Supreme Court skeptical of 'buffer zone' outside abortion clinics

A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Wednesday of a Massachusetts law that establishes a 35-foot buffer zone to prevent protests outside clinics that provide abortions — a restriction the protesters say violates the First Amendment.

In an oral argument, some justices said they were concerned that the law restricts speech in a way that is not neutral among viewpoints: clinic workers can talk to patients inside the buffer, while those who object to abortion cannot.

The justices also appeared to worry that the 35-foot zone is too big, and some voiced general concern with the concept of restricting speech on a public sidewalk.

Read the rest here.

And the Dominoes Just Keep Falling

A Federal judge in Oklahoma has struck down the state's ban on gay marriage. I think the time has come to start pondering an unpleasant reality. The ship is sinking.

Five or six years ago, I wrote one of my first really controversial blog posts suggesting that public opinion was shifting on this subject and that too many of the laws then being passed limiting gay rights in everything from power of attorney to spousal rights in hospitals were going to create a backlash, especially in the courts. And I opined  that the best course of action was to get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Strike the word "marriage" from the law books and replace it with "civil union" or something similar and require such things to be done before a duly empowered civil servant. Leave "marriage" as a purely religious matter.

That was also the first, though definitely not the last time I discovered the value of asbestos underwear in blogdom. After being burned at the ethereal stake for my heresy, I sat back and waited to see where things were going. Long story made short, here we are. A solid majority of Americans now support homosexual marriage. Even in some fairly red states we are seeing the scale tipping in that direction. And there is a legal avalanche gaining steam to the point where it seems like a week does not pass without another state law defending natural marriage being struck down. Unfortunately, it is now waaaay too late to try the civil unions for everyone plan. The other side has the upper hand and they know it.

So where are we and what's next?

The answer is that we are defending a fort whose walls have been irretrievably breached. I expect that by the end of this year the Federal Courts at the appellate level will hold that SSM bans violate the 14th amendment and when said ruling is appealed to the Supreme Court, it will be affirmed, probably without comment or further argument. So the next question is what do we do?

My advice is to divert what political resources are available and salvage what we can. Congress should be lobbied aggressively to pass the most strongly worded conscience protection bill that can be drafted to ensure that no one is forced to be a party to this against their religious convictions. If the price includes cutting a deal with liberals and granting Federal recognition of what everyone should by now realize is coming anyways, then so be it.

This battle is over and we have lost. It's time to make the best terms we can, while we can.

This explains a lot

On Sunday, the hard-line semi-official [Iranian] Fars News dropped one of its biggest bombshells yet: The United States government has been secretly run by a "shadow government" of space aliens since 1945. Yes, space aliens. The alien government is based out of Nevada and had previously run Nazi Germany. It adds, for timeliness, that the controversial NSA programs are actually a tool for the aliens to hide their presence on Earth and their secret agenda for global domination. This is all asserted as incontrovertible fact with no caveats.

Read the rest here.

Looks like the Birthers were right. Obama really is an illegal alien.

Dr. Adam DeVille Responds to the Russian Church's Statement on Primacy

Dr. DeVille has written a critical response to the MP's long awaited document on primacy. As I have said repeatedly, the document was only incidentally addressed to Rome. The real target was Constantinople, and it definitely got their attention. In all honesty I was not exactly bowled over by the Moscow document. It seems like a fairly cavalier and breathtakingly short document for such a weighty subject. And I don't think Adam is too far off the mark in his suggestion that Moscow is trying to reduce the Ecumenical Patriarch to an ecclesiastical equivalent to The Queen of England, i.e. a figurehead.

All of which lends further weight to my long held view that we have no business holding discussions aimed at ending a thousand year schism with Rome, until we have our own ducks in a row. Conversations with Rome should be limited to areas of mutual interest, such as charity and the collapse of western civilization before the twin threats of militant secularism and militant Islam while we sort out our internal issues.

I will be most interested to see what becomes of this much discussed but never quite materializing Pan-Orthodox Synod.

Vatican II

NLM has a piece up asking the question "Why is Vatican II so Vexing?"

My guess is that it's because the council was summoned without a clear purpose or urgent need. It produced documents that at least in some cases seem to dance near the edge of Catholic orthodoxy. And the whole thing was hijacked ex post facto by people who were determined to turn the Roman Church into a progressive social club. In fairness Rome has a lot of councils that it considers OEcumenical. In the grand scheme of things though only a handful merit more than a footnote in history. The majority were either of little long term importance, or in some cases were outright failures.

I suspect that the verdict of history will ultimately put Vatican II into one of the latter two categories.

Vatican: We don't extradite

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has told Polish prosecutors that its former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, under investigation for alleged sex abuse, is covered by diplomatic immunity and that the Vatican doesn’t extradite its citizens, Polish officials said in the latest development in an embarrassing case for the Holy See.

Polish Archbishop Josef Wesolowski is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be investigated for alleged sex abuse, and his case has raised questions about whether the Vatican, by removing him from Dominican jurisdiction, was protecting him and placing its own investigations ahead of that of authorities in the Caribbean nation.

Read the rest here.

Prohibition Doesn't Work

US and India in diplomatic tiff

Tit for tat appears to be how this is being handled. We expelled one of their diplomats and now they are returning the favor. Here is the short version of whats going on for those who don't keep up with Foreign Affairs.

An Indian diplomat in the US was recently accused by her maid of not paying her fair wages. Apparently the maid, who is Indian, signed a contract agreeing to work for her boss in the US with the understanding she would be paid US minimum wage and given reasonable time off. This is required when foreign diplomats import labor from outside of the United States. She contends that she was subsequently forced by her employer to sign a new contract and was only paid about $3.00 an hour and required to work very long hours with no overtime and little time off. The diplomat denies this.

In any case New York treated it as a crime and arrested the Indian diplomat and not only handcuffed her but subjected her to a strip search and at least briefly to incarceration. The Indian government, fully backed by popular outrage, was livid.

My take: Up to a point India was absolutely right to be ticked off. This was a crystal clear violation of diplomatic immunity guaranteed under the Treaty of Vienna. Said treaty provisions are an extremely important article of international law and we DO NOT want to mess with it, even if it sometimes means dirtbags get to walk. The correct way to handle this would have been to declare her persona non grata, which in the end is what happened.

On a side note, most Indians seem to have little sympathy for the victim in all of this which I find unfortunate. Their view is that she being from India was making much more, even at her reduced wages, than most domestic workers ("servants" in traditional parlance) in India. Of course that is completely irrelevant. She was not in India. If Indian diplomats want to employ people at wages customary in their country, they may do so, IN THEIR COUNTRY.

This is not India and I frankly don't care where the poor girl came from. In this country if you hire someone you have to obey the relevant labor laws. If you can afford it I have no issue with engaging domestic help, as long as you pay them an honest and fair wage.

