Sunday, March 11, 2012

Breitbart is Not the Only Mysterious Death



Uploaded by RowellRichard on Mar 11, 2012
CREDITS: ATLAH Worldwide
Original Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HLiVRg4MYw&feature=plcp&context=C40b3...

Previously on THE MANNING REPORT:

Breitbart's Death Needs to be Investigated

Uploaded by ATLAHWorldwide on Mar 1, 2012
http://www.atlah.org The Manning Report
Andrew Breitbart died after he tells the CPAC audience he has film of Barack Hussein (The Long Legged Mack Daddy) Obama during his young, radical college years. Recorded on 1 March 2012.

"ATLAH: THAT'S WHAT GOD SAID."
Anointed to establish families, churches and businesses, unlike any the world hath seen. Indeed the final product of the land, ATLAH, will boast of being the seat of the world's banking, business, and education centers.


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Breitbart @ CPAC



Uploaded by on Feb 10, 2012

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart claims to have film of US President Barack Obama during his young, radical college years. He tells the CPAC audience that he will release them during the upcoming presidential campaign to expose the president's radiCal roots.

Uploaded by on Mar 1, 2012

This Video is from Before It's News http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1837/474/Was_Andrew_Breitbart_Murdered.html but you can also catch an article at Alex Jones Infowars http://www.infowars.com/media-trailblazer-andrew-breitbart-dies-aged-43/ concerning the untimely death of Andrew Breitbart at age 43, who reveals in this video that he has college-era footage of Barack Obama that would ruin his election run in 2012....

*FULL SPEECH: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0573AD0C79081BAE

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Meatless Monday Inspiration Round-Up


Today's Meatless Monday Recipe Round-up via my posts over at Babble's Family Kitchen include Coconut Lime Tofu, weekender wine frosty+, fresh pineapple tofu tahini wrap, a green bagel for March, spring GREEN-ing recipes and some shamrock pasta topped with Daiya cheese - Get these recipes and more inspiration for your Meatless Monday and the week ahead!..

Some of the spring greening recipes, peanut kale, and my tofu with coconut and lime..


Wine Frosty, shamrock pasta, pineapple tofu wrap, homemade seitan..+

Meatless Monday Recipe Round-Up - 3/5/12

* Entree: Coconut Lime Tofu with Harissa
Coconut milk and zesty lime infuse this silken tofu. Accents of harissa, nutritional yeast, onion and pepper. Comfort food indeed! Serve with toast or over top rice.

* Breakfast: Farro Breakfast Porridge
Berries and walnuts top this warm, nutty farro porridge. If you love oatmeal, you will love farro! Farro is nutrient dense and low gluten. It is also higher in protein than most grains.

* Round-Up: 21 Spring GREEN-ing Recipes
My spring GREEN-ing round-up is filled with lovely, healthy, delicious green things to eat and share this spring. Before you spring clean your house, spring green your diet!

* Cocktail: Weekender Wine Frosty
If you love wine, fruit and a frosty covktail - this easy recipe is for you!+

* Wrap. Mint Tahini Tofu Pineapple Kale Wrap
All my favorite flavors combine into one amazing lunchtime wrap. Fresh pineapple meets sticky sweet tamari tofu, kale and tahini dressing. Swoon.

* Sandwich: Spring Green Bagel-wich
Green cilantro hummus tops a pumpernickel bagel along with avocado and a sprinkling of seasoned salt. Parsley on top!

* Pasta: Pesto Shamrock Pasta
This shamrock shaped pasta is perfect for spring when tossed with fresh vegan pesto sauce and a sprinkling of Daiya vegan cheese.

* Salad: Easy Kale Peanut Salad
My kale salad gets a few tweaks to create this super easy version. Kale, peanut, onion, tamari and a few other ingredients. This stuff is cravable. And bursting with leafy green nutrients!

* Dessert: Basic Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
Served for dessert or breakfast - you can't go wrong with vegan cinnamon rolls! Orange cream cheese frosting on top.

* How-to: Seitan
Learn how to make seitan from scratch!

* Smoothie: Mardi Gras Smoothie
This purple, gold and green smoothie will perk up your mood - even after Mardi Gras has passed. Delish!

* Party: Party Recipes
The Oscars may be over, but that doesn't mean you can't make these party-approved vegan recipes for your next fun shindig. From meatless meatballs to hummus dip - this round-up is filled with entertaining appetizers.

More inspiration -> Find vegan... Vegan Recipes from Finding Vegan. Celebrate a healthy, happy, vegan 2012 with the help of my other site: FindingVegan.com

About my Meatless Monday round-ups: Every other week I link to all my posts over at Babble.com so that you don't miss out on any of my recipes. My round-up is a great way to embrace Meatless Monday.



