Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Rep. Wilson shouts to Obama during speech: 'You lie'


Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie" after President Obama denied health reform would cover illegal immigrants.


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Republican House member shouted "You lie" during President Obama's health care speech to Congress on Wednesday, and members of both parties condemned the heckling.


After the speech, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson issued a statement apologizing for his outburst.
"This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill," the statement said. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."


Wilson also called the White House to apologize and spoke with Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who accepted the apology on the president's behalf, according to a senior administration official.
"We can disagree without being disagreeable," Emanuel said to Wilson, according to the official. "That was the point of the president's speech."


The outburst came when Obama denied that proposed health care legislation would provide free health coverage for illegal immigrants. Immediately, Wilson shouted, "You lie!" Watch the outburst and the chamber's response »


The outburst caused Obama to stop and look toward the heckler. "That's not true," the president responded. Fact check: Will reform plan cover illegal immigrants?


Behind him, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared shocked and turned toward the outburst as Vice President Joe Biden looked down and shook his head. Loud boos echoed through the chamber immediately after the outburst.


While it was the most attention-getting, Wilson's shout wasn't the only demonstration of displeasure made by Republicans during the speech.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, wore a sign around his neck that said, "WHAT BILL?" And when Obama asked Republicans to share their health reform ideas with him, a small group raised up a stack of papers above their heads.


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After the speech, Republican Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate defeated by Obama last year, called Wilson's outburst "totally disrespectful" and said he should apologize.
Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live," he said there was "no place for it in that setting or any other and he should apologize immediately."


Other Republicans also criticized Wilson, along with the expected Democratic condemnation.
"It was crude and disrespectful," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a top Senate Democrat. "I think the person who said it will pay a price."


Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, called on Wilson to go to the floor Thursday and apologize.
She said Wilson's comment and other GOP tactics "strike me as odd. ... The minority leader has to get control of his conference."


But Jackson Lee described Wilson as "a likeable guy, seemingly reserved" and said it was "rather surprising" when saw who shouted the comment.


House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, echoed the sentiment.


"I was always taught that the first sign of a good education is good manners. I think that what we saw tonight was really bad manners," he said. "And, having a spirited debate is one thing, exercising bad manners is another. That was beyond the pale -- and I would hope that he would publicly apologize on that same floor to the president of the United States for that insult."
Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan and ranking Republican on the Ways & Means Committee, told CNN Radio he wasn't happy with the outburst.


"I don't advise that. ... I think it's important to listen as respectfully as possible," he said.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, also denounced the heckling.


"Certainly, I respect the office of the president, and I think that's not the kind of thing that is appropriate in that kind of setting especially," he said. "I don't know who said it, but my sense is most people don't think it was a good idea it occurred. And I happen to be one of those."


Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told CNN affiliate WIS-TV in Columbia that he, too, was disappointed.


"The president's combative tone did not justify a member of Congress shouting out, 'You lie,' " said Graham. "Our nation's president deserves to be treated with respect. It was an inappropriate remark, and I am glad an apology has been made."


South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler took it further.


"Once again a South Carolina Republican has embarrassed our state," Fowler's office said in a statement that referred to S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford's extramarital affair.


"Never has any member of Congress shown such disrespect for the president during a speech," Fowler wrote. "One would think that as a member of the military, Joe Wilson would have more respect and patriotism than he displayed tonight. When Congressman Wilson insulted President Obama, he also insulted the American public. Joe Wilson is a poor example of a statesman and an American. He owes an apology to the president and the American people."


The Democrat hoping to unseat Wilson in next year's midterm elections also quickly seized on the Republican's outburst.


"Rep. Wilson's behavior tonight exemplifies everything that is wrong in Washington," Democrat Rob Miller said in a statement provided to CNN. "Instead of engaging in childish name-calling and disrespecting our commander-in-chief, Joe Wilson should be working towards a bipartisan solution that makes quality, affordable health care available to each and every South Carolinian."
After the speech, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, tweeted that it was the "biggest" disappointment of the evening.


"Biggest disappointmnt of evening, the total lack of respect shown by one member for the President," she wrote. "Never acceptable to behave like a jerk."


Wilson, who has served five terms, represents the state's 2nd congressional district, which includes the state capital, Columbia, and stretches to Beaufort and Hilton Head Island.


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Just say no!

"The time for bickering is over."
To keep the government honest....Just say no!
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Religious fanatic briefly hijacks Mexican plane


Mexican Federal Police present to the media Jose Mar Flores Pereira of Bolivia, the man accused of hijacking an AeroMexico plane in Mexico City, September 9, 2009.
REUTERS/Eliana Aponte


By Anahi Rama and Jason Lange


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Bolivian-born man clutching a Bible and claiming a divine mission hijacked a plane in Mexico with more than 100 people aboard on Wednesday, but the incident ended quickly and without bloodshed.

Jose Flores, who told police he was a Protestant minister, seized the AeroMexico Boeing 737 after take off from the Caribbean resort of Cancun demanding to speak to Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Flores, 44, smuggled a false bomb on board and threatened to blow up the aircraft if he could not warn the president of what he said was an impending earthquake, police said.

"He said he is a minister and that it was a divine revelation that made him carry out this action," Security Minister Genaro Garcia told reporters.

The plane landed safely in Mexico City, its original destination, and police stormed the aircraft after the passengers had been allowed off, but not the crew.

Police apparently detained Flores without a struggle and a few minutes later led him away in handcuffs, ending Mexico's first hijack drama in years, Transport Minister Juan Molinar told reporters that all 104 passengers and crew of 8 were safely off the aircraft. "There was no bomb," he said.

Nine men were initially detained, but Security Minister Garcia said eight were ordinary passengers caught up in the drama. He said Flores, wearing a shirt and jeans, was the only hijacker.

Smiling and chewing gum, the hijacker was presented at a news conference but refused to answer journalists' questions.

Earlier, security forces raced to Mexico City airport and helicopters circled above the airport as the plane landed and taxied to a part of the airport reserved for emergencies.

CALM EXIT
Some passengers said they were not aware of the hijack during the flight, although one man noticed Flores was carrying a Bible.

"We really didn't know what was going on," passenger Adriana Romero told Mexican television. "We realized it was a hijack when we saw the police trucks."

Mexico has no major radical political groups who espouse violence, although Calderon is embroiled in a bitter war with drug cartels, whose turf wars have killed more than 13,000 people since he took power in late 2006 and set the army on them.

Direct attacks by drug gangs on the public or attempts to force talks with the government are very rare. Continued...


Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5885K420090909?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews


More pics: http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USTRE5885K420090909&channelName=topNews#a=1


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Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Alex Jones publishes fake interview of President Obama with Charlie Sheen

Alex Jones, the controversial talk radio host and operator of conspiracy websites like Infowars.com and Prisonplanet.com, sparked outrage today by publishing an entirely fabricated Q&A interview between President Barack Obama and Two and a Half Men actor Charlie Sheen. For his part, Sheen appears to be a willing participant in this ploy.

Branded as the most explosive information of his career, Jones posted a transcript of the fake conversation on his websites this morning, deliberately misrepresenting it as a 20-minute interview between Obama and Sheen. He later modified the content – after it was presented to the public as being real – to include a disclaimer on the very bottom of the article, which states that this is merely an open letter from Sheen to Obama, and that no such conversation has taken place. One website, AboveTopSecret.com, has since published a cached edition of the original report, which clearly demonstrates how it was initially positioned to viewers.

Sheen’s questions mostly pertain to the flawed US investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Other topics do arise, including the documented assertions of FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, alleged criminal activities of the Bush II administration, and Obama’s own broken campaign promises, to name a few. The article also notes that Sheen supported – and voted for – Obama during the historic 2008 presidential election.

