Be Alert!

Two-Thirds of Americans Object to Online Tracking

2009-10-30T18:48:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Stephanie Clifford - September 29, 2009
ABOUT two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers - and that number rises once they learn the different ways marketers are following their online movements, according to a new survey from professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.

The professors say they believe the study, scheduled for release on Wednesday, is the first independent, nationally representative telephone survey on behavioral advertising.

The topic may be technical, but it has become a hot political issue. Privacy advocates are telling Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that tracking of online activities by Web sites and advertisers has gone too far, and the lawmakers seem to be listening. Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, wrote in an article for The Hill last week that he planned to introduce privacy legislation. And David Vladeck, head of consumer protection for the F.T.C., has signaled that he will examine data privacy issues closely.

Marketers are arguing that advertising supports free online content. Major advertising trade groups proposed in Julysome measures that they hoped would fend off regulation, like a clear notice to consumers when they were being tracked.
The data in this area, however, has been largely limited to company-financed research or Internet-based research, which survey experts say they believe is not representative of all Americans. So the study - among the first independent surveys to examine this issue - has attracted widespread interest. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/media/30adco.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1254316646-aKun0OM1VaGiFVEuPECy5w

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The shopping experience of the future? RFID Tracking from Start to Finish

2009-10-30T18:40:00.000-04:00

How Destiny would track shoppers at Carousel Center expansion
THE POST-STANDARD, Syracuse, New York [Advance/Newhouse] - By Rick Moriarty - August 24, 2009
Syracuse, NY -- Hidden in a secret location deep inside the Carousel Center mall is what Destiny USA officials believe is the future of the retail industry.

A 1,000-square-foot room with translucent flooring contains what appears to be a small clothing store with just two products -- T-shirts and cloth handbags with the words "Surrender the past" printed on them. But what makes the "store" unique isn't the see-through floor. It's the technology behind the walls, under the shelves and attached to each T-shirt and handbag.

Through the use of a radio frequency identification system, the store can track what products a customer picks up, instantly send detailed information and customer reviews of those products to the shopper's iPhone, and make suggestions, via nearby computer screens, of other products that might interest the customer.

The system even tracks customers as they walk through the store and displays on the computer screens items, in their size and preferred fabrics, that they might want to consider, based on their past shopping habits.

At the self-checkout desk, the customer just drops merchandise on the desk and an antenna built into the desk picks up a radio signal from a sticker attached to each of the items and rings them up. There are no UPC symbols to scan.

The customer swipes a credit card through a reader and the sale is complete.

It's paperless, too. The system e-mails a receipt to the customer and records the purchase on the customer's account.

Shoppers in this store cannot actually buy anything. It's set up just to give select visitors a demonstration of the technology behind Destiny's new retail concept, which it calls Arendi.

Destiny partner Bruce Kenan said the model combines the convenience of Internet shopping -- the instant availability of detailed product information and comparisons from multiple manufacturers and user reviews -- with the ability to touch, smell and try a product.

"This is a marriage of Internet and physical retail," said Kenan. "People are going to like it. They're going to demand it."

Kenan and three executives from Terakeet Corp., the Syracuse company that is assembling the technology behind Arendi, gave a Post-Standard reporter and photographer a tour of the "store." The only condition was that the newspaper could not reveal where in the mall the room is located.

Developer Robert Congel, the man behind Carousel's stalled expansion into Destiny USA, envisions the addition as a giant consumer research and development center where consumer shopping habits are tracked by a network of computers. The name Arendi is a play on the term "R&D," short for research and development.

Retailers and brand makers who become part of the center would share all of the consumer insight data collected at Arendi -- in exchange for all of their profits.

It's a concept that has never been tried before on a mall scale, and it has not been easy to sell the idea to a retail industry that saw sales fall 10.8 percent in the second quarter, compared with the same quarter last year.

The secret "store" hidden inside Carousel Center was created to show off Arendi's technology to potential tenants. Destiny officials had planned to open a 50,000-square-foot version of Arendi to the public late this summer with a limited, undisclosed number of tenants
who have agreed to be part of the demonstration.

The hope was that the public demonstration would help the developer lure enough tenants to eventually fill the three-story, 1.3 million-square-foot mall expansion.

Construction, which began in 2007, came to a halt in early June after Citigroup stopped advancing money on a $155 million loan to the project. The bank said it was concerned that the project was a year over schedule, at least $15 million over budget and had not a single signed lease. Congel is suing Citigroup, alleging it breached its loan agreement.

The sudden halt to construction has not dimmed the development team's enthusiasm for Arendi, however. Kenan said it's amazing no one thought of combining e-commerce with stores in this way before.

The goal of Arendi will be to give shoppers at the mall all of the things they like about online shopping -- primarily instant access to product information -- while they walk through a store, touching and feeling the merchandise, he said.

And it will benefit retailers and product makers because they can personalize their in-store sales promotions to customers as they shop.

The system also can help retailers keep instant track of when to reorder popular merchandise, he said.

"One of the worst things for retailers is to run out of a product that is in demand," he said.

Customers would have to register at an Arendi Web site, providing their name and e-mail address. If they'd like, they could also provide personal information such as age, clothing sizes and preferred fabrics.

In return, they would be given customer ID tags, plastic cards about the size of credit cards. They would carry the cards with them when they go shopping at Arendi, just as they carry shoppers club cards to grocery stores.

"Once you're registered, you can just walk around and shop as you normally would," said Ryan Garver, lead developer for Terakeet.

In a demonstration of the technology, Garver walked with the card to a shelf full of T-shirts and a large computer screen in the middle. As he approached the shirts, the screen displayed a picture of one of the shirts, in his size.

An antenna under the display read an electronic signal from his customer ID tag and called up information he provided about himself when he registered.

If a group of customers approached a merchandise display, the system would know who they are and display information that it believed would be of interest to a majority of them, he said.

To find out more about the merchandise in front of him, Garver glanced at his iPhone. Terakeet has written an application for the iPhone that will talk to Arendi's computer network through the Internet to provide customers with more detailed information about the products they are looking at.

Garver said the company plans to write similar applications for other hand-held communications devices, too.

If a store in Arendi did not have the size and color of the product a customer wants, it could be ordered from the interactive computer displays in the store or through the customer's iPhone or other Web-based communication devices, he said.

Kenan said retailers will be able to use information collected at Arendi -- not just
data collected in their own stores or display areas -- to improve the customer experience at all of their locations.

"We'll have a knowledge base that no other retailer can get by themselves," he said.

Staff writer Rick Moriarty can be reached at 470-3148 or rmoriarty@syracuse.com

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/how_destiny_would_track_shoppe.html

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Dollar loses reserve status to yen & euro

2009-10-29T19:23:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK POST [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Paul Tharp - October 13, 2009
Ben Bernanke's dollar crisis went into a wider mode yesterday as the greenback was shockingly upstaged by the euro and yen, both of which can lay claim to the world title as the currency favored by central banks as their reserve currency.

Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago.

Currently, dollars account for about 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks -- the lowest on record, said the International Monetary Fund.

Bernanke could go down in economic history as the man who killed the greenback on the operating table.

After printing up trillions of new dollars and new bonds to stimulate the US economy, the Federal Reserve chief is now boxed into a corner battling two separate monsters that could devour the economy -- ravenous inflation on one hand, and a perilous recession on the other.

"He's in a crisis worse than the meltdown ever was," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. "I fear that he could be the Fed chairman who brought down the whole thing."

Investors and central banks are snubbing dollars because the greenback is kept too weak by zero interest rates and a flood of greenbacks in the global economy.

They grumble that they've loaned the US record amounts to cover its mounting debt, but are getting paid back by a currency that's worth 10 percent less in the past three months alone. In a decade, it's down nearly one-third.

Yesterday, the dollar had a mixed performance, falling slightly against the British pound to $1.5801 from $1.5846 Friday, but rising against the euro to $1.4779 from $1.4709 and against the yen to 89.85 yen from 89.78.

Economists believe the market rebellion against the dollar will spread until Bernanke starts raising interest rates from around zero to the high single digits, and pulls back the flood of currency spewed from US printing presses.

"That's a cure, but it's also going to stifle any US economic growth," said Schiff. "The economy is addicted to the cheap interest and liquidity."

Economists warn that a jump in rates will clobber stocks and cripple the already stalled housing market.

"Bernanke's other choice is to keep rates at zero, print even more money and sell more debt, but we'll see triple-digit inflation that could collapse the economy as we know it.

"The stimulus is what's toxic -- we're poisoning ourselves and the global economy with it."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/dollar_loses_reserve_status_to_yen_hFyfwvpBW1YYLykSJwTTEL

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Pay with a wave of your hand?

2009-10-27T13:37:00.000-04:00

An implantable chip could allow you to charge purchases or even start your car. It'd be convenient, to be sure. But would it be too creepy?
CREDITCARDS.com - By Jay MacDonald - September 11, 2009
It's a simple concept, really: You inject a miniature radio frequency identifier the size of a grain of rice between your thumb and forefinger and, with a wave of your hand, unlock doors, turn on lights, start your car or pay for your drinks at an ultrachic nightspot.

The problem is, the whole concept is a little geeky for most of us, nauseating for some, Orwellian for a few and even apocalyptic for a smattering of religious fundamentalists.

Forget the science of it -- and yes, it does work remarkably well. Forget the convenience of it. Forget that similar identifying technologies, from bar codes to mag stripes, overcame similar obstacles and are now ubiquitous.

Radio frequency ID implants face a hurdle the others did not: ickiness.

"There is sort of an icky quality to implanting something," says Rome Jette, the vice president for smart cards at Versatile Card Technology, a Downers Grove, Ill., card manufacturer that ships 1.5 billion cards worldwide a year.

How RFID devices work
The RFID technology is un-yucky, however. The implanted tag -- a passive RFID device consisting of a miniature antenna and chip containing a 16-digit identification number -- is scanned by an RFID reader. Once verified, the number is used to unlock a database file, be it a medical record or payment information. Depending upon the application, a reader may verify tags at a distance of 4 inches up to about 30 feet.

The RFID implant has been around for more than 20 years. In its earliest iteration, it provided a convenient way to keep track of dogs, cats and prized racehorses. Few took note or voiced much concern. ...

Then, in 2002, Applied Digital Solutions (now Digital Angel) of Delray Beach, Fla., deployed to its foreign distributors a beta version of its patented VeriChip technology for human use. Two years later, the VeriChip became the first subcutaneous RFID chip to receive FDA approval as a Class 2 medical device.

One VeriChip distributor in Spain sold the concept to the ultratrendy Baja Beach Club, which offered its patrons in Barcelona and Amsterdam the option of having an implant inserted in their upper arms to pay for their drinks without having to carry wallets in their swimsuits.

Judging by the ensuing outrage, you would think VeriChip had given the pope a wedgie.

'Mark of the beast'?
Web sites sprouted like mushrooms, accusing VeriChip of being the biblical "mark of the beast" predicted in the Book of Revelations as a foreshadowing of the end of the world.

CEO Scott Silverman was equally vilified as being tied to Satan or, worse, Wall Street. Big Brother was surely coming, though he'd have to get pretty close to read your implant. Claims that the tags cause cancer based on lab rat tests upped the amps of outrage.

Were people suddenly curious about RFID implants?
"Curiosity is probably an understatement," Silverman concedes. "People have always taken interest in VeriChip. Part of the lore and part of the trouble of this company over the past five years has been just that."

Though VeriChip played no part in using its implant as a payment device, the company quickly moved to calmer waters. Today, it markets its VeriMed Health Link patient identification system to help hospitals treat noncommunicative patients in an emergency. Its future may include more advanced medical applications, including a biosensor system to detect glucose levels.

"A lot of the negative press that we received was a direct result of people having a misconception of what this technology is all about," says Silverman. "We believe that the medical application was and still is the best application for this technology.

"That said, if and when it does become mainstream and more patients are utilizing it for their medical records or for diagnostic purposes, if they want to elect to use it for other applications, certainly they'll be able to do that. But it's going to take a company much larger than us to distribute the retail reader end of it into the Wal-Marts of the world."

Versatile's Jette has watched contactless RFID battle for acceptance in the credit card arena. Just as Silverman suggests, the dynamics and scale of the payment industry tends to work against widespread deployment.

"Mobil Speedpass tried to do it; they got some traction and decided to see if there was any mileage to take this to a Walgreens or McDonald's. You used to be able to use your Speedpass at McDonalds, but that ended because, at the end of the day, you still only have two gigantic payment processors out there, Visa and MasterCard," he says. "To me, the idea of any kind of payment device having ubiquity requires an awful lot of back-end cooperation, of people willing to say, 'I don't need my brand in the customer's wallet.'"

Although the coolness factor is effective from a marketing standpoint -- American Express Blue with its smart (if largely unused) chip is a good example -- Jette says most cardholders would balk at the very thought of a needle.

"With the implanting in the nightclubs, there is a cache of exclusivity there, especially among a certain demographic where people are piercing themselves and getting tattoos. But those are things that really only 20-somethings do a lot. I really doubt that there will be any market for injectable RFID tags or even any single point-of-sale payment device."

"A lot of times, the technology is a solution looking for a problem. Sometimes people fall in love with the technology for its own sake and then try to evangelize a home for it. My business group is just smart cards, and I never forget that although we make money with smart cards, the bills are paid with mag stripe cards. As backwards and old-fashioned as they are, that is still the bulk of what the transactions are going to be in America for a very long time."

This article was reported by Jay MacDonald for CreditCards.com.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/FinancialPrivacy/pay-with-a-wave-of-your-hand.aspx

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Benny Hinn: 'I Would Not Do This for Money'

2009-10-22T19:13:00.001-04:00

Evangelical Leader Under Senate Investigation Sits With 'Nightline' for Rare Interview
ABC NEWS [American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./The Walt Disney Company] - By Dan Harris - October 19, 2009
Miraculous cures for cancer and AIDS, people in wheelchairs getting up and dancing. It's business as usual for Benny Hinn, perhaps the world's most famous, successful and controversial televangelist. Hinn is a faith-healer who almost never grants interviews -- until now.
"I'll try to explain it to you," said Hinn in a wide-ranging interview with ABC's "Nightline." "The anointing, which is God's power, comes on me. ... I can actually feel it. And people start getting healed. 'From the cancer, the pain is gone. ... I was sitting on my wheelchair and I can walk now,' such things like that."
Hinn took questions about disillusioned followers and about the U.S. senator who is investigating him. The questions clearly dismayed Hinn's handlers.
He was born Toukif Benedictus Hinn to a Greek Orthodox Christian family living in Israel. As a child, he moved with his family to Canada, where he became an extremely devout evangelical. In his 20's, Hinn moved to Florida, where he married a preacher's daughter -- and then went into the family business.
Hinn said he realized early on that something extraordinary was happening.
"In fact, I was shocked, really I was, when people came up to me claiming they were healed back in the 70s," he said. "And the crowds grew. Uh to, goodness, we would have 2,000 or 3,000 show up on Monday nights. And then the word spread."
Hinn's ministry exploded. Within a few years, he was traveling the world, preaching to millions of people. In the early '90s, he started a television show, which now airs in more than 200 countries. Along the way, he has made a series of truly extraordinary claims.
In one video clip on YouTube, he said he had seen a dead man resurrected.
"Well, Ghana. It was in Akra, Ghana," Hinn explained to "Nightline." "I didn't exactly ... I had no proof he was dead. That's what they told me. They laid him on the platform, and at one point he got up. But that's not the question, the question is, can God raise the dead? Yes or no? And the answer is yes. He has. It's in the Bible, so if God did it then, why shouldn't he do it today?"

