Saturday, September 18, 2010

The U.S. at the U.N. and Beyond: A World of Transnational Challenges


Esther Brimmer
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Organization Affairs
Johns Hopkins School of International Studies

Washington, DC

September 15, 2010

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I am particularly honored to be here on the eve of the 65th General Assembly. For the United States, for President Obama and the Administration, the upcoming UN General Assembly session is an opportunity to take stock, and to measure progress and the global impact of the President’s new era of engagement.

Over the past 18 months, the President’s repositioning of the United States internationally has both strengthened our security through concrete actions, and revitalized the multilateral system, giving hope to many around the globe.

The United States is meeting the challenges of our times by rolling up our sleeves and embracing the responsibilities outlined by the President last September at the UN, "to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad."

We are at the table and leading by example as we work together with international partners, including the UN, to address the common challenges we face.

We know that working with international organizations is a fundamental part of modern diplomacy. International organizations are places to find common solutions to complex problems.
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As the President said during his Nobel lecture, "Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure—and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one."

In this case, a few bad actors, particularly Iran and North Korea, remain defiant in their non-compliance and threaten international peace and security. That is why it is imperative that the international community join the U.S. in holding Iran and North Korea accountable for violating their international obligations.
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Our fundamental long term commitment to universal human rights is clear. We support strengthening the UN's response to human rights concerns, and weaving human rights protection into its work across the UN system.
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As Secretary Clinton has stated, "We advance our security, our prosperity, and our values by improving the material conditions of people's lives around the world."

The upcoming General Assembly session and the High Level MDG plenary, which will meet immediately preceding this session, provide an opportunity to build on the President’s commitment to development and highlight American leadership in working with the international community to meet the MDG’s 2015 targets.
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Read whole article: http://www.state.gov/p/io/rm/2010/147232.htm
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The warning message is to be sounded in all parts of the world

A moment of respite has been graciously given us of God. Every power lent us of heaven is to be used in doing the work assigned us by the Lord for those who are perishing in ignorance. The warning message is to be sounded in all parts of the world. . . . A great work is to be done, and this work has been entrusted to those who know the truth for this time.

Review and Herald, 11-23-1905


Friday, September 17, 2010

NYC Tornado Unconfirmed Following Short, Violent Storm In City


National Weather Service investigating tornado claims

By Jack Phillips
Epoch Times Staff Created: Sep 17, 2010 Last Updated: Sep 17, 2010

NYC Tornado Unconfirmed: New Yorkers on Thursday and Friday were wondering if a tornado had touched down in the city. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

NEW YORK—A storm blew through New York City with violent force, and was over in 20 minutes, leaving New Yorkers wondering if a tornado had touched down.

A brief and violent struck down in the New York City on Thursday evening and National Weather Service (NWS) is investigating whether or not it was a tornado that had struck down. The NWS had issued a tornado warning for Queens and Staten Island on Thursday, Sept. 17 before the storm. Related Articles

"Every street we turned, there were trees down, power lines down,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show on the following Friday morning.

Lightning crashed and thunder roared for a few minutes and a wall of wind and water passed through the city, reportedly tearing roofs off houses, tearing up trees, and knocking down power lines.

A tree which was blown down struck and killed a woman sitting in a parked car in Queens.

Following the chaos, the sound of police and emergency vehicle sirens spread throughout the city.

Queens Boulevard traffic coming from Manhattan to Queens was backed up for miles, as people honked their horns incessantly. One resident said it took them almost two hours to get from Midtown Manhattan to Queens.

According to the Associated Press, 29,000 customers, the bulk of which were in Queens, lost power and crews were still working to restore it on Friday morning.

Tornado Unconfirmed

“No confirmation [of a tornado] has been made yet,” said John Murray, a weather service meteorologist, told Bloomberg News. “Once they go out there they will take note of the damage and come back later today and write up a summary. It will probably be early evening before a determination is made.”

Tornados are usually only thought of as occurring in the Midwest, but as unexpected as it may sound, one or two twisters hit the New York area every year.

Murray added that the weather service radar found that there was a circular rotation in the storm but a funnel cloud has to touch the ground before it is officially called a tornado.
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Pray for me? Or, Pray for Justice?


'Pray for me': The Pope told the thousands of children who gathered to pray for him and he would pray for them.


http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/8400044._Become_saints___Pope_urges_young_people_on_Twickenham_visit/

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As he parades from place to place in Britain, throngs of people flock to see the pope:

The Bishop of Rome asked a crowd of children...

Pray for me?

We will certainly pray for you. Pray that the Lord rewards you a double portion of what you wish those children, their parents in Britain, and the rest of God's creation.

What baffles and perplexes me is that in the face of the continual sexual molestations, the revelations of priests having sodomized little boys, along with the systematic protection of the pedophile priests that commit these diabolical atrocities; And still droves of ignorant people turn out to welcome and adore a leader of such a church? Instead of protesting the abominable crimes that this man's clerics perpetrate on a "global scale", with a carte blanche from all the authorities that supposedly are in place to protect the weakest of all citizens, children? Can anyone hear their screams, their sorrows, or feel their pain [where's Bill Clinton?]? Can anyone see a hypocrisy, a double standard? All this pomp and ceremony for the pontiff, when all other religions that are accused of such behavior is raided, destroyed, or persecuted; To name a few, David Koresh - Branch Dravidians in Waco; Warren Jeffs -Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church) "compound" in Schleicher County, Texas; Tony Alamo -Christian Ministries of Fouke and Alma, Arkansas. Yet, the bishop of Rome is allowed to travel the world at the people's expense with impunity? With the fanfare of a conquering Caesar! Who allows things like this to happen? Is this a conspiracy theory, or do the facts speak for themselves? Doesn't anyone besides me smell a foul rodent "odour".

When John Paul II came to St. Louis, Missouri, a few years ago, the youth chanted:

"JPII, we love you".

What blindness?

I wonder what jingle is really appropriate for Benedict 16?

"Benedict they won't convict".

Well, I guess griping won't achieve anything since prophecy states: "and all the world wondered after the beast" (Rev 13:3b). However, you have been informed of who this beast is, and should make sure that you don't also worship him or his image.

Yes, we will pray for deliverance; Our Almighty God to protect us from the man of sin, his cohort's dastardly deeds, and their tyrannical plans for humanity.

Heavenly Father send your guardian angels to protect the children! Forgive those ignorant parents who continue to place their little children in harm's way.

And, may "they", the pederast pedophiles receive what they deserve.

Arsenio.

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VIA UT ROMA - Road To Rome Part One



LTGblog June 10, 2009
Note: In these videos you will hear statements about the Catholic Church but in no way are these video demonizing the God fearing Bible believing Christians that dwell within any Sunday Church denominations. God in these last days is calling all His people out of paganism and spiritual Babylon, hence the bible verses;

Revelation 18 : 4-5 {KJV} And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

This video was uploaded to help those who are seeking to know more about the truth that is in the Bible.

This video contain valuable information about current day society and what exactly is going on. It is not an full re-search but a broad one that covers a lot of interesting facts Brought to you by http://amazingdiscoveries.org
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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Obama Endorses Global Taxes on Eve of U.N. Summit


Obama Endorses Global Taxes on Eve of U.N. Summit

By Cliff Kincaid September 16, 2010


Obama has been a major U.N. supporter since he was in the Senate and sponsored a bill, the Global Poverty Act (S 2433), to force U.S. compliance with the MDGs.In a classic case of misdirection, while the media are preoccupied with the fate of the Bush tax cuts, President Obama is preparing to attend a United Nations summit next week to endorse “innovative finance mechanisms”—global taxes—to drain even more wealth out of the U.S. economy.

