Thursday, February 20, 2014

World War Three and Albert Pike



World War Three is to be fomented by using the differences the agentur of the Illuminati stir up between Political Zionists and the leaders of the Moslem world. The war is to be directed in such a manner that Islam (the Arab World including Mohammedanism) and Political Zionism (including the State of Israel) will destroy themselves while at the same time the remaining nations, once more divided against each other on this issue, will be forced to fight themselves into a state of complete exhaustion physically, mentally, spiritually and economically. Can any unbiased and reasoning person deny that the intrigue now going on in the Near, Middle, and Far East is designed to accomplish this devilish purpose?

After World War Three is ended, those who aspire to undisputed world domination will provoke the greatest social cataclysm the world has ever known. We quote his own written words taken from the letter catalogued in the British Museum Library, London, England.

"We shall unleash the Nihilists and Atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will be from that moment without compass (direction), anxious for an ideal, but with out knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view, a manifestation which will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time" (William Guy Carr, Pawns in the Game, p. xv-xvi).

This strategy is corroborated by Dr. Dennis L. Cuddy PhD. in The Power Elite's use of Wars and Crises. pike.htm


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Unite and Conquer: Fighting Back Against the Oligarchy





corbettreport

Published on Feb 19, 2014


PLEASE SUPPORT BFP: http://ur1.ca/gnpck
TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=8752

In the tech field, the open source revolution is reimagining the way people collaborate, share knowledge, and produce innovations. From 3D printing and the sharing of the digital blueprints for the design of all manner of household objects under creative commons licenses to the creation of downloadable roadworthy car chassis to the sharing of designs and ideas for farming technologies in the open agriculture revolution, people are finding all sorts of new ways to come together regardless of political or philosophical or racial or class distinction to create vibrant, alternative communities of like-minded people interested in finding solutions to humanity's problems.

Find out more about the collaborative solutions to our common problems in this week's Eyeopener report.
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Soros betting against stocks? Not likely




 By Patrick M. Sheridan @CNNMoneyInvest
February 19, 2014: 2:20 PM ET





George Soros increased his position in an investment that would profit if stocks fall. But it may simply be a smart hedge.



NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Hedge fund heavyweight George Soros appears to be making a billion dollar bet against the stock market. But looks can be deceiving.

Tongues have been wagging on Wall Street since Soros Fund Management revealed in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday that his fund owned 7 million "puts" on the S&P 500 (SPY) exchange traded fund in the fourth quarter. Puts are essentially a bet that the price of an asset will go down. The total value of the "puts" as of the filing date was $1.3 billion.

Soros first bought the position last year as the S&P 500 was on its way to setting a series of new record highs. So if Soros is boosting the size of an investment that many short sellers and other market bears use, then that should be big news to make investors worried about where are stocks going, right? Not necessarily.

According to one investment expert, the move may be nothing more than a standard hedging practice for Soros, whose total portfolio is worth about $11.7 billion. Insider Monkey research director Ian Dogan noted that even though the size of the S&P 500 put position increased by a whopping 150%, this may be normal given that Soros also increased his overall long position on the market by $2 billion.

Related: Soros and other hedge fund bailed on gold in 2013

To that end, Friday's filing also revealed that Soros added to stakes in several well-known stocks, such as Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Dish Network (DISH, Fortune 500), in the fourth quarter.

Another thing to remember is that the latest filing is a snapshot of what the fund held as of the end of December. We won't know what Soros has bought or sold in the first quarter until sometime in May when his firm is required to file its latest quarterly update.

A Soros representative declined to comment on the filing. But with his history of big bets, it's understandable why some investors are curious.

A little more than 20 years ago Soros made his most famous investment. He shorted the British pound and pocketed a billion dollars in the process.

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Los Angeles Cardinal Unlikely to Face Charges



LOS ANGELES February 19, 2014 (AP)
By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press





Top Headlines This Hour From ABC News
Next Video Catholic TV Star Defends Child Sex Abusers







The nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese has agreed to pay $720 million to clergy abuse victims over the past decade and released internal files that showed Cardinal Roger Mahony shielded priests and ordered a surrogate to withhold evidence from police, yet Mahony and other archdiocese leaders are unlikely to face criminal charges.

With the final $13 million settlement of existing old cases announced Wednesday, Mahony has emerged from the scandal with his reputation tarnished, but his place in the church intact — even after being publicly rebuked by his successor for internal church files showing that he and others worked to protect priests, keep parishioners in the dark and defend the church's image.

By settling the cases, the archdiocese avoids a trial in which Mahony would have been publicly questioned under oath about what plaintiffs' lawyers said was an attempt to thwart a Los Angeles police investigation.

During a deposition unsealed Wednesday, Mahony acknowledged he told an underling not to give police a list of altar boys who had worked with the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera. He testified he wasn't trying to hinder police, but he didn't want the boys to be scarred by the investigation and that he felt the altar boys were too old to be potential victims of the Mexican priest.

Police later found that 25 of Aguilar Rivera's alleged victims were altar boys and the other victim was training with the priest to be one, said Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney.

It's not clear what impact Mahony's action had on the investigation, though at the time, police complained that the archdiocese wasn't fully cooperating.

"Cardinal Mahony and those top officials have never been held fully to account," Jeff Anderson, a plaintiffs' attorney, said at a news conference. "What we see is a current and ongoing attempt to deflect and deny responsibility."

The priest is believed to have molested 100 additional children in Mexico both before and after his stint in Los Angeles, DeMarco said. He was defrocked in 2009 after attorneys in Los Angeles filed the first of their lawsuits.

