Saturday, August 24, 2019

In the news, Friday, August 16, 2019


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AUG 15      INDEX      AUG 17
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from Conciliar Post

Once we befriend our failures and shortcomings, we open ourselves to God’s work in our lives, and can then reach out to others in our midst—welcoming the stranger in true hospitality.

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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Greenland Deserves the Attention Trump Is Giving It
The recent media reports that President Donald Trump is interested in purchasing Greenland for United States has brought the unlikely country into the world’s headlines. Greenland is a very important U.S. partner with a long and rich history. Today, Greenland is an autonomous constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark. Ultimately, it is up to the people of Greenland to determine how and by whom they wish to be governed.

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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California

Deus Vincit
On August 6, 1682, the Ottoman Empire, at the height of its power, declared war on the Holy Roman Empire. Muslim domination of Europe extended from the Balkans northward through Hungary and reached into Poland. Westward, only Habsburg Vienna barred the way. Louis XIV, for his own reasons, preferred dealing with the Ottomans rather than with the Habsburgs. Were the Muslims to have been victorious, they might have ruled from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

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from HumanProgress.org  Education Website

An Old-Fashioned Recipe for Economic Growth
With the recent inversion of the yield curve sparking recession fears in the United States, and the stock market swinging wildly in response to the ongoing trade negotiations with China, some are wondering if the longest economic expansion in American history may soon come to an end. Those uncertainties bring renewed urgency to the age-old question at the heart of economics: what creates wealth? Throughout most of human history, there was almost no wealth. People were very poor, and there weren’t that many of us. While our species is roughly 300,000 years old, for the first 290,000 years or so we were foragers barely scraping by. Even after Homo sapiens embraced agriculture, progress was still painfully slow. Then, suddenly, population skyrocketed, followed shortly by an explosion in income and standards of living. Between 1700 and 1900, the world’s population rose from about 600 million people to about 1.5 billion people. Between 1800 and 1900, GDP per person per day doubled. Income grew over twice as much in that century as in the preceding 18 centuries combined. The two trends of rising income and population are related. Elected officials can help the U.S. economy continue to grow by allowing the American people to innovate and exchange. To do so, burdensome regulations and taxes should be eliminated and lowered, and trade wars ended.

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from The Living Church
Magazine of The Living Church Foundation (Anglican)

CARING FOR CREATION
Our unique task as stewards and caretakers of “this fragile earth, our island home,” as Eucharistic Prayer C puts it, is to participate in the unfolding of God’s new creation inaugurated in the resurrection of Jesus. We fulfill that high calling when we use “the power of [our] love to bring the world alive, to give things the love, care, and use they need for their fulfillment”.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Thursday, August 15, 2019


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AUG 14      INDEX      AUG 16
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Famed pilot Nick Mamer’s personal collection on display in Spokane Valley
Nick Mamer, the pilot who did an inflight refueling mission from Felts Field to New York and back is the subject of a new exhibit at Spokane Valley Heritage Museum. Mamer and his co-pilot and mechanic Art Walker took off 90 years ago, Aug. 15, 1929.

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In the news, Wednesday, August 14, 2019


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AUG 13      INDEX      AUG 15
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from Conciliar Post

Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding about politics and religion. What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.

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from Daily Wire
RIGHT BIAS, MIXED, American news and opinion website

‘NOT A TYPO’: Democrat Poll Shows What Voters Think Of Omar, Ocasio-Cortez
A new internal Democrat poll in swing districts released on Sunday showed that socialist Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) are extremely unpopular and that they may cost the Democratic Party the presidency and the House in 2020.

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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Ignoring the Debt Will Come Back to Bite Us
The U.S. national debt just reached $22.3 trillion. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that over the next 10 years, this latest budget deal will increase deficits by $1.7 trillion. Both Congress and the president need to come together and forge an agreement to stop out-of-control spending.

