Egypt Destroying Churches, One at a Time

What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a week goes by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?

The latest chaos in Egypt—where the military opened fire on unarmed protesters, and ran armored vehicles over them— killing 35 and injuring over 300, with the count still rising --originated in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob.

This destruction, which spurred the unrest in Egypt, is itself eye-opening as to the situation in Egypt. To sum it up, St. George Coptic church, built nearly a century ago, was so dilapidated that the local council and governor of Aswan approved renovating it, and signed off on the design.

It was not long before local Muslims began complaining and making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—even though the permit had approved them—citing that "the Cross irritates Muslims and their children."

Coptic leaders had no choice but to acquiesce, "pointing to the fact that the church was rebuilt legally, and any concessions on the part of the church was done for the love for the country, which is passing through a difficult phase."

Acquiescence breeds more demands: Muslim leaders next insisted that the very dome of the church be removed—so that the building might not even resemble a church—and that it be referred to as a "hospitality home." Stating that removing the dome would. Most likely collapse the church, the bishop refused.

The cries of "Allahu Akbar!" began: Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were "forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church;" many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on Sept. 30, some three thousand Muslims rampaged through the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Coptic homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims.

This account of anti-church sentiment in Egypt leads to several sad conclusions:

Read the rest here.

IMF advisor says we face a Worldwide Banking Meltdown

Christians under siege in post-revolution Egypt

CAIRO — Egypt's Coptic Christians have long felt like second-class citizens in their own country.

Now many fear that the power vacuum left after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak is giving Muslim extremists free rein to torch churches and attack Coptic homes in the worst violence against the community in decades.

An assault Sunday night on Christians protesting over a church attack set off riots that drew in Muslims, Christians and the police. Among the 26 people left killed in the melee, most were Copts. For Coptic scholar Wassem el-Sissi, it was evidence that the Christian community in Egypt is vulnerable as never before.

"In the absence of law, you can understand how demolishing a church goes unpunished," he said. "I have not heard of anyone who got arrested or prosecuted."

Read the rest here.

Copts begin burying their Martyrs

CAIRO — Egypt's Coptic Church harshly criticized the government on Monday over its actions in crushing a bloody protest in Cairo the night before that left at least 24 people dead, mostly Christians, as grieving families began to bury their dead, some of them mangled by tanks, bullets and beating wounds.

The protest on Sunday was the most violent in Egypt since the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak from the presidency eight months ago and raised new questions about the country's ability to move forward toward a pluralistic and tolerant democracy.

In a statement, the Coptic Church, which represents about 10 percent of Egypt's 85 million people, accused military and police forces of allowing anti-Christian instigators to turn what had been a peaceful protest into a sectarian riot, then used the violence as a pretext for deadly force directed largely against the Coptic protesters.

Read the rest here.

Scenes From Holy Cross Monastery 25th Anniversary

Hat Tip: Blog reader John.

Western Rite Conference

Via the Orthodox Caveman word of a pan-jurisdictional conference on the Orthodox Western Rite.  I found the details very interesting and wish I had known about it earlier.  (My sister lives in Wappinger Falls.)  A few snippets to whet the appetite... A Pontifical High Mass in Latin and a Mass according to the Gallican Rite!  How long since either has been seen in the Orthodox Church?  Wow, just wow!

Oh my...

Sometimes things can be even funnier because they are sooo true.  Contrast this with an earlier post.

Riots in Egypt as Christians are attacked

Sunday's rally began in the Shubra district of northern Cairo, then headed to the state television building along the Nile where men in plainclothes attacked the Christian protesters. Armed with sticks, they chased the Christian protesters from the site, banging metal street signs to scare them off. It was not immediately clear who the attackers were.

Gunshots rang out at the scene outside the state television building, where lines of riot police with shields tried to hold back hundreds of Christian protesters chanting "This is our country."

Security forces eventually fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Read the rest here.

Ron Paul Wins Values Conference Straw Poll

Wildly enthusiastic Ron Paul supporters, including busloads of college students, have been a visible presence at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, so no one was surprised when Mr. Paul won the conference’s annual straw poll of presidential preferences on Saturday.

All of the major Republican contenders spoke on Friday or Saturday at the conference, a pep rally for religious conservatives sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and other conservative Christian groups and attended by 3,400 people. Of the 1,983 who voted, 37 percent chose Mr. Paul.

But what turned heads here was the low support registered for the two presumed front-runners for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney and Gov. Rick Perry. Mr. Romney, who has struggled to win the allegiance of religious conservatives because his stances on abortion and same-sex marriage, received 4 percent of the votes. Mr. Perry, whose conservative credentials are considered nearly impeccable, tied with Michele Bachmann at 8 percent, well behind Herman Cain (23 percent) and Rick Santorum (16 percent).

Read the rest here.

Behind the Rick Perry hunting camp story (WAPO defends reporting)

In the matter of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and his hunting camp with the racial slur in its name, The Post’s exclusive Oct. 2 article, written by Stephanie McCrummen, makes several points clear.

In the early part of Perry’s political career, certainly from 1985 to 1990 or 1991, and perhaps later, people saw the name “Niggerhead” painted in block letters on a big upright rock marking the entrance to the leased camp. It’s also clear that locals knew the camp by this name going way back.

Perry was a young state lawmaker in the late 1980s, and he took colleagues there to hunt on several occasions. Perry insists that the name on the rock was painted over in 1983 or 1984, before he was elected and before the hunting excursions.

If the seven sources The Post relied on for this article are truthful, then Perry is lying or is badly misinformed about when the rock was painted.

Read the rest here.

140 years ago today

The Great Chicago Fire destroyed most of the city and killed several hundred people.  A popular legend attributed the fire to a lantern being kicked over by the cow of Mrs. Catherine O'Leary.  However this account was later retracted by the news reporter who first published the story, when he admitted to fabricating the whole thing in the 1890's.  To this day the exact cause of the fire remains a subject of historical debate.  The chaos of the disaster was portrayed with remarkable (for the period) realism in the 1937 film "Old Chicago." (Click here to watch scenes of the fire from the movie.)

Pastor supporting Perry says Romney is not a Christian, belongs to a 'cult'

WASHINGTON — The pastor who introduced Texas Gov. Rick Perry at a conservative gathering Friday said rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not a Christian and is in a cult because he is a Mormon.

Read the rest here.

Umm yea. But sometimes tact would suggest passing over certain observations, especially if your trying to plug a guy for president, true though they may be.  On a side note, I'd be a little surprised if  this guy didn't feel the same way about Catholics and Orthodox Christians (assuming he has even heard of us).

On this date in 1840...

William II of Orange-Nassau became King of the Netherlands.

Analysis: Bank of England hits the panic button

Who was it who said that QE – printing money by another name – is the last resort of desperate governments, when all other options have failed?

As Labour's Ed Balls gleefully points out, it was indeed George Osborne, the current Chancellor (British Treasury Secretary A/O). It is the sort of thing politicians say in opposition and then bitterly regret when they get into government and have to take the decisions.

Yet in a sense, his words are even truer today than they were then. You wouldn't choose further to expand the Bank of England's purchases of government debt unless you were desperate, and all other options had been exhausted. The Chancellor condemned it then; now he welcomes it.

Since nominal interest rates are already as low as they can realistically go and the Government has, rightly, ruled out easing back on deficit reduction - more QE is about the only thing left in the locker as the world slides, inexorably, towards depression.

