Monday, October 25, 2010

Mess in Rhode Island for Obama


WOONSOCKET, R.I. - President Barack Obama’s decision not to endorse the Democratic gubernatorial candidate here turned a routine campaign stop Monday into a political headache, complete with the candidate telling Obama to "shove it."

Putting personal loyalty before party politics, Obama decided not to endorse Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Frank Caprio, who represents the party’s best chance to seize an office Republicans have held for 16 years, and casting a shadow over the president’s first visit to the state since taking office. The non-endorsement, however, has been viewed as tacit Obama support for former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, an independent candidate who is running neck-and-neck with Caprio in a three-way race.

The presidential snub left Caprio fuming on a talk-radio show that Obama can take his endorsement and “shove it” – one of the harshest insults Obama has faced from a candidate all year. The candidate was a no-show when the president toured a local factory here, even though he had been invited by the White House. And instead of going to the two presidential-headlined Democratic fundraisers, Caprio spent the day doing his own tour of small businesses.

But the non-endorsement also triggered an outburst from the Democratic Governors Association, and left the White House seeking cover from the friendly fire.

“Out of respect for his friend Lincoln Chafee, the president decided not to get involved in this race,” spokesman Bill Burton told reporters during a briefing on Air Force One.
Pressed on how the White House can claim it is doing everything possible to help Democrats while the president stands on the sidelines of a competitive race, Burton stuck to the script: “The president's feeling is, he has respect for his friend Lincoln Chafee, and he’s not going to get involved in this race,” he said.

Chafee, a former Republican who is the son of longtime senator John Chafee, poses a dilemma for Obama. A moderate New England Republican who served with Obama in the Senate, he lost his bid for reelection in 2006. But just after leaving the GOP, he gave Obama a high-profile endorsement before the state’s 2008 presidential primary.

At the same time, however, Caprio, endorsed rival Hillary Clinton during her epic battle with Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton took the Rhode Island Democratic primary with 58 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, the national attention the scuffle has drawn all but overshadowed Obama’s original goal: Protecting the House seat being vacated by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat who is the son of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a close Obama ally. The younger Kennedy is retiring after eight terms in Congress; taking the seat would be a huge symbolic victory for Republicans.

Democrats are hosting fundraisers at the Rhode Island Convention Center and at the home of Arnold "Buff" Chace Jr. – a longtime Chafee supporter – to benefit House candidate David Cicilline and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Chafee spokesman Mike Trainor said Monday that Chafee wasn’t invited to any of Obama’s events, and the two haven’t spoken since Obama took office.

"We're independent, and we'd never expect to get an endorsement from another party," Trainor told POLITICO. "He did not solicit an endorsement in any shape or form."


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David Jeremiah's Prophecies



While listening to the radio early in the morning a few days ago, I heard Dr. David Jeremiah saying that the "coming" Anti-Christ will sacrifice a pig in the temple at Jerusalem. This is the strangest thing that I've ever heard. The station faded out since it was an out of state AM station, and when the signal returned the radio program had ended. Well, this morning I heard the same preacher David Jeremiah on a series called "The Coming Economic Armageddon" while listening to his radio program Turning Point. It seems as if I have again tuned in to the same series where Dr. Jeremiah is supposedly foretelling the events that will occur during the latter days before Jesus returns; Today he mentioned Revelation 14, specifically the Third Angel's Message which warns against worshiping or taking the mark:

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

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Verses 9 and 10.

Today I heard Dr. Jeremiah say that the true believers don't have to worry about taking 'his' mark (this implies they won't worship either) because they will have been raptured by then. What a cop-out? No wonder folks don't know what time it really is since they have theological scholars spreading such fallacies? Again, I caught only the tail end of this program, and it concluded; Then I heard the title of the program and the series and decided it was time for me to write about this topic.

I looked up David Jeremiah on the Internet and I found out he has replaced Tim LaHaye at Shadow Mountain Community Church; It was then that I realized that Dr. Jeremiah is drinking from the same fountain that Tim LaHaye, the author of the popular "Left Behind" series is drinking from; These are two of the many perpetrators that are spreading the Jesuit invented Rapture deception.

Arsenio.

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Here's the wiki article on Dr. David Jeremiah:

David Jeremiah
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


David Jeremiah
Born February 13, 1941 (1941-02-13) (age 69)
Toledo, Ohio, United States
Residence El Cajon, California
Nationality American
Education Cedarville University
Dallas Theological Seminary Completed Graduate work at Grace University Doctor of Divinity Cedarville College
Occupation Pastor
Author
Religion Evangelical Christian
Website
http://www.davidjeremiah.org/

Dr. David P. Jeremiah (born February 13, 1941 in Toledo, Ohio) is a conservative evangelical Christian author, evangelist, and currently the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, an evangelical megachurch in El Cajon, California, a suburb of San Diego.

Contents
1 Biography
2 Works
2.1 Books
2.2 Audio cassettes
2.3 Spanish
3 References
4 External links

Biography
Jeremiah holds a Bachelor's degree from Cedarville University (1963), a Master's degree in Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary (1967) He was also granted a Doctor of Divinity degree from Cedarville in 1981.[1]

Jeremiah succeeded former senior pastor, Tim LaHaye, at Shadow Mountain in 1981. Jeremiah's leadership of the church has led to an affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Jeremiah broadcasts a daily evangelical radio program on stations worldwide through his Turning Point Ministries, which he founded in 1982. The broadcast can also be heard online. He is the author of numerous books on Christian theology topics such as the rapture.

In 1994 and again in 1998, Jeremiah was diagnosed with lymphoma. In 1999, a nodule was surgically removed from his neck and he underwent stem cell transplant therapy.[2]

In 2003, he narrated the Christian slide-show Light of the World.

On May 12, 2010 his organization resigned from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability after an investigation of their financial records.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jeremiah
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Every email and website to be stored

Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans.

By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor
Published: 12:40PM BST 20 Oct 2010


The plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time Photo: GETTY IMAGES


It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.

Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.

The plans were shelved by the Labour Government last December but the Home Office is now ready to revive them.

It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".

Any suggestion of a central "super database" has been ruled out but the plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time.

That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism.

The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages.

The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which revealed: "We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.

"This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public.

"Communications data provides evidence in court to secure convictions of those engaged in activities that cause serious harm. It has played a role in every major Security Service counter­terrorism operation and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations.

"We will legislate to put in place the necessary regulations and safeguards to ensure that our response to this technology challenge is compatible with the Government’s approach to information storage and civil liberties."

But Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, said: "One of the early and welcome promises of the new Government was to ‘end the blanket storage of internet and email records’.

"Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn. The terrifying ambitions of a group of senior Whitehall technocrats must not trump the personal privacy of law abiding Britons.”

Guy Herbert, general secretary of the No2ID campaign group, said: "We should not be surprised that the interests of bureaucratic empires outrank liberty.

