The Vatican versus the Fourth Commandment

Amplify’d from www.lcg.org

The Vatican versus the Fourth Commandment

By Wyatt Ciesielka

On January 25, Pope Benedict XVI again proclaimed his desire “to ignite a fervent missionary movement in the Catholic Church,” stating he wants to advance “the entire Catholic Church into a new missionary age” in 2011 (catholic.org, January 28, 2011).  While this movement will ultimately contribute to fulfilling prophecies such as Isaiah 47:8-9 and Revelation 17:2-5, an aspect of this rejuvenated “fervent missionary movement” already affects billions. This is the growing emphasis on Sunday observance.

While Sunday (the first day of the week) observance  is nothing new in Catholicism (Catholics even inexcusably omit the “seventh day” reference from the Ten Commandments), Catholic demands for Sunday observance are growing stronger.  For instance, in 2007 Pope Benedict demanded that all Christians “renew their respect for Sunday as a day of rest” (BBCNews, September 9, 2007), and, during the 2010 Christmas season, many Europeans were distressed to see stores remain closed on Sunday, thus disrupting their holiday shopping!

The Sunday versus Sabbath debate will intensify in the years ahead.  Yes, true Christians should do good, pray, praise and honor God every day, but it is irrefutable that Saturday (the seventh day of the week) is the weekly Sabbath and the day on which true Christians should worship.

The seventh-day Sabbath was observed by God’s servants before there were any Jews (Genesis 26:5), and it is a test commandment that God uses to see who will obey Him (Exodus 16:4-5).  As such, true Christians rest on the Sabbath just as God rested on the seventh day of Creation (Genesis 2:2-3).  Scripture actually commands us to “work” in our various professions or responsibilities six days a week – which includes Sunday.  However, as Exodus 20:10-11 makes clear, no work is to be done on the Sabbath (Saturday) by us, by our household, or by those within our employ. “No work,” or no mĕla’kah is a strict prohibition of labor, and parallels the same strong prohibition found in Leviticus 23:28 regarding the Day of Atonement, also known as Yom Kippur.

Some counter that “Sunday is the Lord’s day” and has therefore replaced the Saturday Sabbath, but the Bible says no such thing!  Scripture plainly reveals that the Revelation 1:10 “Lord’s day” reference simply refers to the Apostle John’s vision of the future time of the end when Jesus Christ will return as conquering King.

The biblical fact is that the Sabbath is a perpetual covenant and an identifying sign between God and His people forever (compare Exodus 31:16-17, where the Sabbath is a “sign” between God and Israel “forever” with Romans 2:28-29 and Galatians 3:29 where modern Christians are called “Abraham’s seed” and are “Jews” spiritually).  The Sabbath is to be observed today and will be observed in the coming Kingdom of God (Isaiah 66:22-23).  We honor our Lord Jesus Christ, if we delight in the Sabbath and keep it holy (Isaiah 58:13-14).  Christ kept all His Father’s commandments (John 15:10) and we show our love for Him if we do the same (I John 5:2-3).  This leads to blessings and to eternal life in the Kingdom of God (Revelation 14:12; 22:14-15)!

The Roman Catholic Church has long proclaimed, “Sunday is our mark or authority ... the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact” (Catholic Record of London, Ontario, September 1, 1923).  However, this attempt to “transfer” what God made holy only demonstrates rebellion against God, and those that follow this wrong example share in this transgression.  “It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday.

Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a command of the Catholic Church” (Priest Brady, The News, Elizabeth, New Jersey, March 18, 1903).

Will we love and serve the Lord and delight in His Sabbaths as true Christians should …or will we reject His commands?  Please read Mr. Richard Ames’ article, “What Is The Day of The Lord?” and the detailed booklet, Which Day is the Christian Sabbath? to learn more.

• If you appreciate these insights – click here to receive them by email. Read more at www.lcg.org

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bquyz

Adventist Mission Statement Gospel Restricted to SDA Doctrines

Amplify’d from cafesda.blogspot.com

Adventist Mission Statement Gospel Restricted to SDA Doctrines

You have probably noticed that I am not putting up blog posts as often as I used to. Part of this is a reflection of the deep disappointment I feel in Adventism. See Addendum below for some examples.