'I Would Not Do This for Money'
Benny Hinn now controls an empire. His ministry collects an estimated $100 million a year in donations from people whom Hinn has convinced that God heals through him.
"Nightline" asked Hinn directly if he isn't taking advantage of people who are profoundly religious, and vulnerable because they're in physical pain, for his own personal enrichment.
"I'm glad you're asking," Hinn said. "Let me tell you something. I would not do this for money. If people think I would do this for money, after all the misery I've had to go through..."
"What misery?" I asked Hinn.
"Oh dear God, what misery? You name it. You're a human being like me, how would you like to be called all those names. Who wants that? What you're asking is am I using the so-called lie, that healings really happen so I can make money?
"Of course not. You cannot fool all the people all the time, right? ... "I will tell you this. I think that if I was fooling the people over 35 years of it now, I would be caught already fooling them."
Hinn admits he doesn't have medical verification of any of the healings. In fact, some of his supposed healings have turned out not to have been real.
At a 2001 Hinn crusade, William Vandenkolk, a 9-year-old with damaged vision, claimed that his eyesight had been restored.
Vandenkolk is now 17 -- and he's still legally blind. His uncle and legal guardian, Randy Melthratter, said that after the crusade no one from the ministry followed up to see how the 9-year-old was doing.
"I said, 'Will, honey, does it still seem like your eyes are getting better? Is it getting better? Do you notice anything better at all?' And he just kind of cocked his head to the side and said 'I think God's just taking a break,'" Melthratter said. "And that just tore, that just hurt. That hurt a lot ... a little boy making excuses for God."
"I got caught up in the moment," Vandenkolk says now. "Being as young as I was, thinking this could actually be possible. ... I just started feeling sad a little upset that this really didn't happen."
Hinn was at a loss.
"These are things that I cannot explain because I am not the healer," Hinn said. "I am human like you. I make mistakes like anybody else."
Hinn's answer is that God heals people in their seats, and that he, Hinn, is not responsible for what people claim once they get onstage.
"Over the years, there's been some cases where people did come up who said they were healed, but really they were not healed," Hinn said. "I do believe it's possible for individuals to mentally convince themselves they are, but that does not deny the real healings. That doesn't dismiss the fact that a lot of people are really cured."
Hinn Ministries told "Nightline" that they set up an account in Vandenkolk's name that now holds more than $15,000, to provide for his "education and health."
Hinn may be more confident than the team that surrounds him. Over the course of the "Nightline" interview with Hinn, his publicist started to interrupt, angrily.
The atmosphere got charged when talk turned to an ongoing probe of Hinn by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Two years ago, Grassley launched an investigation into six major televangelists, including Hinn. Grassley is asking whether Hinn and his colleagues are using tax-free donations from believers to fund lavish lifestyles.
Hinn, for example, flies on a private jet and has lived in a beautiful home on the Pacific Ocean.

'Every Man of God ... Has a Nice House'
Hinn had never before granted an interview on the topic of the investigation.
He said he was "absolutely" confident that he is using the money appropriately.
In response to criticism that he leads a lavish lifestyle, Hinn said, "it's always been that by the way. That criticism is nothing new."
He flies in a private plane, stays in fancy hotels, wears nice clothes and jewelry. Does he not have any misgivings about that?
"No. Look, you know there's this idea supposedly that we preachers are supposed to walk about with sandals and ride bicycles. That's nonsense."
Jesus Christ may have lived in poverty, but Benny Hinn makes no apologies for living large.
"I mean look, every man of God that I know today has a nice house," Hinn said. "And they drive cars, and they have BlackBerrys or iPhones or whatever. It's what we need today to simply exist. ... Absolutely I need a private plane. For the ministry it's a necessity, not a luxury. ... It's a necessity for me to have my own private plane to fly so I can go and do what God called me to do around the world. If I should fly commercial I would wear out. With my schedule? It would be madness."
What is his salary? I asked.
"I'm not gonna give you the exact amount, but it's, uh, over a half-million."
Hinn said he'd like to cut his salary to zero.
"Let me just tell you this, my aim in life is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, that's all I care about," said Hinn. "And if somebody comes along, or if there's a way where I can be completely taken care of financially, I won't let the ministry pay me a cent. I'll make you a deal. Right here on camera. Let 'em all see me do this with you. If somebody comes along and says, 'OK Benny Hinn, I'm gonna help you financially so you can pay your own bills,' or if I can do it on my own and get a job and do something on the side like I'm doing now, it would be a pleasure."
"Nightline" asked Hinn whether he ever had moments, when people are writing out checks to him or filling out cards with their credit card information, that he thinks the people can't afford it, they're doing it because they're desperate and that he shouldn't take this money.
"If I was fake I would absolutely give them back their money," said Hinn, "but I believe that God called me to preach the gospel which is very important."
Grassley's office said that Hinn has cooperated fully with the investigation into whether Hinn and other televangelist are using the tax-free donations they collect appropriately. The senator has not yet released the results of his investigation.
"The senator himself says we gave them more information than he thought we would," said Hinn. But when "Nightline" asked for the same information, Hinn said the ministry could not turn it over because "we have an agreement with the senator to keep things confidential." After the interview, Grassley's office told ABC News that Hinn is free to release any information he wants. But the ministry said it didn't have time to edit out personal information from its donors in time for "Nightline"'s broadcast. And therefore the ministry turned over nothing.
But Hinn said he was glad to get the chance to answer his skeptics.
"The questions [you] asked me, I've wanted someone to ask me for the last 20 years of my life," Hinn told me. "I think what this man did is fantastic and thank you for doing it. No, really, I'm very pleased. ... because it's time for me to tell it all. I don't want people talking for me. I want to talk for myself."

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8862027

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Drought Reveals Iraqi Archaeological Treasures

2009-09-18T23:37:00.001-04:00

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO [NPR, US] - By Lourdes Garcia-Navarro - March 20, 2009
Iraq is suffering one of the worst droughts in decades. While this is bad news for farmers, it is good news for archaeologists in the country.
The receding waters of the Euphrates River have revealed ancient archaeological sites, some of which were unknown until now.
For Ratib Ali al-Kubaisi, the director of Anbar province's Antiquities Department, the drought has opened up a whole new land of opportunity.
He explains that civilization began in Anbar, next to the Euphrates River.
"Everyone … thought that Anbar was only desert with no historical importance. But we discovered that this area is one of the most important archaeological areas in all of Iraq. This part of Iraq was the first to be settled," he says.

Flooding Covers Sites
In the mid-1980s, Saddam Hussein's government dammed the Euphrates in the area, flooding a 120-mile-long stretch of land near Iraq's border with Syria.
What once was an enormous reservoir that stretched as far as the eye could see has shrunk an astonishing 90 percent since summer, officials say.
Ratib says that at least 75 archeological sites had been partially excavated before the area was flooded. They ran the gamut of civilizations - from 3,000 B.C. to the Sumerian and Roman periods. Ancient Jewish settlements were also submerged in the area. But because of the receding waters, Ratib has been able to access some sites for the first time - including, for instance, a cliff with a series of pre-Christian tombs carved into its face. Though they have been heavily damaged by the water, Ratib says they still have value.
"I wish we could excavate these sites again. If we had the money and the resources, we could complete the work we began all those years ago," he says.

Exciting New Finds
But it's not only previously discovered archaeological sites that the drought has made accessible.
Ratib and a colleague are suddenly excited by something they've seen on this particular day. They kneel next to what looks like an old stone wall, shards of pottery everywhere. Ratib says he believes it is a Roman-era irrigation ditch.
"I've never seen this site before," he says. "When we excavated this area decades ago, this was all buried underneath the soil, but the receding waters uncovered it."

Area Vulnerable To Looters
It's an unexpected discovery, but on the heels of their elation comes concern.
Ratib says he is worried the area will be looted. In all of Anbar, just 10 guards protect vulnerable archaeological sites.
"The area is rich with things. You can find jewelry, coins and documents - all these things are temptations for professional thieves," he says.
Or others who are just struggling to survive.
While the drought has been good for archaeologists, it has been terrible for the fishermen who rely on the Euphrates for their livelihood.
"The river level is very low, it's the lowest it has ever been that we can remember," says fisherman Sa'ad Naji. "It's frightening. The fishermen have no work anymore."
The river here is only about 3-to-4-feet deep. Sa'ad says strange structures now jut out of the water. He points to what looks like a stone arch that stands crumbling, lapped by muddy waves. He says those aren't the only things archeologists have discovered.
"About a year ago when the waters started to recede, these artifacts began to show up. We began looking around the area, and we found clay jars and old bones, coins and even some gold jewelry," he says.
For now, he says, the looting is confined to mostly local people who don't know the value of what they've taken.

Money Another Challenge
Back on shore, Ratib says excitedly he will ask Baghdad's central government for money to begin new excavations and to protect the sites.
"I will demand that we rescan the whole area. And if they have the budget, we will start work on it immediately," he says.
But he acknowledges there will probably not be enough money. If we can't excavate, he says ruefully, we can at least announce our new discoveries.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102184336

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Prophetic Signs Everywhere -- Picture Addendum

2009-09-18T21:20:00.007-04:00

Second Temple Pilgrimage Route Uncovered

Stone Vessel with 'Priestly Inscription' Uncovered In Jerusalem

Passage Found, May Have Been Used by Abraham

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Interfaith Dialogue: The Great Unmentionable

2009-08-14T12:59:00.000-04:00

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR - By Doug Bandow - May 19, 2009
President Barack Obama has called for an improved dialogue with Islam and is planning a major speech in Egypt. He is not alone in his efforts to reach out. Pope Benedict recently visited Jordan, where he acknowledged "the burden of our common history so often marked by misunderstanding."

Certainly all faiths would benefit from greater understanding. Yet no conversation will have any meaning if it does not address Islam's brutal reality: the consistent persecution of Christians, Jews, and members of other minority faiths.

Indeed, Islamic governments long ago learned that a good offense is the best defense. For instance, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan held hostage the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO Secretary General because as Denmark's prime minister the latter had defended a newspaper's legal right to run cartoons critical of the Prophet Mohammed. To win Ankara's acquiescence, Rasmussen abased himself, affirming his "respect" for Islam and explaining how "distressed" he was that many Muslims saw the cartoons as an effort to "insult" their faith.

Moreover, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, made up of 56 Muslim-majority nations, led the UN campaign to denounce the "defamation" of religions. Last November the General Assembly approved a resolution targeting speech criticizing Islam, in particular, explaining that "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism." All governments were enjoined "to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs."

Let us specify that some U.S. government actions offend many Muslims (in fact, I have criticized a number of those policies). Let us also specify that most Muslims neither engage in nor support terrorism.

Nevertheless, past Western dialogue with Islam has consistently missed the elephant in the room: Pervasive religious persecution.

Who persecutes religious minorities around the world? Communist and former communist states are big offenders: China, Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea. There's a motley mixed group, including India, Sri Lanka, and Burma. Then there are Islamic states.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released its latest report. Of 13 states named Countries of Particular Concern, seven have overwhelming Muslim majorities: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Two, Eritrea and Nigeria, have narrow Muslims majorities. Of 11 countries on the Commission's Watch List, six have majority Islamic populations: Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Somalia, Tajikistan, and Turkey. Of three countries being "closely monitored," two, Bangladesh and Kazakhstan, are majority Muslim. That is 17 of 27.

International Christian Concern publishes a "Hall of Shame" naming the ten worst persecutors. Six of them -- Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia -- have Muslim majorities.

In fact, it is unusual to find an Islamic nation where religious minorities are not discriminated against, both legally and socially. One of the best predictors that a government persecutes, or fails to protect religious minorities from persecution, is that the majority faith is Islam.

Obviously, there is a range within the Islamic world. Some of persecutors, such as Eritrea and the Central Asian countries, for instance, seem driven more by ideology than theology. Moreover, not all Islamic states imprison or kill dissenters. But even the good isn't very good.

Of Morocco, reported the State Department last year: "The Government places certain restrictions on non-Islamic religious materials and proselytizing." State added that "There were reports of societal abuses or discrimination toward those with different religious beliefs, and converts from Islam to other religions." Although foreign Christians generally worship freely, missionaries "whose religious activities become public face expulsion" and the regime "generally confiscates Arabic-language Bibles and refuses licenses for their importation and sale despite the absence of any law banning such books."

Consider Jordan, the site of the Pope's recent visit. State observed: "The status of respect of religious freedom by the government declined during the period covered by this report. The government's handling of apostasy cases, expulsion of approximately thirty foreign Christian religious workers, and instances of individual and organizational harassment based on religious affiliation all contributed to the decline. Members of unrecognized religious groups and converts from Islam face legal discrimination and risk the loss of civil rights, including threats to their person and/or family."

Last month President Obama visited Turkey where he declared: "Let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not at war with Islam." Worthy sentiments, but not all Turks agree. Two years ago a gang of Islamic extremists tortured and murdered three Christians in the city of Malatya. The State Department pointed to "reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice. Violent attacks and continued threats against non-Muslims during the reporting period created an atmosphere of pressure and diminished freedom for some non-Muslim communities." Moreover, converts from Islam "sometimes experienced social harassment and violence from relatives and neighbors." USCIRF says "the Turkish state's interpretation of secularism has resulted in religious freedom violations for many of Turkey's citizens, including members of majority and, especially, for minority religious communities."

Far worse is Egypt, where the president will be speaking. ICC places the country in its Hall of Shame, noting pervasive legal discrimination and violent harassment against Christians: "Coptic Christians, a native group of Egyptian Christians that traces its existence back to the beginning of Christianity, are widely discriminated against as a result of the discriminatory policies of the country and the bias of Muslim officials. There have been many instances in which, in some localities, Muslim extremists looted and burned down Christian owned businesses and homes, maiming and killing Christians." State warned that "respect for religious freedom by the government declined overall."

In Afghanistan discrimination and persecution are increasing. USCIRF warns that "Conditions for freedom of religion or belief in Afghanistan have become increasingly problematic." Three years ago a Muslim convert to Christianity, Abdul Rahman, barely avoided execution and had to flee abroad.

ICC warns that "Pakistan has increasingly cut away at the rights of the Christian minority, treating them as second-class citizens and largely relegating them to a life of poverty." State offered a similar assessment: "Law enforcement personnel abused religious minorities in custody. Security forces and other government agencies did not adequately prevent or address societal abuse against minorities. Discriminatory legislation and the Government's failure to take action against societal forces hostile to those who practice a different religious belief fostered religious intolerance, acts of violence, and intimidation against religious minorities."

In Iraq, explains the USCIRF, "there have been alarming numbers of religiously-motivated killings, abductions, beatings, rapes, threats, intimidation, forced resettlements, and attacks on religious leaders, pilgrims, and holy sites." Although members of all religious groups have suffered, the Commission notes that "those from Iraq's smallest religious minorities have been among the most vulnerable." As many as half of Iraq's Christians have been driven from their homes. The State Department reported that Iranian "government rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-She's religious groups, most notably for Baja's, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community." The USCIRF reports that Tehran's "poor religious freedom record has deteriorated," with "intensified physical attacks, harassment, detention, arrest, and imprisonment.

State observed that in Saudi Arabia "There is no legal recognition of, or protection under the law for, freedom of religion, and it is severely restricted in practice." The USCIRF says that Riyadh has been "engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief." The Saudi monarchy "persists in banning all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam and even interferes with private religious practice." Indeed, Saudi Arabia, which ranks high in ICC's Hall of Shame because of the intensity of persecution, "does not acknowledge the presence of any Christians in the country." The list goes on.

Although Islamic states are not monolithic, many of them routinely and sometimes savagely repress religious minorities. In contrast, there is a dearth of Christian states which persecute. Cuba and Venezuela are repressive, but their depredations are political, not theological. Only in Russia does official discrimination -- bothersome but not deadly -- seemingly reflect a religious bias, in this case in favor of the Orthodox Church.

