Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Did the Pope back down in the face of one of Italy's most entrenched and destructive evils?
At his weekly public audience today, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the ways in which St. Paul, in his epistles, constantly called attention to "the central role of the risen Christ in the mystery of salvation."
The norms permitting the celebration of Sunday Mass on a Saturday evening are not overly detailed and thus different practices and notions have arisen around the world.
The doctrine of biblical inerrancy doesn't belong only to those who cry "Sola Scriptura!" Inerrancy has emerged as a key issue in the Roman Catholic Church's Synod of Bishops.
(And: MORE THAN JUST A BOOK [PART 2])
Bavarian Finance Minister Erwin Huber said today he would resign, taking the blame for losses at public-sector bank BayernLB and becoming Germany's highest profile victim of the financial crisis so far. Huber had been head of BayernLB's governing board.
Analysts have cited losses at BayernLB as one of the reasons voters delivered a blow to the CSU in September's election in one of Germany's richest and proudest states which is not used to corporate shocks on this scale.
German attitudes about the country's military have changed markedly in the last two decades. But allowing the domestic deployment of the Bundeswehr remains politically unpalatable.
Merkel's cabinet pegged strict conditions to the massive €500 billion rescue package for Germany's banking sector, including caps on executive salaries. The government has also criticized the CEO of Deutsche Bank for publicly refusing to sign up for the bailout.
Despite the historically unprecedented bailout package for Germany's banking sector there are growing concerns that a deep recession is on the way. Will the German government have to put together a rescue plan for the broader economy as well?
Neither the Germans nor the Russians see much reason why their burgeoning business connection of recent years should do anything but grow stronger, even in these troubled times.
Germany is Moscow's biggest foreign trading partner, while exports to Russia are vital to the continued flowering of small and midlevel German companies, the backbone of Germany's export prowess.
Russia has resources and Germany has skill, and those elements bring the countries together more often than they drive them apart.
Among Western conservative strategists, in Germany and Europe but above all in Washington, this energy bond periodically fans the fears of those who think Germany might slip its Atlanticist moorings and try to play middleman between the White House and the Kremlin.
Few in Austria have been willing to speak ill of the recently deceased, right-wing populist Jörg Haider. But he leaves behind a difficult legacy. And it's one that the country's political class will have to come to terms with.
With some European corporate gems trading at beaten-down prices because of recent market turbulence, President Sarkozy of France suggested that European leaders should set up their own sovereign wealth funds to buy stakes in crucial industries to shield them from potential foreign raiders.
Germany, which fought longest and hardest against the idea of Europe-wide bank bailouts, immediately criticized Sarkozy's latest idea.
"The French proposal to protect European industry from foreign sovereign funds with government stakes contradicts all the successful principles of our economic policy," the German economy minister said. "Germany remains therefore open to capital from everywhere in the world."
A German diplomat, who declined to be identified for fear of angering the French, put it more bluntly: "Sarkozy is using the situation to push his interventionist agenda. We will not go along with that."
President Sarkozy on Tuesday renewed calls he made last week for the creation of an "economic government" for countries using the euro, in order to react better to crisis situations such as the current global financial turmoil.
"It is not possible for the euro zone to continue without a clearly identified economic government. We cannot go on like this."
His comments prompted the leader of the European socialists, German MEP Martin Schulz, to make fun of him for his interventionist ideas. Sarkozy "is talking like a good old-fashioned European socialist."
Palestinian President Abbas told reporters in Ramallah that Prime Minister Olmert had promised him "almost all of the West Bank" and "nearly all of the neighborhoods of east Jerusalem." He added, however, that Olmert did not say what he meant by "almost."
The global financial crisis has eclipsed Western jitters over Iran's nuclear program and may have put paid to the possibility of the US or Israel resorting to preemptive military strikes.
To bomb Iranian sites now, diplomats and analysts say, would risk triggering an even more intolerable tumult should Tehran choke off oil exports -- something neither President Bush nor his imminent successor looks likely to countenance.
That would leave Israel, which has vowed to deny Iran the means to threaten its existence, with a stark choice between launching unilateral attacks and being branded a warmonger or accepting the prospect of an arch-enemy with nuclear weaponry.
