Devotional: If I were but sure...



If I were but sure that I should live to see the coming of the Lord, it would be the joyfulest tidings in the world. O that I might see His kingdom come! It is the characteristic of His saints to love His appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." ...Richard Baxter image by Per Ola Wiberg

FBI issues alert for Barbie doll with video camera

Dec 7, 2010 By TERRY COLLINS
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The FBI says it recently issued an alert about a popular Barbie doll with a hidden video camera that could be used to produce child pornography, but stressed that the toy has not been linked with any reported crimes.

FBI spokesman Steve Dupre said Tuesday the alert last month was meant only for law enforcement agencies to advise them not to overlook Mattel's "Barbie Video Girl" during any searches. The alert was sent out by the bureau's Sacramento office.

It was then accidentally sent to some members of the media, Dupre said. the rest

26 US religious leaders affirm: Marriage is union of one man, one woman

December 07, 2010

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined 25 other religious leaders in affirming that “marriage is the permanent and faithful union of one man and one woman.”

Representatives of leading conservative Protestant denominations (such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God), as well as Orthodox Jewish, Mormon, and Sikh leaders, signed the statement.

Notably absent from the signatories are the heads of mainline Protestant denominations such as the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (USA). Here

Calgary Anglican explains why parish wants to join Catholic church

December 7th, 2010

CALGARY - For longtime Anglican Richard Harding, switching to the Catholic church feels like coming home.

Last month, Harding and other members of the St. John the Evangelist congregation in Calgary became the first Anglican parish in Canada to accept an offer from the Pope to rejoin the Catholic church.

Harding said they are excited about the change.

Only two members of the parish in Inglewood, one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, voted against the move and a few others abstained.

But some, including the congregation's former priest, have decided not to switch, so the move is bittersweet. the rest

Snow in Central NY

December 7, 2010

In the last few days, up to 2 feet of snow has fallen in Syracuse and most parts of central NY.  Here is a picture of our arborvitae in the back yard very early this morning.  And winter has barely begun! -PD (picture by Raymond Dague)

Schools close or delay as Syracuse region combats record snowfall

Ants on a Crucifix in Norman Rockwell’s America



Dec 7, 2010
Elizabeth Scalia

Last October, the Smithsonian Institute opened the “Hide/Seek” exhibit, which, as the Washington Post’s Blake Gopnik writes, “surveys how same-sex love has been portrayed in art, from Walt Whitman’s hints to open declarations in the era of AIDS and Robert Mapplethorpe’s bullwhips.” Gopnik praised the show hugely, calling it “courageous, as well as being full of wonderful art.”

The exhibit seemed destined for an uncontroversial run until CNS News threw conservatives red-meat and called “Hide/Seek” a “Christmas Season exhibit.” News that the exhibit included David Wojnarowicz’s thirty-minute video “A Fire in My Belly,”which contains an 11-second image of ants crawling on a crucifix, lit a fire in the bellies of conservative American Christians, who put “ants,” “crucifix” and “Christmas” into their interior search engines and linked up to “fury.”
the rest image

To be fair to them, if they seem hyper-vigilant about discerning insults toward Christmas, it is only because the forces of political correctness have often gone to absurd lengths to denude the season of meaning, and excise it from the public square. In the bizarro-world of progressive thought, even if ninety percent of Americans celebrate some aspect of Christmas, the sensibilities of the ten percent who do not observe it must be protected from all of those tidings of comfort and joy.

Calgary Anglicans first congregation in Canada to join Catholic Church

Mon Dec 6 2010

CALGARY—A congregation of conservative Anglicans in Calgary has become the first in Canada to accept an offer from the Pope to rejoin the Catholic Church.

Members of the St. John the Evangelist Anglican parish voted in November in favour of the change after a year of talks with Catholic Church officials.

