupt media.

Who is Antonio Gramsci and what is his connection to the American Left? An Italian Communist philosopher, Gramsci’s theories have stealthily been incorporated into our culture for at least 50 years. You may have never heard of him, but you would certainly recognize his ideas taking place in America, and in the White House of both President Clinton and President Obama. Gramsci believed that the way to incorporate Marxism in capitalist societies was best achieved from the bottom up by stealthily changing the beliefs of the culture itself, called “cultural hegemony.”

Cultural hegemony involves softening, or radicalizing, the culture’s beliefs about various social issues, such as homosexuality, marriage, education, women’s issues, religion, divorce, pornography, media, abortion, and established political parties. The idea is to move everything to the left so that eventually new norms are rooted into society.

An excellent documentary called “Agenda: Grinding America Down” explains how the strategy has been accomplished so far. Our basic institutions have been so permeated with Marxist ideology by intellectual leaders that “their rules” have insidiously become the accepted rules of thought. Starting with public education, then the media, the churches, and so on, Gramsci knew that eventually the society would accept a new definition of morality and justice. Once that was accomplished it would be much easier to destroy the capitalist infrastructure and the established political parties, and thereby transform them into a new Marxist reality.

Politically correct language would take root and eventually politically correct ideas, without ever divulging the philosophy behind them. Their organizations and think tanks would never use words related to Socialism, Marxism, or Communism. Instead words such as universal healthcare, reproductive rights, and community organizing would replace words such as socialized medicine, abortion, and Communism.

When you consider what is happening in the public school system today it is apparent that Gramscian strategies have been incorporated for years without us ever realizing what was going on. Textbooks, teachers’ unions, left-leaning churches, the women’s movement, and prominent intellectuals have all infiltrated our traditional value system and replaced it with a leftist mentality that negates the individual in favor of the global good. This explains the prominence of environmental policies, hate speech laws, corporate blackmail being perpetrated by organizations such as ACORN, and government agencies taking political correctness to the extreme of endangering our national security.

Who influenced Saul Alinsky? Most likely his strategies were also based on the Gramscian philosophy of cultural hegemony. When you study Barack Obama’s influence of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals,” you will see the many characteristics of Antonio Gramsci’s influence on both of their lives. Many of Clinton’s policies reflected Gramsci’s tactics as well. None of this has happened over night.

All of this has been further facilitated by the media and popular culture. As Gramscian tactics have been stealthily inserted into the culture, the media has adopted these values and influenced each generation. It is imperative that we continue to fight these influences and recognize what is happening in our schools, churches, and government. If we continue to allow them to re-define who we are and what we stand for, we will forever be enslaved by this madness.

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It's Official!

He's Hawaiian!

It took a long time, but, finally the President has publicly produced a birth certificate for all the doubters to see. It sure took him long enough, though!

The enigma has been solved? Not really.

My question is: Whose side is he on?

Judging from the last 2 years plus, all I see and hear is someone who's on an old-fashioned ego trip while the economy hasn't improved a lick, and every conceiveable excuse is made: The sun was in my eye... the devil made me do it... the dog ate my homework, etc. But, I know what to do since I know what kind of country we are, ...

Gimme' a break! For Pete's sakes, goodness gracious!

A.

Geithner: U.S. committed to keeping dollar strong

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 26: US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations on April 26, 2011 in New York City. Secretary Geithner said he was pushing for a deficit target of 2.5% by 2015 and that he was backing a policy of a strong dollar despite recent losses. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)



Published April 26, 2011
EFE

New York – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said here Tuesday that the United States aims to keep the dollar strong and will not seek to drive down the value of its currency in pursuit of higher exports.

"Our policy has been and will always be, as long as at least I'm in this job, that a strong dollar is in our interest as a country," he said at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"We will never embrace a strategy of trying to weaken our currency to try to gain economic advantage," Geithner vowed, responding to a question about the dollar's recent slide.

The dollar has fallen significantly this year against other major currencies and was trading Tuesday at $1.46 to the euro, the greenback's lowest level in 16 months.

Geithner's reaffirmation of a "strong dollar" policy is seen as an effort to assure analysts and investors that President Barack Obama's administration is confident the U.S. economic recovery is on track.

Regarding the surge in oil prices, the treasury secretary said the spike will not hurt the U.S. economy.

"What's happening in oil is obviously potentially very significant. At current levels, on its own, it won't put the recovery at risk," he said.

Geithner also addressed the U.S. budget deficit, calling for a "credible strategy" to gradually reduce the shortfall without making hasty moves that could put the economic recovery in jeopardy.

"You have to commit to bring the budget deficit down to a level that will put our overall debt burden on a declining path as a share of the economy," the secretary said.

Obama outlined earlier this month a plan to slash the U.S. budget deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years.

The president's initiative calls for 75 percent of the deficit reductions to come from spending less, while the rest of the projected savings depend on repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

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Note: Bolds and italics added.
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Wednesday Look Ahead: Fed's First Briefing May Keep Stocks Rising but Drag Dollar Lower

Published: Tuesday, 26 Apr 2011 7:52 PM ET

By: Patti Domm
CNBC Executive News Editor


Regardless of what Ben Bernanke says at his first quarterly media briefing Wednesday, the markets are convinced the Fed chairman will lay out policies that will keep the stock market rallying and the dollar in decline.

CNBC


Stocks rose sharply Tuesday, as the two-day Fed meeting got underway. The Dow [.DJIA 12595.37 115.49 (+0.93%) ] was up 115 points at 12,595, and the S&P 500 [.SPX 1347.24 11.99 (+0.9%) ] rose 11 to 1347, a move that finally erases the last of its late winter losses. The S&P is now up about 7 percent since mid-March. The dollar was lower Tuesday, losing 0.4 percent against the euro, which was at a new 52-week high of 1.4640.

