Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Gonzaga University


Gonzaga University
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gonzaga University

Motto
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam(For the greater glory of God)
Established
1887
Type
Private
Religious affiliation
Roman Catholic (Jesuit)
President
Dr. Thayne McCulloh (interim)
Faculty
364
Undergraduates
4,729
Postgraduates
2,908
Location
Spokane, Washington, United States
Conference
West Coast Conference
Colors
Blue, Red, and White
Nickname
Bulldogs, Zags
Mascot
Spike the Bulldog
Website
http://www.gonzaga.edu/

Gonzaga University is a private Catholic university located in Spokane, Washington, United States. Founded in 1887 by the Society of Jesus, it is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and is named after the young Jesuit saint, Aloysius Gonzaga. The campus houses 105 buildings across 131 acres (437,000 m²) of grassland along the Spokane River, in a residential setting half a mile (800 m) from downtown Spokane. The university was founded by Father Joseph Cataldo, SJ, an Italian-born priest and missionary who wished to create a Catholic school in the Pacific Northwest for local Native Americans.[1]


Curriculum

Gonzaga's liberal arts tradition lies in its core curriculum, which integrates philosophy, religious studies, mathematics, literature, natural and social sciences, and extensive writing in each major discipline. Gonzaga offers studies in 92 fields and 26 graduate programs. In addition, Gonzaga offers programs in preparation for professional schools in business, education, engineering, dentistry, divinity/theology, 360law, medicine, nursing and veterinary medicine. Gonzaga also sponsors an Army ROTC program which prepares students to become commissioned officers upon graduation. Additionally, Gonzaga University partners with Bishop White Seminary, located next to the campus, to prepare Catholic Seminarians for the priesthood.[2] Students may study abroad at Gonzaga's campus in Florence, Italy, or at other programs in Australia, Benin, British West Indies, China, Costa Rica, England, France, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Spain and Zambia.[3]


Law school


Main article: Gonzaga University School of Law
Gonzaga University School of Law, established in 1912, is one of three law schools in Washington. According to U.S. News & World Report, GU Law currently ranks in the top 100 law schools in the U.S.[1] The law school has produced prominent alumni, including three of the nine current Washington Supreme Court justices, both U.S. Attorneys for Washington's two federal district courts, and the Governor of Washington Christine Gregoire (all as of 2009).


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Which of them will love him most?


36And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat.

37And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,

38And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

39Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.

40And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.

41There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.

42And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?

43Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.

44And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.

45Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.

46My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.

47Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

48And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

49And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?

50And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.


Luke 7:36-50.
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Monday, December 21, 2009

More than 80 dead in European winter weather

Page last updated at 01:43 GMT, Tuesday, 22 December 2009






Temperatures in Ukraine are expected to improve by Wednesday






More than 80 people have died across Europe as days of snow storms and sub-zero temperatures swept the continent, causing traffic chaos for millions.

At least 42 people have frozen to death in Poland over the last three days and another 27 in Ukraine.

Another 13 people died in car accidents in Austria, Finland and Germany, where temperatures fell to -33C (-27F).

Air, rail and road transport links were disrupted across northern Europe where more snow was expected in coming days.

Many roads in the south of the UK were gridlocked - there were numerous reports of crashes on motorways and of people abandoning their cars.

'Saturation point'

Eurostar said it would run a "restricted" service on Tuesday after a three-day shutdown stranded some 75,000 people.

Only passengers originally due to travel Saturday or Sunday would be eligible, and the remaining backlog would be cleared over the next few days.

The crisis prompted French President Nicolas Sarkozy to call the head of national rail carrier SNCF, the majority stakeholder in Eurostar.


Meanwhile Eurotunnel - which carries vehicles under the Channel between England and France - said its terminal at Folkestone was at "saturation point" and closed its shuttle car service to new arrivals.

In Poland, police appealed for people to help if they came across homeless or drunk people lying outside, as temperatures dropped towards -20C in some areas.

Most of the 42 people who froze to death in the country over the weekend were homeless, police said.

Meanwhile, one restaurant owner offered tens of thousands of homeless people a hot meal in Krakow's main square.

"The food is not the only important thing," restaurateur Janusz Kosciuszko was quoted as telling Euronews.

"What is also important is that these people know that someone is thinking about them."

Cold-related deaths were also reported in France, where two homeless people died.

Treacherous travel conditions also caused havoc for rail services.

Fifty people were injured when a train hit a buffer in the Croatian city of Zagreb, while 36 were injured when a passenger train derailed in Paris.

Airports closed

Parts of the continent saw 20in (50cm) of snow over the weekend.

Domestic rail services across the UK have been severely delayed, with buses replacing trains in many areas.



Germany's Dusseldorf airport was among those shut down by heavy snow


On Monday evening, British Airways cancelled all its domestic and European flights from the main London airport, Heathrow.
Passengers were offered replacement coach travel. Other airports in the country were closed completely.

The AA, one of the UK's largest motoring and vehicle recovery organisations, said it had attended more than 20,000 breakdowns by 2030 GMT.

Normally it would expect to deal with about 10,000 vehicles for the whole of a Monday in December.

In France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, airport operators struggled to clear runways amid thick snowfall, with major disruption to flight patterns.

In France, a second wave of snowstorms hit the country's north on Sunday with Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport warning as many as one in five flights was likely to be cancelled on Monday.

Germany's third largest airport - in Dusseldorf - was also closed because of Sunday's heavy snow.

In Belgium, the three biggest airports - Brussels, Charleroi and Liege - were completely shut. Severe delays and cancellations were reported at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Moscow said it was deploying 9,000 snow ploughs to clear the city's streets.

Temperatures were forecast to rise later in the week.


Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8424953.stm.

P.S. Global warming, excuse me, Climate Change European style?

So soon after the Cop15 show?

ROME


Eternal City, Perpetual Fire


Fig.6a. Map of Rome, the city on seven hills.

And now we arrive in Rome, both the empire, the fourth and final beast of world history according to the prophet Daniel, and also the city at its center. This is the source of the myth of Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars (Nimrod), who both founded the city on seven hills. The hills are real, and the city is named in Scripture as the heart of the all-consuming harlot system called Babylon. (Revelation 17:9) This is the world power that remains until the Son of God descends from heaven with a shout and trumpet blast to put an end to all the substitutes and counterfeits. Romulus and Remus are merely distant echoes of Nimrod, the city founder of Mesopotamia, and also of Osiris and Seth of Egypt, one brother killing the other in a bid for supremacy. But Romulus and Remus are not important as Roman deities.

It is the temples on the seven hills that tell us who the people worshipped. Here we find the Sumerian father, mother and virgin intact, the son and seed at his most subtle, and the child in his mother’s arms. This umbilical cord leads all the way from Mesopotamia via Egypt, Canaan, Persia and especially Greece…to Rome. This is the city called "the eternal city." And so it is; a city of perpetual fire, at the center of a system reserved for everlasting flames. Let us start with her in popular worship, at the public forum and in every house.




Fig.6b. 1. Vesta-Hestia, Roman copy of a Greek original, Torlonia Museum, Rome, c.470 BC. 2. Vestal virgin (damaged), Rome. 3. Juno of the Capitoline trinity, without child, Rome.

