In his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, he proposes the model of the early Church as a model for society, developing a social "utopia" (an "ideal city"). He proposed, in fact, to give a soul and Christian face to the city. In other words, Chrysostom understood that it is not enough to give alms, helping the poor now and then. Rather, it is necessary to establish a new structure, a new model of society, a model based on the New Testament perspective. It is this new society that is revealed in the nascent Church. Therefore, John Chrysostom truly becomes one of the great Fathers of the Church's social doctrine.
Running back to Mommy...
In the most high-profile American defection to date in the row over gays in the Anglican Church, a diocesan bishop has explained why he is to be received into the Roman Catholic Church. The Bishop of Rio Grande, Jeffrey Steenson, who was educated at Oxford and is in the Anglican Catholic tradition of the Church, said that to remain in his post in the Episcopal Church may lead him "to a place apart from Scripture and tradition".
Just a short sabbatical...
Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber, a major figure in German politics for more than a decade, is about to leave office for a job in Brussels. Stoiber's departure was triggered by an unprecedented rebellion in his Christian Social Union. On Saturday, Stoiber bids farewell at a party congress which will see three candidates vying to replace him as CSU chairman. A trim, bespectacled law graduate who abstains from alcohol, Stoiber was nicknamed the "Blonde Guillotine" for his ruthlessness, but his indomitable personality has also won affection.
His self-regard, fixed smile and readiness to speak off the cuff, even if he fluffs his words, have endeared him to many. A survey by Germany's n-tv news channel showed that 80% of those polled regretted his decision to quit politics. Born at Oberaudorf-am-Inn (B16 was also born in an Inn ... Marktl-am-Inn) ... he was under discussion as a president of Germany or president of the EU Commission.
Edmund Stoiber, a powerful figure on Germany's political right, stands down as head of his party this week in a move which could ease tensions in Chancellor Merkel's ruling coalition. His departure will come as a relief to Merkel. She has endured years of criticism from her longstanding rival, whose role as head of one of Germany's richest (its economy is bigger than all but 6 EU nations) and most independent states gave him a strong standing in the conservative camp. Merkel stands to gain because Stoiber's job is to be divided into two – party leader and state premier.
Relations between Munich and Berlin are seldom easy. Bavarians want their leaders to stand up for them and are aware Merkel depends on the CSU for power. The state contributes about 20% of the conservative block in Germany's lower house. "What holds the conservative party together? Love of the homeland and of Germany. Love of the family and the other values we stand for. Christian roots, individual and social responsibility," he wrote in the Bild tabloid this week.
Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber announced on Tuesday that financing had been secured for the Transrapid. But many commentators think the €1.85 billion project is a waste of money and that Stoiber is only interested in putting a technological feather in his cap.
So long EU...
Belgium, has been without a government for over 100 days. Tensions between the majority Flemings and minority Walloons have reached an impasse, and there is open talk of the country's dissolution. Politically, Belgium is beginning to look like Bosnia in 1991, before it plunged into brutal civil war. The irony, of course, is that Belgium is the headquarters of both the EU and NATO. Thus the fountainhead of "Euro-Atlantic integrations," pitched to post-Communist countries as the panacea for all their ills, can hardly keep itself integrated any more. If Belgium, a model for artificial states everywhere for over 170 years, cannot stay together, what fate does that portend for the EU? Most assuredly a grim one.
The Zionist regime's officials have admitted that they have recently constructed a synagogue under the Al-Aqsa Mosque site in Al-Quds.
Israel is about to perform a full-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip to counter Palestinian rocket attacks, Defense Minister Barak said. "It must be clear that an operation of this type is not simple, not in terms of the forces and the amount of time which we will have to stay there or in terms of the operational challenges which the troops will have to meet."
President Bush threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN resolution backing the Iraq war, according to a transcript published Wednesday of a conversation he had with then-Spanish Prime Minister Aznar. During the meeting with Aznar, Bush made it clear the US would invade Iraq by the end of March 2003 whether or not there was a UN resolution to authorize it.
Ethiopia has threatened to terminate the pact that ended its border war with Eritrea in 2000, a move that could bring the two countries closer to a new conflict in the Horn of Africa.
Another sunny day in Somalia, another day in chaos. Hundreds of thousands of people are still on the verge of starvation, pirates still roam the seas, teenage gunmen still on the streets, and the idea of a functioning government remains a vapor.
Asia reacted in alarm today after soldiers in Myanmar brutally cracked down on anti-government protests, with countries urging restraint and wringing their hands about instability in the region. But they seemed reluctant to join the US and Europe in pressing the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on military-ruled Myanmar. "As a neighbour, China is extremely concerned about the situation in Myanmar," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news conference.
Iran's envoy to IAEA has announced Iranian and IAEA officials have concluded talks over the ambiguities surrounding P1 and P2 centrifuges.
President Ahmadinejad had a 3-hour meeting with leaders of US churches and synagogues to answer their questions. "No power in the world is strong enough to confront religions, and if the leaders of world religions would reach consensus over a sole plan for the world, many of the international crises would be resolved."
The New York Times published on Tuesday an editorial on the appearance the previous day of Iranian President Ahmadinejad at Columbia University. The Times' editorial exemplifies the hypocrisy and dishonesty that have become the hallmarks of this organ of American liberalism. The Times' celebration of the politically sordid event at Columbia University as a triumph of American democracy is a demonstration of its commitment not to free speech, but to the aggressive designs of US imperialism around the world.
