“The women of America aren’t finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.” Note: Check the related links for provocative reactions to the Palin pick including our extended discussion on “The B-Cast” of evangelical reaction to the decision….
Associated Press
National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles are selling briskly, and one small-town mayor has spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area is skittishly watching as a storm marches across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s third anniversary.
With forecasters warning that a strengthening Gustav could slam into the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane, a New Orleans still recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s devastating hit drew up evacuation plans.
“I’m panicking,” said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet of floodwater when Katrina hit. Fuselier said she’s been back home only a year and nervously watched as Gustav swirled toward the Gulf of Mexico. “I keep thinking, ‘Did the Corps fix the levees?,’ ‘Is my house going to flood again?’ … ‘Am I going to have to go through all this again?’”…
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WorldNetDaily
DENVER – Two teenagers who had been given city permission to write their messages protesting Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s support for abortion on public sidewalks during the Democratic National Convention this week were shoved to the sidewalk, cuffed and arrested for doing just that.
The two are part of the Survivors organization, a Christian, pro-life activism group dedicated to educating and activating high school and college age individuals.
It is called Survivors because those born after 1972 are survivors of the abortion holocaust, the group said. "One-third of your generation has been killed by abortion in America."
Spokeswoman Danielle Versluys told WND the group had consulted with Denver city officials as well as police prior to the DNC, and had been told that chalk messages on sidewalks would be allowed. Even though the city’s deputy chief was in the meeting, that message apparently didn’t get forwarded to officers on the street…
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Of the $429,000 collected last year by the group advancing the measure, $400,000 came from Soros, who has championed similar efforts in several states and spent $24 million to fight President Bush’s 2004 re-election bid. The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy needed about $315,000 of that just to collect the more than 100,000 signatures that secured a spot on the ballot, according to campaign finance reports reviewed by The Associated Press.
“All of us owe George Soros a great deal of gratitude,” said Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
If the measure is approved in November, Massachusetts would become the 13th state to lift or ease criminal penalties on marijuana possession. The proposal would make having an ounce or less of the drug a civil offense punishable by a $100 fine…
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WorldNetDaily 
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two high school students who say they are offended by the school’s policy of allowing prayer at voluntary events and holding Christmas concerts at churches.
The students, from Pace High School in Pace, Fla., are identified only as Minor I Doe and Minor II Doe in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court because they are both under 18. The complaint alleges disclosure of their names would put the students at risk of “social ostracism, economic injury, governmental retaliation … and potential physical harm.”
Benjamin Stevenson, staff attorney with the ACLU of Florida’s Northwest Region office, released an ACLU statement accusing school officials of using governmental positions to promote individual religious beliefs in public school… Click here to read entire story
DEBKAfile
Reporting this Thurs. Aug. 28, Alexander Vovk, spokesman for Russia’s strategic nuclear forces said the Topol RS-12M was tested to “develop equipment for potential combat and use against ground-based missiles.”
Earlier this week, amid the crisis over Georgia, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned of a military response to the US missile shield to be installed in Europe.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report the Topol RS-12M ballistic missile (NATO codenamed SS-25 Sickle) is a new piece of equipment which Russian generals have said Moscow is working on to pierce any missile shield the US could make.
The ICBM test follows Russia’s warning to NATO against sending more ships to the Black Sea and caution to Moldava to watch its step.
Wednesday, DEBKAfile reported:
America’s decision to redirect its Georgia aid warship from Russian-controlled Poti port to Georgian-controlled Batumi Wednesday, August 27 – on direct orders from the Pentagon - did not cool the escalating tension between the two powers. As soon as the US Coast Guard cutter Dallas docked with 34 tons of humanitarian aid, three Russian missile boats, led by the Moskva missile cruiser, anchored at the Black Sea port of Sukhumi, capital of breakaway Abkhazia, to the north for what the Russians called “peacekeeping operations.”…
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By JEANNINE AVERSA
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter. The revised reading was much better than the government’s initial estimate of a 1.9 percent pace and exceeded economists’ expectations for a 2.7 percent growth rate.
The rebound comes after two dismal quarters. The economy actually shrank in the final three months of 2007 and limped into the first quarter at a feeble 0.9 percent pace. The 3.3 percent growth in the spring was the best performance since the third quarter of last year, when the economy was chugging along at a brisk 4.8 percent pace…
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TCPalm.com
Denise Harvey
VERO BEACH — Denise Harvey, 40, of Vero Beach, was sentenced to 30 years in state prison for having sex with a 16-year-old who was a high school friend and baseball teammate her son’s.
Harvey was silent Thursday as she was fingerprinted and taken away from being sentenced by Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn. Harvey’s private attorney, Robert Meadows, filed an appeal and Vaughn will hold a bail hearing next week. The date wasn’t set.
Before sentencing she asked the court for mercy. Meadows requested a non-jail sentence of community control.
