Last Christians Ponder Leaving a Hometown in Iraq

HABBANIYA CECE, Iraq — The last Christian man in town goes to church each morning to clean the building and to remember the past. Romel Hawal, 48, was born in this town in Anbar Province back when most of the population was Christian. Now, he said, his 11-year-old son knows no other Christians and has no memory of attending a church service.

“When my son swears, it is on the Koran, not the Bible,” Mr. Hawal lamented.

His wife wants to leave town or leave the country, joining what is becoming an exodus of Christians from Iraq and throughout the Middle East. But Mr. Hawal said he felt an obligation to stay. And he found support from an unlikely source.

“What gives me courage,” he said, “is that my Muslim brothers say, ‘Don’t leave.’ ”

Here in Habbaniya Cece, residents talk about their town as an oasis of ethnic and religious harmony, where Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites all lived together for decades without friction. On one short stretch of rutted road near Mr. Hawal’s church, Mary Queen of Peace, are an Assyrian church, a Sunni mosque, a Shiite mosque and another, older, Sunni mosque.

“This is the best place you will find in Iraq, because we have Christians and Muslims together,” said the mayor, Sabah Fawzi, a Muslim, who stopped by the church to look in on Mr. Hawal. “When my wife and daughters want something, sometimes they come to the church to ask God for it.”

Read the rest here.

When do we start calling this ethnic (or religious) cleansing?

New York: Gov. Cuomo considers eliminating 15000 state jobs

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is considering reducing the state workforce by up to 15,000 workers in his budget, the largest cut to the government payroll in recent years, two people briefed on the plan said Wednesday night.

The prospective cuts are likely to accompany large reductions in Medicaid and state education spending, those people said, as Mr. Cuomo and his administration seek to close a projected budget gap of more than $9 billion.

But the cuts would represent a substantial downsizing of the state’s workforce, including clerical workers, state troopers and park rangers. And that belt-tightening would almost certainly be accompanied by noticeable reductions in government services, though it is hard to predict where and how much until Mr. Cuomo releases his proposed budget in early February.

Mr. Cuomo has made trimming the state’s far-flung bureaucracy a top priority of his new administration, hoping to reduce costs to taxpayers and root out waste. Along with Medicaid and education spending, money for so-called “state operations,” including payroll, health and pension benefits, is one of the larger portions of spending borne directly by New York taxpayers.

But layoffs of the magnitude the governor is considering are likely to spur a major counterattack from unions that represent state workers, who have in recent years agreed to concessions that would reduce long-term pension costs but sharply resisted calls by Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, David A. Paterson, to agree to downsizing the state workforce or other cost-saving measures.

Read the rest here.

Patriarch Kyril blessing Holy Water in Christ the Savior Cathedral with Met. Jonah on Epiphany

Well at least he didn't wear a Mao Jacket

Britain: Cameron proposes sweeping changes in national health care

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday proposed a radical reorganization of England’s health care system, introducing legislation that would hand responsibility for most of the country’s health budget to its 42,000 general practitioners and, his political opponents say, open the door to private competition that could threaten the foundations of socialized care.

Mr. Cameron argues that the bill, said to be the biggest overhaul of the National Health Service since it was founded in 1948, is essential to increase efficiency and allow doctors, patients and localities more control of how the health budget is spent.

Yet the prime minister, who promised during last year’s election campaign that he had no radical plans to change the health service, faces formidable opposition from a wide array of critics. These include the British Medical Association, members of Mr. Cameron’s own Conservative Party, patient advocates, health care specialists, health workers’ unions and even many of the primary care doctors who are supposed to benefit under the proposals.

Read the rest here.

GOP votes to add $282 billion to the national debt

WASHINGTON – The House on Wednesday voted to repeal the Democrats’ landmark health care overhaul, in a largely symbolic step that the new Republican majority said marked the beginning of an all-out effort to dismantle President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

Leaders of the Democratic-controlled Senate have said that they will not act on the repeal measure, effectively scuttling it.

A House majority voted 245 to 189 to repeal the measure.

While conceding the reality that the measure would not advance in the Senate, House Republicans said they would still press ahead with their “repeal and replace” strategy. The next steps, however, will be much more difficult, as they try to forge consensus on alternatives to the new law emphasizing “free market solutions” to control health costs and expand coverage.

Republicans have sketched their ideas without giving many details.

Even as four committees begin drafting legislation, Republicans said they would seek other ways to stop the overhaul, by choking off money needed to carry it out and by pursuing legislation to undo specific provisions, including its linchpin requirement that most employers help pay to insure their workers.

Read the rest here.

(Note: This is breaking news. It is likely the linked text will change with time.)

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that blanket repeal of the (deeply flawed) health care reform would add $282B to the national debt over ten years and several times that much over the following ten. Speaker Boehner responded with "well that's their opinion." The GOP suspended it's own rules forbidding any legislation that added to the national debt without offsetting cuts in spending. Nor have the Republicans offered any concrete legislation to address the added debt burden of repeal.

Philadelphia abortionist accused of 8 murders

A Philadelphia physician, Kermit Barron Gosnell, was charged Wednesday with murder and other offenses for allegedly causing the death of one of his female patients and killing seven viable babies in illegal, late-term abortions, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said.

The babies were born alive in the sixth, seventh and eighth months of pregnancy, but their spinal cords were allegedly severed with scissors, Williams said in a statement.

Nine other people who worked in the west Philadelphia medical office, including Gosnell's wife and sister-in-law, were also charged, Williams said. The practice, called the Women's Medical Society, served mostly low-income minority women for years, he said.

Williams' statement provided a grisly scenario of the shuttered abortion clinic: A search of the office last year by authorities found bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses scattered throughout the building. Jars contained the severed feet of babies and lined a shelf. Furniture and equipment was blood-stained, dusty and broken.

Gosnell, 69, is not a board-certified obstetrician or gynecologist, Williams said.

Read the rest here.

Horrific!

Ala. gov. apologizes for remarks on non-Christians

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley apologized Wednesday for his remarks about only Christians being his brothers and sisters.

Bentley said he didn't mean to insult anyone when he told a church crowd on Monday that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned whether he can be fair to non-Christians.

"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," Bentley said Monday, just moments into his new administration, according to The Birmingham News.

Read the rest here.

Stocks take a hit

The stock market took its worst beating since November today with the tech heavy NASDAQ dropping by more than 1.4%. The S&P 500 fell by a little over 1%. The DOW managed to dodge most of the selling dropping only very slightly. Crude oil closed at $90.70 a barrel and precious metals traded within a narrow range with gold closing up $2.80 closing at $1371.50 oz. Silver fell 11 cents closing at $28.79 oz.

Giffords may leave hospital on Friday

Good news...

TUCSON, Ariz. — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will likely leave the hospital Friday and move into a Texas rehabilitation center to begin the next phase of her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head, her family said Wednesday.

In a statement released by Giffords' congressional office, Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, said his wife will be moved — likely Friday barring medical issues — to TIRR Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital in Houston. Doctors say the exact timing of the move will depend on Giffords' health.

Kelly, who has been married to Giffords for three years, lives in Houston.

Giffords was gravely wounded by a gunshot to the forehead on Jan. 8 as she was meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson. The gunman shot 18 other people, killing six and wounding 12 more.

