ARTICLES - HOT OFF THE FAGGOT

Black Marketing Exec Sues Sheriff for Tasering, 'Pummeling' on Traffic Stop

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Black Marketing Exec Sues Sheriff for Tasering, 'Pummeling' on Traffic StopBlack Marketing Exec Sues Sheriff for Tasering, 'Pummeling' on Traffic StopJohn Harmon, a diabetic who owns a marketing company, was pulled over after low blood sugar levels made him swerve into another lane. The sheriff's deputies smashed his window, Tasered him, and charged him with resisting arrest. Now he's suing.

Harmon, "a tall and burly black man," in the words of The Cincinnati Enquirer, was commuting from his downtown Cincinnati office to the mostly white Anderson Township, where he'd recently moved. His blood sugar levels were low, and after swerving into the next lane, he was pulled over by two sheriff's deputies.

According to the lawsuit Harmon filed with his wife, Deputies Ryan Wolf and Matthew Wissel approached Harmon's 1998 Ford Expedition, Wolf with his gun drawn. In an interview with the Enquirer, Harmon described the experience:


"The deputy's face was extremely contorted, he was screaming," Harmon said. "I remember being taken aback, recoiled and thought, 'What's going on?' I was being presented with pure evil, it was a chilling experience."


Wolf smashed the driver's side window.


Wissel shocked Harmon with a Taser for the first time. Deputy [John] Haynes responded to the deputies' call for backup.


Harmon said the officers tried to yank him out of the SUV, but he was caught in his seat belt. He was stunned with a Taser again.


Eventually, Harmon's seat belt was cut, and he was pulled from the vehicle, "thrown on the ground, kicked in the head by a boot, and stomped mercilessly." He received five more Taser shocks. How bad was the attack? A State Highway Patrol officer who stopped separated Wolf from Harmon twice "because of Wolf's abusive treatment." When paramedics were called (upon the discovery of Harmon's diabetic kit) they found his blood sugar level "dangerously low"—and yet Wolf filed charges. After Harmon's release from the hospital, he spent five hours in a holding cell.

The sheriff's department, prompted by a call from the highway patrol, investigated the incident and declared it "excessive use of force" and "unacceptable behavior." The fact that charges were filed was regarded as "inappropriate to say the least." Haynes was suspended for 10 days; Wissel for five; and Wolf—who had to be separated from his "suspect" by a fellow law enforcement officer—only two. Their boss was suspended 10 days for authorizing the charges.

Harmon, for his part, is suing the sheriff's department for an unspecified amount. He believes the attack was racially motivated, and thinks it's "disturbing" that the deputies weren't fired. His doctor says he may eventually need shoulder and elbow replacements, and his medical bills amount to nearly $100,000.


Send an email to Max Read, the author of this post, at max@gawker.com.

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Most Dangerous Year Ever, From Secret Spaceships to Killer Drones

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Most Dangerous Year Ever, From Secret Spaceships to Killer Drones
























The Afghanistan War Gets Ultraviolent







Sexy, sleeper spy cells. Nuke-scientists-turned-triple-agents. Secret space planes. Growing drone wars. Pentagon cyborgs. Mad dictators flipping their lids even worse than before. 2010 wasn't just the most dangerous year ever. It might've been the weirdest, too.



The Afghanistan War Gets Ultraviolent




For the first half of this year, the American strategy in Afghanistan was to try to kill as few people as possible. Then Gen. Stanley McChrystal's team ran their mouths in front of a Rolling Stone reporter, and everything changed.



Gen. David Petraeus took over. He dispatched special operations forces to take out thousands of militants. Petraeus' generals relied on massive surface-to-surface missiles to clear the Taliban out of Kandahar, and ordered tanks to help crush opponents in Helmand province. Air strikes — once a tool of last resort — hit their highest levels since the American invasion: 1,000 air attacks in one month alone. By November, one U.S. military official was boasting about America’s "awe, shock and firepower."




Taliban and other insurgent groups embraced the ultraviolence, too. Their bombs killed or wounded a thousand more troops in 2010 than they did in the previous year. The militants built more improvised explosives in November than in any month ever before.




To corral the insurgency, U.S. commanders unveiled a plan to scan millions of Afghan irises. They flew secret fertilizer bomb sniffers.



They handed out sensors to see through walls, and told their intelligence officers to start acting more like journalists. The military even briefly flirted with the idea of zapping Afghans with a microwave pain ray.




Some things stayed the same. America continued to supersize its mega-bases, and build new HQs for its special forces. Troops wondered out loud WTF they were doing there.



Afghan President Hamid Karzai remained our uneasy ally, despite the corruption, and despite the shaky leadership. "There is no plan B," Adm. Mike Mullen told Danger Room.



The ticket out of Afghanistan is supposed to be a newly trained Afghan army and police force. But first, the dudes need to learn to read. Which means that planned 2011 drawdown of U.S. forces in 2011 is more likely to happen in 2014. Or never.


—Noah Shachtman


Photo: U.S. Air Force










The Spies Who Friended Us







The Spies Who Friended Us




In June, the cold war came back in style again as the FBI busted a network of Russian sleeper agents who had hidden in the United States for years. In a nod to the 21st> century, the spies had used social media to try to strengthen their cover identities, creating LinkedIn profiles and leaving behind a trail of steamy Facebook pics.



