News, Prophecy and other

[Shammu]

ATHEIST ATTACKS 'IN GOD WE TRUST'
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.
MichNews.com
Jun 22, 2006

   

“Federal lawmakers authorized a reference to God on a 2-cent piece in 1864, according to the Associated Press. Congress passed a law that required all U.S. currency to bear the words ‘In God We Trust’ in 1955.”

Michael Newdow, Sacramento doctor atheist, wants a totally secularized America. Therefore “In God We Trust” must go.

He has spent $8000+ on court cases, per Religion News Service’s Daniel Burke.

A federal judge ruled “against an atheist on June 12 who argued that minting the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ on US currency violated constitutional prohibitions against the government promoting religious ideas.”

And so the beat goes on.

Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. reasoned that “’In God We Trust’” is the American national motto and therefore will stand. It has “’nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion,’” he informed media.

“’It’s such a fraud,’ Newdow said in an interview. ‘In this nation that’s supposed to be this beacon of religious liberty, a bastion of equality. What’s next “In Jesus We Trust,” “In Protestantism We Trust”?’”

It was this same atheist who took to the Supreme Court his angst over “under God” in the flag pledge. So what’s new with Newdow? Nothing. And so the man will continue to continue till death on behalf of the power of darkness.

Thank God there are those who still believe in sanity when it comes to the Judeo-Christian religion as America’s historic backdrop. And thank God there are those who understand that “separation of church and state” relates to no one denomination being the “state church” and nothing to do with religious expression in our free society.

“Newdow’s ‘In God We Trust’ case claimed that the government was ‘excluding people who don’t believe in God,’ and violating the constitutional principle of a separation between church and state.”

Once again, the atheists and secularists don’t get the freedom of religion as guaranteed in the First Amendment. How many times does that basic lesson need to be repeated throughout the country before so-called intelligent persons get the drift?

There is a God. He is watching and taking.

God is God; therefore, when God has been pushed over His patience line, He will act according to His eternal wisdom. In the meantime, those who are wise will stand alongside the God who has the last word in all matters planetary.


“Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said Newdow’s lawsuit is an ‘attempt to alter history by removing a legitimate expression of our religious history.’”

ATHEIST ATTACKS 'IN GOD WE TRUST'

[Shammu]

Hamas to file lawsuits against websites publishing lies
By
Jun 24, 2006, 18:42

Ramallah - Head of Hamas' parliamentary bloc in the West Bank, MP Yasser Mansour, on Saturday revealed that his Movement was pondering filing lawsuits against websites and other media institutions publishing lies to ignite strife in lines of the Palestinian people and to sabotage national unity.

Mansour in a press statement said that studies were underway to file legal complaints against media means that publish such lies particularly at the current stage in a bid to foil the national unity dialogue.

He urged those media institutions to scrutinize their news and not to be dragged into the "Zionist conspiracy aimed at striking the Palestinian people's unity".

Hamas to file lawsuits against websites publishing lies

My note; I hope they look at themselves first. That should be the largest lawsuit.

[Shammu]

 400 quarantined at Adelaide airport
By Shelley Markham
25jun06

UP to 400 people were quarantined and 80 given decontamination showers today after a scare at Adelaide airport when coloured powder was found on luggage arriving on a flight from Singapore.

But while passengers have now been allowed to go home after being kept for up to five hours, a spokesman for the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) said authorities still did not know what the powdered substance was.

MFS spokesman Richard Gray said the substance, "off-white" in colour, was found on a passenger's luggage after arriving on a Singapore Airlines flight at 7.30am (CST).

As the baggage was picked up from a carousel, he said, the powder "contaminated a number of people".

As a precautionary measure, Mr Gray said airport authorities called in the airport fire service and the MFS to deal with the substance.

   

   
   

Passengers and crew from the Singapore Airlines flight along with those from other incoming flights were held in the international arrivals area as a precaution.

"No one has been sick at all. Nobody's been treated by the ambulance service, as I understand," Mr Gray said.