"Vesta, Roman religion, goddess of the hearth, identified with the Greek Hestia…Her worship was observed in every household…and her image was sometimes encountered in the household shrine. The Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was of great antiquity…There burned the perpetual fire of the public hearth attended by the Vestal Virgins…In addition to the shrine itself and between it and the Velia stood the magnificent Atrium Vestae. This name was originally given to the whole sacred area comprising the Temple of Vesta, a sacred grove, the Regia (headquarters of the pontifex maximus, or chief priest), and the House of the Vestal." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Vesta, Hestia, Std.Ver.1999)

Hestia-Vesta is the third daughter of Cronus-Saturn, her sisters being Demeter (Rhea-Cybele) and Hera (Juno). Like her temple at the Acropolis in Athens, Vesta’s fire burned at the highest place in Rome, right next to the sacred trees and the seat of the Pontifex Maximus. Yes reader, that is the name now given to the Popes, the most devout worshippers of the Virgin Mary. The celibate nuns are none other than the continuance of the vestal virgins, and Rome is virtually grand central station for the great mother, woman, birthing goddess and virgin arriving from Greece, Babylon and Egypt in her every guise. Here she is as saviouress and a member of the capital city’s trinity.

"Juno, in Roman religion, chief goddess and female counterpart of Jupiter, closely resembling the Greek Hera, with whom she was universally identified…she was a member of the Capitoline triad of deities…traditionally introduced by the Etruscan kings. Juno was connected with all aspects of the life of women, most particularly married life. As Juno Lucina, goddess of childbirth, she had a temple on the Esquiline from the 4th century BC. In her role as female comforter she assumed various descriptive names. Individualized, she became a female guardian angel…As her cult expanded she assumed wider functions and became, like Hera, the principal female divinity of the state…originally as a saviour of women but eventually as saviour of the state." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Juno, Std.Ver.1999)

This wife of Jupiter (Zeus, Cush) is the ever-popular female comforter now blended into Mother Mary. Juno-Hera was “traditionally” brought to Rome by early Etruscan kings. According to the historian Herodotus, the Etruscans came from Asia Minor (Anatolia - literally “land of many mothers” - now modern Turkey) around 800 BC, but others say their origin is obscure. What is not obscure is that the gods of Asia Minor, especially those of Pergamon and Ephesus, are found on every one of the Seven Hills of Rome. Here is the Great Mother of Greece, Rhea, transformed into the Great Mother, Cybele, whose official title in Rome was Mater Deum Magna (Great Mother of the Gods).

"Rhea, in Greek religion, ancient goddess, probably pre-Hellenic in origin, who was worshipped sporadically throughout the Greek world. She was associated with fruitfulness and had affinities with Gaea (Earth) and the Great Mother of the Gods. A daughter of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea, she married her brother Cronus…" (Encyclopedia Britannica, Rhea, Std.Ver.1999) "Great Mother of the Gods, ancient Oriental-Greek-Roman deity commonly known as Cybele...under the empire it became one of the most important cults in the Roman world. In all of her aspects, Roman, Greek, and Oriental, the Great Mother was characterized by essentially the same qualities. Most prominent among them was her universal motherhood. Her priests castrated themselves on entering her service." (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Great Mother, 1974, IV: 700)

These are all prototypes of the Mother of God found in the Christian Church, whose celibate priests will be examined further as we focus on the counterfeit son. But first, to the father, Rhea’s brother and husband, the horned one, Cronus-Saturn who was thrown out of heaven.

Satan’s Birthday

"Saturn, in Roman religion, the god of sowing or seed. The Romans equated him with the Greek agricultural deity Cronus. Saturn's great festival, the Saturnalia, became the most popular of Roman festivals, and its influence is still felt in the celebration of Christmas and the Western world's New Year…It was the merriest festival of the year: all work and business were suspended…certain moral restrictions were eased; and presents were freely exchanged. The weekday Saturday was named for Saturn." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Saturn, Std.Ver.1999) "The Romans often cut down evergreens and decorated them to pay homage to Saturn, the god of farming." (Wikipedia, The Saturnalia)

Of course this is not literally Satan’s birthday, because he was not created on earth, but it is the closest thing that men have invented to a birthday party for Lucifer. Make no mistake, reader, this is not the time of year that Christ was born. Shepherds did not sit in the fields in December, and no Roman census to count the population (which is why Jesus was born in Bethlehem; Luke 2:1-7) was ever held in winter when so much of the empire was under snow and roads impassable. If you need more detailed information on this then read Chapter 13, Christian Festivals, The Truth Which Sets Free.

This great festival comes from Mesopotamia, from the festivities of the original horned god-kings of Babel. Almost every aspect of the Cronus-Saturn celebration is intact in Christianity, the exchange of presents, the hanging of golden suns of Adonis-Osiris and silver stars of Ishtar-Venus on the sacred tree, the chopped yule logs of Osiris-Horus, and the wreaths and drinking cups of Bacchus. Add to this the rest of the general "easing of moral restrictions" such as sexual antics under mistletoes and other vegetation sprigs of the satyrs (mini woodland horned ones) and various fertility goddesses. The disciples of Christ never took part in this massive pagan-fest. But the early Christians certainly did, and today most churchmen who are equally aware of the dark origins of these rites remain unperturbed. Like the goats who were “willfully ignorant” of impending doom before the Flood (2 Peter 3:5) they remain adamant in keeping these satanic traditions.

Like the Israelites who made a golden calf of Osiris-Apis and called it YHWH (Exodus 32), Christians say they are now keeping customs from the Saturnalia in honour of the Lord. That complete lack of integrity makes it worse, not better. Ignorance might be grounds to plead mercy, but knowledge seals the death penalty in this matter. "You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are round about you...lest the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and he destroy you off the face of the earth." (Deuteronomy 6:14) "In vain do you worship me," says the real Son of God, "teaching as truth the traditions of men." (Mark 7:6-8; Matthew 15:8,9)

The Magi of Persia gave gifts to Christ, not to each other, several days after his birth. The disciples of Christ never exchanged gifts on a birth date for Jesus, nor did they celebrate a birthday for him at all. They were instructed to give freely all the time. (Matthew 10:8) They were commanded to remember not his birth but his death, and this not at Easter (Ishtar) but at all times, as often as they drank wine and broke bread in their own homes. (Luke 22:19,20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

But the Church did not want a simple breaking of bread or Christ’s "royal priesthood" of believers. They wanted a "house of god" made with hands and a clergy to perform the sacraments of Mithra and other sungods of Asia and Egypt. They wanted everything Babel had to offer, and God gave them it all, in full measure, from the Pontifex Maximus to his college of cardinals and priests, along with the most offensive sacrament ever devised by these sons of disobedience, an abomination far greater than the offerings baked for the Queen of Heaven by the wicked Israelites in Egypt (Jeremiah 44). And for this they created a church calendar called the Ordo (Latin: series, sequence) to specify the days on which the abomination should be celebrated, as well as all the renamed pagan feasts and events to be kept in the “service” of God.

The Masters of Duplicity

"Janus, in Roman religion, the animistic spirit of doorways (januae) and archways (jani). The worship of Janus traditionally dated back to Romulus and a period even before the actual founding of the city of Rome…Some scholars regard Janus as the god of all beginnings and believe that his association with doorways is derivative. He was invoked as the first of any gods in regular liturgies. The beginning of the day, month, and year, both calendrical and agricultural, were sacred to him. The month of January is named for him…There were several important temples erected to Janus, and it is assumed that there was also an early cult on the Janiculum, which the ancients took to mean 'the city of Janus.' Janus was represented by a double-faced head, and he was represented in art either with or without a beard." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Janus, Std.Ver.1999)


Fig.6c. 1. Janus the two-faced god of the door, Roman coin, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, c.220 AD. 2. Roman bishop with the staff of Tammuz-Osiris and the combined headpiece of Dagon, Baal, Tammuz and Osiris.

