The Catholic Cathedral in DaNang, Vietnam

And a rural Catholic church located between DaNang and Saigon (Ho Chi Mihn City)

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A Catholic Church in rural Quebec

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On Rumsfeld memoirs..

I lack the words to properly express my loathing of this war criminal, guilty of the greatest crime of all, with his Partners in Crime Bush and Cheny, sociocide: killing an entire society.

Donald Rumsfeld, the lies, deception and deaths

February 05, 2011 12:20 AM EST

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Donald Rumsfeld has a new 800-page autobiography titled, Know and Unknown. It brings to light many issues those opposed to the 2003 Iraqi war objected to, but were denied by former President George W. Bush’s inner circle, including Rumsfeld.

The online edition of the Guardian reports that Rumsfeld accepts almost no blame for the mistakes in Iraq in his 800-page autobiography Known and Unknown, copies of which have been obtained and published in excerpt by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The lies began with Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address in which he proclaimed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was intent on reconstituting nuclear weapons programs, referring to Iraq as part of the “axis of evil.”

Americans and others throughout the world soon became inundated with tales of weapons of mass destruction, “yellowcake” uranium powder from Niger and ties between Sadaam Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City.  In 2003 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected concerns that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was based on faulty intelligence

The deception soon began with Bush’s manipulation of the threats.  In 2003, U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the case of invading Iraq to the United Nations Security Council.

“My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions,” said Powell.

In reality Powell never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but followed the advice of Rumsfeld and Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney in making the claim.  Powell later recanted.

“The CIA was pushing the aluminum tube argument heavily and Vice President Dick Cheney went with that instead of what our guys wrote,” Powell said. And the Niger reference in Bush’s State of the Union speech? “That was a big mistake,” he said. “It should never have been in the speech. I never believed it.”

The latest statistics show that nearly 4500 U.S. service members have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  More than 38,000 troops have been injured, not including suicides and accidental injuries.

Many say Rumsfeld should be held accountable for his statements leading up to, and during the Iraqi war.  Some will never forgive Rumsfeld after listening to some of his statements made during the war.

“We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”  (Donald Rumsfeld, on ABC’s This Week, March 30, 2003)

“It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could be six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”…(more)

For more, See “A Symphony of Lies” videoclips of the lies told by The Bush White House: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7xyd_IRgGs&feature=related

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Cartoon of the day, but it is not funny.

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Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?

Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them

By Matt Taibbi

February 17, 2011 “Rolling Stone” —  Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

“Everything’s fucked up, and nobody goes to jail,” he said. “That’s your whole story right there. Hell, you don’t even have to write the rest of it. Just write that.”

I put down my notebook. “Just that?”

“That’s right,” he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. “Everything’s fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there.”

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.

The rest of them, all of them, got off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What’s more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even “one dollar” just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick “The Gorilla” Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements — whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. “If the allegations in these settlements are true,” says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, “it’s management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims.”

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News from the Russian Orthodox Church

Here is some news from The New Liturgical Movement web site. My father reminded me that the Catholic servant of the czar’s family was among those canonized by the Russian Church.

Guest Article by Henri de Velliers

This past Sunday, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the feast day of all the holy new martyrs and confessors (neomartyrs and confessors) of Russia, victims of the communism during the XXth century.

The unprecedented atheist persecution that hit the Church in Russia since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the celebration the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia in 1988 failed to destroy the Christian faith in this country. Under communist rule, many martyrs have witnessed the victory of Christ over death, fear and evil. A database of the St. Tikhon Orthodox University in Moscow identified the names of 500 000 new martyrs and new confessors of the Faith, victims of communism. Each year the Russian Orthodox Church proclaim the canonization of about 2000 new saints, and name them in its calendar. Nevertheless, it seemed necessary to unite all the neomartyrs in a special feast day. It was scheduled for the Sunday following January 25 (February 7 on the Gregorian Calendar), because at that date was martyred the first victim of the persecution after the October Revolution: on January 25, 1918, Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev was arrested during the night and taken out of the Laura of the Caves of Kiev. Abused and insulted, he sang and prayed quietly before his execution. He blessed his executioners before being shot, saying: ‘May God forgive you!’.

