The Earth Charter and Agenda 21

The differences. The similarities.

"Unlike Agenda 21, which is a document that provides a framework for hard laws, the Earth Charter is a set of principles that underscore and facilitate the strengthening and implementation of those laws. The Charter “was drafted in coordination with a hard law treaty that is designed to provide an integrated legal framework for all environment development law and policy.” This hard law treaty is called the International Covenant on Environment and Development and is being prepared by the Commission on Environmental Law at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a behemoth agency which oversees 700+ governmental agencies worldwide. Interestingly, Maurice Strong is on the IUCN’s Board of Directors." (Link)

Lots of religious language in the environment worshipers. The Charter sounds like the Gospel; and the Agenda 21 the Law. In the old days, it was just plain old pantheism.

The Earth Charter is the outcome of a process initiated in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Eight years later, in 2000, it was promulgated in Paris by UNESCO. According to Boff (2006) it is intended that the Charter will eventually be added to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Charter is an attempt to expound a global ethic for the twentyfirst century based upon sustainability and the interconnectedness of all on planet earth – all living entities and the systems upon which all life depends. It makes and invites commitments to ecological integrity, social and economic justice, democracy, non-violence and peace. A sense of the tone of the Charter can be glimpsed from its Preamble. . .
British Journal of Religious Education

Another Health Care plan gone awry

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer rebuked German Christians who stood silent while Hitler intimidated church leaders to accept the socialist, anti-life agenda of the National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI).

The New York Times reported Oct. 10, 1933:

"Nazi Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain; German Religious Groups Oppose Move...The Ministry of Justice...explaining the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code, today announced its intentions to authorize physicians to end the sufferings of the incurable patient...in the interest of true humanity.

The Catholic newspaper Germania hastened to observe: 'The Catholic faith binds the conscience of its followers not to accept this method.'...In Lutheran circles, too, life is regarded as something that God alone can take...

Euthanasia...has become a widely discussed word in the Reich...No life still valuable to the State will be wantonly destroyed."

Bonhoeffer warned Germans not to slip into the cult of Führer (leader) worship, as he could turn out to be a Verführer (mis-leader, seducer).”

From American Minute

Orothodoxy Today

Try Before You Buy?

"In spite of the social pressure, a growing number of brave singles are making the promise to wait. Still others who have been sexually active in the past are committing to what might be called a "second virginity." Regardless of their history, they're making a commitment to start over, to live as "virgins" until they make a lifelong commitment in marriage.

The reason is not that they've got crooked teeth, bad complexions, or don't bathe. Rather, they're choosing to wait because they believe the Judeo-Christian tradition holds the best insight on building strong relationships and durable marriages."

Salvo Magazine - Try Before You Buy? by Greg Koukl

He voted for Obama

Robert Burns party

Tonight we're attending a Robert Burns party. The hosts were ill last week when his birthday was, so it was moved to February 3. Robert Burns was Scotland's greatest poet, and every year all over the globe Burns Societies celebrate his birthday, read his verses, sing his songs, and sometimes eat authentic food. . . porridge . . . or something gray made with oats.

Black History Month

A lot to memorialize, remember and challenge

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the country. And over 36% of the abortions in the country are black babies, so do the math if it's primarily the poor who come to Planned Parenthood. Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute [research arm of Planned Parenthood], black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion. On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.

Interesting isn't it, that women who aren't getting a disproportionate share of dental care, or chest x-rays, or pap-smears, somehow get so many abortions.

Now, I wouldn't testify or preach that Planned Parenthood is a racist organization, but only because they're doing a pretty good job of doing that with their own statistics.

Many of the medical research articles I read include race and poverty. But for some really odd reason, I can't find any breakdown by race or income of the clinical trials for mifepristone (RU-486), done in the early 1990s. Poor and minority women are often used in tests for all manner of things. For the life of me I don't know how researchers found the women who had been pregnant such a brief time in order to include them in the experiments.

Four Chaplains Day

February 3, 1943 -- Hundreds were killed when a Nazi torpedo struck the U.S. Army Transport ship Dorchester near Greenland. Four chaplains, including two Protestant ministers, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi distributed life jackets to those who survived the initial blast. When there none left, they ripped off their own life jackets and gave them to four young men. They bowed together in prayer as the ship sank and all four perished in the icy waters. Congress honored them, declaring this to be "Four Chaplains Day."