A draft “outcome document” produced in advance of the September 20-22 U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) commits the nations of the world to supporting “innovative financing mechanisms” to supplement foreign aid spending.

The term “innovative financing mechanisms” is a U.N. euphemism for global taxes. But the document actually goes further, praising the “Task Force on International Financial Transactions for Development” for its work on the subject of mobilizing additional “resources” for countries to achieve the MDGs. This is a body tasked with proposing and implementing global tax schemes.

“We consider,” the document says, “that innovative financing mechanisms can make a positive contribution in assisting developing countries to mobilize additional resources for financing for development on a voluntary basis. Such financing should supplement and not be a substitute for traditional sources of financing.”

In other words, the revenue from global taxes should be in addition to foreign aid spending.

The document recognized the “considerable progress” made in this area, an acknowledgement that an international tax by some nations on airline tickets is already in effect and producing several billions of dollars of revenue for world organizations to fight AIDS and other diseases.

In an article in The Christian Science Monitor, under the headline, “Small global taxes would make a big difference for world’s ‘bottom billion,’” the foreign minister of France and other officials of foreign nations endorse various forms of “innovative development financing.” One of their proposals is a tax on international currency transactions that could generate $35 billion a year.

The proposal, popular at the United Nations for decades and long-advocated by Fidel Castro, is called the Tobin Tax and named after Yale University economist James Tobin. Steven Solomon, a former staff reporter at Forbes, said in his book, The Confidence Game, that such a proposal “might net some $13 trillion a year…” because it is based on taking a percentage of money from the trillions of dollars exchanged daily in global financial markets.

He is referring to the fact that once such a tax is in place, it could be easily raised to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars or more a year to the U.N. and other global institutions.

Such financial transactions through banks and other financial institutions are commonplace on behalf of Americans who have stock in mutual funds or companies that invest or operate overseas. Hence, such a global tax could affect the stocks, mutual funds, and pensions of ordinary Americans.

The term “small global taxes” brought a stunned reaction from Senator David Vitter, when he was told of what is being proposed in advance of the U.N. summit. Vitter introduced Senate resolution 461, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should reject any proposal for the creation of a system of global taxation and regulation,” to put the Senate on record against any such measure. He has vowed to maintain pressure on the world body to avoid implementing any of these schemes and thinks that the Congress has to use whatever financial leverage it has to frustrate U.N. demands for more power and authority in world affairs.

The Vitter resolution was sent to the liberal-controlled Senate Finance Committee, which declined to act on it.

Obama has been a major U.N. supporter since he was in the Senate and sponsored a bill, the Global Poverty Act (S 2433), to force U.S. compliance with the MDGs. Joseph Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tried to get it passed into law but ultimately failed.

As President, Obama is in a position to actively promote global taxation measures and clearly has done so. The “outcome document” his administration has already endorsed will be formally approved at next week’s summit.

The document affirms the so-called “Monterrey Consensus” that committed nations to spending 0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) on official development assistance (ODA), otherwise known as foreign aid. It says that “The fulfillment of all ODA commitments is crucial, including the commitments by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) for ODA to developing countries by 2015…”

Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.’s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the Millennium Development Goals, this amounts to $845 billion from the U.S. alone, according to Jeffrey Sachs of the U.N.’s Millennium Project.

“We have fully embraced the Millennium Development Goals,” Obama told the U.N. in 2009.


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Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org
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Source:
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obama-endorses-global-taxes-on-eve-of-u-n-summit/
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Crime blotter has a regular: Yankees caps

'It's a shame ... It makes us Yankees fans look like criminals'

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
Yankees caps seem to turn up on suspects and in police sketches more often than those from other teams.


By Manny Fernandez

updated 9/16/2010 3:45:59 AM ET
Two men and a woman broke into a locker at a Manhattan gym in February and stole credit cards, the first in a series of similar thefts.

Three months later, in May, a young man tried to rob a Chase bank in the Bronx armed with only a note, which he slipped to a teller. She read it and stepped away, and he fled empty-handed. Weeks later, in June, a gunman robbed a Family Dollar store in Queens.

Gym-locker heists, bank robberies, daylight holdups — these New York City crimes have only one thing in common, and it is not the culprits.

A curious phenomenon has emerged at the intersection of fashion, sports and crime: dozens of men and women who have robbed, beaten, stabbed and shot at their fellow New Yorkers have done so while wearing Yankees caps or clothing.

One of the three suspects in the gym break-ins wore a blue Yankees cap. A security camera photographed the man who tried to rob the Bronx bank, and though his face was largely obscured, his Yankees hat was clearly visible. The Queens robbery suspect was last seen with a Yankees cap on his head.

Gangsta rap link?
In some ways, it is not surprising that Yankees attire is worn by both those who abide by the law and those who break it. The Yankees are one of the most famous franchises in sports, and their merchandise is widely available and hugely popular.

But Yankees caps and clothing have dominated the crime blotter for so long, in so many parts of the city and in so many types of offenses, that it defies an easy explanation. Criminologists, sports marketing analysts, consumer psychologists and Yankees fans have developed their own theories, with some attributing the trend to the popularity of the caps among gangsta rappers and others wondering whether criminals are identifying with the team’s aura of money, power and success.

Since 2000, more than 100 people who have been suspects or persons of interest in connection with serious crimes in New York City wore Yankees apparel at the time of the crimes or at the time of their arrest or arraignment. The tally is based on a review of New York Police Department news releases, surveillance video and images of robberies and other crimes, as well as police sketches and newspaper articles that described suspects’ clothing. No other sports team comes close.

The Mets, forever in the shadow of their Bronx rivals, are perhaps grateful to be losing this one: only about a dozen people in the same review were found to be wearing Mets gear.

“It’s a shame,” said Chuck Frantz, 57, the president of the 430-member Lehigh Valley Yankee Fan Club in Pennsylvania. “It makes us Yankees fans look like criminals, because of a few unfortunate people who probably don’t know the first thing about the Yankees.”

The Yankees organization declined to comment for this article.

Antisocial behavior has no dress code; people wear what they please when they please, whether they are going to see a movie or going to rob a bank. And in New York City, that often means Yankees attire, regardless of the hour or the season.

In April 2008, on the day after the Boston Red Sox defeated the Yankees in the Bronx, a man in a Yankees cap robbed a bank about a mile from Yankee Stadium. The woman who robbed a Manhattan bank on July 7 was diplomatic in her clothing choices: she wore an orange Mets cap and a gray Yankees T-shirt.

Three gunmen burst into an apartment in Washington Heights on July 23, bound the hands and feet of the tenants and left with cash. A surveillance video released by the police and broadcast on television showed one of the suspects in a Yankees cap — one of the most iconic brands in sports represented, however briefly, by someone accused of helping tie up a 9-year-old girl.

In 2007, after activists protested the sale of Yankees caps that bore the colors and symbols associated with three gangs, Major League Baseball’s official cap manufacturer pulled the headwear, and the Yankees said in a statement that they were unaware of the caps’ symbolism.

Yankees caps have even played a central role in a few crimes. One day in 2003, a fight over a missing Yankees cap broke out between two brothers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. One brother, an ex-convict, ended up stabbing and killing the other.