Obviously the president cannot center U.S. foreign policy on the issue of religious liberty. But the freedoms of conscience and of religious faith are basic human rights, the promotion of which is an important objective of American policy. Moreover, no genuine dialogue with the Islamic world can overlook the Muslim record on religious persecution. If Islamic governments expect the Western states "to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs," then the former need to do so as well. And that means protecting the liberty of those who believe and worship differently in their own countries.

By all means, let's encourage dialogue with Muslim nations. But let's put all issues on the table, including religious persecution.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/05/19/interfaith-dialogue-the-great/print

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

New Status in Africa Empowers an Ever-Eccentric Qaddafi

2009-07-29T20:04:00.003-04:00

Daniel 7:7
"After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Michael Slackman - March 22, 2009
TRIPOLI, Libya - Forty years after he seized power in a bloodless coup d’état, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader once called the mad dog of the Middle East by President Ronald Reagan, has achieved the international status he always craved, as chairman of the African Union.

Colonel Qaddafi’s selection last month to lead the 53-nation African Union coincided with his emergence as a welcomed figure in Western capitals, where heads of state are eager to tap Libya’s vast oil and gas reserves and to gain access to virgin Libyan markets. Once vilified for promoting state terrorism, Colonel Qaddafi is now courted.

But Colonel Qaddafi remains the same eccentric, unpredictable revolutionary as always. He has used his new status to promote his call for a United States of Africa, with one passport, one military and one currency. He has blamed Israel for the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, defended Somali pirates for fighting “greedy Western nations” and declared that multiparty democracy was not right for the people of Africa.

“This is a role that Qaddafi has been looking for for 40 years,” said Wahid Abdel Meguid, deputy director of Egypt’s largest research institute, the government-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “He kept shifting and changing directions in search of this role.”

Each step of Colonel Qaddafi’s calculated transformation from terrorist sponsor to would-be statesman has bolstered the next. The thaw in relations with the West, which began in 2003 when he gave up Libya’s nuclear weapons program, gave him more credibility in Africa; and his rising status in Africa has made him more acceptable to the West. All of which has been aimed at one primary objective: bolstering his image.

At one time, Colonel Qaddafi, who was born in 1942, tried to position himself as the next pan-Arab leader. But he was rejected, at times mocked, for his eccentric style and pronouncements. His country was isolated for decades because he sent his agents to kill civilians, including in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

But now in Africa, he has found traction. African heads of state view him suspiciously, and his one-Africa agenda is generally dismissed as unworkable. But he is embraced for his growing status in the West, the lack of credible alternatives across the continent and his money. Many stories are told in Tripoli of African leaders visiting Colonel Qaddafi and leaving with suitcases full of cash, stories that cannot be confirmed but that have become conventional wisdom.

“They don’t want to lose him because he is a gold mine for solving crises, usually financial crises,” said Attia Essawy, an Egyptian writer with expertise in African affairs. “He is searching for a role; he wants to have a role regardless of where.”

While Libya’s strongman is enjoying his burnished image, it has come at a cost to his nation of 5.5 million people and to the approximately two million Africans who have flocked to Libya believing that they would find warm receptions, good jobs and, perhaps, an easy path to Europe. Instead, they found a hostile environment and a struggle just to eat.

“It is a burden,” Ali Abd Alaziz Isawi, who served for two years as the minister of economy, trade and investment, said of the army of illegal immigrants living in Libya. “They are a burden on health care, they spread disease, crime. They are illegal.”

All over this capital city, illegal African immigrants line up along roadways, across bridges and at traffic circles hoping to be selected for menial day jobs that pay about $8. They call the areas where they congregate “the hustling grounds,” which are always crowded with desperate faces from early morning until well past sundown.

Many people in Tripoli said they resented the presence of so many illegal workers. “We don’t like them,” said Moustafa Saleh, 28, who is unemployed, echoing a popular sentiment. “They smuggle themselves through the desert, and the way they deal with us is not good.”

For the African migrants themselves, life in Libya is often a dead end. “They call us animals and slaves,” said Paul Oknonghou, 28, a Nigerian who lives with about a dozen other Nigerians in a house under construction that lacks glass in the window frames, running water, a bathroom or a kitchen. He said he and his friends considered themselves lucky that they did not have to sleep on the streets.

Thomas Thtakore, 26, who is from Ghana, entered Libya illegally a year ago after a three-month journey across mountains and desert. “I have no help; I sleep under a bridge near the river,” He said. He said his younger brother died on the way. “If I stay here, I will die.”

Mr. Thtakore was about to be flown back to Ghana by the International Organization for Migration, a nongovernmental group that helps migrants return home. Since 2006, the group has helped about 3,000 travel home.

“If they find a job it can be good, but if they don’t, it can be a nightmare,” said Michele Bombassei, an official with the migration group, adding that most do not find jobs.

That hostile reality contrasts sharply with the image that Colonel Qaddafi likes to portray. His capital city is filled with billboards showing Libya as the one bright spot on the continent. In one billboard, Colonel Qaddafi appears as a savior as sun rays break over his shoulder and a crowd of black men and women reach toward him with outstretched arms.

His Africa agenda helps empower him in other ways, too.

Diplomats here said it gave him leverage in keeping African and European leaders listening and their doors open. If Libya sent all the migrants home, they would become a burden to poorer African nations, which would have to absorb them while losing out on the remittances they send home. At the same time, diplomats here said, Libya has made it plain to European countries, especially Italy, that if Libya chose to look the other way, most of those migrants would head for European shores.

“It’s a kind of soft power they use,” said one Western diplomat who works on Libyan affairs but requested anonymity for fear of antagonizing Libyan authorities.

Colonel Qaddafi will serve only a one-year term as chairman of the African Union, but his quest to use Africa as a stepping stone to greater world influence and credibility is likely to continue well past that. Last August, 200 kings and traditional African leaders traveled to Libya and anointed him with a more permanent moniker; they crowned him king of kings.

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/world/africa/23libya.html

Also:

Gaddafi, Newly Elected African Union Head, Strongly Opposes Darfur Indictment
CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSN.com) [Media Research Center] - By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor - February 3, 2009
African nations have elected Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as head of the African Union, a move likely to further bolster the 53-nation bloc’s opposition to a war crimes trial for Sudan’s president.
The Libyan, a former international pariah whose leadership aspirations include founding a “United States of Africa,” has strongly opposed attempts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges relating to the conflict in western Sudan’s Darfur region.
Shortly after prosecutors in The Hague last July accused Bashir of involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and murder and asked judges to issue an arrest warrant, Gaddafi discussed with Sudanese leaders ways to block what he described as the “false” charges.
Apart from their A.U. connection, Libya and Sudan are both members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has closed ranks around Bashir while accusing the ICC of “double standards” for focusing on Sudan rather than other countries, notably Israel.
At an A.U. summit in Addis Ababa on Monday, Gaddafi was elected as chairman for the next year. A group of traditional leaders accompanying his delegation hailed him as the “king of kings.”
In an inaugural speech, he said that during his term, he would “continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa.”
Gaddafi has been pushing the concept for many years, and he was a key mover behind the creation of the A.U. to replace the looser Organization for African Unity in 2001.
Over the past four years his campaign for full political and economic integration has picked up steam, with 2015 identified as a target date for a United States of Africa with a single union government. ...
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=42904

Gadhafi pledges to resolve Darfur crisis as head of African Union
ASSOCIATED PRESS - February 4, 2009
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday that the crisis in Sudan's western region of Darfur is his personal responsibility now that he has been elected to head the African Union.
Gadhafi, whose history in brokering peace between Sudan and neighboring Chad has been plagued with foibles and failures, warned the two countries not to use the vast western Sudan region as a battleground.
A conflict between rebels and government forces in Darfur that began in 2003 has killed as 300,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis that has seen 2.7 million flee their homes, some entering neighboring Chad.
In recent months, Darfur rebel groups believed to be supported by Chad have taken key positions in the region, prompting counterattacks by Sudanese forces.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1233304684634

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Ethiopian church speaks out on Ark of the Covenant

2009-07-10T15:34:00.003-04:00

Statement says Ten Commandments box won't be displayed
WORLDNETDAILY - June 29, 2009
There was considerable confusion last week when the leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church apparently told an Italian news agency of an upcoming announcement about the possible public display of the Ark of the Covenant - the box holding the Ten Commandments - and then the prescribed time passed with no word.

However, there was no equivocation today in an e-mail received by WND from the webmaster of a church website in response to an inquiry about the truth of the matter.

"It is not going to happen so the world has to live with curiosity," said the statement, signed only "Webmaster" in response to the WND inquiry.

The webmaster statement described the tempest as being caused either because of a translation mistake or "a slip [of the] tongue from the patriarch."

WND reported first when the apparent "revelation" was to be announced and then again later when the scheduled time came and went without word.

Ark hunters and Bible enthusiasts had been buzzing for days on the report from the Italian news agency Adnkronos that Patriarch Abuna Pauolos, visiting in Italy last week for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, was quoted, "Soon the world will be able to admire the Ark of the Covenant described in the Bible as the container of the tablets of the law that God delivered to Moses and the center of searches and studies for centuries."

He apparently had suggested the possibility the artifact might be viewable in a planned museum.

"I repeat (the Ark of the Covenant) is in Ethiopia and nobody … knows for how much time. Only God knows," he said in the Adnkronos report available online.

The report said Pauolos reported the artifact "is described perfectly in the Bible" and is in good condition.

"The state of conservation is good because it is not made from man's hand, but is something that God has made," Pauolos said, according to the report.

The agency had reported an announcement would be made at the hotel Aldrovandi in Rome, and a hotel spokeswoman told WND Pauolos had been in residence there, but no news conference or event was scheduled.

"The Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia for many centuries," said Pauolos in the report. "As a patriarch I have seen it with my own eyes and only few highly qualified persons could do the same, until now."

Bob Cornuke, biblical investigator, international explorer and best-selling author, has participated in more than 27 expeditions around the world searching for lost locations described in the Bible. A man some consider a real-life Indiana Jones, he has written a book titled "Relic Quest" about the Ark of the Covenant and participated in History Channel production called "Digging for Truth."

Cornuke will travel to Ethiopia soon for the 13th time since he began his search for the Ark. He told WND he believes it is possible Ethiopia could have the real artifact.

"They either have the Ark of the Covenant or they have a replica that they have believed to be the Ark of the Covenant for 2,000 years," he said.

Cornuke said, if it is genuine, there's a plausible explanation of how the Ark may have come to the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Ethiopia.

"The Ark could have been taken out of the temple during the time of the atrocities of Manasseh," he said. "We have kind of a bread crumb trail that appears to go to Egypt, and it stayed on an island there for a couple hundred years called Elephantine Island. The Ark then was transferred over to Lake Tana in Ethiopia where it stayed on Tana Qirqos Island for 800 years. Then it was taken to Axum, where it is enshrined in a temple today where they don't let anybody see it."

Cornuke said he traveled to Tana Qirqos Island and lived with monks who remain there even today.

"They unlocked this big, four-inch thick wood door," he said. "It opened up to a treasure room, and they showed me meat forks and bowls and things that they say are from Solomon's temple. When the History Channel did this show, they said it was one of the largest viewed shows. People were fascinated."

He said Ethiopians consider the Ark to be the ultimate holy object, and the church guards the suspected artifact from the "eyes and pollution of man."

"In Ethiopia, their whole culture is centered around worshipping this object," Cornuke said. "Could they have the actual Ark? I think I could make a case that they actually could."

The webmaster earlier told WND that members of the clergy and indeed, members of the church, would never allow the Ark to be taken from their custody in order to be made public.

"An (artifact) should not be shown or touched other than the clergies but to put it on display is a reckless comment let alone doing it," the statement said. "Not only the local clergies but the people of Ethiopia won't allow it and it is not going to happen."

The webmaster noted there were artifacts moved from Ethiopia to Britain over the years, and even those are not allowed to be displayed.

Pauolos in the Adnkronos report said any display would need the approval of the supreme court of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

A spokesman for a U.S. branch of the church, Mehereto Belete of Los Angeles, told WND he had been given no word of any major change in the status of the Ark.

"It is news for us just as it is for you," he said.

Cornuke explained that a special guardian lives inside the church which reportedly holds the Ark and never leaves. Once a guardian is appointed, he stays until he dies and another man replaces him.

"We know for a fact that there have been 30 guardians in history who have never left that enclosure," Cornuke said. "I know the guardian. When CNN and BBC went over there, he wouldn't see anybody but me. So I went and talked to him, and he's getting very aged. He told me they have the real Ark and he worships 13 hours a day in front of it. When he gets through, he is covered in sweat and he's exhausted."

He said he met a 105-year-old man who claimed to have seen the Ark 50 years ago when he was training a replacement guardian.

"It frightened him to death when he got a glimpse of it."

Cornuke said he also met with the president of Ethiopia nearly nine years ago and had a one-on-one conversation with him in his palace. He asked if Ethiopia had the Ark of the Covenant.

According to Cornuke, the president responded: "Yes, we do. I am the president, and I know. It's not a copy. It's the real thing."

However, Grant Jeffrey, host of TBN's Bible Prophecy Revealed and well-known author of "Armageddon: Appointment With Destiny," does not believe claims that the Ark is in Ethiopia. He told WND he spoke extensively with Robert Thompson, former adviser to former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

Jeffrey said Thompson told him the Ark of the Covenant had been taken to Ethiopia by Menelik, purported son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. When Menelik became emperor, he claims royal priests entrusted him with the Ark of the Covenant because King Solomon was slipping into apostasy. A replica was then left behind in Israel.

"The Ethiopian royal chronicles suggest that for 3,000 years, they had been guarding the ark, knowing that it had to go back to Israel eventually," Jeffrey said.

He claims that after the Ethiopian civil war, Israel sent in a group of commandos from the tribe of Levi and the carried the Ark onto a plane and back to Israel in 1991.

"It is being held there secretly, waiting in the eyes of the religious leaders of Israel, for a supernatural signal from God to rebuild the temple," he said. "They are not going to do it before that. When that happens, they will bring the Ark into that temple."

But author and Bible teacher Chuck Missler, founder of Koinonia House, told WND the theory of Menelik obtaining the Ark is not biblical, though he believes there is a possibility that the Ethiopians may have the real deal.

"The fact that the Ethiopians may have been guarding the Ark of the Bible is very possible," he said. "They cling to a belief that is clearly not biblical in terms of how the Ark got down there. But that doesn't mean they don't have it."

Missler said there is no biblical basis for the Menelik account, and he believes there was a reason for that version of events.

"What everybody overlooks is that there's a reason that particular story was cooked up in early times," he said. "It was to give their kings Solomonic descent. There's reason why they would try to sell that. But just because the official belief in how it got down there is not biblical, doesn't mean they don't have it."

Tennessee historian and "Time is the Ally of Deceit" author Richard Rives, searched for the Ark and participated in excavations beneath Mount Moriah outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem. His group was trying to verify claims by relic hunter Ron Wyatt that he actually saw the Ark there several decades ago after tunneling through a small passageway.

While they found Roman ruins from the first century, Rives told WND they were unsuccessful in confirming Wyatt's account. Nonetheless, Rives does not believe the story of Menelik obtaining the artifact or that Ethiopia ever had the real Ark.

"God's presence was on the mercy seat. That was the throne of God," he said.

If the account were accurate, Rives said God would have been dwelling on an Ark replica in Jerusalem.

"I just don't believe they could have persuaded him to sit on a fake Ark of the Covenant," he said.

Many theories exist about the ultimate fate of the Ark, including that it has been hidden in a still unknown location, it was destroyed by enemies of the Israelites, taken by Egyptian invaders to Egypt or removed by divine intervention.