"I am extremely hopeful at the signs of recovery that my wife has made since the shooting. The team of doctors and nurses at UMC has stabilized her to the point of being ready to move to the rehabilitation phase," Kelly said.

Read the rest here.

Senator Lieberman will retire in 2012

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut lawmaker whose successful re-election run as an independent in 2006 resurrected him after defeat in the state’s Democratic primary, announced Wednesday he will not seek a fifth term.

The veteran lawmaker made the announcement in Stamford, Conn., surrounded by his wife, children and other family members.

"At the end of this term, I will have served 24 years in the U.S. Senate and 40 years in elective office," Lieberman said. "For me, it is time for another season and another purpose under Heaven," he added, making a Biblical reference to Ecclesiastes.

Lieberman said he intends to put his full energy into the remainder of his current term in the Senate and plans to stay engaged in public life after he leaves his seat. "I will keep doing everything in my power to build strong bridges across party lines," he said.

Lieberman, 68, was defeated the last time he ran for the Democratic Senate nomination in Connecticut, in 2006, but won a new term running as an independent in a three-way race.

Read the rest here.

Irkutsk Jordan

It's in Russian but that's OK. You don't need to know the language to follow what's going on. Some kids build a shrine out of ice in the Russian Far East for the Feast of Epiphany/Theophany. This is a GREAT video!

Bomb found on MLK march route; FBI suspects domestic terrorism

SPOKANE, Wash. — A backpack found along the route of the Martin Luther King Jr. march in Spokane contained a bomb "capable of inflicting multiple casualties," the FBI said Tuesday, describing the case as "domestic terrorism."

The FBI said the Swiss Army-brand backpack was found about 9:25 a.m. PST on Monday on a bench at the northeast corner of North Washington Street and West Main Avenue in downtown Spokane.

In an interview on msnbc cable's "The Rachel Maddow Show," Spokesman-Review reporter Thomas Clouse said confidential sources told him that the device was equipped with a remote control detonator and contained shrapnel.

A bomb disposal unit was called in and neutralized the device with a robot. The FBI said in a statement on Tuesday that "the backpack contained a potentially deadly destructive device, likely capable of inflicting multiple casualties."

The FBI has refused to discuss how the bomb was constructed.

Read the rest here.

In State Secrets Case, Justices Ponder Telling Litigants to ‘Go Away’

WASHINGTON — It has been almost 60 years since the Supreme Court last had a hard look at the state secrets privilege, which can allow the government to shut down litigation by invoking national security. In the years since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government has invoked the privilege frequently to scuttle cases, saying they would frustrate its efforts to combat terrorism.

The privilege was at the center of an argument at the court on Tuesday. But the justices did not seem inclined to use the opportunity to give the lower courts guidance about its contours.

The case arose from a 1988 contract between the Navy and two companies, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas, to develop a stealth aircraft called the A-12 Avenger.

Three years later, dissatisfied with the contractors’ progress, the Navy declared them in default and demanded the return of $1.35 billion.

The contractors sued, asking to keep the money and seeking $1.2 billion more. They said their work had been frustrated by the government’s failure to share classified technology. The government disputed that, but would not explain why, invoking the state secrets privilege.

An appeals court repeatedly ruled against the companies, saying at one point that national security interests trumped the companies’ rights under the Constitution’s due-process clause.

There was no dispute during the argument on Tuesday that the government was entitled to invoke the privilege. The question was what should have happened when it did.

Read the rest here.

Church Official Calls for ‘All-Russian Dress Code’

MOSCOW — A top official for the Russian Orthodox Church on Tuesday proposed creating an “all-Russian dress code,” lashing out at women who leave the house “painted like a clown” and “confuse the street with striptease.”

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin has angered women’s groups recently with his comments about female modesty. At a December round table on interethnic relations, he said a woman wearing a miniskirt “can provoke not only a man from the Caucasus,” the predominately Muslim region on Russia’s southern border, “but a Russian man as well.”

“If she is drunk on top of that, she will provoke him even more,” he said. “If she is actively inviting contact, and then is surprised that this contact ends with a rape, she is all the more at fault.”

Feminists began a series of protests and petitions against Father Chaplin, who leads the church’s social outreach department and is a close associate of Patriarch Kirill I. He responded Tuesday with a pungent letter, saying provocative clothing led to “to short-term marriages, which are immediately followed by ratlike divorces, to the destruction of children’s lives, to solitude and madness, to life-catastrophe.”

He argued that clothing was not a private business, and that he hoped that Russia would soon be a place where scantily dressed women or men in track suits would not be admitted into public venues.

Read the rest here.

Theophany in Russia

If this were in America, I wonder how long it would take before Child Protective Services showed up to seize the kid and arrest the parents.

Egypt's Coptic Pope cancels mass over security fears

CAIRO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church cancelled celebrations for the Feast of Epiphany on Tuesday over concerns for the safety of the country's Christians after a New Year's Day bombing that killed 23 people.

Officials suspect an al Qaeda-inspired bomber was behind the New Year's blast outside a church in the port city of Alexandria. Islamist websites had carried repeated threats to attack churches and have since carried threats to strike again.

Pope Shenouda, who led mass on Coptic Christmas on Jan. 6, in a tense but incident-free service, will hold a small and closed celebration on Tuesday instead of the larger mass that had been planned, the pope's legal adviser said.

"Masses of Copts had decided to join the Pope in celebration, which caused fear for the lives of those people in the light of al Qaeda's threats and the tense environment after Alexandria's events," Naguib Gabriel said.

Read the rest here.

Some local news

Two men pleaded guilty on federal hate crime charges stemming from a February 2006 vandalism incident at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation in Modesto, California, on Friday.

Federal prosecutors claim Brian Lewis of Modesto and Abel Gonzalez of Morgan Hill, both now 23, face up to ten years in prison after pleading guilty. The chruch lawn was damaged, a black “666″ was painted on a stone cross and a satanic symbol was placed across the church’s tile steps. The double doors leading into the church’s office were painted with upside-down crosses, a pentagram, and expletives referring to Christ and God. The Rev. Fr. Jon Magoulias of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation on Tokay Avenue, stated that the Church of the Annunciation has over three-hundred-and-fifty stewardship families whom offer financial support to the parish.

Source

Turkish Minister: It is not possible to recognize a legal personality for the Patriarchate

Voicing determination to expand the rights and freedoms of non-Muslim communities in Turkey, including Orthodox Christians, a senior Cabinet minister has made it clear that such willingness does not mean Ankara recognizes the legal personality of the İstanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.

“The institution represented by Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew does not have a legal personality under current Turkish law. They don't have a legal personality, but they exist,” Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said on Monday, echoing Ankara's argument that Turkey doesn't consider the patriarchate to be ecumenical, in line with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which governs the status of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey.

Ankara rejects Patriarch Bartholomew's use of the title “ecumenical,” or universal, arguing instead that the patriarch is merely the spiritual leader of İstanbul's dwindling Greek Orthodox community.

The Fener Greek Patriarchate in İstanbul dates back to the 1,100-year-old Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453.

Read the rest here.

States warned of $2.5 Trillion pension deficit

What a shock. The states have been lying to us for decades and using accounting tricks that would make Enron's bookkeepers blush. Here is the bottom line. Most of the states are in reality bankrupt. They can't even do what the Federal Government can (print their own money) so they are well and truly screwed. Or more accurately, their bondholders are. Look for the Federal Government to step up with a massive multi-Trillion dollar bailout with the next two to three years. And where will all of THAT money come from...? I wouldn't count on China. I think they have finally figured that we have been running a giant ponzi-scheme and that Bernie Madoff has really been our Secretary of the Treasury for the last ten years. My guess is Helicopter Ben will be called on. QE3 anyone?