"It is disappointing that the new ministers seem to be continuing their predecessors' tradition of credulousness."
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Black preachers who 'whoop' -- minstrels or ministers?

By John Blake, CNNOctober 20, 2010 -- Updated 1445 GMT (2245 HKT)



Preacher 'whoops' it up at the pulpit

CNN's Soledad O'Brien looks at how some are fighting debt from the pulpit in "Almighty Debt: A Black in America Special," Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.

(CNN) -- The Rev. E. Dewey Smith Jr. bangs on the pulpit with his fist. He shuts his eyes and moans. Then a high-pitched sound rises from his throat like the wail of a boiling tea-kettle.

"I wish you'd take the brakes off and let me preach," he tells his congregation during his Sunday morning sermon.

Rows of parishioners stand to shout. One woman in a satiny blue dress jumps up and down like she's on a pogo stick. A baby starts to cry.

Smith had already given his congregation the "meat" of his message: scriptural references, archaeological asides, modern application -- all the fancy stuff he learned in seminary. Now he was about to give them the gravy.

It was the time to "whoop."

"One Tuesday morning, I heard the voice of Jesus saying, 'C'mon unto me and rest," Smith shouts as he punctuates his delivery with a series of guttural gasps and shrieks backed up by an organist's riffs. "But can I tell you what I did? I came to Jesus, just as I was. And I found in him joy in sorrow. Somebody shout yes. Yeessssss!"

To whoop or not whoop?

Smith may have sounded like he was screaming. But those who grew up in the African-American church know better. He was whooping. He was practicing a art form that's divided the black church since slavery.

Whooping is a celebratory style of black preaching that pastors typically use to close a sermon. Some church scholars compare it to opera; it's that moment the sermon segues into song.

Whooping pastors use chanting, melody and call-and-response preaching to reach parishioners in a place where abstract preaching cannot penetrate, scholars say.

Whooping preachers aim "to wreck" a congregation by making people feel the sermon, not just hear it, says the Rev. Henry Mitchell, a scholar who identified the link between whooping and African oral traditions.

"The old folks used to say, 'If you ain't felt nothing, you ain't got nothing,''' Mitchell says.

Yet the black church has long been ambivalent about whooping. Some scholars say contemporary black churches are abandoning whooping because they think it's crass. But more white preachers are discovering it through YouTube and by sharing the pulpit with black preachers.

The most persistent debate over whooping revolves around its legitimacy. Is it fair to call it an art form? What's so hard about a preacher screaming and sweating in the pulpit?

Those are the critics who say whoopers are minstrels, not ministers.

"The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when people say that," says the Rev. Martha Simmons, a whooping preacher and scholar. "It is a genuine art form."

Simmons says the best whoopers use their voices like instruments. They're following rules of rhythm, tone and melody. All good whoppers have some "music" in their throat, says Simmons, editor of "Preaching with Sacred Fire," an anthology of black sermons dating back to 1750.

If you think whooping is easy, Simmons says, try listening to a preacher who can't whoop but tries to anyway.

"It's like listening to someone try to sing opera who is not an opera singer," she says. "It's a train wreck."

Earning the right to whoop

Whooping isn't confined to vocal gymnastics. The greatest whoopers combined "learning and burning." They are theologically sound, well-read and excellent storytellers, scholars say.

Smith, senior pastor of Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, says a good whooper has to preach a solid message before they whoop.

Tell me about somebody who is having a revival, and I will tell you where the whoopers are.

--Rev. Martha Simmons, black preaching scholar

"When I was in seminary, I was taught that you had to earn the right to whoop," Smith says. "What earns you the right is solid exegesis, scholarship, being able to apply the message."

Those whooping legends that blended theology with "whoopology" are people like the Rev. Caesar Arthur Walker Clark Sr., a diminutive man with a powerful voice that could sound like God's trombone.

Contemporary whooping legends include the Rev. Charles Adams, dubbed the "Harvard Hooper" because of his Ivy League education, and the Rev. Jasper Williams, who teaches "whoopology" classes through a DVD series.

But the Rev. C.L. Franklin, the father of singer Aretha Franklin, is widely considered the greatest whooper. Many of Franklin's sermons, like the classic, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest," and "Dry Bones in the Valley," were sold as popular records during his lifetime.

Whoopers not only sound different; they preach different, says Mitchell, the preaching scholar and author of "Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Art."

Most whoopers shun abstractions. They preach with stories, parables and metaphors -- like Jesus did.

"When Jesus wanted people to be compassionate, he didn't say 'Be yea compassionate,''' Mitchell says. "He told the story of the Good Samaritan."

Mitchell says European culture tends to distrust emotion. That instinct, he says, goes as far back as the Greeks who frowned upon the exuberant worship of pagan religions.

Scholars quibble over the origin of whooping.

Most trace it back to West Africa griots, the dramatic storytellers who preserved a people's oral tradition. Some trace it to the "tonal" nature of African languages, the drums of Africa; the need for the slave preacher to rouse the battered spirits of enslaved Africans.

"It's in the DNA of our people," Smith says. "When people were beaten and bruised, the slave preacher, with the intonation of the voice, was able to lift the spirits of the people."

Can white people whoop?

If whooping is the soundtrack for the black church experience, some want to change the record.

More black megachurch pastors are classifying themselves as "teaching" or "word" ministers. Their sermons resemble lectures, complete with studious congregations taking notes.

Smith, the Atlanta pastor, says some of the discomfort blacks have with whooping springs from "self-hate." They're ashamed of an authentic expression of black culture.

He cited E. Franklin Frazier, the black sociologist who wrote "The Black Bourgeoisie."

"Frazier wrote that the higher we climb on that social and economic ladder, the less intense and heartfelt our worship becomes," Smith says.

Some of the criticism of whoopers, though, is warranted, even some whoopers will acknowledge.

The Rev. Patrick Clayborn, an assistant professor of homiletics at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, says some preachers treat whooping as mere entertainment.

Clayborn says he was once accompanying his brother-in-law, a church organist, to a Sunday morning service when the visiting preacher slipped in a quiet request before the service.

"He said make sure you're in D-flat when I get to the end of my sermon," Clayborn recalls.

Teresa L. Fry Brown, director of black church studies at Emory University in Atlanta, says people use to scoff at the itinerant "jackleg" preachers in the 1940s and 1950s who whooped their way through empty sermons, making up texts.

Preachers who give their congregation a whoop but no substance leave their parishioners with nothing to get them through the week, Brown says.

"They deliver diabetic sermons. You have a shot of insulin, but you have to come back later," Brown says. "It's like a candy high. They never look at the text; never any substance. All they give you is sounds."

Another debate in the whooping world revolves around race: Can white preachers whoop?

Some black preachers say yes, and point to white pastors such as the Rev. Paula White.

