Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Michael Hastings, 33, journalist dies in LA crash


By Kevin Roderick | June 18, 2013 5:58 PM




Michael Hastings, the investigative journalist who recently began writing for BuzzFeed in Los Angeles, died in a one-car crash on North Highland Avenue about 4 a.m. this morning. The car he was driving struck a palm tree in the median on the 600 block and burst into flames, police said. Hastings was most known for his 2010 piece in Rolling Stone that brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal.

A statement from Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief:

We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone. Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians. He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague, a joy to work with and a lover of corgis — especially his Bobby Sneakers. Our thoughts are with Elise and and the rest of his family and we are going to miss him.

From a story by Rolling Stone, where Hastings was a contributor.

Hastings' unvarnished 2010 profile of McChrystal in the pages of Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General**," captured the then-supreme commander of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian commanders in the White House. The maelstrom sparked by its publication concluded with President Obama recalling McChrystal to Washington and the general resigning his post. "The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be met by – set by a commanding general," Obama said, announcing McChrystal's departure. "It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system."
Hastings' hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power. While other embedded reporters were charmed by McChrystal's bad-boy bravado and might have excused his insubordination as a joke, Hastings was determined to expose the recklessness of a man leading what Hastings believed to be a reckless war. "Runaway General" was was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, won the 2010 Polk award for magazine reporting, and was the basis for Hastings' book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan."
For Hastings, there was no romance to America's misbegotten wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He had felt the horror of war first-hand: While covering the Iraq war for Newsweek in early 2007, his then-fiancee, an aide worker, was killed in a Baghdad car bombing. Hastings memorialized that relationship in his first book, "I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story."
A contributing editor to Rolling Stone, Hastings leaves behind a remarkable legacy of reporting, including an expose of America's drone war, an exclusive interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at his hideout in the English countryside, an investigation into the Army's illicit use of "psychological operations" to influence sitting Senators and a profile of Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl, "America's Last Prisoner of War."
"Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity," says Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana, "the sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that there's no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories. I'm sad that I'll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he won't be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours. He will be missed."


The LA Times reports that while the LAPD won't confirm the dead driver is Hastings, it was the only fatal accident reported in the city this morning. KTLA has video of the accident scene.


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Analysis: Path to more data has led to real-life 'Truman Show'



Jon Swartz, USA TODAY6:04 p.m. EDT June 7, 2013



(Photo: Paramount Pictures)


SAN FRANCISCO — It sounds like the classic Watergate puzzler: Who knew what, and when?

If we are to believe Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and four other tech giants, they had no knowledge of the government-run PRISM program, which allegedly monitored Internet activity. (The federal government denies it spied on U.S. citizens.)

Press reports, however, point to a plot over several years in which nine tech firms provided data to the NSA, which had access to their data systems.

Time, and history, will separate truth from fiction.

What is unarguable is that in an era of so-called big data — where every conceivable action of every citizen is documented via photo, text, status update and video — it was inevitable some information would be gleaned for purposes other than monetization.

In their zealous pursuit of data on seemingly everything consumers do, tech companies have set themselves — and consumers — on a path to a real-life Truman Show.

Facebook, after all, does call the central feature of its profile pages for 1.1 billion people a Timeline. Google is all about aggregating all you do — the Google+ social network, Gmail, Maps, etc. — in a digital footprint. Apple's iPhone and iPad are our hardware alter egos.

And in its pursuit of lock-down security in a post 9/11-world, the government has found a font of information 24x7 created by the best and brightest minds in the world.

Sounds like a perfect storm of Big Brother meet Big Data, whomever you believe.


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The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America


The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America

Tuesday, 18. June 2013 by Dr James Petras


The Politics Behind the Police State





The exposure of the Obama regime’s use of the National Security Agency to secretly spy on the communications of hundreds of millions of US and overseas citizens has provoked world-wide denunciations.

In the United States, despite widespread mass media coverage and the opposition of civil liberties organizations, there has not been any mass protest. Congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as top judges, approved of the unprecedented domestic spy program.. Even worse, when the pervasive spy operations were revealed, top Senate and Congressional leaders repeated their endorsement of each and every intrusion into all electronic and written communication involving American citizens. President Obama and his Attorney General Holder openly and forcefully defended the NSA’s the universal spy operations. Read more ?

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NSA scandal: the deepest secret of the Ed Snowden operation



by Jon Rappoport

June 18, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

Everyone wants to see a hero.

When that hero emerges from the shadows and says all the right things, and when he exposes a monolithic monster, he’s irresistible.

However, that doesn’t automatically make him who he says he is.

That doesn’t automatically exempt him from doubts.

Because he’s doing the right thing, people quickly make him into a spokesman for their own hopes. If he’s finally blasting a hole in the dark enemy’s fortress, he has to be accepted at face value. He has to be elevated.

When dealing with the intelligence community and their spooks and methods, this can be a mistake. Deception is the currency of that community. Layers of motives and covert ops are business as usual.

In previous articles, I’ve raised a number of specific doubts about Ed Snowden.

Here I want to replay four statements Snowden made and examine them.

“When you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses, and when you talk about them in a place like this [NSA]…over time that awareness of wrongdoing sorts of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about it, and the more you talk about it, the more you’re ignored, the more you’re told it’s not a problem…”

This statement describes Snowden, an analyst working at NSA, chatting regularly to colleagues about his growing doubts over the morality of NSA spying. This is quite hard to believe.

As Steve Kinney, writing at the Centre for Research on Globalisation points out, Snowden would have raised all sorts of red flags about himself.

If he hadn’t been fired outright, he certainly would have come under serious scrutiny, which, at the very least, would have reduced his ability to hack documents out of NSA’s most secret recesses.

And yet, Snowden, an analyst, claims he had access to “full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community and undercover assets all around the world, the locations of every station we have, what their missions are and so forth.”

Really?

That stretches doubt far beyond the point of credulity.

Both The Guardian and the Washington Post supposedly vetted Snowden carefully. I’d really like to see the results of that vetting.

“Rosters of everyone working at the NSA [and] the entire intelligence community…” That’s untold thousands of people. That’s referring to many separate agencies.

Snowden doesn’t stop there. He maintains the security of NSA is not just a sieve, it’s also thousands of separate hunting parties, undertaken at the whim of any analyst:

“Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President…”

Sure. NSA just opens the door to their own analysts, who can, on their own hook, launch spying episodes on anyone in the US. Boom. No operational plans, no coordination. A free-for-all.

“Hey, dig this. Nancy Pelosi was just talking to her hairdresser. I’m going to follow up on her. Think I’ll spy on Nancy and her husband, see what they’re up to. I’ll file reports as I go along…”

“A guy at Los Alamos just wrote to his boss about a new weapons system. Want to see what they’re planning?”

Finally, Snowden claimed he could “shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon. But that’s not my intention.”

Not just spy on everybody in the US. Snowden asserts he could do that. But he could also make the entire spying apparatus of NSA (and even all other intelligence agencies?) go dark with a few hours of work—and he’d evade notice of his NSA bosses as he performed this herculean task.

No. Ridiculous. The very first thing an agency like NSA does is set up a labyrinth to prevent itself from being taken down.

