Senate Democrats offer $3 trillion debt deal

Congressional Democrats are urging the debt-reduction supercommittee to pursue a far-reaching agreement to slice $3 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade through significant cuts to federal health programs, including Medicare, and as much as $1.3 trillion in new taxes.

At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) told his colleagues on the panel that they should pick up where President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) left off in negotiations this summer during a bitter battle to raise the federal debt limit, according to congressional aides in both parties familiar with the meeting. Obama and Boehner were discussing a plan that included provisions to raise taxes, raise the Medicare eligibility age and use a less generous measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits.

Read the rest here.

I draw your attention to the part about government manipulating the measuring of inflation. Inflation is already severely under-reported by the government.

How the Patriot Act stripped me of my free-speech rights

Sometime in 2012, I will begin the ninth year of my life under an FBI gag order, which began when I received what is known as a national security letter at the small Internet service provider I owned. On that day in 2004 (the exact date is redacted from court papers, so I can’t reveal it), an FBI agent came to my office and handed me a letter. It demanded that I turn over information about one of my clients and forbade me from telling “any person” that the government had approached me.

National security letters are issued by the FBI, not a judge, to obtain phone, computer, and banking information. Instead of complying, I spoke with a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union and filed a constitutional challenge against the NSL provision of the Patriot Act, which was signed into law 10 years ago Wednesday.

A decade later, much of the government’s surveillance policy remains shrouded in secrecy, making it impossible for the American public to engage in a meaningful debate on the effectiveness or wisdom of various practices. The government has used NSLs to collect private information on hundreds of thousands of people. I am the only person from the telecommunications industry who received one to ever challenge in court the legality of the warrantless NSL searches and the associated gag order and to be subsequently (partially) un-gagged.

In 2004, it wasn’t at all clear whether the FBI would charge me with a crime for telling the ACLU about the letter, or for telling the court clerk about it when I filed my lawsuit as “John Doe.” I was unable to tell my family, friends, colleagues or my company’s clients, and I had to lie about where I was going when I visited my attorneys. During that time my father was battling cancer and, in 2008, he succumbed to his illness. I was never able to tell him what I was going through.

For years, the government implausibly claimed that if I were able to identify myself as the plaintiff in the case, irreparable damage to national security would result. But I did not believe then, nor do I believe now, that the FBI’s gag order was motivated by legitimate national security concerns. It was motivated by a desire to insulate the FBI from public criticism and oversight.

Read the rest here.

The Patriot Act (there is nothing patriotic about it) was quite possibly the biggest single legislative step towards establishing a police state in the history of this country since the Sedition Acts.

Last American Nuclear Super-Bomb Is Dismantled

AMARILLO, Texas — The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs has been taken apart in Texas.

Technicians at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo removed the uranium Tuesday from the last of the nation's largest nuclear bombs, a Cold War relic known as the B53.

The bomb put into service in 1962 was 600 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, that killed as many as 140,000 people at the end of World War II.

Read the rest here.

Happy Birthday

To H.M. King Michael I of Romania who is 90 today.

HT: Wilson Unplugged

Lebanese patriarch urges vigilance to avoid 'Arab Winter'

New York City, N.Y., Oct 25, 2011 / 04:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The leader of Lebanon's Maronite Catholic Church says the world must not let the “Arab Spring” turn into a “winter” of civil war and minority oppression.

“The so-called 'Arab Spring' sweeping the Middle East holds much promise, yet we must remain vigilant. The Church abhors the use of violence to meet any goal,” said Patriarch Bechara Rai of Antioch, in an Oct. 20 conference at the Catholic Near East Welfare Association's U.S. headquarters.

“We do not wish to see happening in these countries what happened in Iraq, where the country now is in the middle of a civil war,” said the leader of 3.2 million Eastern Catholics of the Maronite tradition. “In such a situation, this will not be a 'spring.' It will be rather a 'winter.'”

Read the rest here.

120th anniversary of the repose of St. Ambrose of Optina

Dear Netflix — I told you so

Netflix, I hate to add insult to the loss of 800,000 customers, but I just wanted to say: “I told you so.” It’s not just that Qwikster is a stupid name, and that the subdivision of services was a stupider idea.

This was never rocket science.

If you hike up people’s prices without providing any increase in service, hoping they won't notice, they'll notice. "The trouble was that we didn't explain this well enough," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said. No, Reed. The trouble was that you decided you could provide us less value without our noticing or leaving. Only Facebook can pull a stunt like that, because Facebook has pictures of our college indiscretions, records of our musical tastes and images of our babies. And it's free.

Netflix never had quite the captive audience it thought it did. Blockbuster does exist. Sure, most of its stores have been converted into museums and Vacant Lots Where You Are Pretty Sure You Could Obtain Meth If Only You Knew What To Ask For. And what was the idea behind dividing into Netflix (“for people who get the Internet”) and Qwikster (“for morons who cling to the old ways”)?

Don't divide the baby. It indicates to the baby that you do not love it. The DVD rental artist formerly known as Netflix — now Qwikster? Bisquick? Netflix again? — plummeted in our estimation, taking its stock price with it.

You were doing so well. You had us. You had us at “Hello, here are infinite videos for a fixed monthly rate, both physical DVDs and streaming.”

But then you pulled a Mel Gibson. You took all the accumulated goodwill that you had built up slowly over the past decade and squandered it on a meaningless, vague and at least slightly insulting diatribe. And did I mention that Qwikster is a terrible name? If not, it’s a terrible name.

If you’d watched any of the movies you were so busy shipping to us in brightly colored envelopes and allowing us to stream, this whole crisis might have been averted. Never mind that all the movies you suggested I watch next were vaguely insulting — although I appreciated your suggestion that “if you liked ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ bludgeon yourself with a blunt object and go rethink your life.”

If “The Talented Mr. Ripley” taught us anything, it is that no one is ever quite irreplaceable. Also, never wear turtlenecks, or your lover will strangle you.

Source.

Armenians in Turkey convert back to Christianity

A group of Armenians, raised as Sunni Muslims, were baptized on Sunday, as Armenian Orthodox Christians in the Church of S. Giragos (Surp Giragos), in the South-Eastern province of Dyarbakir. The church was reopened on 22 October after two years of restoration work. The group that was baptized were of Armenian origin, and their ancestors had been converted after the Genocide of 1915.

Among them is Gaffur Türkay, who contributed to the restoration of the church. Türkay was very excited, as reported in a local newspaper. "It is amazing to be here, along with people from all over the world, with whom I share my origins," he said. "We have been ostracized by both Armenians and Sunni Muslims, said Behcet Avci, also known as Garoda Sasunyan. "It is an emotional moment for me." The ceremony was held behind closed doors, neither visitors nor foreign journalists were allowed to be present. It was carried out by ​​the deputy patriarch, Aaram Atesyan.

There were guests from Armenia and the United States, including the American Ambassador to Turkey, Francis Ricciardone and the former Armenian Foreign Minister Raffi Hovhannesian, as well as Archbishop Vicken Ayvazian, of the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of America. The restoration was funded by the Armenians of Istanbul and the diaspora. The main sponsors of the initiative were Vartkes Ergün Ayık, a businessman of Armenian origin from Dyarbakir and Raffi Bedrosyan, a former citizen of Istanbul who now lives in Canada.

"We had over 2600 churches and monasteries in Anatolia in the past. Unfortunately, only a handful of sacred places remain. My request to Turkey, as a spiritual leader, is that the churches be returned to the Armenian community, better if they are used for religious services rather than museums." Ayavzian said to have been born in Turkey, in the South-Eastern province of Şırnak and speaks fluent Turkish. "Like many Armenian Americans, we also speak Turkish at home," he said, adding that his parents were forbidden to speak Armenian. On the cold relations between Turkey and Armenian American, he said: "The reason is obvious and clear. There was a genocide. A heartfelt apology would be a step forward and could completely erase this dispute."