He said 80 people who had close contact with the powder were decontaminated with warm showers.

Tests on the powder so far have failed to identify what it is.

Qantas passenger Cathy Bourkeland said travellers had not been given enough information about the incident.

"There are a lot of very hot, sweaty, frustrated and tired people," Ms Bourkeland said.

Adelaide Airport spokesman John McArdle said only the international terminal was affected.

Mr McArdle said he was happy with how the emergency was handled despite some passengers not being allowed to leave the area for five hours.

"This is a real incident and this is the first of the major incidents that we've had," Mr McArdle told ABC Radio.

"We're more than happy with how the process is handled."

400 quarantined at Adelaide airport

[Shammu]

U.S. Population to Hit 300 Million in 2006

Jun 25, 6:18 AM (ET)

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. population is on target to hit 300 million this fall and it's a good bet the milestone baby - or immigrant - will be Hispanic.

No one will know for sure because the date and time will be just an estimate.

But Latinos - immigrants and those born in this country - are driving the population growth, accounting for almost half the increase last year, more than any other ethnic or racial group.

White non-Hispanics, who make up about two-thirds of the population, accounted for less than one-fifth of the increase.

When the population reached 200 million in 1967, there was no accurate tally of U.S. Hispanics. The first effort to count Hispanics came in the 1970 census, and the results were dubious.

The Census Bureau counted about 9.6 million Latinos, a little less than 5 percent of the population, but the bureau acknowledged that figure was inflated.

In 1967, there were fewer than 10 million people in the U.S. who were born in other countries; that was not even one in 20.

Today, there are 36 million immigrants, about one in eight.

"We were much more of an insular society back then," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

As of early Sunday, there were 299,058,932 people in the United States, according to the Census Bureau's population clock. The estimate is based on annual numbers for births, deaths and immigration, averaged throughout the year.

The 300 millionth person in the U.S. will likely be born - or cross the border - in October, though bureau officials are wary of committing to a particular month because of the subjective nature of the clock.

U.S. Population to Hit 300 Million in 2006

[Shammu]

Iran repeats oil is potential weapon in atomic row

Jun 25, 6:29 AM (ET)

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday repeated threats that it was ready to use its massive oil exports as a weapon to defend itself if it felt in danger in an international dispute over its atomic program.

But Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said international sanctions on 2.5 million barrels per day of Iranian crude exports would be impractical and would send oil prices over $100 a barrel, up from around $70 now.

Iran has been hauled before the U.N. Security Council over suspicions it is seeking nuclear missiles, a charge it denies. It could face economic sanctions and the United States has consistently declined to rule out military action.

Vaziri-Hamaneh said earlier this month the world's fourth biggest crude producer would prefer not to play the oil card and would only do so to defend its rights.

He struck a similar tone on Sunday, telling state television: "I think using the oil weapon would be advantageous to Iran in times of threats."

"But using such a weapon in the normal situation in the country and oil markets would mean confronting the world and we do not have such a policy," he added.

Eighty percent of Iran's export earnings come from oil.

However, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman has said the United States would be in "good shape" even if Iran did close the spigots, owing to healthy stockpiles.

Iran repeats oil is potential weapon in atomic row

[Shammu]

06/25/2006 12:00 AM  (UAE)

Children to be given electronic identity cards

The Telegraph Group Limited
 
Brussels: Electronic identity cards for all children under 12 are to be introduced in Belgium. They will bear a code designed to allow parents of missing children to be traced instantly.

The announcement came as Belgian police continued to search for two young girls who vanished from the street outside a bar in the middle of the night a fortnight ago.

Though the ID cards would be useless in protecting children from an abductor or adult determined to do them harm, they are intended to offer a secure way of making sure a lost child can be reunited with family.

Belgians have been greatly sensitive to issues of missing children since the case a decade ago of Marc Dutroux, a paedophile rapist and killer who kidnapped six children, killing four of them, before being caught.

The new children's cards will carry a special code number and instructions on how to call a central missing child hotline.