"I think it's a 'buy the rumor, sell the news' day. The reaction to what the Fed has said has been very accommodative for two years. To think this is the meeting where they stop being accommodative is highly unlikely," said Marc Pado, stock market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald. "You might see some traders selling into the news, but I wouldn't say that's a 'bail the market' type of reaction."

The Federal Open Market Committee will issue its usual post-meeting statement early Wednesday, at 12:30 p.m. ET, instead of the usual 2:15 p.m. At 2:15 p.m., Bernanke will address the media and take questions in his first ever media briefing.

The Fed is expected to reaffirm that it will complete its quantitative easing program in June, as expected. The program, under which the Fed is buying $600 billion in Treasury securities, in theory was to have kept rates low while driving investors into riskier assets.

The program has been controversial and criticized, even by some Fed officials. QE has also been credited with driving the stock market and other risk assets higher, and the dollar lower since Bernanke first discussed it last August. It has also been blamed for creating inflationary pressures, which, while real in other parts of the world, are not elevated enough in the U.S. to worry the Fed.

"I think the statement should be pretty plain vanilla, milk toast," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "They'll reaffirm they 'll complete the QE in June. I think they leave the language regarding the economy's performance and inflation almost untouched. They'll continue to say they'll keep rates exceptionally low for an extended period. The only possible surprise they might have is if they announce they would not reinvest the proceeds of mortgage securities that are maturing. That's the only way they might surprise us."

Zandi, however, said it's highly unlikely the Fed will make changes in that program, and if it did, stocks would come under pressure and the dollar could strengthen. Traders call the Fed's program to reinvest the proceeds from its expiring mortgages by the name, "QE light," and they expect the roughly $20 billion in monthly Treasury purchases made with the proceeds to be maintained for the time being.

"I think (Bernanke) he's been frustrated by a lot of the criticism and attacks the Fed has received. I don't think he's had a real opportunity to fully explain his thinking about some of the policy steps they've taken," said Zandi. Zandi said Bernanke is likely to choose one main topic to defend, such as the Fed's position on inflation, and the fact it does not look at food and energy prices, both of which have been rising.

The Fed is also expected to release a new midpoint forecast for 2011 GDP, and possibly a new forecast for 2012, to reflect recent weakness in the economy. First quarter GDP is released Thursday and is expected to be below 2 percent by many economists. Zandi expects the Fed's midpoint on 2011 GDP to be 3.3 percent, from the current 3.65.

RBS Treasury strategist John Briggs said if the reduction in GDP is any more than 0.2, the bond market could be surprised. He expects the bond market to be barely changed by the end of Wednesday. "He's (Bernanke's) going to start educating on the long-term issues, and not provide any short term volatility," he said.

Treasurys gained Tuesday, as the yield on the 10-year slipped to 3.320 percent, its lowest level since March 21. There is an auction of $35 billion in 5-year notes at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. On the data front, the markets will also be watching durable goods, released at 8:30 a.m.

Briggs said he wants to hear Bernanke speak about the sequence of what actions the Fed will take as it unwinds from its easy money policies. "What order does it occur in? I don't know if there's enough agreement on the committee for him to explain that," said Briggs. He noted the Fed could take steps to reduce its balance sheet before it moves its target interest rate from zero, and it could also sell assets after it begins to raise rates.

Brown Brothers Harriman chief currency strategist Marc Chandler said if Bernanke is asked about the sagging dollar, he will probably defer to the Treasury as being responsible for dollar policy and state that dollar weakness is the consequence of programs aimed at helping the economy.

"I think the dollar goes down because the Federal Reserve is making it clear it will push through quantitative easing," said Chandler, adding the other Fed easing programs that will continue after QE ends will also weaken the greenback.

"The real key is when will the market change its focus from the interest rate differentials and divergent trajectories between the U.S. and Europe and when will it shift from that focus to the European debt crisis," said Chandler. He said the European Central Bank's tightening policies should support the rising euro, and it could move to 1.50/1.51.

Rising oil prices have also been heavily correlated to the euro. "The ECB thinks high oil prices are inflationary. If it's inflationary, they have to raise interest rates so high oil prices mean stronger euro," he said.

Pado said the Fed's actions Wednesday and Bernanke's comments should be viewed as bullish by the stock market. "The bigger picture is the Fed is being very consistent, which the market likes...I expect a correction after earnings season is done by the middle of May. I think you'll see the summer doldrums and the typical 'sell in May' settle in." However, he expects the market to continue rising after that.

What Else to Watch

The blast of earnings news continues Wednesday, with reports from dozens of major companies, including BP, Boeing, ConocoPhillips, Baker Hughes, Corning, Credit Suisse, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Barrick Gold and WellPoint. eBay, Starbucks, Allstate and Norfolk Southern report after the closing bell.
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Review: The Conspirator

Christine Champ April 15, 2011

The Conspirator opens with a brutal bang on the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. In the aftermath, eight conspirators are charged with plotting to murder the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State. The lone woman among them, Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices met to plan the attacks. Her son, John, was also allegedly part of the conspiracy, though he conveniently vanished after the killings.

Twenty-seven-year-old war hero and lawyer Frederic Aiken (James McAvoy) reluctantly consents to defend Mary when her Southern attorney (Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson, played by Tom Wilkinson) convinces him she needs a Yankee soldier on her side for any hope of a fair trial, especially since she’s a civilian being tried by a military tribunal. While Johnson deems it an unconstitutional “travesty”, war secretary Stanton (Kevin Kline) and his paranoid supporters think only of swift justice for sake of the nation’s survival. Despite declaring victory, there’s enough Confederate rebellion and intrigue afoot in addition to the president’s death that they’re rightfully worried the war won’t stay won.

