Monday, February 01, 2010

DEPOPULATION BY GOVERNMENT EDICT


PART 1 of 2

Deanna Spingola
February 1, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

In 1922, Margaret Sanger wrote The Pivot of Civilization with an introduction by eugenicist H. G. Wells. The Rockefeller Foundation “enthusiastically supported the concept of ‘eugenics,’ which encourages the reproductive efforts of those deemed to have ‘good’ genes, while discouraging or stopping procreation by undesirables. But Rockefeller and others were anxious to go even further to mold America’s breeding patterns along evolutionary lines.”[1] John D. Rockefeller Jr., per the advice of Raymond B. Fosdick, provided financial backing for Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood movement.[2] Sanger, a feminist and birth control activist established the first family planning clinics in New York City. Several U.S. foundations financed eugenic research, including the Carnegie Institution, which funded Davenport’s eugenic studies at Cold Spring Harbor, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which gave grants in the 1930s for eugenic research at the Galton Laboratory at University College in London and to the Cornell Medical School in New York.[3]

Advocates for population control and the study of eugenics include Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Wilson, president of Harvard and Irving Fisher, president of Yale and president of the Eugenics Research Association in the 1920s plus a host of other very public vocal figures.[4] President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court where he served from 1902 to 1932. Holmes was an advocate for selective breeding and issued the sterilization verdict in the case of Carrie Buck in 1927. He said, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”[5] Sir Frederick Pollock, a Pilgrims Society member and law professor at Oxford, was the editor of Law Quarterly Review from 1885 to 1919. He was in close communication with Harvard-educated Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. during a sixty-year period of time. Researcher Charles Savoie maintains that the Pilgrims Society was closely connected to America’s Supreme Court for more than a century.[6]

The Rockefeller Foundation financed what is known as Psychiatric Genetics, a new specialty. The Foundation restructured medical training in Germany including managing the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Eugenics and Human Heredity under the direction of Swiss psychiatrist Ernst Rudin, supported by his trusty protégés, Otmar Verschuer and Dr. Franz J. Kallmann. In 1932, the British eugenics’ movement appointed Dr. Rudin as president of the worldwide Eugenics Federation. The eugenics movement promoted the killing or sterilization of burdensome people, individuals that Henry Kissinger referred to as “useless eaters.”[7] Rockefeller funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Eugenics Institute in Germany, founded in 1927.

The Bush family joined John D. Rockefeller and the British Royal Family in sponsoring the eugenics initiatives that gave rise to Hitler’s racial hygiene programs. Prescott Bush was later found guilty of trading with the Nazis during WWII. According to court records, the Rockefeller family and their Standard Oil Company supported Hitler more than they did the allies during the war. In fact, one judge declared Rockefeller guilty of treason. Dr. Gary Glum documented the insidious eugenics programs to create a “superior race,” which were initially sponsored not by Adolph Hitler, but by the American elite like the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman, Morgan, DuPont, Kellogg and Bush families.[8]

Hitler, who had been financed by international bankers, became Chancellor of the Third Reich on January 30, 1933. Wilhelm Frick, the minister of the interior, introduced the early sterilization law which was enacted within six months after Hitler was appointed chancellor. Sterilization was used for “life unworthy of life.” Certain individuals who reportedly warranted serialization included those with: “congenital feeblemindedness (now called mental deficiency), an estimated 200,000; manic depressive insanity, 20,000; schizophrenia, 80,000; epilepsy, 60,000; Huntington’s chorea (a hereditary brain disorder), 600; hereditary blindness, 4,000; hereditary deafness, 16,000; grave bodily malformation, 20,000; and hereditary alcoholism, 10,000. The projected total of 410,000 was considered only preliminary, drawn mostly from people already in institutions; it was assumed that much greater numbers of people would eventually be identified and sterilized.”[9]

After the Nazis took power, I.G. Farben and Rockefeller’s Standard Oil merged into a single entity which contained beneficial provisions for each company. I.G. Farben was, until 1937, controlled by the Warburg family who had collaborated with Rockefeller in crafting Nazi eugenics. Standard Oil maintained their alliance with I.G. Farben even after the U.S. entered the war. In 1940-41, I.G. Farben constructed a large industrial complex in Poland adjacent the Auschwitz concentration camp where they planned to use slave labor to make gasoline from coal. Standard-Germany president Emil Helfferich admitted that Standard Oil financed part of the operations at Auschwitz.[10]

In the fall of 1941, Secretary of War Henry Stimson contacted Dr. Frank B. Jewett, president of the National Academy of Sciences, to discuss the further development of biological warfare. This was prior to America’s entry into World War II, but according to his diary Secretary Stimson was well aware of imminent events. Shortly afterwards, President Roosevelt authorized Stimson to create a civilian agency to supervise biological warfare under the jurisdiction of the Federal Security Agency. George Merck, owner of Merck Pharmaceutical and close adviser to Roosevelt, was appointed director of the new War Research Service.[11]

Frank McDougall participated in the area of public health within the old League of Nations. He made the connection between community health, nutrition, and agricultural development and economic policy. The U.N., in a conference in Hot Springs between October 16 and November 1, 1945, formulated the U.N. Interim Commission on Food and Agriculture. Officials drafted the constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). McDougall was a chief architect and promoter of the organization.[12]

The Bureau of Human Heredity relocated from London to Copenhagen in 1947 where they moved into a newly constructed building paid for by the Rockefeller Foundation. The initial International Congress in Human Genetics after World War II was convened in Copenhagen in 1956. Verschuer, Rudin’s protégé, was by then a member of the American Eugenics Society, synonymous with Rockefeller’s Population Council. Dr. Kallmann, a director, also organized the American Society of Human Genetics which directed the Human Genome Project. Later, the Rockefellers relocated the U.S. eugenics movement to their family offices where they also controlled future population control and abortion advocacy groups. The Eugenics Society later became the Society for the Study of Social Biology.[13]

U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948, headed by George F. Kennan, concluded, “We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”[14]

John Foster Dulles, then chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, concluded after observations acquired on a number of tours abroad that there was a “need to stop the expansion of the non-white populations.” In 1952, Frederick Osborn, an officer of the American Eugenics Society, assisted John D. Rockefeller III in organizing the Population Council and served as its first administrator. In 1958, Eisenhower selected William H. Draper to head a committee to evaluate appropriate military actions in other countries. Draper suggested that a better focus should be the threat of population explosion and a study on depopulation procedures for poorer non-white countries that pose a national security threat to the U.S.[15] Apparently, a burgeoning non-white population might reduce available resources that would be put to better use by white populations. Additionally, growing populations produce resentful individuals who aggressively oppose elitist policies.


In 1965, the Population Action International (originally known as the Population Crisis Committee), was founded by Hugh Moore, Lammot du Pont Copeland and William H. Draper Jr. The worldwide organization is headquartered in Washington, DC. Since 2001, in conjunction with the Population Action International, and with the encouragement of Congress, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) distributes information in foreign countries in an effort to initiate family planning and cover other reproductive health programs.

