Monday, March 29, 2010

EMP: The Next Weapon of Massive Destruction?

By Mark Thompson/Washington Monday, Mar. 29, 2010



From left: Ed Kashi / Corbis; Corbis


If America needs a new threat around which to organize its defenses, try this one: Bad guys explode nuclear weapons miles above U.S. soil, sending out an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that fries the electronic guts of everything in America. The nation's financial and transportation systems collapse; hospitals and the Internet go dark, water and electrical grids freeze, and runaway Toyotas with electronic throttles are finally brought to a stop. "The EMP resulting from the blast would cause widespread damage, devastating the economy and resulting in the deaths of millions of Americans," the hawkish Heritage Foundation warned last week, launching a call on Congress to establish an "EMP Recognition Day."

Maybe it's America's frontier heritage, moving west and constantly facing new bands of Indians, this nation has always seemed to have an exaggerated awareness of potential threats. The Cold War gave us warnings of missile- and bombers "gaps", later found to be largely mirages, that were supposedly leaving U.S. citizens vulnerable to Soviet attack. Fear of the supposed Soviet missile advantage spurred President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative, and the $100 billion Washington has spent preparing to counter incoming enemy missiles even as the Soviet Union disappeared. Then, 9/11 put us in the crosshairs of Islamic terrorists, calling into being a mushrooming homeland-security-industrial complex. All very well, warn the sentinels at the Heritage Foundation, but what about the EMP threat? (Watch TIME's video "Homeland Security Tradeshow.")

"Despite repeated warnings, Congress has taken virtually no action to prepare or protect against an EMP attack," write the Heritage Foundation's Jena Baker McNeill and James Jay Carafano. "In order to facilitate a national discussion regarding the EMP threat, Congress should establish March 23 as EMP Recognition Day" — not coincidentally, that's the date of Reagan's famous 1983 speech launching his missile-defense initiative. Leaving aside the contradiction of urging Congress to concentrate attention and resources on a threat that most in Washington consider an infinitesimal probability, the whole notion seems rooted in some visceral need for foes with diabolical destructive abilities. There's something almost pathetic about cowering in the shadow of such a threat, instead of shrugging it off with the resilience that was typical on the American frontier. (Read "Scrapping the Missile Shield: Militarily Sound.")

As its own contribution to "EMP Recognition Day," the Heritage Foundation — sounding more like the Green Party than the conservative think tank that it is — urges lawmakers to shut down congressional cafeterias, walk to work, shut off their BlackBerries and turn off the lights. "If Congress took these four steps for one day," the Heritage Foundation says, "all members would understand the magnitude of the dangers posed by an EMP attack." (They'll also be slimmer, healthier and more mellow.)

To blunt the impact of an EMP strike, those most alarmed by the threat want the U.S. military to shield its key electronics, and for vital elements of civilian society to do the same. Like taxes and health care, the debate over the EMP threat is polarizing. "More fear mongering to garner more $$$ for The Big War Machine," opines one poster on Wired's Danger Room blog. Another skeptic asks: "Do they have a flying carpet that could go that high?" But EMP-threat true believers won't be deterred. "Detonating a nuke on the ground would leave cities in shambles and radioactive for years to come," one points out. "If they had any plot to reuse the invaded land, they would most likely go for an EMP approach." (Read "Radioactive Assassination — Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots.")

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Maryland Republican with a background in engineering, is EMP's Chicken Little. "We're going to be attacked where we are the weakest," the 83-year old lawmaker told the Navy's top officer at a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing. "How much fighting capability would remain if you had an EMP lay down of 100 kilovolts per liter, which is about half of what the Russian generals told the EMP commission [created by Bartlett himself six years ago] "the Soviets had developed and the Russians had available?" (The admiral said he'd have to check).

Unfortunately, the Pentagon thinks a threat is a terrible thing to waste. So, the Navy has begun studying how to protect its fleet from such an attack. "A nuclear device detonated at an altitude in excess of 40 miles generates High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP), which is the focus of the U.S. Navy program," a recent Pentagon report says. Doing nothing, it warns, poses a risk "at the highest level." Hemp and high? You can't say the Navy doesn't have a sense of humor.




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With Every Intervention, Concerns Build Over Size of Federal Government

Updated March 29, 2010

FOXNews.com

Health care. The auto industry. Real estate. Wall Street. As the Obama administration increases regulation and pumps up taxpayer aid in these sectors and beyond, critics say the president is expanding the federal government to unprecedented levels.




President Obama speaks at the White House in Washington March 26. (Reuters Photo)





Health care. The auto industry. Real estate. Wall Street.

As the Obama administration increases regulation and pumps up taxpayer aid in these sectors and beyond, critics say the president is expanding the federal government to unprecedented levels.

Sure, protesters have been on the National Mall for months holding signs about bloated budgets. But it's not just the Tea Party crowd that's concerned. With every step, like the signing of the health care bill last Tuesday, the view that Obama is making historic shifts in the role of Washington becomes more widespread.

"There is a shocking laundry list of interventions by this administration and this Congress in the economy," Republican consultant Jason Roe said.

"This administration seems to want to bail out anybody who'll give it some votes. Chrysler, homeowners, whoever has an open hand," said Peter Morici, business professor at the University of Maryland.

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll out last week found an overwhelming majority of Americans think the government is bigger than it's ever been -- and for most, that's a problem.

The poll of 900 registered voters, taken March 16-17, found 78 percent of people thought the federal government had reached historic proportions. Sixty-five percent said the government is now too big and is restricting freedoms. Among Republicans, that number was 84 percent. Among Democrats, it was 43 percent.

Overall, just 30 percent said they were comfortable with the size and role of government.

But the White House has fought back against Republican attempts to paint the health care overhaul as a "government takeover," and defenders of the Obama administration argue that the expansions that have taken place under his watch were done to counter unprecedented problems in the economy, such as the near-collapse of the financial markets. Action was necessary, they say.

"The goal is not to exercise control over the economy. The goal is to help people who don't have jobs, are in danger of losing their homes and can't have access, don't have access to health care," Democratic strategist Susan Estrich said.

And even conservative critics say it was the Bush administration's response to the financial crisis -- the $700 billion bailout -- that started this ball rolling.

"Bush handed the keys to Obama when he opened the bailout floodgates -- and so it made it possible for Obama to do this $787 billion stimulus," said Tim Carney, author of "Obamanomics." "You say $787 billion, are you crazy? But just a couple months before, we did $700 billion."

Some Democrats say shrinking the government would actually be more popular -- if only Obama were in a position to do that.