Janus is yet another Romanized form of Tammuz. He is one of the oldest of all the Roman gods, sometimes regarded as the very first deified god-king of Italy and given the title "god of gods." Of all the versions of Nimrod the son of Cush, Janus was one of the most significant counterfeit sons to be absorbed by the early Christian Church, playing a role as important as that of Mithra and Sol. He was the substitute for the real Door. His priests were called cardinals, from the Latin word cardinis, meaning hinge. The sacred symbols of this counterfeit and his assistants who unlocked and opened doors were, quite naturally, keys. Early Christians were quick to blend the literal image of these keys with the figurative keys that Christ conferred upon his apostle Peter, and they likewise deliberately confused Peter with the rock (recognition of the real Son and Word of God) that Jesus revealed to him. (Matthew 16:15-19, for details see Chapter 2, Wrong Name, The Truth Which Sets Free) Making the claim that the Roman pontiff was an apostle, the successor of Peter, the Christians merged both Jesus and Janus into the same entranceway so subtly that the priests of the hinge could go on serving the false door and shepherd in the name of Christ. The effect was stunning. The resulting flock was nothing like Christ’s sheep but instead a congregation of Christian goats, a vast multitude of them.

Christians had long been putting all the myths into a melting pot but it was actually Emperor Constantine that opened the floodgates for the Church when he blended Christ with the solar deity Sol Invictus (the invincible sun). Sol had long been a favourite god in Rome, a mixture of Mithra from Persia, Apollo from Greece and the Egyptian sungods Helios and Aten. It would be natural to place the "birthday" of the solar god during the shortest period of sunlight in the year, after which the days grew longer. Emperor Aurelian had already built a magnificent temple to Sol in Rome and dedicated it on December 25th. "The emperor Aurelian introduced an official religion of Sol Invictus in AD 270, making the sun-god the premier divinity of the empire, and wearing his rayed crown himself...Aurelian’s Sol borrowed many features from Mithraism, including the iconographical representation of the god as a beardless youth. Aurelian dedicated the Sol Invictus Temple on December 25, 274 (AD) in a festival called dies natalis Solis Invicti or birthday of the invincible Sun." (Wikipedia, Sol Invictus)

Both Saturn and Sol are intimately associated with the Christians’ choice of December 25 as their big day. And they know it. "The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date" and "from the beginning of the third century ‘Sun of Justice’ was used as a title of Christ." (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Christmas) "According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967) article on Constantine the Great: Sol Invictus had been adopted by the Church of Rome as evidenced by Christ (portrayed) as Apollo-Helios in a mausoleum discovered under St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and dated to 250 (AD)...The date for Christmas may also bear a relation to sun worship…According to the scriptor Syrus, writing in the fourth century: ‘It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day.’" (Wikipedia, Sol Invictus) Christians of practically every sect still blend Christ with the sun in "sunrise services" at the second most important pagan festival of Easter (Ishtar).

This is all a continuation of the subtle mix used so successfully by Constantine, the classic Christian. Like Janus, Constantine was two-faced. He minted coins for Sol while adopting a semblance of belief in Christ, and he conferred upon himself the title of Pontifex Maximus, becoming Emperor and High Priest rolled into one, a position worthy of the Zzars of Babel. The Bishop of Rome, a spin "doctor of the Church" without equal, had a similar "leaning" and double intent when he took for himself the title Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff) as well as "Holy Father" and "Vicar (Substitute) of Christ." Far from imitating or remotely obeying the Son of God that he claims to follow, he walks instead in the garments of Tammuz-Osiris, carries the staff of Tammuz-Osiris, and wears the combined hat of Dagon, Baal, Tammuz and Osiris. His priests are the rightful successors to the priests of Zeus (Cush) in Pergamon, and his throne most definitely belongs in Rome. This "apostle" is indeed the successor of one of the disciples of Christ, but it is not Peter. And like the apostle he resembles, he is the only one in Scripture to be personally possessed by Satan to perform his inescapable destiny: selling out the real Son of God before ultimately perishing. (Luke 22:3; John 13:27, 17:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:3,9) To read about this connection in detail see Chapter 17, The Truth Which Sets Free.

Mysteries in the Dark

A priesthood is rarely successful unless it builds a church and keeps its pew-sitters in the dark. That is exactly what the ancient priests of Mesopotamia knew. First build a house for the god, then officiate over mysterious rites that only priests can truly understand and perform. In Babylon "the sense of mystery, of the divine and secret, was further strengthened by the retention of Sumerian as the religious and sacred language; Sumerian was the source of all culture for the Assyro-Babylonians, and its use was also a tribute to a people to whom they owed a great deal of their science." (Archaeologia Mundi: Mesopotamia, Margueron, p.177) Roman priests learned this lesson well, retaining ancient Latin as the language for their mumbo-jumbo, in all their incantations. The word "hocus-pocus" comes from the utterance "hoc est me corpus" (this is my body) in the most important rite that they ever perfected.

Unlike the broken pieces of ordinary bread that Christ shared with his elect, the bread of the counterfeits had to be whole and intact. In fact each of the breads was round, in the shape of the sungod, whether that was female (Isis cakes) or male (Mithra breads). These ceremonies and commonly shared meals were "constitutive features of the mystery societies, which reached their peak of popularity in the first three centuries of the Christian era." (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Mystery religions, 1974, VII: 153) The mystery bread was literally considered to be the god himself, and thus the consumer actually ate his deity, partaking of his divine nature. And only the priests could turn the grain into god and dole him out.

This is what the early Christians blended with the simple supper of Christ and substituted for that commemorative meal. Some still serve these sun-breads or wafers from a monstrance, a sun-shaped vessel, containing the "host" (the god). The word "monstrance" was derived from the Latin verb to "demonstrate," in this case to "show" the priests’ magic creation, but in fact they had concocted a "monstrosity," the spiritual atrocity of the ages, confusing the pagan rite with the Lord’s most intimate part of an ordinary meal that was designed for his elect. This is the "abomination" that the "little horn" of the fourth beast of Daniel instituted, replacing the household bread-breaking that Jesus entrusted to his elect with a sacrament of the sons of Babel. They replacing the finished work and end-all sacrifice of the Son of God (who rendered all temples and priests obsolete) with an ongoing sacrifice administered by a new order of priests in a new church. And they did it in the name of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Dictionary defines this ritual as, "the unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary; the Sacrifice of the Eucharist; the highest act of worship in the Catholic Church which is offered up by a priest in the place of Christ himself." Countless millions "celebrate" this rite every week, the greatest insult to the real God and Father ever perpetrated by the goats in the name of his Son.

You may think that this kind of error is merely confined to the Roman, Orthodox or "high" churches with their incense-wielding priests. Not so. Protestants and other sects of practically every persuasion have similar obsessions with how to perform their "sacraments," such as exactly how to cut the bread, which way to administer the water in baptism, and what "duly qualified minister" may do so. And in most cases their "festivals" and "gospels" are no different from those of Rome. That is why they are so easily being drawn back into the Great Mother Church. Billy-goat Graham and other popular "evangelists" have no defense against the dark lord of Babel because they are already in his domain, part of the daughter churches spawned from the original. They are as much in love with a "house of god" and a substitute Christ as any Sumerian ever was. If you doubt this then now is the time to read Chapter 10, 15, 20 (Sacraments, Gospels, Ecumenism) in The Truth Which Sets Free.