Consider these four Snowden statements together, back up and think. These are propositions that cast the man into a deep pit of doubt.

Who is he?

What is his mission? Is that mission his own, or is he working for someone who wants to punch a hole in the NSA?

In another article, I’ve developed the hypothesis that Snowden is still actually operating for his former bosses at the CIA; people at the CIA, long engaged in a turf war with the NSA, are running him in this op.

Snowden didn’t steal anything from NSA. He couldn’t. People at the CIA could and did steal, and they handed him documents to use in his assigned op.

There are other possible explanations. None of them exonerates the NSA or what it is doing. Let’s be clear about that.

But how far would the CIA go in exposing the guts of the NSA? It’s clear that these intelligence agencies overlap in their efforts (crimes). Therefore, the CIA would be satisfied to smear the NSA without exposing too much.

If so, Snowden’s cache of documents won’t “go all the way.”

His documents won’t yield the longed-for holy grail, though Snowden implies he could unwrap it. I’m talking about the entire interlocking system of US and global surveillance and how it isbuilt.

More than piecemeal exposures about PRISM, US hacks of China, and the G20 meeting in England, an account of the technical “architecture,” as John Young of Cryptome rightly calls it, would torpedo the underlying global Surveillance State.

If Snowden can do that, he hasn’t shown it so far. Right now, he’s put his work in the hands of several journalists, who will dole it out on their own inexplicable timetables.

Why make that move? Why hasn’t Snowden put up a dozen sites and laid everything he has on the line? Before those sites could be taken down, the material would have been copied and sent around the world thousands of times.

Snowden has already said he won’t endanger specific spies or operations that could actually prevent terrorists’ missions.

All right. Then give us everything else. Give us the whole shooting match. Let’s see how the watchers have built their edifice.

But so far, Snowden has shown himself to be a different kind of person, someone who makes claims that far exceed his reach.

Read his four statements again. The sub-text is:

I could complain, raise doubts, and criticize NSA openly at work. No one cared. It was a typical office you’d find in any company. It certainly wasn’t a super-controlled environment. Things were so loose, I could access the complete map of the entire NSA network. Names, places, operations. On a whim, any analyst could spy on anyone in the US. If I wanted to, I could shut down all of US intelligence in a few hours. Forget the popular image of NSA as a fortress with dozens of layers of protection. Forget the notion that I’d have to be granted elite privilege to all sorts of secret keys to get into the inner sanctum, or that, while navigating my way in, I’d be setting off alarm bells all over the place. It was a piece of cake.

Smear.

“NSA is an open book. A book written by idiots. It cost a trillion dollars, but anyone could waltz in there and read the whole thing. Use a thumb drive, and you can also walk out with the whole thing.”

If you set aside Snowden’s remarks about his motives, his morality, and his high mission, his explanation falls apart. It makes no sense.

His CIA handlers would now be telling him that. “Hey Ed, tone down the ‘child’s-play’ angle, okay? You’re making it sound too easy. Remember? You’re the ‘whiz kid genius.’ Yeah, we want to smear NSA, but it’s got to be credible. People have to think it took at least some ingenuity to access the most heavily protected data in the world. Get it?”

A common man of the people, serving the greater good, exposing ongoing crimes that threaten the very lifeblood of the Republic? Is Ed Snowden that hero?

Or is he an operator, an agent?

So far, he’s made himself seem like the agent.

Executives at the NSA are well aware of this. Sitting down with their counterparts at the CIA, they’d be getting an earful. CIA people would be saying:

“Of course Snowden is our boy. He worked for us in Geneva, and he’s working for us now. We told you, after 9/11, we didn’t like you clowns at NSA throwing all the blame on CIA for the Trade Center attacks. We didn’t like that at all. And in the intervening years, we haven’t liked you cutting us out of the spying game. We warned you. So now we’ve given you a taste of what we can do. We can do more. Either we play ball together, or we’ll put NSA in the dumper. Get it?”

Playing ball together. Harmonization.

A sharp reader has just pointed out to me that this is the op behind the op. The fallout from Snowden will be used as the reason for more and better global sharing of spying and surveillance data.

Separate Surveillance States, which already share mountains of data, will come together to coordinate their efforts in an even tighter Surveillance Planet.

The US NSA won’t be tolerated as the pompous king of the hill any longer. It will have to play well with others.

After all, Globalism means the whole globe.

And “we’re all in this together.”

“We” meaning the elites who want to track every move made by every person on Earth, 24/7, in order to predict and control in the new paradise, where the sun rises every day on …compliance.


That’s the takeaway from the Snowden affair. That’s why the secret surveillance/spying at the G20 meeting in England was exposed.

“Gentlemen, we’re all rational here at the table. This is ridiculous. We’re all spying on each other. This can’t go on. It’s counterproductive. We want to work together. So let’s do it. We all want the same thing. A planet under control. The way to achieve that goal is to cooperate. We’ll spy on those who need to be spied on: the population of the planet. We’ll do it together. The primary violator of cooperation is that cowboy outfit in America, the NSA. They have to be brought into line. They have to learn they’re only part of the Whole. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Jon Rappoport

The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails atwww.nomorefakenews.com


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The GODHEAD vs. The TRINITY: Whom Do We Worship?




A NEW GOD?

Could it be that many Seventh-day Adventists are ignorantly worshipping the same God that they are told not to worship in the third angel’s message, the god of the beast power? Are we calling the true Godhead by the name of a false god? What god are we worshipping today? (Note: this is not saying the SDA church is Babylon, but that, like Israel of old, it could be worshipping a false god.)

“How long halt ye between two opinions? If the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” 1 Kings 18:21. Are these words of Elijah applicable today?

THE GODHEAD
“Godhead” is the term used in the NT that describes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The word for “God” in the OT Hebrew is “Elohim”. It means “Gods” in the plural. This is clearly seen in the following Scriptures:
Gen. 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
Gen. 11:7: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
Isaiah 6:8: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go forus?”
These verses show that the Godhead consists of more than one divine Being. There is a unity in the Godhead. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together in loving harmony.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


THREE CHOICES

1. TRINITY


Definition: One God with three personalities, all of one substance, continually manifested.
The Father knows Himself: Jesus continually begotten.
The Father & the Son know each Other: The Holy Spirit continually proceeding.

325AD – Council of Nicea –Trinity Established.
Paganism + Christianity = Papacy.

Sunday worship devoted to Trinity.

Churches that hold to Trinity: Roman Catholicism, Fallen Protestantism , fallen SDA.

2. THE GODHEAD

Definition: The Father Eternal. The Son Eternal. The Holy Spirit Eternal.

Three distinct eternal Beings. The Son and Holy Spirit voluntarily chose submissive roles.

Life–original, unborrowed, underived.

Oneness, a unity of love, a harmony of thought, purpose, and character.

Those who believe in the Godhead: True Seventh-Day Adventists.