"I'm sure he would like to shrink the size of government. We all would as Americans. It is a very American notion," said Richard Socarides, a former adviser to President Clinton. "But when you are faced with these enormous economic and social problems we face in this country, you have little alternative but to in some ways expand the role of government in fixing them."

Fox News' Jim Angle contributed to this report.
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Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/29/intervention-concerns-build-size-federal-government/
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Moscow Commuters Post Grim Video and Photos Online After Bombings

March 29, 2010, 9:41 am — Updated: 2:29 pm -->

Moscow Commuters Post Grim Video and Photos Online After Bombings
By ROBERT MACKEY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjjy46fg1e4&feature=player_embeddedhttp://

Chilling and graphic amateur video shot during the evacuation of a subway station in Moscow on Monday after a suicide bombing on a train.

Updated 2:25 p.m. In the immediate aftermath of bombings at two Moscow subway stations on Monday morning, video and photographs were posted online by commuters in the Russian capital showing some of the damage and the evacuations that followed.

Particularly graphic and disturbing images of people killed by one of the bombs were posted on the Russian Web site Lifenews.ru and included in this video report uploaded to YouTube by Russia Today, an English-language satellite channel financed by the Russian government.

The Park Kultury subway station in central Moscow, where the day’s second bombing took place, is close to Russia Today’s studio. One of the station’s anchors, Yulia Shapovalova, said that she had just finished her shift and was trying to board a train in the station when the explosion there took place. She shot some video on her phone outside the station and then returned to the studio to describe what she had seen, while obviously still shaken:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTby8OlYXCU&feature=player_embeddedhttp://

The first image in this slide show on the Web site of Radio Free Europe shows crowds leaving the Park Kultury subway station in central Moscow after the bombing on a train there. The video report embedded below, from the Russian news agency RIA, includes amateur video that appears to have been shot at the same location:

'>http://

Note: Thanks to a reader who writes from Moscow to explain that the video above shows people leaving another part of Park Kultury station, away from the area where the bombing happened.)
This video was posted on YouTube on Monday by someone who said it was shot during the evacuation of the huge Komsomolskaya station, which is a stop on the same line as both of the stations hit on Monday, Park Kultury and Lubyanka:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaQSBm9_37k&feature=player_embeddedhttp://

Readers of Russian blogs — including a Russian-language blog maintained by The New York Times Moscow bureau — have been posting their reactions to the bombings. One blogger, who said that he was present at the Park Kultury station wrote:

How horrible it is when you hear a blast behind your back. I was at Park Kultury at the moment of the blast. Thank God, I managed to enter the walkway tunnel between stations and I was not affected. There was lots of smoke and I could not figure out what was going on. Many people were lying in blood. Horror. [...]

It was scary but I did not notice any panic around me. Everybody continued to quietly walk up, at least people around me. The panic was upstairs, the subway workers, policemen, people were running around. I went into the street and by that moment only one ambulance car came. Some of those who were injured walked out on their own, some were carried by other people. Few minutes later the entrance hall was filled by policemen, doctors and firemen.

RIA’s English-language Web site includes a report based on these eyewitness accounts of the scenes in the two stations during and after the bombings:

Alexandra Antonova described her reaction to the blast at Lubyanka metro station, where the first bomb was detonated. “I was in shock. I was deafened by the sound of the blast, but at first I didn’t think it was a terrorist attack. Then I saw all the smoke and realized it had been an explosion.”

“My only thought was to get away as quickly as possible,” she said.

She managed to change to a different train and arrived at Park Kultury metro station, the site of the second attack, just a few minutes before the blast. “I was very lucky,” she said.

Valery Shuverov, a witness at Park Kultury said reports of the power of the explosion had been exaggerated.

“It wasn’t big … But there were so many people packed together. That’s why there was such a high number of casualties.”

“I’ve seen loads of explosions in my time, and this was nothing. I’m fine. It was just a ‘pop’ like the kind if fire crackers we might let off at New Year.”

He added that the reaction to the explosion was very calm.

“There were some women crying and screaming and there were some people bleeding and wounded, but they were walking. I was two or three carriages away, so I didn’t see any bodies or anything.”

Another witness, a student named Ivan Bukhradtse who was at Park Kultury station, told RIA: “I saw several wounded people being carried and some walking by themselves. There was a lot of smoke and one escalator wasn’t working so people had difficulties leaving the metro.” He also pointed out that, somewhat incredibly, the authorities did not shut down the subway system after the first bomb went off: “The metro staff and the police were very helpful. They reacted very well. The main problem was that they didn’t shut down the subway system. If they had stopped it immediately, there there wouldn’t have been such big crowds.”

As Peter Walker of The Guardian pointed out in a post on Monday’s bombings, a documentary on Moscow’s subway system made in 2008 by Russia Today includes this demonstration of how passengers are able to contact security personnel from the platforms — a new security measure which was introduced after a deadly terrorist attack on a train there in 2004.

Russia Today also uploaded this raw video of wounded people getting treatment after the attacks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uekk98wn0xg&feature=player_embeddedhttp://

A reader of The Lede, Catherine Fitzpatrick, writes, in the comment thread below and on her blog, Minding Russia, that she is disappointed by the relative lack of citizen journalism of today’s events in Moscow. In her comment, she writes:

I think you need to look at all this more critically. Very little amateur footage in fact has been posted and in fact most of it is very much state-controlled, even more than Iran, oddly enough.

We were all hoping that the social media revolution, which has occurred in Russia as well, might lead to more independent and critical reporting of a tragedy like this, where not only early pictures and subjective comments can come in on Twitter and Live Journal (ZhZh), which is very popular in Russia, but some attempt at critical investigative reporting, interviews at the scene, finding even of alternative official sources, etc. [...]

The overwhelming majority of tweets, Youtubes, and ZhZh entries are *regurgitations of the official state-controlled media*. In fact, so far NYT coverage is also dependent on those state versions of the story. State media owned this story within the hour, and no one has been able to depart from the official narrative. While it is likely that Chechen suicide bombers committed this terrible act, as they have other cowardly and despicable acts, we can’t be sure because there are no independent Twittering eyewitnesses who saw them.

On her blog, Ms. Fitzpatrick — who describes herself as a “Russian translator, writer, human rights activist, and long-time student of international affairs” — suggests that Russians are failing to use the new tools available to citizen journalists nearly as well as Iranians, who live in a less free country. She concludes:

Social media coverage of the terrorist bombing at two stations of the Moscow metro in the early hours of Monday morning — on Twitter, Live Journal, and Youtube — starkly revealed the fallacy of the social media advantage, and laid bare the dependency of the Russian people on their state-controlled media. That’s my conclusion after looking at a lot of Twitter and other media for the last few hours. Hours after the blast, it did not seem as if a single Muscovite was reporting live from the scene getting the story on his cell phone *as an independent narrative*. [...]