The archdiocese said in a statement Tuesday that the church had settled the cases to "provide support to the victims through the healing process."

Mahony, who retired as head of the archdiocese in 2011, was admonished last year by Archbishop Jose Gomez for his handling of the abuse crisis. But he has avoided criminal prosecution, despite investigations by the Los Angeles County district attorney and the U.S. attorney's office.

With only a three- to five-year period to bring charges of obstruction of justice after a crime — depending on a federal or state court venue — it's unlikely he or other church administrators would face charges now for cases that date back more than a decade, said Lawrence Rosenthal, a criminal law professor at Chapman University and a former prosecutor.

In other cases, church leaders accused of shielding pedophile priests from prosecution have faced criminal charges.

Prosecutors in Philadelphia won the conviction of a monsignor after a change in state law gave prosecutors more time to file charges and seek evidence. A state appeals court last year, however, threw out the conviction and said he never should have been charged.

In Missouri, a judge found the Kansas City bishop guilty last year of failing to report child abuse to the state, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Roman Catholic official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal. He was sentenced to probation for the misdemeanor and remains head of his diocese.

A Los Angeles federal prosecutor involved in a 2009 grand jury investigation wrote that documents showed "the possibility of criminal culpability" by members of the archdiocese leadership, but a criminal conspiracy case was "more and more remote" because of the passage of time.

The newly disclosed testimony by Mahony deals mostly with Aguilar Rivera, who fled to his native Mexico in January 1988 after Mahony's top aide, Monsignor Thomas Curry, tipped him off about parent complaints and warned that the church would call police.

Aguilar Rivera, who was 46 at the time, remains a fugitive and is believed to be somewhere in Mexico.

U.S. authorities have an arrest warrant pending and could arrest him if he returns to American soil.

In the deposition taken a year ago, Mahony appears on video in his priests' collar, taking long pauses and glancing down frequently. At one point he explains why he told Curry not to share a list of altar boys with police. Allowing police to question altar boys at the two parishes where Aguilar Rivera worked during his 10-month stint in LA "could be very traumatic to those servers to all of a sudden be sitting in front of a policeman being interrogated," the cardinal said. "And we had no suspicion at that time of any other victims and nobody among the altar servers."

He denied under questioning from plaintiff attorneys that his motivation in holding back the list was to protect the priest and delay the investigation.

J. Michael Hennigan, an attorney with the archdiocese, said Mahony was in Rome on Wednesday and was not available to comment.

Hennigan said Mahony was "very vigorous" in trying to get Aguilar Rivera brought back to the U.S. for prosecution after he fled.

Mahony wrote to his counterpart in Aguilar Rivera's diocese and urged him to contact police.

In his testimony, Mahony also defended Curry, the vicar for clergy, for telling Aguilar Rivera that the church would need to contact police and that the accused priest was "in a good deal of danger."

The complaints came in on a Friday, and Curry met with the priest Saturday morning. Police weren't notified until Monday. By then, Aguilar Rivera was gone.

Victor Cortez, 34, said he was molested by Aguilar Rivera when he was 7 and kept the abuse secret for years.

"I've lived for 26 years with fear, and now I'm not afraid anymore," said Cortez, who was part of Wednesday's settlement announcement. "Once I got it all out, the problems just went away. I'm able to be a better father to my children and a better husband to my wife."

Mahony also testified about a 1986 letter he wrote to the director at a New Mexico center treating the Rev. Peter Garcia for pedophilia, warning that the priest couldn't return to Los Angeles in the foreseeable future.

"I believe that if Monsignor Garcia were to reappear here with the archdiocese, we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors," he wrote.

In his deposition, Mahony said the letter was not intended to protect Garcia from prosecution.

"Was I interested in having a big civil upset here for the archdiocese? No, I was not," he said. "But I was not encouraging him to avoid criminal prosecution."

Mahony, who turns 78 next week, has largely retreated from the public eye.

After giving his deposition last year, he traveled to Rome, where he helped elect the new pope. A month ago, he celebrated Mass with Pope Francis at the Vatican before having a private meeting with him.


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My help cometh from the Lord


1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalm 121
King James Version (KJV)
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Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Family of God: The Way - Pastor Jennifer Scott - 10/19/13

Watch more Sermon videos on Frequency

Pastor Jennifer Scott's first Sermon in her "Family of God" series on Sabbath, October 19, 2013
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Keynote address -- Samir Selmanovic, Faith House Manhattan





Harvard University

Uploaded on Sep 22, 2011


Interfaith Conversations on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11
Where were you? Where are we going?
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Harvard University Interfaith Collaborative

The Harvard Interfaith Collaborative is comprised of the Harvard Chaplains, the student-driven Harvard College Interfaith Council, The Center for the Study of World Religions, The Pluralism Project, Harvard Divinity School, and other interested members of the Harvard community.
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Dwight Nelson on Women's Ordination





Healthy Lifestyle Choices

Published on Dec 3, 2012

http://adventistsermons.blogspot.co.uk/ Dwight Nelson on Women's Ordination. I really like his interpretation of the passages that people use against the ordination of women and the implications of applying their logic to all situations and not just gender.

JThe Last Days: Of Perfume, Tears and Grumpy Old Men"
www.pmchurch.tv

□ The Narrative—John 12:1-8
□ The Notes—
 Mark 15:40, 41
 Luke 10:41, 42
 I Timothy 3:2 (but see Matthew 10:10)
 Genesis 3:16
 I Timothy 2:11, 12 (aner "man/husband" and gune "woman/wife")
 Acts 11:15, 17

Ellen White: "Thus, without controversy, prejudice was broken down, the exclusiveness established by the custom of ages was abandoned, and the way was opened for the gospel to be proclaimed to the Gentiles." (Acts of the Apostles 142)


P.S. 