3. HOLY SPIRIT: AN IMPERSONAL FORCE Definition: The Father: Eternal
The Son: Begotten way back in eternity. (Originated from the Father.)
The Holy Spirit: an impersonal force, power, or influence. (Originated from the Father and Son.)
Bascically, the same a variation of the Trinity doctrine, except the Holy Spirit is a force, not a person.
Churches that hold to Anti-Holy Spirit View: Jehovah Witnesses, Smyrna Gospel Church


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G8 summit: Politics live blog



• Obama and Putin prepare for crunch talks on Syria
• Turkey summons UK ambassador over Guardian revelations
• Obama hails NI peace process as blueprint for peace
• Cameron welcomes US-EU trade talks
• Tax campaigners issue warning over developing countries
• Rolling coverage of the G8 summit in Lough Erne



Andrew Sparrow at Lough Erne
guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 June 2013 13.53 EDT




Barack Obama and David Cameron at Enniskillen Integrated Primary School today. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images


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Face the Nation transcripts June 16, 2013: McDonough and Rogers on NSA surveillance

  .....
June 16, 2013 2:34 PM

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me get you on the record here now. Does the president feel that he has violated the privacy of any American?

MCDONOUGH: He does not.


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Seeds of Death: Unveiling The Lies of GMO's - Full Movie






PRNfm


Published on May 23, 2013


The world's leading Scientists, Physicians, Attorneys, Politicians and Environmental Activists expose the corruption and dangers surrounding the widespread use of Genetically Modified Organisms in the new feature length documentary, "Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs".

Senior Executive Producer / Writer / Director: Gary Null PhD
Executive Producer/Writer/Co-Director: Richard Polonetsky
Producers: Paola Bossola, Richard Gale, James Spruill, Patrick Thompson, Valerie Van Cleve
Editors: James Spruill, Patrick Thompson, Richie Williamson, Nick Palm
Music: Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com), Armando Guarnera
Graphics: Jay Graygor

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Freemasons Revealed



Freemasons Revealed (MUST SEE).mp4



MrJacktemplar

Published on May 10, 2012


lllllllllllllllllll

P.S.

Presented not as an endorsement of its principles, but to reveal characteristics, and its modes of operation.  I don't necessarily agree with what is portrayed on the video.

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Protests build in Brazil as discontent spreads





By Todd Benson and Asher Levine | Reuters – 2 hrs 14 mins ago



Reuters/Reuters - A demonstrator waves a Brazilian flag by a burning a car in downtown Rio de Janeiro June 17, 2013. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes




By Todd Benson and Asher Levine

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Brazil's biggest cities on Monday in a growing protest that is tapping into widespread anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption.

The marches, organized mostly through snowballing social media campaigns, blocked streets and halted traffic in more than a half-dozen cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, where demonstrators swarmed past the Congress and Presidential Palace.

While peaceful, and unfolding mostly as a festive display of dissent, Monday's demonstrations were the latest in a flurry of protests over the past two weeks that have added to unease over Brazil's sluggish economy, high inflation and a spurt in violent crime.

The marches began this month with a small protest in Sao Paulo against a small increase in bus and subway fares. The demonstrations initially drew the scorn of many middle-class Brazilians after protesters vandalized storefronts, subway stations and buses on one of the city's main avenues.

But the movement quickly gained support and spread to other cities as police used heavy-handed tactics to try to quell the demonstrations. The biggest crackdown happened on Thursday in Sao Paulo when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas in clashes that injured more than 100 people, including 15 journalists, some of whom said they were deliberately targeted.

The protests have gathered pace as Brazil is hosting the soccer Confederation's Cup, a dry run for next year's World Cup. The government hopes these events, along with the 2016 Summer Olympics, will showcase the country as an emerging power on the global stage.

Brazil is also gearing up to welcome more than 2 million visitors in July as Pope Francis makes his first foreign trip for a gathering of Catholic youth in Rio.

Contrasting the billions in public money spent on new stadiums with the shoddy state of Brazil's public services, protesters are using the Confederation's Cup as a counterpoint to amplify their concerns. The tournament got off to shaky start this weekend when police clashed with demonstrators outside stadiums at the opening matches in Brasilia and Rio.

"We shouldn't be spending public money on stadiums," said one protester in Sao Paulo who identified herself as Camila, a 32-year-old travel agent. "We don't want the Cup. We want education, hospitals, a better life for our children."

Other common grievances at Monday's marches included political corruption and the inadequate and overcrowded public transportation networks that Brazilians cope with daily.

POLICE ORDERED TO USE RESTRAINT

The harsh police reaction to last week's protests touched a nerve in Brazil, which endured two decades of political repression under a military dictatorship that ended in 1985. It has also added to doubts about whether Brazil's police forces would be ready for next year's World Cup.

Jose Vicente da Silva, a security consultant and retired police colonel, said training for the big events has focused too much on elite forces instead of the rank-and-file officers who must face the public.

The clashes, he said, "suggest that the everyday policeman in Sao Paulo has barely trained at all" in how to handle a demonstration.

The uproar following last week's crackdown prompted Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin, who initially described the protesters as "troublemakers" and "vandals," to order police to allow Monday's march to proceed and not to use rubber bullets.

The protests are shaping up as a major political challenge for Alckmin, a former presidential candidate, and Sao Paulo's new mayor, Fernando Haddad, a rising star in the left-leaning Workers' Party that has governed Brazil for the past decade. Both have so far insisted that the bus fare hike that sparked the protests is non-negotiable.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who has enjoyed high approval ratings since taking office in 2011, only recently began to slip in opinion polls. Although the protests have gained traction, they do not appear to reflect any broad-based collapse in her support, but Rousseff was booed at Saturday's Confederations Cup opener.

Still, the resonance of the demonstrations underscores what economists say will be a challenge for Rousseff and other Brazilian leaders in the years ahead: providing public services to meet the demands of the growing middle class.

"Voters are likely to be increasingly disgruntled on a range of public services in a lower growth environment," Christopher Garman, a political analyst at the Eurasia Group, wrote in a report.

(Additional reporting by Esteban Israel and Brian Winter.; Editing by Paulo Prada and Christopher Wilson)


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Aldous Huxley - The Mike Wallace Interview



Aldous Huxley interview -1958 (FULL)

TruthTube1111



Uploaded on May 24, 2011


A rare 1958 interview from the author of "Brave New World"

Thank you for watching.

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Monday, June 17, 2013

Zbigniew Brzezinski on Syria: US is engaging in "mass propaganda", "Who's fighting for democracy?"




PlanetEarthAwakens01

Published on Jun 14, 2013


I can't believe it! Brzezinski is right. The west is absolutely engaging in mass propaganda by portraying the Syrian conflict as a fight for democracy when many of the rebels want anything but. They pledge allegiance to Al-Qaeda, explicitly call for Sharia law, kill thousands of Christians, use terrorist tactics yet our corrupt media and political class pretend arming them will produce democracy.

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Obama hails Northern Ireland's peace as a global example




President Obama gestures during a speech at Belfast Waterfront Hall in Northern Ireland. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press / June 17, 2013)



By Kathleen Hennessey

June 17, 2013, 3:32 a.m.


Obama arrived in Belfast on a wet, foggy Monday morning to attend a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations. The summit of world leaders at a golf resort outside Belfast would have been thought impossible during the Troubles -- the conflict between Catholics and Protestants that long created instability, poverty, terrorism and deep prejudices.

Obama spoke at Belfast Waterfront Hall, an auditorium where President Clinton hailed the signing of the Good Friday peace accords 15 years ago.