[T]he picture of the crowd jammed into the station without the ability to exit was one of the very few pictures of the scene telling an unofficial story. Other cell phone coverage only showed crowds silently milling around with no attempts to go question authority or ask survivors anything. The passivity induced in people from many years of dependency on officially-controlled media — even when they have the tools of social media — is striking. The entire narrative was wrapped up and owned by the official pro-Kremlin or outright state-owned media within an hour of the explosion, and few could encroach on it without a browbeating from their fellow tweeters.
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Source:http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/moscow-commuters-post-grim-video-and-photos-online-after-bombings/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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The Catholic Church and the Environment


The author, John O’Keefe, Ph.D., stands outside the Holy Family Shrine, a Catholic chapel located off the interstate near Omaha. Sitting atop a hillside, the chapel offers a sweeping view of the surrounding countryside and provides visitors a quiet place to pray and reconnect with nature.




The Catholic Church and the Environment
By John J. O’Keefe, Ph.D.
Professor of Theology and
A.F. Jacobson Chair in Communications

In 2007, the Vatican announced that it would try to become carbon neutral by participating in a Hungarian reforestation effort and by obtaining some of its energy from renewable sources. Making good on the promise, solar panels were installed on the roof of the Paul VI audience hall last year, and more projects are planned. These are but two examples of a new “green” turn in the Roman Catholic Church that began — slowly — during the pontificate of John Paul II and that has been gaining momentum since the election of Benedict XVI. This new environmental consciousness, however, is bigger than papal leadership. Bishops, theologians and other Catholic commentators have been writing and speaking about environmental issues in a steadily increasing crescendo since the 1980s. The collection of these voices now makes it clear that the words “Catholic” and “environmentalist” are not mutually exclusive.

This new partnership between Church and planet may come as a surprise to those who have labored long in the environmental movement. Since 1967, when the late Lynn White, a professor of medieval history at Princeton, Stanford and UCLA, had his influential article “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” published in the journal Science, many environmental activists have tended to think that the teachings of the Christian Church are a major cause of the world’s current environmental malaise. According to White, and many others since, the problem goes back to the book of Genesis, the first chapter in fact. Having just described the creation of the earth, animals and plants, the sacred author turns to the creation of human beings. Verses 26-30 provide the critical text:

(26) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.” (27) God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. (28) God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and all the living things that move on the earth.” (29) God also said: “See, I give you every seedbearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; (30) and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food.”

For Christianity’s critics, the presence of the words “dominion” and “subdue” at the very beginning of the creation narrative sets the tone for all subsequent Christian attitudes toward nature. Now, millennia later, the full impact of this misguided teaching — again, according to the critics — lies before us in the ecological devastation of the planet that we are now experiencing.

On the one hand, the critics are easily silenced. Looking around the world at countries that have not been heavily influenced by Christianity, such as China or India, we see enormous environmental problems. It is clearly simplistic to locate the cause of all environmental challenges facing the planet in one ancient text and in one world religion. Likewise, as Roger Gottlieb explains in his recent book A Greener Faith (Oxford, 2006), all of the major world religions have only lately begun to engage in serious reflection about the environment. Thus, singling out Christianity as uniquely inattentive makes little sense. On the other hand, criticism can help the one criticized achieve greater clarity. This has certainly been the case for emerging Catholic teaching about the environment.

Founding Pillar: ‘A Renewal of the Doctrine of Creation’
A founding pillar of this emerging teaching is what Pope Benedict XVI has called “a renewal of the doctrine of creation.” In August 2008, while addressing a group of Italian clergy, the pope wrote that “the brutal consumption of creation begins where God is not, where matter is henceforth only material for us, where we ourselves are the ultimate demand, where the whole is merely our property and we consume it for ourselves alone.” In this same address, the pope also urged the audience to remember that “true and effective initiatives to prevent the waste and destruction of creation can be implemented and developed, understood and lived, only where creation is considered as beginning with God.”

The return to the doctrine of creation has been a necessary first step in building up a more forceful Catholic teaching about the environment. Although the making of human beings is presented as a high point in God’s work of creating, the creation narrative in the book of Genesis is not exclusively interested in human beings. Instead, the sacred author emphasizes how “good” the rest of the creation is in the eyes of God. The earth and everything on it comes from God and belongs to God. It does not belong to human beings. Echoing this sense of God’s dominion over the creation, the psalmist exclaimed, “the Lord’s are the earth and its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it.” (Ps. 24:1) With this in mind, the mandate given to humans to “subdue the earth” and have “dominion” should not be read as an isolated scriptural fragment. Instead, it needs to be interpreted within the larger teaching that creation belongs to God. Understood in this way, we can see that these texts ask humans to be careful stewards of creation rather than pillagers of it.

Second Pillar: Sacramental Tradition
A second pillar of emerging Catholic teaching about the environment comes from the sacramental tradition. For most Catholics, the word “sacrament” evokes the seven major sacraments of the Church — Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing, Marriage and Holy Orders. Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), however, the Church has recovered the more ancient meaning of sacrament as “mystery” (Latin “sacramentum” translates the Greek “mysterion”). Rather than focusing exclusively on the seven sacraments as isolated moments of grace — something like divine inoculations — Catholic teaching since the Council has emphasized that sacrament, in its broadest application, refers to the ability of creation to mediate the presence of God to us.

To quote the psalmist once more, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:2). Thus, in the seven sacraments water, bread, wine, oil and the laying on of hands are all capable of mediating the divine presence to us. Likewise, the earth, itself, and all that is “good” upon it can function as a kind of giant sacrament, a revelation of God.

The recovery of this wider view of sacrament serves two purposes in emerging Catholic environmental teaching. First, it encourages the cultivation of a deeper reverence for the world that God has made. This is especially welcome in an age where people are increasingly estranged from the earth that sustains them. Many of us live much of our lives in a virtual world generated by the Internet and in environments far removed from natural processes. Remembering the sacramental nature of the creation is an invitation to encounter it more directly and to care for it more intentionally. Second, it reminds us that we actually need creation to encounter God at all. Human beings are animals. We are “earthlings.” We are a part of creation, and we cannot live apart from it. The creation is not one way in which we might electively encounter God. Instead, we need to grasp that the creation provides the only way for us to encounter God. To the extent that we diminish our environment and treat it irreverently, we are engaging in a perverse snubbing of God’s gift to us.

Third Pillar: Ethical
The conviction that human beings must be good stewards of the creation to which they belong by God’s gift has strong and far-reaching ethical implications. The third pillar, then, of emerging Catholic teaching on the environment is ethical. It is one thing to say that we must recover a reverence for the earth and quite another to say, exactly, what manner of life we should adopt in order to accomplish this.

