Calif. used 9/11 scholarship funds to close budget gap

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Some Californians who lost parents or spouses in the Sept. 11 attacks were unaware of a scholarship program funded by fees from a specialty memorial license plate, while millions of dollars from the plates went to plug the state's persistent budget deficits.

An aspiring lawyer and an unemployed single mother are among those who say they would have signed up to receive a $5,000 scholarship had they known the program existed.

Other parents say they were told their children did not qualify for the funds, although they appear to have met the criteria.

After the September 11 attacks, lawmakers in California, where all four jetliners were bound when they were hijacked, established a special memorial plate emblazoned with the words, "We Will Never Forget."

The money raised through the sale of the plates was to provide scholarships to the children of California residents who perished in the attacks and to help fund anti-terrorism efforts.

The Associated Press reported in May that only $20,000 of the $15 million collected since lawmakers approved the "California Memorial Scholarship Program" has been paid out in scholarships...

...In the years since the program closed to new applicants, Gov. Jerry Brown and his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, borrowed $3 million of memorial license plate money to help plug the state's budget deficit.

Neither loan has been repaid.

Millions more raised by the plates have been spent on budget items with little relation to direct threats of terrorism, including livestock diseases and workplace safety.

Read the rest here.

NSA: We can't tell you who we spy on, it would violate their privacy

Read it here. Some things you just can't make up.

Puerto Rico: Jehovah's Witnesses claim gated communities violates their freedom of religion

Hard to proselytize going door to door if your not allowed in...

Read the reports here.

Ark. Supreme Court declares execution law unconstitutional

The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state's execution law Friday, calling it unconstitutional.

In a split decision, the high court sided with 10 death row inmates who argued that, under Arkansas' constitution, only the Legislature can set execution policy. Legislators in 2009 voted to give that authority to the Department of Correction.

The 2009 law says a death sentence is to be carried out by lethal injection of one or more chemicals that the director of the Department of Correction chooses.

Death row inmate Jack Harold Jones Jr. sued the head of the correction department in 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the law. Nine other inmates have since joined the suit, asking that the law be struck down.

Read the rest here.

Near 1 in 5 say they will not vote for a Mormon

PRINCETON, NJ -- Eighteen percent of Americans say they would not vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate who happens to be a Mormon, virtually the same as the 17% who held this attitude in 1967.

Read the rest here.

Feds Sue Towns Dominated By Polygamous Cult

The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against two towns dominated by a polygamous sect on Thursday, accusing officials of failing to protect nonmembers and enforcing the edicts of leader Warren Jeffs above the law.

The complaint filed in Arizona’s U.S. District Court accuses the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, of "operating as an arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," for at least 20 years. It marks a departure for the federal government, which has until now steered clear of filing cases against FLDS members.

There are nearly two dozen allegations in the lawsuit, many involving the police agency the towns share. The earliest incident dates back to 2000, when attorneys say Colorado City town marshals confronted a sect member in an attempt to return an underage bride to her husband’s home after she fled.

Other accusations include police helping euthanize the town’s dogs at Jeffs’ order, keeping a woman in jail overnight on an inaccurate underage alcohol charge and threatening arrest of non-FLDS children if they continued to play at a city park.

The lawsuit also accuses town water and power utilities of refusing to provide housing permits and utility hookups to nonmembers or to allow them to move into homes.

Read the rest here.

Moody's downgrades credit rating for 15 major banks

Ratings agency Moody's downgraded the long-term credit ratings of 15 major U.S., Canadian, and European banks today after markets in New York closed.

Of the 15 firms downgraded this afternoon, none were hit more than Moody's originally said was possible when it placed them on review in February.

The action will likely force many of the banks targeted post additional collateral against trades held on their books.

Below, a summary of the major ratings action taken.

Cut One Notch:

    HSBC downgraded to Aa3 from Aa2
    Lloyds TSB downgraded to A2 from A1
    RBS downgraded to Baa1 from A3
    Societe Generale downgraded to A2 from A1

Cut Two Notches:

    Bank of America downgraded to Baa2 from Baa1
    BNP Paribas downgraded to A2 from Aa3
    Barclays downgraded to A3 from A1
    Citigroup downgraded to Baa2 from A3
    Credit Agricole downgraded to to A2 from Aa3
    Goldman Sachs downgraded to A3 from A1
    JP Morgan Chase downgraded to A2 from Aa3
    Morgan Stanley downgraded to Baa1 from A2
    RBC downgraded to Aa3 from Aa1
    UBS downgraded to A2 from Aa3

Cut Three Notches:

    Credit Suisse downgraded to (P)A2 from (P)Aa2

In February, Moody's also placed Nomura and Macquarie credit ratings on watch for downgrade. However, the agency took action before today, lowering Nomura and Macquarie by one level each, to Baa3 and A2, respectively.