As regular readers will know, until quite recently I've argued steadfastly against QE2, but on the never say never principle, I was always careful to add some riders. When faced by an extreme deflationary threat, almost anything can be justified, and that's precisely what we are seeing now. As the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, put it on Thursday, "when the world changes, we must change our response".

Read the rest here.

World facing worst financial crisis in history, Bank of England Governor says

The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night.

Sir Mervyn King was speaking after the decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to put £75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession.

Economists said the Bank’s decision to resume its quantitative easing [QE], or asset purchase programme, showed it was increasingly fearful for the economy, and predicted more such moves ahead.

Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been driven by growing signs of a global economic disaster.

“This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We’re having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing.”

Announcing its decision, the Bank said that the eurozone debt crisis was creating “severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets”.

Read the rest here.

New Blue Nightmare: Clarence Thomas and the Amendment of Doom

Lord of the Rings aficionados know that the evil lord Sauron paid little attention to the danger posed by two hobbits slowly struggling across the mountains and deserts of Mordor until he suddenly realized that the ring on which all his power depended was about to be hurled into the pits of Mount Doom. All at once the enemy plan became clear; what looked like stupidity was revealed as genius, and Sauron understood everything just when it was too late to act.

Jeffrey Toobin’s gripping, must-read profile of Clarence and Virginia Thomas in the New Yorker gives readers new insight into what Sauron must have felt: Toobin argues that the only Black man in public life that liberals could safely mock and despise may be on the point of bringing the Blue Empire down.

In fact, Toobin suggests, Clarence Thomas may be the Frodo Baggins of the right; his lonely and obscure struggle has led him to the point from which he may be able to overthrow the entire edifice of the modern progressive state.

Read the rest here.

HT: Blog reader Michael

This is a fascinating read. I also recommend Toobin's article linked in the text.

Feds prepare to lower the boom on California's medical pot growers

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state's 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation's burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week notifying them that they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state's four U.S. attorneys are scheduled to announce a broader crackdown at a Friday news conference.

Read the rest here.

The prohibitionists strike again.

Obama backs US attorney general amid gun scandal

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday he fully supported Attorney General Eric Holder, who has come under scrutiny after a botched operation to track guns smuggled to Mexican drug cartels.

"I have complete confidence in Attorney General Holder," Obama said at a news conference. "He has been very aggressive in going after gun running and cash transactions that are going to these transnational drug cartels in Mexico."

The backing comes as Holder has been under fire over when and what he knew about the bungled operation, known as "Fast and Furious," that was aimed at tracking guns from the United States to violent Mexican drug cartels.

Read the rest here.

Secret panel can put Americans on 'kill list'

WASHINGTON — American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

Read the rest here.

La Belle Époque

A short video from the Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) of 1900 in Paris fourteen years before the end of western civilization.  Gotta love the fashion show and the very appropriate musical background.

Hierarchy criticised at priests' first agm

THE FIRST annual general meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests was told last night that if people had a vote on such matters church leaders would be swept out of office.

If Irish Catholics had a democratic way of reflecting their feelings “church leaders would suffer a defeat as cataclysmic as that administered to Fianna Fáil in the recent general election”, Fr Kevin Hegarty said.

What was needed was a church which would open its doors to “married priests and women priests”. It would benefit from secular insights like, for example, on human intimacy and democracy, he said. It would work at developing a “healthy and holistic theology of sexuality”.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Hegarty, in case you missed the bulletin the "church" you long for already exists.  Go check out the Anglicans.

Europe: Who is going to foot the bill?

Efforts to resolve Europe’s debt crisis are, at their core, an exceptionally high-stakes game of chicken, pitting the continent’s central bank against its national governments. Hanging in the balance: the entire world economy.

If an economic calamity is to be avoided, some Europe-wide entity probably will need to funnel money to Greece and other troubled nations and jointly guarantee the debts of the continent’s governments in a we’re-all-in-this-together show of solidarity. The great debate in Europe right now is over what entity will be stuck holding the bag.

Read the rest here.

George Soros loses insider trader appeal

George Soros, the billionaire investor, has failed in his latest effort to have a 2002 conviction for insider trading in Societe Generale shares thrown out.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Mr Soros in the latest blow to the investor in his nine-year battle to have the conviction overturned.

Mr Soros was found guilty of trading on insider information in the French bank but argued that trading regulations were ambiguous.

In a statement released following the unsuccessful appeal, the Court said that while the law was not precisely worded, investors had a duty to be prudent.

Read the rest here.

Bank of England drastically increases money printing

"Shock and awe" is how some economists described the Bank of England's decision to bulk up its £200bn quantitative easing (QE) programme by £75bn on Thursday. And, certainly, the move shocked and awed the markets.

"Surveys of both economists and market participants suggested that most thought the Bank would wait until November at least," Goldman Sachs pointed out. "The £75bn is also larger than expected: we had expected only £50bn."

The pound fell 0.41 cents against the dollar. The FTSE 100 jumped 3.7pc. Gilt yields fell on the prospect of the Bank buying roughly £5bn a week for four months from next Monday. Sir Mervyn King, the Bank's Governor, couldn't have asked for a better reception.

Weak sterling will help exports, higher share prices will help companies, and lower gilt yields will help borrowers. By pre-empting the market and over-shooting expectations, "the Bank has achieved the most bang for its buck", Scotia Capital's Alan Clarke said. It was a move straight out of the 2008 crisis playbook.

From a communication point of view, the Bank could not have performed better. In the past couple of months, it has regularly dropped hints that QE2 was coming – carefully preparing the markets, but still surprising them with the force of its action.

Read the rest here.

Old Calendarist bishops to gather at Owego parish

 Archbishop Kallinikos of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece

Some odd news from back home...

TOWN OF OWEGO -- Several national and international bishops of the Orthodox Church will be guests Monday at a Feast Day celebration for the namesake of a small parish in the Town of Owego.

Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens and all Greece will officiate at the Divine Liturgy, including the Eucharist, at 9:30 a.m. Monday at Saint Maximus the Confessor Orthodox Church on Gaskill Road.

Kallinikos will be accompanied by two bishops from Greece, a visiting bishop from Russia, as well as four bishops from the United States.

"This is an unprecedented gathering in the history of our small parish and for the Southern Tier -- to have so many bishops together at one time -- especially in rural Tioga County," said Dr. Lazarus Gehring, warden at St. Maximus parish. "There will be many visiting clergy and laity also."

Kallinikos, who was elected archbishop in October 2010 by the Church of Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, has scheduled a three-week visit to the United States and Canada, starting Thursday and continuing until Oct. 20.

Besides the Feast Day in Owego, the archbishop will preside at various religious services in Long Island, New York City, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Portland and Detroit.

Kallinikos was likely drawn to visit the Owego parish because of its unique stature among Orthodox Churches, said the Rev. Thomas Marretta, pastor.

St. Maximus was built in the mid-2000s as closely as possible to the design and detail of the 9th and 10th century Orthodox churches of Asturias in northwestern Spain.

About 70 people are members of the local parish, which falls under the aegis of the Hellenic Orthodox Traditionalist Church of America, Marretta said.

"There was a general interest in how we did what we did," Marretta said. "It's possible to put up a really traditional Orthodox church in this country."