But their sloppy tradecraft, including using old-school radiograms to communicate, made them easy prey for American counterintelligence. And by the time the United States swapped the agents for some of its own imprisoned assets in Russia, it wasn’t clear that the departing spooks had managed to steal any actual secrets.




Fortunately, the 11 loveable sleeper scamps managed to become far more interesting as former spies than active ones. Donald Howard Heathfield (née Andrei Bezrukov) now draws on his experience as a mediocre spook to consult for the president of Russia’s largest oil company. Russia’s very own Bond girl, Anna Chapman, landed a similarly plush consulting gig, in addition to a photo spread in Russian Maxim and a job as spokeswoman for Putin’s United Russia party.



In Russia, the press has spun stories about the network being betrayed by mysterious, treasonous and likely fictional colleagues. And the spy scandal is thought to be fueling a bureaucratic turf war between Russia’s domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.



But don’t you worry, America. Boss-for-Life Vladimir Putin says those spies never meant to hurt you.


—Adam Rawnsley



Photo: Facebook










Secret Spaceships, Super-Fast Missiles: UFOs Turn Real







Secret Spaceships, Super-Fast Missiles: UFOs Turn Real




For about half a day in November, something flew off of the coast of Los Angeles. And no one in the government seemed to have any idea what the hell it was. Suddenly, Unidentified Flying Objects were more than a historical curiosity.



Some observers believed it was a secret U.S. military missile or airplane, but in fact it was merely a high-flying passenger plane sketching a huge contrail at an odd angle to many viewers.



The L.A. contrail might have disappointed, but 2010 did offer up plenty of real secret missiles and mystery planes. In April, the Pentagon finally test-launched its Mach-20 Falcon glider, part of a revived Rumsfeld-era scheme to develop super-fast missiles capable of striking anywhere on the planet in just minutes.



Falcon crashed — perhaps to the relief of skeptics who believe the so-called "Prompt Global Strike" initiative could prove strategically destabilizing. It took until November for the Air Force to figure out what went wrong -- and to figure out why communications with 50 nuclear missiles briefly frizzled. The May test of the Mach-6 X-51 was smoother, keeping Global Strike alive for now.



Equally disturbing to some observers, in April the Air Force launched its X-37B robotic mini-space shuttle into orbit on its debut mission. The X-37B could be a lot of things — a satellite snoop, an orbital spy, even a bomber — but the Air Force insisted, somewhat unconvincingly, that it was just a space laboratory.



The X-37's safe return to Earth after eight months coincided with renewed interest in fast, high-flying, space-capable vehicles, promising another year of speculation and UFO sightings.


—David Axe



Photo: U.S. Air Force










Military Medicine Aims for Brain







Military Medicine Aims for the Brain




Mental health was the Pentagon's top medical priority in 2010, as the military funded research to prevent, diagnose and treat post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. But promising projects, like brain implants to repair gray matter and scans to spot PTSD, were marred by reports of flawed testing, misdiagnosis and mismanaged leadership. Independent research, including ecstasy psychotherapy and freaky neck injections, showed impressive potential — but have yet to see military backing. Instead, the armed forces seem more intent on developing neuroweapons that'll overwhelm enemy minds.



Progress in regenerative medicine surged ahead, with an extra $12 million in Pentagon funds to rush clinical trials of bone-fusing cement and muscle-building cell scaffolds. New limbs are still decades away, but prosthetics might soon be as good as the real thing. In July, military-backed scientists launched the first human trials of a mind-controlled arm, and Darpa's investigating a neural-prosthetic platform that would offer unprecedented sensitivity and freedom of movement.




And with 35 percent of Americans too flabby to serve, 2010 also saw Pentagon brass kick off efforts to whittle troop waistlines. They started by overhauling chow halls, investigating 24/7 diet-tracking and designing an exercise program for enlistees more accustomed to Wii Fit than wind sprints. All while advocating moderation by warning flabby troops against grueling, puke-inducing workout plans. Afghanistan is traumatic enough.

—Katie Drummond



Photo: U.S. Air Force










It's A Drone's War. We Just Fight in It







It's A Drone's War. We Just Fight in It




By the end of 2009, we all thought the U.S. drone war in Pakistan had hit a new high. Turns out it was a false peak. The unmanned attacks doubled in 2010, and intensified as the year went on. There were more strikes from Labor Day to Christmas than the preceding nine months combined.



When the United Nations (among others) urged the Obama administration to only cut back on the drone targets, they did the opposite. No wonder the White House's December war-strategy review was all about the flying killer robots.



American officials have long warned that drones alone won't win our undeclared war in Pakistan. But the drones are only one part of the U.S. campaign there.



The CIA is backing a “paramilitary army” in Afghanistan to whack Pakistani militants, as well as network of Pashtun snitches to infiltrate insurgent networks across the border. U.S. Special Operations Forces are training up Islamabad's Army, and getting into some firefights of their own. And let's not even get into the exploits of sword-wielding, self-anointed Qaeda-hunter Gary Brooks Faulkner.



NATO helicopters are making cross-border raids, one of which killed dozens of Pakistanis. That caused the Islamabad government to shut down NATO supply lines, despite all the help the American-led coalition provided during a massive late-summer flood.



2011 promises to be even more drone-intensive than 2010. America is now sending robot planes on militant-hunting missions in Yemen.



Countries from China to Mexico to Iran now have unmanned air forces.