In 1961, John D. Rockefeller III presented the Second McDougall Lecture to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. This predated by a decade Rockefeller’s population protocols that would become part of Kissinger’s NSSM 200. Rockefeller, in his address, said, “To my mind, population growth is second only to control of atomic weapons as the paramount problem of the day.”[16]

The Rockefeller Foundation funded England’s eugenics movement. The Rockefeller family had early ties to the House of Rothschild to which the gigantic Standard oil trust owed its beginnings. Presumably, the Rothschilds, a Talmudic family with early Masonic and Illuminati connections, actively promoted and financed eugenics and depopulation behind the scenes. By the 1960s, the Eugenics Society of England embraced Crypto-eugenics, under which they would participate in eugenics without actually calling it eugenics. The Rockefellers lent their support to England’s Eugenics Society by establishing the International Planned Parenthood Federation, in conjunction with the Eugenics Society. This formed a private, global system in which the elite could choreograph an international holocaust, within the context of offering humanitarian services, all under the jurisdiction of the U.N. flag, another Rockefeller front organization.[17]

George H. W. Bush of Texas, who served in Congress from January 3, 1967 to January 3, 1971, originated a legislative investigation of world overpopulation. [18] Dr. D. M. MacArthur, Deputy Director of Research & Technology for the Pentagon, Department of Defense, requested $10 million from the Congressional House Subcommittee on Appropriations to develop a biological weapon through House Bill 15090. On June 9, 1969, the House Republican research task committee, chaired by George H. W. Bush, heard testimony from General William H. Draper, of the Population Crisis Committee and Dr. William Moran of the Population Reference Bureau. Draper reported that there were three issues relevant to population control – the census of 1970 in the U.S. and of 1971 in Britain should be worldwide and not limited to two countries, accelerating contraception, and the World Health Organization should implement their international programs such as inoculations, etc.[19] Leading World Health Organization scientists, as noted in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, had requested that viruses be created in order to study their affects on humans.

The Department of Defense, now funded with $10 million, intended to conduct studies on immune-system-destroying agents for biological warfare. In 1983 Dr. Robert Strecker, an internist and gastro-enterologist who is also a trained pathologist with a Ph.D. in pharmacology, produced The Strecker Memorandum wherein he claims that the AIDS virus is man-made. Working in conjunction with his brother, attorney Ted Strecker, they discovered thousands of documents verifying the man-made origin of AIDS. Strecker maintains that it was virologically impossible for HIV to have emanated from monkeys; the disease was unknown in Africa before 1975. Strecker claims that the World Health Organization (WHO), funded by the Department of Defense, initiated testing on a lymphotrophic virus, a bovine virus that could also infect humans. In 1977, the WHO instigated a massive campaign in Africa to eradicate smallpox among the urban population. Over 100 million Africans were deliberately inoculated with AIDS-contaminated smallpox vaccine. In 1978, over 2,000 white male homosexuals were inoculated against hepatitis B by the Centers for Disease Control and the New York Blood Center, also with AIDS-contaminated vaccine.[20] Merck, Sharp and Dohme (MSD) funded the hepatitis B vaccine research that Dr. Strecker claimed spread HIV to homosexuals in the U.S.[21] These kinds of weapons were apparently a viable concern immediately after 9/11 as John Bolton gave an address at the Biological Weapons Convention on November 19, 2001 in Geneva, Switzerland, stating our concerns about “terrorists” using biological and chemical weapons.[22] We have trained many foreigners in the use of biological and chemical weapons at Fort McClellan, Alabama.

Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize after he directed the dispersion of tons of Monsanto’s toxic Agent Orange in Vietnam. This chemical, containing dioxin, continues to negatively affect Vietnamese citizens and former U.S. military personnel and their children with horrendous birth defects and neurological disorders. Conversely, Ali Hassan al-Majid, who dispersed chemicals in Halabja, was recently executed for the same activities. Kissinger orchestrated the precedent-setting secret bombing of neutral Cambodia over a four-year period, allegedly to protect Americans in Vietnam.

From 1970 onward, Congress had prohibited bombing in Cambodia in every military appropriations bill except for that open-ended purpose – protecting U.S. citizens – but apparently not from Agent Orange.[23] According to Time magazine of April 19, 1976, “Since the Communist victory last year, an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 people, one-tenth of Cambodia’s population, have died from political reprisals, disease or starvation . . . To escape the bloodbath; at least 25,000 Cambodians have fled across the border into Thailand. They tell tales of people being clubbed to death to save ammunition. Others have been bound together and buried alive by bulldozers, or suffocated by having plastic bags tied over their heads.”[24] For part two click below.

Click here for part -----> 2,


Footnotes:

1, Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences , the Red Queen and the Grand Scheme by Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D., Institute for Media Education, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1998, p. 202
2, The Proud Internationalist, the Globalist Vision of David Rockefeller, also available in Nexus Magazine: Vol. 10, No. 5 (August-September 2003); Vol. 20 No.6 (October-November 2003); & Vol. 11 No.1 (December 2003-January
2004); 2006, p. 38
3, Eugenics: A Reassessment by Richard Lynn, edited by Seymour W. Itzkoff, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 2001, p. 27
4, Ibid
5, War Against the Weak, Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black, Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 2003, pp. 120-122
6, Pilgrims by Charles Savoie, Silver Investor, May 2005,
7, Population Control, Nazis, and the U.N! by Anton Chaitkin
8, American Bar Association
9, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton, Basic Books, New York, 2000, p. 25
10, Population Control, Nazis, and the U.N! by Anton Chaitkin
11, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola, Nature, Accident or Intentional? by Leonard G. Horowitz, Tetrahedron, Inc. Rockport, Massachusetts, 1996, pp. 38, 40-41
12, FAO Conference 31st session: Twenty-second McDougall Memorial Lecture, Rome, November 2-13, 2001
13, Population Control, Nazis, and the U.N! by Anton Chaitkin
14, U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23
15, Bush, Eugenics and Population Control by Alf Mendes
16, Seeds of Destruction, the Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, Centre for Research on Globalization, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2007, p. 71
17, Population Control, Nazis, and the U.N! by Anton Chaitkin
18, Emerging Viruses, Aids & Ebola, Nature, Accident or Intentional? By Leonard G. Horowitz, Tetrahedron Publishing, Inc., Rockport, Massachusetts, 1996, p. 521
19, Ibid, pp. 156, 159
20, Ibid, pp. 3-5
21, Ibid, p. 12
22, Biological Weapons Convention
23, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia by William Shawcross, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979, p. 277
24, Kissinger, the Secret Side of the Secretary of State by Gary Allen, Shambhala Publications, 1979, p. 14
25, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia by William Shawcross, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979, p. 229
26, Ibid, pp. 357-358
27, National Security Study Memorandum NSSM 200, Implications of Worldwide Population Growth, For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM 200) – December 10, 1974, pp. 57-58
28, National Security Study Memorandum, NSSM 200, Implications of Worldwide Population Growth, For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, (The Kissinger Report), December 10, 1974, p. 31
29, Bush UN Choice Faces a Fight By Maggie Farley and Norman Kempster, Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2001
30, John Negroponte & The Death-Squad Connection, Bush Nominates Terrorist for National Intelligence Director by Frank Morales, World War 4 Report
31, Bush, Eugenics and Population Control by Alf Mendes
32, Seeds of Destruction, the Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, Montreal, Canada, 2007, p. 127
33, Who is Maurice Strong? by Ronald Bailey, National Review, Sept 1, 1997
34, Seeds of Destruction, the Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, Centre for Research on Globalization, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2007, p. 43
35, Ibid, p. 4
36, Ibid, p. 13
37, Ibid, p. 261
38, A Little Matter of Genocide, Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present by Ward Churchill, City Lights Books, San Francisco, p. 249
39, The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance edited by M. Annette Jaimes, South End Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 1992, p. 7 Jaimes Notes: Jacobs, Wilbur R., "British Indian Policies to 1783," in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 4: History of Indian-White Relations, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1988, p. 10). As regards inculcation of smallpox among the Mandans in 1837, see Connell, Evan S., Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Big Horn, North Point Press, San Francisco, 1984, pp. 15-6.
40, Catlin and His Contemporaries: The Politics of Patronage by Brian W. Dippie, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1990, p. 331
41, Death Stalks the Yakama: Epidemiological Transitions and Mortality on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1888-1964 by Clifford E. Trafzer, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, Michigan, 1997, p. 151
42, Rotting face : smallpox and the American Indian by R. G. Robertson, Caxton Press, 2001, Introduction, pp. 107-113
43, Rogue State, a Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum, Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2005, pp. 120-121
44, "We Think the Price Is Worth It" By Rahul Mahajan
45, Howard Zinn in his lecture: Howard Zinn: The Myth of American Exceptionalism