Source

Owego is about a half hour from Binghamton and is where my mother currently lives. I have never been to the church in question, but have heard that it is something of an architectural wonder. It was built of stone and mostly by hand over several years. I seriously doubt that the author of the story has even the smallest clue about the divisions within the Orthodox Church. Nor I am sure did the people at this parish point out that their "church" probably has no more than a few thousand adherents worldwide and that they are not in communion with any of the dozen or so Orthodox parishes that are within an hour's drive.

There are few things as tragic as schism. Rome has the SSPX and we have our Old Calendarists. Though I doubt either would appreciate the comparison they have a great deal in common.

RIP: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the brilliant, mercurial co-founder of Apple Inc. who introduced simple, elegantly designed computers for people who are more interested in what technology could do rather than how it was done, died Oct. 5 at age 56.

In a brief statement, Apple announced the death but did not say where he died. He suffered from a rare form of pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant in 2009, and he stepped down as Apple’s chief executive officer on Aug. 24, 2011.

Read the rest here.

Sad though not terribly surprising.  One could see the end was near when he stepped down a couple months ago and of course knowing that he had pancreatic cancer.

Sarah Palin says she is not running for president

In other news the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning.

49 years ago today

James Bond arrives in theaters to become a cultural icon with the release of "Dr. No."

The End Is Nigh (again)

...Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21.

Read the rest here.

Full Patriarchal Liturgy (Sunday 10-02-11)

Part 1

Part 2

The Episcopal Organization's purge of Christians continues

News from Canon Kendal Harmon that the national Episcopal Organization (I decline to refer to that body as a church) has begun disciplinary proceedings against one of the very few remaining Christian bishops left in their body. Bishop Mark Lawrence of the Diocese of South Carolina is being accused of abandonment of the doctrine (laughable by itself), discipline and worship of TEO. Most of the few remaining Anglican bishops that were still firmly Christian left (or were driven from) TEO and and have since formed a new Anglican denomination.

See Canon Harmon's blog here for the latest news.

Fr. Gabriel Bunge Tonsured To Great Schema

Fr. Gabriel (Bunge) is a world renowned scholar of patristics and the author of many works.  He has lived most of his life as a hermit-monk in the mountains of Switzerland and is a recent convert to Holy Orthodoxy.

HT: ByzantineTexas
News Source

May he find salvation in the angelic habit!

Washington Wants a Say Over Your Minister

Today, the Obama administration will invite the Supreme Court to open a new front in the culture wars. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC concerns a commissioned minister, Cheryl Perich, who taught elementary school and led chapel devotions at a small Lutheran school outside Detroit. Ms. Perich became ill and was replaced in the classroom by a substitute. In the middle of the school year she sought to return and then, instead of attempting to work out the dispute through the church's reconciliation process, she threatened to sue.

As relations broke down, the church congregation voted to withdraw her "call" to the ministry, and she ceased to be eligible for her prior job. She sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with the support of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The federal statutes outlawing employment discrimination based on race, sex, age and disability contain no express exception for church employers. But for 40 years lower courts have applied a "ministerial exception," which bars the government from any role in deciding who should be a minister. Courts have reasoned that the separation between church and state protects the ability of churches to choose their own clergy just as it protects the state from any control by churches. The Supreme Court has never spoken to the issue.

But who counts as a minister? Cheryl Perich's duties included leading students in prayer and worship, but she also taught secular subjects, using ordinary secular textbooks. The sole disagreement in the lower courts was whether her job was sufficiently religious to be considered ministerial. The Supreme Court will consider, for the first time, how to make that determination.

But the Obama Justice Department has now asked the court to disavow the ministerial exception altogether. This would mean that, in every future case, a court—and not the church—would decide whether the church's reasons for firing or not hiring a minister were good enough.

Read the rest here.

Divisions in Orthodox Church hinder Pope’s meeting with Patriarch of Moscow

Vatican City
After metropolitan Hilarion’s visit to Castel Gandolfo had brought the meeting between Benedict XVI and Moscow’s Patriarch, Kyril, closer, the primacy dispute between the Eastern Orthodox Churches, has re-emerged as an obstacle. Internal divisions between Orthodoxy seem capable of slowing the Pope’s path towards his historic face to face meeting with the Russian Patriarch, which would probably take place on “neutral ground”, Bari for example.

One of the main sore points, are the principles for the declaration of the Orthodox Churches’ autonomy (an autocephalous proclamation). This has caused the most friction between the, especially between the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches. The latter holds the majority in Orthodoxy, as it has been autocephalous since 1488. Still, now, more than ever, significant steps are being taken towards advancing dialogue between the Holy See and the Orthodox faith, on the relationship between primacy and synodality in the Church and on the importance of spiritual ecumenism, in view of a complete and clear unity between all Christians. Even Vatican Radio wrote that Hilarion’s arrival in Castel Gandolfo opened the way for new hope.

Between Rome and Moscow, the situation already seems clear, particularly the question of the “prótos-kephalé” ministry – the “supreme head” of the Church – on a local level (the Bishop), on a regional level (the Patriarch) and on a universal level (the Bishop of Rome), applying Canon 34 of the Apostles (a fundamental text for Eastern ecclesiology) to all three levels, in a similar way. In this sense, under Benedict XVI’s pontificate, a fundamental agreement was reached between Catholics and the Orthodox Church made on a common theological, ecclesiological platform, on which the two denominations based the discussion regarding the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.

The Orthodox Church reached the conclusion that, just like primacy, synodality constitutes the government and the Church organisation’s supporting framework. An encouraging move towards mutual understanding and the identification of common elements between them. The only problems that remain are essentially related to hermeneutics, that is, the interpretation of the word of God, as it is testified in the Holy Scriptures and in the living tradition of the Church. There are also urgent questions related to anthropology and ecclesiology.

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, President of the Department for External Church Relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow acknowledged Benedict XVI in light of the new situation between the Catholic Church and the Patriarchate of Moscow: “We have overcome all the tensions that have existed over the years and our relations are now normal, peaceful and even positive and constructive.” Hilarion expressed the high esteem he felt towards Benedict XVI, who is thought very highly of within the Russian Orthodox Church. The Archbishop reflected on the role of the Bishop of Rome in the Church’s communion during the first millennium, when the Great Schism of 1054 had not yet taken place.

The focus is on how the content of the primacy of St. Peter’s successor, evolved during the second millennium, after the split between the two confessions, particularly after the First and Second Vatican Council. The subject had already been discussed in depth on occasion of the tenth Plenary Assembly of the mixed Commission which met in the Italian city of Ravenna, between 8 and 14 October 2007. Thirty Catholic delegates and 30 Orthodox representatives gathered to reflect on the topic: “The ecclesiological and canonical consequences of the sacramental nature the Church: ecclesiastic communion, conciliarity and authority in the Church.”

In Ravenna, the delegation of the Patriarchate of Moscow decided to withdraw, as a sign of protest against the participation in the event, of members of the so-called Estonian Apostolic Church, founded by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1996 in Estonia and declared “autonomous” by him, a statute which is not recognised by the Russian Church. Hilarion faced a challenge that was common in a “de-Christianised world”, dominated by consumerism, hedonism, practical materialism and moral relativism.” Thus, only together can we put forward the spiritual and moral values of the Christian faith to the world.” But the greatest difficulties between Rome and Moscow are created indirectly by the division that exists within the Orthodox Church.