Every other military, it seems, is looking to acquire drone tech of its own. America is retooling its unmanned fleet, ditching the iconic Predator drones for the bigger, better-armed Reapers.



Defense contractors are developing stealthy, jet-powered drones and battling to build the world's first robotic fighter plane. Meanwhile, prototype robots are assembling themselves into swarms, learning to shape-shift, and wiping out entire minefields with one shot.



Watch your back, humans. There's no stopping these flying robots any more.


—Noah Shachtman



Photo: U.S. Air Force










Cyber Command Switches On







Cyber Command Switches On



The U.S. military has regional commands to oversee its operations in places like the Middle East. This year, the Pentagon set up a command for the internet, too. But the mission for this new U.S. Cyber Command is still murky — even though it officially reached its "full operational capability" in November and had a snazzy, sneaky logo before that.




Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads both CyberCom and the National Security Agency, said he wants “no role” in domestic, civilian-information defense. But he nonetheless swapped employees with the Department of Homeland Security, which is supposed to coordinate dot-com protection. And the Pentagon worked on plans to help shore up civilian "critical infrastructure."




Meanwhile, Joe Lieberman proposed giving the DHS "emergency" powers to take over civilian networks' security in the event of an information Katrina. Well-connected contractors raked in hundreds of millions after shouting "cyberwar!"

The Pentagon (belatedly) embraced social media, and used texts, tweets and crowdsourcing to help rescue Haiti. The Navy was forced to pay a HP a $3.3 billion ransom for its networks. Google turned to the NSA after getting hacked, and then teamed up with the CIA to predict the future, using your Twitter feeds.




Maybe by next year, CyberCom will have a better handle on sealing up the military's porous networks. There have already been improvements -- attacks are dropping, overall. But the Pentagon doesn't even have a handle on how many computers it has, let alone how to stop a repeat of the most widespread hack attack in its history.



The military keeps banning (and un-banning and re-banning) disks and thumb drives to protect itself. Maybe CyberCom's next move should be to pare back a few of the 193 mind-numbing regulations that keep information defenders wrapped up.


—Noah Shachtman



Photo: U.S. Air Force










Al-Qaida Lowers Its Expectations







Al-Qaida Lowers Its Expectations



It's been nearly a decade since Osama pulled off a mass-casualty attack on American soil. Instead, terrorist franchisees, affiliates and wannabes spent 2010 trying to pull off something in his name. And failing.




The closest shave came in May, when Faisal Shahzad, a Corey Feldman–looking American citizen, parked an SUV filled with explosives in Times Square. Not only did the car fail to explode, law enforcement apprehended Shahzad within days — with some help from well-timed viral videos and cellphone data — and he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison, hardly the Way of the Martyr that Shahzad videotaped himself desiring.



Another near miss came in October, when al-Qaida's Yemen-based branch lodged bombs in printer cartridges and mailed them to America. At least one of them, say British cops, would have exploded above the United States, if air-cargo workers had not spotted and removed it.



These days, those who preach bin Laden's message seem to care more about putting a W of any kind on the board. The size of the explosion (or the body count) doesn't seem to matter.



The Yemen-based group even published a magazine in English calling for DIY attacks like mowing down Washington, D.C., pedestrians with a tricked-out Ford F-150. It inspired a Virginia college kid to threaten the South Park guys over the internet — and do some serious time behind bars for trying to join the jihad in Somalia.



Smaller-scale terror attacks might not kill a lot of people, but they're great at getting the Department of Homeland Security to gum up air travel while taking naked pictures of your grandmother. That's why top terrorism officials ended the year by calling on the public not to freak out if the next Faisal Shahzad actually figures out how to blow up his Escalade.


—Spencer Ackerman



Photo: Orkut










North Korea Loses (More of) Its Mind







North Korea Loses (More of) Its Mind




Kim Jong Il might not be North Korea's Dear Leader for much longer. But before he turns over the keys to his belligerent Stalinist rogue state to son Kim Jong Un, he spent a year raising the bar for international provocation. To think: 2010 started with the elder Kim calling for a peace treaty to finally end the Korean war.



Peace was evidently the last thing on Kim's mind. one of the North's torpedoes ripped through a South Korean corvette in March, killing 46 sailors in one of the biggest risks of open war since the 1953 armistice. Within months, more than 8,000 U.S. and South Korean sailors, airmen and marines began a "show-of-force exercise post-provocation" near North Korean waters.



But the North just upped the ante: It unveiled a secret uranium-enrichment facility to a visiting U.S. nuclear scientist. The operation gives it a path to more nuclear weapons independent of its apparently shuttered plutonium efforts.



And when the South Koreans launched a routine military drill on an island near North Korea last month, North Korea greeted them with an artillery barrage, killing four, and threatened outright war if new drills took place.




The North backed down from that boast. And Kim made it seem like he can't be bothered: He hung out on a duck farm during the November artillery crisis.



Maybe he's content that his experimental nuclear mines and torpedoes will protect his kid's reign. (Doubtful.) Or maybe he's secure in the knowledge that his uranium program is further along than the world suspects.



Either way, if the son is anything like the father, the Korean Peninsula is going to remain one of the world's crisis points in 2011 and beyond.

