Major Anglican Meeting Likely Cancelled

An every ten year gathering of all or most of the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion is likely to be cancelled or at least postponed indefinitely. The decision to put off the Lambeth Conference indefinitely due to extreme differences within the communion over church doctrine and discipline is believed to be without modern precedent. The only previous postponements were a result of the two world wars.

Read the story here.
HT: T-19

The Secret Service Under Fire

It's been a tough year for the Secret Service. One after another the hits just keep coming for one of the most legendary law enforcement agencies out there. Their job description requires among other things, a readiness to step between the person they are protecting and anyone or thing that may pose a danger to their principal. In the most extreme case they would be expected to use their bodies as human shields and "take the bullet" meant for the President. (At least one agent has done exactly that.) And for 113 years they have, with one truly horrific exception, kept the President's of this country safe from harm despite several close calls.

But now we have people openly questioning whether they are up to the job after a series of scandals and revelations of embarrassing security lapses. Recently an armed man not only jumped the White House fence but managed to force his way into the Executive Mansion itself where he ran amok until finally tackled by an off duty agent.

Possibly though, the most alarming revelation has just made it into the open. Two weeks ago an armed man with a violent criminal record, who somehow had acquired a job as security contractor for the CDC, managed to ride an elevator with President Obama! That's crazy.

Sacrificing Property Rights on the Altar of Gun Rights

...As a matter of personal preference, I would certainly encourage private companies to allow their employees to bring their firearms to work, and, as a matter of taste, I would prefer it if those who have been discovered violating company policy were treated gently — especially if they were forced to break the rules in self-defense. But, unless one is to wholly rewrite the nature of American constitutional government, these decisions must be reserved to the private sector, and not to local voters or representatives. Like all of the provisions within the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment serves as a check on government and on government alone. It does not apply to Walmart or to FedEx or to Joe’s Highway Diner. When the NRA gripes that some politicians are “heeding corporate concerns” over the predilections of gun owners, what it is really saying is that those politicians are respecting property rights and refusing to get involved where they are not welcome. At what point, one wonders, did that become undesirable to liberty-loving people?

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Consecration of St. Clement's

The consecration of the church dedicated to the Great Martyr St. Clement Pope of Rome September 27, 2014

We Broke Iraq

Colin Powell famously told President George W. Bush before the Iraq invasion, "If you break it, you own it." Well, it's safe to say we broke Iraq.

That's the story I heard last week from two people who live there. I met with the Rev. Canon Andrew White — "The Vicar of Baghdad" — who serves as the chaplain to St. George's Anglican Church in the heart of Baghdad. We were joined by Sarah Ahmed, a director at White's Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. Ahmed was born and raised in Iraq. White has lived there for 15 years.

"I was in favor of the U.S. invasion," White told me. "But we are literally 5,000 times worse than before. If you look at it, you can see it was wrong. We have gained nothing. Literally nothing. We may have had an evil dictator, but now we have total terrorism. We used to have one Saddam. Now we have thousands."

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

Worst Op-Ed of the Month

OK, there are still a few days left in September. But I am calling it game over and handing this month's prize to Dan Emmett for this piece promoting a further militarization of our society and law enforcement. I won't even touch who he wants to put in charge of protecting the President of the United States.

North Korean Dictator Suffering from "Discomfort"

He hasn't been seen in weeks and his most recent previous appearances showed him limping. All of which has gotten the rumor mill running at full tilt. Now in a very rare admission the N. Korean state media has publicly admitted that their supreme dictator is suffering from "discomfort." Hmmm...

Read the story here.

10% of Americans Drink Half of All Booze Consumed Annually

Do you drink a glass of wine with dinner every night? That puts you in the top 30 percent of American adults in terms of per-capita alcohol consumption. If you drink two glasses, that would put you in the top 20 percent.

But in order to break into the top 10 percent of American drinkers, you would need to drink more than two bottles of wine with every dinner. And you'd still be below-average among those top 10 percenters.

The top 10 percent of American drinkers - 24 million adults over age 18 - consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week. That works out to a little more than four-and-a-half 750 ml bottles of Jack Daniels, 18 bottles of wine, or three 24-can cases of beer. In one week.

Or, if you prefer, 10 drinks per day.