The same confusion exists throughout Christianity, whether it is in Orthodox, Coptic, Protestant or any other sectarian circles, a deep-rooted belief in churchmanship, in belonging to a church and accepting the words of the clergy. This has nothing to do with true discipleship, it is a cult concept invented in Babel, found throughout world religion, cherished by priests and swallowed by pew-sitters. And it was perfected in Jesus’ name by Mother Rome. Instead of sheep with God-given individual faith, this religion produces a mass of goats, with church-created herd faith, and deliberately confuses them with God’s elect. Here it is, perfectly defined by the founder of the "Society of Jesus" (Jesuits) a champion of churchmanship and primary agent of Satan’s ace card. "That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. For we must undoubtedly believe that the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of the Orthodox Church His Spouse, by which Spirit we are governed and directed to Salvation, is the same." (Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, No.13)

It is no wonder that the word Jesuit is now defined in many dictionaries to mean "one who is devious or untrustworthy." But this is the spirit of the Church, and it is nothing like the Spirit of God. It is a very dark substitute. The seven-hilled city of Rome is without a doubt the resurrected neo-Babylon of Scripture, the "mystery" (in the apostle John’s time) that is no longer a mystery, specifically identified as "Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of earth’s abominations." (Revelation 17:5,9,18) From here we can follow the progress of the Mesopotamian model into the West with ease. But it also took an eastern route, through India and the Far East, and evidence of that can clearly be found all the way to the New World. And of course there is the religion of Cush in Africa and Ishmael in Arabia. But the first and most logical step now is to examine Europe, to which Rome exported many Babylonian replicas, followed by a second helping of Church clones.

Even to the farthest reaches of Northern Europe, we can find Bel or Baal’s identity in the storm god Thor and the widely worshipped Odin, revered in the great winter festival of Yuletide, also called “The Feast of the Dead,” a celebration full of “devilish spirits.” This was indeed a feast for the dead goats of the world, and still is. When the first “missionaries” began “converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity,” they found it convenient to “allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, versus trying to confront and suppress them.” Pope Gregory I, himself one of those early messengers, advocated that “converting heathens is easier if they are allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions” and he justified this as permissible if it was done in God’s name and to His glory. (Wikipedia, Yuletide) This was nothing new. Christians have adhered to this religious strategy ever since they created and refined this counterfeit faith in the first few centuries AD.
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Revelation 17 Whore Babylon Antichrist - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toBOML5W4uQhttp://

bibleortraditions
October 23, 2007

This is a study of the Book of Revelation chapter 17. The Apostle John's vision on the island of Patmos in 96AD. The Bible identifies the Roman Catholic Church as the harlot and Mystery Babylon. - Part 1
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2009 a deadly year for Florida's manatees


MIAMI
Sat Dec 19, 2009 12:38pm EST











MIAMI (Reuters) - A record number of endangered manatees died in Florida waters this year, according to the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

U.S. Green Business

In a preliminary report on Friday, the commission said its Fish and Wildlife Research Institute had documented 419 manatee deaths in state waters between January 1 and December 11, the most for any year since record-keeping began in 1974.

The previous worst year for the mammals was 2006, when 417 deaths were documented in Florida. A lower-than-average total of 337 deaths was reported in 2008.

Manatee death counts can swing wildly from year to year and the wildlife commission has cautioned in the past not to read too much into a single year's statistics.

Along with an uptick in deadly encounters with boats, Florida's manatees faced a string of cold spells this year and a high mortality rate among infant manatees.

Cold-related deaths, at 55, were more than twice last year's total.

The West Indian manatee, related to the African and Amazon species and to the dugong of Australia, grows to 10 feet and more than 1,000 pounds (450 kg). Its wrinkled and whiskered face has won the hearts of generations.

Although they have no natural enemies, manatees are routinely crushed or drowned in canal locks, run over by speeding boats or hurt by fishing line and hooks. They are vulnerable to cold water in winter and to deadly blooms of "red tide" algae.

The Florida population is believed to have increased slightly in recent decades, in part due to boat speed restrictions. As a result, developers and boat industry interests have argued for easing restrictions to allow more construction of boat slips.

State scientists counted a record high number of 3,807 manatees in Florida waters last year, topping the previous high in 2001 by more than 500.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Parallels of the Federal Reserve Act and the Health Care Overhaul Putsch



Federal Reserve Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve Act (ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251, enacted December 23, 1913, 12 U.S.C. ch.3) is the act of Congress that created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States of America, which was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act

P.S. Deja vu? Everyone's in a rush to go home and "celebrate";
Climate Change NorEaster Blizzard of 2009, etc.

"Everything's is on track, to pass the piece of legislation on christmas eve..."

Mary Christmas!
Federal employees in Wash. D.C. will have the day off because of the snow storm; Yet, Harry Reid and Der Politbüro will carry on with their agenda...
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Brave New World – 2009


Brave New World – 2009
Read Orwell and Huxley to understand America.
Jim Quinn, December 14, 2009

Just as in Brave New World, the ruling Alphas are White and the lowest-class Epsilons are dark-skinned. Blacks and Hispanics represent 50% of all the high school dropouts even though they only make up 25% of the population. This guarantees a life of blue-collar low-paying jobs for these people. Whites obtain 78% of the advanced degrees, guaranteeing them the positions of leadership in society. The social welfare state implemented by the ruling elite provides enough sustenance to the lower classes to keep them anesthetized, ignorant and easily manipulated. Whites also obtain 77% of the bachelor’s degrees, assuring that they will fill the Beta administrator positions in society.

Another technological method of keeping the masses tranquilized and distracted in the Brave New World is through high-tech sports and entertainment. Sport is a pillar of the World State consisting of various games and activities which use high-tech equipment. Another key aspect of entertainment is the “feelies.” Users rest their hands on metal knobs protruding from the arms of their chair, allowing them to feel the physical sensations of the actors on-screen (usually in sexually-themed films). The mass production of HDTVs, CD players, Laptop computers, Blackberries, iPhones, iPods, luxury automobiles and other electronic toys distributed to the masses through easy credit policies has successfully distracted the populace from the pillaging of the country by the Alphas at Goldman Sachs. The feelies of today are 24-hour cable TV with 600 stations, downloadable movies, an unlimited amount of free porn on the internet, strip joints, and prostitution. Sports addicts can attend baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, wrestling, boxing, auto racing, and Michael Vick sponsored dog-fighting events year round, or watch it on TV 24 hours per day. With mindless jobs and unlimited distractions, the preponderance of citizens are as docile as sheep
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Catholics Grapple With Divisions Over Abuse

Andrew Sullivan for The New York Times
At St. Mary Church in Norwalk, Conn., the Rev. Greg Markey, left, the Rev. Richard Cipolla, center, and Stephan Genovese, a deacon, celebrate Mass.



By PAUL VITELLO
Published: December 20, 2009
NORWALK, Conn. — Thousands of Masses were celebrated this year in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport. But two of them, within a few weeks and a few miles of each other in this diverse commuter-line city, hinted at the tangled emotions still dividing many Catholics almost eight years after the start of a scandal that has confronted the church with its greatest crisis in the modern era.
At St. Jerome Church on Half Mile Road, priests celebrated a Holy Mass of Reconciliation in June for people anywhere who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. Though church authorities across the country have paid billions of dollars in legal settlements, advocates for abuse victims said it was one of the few Masses for victims ever held in the United States.