—Spencer Ackerman



Photo: Paramount Pictures










Iran Gets Punked. Repeatedly







Iran Gets Punked. Repeatedly



Iran may have a worldwide effort going to illicitly procure missile technology, and there's that whole nuclear program. But the mullahs got their eyes blackened a bit this year.



Most notably, a piece of malware called Stuxnet appeared to slip into their centrifuge-control systems, raising the intriguing prospect of international e-sabotage. (Wouldn't be the first time.) But even if Stuxnet was a freak accident, this was a bizarre year for Iran.




The Pentagon may be looking at ways of busting up Iranian nuclear-research bunkers, but U.S. intelligence found a different way of penetrating Iran's nuclear program. The CIA held one of its nuclear scientists inside the United States, apparently maintaining a years-long relationship with him, before he uploaded an I-was-kidnapped plea to YouTube (possibly to spare his family harassment from the regime).



Finally, in July, the scientist showed up at the Iranian-interests section of Pakistan's Washington embassy and demanded to go home. Iran promptly said there was no harm done. Sure.




If having its nuclear program penetrated by means technological and human wasn't enough, Iran got dissed in other ways, too. Russia tore up a contract to sell Iran an advanced air-defense system, leaving Iranian legislators sputtering threats to sue Moscow and then boasting that it built its own awesome anti-aircraft missiles.



To save face, Iran held a big fall air-defense drill, but its other military tech was greeted with international derision, like its Bavar-2 flying, spying boat. Similarly, its "Ambassador of Death" drone — a 13-foot missile-equipped UAV — probably isn't remotely Predator-grade.



Still, if Iran wants to reclaim its rogue-state mojo in 2011, it doesn't have to just continue its nuclear program: The Afghan intelligence service thinks Iran is smuggling shoulder-fired missiles and other weapons to its old enemy the Taliban.


Spencer Ackerman


Photo: Fars News Agency










The Wars — And The World —  Get WikiLeaked







The Wars — And The World — Get WikiLeaked



At the beginning of the year, very few people in the Pentagon had ever heard of Julian Assange. By the end of 2010, everyone from the top brass on down had condemned WikiLeaks as a menace — even while they admitted that the site's document dumps hadn't really hurt American government operations nearly as much as advertised.



Some of the WikiLeaked documents confirmed long-standing suspicions, like Pakistan's support of the Afghan insurgency, while others offered new revelations: Some insurgents came from countries fighting alongside the United States, like Turkey, and at least one American helicopter was shot down by insurgent surface-to-air missiles.



And not since Abu Ghraib did the world have as stomach-churning an image from the Iraq war as the "Collateral Murder" video, in which U.S. troops in a helicopter killed two Reuters journalists.



While our co-bloggers at Threat Level uncovered the young soldier who allegedly leaked the logs — and detailed internal dissension within the transparency group — we dove deep into the docs. We found that they exploded the myth of technologically primitive Iraqi insurgents, showing their truck-based rocket launchers and encrypted communications.



Iran trained insurgents and brought "neuroparalytic" chemical weapons into Iraq, hoping to bleed the United States and bolster its Shiite allies. Shiite Iraqis in the security services tortured detainees with "cables and waterpipes" and even a cat.



The CIA didn't think twice about conducting raids in Iraq if they meant finding a new intel trove. And perhaps most surprising of all, as recently as 2008, U.S. troops found remnants of Saddam's Gulf War–era weapons of mass destruction, the long-forgotten rationale for the war.



That wasn't all. The WikiLeaked documents detailed Iran's extensive weapons-smuggling network, a Saudi king's plan to outfit Guantanamo detainees with subcutaneous tracking devices, and the entire world's lust for killer drones.



Global diplomacy keeps on keeping on, and the leaked war docs proved to be surprisingly uneven barometers of the conflict. But the U.S. government isn't taking its chances.



The Air Force won't even let airmen read news sites that publish the leaks. Darpa, meanwhile, recruited a star hacker to spot future "insider threats" — and prevent tomorrow's Wiki doc dump.


—Spencer Ackerman


Photo: Lily Mihalik/Wired.com







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Ephrata Man Charged With Sex Crimes

Amplify’d from www.wgal.com

Ephrata Man Charged With Sex Crimes

EPHRATA, Pa. -- An Ephrata man was charged with sexual abuse of children for possessing child pornography and having sexual intercourse with animals, Ephrata police said Thursday.

Jason A. Mendito, 29, formerly of the 300 block of West Main Street, is currently in Lancaster Prison on other charges.

Police said they found questionable videos on his computer and electronics at his home.

Following a search warrant, police said they sent his computer to a police lab for forensic analysis.

Police said Mendito is accused of possessing child pornography videos and videos of Menditto and the family dog engaged in sexual activity.

Copyright 2010 by WGAL.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Pope Sets Up Financial Oversight for Vatican


Pope Sets Up Financial Oversight for Vatican

This article comes from the Catholic News Service.
Pope signs new measures to guarantee financial transparency in Vatican



By John Thavis

Catholic News Service



VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has instituted a new agency to monitor all Vatican financial operations and make sure they meet international norms against money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.



The pope issued an apostolic letter Dec. 30 that established the Financial Information Authority as an independent agency to oversee the monetary and commercial activities of all Vatican-related institutions, including the Vatican bank.



At the same time, the Vatican promulgated a detailed new law that defined financial crimes and established penalties -- including possible jail time -- for their violation. The list of transgressions includes corruption, market manipulation, fraud and virtually any activity that facilitates or provides funding to acts of terrorism. The new law, which reflects the latest European Union regulations, takes effect April 1.