Source.

The World Series

This is turning into one of the better ones in quite a few years.  I have no dog in this fight (Mets fan here) but am kinda pulling for Texas just because they have never gotten the title before.

"We've lost the art of chivalry," says Downton Abbey Actress

It was an era in which females had few rights and an advantageous marriage was the only measure of success.

But women in the Downton Abbey days had it better in one respect: they lived in an age of chivalry, according to Michelle Dockery, the actress who plays Lady Mary.

Dockery said that 21st century equality of the sexes had led to the demise of old-fashioned manners. She suggested that modern men should watch the period drama and pick up tips on how to treat a lady.

“We take so many of our freedoms for granted nowadays - I can travel where I like, I can have a baby when I like, I can do any job I want - but I do think chivalry has been lost a little bit,” said Dockery, 29, when asked to consider how the role of women had changed since the Edwardian era.

“Those old manners - such as men standing when women arrive at the dinner table or opening doors for you - are lovely, and it’s lovely when you see a man doing that. But young men wouldn’t think about that for a second because it’s not the culture any more.”

Read the rest here.

On a side note I strongly recommend the series for those who like period drama. It's on the same level quality wise as Mad Men, though the period and plot lines are dramatically different.

Low on cash, Wikileaks scales back operations

LONDON -- The anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks says it will be scaling back operations so that it can focus on raising money.

For months, WikiLeaks has been prevented from receiving donations through VISA, Mastercard and other firms that process financial transactions. Those firms severed their relations with the organization after American officials described its release of classified documents as damaging to U.S. national security interests.

On Monday, founder Julian Assange told reporters in London that WikLeaks would “temporarily suspend all publishing operations in order to direct all our resources to fighting the blockade and raising funds,” adding that the “blockade” had wiped out 95 percent of WikiLeaks’ revenue.

Read the rest here.

Rick Perry’s birther Parade

If at first you don’t secede, try the birther movement.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who more than once has dipped his cowboy boot into the secessionist swamp, has found a new outlet for his fringe instincts. The Republican presidential candidate has revived questions about President Obama’s birth certificate.

The controversy pretty much died in the spring when Obama, hounded by “carnival barker” Donald Trump, released his long-form birth certificate confirming his birth in the United States and, therefore, his eligibility for the presidency. But Perry, in an interview in Sunday’s Parade magazine, showed that he marches to a different drummer:

Read the rest here.

H.S.H. Prince Hans-Adam II Discusses The Role Of The State In The Third Millennium

A fascinating discussion of the role of government and the state in the modern world.

HT: The Mad Monarchist

U.S. pulls ambassador out of Syria, citing threats

DAMASCUS, Syria — U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford has been pulled out of Syria because of concerns for his safety, embassy officials said Monday, citing “credible threats” to the security of the envoy who has led American criticism of Syrian efforts to crush a seven-month-old uprising.

Ford, whose high-profile visits to activists and protests had made him a controversial figure in Syria, returned to the United States at the weekend and will remain there indefinitely until “the situation improves on the ground,” said Haynes Mahoney, the charge d’affaires at the embassy in Damascus.

Read the rest here.

Sharia law for Libya?

Mustafa Abdel Ja­lil, Libya’s interim leader, declared Sunday that post-Gaddafi Libya will be run as an Islamic state with legislation based on sharia law.

According to The Washington Post reporter Mary Beth Sheridan, Jalil declared to a crowd in Benghazi, “’We are an Islamic state,’ and pledged to get rid of regulations that didn’t conform to Islamic law.”

Among the Islamic changes Jalil mentioned in his speech

— ”Libya’s new constitution “will not disallow polygamy’” (FP.com)

— “The interest [on loans] will be ruled out,” in accordance with Islamic prohibition on charging interest.

Sharia law, as Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein wrote in 2010, in recent months has become “shorthand for extremism” among critics of Islam in the United States. For Muslims, it is a code of conduct for daily life, similar to Jewish law, but concern over its role in politics have shadowed the Arab Spring.

Read the rest here.

Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz dies in New York

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The heir to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz, died Saturday in the U.S. after an illness. He was 85 years old.

The death of the crown prince — who was the half brother of the ailing Saudi King Abdullah — opens questions about succession.

NBC News reported that Sultan died at a hospital in New York City. He is expected to be buried Tuesday in Riyadh.

Read the rest here.

Louisiana Bans Cash

The political geniuses in Louisiana have decided they hate poor people so much, they passed House Bill 195—near unanimously! (One nay in the senate.)

It bans cash on all second-hand transactions. Now, when a good Louisianian holds a garage sale after a bout of spring cleaning, if they accept cash for their old vinyl collection, they’ve broken the law.

Swap meets. Church bazaar sales. Antique stores. Buying used skis off Craigslist. You can’t use cash in the Pelican State. Their stated reasoning is to prevent the sale of stolen goods—their view is cash transactions make it easy for criminals to sell their booty. Fair enough! No one wants to encourage dastardly behavior. Which must be very widespread, because one owner of a second-hand shop reports he had come in possession of hot goods once in eight years. (That he knows about! Cue ominous music.) And we all know how church ladies are regular fencers at their sinister fund-raising events.

Read the rest here.

You just know Jeff Foxworthy is going get at least a dozen jokes off of these clowns.

Cash strapped Greeks increasingly demand the Church pay its share

As with any disaster, humans regularly turn to God for help and it seems the Greek government is no different.

The Greek Orthodox church – Greece's second largest landowner after the government – has come under fire for not paying enough in taxes on its assets.

One group to join the protests in Athens against austerity measures is Make the Church Pay. Its members are fed-up with the inadequacy of the church administration to support their country in its hour of need. A similar Facebook group – Tax the Church – has 100,000 supporters.

"They simply don't pay. They are so rich, and yet their contribution is minimal," says Theodora, one of the protesters.

The scale of the Greek Orthodox Church's assets shed light on this resentment. The exact value of the Church of Greece, including land, property, artifacts, commercial revenue and shares in government companies, is unknown but experts estimate the 500-plus monasteries, 7,945 parishes, 130,000 hectares of land and 1.5pc stake in the Bank of Greece is worth €7bn to €15bn.

Read the rest here.

Russia’s parliament adopts law restricting abortions to 12 weeks

MOSCOW — Russia’s parliament adopted a law Friday limiting abortions but rejected even tougher restrictions backed by the country’s conservative Orthodox Church.

Health officials say Russia’s abortion rates are among the world’s highest, contributing to a fertility rate of only 1.4 children per woman — far below the 2.1 needed to maintain the existing population. The country’s birth rate has become a serious concern for Russia as it fights to stem a steep population decline.

Read the rest here.

Republicans criticize Obama over Iraq withdrawal

Mitt Romney issued a scathing rebuke Friday of President Obama's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by year's end, joining a chorus of Republicans critical of the president's decision.

Romney sharply criticized the announcement this afternoon by Obama that all troops would leave Iraq by the end of 2011, fulfilling one of Obama's main promises from the 2008 campaign, that he would end the war in Iraq.

“President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women," Romney said in a statement. "The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government."

Romney's sentiment is in tune with what Republicans have said Friday afternoon; most GOP voices have expressed concern that the withdrawal would imperil progress made after almost nine years' worth of war in Iraq.

Read the rest here.

The party of perpetual war speaks.

