Saturday, February 21, 2009

Till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.


1And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

2And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

3Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

4And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.


Revelation 7:1-4.

Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction



Psalm 88


1O lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:

2Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;

3For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

4I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

5Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

6Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

7Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

8Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

9Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

10Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

11Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

12Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

13But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

14LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?

15I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

16Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

17They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.

18Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

Friday, February 20, 2009

The Jesuits devoted to the overthrow of Protestantism, and the re-establishment of the papal supremacy.


Throughout Christendom, Protestantism was menaced by formidable foes. The first triumphs of the Reformation past, Rome summoned new forces, hoping to accomplish its destruction. At this time the order of the Jesuits was created, the most cruel, unscrupulous, and powerful of all the champions of popery. Cut off from earthly ties and human interests, dead to the claims of natural affection, reason and conscience wholly silenced, they knew no rule, no tie, but that of their order, and no duty but to extend its power. (See Appendix.) The gospel of Christ had enabled its adherents to meet danger and endure suffering, undismayed by cold, hunger, toil, and poverty, to uphold the banner of truth in face of the rack, the dungeon, and the stake. To combat these forces, Jesuitism inspired its followers with a fanaticism that enabled them to endure like dangers, and to oppose to the power of truth all the weapons of deception. There was no crime too great for them to commit, no deception too base for them to practice, no disguise too difficult for them to assume. Vowed to perpetual poverty and humility, it was their studied aim to secure wealth and power, to be devoted to the overthrow of Protestantism, and the re-establishment of the papal supremacy.


When appearing as members of their order, they wore a garb of sanctity, visiting prisons and hospitals, ministering to the sick and the poor, professing to have renounced the world, and bearing the sacred name of Jesus, who went about doing good. But under this blameless exterior the most criminal and deadly purposes were often concealed. It was a fundamental principle of the order that the end justifies the means. By this code, lying, theft, perjury, assassination, were not only pardonable but commendable, when they served the interests of the church. Under various disguises the Jesuits worked their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings, and shaping the policy of nations. They became servants to act as spies upon their masters. They established colleges for the sons of princes and nobles, and schools for the common people; and the children of Protestant parents were drawn into an observance of popish rites. All the outward pomp and display of the Romish worship was brought to bear to confuse the mind and dazzle and captivate the imagination, and thus the liberty for which the fathers had toiled and bled was betrayed by the sons. The Jesuits rapidly spread themselves over Europe, and wherever they went, there followed a revival of popery.


To give them greater power, a bull was issued re-establishing the inquisition. (See Appendix.) Notwithstanding the general abhorrence with which it was regarded, even in Catholic countries, this terrible tribunal was again set up by popish rulers, and atrocities too terrible to bear the light of day were repeated in its secret dungeons. In many countries, thousands upon thousands of the very flower of the nation, the purest and noblest, the most intellectual and highly educated, pious and devoted pastors, industrious and patriotic citizens, brilliant scholars, talented artists, skillful artisans, were slain or forced to flee to other lands.

Such were the means which Rome had invoked to quench the light of the Reformation, to withdraw from men the Bible, and to restore the ignorance and superstition of the Dark Ages. But under God's blessing and the labors of those noble men whom He had raised up to succeed Luther, Protestantism was not overthrown. Not to the favor or arms of princes was it to owe its strength. The smallest countries, the humblest and least powerful nations, became its strongholds. It was little Geneva in the midst of mighty foes plotting her destruction; it was Holland on her sandbanks by the northern sea, wrestling against the tyranny of Spain, then the greatest and most opulent of kingdoms; it was bleak, sterile Sweden, that gained victories for the Reformation.
{GC 234-236}

Martyrs offer inspiration for Christians today, says Jesuit leader


Updated: Thursday - 02/19/2009

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 23, 2009


Martyrs offer inspiration for Christians today, says Jesuit leader


BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE


SAN FRANCISCO — Christians could live better in the present by modeling their lives on the lives of the Church’s martyrs, the superior general of the Jesuits told a congregation in San Francisco.

At the root of martyrdom is the Christian tradition of bearing witness, said Father Adolfo Nicolas in his homily during Mass Feb. 4 at St. Ignatius Church on the campus of the University of San Francisco.

He was at the Jesuit-run university as part of his Jan. 30-Feb. 7 visit to the Jesuits’ California province.

In his homily to a packed St. Ignatius Church on the feast day of the Jesuit martyrs of the missions, Nicolas said martyrdom itself is not something to be sought, but the lives of martyrs can provide inspiration.

Martyrdom is a fact of life in today’s Church, he said, alluding to laypeople and clergy alike who have sacrificed for their Christian faith.

He said modeling one’s life and actions on the sacrifices of martyrs requires three things: vision to take a more encompassing view; commitment to pursue faith even to the end; and love of the most needy in society as well as love for the pursuit of justice.

Christianity is not about fanaticism; it is not about being unreasonable or being masochistic or wanting to suffer,” Nicolas said.

“Christianity is about life and love and (giving), and only then does it make sense.”

At an afternoon press conference, he addressed a number of issues, including the role of Jesuit higher education in today’s world.

A Jesuit university is a place where students can think, learn and grow, whether that’s in class, in a chapel or in the community at large, he said.

We need to give what St. Ignatius gave,” Nicolas said. “Ignatius gave heart to the whole process of learning and serving.”

The Spanish-born Nicolas was elected superior general in January 2008.

Italian Jesuits first came to California from Oregon during the 1849 gold rush. In 1909, the California province was separated from Italy’s Turin province.

Soon, the California province developed a distinct American identity and mission geared toward the needs of people living in the western United States.




P.S. Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis.


Martyrs offer inspiration for Christians today, says Jesuit leader! (???)


Why would a Jesuit General use the word martyr while preaching? If anything they'd attempt to hide their track record of atrocities and slayings of faithful Christians and others who resisted their tyrannical methods of enforcing their Catholic catechism, and Canon Laws?


*

A. Nicolas:

commitment to pursue faith even to the end; and love of the most needy in society as well as love for the pursuit of justice.


I would rather follow this course:

Love for our fellow man, and the pursuit of righteousness to the end.


Arsenio.

I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.


Acts 13


1Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

2As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

3And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

4So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.

5And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister.

6And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus:

7Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God.

8But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.

9Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him.

10And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

11And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.

12Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.

13Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.

14But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.

15And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.

16Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.

17The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it.

18And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness.

19And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot.

20And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.

21And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years.

22And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave their testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.

23Of this man's seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus:

24When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

25And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.

26Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.

27For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.

28And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.

29And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.

30But God raised him from the dead:

31And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.

32And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers,

33God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

34And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.

35Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

36For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:

37But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption.

38Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

40Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets;

41Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.

42And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.

43Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

44And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

45But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.

46Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

47For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

48And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

49And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.

50But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.

51But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.

52And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.

Nancy Pelosi Has Secret Meeting With Her Bishop


NANCY PELOSI HAS SECRET MEETING WITH HER BISHOP
Catholic Internet TV Station Exposes the Hush-Hush Rendezvous

Detroit, MI 2/18/2009 05:42 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)

Speaker of the US House Nancy Pelosi had a secret meeting with her bishop ten days ago, it was revealed today by http://www.realcatholictv.com/.

Realcatholictv.com Executive Producer Michael Voris has been following the story for months, since both Pelosi and San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer announced publicly that they would meet and discuss her continued support of abortion.

“No one on either side had any interest in going public about this meeting”, said Voris. “Pelosi’s press guy said they didn’t bother to issue any kind of statement and the San Francisco Archdiocese officials didn’t even know there had been a meeting”.

The quiet gathering occurred at the house of third party in San Francisco which is curious considering each of them has a residence in the city.

To find out much more about the meeting and its results, go to http://www.realcatholictv.com/ and click on to “Today’s Vortex” where Voris gives all the details.