Some analysts suggest Israel could strike after the election but before Obama or McCain becomes president in January, to avoid alienating American voters while capitalizing on the parting largesse of the Bush White House.
(The accuracy of Debka File's reports on Iran is questionable because they are little more than a Mossad front, but we reprint part of the article for the sake of debate...)
"US intelligence's amended estimate, that Iran will be ready to build its first bomb just 1 month after the next US president is sworn in, is disclosed by DEBKAfile's Washington sources as having been relayed as a guideline to the Middle East teams of both presidential candidates.
Joe Biden's "guarantee" that an "international crisis" will unfold shortly after President Obama takes office conjures up several different possibilities, but it seems the likely outcome will revolve around an announcement that Iran has developed a nuclear bomb, prompting a potential military attack.
(And: THE WAR PARTY EMBRACES OBAMA)
The US and Russia sent their top military officers to this neutral capital for an unannounced meeting Tuesday to seek and define common ground and to try to move bilateral relations back on track, American officials said. The meeting was arranged with great secrecy.
A most stunning report is circulating in the Kremlin today stating that some of the most Senior Generals in the US Military are 'pleading' for 'immediate' help from both Russian and European Military to prevent their current President from starting WW3 in the coming weeks.
Even more shocking, this plea for help by the America Military Establishment came from the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and who in an unprecedented secret meeting, held this past weekend in the neutral country of Finland, met with General Nikolai Makarov, the head of Russia's General Staff.
This meeting between the US and Russia 's top Military Officials followed an equally unprecedented meeting held also this past week in the Adirondack Mountain Region of New York State between these US Generals and all of the top Military Officers and Staff of Britain, France , Australia , New Zealand , Italy , Japan , Canada , Denmark , The Netherlands and South Korea
According to these reports the American Generals have stated their 'firm belief' that the United States and Europe are under an 'imminent threat' for large scale attacks by nuclear weapons prior to the US elections, that will completely destroy both America and the European Union in a bid to establish upon both these Nations a new 'Forth Reich' modeled upon the former German Nazi Empire.
Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the fascist forces currently in power in both the US and EU already have in place all of the necessary laws and private paramilitary forces needed to accomplish such an astounding coup of virtually the entire Western World.
The Bush Doctrine, of course, no longer exists. Within a year, it had run aground on the shoals of reality on its very first whistle stop in Iraq. More than 6 years later, looking back on the foreign policy that emerged from Bush's self-declared Global War on Terror, it's clear that no president has ever failed on his own terms on such a scale or quite so comprehensively.
A German-American project with a new method for predicting the US election result says Barack Obama will win in November. But are polls accurate? Maybe the answer lies in another American pastime: baseball!
(Cartoons: POWELL ENDORSES OBAMA)
(And: VOTE FOR NEITHER)
Researchers are warning of potential problems during the US election with record numbers set to vote and many states using new voting machines.
(And: POLICE PREPARE FOR UNREST)
The turmoil in global markets deepened today, as stocks fell sharply in Europe and Asia, and the euro and British pound fell to their lowest points against the dollar in years. Oil prices dropped below $70 a barrel.
Wachovia says it swung to a loss in the 3rd quarter as it set aside $6.63 billion to cover loan losses and build its credit reserves.
Many people have been warning that the banks will keep hoarding cash no matter how much money the feds give them. Now, even the banks themselves are admitting it.
The IMF has forecast a sharp contract in euro area credit growth to about 2 or 3%, which will lead to a de facto economic stagnation in 2009
This scandal, experts say, is undermining the IMF's credibility at a time when world leaders are embarking on an ambitious effort to write new rules for the international financial marketplace — a discussion in which the fund should, by all accounts, play a major role.
Here is a warning to us all. The Argentine state is taking control of the country's privately-managed pension funds in a drastic move to raise cash. It is a foretaste of what may happen across the world as governments discover that tax revenue, and the bond markets are unwilling to plug the gap.
President Bush is to host a meeting of world leaders to discuss the global financial crisis on November 15, the White House has said today. Bush plans to invite members of the G20 group of nations to the summit, which includes the G7 major industrial economies plus key "emerging-market" countries such as China, India and Brazil.