US public pensions face a shortfall of $2,500 billion that will force state and local governments to sell assets and make deep cuts to services, according to the former chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund.

The severe US economic recession has cast a spotlight on years of fiscal mismanagement, including chronic underfunding of retirement promises.

“States face cost pressure, most prominently from retirement benefits and Medicaid [the health programme for the poor],” Orin Kramer told the Financial Times.

“One consequence is that asset sales and privatisation will pick up. The very unfortunate consequence is that various safety nets for the most vulnerable citizens will be cut back.”

Mr Kramer, an influential figure in the Democratic party and still a member of the investment council that oversees the New Jersey pension fund, has been an outspoken critic of public pension accounting, which allows for the averaging of investment gains and losses over a number of years through a process called “smoothing”.

Read the rest here.

In 1997 Vatican Warned Bishops Not to Report Child Abuse

A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials instructed the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they must not adopt a policy of reporting priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities.

The document appears to contradict Vatican claims that the hierarchy in Rome never determined the actions of local bishops in abuse cases, and that the church did not impede criminal investigations of accused child abusers.

Abuse victims in Ireland and the United States quickly proclaimed the document to be a “smoking gun” that would serve as important evidence in lawsuits against the Vatican.

But a spokesman for the Vatican said that the document, while authentic, only serves as further proof that past missteps on handling sexual abuse allegations were reformed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was a top official in the Vatican even before he became the current pope, Benedict XVI.

Read the rest here.

Haiti's Former Dictator is Arrested

PORT-AU-PRINCE — A Haitian prosecutor Tuesday formally charged former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier with corruption, theft, misappropriation of funds and other alleged crimes committed during his 1971-1986 rule.

"His fate is now in the hands of the investigating judge. We have brought charges against him," Port-au-Prince Chief Prosecutor Aristidas Auguste told Reuters.

The charges must now be investigated by the judge who will decide whether a judicial case should go ahead. Earlier, Haitian police detained the former dictator. Armed police escorted Duvalier, 59, from the luxury hotel in Port-au-Prince where he had been staying since his surprise return on Sunday to his poor, earthquake-battered Caribbean homeland after 25 years in exile in France. Officers put him in a police SUV with tinted windows which drove away.

Duvalier, 59, was calm and did not say anything. Asked by journalists if he was being arrested, his longtime companion Veronique Roy, laughed but said nothing.

The former ruler, who is accused by human rights groups of being responsible for the killing and torture of opponents during his 15 years in power, was being taken to the office of the Port-au-Prince chief prosecutor, officials said.

Read the rest here.

Powerful Earthquake Strikes Pakistan

WASHINGTON — A major 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked a remote area of southwestern Pakistan early Wednesday, shaking many parts of the country and causing widespread panic, said meteorologists.

The quake was centered in Baluchistan province, the country's most sparsely populated area, said the United States Geological Service. It occured at a depth of some 50 miles (84 kilometers), it said.

Its exact epicenter was in a remote area some 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of the Baluchistan capital of Quetta, said chief Pakistani meteorologist Arif Mahmood.

Local TV reports said the quake was felt throughout several provinces. Many residents in the country's largest city, Karachi, ran out into the streets once the quake started, said the reports.

Read the rest here.

More disturbing news from across the pond

Two sad news items from Britain.

Peter and Hazelmary Bull were breaking the law when they denied Martyn Hall and his civil partner Steven Preddy a room at their hotel in Cornwall in September 2008.

Judge Andrew Rutherford made the ruling in a written judgment at Bristol County Court as he awarded the couple £1,800 each in damages.

Mr Hall and Mr Preddy, from Bristol, were seeking up to £5,000 damages claiming sexual orientation discrimination under the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.

At a hearing last month, the Bulls denied the claim, saying they have a long-standing policy of banning all unmarried couples both heterosexual and gay from sharing a bed at the Chymorvah Private Hotel in Marazion near Penzance.

Mr Bull, 70, and his wife, 66, said their policy, operated since they bought the hotel in 1986, is based on their beliefs about marriage and not a hostility to sexual orientation.

Read the rest here.

And...

Church of England baptism services may be re-written to remove some references to Christianity.

The plan for a new ‘baptism lite’ service designed to make christenings more interesting to non-churchgoers will be considered next month by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod.

Supporters say the baptism service should be ‘expressed in culturally appropriate and accessible language’ that is readily understood by ‘non-theologically versed Britons’.

But traditionalist clergy said the idea amounted to ‘dumbing down’.

Read the rest here.

Another great story about Troy Polamalu

The most famous Orthodox Christian in Pittsburgh, if not the nation, has a greeting for his fellow believers today:

"Kala Christougena!" said Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. That's Greek for "Merry Christmas!"

Mr. Polamalu and his wife, Theodora, actually celebrated Christmas 13 days ago, but they keep the same Orthodox traditions as those who observe today. Most Orthodox celebrate on Dec. 25, but many Slavic churches tie liturgy to the old Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. The Greek Orthodox Church and some others have adopted the Gregorian calendar -- except at Easter.

"We all celebrate Easter on the same day," said Mr. Polamalu, 29. Orthodoxy is the Eastern wing of the earliest Christian church, which split into the Orthodox and Catholic churches in 1054.

He and Theodora converted to Orthodoxy about five years ago. His background was Catholic and Protestant, hers Muslim and Protestant. They were Christians in search of a deeper, more consistent experience of God.

"Orthodoxy is like an abyss of beauty that's just endless," he said. "I have read the Bible many times. But after fasting, and being baptized Orthodox, it's like reading a whole new Bible. You see the depth behind the words so much more clearly."

Read the rest here.

California's Default - The 2011 Scenario

Some might think short term lending is less risky than long. In the municipal market, for many issuers that is usually not the case, particularly today. When additional borrowing is necessary to redeem tax and revenue anticipation cash flow notes it is called a “rollover” - sell new notes to pay off the existing. It works as long as the market for the issuer’s notes remains open. If it closes, current note holders are unlikely to be paid in full on the maturity date unless the issuer can sell bonds to redeem the notes.

California issued $10 billion of revenue anticipation notes this past December. They are due this May and June. $8 billion were sold last year and $7 billion the year before that. Over that time, general fund tax revenues declined about 15%. The state’s ability to access the bond market could become an issue in the months ahead. More likely, if voters turn down an initiative to extend temporary tax rate increases worth $8 billion that are set to expire this June. The state just announced a decision not to issue any general obligation bonds this year. Any concerns about market access will be hard to divine and as a result, this is not good news for current note holders.

California can satisfy its revenue anticipation notes by delivering cash or warrants to note holders on the maturity date. That is because the notes constitute unsecured debt of the State, not general obligations. If warrants were issued, it would undoubtedly be viewed as a note default, although legally it is not.

Read the rest here.

When air travel was exotic and (gasp) fun

American Airlines movie advertisement from 1933 (note the shocking reference to African Americans)


The China Clipper flying boats

A question for Roman Catholic readers

Professor of canon law Edward Peters has put up an interesting post which is getting much attention in the Catholic blogosphere. In this post he posits that Canon 277 § 3 of the Code of Canon Law (1983) gives no authority to local bishops to relax the Latin discipline of continence among all ranks of the permanent clergy. He further and specifically extends this to include the "married permanent Diaconate." Here then is my question.