“We accept, unreservedly and with humility and gratitude, the invitation of His Holiness Pope Benedict to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church,” reads the motion the congregation approved. the rest

Belgium: Court Approves “Wrongful Life” Rule that Disabled Child Should Never Have Been Born

Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wesley J. Smith

Belgium’s euthanasia law permits people to be killed by doctors because they are disabled. In such a discriminatory setting, is it any wonder that a Belgian court has now approved the odious notion of a wrongful life. From the story (may have to hit translation button):

The Court of Appeal in Brussels responds positively to this extremely sensitive issue. After noting that “certainly, the misdiagnosis did not cause the child’s disability, which existed before the error and which could not be remedied,” the Court considers that, “however, the injury must be compensated is not the disability itself, but the fact of being born with such disabilities. “ Thus, the child, the voice of his parents, may claim compensation for physicians who, through their fault, some were injured and legitimate interest to be a therapeutic abortion, as granted that his mother would have been appeal if it had been duly informed of the condition during pregnancy. In the opinion of the Court, by entering in the Penal Code article 350, paragraph 2, 4, authorizing therapeutic abortion, “the legislature must have intended to help avoid giving birth to children with abnormalities serious, having regard not only to the interests of the mother but also to that of the unborn child itself. ”

This is the first time in Belgium that an appellate court receives such a wrongful life action (wrongful life). Previously, a trial court of first instance of Brussels, released April 21, 2004, had adopted a similar solution, about a child with Down syndrome. the rest

Hope & Change… More Muslims Defend Suicide Bombing Today Than in 2008



by Jim Hoft

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Boy, that Cairo speech did wonders, didn’t it?

More Muslims in Lebanon, Nigeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey defend suicide bombing today than they did in 2008.

Story

Albert Mohler: The Retreat from Marriage — A Recipe for Disaster



For reasons that include all that we can learn from this report, and for many more that we know from the Scriptures and Christian wisdom, Christians know that the marginalization of marriage can only lead to unhappiness, unhealthiness, and the unraveling of human relationships.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

If you were determined to consign a population to poverty and any number of social pathologies, how might you do it? If your design is to extend the effects of these pathologies and pains to successive generations, what might be your plan? The answer to both of these questions is clear. Just marginalize marriage.

Economists report that the wealth deficit of the unmarried as compared to the consistently married is as much as 75 percent. The unmarried are less healthy, less wealthy, and less stable in relationships as compared to married couples. And, to no one’s surprise, the ill effects of this condition are extended immediately to the children of unmarried unions and to generations to come.

In other words, it is hard to imagine a plot to bring harm and unhappiness to human lives that can compare, in social and economic terms, to the marginalization of marriage. the rest image

Role of marriage virtually ignored

Rep. Michele Bachmann: De-Fund Planned Parenthood

Monday, December 06, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Michele Bachmann (R.-Minn.) is calling on the U.S. House of Representatives to de-fund Planned Parenthood after the newly elected Republican majority takes charge next month.

“Well, I think one thing that we can do, quite simply, is to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood,” Bachmann said when asked by CNSNews.com what practical steps she believed the in-coming House majority could take to protect unborn babies. the rest

ENS: "Climate justice" is focus of four-day Episcopal/Anglican gathering in Dominican Republic

By Lynette Wilson
December 06, 2010

[Episcopal News Service] Anglican and Episcopal leaders from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean are arriving Dec. 6 in the Dominican Republic for a four-day gathering to explore the intersection between poverty and climate change.

"We're hoping to change the conversation in the church from one of climate change to climate justice," said the Rev. P. Joshua "Griff" Griffin, environmental justice missioner in the Diocese of California and one of the conference's organizers.

Representatives from Cuba, the United States, Ecuador, Panama, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic will meet Dec. 7-10 at the Bishop Kellogg Center in San Pedro de Macorís, east of the capital Santo Domingo, for the first Episcopal Climate Justice Gathering, convened by Bishop Marc Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California, and Bishop Naudal Gomes, Diocese of Curitiba, Brazil. the rest-(this is one for MCJ) image



What happened to the 'warmest year on record'?

19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind



Posted December 7, 2010

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II. But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally outproduce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children? the rest image by Derrick Coetzee

Unmarried With Kids: A Shift In The Working Class

by Jennifer Ludden
December 6, 2010

The path to adulthood used to be clear — love, marriage, baby carriage — and no one embodied that more than America's working class. But today, for those with only a high school education, that order no longer holds; in fact, a new study suggests that marriage is foundering in Middle America.