Like most Lincoln supporters Aiken is sure Mary’s guilty and believes helping her betrays his country. He smirks with hatred and distrust when she denies being an assassin during their first jail cell interview. Yet his compassion and sense of justice gets the better of him as he soon realizes the military tribunal and its prosecutor Holt (Danny Huston), decided Mary’s fate long before the trial began and will do whatever it takes (bribery, coercion) to make sure they get the outcome they demand: either Mary’s head in a noose, or her son’s. Aiken does his best, aided by Mary’s daughter Anna (Evan Rachel Wood), to raise enough reasonable doubt to save her, and for his reward is ostracized by his peers and girlfriend Sarah (Alexis Bledel).

Much of the details around the trial, especially the most damming testimony draws from actual historical accounts. Iconic images, like Lincoln’s portrait wreathed on the black train carrying his corpse, or merchants hawking Lincoln memorabilia outside the military prison; evoke an authentic sense of time and place. Director Robert Redford also effectively uses every cinematic trick at his disposal — dim lighting, disconcerting perspectives, to convey the sense of doom, mourning, confusion and hysteria that engulfed the wounded young country in the dark days after Lincoln’s loss. Behind-the-action close ups of stabbings seem disturbingly more violent than the bloody thrusts you regularly witness in other modern movies. Similarly the camera’s low, first-person perspective of men bearing the fallen leader through a tide of terrified bystanders, amplifies the feeling of disorientation and panic.

Though everyone in the cast plays their parts well, McAvoy, Wright and Wood most poignantly and brilliantly put a face to the echoing despair, anger, and desperation that prevails over their legal battle. A courtroom drama staged not to expose Mary’s guilt or innocence, but that of her judges. Atmospheric, illuminating and affecting, The Conspirator captivates like an untold story–one that you can’t believe you’ve never heard until now, and won’t soon forget.

Grade: A-

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Agenda 21 is in your community

By Henry Lamb
web posted April 25, 2011

To listen click here

Anyone who reads Chapter 7 of Agenda 21, and then reads their local comprehensive land use plan will immediately recognize that most of the provisions of the local land use plan come directly from Agenda 21. More often than not, the elected officials who adopt these plans have never read Agenda 21, and many have never even heard of the U.N. document, signed by President George H. W. Bush in 1992.

The facilitators and professional planners have heard about Agenda 21, but frequently claim that the plan they are working on has nothing to do with the U.N. or Agenda 21. Don’t believe it for one minute.

Gary Lawrence, former Director of the Center for Sustainable Communities at the University of Washington, and Chief Planner for the City of Seattle, told an audience in London that:

” In the case of the U.S., our local authorities are engaged in planning processes consistent with LA21 [Local Agenda 21] but there is little interest in using the LA21 brand…. So, we call our processes something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.”

In community after community, the same scenario is repeated. The federal government, through the EPA or the Department of Commerce or the Department of Interior, offers special grants to communities for the purpose of developing a vision for a greener future, and a plan to convert the vision into reality.

Typically, the local government will find a private consultant to “facilitate” the process. The facilitator will identify a local “steering committee,” carefully chosen from people who represent various segments of the community, all of whom are known in advance to be sympathetic to the goals of Agenda 21.

Typically, the advisory group will meet in private to lay out the framework for the process and the goals for the finished product. When this is achieved, public meetings are scheduled to give the appearance of public input and ownership. Rarely are these meetings ever publicized adequately to attract the private property owners who are most directly affected. Care is taken to see that members of local environmental organizations and social justice organizations constitute the majority of attendees.

These public meetings are said to be “the visioning process.” The procedures vary slightly from community to community, depending upon the facilitator. Remarkably, however, the “vision” in every community contains essentially the same elements: restricted auto traffic; bike trails; walkable neighborhoods; integrated housing; high density urban boundary zones; conservation areas; green belts; and much more - directly from Agenda 21.

Once the vision document is complete, the next step is to convert it into a Comprehensive land use plan, adopted by local elected officials in the form of an ordinance that is enforceable with fines and other penalties. The plans are necessarily so long and complex that few people ever read them, other than the professional planners and enforcement officials. Many, if not most, of these comprehensive plans incorporate many, if not most, of the codes developed by the International Codes Council. Here are some of the codes:

International Building Code
International Residential Code
International Fire Code
International Energy Conservation Code
International Private Sewage Disposal Code
International Mechanical Code
International Fuel Gas Code
International Wildland-Urban Interface Code
ICC Performance Code
International Existing Building Code
International Property Maintenance Code
International Zoning Code
International Green Construction Code
Here’s a sample of what to expect. From Chapter 2 of the International Green Construction Code:

CONSERVATION AREA. Land designated by the jurisdiction or by state or federal government, as a result of a community planning process, as appropriate for conservation from development because of the land possessing natural values important to the community including, but not limited to wildlife habitat, forest or other significant vegetation, steep slopes, ground water recharge area, riparian corridor or wetland.

DAYLIGHT SATURATION. The percentage of daytime hours throughout the year when not less than 28 foot-candles (300 lux) of natural light is provided at a height of 30 inches (762 mm) above the floor.

DEMAND RESPONSE, AUTOMATED (AUTO-DR). Fully Automated Demand Response initiated by a signal from a utility or other appropriate entity, providing fully-automated connectivity to customer energy end-use control strategies.