Is the new Ordinariate subject to the Code of Canon Law of the Latin Church? And if so would not then the provisions of canon 277 apply to the clergy of the Ordinariate, even though they may be married? Has the Holy See granted any specific exemption in this case? What about those clergy received under the so called Pastoral Provision?

Some posts of interest

I draw the reader's attention to several posts over at Byzantine Texas which are well worth a glance. Starting with a couple on Met. Jonah's "unofficial" trip to Moscow. As noted there, Orthodox primates don't just go sightseeing in another church's canonical jurisdiction. I am more than a little curious as to what this is all about. I have some suspicions but am content to wait and see. Then there is a video of Met. Jonah's recent talk to a Lutheran congregation on Orthodox spirituality.

New York: Home of the 82 page rental app for a $2400-mo studio apartment

Eduardo Espirito Santo, a sociable graduate of the University of Richmond who comes from a prominent Portuguese banking family, would seem like a stable enough tenant. Even in a slow economy, he landed a summer internship at the Atlantic Council in Washington and this month started a second internship at a financial firm in New York City.

But these qualifications were not enough for a few Manhattan landlords he tried to rent from, partly because he did not want a one-year lease. So Mr. Espirito Santo had to jump through even more hoops than the typical Manhattan renter.

Even in a city where residents constantly come and go, most landlords rarely agree to leases of less than a year. This has become a problem for recent graduates that are having trouble landing permanent jobs and do not want to commit for 12 months.

“Maybe 15 to 20 percent of the kids getting employed right now are getting internships that may lead to that full-time job,” said Blair Brandt, whose referral company, the Next Step Realty, introduced Mr. Espirito Santo to Tony Caputo of Citi Habitats.

In December, Mr. Caputo brought Mr. Espirito Santo to see some studio apartments with six-month leases. The first two apartments Mr. Espirito Santo liked demanded application fees so high that even the broker thought they bordered on predatory. One landlord demanded Mr. Espirito Santo pay $300 a month in utilities in addition to a $500 credit check and application fee. Another wanted Mr. Espirito Santo to pay a $300 application fee and to use the temporary furniture company of his choice.

When Mr. Espirito Santo found a sunny, furnished, 15th-floor studio at London Terrace Towers, a complex of a half-dozen buildings on West 23rd Street where studios in his buildings typically rent for $2,400 to $2,600 a month, he decided to go for it.

But since he would be subletting in a co-op, Mr. Espirito Santo was handed an 82-page application that required him to give detailed information about employment history, income, educational background and even “name of organizations to which Applicant belongs.” He had to provide detailed accounts of his assets, liabilities, stocks, bonds and real estate holdings, along with information about his cash, money market funds and investments. He also had to get three personal references including his most recent landlord in Washington within four days.

“It was just a nightmare,” he said. “I’ve never had to do anything like this before.”

Read the rest here.

Some ugly facts on child sexual abuse

This past June, Pope Benedict XVI said the church must promise "to do everything possible" to ensure that the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests "will never occur again."

But the president of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) was not satisfied. She said, "Right now, kids are being assaulted by priests and bishops are concealing the crimes. And the pope continues taking no action to stop this." She said that the pope still ignores the main problem: "the ongoing recklessness, deceit, and callousness of bishops who, even now, protect predators instead of children."

The executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference had an answer to the problem. "We believe that if women had a say in the church, if there was more accountability and more transparency, [then] the men would have been held more accountable."

The issue of sexual abuse by Catholic priests is so commonplace that it is the subject of late-night "humor."

Read the rest here.

John Adams' thoughts on American History

Trust us; we are the government and we are here to help

When a Serbian man in California gave his work computer to an office technician last July, it prompted a chain of events that have stripped him and his wife of their kids and sparked fury in his home country at the state's child protective services system.

Among about 5,000 personal digital photographs on the Stockton resident's hard drive, the technician noticed a few dozen pictures of the man's two naked children. He reported the pictures to the sheriff's office.

The father, a 20-year resident of the U.S., and his wife were arrested briefly in June on suspicion of child pornography-related charges and released after prosecutors viewed the photos. The San Joaquin County district attorney's office said it had no plan to file any charges unless new evidence came to light.

But the children, ages 8 and 5, who are dual Serbian-U.S. citizens, were placed into protective custody, then foster care, where they remain seven months later.

Read the rest here.

Wikileakds next bombshell... Swiss banking records?

LONDON — A Swiss banker whose actions caused a U.S. judge to briefly shut down WikiLeaks three years ago has promised to hand over a trove of banking secrets to the secret-spilling organization on Monday, a U.K. newspaper reported.

Releasing the bank details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and companies could reveal huge potential tax evasion, The Observer reported on Sunday.

Both American and British firms and individuals, including about "40 politicians," will be implicated, Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told the newspaper.

Elmer, who pledged to give the information to WikiLeaks at a journalists' club in London on Monday, has been ordered to appear before a Zurich regional court Jan. 19 to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws. If convicted he could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and a fine.

The list of individuals and companies includes multinational conglomerates and hedge funds that are "using secrecy as a screen to hide behind in order to avoided paying tax," Elmer told the Observer.

Read the rest here.

Will Christian Kingship die with Charles (III)?

King George VI

And his grandson Prince Charles

I have just been to see the film, The King’s Speech. Leaving aside the historical inaccuracies which have been pointed out by others, it was a moving spectacle. Two things stood out: the warm relationship between the Duke of York, later King George VI, and Lionel Logue, his Australian speech therapist; and the King’s unflinching acceptance of his destiny.

“Bertie”, as he was known to his family (but not, incidentally, to Logue), was shy, unconfident, ill-educated, in delicate health and with a severe speech impediment. But he was also honourable, dutiful and courageous – qualities that more than compensated for his defects. With his very stable and happy family life, and his insistence on sharing in the country’s hardships (he had a line drawn around the inside of the baths at Buckingham Palace as an indication of the small amount of hot water to be used) he set exactly the example of kingship needed during the war.

He was also, like his daughter, our present Queen, whose sense of duty is so like her father’s, a Christian monarch. As “Defender of the faith”, in his speech of September 3 1939 at the outbreak of war, he was able to tell his people quite sincerely that we “reverently commit our cause to God” and that “with God’s help we shall prevail”, concluding “May He bless and keep us all.” In an equally memorable speech of December 25 1939, quoting the poem by Minnie Louise Haskins, he concluded with the words: “May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all.”

I mention this because I have been reading a book entitled Harmony, written by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. All about the laws of Nature, ancient wisdom, the correspondences found “between the patterns made by the orbiting planets and the forms found in Nature”, Pythagoras, geometry, the Egyptian civilisation, the grammar of harmony, the music of the spheres and much else besides, the book is highly significant for one thing: there is nothing in it suggesting that the Christian faith is special, unique or any different from the spiritual wisdom of other faiths such as Buddhism or Islam.

Chartres cathedral, a magnificent statement of Catholic Christianity and dedicated to Our Lady, is discussed by HRH only in relation to the ancient architectural designs and patterns it has followed and because “like all great cathedrals, temples, mosques and holy places, it acts as a bridge between the world of Nature, human society and the domain of the spirit”.