Andrew Felices, 26, and Mellissa Giles, 27, are this new face of the American family. They've been living together since before their son, A.J., was born. He's 2 1/2 now, and he shrieks gleefully as he sprawls on the basement floor with dad, building a train track. The couple bought a cozy condo in Frederick, Md., last summer. A home, a child — but neither is in any rush to tie the knot.

"We're still young," Mellissa says. We're enjoying the time as it is."

What's important, says Andrew, is "having your life the way you want it, your lifestyle in place. Getting married is really the cherry on top."
 the rest

Culturally, it's certainly much more acceptable to have children without being wed. But there's still an argument for marriage: Wilcox says unmarried parents are more than twice as likely to break up by the time their child is 5.

The Changing Culture War

UK: Unmarried parents 'to blame for rise in broken homes'
Nearly half of children born today will be living in broken homes by the age of 16 as growing numbers of families split up, according to analysis of official figures...
'Faith gap' seen among married
In addition to an "education gap" in marriage, there is also a "faith gap," says the new State of Our Unions report on marriage.
"Middle America has lost its religious edge," wrote W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, looking at trends over the past 40 years.

In the 1970s, the moderately educated — blue-collar, working-class Americans with high school diplomas or some college — were more likely to go to church every week than people with college degrees.

That has now reversed: Today 34 percent of college graduates attend weekly religious services, compared with 28 percent of moderately educated Americans, said the report...

The Moral Frontiers of Stem Cell Research

by Matthew Hoberg
December 6, 2010

Though recent progress in induced pluripotent stem-cell research may reduce reliance on embryonic stem cells, it is no moral panacea.

Scientists have recently developed a safe and efficient method to create induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from adult skin cells. Many opponents of embryonic stem cell research hail this news as an important step away from research methods that rely on destroying embryos. Despite this advance, the future of iPS cell research involves challenging moral and legal issues.

The therapeutic promise of stem cell research rests on using pluripotent stem cells, which can be grown into many of the types of cells found in the human body. Until recently, such cells could be produced only by destroying human embryos and harvesting embryonic stem cells. Opponents of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) sought a method of producing pluripotent cells without destroying embryos. Their goal was to show that adult cells, rather than embryos, could provide the raw material for stem-cell therapy.

In 2007, scientists demonstrated that they could transform human skin cells into iPS cells, bypassing the destruction of embryos. While opponents of ESCR hailed this announcement as a sign that iPS cells could provide the full therapeutic promise of ES cells, the methods were still in their infancy. It took about a month for the iPS cells to develop, and very few transformations were successful: 99.9% of treated cells failed to transform. Besides being slow and unreliable, the techniques were dangerous. Viruses were used to insert specific genes into the adult cells, which increased the cancer risk for the stem cells and thus for prospective patients receiving stem cell therapy. Without a safer technique, the promise of iPS cell research remained in the future.
 the rest image

The Growing Aversion to Abortion

Dec 6, 2010
by Steve Chapman

Excerpt:
...The news that the abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years elicits various explanations, from increased use of contraceptives to lack of access to abortion clinics. But maybe the chief reason is that the great majority of Americans, even many who see themselves as pro-choice, are deeply uncomfortable with it.
In 1992, a Gallup/Newsweek poll found 34 percent of Americans thought abortion "should be legal under any circumstances," with 13 percent saying it should always be illegal. Last year, only 26 percent said it should always be allowed, with 18 percent saying it should never be permitted.

Sentiments are even more negative among the group that might place the highest value on being able to escape an unwanted pregnancy: young people. In 2003, Gallup found, one of every three kids from age 13 to 17 said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. More revealing yet is that 72 percent said abortion is "morally wrong." the rest

Ted Turner calls for global one-child policy like China’s

2 More Christians Killed in Baghdad

Mon, Dec. 06 2010
By Nathan Black
Christian Post Reporter

Iraq's Christian minority took another hit Sunday evening when gunmen shot and killed an elderly Christian couple in their home.

The shooting took place in Baladiyat, a predominantly Shiite area in eastern Baghdad, and was the latest in a series of attacks that has left dozens of Christians dead in recent weeks.