Source

P.S.
+I don't drink wine or recommend it.
I see no use for alcoholic drinks;
If it ain't nutritious? I'm not having it!
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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Newt Gingrich Probably Can’t Win, but That Doesn’t Mean He’s Going Anywhere

By Alex Altman @aaltman82 March 9, 2012



Marianne Todd / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks at a rally March 8, 2012 in Jackson, Mississippi.




There are two realities on the campaign trail: the one visible to dispassionate observers, and the reality the candidate inhabits. In Newt Gingrich’s bubble, Super Tuesday was a triumph: the benchmark he set was to win his home state, and he coasted to victory. Remove the rose-colored glasses and the landscape looks uglier. Gingrich won just one in 10 states, and finished dead last in half. Overall, Gingrich has won just 2 of 22 contests thus far, lags a distant third in the unofficial delegate counts, and would need to capture some 70% of the remaining delegates to eclipse Mitt Romney’s edge. It would take an “act of God,” one of Romney’s advisers said, for Gingrich or Rick Santorum to prevent Romney’s coronation. The math suggests they can only postpone it.


Of course, each rival’s chances increase with the exit of the other, which is why Santorum’s camp is trying to push Gingrich out of the race before the uphill climb to oust Romney gets any steeper. Over the past 48 hours, a chorus of Santorum supporters has called on Gingrich to step aside. “Based on his electoral performance last night and his out-of-step record, it is time for Newt Gingrich to exit the Republican nominating process,” wrote Stuart Roy, an adviser to the pro-Santorum Red, White and Blue PAC. “His campaign is an obvious non-starter.” A cadre of veteran social conservatives backing Santorum — including Gary Bauer, Richard Viguerie and Tony Perkins — have all urged Gingrich to step aside to give movement conservatives a chance to deny Romney the nomination. In an appeal to Gingrich’s vaunted vanity, Perkins suggested the former House Speaker “has never been in a more influential position in deciding the outcome of the nomination; he could be a kingmaker if he stepped out of the race.”


But Gingrich’s political obituary has been written before, and he’s not ready to bury his campaign yet. “Despite the many requests by the Washington establishment, I am staying in this race,” he said Wednesday. Again, his campaign has set itself benchmarks to continue: victories next Tuesday in Alabama and Mississippi, Deep South states where Gingrich — who has only won in the South — believes his firebrand style has the greatest resonance. Gingrich canceled a planned trip to Kansas in advance of the state’s caucuses on Saturday to shore up his Southern base. Gingrich has been open about a path to the nomination that begins and ends in the South. R.C. Hammond, Gingrich’s spokesman, said this week that the candidate needed to win “everything from Spartanburg [South Carolina] all the way to Texas,” but insisted the race would continue for “months.”


There are obvious problems with this strategy. First, localizing a campaign in a single region — the heartland of the Republican Party — undercuts Gingrich’s assertion that he is the only candidate capable of taking to the fight to Barack Obama, whom the GOP nominee will need to beat in swing states (and red states that Obama turned blue in 2008). Alabama and Mississippi also allocate delegates proportionally, so it will be difficult for Gingrich to make up much ground even if he revives his campaign there. And that’s hardly a guarantee. Despite the import he’s accorded the Alabama primary, Gingrich came in third in the first two polls out of the state; an Alabama State survey released Wednesday (which curiously omitted Ron Paul) showed Gingrich nine points behind Santorum, and a poll released Thursday by the Alabama Education Association showed him 10 points behind Romney. Santorum’s super PAC has purchased TV time in both states in an attempt to finish Newt off. “Newt has become a hindrance to a conservative alternative,” Roy of the Red, White and Blue PAC said.


It may make little sense for Gingrich to get out now, however. With Sheldon Adelson footing his TV budget, Newt needs only to maintain enough cash to ferry him around the country, where his message can speak for itself. There is little incentive to bow out when he can keep collecting delegates on the cheap, thereby increasing his leverage when it comes time to barter down the line.


Even if he were to exit, Gingrich’s supporters wouldn’t necessarily file into Santorum’s column. Crunching the numbers from polls that asked about voters’ runner-up preferences, Nate Silver estimates that 57% of Gingrich fans would migrate to Santorum, with 27% lining up behind Romney and 16% picking Paul. (As Silver notes, the model ignores that some likely wouldn’t vote at all.) That would be a significant boost to Santorum. But at this point, having confined his campaign to states where he has a viable chance of winning, Gingrich’s share of the vote in many others is essentially negligible; according to Silver’s model, his absence wouldn’t, for example, have changed the outcome in Michigan, where Romney won an uncomfortably close three-point victory.