Prince Charles is on record as saying that when he is king he would like to be known as “defender of faiths”. To be sensitive to the different faiths practised by your subjects is one thing; not to wish to uphold the Christian faith that has been the bedrock of your country for over 1,000 years is another.

HRH writes: “The Golden Thread of wisdom and the inner need to maintain harmony in the world… is not some wishy-washy, New Age invention of the late 20th century.”

Isn’t it?

Source

I see two acceptable alternatives, William V or Francis II.

As glaciers recede long buried secrets are revealed

LA PAZ, Bolivia — In the haunts of this city where climbers gather over plates of grilled llama and bottles of Paceña beer to swap tales of mountaineering derring-do, they feign boredom when talk turns to the 19,974-foot-high Huayna Potosí, a jagged Andean peak that looms over La Paz.

“A training climb,” scoffs Julio Choque Alaña, 32, who guides foreigners up the mountains of Bolivia, which boasts peaks higher than the Alps and the Rockies.

But such bravado fades when talk shifts to what climbers are discovering on Huayna Potosí’s glacier: crumpled fuselage, decades-old pieces of wings and propellers, and, in November, the frozen body of Rafael Benjamín Pabón, a 27-year-old pilot whose Douglas DC-6 crashed into the mountain’s north face in 1990.

“When I found the pilot, he was still strapped into his seat, crunched over like he was sleeping, some black hair falling from his skull,” said Eulalio González, 49, the climber who carried Mr. Pabón’s mummified body down the mountain. “There are more ice mummies in the peaks above us,” he said. “Melting glaciers will bring them to us.”

The discovery of Mr. Pabón’s partially preserved remains was one of a growing number of finds pulled from the world’s glaciers and snow fields in recent years as warmer temperatures cause the ice and snow to melt, exposing their long-held secrets. The bodies that have emerged were mummified naturally, with extreme cold and dry air performing the work that resins and oils did for ancient Egyptians and other cultures.

Up and down the spine of the Andes, long plagued by airplane crashes and climbing mishaps, the discoveries are helping to solve decades-old mysteries.

Read the rest here.

Bad news for California (yes... more)

SACRAMENTO — California faces the risk not just of devastating earthquakes but also of a catastrophic storm that could tear at the coasts, inundate the Central Valley and cause four to five times as much economic damage as a large quake, scientists and emergency planners warn.

The potential for such a storm was described at a conference of federal and California officials that ended Friday. Combining advanced flood mapping and atmospheric projections with data on California’s geologic flood history, over 100 scientists calculated the probable consequences of a “superstorm” carrying tropical moisture from the South Pacific and dropping up to 10 feet of rain across the state.

“Floods are as much a part of our lives in California as earthquakes are,” said Lucy Jones, the chief scientist for the United States Geological Survey’s multi-hazards initiative, adding, “We are probably not going to be able to handle the biggest ones.”

The geological survey estimates that such a storm could cause up to $300 billion in damage. The scientists’ models estimate that almost one-fourth of the houses in California could experience some flood damage from one.

Read the rest here.

Wow! Who'd have figured the CIA was that clever?

...In early 2008 the German company Siemens cooperated with one of the United States’ premier national laboratories, in Idaho, to identify the vulnerabilities of computer controllers that the company sells to operate industrial machinery around the world — and that American intelligence agencies have identified as key equipment in Iran’s enrichment facilities.

Seimens says that program was part of routine efforts to secure its products against cyberattacks. Nonetheless, it gave the Idaho National Laboratory — which is part of the Energy Department, responsible for America’s nuclear arms — the chance to identify well-hidden holes in the Siemens systems that were exploited the next year by Stuxnet.

The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.

The attacks were not fully successful: Some parts of Iran’s operations ground to a halt, while others survived, according to the reports of international nuclear inspectors. Nor is it clear the attacks are over: Some experts who have examined the code believe it contains the seeds for yet more versions and assaults.

Read the rest here.

I have to admit, this is really damaging some long held prejudices of mine. Namely my hitherto firm belief that the government is too incompetent to pull of a James Bond kinda operation. Even so I really like it. We didn't have to bomb anyone, no one got killed (at least by us) and we managed to devastate Iran's efforts put an atom bomb in the hands of a certifiable maniac. All in all, I'm OK with that.

Quote of the day...

"Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves."
–Norm Franz, Money and Wealth in the New Millenium

HT: Jim Sinclair

An ugly chart and a great post

The value of the dollar since the Federal Reserve was founded

The Anglican Curmudgeon nails it...

...If the government elects to follow the path recommended by that financial genius I citied earlier, then there will come a time when the rest of the world says: "The party's over, my friend. No more paper dollars: we refuse to accept them for what you owe. You will have to start paying your debts in gold, or Swiss francs, or some other reliable currency. And guess what: until you reign in your current spending spree, and unlimited printing of paper dollars, you won't be able to buy any gold, or francs, or any other reliable currency, because no one wants your worthless 'money.

Read the rest here.

HT: Bill (aka The Godfather)

Eternal Memory

Norton I By the Grace of God Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico who reposed 131 years ago on January 8th.

"He had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line."
-Patrick Crowley San Francisco Chief of Police 1867

Homeland Security Cancels ‘Virtual Fence’ After $1 Billion Is Spent

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday canceled a project to build a technology-based “virtual fence” across the Southwest border, saying that the effort — on which $1 billion has already been spent — was ineffective and too costly.

Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said she had decided to end the five-year-old project, known as SBI-Net, because it “does not meet current standards for viability and cost effectiveness.” In a statement, Ms. Napolitano said border agents would instead use less expensive technology that is already part of their surveillance equipment, tailoring it to the specific terrain where they will be scouting for illegal border crossers and drug traffickers.

Ms. Napolitano’s decision brought a long-expected close to a project carried out by the Boeing Corporation under a contract first signed in 2005 under President George W. Bush, which had been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Originally estimated to cost more than $7 billion to cover the 2,000-mile length of the border, it was the subject of more than a dozen scathing reports by the Government Accountability Office.

In a pilot program in Arizona, it cost about $1 billion to build the system across 53 miles of the state’s border. Officials said the new approach, using mobile surveillance systems and unmanned drones already in the Border Patrol’s arsenal, would cost less than $750 million to cover the remaining 323 miles of Arizona’s border.

Read the rest here.

Uncle Sam Wants His AAA Rating

Is Wall Street listening to the Tea Party?

Two major credit ratings agencies warned Thursday that the United States might tarnish its triple-A credit rating if its national debt kept growing.

It was not the first time the agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, warned that the nation’s gilt-edged rating might fall into jeopardy.

But the two statements, made within hours of each other, were seized on by deficit hawks as further evidence that the government must reduce spending and debt to avert disaster. That is just what many Tea Party supporters insist.

But many economists say the reckoning, if it comes, is still years or even decades away.

The bond market shrugged at Thursday’s news. Indeed, even some experts who want to see the deficit reduced said now is not the time to cut federal spending drastically, given the weakness in the economy and high unemployment.

But others see the mounting national debt as a potential danger. What once seemed unthinkable — that one day the United States government would no longer be accorded the highest credit rating — is now not only thinkable, but increasingly probable.

“I am concerned about the unsustainability of our long-term situation,” said Peter G. Peterson, a co-founder of the Blackstone Group and a prominent deficit critic.

Read the rest here.