Making the Case for a New Round of BRAC
The report on force structure and infrastructure for the FY 2021 budget request is the Department of Defense’s best chance to make the case for a new Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC) round. The department’s case for a new round of BRAC should focus on potential savings and implementing the National Defense Strategy. The report needs to both show the importance of a new BRAC round and accommodate legitimate concerns that Congress has with BRAC.

Shaming of Trump Donors Shows Danger of Liberal Campaign Finance Rules
Castro’s shaming of people for making legal campaign contributions exposes the targets of his ire to both financial and physical harm. While some conservatives might be tempted to support seemingly moderate steps toward full transparency of campaign contributions, the risks are far too great. It is unlikely that additional transparency will achieve the broader objective of driving out graft and influence peddling.

American Bar Association Postpones Sexual Assault Resolution That Would Criminalize Normal Behavior
What do Prince Charming, quarterback Brett Favre, and an awkward teenager angling for a first kiss all have in common? They could all be criminals under the American Bar Association’s proposed new sexual assault law. The American Bar Association is considering whether to push states to amend their criminal codes to define consent in sexual assault cases as “the consent of a person who is competent to give consent to engage in a specific act of sexual penetration, oral sex, or sexual contact” and to require “that consent [be] expressed by words or action in the context of all the circumstances.” In other words, consent must be clear, competent, and renewed for each and every sexual act. If it isn’t, the initiator has committed criminal sexual assault.The rule’s intentions are good; many sexual assault laws are out of date and in desperate need of rewriting. But this proposed rule is an overcorrection that would lead to absurd results.

Union Pension Underfunding Is Bankrupting This Government Entity
A new report from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) shows that the private union pension crisis is only getting worse, and now Congress is poised to make it worse still. Instead of a costly bailout-without-reform, Congress should improve the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s solvency, prevent plans from overpromising and underfunding pensions, and help plans minimize pension reductions across workers.

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from The Inlander
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA

Spokane jail inmate population analysis finds racial disparities, high number of bookings for misdemeanors and nonviolent offenses
Spokane County disproportionately incarcerates people of color for longer stints and predominantly books inmates for misdemeanor charges and non-violent felonies, according to a new consultant analysis. Roughly 70 percent of inmates on any given day — the average daily inmate population hovers around 930 people — are held pre-trial, meaning that they aren't serving a sentence and are waiting for the case to move forward. An estimated 10 percent are federal inmates detained on temporary holds and 17 percent are sentenced. Of the total inmate population, 89 percent were booked on misdemeanors, temporary holds, or non-violent felonies, meaning that the inmate population is largely accused of committing low-level and non-violent crimes.

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from The North American Anglican
Media/News Company: "A journal of orthodox theology in the Anglican tradition"

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES 2.0
The launch of the Oxford Movement is traditionally dated (following John Henry Newman’s reckoning) from John Keble’s Assize sermon on Bastille Day, July 14, 1833. But it wasn’t until the inauguration of The Tracts for the Times, also in 1833, that the Oxford Movement became a public movement for the renewal of the Church of England. This renewal was effected by returning the Church of England to her apostolic and patristic roots and by reviving the impoverished Prayer Book Rule of Life upon which Anglican spirituality rests. It is from these Tracts that the disciples of the Oxford Movement obtained the name “Tractarians.” It has occurred to me more than once that what traditional Anglicanism needs today is a second Oxford Movement, or what I am calling “Tracts for the Times 2.0.”

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Tuesday, August 13, 2019


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AUG 12      INDEX      AUG 14
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from Algemeiner

Forgotten Heroes: The French Jewish Resistance and Exodus 1947
The year 2019 marks the 72nd anniversary of the Exodus 1947 ship, perhaps the most dramatic post-World War II attempt to breach the British naval blockade and bring Holocaust survivors to Mandatory Palestine. The ship, with over 4,500 Holocaust survivors on board, left the French port of Sète on July 11, 1947. It was intercepted by the British, and — after a determined resistance — its passengers were returned to Port-de-Bouc in France on three deportation ships. The survivors refused to leave the French coast, and stayed on the ships under difficult conditions in the heavy August heat. They were ultimately led by force by the British to Hamburg, Germany – the country that had just slaughtered six million of their brethren.