Featured at many of Bishop T.D. Jakes' events, White says she doesn't try to whoop. It's simply an "authentic" expression of her preaching passion.

"Can I whoop? Yes," White says. "It's very natural for me. But I don't try to be black. I don't try to be white. All I know is to be me."

Yet Clayborn, the homiletics professor in Ohio, says the fuel for the whoop grows out of the black perspective, the experience of being among "the least, the last and lost."

"When I see a white preacher do it, it feels like they went and learned it, just like a parrot can imitate the human voice," he says. "They're like spiritual parrots."

Despite criticism, whopping is still popular, says Simmon, editor of "Sacred Fire." Preachers who don't practice whooping will call whoopers when they want to pack their churches for special events.

"Tell me about somebody who is having a revival," she says, "and I will tell you where the whoopers are."

No matter how sophisticated they get, whooping still speaks to black folks, Mitchell says.

One of Mitchell's preaching students who earned all sorts of advanced degrees had something odd happen to her after a family tragedy.

"She was preaching one morning and, before she knew anything, she started whooping and the place went crazy," Mitchell says. ""She didn't know she had it in her."

Simmons wouldn't be surprised by such a story. Some people may look down on it, but many black people still respect the power of the whoop.

"There's a sense of home in it," she says. "If you're a black person that hasn't been acculturated away from it, you say, 'This is us.' '
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Sunday, October 24, 2010

Marco Antonio Rubio

Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer. Rubio was the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives during the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions. He was first elected to the Florida House as a Republican on January 25, 2000, from the 111th district. He is the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by George LeMieux.

Marco Antonio Rubio
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Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives
In office
January 2, 2007 – January 2, 2009
Preceded by Allan Bense
Succeeded by Ray Sansom

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Member of the Florida House of Representatives
from the 111th district
In office
January 25, 2001 – January 2, 2009

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Born May 28, 1971 (1971-05-28) (age 39)
Miami, Florida, U.S.
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Jeanette Dousdebes; 4 children
Profession Lawyer
Religion Roman Catholic


Contents
1 Early life, education and career
2 Political career
3 2010 U.S. Senate campaign
4 Personal life
5 References
6 External links

Early life, education and career
Rubio is the second son and third child of Mario Rubio (1927–2010)[1] and Oria Garcia (born 1931), Cuban exiles and was born in Miami, Florida. His siblings are: Mario (born 1950), Barbara (born 1960) and Veronica (born 1972). He is a Roman Catholic and fluent in Spanish. His father was a bartender and his mother worked as a hotel housekeeper in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rubio lived in Las Vegas from 1979 to 1985, before his family returned to Miami in the summer of 1985. Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School and graduated in 1989. He then attended Tarkio College for one year on a football scholarship from 1989 to 1990 before enrolling at Santa Fe Community College and the University of Florida. He earned his B.S. in political science from the University of Florida in 1993 and his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Miami in 1996. While studying law, he interned for Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.[citation needed]

Political career
Marco Rubio served as a City Commissioner for West Miami before being elected to the Florida House of Representatives for the 111th District in a special election on January 25, 2000 and won each of his re-election bids.[2] In November 2006, he was elected Speaker of the Florida State House for the 2006-08 term.

He is the author of 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future. The book was compiled from Rubio's travels around the state to gather ideas from citizens. This was done through what Rubio calls "Idearaisers". Many of the issues that he pushed for in his first year as speaker came from ideas in this book. During 2007, Marco Rubio championed a major overhaul of the Florida tax system. He argued it would reduce property taxes and decrease the size of government.[citation needed]

2010 U.S. Senate campaign

Rubio speaking at CPAC in February 2010.Main article: United States Senate election in Florida, 2010
On May 5, 2009, Rubio announced on his website that he planned to run for the United States Senate in 2010 for the Republican seat being vacated by Sen. Mel Martinez, who has since resigned and been replaced by George LeMieux. Prior to the announcement, he had been meeting with fundraisers and supporters throughout the state.[3] Initially trailing by double-digits against the incumbent Governor of his own party, Charlie Crist, Rubio eventually surpassed Crist in polling for the Republican nomination.[4][5]

Partly due to slumping Republican support, on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, Crist announced he would be running as an independent, effectively ceding the Republican nomination to Rubio.[6] Several of Crist's top fundraisers as well as Republican leadership refused[7][8] to support Crist after Rubio won the Republican nomination for Senate.[9]

Rubio leads in aggregate general election polling to date.[10]

Personal life
Rubio is married to Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader (1997) of Colombian descent, and they have four children. Rubio and his family live in West Miami, Florida.[citation needed]

References
1.^ Rubio's father dies at 83, Beth Reinhard, Miami Herald, September 5, 2010
2.^ Sun Sentinel report on Rubio
3.^ Beth Reinhard (March 5, 2009). "Marco Rubio quietly registers to run for U.S. Senate". Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/933424.html.
4.^ Quinnipiac poll results
5.^ "Rasmussen Reports - Florida Republic Senate primary". http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/florida/election_2010_florida_gop_senate_primary. Retrieved 2010-02-27. [dead link]
6.^ "Crist to Run as Independent in FL Sen RaceLiveshots". Liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com. April 28, 2010. http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/04/28/crist-to-run-as-independent-in-fl-sen-race. Retrieved 2010-07-10.
7.^ Romm, Tony (2010-04-18). "McConnell: Crist would lose all GOP support if he ran as independent". Thehill.com. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/92869-mcconnell-crist-would-lose-all-gop-support-if-he-ran-as-independent. Retrieved 2010-07-10.
8.^ Martin, Jonathan; Catanese, David (April 17, 2010). "Top Charlie Crist supporters torn over indy bid". Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35937.html#ixzz0lOevGjLm. Retrieved 17 April 2010.
9.^ Marco Rubio Wins Florida GOP Senate Primary
10.^ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/2010_florida_senate_race.html
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Hurricane Richard


Gunmen Kill 13 in Massacre at Party in Mexico


Updated: 1 day 7 hours ago

Olivia Torres
AP

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Oct. 23) -- Gunmen stormed two homes and massacred 13 young partygoers in the latest large-scale attack in this violent border city, even as a new government strategy seeks to restore order with social programs and massive police deployments.

Attackers in two vehicles pulled up to the houses in a lower-middle-class neighborhood late Friday and opened fire on about three dozen youths attending a party. The dead identified so far were 16 to 25 years old, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said Saturday in a statement. Fifteen were wounded, including a 9-year-old boy.

Police found 70 bullet casings from assault weapons typically used by drug gangs whose bloody turf battles have killed more than 2,000 people this year in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The attackers escaped, and police said they had no immediate information on any suspects or possible motive.

Ciudad Juarez has become one of the world's deadliest cities amid a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels, which frequently go after each other in mass attacks on bars, drug rehab centers and parties.