In other news Moody's and S&P strongly hinted that they are considering downgrading the credit rating for Confederate Bonds.

Pope John Paul II to be beatified in May

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI moved his beloved predecessor one step closer to sainthood on Friday, confirming a miracle by John Paul II and setting May 1, the first Sunday after Easter, as the date of his beatification.

Sainthood would follow after the confirmation of one more miracle.

Thousands are expected to attend the beatification ceremony. Benedict is expected to celebrate the Mass himself, a much-needed bright spot in his papacy, which in recent months has been weathering a sex abuse scandal in Europe and violence against Christians in the Middle East.

Wildly popular, John Paul was seen as a man of his time, a Pole who marshaled the Catholic Church’s energies to help end the cold war. But he was also criticized for how he handled a sex abuse crisis that burgeoned in the United States as early as the 1980s.

At John Paul’s funeral in April 2005, the faithful filled Saint Peter’s Square crying “santo subito,” or “sainthood now.” Benedict honored their wishes, putting John Paul on a fast-track to sainthood, waiving the traditional five-year waiting period for the process to begin, but insisting on a thorough investigation into his life.

Read the rest here.

Popular protests topple an Arab dictator

TUNIS — President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia has left the country amid growing chaos in the streets, French diplomats say, and the prime minister went on state television Friday night to say he is temporarily in charge.

A French Foreign Ministry official said authorities did not know where the president had gone, and representatives of the president were not immediately available to confirm the report.

There were also unconfirmed reports that the country’s airspace had been closed.

In his speech to the country, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi said that “as the president of the republic is unable to exercise his functions for the time being, I have assumed, starting now, the powers of the president.”

“I call on all sons and daughters of Tunisia,” the prime minister said, “to show the spirit of patriotism and unity in order to enable our country, which is dear to all of us, to overcome this difficult phase and restore its security and stability.”

The apparent fall of Mr. Ben Ali would mark the first time that widespread demonstrations had overthrown an Arab leader.

Read the rest here.

GOP to resume toned down health-care repeal effort

House Republican leaders said Thursday that they will begin their effort to repeal the new health-care law next week, a return to normal legislative business after the shootings in Arizona suspended activity on Capitol Hill.

But no one quite knows what normal will look like, following a wrenching week in which members confronted concerns about their own safety and whether their heated rhetoric played any role in last Saturday's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 18 others.

As Giffords recovers in a Tucson hospital, many of her colleagues in Washington said they plan to change the tone in the House, a body that has served as the epicenter of caustic political debate for the past 20 years.

"It doesn't mean the issues go away, it doesn't mean that the positions on those issues change, but yes, this is going to affect everybody," said Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.).

House Republicans had envisioned repealing the health-care law as a triumphant moment - a chance to vote down legislation that helped inspire the tea party movement.

Instead the effort has become a test of whether Republican leaders can regain the momentum of their big November midterm election wins and fulfill a campaign promise without the rancor that has marked almost every other health-care debate.

Read the rest here.

Robo-call Revenge

Perhaps the idea of revenge came from his sleep deprivation.

Awakened at 4:33 a.m. Wednesday by a ringing phone, Aaron Titus jumped out of bed in a panic. Maybe something terrible had happened, he thought. Even if nothing was wrong, his heart raced with other considerations: His five children, ages 5 and under, including his week-old daughter, were mercifully still asleep, and he wanted to keep it that way.

In a blurry rush, Titus answered the phone halfway into the second ring, listening in disbelief to an automated caller tell him what he already knew: It was a snow day. School would open two hours late. In other words, he and his family could sleep.

But now he couldn't.

"I thought, 'C'mon, people. Really?" he recalls.

Sometime later in the day, the 31-year-old father from Fort Washington, a lawyer who knows a thing or two about technology, made a decision that might well bring amused satisfaction to like-minded parents everywhere.

Titus arranged for an automated message of his own.

He found a robocall company online, taped a message and listed every phone number he could find for nine school board members (sparing the student member), Superintendent William R. Hite and General Counsel Roger C. Thomas.

At 4:30 a.m. Thursday, phones began ringing with 29 seconds of automated, mocking objection:

"This is a Prince George's County School District parent, calling to thank you for the robocall yesterday at 4:30 in the morning. I decided to return the favor. While I know the school district wanted to ensure I drop my child off two hours late on a snow day, I already knew that before I went to bed. I hope this call demonstrates why a 4:30 a.m. call does more to annoy than to inform.''

It ended: "Quit robocalling parents at 4:30 in the morning or at least allow us to opt out of these intrusive calls."

Titus says the automated calling service reported back that, of the 19 phone numbers he supplied for school officials, "eight live people picked up" when the predawn call was made.

Read the rest here.

The route in municipal bonds continues

Prices of tax-exempt municipal bonds, particularly longer-term bonds, fell Thursday amid anxiety over forced selling and money flowing out of municipal bond funds.

Yields for 30-year triple-A rated general obligation bonds shot higher to 5.01% Thursday, according to Thomson Reuters Municipal Market Data. The last time those bonds yielded 5% was Jan. 30, 2009. Yields move inversely to prices. The yield on the 10-year bond jumped to 3.36%, the highest since June 15, 2009.

Yields on bonds maturing in 2017 through 2041 rose Thursday by 4 to 12 basis points, according to MMD.

"The market feels queasy," said Eaton Vance municipal bond portfolio manager Evan Rourke.

There are "hefty blocks out for bid" in the market, including $255 million in the range 2013-2036, said MMD's Randy Smolik.

Investors are concerned about the lists and continued outflows from muni bond funds. According to Lipper FMI, money has flowed out of municipal bond funds for eight consecutive weeks since the week ended Nov. 17. The most recent weekly data will be reported later Thursday.

Longer-term bonds for weeks have suffered from concern that more issuers will sell such bonds because they no longer can sell long-term taxable bonds through the Build America Bond program, which expired at the end of last year. Too much supply would overwhelm investor demand and force municipal issuers to raise their rates to attract buyers.

Indeed, new tax-exempt deals this week have had to offer higher yields to win over cautious investors. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority on Thursday sold a 2024 tax-exempt bond with a 5.37% yield, 39 basis points higher than the yield offered on a similar maturity Tuesday, the first day the bonds were sold to individual investors. The agency also shrank the size of the sale from the original $1.2 billion to about $712 million because of the tough conditions.

Read the rest here.

Man's capacity for self delusion seems endless. These people seem to think this is a blip. It is not. This is the beginning of the end for the bond bubble. There is an ocean of debt out there that states and municipalities have managed to hide by fudging their bookkeeping. But people are starting to wake up.

FED moves to gut predatory lending rules

The Federal Reserve is pushing a new mortgage regulation that would effectively eliminate the most powerful federal remedy for predatory lending.

The regulation would severely limit a practice called "rescission," used to strike down demonstrably-illegal or fraudulent loan contracts and void a bank's ill-gotten gains from such predatory lending practices. When a mortgage borrower wins a rescission case in court, the bank loses the right to foreclose, and has to give up all profits from interest and fees on the loan. The borrower still has to repay the principal -- the original amount of money extended by the bank -- but can't be kicked out of the house.

Under the Fed's new proposal, however, borrowers would be required to pay off the balance of the loan before the bank loses its right to foreclose -- that means borrowers could still lose their homes, even in cases where banks have broken the law.