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Related:

Significant progress has been made in the 15 years since the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Accords, including a Catholic-Protestant government and the disarmament of the IRA and outlawed Protestant groups responsible for most of the 3,700 death toll. But tearing down Belfast's nearly 100 "peace lines" — barricades of brick, steel and barbed wire that divide neighborhoods, roads and even one Belfast playground — is still seen by many as too dangerous. Obama cited that playground in his speech, lauding an activist whose work led to the opening of a pedestrian gate in the fence.

Acknowledging the reality of a sometimes-fragile peace, Obama recalled the Omagh bombings that killed 29 people and injured hundreds more. It was the deadliest attack of the entire conflict and occurred after the Good Friday deal.

Peace will be tested again, Obama said in Belfast.

"Whenever your peace is attacked, you will have to choose whether to respond with the same bravery that you've summoned so far or whether you succumb to the worst instincts, those impulses that kept this great land divided for too long. You'll have to choose whether to keep going forward, not backward," he said.

Last month, the Catholic and Protestant leaders of Northern Ireland's unity government announced a bold but detail-free plan to dismantle all peace lines by 2023. British Prime Minister David Cameron formally backed the goal Friday, and Obama followed with his own endorsement Monday.

The president specifically endorsed an end to segregated housing and schools, calling it an essential element of lasting peace.

"If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs, if we can't see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden — that too encourages division. It discourages cooperation," Obama said.

One symbol of that effort to end the segregation was on display as Obama spoke to an audience that brought together students from both faiths, effectively integrating Northern Ireland's schoolchildren if just for a morning. Later, in Enniskillen, Obama and Cameron rolled up their sleeves at one of Northern Ireland's first integrated schools, talking hunger and poverty with children who were studying the G-8.

Drawing on America's own imperfect battle with segregation, Obama recalled how well over a century after the U.S. Civil War, the nation he leads is still not fully united. His own parents — a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya — would not have been able to marry in some states, Obama said, and he would have had a hard time casting a ballot, let alone running for office.

"But over time, laws changed, and hearts and minds changed, sometimes driven by courageous lawmakers, but more often driven by committed citizens," he said.


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Syria: Putin backs Assad and berates west over proposal to arm rebels



Russian president says backing 'those who kill their enemies and eat their organs' flouts Europe's humanitarian values


Patrick Wintour in Enniskillen
The Guardian, Sunday 16 June 2013



David Cameron, left, with Russia's President Vladimir Putin after they held talks in Downing Street on differences over the Syrian crisis. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA


A diplomatic breakthrough on the Syrian civil war at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland appeared unlikely when the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, chastised the west for considering arming Syrian rebels, saying they ate human organs. He said Russia by contrast was arming the legitimate government of Syria.

Speaking after a difficult meeting with Putin in Downing Street, David Cameron claimed both men were in agreement on the need to end the human catastrophe of the civil war. But there was little to suggest the two men made progress on how to convene a fresh Syrian peace conference in Geneva, let alone who should attend, or its agenda.

In icy exchanges at a press conference, Putin said: "You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Are these the people you want to support? Is it them who you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to humanitarian values that have been preached in Europe for hundreds of years."

Putin's remarks will find an echo on the Conservative benches, where there is strong resistance to arming the Syrian opposition. Cameron has argued that it is possible to arm the pluralist democratic elements of the opposition, and he too wants to drive al-Qaida from Syria.

The talks Putin followed a decision by President Barack Obama's administration to arm rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad after the US said it had obtained proof that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons. Some of the proof was provided by British scientists at Porton Down, and Cameron has now accused Assad of committing war crimes.

Cameron admitted the Russians and the UK held different points of view, but said the two countries would put aside their differences and focus on the "common ground" – organising peace talks between the parties in Geneva. Putin said he fully shared Cameron's view that the civil war could be ended "only by political and diplomatic means".

Cameron added: "We both see the humanitarian catastrophe. We both see the dangers of instability and extremism. We both want to see a peace process and a transition. The challenge for the G8 … is to put aside some of these differences."

The Russian leader, who arrived an hour late for the talks, said he wanted to help broker a peace deal for Syria, and he hoped the G8 summit in Northern Ireland could advance that process. Putin insisted his government was "not breaching any rules" in supplying weapons to Bashar al-Assad's "legitimate government" and called on partner G8 countries to respect the same rules.

"What I take from our conversation today is that we can overcome these differences if we recognise that we share some fundamental aims: to end the conflict, to stop Syria breaking apart, to let the Syrian people decide who governs them, and to take the fight to the extremists and defeat them," said Cameron.

In a sign of deteriorating relations among the G8, the Canadian prime minister, Steve Harper, claimed Putin was backing Assad's "thugs".

"I don't think we should fool ourselves," he said. "This is G7 plus one. We in the west have a very different perspective on this situation. Mr Putin and his government are supporting the thugs of the Assad regime for their own reasons that I do not think are justifiable, and Mr Putin knows my view on that."

Cameron's argument that it was possible to keep arms supplies out of the hands of extremist elements of the rebels was flatly contradicted by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who warned that there would be no way to prevent weapons ending up in the hands of "al-Qaida-affliated thugs".

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Johnson said some elements of the rebels were fighting "not for freedom but for a terrifying Islamic state in which they would have the whip hand – and yet there is no dodging or fudging the matter: these are among the Syrian rebels who are hoping now to benefit from the flow of Western arms".

Cameron was also under pressure from his coalition partners the Liberal Democrats to avoid dragging Britain into a military conflict. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, implied that the case for intervention was less clear cut than in Libya or Iraq.

The shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, said MPs of all parties were feeling unease. "For months Labour has called on the government to answer basic questions about their approach, such as how the prime minister would ensure that weapons supplied did not fall into the wrong hands, and how this step would help to de-escalate the conflict rather than prolong it.

"The G8 is a key window of opportunity for David Cameron to exert pressure on President Putin and it is vital that he uses the coming hours to do so."

Tory MP Julian Lewis said it would be "suicidal" for Britain to hand arms to an opposition the government admits includes extremist elements.

He told the BBC's Radio 4: "The reason it would be suicidal would be that in taking over Syria they would also inherit Syria's arsenal of weapons, including in particular the nerve gas which is the centre of so much attention.

"In the past we have gone to war because we feared that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of al-Qaida and it would be absolutely crazy to assist al-Qaida to get their hands on the very sorts of weapons we must keep away from them at all costs.

"I have little doubt the prime minister would struggle to get this achieved by parliament, because so many think it is not in Britain's national interest."


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Prayer Intentions of the Holy Father entrusted to the Apostleship of Prayer for the Year 2014

Prayer Intentions of the Holy Father
entrusted to the Apostleship of Prayer for the Year 2014


January

Universal
Economic Development. That all may promote authentic economic development that respects
the dignity of all peoples.

For Evangelization
Christian Unity. That Christians of diverse denominations may walk toward the unity desired by Christ.


February

Universal
Elders. That the Church and society may respect the wisdom and experience of older people.

For Evangelization
Collaboration in Evangelization. That priests, religious, and lay people may work together with
generosity for evangelization.


March

Universal
Respect for Women. That all culture smay respect the rights and dignity of women.