Source:http://www.newswithviews.com/Spingola/deanna109.htm

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Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More

Todd Krainin for The New York Times
Explorers ready to enter a building taken by terrorists, in an exercise. More Photos >


By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: May 13, 2009


IMPERIAL, Calif. — Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

Slide Show
Explorers Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
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The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.




Todd Krainin for The New York Times
In a training exercise run by Border Patrol agents, Explorer scouts from Visalia, Calif., prepare to storm a “hijacked” bus.
More Photos »
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The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.


The New York Times
Imperial County relies on the local criminal justice system.
More Photos >
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“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

One participant, Felix Arce, 16, said he liked “the discipline of the program,” which was something he said his life was lacking. “I want to be a lawyer, and this teaches you about how crimes are committed,” he said.

Cathy Noriega, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

If there are critics of the content or purpose of the law enforcement training, they have not made themselves known to the Explorers’ national organization in Irving, Tex., or to the volunteers here on the ground, national officials and local leaders said. That said, the Explorers have faced problems over the years. There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.

Several years ago, two University of Nebraska criminal justice professors published a study that found at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving police officers over the last decade. Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct.

Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program’s focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The Explorer posts are attached to various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police and fire departments, that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops.

“Our end goal is to create more agents,” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.

Membership in the Explorers has been overseen since 1998 by an affiliate of the Boy Scouts called Learning for Life, which offers 12 career-related programs, including those focused on aviation, medicine and the sciences.

But the more than 2,000 law enforcement posts across the country are the Explorers’ most popular, accounting for 35,000 of the group’s 145,000 members, said John Anthony, national director of Learning for Life. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many posts have taken on an emphasis of fighting terrorism and other less conventional threats.

“Before it was more about the basics,” said Johnny Longoria, a Border Patrol agent here. “But now our emphasis is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling.”

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

The law enforcement programs are highly decentralized, and each post is run in a way that reflects the culture of its sponsoring agency and region. Most have weekly meetings in which the children work on their law-enforcement techniques in preparing for competitions. Weekends are often spent on service projects.

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Authenticity seems to be the goal. Imperial County, in Southern California, is the poorest in the state, and the local economy revolves largely around the criminal justice system. In addition to the sheriff and local police departments, there are two state prisons and a large Border Patrol and immigration enforcement presence.

“My uncle was a sheriff’s deputy,” said Alexandra Sanchez, 17, who joined the Explorers when she was 13. Alexandra’s police uniform was baggy on her lithe frame, her airsoft gun slung carefully to the side. She wants to be a coroner.

“I like the idea of having law enforcement work with medicine,” she said. “This is a great program for me.”

And then she was off to another bus hijacking.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 18, 2009
An article on Thursday about Explorer scouts who train to confront terrorism and illegal immigration, and a picture caption with the continuation of the article, misspelled the surname of a scout who said she was attracted to the program because of the use of pellet guns. She is Cathy Noriega, not Noriego.



Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=2
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Idahoans to face Haiti judge today: Group's intentions questioned; pastor speaks up in defense


By Nate Poppino - Times-News writer Posted: Monday, February 1, 2010 2:00 am (0)



Renea Kelley wipes her eye while praying during a Magic Valley Baptist Association 5th Sunday Sing held at Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls. Members of Eastside and Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian are being held in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after attempting to take children outside the country without proper papers. (Drew Godleski/ For the Times-News)

Members of two southern Idaho churches on Sunday bowed their heads in prayer for their friends and fellow believers, imprisoned in Haiti after trying to take a group of Haitian children outside the country.

Meanwhile, the jailed Americans prepared to face a Haitian judge today, while the orphanage that took in the 33 children reported some still had living parents.

The 10 U.S. Baptists, including people from Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls and Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian and residents of Texas and Kansas, were arrested by Haitian officials on Friday while trying to take the children across the border to the Dominican Republic without proper paperwork. The group said it simply was trying to rescue them from the earthquake-ravaged country, but Haitian Prime Minister Max Bellerive and other officials said they believe the Americans were part of an illegal adoption ring.

Detained members of Eastside’s congregation include Pastor Paul Thompson, 43, his son Silas Thompson, 19, and Steve McMullen, 56.

Associate Pastor John Martinez urged his congregation Sunday morning to focus their “minds’ attention and hearts’ affection on God,” because “God already knew what was going to happen. Nothing has surprised him or caught him off guard.”

“He is the one who can make a difference, and he will,” Martinez said.

Concerned for their missing pastor and peers, church members prayed over a variety of Bible passages such as Romans 8:35 — “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Later in the day, they found support from other Baptist churches in the Magic Valley during a previously scheduled evening fellowship session.

Three Eastside members and others from Twin Falls had stayed in the Dominican Republic and were not arrested, including Helen Requa’s husband John.

“He’s 80 years old” and still worked to get the new site ready for the children, she said.

Church members told the Times-News they were surprised by the weekend’s developments, but believe their missing members will be all right in the end.