Even with the abovementioned revisions, this report continues to provide misleading information, as it attributes wholly falsified quotes to our President. In addition, its opening summary deceptively positions the conversation as being real; anyone that fails to read the entire document would never know the difference. That said, even though I often disagree with Obama politically – I believe, wholeheartedly – that these actions are completely malicious.
In the end, it is a true shame that people like Alex Jones are most often associated with politically incorrect topics, such as the movement for a new investigation into the events that occurred on September 11, 2001; regardless, above and beyond Jones’ deceptions, there are actually a host of credible experts – including legitimate academics, physicists, former government officials, domestic and foreign intelligence operatives, and first responders (firemen, policemen, EMT workers) – that are willing to go on the record and discuss why they believe the original 9/11 investigation was inherently flawed.

As a sizeable number of Americans – including Charlie Sheen, of course – believe that a new investigation into 9/11 is indeed warranted, supporters of this objective would do well to avoid the Alex Jones’ of the world, and instead pursue their cause through other public outlets. That is something we can all surely agree upon.



More About: Obama · Media · Politics · Charlie Sheen · Alex Jones · 9/11


Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-9341-Manhattan-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m9d8-Alex-Jones-publishes-fake-interview-of-President-Obama-with-Charlie-Sheen
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Inside Occult America

Inside Occult America
Posted by Greg at 03:45, 08 Sep 2009


Mitch Horowitz is a writer and publisher of many years' experience, with a lifelong interest in man’s search for meaning. As the editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin in New York, Mitch has published some of today’s leading titles in world religion, esoterica, and the metaphysical. He has now authored his own book, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, (Amazon US and UK) "an engaging, long-overdue portrait of one nation, under many gods, whose revolutionary influence is still being felt in every corner of the globe." This short Q&A discusses a number of the topics covered in Occult America, including Ouija, the occult symbolism on the dollar bill, and the influence of occult and New Age thinking on some of the biggest personalities in US history. You can find more on Mitch and his work at mitchhorowitz.com.



Q: Occult America traces the ways in which occult and magical movements shaped our nation—politically, intellectually, religiously, culturally, and even commercially. Why did the U.S. prove to be such fertile ground for occult movements? What are some primary examples of how the occult influenced American identity and vice versa?


Mitch: Alternative religious movements were entwined with America from its earliest days. In the mid-1600s, just as Europe was experiencing a backlash against occult and esoteric spiritual movements, the American colonies were developing a reputation for religious liberalism. When the town of Philadelphia was a cluster of only a few hundred houses, it hosted faiths ranging from Quakerism to the Mennonites to mystical offshoots of the Lutheran church. The year 1694 marked a turning point for the colonies (and, in many ways, the modern spiritual world) through what initially appeared a very modest event: At that time the first intentional mystical community reached North America when the esoteric scholar Johannes Kelpius led a small sect out of Central Germany to the Wissahickon Creek near Philadelphia. His magical brotherhood practiced its own forms of astrology, alchemy, numerology, Kabala, and esoteric Christianity. News of their “Tabernacle in the Forest” spread back to the Old World and served as a magnet for other occult and esoteric movements. By the early 1700s, admirers of Kelpius formed a new and larger commune at Ephrata, Pennsylvania. In 1776, the Shakers – who were once considered a very mysterious sect – broke ground on a settlement outside Albany, New York. That same year the nation’s first “spirit channeler,” a 24-year-old woman who called herself the Publick Universal Friend, began to preach across New England. Beginning in the early 1800s, a region of Central New York called the “Burned-Over District” became suffused with Spiritualism, Mesmerism, and various occult experiments. These movements helped solidify early America’s role as a safe harbor for religious innovation and eventually made the nation into a launching pad for the revolutions in alternative spirituality that swept the globe in the twentieth century.

Q: In Occult America, you show a strong link between Spiritualism, feminism and a particularly American brand of progressive liberalism. Why did that link exist, and what opportunities did the occult open up for American women and other disenfranchised groups?

Mitch: America’s earliest female religious leadership emerged from mystical or occult orders. The spirit medium called the Publick Universal Friend was, in effect, the nation’s first female religious leader. Likewise, the Shakers were led by the British migrant Mother Ann Lee, who had fled charges of sorcery in England. By the late 1840s, a pair of teenaged girls in Upstate New York popularized “spirit rapping,” which mushroomed into the massively popular movement called Spiritualism, or talking to the dead. Most of the trance mediums and channelers of nineteenth-century Spiritualism were women, with many active suffragists among them. This included Victoria Woodhull, a medium and voting-rights activist who became the nation’s first female presidential candidate in 1872. Spiritualism was probably the first religious movement in modern life in which women openly and routinely served as leaders. It created an indelible link between alternative spirituality and progressivism, which has continued to the present day.

Q: What is the African-American tradition called “hoodoo,” and what role did magic play in the lives of Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey and other black leaders?

Mitch: The entire idea of Africa as a cradle of world civilization – today very popular, but once very marginal – began to enter the American mindset through the migration of African magical and esoteric ideas to the New World. By the early 20th century, the African-American magical system called hoodoo (often confused with the related but very different Afro-Caribbean religion of Voodoo) produced a literature and a spiritual counter-culture that challenged the West’s misconception that Africa lacked a deep mythological past. African traditions later gained a voice in America through the work of figures like Marcus Garvey and Alex Haley. But it was the magical system of hoodoo that first awakened the nation, or at least parts of it, to African culture. In his classic memoirs, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass described the assistance he received from a trusted “root worker” – or a hoodoo medicine man – when Douglass was a teenaged slave. This relationship has been largely overlooked, with many readers or critics probably unaware of what Douglass was even describing when he referenced “magic roots.” A few generations later, Marcus Garvey not only helped call attention to African religious and cultural traditions but himself embraced American “mind power” metaphysics – or what we sometimes call “the power of positive thinking” – as a means to black political liberation. Mind-power metaphysics formed an unseen pillar of Garvey’s philosophy, and came to influence the Nation of Islam and other Black nationalist groups. This is one of the many ways in which political and magical movements intersected in America.

Q: Many of our Presidents and Vice-Presidents brought occult influences to the White House. One of the most fascinating examples is Henry A. Wallace. Can you tell us a bit about his beliefs and how they shaped his political aspirations?

Mitch: Henry A. Wallace was Franklin Roosevelt’s second vice-president, preceding Harry Truman. While Wallace is largely forgotten today, he was once considered a chief spokesman for the New Deal and a potential successor to Roosevelt himself. Wallace was also a great intellectual searcher, and his curiosity extended into the occult. This fact ultimately led to his public downfall. Wallace was born to a prominent Iowa farming and political family and was first tapped as FDR’s secretary of agriculture. In that role Wallace introduced a wide range of agricultural reforms that helped sustain American farming during the Great Depression. In this respect, he is considered perhaps the finest secretary of agriculture in American history. He also described himself as a “practical mystic” who was deeply interested in Theosophy, Freemasonry, astrology, Native American shamanism, Eastern faiths – and also in the work of a Russian mystic-artist, Nicholas Roerich. In short, Wallace wrote some very doting letters to Roerich, which fell into the hands of a Hearst newspaper columnist who used them to bury Wallace. Today, Truman is a household name while Wallace is obscure. Yet his legacy can be found on our dollar bill. It was Wallace who introduced the Masonic-influenced symbol of the eye-and-pyramid on the back of the US dollar in 1935.

Q: What is Freemasonry and what role did it play in American life?