Whether or not he can notch the necessary victories next week, Gingrich will soon be forced to consider how the terms on which he exits the race will affect the goals with which he entered it. Gingrich had been out of government almost 15 years when he entered the fray, long enough that a chunk of the new party establishment — and much of the national press corps — never witnessed him at the height of his powers. For a long time, his bid was maligned by the press as a glorified book tour, a way to soak up the national spotlight and convert the exposure into cash. But in many ways, Gingrich has burnished his standing in the party, with a knack for rhetorical flourishes and forceful rhetoric that none of his rivals can match. “He’s the only guy left who’s a real performer, who’s got the ability to whip up a crowd,” says a senior adviser to a rival campaign. Gingrich knows he possesses this gift, and as long as he has it, he will go on trying to convince the party to buy into reality as he sees it.








Rick Santorum Can't Win

Jamelle Bouie
March 7, 2012



It's hopeless for the former Pennsylvania senator.




About the Author

Jamelle Bouie is a writing fellow at The American Prospect.



Frontloading HQ’s Josh Putnam crunches the numbers and finds that under the most optimistic scenario, Rick Santorum is limited to a delegate haul of 1,075, which falls somewhat short of the 1,144 needed to win the nomination.

Putnam notes that you could goose that even further and assume big wins for Santorum in the remaining primaries. Even still, the most he could win is 1,152 delegates. By contrast, Mitt Romney’s minimum 1,162 delegates while his maximum extends to 1,341 delegates.

In other words—at this point—it’s mathematically impossible for Santorum to win the nomination through delegate accumulation. Of course, there’s always the question of a brokered convention. But as Putnam points out, of the people to win the nomination through negotiation, Santorum is at the bottom of the list:

The bottom line here is that Romney has enough of a delegate advantage right now and especially coming out of today’s contests that it is very unlikely that anyone will catch him, much less catch him and get to 1144. The latter seems particularly far-fetched given the above scenarios. And that is a problem in this race. Well, a problem for Gingrich and Santorum anyway. If all either of them can take to voters is an argument that all they can do is prevent Romney from getting to 1144, then neither has a winning strategy. That sort of strategy has a half life; one that will grow less effective as, in this case, Romney approaches 1144.

Complicating this scenario even further for Gingrich and Santorum is the fact that if neither can get to 1144 or even close to it, neither is all that likely to be the candidate to emerge as the nominee at any – unlikely though it may be – contested convention.

At this point, Romney doesn’t need delegates, he needs the okay from the Republican base—permission to focus his attention on the general election, and pull back from the fight with his doomed competitors. Unfortunately for the former Massachusetts governor, the base doesn’t seem ready to give up the quest for a more “acceptable” standard-bearer.





United States, the interventionist turnover of the bishops approaches phase two





03/10/2012




Timothy Dolan




The bishops are not only targeting ethically unacceptable choices on contraception, but also the death penalty. A new very Ratzinger-oriented course




GIACOMO GALEAZZI

vatican city



A “political” choice of U.S. bishops. At the Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Timothy Dolan announces “phase two” of the U.S. church, lined up for what he called the “battle for religious liberty”, against the “radical and unprecedented intrusion by the government in the minds of believers”.

On the other hand, in recent weeks three quarters of the U.S. episcopate has publicly expressed itself in defence of religious freedom. In late January, Benedict XVI recommended U.S. bishops to “prepare committed lay leaders and present a compelling articulation of the Christian view of man and society”. That is, “essential components of the new evangelization”. The Church does not exist to ensure things go well in the world but to save it, so when it proposes to save it, it contributes by making worldly things go well too. And many lay Christians involved in politics consider their work as “an essential component of the new evangelization”.







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How much money is wasted


How much means is expended for things that are mere idols, things that engross thoughts and time and strength which should be put to a higher use! How much money is wasted on expensive houses and furniture, on selfish pleasures, luxurious and unwholesome food, hurtful indulgences! How much is squandered on gifts that benefit no one! For things that are needless, often harmful, professed Christians are today spending more, many times more, than they spend in seeking to rescue souls from the tempter.

Messages to Young People, (
Ellen G. White), pp.320-321.
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Mortgage Crisis Inspires Churches to Send Lenten Season Message to Banks

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: March 9, 2012





During the recent weeks of Lent, the Rev. Ryan Bell has led his Southern California congregation into the penitential spirit of the season. He has preached about the prophet Isaiah’s admonition “to loose the bonds of injustice.” He has replaced his church’s ebullient praise songs with somber, reflective music. He has sent his members a list of ordinary comforts to give up until Easter, with suggestions from caffeine to Facebook.





Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

The Rev. Robert Rien closed a church bank account.



“To right the wrongs of the world is as much a part of the Lenten experience as to repent ourselves,” Mr. Bell, 40, the pastor of Hollywood Adventist Church near Los Angeles said in a phone interview this week. “During this season, when we individually are examining our lives, we think it’s appropriate for the institutions that affect us to examine theirs.”