Unsurprisingly, banks support the move, but consumer advocates say this would essentially make rescission worthless to borrowers.

Read the rest here.

A Defensive Anchor Walks a Spiritual Path

PITTSBURGH — Steelers safety Troy Polamalu opened his red leather-bound playbook to a dog-eared page. “The life of a man hangs by a hair,” he began reading in a voice as soft as falling snow. “At every step our life hangs in the balance.”

It was three days before the Steelers’ A.F.C. divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens, a matchup in which the Super Bowl aspirations of two worthy contenders hang in the balance, and Polamalu was getting himself centered.

“How many millions of people woke up in the morning, never to see the evening?” Polamalu read. And then: “The life of a man is a dream. In a dream, one sees things that do not exist; he might see that he is crowned a king, but when he wakes up, he sees that in reality he is just a pauper.”

The book in Polamalu’s hands, “Counsels From the Holy Mountain,” guides him in football and in life. It contains the letters and homilies of a Greek Orthodox monk, Elder Ephraim, whom Polamalu described as his spiritual doctor.

Polamalu, 29, sought out the octogenarian monk, who resides in a monastery in southern Arizona, a few years ago, a meeting that led Polamalu to the place he described as “heaven on earth.” It is a summit of sorts. But not the Super Bowl, though Polamalu won two championship rings in his first seven seasons with the Steelers. Neither of those journeys shaped him as profoundly as the pilgrimage he made to Mount Athos, a Greek Orthodox spiritual center in Greece.

Read the rest here.

A picture is worth a thousand words... or $14 trillion

More bookkeeping fraud in banks

The giant US banks have been bailed out again from huge potential writeoffs by loosey-goosey accounting accepted by the accounting profession and the regulators.

They are allowed to accrue interest on non-performing mortgages ” until the actual foreclosure takes place, which on average takes about 16 months.

All the phantom interest that is not actually collected is booked as income until the actual act of foreclosure. As a resullt, many bank financial statements actually look much better than they actually are. At foreclosure all the phantom income comes off gthe books of the banks.

This means that Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, among hundreds of other smaller institutions, can report interest due them, but not paid, on an estimated $1.4 trillion of face value mortgages on the 7 million homes that are in the process of being foreclosed.

Ultimately, these banks face a potential loss of $1 trillion on nonperforming loans, suggests Madeleine Schnapp, director of macro-economic research at Trim-Tabs, an economic consulting firm 24.5% owned by Goldman Sachs.

The potential writeoffs could be even larger should home prices continue to weaken, placing more homes in the nomnperforming category on bank balance sheets.

About 6 million homes are still at risk, according to Schnapp, and at least 10% of them are 25% underwater, meaning their market value is 25% less than the mortgage– but the owners are still paying interest to their banks

Source

Remember, banks are the enemy.

Forbes: There is no getting around gold

Earlier this week Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, went out of his way to call the gold standard a "very legitimate monetary system." In November, World Bank President Robert Zoellick and Indiana Republican Congressman Mike Pence both called for a serious look at using gold as the centerpiece of international monetary reform.

The fact that a Fed leader, the highest-ranking American official in international economics, and a potential presidential candidate are talking up the gold standard indicates that floating money is running out of political cover, and that the obstacles to gold replacing it are narrowing.

The first confirmation of this was the reaction of certain economic elites who, instead of responding with a straightforward defense of the status quo, lobbed ad hominem attacks on those who dared to mention gold. "I think [Zoellick] is living in the past," Edwin Truman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics told the Financial Times. Gold is "minor and really irrelevant," echoed Peterson Institute Director Fred Bergsten in the same article.

The most common practical objection to the international gold standard is political: that the slight deflationary bias it gives off would not be tolerated by people today. Yet this conclusion overlooks the serial price crashes that the economy has endured since gold was demonetized in 1971.

At different times and most recently all at once, the values of homes, stocks and other investment assets have collapsed and traumatized the lives of ordinary Americans. Think upheaval over monetary policy was a thing of the 19th century? In 1982 a mob of tractor-driving farmers blockaded the Fed headquarters in Washington in protest over high interest rates, leading Chairman Paul Volcker to hold public forums around the country to try and explain his prolonged and painful effort to squeeze inflation out of the economy.

The busts of the post-Bretton Woods era have been the downsides of the bubbles. Taken together they represent the chronic problem of modern capitalism: the excess credit that at its high point decouples capitalist virtues from prosperity and at its low point pins ordinary people under acute economic distress. This is the distinguishing feature of the debt-based monetary system the world inherited by going off gold.

U.S. dollars, the world's main reserve money supply, are pieces of paper with no independent value. It is no wonder that government, corporate, and household debt levels have soared under this arrangement and muddled the difference between the genuine article of economic ingenuity and the next conduit for hot money.

Read the rest here.

See my take on the Gold Standard here. I also draw your attention to an interesting discussion over at Owen's blog on economic matters including gold.

Holy Synod condemns antiSemitic anti-Muslim bishop

THENS, Greece -- Greece's Orthodox church has rejected disparaging comments about Muslims and Jews by a senior cleric that sparked protests from representatives of both faiths.

A statement by the church governing body, the Holy Synod, condemned "any form of racial and religious discrimination."

Serapheim, bishop of Piraeus, described Islam as "a catastrophic worship" that is incompatible with Greece's constitution. He also blamed Greece's financial crisis on Zionist machinations.

Read the rest here.

Frankly he should have been "retired" to a monastery.

Egypt recalls its ambassador from the Vatican

Egypt has recalled its Vatican ambassador for consultations after Pope Benedict XVI demanded that governments do more to protect Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim countries.

Citing recent attacks on churches that have killed dozens of Christians, Pope Benedict on January 10 singled out Egypt, Nigeria, and Iraq as countries that need to adopt measures to protect religious minorities.

The pope also called on Pakistan to repeal its anti-blasphemy law, saying the legislation serves as a pretext for violence against non-Muslims.

An Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement described Benedict's remarks as "interference" in the internal affairs of other countries.

Meanwhile, reports say one Egyptian Christian has been shot dead on a train and at least three others injured. It was not immediately clear if the incident was religiously motivated.

Source

Illinois legislature votes to abolish the death penalty

CHICAGO — After more than a decade of debate over whether the state’s system of capital punishment could ever be fair, state lawmakers voted on Tuesday to end the death penalty in Illinois.

The move, which came only hours before a new group of lawmakers takes office in Springfield on Wednesday, leaves the future of capital punishment to the Democratic governor, Patrick J. Quinn, who has not indicated whether he will sign the legislation. If Mr. Quinn agrees to the ban, Illinois will join 15 other states without capital punishment.

Read the rest here.

I was wrong. In an earlier post I said that the Illinois legislature had not considered any meaningful cuts in spending. The DP is a massive waste of money.

The return of the Zeppelin?

The Graf Zeppelin

One of the most intriguing predictions in the usual end-of-year rush was that we could soon be taking holidays thousands of feet in the air. By 2030, claimed a report for Thomson Holidays, giant, eco-powered airships, containing entire resorts, will be floating through the skies. It seems fantastical, but you don't need to look 20 years into the future to see the airship making a comeback. In fact, these long-neglected craft are already undergoing a renaissance that could transform the way we travel.