In June 2008, Pope Benedict declared to the youth of the world, “My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity.” In linking nonviolence, justice and peace to sustainable environmental practice, the pope was referencing a significant expansion in Catholic social teaching that is currently under way.

From the first generation of the Church, concern for the poor and disenfranchised has been a hallmark of Christian ethics. However, since the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical letter Rerum Novarum in 1891, these ethical concerns have evolved into a highly sophisticated set of teachings about the nature of a just society. These teachings include reflection on human rights, the death penalty, the distribution of property, and just war, to mention a few.

However, until recently, they have not included any systematic reflection on our responsibility toward creation. This is now changing, and more and more Catholic theologians, ethicists and ecclesiastical leaders have recognized that the Church’s social teaching is the best venue for sustained reflection on the ethical implications of our growing environmental consciousness.

On the one hand, this expanded vision remains human-centered. We now realize that environmental devastation impacts the world’s poor disproportionately. Deforestation, water pollution and toxic emissions from unregulated industry contribute to intense human suffering all over the world. We cannot, then, talk about the unjust conditions that conspire to oppress the poor of the world only in terms of politics and economics; we are now compelled to consider environmental problems as well.

On the other hand, the expanded Catholic social teaching has begun to recognize that the human-centered vision is not, by itself, sufficient. We are increasingly recognizing that the earth, itself, and all of the creatures on it have rights of their own.

This does not mean, as some radical thinkers have suggested, that, say, a puppy and a human baby have equal rights, but it does mean that the puppy is not just our property, to be treated however we please. Just as it is sinful and unacceptable to abuse and mistreat the poor and to ignore the societal conditions that keep people poor, so also is it sinful and unacceptable to mistreat the earth and to ignore the societal conditions that conspire to degrade and destroy it.

For many years, the Church has spoken of the need for us to make an “option for the poor.” Put simply, this means that when we are faced with a decision about a particular course of action, we need to ask ourselves, how will this impact the weakest members of the human community and then act accordingly. Following this model, some Catholic environmental thinkers are calling for the addition of an “option for the earth,” where we stop and think about how our decisions — what I am about to do, what I am about to buy, where I am about to live and what I am about to eat — will impact the environment that sustains us all and then act accordingly.

A Growing Environmental Consciousness
These are extraordinarily complicated times. Indeed, the more we become aware of the depth of the environmental challenges before us, the more daunting they can seem. It is, however, certain that the Catholic community worldwide is experiencing a growing environmental consciousness. We can see this very clearly in the teachings of Pope Benedict, and we are seeing it with increasing frequency in the writings of theologians and bishops. For example, reflecting on the critical problem of climate change, the U.S. Bishops wrote that “at its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family.”

All citizens of the earth should be sobered by the environmental problems we face. But we need not despair. The launching of the “Catholic Climate Covenant” in April 2009 is one sign of a building momentum for environmental action within the Catholic community, but there are many more. With its reverence for creation, its sacramental vision and its social teaching, the Catholic tradition has much to offer the world as it struggles toward a more sustainable future.

Creighton Joins Jesuit Institutions in Campaign to Reduce Climate Change
Creighton University is among the more than 70 Jesuit schools, parishes, communities and organizations across the nation committing themselves to an unprecedented campaign to help reduce climate change, which disproportionately impacts the poor and vulnerable. As part of the Ignatian PeaceAction, students from Jesuit schools, parishioners from Jesuit churches and Jesuit communities have committed to pray and act on climate change issues with a particular emphasis on mitigating the negative effects of climate change on the poor. With the theme “Peace with Creation,” this year’s Ignatian PeaceAction supports and promotes the St. Francis Covenant to Protect Creation and the Poor, sponsored by the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. You can find the St. Francis Pledge at http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/the-st-francis-pledge/.

Center for Catholic Thought
The Center for Catholic Thought at Creighton University was created in 2009. The Center serves students, faculty and the local Catholic community through a series of programs designed to explore and promote the Church’s intellectual tradition. The Catholic Church has a long history of engaging the intersection of faith and reason. Catholic Universities are especially well positioned to become intentional centers of excellence where the Catholic intellectual tradition is able to prosper and thrive. For more information on how you can support this initiative, contact the Office of Development at 800.334.8794.

Creighton Dining Halls Skip Trays
Creighton University’s dining halls no longer offer the traditional cafeteria trays. Instead, students bring their food to the table one plate at a time. The goal of the “trayless” initiative is to reduce food waste — with side benefits of reducing water and chemical usage associated with washing the trays. It’s just one of the green initiatives taking root at Creighton. For more on Creighton’s sustainability efforts, visit www2.creighton.edu/about/sustainability .

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Note: Bolds and Highlights added to emphasize the propaganda.
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For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.


A true follower of Christ will not resort to violence; Genuine believers of Jesus will not store up weapons to defend themselves! If our Master allowed himself to be arrested, tried and executed without resisting; Can His followers resist those that persecute them? Are His servants more important that Him?
Honestly, friends and brethren, Our Lord Jesus Christ left us the Bible and his example; How can we pretend to follow him, and also believe that He would have us resist the enemy with weapons of war?
Is this inconsitency not an indication of not really knowing the Scriptures?
Let's read and understand what Jesus did and said when he was betrayed:


47And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

48Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

49And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

50And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus and took him.

51And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

52Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

53Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

54But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

55In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.

56But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.
Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

Matthew 26:47-56.

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If we are faithful to His teachings and example we will renounce violence and resistance to the use of force against us. We will respect the laws of the land; We are not to resort to force, Satan's favorite means of operation. We must be meek and humble as He was; We will be wise as serpents and meek as doves, if we truly want to call ourselves "Christians". Unless we behave as He did; we will just be false prophets perpetrating to follow the Lamb of God.


Remember what the Lord said we should do when we are smiten on the cheek? Matthew 5:39
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Christian Militia Group Targeted in FBI Raids

Updated March 29, 2010


AP

The FBI conducted weekend raids in three states and arrested at least three people, and a militia leader in Michigan said the target of at least one raid was a Christian militia group.


AP
Mar. 28: Michigan State Police guard a home in Clayton after the FBI raided the home of a suspected militia leader.



ADRIAN, Mich. -- A Christian militia group was a target of at least one of a series of weekend raids the FBI conducted in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, a Michigan militia leader says.

The FBI said Sunday that it had conducted raids in the three states, resulting in at least three arrests. Federal warrants were sealed, but a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of those arrested face gun charges and officials are pursuing other suspects. Some of the suspects were expected in court Monday.