Children to be given electronic identity cards

[Shammu]

Japan hit by huge rise in child abuse

Dominic Al-Badri in Tokyo
Tuesday June 27, 2006
The Guardian

Child abuse is soaring in Japan, with 33,308 reports to child welfare consultation centres or the police in the year ending March 2005, an increase of more than 20% on the previous year.

According to a white paper on young people published by the government today, there were 6,839 more cases reported between March 2004 and March 2005 than during the previous 12 months.

During the same period in 1990, when the data was first collected by the ministry of health, labour and welfare, there were 1,101 reported incidents of child abuse.

The white paper calls for "seamless action to be taken, to enable children who are victims of child abuse to be able to become independent", adding that the "trans-generational effects of child abuse", in which the abused themselves become abusers, are a cause of grave societal concern.

Physical cruelty was the most common kind of abuse, the report found, accounting for 44.5% of cases, followed by neglect (36.7%) and mental cruelty (15.6%). There were 1,048 reported instances of sexual abuse, comprising 3.1% of the total. Those most at risk were children under six years old, with 15,255 pre-schoolers being the target of abuse.

In-depth research published this year by the local government in Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo, revealed that more than 60% of the public consider the root cause of child abuse to be parents' inexperience and selfishness. This view was particularly held by the older generations and by a considerably greater number of men than women.

The Tochigi study also cites a widely held belief that the increasing nuclearisation of the Japanese family is a major cause in the increase of child abuse. The shift away from households in which three generations would cohabit means grandparents are no longer able to assist with childcare chores.

Other reasons given for the worsening situation are the lack of community in the country, with people feeling less connected to their local neighbourhoods, the rising cost of bringing up children, and the increase in single-parent families.

Last year, the government introduced a national 10-year plan to improve child-rearing conditions nationwide. This has seen an increase in the number of community centres being turned into daytime childcare centres where toddlers can play together and parents can lend each other mutual support. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, more than 1,700 such centres are expected to be operational by the end of March 2010.

Japan hit by huge rise in child abuse

[Shammu]

Egyptian women flock  to hear female preachers
Wednesday, June 28, 2006     

By Yara Bayoumy
Reuters

CAIRO — Women of all ages pour into a fluorescent-lit mosque hall hours before Sherine Gouda Al Sahhar is due to deliver her weekly sermon, seeking a seat near the front so they can catch a glimpse of the preacher.

The 200 women can barely squeeze into the hall, so Sahhar's helpers remove the screens separating the men's hall from the women's to accommodate the gathering.

As she starts, a hush falls over the crowd. Sahhar begins preaching about the need to perform good deeds to please God, not to boast to colleagues, friends or family.

She is one of a growing number of Muslim women preachers in the Egyptian capital who deliver regular sermons in mosque halls, preaching about Islam, interpreting Koranic verses and advising people how to live as virtuous Muslims.

Similar gatherings at private homes are also becoming popular, catering to a growing number of young people who do not identify with radical preaching but do not subscribe to a Western style of living at odds with their conservative culture. "Hagga Sherine has an easy-going attitude and she tries to get her point across in an easy step-by-step way," said Yasmine Gamal, 25, a recent graduate.

"Hagga" denotes that the preacher has performed the ubgone86, the pilgrimage to Mecca that is a duty for every able-bodied Muslim at least once in a lifetime.

"There are others who use fear to move people, but here it's through love." Most of Egypt's 73 million people are Sunni Muslims.

Egyptian law bans political parties based on religion, but candidates of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not recognised by the government, won 88 seats running as independents in the 454-seat parliament in last year's election.

Ranks are swelling

The ranks of women preachers are swelling across the Middle East. Morocco appointed 50 women as state preachers in May as part of the government's drive to promote a tolerant version of Islam in the face of radical fundamentalism.

Souad Saleh, dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Al Azhar University, said women preachers acted as mentors for women seeking to find a moderate religious creed to live by.

"It is of no doubt that Egyptian society is going through unstable and contradictory paradigms, one characterised by extravagance and 'music videos' and another wave that is countering that which is radical and fundamentalist.