“It was such a shock, because I thought things were going so well,” church member Audrey Kinch said.

“I’m just excited to see them have the chance to share God’s glory with people,” said member Blake Burton.

The nonprofit New Life Children’s Refuge was formed just last November, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s records. The churches became involved because the founders of the proposed orphanage are members of Central Valley.

New Life’s plan, as posted online, involved gathering “100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages” of Haiti and then driving them to a leased hotel in the Dominican Republic until the actual orphanage was built.

Speaking to reporters Sunday afternoon, Central Valley Senior Pastor Clint Henry defended the Americans’ actions and said the church hopes the “false charges” are resolved during the group’s court appearance today.

“My concern is: How long is this going to take?” he said of the process the detained face in Haiti.

While the earthquake has brought a tide of support to Haiti, New Life’s plans had been in the works for months prior to the disaster. After the earthquake happened, the church responded to the need by sending a team, Henry said.

“The entire reason for going down at this time is to try to rescue children in their suffering,” he said.

Some believe otherwise, and since the arrests, Henry has had to field phone calls to the church with obscenities and false accusations, he said.

On top of the Haitian government’s belief that the Americans were illegally trafficking children, other aid groups in the country criticized New Life’s plan as foolhardy, especially with recent restrictions aimed at restoring Haitian families after the quake. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child, but the Baptists hadn’t been following news reports and didn’t think they needed Haitian permission to move the children.

The children, ages 2 months to 12 years old, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived “very hungry, very thirsty, some dehydrated.” The orphanage worked Sunday with the Haitian government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and others to reunite them with their families.

“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Willeit said.

U.S. officials and members of Congress are reportedly working to sort out the situation. Mike Mathews, a staffer for U.S. Sen. Jim Risch and an Eastside member, said Risch, fellow Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Mike Simpson are all following the issue.

Complicating the matter is the religious nerve the New Life proposal touched in a country that has received much of its aid in ways that challenge its own rich religious traditions.

Many at Eastside expressed their hope Sunday that the imprisoned group would spread Christianity among the Haitians. And Thompson clearly viewed proselytizing as an important aspect of the trip, according to posts on a church-linked blog and Facebook in the days after the quake.

“My prayer: ‘The Haitians shall know that He is the Lord,’” he posted on Facebook on Jan. 21.

At least one Voodoo leader found the orphanage plan — to give each child “new life in Christ” while facilitating their adoptions by “loving Christian families” in the United States — deeply offensive.

“These types of people believe they need to save our souls and our bodies from ourselves,” said Max Beauvoir, head of Haiti’s Voodoo Priest’s Association, which represents thousands of priests and priestesses. “We need compassion, not proselytizing now, and we need aid — not just aid going to people of the Christian faith.”

Staff writer Ben Botkin contributed to this report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Posted in News, Local on Monday, February 1, 2010 2:00 am Updated: 10:20 pm.

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Update:
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Report: Detained Baptists may be tried in Florida
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Haitian officials and U.S. diplomats are now weighing sending 10 American Baptists, mostly Idaho residents, to the U.S. to be prosecuted, the Associated Press reports.
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The 10, including members of Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls and Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, were arrested while trying to take children out of Haiti without proper paperwork. The Americans have said they simply wanted to rescue orphans from the earthquake-ravaged country and take them to a planned orphanage in the Dominican Republic.
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Haiti's communications minister told the AP the group might have to be sent to the U.S. because his country's court system has been crippled by the Jan. 12 earthquake.
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Meanwhile, Jorge Puello, a lawyer in the Dominican Republic representing the group, says one is a diabetic who fainted and has been hospitalized. Puello also alleged the group has been treated poorly, kept in a small room at Haiti's judicial police headquarters without adequate medical care or food.
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For more on this story, watch Magicvalley.com and read Tuesday's edition of the Times-News.
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Posted in Local on Monday, February 1, 2010 10:35 am Updated: 10:40 am.
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The Fall of Babylon foretold by Isaiah




Isaiah 47

1Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.

2Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

3Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.

4As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

5Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.

6I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.

7And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.

8Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:

9But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.

10For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.

11Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.

12Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail.

13Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.

14Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.

15Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.
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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Leaders in Davos Admit Drop in Trust

Davos 2010


Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News
Panelists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, included Zhu Min of the People's Bank of China, on the big screen.

Related
Davos 2010: In Davos, Bankers Look for Closer Bond With Policy Makers (January 30, 2010)


Miro Kuzmanovic/Reuters
Protesters outside the Davos forum tried to protect themselves against the Swiss police force's water cannons on Saturday.

There was general relief that the financial system had been pulled back from the abyss glimpsed by many speakers at Davos a year ago. As the chairman of the British bank HSBC, Stephen K. Green, put it, “We’re in a better place than we were then” although “there has been a huge breakdown in trust.”

Over the first four days of mostly closed-door meetings at the World Economic Forum, bankers, central bankers and politicians reached no consensus on the best way forward to regulate markets or banks. Like many bankers, Mr. Green acknowledged “political initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic,” but was not ready to cede the terrain to politicians. “It is very important,” he said, “that we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Members of the financial services industry seemed ruefully aware of how far they had sunk in public regard. Commenting on whether private equity companies would support an Obama administration proposal on bank regulation, David M. Rubenstein, managing director of the buyout firm Carlyle Group, quipped, “Our position is unsure because we’re afraid if we come out in favor, it won’t pass.”

Perhaps the billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros summed up the ambivalence most succinctly. “You want to keep regulation to a minimum,” he said, “because it is worse than markets. But you can’t do without it.”

And so, from President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who urged creation of a new international monetary system and even a new reserve currency to replace the dollar, to angry representatives from trade unions, to the white businessmen in suits who still dominate this snow-kissed gathering, the one certainty seemed to be continued uncertainty.

Many influential participants said that the financial crisis, rescue and search for solutions that the world had experienced in the last three years were without precedent. That complicates the search for solutions — how do we define when we are out of the mess? — and, in the West, increases pressure on politicians like President Obama to ease the widespread pain.

Mr. Obama’s recent blasts at Wall Street, coupled with a State of the Union address focused on Main Street and jobs, provided a backdrop to the discussions here. The only senior administration official in attendance, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, evoked one reason for Mr. Obama’s priorities before a packed audience on Saturday, noting that, in the United States, one in five men aged 25 to 54 is now jobless. Although the United States economy grew strongly in the last quarter of 2009, persistent unemployment has created a situation he described as “a statistical recovery and a human recession.”

It is “reasonable” to expect that to decline to one in seven or eight as the economy recovers, he said. But it is far from the 95 percent employment of American men that age in the mid-1960s.

Contrast that with the buoyant presentation, in the same discussion, by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China. “China had a good year,” Mr. Zhu opened, before rattling off statistics that boggle even economists’ minds: for instance, a 200-million ton overcapacity in steel production, roughly equal to the 198 million tons produced in the 27-nation European Union in 2008.