Mitch: Freemasonry’s origin and the nature of its founders remain a historical mystery. Some historians trace Masonry’s inception to Rosicrucianism, a mystical movement in early seventeenth-century Europe. Others argue a connection between Masonry and the church-suppressed medieval Knights Templar. Freemasonry probably emerged as a radical thought movement from within the Reformation. Protestant intellects may have sought to build a civic and religious organization that could counteract papal authority. Some of our nation’s key founders, such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, were Freemasons. Early American Masons carried with them a strong sense of breaking with a European past in which one overarching religious order regulated the exchange of ideas and provided an intermediary between the individual and the spiritual search. Masonry’s penchant for occult and pagan symbolism suggests how it saw religious truth as emanating from a common source that could be found in different cultures throughout history, including those of a mystical and pre-Christian past. Freemasonry often drew upon arcane imagery – such as rising suns, luminous eyeballs, and pentagrams – as codes for personal and ethical development. As noted earlier, this practice influenced the enigmatic all-seeing eye and incomplete pyramid on the back of the dollar. That image is part of the Great Seal of the United States, commissioned by the Continental Congress in 1776. The Latin maxim that surrounds the unfinished pyramid – Annuit Coeptis Novus Ordo Seclorum – can be roughly translated as: “God Smiles on Our New Order of the Ages.” Masonry saw this “New Order” as requiring a break with the sectarianism of the Old World and a renewed search for universal truth as it existed in all the great civilizations. In a sense, Freemasonry helped influence some of the nation’s earliest principles of religious tolerance and liberty.

Q: Occult influences brought out the best in certain leaders, including Gandhi; but it occasionally brought out the darker side in others. Can you give an example? How have these instances influenced our views of occult movements more generally?

Mitch: One of the oddest episodes of twentieth-century occult history played out in the life of a Hollywood screenwriter named William Dudley Pelley. In the late 1920s and 1930s, Pelley popularized the idea of near-death experiences – in which a person visits the afterworld and returns to tell of it. After describing the truths he said were revealed to him during one of these mystical journeys, Pelley went on to found the first and most influential neo-Nazi movement in America, the Silver Shirts. It began in 1929, when the screenwriter enthralled readers with the first widely read article describing a near-death experience. In his magazine article, Pelley vividly recalled his visit to the spirit world where heavenly Mentors counseled him in the hidden truths of life. Unfortunately, in Pelley’s mind, these Mentors extolled the destiny of Adolf Hitler, and Pelley was inspired to form his own pro-Hitler, fascist paramilitary order. By the early 1930s, Pelley’s Silver Shirts set the mold – in ideas, style, and leadership – for the hate groups that would crop up in America for the rest of the twentieth century and into our own. Some of the nation’s most prominent hate leaders, including the founder of the Aryan Nations, got their start in Pelley’s organization. Pelley’s propaganda writings directly instigated the anti-Semitism of modernist poet Ezra Pound, who subscribed to Pelley’s magazine, Liberation. Occult ideas – like any religious ideas – have their highest and lowest iterations. And within Pelley’s angry mind, occult and mystical experiences translated into political activities of the grimmest sort.

Q: Where did the Ouija Board come from, and why do you think it became so popular?

Mitch: The Ouija Board is the most enduring and influential occult tool – or toy, depending on how you see it – to reach us from nineteenth-century Spiritualism. By the late 1960s its sales rivaled Monopoly and, in an almost unbelievable wrinkle of modern religious history, its mysterious movements and communications inspired a mass supernatural religion practiced today in Vietnam. Ouija’s origins are continually debated. As a commercial product, the board was steeped in patent litigation throughout the early twentieth century. (It is now owned by the toy manufacturer Hasbro.) But as a homemade novelty, Ouija, or the “talking board,” was a sensation among American Spiritualists going back at least to the 1880s, when it was first mentioned in newspapers. Today, everyone of a certain generation seems to have a scary childhood story about Ouija. It became the method by which Spiritualist séances reached the living rooms, basements, and slumber parties of mainstream America. And it also became the tool through which Pulitzer-winning poet James Merrill “channeled” his most famous work, The Changing Light at Sandover. Whether as a toy or an object of fascination, Ouija seems to outlast every other occult trend.

Q: What do you feel is the most enduring legacy of the occult in America today?

Mitch: Occult movements helped make America into a great laboratory for religious experiment. Today, as in the past, alternative and esoteric spiritual movements test and strengthen our nation’s capacity for religious innovation and toleration. In recent years, for example, the conservative, Bush-era Supreme Court affirmed the rights of a Brazilian-American Spiritualist sect to use psychedelic drugs in some of its religious ceremonies. And the Department of Veterans Affairs recently recognized Wicca, or witchcraft, as an official religion within the US military – its adherents are now entitled to full military honors and burial (including a pentagram on gravestones). This kind of religious liberty – and it’s very precious – allows America to continue to function as a social and civic laboratory, and also as a place that can help find solutions, not only to inner questions, but to ways in which different communities of faith can successfully live and function together.

Q: You’ll be conducting an “Occult America” walking tour of New York City this October. What sites do you plan to include?

Mitch: For one thing, we’ll look at a beautiful Swedenborgian Church – so-named for the Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg – which was a hub of mystical activity in the mid-nineteenth century. Its pastor was a Spiritualist adventurer named George Bush – the first-cousin, four generations removed, from the Bush presidential clan. We’ll see a Masonic Hall that in the 1870s hosted the first “pagan funeral” in America – it was actually a cremation service, a funerary choice that was so alien and controversial then that the police almost had to shut it down. And we’ll see the famed salon of the Theosophical Society, whose earliest members included inventor Thomas Edison, Major-General Abner Doubleday, and the mysterious Russian noblewoman (and one-time New Yorker) Madame Blavatsky.

Q: What’s next for Mitch Horowitz?

Mitch: I’m considering writing a history of the most influential psycho-spiritual idea of our age: positive thinking.

Occult America is available from Amazon US and UK.



Pentagon Keeps Wary Watch as Troops Blog


By JAMES DAO
Published: September 8, 2009


Over the course of 10 months in eastern Afghanistan, an Army specialist nicknamed Mud Puppy maintained a blog irreverently chronicling life at the front, from the terror of roadside bombs to the tyrannies of master sergeants.




Often funny and always profane, the blog, Embrace the Suck (military slang for making the best of a bad situation), flies under the Army’s radar. Not officially approved, it is hidden behind a password-protected wall because the reservist does not want his superiors censoring it.
“Some officer would be reviewing all my writing,” the 31-year-old soldier, who insisted that his name not be used, said in an e-mail message. “And sooner or later he would find something to nail me with.”


There are two sides to the military’s foray into the freewheeling world of the interactive Web. At the highest echelons of the Pentagon, civilian officials and four-star generals are newly hailing the power of social networking to make members of the American military more empathetic, entice recruits and shape public opinion on the war.


Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of American forces in Iraq, is on Facebook. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has a YouTube channel and posts Twitter updates almost daily.


The Army is encouraging personnel of all ranks to go online and collaboratively rewrite seven of its field manuals. And on Aug. 17, the Department of Defense unveiled a Web site promoting links to its blogs and its Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites.


The Web, however, is a big place. And the many thousands of troops who use blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to communicate with the outside world are not always in tune with the Pentagon’s official voice. Policing their daily flood of posts, videos and photographs is virtually impossible — but that has not stopped some in the military from trying.


The Department of Defense, citing growing concerns about cybersecurity, plans to issue a new policy in the coming weeks that is widely expected to set departmentwide restrictions on access to social networking sites from military computers. People involved with the department’s review say the new policy may limit access to social media sites to those who can demonstrate a clear work need, like public information officers or family counselors.