Part of me wonders if this lady diplomat didn't spend a little too much time watching Downton Abbey. Back in Lord Grantham's day a maid could reasonably expect a wage of perhaps £25.00 per annum with a half day off per week and a half day, gratis, on Boxing Day plus room and board. In exchange she could look forward to an average day of rarely less than 16 hours of backbreaking work.

Of course back then India was a British colony and a lot of those servants were Indians.

Memo

Yes, you must return stolen property.

Wall Street Predicts $50 Billion Bill to Settle U.S. Mortgage Suits

Tony West, the associate attorney general, helped broker the government’s settlement with JPMorgan Chase.

Wall Street could pay nearly $50 billion to buy peace from federal authorities who are taking aim at the banks over their role in the mortgage crisis, according to interviews and a confidential analysis of the industry’s potential legal exposure.

Bracing for a potential reckoning, the banks and their outside lawyers are quietly using JPMorgan Chase’s record $13 billion mortgage settlement in November to do the math and determine just how much each bank might have to pay to move beyond the torrent of government mortgage litigation that has dogged them since the financial crisis. Such calculations, people briefed on the matter said, have gained particular urgency among the banks’ board members.

Read the rest here.

In the face of rampant criminal fraud that nearly brought down the global economy and destroyed countless lives, a fine. And it will not even be the banksters who will pay the fine. It will be shareholders. Excuse me while I throw up.

Banks are the enemy!

Feds pretend to crack down, Wall Street pretends to care

The government today announced a probe into the possible mispricing of mortgage bonds leading up to and during the financial crisis of 2008. “We hope to end this probe with a series of fines and a press conference during which one or more officials will offer a brief summary of the offenses,” revealed an unnamed official.

Not really on the quote. I made that up entirely because in all candor it’s become very difficult to take these investigations seriously at this point. Yesterday it was announced that ex-Goldman Sachs (GS) V.P. Fabulous Fabrice Tourres was denied a new trial in his conviction on charges of being dumb enough to send an email overstating his role in the sale of a convoluted product also related to the pricing of mortgage bonds.

As Breakout’s Matt Nesto and I discuss in the attached clip, both of today’s headlines were dramatically overshadowed by the roughly $2 billion in fines paid by JPMorgan (JPM) for its part in the collective effort to ignore Bernie Madoff’s enormous Ponzi scheme for more than a decade.

I’ve taken some personal heat for referring to the endless series of fines paid by JPMorgan as examples of the government systemically “extorting” JPMorgan on Daily Ticker with Aaron Task earlier this week. That criticism is fair. Extortion is the criminal act of forcing a person or entity to pay out money through coercion. In return for said payments the person or entity dishing out the cash would avoid harm of some sort.

JPMorgan shares are hitting all-time highs despite the financial juggernaut having spent more than $31 billion in fines and legal fees since 2009. Clearly investors don’t see a credible threat of harm coming JPMorgan’s way anytime soon.

“Justice” certainly doesn’t work to describe what’s happening to JPMorgan. Justice suggests a punitive action that would dissuade future criminal acts and/or the righting of an egregious wrong committed against an aggrieved party. JPMorgan is dishing out shareholder money but shares are at record highs. Shareholders are happier than pigs in slop.

JPMorgan’s relationship with the government is more of a partnership or licensing deal. JPMorgan pays fines, the government gets funded, politicos get to say mean things and claim victory, and no one goes to jail.

In terms of stopping the criminal behaviors in question that happened by itself long ago.  C’mon. Do you really think anyone is buying or selling mortgage backed securities anymore? Wall Street moved on to other hustles years ago.

Read the rest here.

Christmas Day Vespers

Patriarchal Liturgy for Christmas

Part I

Part II

Great Compline Matins and the Divine Liturgy

Excuse me... what year is this?

I ask because I just read an op-ed piece that is so breathtaking in its anti-Catholic bigotry that I am wondering if I might not have been caught in some sort of time warp. The article in question would have been par for the course, in say 1928 when Al Smith was running for president and the Klan was sounding the alarm about the dual allegiance of those liquor loving papists. But that something like this could be written in our day and age, by a journalist for a respected weekly news magazine, AND get by the editor is shocking.

Honestly, some heads (plural) need to roll over this.

50,000 Historic Books, Manuscripts Burned at Orthodox Library by Muslims

Two-thirds of a historic collection of 80,000 books have gone up in smoke after a library was torched in the Lebanese city of Tripoli amid sectarian tensions. The blaze was started after a pamphlet insulting Islam was reportedly found inside a book.

Firefighters struggled to subdue the flames as the decades-old Al-Saeh library went up in smoke on Friday in the Serail neighborhood of Tripoli. Despite firefighters’ best efforts, little of the trove of historic books and manuscripts was recovered from the wreckage.

“Two thirds of some 80,000 books and manuscripts housed there,” a security source told Agence France Press, referring to the items destroyed. The source added that the blaze was started after a manuscript insulting the Prophet Mohammed was found hidden in the pages of one of the library books.

Read the rest here.

Predictably, this has gotten almost no mention in the MSM.

Constantinople Responds to Moscow on Primacy

The Ecumenical Patriarchate has posted a response to the position paper from the Holy Synod of the Russian Church on primacy. As I noted in an earlier post, the Russian paper seemed to be directed more towards Constantinople than Rome, to whom it was ostensibly addressed.

Somebody needs to pay for my 15 kids

Words fail me.
HT: RuralEngineer

Anathematized for suggesting moderation on guns

This is from the NY Times, so it goes without saying there is an agenda here. But this really does seem like overkill. Metcalf is right on an important point; no right is absolute. That he should be treated this way for stating such an obvious truth is disturbing. Further this does not reflect well on the gun industry. For the record, my position on gun laws remains simple. No one should be allowed to buy or own a gun without passing a criminal background check. Moving beyond that, I have serious doubts about the wisdom or efficacy of 99% of the thousands of laws on the books.

Read the story here.

Christ is born!

A joyous Nativity to all those on the traditional church calendar.

Church of England removes devil from baptismal service

I am stunned. [/sarc]

US to rescue global warming scientists trapped in ice...

WASHINGTON  - The United States is sending a heavy icebreaker to help free a Russian ship and a Chinese icebreaker gripped by Antarctic ice, the Coast Guard said on Saturday.

The Polar Star is responding to a request for assistance from Australian authorities as well as from the Russian and Chinese governments, it said in a statement.

"The U.S. Coast Guard stands ready to respond to Australia's request," Coast Guard Pacific Area Commander Vice Admiral Paul Zukunft said. "Our highest priority is safety of life at sea, which is why we are assisting in breaking a navigational path for both of these vessels."

A Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue 52 passengers from a Russian ship stranded in Antarctic ice found itself stuck in heavy ice on Friday.