For Evangelization
Vocations. That many young people may accept the Lord’s invitation to consecrate their lives to
proclaiming the Gospel.


April

Universal
Ecology and Justice. That governments may foster the protection of creation and the just distribution of
natural resources.

For Evangelization
Hope forthe Sick. That the Risen Lord may fill with hope the hearts of those who are being tested by
pain and sickness.


Read more
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Pope praises Welby over gay marriage stance


Pope Francis praised the Archbishop of Canterbury for his stance on gay marriage suggesting David Cameron 's plans could undermine the “foundations of society”.


The Archbshiop of Canterbury Justin Welby, left, is welcomed to the Vatican by Pope Francis this afternoon. Photo: AP


By Tom Kington and John Bingham

5:36PM BST 14 Jun 2013


In the first meeting between the new leaders of Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, the Pope praised the Most Rev Justin Welby for promoting “Christian values”.

The two leaders, who were enthroned within days of each other in March, also spoke of a new period of closer co-operation between the two churches after centuries of “pain”.

Archbishop Welby, who although from the evangelical wing of the Church of England is heavily influenced by Catholic teaching, spoke of feeling “at home” in the Vatican.

The Pope spoke of “longing for” unity between the two churches, which have been formally separated since Tudor times.

And he offered an olive branch to the Church of England over his predecessor Pope Benedict’s decision to set up the Ordinariate, the special branch of the Catholic Church for disaffected Anglicans.


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He publicly thanked the Church of England for its efforts to “understand” the move and said he hoped it would mean Anglican liturgy, including elements of the Book of Common Prayer, would be more widely known and used by Catholics around the world.

Following a meeting in which the two men discussed their shared interests in combating poverty, the Pope spoke out against the way he said the poor were often “abandoned to the laws of an economy that seems at times to treat people as mere consumers”.

The meeting comes as Archbishop Welby grapples with differing views within the Church of England over how to respond to the Government’s same-sex marriage bill.

Last week the Archbishop spoke strongly in the House of Lords against the bill. But only 24 hours later the Church of England announced that, in light of large majorities in both houses of parliament, bishops in the Lords would no longer attempt to block gay marriage in principle.

Joined by the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Archbishop of Westminster the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the Pope listed areas of close co-operation between the two churches.

In a reference to Archbishop Welby’s speech in the Lords on gay marriage he said: “Particularly important among these is our witness to the reference to God and the promotion of Christian values in a world that seems at times to call into question some of the foundations of society, such as respect for the sacredness of human life or the importance of the institution of the family built on marriage, a value that you yourself have had occasion to recall recently.”

Archbishop Welby said afterwards: “Our experience in the UK with Archbishop Vincent and in our conversation today with the Pope is that we are absolutely at one on issues and equally we are at one in our condemniation of homophobic behaviour.”

He added: “My speech was forthright as can be, the Pope was kind enough to say said he has read it.”

In their meeting the two leaders also discussed the fallout from Pope Benedict's surprise announcement in 2009 of his plans to set up the Ordinariate.

The move was seen at the time as major snub to the Church of England and the then Archbishop Rowan Williams, setting back decades of work to bring the two churches more closely together.

Pope Francis, who was Archbishop of Buenos Aires at the time, is said to have told his Anglican counterpart in Argentina that the move was “unnecessary”.

But in his remarks to Archbishop Welby he said Pope Benedict had been responding to a need and publicly thanked the Church of England for its efforts to “understand” the decision.

“I am sure this will enable the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions that form the Anglican patrimony to be better known and appreciated in the Catholic world,” he said.

Archbishop Welby said afterwards that he was “grateful” for the Pope’s remarks and said he was struck by the Pope's "extraordniary humanity, on fire with the sprit of Christ."

Wearing a bishop’s ring given to his predecessor Archbishop Michael Ramsey by Pope Paul VI in 1966, Archbishop Welby joined Archbishop Nichols to pray at the site of the tomb of St Peter underneath the Vatican. They also stopped to pray at the tomb of Pope John Paul II.

The two archbishops lunched with the Pope at the Vatican residence he has chosen to live in instead of the Papal apartments, eating thinly sliced swordfish, pasta with prawns and tuna steak, followed by semi-freddo and fresh fruit for desert before coffee.

Archbishop Nichols called the lunch "terrific".


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Ken Hackett To Be Nominated As Ambassador To Vatican



Posted: 06/14/2013 6:28 pm EDT | Updated: 06/14/2013 6:53 pm EDT

Religion and Politics, Holy See, Holy See Ambassador, Miguel Diaz, Ambassador To Vatican,Catholicism, Ken Hackett, Ken Hackett Vatican, Vatican, Religion News




The White House announced Friday that President Barack Obama will nominate Ken Hackett, the former president of Catholic Relief Services to be the United States' ambassador to the Vatican.

Hackett is currently a consultant for the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Global Development. He was Catholic Relief Services' president from 1993 to 2012, and retired from the organization in 2012 after working there for 40 years.

The White House announcement also named Obama's nominees to be ambassadors to Brazil, Spain, Germany, Denmark and Ethiopia.

“It gives me great confidence that such dedicated and capable individuals have agreed to join this administration to serve the American people. I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come," the president said in the statement.

The nominations, including Hackett's, must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Hackett would be the 10th American ambassador to the Vatican since the United States established formal diplomatic relations with it in 1984.

Prior to being CRS president, Hackett served in several capacities in the humanitarian group, including being East African regional director, country representative in the Philippines, senior director of external affairs, African regional director and a staffer in Sierra Leone.

He'll fill a position that has been empty since former Holy See ambassador Miguel Diaz left the office in November. Diaz, a theologian who Obama nominated to the position in 2009, was the first Hispanic in the post. He's currently a professor at the University of Dayton.

In addition to his work at CRS, Hackett was the North American vice president of Caritas Internationalis from 1996 to 2004. From 1996 to 2011, he was part of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum for Human and Christian Development, which is the Vatican organization responsible for the church's charitable efforts.

From 2004 to 2009, Hackett was also on the board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Earlier in Hackett's life, from 1968 to 1971, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston College.


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Supreme Court Strikes Down Arizona Voter Registration Citizenship Requirement

Another example of logic defying rationale:




By JESSE J. HOLLAND 06/17/13 11:42 AM ET EDT



WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states cannot on their own require would-be voters to prove they are U.S. citizens before using a federal registration system designed to make signing up easier.

The justices voted 7-2 to throw out Arizona's voter-approved requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal "Motor Voter" voter registration law.

Federal law "precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself," Justice Antonia Scalia wrote for the court's majority.

The court was considering the legality of Arizona's requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal "motor voter" registration law. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which doesn't require such documentation, trumps Arizona's Proposition 200 passed in 2004.

Arizona appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.

"Today's decision sends a strong message that states cannot block their citizens from registering to vote by superimposing burdensome paperwork requirements on top of federal law," said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and lead counsel for the voters who challenged Proposition 200.

"The Supreme Court has affirmed that all U.S. citizens have the right to register to vote using the national postcard, regardless of the state in which they live," she said.

The case focuses on Arizona, which has tangled frequently with the federal government over immigration issues involving the Mexican border. But it has broader implications because four other states – Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee – have similar requirements, and 12 other states are contemplating such legislation.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the court's ruling.