We need this kind of support from Christians working together to make the Obama Administration back down on its grab to destroy the First Amendment through mandating Catholic institutions to provide birth control and abortion services.

Friday Family Photo, a little different

This is my sister Carol's grandson, Chris, who is a freshman in college and a talented artist and cellist. I'm not sure how this process is done--obviously on the computer, but I sort of like it.

A very tasty pineapple dessert

Yesterday I heard something in the kitchen that sounded like a rifle shot. I went in to look, and the lid on the fresh pineapple had blown off! Yes, it was getting a little long in the tooth. So I made a dessert.

Cut up whatever fresh, but overly ripe, pineapple you have and put on low heat with a couple of Tablespoons of butter. While that starts to simmer, add two cut up peeled and cored apples. Sprinkle with some Splenda, or sugar if you can have that. Cover with lid and let it simmer for as long as you want--but pineapple doesn't really soften much.

Then look in the frig. Mix half and half (or milk) with some flour and Splenda until smooth, then add an egg and whip. When the fruit mixture is soft and juicy, mix in the flour/milk/Splenda, stir while it thickens, then take the sauce pan off the stove to cool. Serve cold or warm with a little sugar free Cool-Whip, or eat plain. It's really yummy. Sort of pineapple pie filling without the crust.

The Madison Project

I hate going to the "about us" tab on a website and still not know what sort of a group is posting it, or who is funding it. I liked the clarity and simplicity of this one, but haven't searched through the archives to verify it:

"Madison Project raises money for conservative candidates through our network of grassroots conservatives. We provide our members with campaign profiles of selected candidates, and each member decides which candidates they want to support.

Our values are Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Limited Government, Defenders of Religious Freedom. We only endorse candidates who clearly demonstrate their conservatism. We evaluate every Congressional and Senatorial race in America, and our endorsements are only extended to key competitive races which have a strong conservative candidate with the ability to win."

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on the 60s

"As I wrote last week, Newt is a 1960s generation kid. Allow me to elaborate. That generation -- my generation -- was the most ballyhooed generation raised in the 20th century, and it was -- at least in politics -- a failed generation. Gingrich, the Clintons, Al Gore, and the rest of the 1960s hustlers began their political careers in college when they were the first generation to actually believe that student government was on campus to govern. The weak Liberal administrators went along with them and gave them a say in the running of their universities. The universities have yet to recover. Yet, beyond the damage they did to the universities was the damage they did to themselves. They became the most self-absorbed generation of narcissists ever heard of. From their student government days to their days in national politics they all lived out a fantasy. Now it is over. It would be eminently fitting if Romney won the presidency and set the country on course in 2012. He is from the normal half of that generation, a man who was a student in the 1960s and afterwards a businessman, until he had secured his fortune and entered public life in middle age. By then the Clintons and Newt had been supping at the public trough for years."

Yep.

Except for Obama. He's not one of them, but he definitely exceeds their narcissism. Even as prepared as we were having seen, heard and experienced it for years from co-workers, friends and politicians, we've never quite seen anything like him.

Are Protestant churches standing up for religious freedom?

I haven’t seen any evidence that Lutherans, Methodists, Brethren, Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, etc. have stepped up to support or comment on the U.S. Bishops’ letters read to their parishes throughout the USA on January 29 calling for civil disobedience related to mandated insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortifacients for Catholic institution employees.

They might want to take another look at something completely unrelated but still a challenge to PPACA, and that’s Medicaid mandates. Medicaid was created in 1965. It is the nation’s largest health insurer. In 2010 Medicaid spending totaled $400.7 billion from the federal government and $129.8 billion from state and local governments, with a 20.3% increase by 2014 projected because of PPACA’s expansion. (figures and story from New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 12, 2012)

You’ve probably heard about the challenge in the courts of the individual mandate to purchase insurance. Were you aware that 26 states (Florida + 25) are challenging the mandated expansion of Medicaid as a violation of the U.S. Constitution? (The spending clause) The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the challenge.

Do you know what the number one argument the government will have? The states were warned from the beginning that Congress reserved the right to make changes to Medicaid, and it has done so many times over the years, and with each subsequent amendment you didn’t challenge it.

It’s time to challenge the government in this intrusion into church teaching and it’s stripping us of our first amendment rights.

Soul Train videos

Don Cornelius who created Soul train has died.

Don Cornelius, the South Side native who founded and hosted the iconic TV music and dance show “Soul Train,” shot himself to death Wednesday morning at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., Los Angeles police say.