One of the recent article on Adventist Today's website is entitled Have We Lost Sight of Our Mission? By Preston Foster. I will sum up the article by using some of the comments after the article. In response to a comment by John McClarty (in red) where he quotes Preston's original article (in bold) Preston explains his intent.

I'm not saying that our message isn't Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.  It is.  I'm not saying that the most important thing that anyone could ever discover isn't the love of Christ and the gift of salvation thru His sacrifice.  It is.

But those fundamental truths are not our mission."

Do you really mean to argue that our mission and message are separate from "the most important thing that anyone could ever discover"? Our mission is to help people discover the  second most important thing? The third most important thing?

Yes, that is exactly what I am positing.  The point is to differentiate between our message as Christians and our mission as a denomination.  Our message, like that of all Christian churches is Christ, and Him crucified.  That is the most important thing that any Christian can communicate to another human.  However, that is not the reason that this denomination exists.

(skip one paragraph)

As, perhaps, some of our brethren of other denominations were given light to see was was written about grace, we Adventists have been given a mission in regard to what has been written in Scripture about the Sabbath and its connection to identifying truth in the last days before the Second Advent.  Delivering that message is, in my view, the mission of this denomination, in the context of the body of Christ.

The problem here is not only with Preston's view of things. It is in fact the problem with the Adventist church that we create our doctrines as the official interpreter of the gospel. Let me explain the reason I say that lest I simply make unsupportable statements like the bloggers I have mentioned in the addendum. Adventists have a mission statement that is very peculiar. Until I was spurred by Preston's blog to examine our mission statement I did not realize the cryptic nature of our statement. The Adventist mission statement reads:

Our Mission

The mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to make disciples of all people, communicating the everlasting gospel in the context of the three angels' messages of Revelation 14:6-12, leading them to accept Jesus as personal Savior and unite with His remnant Church, discipling them to serve Him as Lord and preparing them for His soon return. http://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main-stat1.html

Our mission statement which is given by the leaders to inform the organization how to carry out their mission includes the code language of Adventism namely the three angels' messages. If you read Revelation 14 you will not understand how it explains the everlasting gospel. It does not provide the context of the everlasting gospel. For that you would be better off reading the context of the Gospels, or even Paul then Revelation 14. But the three angels messages is code language for the distinctive Adventist doctrines. Even Wikipedia understands the code method of using the three angels' message to mean the SDA church. As their article quotes the SDA church manual:

"In accordance with God’s uniform dealing with mankind, warning them of coming events that will vitally affect their destiny, He has sent forth a proclamation of the approaching return of Christ. This preparatory message is symbolized by the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14, and meets its fulfillment in the great Second Advent Movement today. This has brought forth the remnant, or Seventh-day Adventist Church, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual[2]

In short The Adventist church is the Remnant and it is her doctrines that the remnant must proclaim, the Adventist church sees itself in the book of Revelation and in Revelation 14 as being those who keep the commandments of God and have the Faith of Jesus. As Hans K. LaRondelle states in his article The Remnant and the Three Angels’ Messages

Three key teachings, each developed independently, merged into one message that began to characterize the movement of the Sabbatarian Adventists: Christ’s final ministry in the sanctuary, the Sabbath as a sign of obedience to God’s commandments, and the application of the phrase “testimony of Jesus” to a new manifestation of the prophetic gift through Ellen G. White (1827– 1915) in the “remnant” church (Rev. 12:17; 14:12; 19:10). These distinctive concepts began to be integrated into a unified body of belief during six Bible conferences held in the northeastern United States in 1848. The participants held in common a belief that in the post-1844 period all biblical truth had to be restored among God’s remnant people before the Second Advent would take place. They agreed on seven principal points, which came to be called the “landmarks” or fundamentals. These formed the “firm platform” of present truth on which the emerging Seventhday Adventist Church was built. Specifically, they were (1) the imminent Second Advent, (2) the continuous historical interpretation of the major time prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, (3) the conditional immortality of human beings, (4) Christ’s beginning of His final ministry in the heavenly sanctuary in 1844, (5) the seventh-day Sabbath, (6) the renewed manifestation of the Spirit of Prophecy, and (7) the historical fulfillment of the three angels’ messages of Revelation.