Across the country, dozens of other clergy members and congregations have taken similar action over the past three years. Beginning with two ministers in a bedroom suburb outside Oakland, the movement has grown to encompass about 25 congregations, according to the PICO National Network, a coalition of congregations involved in social justice that has taken up the campaign. By PICO’s estimate, congregations have withdrawn $16 million, and their individual members and organizational partners an additional $15 million, from banks deeply implicated in the foreclosure crisis — primarily Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase.


The effort has become so closely conflated with Lent this year that a group of San Francisco clergy members spilled symbolic ashes outside a Wells Fargo A.T.M. in an Ash Wednesday protest. The ministers called for a “foreclosure sabbatical” invoking the biblical term for the ancient Judaic concept of forgiving debts every seventh year.


The Rev. Richard Smith of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal church in San Francisco, likened the divestment campaign and public protests to early Christianity’s ritual of “reconciliation of the penitents.” Far from taking place in the private sanctity of the confessional, that rite occurred in public, with the penitent overseen by a priest and required to present himself before a bishop.


“It seemed like a parallel to us,” said Mr. Smith, 62. “Our banks have done a great deal of damage in a very public way. So it seems appropriate as we enter into a season of penitence that we invite those who separated themselves from the community to repent with us. It’s basically Ethics 101.”


Last month, federal and state officials reached a provisional accord with five banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial — for a $26 billion settlement that includes reducing mortgage principal for homeowners in danger of default because of the steep decline in property values.


T. J. Crawford, a spokesman for Bank of America, said that even before that accord was reached the bank had modified the mortgage loans of one million customers and had met with PICO and other religion-based groups. “We value all of our relations,” he said, “and would prefer dialogue to divestiture.”


For the clergy members and churches active on the foreclosure issue, however, the animosity began building years ago. The current campaign may have had its genesis on the Sunday in 2008 when a 10-year-old girl named Jeannette walked up to her pastor after church to say goodbye because her family was moving.


As soon as the child spoke to him, the Rev. Mario Howell of Antioch Church Family in the East Bay area of Northern California recently recalled, he realized that Jeanette’s parents had not been at worship that morning. What, he asked her, was going on? The girl explained that her mother and father — a teacher and probation officer, respectively — had lost their home to foreclosure.


Soon enough, Mr. Howell said, he heard similar stories from other members, all of them employed, most of them first-time homeowners who had striven to move out of Oakland. During 2010, the church’s monthly intake from tithes and offerings fell by half to $14,000, far below its own mortgage payment of $23,000. Last March, Mr. Howell had to sell the building to a religious order, the Wesleyans, which is allowing the congregation to remain there. The church recently pulled out $175,000 in savings from the local Bank of America branch.


During the same few years, the Rev. Robert Rien of St. Ignatius of Antioch, a Roman Catholic church across town from Mr. Howell’s, was learning that 24 families from the 1,000 in his congregation were threatened with foreclosure. He accompanied many of them to meetings with their mortgage banks to try to renegotiate terms.


“You would’ve thought the collar would have some influence,” said Father Rien, 65. “It didn’t. These people were engineers, accountants, working in medical offices, in the building trades. No matter how they pleaded with the banks, they didn’t find any understanding. It was ruthless behavior. I had the scales pulled off my eyes.”


Father Rien met Mr. Howell through a local interfaith coalition that is part of the PICO network. He wrote about the banks’ behavior in the church bulletin and preached about it from the pulpit. In late 2009, with the endorsement of the congregation’s trustees and pastoral council, he pulled out $135,000 from Bank of America.


“It’s a grain of sand to Bank of America,” Father Rien said, “but we needed to send a message that you can’t do this to people.”


With coverage in the religion media and organizational contacts through the PICO network, that message spread from the East Bay in late 2008 and early 2009, expanding into the national movement of this Lent.


“I can say that it’s caught on, but not enough,” said Mr. Howell, 61. “There’s still not enough churches that understand the plight of their people — that if one family loses their home, it’s like all of us go down.”



E-mail: sgf1@columbia.edu



This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:


Correction: March 9, 2012


A previous version of this story said federal officials had reached a provisional accord with four banks for a $25 million settlement. The agreement was with five banks for a $26 billion settlement.







Source
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Corporate Social Responsibility and the tradition of Catholic Social Thought

#147 - March 2012

The recent report of the European Commission on Corporate Social Responsibility resonates with the innovative postulates of ‘Caritas in Veritate’.


unknownFor the Christian identity in the Modern World the emergence of Christian Social Thought has been of crucial importance. Its innovative character, which is largely forgotten today can be remembered with a quick glance on the first Papal Encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ of Pope Leo XIII. 1891 or even the reminiscence of it in the second Social Encyclical ‘Quadragesimo Anno’ 1931. Industrialization was the most radical socio-economic transformation in the history of mankind. Philosophers like Nietzsche and Marx questioned the role of Christian values in an unprecedented way. In this situation the Christian Social movement essentially extended Christian ethics beyond a mere individual virtue based doctrine into a ‘social teaching’ - calling for adequate rules and regulations within a ‘just’ social order.