Some have resulted in apparently innocent people being killed, either because someone else at a gathering was the target or gunmen simply had the wrong address.

Most recently, attackers stormed two homes on Oct. 17, killing seven at a party and two more in another house nearby.

And in January, gunmen massacred 15 people at a party in a house not far from the site of Friday's killings. Most of the victims were teenagers, students and athletes.

Investigators later said the attack was apparently carried out by Juarez cartel gunmen looking to kill allies of the Sinaloa cartel. There is no evidence the youths were the targets, and police said the killers may have hit the wrong house.

The city was outraged by the January massacre, leading President Felipe Calderon's government to vow to implement a new strategy for restoring order in Ciudad Juarez, where the army had by then had replaced the disorganized, outgunned local police.

In April, federal police took over public security duties from the army, and about 5,000 federal officers were deployed in Ciudad Juarez.

The federal government also stepped up social programs to try to break the cycle of poverty, broken homes and lack of opportunities that make the city's youths a fertile recruiting ground for the gangs.
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'We Failed Badly,' Google Executive Admits


Hugh Collins
Contributor

(Oct 23) – Google just goofed.

The Internet giant apologized on Friday for accidentally collecting confidential information such as e-mails and passwords in countries including the U.S., Canada and Britain.

Google Street View cars picked up the data through wireless networks while taking photographs in various cities.

"We're acutely aware that we failed badly here," Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, said in a blog post. "We want to delete this data as soon as possible."

Google blamed faulty software, which was supposed to record the location of wireless networks. Google could then use the information to provide location-based services such as driving directions on Google Maps.

Due to a stray piece of code, the software ended up gathering information being sent across networks that weren't password-protected.

"While most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire e-mails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords," Eustace wrote. "We are mortified by what happened."

Google faces U.S. lawsuits worth millions of dollars related to the gathering of private information, according to Agence-France Presse.

Authorities in Canada have accused the company of accessing confidential medical information, while hundreds of thousands of Germans have asked that their homes be removed from Google Street View.

Italian authorities have ordered Google to clearly mark its Street View cars and publicize their itineraries, according to Reuters.


Sponsored Links In the Czech Republic, the government has simply banned the cars, saying they violate privacy.

In his blog post, Eustace announced that Google is taking measures to tighten privacy controls across the company. These include special training and the appointment of Alma Whitten as director of privacy across engineering and product management. Eustace described Whitten as an "internationally recognized expert in the computer science field of privacy and security."

Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit group that monitors Google's privacy work, reacted with skepticism.

"Maybe some Google executives are beginning to get it: privacy matters. The reality, though, is that the company's entire culture needs to change, " John Simpson, director of the group's Inside Google Project, said in a statement.
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Thanksgiving and Prayer


2Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;

4So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

5Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

6Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

2 Thessalonians 1:2-10

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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Catholic Inquisition and The Torture Tools




BereanBeacon March 07, 2007
Most people have some knowledge of the holocaust. The 6 years of torture and atrocities that the Jews suffered under Hitler and the Nazis during the Second World War. While in no way downplaying the terrible events of the holocaust, such a massacre does not compare to the severity to the torture and murder that took place under Papal authority during the 605 years of the Inquisition. From the beginning of the Papacy, until the present time, it is estimated by credible historians that more than 50,000,000, men and women have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy charged against them by Papal Rome. This Video contains actual photographs of some of the instruments of torture that were used. Since we consider this Video on the Inquisition one of the more important message that we have given, please make it known to others, and if possible post the link on your own website.

Richard's Play List: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...

http://www.bereanbeacon.org/
intro@bereanbeacon.org

Quotes from Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy
http://adishakti.org/_/peter_de_rosa_...
"Impeccable Catholic sources, papal documents, letters of reforming saints, all paint the same depressing picture. Monasteries full of women; every friar had his 'Martha', every nun her lover. Bishops, in every sense the fathers of their people, kept harems."

"Young men who spent their youth in rape and adultery were rising in the ranks of the clergy. They were spending their nights with four or five women, then getting up in the morning — in what state, he leaves to the imagination — to celebrate mass."

" ... many monasteries were the haunts of homosexuals, many converts were brothels."

"As to the sex-starved secular clergy, they were so often accused of incest that they were at length forbidden even to have mothers, aunts or sisters living in their house."

"Promiscuity was rife in monasteries and convents. The great Ivo of Chartres (1040-1115) tells of whole convents with inmates who were nuns only in name. They had often been abandoned by their families and were really prostitutes."

"There also crept in the infamous cullagium, a charge for keeping concubines... bishops and archdeacons themselves benefited from this sex-tax; in Rome, it was the pope."

"In the year 1250, Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln wrote to Pope Innocent IV. Of priests he said: 'They are in truth teachers of heresy, inasmuch as the word of action is mightier than the word of speech.' "

"In the year 1414, King Henry V asked the University of Oxford to prepare articles for the reform of the church. Article 39 began: 'Because the carnal and sinful life of priests today scandalizes the entire church and their public fornication goes completely unpunished ...' "

"In the parish of St John Zachary in London, there was a church service of a very remarkable kind. It provided a brothel exclusively for priests and nuns ..."

"St Alban's Abbey, for instance, was nothing but a den of prostitutes serving the local monks. Nuns were regularly raped therein and the entire place, in a phrase worth of Shakespeare, was 'a riot of seed and blood'..."

"The overall report (in England) said that 144 religious houses were equal in viciousness to Sodom; countless convents, served by 'lewd confessors', were full of children; clergy — abbots, monks and friars — were carrying on not merely with whores but with married women..."

"After six centuries of strenuous efforts to impose celibacy, the clergy were a menace to the wives and young women of parishes to which they were sent."

"Across the border lived Henry, Bishop of Liege. The man was a legend beyond his lifetime. Henry was finally deposed by Gregory X at the Council of Lyons in 1274 'for deflowering virgins and other mighty deeds'... He ended murdered by a Flemish knight who was outraged at what the bishop had done to his daughter."

"During Borgia's reign, the Florentine friar Savonarola said the nuns were worse than harlots. As to the clergy, 'one priest spends the night with his concubine, another with a little boy, and in the morning they proceed to the altar to celebrate Mass. What do you think of that? What do you make of such a Mass?' "

"The evil was too deeply rooted; the last opportunities for reform long lost... A proverb passes from mouth to mouth: 'The profession of the priest is the surest road to hell.' "

Lord Acton
(1834-1902)
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Bio...

Down load Inquisition video at http://www.warnlive.com/. File size is 3.65gb and may take 24 hours.
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Deliverance After The Irish Massacre Of 1641


Date Posted:
2/16/2004


Days of Deliverance Part 6: Deliverance After The Irish Massacre Of 1641

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Dr Clive Gillis

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 2 Chr. 7:14


The Anniversary of the Irish Rebellion of 23 October 1641 is day a of national deliverance now lost from our Protestant calendar.