What this all allows is that our mission becomes less about the Gospel and more about Adventist Doctrinal interpretations, the gospel according to Adventist doctrines. We see how important this is in the mission statement if we omit the part about remnant and three angels. Removed the statement would look like this:

The mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to make disciples of all people, communicating the everlasting gospel , leading them to accept Jesus as personal Savior and unite with His Church, discipling them to serve Him as Lord and preparing them for His soon return

That would be a pretty good mission statement. Who would have a problem with that? But of course that is not our mission statement. Remember the purpose of a mission statement is primarily internal, for the organization:

A Mission Statement defines the organization's purpose and primary objectives. Its prime function is internal – to define the key measure or measures of the organization's success – and its prime audience is the leadership team and stockholders.

This shows that the Adventist church goal is to define and spread a gospel of it's own particular formulation. Preston on February 17 commented the following on the blog:

The filter that separates those who, in the last days, are listening to (and obeying) the authentic voice of God are, per Revelation 14:12.  That is, those "keep the commandments of God" as given in Exodus 20, "and have the testimony of Jesus."  It seems many Christians, by definition, "have the testimony of Jesus."  The differentiator, for many, will be "keeping the commandments of God," as opposed to the traditions of men.  The seventh-day Sabbath is the point of differentiation between the two.

For now I will ignore the misuse of Exodus 20 as the meaning of commandments rather then the New Testament meaning of the instructions of God and the fact that really no one is keeping all the commandments of God individually or as a denomination. We see that Preston defines the gospel along narrow Adventist remnant theology. Which is what the mission statement requires.

It does make me wonder, with a mission statement so self centered how will the Adventist church ever actually present the gospel?

Addendum: Edited 9:21 Pacific Time

Adventism appears to very quickly be moving into such a narrow cult-like religion that it seems somewhat pointless to point out the foolishness that is afflicting the church from the top down. All one has to do is read the Adventist Today Blog and see they have installed various bloggers with so little sense that it is appalling. A couple of cases as examples. Originally I cited this section as a preamble to my above article, but they are really separate issues and the importance of the mission statement should be seen without the personally feeling I have regarding the quality of material from the Adventist Today bloggers.

Stephen Foster Adventist Today blogger in the comments section of Ervin Taylors Blog says:

However, regarding the Godhead and The Plan of Salvation, I will quote/paraphrase the great Dr. Calvin B. Rock,to wit: if we try to understand it,we will lose our minds; but if we don’t believe it,we will lose our souls.

Later he will say that “try to understand it” is the same as totally or fully comprehend it. It is the technique of arguing by changing the meaning of the words after he said them. You can read the conversation at the blog. It is considerably frustrating to deal with people that are that completely illogical. It is rather like the person who just peed on you leg telling you that the liquid is not from them and that it is good for you and the ground also but it was not pee and you simply cannot understand that they never peed at all. Most all of Stephen Foster's blogs are like that as well, another example is the first paragraph of his most recent blog:

Yes, it is the undeniable fact that the God of the Bible does set before us life and death, and never changes those options, that has forced those who don't like that type of God, or don't think that type of God is worthy of worship, to reinvent Him in their own image. This is what all the postmodern, emergent, cross-over-Christian psychobabble is largely about, no doubt.

As if that opening tells us anything of the kind; that if one does not accept that God sets before us life and death then everything from postmodern, emergent Christianity is reinventing God in people's image. You will not find him logically setting forth his reasoning in any of his blogs on the subject just his presuppositions as fact and they are not intelligent presuppositions or anything close to facts. But he is not alone in this type of writing style. In Cindy Tutch's article last month also supposedly on emergent churches her beginning sentence is as follows:

In the Adventist sanctuary doctrine, which is unique to our movement, we find a visual merger of relationship (Christ our High Priest), ancient roots (the Judaic Sanctuary rituals) and a common history (unfolding dialogue between the people and God). Satan targets this highly symbolic yet relational motif because it is the very heart of God's will and instructions regarding redemption, mission, spirituality, and even worship.