Read the rest here.

A Hollywood Ending for Captain Clutch

Derek Jeter, the longtime captain of the New York Yankees, hit a walk off single in the bottom of the ninth, driving in the tie breaking run in his final at bat in Yankee Stadium. Really, was there ever any doubt?

Next stop... Cooperstown.

Flight to Israel Delayed as Ultra-Orthodox Jews Demand Gender Segregation

An El-Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv was turned into an “11-hour nightmare” after hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish passengers refused to sit next to women.

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The California Dream: A second bedroom

IRVINE, Calif. — This was the state that embodied the middle-class American dream: Move west, acquire a small slice of property, perhaps with a palm tree or two.

For decades, comfortable suburbs like this one just south of Los Angeles boomed with new housing tracts designed to attract the latest arrivals. When space started to come at a premium, developers moved inland, building more homes for people who could not afford the more expensive coastal areas.

But now, cities across the state are grappling with a dwindling stock of housing that can be considered affordable for anyone but the wealthiest. In much of the state, a two-bedroom apartment or home is virtually impossible to acquire with anything less than a six-figure salary.

“It’s hard to imagine how all of California doesn’t become like New York City and San Francisco, where you have very rich people and poor people but nothing in between,” said Richard K. Green, an economist and director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California. “That’s socially unhealthy and unsustainable, but it’s where we are going right now — affordability is its worst ever, and we’re seeing a hollowing-out of the middle class here.”

Read the rest here.

The Resurgence of European Anti-Semitism

SARCELLES, France — From the immigrant enclaves of the Parisian suburbs to the drizzly bureaucratic city of Brussels to the industrial heartland of Germany, Europe’s old demon returned this summer. “Death to the Jews!” shouted protesters at pro-Palestinian rallies in Belgium and France. “Gas the Jews!” yelled marchers at a similar protest in Germany.

The ugly threats were surpassed by uglier violence. Four people were fatally shot in May at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. A Jewish-owned pharmacy in this Paris suburb was destroyed in July by youths protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. A synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany, was attacked with firebombs. A Swedish Jew was beaten with iron pipes. The list goes on.

Read the rest here.

ISIS Destroys Memorial & Church of Armenian Genocide in Der Zor, Syria

Fighters from the Islamic State (ISIS) reportedly desecrated and blew up the Armenian Genocide memorial complex in the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, near the site where vast numbers of Armenian refugees were forced to march to their deaths in the early 20th century. 

The Church, located in al-Rashidyeh neighborhood, was built in 1989-1990, and consecrated a year later. 

The Armenian Genocide Memorial Church contains the remains of victims of the Armenian Genocide collected from the Syrian desert and has served as a pilgrimage site for Armenians worldwide, and every year, on April 24, special commemoration ceremonies attended by thousands of people would be held at the site. 

Read the rest here.

US and allies launch heavy air strikes on ISIS

The United States and several Middle East partners pounded Islamic State targets in Syria Tuesday with waves of warplanes and Tomahawk cruise missiles in an aggressive and risky operation marking a new phase in the conflict.

A statement issued by the U.S. Central Command early Tuesday said that a “mix of fighter, bomber, remotely-piloted aircraft and Tomahawk” cruise missiles destroyed or damaged multiple Islamic State targets in Syria, where a civil war has been raging for more than three years.

The U.S. statement said “partner nations,” including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, “participated in or supported” the operation, although it provided no details. The involvement of these regional allies are key for the legitimacy and logistics of the operation.

Read the rest here.

When Israel is the Subject, Rabbis Tread Carefully

...Forty-seven years after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Middle East war — celebrated by Jews worldwide — Israel’s occupation of Arab lands won in battle and its standoff with the Palestinians have become so divisive that many rabbis say it is impossible to have a civil conversation about Israel in their synagogues. Debate among Jews about Israel is nothing new, but some say the friction is now fire. Rabbis said in interviews that it may be too hot to touch, and many are anguishing over what to say about Israel in their sermons during the High Holy Days, which begin Wednesday evening.

Read the rest here.