The pope's brief apostolic letter said the Vatican fully supported the international community's efforts to coordinate a response to financial crimes, which often involve more than one country.



"In our age of increasing globalization, peace is unfortunately threatened by many factors, including an improper use of the market and the economy, and the terrible and destructive violence perpetrated by terrorism, which causes death, suffering, hatred and social instability," the pope said.



The creation of such an oversight agency is unprecedented at the Vatican, where several departments have operated with some degree of financial independence for decades or centuries.



The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, described the move as a courageous step that reflects the moral requirement of "transparency, honesty and responsibility" in the Vatican's operations.



"Vatican organizations will be less vulnerable in the face of the continuous risks that inevitably arise in the handling of money. Those errors which so quickly become the cause of 'scandal' for public opinion and the faithful will be avoided," Father Lombardi said.



"In the final analysis, the church will be more credible before the members of the international community, and this is of vital importance for her evangelical mission," he said.



The move came several months after Italian treasury police, in a money-laundering probe, seized 23 million euros (US$30 million) that the Vatican bank had deposited in a Rome bank account. The Vatican criticized the confiscation, saying the deposit was legitimate and that the Vatican bank was committed to "full transparency" in its operations.



The Vatican has been working for some time with Italian and international authorities to comply with procedures that ensure funds are not used for terrorism or money-laundering. The new documents represent the fruit of those efforts.



In addition, the Vatican announced three new laws aimed at curbing counterfeiting of euros and currency fraud.



The Financial Information Authority will operate with full autonomy and monitor all Vatican agencies that have financial dealings or commercial transactions. That includes major institutions like the Vatican City State, the Vatican bank, the Vatican's investment agency (APSA) and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and smaller agencies like the Vatican pharmacy, supermarket and the Vatican Museums.



The authority will be headed by a president and a council of four other people, all appointed by the pope. The president will name a director and additional staff. The appointments were expected to be announced in early 2011.



In addition to investigating reports of suspicious activity, the authority is obligated to examine any new business relationships by Vatican agencies and any single transaction involving more than 15,000 euros ($20,000). The authority has access to all financial and administrative records of the agencies; Vatican officials and employees are required to furnish all such information, an exception to the normal rules of secrecy in Vatican institutions.



All Vatican agencies are now required to verify the standing of any potential business partners, keep detailed records of all transactions and report any suspicious transactions. Anyone entering or leaving Vatican City with 10,000 euros or more in cash must now declare it in writing.



If the Financial Information Authority investigates and discovers evidence of financial impropriety, it is to report its findings to the Vatican's judicial system for prosecution. If a conviction results in a prison sentence, it would presumably be served in Italy, in accordance with an agreement between the Vatican and the Italian government.



The Vatican bank handles accounts of religious orders and other Catholic institutions. It was involved in a major Italian banking scandal in the 1980s, when fraud led to the collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano. Although denying wrongdoing, Vatican bank officials made what they called a "good-will payment" of about $240 million to the failed bank's creditors.
Read more at thevaticanlobby.blogspot.com
 

Vietnamese Bishop Faces Off with Government


Vietnamese Bishop Faces Off with Government

This article comes from Asia News.
Da Nang bishop says no to violence and lies about Con Dau Catholics





According to a party newspaper, the bishop backs the crackdown against Catholics. Concerns are mounting that another wave of repression against the population is going to take place after local residents lost their homes and the church cemetery to a government land grab.



By Emily Nguyen



Da Nang (AsiaNews) – The Vietnamese government is cracking down again against Con Dau Catholics after fraudulently taking away their cemetery to build a tourist resort. Media have claimed that the local bishop agrees with the government but Mgr Chau slammed the false information, telling AsiaNews that as a pastor I “shall never agree to something that runs against the legitimate interests of my people.”



Last Saturday, the newspaper representing the provincial committee of the Communist Party in Da Nang wrote that a day earlier, Christmas Eve, the committee’s secretary Nguyen Ba Thanh met with Mgr Chau Ngoc Tri, bishop of Da Nang.



According to the newspaper, Tranh “showed the bishop the city’s socio-economic development plans and informed him of its urban planning orientation, especially in relation to Con Dau parish.” The paper claimed that “Mgr Chau Ngoc Tri thanked city authorities for the visit and expressed his full support for the city’s policy as well as his regrets for what happened in Con Dau.”



Speaking to AsiaNews, the prelate criticised the lies contained in the article. “As a pastor, I have the right to protect my flock. I have never been and shall never agree to something that runs against the legitimate interests of my people.”



Since the start of the year, Con Dau Catholics have resisted a government order to seize all the houses in the area as well as the local cemetery in order to build a luxury tourist resort. The order itself falls far short of providing adequate compensation for the seized property.



In May, 500 police beat parishioners who tried to bury a woman in the cemetery, arresting some of those present. A few days before their trial, their lawyers were banned from representing them in court. They were sentenced to 12 months in prison (see Emily Nguyen, “Harsh sentences for six Con Dau parishioners,” in AsiaNews, 28 October 2010).