Realcatholictv.com was established in September of 2008 as the world’s first Catholic TV station solely on the internet.

Voris is a veteran TV reporter/producer and anchor of CBS News and affiliates having received dozens of Emmy nominations and multiple Emmy awards.

Realcatholictv.com may be contacted directly via phone at (248) 545-5716.
.

For more information about this story or to schedule an interview with Michael Voris, please call Simon Rafe at 248/545-5716 or e-mail simonrafe@realcatholictv.com

Source: http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=76924&cat=5


P.S. Highlights added for emphasis.

Sri Lanka rebels' air attack on capital


COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN -- Tamil Tiger rebel aircraft on Friday dropped bombs in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, and a rural town, military sources told CNN.

Tamil residents at a protest at which rebels were denounced for allegedly using civilians as human shields.

One or two bombs fell near the nation's air force headquarters, with one striking the Inland Revenue Department building, the sources said. Another fell in the village of Anamaduwa, some 60 miles north of Colombo.

Air defense systems were activated and there was a blackout in Colombo in the wake of the raid, the air force said.

The attack came as a leading rights group accused both Sri Lankan soldiers and Tamil rebels of breaking international law and abusing civilians.

Both sides "appear to be engaged in a perverse competition to demonstrate the greatest disregard for the civilian population," according to the Human Rights Watch, in a 45-page report dated Thursday about warfare in the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka.

"This 'war' against civilians must stop," said James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch.

The group said that both sides are "responsible for the dramatic increase in civilian casualties during the past month." Independent monitors say around 2,000 have been killed and another 5,000 have been wounded.

"In the last two months alone, both sides have committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, the laws of war. While not all loss of civilian life is a laws-of-war violation, the failure of the government forces and the LTTE to meet their international legal obligations has undoubtedly accounted for the high death tolls."

The rebels have been fighting for an independent homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority since 1983. Government troops and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE recently have been locked in a battle over the rebels' remaining strongholds in northern Sri Lanka's Vanni region.

The Human Rights Watch said Tamil Tiger territory has decreased to "a short, narrow strip on the northeast coast of the island" and "displaced persons under their control have been dangerously forced into a smaller and smaller space."

The report said that "in violation of the laws of war" the rebels have have not allowed "civilians to flee the fighting and repeatedly has shot at those who have tried to reach government-held territory. The LTTE continues to subject civilians under their control, including children, to forced recruitment and deadly forced labor on the battlefield."

The report said the Sri Lankan government has "indicated that the ethnic Tamil population trapped in the war zone can be presumed to be siding" with the Tamil Tigers "and treated as combatants, effectively sanctioning unlawful attacks."


Troops have shelled areas with displaced persons, including government-declared "safe zones" and hospitals.

The group said the Sri Lankan government should "immediately cease its indiscriminate artillery attacks on civilians and its policy of detaining displaced persons in internment camps."

It called for the Tamil Tigers to permit "civilians to leave the war zone, stop shooting at those who try to flee to government-controlled territory, and cease deploying forces near populated areas."

Humanitarian groups say as many as 250,000 unprotected civilians are trapped in the area where the fighting is taking place.

The report is the result of a two-week fact-finding mission to northern Sri Lanka this month. It comes as journalists and human rights monitors have been blocked from going to the battle zone in the Vanni region. The government in September ordered most humanitarian groups out of the region, worsening the situation for the civilians there.


Police: Pastor ‘brains’ in wife’s slay(ing)


Arrested

Police: Pastor ‘brains’ in wife’s slay

By Chito O. Aragon
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 14:27:00 02/20/2009


His cellular phone gave him away.

Pastor Leonardo Jastiva was arrested yesterday after police discovered that one of his cellular phones had the same number allegedly used by the alleged kidnappers of his wife, Judith.

Jastiva was arrested inside the homicide section of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) about 2 p.m. yesterday after the discovery.

The Philippine chapter president of the International Missionary Society of Seventh Day Adventist would be charged with parricide for allegedly masterminding his wife’s killing.

“As of today, we have officially arrested Leonardo Jastiva for parricide charges for the killing of his wife,” said Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador Jr., CCPO director.

Policemen were now trying to determine if Jastiva had accomplices.

Comendador said there were strong circumstantial and physical evidence against Jastiva, particularly with the recovery from his possession of the cellular phone supposedly used by the kidnappers to send him text messages about the whereabouts of his wife.

Jastiva reported to the police on Feb. 9 that his wife Judith was abducted by car-riding men along barangay Labangon in Cebu City about 8 p.m. on that day.

He claimed he was driving his motorcycle with his wife as his back rider when their path was blocked by a car.

He said he was chained to his motorcycle while his wife forcibly taken by the armed men.

But the police doubted his story when they could not find any witness in the area where the incident was supposed to have happened. It was a busy intersection and it was impossible that no one could have witnessed the abduction, the police said.

Jastiva claimed his wife was abducted by a group of men belonging to a rival religious group. He, however, refused to execute affidavit to formalize his allegation. Also, no ransom demand was reported.

On Tuesday night, he claimed to have received text messages from the alleged kidnappers that said that Judith was already dead and could be found in sitio Cantipla Uno, barangay Tabunan, Cebu City.

Jastiva forwarded the message to Senior Insp. George Ylanan, chief of the CCPO’s Criminal Investigation and Detective Management (CIDM).

The initial search on Tuesday evening failed to locate the body. But on Wednesday, a resident grazing his goat found her decomposing body in a grassy slope around 30 meters from the main road.

Policemen found a few meters away a pair of black sandals, two unused condoms, an eggplant with a condom on it, a dog chain, a pair of eyeglasses and three empty energy drink bottles.

The undergarments of the woman were found near her body. She still wore a red shirt with a guitar print in front and a black skirt.

Jastiva identified the body as that of his wife due to the scars on the left knee, which he said she got from a motorcycle accident.

The police believed that Judith was killed about a week before her body was found.

Yesterday, the police conducted an ocular inspection in sitio Cantipla Uno and asked Jastiva to join them.

Jastiva came with his three children. The police team also brought Jastiva to the area where Judith’s black jacket was found and to Labangon where the alleged kidnapping happened.

At the area where the body of his wife was found, Monilar asked Jastiva to turn over to him the latter’s cellular phones.

He said he intentionally asked for the pastor’s cell phones at the site where his wife’s body was discovered to make him aware that they had doubted his accounts surrounding Judith’s disappearance.

Senior Insp. Mario Monilar, chief of CCPO’s homicide section, said Jastiva looked nervous as he turned over his phones to the police.

At the police office, Ylanan ordered PO2 Jerybelle Lerio to transcribe all messages recovered from cellular phones.

Lerio then discovered that the number used on the blue Motorola cellular phone was the same as that used by the supposed “kidnapper” because the number was the same one that showed up on Jastiva’s Nokia phone identifying himself as the kidnapper.

Also, the cellular number allegedly owned by the “kidnapper” – 09268187329 – was the same number that Jastiva gave to some reporters as his contact number.

A day before Judith’s body was found, Ylanan said they already suspected that Jastiva was the “kidnapper.”

Ylanan recalled that on Tuesday morning after Jastiva informed him about the supposed text message giving the location where his wife’s body was dumped, the pastor made some conditions before he agreed to go the site.

“I went along with his conditions so he would cooperate with us,” Ylanan said.

He said Jastiva asked that “the incident should not be reported to any police office; it would not be reported to the media; the body would be buried immediately; and no investigation was to be conducted.”

Ylanan said the conditions made him more suspicious of Jastiva.

Comendador said that based on the text messages of the alleged kidnapper, it appeared that the wife might had been involved in an extra-marital affair.