You know doubt wonder how it is that Satan targets this highly symbolic yet relational motif? Well you can keep wondering because as with the old “Satan made me do it claim” the claim is all that is necessary because they can't show how Satan made them do it nor can Cindy say how Satan targets the Adventist sanctuary doctrine which is highly symbolic yet relational. If you are a critical thinking person you can probably see another problem there in something being called highly symbolic yet relational. You might like to see that little idea delved into a bit...well you will have to wait for that and I would not suggest you hold your breath to find out about that little theory. Read more at cafesda.blogspot.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br8ig

Student Kills Self After Suspension Over Legal Drug

Amplify’d from gawker.com

Student Kills Self After Suspension Over Legal Drug

Max Read — Let's check in on America's public school systems and see how we're preparing our youth of today for the challenges of tomorrow! In Fairfax County, Va., The Washington Post reports, a 15-year-old "model student" and linebacker, Nick Stuban, was suspended and banned from school property for seven weeks for buying a capsule of the legal "marijuana-like" synthetic compound JWH-108. He was then reassigned to a different high school; a month later, he killed himself.

Should we tally up all the unbelievably screwed-up things about this story? Let's!

JWH-108 is legal. Stuban—who declined to purchase DMT when offered—only bought it after researching the substance online and confirming it was.

After Stuban was caught (without the drug on his person; he says he threw it away), he was convinced (or coerced) into signing a confession before his parents were even called.

School administrators told Nick's dad Steve that they had never heard of JWH-108; nonetheless, his infraction—"possession of 'an imitation controlled substance' and behavior 'incompatible with a k-12 educational environment'"—was considered more serious than being under the influence of cocaine or ecstasty—because, apparently, he was in possession of a dangerous substance on school grounds.

Hearing officer Dana Scanlan told the Post that the same standard would be applied to oregano "packaged to look like marijuana." Oregano!

The Stubans attended Nick's disciplinary hearing without a lawyer on the advice of "a Woodson administrator who Steve Stuban said cautioned against bringing in one because it might create a confrontational climate."

Nick didn't receive his ruling until 14 school days after the hearing. He was transferred to another high school, to show that students can't, in the words of school board member Jane K. Strauss, "just get away with it and come back."

A month after receiving his transfer orders, Stuban took his own life. And, the thing is, we don't know the extent to which his disciplinary problems contributed to his suicide, but we don't need to—the bottom line is that he was a hurting kid betrayed by the institutions that should have been protecting and nurturing him. (If there's a practical lesson here, the blogger IOZ has it: Don't talk to anyone or sign anything without a lawyer.)

The Post wonders if this is a problem with Fairfax County. But pretty much anyone who went to public school in the U.S. can remember kids they knew who were caught with drugs (or, in some cases, alleged to have had drugs at some point or another) and put in front of disciplinary committees—rarely, if ever, to their benefit. (Perhaps the experience will help them understand Kafka better. If they are ever allowed in class again.)

Maybe school officials in those positions really are the unbelievably cruel assholes they seem to be, or maybe they're decent people hamstrung by zero-tolerance policies. At best, they're punishing kids for engaging in a near-universal teenage behavior that does no demonstrable harm; at the worst, as in the case of Nick Stuban, they're casting out the students who most need their attention and support, all for the sake of our draconian drug policy. But hey, I guess Nick's story proves that drugs do ruin lives. If you get caught.

[WaPo; image via Nick Stuban's tribute page] Read more at gawker.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/crjd

Donald Rumsfeld FOIA The Pentagon Papers That He Doesn't Want You to See

URL:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/49297039/Donald-Rumsfeld-FOIA...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br8i2

Amplify’d from gawker.com

The Pentagon Papers Donald Rumsfeld Doesn’t Want You to See

John Cook — When Donald Rumsfeld released his memoir Known and Unknown, he made a big deal out of putting thousands of documents from his archives online in a sop to transparency and accuracy. But he didn't put them all online. And we've found some of the papers that Rumsfeld would have preferred to toss down the memory hole.

The Rumsfeld Papers web site, which launched earlier this month as a complement to the memoir, is a collection of Rumsfeld's memos, speeches, and other documents going back to his days as an undergraduate at Princeton in the 1950s. The idea, according to a researcher he hired for the project, "to get more information in people's hands" because "he really thinks the free flow of information is critical to a vibrant democracy." Rumsfeld himself compared the digital archive to a sort of legit version of Wikileaks.