And indeed, the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has convened a Synaxis (the Greek word for a religious assembly) to which he has invited the ancient Orthodox Churches, that is, the Orthodox Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antiochia and Alexandria, as well as the Archbishop of Cyprus. Two questions were addressed during the meeting held in Istanbul on 1 and 2 September: the situation of Christians in the Middle East and the current state of inter-Orthodox relations ahead of the Pan-Orthodox Council.

Read the rest here.

DNA helps free Texas man convicted in wife's death

GEORGETOWN, Texas — Texas prosecutors agreed Monday to release an Austin man who spent nearly 25 years in prison for beating his wife to death — but always maintained his innocence — after DNA tests showed another man was responsible.

District Judge Sid Harle recommended Michael Morton go free to the state Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final determination on overturning his conviction. Morton is set for release Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, following a final hearing before Harle.

The case will likely raise more questions about John Bradley, district attorney for Williamson County north of Austin and once a Gov. Rick Perry appointee to head the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Bradley criticized the commission's investigation of the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 after being convicted of arson in the deaths of his three children. Experts have since concluded that case's forensic science was faulty.

The Innocence Project, a New York-based organization that specializes in using DNA testing to overturn wrongful convictions, has accused Bradley of suppressing evidence that would have helped clear Morton, who was convicted on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to life in prison for his wife's August 1986 beating death.

Read the rest here.

Well, at least they didn't kill him.  One is left to wonder how many similar  "mistakes" Texas has managed to bury in the prison yard behind death row.

Senate advances bill to punish China for currency manipulation

The US Senate has advanced a bill to punish China for its alleged currency manipulation, a blow at a global economic rival 13 months before elections shaped by voter anger at high joblessness.

The legislation - backed by Democrats and Republicans in the polarized Congress, but opposed by Beijing and potent US business groups - cleared a procedural hurdle by a 79-19 vote, with final passage expected this week.

The bill, which has divided the Republican presidential field and put the White House in a bind, sets the stage for retaliatory duties on Chinese goods if Beijing is found to keep its currency and thus its exports artificially cheap.

But the bill faces an uphill fight in the House, where Republican leaders have no plans to bring it up for a vote unless the issue flares up as a core dispute in the November 2012 presidential races, several aides said.

Read the rest here.

Britain: Foreign doctors must speak English

Foreign doctors who cannot speak English are to be banned from working in NHS hospitals and clinics, the Health Secretary will announce.

The NHS will introduce mandatory language tests for doctors moving to Britain after training elsewhere in the European Union.

The decision follows a series of cases in which patients have died or suffered poor care as a result of doctors speaking sub-standard English. The issue was brought to national attention three years ago when Dr Daniel Ubani, a German-trained GP on his first out-of-hours shift in Britain, killed David Gray, 70, by giving him 10 times the normal dose of diamorphine.

Read the rest here.

So you think you have a tough work environment

A contest offering $10 to guess which of your colleagues will be fired next is a good reason to quit your job, according to a judge in Iowa.

Administrative Law Judge Susan D. Ackerman ruled that Misty Shelsky, who worked at the QC Mart convenience store chain for two years, was eligible for unemployment insurance after quitting her job because her employer held a contest offering $10 to the employee who correctly guessed which colleague would next be fired.

Shelsky quit after receiving a memo that announced: “NEW CONTEST – GUESS THE NEXT CASHIER WHO WILL BE FIRED!!!," according to case records.

Read the rest here.

Breaking up is hard; for the unmarried

Some of the trickiest cases Bethesda divorce lawyer Deborah Luxenberg has handled come with a twist: The couples in question never married.

They’ve paid the rent together, flossed their teeth side by side and shopped for the perfect couch. Maybe even had a kid. But they chose not to tie the knot. And when they decide they want to untangle their lives and get their fair share of combined assets, they come to divorce lawyers such as Luxenberg for help.

Read the rest here.

Wall Street protests continue and spread

NEW YORK — Protesters speaking out against corporate greed and other issues showed no signs of giving up their campaign Monday, with organizers urging participants to dress up as what they called corporate zombies and to take part in a rally against police brutality.

The arrests of 700 people on Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend fueled the anger of the protesters camping in a Manhattan park and sparked support elsewhere in the country as the campaign entered its third week.

Occupy Wall Street started with fewer than a dozen college students spending days and nights in Zuccotti Park, a plaza near the city’s financial center. But a day after Saturday’s mass arrests, hundreds of protesters were resolute and like-minded groups in other cities had joined in.

Read the rest here.

Obama was warned about Solyndra

A Silicon Valley investor and senior administration officials warned the White House to reconsider having President Obama visit a solar start-up company because of its mounting financial problems, saying he might be embarrassed later.

“A number of us are concerned that the president is visiting Solyndra,” California investor and Obama fundraiser Steve Westly wrote to Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett in May 2010. “Many of us believe the company’s cost structure will make it difficult for them to survive long term. . . . I just want to help protect the president from anything that could result in negative or unfair press.”

Read the rest here.

As Putin consolidates hold on power some Russians are leaving

MOSCOW — “Time to shove off” is the name of a Web site for people who are fed up with life in Russia, and it is becoming a catchphrase for those dismayed by the newly announced plans of Vladimir V. Putin to keep a grip on power for perhaps two more terms as president.

“A year ago I told all my friends who were leaving that I would never do that, no way!” wrote a magazine editor named Yevgeniya Lobacheva in a posting on another Web site. “But I have only one life. Twelve years! I will be 43!”

Mr. Putin has already been in power for 12 years — the first eight as president, the past four as a prime minister with de facto executive power. Now, the prospect of what many Russians are already calling a “period of stagnation” has set off a new wave of declarations of nonallegiance to a nation where corruption and an inflexible top-down system are squeezing off options for change and personal advancement.

Read the rest here.

New Jersey's Chris Christie; is he or isn't he?

Leading Republican strategists say that if he is serious about a presidential race in 2012, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is running out of time to build the kind of national campaign and fundraising organization he will need. But, they added, the tough-talking governor immediately would become a top-tier candidate with a real chance of winning the GOP nomination.

While there is no timetable for him to make up his mind, the realities of the political calendar dictate that Christie must do so in short order.

Read the rest here.

Greece is slipping into the abyss

As the economic crisis worsens, the very fabric of society in Athens is being ripped apart as the Greeks lose their good humour and generosity.

Greek grannies are as ubiquitous and iconic as Greek cats. Dressed immaculately in widow’s black, and with their grey hair neatly styled, they are proud figures. They are treated with respect by even the most rebellious youths, and acknowledged by all as the head of the fiercely maternal family groups that bind Greek society together.

The old lady I saw on the street in Athens this week was typical, except in one shocking respect. She was begging. Beggars are normal here these days, but almost all are immigrants or drug users. This was different. The image of this proud woman sitting on a plastic crate outside the supermarket with her hands out has stayed in my mind. If a symbol is needed to illustrate the unravelling of Greek society, then this is it.

The Athens I knew 20 years ago has changed radically. I used to tell British friends that despite its chaos, it was a very civilised city. When I moved here, you didn’t have homeless people sleeping on the streets, there was little crime and the sick and needy were looked after. That civility is vanishing fast. With economic doom becoming ever more likely, it sometimes feels as if the fabric of society is being ripped asunder.

Muggings used to be a rarity; not any more. Walk down the main streets of central Athens at night and you will see people sleeping rough. The other day I had to deal with a young man who had passed out on my doorstep. He may have been drunk, but in these crisis-stricken days, it is just as likely that he was high on crack cocaine, now selling for 5 euros a hit. I wasn’t going to risk disturbing him – I had my children with me.