More than likely, Ahmadinejad is blinded by pride, as the people of Iran have a long history of nationalism—and nationalism often blinds one to current realities. In addition, Ahmadinejad seems to believe attacking Iran is so crazy the neocons will not engage in such behavior.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said here Wednesday that Iran's standoff with Western powers over its nuclear program is heading toward a "confrontation." "Definitely what we are seeing is a confrontation in the making. The region is volatile and a conflict in that region is the most dangerous thing to conceive."
The atmosphere between Iran and some Western countries has certainly not improved since French Foreign Minister Kouchner made his provocative statement on the possibility of a war with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, and the negative fallout continues despite Kouchner's desperate attempt to "tone down" his warmongering diatribe.
Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War, offers insights into the looming war with Iran and the loss of liberty in the US.
Establishing public-private partnerships that give away control of US infrastructure to foreigners is like playing the casino game "Texas hold'em," a top Texas Department of Transportation official told the EuroMoney conference meeting yesterday in the plush Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The CFO of TxDOT, was speaking on the 2nd day of a 2-day seminar devoted to teaching state government officials how to lease public assets to foreign investment interests.
The UN should avail itself as an instrument for a "new world order of the 21st century," President Sarkozy said Tuesday in his first address to the General Assembly. "In the name of France, I call upon all states to join ranks in order to found the new world order of the 21st century on the notion that the common goods that belong to all of humankind must be the common responsibility for us all."
[WAR: Well, Reuben is now on board the HOI-NWO train. For those new readers of the WAR train, the NWO is nothing but the House of Israel's attempt at world domination. So it is destined to fail (and soon!) and be replaced by a gentile power - specifically Assyria and its revived Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. As a result, there's no need to get our panties (or thongs) in a wad over the NWO - it's the Old World Order that we need to be watching for and concerned about.]
The United Auto Workers union called off the strike by 73,000 auto workers against General Motors early Wednesday morning and announced a tentative contract that represents a total surrender to the massive concessions demands of the company. The deal that UAW President Ron Gettelfinger announced Wednesday was in all likelihood agreed to before the strike. It in no significant way differs from the agenda for transforming the US auto industry into a low-wage, sweatshop operation announced by the company in advance of the strike. The GM strike has highlighted the organic conflict between workers and the old, bureaucratized labor organizations. Economic life must be organized not to serve corporate profit and private wealth, but rather the needs of working people and society as a whole. It must be founded on the principles of social equality and genuine democracy—that is, on socialist principles.
That's how Stephen Roach put it. The Morgan Stanley economist is in today's paper, explaining why the fall of the dollar is bad news. In its simplest form, a weaker dollar means it takes more dollars to buy things on the open market. Americans who think Bernanke's easy money policy is going to save the economy need to think harder. The dollar is going down...along with the value of almost all US-centric, domestic, dollar-priced assets. Stocks. Bonds. Wages. Houses.
The dollar is at the center of several US' conflicts. Each dollar bill is an IOU of the US, a promise to give something in return. Due to the gigantic quantities the US has put into circulation, the country is not able to redeem these debts. It is bankrupt. Only the rate of the dollar keeps up the appearance, that nothing is afoot. The obligation to pay gas and oil in dollars keeps a permanent demand going. So the question is not IF the dollar collapses, but WHEN.
(Op-ed cartoon: Dollar stockade)
The dollar has at last begun to stabilize after a week of preciptious falls on news Saudi Arabia intends to stick to its closely-watched exchange-rate peg, despite its refusal to cut interest rates in lockstep with US Federal Reserve. Fears that Saudi Arabia and other super-rich sheikhdoms across the Gulf region might be preparing to cut their umbilical cord to the dollar has unsettled the currency markets, raising fears of a Mid-East exodus from US assets.
The euro has climbed to yet another all-time high against the dollar, as dealers anticipated the publication of weak US macroeconomic data.
The news reaching the desk of Christine Lagarde at the French ministry of economy, finance, and employment is dreadful, and getting worse by the month. "The ECB is an independent body and it would not come into anybody's mind in France to question that independence," she said, before going for the jugular. "Should there be more management of the value of the euro? It is something we are arguing about. It is certainly worth having the argument." She was coy when asked whether France intended to invoke Maastricht Treaty powers giving EU finance ministers the power to control the exchange rate, and whether it had enough allies to form a majority bloc under the EU's voting rules. "I'm not going to answer. One question will lead to another, but not yet." The key clause is Article 109 of the Maastricht Treaty, the so-called "nuclear option", which allows politicians to manage or set the exchange rate.
The Battle of Waterloo. The deaths of 6 US presidents. The rise of Adolf Hitler. The deflation of the Japanese bubble economy, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and even environmental destruction in the developing world. In a new Chinese best-seller, Currency Wars , these disparate events spanning 2 centuries have a single root cause: the control of money issuance through history by the Rothschild banking dynasty. Even today, claims author Song Hongbing, the US Federal Reserve remains a puppet of private banks, which also ultimately owe their allegiance to the ubiquitous Rothschilds.
[WAR: And is it just coincidence that the ECB's new building will be "in the eastern part of Frankfurt am Main" - which is where Mayer Amschel Rothschild was born and "developed a finance house and spread his empire by installing each of his 5 sons in European cities to conduct business"? The Frankfurt branch eventually ceased to exist, so the ECB is nothing more than the re-establishment of the lost, and original, house. That's my "conspiracy theory" anyway.]
A test of air freshener products recently conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that 12 out of 14 popular air freshener products contained a chemical known to be harmful to the health of humans. Phthalates, known to cause reproductive problems and hormone disruption in humans, were found in virtually all air freshener brands.
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