Read the rest here.

Further evidence that God has a sense of humor.

More from Pope Francis

Pope Francis called for a reassessment of the way the Catholic Church deals with the children of gay couples and divorced parents, saying that an effort should be made to not push them away from the church.

"On an educational level, gay unions raise challenges for us today, which for us are sometimes difficult to understand," Francis said in an address to the Catholic Union of Superiors General in November, according to Agence France-Presse.

Fragments of his speech were published on Italian websites Saturday.

Read the rest here.

Farewell to Christmas

Today was the last day of the Christmas feast. Tomorrow, the eve of Theophany, is a fast day (wine and oil permitted in the Russian tradition, strict fast for the Greeks). Historically, Theophany was a much bigger feast than Christmas in both the East and West. Today it has been overshadowed by the Feast of the Nativity, I suspect in no small part due to the insane levels of commercialism and secularization we have seen. Even so Theophany retains a great deal of importance in the Orthodox Church and is commemorated in many different ways from the polar dips that many Russians indulge in to the young men diving for a gold cross that is popular among Greeks. (Russians celebrate Theophany on Jan 19th using the Julian Calendar.)

A blessed Theophany to all.

Francis Limits Title of 'Monsignor'

Word via The Deacons Bench that Pope Francis has ended the practice of honoring certain priests of the Latin Church with the title of Monsignor. The move does not appear to be retroactive so those already granted the honor retain it, for now. Henceforth the only title that will be granted to clergy will be "Chaplain to His Holiness" and that only on deserving priests over the age of 65.

Correction: The title may still be granted to those over 65 but unlike in previous years there will no longer be different grades within the title. "Chaplain to His Holiness" was formerly the highest grade and will now be the only one. I have adjusted the blog post title to clarify this.

Pope: Church must not turn priests into 'little monsters'

Pope Francis is calling for a change in the culture of seminaries, saying priests who are taught only to toe the line will become "little monsters."

The pontiff expressed his vision for a more open and joyful religious education system during a three-hour talk with the heads of the orders in November, but his remarks were not published until now in the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica.

Taking another swipe at clericalism — a term often used to express a very formal, elitist attitude by some priests — Francis said seminaries and "houses of formation" need to keep up with the cultural times.

Read the rest here.

The Russian Church Condemns Surrogate Motherhood

An official document has been issued by the Holy Synod strongly condemning the practice of surrogate motherhood and placing restrictions on the baptism of children born in this manner. You may read it here. I'd say this document is pretty definitive and leaves no room for confusion on the subject.

HT: Byzantine Texas

Well that didn't take long

New York's newly inaugurated and self described Democratic Socialist mayor has announced that one of his first initiatives will be to outlaw the quaint horse drawn carriages that convey tourists around Central Park. He plans to replace them with all electric cars disguised as antiques. What an ass.

Read the story here.
HT: Pointedstick

The Last Voyage of the Normandie

An incredible documentary using newly discovered color film footage of a world (and ship) now long gone. It also has some magnificent shots of life in pre-war New York.

Looking back

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most fateful years in the history of the world. There are going to be a lot of events and commemorations as the months pass. For those interested in what was going on back then, one way to get a glimpse of that long vanished world is to read the newspapers of the time.

Starting today, Britain's Daily Telegraph will be posting online each day's paper from exactly 100 years ago. (Note: In those days British newspapers put the advertisements on the front page. The adverts can be amusing by themselves.) For those wanting an American view, we have the full run of the New York Tribune from 1866-1924, courtesy of the Library of Congress website. They seem to have done a pretty good job with the digitizing as most of the pages are perfectly readable when enlarged.

I have to say that on balance the papers of 100 years ago put most of the current ones to shame in the depth of their news coverage. Of course papers today are being killed by the TV news networks. Still, it's fascinating to see not just what was happening, but also get an idea of what was deemed important to people back then. And there is a great deal of very open bias in some of the political coverage that will be familiar to viewers of MSNBC and FOX News. The Tribune was a Republican newspaper. So for instance, if you glance at some of the issues from the 90's you will see their coverage promoting the GOP issues of that era such as the Tariff and Free Silver (bi-metalism). For the record, the GOP was wrong on both of those issues.

Try looking to see what was happening on your birthday 100 or even 110 or 120 years ago.

Supreme Court Justice delays health law’s birth control mandate

WASHINGTON — Only hours before the law was to take effect, a Supreme Court justice on Tuesday blocked implementation of part of President Barack Obama’s health care law that would have forced some religion-affiliated organizations to provide health insurance for employees that includes birth control.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s decision came after a flurry of efforts by Catholic-affiliated groups from around the nation. Those groups had rushed to the federal courts to stop Wednesday’s start of portions of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Read the rest here.

Happy New Year

Wishing you all a joyous and healthy 2014!

Irony

Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted?

Five years have passed since the onset of what is sometimes called the Great Recession. While the economy has slowly improved, there are still millions of Americans leading lives of quiet desperation: without jobs, without resources, without hope.

Who was to blame? Was it simply a result of negligence, of the kind of inordinate risk-taking commonly called a “bubble,” of an imprudent but innocent failure to maintain adequate reserves for a rainy day? Or was it the result, at least in part, of fraudulent practices, of dubious mortgages portrayed as sound risks and packaged into ever more esoteric financial instruments, the fundamental weaknesses of which were intentionally obscured?

If it was the former—if the recession was due, at worst, to a lack of caution—then the criminal law has no role to play in the aftermath. For in all but a few circumstances (not here relevant), the fierce and fiery weapon called criminal prosecution is directed at intentional misconduct, and nothing less. If the Great Recession was in no part the handiwork of intentionally fraudulent practices by high-level executives, then to prosecute such executives criminally would be “scapegoating” of the most shallow and despicable kind.

But if, by contrast, the Great Recession was in material part the product of intentional fraud, the failure to prosecute those responsible must be judged one of the more egregious failures of the criminal justice system in many years. Indeed, it would stand in striking contrast to the increased success that federal prosecutors have had over the past fifty years or so in bringing to justice even the highest-level figures who orchestrated mammoth frauds. Thus, in the 1970s, in the aftermath of the “junk bond” bubble that, in many ways, was a precursor of the more recent bubble in mortgage-backed securities, the progenitors of the fraud were all successfully prosecuted, right up to Michael Milken.

Read the rest here.

See also this related story.

Too big to fail and too big to jail. Banks are the enemy.

Al Qaieda's plans for Syria's Christians

A sobering post over at Samn!'s excellent blog.

HT: Bill (aka The Godfather)

Forget football; It's the Army vs the Marines in the Pacific

ABOARD THE USS LAKE ERIE — Approaching from the Hawaii coast, the mosquito-shaped helicopter buzzed around this guided-missile cruiser twice before swooping toward the landing pad. The Navy crew on the deck crouched, the helmeted faces betraying more than routine concern as the aircraft, flown by a pilot who had never before alighted upon a ship, hovered a foot off the tarmac and then set down with a thud.