If that is the case, many officials say, it will significantly set back efforts to expand and modernize the military’s use of the Web just as those efforts are gaining momentum. And while the new policy would not apply to troops who use private Internet providers, a large number of military personnel on bases and ships across the world depend on their work computers to gain access to the Internet.


To many analysts and officers, the debate reflects a broader clash of cultures: between the anarchic, unfiltered, bottom-up nature of the Web and the hierarchical, tightly controlled, top-down tradition of the military.


“We as an institution still haven’t come to grips with how we want to use blogging” and other social media, said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the commander of the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.


One of the Army’s leading advocates for more open access to the Web, General Caldwell argues that social networking allows interaction among enlisted soldiers, junior officers and generals in a way that was unthinkable a decade ago.


He requires students at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth to blog, and the college now sponsors 40 publicly available blogs, including his own, where policies are freely debated.


But getting approval for those blogs, as well as for YouTube and Facebook access at the college, was a struggle. “At every corner, someone cited a regulation,” General Caldwell said. In recent months, however, “the Army has made quantum leaps” in embracing the Web, he added.
Noah Shachtman, editor of Wired.com’s national security blog, Danger Room, which has reported extensively on the new policy review, said he recently asked students at West Point whether they would allow soldiers to blog. Almost every cadet said no.


“Then I asked, ‘How many of you think you can stop the flow of information from your soldiers?’ ” Mr. Shachtman recalled. “Everybody agreed there is no way to stop this information from going out anyway. So there is this sort of dual-headedness.”


Skeptics of the Pentagon review say it is motivated partly by a desire among certain officials to exert control over the voices of troops on the Web.


Since the advent of military blogging during the Iraq war, some commanders have remained uncomfortable with the art form, citing concerns about both security and decorum.


Over the years, blogs have been censored or shut down, and several years ago the Army instituted requirements that bloggers register with their commanding officers and submit posts for review. As a result, some bloggers say, blogs have become tamer — or, as in the case of Mud Puppy’s blog, gone underground.


Officials knowledgeable about the review say it is a result of growing concerns at the United States Strategic Command, which oversees the military’s use of the Internet, that social networking sites make military computers vulnerable to viruses, hackers, identity thieves, terrorists and even hostile governments. (Those concerns are not focused on the military’s secure system for classified material, which does not use the public Internet.)


The review may already be having a chilling effect. The Marine Corps recently restated a ban on using any social media on its network. And the Army, which in June gave some bases access to Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites, recently urged units to avoid creating new social media pages until the final department policy was issued.


Still, even as they consider restricting the troops’ access to social media, the most senior Pentagon officials have clearly come to view Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging as crucial elements of their public information operations.


“This department, I think, is way behind our curve” in using social media, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in July as he extolled the use of Twitter by Iranian dissidents.


To critics, the Pentagon’s social media sites are goofy at best, propagandistic at worst. “It’s like your parents’ using modern slang and failing miserably,” said Sgt. Selena Coppa, who writes a blog, Active Duty Patriot, which frequently criticizes the Iraq war and, she says, has gotten her into trouble with her superiors.


But to many troops, the deeper question is whether the military will allow personnel in the field to use the sites the Pentagon itself wants to exploit. For a generation raised on the Web, any restrictions will damage morale, those people say.


“What comes out of my blog is the experiences of a soldier right in the middle of all of this,” Mud Puppy (a nickname for military police), who recently returned home to Illinois, wrote in a recent e-mail message. “I think that people need to hear from us, more than they need to hear from the big whigs. War has a cost, and that cost is paid by soldiers.”




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A year after financial crisis, a new world order emerges



AP – FILE - In this Sept. 25, 2008 file photo, a Wall St. street sign is shown in front of the American flag …






By Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers Kevin G. Hall, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Tue Sep 8, 3:41 pm ET


WASHINGTON — One year after the near collapse of the global financial system, this much is clear: The financial world as we knew it is over, and something new is rising from its ashes.

Historians will look to September 2008 as a watershed for the U.S. economy.

On Sept. 7 , the government seized mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac . Eight days later, investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, sparking a global financial panic that threatened to topple blue-chip financial institutions around the world. In the several months that followed, governments from Washington to Beijing responded with unprecedented intervention into financial markets and across their economies, seeking to stop the wreckage and stem the damage.

One year later, the easy-money system that financed the boom era from the 1980s until a year ago is smashed. Once-ravenous U.S. consumers are saving money and paying down debt. Banks are building reserves and hoarding cash. And governments are fashioning a new global financial order.

Congress and the Obama administration have lost faith in self-regulated markets. Together, they're writing the most sweeping new regulations over finance since the Great Depression. And in this ever-more-connected global economy, Washington is working with its partners through the G-20 group of nations to develop worldwide rules to govern finance.

"Our objective is to design an economic framework where we're going to have a more balanced pattern of growth globally, less reliant on a buildup of unsustainable borrowing . . . and not just here, but around the world," said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner .

The first faint signs that the U.S. economy may be clawing its way back from the worst recession since the Great Depression are only now starting to appear, a year after the panic began. Similar indications are sprouting in Europe , China and Japan .

Still, economists concur that a quarter-century of economic growth fueled by cheap credit is over. Many analysts also think that an extended period of slow job growth and suppressed wage growth will keep consumers — and the businesses that sell to them — in the dumps for years.

"Those things are likely to be subpar for a long period of time," said Martin Regalia, the chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . "I think it means that we probably see potential rates of growth that are in the 2-2.5 (percent) range, or maybe . . . 1.8-1.9 (percent)." A growth rate of 3 percent to 3.5 percent is considered average.

The unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in August and is expected to peak above 10 percent in the months ahead. It's already there in at least 15 states. Regalia thinks that it could be five years before the U.S. economy generates enough jobs to overcome those lost and to employ the new workers entering the labor force.

All this is likely to keep consumers on the sidelines.

"I think this financial panic and Great Recession is an inflection point for the financial system and the economy," said Mark Zandi , the chief economist for forecaster Moody's Economy.com. "It means much less risk-taking, at least for a number of years to come — a decade or two. That will be evident in less credit and more costly credit. If you are a household or a business, it will cost you more, and it will be more difficult to get that credit."

The numbers bear him out. The Fed's most recent release of credit data showed that consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 5.2 percent from April to June, after falling by a 3.6 percent annual rate from January to March. Revolving lines of credit, which include credit cards, fell by an annualized 8.9 percent in the first quarter, followed by an 8.2 percent drop in the second quarter.

That's a sea change. For much of the past two decades, strong U.S. growth has come largely through expanding credit. The global economy fed off this trend.

China became a manufacturing hub by selling attractively priced exports to U.S. consumers who were living beyond their means. China's Asian neighbors sent it components for final assembly; Africa and Latin America sold China their raw materials. All fed off U.S. consumers' bottomless appetite for more, bought on credit.

"That's over. Consumers can do their part — spend at a rate consistent with their income growth, but not much beyond that," Zandi said.

If U.S. consumers no longer drive the global economy, then consumers in big emerging economies such as China and Brazil will have to take up some of the slack. Trade among nations will take on greater importance.

In the emerging "new normal," U.S. companies will have to be more competitive. They must sell into big developing markets; yet as the recent Cash for Clunkers effort underscored, the competitive hurdles are high: Foreign-owned automakers, led by Toyota , reaped the most benefit from the U.S. tax breaks for new car purchases, not GM and Chrysler .

Need a loan? Tough luck: Many U.S. banks are in no condition to lend. Around 416 banks are now on a "problem list" and at risk of insolvency. Regulators already have shuttered 81 banks and thrifts this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported on Aug. 27 that rising loan losses are depleting bank capital. The ratio of bank reserves to bad loans was 63.5 percent from April to June, the lowest it's been since the savings-and-loan crisis in 1991.