This is a tiny sample of the rules and regulations buried deep within the innocent-sounding comprehensive land use plans adopted by unaware local officials to achieve the politically-correct label of “sustainable community.”

These plans should be rejected, not simply because they arise from the United Nations, but because they infringe personal freedom and private property rights. The implementation of these comprehensive land use plans effectively transfers to government the right to dictate to individuals what kind of materials must be used in constructing their privately owned homes. The Auto-DR provision defined above actually gives government the right to dictate the temperature in your home, and the ability to enforce it.

This is madness! This is sustainable development! This is Agenda 21!

Local Tea Parties, 9.12 groups, and property rights organizations must learn about Agenda21, and exactly what their local visioning statements and local comprehensive land use plans contain. Many groups are forming study committees to analyze their local plans by section, and then report back to the entire group. This way, not every individual has to read the entire plan.

If this rush to oblivion is going to be stopped, it is up to private citizens to get informed, get involved, and help get into office only those people who truly respect the Constitution and the individual freedom it is supposed to guarantee.

Henry Lamb is the author of "The Rise of Global Governance," Chairman of Sovereignty International , and founder of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) and Freedom21, Inc.

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State Department wants passport applicants to reveal lifetime employment history

By David Edwards
Monday, April 25th, 2011 -- 1:09 pm

The U.S. Department of State has proposed a new questionnaire that would make it almost impossible for some people to get a passport.

The new document (PDF) would require that certain applicants submit a list of every residence and every job they've ever had since birth.

In February, the department published a request in the Federal Register allowing 60 days for comment before the new rules go into effect.

"The Biographical Questionnaire for a U.S. Passport, form DS-5513, is used to supplement an application for a U.S. passport when the applicant submits citizenship or identity evidence that is insufficient or of questionable authenticity," according to a supporting statement (PDF) issued along with the request for comment.

"This form is used prior to passport issuance and solicits information relating to the respondent’s family, birth circumstances, residences, schooling, and employment," the statement added.

"In addition to this primary use of the data, the DS-5513 may also be used as evidence in the prosecution of any individual who makes a false statement on the application and for other uses as set forth in the Prefatory Statement and the Passport System of Records Notice (State-26)."

The document also requires some applicants to submit information about the mother's pre-natal and post-natal care, the mother's residence one year before and after the birth, the persons in attendance at the birth and religious or institutional recordings of the birth.

"The State Department estimated that the average respondent would be able to compile all this information in just 45 minutes, which is obviously absurd given the amount of research that is likely to be required to even attempt to complete the form," Consumer Traveler's Edward Hasbrouck noted.

The Consumer Travel Alliance opposes the new form as "exceeding the statutory authority of the DOS, unconstitutional, and in violation of U.S. obligations pursuant to international human rights treaties to which the U.S. is a party," according to draft comments (PDF) prepared by the group.

"[C]hoosing to require an applicant for a passport to complete the proposed Form DS-5513, which few if any applicants could complete, would amount to a de facto decision to deny that applicant a passport. And that decision would be standardless, arbitrary, and illegal," they added.

The State Department had not returned a call asking for comment at the time of publication.

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IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end

April 25, 2011, 7:20 p.m. EDT

Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

By Brett Arends, MarketWatch
This column has been updated to include a reaction from the IMF.

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed.

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

IMF sees China topping U.S. in 2016According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China's economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now. Brett Arends looks at the implications for the U.S. dollar and the Treasury market.
And it’s a lot closer than you may think.

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.

Put that in your calendar.

It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power.

According to the IMF forecast, which was quietly posted on the Fund’s website just two weeks ago, whoever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes, and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.



China’s economy will be the world’s largest within five years or so.











But they’re miscounting. They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates.

That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms. Exchange rates change quickly. And China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.

The comparison that really matters

In addition to comparing the two countries based on exchange rates, the IMF analysis also looked to the true, real-terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.

Naturally, all forecasts are fallible. Time and chance happen to them all. The actual date when China surpasses the U.S. might come even earlier than the IMF predicts, or somewhat later. If the great Chinese juggernaut blows a tire, as a growing number fear it might, it could even delay things by several years. But the outcome is scarcely in doubt.

This is more than a statistical story. It is the end of the Age of America. As a bond strategist in Europe told me two weeks ago, “We are witnessing the end of America’s economic hegemony.”

We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. for so long that there is no longer anyone alive who remembers anything else. America overtook Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back.

And both those countries live under very similar rules of constitutional government, respect for civil liberties and the rights of property. China has none of those. The Age of China will feel very different.

Page 2

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?dist=countdown
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Gabrielle Giffords Cleared To Attend Shuttle Launch, Husband Mark Kelly Says

04/24/11 10:54 PM ET


HOUSTON — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will attend husband Mark Kelly's space shuttle launch in Florida on Friday, Kelly said, allowing the Arizona congresswoman to travel for the first time since she was flown from Tucson to Houston more than three months ago to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

In an interview with CBS' Katie Couric, Kelly said Giffords' doctors had given her permission to travel to Cape Canaveral, Fla., for the launch of Endeavour, which is scheduled for 3:47 p.m. Friday. Kelly is the commander of the shuttle mission.

CBS released excerpts of the interview Sunday, and it was scheduled to air Monday on "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric," according to a network statement.

"I've met with her doctors, her neurosurgeon and her doctors, and ... they've given us permission to take her down to the launch," Kelly said in the interview in Houston. The network statement did not specify when the interview occurred.

James Harsfield, spokesman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, referred all questions about Giffords to the congresswoman's office, where there was no immediate comment.

President Barack Obama and the first family also are scheduled to watch the launch, although it's unclear if they will watch it with Giffords.