Following the initial outrage, the Lord graciously delivered his people who would otherwise have faced a choice between complete annihilation or conversion to Roman Catholicism.


In the year 1662 the Irish Parliament legislated that the 23rd of October, the day the Rebellion came to light, “shall be kept and celebrated as a holy day in this kingdom for ever”. It was celebrated both in Ireland and on the mainland.


Like the anniversary of the discovery of the Gun Powder treason, the tradition continued well into the nineteenth century. It was marked by Church Services and public demonstrations.

What Irish children learn

A recent, illustrated booklet by Helen Litton, Irish Rebellions 1798-1916, would appeal to history teachers. It is of course written from the standpoint of Irish Nationalism. The booklet describes the Irish Rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and of course 1916. The 1641 Rebellion is not covered. In 1966 the National gallery of Dublin held “Cuimhneachan - 1916 - A Commemorative Exhibition of the Irish Rebellion of 1916”. Pictures and exhibits illustrating Irish History from medieval times to 1916 were on view in chronological order. But according to the catalogue the siege of Kinsale 1601 lead straight on to the siege of Derry in 1688. There was nothing about the events of 1641.

Helen Litton refers to 1641 in her Preface as follows: “The Tudor system of plantations – that is “planting” Protestant settlers from Britain in confiscated areas of Ireland, - continued throughout the seventeenth century. Any kind of Rebellion simply provided the authorities with more excuses for confiscation, a sort of fig leaf to conceal greed. The tensions created by placing small groups of vulnerable settlers among large numbers of dispossessed natives often lead to brutal and despairing out breaks … One of these was the Rising of 1641 planned in Ulster by the dispossessed noble Gaelic families … This rising went down in Protestant mythology as an example of what (Roman) Catholics were capable of if they were not strictly controlled or preferably exterminated.”

This is what Irish children and students are being taught, while Protestants fail to defend their heritage.

Was the solemn commemoration of this Day of Deliverance a “fig leaf to conceal greed”? Was the glorious deliverance mere “Protestant mythology”? Are the Protestants charlatans? Let us try to discover what the Protestants who took part thought themselves. Let us see to what extent they cast the blame at the door of the Church of Rome. Let us hear what lessons they derived from their experiences to guide them in the future.

Ralph Lambert DD

Some of the Sermons Addresses preached on the 23rd October, thanking God for his delivering mercies in the events following the 1641 Rebellion, have survived. The sermon was preached by Ralph Lambert DD at the Parish Church of St James Westminster in what is now Piccadilly, London. This minister would appear to be the Bishop of Meath who is listed in the Gentleman’s Magazine Volume II p 631 as dying in February 1732. The sermon is addressed to the Protestants of Ireland, “In Commemoration of their Deliverance from the Barbarous Massacre committed by the Irish Papists in the year 1641”. It was preached on the 20th year following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and concerned events that took place before nearly all those present were born.

St James Westminster

There was a large community of Irish Protestants in London, swelled by refugees from the events prior to the Williamite war. St James was a prestigious venue.

Christopher Wren, St James architect, wrote: “I can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold 2000 persons, and all to hear the service and see the preacher. I endeavoured to effect this in building the Parish church of St James’, Westminster …”.

On 23rd October 1708 Lambert’s sermon so moved both the stewards of the church and the “Noblemen and Gentlemen” present that besides being printed in Dublin for circulation in Ireland it was at their request reprinted in London to be circulated throughout the land through the bookshops.

Ralph Lambert’s text was Isaiah Chapter 59 verses 7 and 8. “Their feet run to evil, and they make hast to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting a destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgement in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall knot know peace”.

He begins, “The prophet seems in these words to have chiefly intended a description of some revolting and apostatising Jews, who forsaking the true worship of God have sunk into all the sins and corruptions of the idolatrous nations …”


God’s infinite mercy

He continues, “this prophetic description will fairly reach beyond its first design and describe the practices of all who entertain a False Religion … This day then my brethren, has this scripture been literally fulfilled in your ears; the influences of a false and idolatrous religion have filled that country to which most of us here do belong, with such a scene of blood and cruelty, wasting and destruction as hardly ever appeared in so many shapes of horror … It was owing to God’s infinite mercy alone that a small remnant escaped, whose posterity are now met, to praise the Lord for His goodness, and to continue the Remembrance of so great a Judgement and so miraculous a Deliverance to all generations”.

He then speaks of the purpose of this Day. “That we may never forget whose feet they were, that then, were so swift to shed the blood of so many and to remember that their thoughts of Iniquity are still full of the same designs of wasting and destruction should the Lord give us into their hands. They are strangers to the ways of peace and justice. Since Divine Providence has rescued us and our fathers from destruction, however smooth and fair they may carry it to us (behave towards us) now, while the Laws, the Sword and the Government are on our side, if we suffer ourselves to be hoodwinked or lulled asleep by their false insinuations we shall, perhaps too late, find that whosoever goes into their paths or measures shall never know peace”.

‘Bloodshed, Barbarity, wasting and destruction’

Lambert then announces his main points. “On the occasion of this solemn meeting I shall enlarge on these four particulars.

I. That a false and idolatrous religion does naturally produce Bloodshed Barbarity Wasting and Destruction. II. I shall describe the effects of it in a few instances of Cruelty committed in the dreadful massacre of this day. III. I shall prove the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome do allow and justify such barbarous massacres and in particular they have justified and applauded that of this day. IV. I shall make some inferences from the whole which may be of good use to us in our present circumstances.”

From this long address let us draw that which these Protestants felt to strengthen and guide. Lambert’s first point illustrated at length form scripture the parallel between the outworking of the Religion of the people of the one true God in Israel and the contrast with the barbarism and human bloodthirstiness of neighbouring heathen nations. In his second point he describes the details of the massacre which even if overestimated in extent, by the details he supplies alone was frightful beyond measure in its qualities. These details were then still fresh in family lore. Such things are too terrible to repeat here.

His third point, the general persecuting tendency of Rome to provoke terrible massacres of her enemies is familiar to readers. However the details of Rome’s part in the 1641 Irish Rebellion have been suppressed and are hence less well known. They will be covered fully DV in the next article. Lambert states categorically that 1641 “was contrived and perpetrated in Obedience to the Church of Rome” and goes on to prove it. It had nothing to do with the “greed” of Protestants. Certainly their wealth creating industriousness, a universal feature of Protestantism, drew forth envy from the Romanists.

Is popery then the same?