My area of central Athens is a relatively “bad” location, but there are much worse places. The neighbourhood of Psirri borders the popular tourist attractions. Ten years ago, Psirri was rejuvenated. Bars and cafes opened, old buildings were restored. A live jazz club opened that was an instant hit. The club is gone now, and most of the shops are closed. The area became so dangerous that people simply stopped going there. Now it’s riddled with drugs. People shoot up on the street and accost anyone foolish enough to stray through the area for money. And all of this takes place a short walk from the Acropolis.

Read the rest here.

Really sad and tragic.

Rick Perry is open to invading Mexico (updated)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Saturday that he would consider sending U.S. troops into Mexico to combat drug-related violence and stop it from spilling into the southern United States.

“It may require our military in Mexico,” Perry said in answer to a question about the growing threat of drug violence along the southern border. Perry offered no details, and a spokesman, Robert Black, said afterward that sending troops to Mexico would be merely one way of putting an end to the exploding cartel-related violence in the region.

Read the rest here.

Update: The NY Times now reports that Gov. Perry has clarified his earlier remarks to assure people that US troops would only enter Mexico with the permission of that country (ocasión gorda).

The very real persecution of Christians in the Arab world

IF THE "Arab Spring" bathed the Middle East in some much-needed sunlight, there's at least one group that sees ominous clouds on the not-so-distant horizon. That would be the region's embattled and apprehensive Christians, who've lived a kind of double life for many decades.

While nominally citizens of the countries they inhabit, most non-Muslims, the majority of whom are Christian, are treated as second-class members of society because so many governments in that part of the world adhere to sharia, and anyone familiar with the Islamic legal system knows that it codifies discrimination.

For example, while Christians are free (and in some cases pressured) to convert to Islam, Muslims are barred from converting to Christianity. In a notorious case now in the headlines, Yusuf Naderkhani, a Christian pastor, has been sentenced to death in Iran for refusing to renounce his faith, to which he'd converted as a teen.

Read the rest here.

Russia to issue short term loans backed by gold

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Russia's central bank will offer gold-backed loans for up to 90 days at an interest rate of 7 percent, it said in a statement on Friday, expanding its lending facilities for dealing with any future liquidity crunch in the banking system.

The gold-backed lending was approved by the board of directors at a meeting on Friday. The rate on the facility is in line with the central bank's Lombard rate on borrowing secured against high-quality bonds.

"This measure fits the central bank's policy of developing refinancing instruments within the banking system. The facility will be unlikely in strong demand, only at times of liquidity crunches," said Maxim Oreshkin, chief economist at Credit Agricole in Moscow.

Levels of rouble liquidity remain at comfortable levels for now, with the overnight interbank rate having hovered within 3-4 percent range since early 2010 compared to more than 10 percent seen during the crisis of 2008-2009.

Alexander Morozov, chief economist at HSBC in Moscow, said the new instrument will likely only be used by up to 1 percent of the whole refinancing market in Russia.

source
HT: The Young Fogey

Queen's hectic tour of Australia may be her last

After 15 visits spanning more than half a century, the Queen is to embark on what may prove to be her farewell to Australia later this month.

Her Majesty, who is 85, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 90, will complete a hectic 10-day tour which would be exhausting for a couple half their age.

While Buckingham Palace aides refuse to rule out future visits to the second-largest Commonwealth realm, many Australians will treat the visit as a chance to say goodbye to their monarch, who is expected to cut back on long-haul tours following next year’s Diamond Jubilee.

Read the rest here.

Mexico City considers 2-year marriage licence

Lawmakers in Mexico City are proposing a new marriage licence that would allow couples to split after a two-year trial rather than go through the lengthier divorce process.

Instead of the traditional 'till death to us part,' couples would be able to opt for temporary commitments, test out married life, and then renew their licenses indefinitely if they are still devoted to their chosen spouse.

The proposed law would not help those with morning-after regrets. Couples who want to dissolve the marriage before two years would have to go through regular divorce proceedings.

"Two years is the minimum amount of time it takes to know and appreciate what life is like as a couple," Lizbeth Rosas, who is spearheading the proposed legislation on behalf of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, said to BBC Mundo in Spanish.

"If you renew, that means you have an understanding with your partner, and that you are clear on the rules of the relationship."

If the marriage is unhappy or unstable, the contract — which would include clauses on custody rights and the division of property — could be dissolved without what proponents refer to as cumbersome paperwork that hurts families.

Read the rest here.

SSPX: Bishop Williamson is a 9-11 "truther"

Why am I not surprised?  Read the report from the Young Fogey.  The man is a complete flake.  This is right up there with the idiots who think Obama is not an American Citizen.

Metropolitan Hilarion in wide ranging interview touches on Pan-Orthodox Council

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, made a journey to the Middle East in the end of August. He visited three ancient Local Churches and met with their Primates. Upon returning to Moscow, he spoke about his visit to “Interfax-Religion.”

Q. – You have completed your journey to the Middles East countries and Turkey and visited three Patriarchates. What was the purpose of this trip?

A. – The trip was undertaken with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. His Holiness and the Holy Synod blessed me to visit the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches on a regular basis and to hold consultations on the matters of inter-Orthodox relations and topical problems of the life of the Orthodox Church at present. It was necessary to meet with the Primates of the three ancient Patriarchates – of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Current political events in the Middle East can seriously complicate the life of Christians in the region. It is not fortuitous that the problems of Christians there have been scrutinized by the heads of the Churches in the Middle East. On August 1, the Primates of the Churches of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Cyprus and a representative of the Patriarchate of Alexandria met in Jordan. On August 23, a similar meeting took place in Cyprus. Another meeting on the Middle East problems will be chaired by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in Istanbul on September 1.

The Russian Orthodox Church has never been indifferent to the problems of our Orthodox brothers in the Middle East and has expressed its concern for the situation of Christians in the Middle East and in other regions of the world in the Statement of the Holy Synod of May 30.

Read the rest here.

Met. Hilarion: Orthodoxy is not of one mind on primacy

A leading Russian Orthodox official says the Eastern Orthodox churches have yet to resolve the question of authority among themselves, a condition for future progress on the issue of the papacy.

“I would say that there are certain divergences, and there are different positions, of the Orthodox churches on the question of the primacy,” said Metropolitan Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, in a Vatican Radio interview following his Sept. 29 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo.

“As we discuss the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, within the framework of the next commission, we do not only discuss the primacy of Rome; but we have to touch the issue of the primacy in general,” noted the Orthodox metropolitan, apparently referring to future proceedings of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

“And here, of course, we have different traditions – not only between the Catholics and the Orthodox, because we never had such a centralized system as the Catholics have – but we also have some difference among the Orthodox, as to what should be the role of the 'first hierarch' in the Orthodox Church.” The Patriarch of Constantinople occupies that role, but his prerogatives are not fully defined.

Read the rest here.

Bank of America to charge $5 monthly fee for debit card purchases

Most Bank of America customers will soon see a new charge on their statements -- $5 for any month in which they use a BofA debit card to make a purchase.

Consumers should prepare for more such charges, analysts say, as big banks strive to recover revenue they have lost to financial reforms adopted in the aftermatch of the economic meltdown.

The new Bank of America fee will be phased in early next year, said Anne Pace, a spokeswoman for BofA, the nation's largest retail bank.

Customers will still be able to use their cards at the bank's automated teller machines without being charged, the bank said Thursday.