Hertz fires 26 Muslim shuttle drivers who refused to clock out for prayer breaks

After a continued refusal to clock out when taking a break to pray, Hertz axed more than two dozen employees at one of America's busiest airports.

A Hertz spokesman said he was disappointed that 26 Muslim drivers at Sea-Tac Airport chose to be fired rather than clock out for prayer breaks.

One of the fired employees, Ileys Omar, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: 'We feel like we're being punished for what we believe in.'

Read the rest here.

Clinton warns Pakistan: 'You can't keep snakes in your backyard'

ISLAMABAD — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that the United States had held a preliminary meeting with representatives of the Haqqani network, a group of militants Washington has blamed for a series of attacks in Afghanistan.

The revelation came soon after Clinton, in Islamabad with a heavyweight team of U.S. military and intelligence leaders, warned that tough action would have to be taken against Afghan and Pakistani militants if they did not cooperate in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and pursue peace.

"We think that Pakistan for a variety of reasons has the capacity to encourage, to push, to squeeze ... terrorists, including the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban, to be willing to engage in the peace process," she said.

Read the rest here.

Well it's Oct 21... no Rapture so far

I am highly annoyed with Mr. Camping who keeps picking fast days for the end of the world thereby killing a perfectly good excuse for a nice steak dinner with a bottle of good red.

Obama declares war over, orders final pullout of US troops from Iraq

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war, one of the longest and most divisive conflicts in U.S. history, announcing that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by year's end.

The president made the announcement at a White House briefing following a private video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

“As promised the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, the war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said.

"Today I can say that troops in Iraq will be home for the holidays," Obama said.

More than 4,400 American military members have been killed, and another 2,000 wounded since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Read the rest here.

Cunard; famed ocean liner company to sever last ties with Britain

The luxury cruise operator Cunard has confirmed that its ships will no longer be registered in Britain for the first time in its 171-year history.

Cunard’s vessels will instead be registered in Bermuda, enabling it to take advantage of the lucrative market for weddings at sea – ceremonies which are not recognised under British law.

This means the home port of Southampton, which is currently displayed on the stern of the company’s three ships, Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, is likely to be replaced by Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda.

Read the rest here.

Sad but not terribly surprising. Most Western countries have laws on the books that make it very difficult for ships to fly the true flag of their home country.  Cunard is probably the last link to the glory days of travel when if you wanted to go somewhere it was either by train or boat, and "getting there was half the fun."

Bosnia, Cyprus and Kosovo: America and Islamism in the Balkans

The conflicts that engulfed the former Yugoslavia still remain unresolved in the political arena and open to Western political shenanigans and covert meddling from Turkey and Saudi Arabia in Bosnia and Kosovo. Orthodox Christianity faces many attacks and only a naïve individual would claim that America and the hands of Turkey and Saudi Arabia are clean.

America and other Western nations did little to stop Turkey invading Cyprus in 1974 and creating a de-facto nation and altering the demographics of northern Cyprus and using this area for military purposes.

Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of Cyprus you have no vindication of allowing a foreign army to invade another nation and then altering the ethnic and religious nature of the society that was invaded. However, the response by America to this Turkish and Islamic invasion was not only minimal but it clearly wasn’t important enough to the elites who pull the strings.

The invasion was both nationalist in nature and religious because what is left of Orthodox Christianity in northern Cyprus? Also, are Orthodox Christian religious leaders free to convert and spread the faith in northern Cyprus?

In Turkey ethnicity and religion is fused together by the current leader of Turkey but anti-Christian themes run deep within the psyche irrespective of the leader. After all, Turkey is the cradle of Orthodox Christianity and “old Byzantium” but this “cradle” was destroyed by constant Islamic invasions, Turkish migration and Islamization which enslaved and sold European Christian slaves for many centuries.

The one uniting theme of the 1915 Turkish genocide which is still denied by modern day Turkey is that millions of Armenian/Assyrian/Greek Christians were slaughtered and just like “old Byzantium” and modern day northern Cyprus and Kosovo – you have very few traces of Orthodox Christianity.

Therefore, in northern Cyprus, Kosovo and “old Byzantium” the virtual 100% Christian lands have become a graveyard because of past Islamic invasions and because of recent factors. These recent factors apply to the combined forces of America, Turkey, Islamic terrorists, Saudi Arabian funding, and other important areas alongside a distorted media which is anti-Orthodox Christian.

In many Western academia circles and according to Islamic apologists we are told that Islam means peace, but in truth it means “a piece of Christianity to swallow” and then to Islamize. How do virtual 100% Christian areas become “Orthodox Christian graveyards?”

Read the rest here.

Copts reject new law on places of worship

On Wednesday, the Egyptian government approved amendments to four articles of the Unified Draft Law on Places of Worship proposed by the Orthodox Church. The amendments minimize the area required for houses of worship and delegate responsibility for issuing permits to local municipalities.

The long-anticipated move came in response to repeated calls by Egypt’s Copts for an anti-discrimination act to accompany the existing law on building mosques. Last Sunday, the House of the Egyptian Family, an ad hoc committee formed by both Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb and Pope III Shenouda, rejected the draft law.

Some have attributed the rejection to widespread public criticism, especially from Coptic activists who regarded the bill as “discriminatory and restrictive.”

Read the rest here.

Quote of the day...

"I am more Christian every day.  Socialism is the road to Christ."

-Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez after telling his people that he had beaten cancer.  Source.

With the Rise of Militant Secularism, Rome and Moscow Make Common Cause

The European religious press is abuzz over recent developments in Orthodox – Catholic relations that indicate both Churches are moving closer together. The diplomatic centerpiece of the activity would be a meeting of Pope Benedict and Patriarch Kyrill of the Russian Orthodox Church that was first proposed by Pope John Paul II but never realized. Some look to a meeting in 2013 which would mark the 1,700th anniversary of the signing of the Edict of Milan when Constantine lifted the persecution of Christians. It would be the first visit between the Pope of Rome and Patriarch of Moscow in history.

A few short years ago a visit between Pope and Patriarch seemed impossible because of lingering problems between the two Churches as they reasserted territorial claims and began the revival of the faith in post-Soviet Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere. The relationship grew tense at times and while far from resolved, a spirit of deepening cooperation has nevertheless emerged. Both Benedict and Kyrill share the conviction that European culture must rediscover its Christian roots to turn back the secularism that threatens moral collapse.

Both men draw from a common moral history: Benedict witnessed the barbarism of Nazi Germany and Kyrill the decades long communist campaign to destroy all religious faith. It informs the central precept in their public ministry that all social policy be predicated on the recognition that every person has inherent dignity and rights bestowed by God, and that the philosophical materialism that grounds modern secularism will subsume the individual into either ideology or the state just as Nazism and Communism did. If Europe continues its secular drift, it is in danger of repeating the barbarism of the last century or of yielding to Islam.

The deepening relationship does not portend a union between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Roman Catholics are more optimistic about unity because they are less aware of the historical animus that exists between Catholics and Orthodox. Nevertheless, while the increasing cooperation shows the gravity of the threat posed by secularism, it also indicates that the sensitive historical exigencies can be addressed in appropriate ways and times and will not derail the more pressing mission.

The cooperation has also caused the Churches to examine assumptions of their own that may prove beneficial in the long run. The meaning of papal supremacy tops the list.

On the Orthodox side the claims to a universal jurisdictional supremacy of the Patriarch of Rome have been rejected since (indeed, was a cause of) the Great Schism of 1054 (see here and here). That said, the Orthodox see the Pope of Rome as the rightful Patriarch of the Church of Rome and could afford him a primacy of honor in a joint council but not jurisdiction.