The sailors’ trepidation was prompted by three words painted in black block letters on the drab olive fuselage: United States Army. 

Read the rest here.

Church of England: Casual Sundays?

In a transparently obvious plot to undermine Christopher Johnson's other blog, the CofE is considering a measure that would end ALL requirements with regards clerical attire. Yes, that includes vestments of any kind. The new rule would be come as you are and wear what you like.

Skirmishes flare over WWI centennial plans

FOLKESTONE, England — The war that was supposed to end all wars didn't. But who knew it would still be causing skirmishes nearly a century later?

As Europe prepares to mark the 100th anniversary next year of the outbreak of World War I, clashes have erupted over how best to remember a dreadful conflict that claimed the lives of millions and radically changed the course of human history.

With commemorations set across the continent, some want to recognize it as an important victory for nations such as Britain and France, which won at a heavy price. Yet that risks upsetting current ally Germany, which lost.

Others warn that the real lesson –— the madness of war — is in danger of being ditched in a show of militaristic pride; the focus, they say, should be on peace. But then how to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice?

Read the rest here.

Feast of the Great Martyr Hilarion

December 28, 2013, the feast day of the Holy Martyr Hilarion, Archbishop of Verey, Patriarch Kirill visited Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. The Cathedral of the Presentation of Our Lady of Vladimir, where lie relics of the Holy Martyr Hilarion, the Primate of the Russian Church celebrated the Divine Liturgy.

The Russian Church on Primacy

This is a new and important document that lays out the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on the subject of Primacy. I suspect (the cynic in me) that it was meant as much for Constantinople's eyes as Rome's.

HT: Byzantine Texas

No blogging tomorrow

I'm finally on my way back to the left coast.

Radical feminist disrupts Christmas Day service in Germany

This is making the rounds in the blogosphere but for those who may have missed it...

One of Christendom’s most sacred days… in the main cathedral of Cologne, Germany: the High Cathedral of St. Peter. The setting is Gothic, dating from the 13th century. What can possibly go wrong?

Christmas mass is being aired live. Thousands of pious Catholics fill the pews. Then, shouting at the top of her lungs, naked from the waist up, 20-year-old philosophy student Josephine Witt shoots from the congregation and bounces up high onto the altar!

She is an activist with the feminist movement FEMEN.

Read the rest here.

I think Putin had the right idea for dealing with this sort of hooliganism.

Japanese prime minister’s visit to war shrine spurs new tension

SEOUL — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday visited a Shinto shrine that honors Japan’s war dead, including 14 war criminals, and is seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of the nation’s unrepentant militarism.

The visit to Yasukuni Shrine, the first by a sitting Japanese leader in seven years, raises the prospect of even deeper hostility between an already isolated Tokyo and its neighbors. It also suggests that Abe, after a year of focusing on pragmatic, economic issues, is increasingly willing to play to his conservative base — a group that believes Japan has been unfairly vilified for its wartime past. 

Read the rest here.

The sledgehammer justice of mandatory minimum sentences

Federal Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York says documents called “statements of reasons” are an optional way for a judge to express “views that might be of interest.” The one he issued two months ago is still reverberating.

It expresses his dismay that although his vocation is the administration of justice, his function frequently is the infliction of injustice. The policy of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses has empowered the government to effectively nullify the constitutional right to a trial. As Lulzim Kupa learned.

Read the rest here.

This is as  much an indictment of our failed war on drugs as it is of the criminal statutes.

Christ is born!

Senior Vatican Official: SSPX is Schismatic

The leaders of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) are in schism, and remain suspended from the sacraments, says the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Archbishop Gerhard Müller said that although Pope Benedict XVI lifted the canonical excommunication of SSPX prelates, they remain suspended from the sacraments because “by their schism they have broken away from communion with the Church.”

Archbishop Müller said that while talks with the SSPX have reach an impasse, the Vatican will not close the door to reconciliation. However, he said, a restoration of full communion would require the SSPX to accept the authority of the Church and of the Pope. 

From here.

Actually the cardinal said they were "de facto schismatic." The distinction is not unimportant among Roman Catholics. But yeah, he is basically affirming what I have been saying for years. I wonder if he reads the blog?

Russia Considers Banning Abortion

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning abortion advertising. Some members of the Duma (the Russian state assembly), are talking about going even further and banning the procedure itself.  The Russian Orthodox Church, whose numbers are swelling with converts and “reverts,” is weighing in as well.  One Orthodox prelate called abortion a “mutiny against God.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

This is an amazing turn about in a country which has long been known for its tragically high abortion rate.  Until recently, the average woman in Russia could expect to have seven abortions over her lifetime.  Even The New York Times, no bastion of pro-life sentiment, has been compelled to acknowledge that Russia’s high abortion rate was damaging the health and fertility of Russian women. As the paper noted in a 2003 editorial, “Now the Russian government is attempting to slow the abortion rate.  It is an admirable goal, given the toll that multiple abortions have taken on the health and fertility of Russia’s women.” Not to mention the toll that abortion has taken on the unborn, and on the population as a whole.

Read the rest here.

Now this would be an awesome Christmas present.

Two stories relating to Rome

Cardinal Kasper says Church will soon give Communion to divorced, remarried Catholics

My take; we will see. There are limits to what even the Pope can do and I can't see this happening without fundamentally weakening RC teachings concerning divorce and remarriage. Oddly, neither we Orthodox nor Roman Catholics seem to include this on the usual lists of major differences dividing us, but it's a pretty big issue. Absent a shift by Rome, how could communion be restored between our churches with millions of divorced and remarried Orthodox admitted to the chalice?

'Who am I to judge?': The pope's most powerful phrase in 2013

There are many things that I deeply admire about the new Pope. But dear God, I do wish he would be more careful with his off the cuff statements. The Episcopal wing of the Catholic Church and large numbers of equally hostile non-Catholics are using his words, sometimes unfairly, to undermine the Roman Church's authority. He needs to remember who he is and accept that everything he says and does will be dissected and parsed by people who are not friendly to his church.

Limited Posting

I'm going to be fairly busy with the family over the next week before returning (at last) to the left coast on Friday. Posting will be sporadic at best.

Merry Christmas!

You know you are in trouble when...

Even the NY Times has figured out your healthcare law is hurting one of the largest groups of Americans...

Ginger Chapman and her husband, Doug, are sitting on the health care cliff. 

The cheapest insurance plan they can find through the new federal marketplace in New Hampshire will cost their family of four about $1,000 a month, 12 percent of their annual income of around $100,000 and more than they have ever paid before. 

