Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Child abuse!...
Pope Benedict XVI baptized 13 squirming, squealing and sleeping babies in the Sistine Chapel today in an annual ceremony to welcome the newest members of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has ordered the American Jesuit theologian Fr. Roger Haight to stop teaching and publishing on theological matters. The academic's work has been criticized for undermining Catholic teaching on the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, the importance of the Church, and issues related to Salvation.
(And: B16: "The mystery of the incarnation of the Word, which we re-live each year on the Solemnity of Christmas...")
[WAR: Yes, anyone under the authority/jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church will be punished for questioning the Catholic teaching on "the divinity of Christ" and "the mystery of the incaration" -- which is the chief mystery of "Mystery Babylon the Great" and the foundational doctrine of Christianity.
So once you realize that this doctrine is nothing more than the one that John warned us about (1John 2:18-22 / 2John 1:7) -- and which we are supposed to use to test the spirits (1John 4:1-3) -- then Christianity stands convicted of being an antimessiah/satanic religion.]
The Church is in favor of "orderly immigration" and immigration reform, the archbishop of Denver is affirming during National Migration Week.
"Our Church stands on the side of orderly immigration and is in favor of comprehensive immigration reform so our borders are protected and all people are respected.
"Both of those principles are very important for a Catholic understanding of migration, which is ultimately rooted in the Christian belief that we are all migrants in search of our heavenly homeland."
An attack on the police chief of Passau has chilled the German establishment with the realisation that high-profile opponents are being targeted by neo-Nazis.
Horst Seehofer, the conservative minister-president of Bavaria, said this "new dimension" of right-wing extremist violence required a "hard answer" from the state. The stabbing was "an attack on us all – on all politicians and the whole of society."
German unemployment could increase by around 1 million this year to about 4 million, the head of the Federal Labour Office said today. "In the worst case scenario (unemployment) could get towards 4 million; it could also get substantially worse if the economy takes a catastrophic turn."
For the first time in modern history, the German government is bailing out a private consumer bank -- Germany's 2nd largest.
Although most commentators see the move to rescue Commerzbank as both prudent and inevitable, many of them don't like the principle or the precedent.
The party of Chancellor Merkel has agreed on a 2nd stimulus package to bolster the economy in the face of the global financial crisis. Other parties in the governing coalition are expected to follow.
The plan is expected to cost up to $68 billion over the next 2 years, and will include investments in schools and infrastructure projects to protect jobs.
The final amount of this second package will only become clear after the Christian Social Union and the SPD agree on the plan in the coming days.
Germany's Foreign Minister called in an open letter published Saturday for closer ties with the US under Barack Obama.
A German view
Our century's keyword is cooperation. No global problem can be resolved by confrontation or the use of military force. America bears a special and indispensable responsibility.
Security and stability for the northern hemisphere can only be achieved through stable and reliable cooperation among America, Russia, Europe and China.
Germany, which has renounced the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, has every reason to call on the nuclear-weapon states not to use nuclear weapons against countries not possessing such arms.
We are also of the opinion that all remaining US nuclear warheads should be withdrawn from German territory.
The Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has warned Europe that the gas crisis is "worsening."
Speaking in Moscow during the visit of the Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, Putin blamed Ukraine for the crisis following the dispute over pricing of deliveries by the Russian energy giant Gazprom.
(But: GAS STILL ON HOLD)
(Op-ed: GAS WARS)
In recent years, Russia has enjoyed unforeseen riches as a result of a huge rise in revenues from oil and gas exports.
The BBC reports on what this wealth has done to the country, and what it means for its future.
Two weeks after Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, is it clear what the government is trying to achieve?
As the Israeli raids on Gaza and Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel continue, the BBC's Middle East editor assesses why both Israel and Hamas seem likely to pursue the conflict.
Israeli ground forces are advancing on Gaza City and facing strong resistance from Palestinian fighters on the 16th day of the assault on the besieged territory.
Hamas says its fighters have targeted an Israeli aircraft, and also launched anti-tank missiles, as the military intensifies a full-scale offensive against Gaza.
Palestinian fighters have fired more rockets from Gaza into Israel on the 16th day of the war.
Hamas has said that the Gaza war has put an end to chances of negotiations with Israel, calling on Arabs to pressure Tel Aviv to cease its attacks on the Gaza Strip.
How growing rejectionism, the rise of religion, a new military doctrine and a new cold war keep peace at bay.
(And: WHERE WILL IT END?)
The reason the rationale for invading Gaza keeps changing, is because the Israeli leadership wants to conceal the true objective.
The purpose of "Operation Cast Lead" is to conduct a dress rehearsal for another invasion of Lebanon. That's the real goal.