Joel Osteen has nothing on 'adventist' Dwight Nelson.
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Flight Attendant Critically Hurt as United Jet Hits Turbulence


 By Alastair Jamieson


Five people were taken to hospital – one of them in a critical condition – after a United Airlines jet ran into severe turbulence on a flight from Denver to Billings, Montana, on Monday.

A passenger said one woman hit the cabin ceiling so hard that she cracked a panel during the incident, which happened as the Flight 1676 was making its descent for a scheduled landing at 1:23 p.m. local time (3:23 p.m. ET).

Three flight attendants and two passengers went to hospital, the airline said in a statement. All were released except for one flight attendant.

5 injured by severe turbulence on United flight TODAY

St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings said the remaining patient was in a critical condition.

Joe Frank, 20, a passenger on board on the Boeing 737-700 told The Denver Post in an e-mail that the aircraft dropped suddenly and with such force that an infant flew from a parent's arms and landed, unharmed, in another seat nearby.

"The sudden drop pulled everyone out of their seats, and I mean hard," Frank told the newspaper.

Another passenger, Bill Dahlin, told local station KTVQ that one woman hit the ceiling so hard it cracked the panel above her head.




Courtesy Caleb Van
A United plane at the Billings Loan International Airport in Montana after it made an emergency landing.

"There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hollering," Dahlin told KTVQ.

In a statement, United Airlines said there had been 114 passengers and five crew members on board the flight.

“The flight encountered severe turbulence upon descent into Billings, Montana,” the statement said. “Three crew members and a number of passengers were injured. Our primary focus is assisting our employees and passengers who were injured, and our flight safety team will review what happened. “

Tricia Culligan of NBC News contributed to this report. First published February 18th 2014, 3:56 am


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Tremors felt in Barbados after 6.7 earthquake at sea - the THIRD in three months

Feb 18, 2014 13:50

By Chris Bradley

The epicentre was more than 120 miles off the coast and 20 miles deep but Barbadians felt the tremors in the early hours



Flickr RF 
Shaken paradise: The idyllic island of Barbados is an holiday destination for millions 

Barbados has been rocked by an 6.7 magnitude earthquake off the coast of the island in the Caribbean.

The epicentre was around 126 miles to the northeast of Bridgetown and at a depth of 20 miles.

It happened at just before 5.30am local time.

No tsunami alert has been issued and there are no reports of any injuries or fatalities in Barbados or on nearby islands.

Tremors were also felt in St Lucia. . The United States Geological Survey took a magnitude reading of 6.7 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake is the third in the Caribbean in two months.

In December, one with a magnitude of 3.8 at a depth of 41miles struck off the Barbados coast a day after two tremors shook the island.

The Seismic Unit of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago measured them both at 3.6, Nationnews.com reported.


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S0 News February 18, 2014: Sky Spraying, Solar Eruption





Suspicious0bservers



Published on Feb 18, 2014


Welcome to the Channel: http://youtu.be/Wo3prvrLInE
Our Website: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org
Blog: http://www.suspicious0bserverscollect...
Major Warnings/Alerts: https://twitter.com/TheRealS0s
STARWATER Article: http://wavechronicle.com/wave/?p=1151
S0 Notes on Solar Shutdown: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org/fo...

Donate memberships for others: http://tiny.cc/f195ww

Today's Featured Links:
Ganymede: http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2...
SRM Warming: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9...
Japan Snow: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/16/world/a...
IPCC History: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org/se...
Earth WindMap: http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/...

0bserver Shop: http://www.cafepress.com/s0s

Original music by NEMES1S
http://www.suspicious0bservers.org/shop/ [Get NEMES1S Music!]

REPEAT LINKS:

WORLD WEATHER:
NDBC Buoys: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
Tropical Storms: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/
HurricaneZone Satellite Images: http://www.hurricanezone.net/westpaci...
Weather Channel: http://www.weather.com/
NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/Default.php
Pressure Maps: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-bin/expe...
Satellite Maps: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-app/sate...
Forecast Maps: http://www.woweather.com/weather/maps...
EL DORADO WORLD WEATHER MAP: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/...
TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-t... [Tornado Forecast for the day]
HURRICANE TRACKER: http://www.weather.com/weather/hurric...

US WEATHER:
Precipitation Totals: http://www.cocorahs.org/ViewData/List...
GOES Satellites: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/
THE WINDMAP: http://hint.fm/wind/
Severe Weather Threats: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-s...
Canada Weather Office Satellite Composites: http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/satell...
Temperature Delta: http://www.intellicast.com/National/T...
Records/Extremes: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/rec...

SPACEWEATHER:
Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com
SOHO Solar Wind: http://umtof.umd.edu/pm/
HAARP Data Meters: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/dat...
Planetary Orbital Diagram - Ceres1 JPL: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr...
SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/
Helioviewer: http://www.helioviewer.org/
SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-b...
Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/i...
SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/
iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html
NASA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSy...
NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/
GOES Xray: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sxi/goes15/i...
Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/
BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spac...
ISWA: http://iswa.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/I...
NOAA Sunspot Classifications: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/lates...
GONG: http://gong2.nso.edu/dailyimages/
GONG Magnetic Maps: http://gong.nso.edu/data/magmap/ondem...