More power to him! Except Rumsfeld, of course, only posted the information that he wanted to flow freely. The other stuff—like his callous attempts to keep John Walker Lindh from getting speedy trial, his effort to whitewash the Pentagon's detainee policy, and the friendly op-eds he tried to plant in newspapers—he left out. Luckily, we were able to get a hold of some of the papers from his days as defense secretary that Rumsfeld reviewed and deliberately withheld from the archive.

Rumsfeld used the Freedom of Information to gather some, but not all, of his papers in researching the book. So we filed a FOIA request with the Pentagon asking for everything Rumsfeld asked for, and everything he received. Last week, we got a partial response, including roughly 100 pages of memos he wrote in 2002 and 2003 that the Pentagon handed over to him. We checked against the Rumsfeld Papers, and almost none of them were there. None of the missing memos are particularly damning, but they do show Rumsfeld's cavalier attitude to the legality and reality of the war he was busily conjuring prior to 2003. (Click on the images to see larger, readable versions. Or go here to read the entire document.)

"I don't really care what happens to Walker at this stage." Here is Rumsfeld in January 2002 arguing that John Walker Lindh, an American citizen who had been wounded in battle and captured in Afghanistan three months before, should be sent to Guantanamo Bay instead of handed over to the Justice Department for a civilian trial—even though the military had concluded he couldn't provide any more intelligence and wanted to get rid of him. "[T]he military doesn't want him anymore," Rumsfeld wrote. "We could put him in Guantanamo Bay until we are absolutely sure we are not going to get anymore information about him or from him." A few hours later, in another memo, Rumsfeld acknowledged that Lindh should eventually go to the Justice Department, but said he still wanted to hold on to him a little longer and couldn't understand why everyone wanted Lindh to get a speedy trial: "I am curious to know what the rush is."

"Perfectly legal, proper, and historically correct." On January 16, 2002, Rumsfeld ordered Jim Haynes, the Pentagon's chief lawyer, to draw up a memo explaining "why we are holding people, what we do with them, how we are treating them, how we categorize them, and why it is perfectly legal, proper, and historically correct." If that sounds like an attempt to backwards-justify an ad hoc detainee policy that had bee crafted with zero regard to the law, that's because it is. Despite Rumsfeld's smug certainty, Haynes ginned up a memo explaining exactly what Rumsfeld asked him to, but he hit a little snag from then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales: "Gonzales is concerned about the assertions...that the United States has determined that the detainees are not entitled to POW status, because of diplomatic sensitivities, and because some disagree with the conclusion." Denying Afghan prisoners the protections of the Geneva Convention was a cornerstone of the Bush Administration's detainee policy; for Rumsfeld to encounter his first resistance to the notion after he had decided that the whole thing was perfectly legal is telling. It's as though no one had bothered to actually write any of it down, and think about the law, until after it had already been crafted. The "perfectly legal" interrogations at Guantanamo didn't even begin until January 2002, the same month Rumsfeld requested his legal whitewash. The White House quickly resolved the Geneva Convention issue by ignoring it, and within months interrogators at Gitmo were up and running with a routing based on the infliction of "physical and psychological pain."

"Keep referring to our 'plan.'" Here's a 2003 memo to Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice offering some propaganda advice in fighting the accurate impression that they invaded Iraq without considering the consequences: "With opponents saying we had no 'plan,' it is important that we keep referring to our 'plan.'" More important than actually developing a plan to turn things around. At the time Rumsfeld wrote that, U.S. military casualties in Iraq totaled 486, roughly ten percent of what they would eventually reach.

"He asks that we help get it placed." These two memos, written during the run-up to the invasion, show just how similar the campaign to gin up support for war resembled a routine political campaign within the Pentagon. In September 2002, Rumsfeld asked Doug Feith to draw up a collection of "the things Saddam Hussein and his administration have been saying" for distribution to "members on the hill who are friendly." In other words, oppo research. In December 2002, Rumsfeld wrote to Lawrence Di Rita and Torie Clarke, his principal flacks, that former ambassador to Iraq Bill Eagleton was willing to help spin the press on Rumsfeld's 1983 visit to Iraq, during which he was photographed shaking Hussein's hand. "Eagleton was the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad when I was there in the mid '80s," Rumsfeld wrote. "[He can] put duress on a lot of these articles that are being sent around." Eagleton credited the U.S. with trying to reign in Hussein's use of chemical weapons at the time, presenting Rumsfeld as a force for peace rather than a supplier of U.S. weaponry. Handwritten at the bottom of the memo is note to Clarke, apparently from an aide, saying Eagleton would write an op-ed defending Rumsfeld but needed "help gett[ing] it placed." It doesn't appear that Eagleton ever wrote his op-ed.