"People are confused and they are trying to reassess themselves, so there is a need for those to guide them to the right path," she said.

The rise of women preachers is linked to the birth of a new kind of religious fervour among the young.

A leader in this trend is male preacher Amr Khaled, who started preaching more than five years ago and whose audiences include many young women. Khaled wears a suit and tie and promotes conventional morality and community engagement. After Khaled helped turn many young Egyptians towards religion, the secular government, wary of Islamist sentiment in society, banned his television broadcasts and stopped him preaching in mosques.

Khaled epitomises a new breed of preacher: Younger people who speak in colloquial Arabic and draw bigger crowds than the elderly, bearded scholars who have dominated religious instruction.

Bridge parties

However, scholars agree the authorities are unlikely to curb women preachers as they lack a mass following such as that enjoyed by Khaled.

"I don't think women preachers pose the same danger," said sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim.

"If it doesn't embarrass the authorities they don't go looking. They know it happens but turn a blind eye," said Masoud Sabry, a Sharia (Islamic law) researcher at Internet publisher Islamonline.

Some scholars and sociologists have said the rising demand for women preachers has led to unqualified people taking on the role and the growing popularity of their classes was due more to their fulfilling a social need.

"Since the women's arena is lacking in qualified people who have studied Islamic jurisprudence, that has given a chance for those less qualified to do so," Saleh said. "There's lots of talk in religion and sometimes it's contradictory," said Sawsan Ayoub, who has been giving lessons in mosques for 20 years. "Plenty do not have the qualifications." Sociologist Ibrahim said the phenomenon had been growing among the middle and upper classes in the past 10 years and was "the functional equivalent of ladies' bridge parties".

"This is partly socialising and partly a game, a good deal of the preaching has that dimension to it, so it becomes attractive to join them. To learn to be preachers themselves as well as recipients has also become fashionable," he said.

Female preacher Gehan Radwan agreed to some extent.

"The people who benefit from these lessons are very few. Unfortunately there is a group that says 'it's just the latest fashion that everyone goes to these lessons and I'm free and have nothing to do so I'll go to these lessons'," she said.

"The fact is that some of these lessons become a big extravaganza. After every lesson, there is a big dinner." Others find the women preachers echo their concerns.

"She [Sherine] is realistic and she lives in our world. She is not like those others who speak like they are from another world," said Sherine Saad, 32, before the sermon started.

Egyptian women flock  to hear female preachers

[Shammu]

Jun. 28, 2006 9:24
Putin wants new arms control treaty with US
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Vladimir Putin urged the United States on Tuesday to open talks on a new weapons treaty to replace the key START agreement, and called for Russian diplomats to find new, inventive responses to international challenges.

"We must be fully aware that the potential for conflict in the world, in spite of all efforts, continues to grow," Putin said in a speech before Russia's diplomatic corps at the Foreign Ministry, a biannual assessment of Russia's place in the world.

"We call for the renewal of dialogue on key weapons reduction issues; first of all, we propose to our American partners to launch negotiations on replacing the START treaty," Putin said, adding that it was necessary to help reverse what he called a period of "stagnation" in disarmament.

The treaty, signed on July 31, 1991 by the United States and the Soviet Union, limits the number of various types of vehicles and warheads that could be deployed by either side. The agreement expires in 2009.

Putin also called for ties between the two powers to be on a more equal footing, reflecting Russians' irritation at what they see as an attitude of superiority by the US toward them.
"Relations between such powers as Russia and the United States must be built exclusively on the basis of equal rights and mutual respect," Putin said.

Turning to global issues, Putin called for broader international cooperation in the struggle against terrorism and drug trafficking, in peacekeeping missions and jointly responding to natural disasters.

He said his country would not join any "holy alliances", stressing Russia supports dialogue "between civilizations", and said it would not support any "ultimatums" that would undermine the authority of the United Nations Security Council.