MISC Links:
JAPAN Radiation Map: http://jciv.iidj.net/map/
RADIATION Network: http://radiationnetwork.com/
LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring...
QUAKES LIST FULL: http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/s...
RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]
Moon: http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pac...
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Monster asteroid whizzes past Earth a year after Russia explosion



17/02 10:34 CET





A gigantic asteroid has whizzed ‘close’ to Earth – around a year after another exploded over Russia, injuring hundreds of people.

The space rock, which measured around 270-metres (885 ft) wide, raced past the planet at about 27,000mph (43,000kph) around 3am CET on Tuesday.

The asteroid came within about 1.6 million miles (2.6m km) of Earth.

On February 15, 2013, a smaller asteroid, around 20m (65ft) in diameter, hit Earth over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Its massive impact shattered windows and damaged buildings, with the flying glass injuring around 1,200 people.




A specialist robotic telescope service, which had hoped to capture pictures of Tuesday’s asteroid, failed to operate. The telescope, based at an observatory in the Canary Islands, broadcasts footage on slooh.com. But the equipment froze over, meaning the asteroid could not be captured.

Paul Cox, Slooh’s technical and research director, said: “We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids – sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth.
He added: “We need to find them before they find us!”




Copyright © 2014 euronews

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Monday, February 17, 2014

President Obama’s magic words and numbers


George F. Will
Opinion Writer




By George F. Will, Published: February 7

Barack Obama, the first president shaped by the celebratory culture in which every child who plays soccer gets a trophy and the first whose campaign speeches were his qualification for the office, perhaps should not be blamed for thinking that saying things is tantamount to accomplishing things, and that good intentions are good deeds. So, his presidency is useful after all, because it illustrates the perils of government run by believers in magic words and numbers.

The last progressive president promised Model Cities, with every child enjoying a Head Start en route to enjoying an Upward Bound into a Great Society. Today’s progressive president also uses words — and numbers — magically emancipated from reality.


What Obama didn’t know: The many controversies that the White House says the president was kept in the dark about.


Thirty months have passed since Obama said: “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Today, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, says Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power has “strengthened.” In last month’s State of the Union address, Obama defined success down by changing the subject: “American diplomacy, backed by the threat of force, is why Syria’s chemical weapons are being eliminated.” If saying so makes it so, all is well.

Assad, however, seems tardy regarding this elimination, perhaps because the threat of force was never actually made. The Democratic-controlled Senate nullified the threat by its emphatic reluctance to authorize force. Reuters recently reported that Assad had surrendered “4.1 percent of the roughly 1,300 tonnes of toxic agents” he supposedly has. The “.1” is an especially magical number, given the modifier “roughly” attached to 1,300 tons.

The English Civil War was not finally ended by negotiations between Oliver Cromwell and Charles I; Cromwell seized power and Charles lost his head. America’s Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee capitulated to U.S. (“Unconditional Surrender”) Grant. Russia’s civil war ended when Leon Trotsky’s Red Army defeated the White forces. Spain’s civil war ended with Francisco Franco in Madrid and remnants of the loyalist forces straggling across the Pyrenees into France. China’s civil war ended when Chiang Kai-shek skedaddled to Formosa (now Taiwan), leaving the mainland to Mao. But Syria’s civil war — after the massacres, torture, chemical weapons — supposedly will be resolved by a negotiated regime change: with words. Next, words will supposedly result in Iran ending the decades-old and hugely expensive nuclear weapons program that it says is nonexistent, and will proceed.

The magic number 8 percent identified the level above which Obama’s administration said unemployment would not rise, thanks to the 2009 stimulus. Seven dollars is the figure, plucked from the ether, that Obama says will be saved by every dollar spent on “high quality” universal preschool, which is probably defined, with tidy circularity, as preschool that saves seven dollars for every dollar spent on it.

Forests continue to be felled to produce the paper on which are printed the continuing studies demonstrating that the United States, which has more than 2 million miles of natural gas pipelines and about 175,000 miles of hazardous-liquid pipelines, would not be menaced by the 1,179 miles of Keystone XL. The new State Department study says construction “would support approximately 42,100 jobs (direct, indirect, and induced).” Obama, of course, has his own number. In a July 24, 2013, interview with the New York Times, he said construction “might create maybe 2,000 jobs.”

The workforce participation rate is at a 36-year low; in the second half of the fifth year of the recovery, a smaller fraction of the population is employed or looking for work than was when the recovery began. Nevertheless, the administration is cheerful about the Congressional Budget Office’s conclusion that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will substantially slow the growth of employment and compensation over the next decade.

The decrease is projected to be nearly three times larger than the CBO had previously predicted. The ACA’s insurance subsidies, which decline with rising income and increase with falling income, will cause many people to choose to stop working, or to work less, or to stop looking for work, thereby reducing the number of hours worked by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021.

An administration spokesman did not dispute the CBO’s key finding but hailed it as evidence that the ACA is increasing Americans’ choices. Really.

Many of the words and numbers bandied by Obama and his administration may reflect an honest belief that the world is whatever well-intentioned people like them say about it. So, Obama’s critics should reconsider their assumption that he is cynical. It is his sincerity that is scary.


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John Kerry Mocks Those Who Deny Climate Change

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Kerry-Climate-Change-indonesia-keystone/2014/02/16/id/553081


JAKARTA, Indonesia February 16, 2014 (AP)
By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer





U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday called climate change perhaps the world's "most fearsome" destructive weapon and mocked those who deny its existence or question its causes, comparing them to people who insist the Earth is flat.

In a speech to Indonesian students, civic leaders and government officials, Kerry tore into climate change skeptics. He accused them of using shoddy science and scientists to delay steps needed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the risk of imperiling the planet.