The quest for the artifact received additional publicity in 1981 when actor Harrison Ford searched for it in Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Cornuke said Ethiopians claim their purported Ark is kept in a large stone sarcophagus lined in ornately hammered silver. The Ark itself is made of acacia wood and laminated with a thin veneer of gold. The mercy seat sits atop the Ark and is made of pure, hammered gold and includes two cherubim facing one another.

Whether the artifact is real or simply a copy, Cornuke said an unveiling might leave the world with more questions than answers.

"We have only typology to go on," he said. "We could probably have some people analyze the wood samples and come up with some kind of dating protocol on it because it is acacia wood to see if that is it."

Rives said a close inspection of the Ten Commandments would be necessary to ensure they are in accordance with true text and not later versions of the Ten Commandments.

Cornuke said experts would also need to determine whether the artifact itself fits biblical description and trace its path to Ethiopia.

"We are peeking behind the veil of history," he said. "We're taking a glimpse of an artifact that could be a very holy object."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102532

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Sotomayor Supported Censoring Biblical Verse on Homosexuality from New York City Billboard

2009-07-08T17:32:00.001-04:00

CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSN.com) [Media Research Center] - By Adam Brickley - July 8, 2009
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is again drawing fire from conservative groups, this time as the result of a 2003 ruling against a Christian group.

In the case of Okwedy v. Molinari, decided in 2003, Sotomayor sat on a three-judge panel that upheld a lower court’s ruling (from 2001) against Keyword Ministries and its pastor, Kristopher Okwedy. The ministry had purchased billboard advertisements featuring Bible verses that condemned homosexuality.

The ads were taken down after a local government official complained about their message to the company that owned the billboard, and Okwedy sued both the company and the government official who wrote the complaint.

He claimed his rights were violated under the Free Speech, Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and several state laws.

The advertisements featured various translations of Leviticus 18:22, which reads in the King James Version, “Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination.”

Posted in the New York City borough of Staten Island, the messages were taken down after Guy Molinari, the borough president, sent a letter condemning them to PNE Media, LLC, which owned the billboards.

His letter was printed on official New York City letterhead.

“As Borough President of Staten Island,” Molinari wrote, “I want to inform you that this message conveys an atmosphere of intolerance which is not welcome in our Borough.” The advertisements were taken down later that day.

In 2001, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed Okwedy’s lawsuit. An appeal was entered and the case went to a three judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in April 2002. The judges on the panel were Fred Parker, Chester Straub and Sonia Sotomayor.

In their “summary order” the judges ruled that the district court was correct to dismiss Okwedy’s claim that Molinari’s letter violated free speech rights. “Plaintiffs contend that Molinari violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause by criticizing the billboards’ message as unnecessarily confrontational and offensive, and by creating an atmosphere of intolerance. In order to prevail on a Free Exercise Clause claim, a plaintiff generally must establish that ‘the object of [the challenged] law is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation,’ or that its ‘purpose . . . is the suppression of religion or religious conduct,’” said the judges.

They continued: “Plaintiffs have alleged no facts that suggest that Molinari’s purpose or the purpose of the New York law was to single out plaintiffs’ religious expression. In fact, plaintiffs acknowledge that Molinari acted pursuant to the general policy against ‘intolerance’ and ‘bigotry’ expressed in New York law and the New York City Administrative Code § 8-101. … Therefore, because plaintiffs have not shown that Molinari lacked a rational basis for enforcing that policy, the district court correctly dismissed the Free Exercise Clause claim."

But Michael DePrimo, a former litigation counsel for the American Family Association’s Center for Law and Policy, which argued the case on behalf of Mr. Okwedy, told CNSNews.com: “The Establishment Clause requires neutrality in religious matters by the government. They can’t be pro-religion; they can’t be anti-religion. You can’t favor religion; you can’t be hostile toward religion.”

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council (FRC), slammed the appeals court’s opinion.

“The case raises troubling issues,” he said in a statement. “[T]he church was posting a purely religious message with no statements regarding public policy. The opinion suggests that Sotomayor may view the First Amendment through the lenses of political correctness.”

“Would a billboard proclaiming ‘gay pride month,’ which is offensive to many Christians, have been similarly treated?” Perkins said. “Sotomayor should be asked.”

DePrimo, now allied with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, said the way in which Sotomayor and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the case is questionable.

“This was an issue of first impression in the Second Circuit,” he said. “I couldn’t find anything that was remotely like it.” In legal terms, “first impression” is used to describe an issue which a court has never taken up before.

“So, instead of analyzing the issue and writing on it, and publishing it, and therefore setting a precedent that lower courts would be bound to follow, they took the unprecedented step of issuing a summary order that was unpublished” at the time DePrimo added. “How do you do that on an issue of first impression?”

DePrimo also noted that the court issued two different opinions on the case, dismissing most of the case with the summary order, but writing a published opinion on one portion of the case that was sent back to the district court. “I have never seen before a court bifurcate an opinion,” he said.

Asked whether Sotomayor showed a pattern of issuing summary orders on controversial cases, as she also did recently in the reverse-discrimination case of Ricci vs. DeStefano (involving firefighters in New Haven, Conn.), DePrimo said: “It appears to me that Judge Sotomayor simply refuses to analyze those questions or those issues that may result in a result that she doesn’t like.”

He also asserted that the summary order cited a district court analysis that did not exist.

The three-judge panel, including Sotomayor, “said that they relied upon the district court’s analysis of the Lemon test,” said DePrimo, referring to the guidelines set out for Establishment Clause cases in the 1971 case Lemon v. Kurtzman.

“The district court didn’t analyze the case under the Lemon Test,” said DePrimo. “The district court made no mention of the Lemon Test. So to say that they were accepting the lower court’s analysis and reasoning obviously is not correct,”

The three-pronged Lemon test, used to determine whether government violates the constitutional prohibition against government “establishment of religion,” requires the court to ask whether a government action has a secular purpose, has the purpose of advancing or inhibiting religion, or entangles religion and government. Had Sotomayor and the other members of the panel actually employed the Lemon Test, DePrimo claimed, Okwedy would have won.

Furthermore, he claimed that Okewedy v. Molinari may actually present more issues than Ricci v. DeStefano.

“In the Ricci case,” he said, “the reason that people are defending Sotomayor is they were saying the law in the 2nd Circuit was established, and therefore she was bound to follow the law, and therefore there was no reason for her to elaborately write on the issue in Ricci.”

“That wasn’t the case in Okwedy,” he said. “There was no established law. This was a case of first impression. This is what courts of appeal do.”

William Marshall , a professor of law at the University of North Carolina, expressed a different opinion of the case. Referring to the court’s written opinion, in which Okwedy’s free speech claim was returned to the lower courts for a new ruling, Marshall said, “The part that I saw, the speech piece of it, is a very pro-religious expression piece.”

He went on to say, “I think what the per curiam opinion did was take the strongest count by the plaintiffs and remanded that for further consideration, overruling the district court. In that sense, it was pretty sympathetic toward the plaintiffs’ position.”

Asked about the splitting of the decision into both an opinion and a summary order, Marshall said, “You see that occasionally. The Second Circuit does an awful lot of its business by summary orders.”

Rob Boston, a senior policy analyst for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, agreed with the court’s decision. “If you look at this case from the perspective of more of a church-state separation case,” he said, “I think it still is a difficult one for the churches to win, and here’s why: This is a case essentially that deals with a political issue that has religious overtones. It’s not pure religion.”

Boston also said, “This is different because it’s an issue that the church was claiming they feel very strongly about. They have a sincere religious belief that homosexuality is wrong. But that’s not going to rise to the same level of a direct attack on a religious denomination by a government.”

When asked whether Molinari’s action constituted an attack on the Bible, due to the fact that there was nothing but a Bible verse on Okwedy’s billboard, Boston said, “I can understand their argument. It’s a creative one, but I also can understand why it failed, because obviously in the context of an ongoing discussion on gay rights or same sex marriage or what have you, that quotation was designed to make a statement about a political issue.”

“Some of the conservative groups that don’t like Sotomayor are casting around looking for something to use against her,” Boston said, “and this is one of a couple of cases that they’ve brought up recently.”

“But, to be honest, I think the facts of this case are somewhat esoteric, they’re not really easy to grasp,” said Boston. “I doubt it’s going to resonate with the public, and I think, barring any unusual revelations at the last minute, Sotomayor’s going to go on the Supreme Court.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50678

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The Bilderberg Group: Are the people who 'really run the world' meeting this weekend?

2009-07-06T17:56:00.002-04:00

The Bilderberg group, the topic of many conspiracy theories, is now meeting behind closed doors in Greece.
HAARETZ [Schocken/DuMont Schauberg] - By Adam Abrams - May 14, 2009
From today until May 17, approximately 150 of the most influential members of the world's elite will be meeting behind closed doors at a hotel in Greece. They are called the Bilderberg Group or the "Bilderbergers," and you have probably never heard of them.

The group, co-founded by Prince Bernard of the Netherlands, has been meeting in secret every year since 1954. This year, says the British broadsheet The Times, they are meeting at the Nafsika Astir Palace in Vouliagmeni.

The individuals at the meeting come from such power houses as Google and the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Senate and European royalty. Governments, the banking industry, big oil, media and even the world of academia are amongst the Bilderberg ranks. Those reportedly in attendance at last year's conference in Virginia include former U.S. senator Tom Daschle; Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and his predecessor Henry M. Paulson; former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice; Microsoft executive Craig Mundie; senior Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot; World Bank President Robert Zoellick and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

There is no official list of who's who in Bilderberg and there are no press conferences about the meetings. This is because the group operates under the "Chatham House Rule," and no details of what goes on inside are released to the press.

This secrecy has led to many claims that the Bilderberg Group are the world's real "kingmakers," and, some even suggest, behind the global financial crisis.

There are also rumors concerning Bilderberg's 2008 conference in Virginia, claiming that the recent U.S. presidential election was decided upon in a secret meeting between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, courtesy of Bilderberg.

Those involved in Bilderberg reject such claims outright, arguing that the forum offers a chance for world leaders to discuss international affairs openly and honestly.

Former British cabinet minister, Lord Denis Healey, who was one of the founders of the group, branded assumptions of world domination as "crap!" and said that the group's aims were much purer.

In an interview to journalist Jon Ronson of the Guardian, Healey said: "Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."

Veteran Bilderberg-watcher Daniel Estulin says that the big topic on the agenda for this year is the global depression.

Estulin quotes sources connected to the group as saying that the group is looking at two options, "either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline, and poverty... or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency."

As the BBC's Jonathan Duffy noted in 2004, the air of mystery has fueled the increasingly popular conspiracy theory that the Bilderberg meetings are where decisions affecting the entire world are made.

"No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted," Duffy wrote. "In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg."

Recently, mainstream press coverage of the Bilderberg meeting has grown, largely due to the internet. This year's conference may have been covered by British broadsheets, but don't expect to see any coverage from U.S. news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post - they will most likely be at the conference.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085589.html

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The Dark Roots of the EU

2009-07-05T18:28:00.002-04:00

THE BRUSSELS JOURNAL [Society for the Advancement of Freedom in Europe (SAFE), a Swiss non-profit organisation] - From the desk of Paul Belien - December 5, 2005

Belgium was founded exactly 175 years ago, in 1830. The cover of A Throne in Brussels, the book I wrote for its anniversary, depicts the map of the European Union in the Belgian colours. This is no coincidence. As Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt recently said: “Belgium is the laboratory of European unification. Foreign politicians watch our country with particular interest because it can teach them something about the feasibility of the European project.”

Two peoples live within the Belgian state: Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speaking Walloons. In 1830 the country was part of the Dutch-speaking Netherlands. The Belgian revolution was the work of French-speaking rebels who wanted to have it annexed to France. The international powers stepped in and, by way of compromise, decided to make Belgium an independent kingdom with at its helm a German prince, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who was a member of the British royal family.

The French diplomat Talleyrand described the new country as “an artificial construction, consisting of different peoples.” His Austrian colleague Count Dietrichstein said that the Belgian nationality was “a political attempt rather than an observable political reality.” These are descriptions that fit the European project today.

In 1865, the year of his death, Leopold I, the prince who had been given the crown of Belgium, told his son that “nothing holds the country together” and that “it cannot continue to exist.” To his secretary, Jules Van Praet, he said “Belgium has no nationality and […] it can never have one. Basically, Belgium has no political reason to exist.”

Belgium’s history is the dramatic search of its leaders for unifying elements which would be able to compensate for the lack of nationhood and the absence of genuine and generous patriotic feelings in their country. By the late 19th century the Belgian political elite developed the ideology of “Belgicism.” This “Belgicism” bears a striking similarity to contemporary “Europeanism.” Just listen to what the Belgicist ideologue Léon Hennebicq, a Brussels lawyer, wrote in 1904:

“Have we not been called the laboratory of Europe? Indeed, we are a nation under construction. The problem of economic expansion is duplicated perfectly here by the problem of constructing a nationality. Two different languages, different classes without cohesion, a parochial mentality, an adherence to local communities that borders on the most harmful egotism, these are all elements of disunion. Luckily they can be reconciled. The solution is economic expansion, which can make us stronger by uniting us.”

His words foreshadow the Europeanist project of the 1950s which aimed for political unification through economic integration. Apart from a Belgicist, however, Hennebicq was also a socialist. He did not attach importance to economic growth for its own sake - the creation of wealth which would benefit the people - but because Belgium needed economic expansion in order to be able to literally buy the adherence of the Flemings and the Walloons to their artificial state. The Belgicists were aware that Belgium could only become a viable country, if it was turned into a huge redistribution mechanism, a welfare state.

After the first World War the Belgicists imposed a social-corporatist system on Belgium. Since 1919, economic and social policies are no longer decided in parliament, but in consensus between the so-called “Social Partners.” These Social Partners include the Federation of Belgian Employers, which is the official representative of the employers versus the state. In addition it includes three specific trade unions (a Christian-Democrat, a Socialist and a Liberal one), which are recognised by the state as the only official representatives of the employees. The social partners are by nature Belgicist institutions: they operate in both Flanders and Wallonia and have huge financial and political interests in both parts of the country.

Already at a very early stage, it dawned on the Belgicists that they could as easily apply their state-building experiment to Europe. Between 1900 and 1932, the Belgicist historian Henri Pirenne published a seven volume history of Belgium. Pirenne claimed that Belgium was not a 19th century “artificial construction” as Talleyrand had said. On the contrary, he described it as one of the oldest nations in the whole of Europe. Indeed, Charlemagne, the 8th century Frankish leader, had been a Belgian, Pirenne said. In Charlemagne’s Frankish Empire, people of Latin and Germanic origin had lived together. According to the Belgicists, Belgium, this union of Germanic Flemings and Latin Walloons, was the very core of the state of Charlemagne which in 1830 had reappeared like a phoenix. In order to fulfil its destiny it would have to expand into a united Europe, with the Germans in the position of the Flemings and the French in that of the Walloons. Pirenne created the myth of Charlemagne as the first Belgian and the first European.

In the 1930s the idea of transplanting Belgicism to the European level, by creating a unified pan-European corporatist welfare state, was further elaborated on by Henri De Man, the leader of the Belgian Socialist Party, and by his deputy Paul-Henri Spaak. De Man called himself a national socialist, but explained that this had nothing to do with nationalism at all. In fact, one of his major books was called “Au delà du Nationalisme” (“Beyond Nationalism”).