One criminologist said the trend might be a result of what could be called the Jay-Z effect.

The rapper Jay-Z has worn a Yankees cap for years — on his album covers and in his videos — and has helped turn the cap into a ubiquitous fashion accessory for urban youths (“I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can,” he boasts in one song).

'Street rep'
Criminals might be wearing Yankees merchandise not because they are fans of the team, but because they are fans of the cocked-hat look popularized by Jay-Z and other rappers, said the criminologist, Frankie Y. Bailey, an associate professor at the University at Albany, who is writing a book about the role of clothing and style in criminal cases.

“He wears it and makes it look cool,” Ms. Bailey said of Jay-Z and the cap. “It’s almost like the Yankees have acquired a kind of street rep, a coolness.”

It is but one of several theories. Sports marketing analysts say it is a matter of numbers: the Yankees sell more merchandise than any other baseball team. As of August, they hold a 25.13 percent market share of nationwide sales of merchandise licensed by Major League Baseball, with the Red Sox second at 7.96 percent and the Mets seventh at 5.32 percent, according to SportsOneSource, a firm that tracks the sporting goods industry.

For criminals outside New York, the team’s caps and clothing are nearly as popular.

The man who robbed a Chase branch in a Chicago suburb in May wore a Yankees cap. In July, a young man in a Yankees cap assaulted an 81-year-old woman in her home, about 2,800 miles from Yankee Stadium, in Seattle.

“Why people pick the Yankees over the Mariners, I don’t know,” said Detective Mark Jamieson, a Seattle police spokesman. “It just happened to be an article of clothing he was wearing on that particular day.”

And Yankees caps hold a distinguished place in the annals of crime: the man who robbed more banks than anyone else in American history wore one. Edwin Chambers Dodson, known as the Yankee Bandit because he wore a Yankees cap and sunglasses during most of his holdups, robbed 72 banks in Southern California in the early 1980s and the late 1990s.

Mr. Dodson, who died in 2003, was a fan of the team. “We did everything we could to get this guy,” said William J. Rehder, 69, a retired special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who was the longtime coordinator of bank robbery investigations in the Los Angeles area.

Mr. Rehder not only named the Yankee Bandit, but helped put him behind bars twice. “I couldn’t figure out why he was so lucky,” he said. “I didn’t attribute anything to the cap, but I’m sure he did.”

Mr. Rehder, now a security consultant in Los Angeles, is a Dodgers fan. Nevertheless, he keeps an old, worn Yankees cap on a shelf in his office at home. Mr. Rehder never wears it. It belonged to the Yankee Bandit.

This story, " Crime Blotter Has a Regular: Yankees Caps," originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright © 2010 The New York Times
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39206923/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/?GT1=43001
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Police: Hopkins gunman shot himself and relative


AP – A police vehicle arrives at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where a shooting was reported, Sept. 16, 2010. Baltimore …

By ALEX DOMINGUEZ, Associated Press Writer Alex Dominguez, Associated Press Writer – 7 mins ago

BALTIMORE – A gunman who wounded a doctor at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore and then holed up inside a room has shot and killed himself and a relative during a standoff with authorities, police said Thursday.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Associated Press that the suspect and his relative died in a hospital room.

The standoff lasted more than 2 hours.

Guglielmi said earlier that he did not know the relationship between the gunman — described as a man in his 30s — and the doctor. The hospital said in a statement that the doctor is a faculty physician but that it could not release more information because of privacy policies.

The doctor was shot in the stomach but was expected to survive, Guglielmi said.

"The doctor will be OK," Guglielmi said. "He's in the best place in the world — at Johns Hopkins hospital."

Michelle Burrell, who works in a coffee shop in the hospital lobby, said she was told by employees who were on the floor where the doctor was shot that the gunman was angry with the doctor's treatment of his mother.

"Basically, he was upset about his mother being paralyzed by the doctor," Burrell said. "It's crazy."

A small area of the hospital had been locked down before the gunman died, as about a dozen officers wearing vests and helmets and carrying assault weapons prepared to go into the hospital at midday. Guglielmi said the gunman had not taken any hostages, and people with appointments in other parts of the hospital were encouraged to keep them.

The FBI was assisting Baltimore police, said FBI spokesman Richard J. Wolf.

Hopkins spokesman Gary Stephenson said the gunman was on the eighth floor of the Nelson building, the main hospital tower. Guglielmi said the situation was contained to that part of the hospital, and no people had been locked in rooms or otherwise in danger.

According to the Hopkins website, the eighth floor is home to orthopedic, spine, trauma and thoracic services.

The rest of the massive hospital, research and medical education complex remained open, including the emergency department.

With more than 30,000 employees, Johns Hopkins Medicine is among Maryland's largest private employers and the largest in Baltimore. The hospital has more than 1,000 beds and more than 1,700 full-time doctors.

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Associated Press writer Ben Nuckols contributed to this report.

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100916/ap_on_re_us/us_hopkins_shooting;_ylt=AqEJyC8llKAKZ4tsLR.JXjhvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTJra2xyMDBhBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwOTE2L3VzX2hvcGtpbnNfc2hvb3RpbmcEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA2Z1bGxuYnNwc3Rvcg--
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The New Old World Order


September 2, 2010 12:00 A.M.

The New Old World Order

A global shift to past politics also signals a return to past solutions like free markets and strong borders.

The post–Cold War New World Order is rapidly breaking apart. Nations are returning to the ancient passions, rivalries, and differences of past centuries.

Take Europe. The decades-old vision of a united pan-continental Europe without borders is dissolving. The cradle-to-grave welfare dream proved too expensive for Europe’s shrinking and aging population.

Cultural, linguistic, and economic divides between Germany and Greece, or Holland and Bulgaria, remain too wide to be bridged by fumbling bureaucrats in Brussels. NATO has devolved into a euphemism for American expeditionary forces.

Nationalism is returning, based on stronger common ties of language, history, religion, and culture. We are even seeing the return of a two-century-old European “problem”: a powerful Germany that logically seeks greater political influence commensurate with its undeniable economic superiority.

The tired Israeli-Palestinian fight over the future of the West Bank is no longer the nexus of Middle East tensions. The Muslim Arab world is now more terrified by the re-emergence of a bloc of old familiar non-Arabic, Islamic fundamentalist rivals.

With nuclear weapons, theocratic Iran wants to offer strategic protection to radical allies such as Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and at the same time restore Persian glory. While diverse, this rogue bunch shares contempt for the squabbling Sunni Arab world of rich but defenseless Gulf petro-sheikdoms and geriatric state authoritarians.

Turkey is flipping back to its pre-20th-century past. Its departure from NATO is not a question of if, but when. The European Union used to not want Turkey; now Turkey does not want the shaky EU.

Turkish revisionism now glorifies the old Ottoman sultanate. Turkey wants to recharge that reactionary model as the unifier and protector of Islam — not the modern, vastly reduced secular state of Kemal Ataturk. Weak neighbors Armenia, Cyprus, Greece, and Kurdistan have historical reasons to tremble.

Japan’s economy is still stalled. Its affluent population is shrinking and aging. Elsewhere in the region, the Japanese see an expanding China and a lunatic nuclear North Korea. Yet Japan is not sure whether the inward-looking United States is still credible in its old promise of protection against any and all enemies.

One of two rather bleak Asian futures seems likely. Either an ascendant China will dictate the foreign policies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, or lots of new freelancing nuclear powers will appear to deter China since it cannot count on an insolvent U.S. for protection.