In a way, we live in a very similar situation today. With Globalization and the emergence of the ‘post-national constellation’ (J. Habermas) the cultural samples and institutional solutions of the 20th century are again at stake. Will today’s Christians show the same cultural creativity and learn to express the Western Christian tradition in an up-to-date way? The recent social Encyclical ‘of Pope Benedict XVI (2009) pushes us into this direction. ‘Caritas in Veritate’ criticizes a widespread ideological dualism between market and state and calls for a new culture of Civic responsibility. Therefore, the document also addresses business leaders, costumers and investors. Like in the 19th century, when Entrepreneurs like Léon Harmel from France and Franz Brandts from Germany played an important role for the emergence of Catholic Social Thought, business practise will again be crucial.


The recent report of the European Commission on Corporate Social Responsibility resonates with the innovative postulates of ‘Caritas in Veritate’. It is not the commission’s first report on CSR but rather extends a number of trailblazing documents from 2001 as well as 2006. These reports – like a series of international activities including the Foundation of the Global Compact 1999/ 2000, the proclamation of the Millennium Development Goals etc. – are based on the assumption that Governments alone will no longer be able to secure basic public goods on a global scale. Based on recent Scientific literature the commission pledges for a advanced concept of CSR: this is not only orientated towards operational savings but calls for a ‘strategic implementation’ by the development of innovative goods, services and business models creating values for costumers, employees and shareholders. The reflection on cooperatives and mutual trusts seems to represent an explicit allusion to ‘Caritas in veritate’, here. This holds also true for the paper’s foundation in a subsidiary structure, which perceives it as the main task of political entities not to substitute or dominate but to support and nurture the Social Responsibility of Companies. According to the report, not Government but companies as well as unions and civil society should find new ways to walk the talk on Corporate Responsibility; consumers and investors are called to reward these activities, media to report on them.


What becomes obvious here is a really innovative concept of the modern social fabric. In many ways this can be perceived as a continuation of Catholic Social Thought, which impacted the Western market economies in the 20th centuries. The EU commission announces a series of instruments and procedures to strengthen the awareness and the role of Corporate Reponsibility in the interplay of the social actors and groups: Multi-Stakeholder-Forums, a code of conduct for self-regulation and co-regulatory arrangements, integration of Social and environmental criteria into public procurement, the obligation for banks to inform about their social and ecologic criteria etc. Transparency of information, competence-building in companies and social environment as well as hand-outs and platforms are the most important instruments of the commission to spread the word of CSR. Christian managers and associations – like the the global entrepreneurial associationUNIAPAC, which published their own paper on CSR already some years ago, the Papal commission ‘Justice and Peace’ etc. - should actively observe this process bringing in a genuine Christian perspective.


Prof. Dr. André Habisch

Scientific consultant of the Bund Katholischer Unternehmer in Germany and teaches business ethics at the Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt (Germany)



Source
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My Jesus, I Love Thee

Friday, March 09, 2012

SPECIAL REPORT: Bodega ‘Pharmacies’ a Risky Business, Experts Warn

Posted by admin


The Mexican contraception Perlutal is one of the medications available without prescription in a bodega in El Barrio.
For Mariela Suarez, a 36-year-old Mexican woman, the bodega near her home is her pharmacy.

Last week Suarez went to a store on 110th Street in Harlem’s El Barrio neighborhood for an injection of the birth control medication she has been using for several months.

For $23, Suarez bought Perlutal, a medicine made in Mexico which is not approved for sale in the United States. For $5, Luisa (not her real name), a Mexican woman who runs the store, injected her with an ampule’s worth of the drug in the back of the store where fruit and other merchandise is stored.

The bodega, a store of less than 350 square feet which carries products ranging from flowers to fruits and vegetables, also sells and injects other medicines without prescription. These include Pentrexyl, an injectible antibiotic, for $24, or in pill form for $1.75 each.

Luisa sounds like an expert pharmacist.

“This is good for everything,” she explained in a friendly way when she is asked about a medicine for a sore throat. “It cures infections of the ear, the stomach and the throat,” she adds.

The medicines are not on public display. But the sale of un-prescribed medicines is an open secret. Clients arrive, explain their symptoms in Spanish, and the sales clerk responds by listing the medicines the store carries to cure them.