Families view launches at Kennedy Space Center from a restricted area, and there are no plans for Giffords to make a public appearance.

It will be the first time Giffords has traveled since she was flown from Tucson, Ariz., to Houston on Jan. 21 for rehab. The Democrat was shot in the head Jan. 8 in a shooting in Tucson that killed six people and injured 12 others.

Giffords' spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, and her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, plan to hold a news conference after the launch to discuss the congresswoman's reaction, but Giffords will not go to the news conference because it could be an emotional moment for her, Karamargin said.

Story continues below
AdvertisementGiffords went to Kelly's last launch in 2008, when he commanded the space shuttle Discovery. The two married in 2007.

Obama last saw Giffords on Jan. 12, just four days after the shooting, when he visited her intensive care hospital room in Tucson and reported that she opened her eyes for the first time a few minutes after he left.

More recently, he wrote a tribute about the congresswoman in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in the world, saying that she wasn't known before the shooting, but now "she's got the prayers of a nation rooting for her."

He also wrote that Giffords is "a needed voice that cannot return soon enough."

The shooting happened as Giffords was holding a community outreach event in the parking lot of a Tucson shopping center. A gunman shot her in the head and worked his way down the line of her staff members and people waiting to talk with her. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack and is in custody.

Giffords has not been seen publicly since the shooting and has spent the last three months relearning how to speak, walk and take care of herself. She has been singing – as part of musical therapy – asking for her favorite foods and visiting with family, friends, and her rabbi.

Kelly returned to training for the shuttle launch in February after taking time off to be at his wife's hospital bedside.

Endeavour's two-week trip will be the last for that shuttle and the next-to-last shuttle mission. Shuttle Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle program this summer. Kelly and five crewmates will deliver a $2 billion physics experiment to the International Space Station, as well as critical spare parts to keep the orbiting outpost running for another decade.

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China detains Christians at banned Easter service

Treatment of Shouwang Church watched as 'a test of what may come'


By Ben Blanchard and Chris Buckley
Reuters
updated 4/24/2011 4:20:03 AM ET 2011-04-24T08:20:03


BEIJING — Chinese police detained dozens of Christians on Sunday as they were trying to converge at the site of a banned Easter service.

While Easter services for tens of millions of Christians across China mostly went ahead unhindered, police led away people trying to gather in northwest Beijing, where the Shouwang Church had called for outdoor services after it was evicted from its rented premises during a clampdown on dissent.

Leaders of the Shouwang Church have said they have no political agenda and want only to find a permanent place to worship for its 1,000 or so members, who refuse to accept official demands that churches come under the direct oversight of Communist Party authorities.

The contention over religious rights that began early this month continued when police officers shunted dozens of people, many of them young adults, onto buses as they turned up near the walkway where the church had said it would pray on Sundays.

Violence in Sichuan's Tibetan community ... again

A dozen or so people herded onto one bus appeared to be singing hymns. Police and plain clothes guards patrolling the area in Beijing's Zhongguancun district prevented reporters from approaching the detainees, who mostly did not appear to resist detention.

In past years, the Chinese government has relaxed some restrictions on "house" churches that refuse Party oversight, and many members of these churches are watching the Shouwang dispute to see if it marks a fresh tightening, said Wang Yi, a leader of one such church in southwest China.

"The Shouwang Church has gone further than most in wanting to emerge from being a house church to

being a fully open church with its own premises, so in that sense it stands out from smaller churches, but it is also a test of what may come," Wang said in a telephone interview.

"The Shouwang Church represents a trend that many house churches will faces as they grow, so what happens to it could have an impact on churches in many areas, and it's being watched closely."

Churches and the 'Jasmine Revolution'

Wang said that his house church in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was able to worship unhindered on Easter, a major celebration in the Christian calendar when scripture says Jesus rose from the dead.

A member of the Shouwang Church, who asked not to be identified for fear of recrimination, said a dozen or so of its leaders were under house arrest or had been detained, and many ordinary members had chosen to pray privately or in small groups. Shouwang means "watch tower."

On Saturday, Chinese police also detained Zhang Mingxuan, a Beijing pastor who is president of the Chinese House Church Alliance, said Bob Fu of the China Aid Association, a Texas-based group critical of China's controls on religion.

Chinese officials blocked planned Easter services by two large "house" churches in the southern city of Guangzhou, Fu also said in a telephone interview.

Chinese artist’s arrest shows escalating crackdown

The church dispute has come while the Chinese government seeks to ward off any attempts by would-be protesters to take up calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" inspired by anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world.

Alarmed by such calls, Chinese authorities detained many dozens, if not hundreds, of dissidents, human rights activists and persistent protesters. Many remain in custody, including the well-known artist Ai Weiwei, who officials have said is suspected of "economic crimes," a charge his family rejects.

On Thursday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that the Shouwang Church was "an organization with no legal basis."

'Grave wound'

The eviction is the latest chapter in a series of disputes over the church, which started out in a rented apartment in 1993. It had been worshipping on Sundays in a rented restaurant until the landlord ended the agreement, which church members blamed on official pressure.

Estimates of how many Chinese people are Christian vary widely, especially because many of them are members of Protestant or Catholic congregations that shun Party oversight.

Surveys in recent years have concluded that, in all, there could be about 40 million Protestants and 14 million Catholics.

The Catholic church in China is divided between a government-recognized side that curtails the Pope's authority to ordain bishops and manage church affairs, and an "underground" side that refuses to accept government controls.

Pope Benedict has been encouraging reconciliation between the two sides of the Chinese church and exploring establishing formal ties with Beijing.