Even more striking, for the Chapmans, is this fact: If they made just a few thousand dollars less a year — below $94,200 — their costs would be cut in half, because a family like theirs could qualify for federal subsidies. 

The Chapmans acknowledge that they are better off than many people, but they represent a little-understood reality of the Affordable Care Act. While the act clearly benefits those at the low end of the income scale — and rich people can continue to afford even the most generous plans — people like the Chapmans are caught in the uncomfortable middle: not poor enough for help, but not rich enough to be indifferent to cost.

“We are just right over that line,” said Ms. Chapman, who is 54 and does administrative work for a small wealth management firm. Because their plan is being canceled, she is looking for new coverage for her family, which includes Mr. Chapman, 55, a retired fireman who works on a friend’s farm, and her two sons. “That’s an insane amount of money,” she said of their new premium. “How are you supposed to pay that?” 

An analysis by The New York Times shows the cost of premiums for people who just miss qualifying for subsidies varies widely across the country and rises rapidly for people in their 50s and 60s. In some places, prices can quickly approach 20 percent of a person’s income. 

Read the rest here.

Canada's Supreme Court Strikes Down Prostitution Laws

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada started the clock ticking Friday for Parliament to reshape social policy dealing with the world's oldest profession, as political battle lines were drawn.

In a unanimous 9-0 ruling on Friday, the high court struck down the country's prostitution laws, giving Parliament a year to produce new legislation. That means prostitution-related offences will remain in the Criminal Code for one more year.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government was "concerned" by the ruling, and is "exploring all possible options to ensure the criminal law continues to address the significant harms that flow from prostitution to communities, those engaged in prostitution, and vulnerable persons."

Meanwhile, Employment Minister Jason Kenney raised the spectre of judicial activism — saying legislators, not judges, should be making the law. It's a topic Prime Minister Stephen Harper has complained about as recently as this week.

Read the rest here.

US sailors claim cancer from helping at Fukushima

When the USS Ronald Reagan responded to the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, Navy sailors including Quartermaster Maurice Enis gladly pitched in with rescue efforts.

But months later, while still serving aboard the aircraft carrier, he began to notice strange lumps all over his body. Testing revealed he'd been poisoned with radiation, and his illness would get worse. And his fiance and fellow Reagan quartermaster, Jamie Plym, who also spent several months helping near the Fukushima nuclear power plant, also began to develop frightening symptoms, including chronic bronchitis and hemorrhaging.

They and 49 other U.S. Navy members who served aboard the Reagan and sister ship the USS Essex now trace illnesses including thyroid and testicular cancers, leukemia and brain tumors to the time spent aboard the massive ship, whose desalination system pulled in seawater that was used for drinking, cooking and bathing. In a lawsuit filed against Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plaintiffs claim the power company delayed telling the U.S. Navy the tsunami had caused a nuclear meltdown, sending huge amounts of contaminated water into the sea and, ultimately, into the ship's water system.

Read the rest here.

Archdiocese of Vienna on handover of churches to Orthodox

(Catholic Sentinel) - Austria's Vienna Archdiocese has defended its gifts of Catholic churches to Orthodox communities, as part of a current reorganization.

"Our own church is receding in Vienna, whereas other Christian confessions are on the rise because of immigration," Michael Pruller, the archdiocese spokesman, told Catholic News Service Dec. 19.

"Many large churches were built in the 19th century for parishes numbering tens of thousands. As in other countries, we're now having to get rid of churches, which can't be maintained by their small congregations."

Read the rest here.

I empathize. Here in the US, as families migrate from traditionally immigrant communities, a lot of Orthodox churches have suffered membership troubles and some have had to be closed. In any event I applaud the Catholics for handing the church buildings over to other Christians instead of allowing them to be used for secular purposes, or turned into mosques.

The Prince of Wales Speaks on the Persecution of Middle Eastern Christians

For myself, I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East. It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are, increasingly, being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants. Christianity was, literally, born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ. Their church communities link us straight back to the early Church, as I was reminded by hearing Aramaic, Our Lord's own language, spoken and sung a few hours ago.

Yet, today, the Middle East and North Africa has the lowest concentration of Christians in the world – just four per cent of the population and it is clear that the Christian population of the Middle East has dropped dramatically over the last century and is falling still further.

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

Duck Dynasty Star Suspended for Calling Homosexuality a Sin

“Duck Dynasty’s” Phil Robertson has been benched from his family’s reality show following homophobic comments he made in a GQ interview, A&E confirmed late Wednesday.

The patriarch of the network’s hit show and self-proclaimed “Bible-thumper” called “homosexual behavior” a sin, equating it with other sins like bestiality and promiscuity.

“We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series ‘Duck Dynasty,’” A&E said in a statement. “His personal views in no way reflect those of A&E Networks, who have always been supporters and champions of the LGBT community.”

The end result: “The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely.”

Read the rest here.

I very rarely watch television anymore so I have no idea what the program is about. But I do know that they seem to be some sort of cultural phenomenon. In any event, this is outrageous. Have we reached the point where a person can be sacked or penalized by their employer for expressing their religious beliefs outside of the workplace?

If so, then we are in DEEP trouble as a country. Mr. Robertson might want to secure legal counsel. I don't know what the terms of his contract are, but he may have an actionable claim for religious discrimination.

Obama Biden to skip Winter Olympics

The White House announced Tuesday that President Obama, Vice President Biden and the first lady will not attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in February, a pointed snub by an administration that is feuding with Russian leaders on a range of foreign policy and human rights issues.

The U.S. delegation will be led by a former cabinet secretary and a deputy secretary of state, and will include two openly gay athletes — tennis legend Billie Jean King and ice hockey player Caitlin Cahow — in an apparent bid to highlight opposition to Russia’s anti-gay laws.

Read the rest here.

Long Missing Diary of Arch-Nazi Alfred Rosenberg is Found

Alfred Rosenberg joined the Nazis before Adolph Hitler did. He later served as the party’s interim leader. He wrote a virulent, best-selling book about the “Aryan” struggle against Jews.

He formed a Nazi task force, named for himself, that looted European art treasures by the train load. And in July 1941, Hitler put him in charge of territories falling to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

Read the rest here.

Arrest of Indian diplomat in New York sparks U.S.-India tiff

NEW DELHI — The Indian government, furious about the rough treatment of a female diplomat arrested in New York last week, moved Tuesday to sharply rein in privileges of U.S. diplomats working in India, escalating a rare dispute between the two normally friendly nations.

India took what a senior government official termed “reciprocal measures,” revoking the ID cards of U.S. Embassy personnel and their families, rescinding airport passes, freezing embassy imports and investigating salaries paid to Indian staff members at U.S. consulates and as domestic help, as well as those teaching at U.S. schools in the country. As a final slap, Indian authorities removed concrete security barricades from outside the embassy complex in New Delhi.