Some of the medicines, spread out on a counter in front of the buyer, have no seal of guarantee, nor any expiration date; others are about to expire.

“It’s very cheap, and it’s good,” Suarez said of Perlutal. “I haven’t got the money to go to a doctor, much less to buy expensive contraceptives in a pharmacy. I’ve got to use what I can get.”

Marilyn Aguirre-Molina, a professor at Lehman College and a specialist in health issues affecting Latinos, explained that the sale of illegal medications is neither a new phenomenon nor confined to the community of El Barrio, but rather a common practice in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods.

“The Latino community is experiencing a health crisis,” said Marilyn Aguirre-Molina. “The purchase of medications without a prescription has become a necessity for immigrants who have no insurance.”

Besides the risks of taking medicines without medical supervision, the use of medications for purposes other than those intended is also becoming more and more common, warned Aguirre-Molina.

Out of control

On a second visit to the store in El Barrio, Aguirre-Molina’s warning was apt.

Perlutal, according to Hispanic women of the area, is very well known among young women and transsexuals, not only for its ability to prevent conception, but also as a hormonal stimulant which enlarges breasts and hips.

Tatiana (not her real name), a Peruvian woman of 21 who grew up and still lives in El Barrio, confirmed that the medicine is popular among her friends.

“I don’t use it,” she said. “But women I know well do use it to make their breasts grow bigger. Although I don’t know if it really works.”

Aguirre-Molina, the CUNY professor, said that hormonal contraceptives can lead to weight gain in some patients, but not in specific areas like buttocks and breasts. She also warned that hormonal contraceptives are not recommended for adolescents, since they can have a damaging effect on their development.

Gloria Sanchez-Contreras, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration, said that Perlutal is not approved for sale and distribution in the United States. The spokeswoman also warned of the health risks of consuming medications of unknown origin and doubtful purity. She pointed out that imported medicines can lack the information which would allow for a patient’s rapid treatment in case of side-effects.

The New York State Attorney General’s Office would not comment on whether investigations into the sale of illegal medicines in the city are underway.


Source


Thursday, March 08, 2012

Web star born: Kony video gets millions of views

Posted: Thu, Mar. 8, 2012, 7:46 AM


RODNEY MUHUMUZA and JASON STRAZIUSO

The Associated Press



In this Saturday, July 9, 2011 file photo released by Invisible Children, the antenna installation of one of Invisible Children's 14 high frequency radios used in their Early Warning Radio Network to help track the Lord's Resistance Army is seen in Haut Uele, Congo. A video by the advocacy group Invisible Children about the atrocities carried out by jungle militia leader Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army is rocketing into viral video territory and is racking up millions of page views seemingly by the hour. (AP Photo/Invisible Children, File)



KAMPALA, Uganda - If Joseph Kony lived in relative anonymity before this week, he's an Internet star now.

A video about the atrocities carried out by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army has gone viral, racking up millions more views seemingly by the hour.

The marketing campaign is an effort by the advocacy group Invisible Children to vastly increase awareness about a jungle militia leader who is wanted for atrocities by the International Criminal Court and is being hunted by 100 U.S. Special Forces advisers and local troops in four Central African countries.

The group's 30-minute video, which was released Monday, had more than 32 million views on YouTube by Thursday. The movie is part of an effort called KONY 2012 that targets Kony and the LRA.

"Kony is a monster. He deserves to be prosecuted and hanged," said Col. Felix Kulayigye, the spokesman for Uganda's military.

But Kulayigye said that Kony's forces , once thousands strong , have been so degraded that he no longer considers Kony a threat to the region. Because of the intensified hunt for Kony, his forces split into smaller groups that can travel the jungle more easily.

Experts estimate that the LRA now has only about 250 fighters. Still, the militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and even to kill their parents or each other to survive. The LRA now operates in Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

Uganda, Invisible Children and (hash)stopkony were among the top 10 trending terms on Twitter among both the worldwide and U.S. audience on Wednesday night, ranking higher than New iPad or Peyton Manning. Twitter's top trends more commonly include celebrities than fugitive militants.

Jolly Okot was abducted in 1986 by the militia group that later became the LRA. The then-18-year-old could speak English so was valuable to the militants. She was also forced to have sex.

Today, Okot is the Uganda country director for Invisible Children, in charge of 105 employees. She said the group is helping 800 people affected by LRA violence to attend high school and university. She said the program has given hope to kids who previously dropped out of the education system.

"The most exciting thing about this film is that I'm so grateful that the world has been able to pay attention to an issue that has long been neglected," Okot said. "I think it is an eye-opener and I think this will push for Joseph Kony to be apprehended, and I think justice will get to him."

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said it has been hard to raise public awareness about Kony since issuing his warrant in 2005.