It is certainly impossible to list all the neomartyrs, but we would like to recall here the beautiful figure of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia. Elizabeth Feodorovna was born on October 20, 1864. She was the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who was assassinated in 1905 in a terrorist attack. She visited the murderer in his prison to urge him to repent, and she seek his grace to the Tsar. She never stopped praying for him. During the Russo-Japanese War, she took care of many war-wounded soldiers and then decided to devote herself to God.

Animated by the spirit of charity and mutual help, she founded the Monastery of Martha and Mary in Moscow, for nuns nurses serving the poor and sick. Feeling hard times coming for her country, she encouraged believers to get through these terrible times with faith. She was herself an admirable nurse, never sparing her strengths. Refusing to be rescued, she was arrested in 1918 with two sisters, one was Barbara, who shared her martyrdom. During the night of July 17, 1918, she was thrown, with other members of the Romanov family, in a well 60 meters deep, inside the Alapaevsky mines. She did not die immediately and people outside the mine were able to hear her singing the troparion of the Resurrection & the Akathist hymn from the bottom of the well. Her body was found intact on a ledge about sixteen meters below, beside the body of prince Konstantinovich whose wounds have apparently been cured by her. After a long journey by Irkutsk, China, Suez and Palestine, her relics were deposited in the Russian Monastery Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, built by Emperor Alexander III. St. Elizabeth is one of the most revered holy neomartyr in Russia today, her icon is present everywhere.

Troparion of the neomartyrs and neoconfessors of Russia, tone 4: Today the Church of Russia joyfully forms a chorus, * praising her new martyrs and confessors; * hierarchs and priests, * royal passion-bearers, * right-believing princes and princesses, * venerable men and women, * and all Orthodox Christians. * Having laid down their life for faith in Christ * during the days of godless persecution, * they preserved the truth by the shedding of blood. * By their protection, O long-suffering Lord, * preserve our land in Orthodoxy * till the end of the age.

Nota bene: The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia canonized the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 1981, fixing their feast day on the Sunday nearest January 25 (February 7 on the Gregorian Calendar). The Russian Orthodox Church instituted the same feast in 2000 but on the Sunday after January 25. This year, Russian Church authorities decided to choose the same date for next year, that is on the Sunday after January 25.

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The continuing tragedy in Palestine

 

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Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (10 – 16 February 2011) Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) February 17, 2011 – Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (10 – 16 February 2011): Shooting: During the reporting period, a Palestinian civilian was killed by Jewish young men in Jerusalem. IOF also wounded 6 Palestinian civilians, including two children, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. On Friday morning, 11 December 2011, Hussam Hussein al-Rwaidhi, 24, from Jerusalem, was killed by a number of Jewish young men, when he was on his way back home. Al-Rawaidhi was on his way back home in East Jerusalem from his work in West Jerusalem. While he was walking with his friend, Khader al-Joulani, on a street in West Jerusalem, a Jewish young man stabbed him in the face. Soon after, other Jewish young men gathered and violently beat him. He died of his injuries a few hours later…   continua / continued    [75105] [ 18-feb-2011 15:14 ECT ]

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More economics news

Many are wondering how long Americans are going to continue putting up with the looting of Middle Class. As usual, Paul Craig Roberts nails it:

 

Obama’s FY 2012 Budget Is A Tool Of Class War

Paul Craig Roberts

February 18, 2011 “Information Clearing House” —— Obama’s new budget is a continuation of Wall Street’s class war against the poor and middle class. Wall Street wasn’t through with us when the banksters sold their fraudulent derivatives into our pension funds, wrecked Americans’ job prospects and retirement plans, secured a $700 billion bailout at taxpayers’ expense while foreclosing on the homes of millions of Americans, and loaded up the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet with several trillion dollars of junk financial paper in exchange for newly created money to shore up the banks’ balance sheets. The effect of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar’s foreign exchange value are yet to hit. When they do, Americans will get a lesson in poverty.

Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget. The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the budgets of the rest of the world combined. The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012. This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose–the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex. These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.

The U.S. has no enemies except those that the U.S. creates by bombing and invading other countries and by overthrowing foreign leaders and installing American puppets in their place.
Read more here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27513.htm



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The view out my window

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Photo of the day

The other day there was a news story of some folks in India who died after an accident aboard a train: they were riding on top, like this:

for a really excellent set of similar photographers, see this work by one of the world’s best documentary photographers:

http://www.zoriah.net/blog/guest-photographerphotojournalist/

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Mosaic of the day: From Ravenna

The Good Shepherd

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