Scrolling around...July 1, 2012

Church of England considering 'champagne christenings' to attract lax parishioners

...Rev Dr Sandra Millar, who runs the Church’s ongoing “Christenings Project”, said it was striking how many young parents still want to have their children baptised despite having little or no connection to the church themselves.

Vicars have also noticed that some unmarried couples appeared to view the christening almost as their answer to having a wedding, an opportunity to invite family and friends for a public ceremony followed by a party.

As a result some congregations have begun to adapt services to accommodate them, dressing up the doorways with balloons and offering church halls for christening parties.

But a handful have gone further, holding separate christening services combined with family parties....

Obama Blames Rise Of Nigerian Jihadist Group Boko Haram On Bad Governance
...Obama blamed the upsurge of terrorist groups on the fact that “countries are not delivering for their people and where there sources of conflict and underlining frustrations that have not been adequately dealt with”...

Obama: 'Planet Will Boil Over' If Young Africans Are Allowed Cars, Air-Conditioning, Big Houses
President Barack Obama said at a town hall event in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday that unless we find new way of producing energy "the planet will boil over" if people in Africa are allowed to attain air conditioning, automobiles and big houses.

“Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over -- unless we find new ways of producing energy.”...

  Doc Tells Woman: Sit on the Toilet for an Abortion, Don’t Call 911
A new undercover video shows how a late-term abortion practitioner abandons women during the multi-day abortion process and leaves them alone in hotel rooms to deliver babies, telling them to “just sit on the toilet.”

Live Action has released the sixth video in its latest undercover investigation. The video exposes abortion doctors at Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, New Mexico revealing disturbing aspects of the facility’s protocol, including the practice of leaving women alone in hotel rooms to deliver their dead children...

Kenyan deputy president strongly rebuffs Obama on gay ‘marriage’: ‘We believe in God’
A second African president has rebuffed President Barack Obama's promotion of homosexuality in foreign relations during his $100 million tour of the continent.

Obama said he respects “people's personal views and their religious faith, et cetera,” but “when it comes to how the state treats people, how the law treats people,” he believes the equality of homosexuality and the traditional family is“a principle that I think applies universally.”

Deputy President of Kenya William Ruto responded during Sunday Mass that Kenya is committed to the nuclear family as taught by the Scriptures...

Indian Study: Abortion Increases Breast Cancer Risk Six-Fold
..."With only 94 cases and 94 controls, the study was way too small for a significant risk of the order of 1.5-fold to even show up," explained Professor Joel Brind (Baruch College, City University of New York). "Yet induced abortion did show up as the strongest risk factor (and right on the border of statistical significance) because the risk increase was so high at 6.38-fold."

The authors found a non-statistically significant 1.76-fold risk increase among women with first births after age 30. "Medical texts acknowledge delayed first full term pregnancy is a risk factor for breast cancer," said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. "It's indisputable that abortion contributes to delayed first full term pregnancies; and in some cases, women remain childless forever, which is also an accepted risk factor."

Kamath's group observed that India has the "largest estimated number of breast cancer deaths worldwide," and breast cancer rates are on the rise there...