It wasn't clear what prompted the raids, but Michael Lackomar, a spokesman for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, said one of his team leaders got a frantic phone call Saturday evening from members of Hutaree, a Christian militia group. They said their property in southeast Michigan was being raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Lackomar said.

"They said they were under attack by the ATF and wanted a place to hide," he said. "My team leader said, 'No thanks."'

FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold confirmed the FBI had been working in two southeast Michigan counties near the Ohio state line but wouldn't say whether the raids were connected to Hutaree.

FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said agents arrested two people Saturday after raids in two Ohio towns. A third arrest made in northeast Illinois on Sunday stemmed from a raid Saturday just over the border in northwest Indiana, both part of an ongoing investigation led by the FBI in Michigan, according to a statement from agents in Illinois.

Lackomar said his group wasn't affiliated with Hutaree but that a handful of that group's members twice attended training sessions with the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia that focused on survival training and shooting practice.

On its Web site, Hutaree quotes several Bible passages and states: "We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. ... Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment."

The group didn't return an e-mail sent by The Associated Press and phone numbers for the group's leadership were not immediately available.

Law enforcement swarmed a rural, wooded property Saturday evening near Adrian, about 70 miles southwest of Detroit. Two ramshackle trailers sat side-by-side on the property, the door to one slightly ajar late Sunday as if it had been forced open.

Phyllis Brugger, who has lived in the area for more than 30 years, said some people who lived there were known as having ties to militia. They would shoot guns and often wore camouflage, according to Brugger and her daughter, Heidi Wood.

"Everybody knew they were militia," Brugger said. "You don't mess with them."

In Hammond, Ind., 18-year-old George Ponce, who works at a pizzeria next door to a home that was raided, said he and a few co-workers stepped outside for a break Saturday night and saw a swarm of law enforcement.

"I heard a yell, 'Get back inside!' and saw a squad member pointing a rifle at us," Ponce said. "They told us the bomb squad was going in, sweeping the house looking for bombs."

He said another agent was in the bushes near the house, and law enforcement vehicles were "all over." He estimated that agents took more than two dozen guns from the house.

Another employee, Ron Jakubczak, said the man who lived in the house often wore Army fatigues and would "play-fight" with his German shepherds. People at the pizzeria were surprised to find a military transport vehicle once parked in the man's yard, he said.

In Ohio, one of the raids occurred at Bayshore Estates, a well-kept trailer park in Sandusky, a small city on Lake Erie between Toledo and Cleveland. Neighbors said the man taken into custody lived in a trailer on a cul-de-sac with his wife and two young children.

A young man who answered the door at the trailer Sunday said no one from the family wanted to talk. A neighbor said he saw authorities with rifles run past his window and toward the trailer Saturday night.

"They took over the block like it was the Army. I thought we were being invaded," said Michael Morin, who lives two lots away.

FBI agents in Ohio also made an arrest in Huron on Saturday night, said Wilson, the FBI spokesman. He said no further information would be released until after they appeared in court Monday.
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Visiting the "corpse"men?

Wearing a flight jacket? When you didn't serve "1" day on active duty?
Not even in ROTC!

Visiting the troops?

How do you spell hypocrisy? corpsemen? I guess that's legalese for Corpsmen?

Another award winning performance for the Esquire-actor in charge:


Watson/Getty
President Obama addresses troops at Bagram Air Base.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMKdpgPYTMhttp://



President Obama taking heat over mispronunciation of "Corpsmen."
15 posts - 14 authors - Last post: Feb 10President Obama taking heat over mispronunciation of "Corpsmen." ... Considering that Corpse Men provide most of his care at Bethesda he would ... Thought I did not join the Marine Corps either but ended up spending 12 ...www.conservativecave.com/index.php?topic=40411.0 - Cached
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A Deep and Living Experience


How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him. Heb. 2:3, R.S.V.


I saw that we should not put off the coming of the Lord. Said the angel: "Prepare, prepare, for what is coming upon the earth. Let your works correspond with your faith." I saw that the mind must be stayed upon God, and that our influence should tell for God and His truth. We cannot honor the Lord when we are careless and indifferent. . . . We must be in earnest to secure our own soul's salvation, and to save others. All importance should be attached to this, and everything besides should come in secondary. {Mar 97.1}

I saw the beauty of heaven. I heard the angels sing their rapturous songs, ascribing praise, honor, and glory to Jesus. I could then realize something of the wondrous love of the Son of God. He left all the glory, all the honor which He had in heaven, and was so interested for our salvation that He patiently and meekly bore every indignity and slight which man could heap upon Him. He was wounded, smitten, and bruised; He was stretched on Calvary's cross and suffered the most agonizing death to save us from death, that we might be washed in His blood and be raised up to live with Him in the mansions He is preparing for us, to enjoy the light and glory of heaven, to hear the angels sing, and to sing with them. {Mar 97.2}

I saw that all heaven is interested in our salvation; and shall we be indifferent? Shall we be careless, as though it were a small matter whether we are saved or lost? Shall we slight the sacrifice that has been made for us? . . . {Mar 97.3}

A Book has been given us to guide our feet through the perils of this dark world to heaven. It tells us how we can escape the wrath of God, and also tells of the sufferings of Christ for us, the great sacrifice that has been made that we might be saved and enjoy the presence of God forever. {Mar 97.4}

A form of godliness will not save any. All must have a deep and living experience. This alone will save them in the time of trouble. Then their work will be tried of what sort it is; and if it is gold, silver, and precious stones, they will be hid in the secret of the Lord's pavilion. {Mar 97.5}
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Maranatha, Ellen G. White, p.97.
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I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles


14Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.

15But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;

16And charged them that they should not make him known:

17That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,

18Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.

19He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.

20A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.

21And in his name shall the Gentiles trust
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Matthew 12:17-21..