Oil-rich Russia — deprived of its Communist-era empire — seems to find lost imperial prestige and influence by being for everything that the U.S. is against. That translates into selling nuclear expertise and material to Iran, providing weapons to provocative states such as Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and bullying neighbors over energy supplies.

Closer to home, Mexico has become a strange sort of friend. It devolves daily into a more corrupt and violent place than Iraq or Pakistan. The fossilized leadership in Mexico City shows no interest in reforming, either by opening its economy or liberalizing its political institutions.

Instead, Mexico’s very survival for now rests on cynically exporting annually a million of its impoverished and unhappy citizens to America. More interested in money than in its own people, the Mexican government counts on the more than $20 billion in remittances that return to the country each year.

But American citizens are tired of picking up the tab to subsidize nearly 15 million poor illegal aliens. The growing hostility between the two countries is reminiscent of 19th-century tensions across the Rio Grande.

How is America reacting to these back-to-the-future changes?

Politically divided, committed to two wars, in a deep recession, insolvent, and still stunned by the financial meltdown of 2008, our government seems paralyzed. As European socialism implodes, for some reason a new statist U.S. government wants to copy failure by taking over ever more of the economy and borrowing trillions more to provide additional entitlements.

As panicky old allies look for American protection, we talk of slashing our defense budget. In apologetic fashion, we spend more time appeasing confident enemies than buttressing worried friends.

Instead of finishing our border fence and closing the southern border, we are suing a state that is trying to enforce immigration laws that the federal government will not apply. And as sectarianism spreads abroad, we at home still pursue the failed salad bowl and caricature the once-successful American melting pot.

But just as old problems return, so do equally old solutions. Once-stodgy ideas like a free-market economy, strong defense, secure borders, and national unity are suddenly appearing fresh and wise.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. © 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/245416/new-old-world-order-victor-davis-hanson

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The 9/11 Anniversary and What Didn't Happen

Photo (Courtesy) http://flapsblog.com/2010/09/08/danish-muhammad-cartoonist-kurt-westergaard-praised-by-german-chancellor-angela-merkel-at-awards-ceremony/

By Scott Stewart September 16, 2010

Sept. 11, 2010, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, was a day of solemn ceremony, remembrance and reflection. It was also a time to consider the U.S. reaction to the attack nine years ago, including the national effort to destroy al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in order to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks. Of course, part of the U.S. reaction to 9/11 was the decision to invade Afghanistan, and the 9/11 anniversary also provided a time to consider how the United States is now trying to end its Afghanistan campaign so that it can concentrate on more pressing matters elsewhere.

The run-up to the anniversary also saw what could have been an attempted terrorist attack in another Western country. On Sept. 10 in Denmark, a potential bombing was averted by the apparent accidental detonation of an improvised explosive device in a bathroom at a Copenhagen hotel. The Danish authorities have not released many details of the incident, but it appears that the suspect may have been intending to target the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which has been targeted in the past because it published cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed in 2005. Groups such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have tried hard to ensure that the anger over the cartoon issue does not die down, and it apparently has not. It is important to note that even if the perpetrator had not botched it, the plot - at least as we understand it so far - appears to have involved a simple attack plan and would not have resulted in a spectacular act of terrorism.

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The 9/11 Anniversary and What Didn't Happen is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
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Dispatch: Venezuela's Bolivarian Militia Deployed

Dispatch: Venezuela's Bolivarian Militia Deployed
September 14, 2010 2028 GMT
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Read more: Dispatch: Venezuela's Bolivarian Militia Deployed STRATFOR




Analyst Reva Bhalla examines the increasing role of Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Militia as elections approach and economic conditions deteriorate.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to http://www.stratfor.com/

Source:
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100914_dispatch_venezuelas_bolivarian_militia_deployed?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100916&utm_content=watchvideo&elq=b298cc2db2b149c7948ec3128ca4e7bc
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George Washington’s Conversion to Catholicism


George Washington’s Conversion to Catholicism

By Ben Emerson

George Washington, the first president of the United States, served from 1789 to 1797 in that capacity. A popular slogan concerning him was that he was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

On December 13, 1799, Washington (aged 67 years) was exposed to a storm of sleet and developed a cold. He rested in bed at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

On the morning of the 14th at 3:00, he had a severe attack of membranous croup. At daybreak, Mrs. Washington sent for the only physician, Dr. Craik. Two other physicians also came, but all three together could not save him. Washington died between 10:00 and 11:00 that night.

About four hours before Washington’s death, Father Leonard Neale, a Jesuit priest was called to Mount Vernon from St. Mary’s Mission across the Piscataway River. Washington had been an Episcopalian, but was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church that night. After Washington’s death, a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and one of St. John were found among the effects on an inventory of articles at his home

George Washington had an interest in Roman Catholicism for many years. His servant Juba stated that the General made the Sign of the Cross before meals. He may have learned this practice from his Catholic lieutenants, John Fitzgerald or Stephen Moylan. At Valley Forge, Washington had forbidden during “Pope’s Day,” the burning in effigy of the Roman Pontiff. As President, Washington slipped into a Catholic Church several times to attend Sunday Mass.

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) praised George Washington highly in an encyclical Longinque Oceani of January 6, 1893, to the bishops of America: “We highly esteem and love exceedingly the young and vigorous American nation, in which we plainly discern latent forces for the advancement alike of civilization and of Christianity. . . Without morality the State cannot endure – a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom we have just mentioned [‘the great Washington’] with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. . . Thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and the government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance.” Washington was a student of the writings on political philosophy of St. Robert Bellarnine and St. Thomas Aquinas. George Washington, James Madison, and some of the other Founding Fathers incorporated into the Constitution in 1787 some of these two saints’ ideas about how to set up a Republic.

In a like manner, Thomas Jefferson had studied these saints and incorporated some of their concepts into the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

A question, therefore, the reader can pose to friends is as follows: Who was the first man who served as U.S. President, who was at the time of his death a Roman Catholic? Most people will say John F. Kennedy, but the correct answer is George Washington, the Father of our Country.


Resource: MSN Money Central Posting
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Pope on UK Visit Admits Failures in Abuse Scandal

Pope Benedict XVI in UK for historic 4-day visit, admits church failures in sex abuse scandal
The Associated Press
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer
EDINBURGH, Scotland September 16, 2010 (AP)



Pope Benedict XVI began a controversial visit to Britain on Thursday by acknowledging the Catholic Church had not acted decisively or quickly enough against priests who molested children. He said the church's top priority now was to help abuse victims heal.

The pope's comments to reporters traveling with him from Rome marked his most thorough admission to date of church failures to stop pedophile priests, but they again failed to satisfy victims' groups. The issue has reignited with recent revelations of hundreds of victims in Belgium, including at least 13 of whom committed suicide.

Benedict's four-day state visit has been overshadowed by disgust over the abuse scandal and indifference in highly secular Britain, where Catholics are a minority at 10 percent and endured centuries of bloody persecution until the early 1800s.

The pope's first meeting was with Queen Elizabeth II, both head of state and head of the Church of England, at The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Benedict was warmly welcomed by the queen, who wore a blue-gray knee-length coat and matching hat and gloves, as tartan-wearing bagpipers marched and thousands of people watched under blustery, cloud-streaked blue skies. The pontiff himself donned a green tartan scarf as he rode through Edinburgh in the Popemobile.