One of the text messages on Feb. 18 from the “kidnapper’s” cellular phone said, “Adto miagi Sunday may gisabotan nami wipe nimu piru midumili sya og amo nasayran may lain pud diay siay gikalambigit, di gyud siya motug-an mao nahinaykan nuon piru gibasulan naku pastor (Last Sunday, your wife and I agreed on something but she backed out and I learned that she is involved with someone else. She would not tell me who so I got carried away but I am sorry for what I had done, pastor).”

Monilar said other text messages made it appear that Judith was being “punished” and that the pastor was the aggrieved party.

Monilar said the other items recovered near the body were believed to be mere props to confuse investigators and make it look like she was gang-raped.

Supt. Nestor Sator, the medico legal officer of the PNP in Central Visayas, said he could not determine if she was raped because the body was already decomposed.

Sator said his autopsy showed that the victim’s skull was fractured, indicating that she was hit by a hard object on the right portion of her head.

Sator said the victim could have been killed there or the body was just dumped there. If she was dumped, Sator said it was possible that other persons were involved in the crime.

Before the pastor was placed under arrest, many of his supporters went to the CCPO as a show of support but they quickly disappeared after the pastor was placed under arrest.

Jastiva’s neighbors in barangay Isidro, Talisay City said they still could not believe that he masterminded his wife’s murder.

The neighbors swarmed outside the International Missionary Society (IMS) of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

The house of the controversial pastor is located at the back of their church but no one came out to face the curious onlookers and the media.

Some neighbors, however, said that if it were true that the pastor killed his wife, they would feel betrayed because they had been defending Jastiva before police investigators.

The president of IMS’ rival movement, Pastor Allan Alingalan of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement (SDARM) and his wife Arlene, could not also believe that a pastor could harm his wife.

Arlene was a close friend of Judith and they used to see each other almost every day.

Arlene said they stopped meeting when she got pregnant and found it hard to leave her house. She said the last time they saw each other was in August of last year during the wedding of the Jastivas’ 19-year-old daughter.

“We’re friends. We never had problems. We would buy each others’ stuff. She would buy my tofu, and I would buy her soap and many more,” Arlene said.

Although they do not belong on the same group, Arlene and Allan never considered the IMS as their rival group. They only realized that they were supposed to be on opposite sides when they heard reports that Leonardo tagged them as rival groups. /With a report from Marian Z. Codilla


Upcoming Events (Mountain Media Ministries)


Upcoming Events


In December of 2007 we presented Country Living Seminars at four SDA churches in California (Hillcrest, Placerville, Hollister, and Fontana).Then in February and March of 2008 we took another trip where we presented these seminars at three SDA churches (Sacramento Central, Templeton Hills, and Placerville again). Then in the spring of 2008 we visited the Huntington and Point Pleasant SDA churches in WV; Manhattan SDA Church (NYC); Rainsville SDA Church in AL; Greater Atlanta SDA Church in GA; Talge Hall Chapel, Southern Adventist University; and South Orlando SDA Chruch in FL; as well as other locations that were arranged in North Carolina and Michigan.In August of 2008 we presented these seminars at the Pasadena SDA Church, the Lake Tahoe Campmeeting, and the Mountain View Japanese SDA Church (all in California).

Then this last fall/winter, we presented seminars at the Sulphur SDA Church (OK), Evansville West Side SDA Church (IN), Nashville First SDA Church (TN), Portsmouth SDA Church (OH), Mt. Pisgah SDA Church (Kennesaw, GA), Piedmont SDA Church (AL), Cedar Ridge SDA Church (Georgetown, TN), McDonald Road SDA Church (Collegedale, TN),Palmetto SDA Church (FL), West Columbia SDA Church (SC), Pisgah SDA Church (Bryan's Road, MD), Ebenezer SDA Church (Brooklyn, NY), and the Johnston SDA Church (RI).
Below you will find information about upcoming events where we will be speaking. Many of these events will deal with practical country living and end-time topics. Please note that some may not be sponsored by Mountain Media Ministries.


NEW - We are planning a trip to the southwest (CA, AZ, etc), across the south, and the east coast this coming spring (2009). Our schedule for this trip is quite full at this point, but feel free to contact us ASAP If you or your church/group are interested in having us conduct seminars in your area.


















Hezekiah Cleanses the Temple



2 Chronicles 29


1Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.

2And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.

3He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them.

4And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street,

5And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

6For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD, and turned their backs.

7Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel.

8Wherefore the wrath of the LORD was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes.

9For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.

10Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the LORD God of Israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us.

11My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense.

12Then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites: and of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehalelel: and of the Gershonites; Joah the son of Zimmah, and Eden the son of Joah:

13And of the sons of Elizaphan; Shimri, and Jeiel: and of the sons of Asaph; Zechariah, and Mattaniah:

14And of the sons of Heman; Jehiel, and Shimei: and of the sons of Jeduthun; Shemaiah, and Uzziel.

15And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD.

16And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the LORD, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the LORD into the court of the house of the LORD. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron.

17Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of the LORD: so they sanctified the house of the LORD in eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end.

18Then they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the LORD, and the altar of burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the shewbread table, with all the vessels thereof.

19Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away in his transgression, have we prepared and sanctified, and, behold, they are before the altar of the LORD.

20Then Hezekiah the king rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the LORD.

21And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats, for a sin offering for the kingdom, and for the sanctuary, and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the LORD.

22So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received the blood, and sprinkled it on the altar: likewise, when they had killed the rams, they sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed also the lambs, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar.

23And they brought forth the he goats for the sin offering before the king and the congregation; and they laid their hands upon them:

24And the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation with their blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.

25And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the LORD by his prophets.

26And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets.

27And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel.

28And all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished.

29And when they had made an end of offering, the king and all that were present with him bowed themselves, and worshipped.

30Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the LORD with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshipped.

31Then Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye have consecrated yourselves unto the LORD, come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings into the house of the LORD. And the congregation brought in sacrifices and thank offerings; and as many as were of a free heart burnt offerings.

32And the number of the burnt offerings, which the congregation brought, was threescore and ten bullocks, an hundred rams, and two hundred lambs: all these were for a burnt offering to the LORD.

33And the consecrated things were six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep.

34But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them, till the work was ended, and until the other priests had sanctified themselves: for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests.

35And also the burnt offerings were in abundance, with the fat of the peace offerings, and the drink offerings for every burnt offering. So the service of the house of the LORD was set in order.

36And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly.

Rick Santelli: CNBC Obama Rant (Video, Transcript)


Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 11:30 am



Here is the video and transcript of CNBC host Rick Santelli slamming the Obama mortgage rescue plan. Among other things he warns Americans about a socialist administration and reminds viewers of the early days of the Cuban revolution.

Rick Santelli: President Obama, Are You Listening?


All heck is breaking loose in the financial markets this week as traders are betting that Obama’s giant welfare surprise has doomed the economy. As the values of our nation’s best companies tumbled as a result of actions in Washington, Rick Santelli spoke up on CNBC from the trading floor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Santelli explains that the government is supporting bad behavior, and taunts the president by asking “President Obama, are you listening?” He wonders rhetorically if it’s time for another tea party.

CNBC was largely supportive of Obama’s candidacy. After only four weeks, Obama’s honeymoon period with the media has taken a nosedive.

Video and transcript are below.

Rick Santelli CNBC transcript:

Mr. Ross has nailed it. The government is promoting bad behavior. We certainly don’t want to put stimulus pork and give people a whopping $8 or $10 in their check and think that they ought to save it.

And in terms of modifications, I tell you what. I have an idea. The new administration is big on computers and technology. How about this, Mr. President and new administration. Why don’t you put up a website to have people vote the internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers mortgages? Or would they like to at least buy buy cars, buy a house that is in foreclosure … give it to people who might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people that can carry the water instead of drink the water?