The Constitution "authorizes states to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied," Thomas said in his dissent.

Opponents of Arizona's law see it as an attack on vulnerable voter groups such as minorities, immigrants and the elderly. They say they've counted more than 31,000 potentially legal voters in Arizona who easily could have registered before Proposition 200 but were blocked initially by the law in the 20 months after it passed in 2004. They say about 20 percent of those thwarted were Latino.

Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called the decision a victory. "The court has reaffirmed the essential American right to register to vote for federal election without the burdens of state voter suppression measures," she said.

But Arizona officials say they should be able to pass laws to stop illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from getting on their voting rolls. The Arizona voting law was part of a package that also denied some government benefits to illegal immigrants and required Arizonans to show identification before voting.

The federal "motor voter" law, enacted in 1993 to expand voter registration, requires states to offer voter registration when a resident applies for a driver's license or certain benefits. Another provision of that law – the one at issue before the court – requires states to allow would-be voters to fill out mail-in registration cards and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn't require them to show proof. Under Proposition 200, Arizona officials require an Arizona driver's license issued after 1996, a U.S. birth certificate, a passport or other similar document, or the state will reject the federal registration application form.

While the court was clear in stating that states cannot add additional identification requirements to the federal forms on their own, it was also clear that the same actions can be taken by state governments if they get the approval of the federal government and the federal courts.

Arizona can ask the federal government to include the extra documents as a state-specific requirement, Scalia said, and take any decision made by the government on that request back to court. Other states have already done so, Scalia said.

The Election Assistance Commission "recently approved a state-specific instruction for Louisiana requiring applicants who lack a Louisiana driver's license, ID card or Social Security number to attach additional documentation to the completed federal form," Scalia said.

The case is 12-71, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.


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Just a Name--Or a Registered Trademark?

By Sandra Blackmer

Can anyone who says they’re a Seventh-day Adventist use the church name in an official capacity? The General Conference Office of General Counsel—which provides legal counsel on issues such as employment, church assets, and protection of the church’s name—says “No.” Adventist Review features editor Sandra Blackmer talks with general counsel Karnik Doukmetzian and associate general counsel Dionne A. Parker to explore the specifics of this increasingly complex issue.—Editors.

BLACKMER: What exactly does the term “registered trademark” mean?

PARKER: A trademark, registered or otherwise, includes any word, name, symbol, or device—or any combination—used or intended to be used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods. For example, the trademark “Adventist” is registered in specific areas such as missionary services, religious observances, education, and health care. So we have protection in those specific areas.

Does the Adventist Church’s registered trademark include just the church logo and the name “Seventh-day Adventist,” or does it involve more than that?

PARKER: The names “Seventh-day Adventist” and “Adventist,” and the church logo, are all registered trademarks. The acronym “SDA” is used with what’s called common-law rights, meaning that the Adventist Church has been using it for a long period of time as a name that identifies our organization. So we have rights with that, as well.

Who has the legal right to use these trademarks?

PARKER: Any entity listed in The Seventh-day Adventist Church Yearbook. This includes the General Conference, divisions, unions, local conferences, local churches and companies, educational institutions, health-care institutions, and so forth. Lay and professional groups, however, must apply to the GC Office of General Counsel for a license to use the name “Seventh-day Adventist” and then wait for approval from administration.

DOUKMETZIAN: One thing to point out is that the General Conference Administrative Committee—the group that gives the ultimate approval for licenses to use the church name—doesn’t issue licenses to use the church logo. That use is restricted to official organizations, which don’t need additional permission.


To put trademark use into perspective, if someone were to take the golden arches of McDonald’s and put them up in a building and open up a business, it wouldn’t be long until McDonald’s would react to that, even if that person used only the logo—the golden arches. On the other side of that coin is the name “Mc-Donald’s.” You can’t open up a hamburger place and call it McDonald’s, although there have been a number of cases in which people have tried. If someone passes themselves off as McDonald’s, it impacts the company brand, its reputation, and the quality of the products McDonald’s is selling.

PARKER: The same is true if somebody tries to pass themselves off as part of the official Seventh-day Adventist Church when, in fact, they’re not.

DOUKMETZIAN: It affects not only doctrinal issues but also charitable donations. If I’m attending a Seventh-day Adventist church, I expect certain rules and procedures to regulate what happens to the money I put into the offering plate. I also know there are specific doctrines held by the Adventist Church. But if there’s another organization that calls itself the Seventh-day Adventist Church but is not part of the organized church, I don’t know where my money is going or how it’s going to be spent. They also may be advocating or following doctrines different from those of the official church. It’s very important to protect the reputation of the church so people know they’re getting what they think they’re getting. The misuse of the church trademarks can cause a lot of confusion for the public.

Such as when a self-supporting but Adventist-run school uses the trademarks?

DOUKMETZIAN: If a self-supporting school were to include the name “Adventist” in its name, they would receive a letter from Dionne saying, “You’re not part of the officially recognized Seventh-day Adventist system; you don’t have the right to use this name. Please cease and desist.” Most people amicably concede at that point.

There are times, though, when we have to go beyond that. Sometimes they ask permission to use the church trademark. At that point Dionne reviews the situation to determine how it would impact the church: What is it they do or advocate, and what are their functions and goals? That information is then forwarded to the General Conference Administrative Committee, and a decision is then made whether to grant them a license to use the trademark and how that mark is to be used.

PARKER: They also have to provide a letter of recommendation from their conference, a statement of their mission and objectives, and affirmation that their board members are members of the church in regular standing.

Are there restrictions as to how and where the church trademarks can be used?

DOUKMETZIAN: They can’t be used to generate profit. And when a registered trademark such as the logo is used, it must be used with the appropriate recognitions. For example, the letter “R” with a circle around it [®] showing that it’s a registered trademark.

But it can be used by appropriate entities on letterhead, Web sites, signs, the sides of conference-owned moving vans?

DOUKMETZIAN: In general, yes.

PARKER: We run into sticky points with ministries that may be supported by the local church. For example, there’s a church that was running a healthful living center, but when the woman working with the program decided to take it over and run it herself, problems arose. When the ministry was under the umbrella of the church, they didn’t need a license agreement. Once it moved away from the church, the church didn’t want the organization to use the church’s trademark anymore. So we had to ask the woman to stop using the trademark, even though in the past she had been able to do so.

DOUKMETZIAN: A church member may feel, “Well, I’m a member of the church, therefore, I should be entitled to use the name ‘Adventist,’” but that’s not necessarily the case. An individual cannot use the name of the church in promoting his or her own business, for example.




How frequently do you deal with a situation in which an individual or a group is using the trademark inappropriately?

DOUKMETZIAN: Almost every day.

PARKER: Right now we probably have more than 60 open issues.

DOUKMETZIAN: Dionne does a regular search—both in corporate name and domain name registrations. We get reports every time someone registers a corporate name or uses a name or a domain name with any of the variations or names that we monitor.

PARKER: We also have a company that provides us with trademark monitoring worldwide, so we keep a pretty good finger on the pulse of what’s going on in terms of using the church’s name. The church’s name is also well-known outside of North America, but trademarks, in general, are not as well-protected in other world regions.