On the other side, the Orthodox do not have a Magisterium, a centralized Church structure that speaks for all the Orthodox in the world. This has led to some fractious internal wrangling throughout the centuries although doctrine and teaching has remained remarkably consistent.

Read the rest here.

EU Weighs Credit-Ratings Bans for Nations Getting Bailouts

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union may ban credit- ratings companies from making assessments of nations receiving European or international bailouts as part of plans for tougher regulation of the industry.

“We are actively considering suspending or banning ratings” in cases where nations are making “full efforts” to implement assistance programs, Michel Barnier, the EU's financial services commissioner, told reporters in Brussels today. The measure may be included in a draft law that Barnier will present in November.

The EU may also force the companies to disclose the internal analyses they use when they decide to cut a government's rating, according to Barnier, who said that he wanted to ensure “there is a clear method” behind such downgrades.

Read the rest here.

Jewish leaders denounce traditionalist's remarks on 'deicide' (Bp. Williamson again)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Jewish groups have called on the Vatican to suspend reconciliation talks with a traditionalist group after one of its bishops argued that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus.

"Comments like these take us back decades to the dark days before there was a meaningful and mutually respectful dialogue between Jews and Roman Catholics," Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Oct. 19.

"We call upon the Catholic Church to suspend negotiations with extremist Catholic tendencies until it is clear that these groups show a clear commitment to tackling anti-Semitism within their ranks," he said.

He was referring to comments by Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of St. Pius X, who said recently in his online newsletter that the killing of Jesus "was truly deicide, the killing of God" and that "only the Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide" because they clamored for his crucifixion.

Read the rest here.

Anne Frank, a Mormon?

At an appearance at George Washington University here Saturday night, Bill Maher bounded into territory that the news media have been gingerly tiptoeing around.

Magic underwear. Baptizing dead people. Celestial marriages. Private planets. Racism. Polygamy.

“By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion,” asserted the famously nonbelieving comic who skewered the “fairy tales” of several faiths in his documentary “Religulous.” “It’s a religion founded on the idea of polygamy. They call it The Principle. That sounds like The Prime Directive in ‘Star Trek.’ ”

He said he expects the Romney crowd — fighting back after Robert Jeffress, a Texas Baptist pastor supporting Rick Perry, labeled Mormonism a non-Christian “cult” — to once more “gloss over the differences between Christians and Mormons.”

Maher was not easy on the religion he was raised in either. He referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “an international child sex ring.”

But atheists, like Catholics and evangelical Christians, seem especially wary of Mormons, dubbed the “ultimate shape-shifters” by Maher.

Read the rest here.

Not a fan of either Dowd or Maher.  But as the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Pa. Gov. Corbett moves toward Harrisburg takeover

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Gov. Tom Corbett is taking steps toward assuming control of the finances in Pennsylvania's troubled capital under a state law freshly signed on Thursday aimed at giving him unprecedented power to force Harrisburg to pay off its staggering debt.

The steps by the Republican governor are, for now, running alongside a City Council petition - filed in defiance of Corbett - seeking federal bankruptcy protection in hopes of forcing creditors to forgive a substantial portion of Harrisburg's debt.

Corbett expects as early as next week to declare Harrisburg to be in a state of fiscal emergency, which ultimately could result in the appointment of a receiver who would have the power to sell city assets, approve contracts and file for federal bankruptcy protection, but not raise taxes.

Read the rest here.

Clinton issues blunt warning to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Pakistan on Thursday to eradicate terrorist safe havens inside its borders, saying there would be a “very big price” for inaction against militant groups staging attacks in Afghanistan.

Clinton’s tough words for Pakistani leaders came as an unusually large delegation of U.S. officials, led by Clinton, converged on the capital to urge Pakistani officials to take on the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based Afghan militant group blamed for assassinations of Afghan leaders and a brazen attack last month on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

Read the rest here.

Moammar Gaddafi is dead

TRIPOLI, Libya — Former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was killed Thursday when revolutionary fighters overran his last loyalist stronghold, setting off raucous celebrations of victory in an eight-month war backed by NATO.

Gaddafi, 69, the long-entrenched autocrat who was driven from power in Tripoli two months ago, died as the revolutionaries ended loyalist resistance in Sirte, his home town and tribal power base, the new government announced.

Read the rest here.

Baptism is not magic

Right matter + right formula does not = sacrament.  See the excellent post at Energetic Procession.

Among those who will be present at the Assisi III inter-religious pantheist quasi-pagan love fest...

...will be 17 delegations from the "Eastern Churches." (Source: Rorate Caeli) At the risk of having my ecumenical dialogue license revoked, this is just wrong.  Really.  There comes a point where someone should have said, "thank you, but we have a previous engagement."  This sort of nonsense makes me wonder if our Old Calendarist brothers and sisters don't have a point.

Dialogue with the non-Orthodox, with whom we have some things in common, on specific issues is fine. Showing up at a pan-theistic convention where equal billing is given to every weird cult on the face of the Earth is a different matter.  I really like Pope Benedict XVI.  In general I think he is the best thing to hit Rome in a very long time and he is trying to fix a lot of the problems that have infected the Western Church.  But this is a mistake.  It was a mistake when John Paul II did it (twice!). And it remains so today.

I think our participation in this violates both the letter and the spirit of the church canons which forbids joint prayer and services with those outside the Church.  Frankly, this is scandalous.

Obama's teleprompter, lectern stolen in Va.

A van containing President Obama's teleprompter and lectern were stolen from a Virginia hotel parking lot on Monday, according to NBC12 in Richmond.

The truck was parked at the Virginia Center Commons Courtyard Marriott near Richmond before the president's scheduled Wednesday appearance in Chesterfield, the station reported. In addition to the teleprompter, $200,000 worth of audio equipment and presidential seals mounted on Obama's podium were inside the stolen vehicle.

Read the rest here.

Good grief! Someone needs to be called on the carpet over this.

The alarm bells behind Iran’s alleged assassination plot

Amere moment or two after the Obama administration announced it had discovered and thwarted a plot by Iran to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington restaurant, the doubters started to air their doubts. Columnists and experts, even some columnists who were not experts, said the Iranians would never be so sloppy as to commit a virtual act of war by setting off a bomb in the nation’s capital. The alleged plot was crazy, they said. I agree. But so is Iran.

It’s not as if the Iranian intelligence services, particularly the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, usually operate deftly and leave no fingerprints. This is a regime that commenced what amounts to mass murder soon after it came to power. It executed not only its opponents but also its critics. It even went after exiled Iranians. In 1991, it murdered the former prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, in Paris. He was stabbed to death — how’s that for sloppy? — and in 2010, when France freed one of Bakhtiar’s killers, he was given a hero’s welcome in Tehran.

Iran was blamed by Argentine prosecutors for the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 85 and wounded at least 300. It has been implicated in the 1996 bombing of a housing complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. airmen and wounded another 372 people. It is the chief sponsor of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both are terror organizations that Iran has used as proxies.

More recently, Iran is suspected of playing a role in the 2005 assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, five times prime minister of Lebanon and an immensely wealthy and effective businessman. He was killed when a bomb detonated as his car went by. This may well have been a group endeavor — Syria, Hezbollah and, in training and aid, Iran. Hariri was not only a force for stability but he was extremely close to the Saudi royal family and maintained a home in Riyadh. The Saudis took his death personally.

Read the rest here.

A Modern Stylite

Wow!  The first Stylite in 600 years.  See here and here for more details.

HT: Mystagogy

Bureaucracy in Greece Defies Efforts to Cut It

ATHENS — Stories of eye-popping waste and abuse of power among Greece’s bureaucrats are legion, including officials who hire their wives, and managers who submit $38,000 bills for office curtains.