"We will not participate in an ultimatum which would drive the situation into a dead end," he said, referring tacitly to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The United States and Europe are pressing Iran to quickly respond to a package of incentives to give up uranium enrichment and resume negotiations over its nuclear ambitions.
The West suspects Iran is enriching uranium to create nuclear weapons. Teheran contends the program is intended solely for peaceful electricity generation.

Touching on conflicts closer to home, Putin said that all territorial disputes, "whether in Kosovo or Cyprus, the Southern Caucasus or Trans-Dniester", should be resolved on the basis of universal principles. Moscow has opposed giving ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo independence from Serbia, a country that is a staunch Russian ally, and has sought to link the issue with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that broke away from Georgian government control in the 1990s.

Russia has long backed Abkhazia and South Ossetia, granting many of their residents Russian citizenship and incurring the ire of Georgia, which is seeking to bring the regions back under government control. Georgia has accused Russian peacekeepers in the two regions of backing the separatists and has threatened to eject them, but Putin said Moscow would continue its peacekeeping missions in spite of what he called "open provocations."

Putin devoted much of his speech to problems encountered by ethnic Russians abroad who seek Russian citizenship, saying they faced unnecessary obstacles.

"It's strange, because Russia needs an inflow of immigrants," Putin said. "The only question is that they be people who are needed by the country, law-abiding, respectful of our country and who will settle where Russia needs them, that they be involved in the activities necessary for the economic development of the country."

The meeting began with the diplomats standing for a moment of silence for the Russian Embassy workers who were killed in Iraq; one was killed when militants abducted the group, and four others were executed. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters that Moscow had called on the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to boost security for foreign missions there.

Putin wants new arms control treaty with US

[Shammu]

Somali leader envisions Islamic state

By Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press  |  June 27, 2006

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The radical cleric named to lead the Muslim militia controlling most of Somalia's south said yesterday that he envisions an Islamic state, a stand likely to reinforce US fears that the nation could become a haven for extremists.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on the US terrorist watch list as a suspected collaborator with Al Qaeda, made the comment while discussing efforts to form a functioning central government in Somalia for the first time in 15 years.

``Somalia is a Muslim nation, and its people are also Muslim, 100 percent. Therefore any government we agree on would be based on the holy Koran and the teachings of our Prophet Mohammed ," Aweys said in a telephone interview, his first comments to the media since being named head of the Islamic militia Saturday.

The militia defeated an alliance of US-backed secular warlords this month to take control of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and now holds sway over much of southern Somalia.

Aweys's stance could put Somalia on a collision course with the United States and the United Nations. The previous militia leader, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, had been reaching out to the West and Somalia's largely powerless UN-backed interim government.

The 71-year-old Aweys, speaking from his home in central Somalia, condemned Western-style democracy and said he was under no obligation to abide by the wishes of the West. ``It is not compulsory for us to hate what the Westerners hate," said Aweys, a former military colonel.

``Our relationship with the US administration will depend on how the US treats us," he added. ``If it treats us well, we will also treat them well."

The US government took a cautious stance, saying it had no plans to engage with Aweys but adding it was not ready to conclude Aweys wants to turn Somalia into a terrorist state. Washington has long been concerned that Somalia will become a refuge for members of Osama bin Laden's terror network, much like Afghanistan did in the late 1990s.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would wait to see if the militia shows a commitment to fight terrorism, makes an effort to meet the humanitarian needs of the Somali people, and works with the interim government. ``If they want to have partners in the international community, if they want to work with the US, they want to work with the other members of the international community, we'll see if they meet those standards," McCormack said.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the United States put Aweys on a terrorist watch list because he and an Islamic group he founded -- Al Itihaad -- were believed to have had links to bin Laden while the Al Qaeda leader was living in Sudan in the early 1990s. US officials have not elaborated on the alleged links.

Aweys went into hiding after the 9/11 attacks and didn't reemerge until August 2005, when he helped found the Islamic militia, now known as the Somali Supreme Islamic Courts Council. He said previously that Al Itihaad no longer existed and that he had no ties to Al Qaeda.