"Speed up the vetting." Here's Rumsfeld urging, in 2002, that the CIA and NSA "speed up the vetting" on Iraqi opposition groups Rumsfeld wanted to arm and train. This is presumably the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, who, had been vetted more closely, wouldn't have succeeded in feeding so many lies about Iraqi WMDs into the White House and media.

"They have an audit problem." Another memo on an Iraqi opposition group—still presumably the Iraqi National Congress—informs Paul Wolfowitz that, even though "they have an audit problem and...seem unwilling to tell [the State Department] how they are spending the money," the group was still receiving $6 million a year in U.S. funds.

You can read the whole batch of memos Rumsfeld deemed unfit for publication here.

Rumsfeld's office didn't respond to questions about why these documents didn't make the cut. In his defense, Rumsfeld describes the library as a "work in progress" and says more documents will be added over time. But there's no obvious reason why these memos—all of which were already in electronic format and fully declassified—couldn't go up on the site along with thousands of contemporaneous records that were posted. And these are only some of the documents that Rumsfeld got from the Pentagon and didn't post—the office of the secretary of defense is still processing our request and will release more records soon.

[Gawker intern Lindsay Maharry contributed to this post. Photo of Rumsfeld via Getty] Read more at gawker.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/crjd

Amplify’d from gawker.com

Kids Can Call Cops on Smoking Parents in Honduras

Hamilton Nolan — Hey smokers: think you got it bad in America just because you can't get a job, due to smoking? Your ingratitude is just one of your many flaws. Here's a new reason to be happy you don't live in Honduras:

A new law says family members can call in the police on people who smoke at home. The bans all smoking in most closed public or private spaces and orders smokers to stand at least six feet away from nonsmokers in any open space.

This is a good idea actually!

[AP; photo via Shutterstock.com] Read more at gawker.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/crjd

Amplify’d from gawker.com

Politician Takes 12-Hour Boat Ride to Avoid TSA Pat-Down

Maureen O'Connor — On her way home from medical treatment for breast cancer, Alaska state Rep. Sharon Cissna underwent a TSA body scan at the airport in Seattle. Agents then ordered a pat-down of the state representative after noticing her mastectomy on the scan, says her chief-of-staff. Cissna, who is a Democrat, decided to leave the airport and take a 12-hour boat ride from Seattle to Juneau, instead.

So far, Cissna hasn't said anything other than that she found the search "intrusive," so it's hard to say whether she considers her refusal a political statement, or was simply in a state of mind where a 12-hour boat ride was preferable to a stranger groping her mastectomy scar. [AP, image via AP] Read more at gawker.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/crjd

Amplify’d from gawker.com

Major Earthquake Hits New Zealand

Max Read — A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand—the second major quake suffered by the city in the last five months—causing "multiple fatalities" and trapping hundreds of people inside buildings. The video above, which is somewhat graphic, shows some of the aftermath.

Unlike last September's 7.1 quake, which occurred early in the morning and killed no one, today's earthquake hit in the middle of a business day, causing widespread chaos as people attempted to rescue those trapped inside buildings and buses:

Christchurch resident Jane Smith, who works in the central city, earlier told the Herald a work colleague had helped with rescue efforts after a building facade collapsed on a bus on Colombo St. "There's people dead. He was pulling them out of a bus. Colombo St is completely munted," she said. TV3 reported that a person had died in the Christchurch suburb of Sumner. The broadcaster showed footage of people being rescued from the Pyne Guinness Gould building, where it is believed some 200 people have been trapped. It said the Provincial Chambers Building had also collapsed and more people were likely also trapped there.