A day earlier, the U.S. and China announced an agreement to cooperate more closely on combating climate change. American officials hope that will help encourage others, including developing countries like Indonesia and India, to follow suit.

China and the United States are the biggest sources of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause the atmosphere to trap solar heat and alter the climate. Scientists say such changes are leading to drought, wildfires, rising sea levels, melting polar ice, plant and animal extinctions and other extreme conditions.

Also in the Jakarta speech, Kerry said everyone and every country must take responsibility for the problem and act immediately.

"We simply don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation," he said, referring to what he called "big companies" that "don't want to change and spend a lot of money" to act to reduce the risks.

Kerry later singled out major oil and coal concerns as the primary offenders.

"We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts," Kerry told the audience at a U.S. Embassy-run American Center in a shopping mall.

"Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits."

"The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand," Kerry said. "We don't have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society,"

Kerry said the cost of inaction will far outweigh the significant expense of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that trap solar heat in the atmosphere and contribute to the Earth's rising temperatures.

He outlined a litany of recent weather disasters, particularly flooding and typhoons in Asia, and their impact on commerce, agriculture, fishing and daily living conditions for billions of people.

"This city, this country, this region, is really on the front lines of climate change," Kerry said. "It's not an exaggeration to say that your entire way of life here is at risk."

He added: "In a sense, climate change can now be considered the world's largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even, the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction."

The solution, Kerry said, is a new global energy policy that shifts reliance from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. He noted the President Barack Obama is championing such a shift and encouraged others to appeal to their leaders to join.

The U.S.-China statement issued just after Kerry left Beijing on Saturday said the two countries agreed on steps to carry out commitments to curb greenhouse gases, including reducing vehicle emissions, improving energy efficiency of buildings and other measures.

Beijing and Washington launched a climate change discussion last year, promising progress in five areas: reducing vehicle emissions; advanced electric power grids; capturing and storing carbon emissions; gathering greenhouse gas data; and building efficiency.

Kerry was in Indonesia on the last leg of a three-nation tour of Asia that started in South Korea. After leaving Indonesia on Monday, he planned to visit Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Before the climate change speech, Kerry toured Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque, one of the largest in the world, to pay his respects to Indonesia's Muslim majority population.


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Long-Running Gang-Intervention Program Squeezed By Budget

EndrTimes:

Even more propaganda for the Roman Catholic Agenda on National Public Radio -


February 16, 2014 5:00 PM



Listen to the Story
All Things Considered

5 min 23 sec



Father Greg Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, talks with NPR's Arun Rath about his organization's mission and financial struggles. The nonprofit, which is going into its 26th year, is the largest gang-intervention program in the country.


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Haiti's First Cardinal Remains A Priest Of The People

EndrTimes:


More Roman Catholic propaganda from National Public Radio (of the United States of America) -


by Peter Granitz
February 16, 2014 8:00 AM



Weekend Edition Sunday
4 min 31 sec




Haiti has its first inductee into the College of Cardinals. Haitian Bishop Chibly Langlois is one of 19 men chosen by Pope Francis for elevation. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images


Later this month, Pope Francis will welcome his first appointments to the College of Cardinals. Among the 19 men chosen for elevation are seven from Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa. This, say observers, reflects the pope's belief that the church must pay more attention to the poor.

One comes from Haiti, a country with a long, troubled history with the Catholic Church.

Bishop Chibly Langlois says he was skeptical when he heard he'd been chosen.

"I know it from my friends before I know it from the official people who could tell me this news," Langlois says.

You can understand his suspicion, reading the news online before getting the official call from the Vatican. The good word came Jan. 12, the fourth anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake.

Langlois says he had no idea he was being considered. He was ordained in 1991 and is the bishop of the southern Haiti dioceses in Les Cayes. Most cardinals are higher-ranking archbishops. Despite his promotion, he still sees himself as a priest, the direct link between the church and the people.

"When you feel the call to be a priest, you're called to be a priest," he says. "It's not to be a bishop."

Langlois is the first Haitian to be appointed cardinal. He's soft-spoken, smiles at the end of every sentence and says he's uncomfortable using English, just one of five languages he knows.

Haiti's Struggles

Duke University historian Laurent Dubois says Haiti and the Vatican had a rough start.

"After its independence in 1804, Haiti actually was refused recognition pretty much by all the global powers, France particularly — its former colonizer — the United States and others," Dubois says. "The Vatican joined that. They refused recognition to Haiti longer than any country, except the United States, until 1860."

In more recent years, the church has sparred with Haiti's dictators, serving as a voice for the political opposition.

And after the earthquake, the Catholic Church assumed the role of any other aid group: providing grief and trauma counseling, offering health care and rebuilding homes and hospitals. Langlois says Catholics lost many churches in the disaster, and it's been a struggle to rebuild all of them.


Dubois says the pope's pick of a Haitian reflects an evolution in the church.


"It's a little hard, perhaps to have imagined it during the past decades, when the Catholic Church has been embroiled on so many levels in very difficult political contexts within Haiti," he says.

Haitians revere Feb. 7, 1986, as the date dictatorship on the Caribbean nation ended and the struggle for democracy began.

A New Focus On Poverty

This Feb. 7, Langlois organized a national day of prayer. Catholics around Haiti gathered at churches like St. Therese de l'Enfant Jesus to pray for safe and fair elections later this year. St. Therese was once a towering brick building. Toppled in the earthquake, it's now rows of pews underneath two nylon tents.

Outside St. Therese, parishioner Marthe Adeline Dumornay says Haiti only stands to benefit from Langlois's elevation.