Aweys said yesterday that he did not know of any terrorists in Somalia. ``If we discover them we will take suitable steps against them," he said.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice and Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., a hub for expatriate Somalis, said he was troubled by Aweys's rise to power.

``The election of Aweys is a clear signal that the moderates are losing, and extremists are taking the lead, and now the next possible step is that they will impose a Taliban style of government," he said, referring to the Islamic militia that was ousted by a US-led war in Afghanistan.

Underlining the apparent tougher line, militia leaders said yesterday that they will publicly stone to death four suspected rapists if they are convicted in Jowhar, 55 miles from Mogadishu.

Aweys's predecessor, Sheikh Ahmed, agreed last week to negotiate with the interim government, which was formed with UN help two years ago but failed to assert power. It's based in Baidoa, 90 miles from Mogadishu.

The interim constitution adopted by the interim body makes no reference to Islam. Aweys said that Somalis want an Islamic state and that he will raise the topic when he honors Ahmed's agreement to meet with government leaders next month.

Mogadishu resident Omar Gudle said the capital was tense.

``We are really scared. We don't know what is going on," he said. ``Anything could happen."

Somali leader envisions Islamic state

[Shammu]

U.S. senator seeks sex trade tax

Jun. 28, 2006 at 7:24AM

The Republican chairman of the tax-writing U.S. Senate Finance Committee wants to apply income tax laws and penalties to pimps and prostitutes.

      Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has proposed authorizing $2 million to create an office in the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit to prosecute sex trade workers who skirt income tax, CNN reported.

      Grassley called it a "no-brainer" that the illegal sex trade could be hurt by applying new tax laws and lengthy jail terms for pimps.

      "Prosecuting these tax code violations can get these guys off the street and yank from their grasp the girls and women they exploit," he said.

      Under current law, pimps and prostitutes can only be prosecuted for tax evasion by the IRS if the agency can prove their incomes. Grassley's proposal turns that around, and calls for a 10-year prison sentence for each prostitute a pimp has that hasn't filed a W-2 tax form, the report said.

U.S. senator seeks sex trade tax

[Shammu]

Dean: 'We're About to Enter the '60s Again' 
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
June 28, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - America is about to revisit one of the most turbulent decades in its history, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told a religious conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "We're about to enter the '60s again," Dean said, but he was not referring to the Vietnam War or racial tensions.

Dean said he is looking for "the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision."

"The problem is when we hit that '60s spot again, which I am optimistic we're about to hit, we have to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes," Dean added. See Video

Anger over the Vietnam War and the country's escalating racial tensions made the late 1960s one of the most painful eras in American history. Republican Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sen. Robert Kennedy, as well as the riot-marred Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Later in his speech Tuesday, Dean appeared to backtrack. "I'm not asking to go back to the '60s; we made some mistakes in the '60s," he said. "If you look at how we did public housing, we essentially created ghettoes for poor people" instead of using today's method of mixed-income housing.

Another mistake Democrats made in the '60s, Dean acknowledged, was that "we did give things away for free, and that's a huge mistake because that does create a culture of dependence, and that's not good for anybody, either," he noted, a reference to the Great Society welfare programs created by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s.

"Those mistakes were not the downfall of our program," Dean added. "They helped a lot more people than they hurt. But we can do better and we will do better and our time is coming." See Video

Alternating between references to the "McCarthy era" of the 1950s, which he accused the Bush administration of reviving, the decade of the 1960s and the current era, Dean explained that he was "looking to go back to the same moral principles of the '50s and '60s."

That was a time that stressed "everybody's in it together," he said. "We know that no one person can succeed unless everybody else succeeds."

Dean's comments Tuesday came at a religious gathering convened in the nation's capital to discuss ways of eliminating poverty. After stating that America "is about as divided as it has been probably since the Civil War," Dean declared that "we need to come together around moral principles, and I'm talking about moral principles like making sure no child goes to bed hungry at night."