They also can make debit purchases free if they have a mortgage from Bank of America or if they have a total of $20,000 on deposit at Bank of America and in certain Merrill Lynch accounts (you may recall that Bank of America's corporate parent bought Merrill Lynch as the financial crisis set in).

Read the rest here.

Yet again I am compelled to say it... BANKS ARE THE ENEMY!

Ahmadinejad's 9-11 conspiracy theories have ticked off Al Qaeda

Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long been renounced for his conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which he has called "mysterious."

His latest fiery rant at the United Nations blamed the U.S. government for the 2001 attacks, and suggested the killing of Osama bin Laden was a coverup .

Now he has new detractor: al-Qaida.

It seems the terror network doesn't like someone else taking credit for its work, which its English-language magazine, Inspire, calls "The Greatest Special Operation of All Time."

An opinion piece in the latest issue takes aim at Ahmadinejad and his 9/11 conspiracy theories.

"So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?" author Abu Suhail asks, going on to accuse the Iranians of collaborating with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"For them, al-Qaida was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. Al-Qaida, an organization under fire, with no state, succeeded in what Iran couldn’t," Suhail wrote.

"Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.

"Iran and the Shiite in general do not want to give al-Qaida credit for the greatest and biggest operation ever committed against America because this would expose their lip-service jihad against the Great Satan."

Source.

"Ahmadinejad and Al Qaeda... the Beavis and Butthead of the Islamic world."
-From one of the comments on the original article.

On a side note, I don't know the identity of the staff writer who authored this piece, but he/she needs a course in remedial grammar.

Tampa Bay Wins A-L Wild Card - Boston Completes Epic Collapse

Asceticism and the Consumer Society: An Interview with Metropolitan Jonah

The Orthodox Church is mostly known in the United States for its rich liturgical life, its adherence to ancient calendars for major Christian feast-days and, perhaps most of all, the many food and ethnic festivals offered by its multiethnic parishes. Social activism and moral witness in the public square, not so much. That has begun to change with the rise of Metropolitan Jonah, the primate of the Orthodox Church in America. This youthful bishop, born James Paffhausen in Chicago and raised in Southern California before entering monastic life in Russia, was elected to lead the OCA in November 2008. Since then, he has perhaps been the most widely quoted and covered Orthodox bishop in the United States, speaking out on social issues and traveling widely to speak to ecumenical gatherings. He delivered one of the keynote addresses at Acton University in June 2011. Religion & Liberty Executive Editor John Couretas spoke with Metropolitan Jonah about his talk.

R&L: In your Acton University address, "Asceticism and the Consumer Society," you explained how the consumerist impulse was really an addictive impulse, something that compels us fill a void where God should be. And we so frequently attempt to fill that empty spot with the wrong things.

Metropolitan Jonah: I think the void occurs because we're basically distracted from God, and we don't let God fill that void. We don't have that focus and that perpetual intuitive awareness of God for which we were created, and so we let other things get in the way. And for many people, it's pain and disappointment, discouragement, anger, bitterness, all of the passions. For others, it could be the pain that follows from having been abused in some way. And so this becomes a kind of a preoccupation and we look for things to mute that pain, to distract us from it. We look for a salve.

Read the rest here.

Patriarch Kirill's visit to Moldova to be cut short at doctors' recommendation

Chisinau/Moscow - Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill will cut his visit to Moldova by two days at his doctors' recommendation, Secretary of the Moldovan Metropolis of the Russian Orthodox Church Archpriest Vadim Cheibas told Interfax.

The Patriarchy has confirmed this information.

The duration of the patriarch's visit to Moldova will be shortened "at the strong recommendation of the doctors who insist on relaxing the working schedule of the Holy Patriarch," a source from the Patriarchy told Interfax on Wednesday.

"Nevertheless, the patriarch is firmly intent on visiting all of the dioceses in Moldova within a fairly short period of time and on talking to the Moldovan clergy and flock in all parts of the country," he said.

Source

Catholic Church Slams Immoral Conduct of Italian Elite

ROME — Over the last several years, the Italian Catholic Church has largely looked the other way as reports emerged of a series of sex and corruption scandals among the Italian elite, many of them centered around Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. But a recent published account of a party at Mr. Berlusconi’s home where one female guest performed a striptease dressed as a nun, apparently was more than the Church could stand.

This week the Church lashed out, issuing its strongest reprimands yet of Italy’s ruling class, deploring “behavior that not only goes counter to public decorum but is intrinsically sad and hollow.”

Italians “look on their public leaders with consternation and the image of the country abroad has been dangerously weakened,” Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishop’s Conference, told his fellow bishops on Monday. On Tuesday, he called for an “upright lifestyle,” saying that the country needed a “correction of habits and lifestyles,” to help it emerge from a “culture of nothingness.”

Though Cardinal Bagnasco did not single out Mr. Berlusconi — who is facing charges of having sex with a minor, is on trial in four separate corruption trials and has lately become embroiled in a scandal involving prostitutes paid to attend parties at his villas — the cardinal spoke of “licentious conduct and improper relationships that damage society.” And he blasted a governing class preoccupied with self-preservation while normal Italians struggled financially to make ends meet.

Read the rest here.

The Republican 'soak the rich' plan

President Obama is campaigning for reelection by casting Republicans as the party of the rich because they oppose his plan to raise tax rates on wealthy Americans. “If you’ve done well,” Obama declared in Cincinnati last week, “then you should do a little something to give something back.”

One person who agrees with that sentiment is Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee — though not in the way Obama means it. Ryan wants the wealthy to give something back: the billions of dollars in government benefits, taxpayer subsidies and corporate welfare they receive each year and do not need. Instead of raising taxes, which would hurt growth and job creation, Ryan told me: “We want to stop subsidizing corporations. We want to stop subsidizing [wealthy] individuals. And you can get more money for savings to reduce the deficit without damaging the economy this way.”

Call it “soak the rich” economics, GOP-style.

What government spending on the wealthy would Ryan target? “Everything,” he says. He would start with entitlements. The two biggest and fastest-growing areas of federal spending are Social Security and Medicare, both of which provide the richest Americans with growing benefits. To help stabilize both programs, Ryan wants to scale back those benefits for the wealthy. On Social Security, he says, “you can get the bulk of your way to solvency without tax increases by indexing benefits so that they don’t grow as fast for wealthier people.” As for Medicare, his reform plan would provide wealthier seniors with lower subsidies, while “focusing the benefits on the people who need it and away from those who need it the least.”

Ryan is not alone in his call for means-testing entitlements. Means-testing has the strong support of House Speaker John Boehner, who earlier this year told Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson at a forum in New York, “Pete, I love you to death, but I don’t think the taxpayers ought to be paying your Medicare premium.” The two leading GOP presidential candidates, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, have also expressed support for means-testing. In May the Heritage Foundation put forward a plan that would reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits for well-off retirees and eliminate them entirely for the wealthiest seniors.

Read the rest here.

Adminstration asks for fast track Supreme Court ruling on 'Obama-Care'

The Obama administration Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to settle the constitutional question over the 2010 health-care law this term, meaning that the decision will probably come next summer in the thick of the presidential campaign.

The Justice Department asked the justices to review the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which is the only appeals court to say Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. The law requires almost every American to have health insurance.

Read the rest here.

Calendar Trivia

Just checked the calendar and discovered that Easter in 2012 falls on the 15th of April, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  On the upside that would normally also be Income Tax Day which means people will have an extra day to file.