According to some Catholics, Tranh’s visit and the newspaper article are a prelude to fresh violence.
Read more at thevaticanlobby.blogspot.com
 

Relics, III: Pilgrimage and the Dead

Amplify’d from sda2rc.blogspot.com

Relics, III: Pilgrimage and the Dead







The Patriarchal Tombs at Machpelah
The Bible clearly establishes the miraculous potential of even dead bodies. However, many Protestants are inclined to read the story of Elisha's bones as an isolated event that provides no norms for a future relation to the dead bones of miraculous personages.



In fact, the biblical scholarship of the past century has generally concluded otherwise. Since the early 20th century (Albrecht Alt), scholars have noted that the Old Testament narrative likely represents an assemblage of the foundation stories of various local cultic centers. For this reason, many patriarchal stories identify the location of the events they describe (which coincide with known cultic centers), and highlight the fact that certain historic objects remain in those locations "to this very day." Tombs were certainly numbered among these sites. Pilgrimage to these sites was fueled by interest in the patriarchal stories, and represented a powerful reflex in ancient Israel:


In some cases pilgrimage to the tombs of Jewish heroes and ancestors clearly did occur. Even minor figures who are only briefly mentioned in the Bible, such as the daughter of Jephthah, sometimes played important roles in local tradition and ritual (Ps.-Philo, LAB 40:8-9). But interest seems to have been directed most frequently toward the tombs of the patriarchs, matriarchs, and kings. The tombs of Abraham and Sarah, the twelve patriarchs, David, Solomon, and other similar figures seem to have been among the few tombs that were associated with known locations in the Second Temple period. Some of these sites may have been known because of persistent traditions of pilgrimage that kept alive the memory of their location. (Allen Kerkeslager, "Jewish Pilgrimage and Jewish Identity in Hellenistic and Early Roman Egypt," Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, Ed. David Franfurter [Boston: Brill, 1998], 139).


Many Adventists are unaware of the historical fact and significance of these pilgrimages. They were a common and mainstream phenomenon during the life of Jesus (cf. Mt. 23:19):


The outstanding example of this is the shrine of Machpelah at Hebron. The enclosure wall built by Herod the Great to surround the tombs of the patriarchs was strikingly similar in proportion, plan, and construction to the wall that he build to enclose the temple mount. Jack Lightstone has observed that this indicates that the shrine at Machpelah had a role for contact with the sacred similar in ideological function and in national scope to the temple in Jerusalem. This implies that Jews believed that the patriarchs and matriarchs buried in Machpelah could still render powerful assistance to their descendants. (Ibid.)


Mark S. Smith concludes the same expectations attended the tomb of Elisha:


Saints whose powers assumed legendary proportions in life were, for example, the objects of special devotion in death, including pilgrimage. The Elijah and Elisha cycles suggest that these men were not simply prophets (though biblical historiography conforms them generally to this picture), but also classical holy men whose deeds in life and death attracted the attention of the multitudes who traveled to their tombs to seek health and other areas of popular concern. The miracles of biblical holy men extended beyond their lifetimes. . . . When the corpse touched Elisha's bones, the dead man miraculously revived (2 Kgs 13.20-21). (Smith, Mark S. and Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus, Sheffield: Shedffield Academic Press, 1997, 53).


Many scholars agree. According to Joachim Jeremias, the episode in 2 Kings indicates Elisha's tomb was a very famous tomb of the pre-exilic period, to which pilgrimage persisted into late antiquity among Jews and Christians, a view van der Horst shares:


The story of this miracle demonstrates, as Jeremias rightly remarks, "dass wir es mit einem offenbar schon in vorexilischer Zeit hochberuehmte Grab zu tun haben." As in the case above, this too was exactly localized in postbiblical times: the Life of Elijah says it is in Samaria. . . and fourth-century Christian authors know many stories about miracles happening at the tomb. (van der Horst, Pieter Willem, "The Tombs of the Prophets in Early Judaism," Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Helleism in Antiquity [Leuven: Peeters, 2003], 123).


From this vantage point, one better appraises the significance of the Elisha story on the question of relics. Far from representing an isolated miracle, it appears the story was transmitted and received at an early stage as an invitation to pilgrimage, with crowds approaching the general location of the bones in the hope of healing (cf. the reflexes described, and never condemned, in Jn. 5:3-4). This was a natural development in light of the miracle story, and one in keeping with the desire for contact with miraculous personages, objects, and places in the New Testament. Indeed, “the cult of the dead in Christianity followed the patterns set by Judaism" (Kennedy, Charles A., “Dead, Cult of the,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. II, 108) until, in later centuries, "grave veneration became an exclusively Christian practice" (Hawley, John Stratton, Saints and Virtues: Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, Vol. 2 [University of California Press, 1987], 95).



Christianity, however, introduced a new dimension to the use of relics. Having transcended the pentateuchal stigmas of ritual uncleanness attached to dead bodies (Lev 21:11; Num 9:6-7), relics could be fully moved into sacred space. They were, after all, "living members of Christ and the temple the Holy Spirit, to be awakened by Him to eternal life and to be glorified" (Trent, Session 25). Thus, “the tombs of the Christian martyrs, like those of the prophets before them, stood as separate monuments; later some were incorporated into church buildings" (Ibid.). It is within that context that Catholics typically encounter their healing virtue today. 
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Relics, II: Superstition?

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Relics, II: Superstition?




I am not alone in suspecting that the biblical practices I cited in my last post on relics would be rejected as examples of "superstition" or "worshiping" humans by the principles of historic Protestantism.