The work force in Greece’s Parliament is so bloated, according to a local press investigation, that some employees do not even bother to come to work because there are not enough places for all of them to sit.

Read the rest here.

Racially explicit appeals made to Afro-Americans to support Obama

For several months, radio host Tom Joyner has pleaded with his 8 million listeners to get in line behind the first black president.

“Stick together, black people,” says Joyner, whose R&B morning show reaches one in four African American adults.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, an ally of President Obama who has a daily radio show and hosts a nightly cable television program, recently told the president’s black critics, “I’m not telling you to shut up. I’m telling you: Don’t make some of us have to speak up.”

Even as Obama and his campaign play down the suggestion that support among African Americans is flagging, a cadre of powerful allies is snapping back at critics in the black community and making explicit appeals for racial loyalty.

“Let’s not even deal with the facts right now. Let’s deal with just our blackness and pride — and loyalty,” Joyner wrote on his BlackAmericaWeb.com blog. “We have the chance to re-elect the first African-American president, and that’s what we ought to be doing. And I’m not afraid or ashamed to say that as black people, we should do it because he’s a black man.”

Read the rest here.

Ron Paul proposes $1 Trillion in specific budget cuts

Ron Paul’s opinions about cutting the budget are well-known, but on Monday, he got specific: The Texas congressman laid out a budget blueprint for deep and far-reaching cuts to federal spending, including the elimination of five Cabinet-level departments and the drawdown of American troops fighting overseas.

There’s even a symbolic readjustment of the president’s salary to put it in line with the average American salary.

“Our debt is too big, our government is too big, and we have to recognize how serious the problem is,” Paul said during an afternoon speech in Las Vegas ahead of Tuesday’s GOP debate there.

The plan, Paul said, would cut $1 trillion in spending his first year in the White House and create a balanced federal budget by the third year of his presidency.

Read the rest here.

Tensions Flare as G.I.’s Take Fire Out of Pakistan

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan — American and Afghan soldiers near the border with Pakistan have faced a sharply increased volume of rocket fire from Pakistani territory in the past six months, putting them at greater risk even as worries over the disintegrating relationship between the United States and Pakistan constrain how they can strike back.

Ground-to-ground rockets fired within Pakistan have landed on or near American military outposts in one Afghan border province at least 55 times since May, according to interviews with multiple American officers and data released in the past week. Last year, during the same period, there were two such attacks.

May is also when members of a Navy Seals team killed Osama bin Laden in the house where he lived near a Pakistani military academy, plunging American-Pakistani relations to a new low. Since then, the escalation in cross-border barrages has fueled frustration among officers and anger among soldiers at front-line positions who suspect, but cannot prove, a Pakistani government role.

Read the rest here.

Scientists crack Black Death's genetic code

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death

(Reuters) - Scientists have mapped out the entire genetic map of the Black Death, a 14th century bubonic plague that killed 50 million Europeans in one of the most devastating epidemics in history.

The work, which involved extracting and purifying DNA from the remains of Black death victims buried in London's "plague pits," is the first time scientists have been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any ancient pathogen.

Their result -- a full draft of the entire Black Death genome -- should allow researchers to track changes in the disease's evolution and virulence, and lead to better understanding of modern-day infectious diseases.

Read the rest here.

Doctor: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez may be dying

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is traveling to Cuba to undergo a series of "rigorous" medical tests as part of his cancer treatment. Chavez's former doctor said that the Latin American leader may only have two years left to live.

Over the course of the summer, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez revealed that he is suffering from cancer. In a television address, Chavez described his diagnosis and said that doctors had removed “cancerous cells” from his body. He then vowed to fight cancer.

Read the rest here.

Ohio copes with Amish crime wave

BERGHOLZ, Ohio — Myron Miller and his wife, Arlene, had been asleep for an hour when their 15-year-old daughter woke them and said that people were knocking at the door.

Mr. Miller, 45, a stocky construction worker and an Amish bishop in the peaceful farmlands of eastern Ohio, found five or six men waiting. Some grabbed him and wrestled him outside as others hacked at his long black beard with scissors, clipping off six inches. As Mr. Miller kept struggling, his wife screamed at the children to call 911, and the attackers fled.

For an Amish man, it was an unthinkable personal violation, and all the more bewildering because the attack was meted out by other Amish.

Read the rest here.

Pakistan leans toward talks with Taliban, not battle

ISLAMABAD — Amid growing American frustration with Pakistan’s handling of Islamic militancy, the government here appears less willing than ever to challenge insurgent groups and is more inclined to make peace with them.

Read the rest here.

Supreme Court to review free speech issue on lying about military honors

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will review whether a federal law that makes it a crime to lie about receiving a military honor violates free speech rights.

A sharply divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled this year that the Stolen Valor Act passed overwhelmingly by Congress was unconstitutional. The chief judge of the circuit, Alex Kozinski, said it would be “terrifying” to permit the government to decide which sorts of lies could be prosecuted.

Read the rest here.

Only the 9th Circuit could conclude that lying is protected speech.

California Medical Assn. calls for legalization of marijuana

Reporting from Sacramento—
The state's largest doctor group is calling for legalization of marijuana, even as it pronounces cannabis to be of questionable medical value.

Trustees of the California Medical Assn., which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, adopted the position at their annual meeting in Anaheim late Friday. It is the first major medical association in the nation to urge legalization of the drug, according to a group spokeswoman, who said the larger membership was notified Saturday.

Read the rest here.

Oh my. You just know the prohibitionists are going to go nuts.

New grounds for divorce... Opera

What a shallow existence.

SID R. BASS, the billionaire investor, certainly did not give the impression of an unhappy husband on the night of Sept. 26, when he attended the black-tie opening of “Anna Bolena” at the Metropolitan Opera. Whenever a photographer took a picture of his wife of nearly 23 years, Mercedes T. Bass, the philanthropist and fashion plate whose name appears on the Met’s Grand Tier, Mr. Bass was there by her side, his white pocket square complementing her Oscar de la Renta dress.

Though it was not entirely obvious that night, there was a message in their harmonious appearance together, even as Mr. and Mrs. Bass were finalizing the details of their impending divorce, which had been rumored for months and would be announced the following week. In a joint statement to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Oct. 6, the couple said they had “mutually agreed to end their marriage” and that they “continue to love each other and remain good friends.” It was all very amicable, you know.

“They were putting out there to the public that it is O.K.,” said David Patrick Columbia, who reported the possibility of a Bass split in December on New York Social Diary, the online chronicler of gilded soirées, “and that they are O.K.”

Peculiar as the grounds for divorce may sound, the story is that Mr. Bass, 69 and a resident of Fort Worth, had taken up painting and had tired of the social circuit, the longtime domain of Mrs. Bass, 67, who is the vice chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera and one of its biggest financial supporters. Mr. Bass, it is said by friends of the couple, never really liked opera.

Read the rest here.

Bankruptcy may just be the start of Harrisburg's headaches

Even if it’s legal (and it’s not certain that it is), Harrisburg, Pa.’s, decision to file for bankruptcy protection is certain to be a long, arduous and costly process, experts say.

That’s why so few municipalities have chosen what could be a scorched-earth option for their credit rating since the law was enacted in 1937, after the Great Depression.

“The experience that many cities have had in Chapter 9 is not a pleasant one,” said Paul Maco, a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins and a former director the office of municipal securities at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “It tends to be much more drawn out and expensive than they may have at first thought. Essentially, there’s a lot to reveal itself here.”