Read the rest here.

Foundation of Chapel of Tsarevich Alexei Laid in Peterhof

The foundation of the Chapel of Holy Royal Martyr Tsarevich Alexei was laid on December 12 in the Znamenka estate in Peterhof. Rector of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul the Apostles Archpriest Alexy Koltsov placed the foundation stone, reports the Voda Zhivaya (Living Water) information agency.

"We see how through your prayers—all of you organizers, donors and workers of this church—this chapel is being erected. With our common prayer construction work is beginning—the pouring of concrete into the chapel's foundation. We are laying the stones, which were brought by you from pilgrimages to Holy places: Holy Mount Athos, the bottom of the Jordan river, Mount Sinai. They are a symbol of our prayers to God," said Fr. Alexy to those gathered.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis removes conservative from key Vatican post

This is getting a lot of attention in the Catholic blogosphere. See here and here for background.

A Powerful Rebuke of Mass Surveillance

For the first time since the revelation of the National Security Agency’s vast dragnet of all Americans’ telephone records, a federal court has ruled that such surveillance is “significantly likely” to be unconstitutional.

In a scathing 68-page opinion peppered with exclamations of incredulity, United States District Judge Richard Leon, of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, found that the seven-year-old phone-data collection program — which was established under the Patriot Act and has been repeatedly reauthorized by a secret intelligence court — “almost certainly” violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.

Reaching into the 18th century from the 21st, the judge wrote that James Madison “would be aghast” at the degree of privacy invasion the data sweep represents.

Read the rest here.

Traveling

No blogging until Tuesday.

A 9-11 conspiracy story that may have an element of truth

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.

But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

It was kept secret and remains so today.

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).

A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.

Read the rest here.
HT: Bill (aka The Godfather)

Longtime readers will know of my general disdain for the modern fetish for conspiracy theories. That said, this one has a ring of truth to it. War is a dirty business. It seems perfectly plausible that at a time when we urgently needed allies in the Arab world to help prosecute our War on Terror, that Bush may have told the Saudis we would allow them to deal with some embarrassing issues quietly and internally provided we got full support from the Kingdom.

Does that mean it's true? Not at all. But it does mean that unlike 9-11 trutherism, birtherism and the gazzilion +1 Kennedy conspiracy theories, this one cannot be quickly dismissed as patently silly and or flying in the face of clear facts. For my part I will remain agnostic pending further evidence.

McCaine warns US could act if Ukraine signs deal with Russia

From here.

I am embarrassed to admit that I voted for this man in 2008. But then again I voted for Bush in 2000. Good grief, I really need to just stop voting.

Oh wait. I mostly have.

RIP: Peter O'Toole

The inimitable Peter O'Toole... memory eternal!

Mandela Security Scandal: It was worse than we thought

It's becoming increasingly clear that when President Obama arrived at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in Johannesburg, South Africa Tuesday, he stepped into an atmosphere so chaotic, disorganized, and unsafe that under any other circumstances the White House and Secret Service might well have insisted the president not appear.

FNB Stadium, where the memorial was held, seats 95,000 people. Even with a steady rain and thousands of empty seats in uncovered areas, there were tens of thousands of people in the area with the president. It appears most of them got in without going through any security.

"There were no security checks upon entry to the stadium," a local South African activist wrote Friday in a letter to the Johannesburg Star newspaper. "I walked freely to my seat without passing through metal detectors, being searched or any other check."

The stadium's main entrance was "completely unattended," a reporter for a Washington, D.C., television station told Politico. "There were no workers performing bag checks or pat-downs — there were no magnetometers to walk through, no metal detector wands being used — anywhere."

Read the rest here.

In the Navy we had a term for this sort of thing... FUBAR.

No, I'm not going to break that down.

Pope Francis cracks down on a traditionalist order

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis may have been named Time magazine's Person of the Year, but he has come under scathing criticism from a growing number of traditionalist Catholics for cracking down on a religious order that celebrates the old Latin Mass. The case has become a flashpoint in the ideological tug-of-war going on in the Catholic Church over Francis' revolutionary agenda, which has thrilled progressives and alarmed some conservatives.

The matter concerns the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a small but growing order of several hundred priests, seminarians and nuns that was founded in Italy in 1990 as an offshoot of the larger Franciscan order of the pope's namesake, St. Francis of Assisi.

Read the rest here.
HT: Rorate Caeli

This strikes me as an unusually fair article devoid of the usual cultish fawning from the MSM for the new Pope.

California is a failed state

They are literally freezing to death in California. Below-freezing temperatures the past couple of weeks have spelled doom for many who live on Bay Area streets. As many as seven people have died of hypothermia.

There are an estimated 6,000 homeless in San Francisco on any given night, with only 1,339 shelter beds. It’s impossible to walk anywhere in the downtown core without encountering these poor souls, their mangled, damaged feet peeking out from beneath filthy blankets. Meantime, blocks away, the rich fill the lobby of the Westin St. Francis and pack the aisles of Macy’s, one-percenters seemingly oblivious to the grinding poverty around them.

California may still possess enviable temperatures most of the year, but beyond the palm trees and warm breezes lurks a world of trouble. Jerry Brown has returned as governor to clean up the mess left behind by his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose tenure in office was volatile. Many have called California a failed state, and with some reason.

The decay that has set in after years of neglect is unmistakable. Roads have suffered as a result of years of deferred maintenance. According to Forbes magazine, California leads the United States in many categories, none of them good: highest taxes, lowest bond rating, highest poverty rate, tied for highest unemployment rate, poorest state in which to do business, most cities to have gone bankrupt. The state prison system is so badly managed it had to be taken over by a federal judge. The traffic congestion is probably the country’s worst.

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

Enough Already (Updated)

The Orthodox Church needs to end its involvement with the WCC, NCC and similar far left groups operating under the ruse of ecumenical dialogue. The membership of some Orthodox jurisdictions in these anti-Christian organizations is a scandal.

Update: In response to several requests about what prompted this little rant, my answer is that nothing earth shattering. I stumbled on this piece via T-19 and it reminded me of the OCA's continued participation in these groups. But I have read enough of what they have produced in the past to know that there is nothing orthodox, much less Orthodox, about them. Both organizations are so far to the left that if the world were flat they would be in imminent danger of falling off the edge.

Bizarre

JOHANNESBURG — The sign language interpreter who gestured meaninglessly at the Nelson Mandela memorial in South Africa on Tuesday has faced charges of murder, rape, theft, breaking and entering, malicious damage to property and kidnapping, according to eNCA.com.

The South African news site said the outcome of the murder charge against Thamsanqa Jantjie, brought in 2003, was unknown because the court case file is “mysteriously empty.”

Read the rest here.