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Bring on the Recess Appointments

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 Posted by Blog Feed


Bring on the Recess Appointments

The White House has just announced that President Obama has made fifteen recess appointments, including several for hot-button nominees. These are appointees Republicans refused to allow votes on and for which the president’s supporters have been pressing for recess appointees. Notable on the list are Craig Becker to NLRB and Chai Feldblum to EEOC. In arguing for the appointments the press release states: “President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.” Full press release after the jump. The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 27, 2010 President Obama Announces Recess Appointments to Key Administration Positions Fifteen Appointees Have Waited an Average of 214 Days for Senate Confirmation

WASHINGTON -After facing months of Republican obstruction to administration nominees, President Obama announced his intent to recess appoint fifteen nominees to fill critical administration posts that have been left vacant, including key positions on the economic team and on boards that have been left with vacancies for months. “The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,” said President Barack Obama. “Most of the men and women whose appointments I am announcing today were approved by Senate committees months ago, yet still await a vote of the Senate. At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months. I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government.” Following their appointment, these nominees will remain in the Senate for confirmation. Obama Administration appointees have faced an unprecedented level of obstruction in the Senate. President Obama currently has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate. These nominees have been pending for an average of 101 days, including 34 nominees pending for more than 6 months. The 15 nominees President Obama intends to recess appoint have been pending for an average of 214 days or 7 months for a total of 3204 days or almost 9 years. President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month. The President announced his intention to recess appoint the following nominees:

Jeffrey Goldstein: Nominee for Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Department of the Treasury Jeffrey Goldstein is a former Managing Director of Hellman & Friedman LLC, a private equity investment firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Mr. Goldstein served at the World Bank from 1999 to 2004, where he served as Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer. He oversaw the Bank’s work with its client countries in strengthening financial and capital market systems. Mr. Goldstein was the Bank’s point person on the International Development Association (IDA). He also helped lead the Bank’s relationship with the G-8 countries. As Chief Financial Officer, he was responsible for the Bank’s financial operations and budget. He was the Bank’s representative on the Financial Stability Forum and on the International Monetary Fund’s Capital Markets Consultative Group and Chairman of the Pension Finance Committee. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Goldstein was Co-Chairman of BT Wolfensohn and a member of the Bankers Trust Company Management Committee. He held senior management positions and worked with BT Wolfensohn and its predecessor, James D. Wolfensohn Incorporated, for more than 15 years. Early in his career, Mr. Goldstein taught economics at Princeton University and worked at the Brookings Institution and the U. S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Goldstein received his Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in economics from Yale University. He received his B.A. with honors in economics from Vassar College (Phi Beta Kappa) and attended the London School of Economics. Mr. Goldstein is a member of the Board of LPL Holdings Inc., AlixPartners LLP and Grosvenor Capital Management and the Board of Trustees of the International Center for Research on Women. He is also on the Board of Trustees of Vassar College and is Chairman of the Vassar College Investments Committee. He is also a member of the Brookings Institution Global Leadership Council, The London School of Economics North American Advisory Board and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Michael F. Mundaca: Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Department of the Treasury Michael F. Mundaca currently is Senior Advisor for Policy within the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. Mr. Mundaca served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration and returned to the Treasury Department in 2007, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs. Before that appointment, he was a partner for five years in the International Tax Services group of Ernst & Young’s National Tax Department, in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on cross-border planning and structuring, including especially tax treaty issues, and on international legislative and regulatory monitoring and consulting. Before joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Mundaca served for over five years in Treasury’s Office of the International Tax Counsel, leaving as the Deputy International Tax Counsel. He was also Treasury’s Senior Advisor on Electronic Commerce. Prior to that first stint in Treasury, he was an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm in New York. Mr. Mundaca has been an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, teaching a seminar on tax treaties. Mr. Mundaca received a B.A. in philosophy and in physics from Columbia University, in 1986, and an M.A.in philosophy from the University of Chicago, in 1988. He received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), in 1992, where he was Senior Executive Editor of The California Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. He also has an LL.M., in taxation (international tax specialization), from the University of Miami.

Eric L. Hirschhorn: Nominee for Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration and head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce Eric Hirschhorn, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, long has been active in the areas of international law, litigation, and professional responsibility. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce (1980-81), Mr. Hirschhorn oversaw U.S. export controls for items having commercial as well as military applications, antiboycott compliance, restraints on imports for national security reasons, and the Department’s participation in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Earlier, while a member of President Jimmy Carter’s reorganization project staff (1977-80), he worked on reorganizing the government’s international trade, public diplomacy, and foreign assistance mechanisms. Before working in the Executive branch, Mr. Hirschhorn held several congressional staff positions, was in private law practice in New York City, and was a legal services lawyer. Mr. Hirschhorn has represented clients on a wide range of commercial and regulatory matters since returning to private law practice in 1981. He is Executive Secretary of the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer (ICOTT), a group whose industry participants are affected by U.S. export control and embargo rules. He is the author of The Export Control and Embargo Handbook, Second Edition, published in 2004, and numerous articles on export controls, embargoes and related topics. He chairs the D.C. Bar Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee and is a member (and former chair) of the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee. He also is a member of the New York City Bar Association and the Thurgood Marshall American Inn of Court. Mr. Hirschhorn received his B.A. degree from the University of Chicago and a J.D. degree from Columbia University, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

Michael Punke: Nominee for Deputy Trade Representative – Geneva, Office of the United States Trade Representative Michael Punke has worked in the field of international trade law and policy for two decades. From 1995 to 1996, Punke served as Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of the United States Trade Representative. There, he advised the USTR on issues ranging from agricultural trade to intellectual property protection. From 1993 to 1995, Punke served at the White House as Director for International Economic Affairs with a joint appointment to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. His responsibilities included assisting in the management of the interagency process. From 1991 to 1992, Punke was International Trade Counsel to Senator Max Baucus, then Chairman of the Finance Committee’s International Trade Subcommittee. Punke has also worked on international trade issues from the private sector, including as a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown, Rowe, & Maw. From 2003 to 2009, Punke advised clients on trade issues through out of Missoula, Montana. Since January 2010, Punke has served as a Consultant to the U.S. Trade Representative. He also has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Montana and as a writer, authoring a novel, two books of nonfiction, and two screenplays. Punke is a graduate of George Washington University and Cornell Law School, where he was elected Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Journal.