[New Zealand Herald] Read more at gawker.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/crjd

Christchurch Earthquake | Christchurch Cathedral's Top Destroyed

URL:  http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/world/earthquake-str...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br8et

Amplify’d from www.inyork.com

Prison ordered for Sunday-school teacher who molested girls

ELIZABETH EVANS The York Dispatch

Donald W. Smith A West Manchester Township Sunday-school teacher must spend at least six years in state prison for molesting three girls. Donald W. Smith, 52, of the 2400 block of Warwick Road, appeared in York County Court Wednesday, where he was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison plus an additional five years of probation, according to deputy prosecutor Seth Bortner. The sentence was part of a negotiated agreement in which Smith pleaded guilty to charges in three cases, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault on a child and indecent assault on a child, Bortner said. "Mr. Smith acknowledged responsibility from the outset, participated heavily in treatment and is happy this matter is behind him," said Matthew Gover, Smith's defense attorney. Bortner said he is pleased with the outcome of the case. When Smith was charged in June, West Manchester Township Police said the three victims were 11, 12 and 14 years old. The background: The 11-year-old told police Smith was her Sunday-school teacher and youth counselor, according to charging documents, which did not identify the church. She said Smith touched her sexually three times between December 2009 and April, documents state. The incidents happened at the home of Smith and his wife, where the 11-year-old girl and several other children would go to watch movies and hang out on Sunday afternoons, according to police. Smith's wife was in another part of the house when

the incidents happened with the 11-year-old, and his wife did not know what was happening, according to court documents. Smith allegedly sexually touched the 12-year-old girl multiple times between June 2009 and April. The 12-year-old said Smith first touched her in June 2009. Smith allegedly performed sexual acts on the girl, according to charging documents. The 14-year-old said Smith put his hand inside her clothing and touched her sexually while hugging her, documents state. The teen also said she saw Smith inappropriately touching one of the other two girls, according to police. -- Reach Elizabeth Evans at levans@yorkdispatch.com, 505-5429 or twitter.com/ydcrimetime. Read more at www.inyork.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br8ea

Live Sky Feed: new zealand earthquake

URL:  http://player.theplatform.com/ps/player/pds/r5TNMTf_ts?...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br8cd

Database of Priests Accused of Sexual Abuse

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/PriestDBbylastNa...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br8bt

Amplify’d from www.patriotactionnetwork.com

US Gov. Software Creates 'Fake People' on Social Networks to Promote Propaganda

By Sean Kerrigan

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.

Click here to view the government contract (PDF)

According to the contract, the software would "protect the identity of government agencies" by employing a number of false signals to convince users that the poster is in fact a real person. A single user could manage unique background information and status updates for up to 10 fake people from a single computer.

The software enables the government to shield its identity through a number of different methods including the ability to assign unique IP addresses to each persona and the ability to make it appear as though the user is posting from other locations around the world.

Included in HBGary's leaked emails was a government proposal for the government contract. The document describes how they would 'friend' real people on Facebook as a way to convey government messages. The document reads:

"Those names can be cross-referenced across Facebook, twitter, MySpace, and other social media services to collect information on each individual. Once enough information is collected this information can be used to gain access to these individuals social circles.

Even the most restrictive and security conscious of persons can be exploited. Through the targeting and information reconnaissance phase, a person’s hometown and high school will be revealed. An adversary can create a classmates.com account at the same high school and year and find out people you went to high school with that do not have Facebook accounts, then create the account and send a friend request. Under the mutual friend decision, which is where most people can be exploited, an adversary can look at a targets friend list if it is exposed and find a targets most socially promiscuous friends, the ones that have over 300-500 friends, friend them to develop mutual friends before sending a friend request to the target. To that end friend’s accounts can be compromised and used to post malicious material to a targets wall. When choosing to participate in social media an individual is only as protected as his/her weakest friend."

Other documents in the leaked emails include quotes from HBGary CEO Aaron Barr saying, "There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas... Using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example."

Additional emails between HBGary employees, usually originating from Barr, discuss the vulnerability social networking causes.

One employee wrote, "and now social networks are closing the gap between attacker and victim, to the point I just found (via linked-in) 112 females, wives of service men, all stationed at Hurlbert Field FL - in case you don't know this is where the CIA flies all their "private" airlines out of. What a damn joke - the U.S. is no longer the super power in cyber, and probably won't be in other areas soon."