De Man knew that Belgium, as an artificial construct, did not really exist as a nation. The Belgian state was no more than the corporatist welfare system run by the “social partners.” All that being a Belgian nationalist meant was that one was attached to the Belgian welfare state. In a february 1937 interview De Man said: “What Spaak and I mean by national socialism is a socialism that attempts to achieve all that can be achieved within the national framework.” He went on to state that the Belgian welfare system could - and should - eventually be replaced by a pan-European or even a global welfare system. “I insist on being a good European, a good world citizen, as much as on being a good Belgian,” de Man said. He reckoned that if one had to live in an artificial welfare state, it would be better to live in one on as large a scale as possible. The Belgian model had to be applied at a European level.

When Hitler invaded Belgium and France in May 1940, De Man saw this as a unique opportunity to establish a united Europe. He asked his followers not to oppose the German victory because “far from being a disaster, it is a deliverance. The Socialist Order will thereby be established, as the common good, in the name of a national solidarity that will soon be continental, if not world-wide.” In a speech in Antwerp on 20 April 1941 (Hitler’s birthday), De Man warned against Flemish secessionists who collaborated with the Germans in the hope that Berlin would abolish Belgium and grant Flanders its independence. De Man stressed that it was necessary to “transform Belgium, not abandon it”, through “an Anschluss to Europe.” What was needed, he added, “was as much federalism and as little separatism as possible,” so that “Belgium, exactly because it is not based on a unique national sentiment, can become the vanguard of the European Revolution, the principle on which the new European Order hinges.”

De Man’s deputy, Paul-Henri Spaak, who had fled to France in May 1940, tried to return to Belgium during the Summer, but was not allowed in by the Germans. Hence, against his wishes he ended up in Britain. At the time he deplored this. Later it would turn out to have been his good fortune. Otherwise, like De Man, he would have ended up as a Nazi collaborator. Instead, Spaak survived the war on the winning side.

Though Henri De Man is now forgotten by history, his political legacy is very much alive. Spaak remained loyal to De Man’s vision of Belgium as a multi-national social-corporatist welfare state that was to be elevated to the European level. Spaak became one of the Founding Fathers of the European Union. Though he was an arch-opportunist, with few loyalties, he did not betray De Man’s dream of one single European welfare state. According to Spaak’s 1969 memoirs, De Man was “one of those rare men who on some occasions have given me the sensation of a genius.”

In 1956, Spaak authored the so-called Spaak Report which laid the foundation of the Treaty of Rome the following year. It recommended the creation of a European Common Market as a step towards political unification. From the beginning the views of the people about all this was deemed unimportant. In his memoirs, Spaak admits that “political opinion was indifferent. The work was done by a minority who knew what they wanted.”

Given the roots of Europeanism in Belgicism, there is a lot to be learned from Belgium’s characteristics as an artificial non-national state. Verhofstadt is right when he says that foreign politicians watch his country with particular interest because it can teach them something about the feasibility of the European project. The European superstate shares more than just its capital with Belgium. If the so-called Europeanists have their way, it is also going to be a Greater-Belgium.

In my book I describe three characteristics of Belgium that have already infected Europe. Firstly, as there is no genuine patriotism, the state has had to buy the adherence of the people by literally corrupting them. The absence of the virtue of generous patriotism forces the political leaders to make hard-headed calculated self-interest the foundation of the state. It is not a coincidence that Belgium is plagued by corruption to a degree that is higher than in neighbouring countries. It is not a coincidence that corruption is plaguing the European institutions also.

A second characteristic of Belgium throughout its history has been the absence of the rule of law. If the existence of the state is at stake, laws and even the constitution will be ignored in order to secure the continued existence of Belgium. As the state is an artificial construct that is unloved by the people, this happens quite regularly. Many examples are to be found in Belgium’s 175 years of existence. In fact there never was a majority in the Belgian parliament to introduce the social-corporatist model of the Belgicists in 1919. About this episode the historian Luc Schepens wrote: “It is not inappropriate to state that the worst war casualties in Belgium were the Constitution and the parliamentary democracy - albeit out of necessity and in the name of the continuity of the State.” Today, out of necessity and in the name of the continuity of the European project, Europeanists want to ignore the rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty by the peoples of Europe.

The third characteristic of an artificially constructed state is its unreliability in international relations. A state that is not committed to the rule of law, is not committed to its friends and allies either.
Original Report

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/542

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China’s REAL ID: Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says

2009-06-13T17:12:00.003-04:00

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Sharon LaFraniere - April 20, 2009
BEIJING - “Ma,” a Chinese character for horse, is the 13th most common family name in China, shared by nearly 17 million people. That can cause no end of confusion when Mas get together, especially if those Mas also share the same given name, as many Chinese do.

Ma Cheng’s book-loving grandfather came up with an elegant solution to this common problem. Twenty-six years ago, when his granddaughter was born, he combed through his library of Chinese dictionaries and lighted upon a character pronounced “cheng.” Cheng, which means galloping steeds, looks just like the character for horse, except that it is condensed and written three times in a row.

The character is so rare that once people see it, Miss Ma said, they tend to remember both her and her name. That is one reason she likes it so much.

That is also why the government wants her to change it.

For Ma Cheng and millions of others, Chinese parents’ desire to give their children a spark of individuality is colliding head-on with the Chinese bureaucracy’s desire for order. Seeking to modernize its vast database on China’s 1.3 billion citizens, the government’s Public Security Bureau has been replacing the handwritten identity card that every Chinese must carry with a computer-readable one, complete with color photos and embedded microchips. The new cards are harder to forge and can be scanned at places like airports where security is a priority.

The bureau’s computers, however, are programmed to read only 32,252 of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters, according to a 2006 government report. The result is that Miss Ma and at least some of the 60 million other Chinese with obscure characters in their names cannot get new cards - unless they change their names to something more common.

Moreover, the situation is about to get worse or, in the government’s view, better. Since at least 2003, China has been working on a standardized list of characters for people to use in everyday life, including when naming children.

One newspaper reported last week that the list would be issued later this year and would curb the use of obscure names. A government linguistics official told Xinhua, the state-run news agency, that the list would include more than 8,000 characters. Although that is far fewer than the database now supposedly includes, the official said it was more than enough “to convey any concept in any field.” About 3,500 characters are in everyday use.

Government officials suggest that names have gotten out of hand, with too many parents picking the most obscure characters they can find or even making up characters, like linguistic fashion accessories. But many Chinese couples take pride in searching the rich archives of classical Chinese to find a distinctive, pleasing name, partly to help their children stand out in a society with strikingly few surnames.

By some estimates, 100 surnames cover 85 percent of China’s citizens. Laobaixing, or “old hundred names,” is a colloquial term for the masses. By contrast, 70,000 surnames cover 90 percent of Americans.

The number of Chinese family names in use has tended to shrink as China’s population has grown, a winnowing of surnames that has occurred in many cultures over time.

At last count, China’s Wangs were leading with more than 92 million, followed by 91 million Lis and 86 million Zhangs. To refer to an unidentified person — the equivalent of “just anybody” in English — one Chinese saying can be loosely translated this way: “some Zhang, some Li.”

The potential for mix-ups is vast. There are nearly enough Chinese named Zhang Wei to populate the city of Pittsburgh. Nicknames are liberally bestowed in classrooms and workplaces to tell people apart. Confronting three students named Liu Fang, for example, one middle-school teacher nicknamed them Big, Little and Middle.

Wang Daliang, a linguistics scholar with the China Youth University for Political Science, said picking rare characters for given names only compounded the problem and inconvenienced everyone. “Using obscure names to avoid duplication of names or to be unique is not good,” he wrote in an e-mail response to questions.

“Now a lot of people are perplexed by their names,” he said. “The computer cannot even recognize them and people cannot read them. This has become an obstacle in communication.”

But Professor Zhou Youyong, dean of Southeast University’s law school, said the government should tread carefully in issuing any new regulation. “The right to name children is a basic right of citizens,” he said.

Miss Ma said that while her given name was unusual, bank employees, passport control clerks and ticket agents had always managed to deal with it, usually by writing it by hand. But when she tried to renew her identity card last August, she said, Beijing public security officials turned her down flat.

“Your name is so troublesome and problematic,” she recalled an official telling her. “Just change it.”

Miss Ma argues that the government’s technology should adapt, not her.

“There were no such regulations when I was born, so I should be entitled to keep my name for my whole life,” she said. If she changes her name to get an identity card, she noted, it will be wrong on all of her other documents, like her passport and university diploma.

Besides, she said, “I can’t think of another, better name.”

Using the time-honored Chinese method of backdoor connections, Miss Ma was able to get a temporary card in January. She must renew it every three months but considers that a small sacrifice for keeping her name.

Zhao C., a 23-year-old college student, gave up the fight for his. His father, a lawyer, chose the letter C from the English alphabet, saying it was simple, memorable and stood for China.

When he could not get a new identity card in 2006, Zhao C. sued. But security officials convinced him that it would cost millions of dollars to alter the database, his father said, so he dropped the suit in February.

His case might suggest that resistance against China’s powerful bureaucracy was futile. Still, the government’s plan to limit the use of characters has not gone all that smoothly.

The new rules were originally supposed to be issued by 2005. Now, 70 revisions later, they have yet to be put in place.

An official this week batted away questions, saying publicity might delay the rules even longer.

Huang Yuanxi contributed research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.html?th&emc=th

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

NAU: Land of the free on the verge of extinction?

2009-06-13T15:02:00.003-04:00

Note: This is an excerpt of the introductory essay for the Be Alert! published on September 27, 2007 that contains part of Scott Brisk’s personal testimony.

In approximately 1979 I viewed the movie version of Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth. Now looking back, at only twelve years old the movie had the most profound and life changing impact of anything in my childhood. I began to pay attention to world events and to expect certain things to happen and slowly over time those things indeed did begin to happen.

I was brought up Roman Catholic, but my mother went through what I can only describe as a searching phase where we stopped attending mass and I was exposed to some evangelicals such as Pat Roberson and his 700 Club. In retrospect, I didn’t really know anything but some very basic truths and many lies and distortions, but I did have a personal trust in God the Father, and had a personal relationship with Him as best as I could based upon my limited understanding and I do now see that the Lord was calling me. I didn’t buy into Roman Catholicism (although I didn’t understand or think there was anything wrong with it either) or any denominations for that matter, I just knew a Christian was a Christian, but I couldn’t tell you why.

Of course I was just a child and praise the Lord, had the faith of a child. Twice, I believe the Lord answered my prayers and healed, the first time being when I was maybe nine years old and sprained my ankle very badly the day before a large family function. I was very sad because I thought I would be laid up in bed and miss the event so I prayed to the Lord that He would heal my ankle and I awoke the next morning as if nothing had happened. The second time, only a few years later my pet cat was diagnosed with a fatal illness and was very sick. The vet said she would have to be put to sleep. Again I prayed and the next day she was better, no sign of the illness and our cat went on to live another ten years or so.

As I progressed into my teen years I drifted away from my daily prayers and child-like trust in the Lord and slipped into rebellion and a party lifestyle, but in the back of my mind I always believed in the God of the Bible which made for some awkward moments when hanging around my stoned, drunken hippie and punk rocker friends. In my ignorance I made it a habit to blaspheme one friend’s statue of Buddha as much as possible as way of countering all of their blaspheming of God and Christ.

However, the images from that movie stuck with me and as I watched world events unfold I knew that something about the Bible was true. I started to develop a hunger for reading the scripture and had a goal that sometime in my life I would read through the whole Bible. Of course, at that point in time it was very difficult to understand and some of it just made absolutely no sense and the stuff about “sin” I could understand but didn’t like to read. I just wanted to read the “good parts”, which for me always had to do with the end times. Finally as I grew older, conviction began to really take hold and I finally surrendered to the Lord in 1996 at the age of 29 while reading a book by Dave Hunt called How Close Are We? Suddenly the veil was torn and I could see and the Bible made complete sense, I was blind but now I could see! It was absolutely amazing hearing so many of those cliché’ terms over the years but now suddenly experiencing them.

Through all those previous years however, I had kept one eye on world events and had built up some expectation of things that would come. Part of what brought me to surrender was seeing so many events pointing more and more towards what the Bible spoke concerning the time of Christ’s return. Today, many of those things are taking place at a frightening pace.

One area that tends to always get a negative response from subscribers of the alert is that of the sudden increase in the destruction of personal rights, the growth of a police state and the birth of a fascist government here in the United Stated as well as other Western Democracies.

When I say fascist I feel I must always explain myself by stating that I am not referring to what took place in Nazi Germany with Hitler but to the classic definition of fascism, which is a marriage of government and business. Adolph Hitler was a dictator who used fascism while those in power today sway people emotionally away from reason by throwing out words such as “Nazi” and names such as “Hitler”. This is done daily by politicians and the press to such a point that the public has become non-thinking puppets controlled by any emotion the puppeteers want to exploit rather than by using rational thought.

This one-world trend I have expected for a very long time, so I am not surprised when I see it, but what does surprise me is how many Christians just don’t see it, don’t want to see it, won’t except it, or ridicule me and others for exposing it.

Actually, as I have done research this trend began quite earlier in the history of America than most people realize. Numerous sources tend to agree that the original “free” America that we are all taught to believe in dissipated somewhere between the end of Andrew Jackson’s presidency in 1837 and the end of the Civil War, depending on what characteristics you focus on. It is interesting to note the timings of the last great revivals in this country also when considering these items. I have come to the conclusion that we have been living in Laodicea and a delusion for generations and hence the great difficulty in awakening Christians from the enormous stupor that has overtaken the church.

`Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, - Revelation 3:17

For instance, between High School and College I endured Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs teaching in at least ten different classes. These types of false teachings have been rammed down our throats for decades in now America and so most people including Christians don’t even question the truth, origins, etc…

I believe if Christians back in the 1970’s or 1980’s could have looked ahead and see the reports you are about to see it would have taken their breath away! How I wonder if today many Christians have not had their “breath” really taken away, if I may say so in a typological sense.

If you take time to look at the reports these are not “conspiracy theories” but facts backed up by the governments own reports and websites.

Why do so many just blatantly disregard the facts? Is it too uncomfortable? Does it trample on a preconceived idea? Does it jeopardize your material goods and your bank accounts? Or does it put in jeopardy your dreams and plans for your future and that of your families? Probably the same reasons the plain truths of the Bible have been disregarded for fads, gimmicks and outright lies.

I don’t really know the answer to these questions but I just observe what is happening around me and have seen a terrible shift over the years from an evangelical church looking forward to the return of Christ to one looking forward to the fruits of this life, to the pleasures the world has to offer, the great white picket-fence Disneyland delusion that has swept across America and the West. …

I do not know of one major newspaper that will cover the North American Union although a few local papers will if they happen to be a considered a “local issue” (more on that in the media special also). Why? At the newspaper I work at trucks loaded with newsprint from Canada line up each night (last night 5 tractor trailers from Quebec) and I can’t help but wonder what financial benefit (because it all comes down to money) open borders will give the media as a whole. Could that be part of the reason along with the cheap labor pool that fills the many temp and part-time positions that are open at newspapers?

What is interesting to consider is that in Canada and Mexico the story seems much different. A visiting Circulation Director from Halifax, Nova Scotia I spoke with was very familiar with the NAU as Canadians are mostly dead set against it. Their media and newspapers cover the issue. The Mexican government and Mexicans on the other hand are very much for it and so again the coverage is there. However, it seems that Americans are living up to there world-renowned reputation for being basically stupid when it comes to issues that effect the world only now it’s also in their own backyard.

Also, there are much larger and complicated trade and financial issues to consider. In America the people have been lied to about the financial condition of the country and how the banking industry works for years. It is now starting to come to a head with the trade imbalance, Federal deficit, oil considerations, the credit and mortgage crises, countries that have or are threatening to change from the dollar to the Euro or to some other standard of backing not to mention the largest group of expected retirees starting next year. These things could easily bring the US to it’s knees unless something is done and turn the US and Canada along with Mexico into a competitor on the world state with more of a third world system that China and India already use may just be the sneaky solution to problem. Not to mention the China factor, Saudi Arabia also plays a big role in this whole mess.