For all that, the U.S. economy does seem to be rising off its sickbed. The latest manufacturing data for August point to a return to growth, and home sales are rising. Indeed, there are many encouraging signs emerging in the global economy.

It's all growth from a low starting point, however, and many economists think that there'll be a lower baseline for U.S. and global growth if the new financial order means less risk-taking by lenders and less indebtedness by companies and consumers.

That seems evident now in the U.S. personal savings rate. It fell steadily from 9.59 percent in the 1970s to 2.68 percent in the easy-money era from 2000 to 2008; from 2005 to 2007, it averaged 1.83 percent.

Today, that trend is in reverse. From April to June, Americans' personal savings rate was 5 percent, and it could go higher if the unemployment rate keeps rising. Almost 15 million Americans are unemployed — and countless others are underemployed or uncertain about their job security, so they're spending less and saving more.

A few years ago, banks fell all over themselves to offer cheap home equity loans and lines of consumer credit. No more. Even billions in government bailout dollars to spur lending haven't changed that.

"The strategy that was stated at the beginning of the year — which is that you would sustain the banking system in order that it would resume lending — hasn't worked, and it isn't going to work," said James K. Galbraith , an economist at the University of Texas at Austin .

Over the course of 2008, the nation's five largest banks reduced their consumer loans by 79 percent, real estate loans by 66 percent and commercial loans by 19 percent, according to FDIC data. A wide range of credit measures, including recent FDIC data, show that lending remains depressed.

Why? The foundation of U.S. credit expansion for the past 20 years is in ruin. Since the 1980s, banks haven't kept loans on their balance sheets; instead, they sold them into a secondary market, where they were pooled for sale to investors as securities. The process, called securitization, fueled a rapid expansion of credit to consumers and businesses. By passing their loans on to investors, banks were freed to lend more.

Today, securitization is all but dead. Investors have little appetite for risky securities. Few buyers want a security based on pools of mortgages, car loans, student loans and the like.

"The basis of revival of the system along the line of what previously existed doesn't exist. The foundation that was supposed to be there for the revival (of the economy) . . . got washed away," Galbraith said.

Unless and until securitization rebounds, it will be hard for banks to resume robust lending because they're stuck with loans on their books.

"We've just been scared," said Robert C. Pozen , the chairman of Boston -based MFS Investment Management . He thinks that the freeze in securitization reflects a lack of trust in Wall Street and its products and remains a huge obstacle to the resumption of lending that's vital to an economic recovery.

Enter the Federal Reserve. It now props up the secondary market for pooled loans that are vital to the functioning of the U.S. financial system. The Fed is lending money to investors who're willing to buy the safest pools of loans, called asset-backed securities.

Through Sept. 3 , the Fed had funded purchases of $817.6 billion in mortgage-backed securities. These securities were pooled mostly by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae . In recent months, the Fed also has moved aggressively to lend for purchase of pools of other consumer-based loans.

Today, there's little private-sector demand for new loan-based securities; government is virtually the only game in town. That's why on Aug. 17 , the Fed announced that it would extend its program to finance the purchase of pools of loans until mid-2010. That suggests there's still a long way to go before a functioning securitization market — the backbone of consumer lending — returns to a semblance of normalcy.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090908/pl_mcclatchy/3307834

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Why 09/09/09 Is So Special


In some cultures, the number 9 is special and can carry good or bad omens. These characters from the movie "9," which opens on 09/09/09, flee for their lives from the Fabrication Machine. Credit: Focus Features


Have special plans this 09/09/09?Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way.


In Florida, at least one county clerk's office is offering a one-day wedding special for $99.99. The rarity of this Sept. 9 hasn't been lost on the creators of the iPod, who have moved their traditional Tuesday release day to Wednesday to take advantage of the special date. Focus Features is releasing their new film "9," an animated tale about the apocalypse, on the 9th.


Not only does the date look good in marketing promotions, but it also represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.
Though technically there's nothing special about the symmetrical date, some concerned with the history and meaning of numbers ascribe powerful significance to 09/09/09. For cultures in which the number nine is lucky, Sept. 9 is anticipated – while others might see the date as an ominous warning.Math magic


Modern numerologists — who operate outside the realm of real science — believe that mystical significance or vibrations can be assigned to each numeral one through nine, and different combinations of the digits produce tangible results in life depending on their application.


As the final numeral, the number nine holds special rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-righteousness on the negative, according to numerologists.


Though usually discredited as bogus, numerologists do have a famous predecessor to look to. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and father of the famous theorem, is also credited with popularizing numerology in ancient times.


"Pythagoras most of all seems to have honored and advanced the study concerned with numbers, having taken it away from the use of merchants and likening all things to numbers," wrote Aristoxenus, an ancient Greek historian, in the 4th century B.C.As part of his obsession with numbers both mathematically and divine, and like many mathematicians before and since, Pythagoras noted that nine in particular had many unique properties. Any grade-schooler could tell you, for example, that the sum of the two-digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single-digit number will equal nine. So 9x3=27, and 2+7=9.


Multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also break down to nine. For example: 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9.


Sept. 9 also happens to be the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2)...Loving 9


Both China and Japan have strong feelings about the number nine. Those feelings just happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. The Chinese pulled out all the stops to celebrate their lucky number eight during last year's Summer Olympics, ringing the games in at 8 p.m. on 08/08/08. What many might not realize is that nine comes in second on their list of auspicious digits and is associated with long life, due to how similar its pronunciation is to the local word for long-lasting (eight sounds like wealth).


Historically, ancient Chinese emperors associated themselves closely with the number nine, which appeared prominently in architecture and royal dress, often in the form of nine fearsome dragons. The imperial dynasties were so convinced of the power of the number nine that the palace complex at Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built with 9,999 rooms.
Japanese emperors would have never worn a robe with nine dragons, however.


In Japanese, the word for nine is a homophone for the word for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky – second only to four, which sounds like death.


Many Japanese will go so far as to avoid room numbers including nine at hotels or hospitals, if the building planners haven't already eliminated them altogether.

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It's a Surpeme "Celebration" at the Court: 66.6 percent RC


The Obama Administration (what a oxymoron?), along with the Supreme Court's 6 Roman Catholics, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of vatican leaning Apparatchiks in Washington D.C., are celebrating their milestone domination of the Judicial System. Everything is marching according to plans. Tomorrow, on CAPITOLINE Hill they will seal the deal (so they think) for the Democrat Health Care Overhaul fiasco. It's like one big carnival. Majority in the House of Representatives; Majority in the Senate; Obama on the reins, Biden riding shot gun, and Pelosi takes shots at the Indians.

I've seen a few Supreme Court Justices retire, and then have seen their replacements take their places. But, frankly, this Sotomayor ascension takes the cake. Never have I seen so many private oaths, and picture opportunities for a new Supreme Court Judge. It's a if they realize (their long awaited goal and are overwhelmed with euphoria) they have finally achieved their long awaited paradigm shift, and want the rest of the world to see they're at the summit of Mount Everest. Speaking of which, where's Hillary? She's gonna miss the politics-palooza.

It's a done deal! They are all in. In like Flint!

The RC have 6 Supreme Court Justices, in a court of 9; That equals, 66.6% (on 9/9/9), or an automatic majority when the need arises; In the meantime they will play good Jesuit, bad Jesuit.....Blasse..Blah...
Keep up appearances..Act as if....Play the role like Humphrey Bogart: "Here looking at you kid!"