Adventists believe in miracles, and when in need of healing, pray directly to God. But would they seek out a particular individual in hopes of a miracle? Would they feel confident merely touching a piece of cloth to his skin, and then touch it to their loved ones as an instrument of healing? Would they hope his very shadow would fall upon them? Would they believe that contact with his dead bones could produce miracles?



How quickly would these reflexes be criticized as placing one's trust in a human being? How many would be disparaged for believing in the miraculous power of a simple piece of cloth? What modern Adventist would feel comfortable crediting an object or corpse with a miracle? When would this not be called "superstitious?" And yet, these reflexes were widespread in the early Christianity depicted in the New Testament. No Christian is criticized for seeking out the unique power of God in a certain human being or object. No one is told to "go directly to God."



Adventist rhetoric against relics would easily exclude practices perfectly natural to the New Testament. This is a very damaging fact, and unmasks the deeper issues in this debate. Even if Catholics have seen excesses related to these practices (as they will be the first to admit), the false dichotomies Adventism perpetuates (turning to God v. turning to human beings; prayer v. miraculous objects) are unbiblical. The net effect is to underscore the fundamental unity between apostolic and later Catholic practice.
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Relics, I: The Theological Context

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Relics, I: The Theological Context




Christianity is a faith that embraces the physical, the material. In the Incarnation, Christ assumed a physical body to save the world. He healed people through physical touch (Lk. 13:13); His saliva could work miracles (Mt. 8:23; Jn. 9:6-7); His breath could impart the Spirit (Jn. 20:22). Even the very clothes He wore transmitted healing power to those who touched them (Lk. 8:44). For this reason, people reached out to Him in faith, believing they could be cured by even the slightest contact with His physical body and clothing. (Lk. 6:19; Mk. 3:10; Mt. 14:36 || Mk. 6:56).



It is within this context that one can understand the Christian use of relics. As the dwelling places of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), the physical bodies of holy men and women can also be channels of healing (cf. Jn. 14:12). This is certainly true in life; the touch of the apostles' hands healed the sick (Acts 9:17; 28:8). However, even in death, precisely in anticipation of the future resurrection, the bodies of holy people remain vessels of God, capable of transmitting miraculous power. In one startling example, the dead bones of Elijah the prophet raised a dead man to life:



So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. As a man was being buried, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha; as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life and stood on his feet. (2 Kings 13:20-21)


For this reason, physical contact with the bodies of the holy people, living or dead, has become a desire of faith-filled Christians. This instinct is evident even in the New Testament, which notes that individuals would go so far as to touch pieces of cloth to the bodies of the apostles, confident that they would be healed: "God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them" (Acts 19:11-12). Even the shadows cast by the bodies of the apostles were desirable: "they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by" (Acts 5:14-15).



These instincts remain as vibrant as ever in the Church. Christians continue to touch cloths to holy individuals in hope of healing. Likewise, they preserve and approach the bones of Christians with great reverence, recognizing the permanent and life-giving power of the Spirit in them. These responses are not superstitious, but biblical acts of faith in a God who works miracles through the physical, lives in His people, and who will restore their bodies on the last day. Nor do they undermine the unique place of God. Early Christians longed to sit under the shadow of Peter, or hold an apron touched to the body of Paul, not because they placed their trust in human beings rather than God, but because they knew God worked through these human beings. In the words of the old Douay Rhiems: "God is wonderful in his saints: the God of Israel is he who will give power and strength to his people. Blessed be God" (Ps. 68:35). 
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Big Second Amendment Opinion from the Fourth Circuit, Related: Gun Possession by Domestic Violence Misdemeanants

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The opinion is United States v. Chester, just decided today; thanks to Prof. Doug Berman (Sentencing Law & Policy) for the pointer. I’ll blog more after I read it, but here’s the conclusion from the two-judge majority:

We cannot conclude on this record that the government has carried its burden of establishing a reasonable fit between the important object of reducing domestic gun violence and § 922(g)(9)’s permanent disarmament of all domestic violence misdemeanants. The government has offered numerous plausible reasons why the disarmament of domestic violence misdemeanants is substantially related to an important government goal; however, it has not attempted to offer sufficient evidence to establish a substantial relationship between § 922(g)(9) and an important governmental goal. Having established the appropriate standard of review, we think it best to remand this case to afford the government an opportunity to shoulder its burden and Chester an opportunity to respond. Both sides should have an opportunity to present their evidence and their arguments to the district court in the first instance.

One judge concurred in the judgment, concluding that “[i]t is ... quite clear that § 922(g)(9) is substantially related to the government’s important interests, as the statute directly prohibits the possession of firearms by those with a demonstrated history of actual or attempted violence,” but agreeing with the remand because he was “content to give Appellant Chester a full opportunity to offer evidence and argument showing the district court how and why he escapes the law’s bite.”

Note that, as with the Seventh Circuit Skoien case — in which a panel initially reached a similar result to that just reached by the Fourth Circuit panel — there’s a good chance that the Fourth Circuit will rehear the case en banc.