How do you enforce trademark restrictions?

DOUKMETZIAN: More and more governments are putting rules and laws in place to protect trademarks. As the world shrinks and corporations expand around the world, they want to protect their name and reputation so that someone else is not trying to pass themselves off as the corporation. The same thing applies to the church.

We’ve had some high-profile cases 
in which individuals have broken off from the official church and started their own churches using the “Seventh-day Adventist” name, and we’ve had to enforce the church’s rights. At times we’re misunderstood when we go into the court system to enforce that right, but that’s the ultimate step for us, a step we don’t take lightly. We’d much rather resolve these issues well before they get to that point. But if individuals or organizations insist even after we have counseled with them, we need to do the best we can to protect the church’s name from misuse and confusion.

PARKER: Litigation is always a last resort. In the four years I’ve been here we’ve filed three lawsuits; two of them settled almost immediately. We have 
a pretty good track record that speaks loudly to the fact that we really try not to sue people. But at the same time, we’re very firm about making sure we protect the church’s name.

Some people might say, “Why are you spending all that money taking people to court?” How would you respond?

DOUKMETZIAN: If we didn’t, the cost to the church—financial and otherwise—would be much greater.

PARKER: With trademarks, if you don’t protect your rights, you lose them. If we can’t identify ourselves as Seventh-day Adventists and be distinct from the world—which is what we’re supposed to be doing—then we’re going to have a problem. If we call ourselves Seventh-day Adventists and we believe X, but these people over here call themselves Seventh-day Adventists and they believe Y, we’ve lost our identity and created confusion and misunderstanding with the public.

A perfect example of this is the Baptist Church. The Baptists didn’t do anything to protect their name, and pretty much anybody now can start a Baptist church and believe anything they want, and there’s nothing that the National Baptist Convention can do about it because they never made the effort when they should have to protect their name.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

DOUKMETZIAN: I want to emphasize that we follow the Matthew 18 principle. We go to the people who are using the trademarks inappropriately or without authorization and try to reason with them. It’s only when everything else fails that we take the extreme step of taking them to court. It’s not what we want to do; but, ultimately, it’s the last recourse we have. The kind of publicity the church wants is not what we get when a news crew shows up in a courthouse when we’re trying to enforce the church’s right to protect its name. But sometimes we have no other recourse. 

__________
This article was published June 10, 2010.

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Source: http://www.adventistreview.org/issue.php?issue=2010-1516&page=24
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God Doesn't Care If You Smoke Weed; Pastors Focus On Decriminalizing Unjust Drug Laws



Posted: 06/15/2013 9:20 am EDT | Updated: 06/15/2013 1:50 pm EDT



A network of pastors is speaking out against the so-called "war on drugs" and the devastating effect it has had, particularly on the black community.

At a conference called "View from the Pulpit: Faith Leaders and Drug Decriminalization," held at American Baptist College in Nashville, religious leaders focused on the moral injustice of the drug laws, rather than the morality of drugs themselves.

In a press release released in advance of the conference, potential attendees were reminded that African-Americans comprise only 13 percent of the U.S. population and 13 percent of drug users. Yet, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug law violations and 59 percent of those convicted of drug law violations.

One conference attendee, the Rev. John Jackson from Trinity United Church of Christ in Gary, Indiana, spoke on camera (see video above) about his beliefs on God and weed:


"I have had several people share with me privately, 'Reverend, I smoke weed and I know I shouldn't.' I say, 'Let me stop you right there. I don't believe the God we serve is that small or petty to be concerned about you smoking weed. I don't think God cares about that.' I let them know that our God is too big to be concerned about somebody smoking a joint."

The group of black pastors has a strange bedfellow in the televangelist Pat Robertson who indicated to his largely conservative audience last year that he also supported the decriminalization of drugs:


"I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy."

The conference was sponsored by The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, American Baptist College and The Drug Policy Center.



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Weapons of Mass Distraction


As the reports come in from The Ministry of Information...

And the steam rises from the rumor mill...

We are ready for the time honored materiel of choice: 

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US president to urge school pupils to work towards more shared society in North






US president Barack Obama is expected to urge Northern Ireland schoolchildren to work for a more shared society, and to call for the eventual removal of Belfast’s peace walls. Photograph: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais


Dan Keenan




Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 01:00


First published:Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 01:00


US president Barack Obama visits Belfast this morning to press for renewed efforts to end community division in Northern Ireland.

Accompanied by Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha, he will address an invited audience of some 1,500 school pupils aged 16 and over from schools across the city and elsewhere in the North.

It is understood he will call on them to work for a more shared society and the eventual removal of Belfast’s peace walls.

The Obamas arrive at Belfast International Airport at Aldergrove, Co Antrim, following their overnight flight from Washington and are expected to transfer by air to City Airport, a short distance from the Waterfront Hall where the president is due to speak.

Michelle Obama will then depart for Dublin where she is to attend a number of engagements. It is expected there will be widespread disruption to traffic in the centre of the capital today and tomorrow to facilitate the movement of Ms Obama and her daughters.

The Belfast visit was announced last month following the publication by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of plans for a more cohesive society 15 years after the signing of the Belfast Agreement.

Last week British prime minister David Cameron praised plans to remove the last of the peace lines that segregate nationalist and loyalist areas of Belfast.

The US, a long-standing supporter of integrated education in Northern Ireland, is understood to be particularly keen to press for further progress on combating sectarianism and for the removal of the 100 or so peace walls.

Mr Obama used his meeting with Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness at the White House during St Patrick’s week to insist: “There’s a lot more work to be done before there’s true unity . . .”


Source
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They became servants to act as spies upon their masters



Throughout Christendom, Protestantism was menaced by formidable foes. The first triumphs of the Reformation past, Rome summoned new forces, hoping to accomplish its destruction. At this time the order of the Jesuits was created, the most cruel, unscrupulous, and powerful of all the champions of popery. Cut off from earthly ties and human interests, dead to the claims of natural affection, reason and conscience wholly silenced, they knew no rule, no tie, but that of their order, and no duty but to extend its power. (See Appendix.) The gospel of Christ had enabled its adherents to meet danger and endure suffering, undismayed by cold, hunger, toil, and poverty, to uphold the banner of truth in face of the rack, the dungeon, and the stake. To combat these forces, Jesuitism inspired its followers with a fanaticism that enabled them to endure like dangers, and to oppose to the power of truth all the weapons of deception. There was no crime too great for them to commit, no deception too base for them to practice, no disguise too difficult for them to assume. Vowed to perpetual poverty and humility, it was their studied aim to secure wealth and power, to be devoted to the overthrow of Protestantism, and the re-establishment of the papal supremacy.

When appearing as members of their order, they wore a garb of sanctity, visiting prisons and hospitals, ministering to the sick and the poor, professing to have renounced the world, and bearing the sacred name of Jesus, who went about doing good. But under this blameless exterior the most criminal and deadly purposes were often concealed. It was a fundamental principle of the order that the end justifies the means. By this code, lying, theft, perjury, assassination, were not only pardonable but commendable, when they served the interests of the church. Under various disguises the Jesuits worked their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings, and shaping the policy of nations. They became servants to act as spies upon their masters. They established colleges for the sons of princes and nobles, and schools for the common people; and the children of Protestant parents were drawn into an observance of popish rites. All the outward pomp and display of the Romish worship was brought to bear to confuse the mind and dazzle and captivate the imagination, and thus the liberty for which the fathers had toiled and bled was betrayed by the sons. The Jesuits rapidly spread themselves over Europe, and wherever they went, there followed a revival of popery.

