Scrolling around...October 1, 2012

Digital Age overload: ‘Internet addiction’ to be classified as mental illness
...The international mental health encyclopedia known as the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM-IV) will include Internet-use disorder as a condition “recommended for further study” in its forthcoming May 2013 edition.

Psychologists believe that Internet addiction should be categorized like other addiction disorders as it has similar symptoms, including emotional shutdown, lack of concentration and withdrawal.

Parents have noted their children becoming angry and violent when their electronic gadgets are taken away from them, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. In other instances, kids preferred to play a videogame over eating or social interaction...

FreedomPop Starts Public Test of Free Wireless Internet Service
FreedomPop Inc., a startup backed by Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, began offering a free wireless Internet service for smartphones and other mobile devices.

The service lets users tap into Clearwire Corp. (CLWR)’s fourth- generation wireless network and use of to 500 megabytes of data for free, the Los Angeles-based company said today in a statement. FreedomPop charges for plans with more data. For now, the service will available as a so-called beta test...

The Perils of Texting While Parenting-Nonfatal injuries to children under age five rose 12% between 2007 and 2010
...Is high-tech gadgetry diminishing the ability of adults to give proper supervision to very young children? Faced with an unending litany of newly proclaimed threats to their kids, harried parents might well roll their eyes at this suggestion. But many emergency-room doctors are worried: They see the growing use of hand-held electronic devices as a plausible explanation for the surprising reversal of a long slide in injury rates for young children. There have even been a few extreme cases of death and near drowning...

Is the Obama administration suppressing the military vote?
Voter assistance programs for the military – specifically targeted for improvement with $75 million after low military turnout in 2008 – have been left to languish by the Obama administration and the result may be depressed military turnout. Again.

The situation is especially alarming for the Mitt Romney campaign, because polls have consistently shown that Romney’s support from military voters and their families exceeds that of Barack Obama’s support by double digits...

Dozens of Pro-Lifers Arrested at White House Opposing HHS Mandate
Over the weekend, two dozen pro-life advocates were arrested at the White House for praying and holding pro-life signs protesting President Obama’s pro-abortion HHS mandate.

“Obamacare will force institutions, churches and individuals to purchase abortion-inducing drugs and pay for sterilization and abortion in direct opposition to their beliefs, conscience and historic teachings of the Church,” the group of people said in a statement. “With the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming Obamacare, the future of religious freedom in America is at risk and in grave danger of being entirely wiped out.”...

LAOS - Repressive campaign against Christians in Savannakhet: three priests arrested
The campaign of repression of the Laotian authorities towards the Christian communities is getting more and more intense: in past days, the police arrested three Protestant pastors, who led the community in the villages of the district of Phin, in the province of Savannakhet. In a police raid Pastor Bounlert, head of the Christians in the district of Phin, Pastor Adang, pastor in Kengsainoy, Pastor Onkaew, pastor of the Church of Kapang were taken into custody. The police took them to the prison district with their hands and feet tied. Two other Christian leaders were arrested and transferred to the provincial prison of Savannakhet, then immediately released...

Calif. first to ban gay teen 'conversion' therapy
...Effective Jan. 1, mental health practitioners are prohibited from performing sexual orientation change efforts - known as reparative or conversion therapy - for anyone under 18...

Keeping Your Faith in College
...The most important piece of advice I can give: don’t put your spiritual life on hold! During your first semester of college there are many new people to meet, as well as new experiences to have, and fascinating ideas to entertain. That’s as it should be. But it’s easy to get swept up into all this and say, “I don’t have time, but I’ll get back to my faith someday.”...

Masters, Messiahs, and Tricksters
...The Master tells the story of fictitious religious entrepreneur Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, in a mesmerizing performance. Around 1950, Dodd is seeking to convert Americans to the doctrine of The Cause, a religious/psychological system that helps clients rediscover past lives through intense encounter and analysis techniques.

The film obviously recalls the career of L. Ron Hubbard and the birth of Scientology, but it is of much wider interest in what it suggests about the nature of charismatic religious figures...

Metaxas: Gnostic Myths for $500, Alex
Anyone who has ever watched "Jeopardy" knows that the list of categories is seemingly endless: from "Starts With 'M' " to that audience favorite, "Potent Potables."

Well, today I'd like to add "Gnostic Myths for $500, Alex."

By now, you've certainly heard about the fourth-century papyrus fragment in which Jesus purportedly refers to "my wife."...

A New Chapter in the Homeschooling Movement
...Hard-and-fast numbers of homeschoolers are difficult to come by, since reporting rules vary by state. But reasonable estimates place the numbers between one and two million children – or at least 4 percent of the K-12 U.S. population – learning at home this year. The promise of homeschooling (closer families, less peer-dependent and more spiritually and emotionally solid children, a better, tutorial form of education than a child would receive at a public or private school) has been fulfilled in enough children over time that a second generation of “settlers” has moved into the space carved out by those pioneers...

Ethnic Cleansing of Christians in the Sinai
In events being ignored not only by the Egyptian authorities, but also by the mainstream media and human rights organizations in the West, Muslim terrorists have in recent weeks attacked Christian families and forced them out of their homes and businesses in the Sinai town of Rafah. The terrorists have threatened to pursue their jihad against Christians until all of them leave the Sinai...

Egypt asks Germany to return Coptic Christian blogger so he can face prosecution for "insulting Islam"
It is outrageous enough that the Egyptians would make this request. If the Germans do as they ask, they will be accepting the primacy of Sharia over German law. "Egypt Coptic Christian Maikel Nabil charged with 'insulting' Islam, Germany requested to send home...

Chinese government 'hacks into White House office in charge of the nuclear launch codes'
The White House confirmed that cyber attackers linked to the Chinese government attempted to hack into a computer system in the White House Military Office...

While the official statement down played the attack, saying that it was aiming for an unclassified 'isolated' network, the original report of the attack claimed that the hackers targeted the White House Military Office which safeguards sensitive data like the nuclear launch codes...and White House Hack Attack

50 Years of Incredible Space Images From the European Southern Observatory