"Jesus Christ goes directly into the heart of the pope," she says. "Jesus sees the bad things in Haiti and he wants to lift Haiti up. Jesus, through the pope, chose the cardinal to work better for Haiti."

Langlois knows his pick represents a shift in church power. He agrees with Pope Francis's focus on social justice and the poor. In Haiti and beyond, Langlois says, that's not just financial.

"Many people can have money, but they are very poor," he says. "They don't have the right riches."

He'll divide time between Rome and Les Cayes, where he'll continue on as bishop and priest, saying mass regularly.
 

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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Even in the Adventist Church

We have far more to fear from within than from without. The hindrances to strength and success are far greater from the church itself than from the world. Unbelievers have a right to expect that those who profess to be keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, will do more than any other class to promote and honor, by their consistent lives, by their godly example and their active influence, the cause which they represent. But how often have the professed advocates of the truth proved the greatest obstacle to its advancement! The unbelief indulged, the doubts expressed, the darkness cherished, encourage the presence of evil angels, and open the way for the accomplishment of Satan’s devices.

Selected Messages, Volume 1, p.122 (1887).
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Don’t Let the Warning Go Unheeded


When the Saviour saw in the Jewish people a nation divorced from God, He saw also a professed Christian Church united to the world and the papacy. And as He stood upon Olivet, weeping over Jerusalem till the sun sank behind the western hills, so He is weeping over and pleading with sinners in these last moments of time. Soon He will say to the angels who are holding the four winds, "Let the plagues loose; let darkness, destruction, and death come upon the transgressors of my law." Will He be obliged to say to those who have had great light and knowledge, as He said to the Jews, "If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes"? (Review and Herald, October 8, 1901)

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Our Duty in View of the Time of Trouble




Should we stock up on food for the time of trouble?

Illustration — ronald schuster / stock.xchng

The Lord has shown me repeatedly that it is contrary to the Bible to make any provision for our temporal wants in the time of trouble. I saw that if the saints had food laid up by them or in the field in the time of trouble, when sword, famine, and pestilence are in the land, it would be taken from them by violent hands and strangers would reap their fields. Then will be the time for us to trust wholly in God, and He will sustain us. I saw that our bread and water will be sure at that time, and that we shall not lack or suffer hunger; for God is able to spread a table for us in the wilderness. If necessary He would send ravens to feed us, as He did to feed Elijah, or rain manna from heaven, as He did for the Israelites.

Houses and lands will be of no use to the saints in the time of trouble, for they will then have to flee before infuriated mobs, and at that time their possessions cannot be disposed of to advance the cause of present truth. I was shown that it is the will of God that the saints should cut loose from every encumbrance before the time of trouble comes, and make a covenant with God through sacrifice. If they have their property on the altar and earnestly inquire of God for duty, He will teach them when to dispose of these things. Then they will be free in the time of trouble and have no clogs to weigh them down.

I saw that if any held on to their property and did not inquire of the Lord as to their duty, He would not make duty known, and they would be permitted to keep their property, and in the time of trouble it would come up before them like a mountain to crush them, and they would try to dispose of it, but would not be able. I heard some mourn like this: "The cause was languishing, God's people were starving for the truth, and we made no effort to supply the lack; now our property is useless. Oh, that we had let it go, and laid up treasure in heaven!" I saw that a sacrifice did not increase, but it decreased and was consumed. I also saw that God had not required all of His people to dispose of their property at the same time; but if they desired to be taught, He would teach them, in a time of need, when to sell and how much to sell. Some have been required to dispose of their property in times past to sustain the Advent cause, while others have been permitted to keep theirs until a time of need. Then, as the cause needs it, their duty is to sell.

I saw that the message, "Sell that ye have, and give alms," has not been given, by some, in its clear light, and the object of the words of our Saviour has not been clearly presented. The object of selling is not to give to those who are able to labor and support themselves, but to spread the truth. It is a sin to support and indulge in idleness those who are able to labor. Some have been zealous to attend all the meetings, not to glorify God, but for the "loaves and fishes." Such would much better have been at home laboring with their hands, "the thing that is good," to supply the wants of their families and to have something to give to sustain the precious cause of present truth. Now is the time to lay up treasure in heaven and to set our hearts in order, ready for the time of trouble. Those only who have clean hands and pure hearts will stand in that trying time. Now is the time for the law of God to be in our minds, foreheads, and written in our hearts.

The Lord has shown me the danger of letting our minds be filled with worldly thoughts and cares. I saw that some minds are led away from present truth and a love of the Holy Bible by reading other exciting books; others are filled with perplexity and care for what they shall eat, drink, and wear. Some are looking too far off for the coming of the Lord. Time has continued a few years longer than they expected; therefore they think it may continue a few years more, and in this way their minds are being led from present truth, out after the world. In these things I saw great danger; for if the mind is filled with other things, present truth is shut out, and there is no place in our foreheads for the seal of the living God. I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the most holy place was nearly finished and that time can last but a very little longer. What leisure time we have should be spent in searching the Bible, which is to judge us in the last day. My dear brethren and sisters, let the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ be in your minds continually and let them crowd out worldly thoughts and cares. When you lie down and when you rise up, let them be your meditation. Live and act wholly in reference to the coming of the Son of man. The sealing time is very short, and will soon be over. Now is the time, while the four angels are holding the four winds, to make our calling and election sure.

 Early Writings, Ellen G. White, pp. 56-58.