Look at what we are facing in the U.S. political sphere:


32 (no back ground checks, not
congress approved) Czars, who answer
only to the chief.


"A gang of 6" (just listen to the term used with
no concern what it implies, or the nature of their intentions)


A stacked Supreme Court (6 out of 9 Roman Catholics)

Our Protestant Constitutional Republic has been subverted.

Congress and Senate dominated
by
Democrats and RC's.


A president that uses the airwaves as if they were his
personal P.A. system: Today, he told school kids to study and wash their hands a lot! Tomorrow, (HE'S GONNA SPEAK TOMORROW:OOOH) he will give the nation his "ultimatum" on Health Care Renewal; I've heard him say: It's time to act, now, no more debating...What? What??? He's beginning to sound like Cassius Clay:


Fly like a president, but, sting like Ali.

"I know I'm the greatest, it's all about me".

I just hope he doesn't rope a dope us until the 12th round.


Now, to add to the malarkey of the day: The Beatles (still milking that cow after all these years, Sir Ringo, Sir Paul, Sir George...Abbey Road, they're blooming aristocrats {don't trust anyone over 60}) are releasing a new-improved collection of their greatest hits, featuring High Definition Digital versions of their music, plus previously unreleased songs. Wait; Didn't Michael Jackson buy the rights to all that jazz, back in the 80's? What timing for this World Premiere? Right on time for all other the strange goins-on in high places. They must all have the same agent? I wonder if they use the same one that Conan O'Brein uses? What a piece of work?

Are they marshaling in the long awaited millennial age? The Age of Aquarius? Does it begin on 999? It's just that all these changes...Yeah, changes are happening like they are converging on a focal point. What could that be, and why? You've heard what happens when you have to many changes at once? Vertigo, you could go into a tailspin, like an oak seed.


P.S. On the dial: National Public Radio, NPR, goes Brit..BBC after (11P.M.) 3 hours GMT.


Meanwhile, the American Cosmonauts are rushing back to Terra Firma to join the wing ding:

Shuttle undocks from station and heads home
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Arsenio.
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P.S. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican pop singer, was among the invited guests inside the courtroom for the investiture of Justice Sonia Sotomayor at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, for reasons a court spokeswoman could not explain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/us/politics/09scotus.html?hpw
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Ricky Martin? Judging from the guests list, it's going to be another case of living la vida loca!
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Gmail: your account will be suspended within 24 hours for (safety) security reasons



When I checked my Email today, I found this friendly notice:


Invitation: Dear Google Account User @ Tue Sep 8 3:30pm – 4:30pm Inbox


customer service Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:25 AM
To: "xxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com"


xxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com, you are invited to

Dear Google Account User
Tue Sep 8 3:30pm – 4:30pm
(Timezone: London)

Calendar: xxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com

Owner/Creator: customercscenter@gmail.com


This Email is from Gmail customer care and we are sending it to every Gmail accounts owner for safety. We are having congestion due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Gmail users and removal of all unused Gmail Accounts. Gmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, you will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* User name: ............................

* Password: ................................

* Date of Birth: ............................

* Country Or Territory: ....................



Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Thank you for using Gmail !


The Gmail Team
G MAI L BETA
More event details»

Will you attend?


___________________________________
Related:
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What a way go!
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So long, partner!
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September 9, 2009 (999) is ramping up (newspeak) to be a decisive day, after all.
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Arsenio.
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Monday, September 07, 2009

The Gay Adventist Dilemma


15 May 2009

The Gay Adventist Dilemma

By Jonathan Heldt

Gay Adventists in the year 2009 find themselves in a peculiar and unprecedented dilemma. For perhaps the first time in our church’s history, many Adventists seem genuinely interested in and willing to discuss issues related to homosexuality, even in polite company. Politically, the marriage equality movement is finally gaining momentum following recent developments in Iowa, Vermont, and Maine (way to take one for the team, California). And culturally, it is now, or soon will be, more offensive to be called “homophobic” than it is to be labeled “homosexual.” All this, it would seem, must surely come as good news to the majority of gay Adventists.

Yet these gains haven’t come without a cost. The increased attention towards homosexuality has cast some much-needed light into the darkest corners of our church, but the light has also served to obscure as much as it has illuminated. Since coming out at Pacific Union College, I’ve learned a few things about the current perception of gays within the Adventist church.

Perhaps the most important lesson that I’ve learned is that the majority of straight Adventists have no idea about the true reality of being a gay Adventist. The word “gay” is as likely to conjure up mental images of rainbow flags, white knots, and protest signs as it is to invoke a picture with any real connection to the gay Adventist’s everyday experiences.

Even apart from the political slant that homosexuality has taken on recently, gay Adventists must contend with the assumptions, biases, and stereotypes that have become ingrained into our subculture. I’ve had people to whom I’ve come out respond as if I had just told them I joined a political action committee. I’ve had people assume I have no interest in any relationships more long-term than random promiscuity or that being gay means that I must necessarily have abandoned the hope of having a relationship with God. I’ve had people imply that, simply because I’ve recognized certain desires within myself, I should automatically have a perfect answer for every verse in the Bible related to homosexuality. These are only the assumptions that have been verbalized to me; I can only imagine what has been left unsaid.

Coming out in the Adventist church means opening yourself up to a (mostly) untapped reservoir of biases, assumptions, and even hatred that has accumulated over time. It should come as no surprise, then, that the majority of gay Adventists remain in the closet, either unprepared or unwilling to carry the social and political baggage that has been handed to them. Most gay Adventists would prefer to avoid the peculiarities of the “gay situation” altogether and just retreat into the more universal joys and pains of loving another human being. And herein lies the question that nearly all gay Adventists ask, the question at the heart of the Gay Adventist Dilemma: Can’t I just love the person that I love without having to be "gay"?

The ironic twist to this story is that the people whom gay Adventists often fear the most - committed, conservative Adventists - are the very ones who should be able to relate to the Gay Adventist Dilemma the most. In the modern world, nearly all Adventists have had to contend with the worst biases, assumptions, and, yes, even hatred that people have developed towards conservative Christians in general: that they’re judgmental, prejudiced, homophobic, unreasonable, self-righteous, hypocritical, fanatical, uneducated, and out of touch with reality. To profess one’s faith publicly rarely invites questions about a relationship with Christ; more often, Adventists are labeled with assumptions and stereotypes about any number of things (from Intelligent Design and stem cell research to same-sex marriage and the war in Iraq), none of which have the least bit to do with the personal relationship with Jesus that remains at the core of being an Adventist. Coming up against these obstacles, it’s no wonder that many Adventists prefer to stay within the confines of their own subculture rather than venture out into the world at large. The central question of the Gay Adventist Dilemma is beginning to bear a strikingly similarity to that of the more universal Adventist Dilemma: “Can’t I just have my relationship with Jesus without all the baggage that goes along with it?”

The answer to both of these questions is, frankly, no. These frustrations are nothing new, and they’re not likely to go away anytime soon. Out of these shared frustrations, however, shines the hope of reconciliation. We’re not so different after all, non-Adventist gays and we Adventists. We both hold a relationship (or at least the hope of one) at the core of our identity. We’ve both had to swim upstream against the unfair stereotypes and mistaken assumptions that others have placed upon us. We’re both called to stand up for what we believe in by living our lives with more than mere apathetic indifference. The Gay Adventist Dilemma is little more than a repackaging of the Adventist Dilemma in different (perhaps slightly more fashionable) clothing. We’re more alike than we are different, and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we’ll be able to put away the assumptions that continue to hinder us all and learn to appreciate one another for exactly what we both are: human beings, marred by faults but redeemed by grace, and ultimately nothing less than the very children of God.