"I'm talking about moral principles like making sure everybody in America has health insurance just like 36 other countries in the world," he added. "This is a moral nation, and we want it to be a moral nation again."

As one method of accomplishing that goal, the DNC chairman called on Congress "to raise the minimum wage until we have a living wage in this country." He dismissed criticism of a minimum wage hike as "economists' mumbo-jumbo."

"We're simply asking to give the people who are working for minimum wage the same raise that Congress has had every year for the last 20 years," he said.

Dean also stated that the Democratic Party helped give people "the opportunity to become middle class" during the 1960s.

"I do think that empowering people to help themselves is what we should be doing in the 21st century," he added, stating that the Democratic Party now emphasizes the value of work.

"If you work hard, you ought to be able to support your family," the DNC chairman noted, and "in America, you need the opportunity to work hard, and that means some level of support from government -- no handouts, but some level of support so that you really do have a genuine opportunity to contribute to the country."

The DNC chairman pointed to President Bush's tax cuts as a major obstacle to what he called "tax fairness." He also criticized the Republican Congress for being "the biggest 'big government' government we've ever had," though he did make at least one positive comment about the GOP.

"How about if I'm a wild-eyed radical liberal who is willing to say the conservatives had some good ideas?" Dean told his audience. "But let's go back and make what we wanted to work, using some of their ideas to make sure that the mistakes don't get made again," he added.

"It's nice to see that Howard Dean's hostility to the religious community ends when people of faith vote Democrat," Republican National Committee spokesman Josh Holmes told Cybercast News Service.

Holmes added he was not surprised that "Howard Dean's political perspective is derived from a 1960s counterculture view of the world. What is surprising -- and disturbing -- is that he can urge a massive expansion of government and denounce the Democrat mistake of creating a 'culture of dependence' in the same speech."

"He may want to revisit that mistake to update his talking points and the Democrat policy manual," Holmes said.

Before leaving Tuesday's conference, the DNC chairman thanked those in attendance for giving him "a big lift."

"I came in the wrong door when I first got here," Dean said. "I came in the back, and everybody was talking about praising the Lord, and I thought, 'I am home. Finally, a group of people who want to praise the Lord and help their fellow man just like Jesus did and just like Jesus taught.' Thank you so much for doing that for me."

Dean: 'We're About to Enter the '60s Again' 

[Shammu]

Dean said he is looking for "the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision."

"The problem is when we hit that '60s spot again, which I am optimistic we're about to hit, we have to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes," Dean added.

What is it with people saying we need to be enlightened. The word sends off alarms because Europeans like D'Estaing and Solana have used that word when their talking about Europe in the world today as being enlightened and "post Christian" whereas America still embraces "Christian values". To many people the 60's represented a throwing off "oppressive" Christian & traditional values. Or that's the way I saw it. I hated the 60's

[Shammu]

Anglican leader ponders a split

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 28, 2006

The Archbishop of Canterbury conceded yesterday for the first time that the worldwide Anglican Communion may have to split.

    The six-page letter, "The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today," was sent yesterday to the archbishops who oversee the world's 38 Anglican provinces in response to last week's Episcopal General Convention in Columbus, Ohio.

    Archbishop Rowan Williams said the 70-million-member Anglican Communion may require a "covenant" defining theological orthodoxy on a wide range of matters, including homosexuality.

    Local parishes that do not agree to it may be relegated to "associate" status, he said.

    "We could arrive at a situation where there were 'constituent' churches in covenant in the Anglican Communion and other 'churches in association,' which were still bound by historic and perhaps personal links," he wrote, "but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion, and not sharing the same constitutional structures."

    The Anglican Communion has been struggling with who's in and who's out since the 2003 consecration of the world's first openly homosexual Episcopal prelate: New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Twenty-two Anglican provinces have since partially or fully broken relations with the American church.

    These 22 provinces are not guilty of "some kind of blind bigotry against gay people," wrote the archbishop. Americans never asked the permission of other Anglicans before electing Bishop Robinson, he said, adding, "no member church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship."