Violence perpetrated by Islamic extremists has forced hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians to flee the country. Since 2003, the Christian population has shrunk from 1.2 million to 600,000, by some estimates. the rest

Christian 'hemorrhage' increases in Iraq

Somali Teenage Girl Shot to Death for Embracing Christ

Advent brings little peace for the persecuted church in India

Mich. town allows church to occupy property in wake of lawsuit

City quickly agrees to court order that allows church represented by ADF-allied attorney to use building for religious services
Monday, December 06, 2010

HAZEL PARK, Mich. — The city of Hazel Park has agreed to a court order, issued Friday, that prohibits the city from enforcing a zoning ordinance that bans religious groups--but not non-religious groups--from using buildings on commercial property for religious assembly. For nearly a year, Salvation Temple Church, represented by an Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney, was not allowed to occupy a building that it had contracted to purchase, yet non-religious organizations faced no such restriction.

“Churches shouldn’t be singled out for discrimination and kept from practicing their faith in their own building by a city’s zoning restrictions,” said ADF-allied attorney Daniel Dalton of Dalton, Tomich, & Pensler, PLC, in Bloomfield Hills. “City officials cannot restrict assemblies to purely non-religious activities. They intentionally changed their policy a few years ago to eliminate religious use so that they could increase their tax revenue, and that’s simply not legal. The city has finally done the right thing in agreeing to respect this church’s rights, protected by both the Constitution and federal law.” the rest

Majority of Muslims want Islam in politics, poll says

They have mixed feelings about the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, the survey shows.
By Meris Lutz, Los Angeles Times
December 6, 2010

Reporting from Beirut — A majority of Muslims around the world welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries' political life, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, but have mixed feelings toward militant religious groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

According to the survey, majorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria would favor changing current laws to allow stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion. About 85% of Pakistani Muslims said they would support a law segregating men and women in the workplace. the rest

Senate blocks Obama's tax plan

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Saturday, December 4, 2010

The Senate blocked President Obama's and Democratic leaders' tax cut plans Saturday in a foreordained symbolic vote that now sends both sides back to the negotiating table to work out a viable deal.

A bipartisan filibuster, led by unified Republicans and joined by four Democrats and one independent, proved there isn't enough support to back Mr. Obama's preferred option to extend income tax cuts for couples making less than $250,000 and tax increases for those making more than that.

With that vote out of the way, attention turns back to the high-level working group Mr. Obama and congressional leaders set up this week to try to work out a solution. That group met three times already, but Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican and one of the negotiators, said it was clear to him that Democrats weren't going to negotiate until they had gone through the votes to prove to their political base that raising taxes on the wealthy wasn't viable. the rest

NYT: Senate Rejects Obama’s Tax Plan, Setting Stage for Deal

TAC leader sees over 150 Anglican clerics entering ordinariates

December 03, 2010

The leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) has disclosed that over 150 clerics in his group, including 17 bishops, hope to enter ordinariates within the Catholic Church in the coming year.

Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth, in a message to members of the TAC, expressed high hopes for the success of the ordinariates—although he revealed that the past year’s negotiations have not always proceeded smoothly.

“There have been exquisite difficulties this year,” Archbishop Hepworth conceded. “We have discovered how little detailed knowledge we have of the way the Catholic Church does things, and Catholic officials have discovered, I believe, their need to acquire a better and more profound knowledge of contemporary Anglicanism.” the rest

E-mail spam: Will it abate with arrest of alleged master spammer?

Russian Oleg Nikolaenko is in US custody on charges of mail fraud and violating a law governing online marketing. His network is believed to account for one-third of global e-mail spam.
By Mark Guarino, Staff writer
 December 3, 2010

The arrest of alleged "spam king" Oleg Nikolaenko of Moscow does not necessarily mean all those unwanted solicitations for herbal remedies and pornography will stop clogging your e-mail inbox.