Francisco “Frank” J. Sánchez: Nominee for Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce Francisco J. Sánchez currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on international trade issues. He served as a Policy Advisor on Latin America to the Obama For America campaign. He was also the Chairman of the campaign’s National Hispanic Leadership Council. In 1999, Sanchez became a Special Assistant to President Clinton, working in the Office of the Special Envoy for the Americas. While at the White House, Sanchez worked with the National Security Council, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative. Clinton later appointed Sánchez as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Transportation where he developed aviation policy and oversaw international negotiations. Prior to his work in the federal government, Sánchez practiced corporate and administrative law with the firm of Steel, Hector and Davis in Miami, Florida. Before practicing law, he served in the administration of former Florida Governor (and later U.S. Senator) Bob Graham, as the first director of the state’s Caribbean Basin Initiative Program. For the last 15 years, Sanchez has worked with several consulting companies on projects involving complex transactions, labor-management negotiations, litigation settlement, negotiation strategy, alliance management, facilitation and training, most recently as a partner with CM Partners. Among his public-sector engagements, Sánchez headed a team in Medellín, Colombia as part of a “Teaching Tolerance” program. He also advised the president of Ecuador in negotiations to settle the 56-year-old border dispute with Peru. He is a contributing author to Negociación 2000, a collection of essays on negotiation published by McGraw-Hill. A Florida native, Mr. Sánchez attended the University of Florida, received his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University and holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Islam A. Siddiqui: Nominee for Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Islam A. Siddiqui is currently Vice President for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, where he is responsible for regulatory and international trade issues related to crop protection chemicals. Previously, Dr. Siddiqui also served as CropLife America’s Vice President for agricultural biotechnology and trade. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Siddiqui served in various capacities in the Clinton Administration at U.S. Department of Agriculture as Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Senior Trade Advisor to Secretary Dan Glickman and Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. As a result, he worked closely with the USTR and represented USDA in bilateral, regional and multi-lateral agricultural trade negotiations. Since 2004, Dr. Siddiqui has also served on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Health/Science Products & Services, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and USTR on international trade issues related to these sectors. Between 2001 and 2003, Dr. Siddiqui was appointed as Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focused on agricultural biotechnology and food security issues. Before joining USDA, Dr. Siddiqui spent 28 years with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He received a B.S. degree in plant protection from Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University in Pantnagar, India, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant pathology, both from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Alan D. Bersin: Nominee for Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security Alan Bersin was appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano in April, 2009 as Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that capacity, he serves as the Secretary’s lead representative on Border Affairs and Mexico, for developing DHS strategy regarding security, immigration, narcotics, and trade matters affecting Mexico and for coordinating the Secretary’s security initiatives on the nation’s borders. Prior to his current service, Bersin served as Chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Previously, Mr. Bersin served as California’s Secretary of Education between July 2005 and December 2006 in the Administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Between 1998 and 2005, he served as Superintendent of Public Education in San Diego and from 2000 to 2003 served as a member and then Chairman of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Prior to becoming the leader of the nation’s eighth largest urban school district, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California and confirmed in that capacity by the U.S. Senate. Mr. Bersin served as U.S. Attorney for nearly five years and as the Attorney General’s Southwest Border Representative responsible for coordinating federal law enforcement on the border from South Texas to Southern California. Mr. Bersin previously was a senior partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Mr. Bersin received his A.B. in Government from Harvard University (magna cum laude) and attended Balliol College at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1974, he received his J.D. degree from the Yale Law School.:

Jill Long Thompson: Nominee for Member, Farm Credit Administration Board Jill Long Thompson is a former Member of the United States House of Representatives and the former Under Secretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture. She also served as Chief Executive Officer and Senior Fellow at The National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, a not-for-profit, non-advocacy research and policy organization. She is the first and only woman to be nominated by a major party to run for Governor in Indiana, as well as the first and only Hoosier woman to be nominated by a major party to run for the United States Senate. Long Thompson joined the faculty at Valparaiso University in 1981 and in 1983 was elected to the City Council. In 1989 Long Thompson was elected to represent Northeast Indiana in Congress. She went on to serve three terms in the House, where she was a member of the Agriculture Committee and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. She introduced one of the nation’s first pieces of legislation banning Members of Congress from accepting gifts and expanding the disclosure requirements for lobbying activities. After leaving Congress, Long Thompson was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as the Under Secretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture. In her five years at USDA, she oversaw a $10 billion annual budget and 7,000 employees while managing a number of programs that provide services to the underserved areas of rural America. Long Thompson earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Valparaiso University and an M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Business from the Kelley School at Indiana University.

Rafael Borras: Nominee for Under Secretary for Management , Department of Homeland Security Rafael Borras currently serves as a Vice President, Construction Services, for the Mid-Atlantic Region with URS Corporation, a global engineering services firm. Prior to joining the URS, Mr. Borras served as the Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the U.S. General Services Administration. Prior to serving in this position, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Borras also served as Deputy City Manager in the City of Hartford, Connecticut, where he was responsible for the departments of finance, police, fire, code enforcement, information technology, purchasing, budget, and human relations. Mr. Borras began his public sector career with Metropolitan Dade County Government, serving in the Office of the County Administrator as an administrative officer.

Craig Becker: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board Craig Becker currently serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1978 and received his J.D. in 1981 from Yale Law School where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Donald P. Lay, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. For the past 27 years, he has practiced and taught labor law. He was a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law between 1989 and 1994 and has also taught at the University of Chicago and Georgetown Law Schools. He has published numerous articles on labor and employment law in scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review and Chicago Law Review, and has argued labor and employment cases in virtually every federal court of appeals and before the United States Supreme Court.

Mark Pearce: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board Mark Gaston Pearce has been a labor lawyer for his entire career. He is one of the founding partners of the Buffalo, New York law firm of Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux where he practices union side labor and employment law before state and federal courts and agencies including the N.Y.S. Public Employment Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board. Pearce in 2008 was appointed by the NYS Governor to serve as a Board Member on the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals, an independent quasi-judicial agency responsible for review of certain rulings and compliance orders of the NYS Department of Labor in matters including wage and hour law. Pearce has taught several courses in the labor studies program at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations Extension. He is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Prior to 2002, Pearce practiced union side labor law and employment law at Lipsitz, Green, Fahringer, Roll, Salisbury & Cambria LLP. From 1979 to 1994, he was an attorney and District Trial Specialist for the NLRB in Buffalo, NY. Pearce received his J.D. from State University of New York, and his B.A. from Cornell University.

Jacqueline A. Berrien, Nominee for Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Ms. Berrien has served as Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) since September 2004. In that position, she assists with the direction and implementation of LDF’s national legal advocacy and scholarship programs. Ms. Berrien served from 2001 to 2004 as a Program Officer in the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice Program, where she administered more than $13 million of grants to promote greater political participation by underrepresented groups and remove barriers to civic engagement. Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, Ms. Berrien was an Assistant Counsel with LDF and directed the Fund’s voting rights and political participation work. For eight years before that, Ms. Berrien was a staff attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union. Berrien has also taught in trial advocacy programs at Fordham and Harvard law schools and served on the adjunct faculty of New York Law School. She began her legal career clerking for the Honorable U.W. Clemon, the first African-American appointed to the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama. Ms. Berrien is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she served as a General Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honors in Government from Oberlin College and also completed a major in English.

Chai R. Feldblum: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chai Feldblum is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where she has taught since 1991. She also founded the Law Center’s Federal Legislation and Administrative Clinic, a program designed to train students to become legislative lawyers. Feldblum previously served as Legislative Counsel to the AIDS Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. In this role, she developed legislation, analyzed policy on various AIDS-related issues, and played a leading role in the drafting of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and, later as a law professor, in the passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. She has also worked on advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and has been a leading expert on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. As Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010, Feldblum has worked to advance flexible workplaces in a manner that works for employees and employers. Feldblum clerked for Judge Frank Coffin and for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Barnard College.