The Chinese delegation this year, the biggest in 40 years of the Davos gathering, was led by Li Keqiang, the vice premier widely tipped to be the next prime minister. Their appearance exuded much more confidence than even two years ago, a reflection of what many participants here said was a clear shift of power east, particularly to China.

The effect of that shift, and whether it will lead to cooperation or confrontation, concerns policy makers in the West, particularly the United States. China suggested that trust might be the answer here, too.

“Between Chinese people and American and Western people, we lack mutual understanding,” said Cheng Siwei, a former Chinese politician and a co-chairman of the International Finance Forum, a Beijing-based think tank. The only way to “keep this relationship stable,” he said, is “to build mutual trust.”

But as power has shifted toward China and South Asia, the Europeans, Americans and Japanese have watched their economies decline or stall sharply. Rebuilding mutual trust will be ever more difficult amid fears that such pain will continue and that the current generation entering the work force is likely to be less prosperous than its parents.

Much of the world is concerned about the shift, and unsure what to expect. “In the transition phase from a superpower-dominated world to a multipolar world you will see a lot of uncertainty and you will see a lot of volatility,” said Josef Ackermann, chairman of Deutsche Bank.

Part of the difficulty, it emerged from several discussions here, is that despite globalization and growing interconnectedness, finding solutions has fallen largely to individual nations, companies and banks.

Banding together in the Group of 20 that has emerged to take the place of the Group of 7 as the body to control the direction of the world economy, politicians and economists are supposed to produce policy suggestions by June, ahead of the Group of 20’s meeting in Seoul, South Korea, in November, its first meeting in Asia.

Whether that group, far from the jobless workers in the United States and Europe, can ease their pain is unclear. But, Mr. Ackermann said, “We all know something has to happen quickly to restore confidence in the system.”

Jack Ewing and Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting.
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At Least Five Die In Suspicious Brooklyn Fire

By: NY1 News



At least five dead people were found inside a building in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn that blazed early Saturday, in what fire officials suspect was a case of arson.

The fire broke out around 2:30 a.m. in a three-story building on 86th Street and Bay 25th Street. The three-alarm fire eventually damaged the building's roof.

Four men and one woman, 34-year-old Luisa Chan, died in the fire, and by Saturday evening firefighters had not ruled out the possibility of more victims once they searched through all the rubble.

Fire officials said when they arrived on the scene, the building was filled with smoke and the first floor and stairways were aflame. Officials ruled that it was too dangerous to send firefighters inside to rescue people from the home, which is said to have housed Guatemalan immigrants.

The fire was under control by about 5:15 a.m. and firefighters rescued three people with ladders.
Officials said a two-month-old girl and two-year-old boy were tossed out the window by a woman trying to save them.

Officials and witnesses said the infant was taken to Lutheran Hospital with serious head injuries after bystanders below failed to catch the baby. The child landed on an awning.

The boy and a 38-year-old man was taken to Lutheran Hospital in stable condition and 13 firefighters suffered minor injuries.

Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said the blaze may have been arson.

"A very unusual place for this fire to start, it started right behind the front door to the entrance and that's not where a fire would normally start. That's why this is a fire that we are saying it is very likely to be incendiary," said Cassano.

Fire officials also said the building did not have a working fire alarm and that furniture blocked the rear fire exits.

Investigators believed that that 20 people lived in the two apartments on each floor, and they were inspect the site late Saturday for building violations and to check on the structure's stability.

Meanwhile, he Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the FDNY activity in the area may have affected nearby elevated subway tracks.

As of Saturday evening, the D train was running on the N line between 36th Street and Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue in both directions, while some Coney Island-bound D trains terminated at 62nd Street.

For alternate service to and from Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue, riders should take free shuttle buses in both directions between that station and 62nd Street.

For transit updates, visit mta.info

Quake kills one, injures 11 in China


January 31, 2010 -- Updated 0848 GMT (1648 HKT)


(CNN) -- An earthquake killed one person and injured 11 in southwest China early Sunday, state media reported.

The 5.2-magnitude quake struck at 5:37 a.m. local time in the Sichuan province, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It toppled 100 homes.

In May 2008, the southwestern province was rocked by a 7.9-magnitude quake that left nearly 90,000 dead or missing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Thousands of schools were leveled and more than 5,000 students were killed, Xinhua said.
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Australian police link millionaire's murder to sex sites


Posted : Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:44:41 GMT
By : dpa


Sydney - Australian multimillionaire Herman Rockefeller met his alleged killers through an internet sex site, news reports said Sunday. Melbourne's Herald Sun said police will allege that the 51-year-old property developer and company director led a double life that he managed by maintaining five mobile phone accounts.

Rockefeller, who counted New Zealand Prime Minister John Key among his friends, went missing January 21 after arriving at Melbourne airport following a business trip.

Police initially said the missing-person case was one of the most baffling they had investigated because his disappearance was so out of character.

Last week Bernadette Denny, 41, and Mario Schembri, 57, were arrested and charged with murdering the Harvard-educated Rockefeller and disposing of his body.

They are alleged to have met Rockefeller through a swingers' network.

Police found burnt human remains buried in the garden of Denny's house. Schembri, a used-car salesman, had once lived next door.

Rockefeller's family appeared stunned at the revelations.

"While there will be ongoing interest in this matter, the family will try to come to terms with what has happened and grieve in private," brother Robert Rockefeller said.

His wife Victoria said after his disappearance that she could not explain why he would have left the airport in his car but not arrived home.

"We have no idea at all," she said when appealing for the public to help locate her husband. "He's level-headed, the business is going well and he's a real family man. It's absolutely out of character."
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Regulators shut down banks in 5 states


Jan 29, 10:48 PM (ET)

By MARCY GORDON


WASHINGTON (AP) - Regulators shut down a big bank in California on Friday, along with two banks in Georgia and one each in Florida, Minnesota and Washington. That brought to 15 the number of bank failures so far in 2010 atop the 140 shuttered last year in the punishing economic climate.

The failure of Los Angeles-based First Regional Bank, with nearly $2.2 billion in assets and $1.9 billion in deposits, is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund $825.5 million.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the bank as well as the others: First National Bank of Georgia, based in Carrollton, Ga., with $832.6 million in assets and $757.9 million in deposits and Community Bank and Trust of Cornelia, Ga., with $1.2 billion in assets and $1.1 billion in deposits; Florida Community Bank of Immokalee, Fla., with $875.5 million in assets and $795.5 million in deposits; Marshall Bank of Hallock, Minn., with $59.9 million in assets and $54.7 million in deposits; and American Marine Bank of Bainbridge Island, Wash., with $373.2 million in assets and $308.5 million in deposits.

First Regional Bank's collapse followed the shutdown of several large California banks in the last months of 2009. California was one of the states hardest hit by the real estate market meltdown, and many banks there have suffered under the weight of soured mortgage loans. Last year saw the failure of 17 banks in the state.