But this month, the Vatican said bishops installed in China without papal blessing were a "grave wound" on the entire church.

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St. Louis Airport Closed After Reported Tornado Rips Through Facility

Published April 23, 2011
FoxNews.com

April 22: Storm damage is seen next to a parking garage outside terminal one at St. Louis International Airport in St. Louis. Several people at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were injured Friday after an apparent tornado touched down, spewing debris over the airfield, bursting glass in the concourse and damaging cars atop a parking garage. (AP)

An apparent tornado ripped through St. Louis' International Airport Friday, injuring several people and forcing the airport to be closed indefinitely.

There was extensive damage to the airport's busiest terminal, where 40 to 50 percent of glass was blown in, according to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Spokesman Jeff Lea.

Mayor Francis Slay said Lambert would be shut down "indefinitely," impacting 256 daily departures and arrivals from the facility.

Gov. Jay Nixon announced late Friday he had declared a state of emergency, allowing state agencies to assist local jurisdictions with their emergency responses to the storm's aftermath, including the destruction at Lambert.

"The state of Missouri is ready to assist at every stage of this emergency to keep Missouri families safe and help communities recover," Nixon said.

Friday evening's storm at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport ripped away a large section of the main terminal's roof, forcing the airport to close indefinitely and diverting incoming flights to other cities.

"We have all hands on deck here," Mayor Francis Slay said at the airport. "This is something we're putting a lot of attention to."

But amid all the damage, there was relief that things could have been worse. Only four people with minor injuries were taken to the hospital from Lambert, while an unspecified number of others were treated at the scene for cuts blamed on flying glass.

"We're fortunate we didn't have larger (numbers) of injuries," said airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge.

The airport's main terminal sustained the most damage. Hamm-Niebruegge said roughly half of that structure's windows were blown out, sending glass and rain into that building. Elsewhere on the property, trees were toppled and power lines downed, further limiting access to the airport even hours after the storm left its destruction.

Passengers from at least two planes were stranded briefly on the Lambert tarmac because of debris but were later taken away by buses. An Air National Guard facility at the airport was reportedly damaged.

Installation and roofing tile was strewn about the inside and outside of one terminal. Large, plate-glass windows were blown out. A shuttle was teetering precariously from the top level of a parking garage.

Dianna Merrill, 43, a mail carrier from St. Louis, was at Lambert waiting to fly to New York with a friend for vacation. She said her flight had been delayed by weather and she was looking out a window hoping her plane would pull up. But the window suddenly exploded.

"Glass was blowing everywhere. The ceiling was falling. The glass was hitting us in the face. Hail and rain were coming in. The wind was blowing debris all over the place," she said. "It was like being in a horror movie. Grown men were crying. It was horrible."

Merrill said she felt lucky to be alive and that airport workers quickly moved people to stairwells and bathrooms to get them out of harm's way.

St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch, who was at the airport when the storm was closing in, said he saw gawkers watching the weather outside as the tornado sirens blared. Moments later, they hastily scrambled inside the building and sought shelter in a restroom.

"About the time we came into the building, the doors blew off," he said. "Literally 10 seconds later, it was over. It's amazing to me more people weren't hurt."

Elsewhere around St. Louis, residents in suburbs were waking to damaged homes, fallen trees and downed power lines -- the remains of a fierce line of storms that moved through central and eastern Missouri.

Unconfirmed tornadoes were reported in several counties in the St. Louis area, and at one point utility company Ameren Missouri reported more than 47,000 power outages, with another 7,000 reported in Illinois.

In the suburbs of Maryland Heights and New Melle, the storms damaged several dozen homes but there were no immediate reports of major injuries. Some playground equipment in New Melle was left in a twisted heap by the storm that also tore up roofs and ripped off siding.

Brandon Blecher, 16, said he was home watching the storm out his window in Maryland Heights when he spotted the tornado coming toward his house. A gust of wind knocked out his window.

"The giant wooden swing set in my neighbor's yard came into my yard and a shed landed on my deck," he said. "The tornado was right on top of us."

Maryland Heights police were dealing with reports of gas leaks and downed trees that were blocking roadways.

The city's community center was opened as a shelter Friday night for residents affected by the storm.

"We have electricity, and everything's fine," Vaughn said. "We have heat and air. We'll be here as long as we need to be."

Damage, possibly from a tornado, was also reported at several towns near the airport -- Bridgeton, St. Ann, Ferguson and Florissant. Interstate 270 in that area was closed. Trees and power lines were down. A tractor-trailer was sitting on its end.

In downtown St. Louis, Busch Stadium officials hurriedly moved Cardinals fans to a safe area as tornado sirens blared. The game with the Cincinnati Reds was delayed for hours but later resumed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Let no man deceive you by any means

2 Thessalonians 2


1Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

2That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

3Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

5Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

6And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.

7For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

8And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

9Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

10And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

13But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

14Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

15Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

16Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,

17Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.

Objects of universal execration

Those who honor the law of God have been accused of bringing judgments upon the world, and they will be regarded as the cause of the fearful convulsions of nature and the strife and bloodshed among men that are filling the earth with woe. The power attending the last warning has enraged the wicked; their anger is kindled against all who have received the message, and Satan will excite to still greater intensity the spirit of hatred and persecution...