    Episcopalians need to accept "that actions have consequences," he said, "and that actions believed in good faith to be 'prophetic' in their radicalism are likely to have costly consequences."

    Response to his letter was slow yesterday, although a post on the "Daily Episcopalian" blog from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington pronounced the archbishop "entirely wrong."

    "He, like many others, is suggesting that the struggle in the Anglican Communion is not about homosexuality but about how we make decisions in concert," wrote Jim Naughton, diocesan spokesman. "To me that is similar to saying that the American Civil War was not about slavery but about states' rights. Both arguments allow you to ignore sins against humanity while you debate the nature of polity."

    Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, which encompasses 10 conservative dioceses, praised the bulletin.

    "For the first time, the archbishop himself is acknowledging that some parts of the communion will not be able to continue in full membership if they insist on maintaining teaching and action outside of the received faith and order," he said in a statement.

    "This will surely create a situation where affiliates of the Anglican Communion Network and others who so choose would be able to continue in full communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the worldwide church, while the majority of the Episcopal Church would have only 'associated' status."

    Although a majority of the General Convention voted last week to extend indefinitely a moratorium on future homosexual prelates, 20 Episcopal bishops immediately drafted a dissenting statement refusing to honor it.

    Archbishop Williams' idea of a communion-wide covenant, which also was approved by the Episcopal General Convention, could have a major effect in U.S. courts. At present, conservative churches wishing to leave the Episcopal Church must abandon their property and assets. This could change if these same conservative congregations were named full members of the Anglican Communion while their liberal dioceses were not.

Anglican leader ponders a split

[Shammu]

TRADITIONAL ANGLICANS MOURN EPISCOPAL CHURCH, WILL HOLD REQUIEM MASS

Actions taken by the recently-concluded General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA have prompted the Traditional Anglican Communion's Bishop of the Northeast to declare a period of mourning "in observance of the death of the Episcopal Church," concluding with a Requiem Mass to be held at St Paul's Cathedral in Portland next Wednesday.

Bishop George D. Langberg of the Anglican Church in America cited Resolution D058, which proposed that the Episcopal Church declare "its unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved," and that it "renew our dedication to be faithful witnesses to all persons of the saving love of God perfectly and uniquely revealed in Jesus and upheld by the full testimony of Holy Scripture." The resolution was rejected by the Convention.

"Now combine that," continued Bishop Langberg, "with the new Bishopess-elect's statement (in her homily at the Convention's concluding Eucharist) that 'Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation'. I don't know what religion she represents, but I know it isn't Christianity. The Episcopal Church many of us knew and loved is obviously dead, although we can probably expect the corpse to be around until the money runs out."

At Mass this week, the Very Rev. Lester E. York, Dean of the Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul said, "What was once a great part of Christ's Church here on Earth has become now nothing but a wealthy cult. No one can sit on the fence after these actions. Either you worship man, or you worship Christ. The Episcopal Church can no longer be considered Christian."

Many members of the Anglican Church in America, the American component of the worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion, are former Episcopalians who left the church, some of them a generation ago, over doctrinal and worship-related issues. The Communion has member churches in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia/New Zealand and is seeking intercommunion with the Vatican. It stands with the historic Church of England in its obedience to Scripture and its adherence to the three orthodox creeds of Christendom, and its worship follows the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 (England) and 1928 (America).

"The time has come when the faithful who clung to the hope that their church would see the light and submit its will to Christ must now realize that the Episcopal Church they once knew no longer exists. Our doors are open to them and to all who have been made spiritually homeless by the death of their church," Bishop Langberg concluded. Dean York will lead the Requiem Mass for the Episcopal Church at the Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul on Wednesday June 28th at 5:30 PM. "The church body that was so dear to many of us is dead," finished Father York. "It deserves at least a decent burial."

END

ANGLICAN CHURCH IN AMERICA
Diocese of the Northeast

TRADITIONAL ANGLICANS MOURN EPISCOPAL CHURCH, WILL HOLD REQUIEM MASS