First-Citizens Bank (CZMO) & Trust Co., based in Raleigh, N.C., agreed to buy the deposits and $2.17 billion of the assets of First Regional Bank. The FDIC retained the remaining assets for later sale. In addition, the FDIC and First-Citizens agreed to share losses on $2 billion of the failed bank's loans and other assets.

Community & Southern Bank, also based in Carrollton, Ga., agreed to assume the deposits and assets of First National Bank of Georgia.

SCBT, a national bank based in Orangeburg, S.C., is assuming the assets and deposits of Community Bank and Trust. United Valley Bank, based in Cavalier, N.D., is buying the assets and deposits of Marshall Bank.

Miami-based Premier American Bank, N.A., a new bank with a national charter set up last week, is buying the deposits and $499.1 million of the assets of Florida Community Bank. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later sale. In addition, the FDIC and Premier American Bank - owned by the investment firm Bond Street Holdings - agreed to share losses on $305.4 million of Florida Community Bank's loans and other assets.

Columbia State Bank, based in Tacoma, Wash., is assuming the assets and deposits of American Marine Bank.

The two shuttered banks in Georgia followed 25 bank failures there last year, more than in any other state.

The government's resolution of First National Bank of Georgia is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $260.4 million. That of Community Bank and Trust is estimated to cost $354.5 million. Florida Community Bank's resolution is expected to cost the fund $352.6 million and Marshall Bank is expected to cost $4.1 million. The hit to the fund from American Marine Bank is estimated at $58.9 million.

As the economy has soured, with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring, bank failures have accelerated and sapped billions out of the federal deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year.

The 140 bank failures last year were the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. They cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. There were 25 bank failures in 2008 and just three in 2007.

The number of bank failures is expected to rise further this year. The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years.

The agency last year mandated banks to prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund.

Depositors' money - insured up to $250,000 per account - is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. Besides the fund, the FDIC has about $21 billion in cash available in reserve to cover losses at failed banks.

Banks have been especially hurt by failed real estate loans, both residential and commercial. Banks that had lent to seemingly solid businesses are suffering losses as buildings sit vacant. As development projects collapse, builders are defaulting on their loans.

If the economic recovery falters, defaults on the high-risk loans could spike. Many regional banks hold large concentrations of these loans. Nearly $500 billion in commercial real estate loans are expected to come due annually over the next few years.

In his State of the Union address this week, President Barack Obama said he will initiate a $30 billion program to provide money to community banks at low rates, if they boost lending to small businesses. The money would come from balances left in the $700 billion bailout fund.

Hundreds of banks, including major Wall Street institutions, received taxpayer support through that politically unpopular rescue program, enacted by Congress in October 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Humor (Tatoo)



The following news story was published by BBC News back in 2007.

When teenager Joanne Raine had her boyfriend's nickname "Roo" tattooed on her stomach it was supposed to be a sign of her undying love.

The 19-year-old from Darlington paid £80 for the Chinese artwork in 2004 and was delighted with the results.

That was until she showed it off in a Chinese takeaway and found out it actually spelled "supermarket."

The pair have now split up, but Miss Raine said she will keep the tattoo because she cannot afford a new one.

She said: "I did it because I wanted to show him how much I loved him and he had one done as well.

"I did not think about whether it meant forever. I'm just going to have to keep it as I can't afford to get another one done."

So what can we learn from this story? Never get a tattoo in a language you don't speak and read fluently.
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Pope Invites Christians to Join in 'new, intense evangelization'


Submitted by voxbikol on Sat, 30/01/2010 - 14:19
Church News News
CNA
Saturday, January 30th, 2010


ROME, Jan. 26, 2010-- In his homily during the celebration of Vespers at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls on Monday evening, Benedict XVI outlined the essential elements of convergence between all Christian faiths. He also called for a "new, intense evangelization" to respond to important issues in the world today.

"In a world marked by religious indifference, and even by a growing aversion towards the Christian faith, a new, intense evangelization is necessary, not only among people that have never known the Gospel, but also among those in which Christianity has been spread and is a part of their history," Pope Benedict said emphatically.

Referring to the history of Christianity and the issues affecting the unity of all its branches, Pope Benedict explained, "Unfortunately, there is no lack of questions that separate some from others and we hope that they can be overcome through prayer and dialogue."

But, he added, "there is a central content of Christ's message that we can announce together: the paternity of God, the victory of Christ over sin and his death with his cross and resurrection (and) a trust in the transformative action of the Spirit."

"While we are on the path towards full communion, we are called to offer a shared witness against the ever more complex challenges of our time, including secularization and indifference, relativism and hedonism, the delicate ethical themes regarding the beginning and end of life, the limits of science and technology, dialogue with other religious traditions," Benedict XVI urged.

The Holy Father expressed the necessity of a united effort amongst all Christians to extend unity into other areas and that "from now on, we must give a shared witness (to) the protection of Creation, the promotion of the common good and peace, defense of the centrality of the human person, commitment to defeating the misery of our time, including hunger, poverty, illiteracy, unequal distribution of goods."

Joining members of the Roman Curia, bishops and religious in attendance at Vespers were members of various Christian Churches and ecclesial communities from throughout the city of Rome. (CNA)

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All Things Considered on NPR?

Exhibit A:

Is Bipartisanship Really Possible?
January 30, 2010




January 30, 2010

One political idea that gets broad bipartisan support these days is, well, bipartisanship. But is it really practical — or even possible? Host Guy Raz speaks with retiring Republican Sen. George Voinovich and firebrand Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, and gets a historical perspective on bipartisanship from Harvard historian Sam Haselby

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123164812


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Exhibit B:

Debunking Conspiracy Theories In 'Voodoo Histories'
January 30, 2010







Nigel Barklie
David Aaronovitch writes a column for The Times newspaper in London. In 2001 he won the George Orwell Prize for political journalism.




January 30, 2010

When a co-worker told him that he believed Neil Armstrong's 1969 moon walk actually took place on a Hollywood soundstage, journalist David Aaronovitch was appalled. Aaronovitch had seen the moon landing on TV when he was a kid, and he couldn't believe anyone would think it was a hoax.
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"He told me about the photographs that don't make sense, and the stars that aren't there, and the flag flapping in the nonexistent breeze, and so on," Aaronovitch tells Guy Raz.

At the time, Aaronovitch wasn't prepared with evidence to counter his co-worker's claim, but today he is. Aaronovitch spent six years looking into the details behind top conspiracy theories such as the faked Apollo moon landing and has come out with a new book to forensically debunk each of them.
a few of the common characteristics shared by many conspiracy theories.)
"The notion that a large number of people that believe in conspiracy theories are just wackos just simply doesn't fit," he says.

His personal favorite? Aaronovitch says he always liked the conspiracy that Hitler himself set fire to Berlin's Reichstag building in 1933 so that he would have an excuse to suspend civil liberties in Germany.