This is America!

How many people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgages that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?
Raise their hand!

President Obama, are you listening?

You know Cuba used to have mansions and a relatively decent economy. They moved from the individual to the collective. Now they’re driving ‘54 Chevys.

It’s time for another tea party.

What we are doing in this country will make Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin roll over in their graves.

Santelli has the credentials as a senior investment strategist, trader and manager to know what he is talking about.

The entire segment at the CME featured Jason Roney of Sharmac Capital, Wilbur Ross Jr. of WL Ross & Co., and CNBC’s Rick Santelli.

Mirkarimi: Let it all hang out at Breakers


Mirkarimi: Let it all hang out at Breakers
Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bring back the nudity, bring back the fun.
So says San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who is calling on Bay to Breakers organizers to ease up on new rules banning party floats and the Full Monty from the annual race.

"There is no reason to go this far," said Mirkarimi, whose supervisorial district is invaded every May by the 65,000 or so runners on their way from the Embarcadero to Ocean Beach. "Nudity and floats are part of the spirit of the race."

Outcries from race neighbors over sloppy-drunk participants displaying their all, relieving themselves wherever the mood strikes and leaving their trash everywhere prompted race organizers and city officials to ban booze and bare butts.

Reaction among grassroots fans of the fun fest has been loud and swift, and Mirkarimi has taken up the cause. His first step will be to ask other supervisors to sign on to a resolution asking race organizers to lighten up.

"Nudity and floats are part of the overall eccentric nature of the race and what makes it so great," Mirkarimi said.

As for the booze ban, however, Mirkarimi said it's probably here to stay.

"We're just trying to find some middle ground here," Mirkarimi said.

Ed Sharpless of Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers, formed after the crackdown was announced last week, said that what the race really needs is more toilets, more trash cans and a new spirit among partiers to clean up after themselves.

"It did get out of hand over the last couple of years, but the issues can be addressed," Sharpless said.

Speaking on behalf of race organizers, public relations whiz Sam Singer said it is too early to say whether the bans would be eased. But he added that organizers "are having discussions with the city and the police to see if there might be some flexibility in the new rules."

"And speaking of rules," Singer added. "There has always been a ban on nudity - it has never been enforced and it won't likely be enforced this year, either."

For the record, Mirkarimi says he has never run the Bay to Breakers in the nude, "although I have been scantily clad."

When in Rome: No sooner did Congress sign off on that $787 billion stimulus package than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some of her closest political pals boarded an Air Force jet for a whirlwind trip to Italy, to be capped with a meeting with the pope.

Pelosi's posse included fellow Democrats Reps. George Miller of Martinez and Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto.

First stop: Aviano Air Base in Italy, where members visited U.S. troops and honored a soldier for his service in Afghanistan.

Next, Florence, to pay their respects to World War II soldiers buried on the outskirts of town.

Then, on to Naples for a NATO meeting.

Along the way are meet-and-greets with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

Don't know if Pelosi and the pontiff will debate whether life begins at conception, but it has been a hot topic between the speaker and San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, who recently met to try to work out their differences.

The seeds for the pilgrimage were planted two years ago with an invite from the Italian Parliament, which wanted to honor the House speaker as the highest-ranking Italian American in the U.S. government.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said he couldn't tell us the cost of the trip - which will end later this week with a side jaunt to an undisclosed Central Asian hot spot - but insisted the delegation paled in size compared to other congressional junkets.

However, Leslie Paige, spokeswoman for the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste, said taxpayers had the right to know "exactly what they are spending on these junkets, including the cost of the military aircraft."

"It's about absolute transparency," Paige said.

Razz: Relations between San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and new 49ers chief Jed York don't seem to be getting off to a warm start.

Newsom's lack of attention to York's father, John York, was one of the reasons the team is looking to relocate in Santa Clara.

Judging from Jed York's remarks at a meeting with fans the other night, the mood hasn't changed much - not with the top Niner complaining that there hasn't been a great deal of cooperation with the mayor when it comes to keeping Candlestick Park up to par.

In fact, Newsom and the new owner had barely exchanged a word since the younger York took over.

All that changed Tuesday when we called the mayor's office for comment. Within an hour, Newsom was on the phone to York explaining all the city has done and asking for a meeting. York accepted.

Sorry, Jed.

Cheers: From Rich "Big Vinny" Lieberman: The "Sully" Sullenberger cocktail - two hits of Gray Goose and a splash of water.

Bam!

Light a fire: A local Catholic priest's call for a boycott of that Noe Valley store carrying President Obama prayer candles appears to be having the opposite effect.

"Thanks to Father Tony La Torre, we had four priests in today buying the candle," said David Eiland, co-owner of the Just for Fun novelty shop. "One was visiting from Rome and bought a candle for his best friend who is the head of the Franciscans."

And finally: "I haven't slept with this many people at one time since the '70s." - state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, emerging from the weekend legislative lockdown over the budget.




P.S. Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis............Arsenio.

Pope tells Nancy Pelosi life must be protected

Feb 18, 9:35 PM EST


Pope tells Nancy Pelosi life must be protected

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON
Associated Press Writer


VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI received Nancy Pelosi, one of the most prominent abortion rights politicians in America, and told her Wednesday that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life "at all stages of its development." The U.S. House speaker, a Catholic, was the first top Democrat to meet with Benedict since the election of Barack Obama, who won a majority of the U.S. Catholic vote despite differences with the Vatican on abortion.

On his fourth day in office last month, Obama ended a ban on funds for international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option - a sharp policy change from former President George W. Bush's Republican administration.

The Vatican's attempts to keep the Pelosi visit low-profile displayed its obvious unease with the new U.S. administration. Benedict and Bush had found common ground in opposing abortion, an issue that drew them together despite their differences over the war in Iraq.

Wednesday's meeting, in a small room off a Vatican auditorium after the pope's weekly public audience, was closed to reporters and photographers.

The Vatican also said - contrary to its usual policy when the pope meets world leaders - that it was not issuing either a photo or video of the encounter, claiming the meeting was private.

A short statement from the Vatican said the pope "briefly greeted" Pelosi and did not mention any other subject they may have discussed besides abortion.

In their 15-minute meeting, the Vatican said Benedict spoke of the church's teaching "on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death." That is an expression often used by the pope when expressing opposition to abortion.

Benedict said all Catholics - especially legislators, jurists and political leaders - should work to create "a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development," the Vatican said.

Pelosi, for her part, did not even mention the pope's allusion to abortion.

In a statement issued by her office, Pelosi said it was with "great joy" that she and her husband Paul met with Benedict.

"In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church's leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father's dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel," Pelosi said.

"I was proud to show His Holiness a photograph of my family's papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren," said the California congresswoman, who has often expressed pride in her religious heritage.

Pelosi is the third person in line in U.S. government, after Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden.

The treatment of Pelosi echoed the Vatican's earlier treatment of Geraldine Ferraro, a Catholic who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984. The Vatican did not disguise its irritation at Ferraro's position that she opposed abortion but also opposed outlawing it.

Pope John Paul II's meeting with Ferraro in 1985 was never officially announced and - like the Pelosi audience - no photo was released.

While some Vatican officials under Benedict have been openly critical of the Democrats and Obama over abortion - former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has said the Democrats risk becoming a "party of death" - Benedict has cautiously welcomed Obama's new administration.

Still, a number of bishops in the United States have questioned Pelosi's stance on abortion, particularly her theological defense of her support for abortion rights.

The question of how much religion should influence American politicians came to the forefront with the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic to become U.S. president, and has continued to this day.

A number of American lawmakers who support abortion rights attended Benedict's Mass in Washington last April, including Pelosi and Sen. John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate in 2004.