Off Topic Rant

OK folks.  I don't usually discuss this sort of thing.  And I don't want to sound insensitive, especially to someone who was just seriously hurt.  But there are people in this world of whom it could only be said that if stupidity were a virtue they would be saints.

Hint: If you are on vacation and arrive at a beach where NOBODY is in the water and there is flag flying WITH A SHARK on it, you might want to pause and consider the possible implications of those two facts before diving in.

Likewise if you are hiking in a tropical jungle and stumble on a snake, which you then correctly identify as venomous, and you take note that you are a mere two feet from it, DON'T MESS WITH IT!

Seriously.  I love nature.  But people need to show a modicum of respect when moving outside of their normal habitat and entering the wild (oceans jungles, woods etc.).  This is not your home.  Wild animals live there.  You are in their home and need to behave accordingly.  Human beings have no natural predators.  There is no living creature that has a natural inclination to eat us.  But yes, there are animals that are quite capable of severely injuring people.  The vast majority of serious injuries or fatalities inflicted on humans by wild animals are the consequence of stupidity or bad luck (like accidentally stepping on a snake).  People who ignore warnings of potentially dangerous wildlife and or go out of their way to provoke them just really tick me off. (I cleaned the language up a bit there.)  I don't want to say I was rooting for the shark or the snake,  But you can put me down as supporting two candidates for Honorable Mention in the Darwin Awards.

Illegal Mexican fishing kills thousands of sharks in US waters

Game wardens have discovered as many as 3,000 dead adult and juvenile sharks tangled in a long stretch of illegal fishing netting off the Texas coast, the state's Parks and Wildlife Department said...

...Authorities suspect Mexican fishermen set the illegal nets.

According to KGBT-TV, overfishing has destroyed the populations of fish on the Mexican side of the border, and Mexican fishermen regularly sneak into the U.S. to lay illegal nets.

"They get over here in a matter of two minutes and be back in Mexico in a matter of two minutes ... The guys we have caught in the past have flat told us that there are no more fish over there and that is why they are coming over here," Dunks said.

Read the rest here.

Scenes from the Feast of the Most Holy and Life Giving Cross

Immigrants Want Cross Removed from Swiss Flag

An immigrant group based in Bern has called for the emblematic white cross to be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian symbol it "no longer corresponds to today's multicultural Switzerland."

Ivica Petrusic, the vice president of Second@s Plus, a lobbying group that represents mostly Muslim second-generation foreigners in Switzerland (who colloquially are known as secondos) says the group will launch a nationwide campaign in October to ask Swiss citizens to consider adopting a flag that is less offensive to Muslim immigrants.

In a September 18 interview with the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung, Petrusic said the cross has a Christian background and while the Christian roots of Switzerland should be respected, "it is necessary to separate church and state" because "Switzerland today has a great religious and cultural diversity. One has to ask if the State wants to continue building up a symbol in which many people no longer believe."

Read the rest here.

The genius of Vladi­mir Putin

There is one incontestably great actor on the world stage today, and he has no interest in following our script. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — soon to be Russia’s president again — has proven remarkably effective at playing the weak strategic hand he inherited, chalking up triumph after triumph while confirming himself as the strong leader Russians crave. Not one of his international peers evidences so profound an understanding of his or her people, or possesses Putin’s canny ability to size up counterparts.

Putin’s genius — and it is nothing less — begins with an insight into governance that eluded the “great” dictators of the last century: You need control only public life, not personal lives. Putin grasped that human beings need to let off steam about the world’s ills, and that letting them do so around the kitchen table, over a bottle of vodka, does no harm to the state. His tacit compact with the Russian people is that they may do or say what they like behind closed doors, as long as they don’t take it into the streets. He saw that an authoritarian state that stops at the front door is not only tolerable but also more efficient.

As for the defiant, he kills or imprisons them. But there are no great purges, no Gulag — only carefully chosen, exemplary victims, such as anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky, who died in police custody, or the disobedient billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, imprisoned on charges Russians regard as black humor. Western consciences may be briefly troubled, but Putin knows the international community won’t impose meaningful penalties. Seduced by Kremlin policies — from oil and gas concessions to cynical hints of strategic cooperation — Western leaders have too many chips in the game. And at home, the common people, the chorny narod, don’t mind. Instead, they gloat when the czar cuts off the beards of the boyars — or humbles an envied oligarch. As for gadfly journalists, Putin wagered that they could be eliminated with impunity, as in the case of Anna Politkovskaya. Our outrage is pro forma and temporary.

Read the rest here.

Greek Orthodox Church will not (probably) be taxed

As the country struggles with the crisis and its consequences, the assets of the Orthodox Church have yet to be affected by the government’s stringent austerity measures. Le Monde reports on a taboo that protects the Church’s close links with the state and the clergy’s influence on public policy.
Alain Salles

The Church and the Greek monasteries will not pay the new highly unpopular property tax which was hastily drummed up on Sunday, 11 September, by the Greek government in a bid to meet the fiscal targets set by bail-out fund donors. In response to the outcry generated by this news, however, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance declared that “the Church will be taxed on the property it operates commercially," although houses of worship and charities will remain exempt. But the trouble is that the boundaries between these different types of assets are sometimes blurred and the books of the Orthodox Church are far from transparent.

The wealth of the Church is still a taboo subject in Greece. “Its income is taxable, but there are two big problems,” warns Polikarpos Karamouzis, Professor of the Sociology of Religion at the Aegean University in Rhodes. “There is no economic system that could chart its true revenues, and no one knows the extent of its properties, because there is no central land registry."

Read the rest here.

Many Years

To mom on her 70th birthday.  Happy birthday and many years!

In a huge upset Herman Cain wins Florida GOP straw pole

ORLANDO —Businessman Herman Cain won the Florida GOP presidential straw poll in a major surprise Saturday, finishing well ahead of the party’s two front-runners in what many observers saw as a rebuke of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Cain, who delivered a stirring speech just before the vote, won 37 percent of the more than 2,600 delegate votes. Perry, who had been expected to easily win the straw poll before he gave what many thought was a lackluster performance in Thursday’s presidential debate here, finished second with 15 percent.

Read the rest here.

£1.75 trillion deal to save the euro

British taxpayers risk being caught up in a £1.75trillion deal aimed at saving the euro by allowing Greece to default on its massive debts.

The three-pronged deal would set up a massive fund to create a "firewall" around the most indebted eurozone countries, allow for an "orderly" Greek default on at least some of its liabilities, and bail out European banks most at risk from debt.

German and French officials came up with the strategy which aims to end the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis before it spirals completely out of control, plunging the world back into recession.

Read the rest here.

Five myths about millionaires

This past week, President Obama tried to sell his new “millionaires’ tax” to the Rust Belt. “What’s great about this country is our belief that anyone can make it,” he said in Cincinnati on Thursday, praising “the idea that any one of us can open a business or have an idea that could make us millionaires.” But who are the millionaires Obama is talking about? And will a tax on them help the economy? Let’s examine a few presumptions about the man with the monocle on the Monopoly board.

1. Millionaires are rich.

Being rich has gotten more expensive. A $1 million fortune was unusual in the early 19th century. The word “millionaire” wasn’t even coined until 1827by novelist (and future British prime minister) Benjamin Disraeli. In 1845, Moses Y. Beach, editor of the New York Sun, published a small pamphlet called “Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of New York City.” The price of admission to Beach’s list, which was wildly popular, was a mere $100,000.