To give them greater power, a bull was issued re-establishing the inquisition. (See Appendix.) Notwithstanding the general abhorrence with which it was regarded, even in Catholic countries, this terrible tribunal was again set up by popish rulers, and atrocities too terrible to bear the light of day were repeated in its secret dungeons. In many countries, thousands upon thousands of the very flower of the nation, the purest and noblest, the most intellectual and highly educated, pious and devoted pastors, industrious and patriotic citizens, brilliant scholars, talented artists, skillful artisans, were slain or forced to flee to other lands.

Such were the means which Rome had invoked to quench the light of the Reformation, to withdraw from men the Bible, and to restore the ignorance and superstition of the Dark Ages. But under God's blessing and the labors of those noble men whom He had raised up to succeed Luther, Protestantism was not overthrown. Not to the favor or arms of princes was it to owe its strength. The smallest countries, the humblest and least powerful nations, became its strongholds. It was little Geneva in the midst of mighty foes plotting her destruction; it was Holland on her sandbanks by the northern sea, wrestling against the tyranny of Spain, then the greatest and most opulent of kingdoms; it was bleak, sterile Sweden, that gained victories for the Reformation.


The Great Controversy, p. 234-236.

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Gunman shoots man during Catholic Mass in Utah




Updated 5:13 pm, Sunday, June 16, 2013


OGDEN, Utah (AP) — A 35-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of walking into a Catholic church and shooting his father-in-law in the back of the head during Mass.

Charles Richard Jennings Jr., 35, was captured Sunday afternoon in nearby Box Elder County after fleeing in a stolen pickup truck, investigators said.

Witnesses say they heard one gunshot during the 11:30 a.m. Mass on Sunday at Saint James the Just Catholic Church in Ogden, and that parishioners immediately hit the floor.

The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was listed in critical but stable condition. His name wasn't immediately released.

Police said the victim was deliberately targeted by the gunman and it wasn't a random act of violence.

"We don't know the motive," Ogden police Lt. Danielle Croyle told The Salt Lake Tribune. "It is a domestic violence-related incident."

Parishioner Rebecca Ory Hernandez said the congregation was told by a priest that the suspect and his wife had been involved in domestic disputes.

Hernandez was sitting close to the victim when the shooting occurred, she said.

"The guy walked up to his father-in-law and shot him point blank in the head," Hernandez told Ogden's Standard-Examiner. "Then I ran over to the victim and pulled my scarf off and put it around his head.

"He was pretty calm. There was so much blood ... People were in shock and some people were passing out. We have some military guys in our parish and they ran out after the guy," she added.

Parishioner Leon Bedford said the victim was sitting in a back pew with his wife when their daughter and son-in-law walked in holding hands as the congregation started saying a prayer.

"Oh, it's obvious it was well planned out," Bedford told the Standard-Examiner. "They came into the church hand in hand, and he walked right up to (the victim) and pulled that trigger. We just hope and pray that he makes it."

Jennings is accused of stealing the truck at gunpoint from a nearby resident after fleeing the church. He was booked on charges of attempted aggravated criminal homicide and aggravated robbery.

Further details about the shooting will not be released until a news conference Monday morning at McKay-Dee Hospital, officials said.

A family spokesperson and a police representative will be on hand to discuss the case and status of the victim, hospital spokesman Chris Dallin said.


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Sunday, June 16, 2013

Mainstream media losing all credibility as it fails to break any news on exploding government scandals






Friday, June 14, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes



(NaturalNews) In another sign of the weakening "influence" of the mainstream media, not one of the major scandals currently swirling around the Obama Administration were broken by what you could fairly call the establishment press.

Fact: Over the past few weeks, three major scandals have broken over the Obama Administration, and it is a very sad (and frightening) truth that our pathetic, American, lapdog mainstream media are not responsible for breaking even a single one," writes John Nolte in Breitbart News' Big Journalism section.

He goes onto note that the three scandals - involving the IRS; NSA/Verizon phone records; the Justice Department's improper seizure of Associated Pressphone records; and Benghazi - were either broken by foreign media or the so-called U.S. alternative media (of which NaturalNews is a proud member).

Thank goodness for the alternative press


The Verizon story was broken by The Guardian, a British newspaper (the whistleblower in this case, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, an NSA analyst, probably didn't trust anyone in the U.S. with this story).

How about the IRS' improper targeting of conservative political action groups? Again, that story was broken "with a planted question," Nolte points out.

In the case of the Justice Department's targeting of AP reporters and editors, even The Associated Press failed to break that story; it only emerged after the Justice Department notified the AP what had occurred, so essentially, the department tattled on itself.

And Benghazi? Again, nope. Even though there was plenty of smoke there, the mainstream media - which has been in bed with Obama since day one of his initial campaign - took a pass en mass. There were a few exceptions, most notably Jake Tapper and Sharyl Attkission, but other than that, only Republican members of Congress and Fox News have been aggressively seeking the truth about what actually took place there when our ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed and brutalized.

"Left up to the media, we wouldn't know anything about Libya. All of the media's energy was collectively poured into ensuring the truth was never discovered," Nolte wrote. "And do you want to know what makes this realization especially pathetic? In three of the four scandals (the AP being the exception), had our media been less interested in protecting Power and more interested in holding Power accountable, these huge, career-making stories were right there for the taking."

What's more, the media has been extremely hypocritical (no kidding) on some of these scandals. Take the IRS' targeting of Tea Party groups.

In early June an editorial published by the editorial staff at The New York Times was highly critical of the president over his administration's targeting of the phone records of millions of Americans, all in the name of protecting national security. And rightfully so; it is an abuse of the Fourth Amendment like no other in the history of the country.

There is no media in the Old Media

But more than a year before the IRS scandal broke, the Times was all about having the nation's tax collection agency target those very same groups.

"But because Obama told them to, the media hate the Tea Party. So in the face of these complaints and even a few Congressional inquiries, the media either ignored the harassment reports or openly sided with the IRS," wrote Nolte.

The same thing can be said about what happened in Libya. Because Barack Obama was in reelection mode; and because the mainstream media was all-in to help him get reelected; and because the president's reelection narrative on terrorism in general was that al Qaeda was on the run - the mainstream press willingly went along and refused to dig deeper on Benghazi. Had that failed operation been scrutinized, many more Americans would have known before Election Day that the administration essentially sacrificed Stevens and three other Americans for the sake of political expediency.

"Our media are not only biased; it is an utter and complete failure and embarrassment. And although there are plenty of remaining table scraps to make meals out of, the media are already losing interest in the IRS, Libya, and AP scandals, but for only one reason - they are absolutely terrified of where they might lead," Nolte writes.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.breitbart.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk

http://cnsnews.com

http://washingtonexaminer.com




Sourcehttp://www.naturalnews.com/040774_media_bias_breaking_news_mainstream.html#ixzz2WPll3x5e

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