Lambert’s fourth point looks to the future as he draws “inferences which may be of good use to us in our present circumstances”. He cautions, “that we may not be lead astray into their crooked paths, nor wander into those ways, wherein we shall never know peace”. He asks the burning question again: “Is Popery then the same thing at this Day that it was in Forty One? Or has it abated of its fury and violence and become mild and tractable? Has there been no blood drawn since for the advancement of the (Roman) catholic cause, and the extirpation of the Northern Heresy? Have so many hundred thousand people run away from their houses and livelihoods through panic and groundless fear? Or did many of us run away from our wits and dwellings at once but to travel? No! Certainly Popery is still the same.”

“Let them name but one place where Popery prevails and the Roman Church can exert its power and that place is free of persecution of those that differ with it and we shall own them a merciful people. And if Popery be not changed, how is it that we become every day less apprehensive of it? If we would secure ourselves and our posterity, we should not always expect that God will work miracles and raise up Deliverers. We ought to oppose as much as in us lies that spreading of enslaving principles …. (designed) to take away our senses and fit us for Transubstantiation. They (The Romanists) constantly lie in wait for us as we grow secure.

Fomenting divisions

“Another method in which the Papists have been fatally successful against us is by creating jealousies and fomenting divisions amongst us. Tis most melancholy to observe how unexpectedly prosperous (successful) they are in (using) this stale artifice against us. They formerly divided us from the dissenters. Now they invent a new and odious distinction of High and Low Church trying to divide us. We must show the distinction groundless. We ought also to treat the greater part of the Dissenters (It has to be said that sadly the Quakers though their doctrines and pacifist nature had drifted into a most unhealthy alliance with the Romanists) with confidence and affection as they are embarked on the same common cause against the Papists.

“Finally since God has delivered our ancestors from the horrid destruction designed on this day, and preserved us let us give to Him our true Tribute and Praise for this Great Mercy, with hearts truly sensible to so undeserved a blessing. Let us endeavour to convince our Popish adversaries of the Truth of our Religion, by showing in our lives and actions that its influence is stronger to operate all that is good in us …”.

Such was the sentiment of a Day of Deliverance from our glorious Protestant past now lost.


http://www.ianpaisley.org
Email: eips_info@yahoo.co.uk
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The Coming Globalization


Obama, the Middle East, Interfaithism, & the Vatican (DVD)

This 50 minute lecture by Hope for the World's Gary Kah was professionally taped at the 2009 Understanding the Times Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In this presentation, Gary examines Barack Obama's growing popularity among Muslims and the reasons for it. He also shares some stunning interfaith developments from the Mideast involving the future of the Temple Mount. He then considers the role of the Vatican in pursuing an international agenda for Jerusalem and identifies those "Christian" leaders most likely to support it. This message is very timely and quite revealing.
ID#-D160


$15.00
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What’s So Bad about Spiritual Formation?

Author: John Witcombe

Summary: Spiritual formation is a popular new way to draw near to God. But beneath the good intentions lie dangerous practices that can in fact pull people towards occultism rather than God.


The spiritual formation movement is spreading rapidly throughout the Christian community. The concept of being formed spiritually is not wrong in itself, but many practices that accompany the movement miss the mark. Often, mystic rituals do not glorify the true God but can instead lead us into dangerous spritualism.

What is Spiritual Formation?

As Roger Oakland writes in his book Faith Undone, the term spiritual formation “suggests there are various ways and means to get closer to God and to emulate him. Thus the idea that if you do certain practices, you can be more like Jesus” (emphasis in original).




Getting close to God and becoming more like Him are wonderful, Biblical goals (See Psalm 73:28 and Philippians 3:8-11). However, we must carefully choose the right means by which we seek a relationship with God. Oakland continues, “Rather than having an indwelling of the person of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, spiritual formation through spiritual disciplines supposedly transforms the seeker by entering an altered realm of consciousness.”i

Lighthouse Trails calls spiritual formation a “channel through which contemplative prayer is entering the church.”ii

Spiritual formation, then, can be seen as a way of seeking a relationship with God and a transformed inner self through the practice of spiritual—and often mystical—disciplines. Unfortunately, many earnest Christians and Christian leaders are entering into a spiritualistic lifestyle without even realizing it. Their desire to draw near to God is leading them to mystic and even occult rituals hidden among godly practices.

The following articles focus on aspects of the spiritual formation movement that we need to be wary of. Learn the definition and dangers of particular disciplines, see how these practices are infiltrating 21st-century Christianity, and rediscover healthy and Biblical ways to live in God's Spirit, which is "of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).
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Read more
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Bible Boot Camp



Source
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Friday, October 22, 2010

Render therefore to all their dues


Romans 13


1Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

2Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:

4For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

5Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

6For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.

7Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

8Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

9For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

10Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

11And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

12The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

13Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

14But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
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Timothy Geithner at the G20 in South Korea?

Timothy Geithner the career government/behind the scenes man, and current U.S. Secretary of the Treasury is participating in the elite G20 Summit being held in South Korea. Mr. Geithner has been groomed for his various roles and has worked for the Treasury, the IMF, the Federal Reserve as president of the Main branch in New York City, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Kissinger Associates. What a track record? What connections?

During his Senate confirmation 'hearings' it was revealed that Timothy Geihtner the career Economist had failed to pay the IRS $35,000 in taxes. He can't pull the Reagan excuse of not remembering since he is nowhere close to Alzheimer's Disease at less than 50 years old.

On January 26, 2009, the U.S. Senate confirmed Geithner's appointment by a vote of 60–34.[37][38] Geithner was sworn in as Treasury Secretary by Vice President Joe Biden and witnessed by President Barack Obama.[39]. Just weeks after taking office Mr. Geithner spearheaded another behemoth volley of $787Billions, the Economic Stimulus Bill designed to save jobs, assist homeowners facing foreclosure, and to rescue TOO BIG FAIL Car Manufacturers such as G.M. and Chrysler, now owned by Fiat of Italy. In October 2008 during the last days of the Bush tenure, Geithner played a pivotal role (as president of NY's FED) in the TARP, Toxic Assets Relief Program. Back then he promoted and advise the bail-out of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and AIG; The latter two bail-outs at the behest of Henry Paulson who was Treasury Secretary at the time (previously CEO of Goldman Sachs). What strange bedfellows, no?

Now at the G20 Summit in North Korea he is trying to mandate fiscal responsibility? Or is he attempting to micro-manage the internal matters of sovereign nations?
Isn't this an indication of World Government in the making?



Geithner proposed in a letter that G-20 members pursue policies to reduce trade surpluses and deficits “below a specified share” of their economies.