The same month, at St. Mary Church on West Avenue, hundreds of people participated in a requiem Mass for the Rev. Alfred J. Bietighofer, a beloved parish priest who committed suicide in 2002 after four men accused him of molesting them when they were boys.

The diocese has been hit hard by the sex abuse scandal, paying more than $37 million to settle claims. This month, the court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of documents generated by those claims refocused attention on one of the most painful allegations: that officials of the Bridgeport Diocese, like many others, kept parishioners in the dark for years about predatory priests in their midst.

Yet, after years of public scrutiny, lawsuits and quarrels at the dinner table, parishioners here say a kind of armistice has been reached between those who are still angry about it and those who are tired of talking about it.

There are people in both camps at St. Mary’s and St. Jerome’s, parishioners said in recent interviews. They work side by side at the food pantry, on the raffle committee and at meetings of the Ladies Guild; they simply avoid the subject around others with different views.

“The most important thing we have is our community, and that’s what has to be preserved,” said Jeanne Tarrant, a longtime member of St. Jerome’s. “There are people who feel differently than I do about the abuse — and about a lot of other things — but I don’t try to change them, and they don’t try to change me.”

In that spirit, the two summer Masses — one for victims, one for an accused priest — went almost unnoticed outside the ranks of those who celebrated them. But one group that cared deeply is Voice of the Faithful, a nationwide organization of Catholic parishioners who banded together after the scandal broke to advocate for abuse victims and more transparency in church affairs.

When a longtime member of St. Jerome’s asked his pastor, the Rev. David Blanchfield, to offer a special Mass for the victims of abuse, Father Blanchfield said he did so without hesitation “because, obviously, it needed to be done.”
But John Marshall Lee, a Voice of the Faithful leader in Connecticut, said the Mass for the deceased priest at St. Mary’s raised questions for some Catholics.

“People who were upset over the Mass for Bietighofer had no objection to saying a Mass for the man,” said Mr. Lee, who belongs to neither parish. “It was that St. Mary’s didn’t also have a Mass for the victims. That seemed odd.”

He asked the pastor there, the Rev. Greg Markey, to offer a Mass for victims, but Father Markey declined. No member of his parish had asked him for such a service, the pastor said, and none had expressed objections to Father Bietighofer’s Mass, which he described as “not a celebration of the life of a predator, but a Mass to pray for a man’s soul.”

People in the parish loved Father Bietighofer, Father Markey said. No one could know for sure whether he had abused anyone. But whether he did or did not, Father Markey said, “he served this parish well for many years.”

For many Catholics, differences over the sex abuse crisis are rooted in deeper, older tensions in the church — between tradition and reform, between parishes like St. Mary’s, with its Latin Masses, and St. Jerome’s, where parishioners playing electric guitar and drums accompany the choir.

Father Markey, a self-described conservative Catholic, upset some parishioners soon after he became pastor of St. Mary’s two years ago by deciding to phase out girls from the ranks of the altar servers. Those in place could stay, the pastor decided, but he reasoned that girls cannot become priests, and altar service should be a gateway to a potential vocation in the priesthood.
The traditional Latin Mass he introduced about the same time is one of the few offered in the state, and has drawn worshipers from a 50-mile radius.

To conservatives like Father Markey, abuses committed in the 1960s and after reflect the “moral decline” of those freewheeling times, the effects of the Second Vatican Council’s liberalization of church rules and the church’s failure to weed out gay men in the priesthood.
“There is a sense that a lot of what happened — not all of it, but a lot — had to do with lapses of theological orthodoxy and the decline of moral life that went with it,” Father Markey said.

To more liberal-leaning Catholics like Father Blanchfield, the abuses reflect a failure to keep up with the times by bringing more diversity — women and lay people in particular — into the church’s decision-making process. People with broad life experience, he said, would more likely have spotted the “psychosexual” problems of those priests who abused.

Both Father Markey and Father Blanchfield agree on at least one point: They are weary of the unrelenting publicity about sex abuse.

Parishioners at both churches said the issue still hovered but did not cast as dark a shadow as it once did. They said common bonds trumped their differing views about it — bonds of faith, mainly, but also connections forged in the prosaic, time-consuming commitments people make to serve on the Buildings and Grounds Committee, to chaperone Teen Night, to volunteer for the bereaved-parishioners dinner squad.

Jane Reichle, a member of St. Mary’s, said another bond was the sense of mourning people felt for the intimacy — once taken for granted and now under constant watch — between priests and parishioners.

Since 2002, Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport has adopted several measures, commonly used across the country, which he says are protecting children from future abuse by priests. The diocese has conducted background checks of more than 30,000 clerics, employees and volunteers; it has introduced an abuse-prevention course that 90,000 parishioners, clergy and staff members have completed. When accusations are made against priests, the bishop has said, the matter is turned over to the police.

At a confirmation ceremony at St. Jerome’s one recent Sunday, as a standing-room-only crowd of families looked on, Bishop Lori spoke to the 42 young confirmands about the importance of practicing their faith, then anointed each one, making the sign of the cross.

As the service entered its second hour, Jack Bellairs, 87, grandfather of Jordan Michael Bellairs, 13, snapped a picture with a disposable camera, then went outside to have a cigarette. He said he had “followed all that stuff, sure” in the newspapers about sex abuse. But this was a great day — seeing his grandson become a full-fledged member of the Catholic Church.

“Why?” he was asked.

“Why?” he repeated, seeming to find the question incomprehensible.

“Because I believe in life after death,” he said, blowing cigarette smoke in the rain. “And I want my grandson to be with me when I get there.”

A version of this article appeared in print on December 21, 2009, on page A25 of the New York edition.
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ALERT: HARRY REID SCHEDULES FIRST OBAMA-CARE VOTE FOR 1 A.M. MONDAY



By Sarah Foster


Posted 1:00 AM Eastern


December 21, 2009© 2009 NewsWithViews.com



Watch Live: U.S. Senate Debates Health Care Insurance Overhaul



WASHINGTON – Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled 1 a.m. Monday for the first of several votes he needs to get his ObamaCare health bill passed by the Senate by Christmas Eve.
That’s “shortly after Sunday Night Football ends and most Americans are in bed,” says Dan Holler at the Heritage Foundation's blog, The Foundry.



Introduced Saturday morning, the senators will have had less than 38 hours to understand the 383-page manager's amendment to H.R. 3590: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Holler reports introduces several new concepts into the health care debate. For starters:

Read whole article:
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Climate Change?




Sunday, December 20, 2009

Proof That Jesus Christ Was NOT Born On December 25th (Christmas Day)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5ozUNbo8F4http://

MandMEvangelists
November 23, 2008

Did you know that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25th?Did you know that in late December it would have been way too cold for the shepherds to be out with their flocks at night?Did you know that we can prove from the Scriptures that Jesus was not born in the winter?Did you know that the Bible does give us information about when Jesus was actually born?Did you know that there was a real, historical reason why the inns were full when Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to stay?Did you know that there is a holiday that was instituted by God over a thousand years before Jesus was born that prophetically foreshadowed the circumstances of His birth?Did you know that God almost always has His most important events fall during the holidays that He instituted in the Scriptures?What you don't know about the birth of the Savior may shock you.Watch this video with an open mind - perhaps it is time for all of us to learn the truth.So why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?The truth is that there was a late December pagan holiday that was celebrated long before Jesus was ever born.The Roman Catholics decided to "christianize" that pagan holiday starting in 336 A.D. as a celebration of the birth of Christ.You can find out much more by watching our other video on this topic entitled "The Christmas Conspiracy: The Pagan Origins Of Christmas".