.Mr. Nikolaenko, who was arraigned in federal court in Milwaukee Friday, is alleged to have run one of the largest and most sophisticated spam networks in the world. His operation is responsible for sending about 10 billion spam messages a day at its peak, authorities say. His activities account for 32 percent of all global spam since 2007, the criminal complaint against him states. the rest

Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering

By HILARY STOUT
December 1, 2010

IT was last spring, somewhere between overseeing Teacher Appreciation Week and planning the fifth-grade graduation party, when Jamie Lentzner, mother of two in Foster City, Calif., reached her breaking point.
She had already designed the fifth-grade T-shirt, taught art twice monthly to three different classes, and organized movie night, restaurant night and beach night fund-raisers. She was overscheduled and exhausted. She had scant time to help her children with their school projects because — coincidentally — she was always working on projects for their school. “You’ve got to stop,” said her husband, Darin, who worried that the constant stress she seemed to feel was damaging to her health.

Ms. Lentzner realized that she had spiraled out of control. She vowed to put an end to all this volunteering — and to recapture some of the serenity in her family life that had vanished because of nothing more than a well-intentioned desire to pitch in.

Today, more than three months into the school year, Ms. Lentzner is a new woman. the rest

Albert Mohler: The Knowledge of the Self-Revealing God: Starting Point for the Christian Worldview

The Christian worldview is structured, first of all, by the revealed knowledge of God. There is no other starting point for an authentic Christian worldview—and there is no substitute.
Friday, December 3, 2010

One of the most important principles of Christian thinking is the recognition that there is no stance of intellectual neutrality. No human being is capable of achieving a process of thought that requires no presuppositions, assumptions, or inherited intellectual components. All human thinking requires some presupposed framework that defines reality and explains, in the first place, how it is possible that we can know anything at all.

The process of human cogitation and intellectual activity has been, in itself, the focus of intense intellectual concern. In philosophy, the field of study that is directed toward the possibility of human knowledge is epistemology. The ancient philosophers were concerned with the problem of knowledge, but this problem becomes all the more complex and acute in a world of intellectual diversity. In the aftermath of the Enlightenment, the problem of epistemology moved to the very center of philosophical thought. the rest image

In other words, the problem of knowledge is front and center as we think about the responsibility of forming a Christian worldview and loving God with our minds. The good news is this—just as we are saved by grace alone, we find that the starting point for all Christian thinking in the grace of God is demonstrated to us by means of his self-revelation.

Chaplains reveal strong but divergent views on gay ban

By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2010

In the Pentagon's 300-plus-page report on the proposed repeal of its "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the authors singled out one group whose strong views merited special attention: the chaplains.

The report found that 70 percent of service members thought there would be little or no negative impact to military readiness and unit cohesion if the government were to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military. But no group had such strong - or sharply divergent - views as the military's 3,000 chaplains, who provide spiritual guidance to the men and women in uniform.

The debate highlights the delicate position of the chaplains, who must balance the demands of their faiths with the reality of a diverse military. Their concerns will weigh heavily this month as Congress considers a proposal to lift the 17-year-old policy, supported by some who say it has prevented strife in the ranks but criticized by others as discriminatory and outdated at a time when homosexuality has gained mainstream acceptance.  the rest

Many conservatives worry that lifting the policy would muzzle chaplains whose religions require them to preach against homosexuality. The Rev. Douglas E. Lee, a retired Presbyterian Army chaplain and brigadier general who now counsels and credentials chaplains, said chaplains generally point out their views on homosexuality before counseling a service member on that issue. He worried that military policies may prohibit even that level of conversation if "don't ask, don't tell" is repealed, even though Pentagon officials have not recommended any change to the policy governing chaplains' behavior.

"There's a strong possibility that a chaplain wouldn't be allowed to proclaim what their own faith believes, and not give people the information they need to be a good Christian or a good Muslim or what have you," he said. "If there's no protection for the chaplain to be able to speak according to his faith group, that might affect the number of chaplains we recruit or our ability to do our duty for the troops."

Petition launched to abolish Alberta's Roman Catholic, Protestant schools

By MICHELLE THOMPSON and FRANK LANDRY
Edmonton Sun
December 1, 2010

A petition was launched by Alberta's former education minister Wednesday that calls for the Roman Catholic and Protestant separate schools to be abolished.

Written by ex-minister David King, the petition asks Albertans to decide whether such schools should exist when many religions go unrepresented within Alberta education.

"The Government of Alberta is in the process of updating our education laws for the 21st century," King said.