It's good to read the news; especially to read between the lines since most folks are so dumbed-down that 'they' can conduct all these maneuvers in plain sight.
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Here are some organizations in which Timothy Geithner is a member:

Center for Global Development (Board of Directors)[63]
Council on Foreign Relations[15]
Economic Club of New York (trustee)[63]
Bank for International Settlements, Committee on payment and settlement systems (chairman) [6]
Bilderberg Group
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Finally here's more info on his pedigree and associations:

Geithner's paternal grandfather, Paul Herman Geithner (1902–1972), emigrated with his parents from the German town of Zeulenroda to Philadelphia in 1908.[8] His father, Peter F. Geithner, was the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York in the 1990s. During the early 1980s, Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham Soetoro, President Barack Obama's mother, and they met in person at least once.[9] Timothy Geithner's mother, Deborah Moore Geithner, is a pianist and piano teacher in Larchmont, New York where his parents currently reside. Geithner's maternal grandfather, Charles F. Moore, was an adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served as Vice President of Public Relations from 1952-1964 for Ford Motor Company.[10]

Would you buy a used car from this man? Now, why then would anyone listen to his advice?
WORLD GOVERNMENT IS WRITTEN all over this man's face. He seems to be a Rothschild, Rockefeller, Jesuit coadjutor micro-managing and leading the way to the VATICAN LED, U.N. IMPOSED, and U.S. ENFORCED, NEW WORLD ORDER.

Arsenio.

Note: Statements in italics transcribed verbatim from the articles below.
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Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Geithner
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-22/geithner-push-for-g-20-trade-gap-targets-opposed-before-g-20-talks-start.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123487951033799545.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program .
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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Incredible Apostasy: But There is Hope

Incredible Apostasy: But There is Hope · February 01, 2003 X

By Elder Lawrence Nelson

Excerpt:

From these inspired statements God’s remnant are found to have four characteristics.

• They love God
• They keep His commandments
• They have the faith of Jesus
• They believe and obey the Spirit of Prophecy

But sad to say, the vast majority of those found within the Laodicean church do not meet these requirements. Notice how the Bible describes them. It’s not a pleasant picture. In fact, it reveals them to be in a most miserable state of affairs, yet thinking that they are ready to meet Jesus. Let me read this again so there will be no mistake, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Why? “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Again I want to reemphasize there is hope. For God says if such will repent and open the door that He will come in to them.

Now I hear a question: “Are you sure, Elder Nelson, that this chapter applies to our church today?” In Testimonies for the Church, Volume 1, p. 186 I read, “I was shown that the testimony to the Laodiceans applies to God’s people at the present time.” Now that’s a startling denunciation for it applies to the present time. I have been doing some research concerning God’s remnant people, both in ancient Israel and those of today’s modern Israel. As I give you these comparisons, keep in mind that in spite of ancient Israel’s apostasy a remnant was saved. Likewise, in spite of today’s apostasy within God’s modern Israel there will be a remnant who will be saved. So praise God, there is hope!

The Bible clearly teaches such a doctrine. I am reading from Romans 9:27, “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.” Praise God. As I read these words, my heart leaps for joy and is filled with hope, for amid the apostasy of Old Testament times a remnant was saved. And amid today’s apostasy a remnant will be saved.

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Read whole sermon
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Letter of the Pope for the World Meeting of Families 2012


Letter of the Pope for the World Meeting of Families 2012

VATICAN CITY, Sept. 27, 2010, 13:00 Hrs (VIS):

The Holy See Press Office Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, presented Benedict XVI's Letter for the Seventh World Meeting of Families, which is due to be held in the Italian city of Milan from 30 May to 2 June 2012, on the theme: "The Family: Work and Rest".

Also participating in today's press conference were Bishop Jean Lafitte, Msgr. Carlos Simon Vazquez and Fr. Gianfranco Grieco O.F.M. Conv., respectively secretary, under secretary and bureau chief of the pontifical council; Bishop Erminio De Scalzi, auxiliary of the archdiocese of Milan and the archbishop's delegate for the organisation of the meeting, and Fr. Davide Milani, head of social communications for the archdiocese of Milan.

"Work and rest", writes the Pope in his Letter, "are intimately associated with the life of families. They influence the choices the family makes, the relationship between the spouses and among parents and children, and they affect the dealings the family has with society and with the Church".

The Holy Father further highlights how "In our own time, unfortunately, the organisation of work, which is planned and implemented as a function of market competition and maximising profit, and the concept of rest as a time for evasion and consumption, contribute to the break-up of families and communities, and to the spread of an individualistic lifestyle. It is therefore necessary to reflect and commit ourselves to reconciling the demands and requirements of work with those of the family, and to recover the true significance of rest, especially on Sundays, the weekly Easter, the day of the Lord and the day of man, the day of the family, of the community and of solidarity.

"The forthcoming World Meeting of Families", he adds, "is a propitious occasion to re-examine work and rest in the perspective of families that are united and open to life, well inserted into society and the Church, attentive to the quality of their relationships as well as to the economy of the family nucleus itself".

The Pope goes on to express the hope that "during the course of 2011 - thirtieth anniversary of the Apostolic Exhortation 'Familiaris consortio', the 'Magna Charta' of family pastoral care - valid initiatives may begin at the parish, diocesan and national level with the aim of identifying experiences of work and rest in their most authentic and positive aspects, with particular reference to their influence on the real lives of families".

At the end of his Letter the Holy Father explains how the Seventh World Meeting of Families, "like earlier such meetings, will last five days culminating on Saturday evening with a 'Feast of Witness' and on Sunday morning with solemn Mass. During these two celebrations, at which I shall preside, we will come together as 'a family of families'".

Commenting on the theme of the letter, Cardinal Antonelli mentioned the problems affecting the family which, he said, "is becoming privatised and reduced to a place of individual affections and gratification. It does not receive adequate cultural, juridical, economic or political support and suffers the negative conditioning of complex centrifugal dynamics, among which by no means the least important are the organisation of work and the degeneration of rest into 'free time'". In this context, the cardinal highlighted how the theme of the Milan meeting "could become an important contribution to the defence and promotion of authentic human values in today's world, beginning with a new style of family life".

"Within the family, it is important to encourage the redistribution of domestic tasks, and a lifestyle inspired by sobriety, concern for personal relationships, openness towards the ecclesial community and the needs of others. Finally", Cardinal Antonelli concluded, "feast days must be celebrated in such a way as to illuminate the significance of life and of work itself, strengthening the cohesion of the family and its insertion into the wider community, reviving the relationship with Christ, Lord and Saviour Who accompanies us on our daily journey".

For his part, Bishop Erminio De Scalzi observed that "it would be significant if we were able to welcome poor families from the South of the world to Milan. I am thinking," he said, "of people who live in counties where it is difficult to make their voice heard. It is important that the representatives of these families should have the chance to bring their testimony of life, and tell us how they understand work and rest as regards the family nucleus".
Source
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I remember Juan Williams.


NPR (National Public Radio) has fired Juan Williams, one of its news correspondents. I hate to rehash this issue, but, I can't help but give you my take (in Olde English my perspective).