For more information please visit us....

The Most Important News: http://themostimportantnews.com/
The Last Days: http://signsofthelastdays.com/
The Truth: http://thetruthwins.com/
Organic Health: http://organichealthadviser.com/
The End Of The World: http://thisistheendoftheworldasweknow...
What Does The Bible Say?: http://whatdoesthebiblesayabout.com/
Vaccine Side Effects: http://thevaccinesideeffects.com/
Mysteries Of The World: http://unexplainedmysteriesoftheworld...

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Dems Rushing To Pass Health Care

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUijt0bRPzkhttp://




CBSNewsOnline
December 20, 2009

Schieffer, Democrats are denying Republicans to evaluate and amend legislation in th...
The Senate is set to vote on health care legislation Christmas Eve but, as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) told Bob Schieffer, Democrats are denying Republicans to evaluate and amend legislation in the final bill.
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Storm crawls into New England, leaving mess behind


Telescope viewers are covered in snow overlooking Lighthouse Beach Sunday in Chatham, Mass. Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009, during the first major snowstorm of the season. (AP Photo/Julia Cumes)


By ERIC TUCKER (AP) – 1 hour ago

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A fierce weekend storm dropped record snowfall and stranded travelers up the coast from Virginia to New England, but its timing helped minimize headache-inducing work commutes and left many with the prospect of a very white Christmas.

Residents throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast mostly holed up for the weekend, then dug out from as much as 2 feet of snow to find sunny, mostly calm skies under a blanket of white unspoiled by car exhaust and passers-by.

Matthew Laquinta was vindicated by the 15 inches of snow outside his Providence home, where his daughter Emma, 7, didn't believe the night before that the weather might keep them from visiting relatives on Sunday.

"I was like, 'Come on, where's the snow?'" Emma said. "And I didn't think there'd be any."

Nevertheless, they still planned to make the two-hour trek to visit family in Massachusetts.

Neighbors shoveling snow in front of their homes Sunday in the east side of Providence shrugged it off as a mild inconvenience that had the decency to come on a weekend.

"It's less of a disruption," said Chloe Kline, a 35-year-old musician. "I don't have to get out to go to school or work or anything like that."

To the south, others struggled with the aftermath of the storm that stranded hundreds of motorists in Virginia and knocked out power to thousands, but could have been much worse.

On the cusp of the winter solstice, the storm dropped 16 inches of snow Saturday on Reagan National Airport outside Washington — the most ever recorded there for a single December day — and gave southern New Jersey its highest single-storm snowfall totals in nearly four years.

The National Weather Service said the storm gave Philadelphia, which began keeping records in 1884, its second-largest snowfall: 23.2 inches. Even more was recorded in the Philadelphia suburb of Medford, N.J., at 24 inches.

The 13.4 inches that fell Sunday at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, just south of Providence, easily eclipsed the date's previous record — 6.3 inches in 1995, according to the National Weather Service.

Around New York City, the brunt of the storm hit Long Island, with whiteout conditions and 26.3 inches in Upton, a record since measurements began in 1949. Nearly 11 inches of snow fell on New York City, and the storm could be the worst the city has seen since about 26 inches fell in February 2006, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Maloit said.

Pragmatic New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg encouraged residents and holiday visitors to take advantage of cancellations by seeing a Broadway show. The mayor said city retailers weren't hard hit because the snow held off until late Saturday.

Even as the storm wound down in the New York area, conditions remained treacherous and drivers were advised to stay off the roads, Maloit said. Bus, subways and trains were delayed — including a Long Island Rail Road train stalled for more than five hours before backing up and unloading its 150 passengers.

Airports in the Northeast that were jammed up Saturday were working their way back to normal operations. About 1,200 flights at the New York City area's three major airports remained canceled despite clear conditions on the runways.

Two of the four runways at Dulles International Airport in Washington reopened Sunday, spokeswoman Tara Hamilton said. Reagan National reopened its main rainway, which handles all commercial traffic.

Baltimore-Washington airport struggled to get back up to full speed, with some airlines still canceling flights. At Boston's Logan airport, where it was still snowing Sunday morning, spokesman Phil Orlandella said flights have been "on and off." Monday looked to be a normal day, he said.

Philadelphia International Airport shut down Saturday night but reopened early Sunday.

The School District of Philadelphia and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia canceled classes for 195,000 public school and Roman Catholic school students to give the city another day to clear roads and sidewalks.

Al Wachlin, 70, lives in Philadelphia but grew up in Maine and was well prepared for the storm, with a truck and an attached plow. With a scraper in one hand and a brush in another, he worked to clear off his truck.

"This part of it's great," said Wachlin, who has lived in the city since 1960. "It's the cleanup, the rutted streets where you go sliding into the intersection, that's the whole problem."

Some states reported major power outages. An estimated 200,000 electric customers remained without power Sunday in West Virginia and Virginia.

In many places the problem was where to put the snow. On south Philadelphia's narrow streets, residents shoveling sidewalks resigned themselves to the snow eventually returning as traffic displaced it from the street.

Merchants feared they'd take a hit as the storm blew through on the last weekend before Christmas. Shoppers who did venture out made the most of it.

James Phyfe, 35, of Cranston, R.I., took advantage of the meager crowds at the Providence Place mall to buy some gifts, including a toy soccer ball, for his toddler son.

"I came out because I knew there'd be no crowds around," he said.

In Washington, police investigated why a plainclothes officer drew a gun during a snowball fight organized on Twitter. Witness Lacy MacAuley told The Washington Post the fight was harmless fun until the officer arrived.

The storm began wreaking misery Friday in South Florida, where it caused flooding and knocked out electricity in the Carolinas before turning to snow as it moved north.

One person in Virginia was killed in a traffic accident, and authorities said the weather may have contributed to another traffic death there. A third death in Virginia is believed to have been caused by exposure. In Ohio, two people were killed in accidents on snow-covered roads. And in western North Carolina, a 52-year-old man was killed when his car slid down an embankment.

Greyhound shut down service Saturday in Washington, D.C., and farther north, and ferry service in Delaware and New Jersey was canceled. Attractions such as the Smithsonian museums in Washington and the Philadelphia Zoo were closed both Saturday and Sunday.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, N.J.; Sarah Karush in Washington; Dena Potter in Chesterfield, Va.; Jacob Jordan in Atlanta; David Porter in Atlantic City, N.J.; Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, N.J.; Ron Todt and Patrick Walters in Philadelphia; and AP photographer Jacquelyn Martin in Arlington, Va.
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Storm Cuts Power, Snarls Traffic Along East Coast

Sarah Karush


AP WASHINGTON (Dec. 19) - A blizzard-like storm rocked the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday, crippling travel across the region and leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without power.

Five deaths appeared to have been caused by the storm system, which stretched from the Carolinas north to New England and also spread into some Midwestern states. The 14 inches of snow that fell at Reagan National Airport outside Washington was the most ever recorded for a single December day, while about 9 inches had fallen in Philadelphia.

Those who did venture out were treated to nearly desolate stores on what is usually one of the busiest shopping days of the year. There were virtually no lines to get a picture with a mall Santa on the last weekend before Christmas.

The National Guard used Humvees to rescue stranded motorists in Virginia and some 500 people had sought warmth and refuge in emergency shelters.