By the time the first Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America was published in 1982, the smallest fortune featured was $75 million. There has been so much wealth creation in the past 30 years — much of it thanks to the microprocessor behind modern-day fortunes such as Dell, Microsoft and Bloomberg — that only billionaires are on the list. Today, $1 million in the bank generates only about $50,000 per year in interest. That isn’t chump change, but it’s roughly equal to the 2010 median household income.

2. Millionaires think they’re rich.

“Rich,” like “poor,” is a relative term. A family living on the American median income of $50,000 a year might think that one living on $500,000 is rich. But that second family, which probably knows families far better off than they are, thinks that you need $5 million a year to be truly rich, and so on.

On Thursday, 44 percent of people voting in an online survey as part of the GOP debate coverage said that a $1 million annual income made a person “rich.” In a 2008 survey of affluent Chicago households, only 22 percent thought a nest egg of $1 million was rich. In March, four out of 10 millionaires surveyed by Fidelity Investments said they do not feel rich. That same month, a majority of investment advisers surveyed in a Scottrade poll said that $1 million isn’t enough for retirement.

Though the average American family is rich beyond the wildest dreams of the average family in Bangladesh, where per capita income recently rose above $700, it’s not much compared with those who summer on beachfront properties in the Hamptons. When John D. Rockefeller learned in 1913 that the late J.P. Morgan had left an estate of $60 million, including a fabulous art collection, he reportedly said: “And to think — he wasn’t even rich.”

3. Millionaires pay proportionately less income tax than poorer people.

In a speech on Monday, Obama said raising taxes on millionaires isn’t class warfare, but “math.” His math may be off: According to the IRS, those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $1 million paid an average of 23.3 percent in federal income taxes in 2008; those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 12.7 percent; and those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 paid 8.9 percent. Half of American families don’t make enough money to pay income taxes at all.

Read the rest here.

Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary

Just 15 seconds into a question-and-answer session with reporters Wednesday morning, Ron Paul found a way to work in a mention of the Austrian School of economics.


From there, he moved inexorably through the Paul oeuvre: the need for the gold standard, the problem with energy-efficient light bulbs, why Greece should declare bankruptcy, why Grover Cleveland was his favorite president, and how our economy is collapsing “just like the Soviet system.”


“I mean, how many people have read ‘Human Action’?” the Republican presidential candidate asked, referring to an economic treatise from the 1940s by one Ludwig von Mises. “How many people have studied Mises and Hayek and Rothbard and Sennholz? … A lot of people just flat out don’t understand what I’m talking about.”


He’s right about that. Rarely does a man go far in public life hawking the sort of oddities that the gadfly from Texas does. And yet, in a sense, Ron Paul is winning the 2012 Republican presidential primary.


Paul won’t be the president, or even the party nominee, but that was never his goal. He aimed to shift the debate toward his exotic economic theories, and by that standard he has prevailed.


The former obstetrician fathered the Tea Party. His son won election to the Senate. Republican leaders in Congress have joined Paul’s crusade against the Federal Reserve. And his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination are stealing his ideas.

Read the rest here.

Shamelessly stolen from the Mad Monarchist.

Canada: Roman Catholic priest removed from active ministry for...

ummm... being Catholic?

An elderly priest on the Acadian Peninsula has been barred from performing church services in the Bathurst diocese after he made remarks about homosexuals and women who have had an abortion.

Rev. Donat Gionet, 85, gave the sermon at the Roman Catholic church in Saint-Léolin while replacing the regular parish priest late last month.

He stands by the comments he made in Saint-Léolin, a village of about 730 people located about 50 kilometres east of Bathurst.

Reached in Caraquet on Wednesday, Gionet declined an interview but did provide a written statement.

In a letter written in French that he provided to the Telegraph-Journal, Gionet stated the sermon in question was about the destruction of the Church and the need to seek forgiveness for past sins:

"I said: 'Today, it is we Catholics who are destroying our Catholic Church. We need only look at the number of abortions among Catholics, look at the homosexuals, and ourselves.' (That's when I pointed at my chest - through that action I wanted to say, we the priests) and I continued saying: We are destroying our Church ourselves. And that's when I said that those were the words expressed by Pope John Paul II. At that point, in the St-Léolin church only, I added: 'We can add to that the practice of watching gay parades, we are encouraging this evil' ... What would you think of someone who seeing what was happening on (Sept.) 11, 2001, the crumbling of the towers, had begun clapping? We must not encourage evil, whatever form it takes."

Bishop Valéry Vienneau has revoked Gionet's rights to serve mass across the Diocese of Bathurst, a decision welcomed by Joseph Lanteigne, the openly gay mayor of Saint-Léolin.

"The action taken by the diocese is good and I know it isn't easy for the diocese."

Since the incident, Gionet has quit his position on the Saint-Léolin parish's pastoral committee.

Rev. Wesley Wade, vicar general of the Diocese of Bathurst, said Gionet's teachings don't meet the diocese's goal of following Christ's example of loving unconditionally.

"We have to respect people on their own journey," Wade said.

"The first message of Christ was to reveal to us a loving father and a merciful father and that we are all called to be his children and that we are all loved unconditionally by Him."

While the Church gets criticized as a judgmental institution, Wade said the reality is "it's full of compassion."

In a letter to parishioners earlier this week, Vienneau said Gionet had been pulled from active ministry.

At a meeting last week, Gionet told Vienneau that he had no plans to change or temper his comments.

Gionet also said, as a priest, he has a duty to encourage those who aren't living their lives according to Catholic teachings to mend their ways.

Source.

Financial Markets Tank On Global Economic Worries

BERLIN — Markets plummeted worldwide Thursday as the global economic outlook appeared increasingly shaky, with investors fearing for the fate of European banks and Chinese growth and reacting to a dour outlook on the U.S. economy from the Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones industrial average had plunged about 400 points, or more than 3.5 percent, by midday Thursday, after the Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it sees “significant downside risks” to the economy. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index had dropped3.3 percent.

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U.S.: Pakistanis supported Afghan attacks

Pakistan-based insurgents planned and conducted some of the major attacks in Afghanistan recently, including the one on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul last week, with the support of Pakistan’s intelligence service, senior U.S. defense officials told Congress on Thursday.

“The Haqqani network ... acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Internal Services Intelligence agency,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives plan and conducted” a truck bomb attack that wounded more than 70 U.S. and NATO troops on Sept. 11, “as well as the assault on our embassy” two days later.

“We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the June 28th attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and a host of smaller but effective operations,” he added.

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White supremacist executed for Texas dragging murder

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.

Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled whip-like to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent Texas history.

Brewer, 44, was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied: "No. I have no final statement."

He glanced at his parents watching through a nearby window, took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. A single tear hung on the edge of his right eye as he was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m., 10 minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his arms, both covered with intricate black tattoos.

Byrd's sisters also were among the witnesses in an adjacent room.

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It's been a busy day for executioners.

Final Appeals Fail At Supreme Court; Troy Davis Execution Likely

JACKSON, Ga. — The Supreme Court late Wednesday rejected an 11th-hour request to block the execution of Troy Davis, who convinced hundreds of thousands of people but not the justice system of his innocence in the murder of an off-duty police officer.

The court did not comment on its order, which came four hours after it received the request. Davis’ execution had been set to begin at 7 p.m., but the high court’s decision was not issued until after 10 p.m.

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Update: Davis has been executed.