However, none of my ideas really matter. I am not trying to be political or offer a solution to these problems because I believe the return of Christ is very near and these one-world movements are signs pointing to that along with the bias, distortions and the cover-ups in the media which has become the mouthpiece of Satan unless you know how and where to look and the lens to read and view through which is the Word of God.

The point of this alert is to warn you that the “land of the free” is on the verge of extinction along with her Western counterparts and this is all part of the enemy’s strategy to destroy God’s people, both Christians and Jews, who mostly are in desperate need of the truth and hearing of the gospel of the Kingdom. We need to be diligently spreading the truth and pulling as many out of the fire before that great and awesome day of the Lord comes. I pray that this may be a tool you can share with others as a way of opening that door.

BE/\LERT!

10 Most Important Obama Faith Moments

2009-06-05T23:33:00.001-04:00

10 Most Important Obama Faith Moments
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT [NY Daily News/Mortimer Zuckerman] - April 29, 2009
1. Rick Warren's Inauguration Day Invocation
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/rick-warren-invocation
2. Granting First TV Interview to Arabic Language Network
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/obama-on-al-arabiya
3. Reversing Mexico City Policy on Family Planning Providers Abroad
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/family-planning-abroad
4. Opening Rallies With Prayer
George W. Bush started cabinet meetings with prayer and encouraged the formation of Bible study groups at the White House, but President Obama has gone a big step further in embracing religion by opening many of his public events with prayers that have been commissioned and vetted by administration aides. The prayers, which have kicked off at least a half dozen of the president's outside-the-beltway rallies, are written and read by local community members who've been selected by the White House. Interviews with former White House aides and official presidential archivists going back to the Carter administration turn up no evidence of similar programs. "If a similar thing had been done by President Bush's White House, I guarantee you there would have been a lot of people crying foul," says Bill Wichterman, President Bush's liaison to religious groups. The White House declined to comment about the program, other than to say that such prayers have been standard since Obama began his presidential campaign.
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/opening-rallies-with-prayer
5. Launching White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/white-house-faith-office
6. Convening a Faith Advisory Council
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/faith-advisory-council
7. Joe Biden's Receiving Ashes on Ash Wednesday
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/biden-ash-wednesday
8. Lifting Restrictions on Federally-Funded Embryonic Stem Cell Research
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/stem-cell-research
9. Announcing Plans to Give Notre Dame's Commencement Address
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments/obama-at-notre-dame
10. Speaking to Muslim World From Turkey
http://www.usnews.com/listings/ten-obama-faith-moments

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Barack Obama is a narcissist

2009-06-05T20:00:00.002-04:00

Dr. Sam Vaknin is an Israeli psychologist. Interesting view on our new president.
This can be checked out on Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/vaknin.asp

Dr. Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism.
Dr. Vaknin states "I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi "religious" impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects."

Barack Obama is a narcissist.
Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love believes "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist.." Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens. Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom. When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late. One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse.

"Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations," says Vaknin. "Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia, a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white)grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995".

One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective. They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and do not deserve their attention.

If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him.. Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations.

The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father.

Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself? Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless. As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month.

A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power.

A narcissist cares for no one but himself. This election is like no other in the history of America. The issues are insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world? I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others..They are simply self serving and selfish.

Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example. To him reality and fantasy are intertwined. This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent. It is this disguise that makes them treacherous.

Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could put an end to their party. The great majority of blacks have also decided to vote for Obama. Only a fool does not know that their support for him is racially driven. This is racism, pure and simple. The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites.

The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.

The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960's.

Obama will set the clock back decades... America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America, and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations.

It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction. There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Do You Recognize Barack Obama in These Texts? - First Series

2009-06-05T19:43:00.002-04:00

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 3/2/2009

This is the first in a series of articles examining Obama's psychological makeup in minute detail.

By now, the world had two years of exposure to Barack Obama. We all have followed his exploits and antics; have watched him on television; have heard his speeches; have witnessed his scripted and spontaneous interactions with family, subordinates, co-workers, and friends.

You should read this text with a few grains of salt. Scroll to the bottom to review the disclaimers.

I also recommend that you get acquainted my previous article: "Barack Obama: A Narcissist, or Merely Narcissistic?"
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/obama.html

Following are descriptions of narcissistic and psychopathic traits. They are common among people diagnosed with the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) ( http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/npdglance.html ) and the Antisocial Personality Disorder (psychopaths). Read these texts.

Do you recognize Barack Obama in them?

Narcissists are self-sufficient and consider themselves peerless. The Narcissist's "friends", companions, and acolytes provide the narcissist with an obsequious, unthreatening, audience and with the kind of unconditional and unthinking obedience that confirms to him his omnipotence. They are sufficiently vacuous to make the narcissist look sharp and omniscient - but not so asinine as to be instantly discernible as such. They are the perfect backdrop, never likely to attain centre stage and overshadow their master.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Narcissist and His Friends
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal85.html

In the narcissist's surrealistic world, even language is pathologized. It mutates into a weapon of self-defence, a verbal fortification, a medium without a message, replacing words with duplicitous and ambiguous vocables.

Narcissists (and, often, by contagion, their unfortunate victims) don't talk, or communicate. They fend off. They hide and evade and avoid and disguise. In their planet of capricious and arbitrary unpredictability, of shifting semiotic and semantic dunes - they perfect the ability to say nothing in lengthy, Castro-like speeches.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Weapon of Language
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal34.html

The narcissist is the guru at the centre of a cult. Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock: his spouse, his offspring, other family members, friends, and colleagues. He feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline, adherence to his teachings, and common goals. The less accomplished he is in reality - the more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Cult of the Narcissist
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal79.html

The "modesty" displayed by narcissists is false. It is mostly and merely verbal. It is couched in flourishing phrases, emphasised to absurdity, repeated unnecessarily - usually to the point of causing gross inconvenience to the listener. The real aim of such behaviour and its subtext are exactly the opposite of common modesty.

It is intended to either aggrandise the narcissist or to protect his grandiosity from scrutiny and possible erosion. Such modest outbursts precede inflated, grandiosity-laden statements made by the narcissist and pertaining to fields of human knowledge and activity in which he is sorely lacking.

Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the "old ways": against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt order. Narcissistic movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon a narcissistic (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state, or group, or upon the leader.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The False Modesty and Fake Folksiness of the Narcissist
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq36.html

Narcissistic and Psychopathic Leaders
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/15.html

The narcissist's lies are not goal-orientated. This is what makes his constant dishonesty both disconcerting and incomprehensible. The narcissist lies at the drop of a hat, needlessly, and almost ceaselessly. He lies in order to avoid the Grandiosity Gap - when the abyss between fact and (narcissistic) fiction becomes too gaping to ignore.

The narcissist lies in order to preserve appearances, uphold fantasies, support the tall (and impossible) tales of his False Self and extract Narcissistic Supply from unsuspecting sources, who are not yet on to him. To the narcissist, confabulation is not merely a way of life - but life itself.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Confabulated Life and Biography of the Narcissist
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal75.html

The narcissist is confident that people find him irresistible. His unfailing charm is part of his self-imputed omnipotence. This inane conviction is what makes the narcissist a "pathological charmer". The somatic narcissist and the histrionic flaunt their sex appeal, virility or femininity, sexual prowess, musculature, physique, training, or athletic achievements.

The cerebral narcissist seeks to enchant and entrance his audience with intellectual pyrotechnics. Many narcissists brag about their wealth, health, possessions, collections, spouses, children, personal history, family tree - in short: anything that garners them attention and renders them alluring.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Narcissist as a Pathological Charmer
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/case05.html

The narcissist has a complicated relationship with his parents (mainly with his mother, but, at times, also with his father). As Primary Objects, the narcissist's parents are often a source of frustration which leads to repressed or to self-directed aggression. They traumatise the narcissist during his infancy and childhood and thwart his healthy development well into his late adolescence.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Narcissist's Dead Parents
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq54.html

The narcissist perceives every disagreement - let alone criticism - coming from people whom he does not consider to be his "peers" (e.g., the media) as nothing short of a threat. He reacts defensively. He becomes indignant, aggressive and cold. He detaches emotionally for fear of yet another (narcissistic) injury. He devalues the person who made the disparaging remark.

By holding the critic in contempt, by diminishing the stature of the discordant conversant - the narcissist minimises the impact of the disagreement or criticism on himself. This is a defence mechanism known as cognitive dissonance.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

Narcissists, Disagreement and Criticism
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq73.html

The narcissist constantly consumes (really, preys upon) adoration, admiration, approval, applause, attention and other forms of Narcissistic Supply.

The normal person is likely to welcome a moderate amount of attention - verbal and non-verbal - in the form of affirmation, approval, or admiration. Too much attention, though, is perceived as onerous and is avoided. Destructive and negative criticism is avoided altogether.

The narcissist, in contrast, is the mental equivalent of an alcoholic. He is insatiable. He directs his whole behaviour, in fact his life, to obtain these pleasurable titbits of attention. He embeds them in a coherent, completely biased, picture of himself. He uses them to regulates his labile sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

To elicit constant interest, he projects to others a confabulated, fictitious version of himself, known as the False Self. The False Self is everything the narcissist is not: omniscient, omnipotent, charming, intelligent, rich, or well-connected.

The narcissist then proceeds to harvest reactions to this projected image from family members, friends, co-workers, neighbours, business partners and from colleagues. If these - the adulation, admiration, attention, fear, respect, applause, affirmation - are not forthcoming, the narcissist demands them, or extorts them. Money, compliments, a favourable critique, an appearance in the media, a sexual conquest are all converted into the same currency in the narcissist's mind.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

Narcissists, Narcissistic Supply and Sources of Supply
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq76.html

"Haughty" body language - The narcissist adopts a physical posture which implies and exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness, amused indifference, etc. Though the narcissist usually maintains sustained and piercing eye contact, he often refrains from physical proximity (he is "territorial").

The narcissist takes part in social interactions - even mere banter - condescendingly, from a position of supremacy and faux "magnanimity and largesse". But he rarely mingles socially and prefers to remain the "observer", or the "lone wolf".

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

How to Recognise a Narcissist?
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq58.html

Two narcissists of the same type (somatic, cerebral, classic, compensatory, inverted, etc.) cannot maintain a stable, long-term full-fledged, and functional relationship.

There are two types of narcissists: the somatic narcissist and the cerebral narcissist. The somatic type relies on his body and sexuality as Sources of Narcissistic Supply. The cerebral narcissist uses his intellect, his intelligence and his professional achievements to obtain the same. The cerebral narcissist is a know-it-all, haughty and intelligent "computer". He uses his awesome intellect, or knowledge (real or pretended) to secure adoration, adulation and admiration. To him, his body and its maintenance are a burden and a distraction.

Thus, if both members of the couple are cerebral narcissists, for instance if both of them are scholars - the resulting competition prevents them from serving as ample Sources of Narcissistic Supply to each other. Finally the mutual admiration society crumbles.

Consumed by the pursuit of their own narcissistic gratification, they have no time or energy or will left to cater to the narcissistic needs of their partner. Moreover, the partner is perceived as a dangerous and vicious contender for a scarce resource: Sources of Narcissistic Supply. This may be less true if the two narcissists work in totally unrelated academic or intellectual fields.

But if the narcissists involved are of different types, if one of them is cerebral and the other one somatic, a long-term partnership based on the mutual provision of Narcissistic Supply can definitely survive.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

Narcissistic Couples and Narcissistic Types
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq60.html

The Cerebral vs. the Somatic Narcissist
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq60.html

God is everything the narcissist ever wants to be: omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, admired, much discussed, and awe inspiring. God is the narcissist's wet dream, his ultimate grandiose fantasy. But God comes handy in other ways as well.

The narcissist alternately idealizes and devalues figures of authority.

In the idealization phase, he strives to emulate them, he admires them, imitate them (often ludicrously), and defends them. They cannot go wrong, or be wrong. The narcissist regards them as bigger than life, infallible, perfect, whole, and brilliant. But as the narcissist's unrealistic and inflated expectations are inevitably frustrated, he begins to devalue his former idols.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

For the Love of God: Narcissists and Religion
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal45.html

The narcissist is not really interested in publicity per se. Narcissists are misleading. The narcissist appears to love himself - and, really, he abhors himself. Similarly, he appears to be interested in becoming a celebrity - and, in reality, he is concerned with the REACTIONS to his fame: people watch him, notice him, talk about him, debate his actions - therefore he exists.

The narcissist goes around "hunting and collecting" the way the expressions on people's faces change when they notice him. He places himself at the centre of attention, or even as a figure of controversy. He constantly and recurrently pesters those nearest and dearest to him in a bid to reassure himself that he is not losing his fame, his magic touch, the attention of his social milieu.

Truly, the narcissist is not choosy. If he can become famous as a writer - he writes, if as a businessman - he conducts business. He switches from one field to the other with ease and without remorse because in all of them he is present without conviction, bar the conviction that he must (and deserves to) get famous.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Narcissist's Addiction to Fame and Celebrity
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq19.html

Psychopaths are said to be fearless, imperturbable, and sang-froid. Their pain tolerance is very high. Still, contrary to popular perceptions and psychiatric orthodoxy, some psychopaths are actually anxious and fearful. Their psychopathy is a defense against an underlying and all-pervasive anxiety, either hereditary, or brought on by early childhood abuse.

Rings a bell? Continue to read about this specific trait or behavior here:

The Psychopath and Antisocial

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/personalitydisorders16.html

(To be Continued in the Second Series)

DISCLAIMERS

1. I am not a mental health professional. Still, I have dedicated the last 12 years to the study of personality disorders in general and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) in particular. I have authored nine (9) books about these topics, one of which is a Barnes and Noble best-seller ("Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited"). My work is widely cited in scholarly tomes and publications and in the media. My books and the content of my Web site are based on correspondence since 1996 with hundreds of people suffering from the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (narcissists) and with thousands of their family members, friends, therapists, and colleagues.

2. Only a qualified mental health diagnostician can determine whether someone suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and this, following lengthy tests and personal interviews. But, in the absence of access to Barack Obama, one has to rely on his overt performance and on testimonies by his closest, nearest and dearest.Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com You can download 22 of his free ebooks in our bookstore

http://www.globalpolitician.com/25489-obama-narcissist-psychopath-usa-president

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Obama's Christian "Point Man": 'The Perfect Hybrid'

2009-06-05T17:14:00.002-04:00

At 26, Joshua DuBois has already been a pastor and a congressional fellow, and is now the President's faith-based point man.
CHRISTIANITY TODAY [CTI Publications] - By Sarah Pulliam - May 13, 2009
At 26, Joshua Dubois has already rubbed shoulders with more religious leaders than most religious leaders will in their lifetime.

And he's starting to do a lot more of the same as President Obama's director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

He'll be rubbing shoulders with the President, too. In fact, nearly everyone who knows DuBois believes he holds a special bond with the new President, an asset previous directors of the office say will be vital in order for his priorities to gain any attention.

During the campaign, DuBois put together a daily devotional for Obama, using passages of Scripture and other religious books. Now he's helping him choose a church home in Washington, D.C.

On his first day in office, Obama was ushered to a prayer service at the National Cathedral, where clergy, including Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, greeted the new President in private.

"Katharine is very formal in a good Episcopalian way," said Wes Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America. "She has this staff, like a crosier, a big ornate thing. Obama looks at the staff, and playfully says, 'Joshua, I want one of those.' "

That interaction demonstrated to Granberg-Michaelson that Obama and DuBois share a comfortable, close friendship. And if evangelicals want to have a voice in the new administration, DuBois is their window, said Granberg-Michaelson. "He has a tremendous amount of trust and relationships that span the theological spectrum."