"It's important for Albertans to ask each other whether separate-but-equal schools for only two of many religious denominations belong in 21st century Alberta." the rest

Separate schools don't just shut out students — they also deny learners of inclusion and diversity, said King.

UK: Lead thieves use Google Earth to target churches

Thu Dec 2, 2010
By Avril Ormsby

LONDON (Reuters) - Thieves in Britain are using Google Earth to target lead roofs on Church of England buildings to sell on the lucrative metals market, a Church spokesman said.

About 8,000 churches have made insurance claims for lead theft worth about 23 million pounds during the past three years, the Church's estate commissioner Tony Baldry said during a debate in Westminster Hall.

In many cases, churches have replaced their roofs only to be targeted again, in one case 14 times.

Many of the Church of England's 16,000 churches are "listed," which provides planning protection for buildings of historical value, and date back hundreds of years. the rest

Calgary: Anglican Church abandoned its parishioners

By Susan Martinuk
Calgary Herald
December 3, 2010

Clearly, all is not well within the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC).

In what could be termed a reverse protestant reformation, Calgary's St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church voted overwhelmingly (90 per cent) to leave the ACC and align itself with Pope Benedict and the Roman Catholic Church. As such, it becomes the first Anglican congregation in Canada to take the Pope up on his October 2009 offer to welcome disillusioned Anglican congregations into the Catholic Church.

But that's where the 'new' news ends because St. John the Evangelist is not, by far, the first church to leave the ACC. In fact, it's only the most recent departure in a decade-long struggle between conservative Anglican parishes and their increasingly liberal leaders. the rest

In the words of one longtime Anglican member, who has watched this developing story with great interest, "It seems to me to be such a mistake to water down our core principles so greatly that we are not actually required to believe anything."

UN Executive Invokes Mayan Goddess At Cancun Global Warming Summit

Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
Friday, December 3, 2010

With United Nations climate negotiators facing an uphill battle to advance their goal of reducing emissions linked to global warming, it’s no surprise that the woman steering the talks appealed to a Mayan goddess Monday.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.” the rest

Welcome Advent into our Deepest Void

Thursday, December 2, 2010
Elizabeth Scalia

I shed tears of gratitude and joy that you have come round again, O Advent, to shake us from our torpor as early night comes, and the match is struck, and the message is brought home once more; that we are forever in the absence of light; it is beyond us and exterior until we make it welcome and bring it, like a lover, within.

Welcome into our deepest void; welcome into the parts of us touched by human frost, and stunted. More-just lovely! image

Latest Obama EPA Regulations Will Cost “Millions” of Lost Jobs

Latest Obama EPA Regulations Will Cost “Millions” of Lost Jobs
The latest regulations by the Obama Environmental Protection Agency will cost millions of lost jobs and another Trillion in costs for businesses each year. Not even Yellowstone National Park would be in compliance with the new standards...

The Third Lausanne Congress demonstrated that global evangelicalism has been transformed.

Teeming Diversity
Tim Stafford in Cape Town, South Africa
12/01/2010

It began with crisis, and it ended in worship.

The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, held October 17-25 in Cape Town, South Africa, was the first gathering of evangelical Christians to attempt to accurately represent the reality of today's church leadership. Though the West had a strong voice, its numbers were much smaller than the enthusiastic, unintimidated participants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Consequently, the congress had an atmosphere of continual discovery, as participants looked around and saw the teeming diversity of global faith. Ugandan Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi told a news conference, "It is a joy to see heaven begin here."

The Lausanne Movement used a highly decentralized process to select participants. A committee in each country chose delegates in numbers proportional to its nation's evangelical population, based on Operation World statistics. Out of a total of 4,000 delegates, the United States got to send 400, Canada 50, the UK 80, and China 230. Selection committees were to include the full spectrum of churches and ethnicities, to assure that at least 60 percent of their choices were under 50 years old, 10 percent under 30, and 10 percent from the "marketplace." Women were to compose at least 35 percent. the rest

Five Christians murdered in a week under Pakistan's blasphemy law

1 December, 2010

Pakistan (MNN) ― Muslim extremists are blamed for the murders of five Christians in Pakistan in less than a week.