Victoria A. Lipnic: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Victoria A. Lipnic is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Ms. Lipnic was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 until 2009. In addition to her work with the Department of Labor, Ms. Lipnic’s experience in Washington, D.C. includes service as Workforce Policy Counsel to the Republican members of the Education and Labor Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Before her work for Congress, Ms. Lipnic acted as in-house counsel for labor and employment matters to the U.S. Postal Service for six years. She also served as a special assistant for business liaison to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the Honorable Malcolm Baldrige. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History from Allegheny College and a Juris Doctor degree from George Mason University School of Law.

P. David Lopez: Nominee for General Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission David Lopez has served at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for 13 years in the field and at headquarters. He began at the EEOC in 1994 as a Special Assistant to Commissioner Casellas. Currently, Mr. Lopez is a Supervisory Trial Attorney with the EEOC’s Phoenix District Office. During his tenure, Mr. Lopez has successfully tried several cases on behalf of the EEOC in a wide variety of legal bases. Before joining the Commission, Mr. Lopez served at the Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section, at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. from 1991 to 1994. From 1988 to 1991, he was an Associate with Spiegel and McDiarmid. Mr. Lopez received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988 and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Arizona State University in 1985, magna cum laude. .

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Note: Bolds and Highlights added.
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Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican


15Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

16But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

17And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

18Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

19Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

20For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
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Matthew 18:15-20.
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Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Shaking



The Shaking

A Prophetic History Of The Seventh-Day Adventists:

Their Experience And Views:

Their Striving To Enter The Narrow Gate

— By Ellen G. White —



"I saw some, with strong faith and agonizing cries, pleading with God. Their countenances were pale and marked with deep anxiety, expressive of their internal struggle. Firmness and great earnestness was expressed in their countenances; large drops of perspiration fell from their foreheads. Now and then their faces would light up with the marks of God’s approbation, and again the same solemn, earnest, anxious look would settle upon them.

"Evil angels crowded around, pressing darkness upon them to shut out Jesus from their view, that their eyes might be drawn to the darkness that surrounded them, and thus they be led to distrust God and murmur against Him. Their only safety was in keeping their eyes directed upward. Angels of God had charge over His people, and as the poisonous atmosphere of evil angels was pressed around these anxious ones, the heavenly angels were continually wafting their wings over them to scatter the thick darkness.

"As the praying ones continued their earnest cries, at times a ray of light from Jesus came to them, to encourage their hearts and light up their countenances. Some, I saw, did not participate in this work of agonizing and pleading. They seemed indifferent and careless. They were not resisting the darkness around them, and it shut them in like a thick cloud. The angels of God left these and went to the aid of the earnest, praying ones. I saw angels of God hasten to the assistance of all who were struggling with all their power to resist the evil angels and trying to help themselves by calling upon God with perseverance. But His angels left those who made no effort to help themselves, and I lost sight of them.

"I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver, and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people.

"I saw that the testimony of the True Witness has not been half heeded. The solemn testimony upon which the destiny of the church hangs has been lightly esteemed, if not entirely disregarded. This testimony must work deep repentance; all who truly receive it will obey it and be purified.

"Said the angel, ‘List ye!’ Soon I heard a voice like many musical instruments all sounding in perfect strains, sweet and harmonious. It surpassed any music I had ever heard, seeming to be full of mercy, compassion, and elevating, holy joy. It thrilled through my whole being. Said the angel, ‘Look ye!’ My attention was then turned to the company I had seen, who were mightily shaken. I was shown those whom I had before seen weeping and praying in agony of spirit. The company of guardian angels around them had been doubled, and they were clothed with an armor from their head to their feet. They moved in exact order, like a company of soldiers. Their countenances expressed the severe conflict which they had endured, the agonizing struggle they had passed through. Yet their features, marked with severe internal anguish, now shone with the light and glory of heaven. They had obtained the victory, and it called forth from them the deepest gratitude and holy, sacred joy.

"The numbers of this company had lessened. Some had been shaken out and left by the way. The careless and indifferent, who did not join with those who prized victory and salvation enough to perseveringly plead and agonize for it, did not obtain it, and they were left behind in darkness, and their places were immediately filled by others taking hold of the truth and coming into the ranks. Evil angels still pressed around them, but could have no power over them.

"I heard those clothed with the armor speak forth the truth with great power. It had effect. Many had been bound; some wives by their husbands, and some children by their parents. The honest who had been prevented from hearing the truth now eagerly laid hold upon it. All fear of their relatives was gone, and the truth alone was exalted to them. They had been hungering and thirsting for truth; it was dearer and more precious than life. I asked what had made this great change. An angel answered, ‘It is the latter rain, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord, the loud cry of the third angel.’

"Great power was with these chosen ones. Said the angel, ‘Look ye!’ My attention was turned to the wicked, or unbelievers. They were all astir. The zeal and power with the people of God had aroused and enraged them. Confusion, confusion, was on every side. I saw measures taken against the company who had the light and power of God. Darkness thickened around them; yet they stood firm, approved of God, and trusting in Him. I saw them perplexed; next I heard them crying unto God earnestly. Day and night their cry ceased not: ‘Thy will, O God, be done! If it can glorify Thy name, make a way of escape for Thy people! Deliver us from the heathen around about us. They have appointed us unto death; but Thine arm can bring salvation.’ These are all the words which I can bring to mind. All seemed to have a deep sense of their unworthiness and manifested entire submission to the will of God; yet, like Jacob, every one, without an exception, was earnestly pleading and wrestling for deliverance.

"Soon after they had commenced their earnest cry, the angels, in sympathy, desired to go to their deliverance. But a tall, commanding angel suffered them not. He said, ‘The will of God is not yet fulfilled. They must drink of the cup. They must be baptized with the baptism.’

"Soon I heard the voice of God, which shook the heavens and the earth. There was a mighty earthquake. Buildings were shaken down on every side. I then heard a triumphant shout of victory, loud, musical, and clear. I looked upon the company, who, a short time before, were in such distress and bondage. Their captivity was turned. A glorious light shone upon them. How beautiful they then looked! All marks of care and weariness were gone, and health and beauty were seen in every countenance. Their enemies, the heathen around them, fell like dead men; they could not endure the light that shone upon the delivered, holy ones. This light and glory remained upon them, until Jesus was seen in the clouds of heaven, and the faithful, tried company were changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, from glory to glory. And the graves were opened, and the saints came forth, clothed with immortality, crying, ‘Victory over death and the grave’; and together with the living saints they were caught up to meet their Lord in the air, while rich, musical shouts of glory and victory were upon every immortal tongue." — Early Writings pp. 269-273.
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Source: http://www.everythingimportant.org/seventhdayAdventists/TestimoniesOfTruth.htm