Indeed, experts say that filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 9 should be a last resort for a cash-strapped municipality because doing so is very expensive, and can be fatal to the general reputation of a community and its credit rating. The lower a city’s credit rating goes, the higher its borrowing costs will rise.

Read the rest here.

US abandons plans to keep troops in Iraq next year

BAGHDAD — The Obama administration is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, The Associated Press has learned.

A senior administration official in Washington confirmed Saturday that all American troops will leave except for about 160 troops attached to the U.S. Embassy. The Pentagon had considered leaving up to 5,000 troops to train security forces and hinder Iranian influence.

A senior U.S. military official said the withdrawal could allow future, limited U.S. military training missions if requested.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Iraqi political leaders have rejected giving legal immunity to U.S. troops — a deal-breaker to Washington.

Source.
(Breaking news.  Text at linked source is likely to change. )

This is very good news.

Sitting Up With Uncle Cleve

On a lighter note after the previous post...

Actions Have Consequences (Warning: langauge violence)

This post is Rated 'R'

There is a YouTube video making the rounds that was created by a patron at a McDonald's  You can view it here (gutter language and graphic violence warning).  For those who have chosen to pass on the video I will give you a quick rundown of the salient facts.

It shows two youngish Afro-American females at a McDonald's  who are clearly irate.  They are verbally abusing the clerk (an Afro-American male) at the register with vulgar and menacing language.  One of them strikes the clerk on the face.  The two females then climb over the counter and attack the clerk who retreats.  Both females chase the clerk behind the counter who grabs a metal rod and then proceeds (pardon my own frank language) to lay down an absolutely epic ass whooping.  He beats both of these miscreants senseless causing serious bodily injury to them both.

Sadly we all know that this is not the end of the story.

The register clerk has been arrested and charged with felony assault.  And he is nose deep in the brown stinky stuff and sinking for several reasons.  First this happened in New York City.  Secondly he is a male and the two miscreants are females.  No it doesn't matter that they hit him first, threatened him and abused him verbally, jumped over the service counter to attack him and chased him when he tried to retreat.  That's utterly irrelevant.  He is a male and they are women.  Then there is the fact that he laid into them rather vigorously with the metal pole.  And finally, this man has a serious criminal record.  He did prison time.  I think that is or should be a non-issue based on what I saw, but we just know that it will be raised and used against him.  Never mind that he was working an honest, and rather menial job in an effort to get his life back together.  Let's be honest here.  If the dude was robbing people or dealing drugs he would not be working a register at McDonald's.

Now an argument could be made that he overdid it once he had them down.  The video does not show the two women behind the counter so I can't say if they were lying still or trying to get back up.  If the latter though, then I think he was totally justified in beating them into total and complete submission.

Sorry if that offends anyone.  But far too many years ago when I was a fresh kid in the Navy I got some important tips from a salty old Boatswains Mate named Jimmy Sandsbury on how to survive a bar room brawl.  His first advice was to walk away if I could and run away if I had to.  But if neither was possible he told me to deal ruthlessly with the first SOB who came at me.  Go for the throat, the eyes and the family jewels.  (He did not use the words "family jewels.")  His point was that a bar room fight was not a boxing match and Marquise of Queensbury Rules do not apply.  Once I had the aggressor down he told me to beat him, stomp him, and kick him until I was 300% sure that there was no possibility of him getting back up to resume hostilities, and that everyone in the room, including the bloody lump on the floor understood exactly and without doubt who had just won and who had lost the fight and that the fight was now over.

I think the same rules apply to the above situation.  Those women attacked him and jumped over the service counter to go after him.  I don't give a flying bleep that they were women.  Women can and routinely do inflict grave bodily harm on men.  And far too often they get away with it.  In the same situation I would have reacted in a similar manner.  Who could know if they had a knife?  And even if they were not armed there were plenty of potential weapons behind the counter, like cooking utensils and scalding hot frying oil.

Here is my bottom line.  They started a fight and the guy finished it.  In today's society we put up with just waaay too much crap and expect other people to do the same.  ANYONE who goes over the counter in a retail or service establishment in attack mode is an automatic candidate for a beat down.  No exceptions.  There is no excuse for their behavior.  None at all.  I have worked retail and dealt with my share of irate customers.  In a few cases even highly belligerent customers.  As long as they stayed on their side of the counter and didn't get physical everything was fine.  But these two crossed a big line.

If you go through life acting like an ass sooner or later your gonna run into someone who is not going to put up with it.  However this ends for the poor register clerk, I would bet more money then I have that those two women will never ever pull a stunt like that again.  Actions have consequences.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Daily Caller: Jesse Jackson Jr. calls for dictatorship

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate “states in rebellion.”

Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should “declare a national emergency” and take “extra-constitutional” action “administratively” — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.

“I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past,” Jackson said. “He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.”

“President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function,” Jackson told TheDC at his Capitol Hill office on Wednesday.

“On several occasions now, we’ve seen … the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe … in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states … for another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities,” he said.

Read the rest here.

Well that statement should give the little commie a lock on re-election.

Greek Orthodox Church destroyed on 9-11 to be rebuilt

Great news via Byzantine Texas. St. Nicholas is to be rebuilt!  Read the story here and here.

Roman Catholic Bishop of Kansas City Indicted For Failing To Report Child Porn

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An indictment charging Kansas City’s Catholic bishop with not telling tell police about child pornography on a priest’s computer makes him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children.

Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn on Friday became the first U.S. bishop criminally charged on allegations of sheltering an abusive clergyman. He acknowledged earlier this year that he and other diocese officials knew for five months about hundreds of “disturbing” photos of children found on a priest’s computer but didn’t take the matter to police.

Read the rest here.

Setting aside for the moment my belief that Bishop Finn has been a boon to his Midwestern diocese in many ways, I have long argued  that the problem in the RCC was not the relatively small number of pedophile priests, but rather the bishops who criminally covered up for them and have never been held accountable.  This suggests that attitudes are starting to change on that subject.

Obama sends troops to Africa to help fight Lord’s Resistance Army guerrilla group

The latest chapter in the history of the American Empire...

President Obama said Friday he is sending a small number of U.S. combat troops to central Africa to assist in a regional effort to neutralize the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla force originally from northern Uganda that has been accused of terrorizing civilians in several countries.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama announced the deployment of “approximately 100” combat-equipped personnel to act as “advisers to partner forces” that are targeting the leadership of the insurgent group.

Read the rest here.

Obama pulls plug on troubled long-term care program in new health law, citing design flaws

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration says it is unable to go forward with a major program in the president’s signature health care overhaul law — a new long-term care insurance plan.

Officials said Friday the long-term care program has critical design flaws that can’t be fixed to make it financially self-sustaining.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress in a letter that she does not see a viable path forward at this time. By law, implementation of the program was contingent on Sebelius certifying it financially sound.

Read the rest here.

Coming soon... Government cameras in your car

Imagine that you couldn't drive on major highways without agreeing to put a camera in your car -- one that could film either the occupants or the vehicle’s surroundings and transmit the images back to a central office for inspection.

You don't have to read George Orwell to conjure up such an ominous surveillance state. You just have to skim through filings at the U.S. Patent Office.

It's hard to imagine Americans would tolerate such a direct, Big-Brotherish intrusion. But they might not notice if the all-seeing cameras were tucked inside another kind of government tracking technology that millions of Americans have already invited into their cars.

Kapsch TrafficCom AG, an Austrian company that just signed a 10-year contract to provide in-car transponders such as the E-Z Pass to 22 electronic highway toll collection systems around the U.S., recently filed a patent on technology to add multi-function mini-cameras to their toll gadgets. Today, transponders are in about 22 million cars around the U.S. Adding inward and outward facing cameras to the gadgets would create surveillance capabilities far beyond anything government agencies have tried until now.