Barr also predicted a steady rise in clandestine or secret government operations to stem the flow of sensitive information. "I would say there is going to be a resurgence of black ops in the coming year as decision makers settle with our inadequacies... Critical infrastructure, finance, defense industrial base, and government have rivers of unauthorized communications flowing from them and there are no real efforts to stop it."

The creation of internet propoganda software is only one of HBGary's controversial activities. According to Wikileaks competetor and occasional collaborator Cryptome.org, several other progressive organizations were intended to be targeted including anti-war activist, anti-torture organizations and groups opposed to the US Chamber of Commerce.

The emails also include a number of other embarrasing entries including the purchase of the book "The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know" from Amazon for $6.76.

Examiner.com: US Gov. Software Creates 'Fake People' on Social Networks to Promot... http://www.examiner.com/social-media-in-national/us-gov-software-cr... Read more at www.patriotactionnetwork.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br4u6

Chilean Priest Found Guilty of Abusing Minors

Amplify’d from new.ahrn.net

Chilean Priest Found Guilty of Abusing Minors

The New York Times

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and PASCALE BONNEFOY

The Rev. Fernando Karadima shown celebrating Mass in 2006.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — After an internal investigation, the Vatican found the Rev. Fernando Karadima guilty of sexually abusing minors in Chile and ordered him to retire to a “life of prayer and penitence,” the archbishop of Santiago said Friday.

The ruling, announced by the archbishop, Ricardo Ezzati, said that Father Karadima, 80, would be relocated to a place where he would have no contact with his former parishioners or “persons that have been spiritually guided by him.”

The accusations by former parishioners against Father Karadima last year stunned Chile, a conservative and predominantly Roman Catholic nation unaccustomed to questioning its priests, especially one as revered as Father Karadima. He had trained five bishops and dozens of priests, acting as a spiritual leader and father figure for young men who later accused him of molesting them.

The decision is a rare case of a powerful church figure being called to account for the charges of sexual abuse that have swept the Catholic world the past few years.

The Vatican decision “is going to mark a before and after in the way the Chilean Catholic Church proceeds in cases like these, or at least it should,” said Antonio Delfau, a Jesuit priest in Santiago, the capital. “From now on, every case of sexual abuse must be treated with meticulous care and not be based on the gut feeling of a given church official.”

For the accusers, including at least four men who said Father Karadima abused them when they were young parishioners, the decision was a long-awaited vindication. One original accuser said the abuse began when he was 14.

“At last the truth was revealed and acknowledged,” said an emotional Juan Carlos Cruz, 47. “This was like having a father who abused you and a mother who slapped you in the face,” he said of the Catholic Church. “Now I feel like this mother has taken me in.”

President Sebastián Piñera reacted to the decision by vowing that his government would “defend children and minors from sexual abuse with all the strength in the world and force of the law.”

Father Karadima has not been prosecuted criminally. A judge investigating the accusations against him closed the case late last year, ruling that there was not enough evidence to charge him.

An appeals court in Santiago is still deciding whether to reopen the criminal investigation. It remains unclear whether the Vatican’s decision will prod the Chilean authorities to do so.

The Vatican ruling announced Friday said that Father Karadima was subject to “lifelong prohibition from the public exercise of any ministerial act, particularly confession and the spiritual guidance of any category of persons.”

In consideration of his age, the Vatican deemed it appropriate “to impose on the accused his retirement to a life of prayer and penitence, also in reparation to the victims of his abuses,” said the ruling, read by Archbishop Ezzati.

If he violates the conditions of the ruling, Father Karadima could face stricter sanctions, including removal from the priesthood, the archbishop said.

Juan Pablo Bulnes, Father Karadima’s lawyer, said the priest maintained his innocence and would appeal the Vatican’s decision. He said the priest, respecting the ruling, had already retired to a religious convent in Santiago, away from anyone in his El Bosque parish.

The Chilean Catholic Church referred the case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last June, sending a 700-page investigative report to the Vatican.

Last month, the Vatican quietly issued its ruling and informed the Chilean church on Jan. 16. Archbishop Ezzati said he notified Father Karadima the next day and immediately identified a new residence for him.

Alexei Barrionuevo reported from São Paulo, and Pascale Bonnefoy from Santiago, Chile. Media source: The New York Times Read more at new.ahrn.net

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br4qg