Later, he enjoyed a very Scottish treat: a lunch of haggis — sheep heart, liver and lungs simmered in sheep stomach — at the home of Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien.

The queen told Benedict that his visit reminded all Britons of their common Christian heritage and said she hoped relations between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church would be deepened as a result.

She also praised the Catholic Church's "special contribution" to helping the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world.

"We know from experience that through committed dialogue, old suspicions can be transcended and a greater mutual trust encouraged," she said. "We hold that freedom to worship is at the core of our tolerant and democratic society."

The pope, too, recalled the shared Christian heritage of Catholics and Anglicans and said he wanted to extend a "hand of friendship" to the British people during his trip.


Read More: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=11650578

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

They Have Made Void Thy Law






by Al Remington August 31, 2010

“Under fascism, property owners may keep their property titles and deeds, but the use of their property is, as Leo XIII wrote, “common”. Fascism is a form of socialism that retains the forms and trappings of capitalism, but not it’s substance. Under fascism, property titles and deeds are intact, but the institution of private property has disappeared. Government regulations and mandates have replaced it. For this distinction between legal ownership and actual use, the fascists owe a debt to the Roman Church-State.”

God’s laws are not to be tampered with, but one by one the Ten Commandments are being attacked and made void. Every precept of God has been marginalized and reduced. They are being wiped out of our constitutions and international laws. In this DVD{http://amazingdiscoveries.tv/media/594/TheyHaveMadeVoidThyLaw/ }, you will learn alarming news about the new fascist human rights laws, (property “rights” laws) and Roman Catholic natural law touted by the UN and the Papacy as the answer to the world’s problems.”


Source: http://candidconservatives.com/they-have-made-void-thy-law-part-i/
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They Have Made Void Thy Law, Part 2
by Al Remington September 11, 2010

In this DVD, we discover that the international community has been coerced into rewriting God’s laws and that it has become forbidden to practice God’s laws, to pray in Jesus’ name, to worship God on His Sabbath, and even to raise Jesus up as the Son of God. According to law, Jesus must be placed on the same level as false gods and false prophets. See what astounding efforts have been made to set up the legal right to replace Jesus the Son of God with the false new age christ. More information is also provided on Roman Catholic economic thought and its impact on today’s economic and political state.

(141 minutes)

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Source: http://candidconservatives.com/they-have-made-void-thy-law-part-2/

CARITAS IN VERITATE or One World Government


Jul 8, 2009 at 11:34 AM

Veritas




ENCYCLICAL LETTER CARITAS IN VERITATE OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF BENEDICT XVI - June 29th, 2009
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html



While there is much that is good in this letter, in that it lays out many of the world's ills with clarity, and has some useful answers, I take issue with one major finding. The letter calls for “a true world political authority”, or in other words, One World Government. This is the outmoded doctrine of the 1920s, of people like Jean Monnet1 which lead to the establishment of the European Union with its seemingly unstoppable aspiration of centralised power in Europe, through the EU government.

There is much wrong with Nation States, but a great deal right with them when they cooperate together for the global good. This can be seen in a small way, in the way that NATO has maintained peace in Europe for the last 60 years, through the agreement of cooperating sovereign states.

Thank God that we had one sovereign Nation State left in Europe, that thought differently enough to oppose the One World Government ambitions of Adolf Hitler. Despite the shortcomings of Nation States, their very existence, not under the power of One World Government, guarantees that some will disagree with the Empire building aspirations of others, when that becomes tyrannical, and will fight when that option becomes the last resort.

If Nation States are the problem, “a true world political authority” is not the answer. As the letter states, “such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights”. The only way that it can have effective power is for it to be supra-national. One of the driving forces behind Monnet's plan for the United States of Europe, was the failure of the League of Nations, as it lacked supra-national power, because it was just an intergovernmental organisation.

The letter suggests that the problem of tyranny can be avoided:

Para 57 In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together. Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way, if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice.

So it needs ultimate authority, but must also contain some clauses of subsidiarity. The Pontiff doesn't see the conflicting nature of that proposal. It is either in charge, or others are in charge of it. There is no middle ground. The EU plays that game very well, allowing its states to legislate, through subsidiarity, for only minor unimportant issues. All major issues and legislation are the province of the supra-national body. As Monnet said, when he realised that an organisation without total power would be a failure: “I was impressed with the power of a nation that can say no to an international body that has no supranational power. Goodwill between men and nations is not enough.2”

No, Pontiff Benedict, One World Government is not the answer to this difficult problem.

Note 1. Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter held senior positions in The League of Nations after The Great War. These two friends, a frenchman and a British Civil Servant between them sketched out the original blueprint for the “United States of Europe” with Monnet's influence extending all the way up to his death in 1979.

2. The Great Deception, Booker and North, Continuum, 2005, page 19

(Minor edit July 9th)
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Caritas in Veritate: EPP Group holds structural dialogue with Churches

Conference on the Encyclical 'Caritas in Veritate'
Joseph Daul MEP (France), Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament (in the middle), (r-l) Othmar Karas MEP (Austria), Vice-Chairman of the EPP Group responsible for intercultural activities, László Tőkés MEP (EPP Group, Romania), Vice-President of the European Parliament, Paolo Licandro, Deputy Secretary-General of the EPP Group, HE Archbishop André Dupuy, Apostolic Nuncio to the European Union, Father Piotr Mazurkiewicz, General Secretary of the Commission of Bishops' Conferences of the European Communities (COMECE), and Győrgy Hőlvényi, EPP Group Secretariat

Brussels, 14 September 2010

Caritas in Veritate: EPP Group holds structural dialogue with Churches

In conjunction with COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops' Conference of the European Community, the EPP Group in the European Parliament organised a dialogue on the encyclical 'Caritas in Veritate' (Charity in Truth) on the occasion of the first anniversary of its publication.

Joseph Daul MEP, Chairman of the EPP Group, László Tőkes MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Othmar Karas MEP, Vice-Chairman of the EPP Group responsible for inter-religious dialogues, Archbishop André Dupuy, Apostolic Nuncio to the EU, and Father Piotr Mazurkwiewicz, General Secretary of COMECE and many other clergy, scholars and politicians participated in this dialogue.

'Caritas in Veritate' is the first social encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI and concerns the problems of global development and progress. Participants debated subjects such as 'Is a culture without values possible?', 'Family as the key for the future', 'Economy and civil society' and 'Development and environment'.

Joseph Daul MEP strongly supports the dialogue between the EPP Group and Churches and other religious organisations and will continue to deepen this special relationship. The Group is seeking to find common ground through open discussions between politicians and the representatives of Churches on current and future challenges facing European citizens and their governments. "It is important to seek common values and defend those values and fight against extremism, whether it be from the left or the right", he said.

Othmar Karas MEP said: "We have to broaden our network and get to know our allies. We want to attract more people. I would say that Christian dialogue is like the Cross, which doesn't cross out, but connects. There are many Christians and baptised politicians, but not every Christian and every baptised politician is a bearer of the Christian doctrine. We want to confront politicians with our message and the Church, so that they find support and guidance in their political work."
Archbishop André Dupuy, Apostolic Nuncio to the EU, stressed that the Papal encyclical 'Caritas in Veritate' was not intended to be a blueprint for economical needs, but to give direction to build a more fraternal world.

COMECE General Secretary Father Priotr Mazurkiewicz said that the Church does not give technical solutions but deals with ethical progress in society. The challenge is not to give technical advice to politicians but to put the people and their actions at the forefront.