Dividing Lines
DuBois speaks openly about faith without going into many details. He's quick to clarify that, because of his new role, he wants to welcome all faiths. When asked whether he describes himself as an evangelical, he didn't directly respond. "In my role with the federal government," he explained, "I try to be clear that I'm not ashamed of my faith, but I try not to get into too many labels."

Similarly, those who know him say that DuBois avoids the traditional religious dividing lines in his work as he meets with conservative organizations like the Family Research Council and liberal groups like Faith in Public Life. "He's not interested in the old ways in which we've sliced and diced communities," said Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity Center for Religion and Public Affairs and a member of the office's advisory council.

DuBois has also built relationships with people not known for political advocacy, such as Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller and Relevant magazine founder Cameron Strang.

"If you want to appeal to conservative evangelicals, you don't necessarily go to an organization," said Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Florida. "You think in terms of individuals instead of institutional leadership. That's part of the makeup of the coming generation of evangelicals."

During the campaign, DuBois met repeatedly with Hunter and other religious leaders from all over the country. He met with Granberg-Michaelson at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

"We talked about how I worked with a Christian senator, Mark Hatfield, how a church relates to the issues of political power, and how those in politics relate to those in the Christian community," Granberg-Michaelson said. "We just had an awful lot in common and a lot to talk about. In the 2004 election, the job of Democratic religious outreach often seemed like being a tourism director for Gary, Indiana."

A Family of Faith
DuBois grew up in Nashville, where his stepfather is a minister in an African Methodist Episcopal church. DuBois grew up listening to stories of his grandmother being spat on when she participated in the 1960 Nashville lunch counter sit-ins. "I've been proud of my family and their history and speaking up for what they think is right," he said. "But we are not a family of radicals. In fact, I probably listened to much more Focus on the Family than Pacifica Radio.

"I probably had many dreams as a kid of living in Whit's End," DuBois said, referring to the Focus show Adventures in Odyssey. "I used to have Psalty the Songbook tapes. Those were my favorite songs."

But even though DuBois grew up in a Christian home, he said it wasn't until attending Boston University that he began to have a personal relationship with Jesus. "Maybe there are some preachers' kids who had a similar experience, maybe because I was so close to the church in some ways, I was further away from it. Maybe I thought I knew everything," he said. "It really took me leaving home to realize that something was missing in my life."

Eugene Schneeberg, DuBois' college friend and prayer partner to this day, invited him to Calvary Praise and Worship Center, a small African American Pentecostal congregation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Just two years later, DuBois became the church's associate pastor. (He also still preaches in his father's pulpit on occasion.) Warren F. Collins, pastor of the church, was startled when DuBois showed up to preach one Sunday in a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants. His nerves calmed as DuBois used his outfit as a sermon illustration, removing his sweats to reveal a suit underneath. "He was showing that you can't judge a person by how they look initially. If you hold on to a person, they will evolve into what is expected of them," Collins said. "The one thing I always say about Joshua is that he is wise beyond his years."

DuBois also recently preached from the Book of Job about getting through trials.

"When my mom and biological father divorced, she was left pretty destitute and we spent some time not having a place to live. Seeing her fortitude in that period has always provided me with strength," DuBois said. "Trying to get through political challenges in the White House is nothing compared to a single mom with a young kid trying to get a roof over her family's head."

Like the President, DuBois is still looking for a permanent church home in Washington. He has been attending National Community Church, whose congregation of mostly 20-somethings meet in several movie theaters in the District. The church, pastored by Mark Batterson, is aligned with the Assemblies of God, the Willow Creek Association, and the Mosaic Alliance—which may be ideal for someone who is constantly trying to reach out to many denominations.

A Political Career Emerges
During DuBois' freshman year, a jury in New York acquitted four police officers whose 41 bullets had killed unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo. DuBois joined the protests, holding a sign inscribed with "No More" at a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Boston for 41 hours.

"As with many teenagers, I didn't give a tremendous amount of thought to anything spiritual or political before college," DuBois said. "It was something that kind of shook me a little and got me thinking about my relationship with the wider world."

DuBois graduated from Boston U. in 2003 with a degree in political science and worked for Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) while earning a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton.

Shortly before starting his law degree at Georgetown, DuBois saw Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. He was struck in particular by the line, "We worship an awesome God in the blue states."

It took him three tries before he was hired by Obama's Senate office. But once involved in Obama's presidential campaign, he gained a reputation for coordinating religious outreach, from the Saddleback Civil Forum to a small Chicago gathering with several dozen evangelicals, including Strang from Relevant.

"He has the perfect hybrid of experience," Strang said. "He has the relationships to get things done, and he has the pastoral experience to understand how a church works."

Facing Criticism
Despite his rapport with the President, it's unclear how much access DuBois has.

"It'll be interesting to see how much attention it gets," said John Bridgeland, who served as Bush's director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, which oversaw the previous faith-based office. "The office is most active and gets the most presidential attention when people have direct access to the President."

The first two directors of the office under Bush reported directly to the President, but DuBois will report to Melody Barnes, who now oversees the White House Domestic Policy Council. Barnes said that having that office in her council will keep it from becoming segregated.

"The President knows Joshua well and respects his work. That will mean that we have robust activity going on in this office," Barnes said. "Having the relationships with people in the community, understanding the issues, and having the trust of the President make him a very important person."

Barnes said that faith has always played a large role in her own life, so she takes a special interest in the new office. When asked about criticism of the office, she responded, "They will know us by the work that we do."

DuBois defends the office by saying much of its work will be behind the scenes.

"Our job is to communicate the opportunities and to provide technical assistance, like how to write a good application," DuBois said. "We're not necessarily having a press conference every time we move forward."

Some observers criticize Obama for hiring someone from his political campaign rather than someone with experience in social policy.

"Can you imagine the uproar if President Bush had appointed an evangelical pastor to the faith-based initiative?" asked Jim Towey, a former director of the office.

Towey said he's concerned about how issues will be handled on a case-by-case basis, how the office will be able to tackle such a large agenda, and how DuBois will balance his time working with several federal agencies while handling a new advisory council.

"I think President Obama gets credit for not sticking the faith-based initiative in the Smithsonian," Towey said. "Josh will always be able to get the President's ear, just by the force of his friendship, it seems. The challenge for him will be to produce results."

Sarah Pulliam is online editor for Christianity Today and oversees the CT Politics blog (blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics).

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/24.46.html

What will the mark of the beast be?

2009-05-23T17:46:00.002-04:00

MORIEL MINISTRIES > BE ALERT! - By Scott Brisk - February 24, 2009

Each time I send out an alert concerning technological advances such as those covered below, a number of people send me information or links as to what they think the mark of the beast may actually be. There are in fact, a number of different and interesting interpretations and not all of them involve some type or form of technology.

At the first coming of Christ, very few if any had interpreted the scriptures correctly, as to how they would be fulfilled. That should be a great lesson to us and I always take heed concerning that fact and am comfortable in not understanding every prophecy regarding Christ's second coming. It should be a warning sign when someone claims to have 'everything figured out'.

As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on what the mark of the beast will actually be and if it will be a worldwide or localized Middle Eastern event. I definitely lean towards it being worldwide yet I am open to the fact that it may not involve some sort of technology. However, technology is already being implemented to monitor those deemed extremists, and I believe that will eventually and unfortunately include Bible believing Christians.

Another point is that some may say that as long as we are law-abiding citizens as we should be if we are Christians we should have nothing to fear regarding laws or technology. As Romans 13:3-4 tells us:

For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. ...

This is obviously true, however, anything fallen man can use for good he can also use for evil and we are about to enter the most evil time in the history of the world, and I do not trust anything our leaders tell us regarding what or why they do. Beyond that, the evil one is not omniscient as God is and I believe he and the powers and principalities with him are a motivating factor behind much of this surveillance society. I have always envisioned a day when tracking technology would be used to stop the spread of the gospel and imprison believers.

That said, I could see a day where the world cries out for the mark. The rising tide of lawlessness and never ending monetary scandals where people lose their life savings should give us a clue as to why. I have heard a number of people ask as to why the authorities have blundered so badly in allowing these scandals to happen under their nose for so long, and my thought is this is the perfect scheme to further implement their long term desire for a one world, cashless system.

Beyond this, I pray that those reading this have already believed in their heart that God raised Christ from the dead and have confessed this with their mouths as they are saved (Romans 10:9). If not, today is the day of salvation.

May the Lord bless you and keep you,
BE/\LERT!
Scott Brisk

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Youthfulness an American obsession - at what cost?

2009-04-11T12:35:00.002-04:00

ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Martha Irvine and Lindsey Tanner - December 7, 2008
LAS VEGAS - It's one of those photos that make you do a double-take. Dr. Jeffry Life stands in jeans, his shirt off. His face is that of a distinguished-looking grandpa; his head is balding, and what hair there is is white. But his 69-year-old body looks like it belongs to a muscle-bound 30-year-old.

The photo regularly runs in ads for the Cenegenics Medical Institute, a Las Vegas-based clinic that specializes in "age management," a growing field in a society obsessed with staying young. Life, who swears that's his real last name, also keeps a framed copy of the photo on his office wall at Cenegenics.

"He's the man!" patient Ed Detwiler says teasingly, pointing to the photo of the doctor who, in many ways, has become his role model.

Detwiler, 47, has been Life's patient for more than three years. In that time, he has adopted the regimen that his doctor also follows-drastically changing his exercise and eating habits and injecting himself each day with human growth hormone. He also receives weekly testosterone injections.

He does it because it makes him feel better, more energetic, clear-minded.

He does it because he wants to live a long, healthy life.

"If I were stooped over and bedridden, what kind of quality of life is that?" asks Detwiler, a real estate developer in suburban Las Vegas who says he's doing this, in part, for his wife, who is nine years younger. "If I can get out and be active and travel and see the world and be able to make a difference in other people's lives, then yes, I would want to have as long an existence as possible."

It is a common sentiment in a society where many of us strive to look and feel decades younger-to prove to ourselves and the world that we are healthier and more vital than our parents were at our age. We've all heard it: 60 is the new 50, the new 40 and so on.

But often, we need a little help. Sometimes, a lot of help.

As the baby boomers march toward retirement, Botox, wrinkle fillers and hormones of various kinds have become big business. Medco's latest drug trend report shows, for instance, that human growth hormone use grew almost 6 percent in 2007.

The list for age-defying tactics is endless. Want six-pack abs? There's a surgical procedure to create fake ones. How about drastically cutting your calorie intake to slow the aging process? There's a group of die-hards that swears by it.

This search for eternal youthfulness certainly isn't new. "In 1,500 B.C. people were ingesting tiger gonads to rejuvenate them," says Dr. Gene Cohen, a George Washington University expert on aging.

But for a generation of adults who've been weaned on the modern marketing message-that for a price, you can have it all-the quest is taking on a new urgency.

There is, of course, much to be said for taking good care of yourself. Eating healthy and exercising your body and your brain regularly are considered tried-and-true tactics for staying young. Protecting yourself from harmful sun rays is another. Even flossing teeth is a habit that, according to research on people who live to 100, might extend life.

But that's generally where the consensus ends.

Many in mainstream medicine and elsewhere worry that we're becoming too focused on treatments with short-term benefits that have potentially dangerous side effects and scant, if any, evidence that they'll help in the long run. In doing so, they wonder if some people are actually jeopardizing their chance at a long, healthy life, both physically and emotionally.

"The quest to live forever and the desire to avoid diseases and not suffer" is understandable, says S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor and longevity researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But it can make people vulnerable to far-fetched and potentially dangerous scams, he said, with some of the more bizarre including fetal cell injections, inhaling radon gas, even cutting off testicles, an ancient practice meant to reduce overexposure to reproductive hormones.

"There's a large industry of people trying to sell to people what doesn't yet exist and they're making gobs of money doing it-much to the dismay of those of us who are vigilant about protecting public health," he says.

There also are concerns that this obsession is sending the wrong message to younger generations.

Surveys from cosmetic surgery trade groups suggest that sizable numbers of people, even in their 20s, are getting cosmetic procedures.

And a fall 2007 survey from TRU, a research firm that specializes in the teenage demographic, found that a quarter of young people, 12 to 19-and a third of girls in that age group-are interested in having cosmetic surgery to improve their appearance.

Michael Wood, vice president and director of syndicated research at TRU, was a bit startled by the results.

"There's no doubt that the celebration of youth and looking younger has certainly accelerated in the last 10 years, five years even," Wood says. "And this is a generation that's growing up with that at a very young age."

The effect has been palpable, says Neil Howe, a respected generational expert who has written extensively about "millennials," young people who are coming of age in this century.

"I guess even young isn't enough anymore," Howe says. "It's got to be 'perfect' young."

Alex Sabbag, a 23-year-old Chicagoan, has felt the pressure, both self-imposed and societal.

"I'll age until I'm 25. Then I'm over it," she said to co-workers during a lunchroom conversation that turned to the topic of Botox.

She was only partly serious. But she says she's also accepted that we live in a society where being well put-together and youthful gives you status.

"We all buy into it," Sabbag says. And plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures are part of it.

She's never had anything done, though wouldn't rule it out in the future. She also vividly recalls how her mother left home for several days, when Sabbag was in elementary school, and returned after having a facelift.

"I think it gives women and men alike worlds of confidence that ultimately makes them better people," Sabbag says. "Yes, it is a vain practice ... but I think there comes a point for people when hard work isn't enough to kick the last bit of belly fat or gravity has become entirely too unbeatable, and so a little nip-tuck of the forehead needs to happen."

Detwiler, Life's patient at Cenegenics, is not looking for the appearance of youth. He's looking to extend his youthfulness, and his life.

He knows about human growth hormone and its controversies in sports. But this, he and his doctor insist, is different. While it is illegal for these kinds of hormones to be dispensed for anti-aging purposes, he takes relatively low doses prescribed for "hormone deficiency." The idea is to bring his levels back up to those of a young man in his 20s.

"My friends say, 'Oh, Ed's on steroids,'" says Detwiler, who has watched as muscle has replaced fat on his belly and elsewhere. "No, I'm not. Look at me. Do I look like I'm on steroids?"

He holds out his arms to indicate that his body is fit-looking, but not monstrous. "I'm not. I'm on hormone therapy," he says of a regimen that costs him more than $1,000 a month.

Besides human growth hormone, testosterone, and an adrenal hormone known as DHEA, his diet now largely consists of things like hard-boiled eggs, fruits, nuts, Greek yogurt, salads and palm-sized pieces of fish, chicken or low-fat beef. He also exercises regularly, alternating between intense cardio workouts and weight-resistance training.

"I can't tell you in words how great I feel," says the man who used to crack open a Pepsi to get him through the day.

For a group known as the Calorie Restriction Society, youthfulness isn't found in hormones. It's reducing food intake to, in some cases, near-starvation levels.

But the claims are much the same-"lots of energy" and feeling "sharp," says Brian Delaney, a 45-year-old California-born writer now living in Sweden. He's the president of the group that claims about 2,000 members worldwide and many more followers who use the method in hopes of markedly increasing their longevity.

By cutting daily calories to about 1,900, roughly half the recommended amount for someone his height and age, and exercising every day, Delaney has shrunk himself to about 140 pounds. He says his blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels have improved dramatically.

At 5 foot 11, he admits he's "scrawny," which he calls the main drawback.

Hunger and wearing extra clothes to stay warm-because of little body fat or, he claims, an effect of slowed aging-are barely annoyances for Delaney.

He says he eats sensibly, replacing junk food with lots of fruits and vegetables, no meat, and two meals daily-no lunch. Breakfast is often "a hearty bowl" of granola, with fruit, nuts and soy milk; while dinner could be fish, rice, beans, a large salad and red wine.