Officers responding to a report of a shooting found the 75-year-old at his Mulholland Drive home at around 4 a.m.

He was pronounced dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at 4:56 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. Chicago Sun Times

10 videos of Soul Train

Soul train video channel Love the clothes! Aretha was so thin!

My brother reads my blog

But he never leaves a comment.

AIDS memorial--Why?

"A design that calls for a grove of trees reflected infinitely by 12-foot-long mirrors was selected today for New York’s first large-scale AIDS memorial."

The AIDS Memorial Park organization, Architectural Record, and Architizer have announced the winner of a competition to design a memorial for victims of AIDS and an education center in Manhattan’s West Village. Studio a+i of Brooklyn, N.Y. won the blind competition with a plan to surround an existing triangular park with mirrored walls and a grove of white birch trees. Architectural Digest, Jan. 30, 2012

Why do we memorialize this particular disease's victims, a disease which is mostly self-inflicted through promiscuous, indiscriminate sex and multiple partners? We don't memorialize death by smoking, drinking or over-eating, or driving too fast, or not exercising. Where is the memorial to those who have died from malaria because environmentalists pulled DDT from the market? Where is the memorial for 50 million dead American babies?

Men who have sex with men--MSM account for nearly half of the approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States (49%, or an estimated 580,000 total persons).

MSM account for more than half of all new HIV infections in the United States each year (61%, or an estimated 29,300 infections).

While CDC estimates that only 4 percent of men in the United States are MSM, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the United States is more than 44 times that of other men (range: 522 – 989 per 100,000 MSM vs. 12 per 100,000 other men). CDC Fact Sheet

Happy Birthday Jacob Duche', first chaplain

Jacob Duche' was born January 31, 1738. He was pastor of Christ Church in Philadelphia. As recorded in the Journals of the Continental Congress, their first official act after receiving news that British troops had attacked Boston was to request that Rev. Jacob Duche' open Congress in prayer:

"Tuesday, September 6, 1774. Resolved, That the Rev. Mr. Duche' be desired to open the Congress tomorrow morning with prayers, at the Carpenter's Hall, at 9 o'clock."

On September 7, 1774, Rev. Mr. Duche' arrived at Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, and read Psalm 35, which the Anglican Common Prayer Book had as the Psalter for that day:

"Plead my cause, Oh, Lord, with them that strive with me, fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield, and rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, 'I am your salvation.' Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life; Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me."

After reading the prescribed prayer for the day, Rev. Duche' proceeded to pray extemporaneously:

"Be Thou present, O God of Wisdom, and direct the counsel of this Honorable Assembly; enable them to settle all things on the best and surest foundations; that the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that Order, Harmony and Peace may be effectually restored, and that Truth and Justice, Religion and Piety, prevail and flourish among the people...

Preserve the health of their bodies, and the vigor of their minds, shower down on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal Blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting Glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Saviour, Amen."

American minute

The assault on the First Amendment through Obamacare

The President has taken on the 77 million Catholics of the United States. Why in an election year would he do this? It's not like a drone that can selectively take out a single enemy in a foreign country. This "enemy" is the church, all Christians, and this is the United States. And the church is big--next to government, it's the biggest, richest entity in the world. Why would he do this? Bishop Campbell of Columbus--a version of this letter was read across the nation this past Sunday in every Catholic parish--called for civil disobedience. But just because we're not Catholics, it doesn't mean we aren't affected. I don't think Obama is stupid; I think he's sly. He wants a confrontation, an excuse to quash the church. Who else can speak truth to power but the church? In the days of the monarchies the clergy who spoke against the king was sent to the tower or the gallows. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights was written by Christians to prevent that by keeping the government out of the churches.

It’s not what you and I as Lutheran or Methodist or even the Catholic in the pew believe about birth control pills. It’s what the Catholic church teaches about contraception and abortion based on its searching the Scriptures, tradition going back to Peter, and historic teachings about the significance of life. We (you and I) don’t have a say in those teachings and beliefs anymore than Obama does, because this is protected by the first amendment. It's the first amendment that protects all our churches, even little old 50,000 membership in Church of the Brethren, from interference by the state. It's the reason there was massive exodus from Europe as Protestants and Catholics alike suffered under the whims of various monarchs. And until Obamacare, those beliefs about life taught by the Catholic church were also protected by this president who made numerous promises to Catholic institutions who insure both Catholics and non-Catholics, that he would respect their beliefs if they would support his plan to take over the healthcare industry. They did; he didn't.