During the 2004 campaign, several U.S. bishops questioned whether Kerry should receive Communion because of his stand on abortion. But no American priest or bishop tried to deny Kerry Communion. At the April 2008 papal Mass, Kerry took Communion from a priest far from the papal altar.

Pelosi also had meetings with Italian leaders in the past few days, including Premier Silvio Berlusconi.


Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_VATICAN_US_PELOSI?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

P.S. Bolds and Highlights added.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

From the boardroom to the courtroom


Once the lucrative future of English cricket, Sir Allen Stanford faces disgrace after being charged with running an $8bn (£5.6bn) fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the Texan-born billionaire and his close staff of misleading investors and falsely claiming their money was safely invested and delivering healthy returns. Some analysts had started questioning how Stanford International Bank had managed to consistently perform well through the financial crisis

Photograph: Tom Shaw/Getty




P.S. Bolds and Highlights added. "Sir" Stanford

Allen Stanford's year (well kind of)


Allen Stanford's year (well kind of)

In a totally made-up interview, Texan cricket-bothering billionaire Allen Stanford discusses his eventful 2008
Posted by Barney Ronay

Monday 29 December 2008 00.00 GMT
.
What a year it's been. You might even call it the year of the little guy, the man with just a message of hope for a new dawn of a shining tomorrow, plus a big old helicopter full of money and his own cricket ground with a giant set of fancy golden stumps in the doorway.

Right from the moment I first came up with my Stanford Twenty20 for 20 idea, I knew it was special. "Vijay," I said over iced tea one evening with my contractually obliged close friend and golfing buddy Vijay Singh, "I have a dream. A dream where I'm being chased by someone and then I'm in the John Lewis bedding department and I have to help Ronnie Corbett make the perfect sponge pudding. But that's not the only dream I have," I added.

"I also have an idea for a $20m winner-takes-all Twenty20 cricket match between England and A Very Excited West Indian XI at my personal Antiguan crick-o-drome." Vijay paused and thought for a moment. "You know Mr Stanford," he said, a slow smile playing at the corners of his mouth, "I kind of preferred the Ronnie Corbett one."

Well, after that I was happy as a gopher in soft dirt. In June I made my historic first trip to Lord's to meet my new buddies at the ECB. Folks say the British can be cold and reserved, but as I stepped out of that helicopter I had a great, warm feeling of love, somewhere between the knee and upper thigh region. But as soon as Mr Collier had been removed and helped back up to his feet he was fine.

"There you go, little fellow," I said, slipping him a little something for his trouble. "But ... I'm chairman of the ECB," he said, still drying his eyes. "My mistake," I said, replacing it with a fifty. "Now don't drop that valise, son. I'll be in your office. If you need me I'll be drinking a Dr Pepper with my feet up on your desk."

And so it was that the Stanford Twenty20 came to pass, one fine and glorious October week of good ol' fashioned third-rate English one-day international cricket played out to the finest inappropriate snatches of commercial hip-hop and the familiar slap of the Sir Allen high-five as I greeted my people round the ball-park edge.

Of course the whole week was a triumph, but I would like to clear up one unfortunate so-called incident. You might have seen pictures of yours truly giving a proper Texan welcome to the lovely womenfolk of the England team, offering a knee to sit on, making the right kind of lascivious gestures at the TV camera, sticking my tongue out like a proper Texan gentleman. That's just our tradition and as a decent host it's right that folks expect it.

Luckily I went round to see the players and straightened the whole thing out. I got down on my knees right there in front of them and I begged them, "Fred, Broady, Kapes. Can you boys forgive me?" They said, "Allen, Mr Stanford sir, we're just trying to have a shower in here." And after that we was finer than frog hair.

In fact, I never saw the boys so happy as the morning after they'd been base-hit right round the ball-park by my good friend Chris Gayle and were getting on the Sir Allen Stanford Airport Shuttle. I called out "Hey boys, we get to do this all over again next year." Seemed like from the amount of fingers they waved they might have got the wrong idea. "Actually boys, it's five years not just two!" I called back as the bus pulled away.

Of course, there will always be doubters. There are still those who say my grand plan to sell Twenty20 to America starting with a sample TV marketing drive in Coleslaw City (Pop: 2,036), Mayonnaise County, Nebraska has failed, leaving me desperate to cut my losses where I can and dump West Indies cricket like a skunk at a lawn party.

To them I say just take another look at those Stanford Twenty20 Project USA viewer satisfaction polls. Of those who understood the question 13% said they would drive a cricket long as it ain't one of them hokey electricalised vehicles. 6% asked if it came in barbecue. And 47% said "Now ain't that the doodliest".

Amen and hallelujah to that, I say. Change has come, cricket. Change has come.


P.S. Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis.............Arsenio.

Trouble at Treasury: Geithner gets the keys to the henhouse


Trouble at Treasury: Geithner gets the keys to the henhouse
by Mike Whitney

Global Research, February 19, 2009
Information Clearinghouse - 2009-02-18


The Obama Team has a big problem on their hands; Timothy Geithner. Geithner was picked as Treasury Secretary because he is a trusted ally of the big banks and has a good grasp of the intricacies of the financial system. The problem is that Geithner can't handle the public relations part of his job. His big debut in prime-time last Tuesday turned out to be a complete dud. He was thoroughly unconvincing and looked like a nervous teenager at a speech contest. He fizzled on stage for 25 minutes while the little red box in the corner of the TV screen--which shows the current Dow Jones Industrials--plummeted nearly 400 points. It was a total disaster and one that is sure to be repeated over and over as long as Geithner is at Treasury. Not everyone can be a charismatic orator like Obama and nothing short of a personality transplant will fix Geithner. He lacks gravitas and doesn't inspire confidence. That's a problem since, the administration's main objective is to restore public confidence and get people spending again. They're just shooting themselves in the foot by using him as their pitchman. Eventually, Geithner will either have to be tossed overboard or strapped to Obama like a papoose so he can share in the president's popularity. Otherwise he will continue to be a millstone.

In truth, Geithner did us all a big favor on Tuesday by exposing himself as a stooge of the banking industry. Now everyone can see that the banks are working the deal from the inside. Geithner has assembled a phalanx of Wall Street flim-flam men to fill out the roster at Treasury. "His chief-of-staff is lobbyist from Goldman Sachs. The new deputy secretary of state is a former CEO of Citigroup. Another CFO from Citigroup is now assistant to the president, and deputy national security adviser for International Economic Affairs. And one of his deputies also came from Citigroup. One new member of the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board comes from UBS, which is currently being investigated for helping rich clients evade taxes." The Obama White House is a beehive of big money guys and Wall Street speculators whose only goal is to nuzzle up to the public trough while strengthening their grip on political power.

The banking lobby has already set the agenda. All the hooplah about "financial rescue" is just a smokescreen to hide the fact that the same scofflaws who ripped off investors for zillions of dollars are back for their next big sting; a quick vacuuming of the public till to save themselves from bankruptcy. It's a joke. Obama floated into office on a wave of Wall Street campaign contributions and now it's payback time. Prepare to get fleeced. Geithner is fine-tuning a "public-private" partnership for his scotch-swilling buddies so they can keep their fiefdom in tack while shifting trillions of dollars of toxic assets onto the people's balance sheet. They've affixed themselves to Treasury like scabs on a leper and are now zeroing in for the kill. Geithner is "their guy", a Trojan Horse for the banking oligarchs. He's already admitted that his main goal is to, "keep the banks in private hands". That says it all, doesn't it?