US Ramping Up Nuclear Weapons at Huge Expense

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A sprawling new plant here in a former soybean field makes the mechanical guts of America’s atomic warheads. Bigger than the Pentagon, full of futuristic gear and thousands of workers, the plant, dedicated last month, modernizes the aging weapons that the United States can fire from missiles, bombers and submarines.

It is part of a nationwide wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers. A recent federal study put the collective price tag, over the next three decades, at up to a trillion dollars.

This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for “a nuclear-free world” and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy. The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut the number of warheads.

Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reductions in return.

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OCA Holy Synod issues Preliminary Response to canonical restructuring proposals

A Preliminary Response of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America to proposals with regard to canonical restructuring, a topic of discussion at the fifth meeting of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America in Dallas, TX September 15-19, 2014, was issued and distributed to all bishops on September 17.

The text of the Preliminary Response reads as follows.

Read the rest here.

Crying Rape

In the emotionally charged conversation about rape, few topics are more fraught than that of false allegations. Consider some responses to the news that singer-songwriter Conor Oberst had been falsely accused of sexual assault. Last December a woman writing in the comments section of the website xoJane, going by the name Joanie Faircloth, claimed Oberst raped her when she was a teenager. The charge spread across the Internet; Oberst denied it and brought a libel suit against Faircloth when she refused to retract the story. In July she completely recanted, admitting that she had made it all up to get attention. Yet instead of showing sympathy for the ordeal of the musician—one known for being supportive of feminist issues—some chided him for taking legal action to defend himself against a false, career-damaging charge. In the Daily Dot, pop culture critic Chris Ostendorf decried the lawsuit, arguing that it could intimidate real victims of rape and that it promoted the idea of men as victims of false accusations—even though that’s exactly what Oberst was. After Oberst dropped the suit, Bustle’s Caroline Pate praised his decision and referred to the saga as “a roller-coaster for both parties”—treating the false accuser and the wrongly accused as morally equivalent—and called the revelation of Oberst’s innocence “crushingly disappointing.”

False rape accusations are a lightning rod for a variety of reasons. Rape is a repugnant crime—and one for which the evidence often relies on one person’s word against another’s. Moreover, in the not-so-distant past, the belief that women routinely make up rape charges often led to appalling treatment of victims. However, in challenging what author and law professor Susan Estrich has called “the myth of the lying woman,” feminists have been creating their own counter-myth: that of the woman who never lies.

More than a quarter-century ago, feminist legal theorist Catharine MacKinnon wrote that “feminism is built on believing women’s accounts of sexual use and abuse by men”; today, Jessica Valenti urges us to “believe victims en masse,” because only then will we recognize the true prevalence of sexual assault. But a de facto presumption of guilt in alleged sexual offenses is as dangerous as a presumption of guilt in any crime, and for the same reasons: It upends the foundations on which our system of justice rests and creates a risk of ruining innocent lives.

Read the rest here.

After the Vote: Cameron Suggests a Federal System for Great Britain (Updated)

So Scotland is staying with the promise of what will effectively be Home Rule, with Westminster (Parliament) exercising authority over only matters of obvious interest to the entire United Kingdom, i.e. defense, foreign affairs, trade and commerce etc. Pretty much everything else will be handled by the Scottish Parliament. But now Cameron is throwing a wrench into the works and suggesting that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. He wants ALL of the UK to enjoy the same benefits. That would mean Northern Ireland, Wales and yes, England would also have the right to substantially self govern themselves. Predictably the Labor Party is up in arms. It's one thing for Scotland to be largely free of any Tory governance. It is altogether a different matter for the English to be able to govern themselves, likely with very limited input from Labor.

(Update) The BBC has a good story up discussing the constitutional, and political, issues revolving around home rule for England.

Scotland Says "No" to Secession

Scotland has decisively rejected secession from Great Britain. If the current figures hold, the margin of defeat for the nationalists will be near a super-majority of 10 pts. Such a sharp rejection of the proposal should put an end to any serious threat of dis-union for the foreseeable future and cannot be seen as anything other than an electoral rebuke to the SNP.

Still, Westminster would be gravely mistaken in taking too much comfort from this victory. A significant percentage of Scots did vote to secede.  And it is probable that at least some of the No votes were reluctant ones, likely based  more on pragmatic concerns than any affection for the United Kingdom. Clearly there is a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction north of the border.