Vaughn — at the urging of prosecutors — ruled her guilty of having sex with the 16-year-old five times during high school baseball season in 2006. The judge sentenced her to 15 years for each offense. But only two of the terms will be served consecutively, one after the other. The other three will be served at the same time as the others…
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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Six Christian families across Pennsylvania intend to continue their federal court battle in hopes of receiving an exception from state law mandating that they supply their local school districts with documentation about the home-schooling of their children.
The families, represented by the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, have been tied up in litigation for four years with a half-dozen districts, including Norwin, Franklin Regional in Murrysville and Homer-Center in Indiana County.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that there are no federal constitutional issues in the consolidated case, but the parents plan to appeal to the entire circuit court or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their claims, said Michael Farris, a lawyer for the association…
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WorldNetDaily
 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi |
DENVER – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s abortion theology remains under attack, with Catholic members of Congress writing her to castigate her re-interpretation of church teachings and a priest on the EWTN network condemning her for a perspective in which, he believes, she would bomb a city full of innocent people.
WND reported earlier when the Denver Catholic archbishop, Charles Chaput, said Pelosi and those who claim abortion can be reconciled with the Christian faith simply don’t know Christianity.
The issue is hitting hard at the Democratic Party as it holds its 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver this week to nominate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, an ardent abortion proponent who has gone beyond the desires of even the National Abortion Rights Action League in advocating for the controversial procedure. In fact, as a state lawmaker in Illinois, he declined to support a requirement that an abortionist provide necessary medical services to a baby who survives an abortion, because it would be a burden on the abortionist….
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Newsday
It was an unpleasant announcement for Pastor Bertrand Crabbe to make to his congregation at True North Community Church in Port Jefferson Station. The group had outgrown its home on Terryville Road and would soon have to take up a nomadic existence for the foreseeable future — holding services out of rented ballrooms or school gyms.
"Unless God drops a million on us, we’re going to have to rent a facility somewhere," he recalled joking from the pulpit Wednesday.
He never thought that one of the congregation members would take it as a suggestion.
Weeks later, an anonymous member donated the entire jackpot prize of a Ba-Da Bling scratch-off lottery ticket, worth $3 million, the New York Lottery announced Wednesday at Eldorado Southern Grille in Port Jefferson Station. The church will receive $150,000 a year, minus taxes, for 20 years. Because True North, a nondenominational Christian church with 650 members, is a nonprofit, the church can file for refund claims for a portion or all of the taxes withheld by the lottery.
London Times
An Anglican priest has unlocked the 270-year-old secrets of Charles Wesley’s coded diary, throwing light on the turbulent relationship that he had with his brother John in the early years of the Methodist movement they founded.
Wesley, a central figure in the 18th century evangelical revival, has been portrayed as a spiritual giant of his times, and was the author of hymns including Hark the Herald Angels Sing. But his journals, partly written in a personal shorthand, have revealed him to be a depressive character who was prepared to go to extreme lengths to wreck his brother’s proposed marriage and who was ready to blame him for his own wife’s miscarriage.
The Rev Professor Kenneth Newport, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Liverpool Hope University, was the first to crack the cipher and spent nine years transcribing the 1,000-page hand-written manuscript held at John Rylands Library in Manchester.
The “hidden” material offers an insight into Wesley’s fierce determination to prevent the Methodist societies from breaking away from the Church of England, and disagreements with his more influential older brother…
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Dr. David Hawkins
I was reluctant to write another column on pornography, however, the emails keep coming in about the absolutely devastating impact this addiction has on marriages.
In my book, Breaking Everyday Addictions I note how sexual addictions are more rampant than anyone realizes. From men who have serial affairs, to those who are addicted to pornography, sexual addictions are particularly malignant and destructive to marriages.
As with all forms of addictions, sexual addictions become secretive, are fraught with denial and minimization, and are progressive. Destructive behavior continues in spite of the positive intentions of the addicted person. No longer free to choose their behavior, they are instead driven by secret, shameful compulsions.
One of the most difficult aspects of sexual addictions concerns the issue of “coming clean.” The spouse of the sexual addict often wants to know the full extent of the addiction, and because of the very secretive nature of the addict, that information is either not forthcoming, or is not believed. The couple is left with rampant distrust.
Consider this recent email on the issue:
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Sao Paulo, Brazil (AP) -
A disposable diaper has saved the life of an 18-month-old boy, breaking his fall from a third-floor apartment window, officials said Thursday.
Caua Felipe Massaneiro survived a 30-foot (10-meter) fall because his diaper snagged on a security spike embedded in the concrete wall around his apartment building in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife.
The boy dangled from the spike for a moment, then “the diaper opened and the baby fell to the ground, but at a much slower speed,” a police officer said. “The diaper obviously lessened the impact of the fall and saved the baby’s life.”
“It was a miracle,” said the officer who declined to be identified because she was not authorized to speak to the press. “He could also have been killed by one of the spikes.”
The child was treated for minor fractures at the Hospital Memorial Sao Jose, where spokesman Gilberto Tenorio said he was in stable condition…
King James Version
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
New International Version
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