A View from Europe as the Crisis Goes Global and the Response remains Partial.
The "economic recovery" plan being pushed by congressional Democrats, far from representing a serious response to the social disaster threatening working people, underscores the complete subservience of the Democratic Party to Wall Street.
Ominous signs that the crisis will have a big impact on spending.
Meltdown may have been averted. But the crunch is not over.
Until recently, and even now, many observers pretend that the US and major world economies will avoid recession. Or at worst experience a mild one with healthy growth resuming in 2009. Slowly and grudgingly, opinions are changing. At issue is how bad things will get.
The global financial crisis has brought with it a tidal wave of anti-Semitic sentiments, much of which has led to full-blown conspiracy theories postulating the crisis is part of a Jewish plot.
While usual suspects Hamas and Iran have both put in their expected 2 pennies - with Hamas blaming the Jewish lobby in Washington and Tehran opting for a more far-reaching Zionist plot to control the entire world's economy.
That Israel's economy seems to have emerged relatively unscathed from the crisis has leant much ammunition to enemies of the Jewish state. As does the fact that many of the world's financial leaders are of Jewish descent.
What we are watching is nothing less than the steady transfer of real political power from the polling station to the market and from the ballot to the wallet - reversing the democratic gains we have made over the last century when we were able, increasingly, to use our votes to shape our economic future.
The 30-year lie of the market cult
Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global financial crash -- or rather, by the reaction to it -- is the staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the governments of the world have at their command.
Beginning with Margaret Thatcher's election in 1979, government after government -- and party after party -- fell to the onslaught of an extremist faith: the narrow, blinkered fundamentalism of the "Chicago School."
Epitomized by its patron saint, Milton Friedman, the rigid doctrine held that an unregulated market would always "correct" itself, because its workings are based on entirely rational and quantifiable principles.
This was of course an absurdly reductive and savagely ignorant view of history, money and human nature; but because it flattered the rich and powerful, offering an "intellectual" justification for rapacious greed and ever-widening economic and social inequality, it was adopted as holy writ by the elite and promulgated as public policy.
This radical cult -- a kind of Bolshevism from above -- took its strongest hold in the US and UK, and was then imposed on many weaker nations through the IMF-led "Washington Consensus," with devastating and deadly results.
(And: NEO-LIBERAL DOGMA HAS FAILED)
Economic angst has Americans stockpiling 'beans, bullets and Band-Aids'
With foreclosure rates running rampant, financial institutions teetering and falling, prices for many goods and services climbing, and jobs being slashed, many Americans are making preparations for worse times ahead.
For some, that means cutting spending and saving more. For others, it means taking a step into survivalism, once regarded solely as the province of religious End-of-Timers, sci-fi fans and extremists.
Several months ago a good friend of mine told me that every time she goes to the supermarket she picks up an extra bag of beans and an extra bag of rice. Following her advice, I've started doing the same thing.
By all means, stock up on beans, rice, ammunition, fuel, and gold. If the Empire is crumbling – and I believe it is – you'll need all of those things. More important, though, is that we be mentally prepared for what is coming.
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[Latest edition of The Religion WAR]
A dietary approach to treating addiction seems worth investigating.
[WAR: It's already been investigated, and proven to be the answer -- the silver bullet -- to addiction! But it's great to see The Economist addressing this.]
Christian missionaries make no secret of the fact that they use medical services, education, and employment opportunities to lure impoverished indigenous populations throughout the world into conversion to Christianity.
Karen Armstrong traces the history of the composition and exegesis of the Jewish and Christian scriptures from the 6th Century BCE, when the Persian Emperor Cyrus permitted the refugees returning to Jerusalem from Babylon to bring with them 9 scrolls covering the Old Testament books (as Gentiles know them) from Genesis to Kings.
When a myth about the Bible's contents is shattered in favor of Scriptural truth, does it actually make an audible sound? Maybe not, but now you can at least listen to a radio interview with Joe Kovacs, author of the stunning new best-seller, "Shocked by the Bible: The Most Astonishing Facts You've Never Been Told."
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