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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C

3 Ways Trump’s New Regulations Will Better Protect Endangered Species
The Trump administration has just taken an important step in the effort to protect threatened and endangered species. On Monday, the administration published final regulations that will improve implementation of the Endangered Species Act. Over the law’s more than 45 years, only about 3% of the species listed as threatened or endangered have been removed from the list due to recovery. They recognized that a significant part of the problem is connected to how they have implemented the law.

No, Wages Are Not Rising Because of Minimum Wage Laws
Before lawmakers left for August recess, the Democrat-controlled House voted to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Such a move would backfire in a major way if passed into law. It would hurt lower-skilled individuals the most, including teenagers, immigrants, and those without a high school degree. And women, who hold more low-wage jobs than men, would be hurt the most, accounting for more than 60% of the resulting lay-offs. We are in the midst of a record economic expansion in which workers in lower-wage jobs are seeing their wages grow faster than many high-wage workers. Average wage growth has been above 3% for the last 11 straight months. Congress should not tempt the resilience of the American economy by mandating a higher federal minimum wage.

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from The Hill
News & Media Website in Washington, D.C.

This is how the government should define Waters of the United States
How should the term "Waters of the United States" be defined under the Clean Water Act? For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers have struggled to define this term, primarily because they have consistently sought to go beyond what is legally authorized. The Trump administration has proposed a new definition that does something different by seeking to stay within the law.

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from KHQ Local News (NBC Spokane)

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile making stops at Spokane supermarkets this weekend
Saturday, the Wienermobile heads north, first stopping at the Rosauer's at 1724 W. Francis Ave from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then from 2-6 p.m., the Oscar Mayer car makes its final stop at Rosauer's at 9414 N Division St.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Wheat harvest reaped grain and abundant goodwill as Ritzville rallied to help farmer fighting cancer
Adams County wheat farmers and community banded together recently to help harvest Larry Yockey's 1200-acre wheat farm. Yockey, 63, has stage 4 skin cancer and could no longer work his fields.

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from The Telegraph (UK)

World must prepare for biological weapons that target ethnic groups based on genetics, says Cambridge University
Biological weapons could be built which target individuals in a specific ethnic group based on their DNA, a report by the University of Cambridge has warned. Researchers from Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) said the government was failing to prepare for ‘human-driven catastrophic risks’ that could lead to mass harm and societal collapse.

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In the news, Monday, August 12, 2019


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AUG 11      INDEX      AUG 13
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from CNN

Central bank rate cuts are inflating a cheap money bubble
Last month US markets once again hit a little-known but highly relevant ceiling which has spelled market trouble numerous times in the recent past, most famously during the major market bubble bursts in 2000 and 2007. Investors should recall what happened then, take note and brace themselves for the possible implications. What is that ceiling? It's when overall stock market capitalization vs. GDP reaches a point historically disconnected from the underlying size of the economy. We are in such a period again, having recently reached a ratio of stock values to GDP of 145%.

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from Episcopal News Service

A new social statement from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America labels patriarchy and sexism as sins and acknowledges the church’s complicity in them. The social statement — titled “Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Call to Action” — was approved by the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly with 97 percent of the vote Friday morning (Aug. 9) on the last full day of the denomination’s triennial meeting at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee. This is the 13th social statement adopted by the ELCA. Others include topics like race, ethnicity and culture; caring for creation; and human sexuality.