Of course, the administration is not alone in their support for the banks and Wall Street. Congress has its fair share of bank-loyalists, too. That was evident last week at the hearings of the House Financial Services Committee. 8 CEOs of the nations biggest banks were marched off Capital Hill (ostensibly) for public rebuke. For a minute, it looked like Congress might do its job and actually grill the bastards who blew up the financial system. But, no, that's not what happened. The 7 hours of testimony produced few fireworks and no mention of accountability. For the most part, the bankers were treated like honored guests instead of the chiselers they are. That's because nearly every member of the committee rakes in contributions from the same banks that are being investigated. As Bill Moyers points out on Friday's Bill Moyers Journal, "Last year, the securities and investment industry made $146 million in campaign contributions. Commercial banks, another $34 million." The banks own congress just like they own the White House and anything else of value in the USA. They left the hearings unscathed.

Apart from the infrequent fulminations of congressmen clowning for the cameras, the hearings were tedious and unproductive. Same old, same old. The bankers remained stonefaced throughout, while the committee turned in their typical sub par performance. Congress doesn't do oversight anymore, and even if they did, there's no one with the cohones to apply the rules. Besides, no one in the House has the foggiest idea of how the financial system really works. If they did, they'd know that the banks HAVE actually been lending despite congress's spurious accusations. Some of the banks even produced documented evidence to prove it. This has been a flashpoint for taxpayers who think that they were duped by financial institutions that took the $165 billion TARP money and used it for bonuses or to buy smaller banks. Not so. The truth is more complicated.

The banks have been hoarding; that much is certain. In fact, The St Louis Fed's charts show that:

"Until September, excess reserves hovered at or below about US $2 billion, but have ballooned to over $600 billion as of November 19, 2008....The Fed has thrown money at the banking system, but the banks are hoarding the cash, they do not lend." (Axel Merk, "Monetizing the Debt") Excess reserves are reserves that are beyond the required capital limits. The steady buildup--which now exceeds $700 billion--suggests that the banks are hunkering down for long and deep recession. They are in survival mode. Still, that does not mean they are not lending. In fact, "Bank Credit expanded $459bn year-over-year, or 4.9%. Bank Credit jumped $356bn over the past 21 weeks." (Doug Noland Credit Bubble Bulletin) It's true; bank lending has actually increased even though standards have gotten tougher and consumers are saving for the first time in decades.

How can the banks be lending and hoarding at the same time; aren't the two mutually exclusive? And why is credit draining from the system in trillions of dollars if the banks continue to lend?

This is big mystery of the financial crisis, but one that can be solved by reviewing the facts. J P MorganChase's Jamie Dimon explained it like this:

"There's a huge amount of non bank lending which has disappeared which is the same thing to the consumer (as the banks)...Finance companies, car finance companies, money funds, bond funds..that withdrew money from the system (when the credit crunch took hold) making it much harder on the system. That created the crisis we now have."

The Wall Street Journal summed it up even more succinctly:

"Chairman Barney Frank's hearing was intended to flay the CEOs for not lending enough. It fell flat as political theater because banks have actually increased their lending in recent months. The people who aren't lending more are investors in nonbank financing such as asset-backed securities.

In fact, the nonbank credit market is normally much bigger than bank lending. But new issues backed by auto loans, credit cards and the like have been rare this year, as markets wonder how the government's next move will change the value of such investments. Buyers and sellers of existing securities are "sitting on the sidelines," according to Asset-Backed Alert, waiting for still another Washington recalibration of risk and reward." ("Committee on Doubt and Uncertainty" Wall Street Journal)


This is how the financial system really works--something which seems to be completely beyond the grasp of congress. A shadow banking system has grown up around the process of securitization, which packages pools of debt (mortgages, commercial real estate, student loans, car loans and credit card debt) and sells them as securities to foreign banks, hedge funds, insurance companies etc. Wall Street has muscled into an area of finance that used to be the domain of the commercial banks. According to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, "40 percent of consumer lending" depends on this shadow system for credit. That's why he is determined to resurrect securitization whatever the cost. The Fed has already expanded its balance sheet to $2.2 trillion while providing loan guarantees for over $9.3 trillion dollars. The entire financial system is now backstopped by loans from the Fed without which the global financial system would collapse. The present Fed funding of financial markets forces us to rethink our outdated ideas of the "free market" which now exists only in theory.

A 40 percent decline in consumer credit is more than sufficient to push the world into another Great Depression. The sharp decrease in foreign exports, shipping, auto sales, and other vital areas of commerce--all in the 30 to 40 percent range--suggest that the global economy depends on Wall Street's credit-generating mechanism more than anyone imagined. The breakdown in securitization has sent tremors across the planet triggering a decline in asset prices and an accelerating fall in personal consumption. Before the Fed and Treasury try to restore securitization to its former glory, politicians and pundits should decide whether it is a viable system for long-term growth. There's reason to believe that transforming of debt into securities creates incentives for fraudulent loans and mortgages since they can be dumped on Wall Street and sold to gullible investors. The reason the mortgage lenders and banks bundled off crappy loans to the the big brokerage houses, is because they thought there was no risk involved. (for themselves!) They were wrong and now the entire market for structured debt is in a deep freeze. Geithner and Bernanke should suspend all funding for securitized loans until they can show that the kinks have been worked out and we won't fall into the same trap again. One financial meltdown is more than enough.

The TARP funds should not be used to exhume the corpse of a dysfunctional financial system. The money should be used to create more jobs, extend unemployment benefits, provide food stamps, public works projects or cram downs for struggling homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure. People don't need more credit; they need debt relief. That means higher wages and better jobs. Obama should realize this, even if Geithner and Co. don't. The Geithner-Paulson policy of limitless credit expansion is the path to ruin. That's why Geithner is the wrong man for the job. His fundamental worldview leads to economic calamity.

Geithner's resume alone should have precluded him from consideration as Treasury Secretary. He started his career at Kissinger and Associates, which speaks for itself. From there, he went to International Affairs division of the Treasury Dept. where he served under Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers both of who were major proponents of deregulation. He's presently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and served as director of Policy Development and Review Department at the IMF. In 2003, he became president of the New York Fed and was Vice Chairman of the FOMC. He's also a member of the G-30, an international body of financiers and powerbrokers, and the former chairman of the Bank for International Settlements. If there's an internationalist organization Geithner doesn't belong to, we haven't found it yet. He's been thoroughly marinated in a globalist culture that wreaks of banking conspiracies and clandestine junkets to Jeckyll Island. Is it really that hard to find a good economist who just wants to serve his country?

There was a revealing incident in the Senate Finance Committee last week when Senator Bernie Sanders challenged Geithner. Here's the transcript:

SENATOR BERNARD SANDERS: "In 2006 and 2007, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, was the highest paid executive on Wall Street, making over $125 million in total compensation. Due to its risky investments, Goldman Sachs now has over $168 billion in total outstanding debt. It's laid off over 10 percent of its workforce. Late last year, the financial situation at Goldman was so dire that the taxpayers of this country provided Goldman Sachs with a $10 billion bailout.
Very simple question that I think the American people want to know. Yes or no, should Mr. Blankfein be fired from his job and new leadership be brought in?"

SECRETARY GEITHNER: "Senator, that's a judgment his board of directors have to make.
I want to say one thing which is very important. Everything we do going forward has to be judged against the impact we're going to have on the American people and the prospects for recovery. And every dollar we spend will have to be measured against the benefits we bring in terms of---"

SENATOR SANDERS: "Mr. Secretary, you're not answering my question. You have a person who made hundreds of millions for himself as he led his institution that helped cause a great financial crisis. We have put, as taxpayers, $10 billion to bail him out and we have no say about whether or not he should stay on the job?"

SECRETARY GEITHNER: "No, I didn't say that. I think there will be circumstances, as there have been already, where the government intervention will have to come with very tough conditions, including changes in management and leadership of institutions. And where we believe that makes sense, we will do that."