Read the rest here.

This is really bad news for the banking sector which was already weak.

In case there was any doubt...

...as to just how bad things have gotten with dissident Roman Catholic nuns and their supporters, this should settle the matter.

HT: The Crescat

Yea, I am Orthodox, so that means I have some issues with the Catholic Church, though of course I don't pretend to be Roman Catholic. But that aside Benedict XVI is the best thing to hit Rome in centuries. My fear is that it will take decades to clean house over there. May God grant him many many years!

When Billionairs Need to Get Away

The rich really are different from you and me. We go to Hawaii. They buy Hawaii.

Read the rest here.

Ron Paul 'Revolution' strikes at GOP state parties

Ron Paul’s third campaign for president may not lead to the Texas Congressman being nominated at the Republican Convention in Tampa this August -- notwithstanding a lawsuit filed by supporters in attempt to make that happen -- but, from Maine to Alaska, the “Paul Revolution” has swept state Republican parties.

Out of the national spotlight, Paul activists have mastered obscure local party rules to win key positions of power at state conventions, infiltrating the Republican establishment across the country, including in the key swing states of Iowa and Nevada.

n Massachusetts, they even beat out many prominent pro-Mitt Romney supporters to win spots as Romney delegates. They are informally bound by party rules to vote for Romney still, but the open secret in both parties, is no one is really bound – one of the issues at the heart of the Paul supporters’ lawsuit against the national party.

Read the rest here.

Jury begins deliberations in trial of Jerry Sandusky

Jurors in Bellefonte, Pa., began their deliberations Thursday in the child sexual abuse trial of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky after hearing two starkly different descriptions of the case against him.

In closing arguments, the prosecution and the defense clashed over defense attorney Joseph Amendola's suggestion that the entire case — in which two grand juries accused Sandusky of having abused 10 young boys over 15 years — was a conspiracy among police, prosecutors and the alleged victims and their lawyers, in hopes of a big payday in future civil trials.

Read the rest here.

Stocks get hammered on economic worries

Stocks tumbled Thursday on weak manufacturing data in the United States and around the globe and after Goldman Sachs made a bearish call on the S&P 500 index.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed the day down 251 points, while the Nasdaq composite lost 71 points and the S&P 500 declined 30 points.

All three major indexes lost their gains for the week. The day's decline was the worst since June 1 when the S&P 500 fell 2.5 percent.

The selloff accelerated as Goldman Sachs recommended that its clients build short positions in the S&P 500, which it expects to fall further. All three major stock indexes are on track to post their worst daily loss since June 1.

Read the rest here.

A Disturbing Legal Trend

Public officials are increasingly refusing to uphold laws they disagree with, from presidential "signing statements" to refusal to defend laws in open open court that they are politically opposed to. This needs to stop. When you assume an office of public trust you don't have the right to decide which laws you will or will not obey. Nor if you are a lawyer on the public payroll, do you have the right to decide what laws you will defend in court. If I were a tax paying citizen of Illinois I would file an ethics complaint with the state bar association alleging failure to zealously defend the interests of their client.

If your conscience will not allow you to defend a law then you should either not have taken the job, or you should do the honorable thing and resign.

Canada: RIP freedom of press, speech and religion

In what they are touting as a “world first,” a Quebec homosexual activist group has launched a “registry of homophobic acts” with support and funding from the Quebec Government’s Justice Department.  Standing alongside Montreal Police Chief Johanne Paquin and Commander Alain Gagnon, the leadership of the group Gai Ecoute launched the anonymous tipster registry at a press conference today.

Included in the definition of actions classified as “homophobic” and deemed worthy of reporting to the registry are: “any negative word or act toward a homosexual or homosexuality in general: physical abuse, verbal abuse, intimidation, harassment, offensive graffiti, abuse, injurious mockery, inappropriate media coverage and discrimination.”

A press release from the group says that anyone who has experienced or witnessed an act of homophobia “must” report it to the registry of homophobic acts.

Funding and support for the venture comes from the Quebec Justice Ministry’s department of “The Fight Against Homophobia.” The Justice Ministry was tasked with fighting homophobia in 2008 and last year pledged $7 million to ‘anti-homophobia’ activities.