"Kony is difficult, he is not killing people in Paris or in New York. Kony is killing people in Central African Republic, no one cares about him," he said. "These young people from California mobilizing this effort is incredible, exactly what we need."

He praised the group that made the film.

"They are not fighting, they are just putting the right focus: stopping the crimes, arresting Kony, helping people," he said. "Perfect."

Ben Keesey, Invisible Children's 28-year-old chief executive officer, said the viral success shows their message resonates and that viewers feel empowered to force change. It was released on the website http://www.kony2012.com.

The burst of attention has also brought with it some criticism on Internet sites of Invisible Children's work, including the ratio of the group's spending on direct aid, its rating by the site Charity Navigator, and a 2008 photo of three Invisible Children members holding guns alongside troops from the country now known as South Sudan.

Invisible Children posted rebuttals to the criticism on its website, saying that it has spent about 80 percent of its funds on programs that further its mission, about 16 percent on administration and management, and about 3 percent on fundraising. The group said its accountability and transparency score is currently low because it has four independent voting members on its board of directors and not five, but that it is seeking to add a fifth. The group said the three workers in the photo thought it would be a good "joke" photo for family and friends.

Kony's Ugandan rebel group is blamed for tens of thousands of mutilations and killings over the last 26 years.

Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, the top U.S. special operations commander for Africa, told reporters last month that U.S. troops are now stationed in bases in Uganda, Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic as part of the anti-LRA fight. Losey said there's been a decrease in the lethality of LRA activities attributable to U.S. and partner nation efforts.

Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan diplomat who led the country's failed peace negotiations with Kony in 2006, said the work of organizations such as Invisible Children preserves the memory of an insurgency whose brutal legacy should never be forgotten. The talks with Kony, mediated by South Sudan, ended in 2008 after the rebel leader refused to sign the final peace agreement, saying he could not guarantee his security once he left the bush.

The last known images of Kony show him shaking hands, and sometimes smiling, with dignitaries visiting his camp. Some images showed him wearing a suit and shiny black shoes.

"Kony gives you the impression that he is harmless, that he cannot catch a fly," Rugunda said, recalling his conversations with Kony, who was an altar boy before he became an elusive rebel leader.

Rugunda last saw Kony in a forested camp in eastern Congo before the rebel leader and his men fled to the Central African Republic, where they have retained the capacity to harass villagers for food.

Rugunda said that capturing Kony alive would set in motion a "full accountability mechanism" in which the world would get to know how it came to be that Kony committed the many crimes he is accused of.

,,,

Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat contributed from San Diego and Mike Corder from The Hague.

,,,

On the Internet:

http://www.kony2012.com

Invisible Children's reaction to blog accusations: http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html

Source


Cleveland bishop pressed to reopen spared churches

THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press

Updated 09:12 a.m., Thursday, March 8, 2012


http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Cleveland-bishop-pressed-to-reopen-spared-churches-3391768.php#ixzz1oXwuddoY


CLEVELAND (AP) — Critics of widespread church closings in the Cleveland Catholic Diocese called Thursday for the bishop to implement an extraordinary Vatican ruling and quickly reopen 13 churches.

Bishop Richard Lennon must decide whether to abide by the ruling from the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy or challenge it before the church's top court.

Spokesman Robert Tayek said Thursday the bishop has unofficial copies of the ruling but must await certified documents from the Vatican to comment. Lennon has 60 days to appeal.

Patricia Schulte-Singleton, who leads the Endangered Catholics group that challenged the closings, called on Lennon to meet with affected parishioners and reopen the churches.

"I think it would be in his best interest as well as the diocese's best interest," she said.

FutureChurch, a Cleveland-based coalition which lobbies for a stronger voice for lay Catholics, called on Lennon to skip any appeal and restore affected parishes.

"We hope the diocese will reach out to appealing parishioners and reconcile by engaging them in the planning to restore them to their parish homes," Sister Chris Schenk, leader of FutureChurch, said in an email statement.

The Vatican move represents a rare instance in which Rome has reversed a U.S. bishop on the shutdown of churches. The Congregation for the Clergy ruled that Lennon failed to follow church law and procedure in the closings three years ago.

The 13 churches were among 50 shut down or merged by Lennon, who said the eight-county diocese could no longer keep them open because of declining numbers of parishioners and a shortage of priests.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Vacant college gets new mission from Seventh-day Adventists


Associated Press
Published: Sunday, March 4 2012 5:00 a.m. MST


LANCASTER, Mass. — The Seventh-day Adventist Church plans to turn the vacant Atlantic Union College campus in Lancaster into an evangelical and medical missionary training school.

Donald King, president of the Atlantic Union Conference, said the school would offer short-term courses for pastors and those who wish to help fellow churchgoers. There would also be six- and nine-month evangelistic missionary training courses for lay people who want instruction on "how to win souls."