Greg Musselman, spokesman for Voice of the Martyrs Canada, says 22-year-old Latif Masih was shot to death shortly after he was granted bail in a "blasphemy" case. He was accused in early November under Law 295c -- the infamous "Blasphemy Law" in which the two militants claimed he burnt pages of the Qur'an.

On November 18, Masih's accusers caught up with him and shot him to death near his home in Godhpur, village 111 kilometers (69 miles) northeast of Lahore. Days earlier, on November 12 in southern Punjab Province, police say Lashkar-e-Taiba militants killed four family members because of their Christian faith. the rest

The marked increase in these cases has created a renewed call by human rights watchdog groups for an end to the blasphemy law.

Iraq: Christian Mosul shopkeeper killed by gunmen

The marriage killer: One in five American divorces now involve Facebook

By David Gardner
2nd December 2010

It used to be the tell-tale lipstick on the collar. Then there were the give-away texts that spelled the death knell for many marriages.

But now one in five divorces involve the social networking site Facebook, according to a new survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

A staggering 80 per cent of divorce lawyers have also reported a spike in the number of cases that use social media for evidence of cheating. the rest

Facebook was by far the biggest offender, with 66 per cent of lawyers citing it as the primary source of evidence in a divorce case. MySpace followed with 15 per cent, Twitter at 5 per cent and other choices lumped together at 14 per cent.

Fed aid in financial crisis went beyond U.S. banks to industry, foreign firms

By Jia Lynn Yang, Neil Irwin and David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The financial crisis stretched even farther across the economy than many had realized, as new disclosures show the Federal Reserve rushed trillions of dollars in emergency aid not just to Wall Street but also to motorcycle makers, telecom firms and foreign-owned banks in 2008 and 2009.

The Fed's efforts to prop up the financial sector reached across a broad spectrum of the economy, benefiting stalwarts of American industry including General Electric and Caterpillar and household-name companies such as Verizon, Harley-Davidson and Toyota. The central bank's aid programs also supported U.S. subsidiaries of banks based in East Asia, Europe and Canada while rescuing money-market mutual funds held by millions of Americans.

The biggest users of the Fed lending programs were some of the world's largest banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Swiss-based UBS and Britain's Barclays, according to more than 21,000 loan records released Wednesday under new financial regulatory legislation. the rest

NY: No Last Push by Paterson to Legalize Gay Marriage

By THOMAS KAPLAN December 1, 2010

Gov. David A. Paterson, still unhappy about the defeat last year of a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage, reached out to lawmakers recently to see if they would approve it during the lame-duck session this year.

But even the most ardent supporters of the bill, which was resoundingly rejected by the State Senate last December, said the measure would meet the same fate if it were brought to the floor now, and the governor, apparently reaching the same conclusion, has abandoned the idea.  the rest

Former Church of England head: British Christians 'under attack'

December 1st, 2010
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN

Christianity is under attack in the United Kingdom, and Christians must fight efforts to "air-brush" their religion out of the picture, a former head of the Church of England warned Wednesday.

"In spite of having contributed so much to our civilization and providing its foundation, the Christian faith is in danger of being stealthily and subtly brushed aside," said George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury.

Carey is fronting a new campaign, "Not Ashamed," by the group Christian Concern. He launched it with appearances at the House of Lords, Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's office. the rest

Incredible Pics from ISS by NASA astronaut Wheelock

Absolutely stunning-don't miss these!

Also:



Twinkling Stars May Reveal Human-Size Wormholes

image by Trey Ratcliff

BBC interview with Bishop Minns on Gafcon Primates’ Statement

November 29th, 2010
Anglican Mainstream

Transcript of Interview with Bishop Minns. A transcript of the following interview with Bishop Kings can be read here

Q: Bishop Martyn Minns is from the Anglican Church in North America and sits on the Secretariat of the GAFCON Primate’s Council. I asked him what did GAFCON leaders regard as the fatal flaw in the Anglican Covenant.