HE Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, President of the Conference of European Churches (CEC), said cultural and ethical aspects of the encyclical are not just ideas, but form the essence of Christianity. In his view, the current economical crisis was not just an inevitable disaster, but the result of a degeneration of values.

Professor Stefano Zamagni of the University of Bologna agreed with HE Metropolitan Emmanuel by saying that the world is suffering from a lack of thought. Social and economical aspects appear to be separate issues but in fact, they are much more interlinked than many people think. Corien Wortmann-Kool MEP, Vice-Chairwoman of the EPP Group responsible for economics and environment, said that for this very reason, the EPP Group is focusing on the EU 2020 Strategy to revitalise Europe's economy, and to ensure the inclusion of people. "Work is not only a production factor, but gives also the opportunity for people to participate in society. We have an obligation to stimulate this", said Wortmann-Kool.

László Tőkes MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament responsible for dialogue with Churches and religions and inter-cultural dialogue, concluded that European unity cannot be fulfilled without the participation of Churches and it cannot be fulfilled without their good cooperation."

More information on the conference
http://www.eppgroup.eu/Press/peve10/eve030_en.asp

Watch 'Religious institutions must be included in political dialogue' on
http://www.eppgroup.eu/tv/default.asp?vid_id=100915_event

For further information:
Eduard Slootweg, EPP Group Press & Communications Service, Tel: +32-475-721280

Notes to Editors:
The EPP Group is by far the largest political group in the European Parliament with 265 Members.

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Believe in God?


Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

James 2:19
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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Adventist Pastor/Biker Reaches Out at Motorcycle Event

Special edition of Steps to Christ handed out at Sturgis rally

BY MARK A. KELLNER, news editor

Hundreds of participants at the 2010 Sturgis motorcycle rally, held in and around Sturgis, South Dakota, in mid-August, could have collected any number of souvenirs, not to mention photos of activity at what is believed to be the nation’s largest biker event, with an estimated 600,000 
participants.

But along with whatever else they took home from the event, which celebrated its seventieth anniversary this year, about 1,200 bikers packed something else in their saddlebags: a special edition of Steps to Christ, Ellen G. White’s book on developing a relationship with God. The biker-themed book, titled Steps to Jesus: The Ride of Your Life, features a picture of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with an air cover on which a picture of Jesus is painted.

Combine the photo of a Harley with a stylized book logo on the cover, says Tom Hughes, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and motorcycle enthusiast from Zanesville and Newark, Ohio, and you’ve got something a biker won’t easily throw away. The 1,200 or so copies he and others handed out during the Sturgis rally are destined to be read, he maintains.


STURGIS WITNESS: From left, Adventist pastors Clarence McKey, Tom Hughes, and Brad Traxler are shown during the 2010 motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Working with local members and others, the pastors helped distribute approximately 1,200 copies of an edition of Steps to Christ aimed at bikers.

Hughes, 60, knows his bikes—and his bikers. He rode his own Harley the 1,300 miles from Ohio to South Dakota, and a similar distance back, in order to witness to people. A member of the Christian Motorcyclists Association, he worked with church-owned Review and Herald Publishing Association (RHPA) to develop the special giveaway book.

Hughes collaborated with RHPA executive Howard Scoggins, himself a motorcyclist. Other Steps to Christ editions are available for distribution to truckers and NASCAR fans. More than 43,500 copies of the biker edition have been printed so far, a total expected to more than triple over the next year, Scoggins said.

Why reach out to bikers? “Ninety percent of bikers are men, and 70 percent or more of them are unchurched,” Hughes said. “I just found a great big old fishing hole” in going to motorcycle rallies to witness, he added.

Hughes said bikers who travel to events such as the Sturgis rally are “looking to find an exhilarating experience—what they really need to find is Jesus.” He spoke of witnessing to one heavily tattooed biker who remonstrated that “God wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

The Adventist pastor said he assured the biker that God would very much want to reach out to him, and moments later the two were praying for the biker to receive Christ as Savior.

Hughes did not undertake his mission without help: the Ohio Conference has previously voted to designate him as an official “Motorcycle Evangelist,” and allows him to go to rallies such as the Sturgis event and a similar one in Daytona Beach, Florida. In South Dakota, Hughes said, he stayed with church members Raylene and Mike Connelly and worked with pastors Brad Traxler from Spearfish, South Dakota, and Clarence McKey from Rapid City, South Dakota, as well as independent Adventist evangelist Jim Wood. Traxler and McKey told Hughes they’ll continue the book distribution in coming years, he said.

As for Hughes, whose work has been featured on the church’s Hope Channel television programming, he said he would like to see pastors nationwide use the book to reach out to bikers, either one-on-one or by placing copies in hotels and restaurants during rallies. He also has a Web site, www.biblebiker.com, that details the outreach.

And while it was exhausting to work “12- to 14-hour days” during Sturgis and then ride 1,300 miles home “in 110-degree heat,” Hughes said the effort was worthwhile, for the simple “thrill of sharing Christ and seeing a biker come to Jesus.”

Source: http://www.adventistreview.org/article.php?id=3737
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Baptism battle over boy ends

Estranged wife agrees that her husband can baptize their son Catholic, and he agrees she can attend and choose her son's godmother

Attorney Jenet Pequeno, from left, client Victor Sarmiento and attorney Jeffery Leving leave court Thursday in Chicago's Daley Center. (Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune / September 8, 2010)


By Alejandra Cancino, Tribune reporter

6:56 p.m. CDT, September 9, 2010


Victor Sarmiento sat quietly in the back of a court room Thursday at the Daley Center as his estranged wife signed a custody agreement that would allow him to baptize his son in the Roman Catholic Church.

It was the culmination of a two-year custody battle that has drained the spirit — and wallet — of both parents. The latest delay in the custody fight came earlier this year, Lizette Perez said, when her estranged husband decided he wanted to baptize their 3-year-old boy.

Perez, a Seventh-day Adventist, said she was not opposed to the baptism; she just wanted to be part of it, "just as I would like to be there for all the important events in his life." She also wanted to choose the godparents because they play a key role in the child's religious upbringing.

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She said Sarmiento initially denied both requests, and it took the better part of the last six months to change his mind. She can attend the baptism. The other issues were settled in two sentences of the eight-page document: "Each parent agrees to allow the child to be baptized in their respective religions. Victor agrees that Lizette will name the child's godmother."

Sarmiento, who admits he's not always been very religious, said he started thinking about baptizing his son after the child of a close friend died. His friend regretted not baptizing his child, and Sarmiento started wondering if he should do it.

"If something happens to my child and he dies, I don't want that to be the first time he sees God," Sarmiento said.

He said he doesn't have a date for the baptism yet, but he's happy he can start planning.

The agreement also gives Perez sole custody of the boy, but Sarmiento will have time with his child each week. Their divorce proceedings continue.

Sarmiento's lawyers said the agreement represents more than a battle between two estranged parties. In their eyes, it is an issue of constitutional rights.

"It's about parents (who) want religious freedom," said Jeffery Leving, Sarmiento's attorney.

mcancino@tribune.com
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Pope pained by Belgian child sex scandal

By the CNN Wire Staff
September 13, 2010 5:18 p.m. EDT


Belgium's Catholic Church released a report detailing hundreds of assertions of abuse of children by clergy.