Posted on the Spectrum Magazine Blog....

Disclaimer: SDA Kinship Int., Inc. is not responsible for the contents of external links.



Source: http://www.sdakinship.net/sdakinship/en/newsnotes2009/gayadventistdilemma.html
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P.S. Bolds are as they appear on the article.
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Chuck Berry and Little Richard Together in Concert

Rock and Roll legend Little Richard performs at San Manuel Casino.

He threw rolled up posters into the audience introducing them to his book- “Finding Peace Within”, the teachings of Ellen G. White founder of the Seventh Day Adventist faith. “This has been his ministry for 20 years,” said Richard’s sister Freka Merrell. The books were quickly grabbed up along with the autographed photo in the inside cover. Giving up the Rock-n-Roll lifestyle in the 1970s he attended Oakwood College, a theological college in Alabama, eventually becoming an ordained minister in the Seventh Day Adventist faith. Many fans were glued to his book during intermission.

“He was fabulous – in good form,” said a fan. “The concert was magnificent and they were worth the price of the ticket,” said Elaine Kersey Smith, “it was a dream come true to finally see both of them tonight.”

Chuck Berry wowed the crowd with his energy. The St. Louis native had the crowd singing their favorite songs along with swing and dancing/ jumping to a different beat. The ability to articulate the concerns and attitudes of his audience in songs like Sweet Little 16, Hey Hey, Rock n Roll, and more marked in place in Rock n Roll history which he attributes to his idols such as Nat King Cole and Muddy Waters. But his last song, his masterpiece “Johnny Be Goode”, brought together all of the elements of his unique musical sound. He allowed the audience to come on the stage to dance and sing with him.

Dressed in his red sequined shirt, Berry kneeled down and performed his signature duck walk while playing the guitar.

The audience left singing the old standards.

The music transcends generations, races and genders.


Source: http://www.blackvoicenews.com/content/view/43465/3/


P.S. Bolds and highlights added.

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Brewed Awakenings: Sandy interfaith group tackles tough topics over coffee and cake

Light snacks, heavy issues
Brewed Awakenings: Sandy interfaith group tackles tough topics over coffee and cake
By Kristen Moulton

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 09/03/2009 02:29:12 PM MDT

Madeline Linares, center, Roger Tsai, right, and other... (Anna Kartashova / The Salt Lake Tribune)

Sandy » Coffee and doughnuts after worship are standard in many Christian churches, but the seekers who belong to Brewed Awakenings take caffeinated conversation to new heights.

Each Friday night, a group of young adult professionals -- and a few in middle age -- gets together at the Sandy home of Madeline and Carlos Linares to sip some brew, nibble on popcorn and coffeecake and delve into meaty topics.

Take the recent two-hour conversation about whether race truly exists or is a human construct.

When Christina Chau, a marketing professional, asserts that it's a stereotype that the Chinese excel at math and become engineers, Nicky Li lights up.

"Wherever it came from, it's true," says Li, who left China to attend the University of Utah. "That's why I'm an engineer."

If the topic -- Carlos Linares jokingly calls it a chance to "talk about white people" -- seems far afield for a Christian group, it's because Brewed Awakenings has evolved into something much different.

"It's a community we have here," says Linares, president of Linares Consulting Group.

Brewed Awakenings began in early 2007 as a way for several Seventh-day Adventist couples to engage in fellowship at the beginning of the Sabbath, which runs from Friday evening to Saturday evening.

While more than half the 25 to 40 who regularly show up at the Linares home are fellow members of Wasatch Hills

Seventh-day Adventist Church on Foothill Drive in Salt Lake City, others belong to different faiths or don't believe in God at all.

The Linareses brew a couple thermoses of coffee and lay out the popcorn as well as chairs between their kitchen table and the couch. Norman Lian, a scientist, brings coffeecake or some other baked treat from his own oven.

Each week, a different group member takes a turn leading the discussion.

Many of the topics relate to religion. For instance, the group members talked about the existence of angels and about free will this summer and evolution vs. creation earlier in the year.

When Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, accepted an invitation to discuss his belief that there is a war on Christianity, religion definitely was on the table.

"He charmed some of us," notes attorney Roger Tsai, who describes himself as a nonbeliever, the resident devil's advocate who pushes the Christians -- including his fiancée, Chau, to walk their talk.

Yet other topics have been more secular.

The wide-ranging discussions are what keep Gloria Gonzales Cook and her husband, Craig Cook, coming back.

"It gives my mind some exercise it doesn't get anywhere else anymore," Craig Cook says.

"It's just a wonderful way to talk about things other than the latest television program," Gloria Gonzales Cook adds.

The couple are unlike most of the other Brewed Awakening regulars -- older, Catholic and Utah natives.

Jim Rosinus, an atheist who met Carlos Linares through business, says he feels even more different -- yet still welcome.

"It's not often you get to sit down with people and discuss adult topics," Rosinus says. "When they argue a religious point of view, I argue the rationalistic."

Linares is happy that Brewed Awakenings has grown beyond his expectation of a faith-based gathering.

Today, those who come on Friday nights often return for games or kickball on Saturday and Sunday, and the group recently took its annual trip to Bear Lake for the day.

It's far better, Linares says, to befriend people than to evangelize them.

"Our objective is not to convert anyone. I'd rather have them come and join us and feel welcome and embraced. That's far greater than any religion agenda or any theological agenda."

kmoulton@sltrib.com
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Chris Oberg to Become First Female Senior Pastor of University Church



Chris Oberg to Become First Female
Senior Pastor of University Church






CALIMESA, California – Pastor Chris Oberg of the Calimesa Seventh-day Adventist Church announced today that she will accept a call to serve as senior pastor of the La Sierra University Church in Riverside, California. Oberg will be the first woman to serve as senior pastor of an Adventist university church.

The announcement came at the end of the Sabbath worship hour. After delivering the sermon to a packed church, Oberg revealed that she had received and accepted an invitation to return to La Sierra where she served as associate pastor before coming to Calimesa. With tears, she acknowledged that her positive reception at Calimesa, a church of 1,200 members near Loma Linda, played a role in her historic appointment to the La Sierra University Church. She thanked the church for embracing her ministry over the past four years. She cited the openness of a college church to hire a female senior pastor and the opportunity to serve in an academic environment as two factors that led to her acceptance of the call.

Oberg received a standing ovation as she left the platform.

Oberg will succeed pastor Dan Smith, who resigned as senior pastor of the La Sierra University Church to become Southeastern California Conference’s Specialist in Creative Evangelism. In addition to his focus on evangelism for the SECC, Smith also joined with The Quiet Hour, an Adventist evangelistic broadcast media and publishing organization based in Southern California.

Trained in dietetics, Oberg sensed God’s calling to ministry and left her career as a maternal and infant nutritionist to pursue a BA degree in religion from La Sierra University. While studying at La Sierra, she served on the pastoral staff of the university church. Oberg subsequently competed a master's of arts degree in religious studies in 2005. After completing her master’s degree at La Sierra, Oberg received a call to Calimesa to replace Derek Morris, who transferred to the Forest Lake Church in Apopka, Florida.

Oberg was honored by the La Sierra University Alumni Association during the 2007 alumni weekend (along with Spectrum editor Bonnie Dwyer and five others).

Oberg’s appointment as senior pastor of the La Sierra University Church is an historic step forward for advocates of full equality for women ministers.

On March 16, 2000, the Southeast California Conference Executive Committee voted to give male and female pastors equal credentials. During the Southeast California Conference Quadrennial Session in October of this year, a report revealed that women currently comprise 8.5% of all pastors in SECC (down from a peak of 12%). Of the 19 women pastors that serve in SECC, only two are senior pastors--Chris Oberg, and Hyveth Williams of the Campus Hill Church in Loma Linda.