I imagine that the Secret Service must be flipping out over this.

The Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple

From the Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin

More from the worker's paradise

 Following up on this post, North Korea has gone beyond erasing Kim Jong Un's uncle from photos and video following his arrest at a meeting of the Communist Party leadership. Now they have erased him permanently.

What Ever Became of Advent Fasting And Penance?

I was explaining to a new Catholic recently that the color purple (violet) used in advent is akin to its use in Lent, in that both are considered penitential seasons. Hence we are to give special attention to our sins and our need for salvation. Traditionally Advent was a time we would, like Lent take part in penitential practices such as fasting and abstinence.

Of course, in recent decades Advent has almost wholly lost any real penitential practices. There is no fasting or abstinence required, they are not really even mentioned. Confession is encouraged and the readings still retain a kind of focus on repentance and a focus on the Last Judgment.

But long gone are the days of a forty day fast beginning on Nov 12. The observances in the period of the Middle Ages were every bit as strict as Lent. St. Martin’s Feast Day was a day of carnival (which means literally “farewell to meat” (carnis + vale)). In those days the rose vestments of Gaudete (Rejoice Sunday) were really something to rejoice about, since the fast was relaxed for a day. Then back into the fast until Christmas. Lent too began with Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), as the last of the fat was used used up and the fast was enjoined beginning the next day.

Read the rest here.

An interesting and thoughtful piece. Please, let's skip the "we Orthodox still fast" commentary.

The Iraqi Jewish archive: Should the U.S. send it back?

WASHINGTON (RNS) Acting on a tip, 16 U.S. troops stormed the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad intelligence headquarters in 2003 and found a stash of Torah scrolls, prayer books and Hebrew calendars.

The trove was moldy and ripped, some of it of little value, much of it priceless — 2,700 books and tens of thousands of documents, all stolen from the Jews of Iraq.

Ten years later, 24 of the artifacts form a rare exhibit at the National Archives on the Mall, just steps away from rooms where tourists stand in line to see the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The exhibit has raised thorny questions about the ultimate disposition of the artifacts.

Read the rest here.

Congress holds hearings on the plight of Egypt's Copts

Video here.

Time Magazine's Person of the Year

From here.

Belzec: The Forgotten Camp

Of all the camps in the Holocaust, Belzec was the most deadly. If a person went there, he was not coming back. There are Auschwitz survivors, Mathausen survivors, even Treblinka and Sobibor survivors. One will never meet a Belzec survivor. As such, relatively little is known of what went on inside the camp. Mike, though, with extensive research, can piece together a picture.

The turnover time for getting 3,000 human beings to ashes was about 2-3 hours. It took a little more time to sort the clothes and valuables, clean the trains and send them back loaded with goodies. Six thousand a day was probably its maximum capacity.

As Mike explained, once a person arrived in Belzec, he would have wished he was in Dante's inferno. Guns and dogs, undress, run naked up a steep hill flanked by Ukranians with whips, sticks and swords, pushed into a small chamber by the weight of people behind, doors closed, gas...

That was if he was lucky.

Read the rest here.

18 Los Angeles sheriff's officials indicted, accused of abuse, obstruction

Eighteen current or former Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials have been indicted in five separate criminal cases in connection with a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of abuse and misconduct inside L.A. County jails.

The four grand jury indictments unsealed Monday and one criminal complaint allege that deputies beat jail inmates and visitors without justification, unjustly detained people and conspired to obstruct a federal investigation into misconduct at the Men's Central Jail. 

Sixteen of the defendants were arrested Monday and are expected to be arraigned this afternoon in federal court.

Read the rest here.

Feds prepare tougher rules for banks

Federal regulators are poised to approve a tougher-than-expected version of the so-called Volcker Rule, adopting a harder line in recent weeks against Wall Street risk-taking, according to a copy of the rule reviewed by The New York Times.

The rule, which comes to a vote on Tuesday, is a symbol of the Obama administration’s post-financial-crisis crackdown on Wall Street. In particular, it bans banks from trading for their own gain, a practice known as proprietary trading.

In doing so, the Volcker Rule takes aim at the sort of risk-taking responsible for a $6 billion trading blowup last year at JPMorgan Chase. The bank claimed it was trading to hedge its broader risks, but instead built a position that racked up large profits before spinning out of control.

To prevent such blowups, the rule will require banks to deploy “independent testing designed to ensure that the positions, techniques and strategies that may be used for hedging may reasonably be expected to demonstrably reduce” the risks, according to the version reviewed by The Times. And the risks, the rule says, must be “specific, identifiable” rather than theoretical and broad.

Read the rest here.

Stalin's Ghost Rules in North Korea

The latest news from the worker's paradise.

This is the dramatic moment showing the once-powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un being hauled away by police from a political meeting.

The stunning purge of Jang Song Thaek, 67, once considered the force behind the young leader, delivered a chilling message: No one is beyond Kim's reach, not even family.

North Korean state-run news agency KCNA announced Monday that he had “led a dissolute and depraved life” and said he had been dismissed for a string of criminal acts including corruption, womanizing and drug-taking.

"Jang and his followers committed criminal acts baffling imagination and they did tremendous harm to our party and revolution," the agency said in a report following a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party politburo on Sunday.

Kim Jong Un attended and "guided" the meeting which decided to dismiss Jang from all his posts and expel him from the Workers' Party, KCNA said.

Read the rest here.

Congress resumes business as usual on debt

House and Senate negotiators were putting the finishing touches Sunday on what would be the first successful budget accord since 2011, when the battle over a soaring national debt first paralyzed Washington.

The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising. It would not close corporate tax loopholes or reform expensive health-care and retirement programs. It would not even fully replace sharp spending cuts known as the sequester, the negotiators’ primary target.

After more than two years of constant crisis, the emerging agreement amounts to little more than a cease-fire. Republicans and Democrats are abandoning their debt-reduction goals, laying down arms and, for the moment, trying to avoid another economy-damaging standoff.

Read the rest here.

The Feast of St. Alexander Nevsky

Consecration of a convent church in Honor of St. Alexander.

Darwin Award Contenders

The two most abundent things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

MEXICO CITY — The carjackers who set off international alarm bells by absconding with a truckload of highly radioactive material most likely had no idea what they were stealing and will probably die soon from exposure, Mexican authorities said at the end of a brief national scare.

From here.

I am really struggling to find some sympathy for these guys. They didn't just steal the truck, they jumped and beat the drivers. There is a really good chance they are members of an organized crime ring. That said there is nothing I own that is worth my life or that of anybody else.

But then again, I don't own anything that could be used to make a poor man's nuke.

Exit Stage Left

Notorious left-wing demagogue Martin Bashir has resigned from MSNBC over his crude attack on Sarah Palin a few weeks back. I am no  fan of Palin. But Bashir, an obnoxious liberal talking head, was so over the line in his truly disgusting attack that he should have been sacked on the spot. Shame on MSNBC for its gutless response.