King said the curriculum will include on the benefits of good nutrition, exercise and basic health principles, which Seventh-day Adventist emphasize. The denomination believes the second coming of Christ is near and teaches that the Bible requires Sabbath be observed on the seventh day of the week, or Saturday, instead of the traditional Sunday observance.

The school is expected to open this fall in Lancaster, which is located about 45 miles west of Boston.

The college closed in July after losing its accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges because of financial problems
.




Photo: Wiki


A Harbinger Of The Image Of The Beast

TOM PENNINGTON / GETTY IMAGES

Supporters pray over Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum during his campaign stop this month at the Bella Donna Chapel in McKinney, Texas. Polls show Santorum with a big lead over rival Mitt Romney in support from white evangelical Christians.



The Great Controversy, pp. 443 - 446:

But what is the “image to the beast”? and how is it to be formed? The image is made by the two-horned beast, and is an image to the beast. It is also called an image of the beast. Then to learn what the image is like and how it is to be formed we must study the characteristics of the beast itself—the papacy.

When the early church became corrupted by departing from the simplicity of the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs, she lost the Spirit and power of God; and in order to control the consciences of the people, she sought the support of the secular power. The result was the papacy, a church that controlled the power of the state and employed it to further her own ends, especially for the punishment of “heresy.” In order for the United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends.

Whenever the church has obtained secular power, she has employed it to punish dissent from her doctrines. Protestant churches that have followed in the steps of Rome by forming alliance with worldly powers have manifested a similar desire to restrict liberty of conscience. An example of this is given in the long-continued persecution of dissenters by the Church of England. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thousands of nonconformist ministers were forced to flee from their churches, and many, both of pastors and people, were subjected to fine, imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom.

It was apostasy that led the early church to seek the aid of the civil government, and this prepared the way for the development of the papacy—the beast. Said Paul: “There” shall “come a falling away, ... and that man of sin be revealed.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3. So apostasy in the church will prepare the way for the image to the beast.

The Bible declares that before the coming of the Lord there will exist a state of religious declension similar to that in the first centuries.
“In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” 1 Timothy 4:1. Satan will work “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.” And all that “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” will be left to accept “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11. When this state of ungodliness shall be reached, the same results will follow as in the first centuries.

The wide diversity of belief in the Protestant churches is regarded by many as decisive proof that no effort to secure a forced uniformity can ever be made. But there has been for years, in churches of the Protestant faith, a strong and growing sentiment in favor of a union based upon common points of doctrine. To secure such a union, the discussion of subjects upon which all were not agreed—however important they might be from a Bible standpoint—must necessarily be waived.

Charles Beecher, in a sermon in the year 1846, declared that the ministry of “the evangelical Protestant denominations” is “not only formed all the way up under a tremendous pressure of merely human fear, but they live, and move, and breathe in a state of things radically corrupt, and appealing every hour to every baser element of their nature to hush up the truth, and bow the knee to the power of apostasy. Was not this the way things went with Rome? Are we not living her life over again? And what do we see just ahead? Another general council! A world’s convention! Evangelical alliance, and universal creed!”—Sermon on “The Bible a Sufficient Creed,” delivered at Fort Wayne, Indiana, Feb. 22, 1846. When this shall be gained, then, in the effort to secure complete uniformity, it will be only a step to the resort to force.

When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.

The beast with two horns “causeth [commands] all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:16, 17. The third angel’s warning is: “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.” “The beast” mentioned in this message, whose worship is enforced by the two-horned beast, is the first, or leopardlike beast of Revelation 13—the papacy. The “image to the beast” represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their dogmas. The “mark of the beast” still remains to be defined.

After the warning against the worship of the beast and his image the prophecy declares: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Since those who keep God’s commandments are thus placed in contrast with those that worship the beast and his image and receive his mark, it follows that the keeping of God’s law, on the one hand, and its violation, on the other, will make the distinction between the worshipers of God and the worshipers of the beast.

The special characteristic of the beast, and therefore of his image, is the breaking of God’s commandments. Says Daniel, of the little horn, the papacy: “He shall think to change times and the law.” Daniel 7:25, R.V. And Paul styled the same power the “man of sin,” who was to exalt himself above God. One prophecy is a complement of the other. Only by changing God’s law could the papacy exalt itself above God; whoever should understandingly keep the law as thus changed would be giving supreme honor to that power by which the change was made. Such an act of obedience to papal laws would be a mark of allegiance to the pope in the place of God.


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Santorum: We have overcome 'enormous odds'


By Karen Bleier, AFP/Getty Image

Rick Santorum says he's getting both
"gold medals" and "silver medals" this Super Tuesday, overcoming "enormous odds" to remain a contender in the Republican presidential race.