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from Family Policy Institute of Washington
Nonprofit Organization in Lynnwood, WA

The Washington State House Democratic Caucus made a bold statement, and history, in recent weeks in choosing Rep Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma) to be the first woman, and first lesbian Speaker of the House. She replaced long-time serving (20 years) Speaker Frank Chopp who was recently pushed out mid-term in an unprecedented maneuver by the growing number of radical leftists taking over the Democratic Party here in Washington and across the country

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Getting There: The new ways of Wall Street
Last week, the brick-lined Wall Street in downtown Spokane lost two concrete planters – a place to sit, favored by those wishing to smoke a variety of things and a security guard to glare at them. One was replaced by asphalt and only its outline remains, like a murderous chalk sketch seen in the movies. The other remains a toothy hole surrounded by barricades. In a strange twist of happenstance, we can thank the Spokane Transit Authority for not only the planters themselves, but their removal. Simply put, they arrived for the trolley, but they were removed for the Central City Line.

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In the news, Sunday, August 11, 2019


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AUG 10      INDEX      AUG 12
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from The Wenatchee World

NCW recovers from thunderstorms
Roads appear to be open and no large fires started after a series of rain and thunderstorms Saturday.

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In the news, Saturday, August 10, 2019


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AUG 09      INDEX      AUG 11
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from The Wenatchee World

Update: Highway 2 near Waterville reopened after mudslide
The closure [was] at milepost 157 near Road I Northwest

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Friday, August 16, 2019

In the news, Friday, August 9, 2019


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AUG 08      INDEX      AUG 10
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from Anglican Journal

Climate change in the North
In the Arctic and Yukon, the growing impact of climate change is already a reality—one that Anglicans throughout these regions are bearing witness to. They believe the church can play a leading role in tackling what Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation calls "an existential threat."

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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Abusing the Impeachment Process
In drafting the Constitution, America's founders provided for impeachment not as a partisan political weapon, or as an alternative to elections. America's founders were clear about the meaning and proper use of impeachment, and American history counsels against abusing this power. It's a dangerous, anti-democratic maneuver that flouts the principles on which our republic was founded and threatens its stability.

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from HumanProgress.org  Education Website

Heroes of Progress, Pt. 24: Banting and Best
Introducing the two scientists who created the first effective treatment for diabetes, Frederick Banting and Charles Best.

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from Psephizo  (blog)

How do we live in trust, generosity and readiness?
The Sunday lectionary gospel is from Luke 12.32–40, and offers a slightly odd selection of verses, in that it includes the end of one section of Jesus’ teaching—on trusting God for provision, and so being generous with our possessions—and the beginning of another, on readiness for the return of our Lord. But this selection actually raises an important question: why has Luke collected these different teachings of Jesus together, and what connects them? The opening verse ‘Fear not…’ doesn’t have any exact parallels elsewhere in the gospels, though the next few verses are close to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6.19–21. But the following pericope, ‘Keep ready for action with your lamps burning’, or more literally ‘Let your loins be girded about…’, is unique to Luke. Then from verse 39, ‘But know this…’, we run parallel to Matt 24.43–44. The fact that, within a few verses, we find parallels from near the beginning and near the end of Matthew’s gospel shows us either how diverse this material is—or perhaps how the questions of lifestyle and eschatological expectation are more closely related than we are accustomed to thinking.

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from Reason Magazine
Magazine in Los Angeles, California

The Puzzle of Identifying Future Mass Murderers Cannot Be Solved by Psychiatry, Background Checks, or Red Flag Laws
If "the notion that we can identify mass killers before they act" is a "fiction," the conventional policy responses to mass shootings are unlikely to be effective.

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from Reuters
International news agency headquartered in London, England

Germany must up defense spending, relying on U.S. "offensive" - U.S. envoy
Germany’s reluctance to spend more on defense and its continued reliance on U.S. troops for protection is offensive, Richard Grenell, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany said on Friday. Grenell’s comments signal U.S. President Donald Trump’s impatience with Germany’s failure to raise defense spending to 2% of economic output as mandated by the NATO military alliance.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Work begins on former Milford’s Fish House transformation into Irish pub, restaurant
Work to renovate the former Milford’s Fish House just north of Spokane’s Monroe Street Bridge into an Irish restaurant has begun, according to city permit data. Improvements valued at $200,000 will remove walls and reconfigure the kitchen. When complete, the building at the intersection of Monroe and Broadway Avenue will house Shawn O’Donnell’s American Grill and Irish Pub, an Everett-based, family-owned restaurant chain that has locations in Everett and Seattle.