The concept of lighter-than-air flight is not, of course, a new one. What stalled its development is something known in the business as "the H-Factor" – "H" in this case standing for "Hindenberg". Even though there had been dozens of airship disasters before, the devastating image of a transatlantic Zeppelin engulfed in a fireball at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in May 1936 shattered public confidence and spelt doom for the golden era of the airship. Programmes worldwide were axed and, with war imminent, the funding poured into heavier-than-air craft. The great airships were consigned to the scrapheap: Goering had all the remaining German Zeppelins salvaged for their Duralumin; the scrap from the R-100, the leading British airship, was sold for £600.

The concept of the airship lived on, using non-flammable helium, rather than the hydrogen that buoyed the Hindenberg, but in diminished form. During the Second World War, America deployed blimps for surveillance and patrol, and since then a few small airships have seen service, such as the Sentinel series and recently the Zeppelin NT. These, however, carry only a handful of passengers and are limited mostly to advertising and sightseeing.

In other words, at a time when our skies are filled with Eurofighters and Dreamliners, airship technology has remained frozen with the Fokkers and de Havillands. All that, however, is about to change. This is partly down to new materials: high strength-to-weight fabrics mean that hulls on the scale of the old Zeppelins can be built without the need for rigid internal structures, while the payload modules (still quaintly called "gondolas") are now made of Kevlar and, foreseeably, carbon fibre and graphene.

Partly, too, it is because of the inexorable pressure of fuel costs and emissions controls. When operating an aircraft, fuel is the single largest cost – but with its lift provided by the gas in its hull, a conventional airship only needs to propel itself forward, not upwards. That means lower fuel burn and, in turn, lower emissions. Flying at between 4,000 and 5,000ft, where emissions are less harmful anyway, tomorrow's airships will generate just a tenth of the CO emissions of a commercial aircraft. New power sources, such as hydrogen fuel cells, bring the vision of a zero-emission craft within reach – but even with today's technology, a fleet of hybrid airships operating out of Heathrow could meet the predicted growth in air traffic, reduce the airport's overall emissions to the legal level and eliminate the need for a third runway altogether.

Fundamentally, however, the revolution is in design. Ever since the Wright Brothers, people have been looking for ways to marry the gas lift of an airship and the aerodynamic lift of an aeroplane. Now, at last, such hybrids have arrived. One design, the Boeing SkyHook, takes a conventional cigar-tube hull and attaches rotary blades to outriggers to create a helicopter-airship hybrid. Two others, the British SkyCat and its lookalike from the American firm Lockheed, turn the hull itself into a flying wing, creating a hybrid of plane and airship. Scale models of these have already flown, and several other designs are gestating on drawing boards.

These hybrids change the aeronautical game. The Graf Zeppelin was 810ft long, with 20 sleeping berths and 36 crew. A hybrid airship of that length could carry 500 tons of cargo or, in theory, 5,000 passengers. Of course, technical challenges remain: the flying-wing shape induces extra drag, and having the centre of weight close to the centre of lift reduces stability. But trials show the design to be remarkably stable – and, indeed, intrinsically self-correcting.

Read the rest here.

What a fascinating idea.

You're insane if you don't own gold, investors told (dollar heading for "oblivion")

Robin Griffiths, a technical strategist at Cazenove Capital, told CNBC: "I think not owning gold is a form of insanity. It may even show unhealthy masochistic tendencies, which might need medical attention."

He added that the dollar was heading for "oblivion".

Mr Griffiths predicted that gold's 10-year bull run would continue and even intensify. "Although it's been a top performer for each of the last 10 years, it's still in a linear trend," he said. "Eventually it will go exponential and make more in the last little bit than the whole of the 10-year trend."

He said investors should regard any short-term falls in the gold price as a buying opportunity, adding that gold was still not an "over-owned trade".

His comments come against the background of the US Federal Reserve's huge monetary stimulus from quantitative easing, which many believe will result in inflation and a fall in the value of the dollar.

Read the rest here.

A tad more apocalyptic than my own view. But yea, gold is financial catastrophic health insurance. When central banks are printing money like its going out of style this is a no brainer.

Banks should be allowed to fail

Bob Diamond, Barclays' chief executive, has told a committeee of MPs that badly-run banks should not be bailed out by taxpayers.

"It is not acceptable for taxpayers to bail out banks," Mr Diamond said during questioning by the Treasury Select Committee. He added that "badly managed" banks should be allowed to fail.

Barclays is not too big to fail, said Mr Diamond, who took over as chief executive of the bank 11 days ago.

The CEO said Barclays' board has not yet decided on the size of its bonus pool, so it has not sought shareholder approval. Mr Diamond is reportedly in line for an £8m payout.

When asked if he would take his bonus this year, after turning it down in recent years, Mr Diamond said: "I will make that decision with my family."

Read the rest here.

Drowning in debt Illinois prepares huge tax hike

The Illinois legislature moved a step closer Tuesday to passing its first tax-rate increase in nearly two decades to dig the state out of a $13 billion budget hole despite steep opposition from Republicans.

Tuesday afternoon, the House Revenue and Finance committee passed a scaled back version of a tax-increase proposal that was struck last week by leaders of the Democratically controlled legislature and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, also a Democrat.

Under the current version of the bill, the individual income-tax rate would jump to 5%, from the current 3%, a 67% increase. That is more conservative than last week's proposed 5.25% rate, a 75% increase. Also, the corporate tax rate would increase to 7%, from the current 4.8%.

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Illinois, is the only state that seems determined to make California look semi-responsible. The Governor of Indiana responded to Illinois' planned tax hike with laughter. The Governor of New Jersey told his state to take note of Illinois plight, cautioning that they (IL) were moving in a dangerous direction.

It is probably unreasonable to expect that one could close the budget gap confronting the all Democratic state government in Springfield without some tax hikes. But there has been almost no serious discussion of spending cuts. This is nuts! It is economic suicide being committed by a legislature of cowards afraid of offending their special interest masters. If I owned a business in Illinois I would be packed and heading for the door by the months end.

Foreigners Shun Europe’s Bonds, and Debt Piles Up

ATHENS — Greece. Ireland. And now, it seems, Portugal.

While the circumstances that have driven these debt-ridden members of the euro zone to the brink differ, they share one common characteristic: All three countries aggressively tapped their domestic banking systems for more debt long after they had been shut out of international bond markets.

With its 10-year debt trading close to the historic high of 7 percent reached last week, Portugal will try Wednesday to sustain what many have come to see as nothing more than a form of bond market charades when it attempts to raise up to €1.25 billion, or $1.62 billion, in long-term financing — debt that is expected to come largely from the country’s already depleted banking system.

For Portugal, as it was for Greece and Ireland before their bailouts, borrowing at such high rates from lower-quality lenders may demonstrate its economic sovereignty. But to an increasingly skeptical marketplace, borrowing on such terms reflects nothing more than the country’s unwillingness to accept the rude reality of its fiscal condition.

As a result, the Portuguese banking system takes on more debt, making it harder to restructure and thus requiring the government in Lisbon to impose more pain on its citizens, a dynamic that is now playing out in Greece.

“Eighty percent of Portugal’s debt stock is held by foreigners,” said Jonathan Tepper, an analyst at Variant Perception a research firm in London. “But the flow, now, is being financed domestically.”

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Evidence of demonic possession?

Maybe. I am more inclined to that view than reading a lot of socio-political-religious themes into him. Sometimes in life, the simplest explanation is the right one. In any event the man (or whatever is making him tick) is purely evil.