The stated reason for an inward-pointing camera is to verify the number of occupants in the car for enforcement of HOV and HOT lanes. The outward-pointing camera could be used for the same purpose, helping authorities enforce minimum occupant rules against drivers who aren't carrying transponders.

But it's easy to imagine other uses. The patent says the transponders would have the ability to store and transmit pictures, either at random intervals or on command from a central office. It would be tempting to use them as part of a search for a lost child, for example, and law enforcement officials might find the data treasure trove irresistible. The gadget could also be instructed to take pictures when the acceleration of a car "exceeds a threshold," or when accidents occur, so it could be used like an airplane cockpit flight recorder.

Read the rest here.

A sneak preview of the new Ukrainian Catholic Catechism

In June of this year, after ten years of preparation, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) –an Eastern Catholic Church in union with the Pope of Rome– released its first official Catechism. Entitled Christ our Pascha, it received the unanimous support of all the Bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and also was reviewed by the Eastern Congregation in Rome before publication. A description of the development process by the Patriarchal Catechetical Commission can be read here. Translation into other languages is proceeding, including Spanish, Russian, Portuguese and English.

There was speculation that the new Catechism might present some nuanced understandings of some of the issues that divide the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, especially with regards to the role of the papacy. However, some rough, unofficial translations of key paragraphs in the new UGCC Catechism indicate that this is not a breakthrough document that might suggest a way to resolve the doctrinal differences.

For example, here are two key paragraphs that describe the Pope:

Read the rest here.
HT: Blog reader Dave

No surprises here.

Feast of Edward the Confessor

Edward's status as an Orthodox saint is somewhat ambiguous given that his life overlapped the beginning of the Great Schism and he was not formally glorified by the Pope until 1161.  Personally I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.  It is questionable whether the Church in England had any knowledge, or would have cared if they did, of the breach in communion between the Pope of Rome and Patriarch in Constantinople.  It was a purely local schism in those days.

Met. Saba (Esber) on Preparing for Communion

Some Words about Going up to Receive

Forty years ago, the predominate custom was for the faithful to go forward to partake of mystery of the Eucharist infrequently, since the predominate understanding said that one should only partake of the Eucharist a few times each year, such as on major feasts... In my childhood, I would hear the grown-ups say that the maximum permissible number of times that the faithful could partake of the holy things was once every forty days, while following a number of requirements.

They based this on man's being unworthy of this dreadful mystery. Without a doubt, for them this conviction stemmed from great honor given to the divine mystery and a realization of their own sins, which required the faithful to prepare with total sincerity in order to partake of the holy mystery. Since the faithful were not able to undertake this preparation continually, they refrained from approaching the holy chalice rather than approaching without having prepared as they should.

I remember that my grandmother would bathe on the Sunday in which she would receive the holy things, after having visited the homes of all her neighbors, asking their forgiveness if she had sinned against them. I likewise know a very faithful man who is not absent from the Divine Liturgy unless he is extremely ill and bedridden. He did not go up to partake at all during the time he practiced his career. His argument was that his job required him to lie constantly, since he worked in real estate. He was convinced that he was unworthy as long as he was going to go back and lie the next day.

Read the rest here.

This is a very good read.  Many thanks to Samn! for translating this from the Arabic.

The 18 Most Hated Companies In America

You're not the only person who hates Bank of America, American Airlines and Time Warner.

We've updated our list of the worst companies on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which gives remarkably accurate ratings based on thousands of surveys. The most-hated list hasn't changed much since June, because the companies rated since then are in the well-liked durable goods industries.

"Generally speaking, manufacturing companies have a much easier time to quality control their products," ACSI's David VanAmburg told us. "In terms of purchase and consumption, you're going to get much higher ratings than an airline company where there's a greater chance that something can go wrong."

The worst companies include big banks, legacy airlines and utilities...

Read the rest here.

I can't comment on all of them, but the business listed that I have had dealings with (Comcast comes to mind) really do suck.

Women Only Floors Make A Comeback In Hotels

Women-only floors at hotels — an amenity discarded by the hotel industry at the dawn of the feminist movement — may be experiencing a comeback.

In a focus group study conducted by the 812-room Hotel Bella Sky Comwell in Copenhagen, Denmark, more than half of the “influential and well-traveled Danish women” surveyed said they’d stay on a women-only floor because “it provides a sense of security; it feels more hygienic to know that the previous guest was also a woman and they prefer rooms tailored to women’s needs.”

Armed with that data, the hotel opened in May 2011 with a secure-access floor for ladies only. “Bella Donna” floors cost an additional DKK 300 (about US$55) and offer extra-large showerheads, extra clothes hangers for skirts and dresses and a minibar stocked with items such as smoothies, champagne and high-quality chocolate.

The Naumi Hotel in Singapore, the Premier Hotel in New York City, and Crowne Plaza properties in Washington, D.C., and Bloomington, Minn., are among the hotels that also feature floors strictly for female guests.

Read the rest here.

Silly question, but where are the male only floors? 

Coptic Church Condemns Attack, Muslims Pelt Funeral Procession With Bricks

(AINA) -- The Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt issued a statement on October 10, expressing horror at the events of yesterday in Maspero, where 24 Copts were killed and over 200 and wounded. The church stressed that the Christian faith rejects violence. The church blasted the government for failing to find solutions to "problems that occur repeatedly and go unpunished." The Church asked all Copts to fast continuously for three days starting tomorrow "in order to have peace in Egypt."

Some interpreted this demand, which the church has made only three times in its long history, as a way to implore "God's help for the Copts," commented Coptic activist and writer Nader Shoukry.

In Cairo, thousands of Copts marched to attend the funeral of the victims of what they termed the "October 9 Military Massacre." They congregated in front of the Coptic hospital where most of the dead and injured were transported, and which was attacked the night before by Muslims, who hurled bricks and Molotov Cocktails at the victims' families.

Read the rest here.

To be viewed while listening to Bob Hope singing "Thanks for the Memories." (click to enlarge)

Banks turn to demolition of foreclosed properties to ease housing-market pressures

Cleveland — The sight of excavators tearing down vacant buildings has become common in this foreclosure-ravaged city, where the housing crisis hit early and hard. But the story behind the recent wave of demolitions is novel — and cities around the country are taking notice.

A handful of the nation’s largest banks have begun giving away scores of properties that are abandoned or otherwise at risk of languishing indefinitely and further dragging down already depressed neighborhoods.

The banks have even been footing the bill for the demolitions — as much as $7,500 a pop. Four years into the housing crisis, the ongoing expense of upkeep and taxes, along with costly code violations and the price of marketing the properties, has saddled banks with a heavy burden. It often has become cheaper to knock down decaying homes no one wants.

Read the rest here.

Hedge fund billionaire gets 11-year sentence for insider-trading

Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire at the center of one of the largest insider trading cases in history, was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

It was the longest prison term in history for insider trading, the federal prosecutor’s office said, and was the culmination of a years-long federal probe of corruption in the stock market. The Rajaratnam case pulled back the curtain on a long-suspected dark side of the hedge fund business.

Read the rest here.

Theo Epstein moving to the Cubs?

For sheer futility in professional sports, the Chicago Cubs are the standard. They have not won the World Series in 103 years. They have not won a pennant since 1945. Their history is pocked with excruciating near misses — a Billy goat, a black cat, fateful errors on the field and in the stands.

So who better to enter that caldron of despair than a man who survived it in Boston? Theo Epstein, the general manager who helped the Red Sox reverse their own epic curse dating to 1918, is close to completing his transition from Fenway Park to Wrigley Field.