I first noticed Mr. Juan Williams while watching The McLaughlin Group on NPR; It's a weekly news roundup with a handful of reporters and journalists in a round table format, headed by its founder John McLaughlin. While watching one of these episodes in 2002 or 2003 on NPR, I believe I first became aware of Juan Williams; There was also Eleanor Clift, Pat Buchanan, Tony Blankley, Judy Woodruff, along with Juan Williams as part of the panel. Mr. Williams' first name is what first drew my attention to him, then his opinions since he is very articulate and eloquent. I continued to watch this very informative news program until Juan Williams and the rest of the players became familiar to me; I decided to research who Juan Williams was, and I found out that he is a Panamanian immigrant who emigrated to Brooklyn, New York in the 1950's as a small child with his Mother, Father, and siblings. I can't recall where it was, but, I discovered that he considered himself an African-American of West Indian descent as implied by his last name, and I believe because of the mass migration of people from the former British Territories in the Caribbean during the construction of the Panama Canal.* Wow, what an assumption I have made? But, I distinctly remember that he stated that he was not a Panameño per se, instead a West Indian from Brooklyn of the African Diaspora, by way of Panama. This discovery about Juan Williams surprised and disgusted me; I compare this mindset to many people I knew while I was growing up who would try to deny their national identity to assimilate into the fantasy called the great American Melting Pot; The idea was to adopt the Ellis Island approach, "your name is Stanislaus Marczkiczis?"; "No, your name is now Stan Marks, next!" Then, you'd move out to the suburbs an assume the American Dream. Well, folks Juan Williams has lived the American Dream, and now he is living the American Reality: "If you dance to the music, you must pay the piper." It's a jungle out there! Dog eats dog; Man bites dog!

Now, it was just last week, I kid you not, that I heard Juan Williams give his opinion when prompted (probably) on NPR's All Things Considered; I detected a different person express his opinions since I had become used to his politically correct left leaning views. Then, comes these fateful statements on Monday's "The O'Reilly Factor", the rest is history. As I stated previously, I was startled that Juan had expressed a more truthful opinion from the last time I heard him on NPR. Perhaps, he's finally seen the light? But, not for nothing I agreed with his statements. I call a spade a spade, and if it look like a duck, it walks like a duck, and it quacks: It's a duck, for goodness sakes. So, this new Juan Williams is more to my liking. Yes, Juan calls them like he sees them, and I'm proud of you, Mr. Williams; be you from Brooklyn, West Indies, and form the African American Diaspora, and All the above; Right on, Brother! Now we feel you. Know what I mean?

That Jet blue Stewart who got mad, grabbed a beer, slid down the escape chute, then quit - is not my role model. Mr. Juan Williams is more my type of person, true blue; someone that will faithfully express his opinions despite the consequences. After all you can't be true, unless you are true to your conscience. And that brethren, is the real deal.


Arsenio.

* Note: This is my personal assumption.

NPR Fires Analyst for Saying Muslims Make Him Nervous

Lauren Frayer
Contributor

AOL News (Oct. 21) -- NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams after he told the Fox News Channel that he gets nervous when he sees Muslims on airplanes.
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Williams said Monday he agreed with O'Reilly's statement that "jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet." The two also discussed political correctness, which Williams said could "lead to some kind of paralysis, where you don't address reality."

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," Williams said.


http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/npr-fires-analyst-juan-williams-for-saying-muslims-make-him-nervous/19683232?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C179132
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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Don't Ask - Don't Tell Shell Game







Black you win, Red you loose!


Heads you win, Tails you lose!




Seventeen years ago, Bill Clinton as his first major 'achievement' devised the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy" for homosexuals/lesbians to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces without having to reveal their sexual practices. Now in 2010, during the Obama Administration, this Democrat inspired policy has become a political hot-potato. The current Administration wants to replace the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy". Yet, the courts keep reversing the policy; It's a literal case of stop and go traffic.


2009 National Board of Log Cabin Republicans



During the last few weeks the LGBTI (alternative sex lifestyle) Movement has been in the headlines--celebrating last Monday, the National Coming-Out Day; Then, there was an incident of a man who was video recorded by his college peers in a homosexual 'encounter' after which he committed suicide when he found out (he was outed) it was 'aired' on the Internet. Federal Judges are currently involved in stopping and restoring this Policy. The latest challenge to this controversy came a couple of days ago, from the Log Cabin Republicans (a homosexual group) who sued because they want the policy rescinded. Meanwhile, Obama and Clinton, the two major players in this dichotomy are on a whirlwind tour organizing/campaigning for more change, hope, and yes we can... Business as usual; By any means necessary. Ordo ab Chao.

The Yale-Oxford Rhodes Scholar sponsored by Caroll Quigley, and the Columbia-Harvard-Chicago U, Saul Alinsky protege, are the key Modern-day promoters of Sodom and Gomorrah.




Arsenio.
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Oh no, Homer Simpson is Catholic, too!

This one world religion, or universal "Catholic" religion has reached a new low; Even cartoon charaters such as the Simpsons are claimed to be Catholics by the Vatican.
What is the world coming to?
You and I know; If we read our Bibles in prayer we recognize that all the signs indicate that we are living during the last generation. Read the following and re-confirm it for yourselves:



Reuters – Mexican actors hold up paintings of characters from the Simpsons cartoon as local media hold up microphones …



– Mon Oct 18, 10:18 pm ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – "The Simpsons" just got a blessing from the Vatican.

The official Vatican newspaper has declared that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics -- and what's more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch "the adventures of the little guys in yellow."

"Few people know it, and he does everything to hide it. But it's true: Homer J. Simpson is Catholic", the Osservatore Romano newspaper said in an article on Sunday headlined "Homer and Bart are Catholics."

The newspaper cited a study by a Jesuit priest of a 2005 episode of the show called "The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star". That study concludes that "The Simpsons" is "among the few TV programs for kids in which Christian faith, religion and questions about God are recurrent themes."

The Simpsons pray before meals, and "in its own way, believes in the beyond," the newspaper quoted the Jesuit study as saying.

It's the second time the animated U.S. TV series, which is broadcast in 90 countries, has been praised by the Vatican.

[Rewind: 'Simpsons' opening credits create a stir]

But executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly on Monday he was in "shock and awe" at the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the "Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield.

"We've pretty clearly shown that Homer is not Catholic," Jean said. "I really don't think he could go without eating meat on Fridays -- for even an hour."

In December 2009, the Osservatore Romano described the show as "tender and irreverent, scandalous and ironic, boisterous and profound, philosophical and sometimes even theological, nutty synthesis of pop culture and of the lukewarm and nihilistic American middle class."

"The Simpsons", which introduced the catch-phrase "D'oh", is the longest-running prime-time TV series in the United States and is now in its 22nd season.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Related:

I did not say The Simpsons are Catholic-Priest‎ - 7 hours ago

"I wouldn't say they're Catholic, I would say they're people of faith," said Occhetta. Watching the Simpsons "could help us" spiritually, he added. ...
CathNews
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