I also don’t believe in purgatory or 7 sacraments, but I believe the Roman Catholic church has a right to teach, believe, and act on those beliefs. Just as I believe it has a right not to pay for contraceptives or abortions of employees or clients in its hospitals and universities, its social service agencies and its elementary schools, its job training programs and its food pantries, its low income housing complexes, its adoption agencies and nursing homes. On the near horizon under Obamacare, we will come to a point when insurance plans under government mandate will be weeding out the disabled as not worthy of care, or the expense, just as now 93% of unborn children with Down Syndrome are "weeded." If you don’t believe it, please do more research into the articles written by some of Obama's Czars, advisers and "bioethicists." It will be the Catholic Church, not your Democratic party or Republican party, and certainly not President Obama, who will be guarding the door for you.

Finger pointing is now racist

Last Thursday after Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona, said Welcome to the President, he attacked her for what she'd written in her book. The two had words, the big guy started it, but the libs are going crazy over finger pointing photo. Apparently, when a white governor does it, it's racist, but when a black President does it, it's just righteous.

More on the auto bailout

"U.S. Treasury Department boosted its estimate of government losses in the $85 billion auto bailout by $170 million.

In the government's latest report to Congress this month, the Treasury upped its estimate to $23.77 billion, up from $23.6 billion.

Last fall, the government dramatically boosted its forecast of losses on the rescues of General Motors Co., Chrysler Group LLC and their finance units from $14 billion to $23.6 billion.

Much of the increase in losses is due to the sharp decline of GM's stock price over the last six months.

GM was trading at noon today at $24.24. It's down 35 percent over its 52-week-high of $37.23, but the Detroit automaker has rebounded from a low set last year of $19.05.

The Treasury, [that's us, folks] which initially held a 61 percent majority stake in GM, now holds a 26.5 percent share, or 500 million shares in GM. To break even, the government would need to average $53 per share for its remaining stake."

Detroit News

Why is Obama uniting Catholics?

It’s darn near impossible to unite this country’s 77 million liberal and conservative Catholics, but Obama has done this with his mandate through HHS that Catholic health care institutions and colleges (and other religious groups, mostly Christian) must provide contraception and abortifacients (also Plan B, morning after, etc.) in their insurance plans. We’re not stupid, sir. We know requiring them to perform abortions will be the next step—we’ve been watching how liberals do this inch by inch since by the yard it’s hard. And then it will be no prayers in the hospitals because it might offend their non-Christian patients!

Three years ago the liberal Catholics were all kissy face at Notre Dame with him as he assured his Catholic hosts that he would do nothing but respect their religious beliefs. He used the event to promote embryonic stem cell research, even though adult stem cell was the big news in medicine without a single success for embryonic. He used it as an opportunity to thumb his nose at the pro-life movement. Liberals let it slide—they had his promises about their precious institutional authority. Big Whoop! Then the Supreme Court, even with his liberal appointees decided 9-0 in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, that religious institutions have rights, too. The justices ruled that religious workers may not sue on the basis of job discrimination if it’s in the best interest of that institution that they not be employed. (The end result of going the other way would be Christian churches could be required to hire Muslims, and conservatives and Catholics forced to hire women pastors.) The knives have come out.

President Obama isn’t responsible for the declining membership of the churches—that’s been going on since the 60s—and the church has no one but itself to blame for catering to the culture and ignoring the gospel--but he seems to hope to be the one to make the church as helpless and weak as it is in Europe. Now with the rest of us, the liberal Catholics have had to wise up.

From the beginning of his candidacy, I have defended Obama as a Christian. I said he was a convert, not a Muslim; I read his testimony given at a UCC conference long before he became a candidate. It sounded heart felt and authentic. I said he can’t be held accountable for the sins of Rev. Wright. But as pointed out in the Gospel of Luke, even the demons know Jesus is the Christ—they knew before the general public did--they just don’t worship him. This action of the Obama Administration in an election year is so bizarre, so antagonistic to the largest Christian group in America, that it’s hard to any longer cling to this fragile evidence that he has any intention other than destroying Christianity.

Not only is he uniting Catholics, but conservative fundamentalist Christians are with them who’ve probably never stepped inside a Catholic church, and will be joining them in legal cases. So why would he do this, unite Christians against him, in an election year? Is the cost of law suits going to take money away from conservatives running against him? Will it divert attention, even temporarily, about his reelection? Have you got an explanation?