+Minns: The fundamental thing I think is that trust is gone. Decisions and documents that have been worked on in the past have not been honored. I think there’s simply a lack of trust in the process. I think also the introduction of this whole roll of the standing committee in terms of how the covenant is actually exercised has also caused great consternation. But I think, in fact I have a direct quote from one of the Primates who said, “ look, why do we keep going?. All the decisions have been made. The documents we signed have never been honored. There’s no point.” the rest

George W. Bush, Unplugged

Watch live streaming video from facebookguests at livestream.com

Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Joe Carter

When I first heard that George W. Bush sat down with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for an an interview, I thought “Not for me.” An hour-long video of former president reminiscing about old times sounded deathly dull. But Carmel Lobello‘s comment intrigued me: “Bush is in fact so likable and funny in this interview that by the end, eight years of bitter resentment that most likely frosted your heart during his presidency will melt into a puddle.”

My own feelings toward the Bush presidency are more along the lines of lukewarm disappointment than bitter resentment, but after watching the video I’m be willing to give him a third term. Bush comes across as charming, confident, relaxed, smart, and funny. It really is worth watching the entire interview. the rest

When planet Earth looks like art



By Matilda Battersby
Monday, 29 November 2010

NASA has a wonderful collection of photographs of planet Earth taken by satellites circling the atmosphere.

The beguiling pictures are not of the familiar watery globe which usually represents our world.

They are instead vast landscapes, deserts, oceans and mountain ranges snapped from so far away that they resemble artistic daubings and not familiar landmarks. the rest

Our Earth as Art gallery

The Littlest Victims of Obamacare

Michelle Malkin
posted December 1, 2010

It's time for America's youth to buckle up and take a rough ride on Reality Highway. For the past two years, President Obama has promised our children the moon, stars, rainbows, unicorns and universal health care for all. But the White House Santa's cradle-to-grave entitlement mandates are a spectacularly predictable bust.

Don't take it from me. Take it from Obamacare's own biggest cheerleaders.

Late last month, the Service Employees International Union informed dues-paying members of its behemoth 1199 affiliate in New York that it was dropping its health care coverage for children. That's right. A radical leftist union, not an evil Republican corporation, is abandoning the young 'uns to cut costs. the rest

Late last month, the Service Employees International Union informed dues-paying members of its behemoth 1199 affiliate in New York that it was dropping its health care coverage for children. That's right. A radical leftist union, not an evil Republican corporation, is abandoning the young 'uns to cut costs.

More than 30,000 low-wage families will be affected, according to The Wall Street Journal. Who's to blame? SEIU 1199 benefits manager Mitra Behroozi singled out oppressive new state and federal regulations, including the much-ballyhooed Obamacare rule forcing insurers to cover dependents well into their 20s...

The civil war among Muslims in Britain

By Michael Mumisa
Wednesday, 1 December 2010

The previous government’s controversial programme for preventing violent extremism is currently being reviewed by the Home Office. How did it happen that programmes which were introduced with the aim of promoting “community cohesion” and preventing the influence of violent extremists ended up achieving the opposite of what they set out to achieve? Since the introduction of such programmes British Muslim communities have been engaged in what is effectively a ‘civil war’ which has left young Muslims (the intended beneficiaries of the programmes) further marginalised and more vulnerable to extremist ideas.

On November 8 2006, in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, I shared a platform with the then Secretary of State for the Home Office, John Reid, and Ruth Kelly at a conference held at the British Academy. I warned that if the fragmented nature of the Muslim communities in Britain was overlooked the government’s strategy would end up funding a ‘civil war’ between Muslims, and that a secular government should not be drawn into the debate on how Islam is interpreted or which Islamic theological school should be promoted. Unfortunately, this appears to have been the unintended outcome of the previous strategy for preventing violent extremism. the rest

Church backs down over plan to sell historic paintings

The Church of England is to reconsider plans to sell a collection of historic paintings for £15 million after an outcry from local worshippers.
By Tim Ross
01 Dec 2010

The works by Spanish Old Master Francisco Zurbarán have been housed in Auckland Castle, the Bishop of Durham's official residence, for 250 years.

The Church Commissioners, who manage the Church of England’s assets, had intended to sell the paintings to raise money to pay for more priests and because the insurance cost was "a drain" on its funds.

But protests from local MPs and Anglicans in Durham have forced the commissioners to think again. the rest