Predictably evasive, Geithner refused to say whether or not Blanfein should be fired. That's because Geithner believes that the function of government is to serve the interests of the big banks not the public. The lip-service to democracy is just rhetorical claptrap. It's meaningless. The government's role is to facilitate the exploitation of its people to fatten the bottom line of the top-hat capitalists. This is why Geithner never made any reference to regulations during Tuesday's speech. There was no mention of Glass Steagal, or reducing the amount of leverage financial institutions can use, or forcing all derivatives contracts onto a regulated exchange, or suspending off-balances sheets operations, or reclassifying all Level 3 assets so shareholders know how much garbage the banks have on their books, or even rethinking the whole securitization model which collapsed the financial system and thrust the world towards a 1930s-type slump. He stayed away from regulation entirely, just as he defiantly withheld details about the impending multi-billion dollar bank bailout.

But don't think that the slippery Mr. Geithner doesn't have a solution for our present economic malaise. He does! He would like to see Congress appoint an Uber-regulator that has the authority to monitor market activity and decide whether individual players pose a threat to the overall system.

Sounds great. And to whom should these sweeping new powers be entrusted?

You guessed it; the Federal Reserve, the wealth-shifting, price-fixing, social-engineering scamsters who preside over the bankers cartel which just blew up the financial system. Is there any doubt where Geithner's loyalties really lie?


Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.




P.S. Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis...............Arsenio.

Genetically Modfied Seeds: Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach


Genetically Modfied Seeds: Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach


by Linn Cohen-Cole


Global Research, February 14, 2009
opednews.com - 2009-02-03


People say if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, just don’t buy their GMO seeds.

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It’s a way to make money since farmers can’t fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.

And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.

1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.

2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork and testing and tracking every variety and being subject to fines, that having normal seed becomes almost impossible (an NAIS approach to wiping out normal seeds). Does your state have such a seed law? Before they existed, farmers just collected the seeds and put them in sacks in the shed and used them the next year, sharing whatever they wished with friends and neighbors, selling some if they wanted. That’s been killed.

In Illinois, which has such a seed law, Madigan, the Speaker of the House, his staff is Monsanto lobbyists.

3. Monsanto is pushing anti-democracy laws (Vilsack’s brainchild, actually) that remove community’ control over their own counties so farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops. So if you don’t want a GM-crop that grows industrial chemicals or drugs or a rice growing with human DNA in it, in your area and mixing with your crops, tough luck.

Check the map of just where the Monsanto/Vilsack laws are and see if your state is still a democracy or is Monsanto’s. A farmer in Illinois told me he heard that Bush had pushed through some regulation that made this true in every state. People need to check on that.

4. For sure there are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA right now that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal (another way to leave nothing but GM-seeds) because it’s now considered a “source of seed contamination.” Farmer can still seed clean but the equipment now has to be certified and a farmer said it would require a million to a million and half dollar building and equipment … for EACH line of seed. Seed storage facilities are also listed (another million?) and harvesting and transport equipment. And manure. Something that can contaminate seed. Notice that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not mentioned.

You could eat manure and be okay (a little grossed out but okay). Try that with pesticides and fertilizers. Indian farmers have. Their top choice for how to commit suicide to escape the debt they have been left in is to drink Monsanto pesticides.

5. Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners across the Midwest. In Pilot Grove, Missouri, in Indiana (Maurice Parr), and now in southern Illinois (Steve Hixon). And they are using US marshals and state troopers and county police to show up in three cars to serve the poor farmers who had used Hixon as their seed cleaner, telling them that he or their neighbors turned them in, so across that 6 county areas, no one talking to neighbors and people are living in fear and those farming communities are falling apart from the suspicion Monsanto sowed. Hixon’s office got broken into and he thinks someone put a GPS tracking device on his equipment and that’s how Monsanto found between 200-400 customers in very scattered and remote areas, and threatened them all and destroyed his business within 2 days.

So, after demanding that seed cleaners somehow be able to tell one seed from another (or be sued to kingdom come) or corrupting legislatures to put in laws about labeling of seeds that are so onerous no one can cope with them, what is Monsanto’s attitude about labeling their own stuff? You guessed it - they’re out there pushing laws against ANY labeling of their own GM-food and animals and of any exports to other countries. Why?

We know and they know why.

As Norman Braksick, the president of Asgrow Seed Co. (now owned by Monsanto) predicted in the Kansas City Star (3/7/94) seven years ago, “If you put a label on a genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

And they’ve sued dairy farmers for telling the truth about their milk being rBGH-free, though rBGH is associated with an increased risk of breast, colon and prostate cancers.

I just heard that some seed dealers urge farmers to buy the seed under the seed dealer’s name, telling the farmers it helps the dealer get a discount on seed to buy a lot under their own name. Then Monsanto sues the poor farmer for buying their seed without a contract and extorts huge sums from them.

Here’s a youtube video that is worth your time. Vandana Shiva is one of the leading anti-Monsanto people in the world. In this video, she says (and this video is old), Monsanto had sued 1500 farmers whose fields had simply been contaminated by GM-crops. Listen to all the ways Monsanto goes after farmers.

Do you know the story of Gandhi in India and how the British had salt laws that taxed salt? The British claimed it as theirs. Gandhi had what was called a Salt Satyagraha, in which people were asked to break the laws and march to the sea and collect the salt without paying the British. A kind of Boston tea party, I guess.

Thousands of people marched 240 miles to the ocean where the British were waiting. As people moved forward to collect the salt, the British soldiers clubbed them but the people kept coming. The non-violent protest exposed the British behavior, which was so revolting to the world that it helped end British control in India.

Vandana Shiva has started a Seed Satyagraha - nonviolent non-cooperation around seed laws - has gotten millions of farmers to sign a pledge to break those laws.

American farmers and cattlemen might appreciate what Gandhi fought for and what Shiva is bringing back and how much it is about what we are all so angry about - loss of basic freedoms. [The highlighting is mine.]


The Seed Satyagraha is the name for the nonviolent, noncooperative movement that Dr. Shiva has organized to stand against seed monopolies. According to Dr. Shiva, the name was inspired by Gandhi’s famous walk to the Dandi Beach, where he picked up salt and said, “You can’t monopolize this which we need for life.” But it’s not just the noncooperation aspect of the movement that is influenced by Gandhi. The creative side saving seeds, trading seeds, farming without corporate dependence–without their chemicals, without their seed.

” All this is talked about in the language that Gandhi left us as a legacy. We work with three key concepts.”

” (One) Swadeshi…which means the capacity to do your own thing–produce your own food, produce your own goods….”

“(Two) Swaraj–to govern yourself. And we fight on three fronts–water, food, and seed. JalSwaraj is water independence–water freedom and water sovereignty. Anna Swaraj is food freedom, food sovereignty. And Bija Swaraj is seed freedom and seed sovereignty. Swa means self–that which rises from the self and is very, very much a deep notion of freedom.
“I believe that these concepts, which are deep, deep, deep in Indian civilization, Gandhi resurrected them to fight for freedom. They are very important for today’s world because so far what we’ve had is centralized state rule, giving way now to centralized corporate control, and we need a third alternate. That third alternate is, in part, citizens being able to tell their state, ‘This is what your function is. This is what your obligations are,’ and being able to have their states act on corporations to say, ‘This is something you cannot do.’”

” (Three) Satyagraha, non-cooperation, basically saying, ‘We will do our thing and any law that tries to say that (our freedom) is illegal… we will have to not cooperate with it. We will defend our freedoms to have access to water, access to seed, access to food, access to medicine.’”

ews.com


The Collapse of the Capitalist Consensus


February 19, 2009


The Collapse of the Capitalist Consensus
By John Tamny

“The possibility of a rapid repair of their disasters, mainly depends on whether the country has been depopulated. If its effective population have not been extirpated at the time, and are not starved afterwards; then, with the same skill and knowledge which they had before, with their land and its permanent improvements undestroyed, and the more durable buildings probably unimpaired, or only partially injured, they have nearly all the requisites for their former amount of production.”~ John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book I, chapter 5.