Read the rest here.
HT: The Crescat

Protestant Ecclesiology and the Problem of Heresy

...Circling back to the charges of “heresy” or “heretical” teaching, then, I find it difficult to quantify what men like Mohler and Truett actually intend by such accusations—and whether they could really bear any impact on individuals or on the convention as a whole. If the only standard for Protestant (and Southern Baptist) dogma is an appeal to the scriptures (or even their “right understanding”), how can one ever convincingly argue that one doctrine or another is heresy? What Mohler and Truett are both appealing to is a certain understanding of Church history and tradition, and not scripture alone...

...At the end of the day, the word heresy—for those with an anti-ecclesiology (and for most Protestants, really)—is little more than an insult. It carries no weight and it has no ecclesiastical authority or demand to it. Indeed, I think this is why some are offended when they hear members of the Orthodox Church using terms like heterodox or heretic in theological discussions. They assume we mean what they mean by those words—insults. But we actually have specific, technical meanings attached to such terms, and the means by which to address them.

Read the rest here.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuador Embassy in London and has asked for political asylum, Ecuador's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"Ecuador is studying and analyzing the request," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters in the capital Quito.

The Ecuador Embassy issued the following statement:

    This afternoon Mr Julian Assange arrived at the Ecuadorian Embassy seeking political asylum from the Ecuadorian government.

    As a signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration for Human Rights, with an obligation to review all applications for asylum, we have immediately passed his application on to the relevant department in Quito.

    While the department assesses Mr Assange's application, Mr Assange will remain at the embassy, under the protection of the Ecuadorian Government.

    The decision to consider Mr Assange's application for protective asylum should in no way be interpreted as the Government of Ecuador interfering in the judicial processes of either the United Kingdom or Sweden.

Read the rest here.

Good luck with that. The last time I checked "rape" was not classified as a political crime anywhere in the world. Nor is Sweden a country that is likely to prosecute someone on trumped up charges just to make the US happy. If anything Sweden has a more sober and fair legal system than ours. So I say pack him off to Sweden and let him have his day in court.

Russian ship bound for Syria heads for home after insurance is cancelled

LONDON — British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament on Tuesday that a Russian ship believed to be carrying helicopters and weapons had aborted its journey to Syria after losing insurance coverage.

The British government informed the Standard Club insurance company that continuing to insure the MV Alaed ship would violate European sanctions against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if the ship were found to be carrying weapons or other forbidden material, news services reported.

“We were made aware of the allegations that the Alaed was carrying munitions destined for Syria, which would be a clear breach of our club rule,” Standard Club said in a statement. “We consequently informed the ship owner that their insurance cover ceased automatically in view of the nature of the voyage.”

The ship then changed course and was set to return to Russia, its cargo intact, Hague said.

Read the rest here.

New Western Rite (ROCOR) Parish in Northern Virginia

The Holy Family Orthodox Church will bring something new to the area as it is the only Western Rite Orthodox church in the northern Shenandoah Valley.

The Rev. Richard Reed was recently ordained in New York, and is in the process of establishing the parish. He is holding liturgies at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings in a temporary chapel in his Woodstock home.

Read the rest here.

Visit their website here.

Ron Paul Wins Iowa

Ron Paul won Iowa! At the Iowa GOP convention over the weekend, supporters of the Texas libertarian walked away with 23 of the state’s 28 national convention delegates. Under state Republican rules, those delegates are unbound, meaning they can vote for Congressman Paul in August in Tampa, Fla., if they please. It’s another example of how Paul’s strategy of getting his people organized at the grass-roots level has (somewhat) paid off in the end.

Read the rest here.

And Dr. Paul also raised another nearly $2 million for his campaign last month, AFTER HE CONCEDED THE NOMINATION. Not bad.

Niall Ferguson: Runaway debt is mortgaging our future

Critics of Western democracy are right to discern that something is amiss with our political institutions. The most obvious symptom of the malaise is the huge debts we have managed to accumulate in recent decades, which (unlike in the past) cannot largely be blamed on wars.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the gross government debt of Greece this year will reach 153 per cent of GDP. For Italy the figure is 123, for Ireland 113, for Portugal 112 and for the United States 107.

Britain’s debt is approaching 88 per cent. Japan – a special case as the first non-Western country to adopt Western institutions – is the world leader, with a mountain of government debt approaching 236 per cent of GDP, more than triple what it was 20 years ago.

Often these debts get discussed as if they themselves were the problem, and the result is a rather sterile argument between proponents of “austerity” and “stimulus”. I want to suggest that they are a consequence of a more profound malaise.

Read the rest here.