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Israeli archeologists’ discovery suggests the Bible is wrong about camels


EndrTimes:

Here's a scoopYet, another attempt (in a long sequence by so-called experts and scholars) to diminish the authenticity and veracity of the Holy Bible.  In vain, they will continue to challenge the Word of God; but will fail in convincing the faithful to abandon their Faith.

Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University claim camels came to biblical lands centuries after the time of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph; scholars debate impact on historical accuracy of the Bible

 By Carol Kuruvilla / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, February 13, 2014, 1:25 PM



FoggyImages/Getty Images/Flickr Open
Archeologists analyzed camel bones found in the Aravah Valley in Israel and in the Wadi Finan in Jordan.


New archeological evidence is throwing cold water on the biblical image of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph riding camels through the desert.

A team of Israeli archaeologists has studied the oldest-known camel bones from this ancient period and the results are in — camels reportedly started plodding around the eastern Mediterranean region centuries after the Bible tells us they did.

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After analyzing the facts from radioactive-carbon dating, Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University claim the domesticated animal arrived on the biblical scene near the 10th century B.C. Scholars believe Abraham lived at least six centuries before that, Time reports.

Still, stories about the Jewish patriarchs contain more than 20 references to the domesticated camel, according to The New York Times. In Genesis 24, Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant traveled on his master’s camels.


RELATED: BILL NYE ‘THE SCIENCE GUY’ DEBATES CREATION MUSEUM FOUNDER

Some scholars took these anachronisms as proof that the Bible was written centuries after the events that they talk about.



Frans Lemmens/Getty Images
Camels are mentioned numerous times in the early chapters of the Bible.


Stories about camels in the Bible “do not encapsulate memories from the second millennium,” said Noam Mizrahi, an Israeli biblical scholar, “but should be viewed as back-projections from a much later period.”

RELATED: ANCIENT HEBREW TABLET ON DISPLAY IN JERUSALEM

For the study, Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef dug through the remains of an ancient copper smelting camp in Israel’s Aravah Valley and in Jordan’s Wadi Finan. The bones they found deep under the ground belonged to wild animals that the ancients used to hunt for meat. The domesticated camels could be identified by signs in their leg bones that indicated they carried heavy packages.

The research suggests that camels were introduced to the region suddenly, perhaps as Egyptians traveled along the Mediterranean trade routes.

RELATED: EXPERTS REMAIN SKEPTICAL OF 'NOAH'S ARK' CLAIM

But Bible defenders claim that even though the findings challenge the ancient text’s time line, they do not detract from the overall spiritual message.

“If the biblical writers are not interested in the facts, but rather in getting a message across, then people of faith can concentrate, instead of trying to verify every last item in the Bible, on what the overall message of the story is, not whether it is historically true,” said Carol Meyers, a religion professor at Duke University.


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Friday, February 14, 2014

Happy Sabbath


Valentine's Day: Pope Francis Tells of Love to Engaged Couples at Vatican




By Umberto Bacchi | February 14, 2014 14:15 PM GMT




 
Reuters
Pope Francis holds a flower thrown from the crowd as he arrives to lead a special audience with engaged couples, to celebrate Saint Valentine's day, in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.



Pope Francis has met thousands of engaged couples at the Vatican on St Valentine's Day.

More than 10,000 couples from 28 countries gathered in St Peter's Square as part of an event in support of marriage named The Joy of Yes Forever.

The Pope Tweeted:


"Love is a soul's true bread," Francis told the crowd.

The meeting was initially scheduled to be held in the Paul VI Audience Hall but was moved to St Peter's Square as the Holy See said it received too many requests of attendance.

"The 'Forever' is not just a matter of duration," the Argentinian pontiff said. "A marriage is successful not only if it lasts, its quality is also important."

"To be together and be able to love each other is the challenge of married Christians," he said.

The pontiff, who has charted a more humble course in the Vatican, also called for wedding ceremonies to be simple and focused on the meaning rather than appearance.

"You should work for it [the wedding] to be a Christian celebration, not a worldly one," Francis told the couples.

"Your wedding should underscore what is really important. Many are more worried about outward appearances: the banquet, the photos, flower and dresses ...

"Such things are important in a party but only if they point at what is the real reason of your happiness: God's blessing upon your love."


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Sunday trading ban for DIY stores






February 13, 2014
DIY STORES across France will not be allowed to open on Sundays, after the Conseil d’Etat suspended a government decree following a complaint from trade unions.

The country’s highest administrative court yesterday said “there was serious doubt on the legality” of the decree of December 30 that allowed the stores to be exempt from the rule of Sunday rest.

The temporary decree, published while the government works on changes to the complex legislation relating to weekly working hours, gave Sunday opening rights to the likes of Darty, Bricorama and Mr Bricolage until July 1, 2015.

The judgement went on to say that Sunday opening went against “the principles of a weekly day of rest that is guaranteed in the constitutional rights of employees” and that this right is “exercised in principle on Sundays”.

Unions have welcomed the Conseil d’Etat’s ruling.

Secretary General of the CGT in Paris Karl Ghazi hailed the ruling as “very important”.

He said: "It is difficult to say how we would close shops on Sundays after they have been trading for a year and a half.”

The “temporary” nature of the decree appears to be the key stumbling block.

The judgement said that an “exceptional and legitimate need” had to be proved to suspend the right of employees to a Sunday rest-day.

If, it went on, the needs of DIYers was “exceptional and legitimate”, then they must also be permanent, not temporary.

In a statement, the ministry of employment said that the Conseil d’Etat’s suspension did not call into question the principle of the Sunday trading exemption, and added that a new permanent decree will be published as soon as possible.