In other news, the Senate's darling of the political left, Elizabeth Warren announced today that she will not be running for President in 2016. She said that she intends to serve out her elected term of office in the Senate. The wailing from the anybody but Hillary wing of the progressive movement can be heard loud and clear. But FWIW I rather applaud Warren for resisting the temptation that every Washington Pol must at some point come under. I strongly suspect that at least half the Senate goes to bed every night humming Hail to the Chief.

That aside, she is wrong on about 90% of the issues.

Is the Government Tampering With Witnesses in No-Fly Trial?

That's what Judge William Alsup wants to know, according to this post by Mike Masnick at Techdirt (based on coverage by the identity project).

The trial, going on right now in federal court in San Francisco, involves claims by a former Stanford Ph.D. student that she was not allowed to fly in 2005 (except to go home to Malaysia) for reasons that the government won't explain. As explained in this NYT article (via TYWKIWDBI), the main "terrorist watch list," from which the "no-fly list" is derived, is believed to include at least 700,000 people. We don't know for sure, because the government won't say. Nor do we know the criteria for getting on it, and as many people have found, it is extremely difficult to get off it.

Read the rest here.

Greek Orthodox Bishop Threatens to Excommunicate Politicians Voting for Gay Unions

A leading Greek bishop has warned lawmakers that they risk incurring the wrath of God – and will be excommunicated – if they vote in favour of legalising same-sex partnerships.

In a letter lambasting homosexuality as "an insult to God and man", the Metropolitan of Piraeus, Seraphim, pleaded with the country's deputy prime minister, Evangelos Venizelos, not to condone gay unions.

"I beseech you from the heart not to proceed," he wrote.

"You will deny yourself the blessing of the most just Lord whose help and protection we daily need as much personally as nationally … during these critical times for our country."

Last week, the 57-year-old former monk, a prominent personality in Greece's powerful Orthodox church, threatened to excommunicate any MP who endorsed civil unions among gay couples following condemnation of Athens's failure to do so by the European court of human rights.

Read the rest here.
HT: Byzantine Texas

Axios!

NSA Collects Data From 5 Billion Phones Every Day

The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.

Read the rest here.

Roman Catholic Church may reconsider sacraments for divorced and remarried

Just a few days after the publication of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, Archbishop Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, has confirmed the issue remains open: “We will discuss it without any taboos. The Orthodox experience could be of help to us”

“A new approach needs to be taken with respect to the administration of the sacraments to remarried divorcees.” Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri is the prelate the Pope nominated Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. Born in 1940, the Tuscan prelate has four decades of experience as a member of the Vatican diplomatic corps and as of the end of September he has had the task of renewing the Synod institute that will meet twice – in 2014 and 2015 – to discuss the family, after a questionnaire or consultation containing 39 questions on family issues.

In the “Evangelii Gaudium” Francis does not explicitly mention the issue of the administration of sacraments to remarried divorcees. However, he does write that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” How should these words be read?

“We should pay attention to the phrase that follows immediately after this: These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness.” The Pope presents these two elements together. This means he wants these issues to be examined with prudence and therefore with attention to the Church’s doctrine. But he also wants them to be examined with boldness, which for me means “without fear”, taking individual circumstances into account.”

Read the rest here.

Judge declares Detroit eligible for Chapter 9 bankruptcy

Detroit will become the largest city in U.S. history to declare bankruptcy after a federal judge ruled Tuesday the city had met the legal criteria to win protection from its creditors.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes delivered the 140-page ruling after four months of legal wrangling between a state-appointed emergency manager and unions worried about the bankruptcy’s impact on pensions. Rhodes presided over a nine-day trial to determine whether the city met the requirements for bankruptcy protection.

“This once proud and prosperous city can’t pay its debts. It’s insolvent. It’s eligible for bankruptcy,” Rhodes said from the bench. “At the same time, it also has an opportunity for a fresh start.”

Detroit, once a city of 1.8 million and the home of the American auto industry, has suffered a long descent into financial crisis. The city was home to just 713,000 people, according to the 2010 Census, a mere shadow of its post-war apex. Huge pension costs and a recession that sent American automakers into their own financial tailspins exacerbated Detroit’s budget gaps.

Read the rest here.

ACLU Sues US Catholic Bishops Over Abortion Ban

 The American Civil Liberties Union announced on Monday that it had filed a lawsuit against the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, arguing that their anti-abortion directives to Catholic hospitals hamper proper care of pregnant women in medical distress, leading to medical negligence.

The suit was filed in federal court in Michigan on Friday on behalf of a woman who says she did not receive accurate information or care at a Catholic hospital there, exposing her to dangerous infections after her water broke at 18 weeks of pregnancy.

In an unusual step, she is not suing the hospital, Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, but rather the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Its ethical and religious directives, the suit alleges, require Catholic hospitals to avoid abortion or referrals, “even when doing so places a woman’s health or life at risk.”

The suit opens a new front in the clash over religious rights and medical care. The Catholic Church has fought against requiring all health plans to include coverage of contraception and is likely to call the new lawsuit an attack on its core religious principles.

Read the rest here.

This is a fairly naked attack on freedom of religion and deserves the strongest possible push back.

Alarming Reports from Syria (Updated)

Via the Levant Report...
Including unconfirmed reports that Islamists may have sacked St. Thekla's monastery and abducted the nuns. News reports are fragmentary and in the fog of war, sometimes erroneous. But this could be serious.

Update: Samn! has multiple reports that seem to confirm the abduction of the nuns. Please pray for the holy sisters and the persecuted Church in Syria. We still live in the age of martyrs.

In East China Sea a tense power struggle is brewing

 WASHINGTON — In an era when the Obama administration has been focused on new forms of conflict — as countries use cyberweapons and drones to extend their power — the dangerous contest suddenly erupting over a pile of rocks in the East China Sea seems almost a throwback to the Cold War.

Suddenly, naval assets and air patrols are the currency of a shadow conflict between Washington and Beijing that the Obama administration increasingly fears could escalate and that American officials have said could derail their complex plan to manage China’s rise without overtly trying to contain it. As in the Cold War, the immediate territorial dispute seems to be an excuse for a far larger question of who will exercise influence over a vast region.

The result is that, as the Chinese grow more determined to assert their territorial claims over a string of islands once important mainly to fishermen, America’s allies are also pouring military assets into the region — potentially escalating the once obscure dispute into a broader test of power in the Pacific.

Read the rest here.

LA Times Investigative Report into Handling of Sex Abuse by Archdiocese

There is a fairly long article on Cardinal Mahony's handling of the sex abuse crisis in the Los Angeles Archdiocese that you may read here. It does not paint a pretty picture.