"The snow has not stopped falling, the storm isn't over, and folks should not think this is crying wolf," said Laura Southard, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

More than two feet of snow fell in some areas since Friday, and the nation's capital was under a blizzard warning. Public transportation nearly ground to a halt, but it wasn't enough to keep senators from staying in session to debate health care reform.

The slow-moving storm was headed to the Northeast, where forecasters said parts of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts could see more than 16 inches by Sunday night. Forecasters expected the storm to drop as many as 10 inches on New York City.

Snowplows cleared the runway at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Washington as President Barack Obama returned from climate talks in Copenhagen. The White House said Obama rode in a motorcade back to the White House, instead of taking his helicopter, because of the conditions.

The region was virtually a sea of white. The Smithsonian Institution closed its museums, and the National Mall, which normally would be swarming with tourists, instead was the scene of snowball fights and cross-country skiers.

For Chris and Kelly Fitzpatrick, who were visiting from Clearwater, Fla., the winter wonderland came at the perfect time.

"It's her fault that we're out so long. She wants to walk and walk and walk," said Chris Fitzpatrick, 38.

In western Virginia, officials said several hundred motorists became stranded and had to be rescued by four-wheel-drive vehicles.

"Some folks have decided to stay in vehicles, others have been taken to shelters," said Virginia Department of Emergency Management spokesman Bob Spieldenner. "We're definitely trying to keep people off the roads."

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said traffic was moving, though slowly. There were reports of jackknifed tractor-trailers and some semis on their sides. Troopers had responded to more than 4,000 traffic crashes and disabled vehicles.

One person in Virginia was killed in a traffic accident caused by slick roads, and authorities said the weather may have contributed to another traffic death. A third death is believed to have been caused by exposure. In Ohio, two people were killed in accidents on snow-covered roads hit by the same storm system.

At Crump's Store at the intersection of two country roads outside Richmond, Va., owner Suzanne Rudd stood with a man dressed as Santa and waved to the few motorists who dared to hit the slick roads. Rudd said only a few children had come to visit with Santa.

"Normally we'd have a long line here but people are having a hard time getting out," Rudd said.

The same was true at the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey, which would typically be a place where down-to-the-wire Christmas shoppers would create a mob scene. Instead, parking spots were plentiful.

Inside, there was no line for a picture with Santa.

"It was fantastic," said Chris Bailey, who got pictures of his 4-year-old daughter Olivia.

Mayors in Washington and Philadelphia declared snow emergencies and forecasters said the conditions could worsen. Governors in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Delaware declared states of emergency.

"It's going to be an all day thing. It's going to be on and off," said National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Witt in Sterling, Va.

Most of the flights at Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport were canceled, creating a ripple effect of delays across the country. By Saturday night, the runways at both airports were closed until at least 6 a.m. Sunday. BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport also closed Saturday afternoon to allow crews to clear snow from the runways and travelers who tried to reach their destinations by train also faced long delays and threats of cancellations.

"It's going to be very challenging for people who weren't able to get out today to rebook on flights this week," said Tara Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Joy Rood, 20, played solitaire as she waited at Reagan for a flight to visit family in Los Angeles with her husband, who was asleep at a table outside an airport cafe.

"We had a canceled flight at Dulles at 6 yesterday because the plane had difficulties," she said. "So they cabbed us over here to - uh, what airport am I at?"

Washington's Union Station was full of travelers, some of them sprawled on the floor. Other travelers were stuck on the tracks. A train with 255 passengers was stopped near Alexandria, Va., for five hours Saturday while workers tried to fix a frozen track switch, said Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham. She expected the train to arrive in Washington sometime Saturday night but declined to give a more specific estimate of when.

Delays were also reported for trains between Washington and Boston. At Union Station, Imke and Mike Jandreau were hoping to get on a train to Boston after their flight to Maine was canceled.

"I was on hold for almost seven hours with the airline, so we gave up and came here," Imke Jandreau, 25, said.

Forecasters said the storm system was expected to generate winds up to 35 miles per hour, which could cause near-whiteout conditions.

At a Walmart in the Richmond, Va., area, Nnika White took advantage of the few shoppers, buying a drum set for her 2½ year old son. White, dressed in a toboggan, scarf and flannel-like jacket, said she works long hours at the law firm she owns and doesn't get much time to shop.

"It's nice because no one's here. For shopping, it's great, but the roads are very, very bad," she said.

Snow, ice and freezing rain also hit western North Carolina on Friday, knocking out power to almost 60,000 customers around the Asheville area.

After a warm start to the ski season that delayed openings of many resorts, the storm arrived just in time for West Virginia, dumping more than 20 inches on some slopes, said Joe Stevens, a spokesman for the area's ski association.

"These are midseason conditions," he said. "The storm couldn't have come at a better time."

The storm came from the Gulf and drenched South Florida with rain starting late Thursday, leaving flooded homes and stranded drivers.



Associated Press writers Dena Potter in Chesterfield, Va.; Jacob Jordan in Atlanta; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, N.J., and photographer Jacquelyn Martin in Arlington, Va.,contributed to this report.
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Lesbians cruise the seas with a cause

NEWS
Published 12/10/2009
by Heather Cassell
heather@whimsymedia.com



Sweet co-founders Jennifer Rainin, left, and Shannon Wentworth stand by a wall at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital pediatric ward in Belize City, Belize. Volunteers from the ship helped paint the ward. Photo: Whimsy Media/Help Yourself Tech Services

More than a thousand lesbians braved tropical storm Ida and sailed through rough waters to have fun in the sun and to lend a helping hand in the Caribbean last month on Sweet's maiden adventure on the high seas.

"This is a dream that has come true," gushed Jen Rainin, 42, an out lesbian and co-founder of Sweet. "It's going to keep coming true for a very long time."

"I've never been so naturally high," added out lesbian Shannon Wentworth, Sweet CEO and co-founder.

Sweet evolved out of a desire to combine the two lesbians' love of travel, building community, and working on social and environmental issues that they care about, the women said. More than two years later Wentworth's vision set sail out of New Orleans on November 6 and made stops in Costa Maya, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; Roatan, Honduras; and Cozumel, Mexico before returning to New Orleans eight days later.

What sets Sweet apart is that passengers can opt to participate in volunteer activities at the various ports of call, and spend part of the trip giving back to local communities. On this maiden voyage, 310 passengers took part in volunteer projects, out of 1,200 who were on the cruise.

The voyage was also noteworthy as actress Meredith Baxter was a passenger and last week she came out as lesbian in several publications and an appearance on the Today show. Her presence on the cruise was not publicized at the time, Sweet officials said, out of respect for passengers' privacy.

The future of travel

It wasn't an easy voyage. Wentworth, 37, navigated Sweet through rough waters both at sea and onshore, earning the praise of queer travel pioneers. The company hopes to emerge as another big player in lesbian travel.

"This is not the future of lesbian travel, this is the future of all travel led by lesbians," said Charlie Rounds, president of RSVP Vacations.

He applauded Sweet's creators for making passengers ambassadors of the LGBT community and America and in the process, revolutionizing the future of the travel industry.

"No one is going to say I was a genius on choosing when to start this company," Wentworth told shewired.com in June about beginning a start-up, luxury, lesbian, eco-friendly, "voluntourism" company during a struggling economy, especially with a reigning queen of lesbian cruises, Olivia, already an established brand.

Judy Dlugacz, founder and co-owner of Olivia, recognized the challenge Sweet faced with the downturn of the economy.

"They came in a very tough time of the economy, that's tough for them," Dlugacz said earlier this year.