In the 2007 edition of the Forbes 400, perhaps the most notable statistic involved comparisons with the first Forbes 400, released in 1982. Of the original 400 members, only 32 remained by 2007. This isn’t to say that the departed hit the bread lines, but it was a certain example of the dynamic nature of the U.S. economy.

And just as the richest in America are a moving target, so are the top companies. For evidence of this, all one would need do is take a Fortune 500 list from 1980, and compare it to the 1990 list, 2000 and the present.

Constant change is an exciting property of capitalism whereby new entrants frequently purchase the assets of past giants, only to manage them better. In much the same way, the human capital within our borders that is surely our best asset engages in constant reinvention in order to find the best ways to work profitably, and in doing so, fulfills the consumption needs of a productive population.

So while company failure and job losses have always been an unfortunate and painful part of the process, they have also been something that Americans have mostly accepted as the price of prosperity. And far from impoverishing us permanently, our economy has regularly rebounded from its mistakes. The logical reality is that when companies fail, their assets, both physical and human, don’t disappear. Instead, they’re snapped up by the intrepid among us, often at a bargain, and productive growth resumes.

Sadly, the at times rough hand of capitalism has taken a back seat over the last eleven months to the allegedly benevolent hand of the federal government. Rather than embrace the very uncertainty that has made us wealthy by any measure, Americans have accepted a newly muscular role from Washington meant to shield us from failure. But if history is any kind of indicator, that will surely be a deadening influence over time.

The broken consensus. To a high degree the capitalist consensus held until last spring. It was then that Bear Stearns, a fairly minor bulge bracket investment bank, ran into trouble. With its share price in freefall heading into the weekend, officials at Treasury and the Federal Reserve effectively blinked, and a forced marriage ensued in which J.P. Morgan purchased Bear for next to nothing in return for the Fed taking on the fallen investment bank’s “toxic assets.”

Even though Bear Stearns wasn’t a bank in the traditional sense, government involvement was defended by some as necessary to avert a collapse of the financial system. Myriad other financial institutions had exposure (“counterparty risk”) to trades entered into by Bear, and absent the infusion of government capital, our system of credit would supposedly have cascaded downward, Depression the certain result.

In a November 21 speech for the Cato Institute, Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron eagerly stated that the idea of counterparty risk is overdone. Miron noted that the only scholarly work on the subject was written by none other than our present Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, back in the early ’80s. Bernanke’s fears of a domino effect with regard to banks were then, and remain pure conjecture. And assuming the domino effect is real, when we consider how whole countries have bounced back from total economic and human destruction as a result of war, it seems a reach to assume that ours would fail to bounce back from the demise of one or many banks.

More broadly, it should be pointed out that every transaction irrespective of its business purpose involves counterparty risk. When businesses go under, counterparties are left short, but one or many failures rarely have any kind of lasting economic impact.

That is so because when businesses fail, they in no way disappear. Instead, an opportunity arises for competitors to quickly snap up market share, not to mention that capital previously misused by the failed business in question is quickly redirected to those with a stated objective to deploy it more wisely. No doubt the rise of the Big Three automakers in the early part of the 20th century put a lot of carriage companies out of business, but far from harming the economy, the aforementioned rise created new, and better opportunities for capital and individuals put out of work by natural economic change.

Had Bear simply been allowed to go under, there doubtless would have been turbulent markets, but it would be hard to presume any more turbulent than they’ve been since last spring. More important, had the Fed and Treasury simply stood aside, Bear’s failure would have been a certain signal to other teetering banks to either find new capital, or quickly find a buyer.

More important, and as we've seen very clearly since last spring, government aid meant to avoid "systemic risk" creates risks far worse for the banking system. Indeed, the acceptance of government aid, rather than a bank savior, is a death sentence for the weak and healthy alike.

Those that accept government money are no longer in business for profit, and worse, their existence is a cancer on the healthy firms in the banking system who must compete with financial institutions no longer serving profit-driven shareholders. Systemic risk was the excuse for shedding free-market principles, but the far more treacherous risk of government ownership was seemingly never considered by many.

Unemployment. Another argument underpinning the newly muscular economic role of the federal government involves jobs. The saying goes that absent federal funds to prop up failing companies, job loss would be substantial, and recession a certainty.

This is certainly an intriguing thought, but then in any market economy jobs are constantly destroyed only for new ones to be created. If there’s any realistic driver of job growth, it has to do with labor supply; the more individuals looking for work, the more jobs created. And when we consider unemployment, it’s not so much the result of businesses not hiring as it has to do with the failure of individuals to supply their labor at the present market rate.

Of greater importance is that human capital is precious. Just as going-out-of-business sales at retail establishments attract all manner of buyers seeking value, layoffs, however painful they can be for the individual, create opportunities for rising businesses to hire workers that were previously too expensive. In that sense, layoffs are a rare growth opportunity for scarce human capital that suddenly becomes available at a lower rate.

But least spoken of is the likely response of those not laid off in an uncertain economic environment. When we consider that economic growth is always and everywhere the result of productive work effort, what better than a dicey job picture to scare those still employed into working much harder?

And in addition to extra work effort, an unfortunate job environment frequently makes the prodigal spender parsimonious. This is important considering that all profits result from past saving.

Looked at from an economic perspective, it’s fair to presume that one reason recessions are frequently short has to do with the fear that they engender, which makes us work harder, and save more. Our work grows the economy, and extra money saved is among other things lent to companies in need of capital in order to expand.

Stimulus. Due to the economic slowdown, there’s a misguided political consensus that the federal government must put money in peoples’ pockets so that they go out and spend. What’s shocking here is that the basic argument contradicts itself.

Governments can only spend to the extent that past economic productivity has created profits to tax. Bastiat used to say that we can’t profit from the same transaction twice, but in the bizarre world that is Washington, the basic laws of economics seemingly don’t matter.

In the real world they do, and with economic growth a function of productive work, it should be said that stimulus can only shrink the economy for the alleged beneficiary who works less thanks to the handout. And what about those taxed? If the productive see that their wealth will be handed to the indolent, don’t they have less reason to work too?

Lastly, it can’t be forgotten that government spending is a tax like anything else, and to the extent that governments spend, they are withholding capital from the laboring classes. So even if we ignore the enervating nature of handouts, it should be said that the check arriving in the mail from Uncle Sam is money that was previously withheld from the average paycheck.

A look into the future. As we try to figure out what our economy will look like in the future, there’s plenty of scope for worry. In addition to a growing deficit wrought by all manner of spending, probably the biggest challenge has to do with a business class that has forfeited a great deal of moral authority relative to the federal government.

While the U.S. economy has never in modern times been entirely free, companies could at least credibly say that federal bureaucrats should keep their distance when it comes to regulation. But thanks to the willingness of certain entities to accept funds from our minders in Washington, they’ll no longer be able to push back against the encroaching leviathan with as much vigor. Instead, thanks to the original sin that involved accepting handouts, our once vibrant commercial class will have to take the bad with the alleged good in the form of greater regulation.

That is unfortunate, because as John Stuart Mill also wrote, “The only insecurity which is altogether paralyzing to the active energies of producers, is that arising from the government, or from persons vested with its authority. Against all other depredators there is a hope of defending oneself.” Sadly, we’ve accepted the false God of government security, and with that we must now accept a certain level of paralysis that will enervate our entrepreneurial economy, and which will make us less prosperous as a result.


John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, a senior economist with H.C. Wainwright Economics, and a senior economic advisor to Toreador Research and Trading (http://www.trtadvisors.com/). He can be reached at jtamny@realclearmarkets.com.