(CNN) -- A Vatican spokesman said Monday that Pope Benedict XVI feels much pain after revelations that members of the clergy were involved in widespread sexual abuse of children from the 1950s through the 1980s in Belgium.

"The publishing of this report is a new cause of pain for us, for the victims," Father Federico Lombardi said.

The announcement came after leaders of the church in Belgium said Catholic priests who abused children should tell their superiors.

"We want to repeat this call with force," said Bishop Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp. "It is to everyone's advantage that the abuser in a pastoral relationship communicates this fact to his superior" or to a new "center for investigation, healing and reconciliation," which he announced Monday.

The church has identified four experts to start preparatory work on the center, he said, but he did not name them.

Belgian church officials will begin interviews Tuesday as a follow-up to a church-backed investigation that detailed hundreds of assertions of sexual abuse of children by clergy and others working for the church from the 1950s into the late 1980s. It was led by Dr. Peter Adriaenssens, who is both a church investigator and a psychiatrist.

"From the mistakes of the past, we wish to take the necessary lessons," said Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, the head of the Catholic Church in Belgium. "In the interviews that will be conducted from tomorrow, we will consider the relevant reflexions and proposals of Professor Adriaenssens."

The process will take time, because "it is impossible to try to resolve these traumatic experiences too quickly," Leonard said.

It is to everyone's advantage that the abuser in a pastoral relationship communicates this fact to his superior.
--Bishop Johan Bonny

"We want to commit ourselves to giving the maximum support for the victims," he said. "We must listen to their questions in order to restore their dignity and help heal the suffering they have endured."

The commission said it received about 500 reports from alleged victims, about 60 percent of them from males.

It cited 320 alleged abusers, of whom 102 were known to have been clergy members from 29 congregations.

Thirteen of the alleged victims committed suicide, it said.

"We can say that not a single congregation escaped sexual abuse of minors by one or more of its members," the Commission on Church-Related Sexual Abuse Complaints said Friday.

"The stories they contain and suffering make us shudder," Leonard said.

Linda Opdebeeck told CNN that her abuse as a Belgian schoolgirl did not begin immediately.

"He had a little room at school, and when you had a problem, you could go to him," she said. "He was very charismatic; he was very friendly. I was alone. I didn't have brothers or sisters. I was an only child. I was fat, and I was lonely. So I went to him in his little room, and he listened to me, and I had a nice feeling. But a year later, he started to abuse me."

But Opdebeeck, now in her 40s, said she felt unable to tell anyone else what was going on.

"I knew I had to be silent because he was a friend of my parents," she said. "What could I say? He was always saying that I had to shut up or something bad would happen to me."

Years later, she confronted him but found little satisfaction. "There were three men at the table, and he was just telling that he didn't remember any more, and it wasn't so bad, and I had to feel pity because he was old," she said. "It seems to me that the victims are the abusers and the abusers are the victims when you hear them speaking about 'Just forgive us and continue your life.' "

The abuse, she said, has had an impact on her faith. "I try to separate my faith and the church, but it's very hard," she said. "Perhaps there is a God, but then he has nothing to do with all the men there. No. The church is finished."

In last week's report, investigators had information about when the abuse started for 233 of the alleged victims. Forty-eight were 12; one was 2; five were 4; eight were 5; seven were 6; ten were 7.

Of the 230 alleged victims about whom investigators said they had reliable information, more than 70 percent are currently between the ages of 40 and 70, it said. Ten percent are 31 to 40.

Four alleged victims are 20 to 30 years of age, and one is younger than 20, it said.

At the other end of the scale, five alleged victims are aged between 80 and 90 years old, and one is older than 90.

Belgian police raided Catholic Church headquarters in the country this year and questioned a cardinal over allegations of a cover-up by the church.

Belgian police questioned Gotfried Danneels, the country's former Catholic archbishop, for about 10 hours over accusations he knew of sexual abuse in the church but failed to stop it, the Belgian prosecutor's office said in July.

Danneels was being considered a witness but could become a suspect, prosecutor's spokesman Joseph Colain said.

Danneels, who was questioned July 5, could be interrogated again as the investigation continues, Colain said.

Danneels was archbishop of Belgium for more than 30 years before he stepped down in January.

Belgian police raided the national headquarters of the Catholic Church in June over allegations of child abuse, prompting an angry response from Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders.

Investigators seized archdiocese archives covering 25 years as well as personal computers and other personal possessions, said Fernand Keuleneer, a lawyer for the archdiocese.

Police raided Danneels' private residence and the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Belgium as a meeting of bishops was taking place.

They detained the bishops and other church employees -- even the cook -- for about nine hours, the Rev. Eric De Beukelaer said.

Members of a Belgian church commission that helps sexual abuse victims resigned en masse to protest the raid a week after it took place, said De Beukelaer, a spokesman for the Mechelen-Brussels Archdiocese.

The commission worked with people who have been abused by clergy members, said the spokesman.

The Belgian Prosecutor's Office said in July that it is investigating death threats against witnesses and magistrates involved in clergy child abuse cases.

The Vatican criticized the raids but reaffirmed its "strong condemnation of any sinful and criminal abuse of minors by members of the church."

It cited "the need to repair and confront such acts in conformity with the law and teachings of the Gospels."

The Catholic Church is facing allegations that clergy members abused children in at least half a dozen countries, including the pope's native Germany, as well as Belgium, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and the United States.

CNN's Alex Felton and Atika Shubert contributed to this report.
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Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" from the Perspective of Politics, Economics and Theology




Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" from the Perspective of Politics

14.09.2010
09:00 - 18:00

Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" from the Perspective of Politics, Economics and Theology

EPP-ED - Group of the European Peoples' Party and European Democrats
Rue Wiertz, 47-53
B-1047 Brussels
Phone: +32 (0)222 842234
Fax: +32 (0)223 06208
Email: epp-ed@europarl.eu.int

Link to the organizer: http://www.epp-ed.org/home/en/default.asp

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COMECE
19, Square de Meeûs
B - 1050 Bruxelles
Phone: +32 2 235 05 10
Fax: +32 2 230 33 34
Email: comece@comece.org

Link to the organizer: http://www.comece.org/
URL of Event:
http://www.comece.eu/content/site/en/activities/events/caritasinveritateconf/index.html?SWS=1ba360fb11c8bc12de6de4215cd27210

Type of Event
Conference / Convention

Policy Field of Event
European Integration, Institutions & Enlargement

Limitation
Registration required

Location of event
European Parliament, ASP building, 3rd Floor, Room 2
Brussels

Infos
The EPP Group in the European Parliament will be holding a conference, together with COMECE the theme of which will be the Encyclical letter 'Caritas in Veritate' from the perspective of Theology, Politics and Economy.


The conference will provide an opportunity for politicians working in the European Parliament, both clerical and lay professionals dealing with European politics, driven by a shared obligation towards Europe, to re-examine the key messages of the encyclical letter.

People
Joseph Daul, Chairman of the EPP Group; Laszlo Tokes, Vice-President of the European Parliament.
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Source: http://www.europeanagenda.eu/events/29293.php
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A warning to those who don't repent

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Revelation 22:14,15.
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Close of Probation Passes Unnoticed


But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 1 Thess. 5:1, 2.


The righteous and the wicked will still be living upon the earth in their mortal state--men will be planting and building, eating and drinking, all unconscious that the final, irrevocable decision has been pronounced in the sanctuary above. Before the flood, after Noah entered the ark, God shut him in, and shut the ungodly out; but for seven days the people, knowing not that their doom was fixed, continued their careless, pleasure-loving life, and mocked the warnings of impending judgment. "So," says the Savior, "shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Silently, unnoticed as the midnight thief, will come the decisive hour which marks the fixing of every man's destiny, the final withdrawal of mercy's offer to guilty men.