Chris Oberg is married to Kerby Oberg who teaches pathology and anatomy at Loma Linda University. They have two daughters who attend La Sierra University.

As published on the Spectrum blog...




P.S. Bolds and highlights added.

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Apostasy means rebellion

Apostasy means rebellion

Basics
New Testament prophecy describes two distinct streams of Christianity that operate side by side as in the end of time. Jesus, in that informative Olivet end-time discourse, stated in His opening comment: “Take heed that no man deceive you ... many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many ... insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:4, 11, 24).


Paul, God’s replacement apostle, noted:
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (I Timothy 4:1-2).


“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:13). God’s people are faced with three types of deceptions as these two distinct “Christian” movements mature:

• Decent of wicked men who shamelessly try to lead others to sin (Ephesians 5:6): “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.”


• Leaders who appeal to a sensory religious experience (II Timothy 4:3-4): “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”


• Those who subvert the gospel of Jesus and the depth of our friendship with Him (Colossians 2:8; II Corinthians 11:4, 13; II Peter 2:1): “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”


“For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or [if] ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with [him].... For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.”


“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”

In Christ’s warning to the inquiring disciples He said that “many” would be deceived, suggesting multitudes would accept spurious ideas and ideals. The admonition was directed at the professing church. There is a turning away from truth, God’s high standards and a saving relationship with Jesus.


It is interesting that the possibility of apostasy is denied by its lack of discussion and even more, a failure to scrutinize what this rebellion means by churches today! In the Old Testament a Hebrew word, pesha, is used to define such rebellion. It is against God’s authority, law and covenant. Daniel reveals that that end-time apostasy will lead to desolation (8:13, 17, 19).
Jesus solemnly cautioned against such a denial: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23).


Individual responsibility is called into action. The Bible warns against leaning even on church leaders for understanding of truth: “Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart” (Jeremiah 14:14 NIV).


Apostasy is a sign of the end. It transcends the fantasy of many that it is the “other” church or it is only those in “Babylon.” The Biblical injunctions are so numerous that the “enemy” might really be me. That’s why Jesus was adamant that the elect, those who think and should know, are at risk of deception.


Paul noted that “in the last days perilous times shall come.” After listing the evil that would infiltrate the world, he describes these individuals as having “corrupt minds,” reprobate or nefarious spirits “concerning the faith” (II Timothy 3:1, 8). The last part of his “list” refers to those “in-house” – within the church. They “resist truth” (3:8) ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of truth (3:7). What were they doing? Studying the wrong things.
Jude states that ‘certain men crept in unawares,” “ungodly men” (Jude 4). He exhorted, “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3) for “men [shall] arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). The deceptions within the church will be rampant.


It eventually reaches a point where “whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2). This specifically refers to “loyalists” in “God’s work.” It is not a Pol Pol, Mao, Stalin, Hussein or Hitler. It represents what the Catholic Church did during the Dark Ages and what we see now in the Muslim reaction to Christians. But soon it will be even worse. Those within our own sphere will rebel. Then the great image to the beast will epitomize the final life and death apostasy with its mark.


Under a myriad of guises, the apostasy has begun – from doctrinal error to supernatural signs. Benny Hinn (with support from Paul and Jan Crouch) on TBN has “performed” spiritualistic miracles (power he claims pick up at the graves of Kathryn Kuhlman and Aime Semple McPherson). In many charismatic “spirit” filled services people roar like lions, bark like dogs, display contortions of their body, experience violent shaking or become dumb.
John said of apostate Protestantism after describing their doing “great wonders,” he “deceiveth them that dwell on the earth” because of “those miracles which he had power to do (Revelation 13:13-14).


Again and again the Scriptures reveal the foundational issue at the end: “They receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.... For this cause God shall send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believe not the truth (II Thessalonians 2:10-12). This later statement is most interesting. A point is reached when God backs away (Romans 1:25-26). His longsuffering and pleading Spirit ceases. Mercy’s last call ends. Justice lies ahead.

End-Time Focus
Paul was made aware that some in the Thessalonian church believed that Jesus had already come (II Thessalonians 3:6-15). This brought unrest, misguided excitement and confusion. To quiet this, he tendered a second letter and noted two things that must come before the parousia (II Thessalonians 2:3).

1. Rebellion (“the apostasy”)
2. Man of sin was to be revealed

Though apostasy existed then (Hebrews 6:6; I John 2:19, 18), it was not the final climatic manifestation. Though a Scriptural picture of Christian apostasy is painted through Babylonian imagery at the end, another rebellion is of paramount concern to Seventh-day Adventists. It represents one of the two streams of end-time Christianity.


In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s this church went through a crisis of almost crippling proportions. E. G. White called that the “alpha” of apostasy. But she was directed to know that a similar experience would strike again shortly before Jesus would return. That, she called, the “omega” apostasy.


“Be not deceived; many will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. We have now before us the alpha of this danger. The omega will be of a most startling nature.”1


What does that mean? What are we to look for? Why isn’t it depicted in clear terms Biblically? What is seen as the apostasy Biblically tied to Babylon is a partial portrayal of what happens within the Adventist Church. Here’s why we must come to attention:

1. The seven churches of Revelation have several applications:
a. In John’s day as literal messages of literal churches
b. Historical periods of the Christian Church – a difficult exercise to be precise
c. Typologically representative of all Christian bodies at the end (their full and most important expression)
2. The seven churches are represented in Revelation 1 as candlesticks that Christ, in pastoral imagery, is walking among.
3. By Revelation 11 there are only two candlesticks remaining. They are Smyrna and Philadelphia (a separate study). Where are the rest? They apostatized and all have become Babylon – not symbolized by a candlestick but a harlot woman (Thyatira was its introduction in Revelation).
4. Laodicea, often seen as being the seventh, final church simply does not go through to the end!



Remember, the churches are not numbered like the Seals, Trumpets or Vials – thus, not necessarily in sequence.


The church victorious, the 144,000 imagery, is seen beautifully described in Philadelphia. It is a remnant. In the study of the key characteristics of the churches and the prophetic messages in Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation, it is clear that apostasy comes to this church and a terrible shaking occurs. The remnant, the body of believers who represent the white horse (first Seal), who go out conquering and to conquer, are those who remain. They are the remnant of a generalized apostasy that infiltrates all Christian institutions and churches. They are the prophetic children of Daniel 8:14, when Jesus said (and it was His words) that after 2300 evenings and mornings holiness would be vindicated or adjudicated. How? By God’s review of the books and choosing forever witnesses to His character – His final church.


Do we have more information regarding the omega apostasy that hits Adventism?


“The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? – The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath, of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement.”2


What are the characteristics?

1. Doctrinal pillars would be given up – which would include Sabbath sacredness.
2. Books to justify these new views would be introduced.
3. The church structure would be redefined.
4. There would be intellectual/philosophical concepts brought forward.
5. The movement would be powerful and unyielding.

In the next article we will begin to explore how God defines rebellion. It was an issue with Israel, it is an issue with the Protestant world and is a growing reason Adventism is fracturing.

References:


1 Testimonies for the Church Containing Letters to Physicians and Ministers Instruction to Seventh-day Adventists, p. 16 (1904).
2 Ibid., pp. 39-40 (1906).




Franklin S. Fowler Jr., M.D.; EndTime Issues... of Prophecy Research Initiative





Source: http://www.endtimeissues.com/Articles/Article225-Apostasy%20Means%20Rebellion.html



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