Aaronovitch says that while researching the book, he discovered "that the Reichstag was set on fire by the single man who said he did it, said all the way through the trial that he was the only person who did it, and went to his execution saying that he didn’t understand why everyone was trying to say it was the Nazis or the Communists."

Aaronovitch points out that this is a classic example of Occam's razor — the simplest explanation was actually true.

Aaronovitch says conspiracy theories are fashionable across the globe. And while the one your neighbor insists upon — that the fluoride in the drinking water is actually a mind-control experiment by the government — might be a harmless variation, some have serious consequences.

"If you are to travel in Pakistan, for instance, you will find that a significant proportion of the educated Pakistanis believe that George Bush brought down the twin towers," says Aaronovitch. "And that makes dealing with the [Pakistani] Taliban difficult because they actually don't believe the fundamental premise on which the war against terror was waged."

The conspiracy that Sept. 11 was an inside job is just one example of a theory that has molded our view of history. In his book, Aaronovitch explores almost a dozen other popular conspiracies, such as the secret Zionist world empire, the assassination of Princess Diana, and the Priory of Scion's mission to safeguard the bloodline of Jesus.


Five Standout Conspiracy Theories — And How David Aaronovitch Says They Changed History

1. Princess Diana's Death
Shortly after a car accident killed Princess Diana in 1997, rumors began that she was actually assassinated by Britain's secret intelligence services. One of the people who bought into the theory was Mohammed Fayed, whose son also died in the wreck. Books, TV shows and documentaries centered on Princess Diana's death still reel in large audiences — and healthy profits for media outlets.

2. Jesus' Bloodline
If you haven't seen The Da Vinci Code, the conspiracy goes something like this: The Roman Catholic Church doesn't want you to know it, but Jesus and Mary Magdalene were actually lovers whose descendants live on today. Dan Brown's mega-best-seller and other books have brought tourists to centuries-old historical sites, such as the French cathedrals that may have been built to honor Mary Magdalene.

3. Sept. 11
Some members of the 9/11 Truth movement claim the United States government was actually responsible for the terrorist attacks. The conspiracy that then-President George W. Bush helped take down the twin towers is also popular outside the United States. In Pakistan, for instance, the belief is so widespread that a large section of Pakistani society takes it as fact.

4. The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion
These texts are often cited as proof that Jewish leaders were planning to take over the world in the early 20th century. The Protocols were at the core of the anti-Jewish fervor that sprang up between the world wars, and the rumors are still alive. Aaronovitch cites an Iranian professor who claimed the movie Meet the Fockers was related, in part, to the Protocols — even though the Protocols have been proven to be a hoax numerous times.

5. The Apollo Moon Landing
Some people still believe that Neil Armstrong's moon walk didn't take place in outer space but on a Hollywood soundstage. A 1999 Gallup Poll found that 6 percent of Americans believed it was staged and 5 percent were undecided. In 2002, the Apollo moon landing conspiracy prompted NASA to grant James Oberg, a Mission Control veteran and well-known space-travel author, $15,000 to work on a book to debunk the faked landing conspiracy. Later in the year NASA pulled the funding, and Oberg has not released a book.
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Mother Teresa: Should a Saint Get Postal Service's Stamp of Approval?


Posted:
01/29/10


If anything qualifies as a no-brainer, it would seem to be honoring Mother Teresa of Calcutta on a stamp. Not really the biggest laurel the late Nobel Prize winner and sure-fire saint will ever merit, but nothing to sniff at -- especially given the price of a stamp these days.

But of course, you knew someone would find something objectionable about the decision, and in this case it is The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a leading atheist organization that is organizing a boycott and letter-writing campaign against the stamp, which was one of 23 new issues the United States Postal Service recently unveiled for 2010.

The thing is, the atheists have a point.

Now before you start sputtering in the comment boxes, note the Postal Service's own list of a dozen criteria for who can qualify for "stamphood," specifically item No. 9:

"Stamps or stationery items shall not be issued to honor religious institutions or individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings or beliefs."
As FFRF leaders Annie Laurie Gaylor told FoxNews.com, "Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did."

Well, USPS spokesman Roy Betts tried.

"This has nothing to do with religion or faith," Betts said in response. "Mother Teresa is not being honored because of her religion, she's being honored for her work with the poor and her acts of humanitarian relief." (Actually, the Postal Service press release notes that she followed "a divine inspiration." But Betts is stuck between a rock and a hard place, it seems.)

At First Things, Joe Carter begs to differ and to side with Gaylor -- though with regret, and justifiable annoyance:

"Mother Teresa should certainly appear on a stamp -- but only after we change the law. We shouldn't look for loopholes that require denying the importance of her faith in order for her to qualify. Mother Teresa should be honored for who she really was -- a Catholic nun motivated by the love of Christ -- and not as a faux, secular saint."
Such a change in the law would also help avoid the Postal Service -- and groups like The Freedom From Religion Foundation -- from having to come up with tortured arguments justifying, or criticizing, certain honorees.

For example, previous postal honorees with obvious religious identities include Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1986, the Post Office issued a stamp in honor of Father Edward J. Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, that is still widely used.

In explaining their conflicting positions on those, both the USPS and the FFRF get a bit tied up in contradictions.

Postal spokesman Betts said Flanagan was "honored for his humanitarian work." Annie Laurie Gaylor doesn't agree. But she doesn't have any problem with King or Malcolm X. Martin Luther King "just happened to be a minister," she said, and "Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure."

Gaylor does object to the "darker side" of Mother Teresa's religious activism, chiefly her opposition to abortion. Then again, in its press release objecting to the Mother Teresa stamp, the FFRF urges its followers to buy the Katherine Hepburn stamps the Postal Service is producing this year, because Hepburn publicly described herself as an atheist and was featured in an FFRF ad campaign.

And the Virgin Mary? She has been on Christmas stamps since the 1960s. But she's principally known as a mom. So that's okay.
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The Teaching Authority of the Magisterium


March 31, 2005
The Teaching Authority of the Magisterium
In his post below (per Greg Sisk), Bob Kennedy refers to the criteria specified in Lumen Gentium 25. I thought that MOJ readers would like to see the criteria. A crucial question: How determinate are the criteria--in particular, with respect to moral teachings? Another crucial question: What moral teachings now in serious dispute among faithful Catholics--including faithful Catholic theologians--satisfy these criteria? In any event, here is Lumen Gentium 25:

25. Among the more important duties of bishops that of preaching the Gospel has pride of place.[39] For the bishops are heralds of the faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people assigned to them, the faith which is destined to inform their thinking and direct their conduct; and under the light of the Holy Spirit they make that faith shine forth, drawing from the storehouse of revelation new things and old (cf. Mt. 13:52); they make it bear fruit and with watchfulness they ward off whatever errors threaten their flock (cf. 2 Tim. 4-14). Bishops who teach in communion with the Roman Pontiff are to be revered by all as witnesses of divine and Catholic truth; the faithful, for their part, are obliged to submit to their bishops' decision, made in the name of Christ, in matters of faith and morals, and to adhere to it with a ready and respectful allegiance of mind. This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and sincere assent be given to decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated.