The people are fast being lulled to a fatal security, to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God.

The Lord in judgment will at the close of time walk through the earth, the fearful plagues will begin to fall. Then those who have despised God's word, those who have lightly esteemed it, shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. . . . The ministers of God will have done their last work, offered their last prayers, shed their last bitter tear for a rebellious church and an ungodly people.

The eye of Jesus, looking down the ages, was fixed upon our time when He said, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!" It is still thy day, O church of God, whom He has made the depositary of His law. This day of trust and probation is drawing to a close. The sun is fast westering. Can it be that it will set and thou wilt not know "the things which belong unto thy peace!"? Must the irrevocable sentence be passed, "But now they are hid from thine eyes" (Luke 19:42)?

Maranatha, E. G. White - Page 265.
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Monday, September 13, 2010

Imam Tells Elite Group He Is Considering “All Options” for Ground Zero Mosque

Written by Warren Mass
Monday, 13 September 2010 16:18


Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of an initiative to build an Islamic center and mosque two blocks from New York’s World Trade Center site, told the members of one of the nation’s most influential foreign policy think-tanks on September 13 that his group is exploring alternate options for the highly controversial project.

"We are exploring all options as we speak right now, and we are working to what will be a solution, God willing, that will resolve this crisis, defuse it and not create any unforeseen or untoward circumstances that we do not want to see happen," AP quoted Rauf as saying during a question-and-answer session following a speech before the internationalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Ground-zero Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf at the CFR (AP Images)

When questioned about the wisdom of building the center at the proposed location, Rauf replied that, despite the controversy, the location was important. "We need a platform where the voice of moderate Muslims can be amplified.... This is an opportunity that we must capitalize on so the voice of moderate Muslims will have a megaphone," AP quoted the imam.

Rauf also said he wanted to clarify a "misperception" that the proposed site was, as some claim, sacred ground, because of its proximity to a site where over 2,700 people died on September 11, 2001. "It is absolutely disingenuous as some have suggested that the block is hallowed ground," said Rauf, arguing that such claims were discounted by the existence of nearby strip clubs and betting parlors. As to whether the project was worth the intense amount of controversy it had generated, he answered: "The answer is a categorical yes. Why? Because this center will be a place for all faiths to come together in mutual respect."

A report in the New York Times quoted Rauf’s statement to those present at the CFR: “Everything is on the table. We really are focused on solving it” in a way that will be best for everyone concerned. “I give you my pledge.”

When a member of the influential foreign policy group asked Rauf if he would consider delaying the project as a means of allowing more time for public discussion about it, Rauf replied: “Our advisers have been looking at every option — including that.”

The Times reported that when CFR President Richard N. Haass asked Rauf why — even if the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists — “so many terrorists are Muslims,” the Imam replied that the problem had roots that are political, religious, and socioeconomic — but mainly political.

Rauf said that many Americans may sincerely not realize the distinction between Islam and the people who commit violence in its name. He seemed to offer an olive branch to those who may be opposed to the project, stating: “I’m not at all suggesting that people against the center are actually extremists. There is a lot of unawareness of Islam in this country.”

Despite Rauf’s conciliatory tone, the Times noted that he does not control the location of the proposed Islamic center, which will include a mosque, health club, and theater. Control of the center’s location is in the hands of real estate developer Sharif el-Gamal, who, along with his supporters, has said that merely moving the project’s location would not satisfy its critics.

Though most media reports of Rauf’s public appearance made mention of the Council on Foreign Relations, the only description of the policy group we found, other than its name, was a report in the religion section of northjersey.com that referred to the CFR as a “a think tank.”

While not entirely inaccurate, referring to the CFR as a mere “think tank” would be like calling the Federal Reserve System a “financial institution.” More accurate descriptions of the CFR appeared in the Sofia (Bulgaria) Echo for Apr 17, 2003, which called it, "The nation's most influential foreign-policy think tank," and an item from Inter Press Service of August 22, 2005 described it as the "most influential and prestigious think tank in America."

Even those descriptions are understated, considering what James Perloff (author of a major exposé on the CFR entitled Shadows of Power) noted in his article for The New American online of July 23, 2009:

Since the council’s founding in 1921, 21 secretaries of defense or war, 19 secretaries of the treasury, 17 secretaries of state, and 15 CIA directors have hailed from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Perloff could have also added (and did in The Shadows of Power) the many members of the CFR who have headed our nation’s major financial institutions, broadcast networks, major newspapers, and most prestigious universities.

Rauf’s opportunity to address such an influential “think tank” is perhaps indicative that his influence extends beyond what might usually be associated with the Imam of a single mosque in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. In addition to his role at the center of what has become a political firestorm and media circus, Rauf is a member of the World Economic Forum Council of 100 Leaders (for Islamic-West dialogue). Like the CFR, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum is among the most influential institutions promoting internationalism — a philosophy advocating the merger of world political and economic functions at the expense of national sovereignty.

cc: Photos: AP Images
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Is the Apocalypse Really Around the Corner?


by SodaHead News Posted 3 hours ago

It’s an enduring cliché of disaster movies: the lone, crazy ranting man with the long white beard wearing a sandwich board announcing, “The end is nigh!”

From Nostradamus to Jim Jones’ People’s temple to the Branch Davidians and the Heaven’s Gate clan, doomsday Chicken Littles have been predicting the end of time for, well, as long as there has been time.

But according to a recent report in the AFP, renowned economists are getting in on the action now, saying that the impending collapse of the world’s economy could send us all swirling down the celestial drain.

Vaunted economist Nouriel Roubini recently told an economic forum in Italy that the chaos created by the subprime mortgage lending meltdown, the collapse of the housing bubble, out of control deficit spending and high unemployment are pushing America to the brink of potential catastrophe.

"The U.S. has run out of bullets," Roubini said. "Any shock at this point can tip you back into recession."

And Roubini is not alone. Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, who was sounding the alarm about public deficit more than three decades ago, told an International Monetary Fund publication last week that the end might actually be nigh this time … for real.

Kotlikoff put together his own end-of-times scenario in which an economic battle between the U.S. and China – which holds more than $843 billion in U.S. treasury bonds – could wipe America off the map.

"A minor trade dispute between the United States and China could make some people think that other people are going to sell U.S. treasury bonds," he wrote. "That belief, coupled with major concern about inflation, could lead to a sell-off of government bonds that causes the public to withdraw their bank deposits and buy durable goods."

While other experts have called Kotlikoff’s scenario far-fetched, he said if it came to fruition there could be a run on banks and insurance policies that would tip the economic system into chaos. "In a short period of time, the Federal Reserve would have to print trillions of dollars to cover its explicit and implicit guarantees. All that new money could produce strong inflation, perhaps hyperinflation," he said. "There are other less apocalyptic, perhaps more plausible, but still quite unpleasant, scenarios that could result from multiple equilibria."

The StrategyOne Institute published a poll on Friday in which 65 percent of Americans said they believe there will be a new recession and another recent poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC showed that more than half of Americans believe our economic problems are structural, not just cyclical.

Do You Believe These Economic Doomsayers?
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Source: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/is-the-apocalypse-really-around-the-corner/question-1222177/
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