Israel has never recovered from its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah during the 33 Day war in 2006, so it is planning to restart hostilities.
The attack on Gaza is just a "dry run" to strengthen morale and put the finishing touches on the battle plan.
It's not really Hamas in the cross-hairs, but Hezbollah; and this time, Israel hopes to crush them with overwhelming force.
The massive aerial bombardment of Gaza; the pounding by heavy artillery units, and the deployment of elite troops and armored divisions, all presage a massive Normandy-type invasion of Lebanon with the probability of high casualties.
But the upcoming war with Lebanon has less to do with Hezbollah than it does with Israel's geopolitical ambitions.
Israel wants to establish a new northern border at the Litani River in southern Lebanon and create an "Israel-friendly" regime in Beirut.
They want to seize more land to achieve their vision of "Greater Israel" and reduce adjacent Arab countries to a "permanent state of colonial dependency."
The Middle East is being reshaped according to the ideological aspirations of Zionists and the exigencies of a viciously-competitive energy market. That's a combo that makes peace nearly impossible.
The Pentagon plans to make a large arms delivery to Israel, rising fears that the military campaign in Gaza will go on for a long time.
The US is trying to hire a merchant ship that can carry hundreds of tons of weapons from Greece to Israel later this month.
(Cartoon: BUSH'S LAST STAND)
As the war in Gaza burned through its 14th day, Arab governments have felt their legitimacy challenged with an uncommon virulence. With each passing day, and each Palestinian death, the popularity of Hamas and other radical movements has ratcheted higher on the Arab street, while the standing of Arab leaders has suffered.
"Muslim brothers, God has inflicted the Muslim nation with a people whom God has become angry at and whom he cursed so he made monkeys and pigs out of them. They killed prophets and messengers and sowed corruption on Earth. They are the most evil on Earth."
Why are we so indifferent to the death and destruction in Gaza?
Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state?
As peace negotiations stall in Egypt and war continues to rage in the Gaza Strip, Germany's Foreign Minister is traveling to the region to meet with its leaders and help move talks forward.
Germany will send a team to Egypt to analyze improving anti-smuggling efforts on the border with the Gaza strip, Germany's Foreign Minister said after talks in Egypt on Saturday.
"We agreed in the next few days a group from Germany will travel to Egypt to see how we can help equip police and provide training."
In the chaos of Pakistan, where the military, the intelligence services and an unstable collection of civilian leaders uneasily share power, Khalid Kidwai (keeps the country's nuclear keys) oversees a security structure intended to protect Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from outsiders — Islamic militants, Qaeda scientists, Indian saboteurs and those American commando teams that Pakistanis imagine, with good reason, are waiting just over the horizon in Afghanistan, ready to seize their nuclear treasure if a national meltdown seems imminent.
Scary possibilities for the future of Africa's most utterly failed state.
Israel's relentless offensive to crush the radical Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza is the opening salvo of the country's wider campaign to confront the mounting threat posed by Iran to the survival of the Jewish state.
So far as Israel is concerned, 2009 is the year that, given Iran's current rate of progress with uranium enrichment, will decide whether the mullahs succeed in their dream of becoming a nuclear power.
President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.
But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country's only known uranium enrichment plant is located.
The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily.
Barack Obama today vowed to take swift action on the Middle East peace process and Iran's nuclear ambitions but played for time to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
An African-American couple from Chicago will move into the White House on January 20.
Like her husband, Barack Obama's wife Michelle comes to Washington loaded with expectations and she has already become a symbol in her own right. Who is Michelle Obama, what is her role and how much power will she wield?
Eric H. Holder Jr. is facing increasing resistance to his bid to become the next attorney general, emerging from Barack Obama's Cabinet nominees as the prime target of Senate Republicans, both because of troubling episodes during his service in the Clinton administration and because of the sensitivity of the post overseeing the Justice Department.
Past crises inspire little confidence about the outcome of this one for America.
The fresh evidence on Friday of the economy's downward spiral focused even more attention on 2 questions:
Is the stimulus package being pushed by President-elect Barack Obama big enough?
And will the component parts being assembled by Congress provide the most bang for the buck?
(And: NO ONE KNOWS IF IT WILL WORK)
Obama's prescription doesn't live up to his diagnosis.
The economic plan he's offering isn't as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what's needed.
With both consumer spending and business investment plunging, a huge gap is opening up between what the US economy can produce and what it's able to sell.
And the Obama plan is nowhere near big enough to fill this "output gap."
(Cartoon: KEEPING WALL STREET AFLOAT)
Fears that the world is sliding into the worst global recession since the Great Depression multiplied yesterday as figures showed the steepest jump in American unemployment since WW2 and a slump in manufacturing across Europe.