According to a Red Sox official speaking on condition of anonymity, Epstein is nearing a deal to become the Cubs’ top baseball operations executive. Another Red Sox official said the Boston front office widely expects him to leave.

Read the rest here.

Wow.

Harrisburg PA (state capitol) files for bankruptcy

The city of Harrisburg, Pa., filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, which supporters characterized as the only alternative to a state takeover that would force the city to use its most lucrative assets to pay off Wall Street creditors.

The bankruptcy filing was a hotly contested and emotional issue in Pennsylvania’s capital city. It was strongly opposed by Mayor Linda D. Thompson (D), who has said that bankruptcy would leave an embarrassing mark on the city of 49,000 while crippling its future ability to borrow for municipal projects.

Read the rest here.

Britain: Cameron Proposes Abolition of Male Primogeniture in Royal Succession

David Cameron has formally begun the process that could allow a first born daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to accede to the throne.

...He writes: “In the UK, we have found it increasingly difficult to continue to justify two particular aspects of the present rules on the succession to the Crown.

“The first is the rule which says that an elder daughter should take a place in the line of succession behind a younger son. We espouse gender equality in all other aspects of life, and it is an anomaly that in the rules relating to the highest public office we continue to enshrine male superiority.”

Mr Cameron told MPs that he wants to change the rules. As well as ending male primogeniture, the Prime Minister hopes to open the way for members of the Royal Family who marry a Roman Catholic being able to succeed to the Crown.

In his letter to the 16 prime ministers, Mr Cameron said it was rule is a historical anomaly as it does not apply to those who marry spouses of other faiths.

Thirdly, he is calling for an end to the permission to marry rules, and limit to the first six in line to the throne those descendants of King George II who require the Monarch’s consent before they marry.

Read the rest here.

'Insane' even by Illinois standards? Union official to get $500,000 in pensions

A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year, according to reports Wednesday.

The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.

The news organizations said this was due to "a charitable interpretation" of Illinois law by officials representing two city pension funds.

Read the rest here.

How Too Much Democracy Has Made California Ungovernable

ONE hundred years ago today, California voters added the ballot initiative to the State Constitution, allowing citizens to use petitions to bring proposed statutes and constitutional amendments for a public vote.

But as California, the nation’s most populous state, marks this anniversary, the accumulated impact of direct democracy has made it virtually ungovernable. A two-thirds vote was required in each chamber of the Legislature to approve new taxes as a result of Proposition 13, the fabled tax initiative adopted in 1978. Ballot-box budgeting locks in large portions of the budget; Proposition 98, passed in 1988, dedicates about 40 percent of the state’s general fund to public education.

The “three strikes” law (Proposition 184, passed in 1994) greatly increased the cost of the criminal justice system. Term limits (Proposition 140, adopted in 1990) have reduced the number of state legislators with significant experience. Finally, once a measure is passed by a vote of the people in California, it cannot be overturned by the Legislature, but only by another vote of the people (or by the courts).

Direct democracy in California was born in the hopes of bringing the people into the governance process, but it has led to a kind of audience democracy. Voters have become consumers of television sound-bite campaigns and new-media messaging, not authors of the laws they give to themselves. It was supposed to take the role of money out of politics but it has, instead, created a vast appetite for advertising. Getting on the ballot costs millions of dollars to pay for professional signature gatherers because the threshold of signatures required is so high (5 percent of the number of voters who turned out in the last election for statutes, and 8 percent for constitutional amendments). So instead of the process being open to everyone, it is open mostly to those organized interests that can pay the entrance fee.

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Iranian Assassination Plot Is Major Escalation

The alleged plot to carry out an assassination on U.S. soil would represent, if proven, a significant escalation of a long-running covert struggle between Iran and the West that has included industrial sabotage, terrorist bombings and the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists.

It also would reflect a radical shift in tactics for a country that usually prefers to leave its dirty work to proxies.

The Obama administration on Tuesday directly accused Iran and its elite Quds Force of backing the alleged attempt to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, using hit men from a Mexican drug gang. The allegation plunged U.S.-Iranian relations into crisis and sent U.S. officials scrambling in search of new punitive measures to impose against a country that has already been hit with multiple rounds of sanctions.

The brazenness of the plot outlined by Justice Department officials struck many current and former U.S. officials as out of character for Iran, which has rarely, if ever, been so bold as to strike targets in America. U.S. officials were similarly surprised last month when an Iranian admiral threatened to send naval ships to patrol off U.S. waters.

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This is very serious.  I am a moderate isolationist and am uncomfortable with our country’s military adventurism all over the globe.  But this is different.  If true, a foreign government has sent spies and assassins to our country to murder diplomats and commit terrorist attacks.  That must not go unanswered.

US Accuses Iran of Plotting To Assassinate Saudi Ambassador, Attack Embassies

WASHINGTON — Two men allegedly working for "factions of the Iranian government" have been charged with plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and to attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

The criminal complaint, unsealed Tuesday in federal court in New York City, identified the two as Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri.

Holder said Arbabsiar, who was arrested on Sept. 29 in New York, was working for the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard and had confessed to a plot.

Shakuri, who is based in Iran, remains at large, Holder said. He allegedly is a member of Iran's Quds Force, a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard.

Both are originally from Iran and Arbabsiar, 56, is a naturalized U.S. citizen, the complaint said.

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(Note: This is breaking news.  Text at the linked article may change.)

Wow.  This is very serious.

Former pro-Western Prime Minister jailed in Ukraine for "harming national interests"

KIEV, Ukraine — Yulia V. Tymoshenko, once one of Ukraine’s most powerful and popular politicians, was sentenced on Tuesday to seven years in prison, the culmination of a politically charged trial that could presage the end of the country’s short and often raucous experiment with democracy.

The sentence was the maximum demanded by prosecutors on charges that Ms. Tymoshenko had harmed Ukraine’s interests when, as prime minister, she carried out negotiations with Russia in 2009 over the price of natural gas. Her supporters and many Western officials have insisted that her actions could hardly have amounted to a crime.

The ruling will likely put a freeze on Ukraine’s integration with Western Europe, which the country’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovich, has pursued even as he has flirted with the iron-fisted ruling style practiced in Moscow.

“This is an authoritarian regime that is distancing Ukraine from Europe, while using European rhetoric,” Ms. Tymoshenko said in the courtroom. Mr. Yanukovich, she said, “is bringing Ukraine back to 1937,” the height of the Stalinist purges.

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Queen's Visit Leaves Australian Republicans Disheartened

SYDNEY (Reuters) - When Britain's Queen Elizabeth arrives in Australia next week, protocol says she should be addressed as Queen of Australia -- something that will grate with republicans who want to sever ties with Britain and appoint an Australian president.

The royal tour, possibly the queen's last to Australia given her 85 years and the long distance from Buckingham Palace, will reignite debate on whether the nation should become a republic.

Australia is a constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch its head of state who acts in predominately a ceremonial manner but has the power to approve the abolition of parliament, which happened in 1975 toppling the then government.

But republicans concede any debate will be short lived and their dream of an Australian republic and president will remain just that -- for many years to come.

Time, politics and apathy have all conspired against Australia's republicans. And republicans know there is no appetite to put the issue back on the national agenda.

An opinion poll this week revealed support for the monarchy had risen to 55 percent of the population, while support for a republic was at its lowest level in 23 years at 34 percent.

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The first upbeat news story I have read in days.  May the republican's misery be multiplied and their daughters grow up to look like Phyllis Diller.

God Save The Queen!