As the Sabbath has become the special point of controversy throughout Christendom, and religious and secular authorities have combined to enforce the observance of the Sunday, the persistent refusal of a small minority to yield to the popular demand will make them objects of universal execration. It will be urged that the few who stand in opposition to an institution of the church and a law of the state ought not to be tolerated; that it is better for them to suffer than for whole nations to be thrown into confusion and lawlessness. The same argument eighteen hundred years ago was brought against Christ by the "rulers of the people." "It is expedient for us," said the wily Caiaphas, "that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." John 11:50. This argument will appear conclusive; and a decree will finally be issued against those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, denouncing them as deserving of the severest punishment and giving the people liberty, after a certain time, to put them to death. Romanism in the Old World and apostate Protestantism in the New will pursue a similar course toward those who honor all the divine precepts.

GC 614-616.

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"Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them"

1And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.

2And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,

3Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.

4But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by order unto them, saying,

5I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me:

6Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.

7And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat.

8But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.

9But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.

10And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into heaven.

11And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me.

12And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house:

13And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter;

14Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.

15And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

16Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

17Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?

18When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

Act 11:1-18.

Connection between Roman Catholics and Labor Unions in the U.S.

Labor union movement

Further information: Knights of Labor

The Catholic Church exercised a prominent role in shaping America's labor movement. From the onset of significant immigration in the 1840s, the Church in the United States was predominantly urban, with both its leaders and congregants usually of the laboring classes. Over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, nativism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-unionism coalesced in Republican politics, and Catholics gravitated toward unions and the Democratic Party.

The Knights of Labor was the earliest labor organization in the United States, and in the 1880s, the was the largest labor union in the United States. and it is estimated that at least half its membership was Catholic (including Terence Powderly, its president from 1881 onward).

Effects of Rerum Novarum

This was the context in which Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical letter that articulated the teaching of the Church with a view to the “new things” of the modern world. In Rerum Novarum (1891), Leo criticized the concentration of wealth and power, spoke out against the abuses that workers faced and demanded that workers should be granted certain rights and safety regulations.

He upheld the right of voluntary association, specifically commending labor unions. At the same time, he reiterated the Church’s defense of private property, condemned socialism, and emphasized the need for Catholics to form and join unions that were not compromised by secular and revolutionary ideologies.[1]

Rerum Novarum provided new impetus for Catholics to become active in the labor movement, even if its exhortation to form specifically Catholic labor unions was widely interpreted as irrelevant to the pluralist context of the United States. While atheism underpinned many European unions and stimulated Catholic unionists to form separate labor federations, the religious neutrality of unions in the U.S. provided no such impetus. American Catholics seldom dominated unions, but they exerted influence across organized labor. Catholic union members and leaders played important roles in steering American unions away from socialism.

Fr. Edward McGlynn's work first in St. Stephen's Parish in New York and his later alliance and support of and activity with Henry George and the land value taxation for social justice movement.


Note: Red letters added for emphasis.

***This is an excerpt of a wikipedia article: (Catholic social activism in the United States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_social_activism_in_the_United_States#Labor_union_movement
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Notable quotes from President Obama's Facebook visit

Photo (Source): http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/04/20/obama-facebook-economy.html

President Obama talks tech, budget, deficit at Facebook

Apr 20, 2011
Notable quotes from President Obama's Facebook visit
10:57 PM


President Obama made plenty of political points at his virtual town hall meeting at Facebook's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters today.

During an hour-long question-and-answer session moderated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Obama touched on issues ranging from technology and education to immigration and an onerous deficit. At times, the Q&A took on a campaign pep rally in anticipation of the 2012 election.

Among the president's more memorable lines:

-- "My name is Barack Obama, and I'm the first guy to get Mark Zuckerberg to wear a jacket and tie."

-- "What makes me incredible optimistic is that at every juncture in our history, we've always been able to adapt."

Reducing the $1 trillion debt, he said, is "doable."

-- "The housing market is the biggest drag on the economy."

-- "If we don't have a serious (plan) to attack the deficit, we will have an even bigger problem" of investors pulling back when the economy starts to perk up.

-- "Immigration in this country has always been complicated. We are a nation of immigrants and laws. And sometimes the laws are unfair."

"If we bring high-skilled immigants to come here, why wouldn't we want them to stay? They are job generators. We don't want them starting an Intel in China or France. We want them starting them here."

-- "Our education system has to do a better job of math and science education for women, Hispanics and blacks."

-- "I want people to think of the next big Internet breakthrough as the next moon launch."

"We have to lift our game up for the Internet, math and science."

-- Obama said he is confident of a federal education law by 2012 to initiate good school reform.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Zuckerberg presented Obama with a Facebook-logoed hoodie. Obama lauded the "fashion" statement.
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BOOK TO REVEAL OBAMA'S 'TRUE' IDENTITY?

BOOK TO REVEAL OBAMA'S 'TRUE' IDENTITY?
Wed Apr 20 2011 10:35:52 ET

**Exclusive**

This year's high stakes publishing project quietly went to press this week, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

After years of research and digging by the nation's top private investigators, here it comes:

"WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President."

MORE

The street date is a LONG month away, and author Jerome Corsi, the man who torpedoed John Kerry's presidential dreams with SWIFT BOAT, has gone underground and is holding his new findings thisclose.

"It's utterly devastating," reveals a source close to the publisher. "Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!"

MORE

Does Corsi definitively declare the location of Obama's birth?

Will the president's attorneys attempt to interfere with the book's distribution? [The publisher vows to vigorously fight any legal action that may be taken.]

Will the book finally -- once and for all -- put an end to the growing controversy?

Or will it just ignite new ones!?

"When Donald Trump said he sent PIs to Hawaii to get to the bottom of all this, he meant this book," declares an insider.

[THE CASE ranked #1,341 on AMAZON's hitparade late Wednesday morning.]

Developing...

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Teenager stabs himself to death onstage at open mic night in front of shocked crowd at coffee shop

BY Meena Hartenstein
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, April 17th 2011, 7:27 PM

KTVZ.com

Kipp Rusty Walker, 19, committed suicide in front of a crowd on Thursday at a coffee shop.