UPDATE: If the Fourth Circuit doesn’t rehear the case en banc, I doubt that the Supreme Court will agree to consider the matter at this point. Rather, I suspect that the Justices will wait until the district court considers the matter on remand, and the Fourth Circuit considers the inevitable appeal from that decision. Then, if the Fourth Circuit ultimately concludes that § 922(g)(9) is constitutional, there’ll be no circuit split, and the Justices will likely not take the case. But if the Fourth Circuit concludes — again, following the district court decision on remand — that § 922(g)(9) is unconstitutional, the Justices likely will take the case, because there’ll be a split among the circuits as well as the invalidation of a federal statute, two factors that generally cut in favor of the Supreme Court’s reviewing the matter.

The panel opinion, as I read it, endorses a three-tier level of review, at least for substantial restrictions on gun possession such as the one here (as opposed to milder burdens on gun possession):

(1) Historically accepted exceptions to gun rights (at least ones accepted as of the Framing, and perhaps some more) are constitutional.

(2) Substantial restrictions on gun possession that fall within the core of Second Amendment protection, described by the panel as “the right of a law-abiding, responsible citizen to possess and carry a weapon for self-defense” (note the inclusion of carrying, and not just possession in the home, as some courts have said), are probably subject to strict scrutiny.

(3) Substantial restrictions on gun possession that are neither historically accepted nor applicable to “law-abiding, responsible citizen[s] ... possess[ing] and carry[ing] a weapon for self-defense” are subject to intermediate scrutiny, which calls for factual evaluation of whether the law is “substantially related” to a sufficiently “important government goal.” Since there will almost always be an important government goal to which the government could point — preventing death, injury, and violent crime — the main questions will likely be (a) what sort of factual evidence the government will have to show, and (b) to what extent will courts demand that the evidence specifically justify not just some restrictions but life-long (or very long-term) restrictions.

Here is what struck me as the heart of the court’s reasoning:

Some courts have treated Heller’s listing of “presumptively lawful regulatory measures,” for all practical purposes, as a kind of “safe harbor” for unlisted regulatory measures, such as 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), which they deem to be analogous to those measures specifically listed in Heller. See, e.g., United States v. White, 593 F.3d 1199, 1206 (11th Cir. 2010) (“We see no reason to exclude § 922(g)(9) from the list of longstanding prohibitions on which Heller does not cast doubt.”). This approach, however, approximates rational-basis review, which has been rejected by Heller. In fact, the phrase “presumptively lawful regulatory measures” suggests the possibility that one or more of these “longstanding” regulations “could be unconstitutional in the face of an as-applied challenge.” United States v. Williams, 616 F.3d 685, 692 (7th Cir. 2010).

In view of the fact that Heller ultimately found the District’s gun regulations invalid “under any standard of scrutiny,” it appears to us that the Court would apply some form of heightened constitutional scrutiny if a historical evaluation did not end the matter. The government bears the burden of justifying its regulation in the context of heightened scrutiny review; using Heller’s list of “presumptively lawful regulatory measures” to find § 922(g)(9) constitutional by analogy would relieve the government of its burden.

Thus, a two-part approach to Second Amendment claims seems appropriate under Heller, as explained by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Sykes in the now-vacated Skoien panel opinion. The first question is “whether the challenged law imposes a burden on conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment’s guarantee.” This historical inquiry seeks to determine whether the conduct at issue was understood to be within the scope of the right at the time of ratification. If it was not, then the challenged law is valid.

If the challenged regulation burdens conduct that was within the scope of the Second Amendment as historically understood, then we move to the second step of applying an appropriate form of means-end scrutiny. Heller left open the issue of the standard of review, rejecting only rational-basis review. Accordingly, unless the conduct at issue is not protected by the Second Amendment at all, the Government bears the burden of justifying the constitutional validity of the law....

[W]e are certainly not able to say that the Second Amendment, as historically understood, did not apply to persons convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. We must assume, therefore, that Chester’s Second Amendment rights are intact and that he is entitled to some measure of Second Amendment protection to keep and possess firearms in his home for self-defense. The question then becomes whether the government can justify, under the appropriate level of scrutiny, the burden imposed on Chester’s Second Amendment rights by § 922(g)(9)....

Given Heller’s focus on “core” Second Amendment conduct and the Court’s frequent references to First Amendment doctrine, we agree with those who advocate looking to the First Amendment as a guide in developing a standard of review for the Second Amendment. In the analogous First Amendment context, the level of scrutiny we apply depends on the nature of the conduct being regulated and the degree to which the challenged law burdens the right. For example, a “content-based speech restriction” on noncommercial speech is permissible “only if it satisfies strict scrutiny.” But, courts review content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations using an intermediate level of scrutiny. Likewise, a law regulating commercial speech is subject to a more lenient intermediate standard of scrutiny in light of “its subordinate position in the scale of First Amendment values.” As Judge Sykes observed in the now-vacated Skoien panel opinion: “The Second Amendment is no more susceptible to a one-size-fits-all standard of review than any other constitutional right....”

Although Chester asserts his right to possess a firearm in his home for the purpose of self-defense, we believe his claim is not within the core right identified in Heller — the right of a law-abiding, responsible citizen to possess and carry a weapon for self-defense — by virtue of Chester’s criminal history as a domestic violence misdemeanant. Accordingly, we conclude that intermediate scrutiny is more appropriate than strict scrutiny for Chester and similarly situated persons. Accordingly, the government must demonstrate under the intermediate scrutiny standard that there is a “reasonable fit” between the challenged regulation and a “substantial” government objective. Significantly, intermediate scrutiny places the burden of establishing the required fit squarely upon the government.

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