For their part, Sweet's founders said they are not in competition.

"I'm really glad that the comparison can die down now that people see the different product. We are not trying to do Olivia's business," said Wentworth. "There is no bad blood with Sweet and Olivia."

"My greatest hope is that other businesses take this idea. What's good for the environment is good for people and what's good for people is good for the environment. All of that is good for the world and good for business," Wentworth added.

The recession got Rainin and Wentworth's creative juices flowing. Wentworth developed programs to attract younger travelers, made the ship accessible and welcoming to a variety of guests, including those with disabilities and those in recovery. The women also tried to help ease travelers' stress over tightened wallets.

But mostly, they proved that businesses can be wise and sensitive to their customers' and their own bottom lines as well as the environment.

"I believe this is the largest carbon-free cruise ever," said Wentworth, quoting estimates from Carbonfund.org that calculated the cost at $20 per guest on the cruise and airlines and $1.50 per guest at the hotels to offset carbons released into the atmosphere. Carbonfund.org, a carbon reduction and offset organization supports high-quality verified renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects, according to the organization's Web site.



Sweet passengers party around the pool on board the ship. Photo: Whimsy Media/Help Yourself Tech Services

Sweet ambassadors

Sweet also tapped into a new market of travelers. Not attracted to "packaged travel," Wentworth reached a comfortable compromise attracting politically conscious consumers looking to have fun and do good.

"What we wanted were people who wanted to make a difference in the world and to have fun at the same time," said Wentworth.

Women representing 10 countries from around the globe conquered sea sickness from Ida, reptiles and bugs of all sorts, swamps and trash laden beaches, homophobia and sexism, and swarms of excited screaming children whose lives were brightened by cartoon painted walls and piles of books, school supplies, and toys brought to them by Sweet passengers.

"I absolutely loved it. Honestly, it took Sweet to get me on a cruise," said Denise Johnson, 46, a lesbian IT specialist from Chicago. "The beauty of this cruise was the opportunity to give back and that's exactly what got me on my first cruise."

Johnson volunteered in three of the four ports putting together computers, painting classrooms, and cleaning beaches, she said.

Darcie Takeuchi, 32, from San Francisco, who volunteered with Johnson on the shores of Mexico and in Belize at an elementary school, agreed. She wasn't exactly a "cruise girl," but she was attracted and inspired by an eco-friendly and social justice vacation, she said.

"Just because that is where my heart is," said Takeuchi, a social worker temporarily turned nanny. "My passion is to be doing outreach and volunteer with communities and families, especially children and families."

Takeuchi only wished she had been able to volunteer at each port like Johnson, but it was a vacation. Takeuchi took time out to relax with her girlfriend, Lauren Patton, 26, an emergency communications dispatcher for the California Highway Patrol. The two women had fun riding scooters around Cozumel, lying out in the sun by the pool, and meeting like-minded women.

Volunteering didn't impact Johnson's free time either.

"I had the rest of my half of the day to have fun, come back [to the ship] and relax or wash paint off," she said.

Wentworth foresees Sweet's voluntourists driving future projects, she said.

"What we really want is for our guests to tell us what they want to do, what they can do," said Wentworth. "[Sweet's guests] want us to push the envelope more." Wentworth isn't just planting seeds hoping that they grow. She plans to keep passengers in the know about the impact they make with the projects.

The ship barley left a port before local governments and communities reported the impact of the projects and invited Sweet back, Wentworth said.

"We have every intention to invest in these communities every few years so we can build on this stuff, we can really see our work grow, and we can see the dialogue grow about gay and lesbian issues in these ports," said Wentworth, who chose the port cities based on the cruise route that makes it easy to return in the future.


Killing homophobia, sexism with kindness

In the future Wentworth plans on working with LGBT, women's, and HIV/AIDS organizations as well as staying longer in the ports, she said.

"We can make the biggest impact ... in the Caribbean [on] the lives of gay people," said Wentworth, pointing out that unlike in Mexico and the United States where homosexuality is legal, the biggest impact could be in Belize and Honduras where homosexuality is illegal.

Sweet's passengers were a curiosity for Belizean press that announced the ship's pending arrival and crowded around Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital early in the morning only to be turned away by Dr. Francis G. Longsworth, the hospital's CEO. Kim Simplis Barrow, first lady of Belize, managed the Belizean press by handpicking reporters to cover the lesbian volunteers painting the pediatric ward with American cartoon characters chosen by the kids.

Simplis Barrow is also founder of Lifeline Foundation, an organization that works to improve Belizean children's lives. The foundation partnered with Sweet and another organization, Magic Brushes.

Sweet managed to avoid attracting press attention at the James Garbutt Seventh Day Adventist Primary School, where parents threatened to pull their kids out of class for the day and shut down the project if it was made public, Wentworth said. That day, most of the school's 265 elementary students screamed with excitement as they ran from newly painted classrooms to the library and admired tattoo-adorned lesbian and gay volunteers.

"We showed these kids there are different ways to be female," said Wentworth.

Culture clash

Some passengers weren't aware of the anti-gay laws in the countries where the ship docked, however, and ran into some problems.

Chawntea Palmore, 34, a bisexual African American woman from Oakland, felt that Belize was "a little dangerous" and wished that Sweet personnel had been "more forthcoming with all of the information that they have about the port cities."

Sweet did have information on its Web site about things to do in Roatan and Belize, but not the type of information that Palmore and her friends would have appreciated.

"They were very kind in Honduras," said Palmore, who enjoyed herself in Roatan and was "glad" she wasn't aware of the anti-gay laws, yet she insisted, "They took a choice away from me."

"Belize, it was a very different story," she said.

Her group ended up returning to the ship after an incident with some men who became upset when one of her friends told them she had a wife. A police officer informed the women of the anti-gay law and that they could be jailed simply for "holding hands" in public, Palmore said.

Other than that experience, Palmore said she had a great time during the rest of the cruise.

Saddened by some guests' unfavorable response to Belize, Wentworth told the B.A.R. that she doesn't plan to give up.

"Belize is a community that I really, really want to invest in. They took a really big risk because it's not a good place to be a homosexual in Belize," said Wentworth, who was happy for media coverage that caused the city to have a "dialogue about same-sex couples." She hopes residents' contact with the volunteers and passengers will change the conversation about queer people and women, she said.

Roatan, Honduras is a different story. Roatan is an island off of Honduras' mainland, which is the site of human rights violations against queer activists, as reported by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations, as well as recent political turmoil. The island, however, remains a different world. A popular port for ships, including gay cruises, residents of the resort island hold a somewhat more global perspective, especially regarding LGBT people.

Roataneans simply "don't care what you do," said Shela O. Brooks, a native and owner of Floweras Bay Roatan.

"We would never put our guests in danger," said Wentworth, aware of the political situations in Belize and Honduras. But she didn't want to get into politics.

"I want to have fun, save the world," said Wentworth.

RSVP's Rounds pointed out the impact Sweet passengers had wasn't only upon the communities in the port cities, but the estimated 1,000 crew members on the ship who largely came from developing countries.

"For one week by being polite, by being respectful, and being fabulous ... that's an impact that is immeasurable," said Rounds.

Many crew members said they were happy with the job.

"We all wanted the 'I am Sweet' T-shirts," said Didia Charles, a crewmember from St. Lucia, who said some staff received the shirts and that the guests were so low maintenance that the crew was also allowed some time off.

For more information about Sweet, visit http://discoversweet.com/.
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