In an interview with Europe1, Prime Minister Jean- Marc Ayrault added: “In a few days the new decree will be published… and the matter will be resolved.”
- See more at: http://connexionfrance.com/sunday-opening-diy-stores-bricolage-law-france-15462-view-article.html#sthash.l2wKFVCd.dpuf

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Thursday, February 13, 2014

Queen Elizabeth to visit Pope Francis at Vatican on April 3


Catholic News Service | Simon Caldwell | February 4, 2014



File photo CNS / Luke MacGregor, Reuters

The Queen of England will visit Pope Francis at the Vatican in April, Buckingham Palace announced.

A Feb. 4 statement said Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, will meet the pope on April 3.

The queen and prince will visit Rome at the invitation of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, the statement said.

It said the royal couple would attend a private lunch hosted by the president at the presidential palace, then would have an audience with the pope at the Vatican.

The 87-year-old queen, who has reigned since 1952, was the first British sovereign to welcome a pope to England when she greeted Blessed Pope John Paul II in London in 1982.

In 2010, Queen Elizabeth also welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to Britain when he arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the first stop of a tour that concluded with the beatification of Blessed John Henry Newman.

The visit to Rome will be the first overseas trip for the royal couple for three years, a period in which Prince Philip, 92, has been troubled by ill health.

The queen is the constitutional head of the British state and is also the supreme governor of the Church of England.

The London-based Daily Mail newspaper, which broke the story ahead of the announcement by Buckingham Palace, speculated that the royal visit would strengthen ties between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

It also said Pope Francis would not receive the queen and the duke in the Vatican state apartments but in the three modestly furnished rooms that the pontiff occupies in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse.


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Archdiocese says it has paid more than $8.8M in last decade over misconduct by priests



By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press

First Posted: February 13, 2014 - 2:53 pm
Last Updated: February 13, 2014 - 2:56 pm



MINNEAPOLIS — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Thursday it has paid more than $8.8 million in the last 10 years over clergy sexual abuse and other misconduct by priests.

In its annual financial report, the archdiocese says about $3.2 million of that total went for room, board and living expenses for priests and ex-priests accused of sexual abuse or other misconduct. The archdiocese is required by church law to care for such men, the report says.

Another $2.5 million went to settlements for victims, and nearly $2.3 million paid for counseling and other support services for victims, accounting for 54 percent of the $8.8 million total. The numbers don't include insurance payments.

It's the most up-to-date accounting the archdiocese has provided of the financial impact of the clergy misconduct scandals that continue to rock the church, but the numbers only cover through the end of the 2013 fiscal year on June 30. The figures don't reflect any expenses from a wave of fresh allegations that began last fall after a former church employee became a whistleblower and accused top church leaders of mishandling misconduct allegations against priests.

Amid the fallout, Archbishop John Nienstedt removed himself from public ministry in December pending an investigation into allegations that he improperly touched a boy while posing for a photo during a confirmation ceremony, a claim he vehemently denies.

The archdiocese published the data in its newspaper, The Catholic Spirit, where Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche noted in a commentary that this is the first time the archdiocese has released its full audited financial report. He called it part of an ongoing commitment to improve transparency and accountability and better financial reporting.

"We are taking these steps because they are the right thing to do — because they help us to protect the young and vulnerable, care for victims of abuse, and restore trust among the laity, as well as our clergy who are serving honorably," Piche wrote.

The report says the financial condition of the archdiocese is "solid" even though it finished its fiscal year with a deficit of nearly $3.9 million because it set aside nearly $4 million in reserves to cover potential liability from lawsuits.

Future legal liability is difficult to predict, the report says, because there is "no practical means" for determining the outcome of known claims or of lawsuits that might still be filed under a window the state opened by lifting its statute of limitations for clergy sex abuse lawsuits until May 2016 for old acts of abuse. There's no time limit on lawsuits for new acts of abuse.

"Losses from unknown claims could be substantial," the report says. "We will tender the defense of these claims to our insurers whenever possible. However, claims can go back to a time period in which insurance may not have been available or coverage limits were minimal. Most cases which have surfaced to date relate to alleged incidents 20-30 years ago; some are related to incidents alleged to have occurred more than 50 years ago."

The total paid from two specific accounts for priest living expenses rose to $401,489, compared with $336,736 in 2012. Costs for victim support totaled $37,619 compared with $34,378 in 2012, while costs for legal services totaled $92,652 compared with $44,536.

Total operating revenue for 2013 was nearly $35.5 million, compared with nearly $32.2 million in 2012, which the report said reflected increased contributions during the "modest economic recovery" since 2010. The numbers don't reflect any potential drop-off in giving since last fall.

Piche, who has taken over Nienstedt's public duties during the investigation, thanked parishioners for their generosity.

"Local Catholics' steadfast support for ministry to fulfill the mission of the Church speaks to the unwavering faith of those who make up this local Church," he wrote. "Catholics understand that the tragic moral failure of a few does not define who we are as Catholics."

Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits against dioceses across the country over allegations of clerical sexual misconduct, said he doesn't trust that the numbers in the report are accurate or complete.

"When we look at something like that, and we look at how they have lied and deceived concerning child safety and their practices, they're just as capable of lying and deceiving about their finances," Anderson said.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said "a mountain of skepticism is in order" over the $8.8 million figure.

"We suspect Catholic officials are using these figures to begin convincing people that they're poor so they can pressure victims to file fewer lawsuits and settle those cases more quickly and cheaply," Frank Meuers, a local SNAP leader, said in a statement.

Online:

The report is available at: http://thecatholicspirit.com/featured/archdiocesan-chancery-corporation-annual-report-2012-2013


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