Although the bishops, taken individually, do not enjoy the privilege of infallibility, they do, however, proclaim infallibly the doctrine of Christ on the following conditions: namely, when, even though dispersed throughout the world but preserving for all that amongst themselves and with Peter's successor the bond of communion, in their authoritative teaching concerning matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement that a particular teaching is to be held definitively and absolutely.[40] This is still more clearly the case when, assembled in an ecumenical council, they are, for the universal Church, teachers of and judges in matters of faith and morals, whose decisions must be adhered to with the loyal and obedient assent of faith.[41]

This infallibility, however, with which the divine redeemer wished to endow his Church in defining doctrine pertaining to faith and morals, is co-extensive with the deposit of revelation, which must be religiously guarded and loyally and courageously expounded. The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful--who confirms his brethren in the faith (cf. Lk. 22:32)--he proclaims in an absolute decision a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.[42] For that reason his definitions are rightly said to be irreformable by their very nature and not by reason of the assent of the Church, is as much as they were made with the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to him in the person of blessed Peter himself; and as a consequence they are in no way in need of the approval of others, and do not admit of appeal to any other tribunal. For in such a case the Roman Pontiff does not utter a pronouncement as a private person, but rather does he expound and defend the teaching of the Catholic faith as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in whom the Church's charism of infallibility is present in a singular way.[43] The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme teaching office. Now, the assent of the Church can never be lacking to such definitions on account of the same Holy Spirit's influence, through which Christ's whole flock is maintained in the unity of the faith and makes progress in it.[44]

Furthermore, when the Roman Pontiff, or the body of bishops together with him, define a doctrine, they make the definition in conformity with revelation itself, to which all are bound to adhere and to which they are obliged to submit; and this revelation is transmitted integrally either in written form or in oral tradition through the legitimate succession of bishops and above all through the watchful concern of the Roman Pontiff himself- and through the light of the Spirit of truth it is scrupulously preserved in the Church and unerringly explained.[45] The Roman Pontiff and the bishops, by reason of their office and the seriousness of the matter, apply themselves with zeal to the work of inquiring by every suitable means into this revelation and of giving apt expression to its contents;[46] they do not, however, admit any new public revelation as pertaining to the divine deposit of faith.[47]


Posted by Michael Perry on March 31, 2005 at 06:36 PM
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The Roman Catholic Church and Health Care Reform


The Roman Catholic Church has a membership that exceeds 68 million in the U.S. (Official Catholic Directory 2009). As the largest Christian denomination that makes up around 22 percent of the electorate, Catholics comprise a dynamic voting bloc whose political allegiances vary from election to election.

Devout Catholics turn to Church leadership for guidance on using faith and morality as a paradigm for civic behavior. Then, there are those Catholics who are not weekly church-goers but still lean on the religion for cultural, familial and ethnic foundations.

Regardless, it is apparent that the Roman Catholic Church enjoys an important role as a political entity. As Catholics sway between Democrats and Republicans with each campaign cycle, they become more and more of a swing demographic for politicians and policy groups alike. This massive group of voters is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with for leaders on both sides of the political spectrum.

That makes their official policy viewpoints of the utmost importance to astute politicians. And the health care reform issue is no different, with the Church weighing in as they typically do- rooted in doctrine and vague on individual legislation.

The Roman Catholic Church considers health care one of the most fundamental rights of human beings around the world. To Catholics, the “right to life” is not just meant for the unborn, but instead, for a person’s entire lifetime, even down to their last moments. The dignity of the person is nothing short of a pillar of Catholic social teaching that dictates so much of the Church’s public policy perspective.

However, there is no consensus as to how that can be achieved and there is certainly no mention of universal insurance as the solution. The Catholic Church has not stated that they believe a public option would ensure increased access or quality coverage, but they have indicated that should be the goal for American leaders to strive to achieve.

The Church has not come out in favor or opposition to these means of expanding coverage for more Americans. However, they have made it clear that they oppose any sort of provision that will allow for abortions, especially state-sponsored, even in the name of reproductive care.

In a press release dated July 21, 2009, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops explained that while they do support health care reform, it must be certain criteria to garner the approval of Catholics in the U.S.:

Writing on behalf of the bishops as chairman of their Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Bishop Murphy said the bishops have advocated comprehensive health care reform for decades and recommended four criteria for fair and just health care reform: respect for human life and dignity, access for all, pluralism and equitable costs.

Despite their desire for more coverage, the Church has not explicitly offered a roadmap to its attainment. They did, however, present one condition that they believe is non-negotiable:

On respecting life and dignity, he said, “No health care reform plan should compel us or others to pay for the destruction of human life, whether through government funding or mandatory coverage of abortion. Any such action would be morally wrong.”

The question must be raised: Will the Catholic Church support a public option, even if it does include an abortion mandate, if they believe it will offer health care for more people?

Some Catholic leaders are unwilling to accept the legislation, regardless of the existence of an abortion provision in the bill. EWTN, the nationwide Catholic network, published an article by its news director, Raymond Arroyo, alerting Catholics of the overall content of the bill. Arroyo essentially asserts that President Obama’s proposals were anti-Catholic.

Here’s to your health, unless you are too old, too young, too disabled or any combination of the above. The health care reform bills wending their way through Congress should be focused on the well being of each citizen. Instead, it seems the bills, designed to contain costs while simultaneously extending health coverage to everyone, target certain vulnerable groups including the elderly, the pre-born, and the disabled. It all comes down to cost. How to pay for this colossus remains a question on the Hill. But the consensus seems to be: raise taxes and ration care. Both ideas have been woven into the current health care bills.

Arroyo believes that there are many demographic groups in America who are at risk, including the elderly. While many Catholics consider abortion the biggest issue in the fight for the right to life, rationing of care has become a growing concern for the Church, as a universal health care system could prioritize patients based on their societal worth and potential function, instead of their human dignity. Simply, there are limitations of cost that will be inevitible realities if this sort of health care reform passes. Even President Obama has admitted that much. For a church that does not believe in doctor-assisted suicides or does not support the refusal of families to go to extraordinary lengths to preserve the life of a dying person, it makes sense that they would also oppose any system that would ration care.

Just as their members vary politically, it seems the leadership in the Catholic Church is divided on the legislation. It is no surprise that Catholics, both as an entity and individuals in leadership roles, oppose any opportunity for the expansion of abortion. But, how will they pressure elected officials to vote on the matter? Catholic ideology encourages using doctrine as a tool for citizens to make their own judgments based on beliefs when casting their votes, and the health care issue will be no different.

Tags: abortion, abortion mandate, Affordable Health Choices Act, bishops, Catholic, Ellen Carmichael, EWTN, health care reform, healthcare reform, Obama, Obamacare, public-option, Raymond Arroyo, United States Council of Catholic Bishops, USCCB

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

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