Economists on both sides of the Atlantic were startled by the severity of the latest indications of global economic slump, which further stoked pressure for radical action to stave off economic calamity.
(And: DOWNTURN ESCALATES IN UK/US)
Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn talks to Spiegel about the global financial crisis and his hope that Barack Obama will be the right president to lead the US out of recession.
The surprising link between protectionism and pill-popping.
All of the demand for Treasuries is artificial. Treasuries are now in the hands of speculators looking to sell, not investors looking to hold.
When the bond market bubble bursts, it will be the US Government itself that will be in need of the mother of all bailouts.
If US taxpayers or foreign creditors are unwilling or unable to pony up, and if the nightmare hyper-inflation scenario is to be avoided, default will be the only option.
(And: A FEDERAL RESERVE THINGY)
(And: THE BONDS OF TIME)
One of the few things more troubling for an economy than government intervention is government intervention driven by panic.
Time and again, history has shown that when governments rush to engineer solutions to pressing problems, unintended difficulties arise.
In the current crisis, there is growing evidence that Washington is in a state of increasing panic.
In the short term, as dollar carry-trades continue to be unwound and questions of political will and falling interest rates haunt the euro and some other currencies, the US dollar may be the recipient of some upward appreciation.
But with the American government appearing increasingly to be in panic mode, a run on the US dollar could develop rapidly into cascading devaluation.
We are forced to labor under several apparent falsehoods that are nonetheless enshrined in our collective 1st-world political imagination.
Foremost among them is that the rule of law prevails over the law of the jungle, where the mightiest governs by virtue of brute strength.
The fact is that the rule of law only succeeds because the arbiters of the law, the justice system, have at their disposal the greatest collective threat of violence within the political boundaries of the country. Obey the law, or else.
Merrill Lynch has revealed that some of its richest clients are so alarmed by the state of the financial system and signs of political instability around the world that they are now insisting on the purchase of gold bars, shunning derivatives or "paper" proxies.
The chief investment officer for the US bank said there has been a remarkable change in sentiment.
"People are genuinely worried about what the world is going to look like in 2009. It is amazing how many clients want physical gold, not ETFs (exchange trade funds)."
Merrill predicted that gold would soon blast through its all time-high of $1,030 an ounce, and would hit $1,150 by June.
Finding new credit or just holding on to what you have has gotten extremely difficult. And the impact is not limited to consumers who are swimming in debt or have abused credit in the past.
"We have definitely been hearing from a lot of people, even those with great scores, that they have been getting their credit lines cut or closed."
Will America ever return to her greater glory, or wallow in madness and mayhem; lust for power and profit knows no bounds; breaking down the nation state; TARP funds will cover the super wealthy, but we wont know where the money will really go; Fed continues to hoard their reserves while extorting taxpayer money under threats of orchestrated market crashes...
The central bankers of the Great Depression were obsessed with a single idea, rather like their successors today.
Mainstream economists have, in effect, declared their intellectual bankruptcy.
So tenuous is the contemporary appreciation of economic verities that the slightest apparent breakdown of the economic order completely befuddles the economists and sends them running about wildly in search of a new model that will predict better than the old, now discredited one.
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
In our World, there are lots of countries, nations, languages, religions, cultures, costumes but also lots of disagreements.
History has it that there was never peace and respect among nations since the formation of the first State.
From the beginning of the first conflict till date, wars have been fought for the same cause: political differences, trade, religion, liberation, dynasty, seizure of territory, the annihilation of a rival State, the destruction of the enemy's ability to prosecute military action, revolution or genocide.
Currently, in contemporary days there are 32 ongoing wars which are being fought around the World.
In the future we can expect more wars -- that will be fought between industrial countries.
A complaint has been filed with the UK government over a series of advertisements posted on buses that suggest God doesn't exist, demanding proof of the statement in order to comply with federal truth-in-advertising laws.
If people intend to be informed, they must turn to foreign news broadcasts, to Internet sites, (or) to foreign newspapers available on the Internet. ... People ask me where they can get reliable information. I tell them that their goal cannot be reached without their commitment of time.
[WAR: Yes, it does take a "commitment of time" to be truly informed about what's really happening on the world scene.
That's why I've been committing 4+ hours every day (except the Sabbath day) to standing on the cyber wall and scanning the virtual news horizon.
So if you would like to contribute to the "WAR fund" for my "commitment of time," then please do so at:
http://www.paypal.com (payable to thedailywarrior@gmail.com) or
The Daily World Affairs Report / PO Box 1059 / Pearce, AZ 85625.]
WAR for military: YAHOO! WARriors
WAR fund: PayPal (payable to thedailywarrior@gmail.com)