An Oregon teenager shocked a crowd at a coffee shop last week when he stabbed himself to death on stage after singing at an open mic night.

Kipp Rusty Walker, 19, took the stage at Strictly Organic Coffee in the town of Bend, Or. on Thursday to perform a song he called "Sorry for the Mess."

When he finished playing, he pulled out a knife with a double-edged 6 inch blade and stabbed himself multiple times in the chest in front of a confused crowd of roughly 15 people.

"It was really unclear at first what was even happening. Because, you know, it is an open mic and it's a performance," the shop's co-owner Rhonda Ealy told local television station KTVZ. "People at first thought it was some sort of theatre."

Once the crowd saw blood and figured out what was happening, Walker was rushed to St. Charles Medical Center where he died of his wounds.

A friend of his, who did not want to be identified, told Oregon’s NewsChannel 21 Walker's death did not come as much of a surprise because the teenager had contemplated suicide before and even planned to kill himself in a public place.

"I've been preparing for it for a while, I'm sad about it, but I think I'm in shock, it's like a whirlwind of emotions," the friend said. "It was almost like he wanted to prove a point, like there's no point in being scared of death because it's going to happen to us anyway."

Walker first tried to take his own life on Mar. 20th, the friend said, who helped to have him hospitalized at the psychiatric unit of St. Charles Medical Center-Bend.

He said he warned Walker that killing himself would have lasting implications.

"I actually told him, I was like, 'Dude, this is going to mess a lot of people up," the friend told the TV station.

The traumatic incident is the first of its kind in the area, police Sgt. Chris Carney told Oregon radio station KBND.

"You know, 19 years with the Police Department, I can't think of any event similar to this where somebody's done something in such a public forum," he said. "We still don't know the reason why he chose to do this, why he chose this location or anything and we probably never will."

Counseling has been made available to witnesses or anyone affected by Walker's death.

"Most people never have to see anything like that in their entire lives, and never have before, so it is a life-changing experience," Ealy told KTVZ.

Walker would have turned 20 this week.

Source

S&P: Wash. Must Get Financial House in Order

Uploaded by AssociatedPress on Apr 18, 2011

Standard & Poor's is expressing worry about the outlook for U.S. debt. (April 18)

S&P issues warning on U.S. government credit rating

Source: (AHN) Reporter: Linda Young
Location: Washington, DC, United States
Published: April 19, 2011 11:27 am EDT


Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's Ratings Service has rattled financial markets by changing its outlook for U.S. government debt from "stable" to "negative" over concerns that lawmakers might not reach an agreement on dealing with the budget deficit.

The news caused the U.S. dollar to drop in value against the euro and oil prices fell. In New York the S&P 500 stock index declined while in Europe the main French, German and United Kingdom stock indexes also fell.

S&P's move increases the likelihood that it might downgrade the U.S.'s AAA rating within two years unless more is done to bring down government debt.

As one of the three major ratings agencies, if S&P lowers the U.S. credit rating it would make it harder and more expensive for the nation to borrow money.

In changing its outlook to negative, S&P officials said the agency views the U.S. economy as being diverse with a sound monetary policy, but that a downgrade of the AAA rating is possible if congressional lawmakers and the Obama administration are unable to agree on a viable plan to reduce the nation's deficit.

U.S. Treasury officials did not agree with S&P's move, saying they have a better ability to deal with the national debt than the ratings agency estimated.


Source: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90045495?S%26P%20issues%20warning%20on%20U.S.%20government%20credit%20rating#ixzz1JzcMvq4d

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Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin: Bombing memorial honors victims' sacrifice

Gov. Mary Fallin said the intent of those behind the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building 16 years ago was evil, but the result has been for the good.

TIM TALLEY,Associated Press Oklahoman

Published: April 19, 2011


Read more: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-governor-mary-fallin-bombing-memorial-honors-victims-sacrifice/article/3560073#ixzz1Jz9y4efw

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Remember Waco?

It was 18 years ago that the ATF and the FBI brutally assaulted and slaughtered a religious group called the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.

Here's an article I'd like to share; Let's examine the facts surrounding that memorable day:

The Waco Massacre

Many people believe that David Koresh (or the Branch Davidians) were responsible for the deaths of the 74 men, women and children who died in the inferno at Waco on April 19, 1993. This is the story that the FBI put out. It is a lie. The guns they had were legal. The local sheriff investigated and found no basis for complaints against them. These were law-abiding American citizens, even if they thought differently to most other folks. They trusted the U.S. Constitution to ensure their political rights, but they were murdered by agents acting under the authority of the U.S. government. Read this page if you believe otherwise. If you still have doubts, get the video Rules of Engagement for visual evidence. Or read the book Armageddon in Waco. Or see the film Waco: A New Revelation.

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The Truth about the Council On Foreign Relations

Uploaded by badattitude77769 on Jun 27, 2010

By Beholding We Are Changed

Brethren and sisters, it is by beholding that we become changed. By dwelling upon the love of God and our Saviour, by contemplating the perfection of the divine character and claiming the righteousness of Christ as ours by faith, we are to be transformed into the same image. Then let us not gather together all the unpleasant pictures--the iniquities and corruptions and disappointments, the evidences of Satan's power--to hang in the halls of our memory, to talk over and mourn over until our souls are filled with discouragement. A discouraged soul is a body of darkness, not only failing himself to receive the light of God, but shutting it away from others. Satan loves to see the effect of the pictures of his triumphs, making human beings faithless and disheartened. -- Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p. 744-745.

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