Other than "tons of fine wrinkles" he blames on too much sun as a kid, Delaney says in most respects, "I look much younger" than 45.

It is a bragging right many strive for.

"When we were younger, we'd talk about someone who was 60 and that was old. And now my gym is full of women over 60 and they look phenomenal," says Renee Young, a 48-year-old businesswoman in New Rochelle, N.Y. "They don't want to be categorized as old."

But there's more to it than that. Youthfulness, she says frankly, is also a means of survival in the business world, including in her line of work, public relations.

"It feels like you're put out to pasture. No one wants to feel that how they look means that their ability to do anything is decreased," Young says. "If you have a younger look, you feel healthier. You feel that you're still in the game."

In the back of her mind is the fact that her own mother died when she was only 56.

So five or six mornings a week, even when she'd rather pull the covers over her head, Young gets up and puts in two hours at the gym.

That's more than double the hour or so a day generally recommended for optimal health. And still, for her, that wasn't enough. She recently spent nearly $20,000 on a tummy tuck because, as she puts it, no number of abdominal crunches was going to make her as trim as she wanted to be.

The result has been a makeover for her entire sense of self, she says.

"I made a commitment this summer. If I was going to go through all this surgery, then it was going to have to be part of a complete program," says Young, who's also getting more rest and eating healthier.

"I can definitely see the result." She, too, says she has not felt this good in years.

Using a cosmetic procedure as a motivator is worthwhile, and lucrative, to say the least, says Dr. Jonathan Lippitz. He's an emergency room physician in suburban Chicago who does cosmetic procedures, such as Botox and skin fillers, in a separate practice.

But it's also a "very slippery slope," with patients sometimes willing to take more risk than they should and some doctors who'll accommodate.

"They'll always find somebody willing to do it," he says.

In his own practice, he says he finds himself continually walking a fine line in deciding which procedures he'll do-and which ones he won't.

"We all say, 'I want my hair different. I want my eyes different,'" Lippitz says. "This idea of being perfect is a problem, though, because it's not reality.

"I have people coming in and saying 'I want these lips.' I say, 'You can't have these lips.'

"I say, 'We'll work with what you have.'"

But what if what they have is just fine? These are the sorts of questions that trouble Dr. Michael Morgan, a dentist who does cosmetic work in another Chicago suburb.

He's been seeing more young, female clients walking through his doors. And even his own 13-year-old daughter asked if he would whiten her teeth, something he didn't think she needed. Nor did he consider it safe for her young teeth or "age appropriate."

"There's a consciousness about it. They are much more concerned with the appearance of their face. But there's also a social pressure," he says of the younger generation for whom he'll do the most conservative procedures, but no more.

He sounds a little sad when he talks about it.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to look better. We want to look young. We want to look great," he says. "But part of that feeling has to come from within."

For those going to even greater lengths to try to keep aging-and ultimately death-at bay, there also are no guarantees.

Calorie restriction guru Dr. Roy Walford succumbed to complications from Lou Gehrig's disease at age 79, closer to the average than the "extraordinarily long life" his followers talk about on their Web site.

Meanwhile, Dr. Alan Mintz, founder of Cenegenics, died at the relatively young age of 69 due to complications during a brain biopsy.

Some research has suggested that human growth hormone injections can cause cancer. They've also been linked with nerve pain, elevated cholesterol and increased risks for diabetes.

Even so, Life, now the chief medical officer at Cenegenics, remains steadfast. Among other things, he points to studies that suggest that human growth hormone in low doses poses no cancer risk if there is no preexisting cancer.

"Within the next 10 years, maybe less, this is going to be thought of as mainstream medicine-preventing disease, slowing the aging process down, preventing people from losing their ability to take care of themselves when they get older and ending up in nursing homes," Life says. "This is really the cutting edge of medicine."

Detwiler is betting on that.

"There are those who might think I'm cheating God's way. I don't know," he says. "But I don't want to regress. Why should I?"

He says his overall body fat has dropped from nearly 17 percent to less than 10 percent. He can't remember the last time he had a cold or the flu. And he says he's had the stamina to work long hours, putting him on pace to earn more than a million dollars this year.

That's what he knows now. The future, he says, will be anyone's guess.

"People might ask, 'Hey, what's happened to these people? Was it cutting edge? Or did it cut it short?'" he says, as he walks into a gym for another workout.

"I think only time will tell."

___

On the Net:

Cenegenics: http://www.cenegenics.com

Calorie Restriction Society: http://www.calorierestriction.org

Life Expectency Calculator: http://www.livingto100.com/

National Institute on Aging: http://www.nia.nih.gov/

Original Report: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94TLLK00&show_article=1&catnum=0

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five

2009-04-02T17:52:00.002-04:00

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein - March 14, 2009
President Obama has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics.

All are men, two of them white and three black - including the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement. Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush. Another, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leans left on some issues, like military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion.

None of these pastors are affiliated with the religious right, though several are quite conservative theologically. One of them, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, was branded a turncoat by some leaders of the Christian right when he began to speak out on the need to stop global warming.

But as a group they can hardly be characterized as part of the religious left either. Most, like Mr. Wallis, do not take traditionally liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice.

“These are all centrist, social justice guys,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers, a politically active pastor of Azusa Community Church in Boston, who knows all of them but is not part of the president’s prayer caucus. “Obama genuinely comes out of the social justice wing of the church. That’s real. The community organizing stuff is real.”

The pastors say Mr. Obama appears to rely on his faith for intellectual and spiritual succor.

“While he may not put ‘Honk if You Love Jesus’ bumper stickers on the back of his car, he is the kind of guy who practices what he preaches,” said Mr. Caldwell, the senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. “He has a desire to keep in touch with folk outside the Beltway, and to stay in touch with God. He seems to see those as necessary conditions for maintaining his internal compass.”

Bishop Jakes said he had been tapped for several prayer phone calls - the most recent being when Mr. Obama’s grandmother died in November, two days before the election. “You take turns praying,” said Bishop Jakes, who like the other ministers did not want to divulge details of the calls. “It’s really more about contacting God than each other.”

Mr. Hunter said of the phone calls: “The times I have prayed with him, he’s always initiated it.”

The Obama administration has reached out to hundreds of religious leaders across the country to mobilize support and to seek advice on policy. These five pastors, however, have been brought into a more intimate inner circle. Their names were gleaned from interviews with people who know the president and religious leaders who work in Washington. Their role could change if Mr. Obama joins a church in Washington, but that could take some time because of the logistical challenges in finding a church that can accommodate the kind of crowd the Obamas would attract.

The White House refused to comment for this article.

The pastor in the circle who has known Mr. Obama the longest is Mr. Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal magazine and movement based in Washington. In contrast to the other four, his contact with the president has been focused more on policy than prayer. Mr. Wallis has recently joined conservatives in pressing the president’s office of faith-based initiatives to continue to allow government financing for religious social service groups that hire only employees of their own faith.

Mr. Wallis said he got to know Mr. Obama in the late 1990s when they participated in a traveling seminar that took bus trips to community programs across the country. Mr. Wallis said they “hit it off” because they were both Christians serious about their faith, fathers of young children the same age and believers in “transcending left and right” to find solutions to social problems.

“He and I were what we called back then ‘progressive Christians,’ as opposed to the dominant religious-right era we were in then,” Mr. Wallis said. “We didn’t think Jesus’ top priorities would be capital gains tax cuts and supporting the next war.” ...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15pastor.html

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More trouble for fiery 'Antichrist' preacher

2009-04-02T17:49:00.000-04:00

The South Florida preacher who gained fame after declaring himself to be Jesus Christ has fared poorly in divorce court.
MIAMI HERALD [McClatchy] - By Casey Woods - January 10, 2009
The Christmas season was not kind to the self-proclaimed Antichrist.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who gained international notoriety by declaring himself first to be Jesus Christ, then the Antichrist, roundly lost his divorce court bid to protect his church from financial claims by his most recent ex-wife.

Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Roberto Pineiro essentially ruled that de Jesus' Growing in Grace church was his personal business, rather than a religious nonprofit organization, and awarded Josefina de Jesus Torres the more than $2.2 million she sought in the divorce -- the amount her lawyer deemed was half the assets of her ex-husband and his church. ...

ON HARD TIMES
The ruling marks a downturn in the fortunes of the colorful preacher, one that affects not just him but others in his life. His daughter, JoAnn de Jesus, is fighting contempt charges related to the case. His father and first wife face possible eviction from properties held in his and the church's names that the judgment awarded to Torres if he doesn't pay up this month.

De Jesus disappeared in August, when the judge declared him in contempt of court and ordered him to surrender to authorities for not paying Torres $15,000 a month in alimony. The divorce trial went ahead without him that month. ...

De Jesus exploded into popularity -- and controversy -- in the past few years after he declared himself to be Christ. He later claimed that his teachings replaced those of Jesus and so he should be called the Antichrist. He and his followers then began tattooing themselves with ''666,'' a practice that generated protests and headlines.

Growing in Grace has since expanded to more than 300 churches in 30 countries, with de Jesus' sermons broadcast by satellite to thousands of households worldwide.

During the trial, de Jesus' representatives argued that neither he nor the church were as rich as Torres' team claimed, especially since the value of many of the properties have fallen in the past two years. They also said that donations have dropped since the start of divorce proceedings, with the revelation of de Jesus' tangled finances, including disclosures that he paid his first wife's alimony with church funds.

Many of his followers believe that de Jesus' divorce court difficulties are further proof that he is Jesus' Second Coming, quoting biblical prophecies of persecution such as Luke 17:25, which says ``first, He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.''

''These life events are further proof that Jose Luis de Jesus is the reincarnation of the same spirit that dwelled in Jesus of Nazareth,'' said church member and spokesperson Axel Poessy. ``We are privileged to be witnessing the days of the Son of Man, the last manifestation of God on Earth, who is here to reign over all nations.'' ...
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Survey Describes the Spiritual Gifts That Christians Say They Have

2009-04-02T12:08:00.002-04:00

THE BARNA RESEARCH GROUP - THE BARNA UPDATE - February 9, 2009
Ventura, California - The Bible teaches that all followers of Christ are given supernatural abilities by God to serve Him better, known as spiritual gifts. Two-thirds of Americans (68%) who say they are Christian noted they have heard of spiritual gifts, according to a national survey by The Barna Group. That represents a small decline from past surveys, which found 72% awareness in 2000, and 71% in 1995.

Awareness of spiritual gifts was most common among self-described Christians who live in the South (75%) and West (71%), and least common among those living in the Midwest (63%) and Northeast (58%).

Such awareness also varied within the various segments of the self-described Christian population. For instance, 99% of evangelicals have heard of spiritual gifts, far more than the 74% among non-evangelical born again Christians and 58% among notional Christians. Similarly, there was a large gap between Protestants (75%) and Catholics (54%) in awareness. Even within the Protestant community there was a noteworthy gap between those who attend a mainline church (68% awareness) and those who attend a Protestant congregation not associated with a mainline denomination (78%).

Which Gifts People Claim
The survey asked people who said they were Christian and who claimed to have heard of spiritual gifts to identify which gifts they believe God has granted to them. The most commonly claimed gifts were teaching (9%), service (8%) and faith (7%). Those were followed by encouragement (4%), healing (4%), knowledge (4%), and tongues (3%). The gift of leadership was mentioned by just 2%.

There were significant differences in the answers provided by evangelicals, non-evangelical born agains and notional Christians. Evangelicals were more likely than people from the other faith segments to say that they had gifts of teaching (28%), service (12%), encouragement (10%), and administration (7%). The non-evangelical born again segment was the group most likely to claim the gifts of faith (10%) and hospitality (3%). Notional Christians were most notable for having the largest percentage who said they had no gift at all (37%, compared to 16% of evangelicals and 24% of non-evangelical born agains).

Examining the data for all born again Christians (i.e., evangelical and non-evangelical combined) over the past 13 years shows several change patterns:

The percentage that claims to have the gift of encouragement has grown steadily from 2% in 1995 to 6% today.

Since 1995, the proportion of born again adults claiming the gift of evangelism dropped from 4% to 1%.

Those who do not know what their gift is rose from 8% in 2000 to 13% today.

False Gifts
The survey also found that many people who say they have heard of spiritual gifts were not necessarily describing the same gifts outlined in the Bible. Among the gifts claimed that are not among those deemed to be spiritual gifts in the passages of scripture that teach about gifts (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:7-13, 1 Peter 4:10-11) were a sense of humor, singing, health, life, happiness, patience, a job, a house, compromise, premonition, creativity, and clairvoyance.

In total, one-fifth of all the gifts cited by respondents (21%) were attributes that do not fit the biblical lists of gifts given by God.

Thoughts on the Meaning of the Results
The survey data point out several interesting conditions.

Between those who do not know their gift (15%), those who say they don’t have one (28%) and those who claimed gifts that are not biblical (20%), nearly two-thirds of the self-identified Christian population who claim to have heard about spiritual gifts have not been able to accurately apply whatever they have heard or what the Bible teaches on the subject to their lives.

A specific set of gifts, commonly described as the charismatic gifts, are widely possessed by Christians. Overall, 13% of Christian adults claimed to have one of more of those gifts (e.g., healing, interpretation, knowledge, miracles, prophecy, tongues). The people most likely to say they have a charismatic gift are woman (twice as likely as men); people without any college education; born again Christians; and people 45 or older. Intriguingly, although 13% say they have one or more charismatic gifts, the survey revealed that nearly twice as many (23%) described themselves as charismatics.

One of the reasons the evangelical community may seem to be so verbal about its faith and faith-driven convictions relates to the fact that more than one-quarter of them (28%) claim the gift of teaching. Possessing that gift might also raise people’s expectations regarding the quality of sermons and other teaching received at their church, triggering the often-cited high turnover within evangelical congregations.

By the same token, the fact that evangelicals were far more likely to claim the gifts of administration and service also reflects the widely-cited tendency of the group to be well-organized and to be generous in donating its time and energy to causes it deems worthy.

A much higher percentage of born again Christians claims to be a leader than cites having been given the spiritual gift of leadership. This suggests that perhaps many Christian leaders are torn between relying upon their natural talent and training rather than depending upon God’s gifting to empower their leadership. This issue may be even broader than the struggle of leaders. Spiritual gifts are provided as “special abilities” that enable believers to serve each other (as indicated in 1 Peter 4:10 and Romans 12:7). The struggle of the aggregate Christian Church in America may be related to the fact that a large share of individual believers who engage in ministry do so on the basis of personal preference and natural talent rather than supernatural capacities, resulting in ineffective ministry.

The stagnation of evangelism relates to many factors, but one of those is probably the fact that just 1% of Christian adults (self-described or born again) claims the gift of evangelism. While the Bible never suggests that one must possess this gift in order to share the gospel, the depressed proportion of believers who identify with that gift reflects the stalled growth of the Christian body in America.

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Debate Over Devil's Existence

2009-04-02T12:04:00.002-04:00

ONE NEWS NOW [American Family News Network] - Blog by Tasha Easterling - March 28, 2009
Last week four people with very differing views gathered to debate the existence of Satan in Seattle, Washington. That debate aired last night on Nightline, the third installment of a series called "Face-Off" in which opposing sides debate hot topics such as pornography and the existence of God. This debate featured Pastor Mark Driscoll of the Mars Hill Church, and Annie Lobert, founder of the Christian ministry "Hookers for Jesus" debating against Bishop Carlton Pearson and Deepak Chopra.
A crowd of more than a thousand people gathered at the church to listen to the debate, which didn't take long to get heated because all four participants presented uncompromising positions on their beliefs about whether Satan exists.

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