For the first time in 80 years, salmon are in the Upper Columbia River
NESPELEM, Wash. – While rain and wind scrubbed the air of wildfire smoke, members of the Colville Confederated Tribes released 30 salmon into the Columbia River upstream of the Chief Joseph Dam on Friday. The release, while modest, is the first time salmon have been in that stretch of the river since the Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams were built in the 1950s and 1930s, respectively. And the release represents a tangible step toward an ambitious plan years in the making: the reintroduction of salmon to the upper reaches of the Columbia River.

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from The Times of Israel

Holocaust survivor marks 104th birthday at Western Wall with 400 descendants
Holocaust survivor Shoshanna Ovitz had requested ahead of her birthday that “all of her children, grandchildren and descendants come together to the Western Wall.” On Wednesday, hundreds heeded the call, flocking to the holy site days before Ovitz’s 104th birthday. “We don’t have an exact number, but there are about 400 grandchildren and descendants here,” Pnina Friedman, Ovitz’s eldest granddaughter, told the Walla news site, as a photo of the gathering swiftly went viral. ... One of her grandchildren told Israeli journalist Sivan Rahav Meir of Channel 12 that Ovitz survived Auschwitz and was separated from her mother, who was killed, by Josef Mengele. Ovitz met her husband while the two were searching for surviving relatives after the Holocaust and married when she was in her early 30s. Before moving to Israel, they lived in a transit camp in Austria, where their first daughter was born. They later moved to Haifa, where they established their family, which grew to include two sons and two daughters — and decades later, hundreds more descendants.

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from The Washington Post
Newspaper in Washington, D.C.

The majority of Native Americans still aren’t offended by the name of the Washington Redskins. That finding is from a recent survey and — as you probably remember, even if you’ve tried to forget — falls in line with what a Washington Post poll found three years ago and an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found 12 years before that. I know, I know. We’ve all already given a lot of emotional energy to this issue, and three years ago, we agreed, whether or not we said it, to move on. But I think you’ll want to hear about this recent survey because it differs from the previous polls in an important way. It aimed to understand not only how Native Americans feel about the team’s name, but also why they feel that way.

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In the news, Thursday, August 8, 2019


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AUG 07      INDEX      AUG 09
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Wednesday, August 7, 2019


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AUG 06      INDEX      AUG 08
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Tuesday, August 6, 2019


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AUG 05      INDEX      AUG 07
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from AP  Associated Press - Media/News Company

China vows to counter US deployment of midrange arms in Asia
China said Tuesday that it “will not stand idly by” and will take countermeasures if the U.S. deploys intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, which Washington has said it plans to do within months. The statement from the director of the foreign ministry’s Arms Control Department, Fu Cong, follows the U.S.’s withdrawal last week from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a move Fu said would have a “direct negative impact on the global strategic stability” as well as security in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Fu said China was particularly concerned about announced plans to develop and test a land-based intermediate-range missile in the Asia-Pacific “sooner rather than later,” in the words of one U.S. official.

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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)
Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany

China warns US against Asia missile deployment
The Chinese government on Tuesday warned the White House against moving forward with plans to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Asia after the collapse of a key Cold War-era treaty regulating their use. "China will not stand idly by and will be forced to take countermeasures should the US deploy intermediate-range ground-based missiles in this part of the world," said Fu Cong, director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's arms control department. Fu urged "our neighboring countries to exercise prudence and not to allow a US deployment of its intermediate-range missiles on (their) territory."

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Neil deGrasse Tyson Is Right about the Numbers (and Our Emotions)
Science writer Neil deGrasse Tyson says human emotions tend to respond more to spectacle than data. He's right. The kinds of deaths that get attention are not always those with the largest numbers of fatalities. All of the causes he lists above have more. Handguns are close but even those are for any 48 hour period and it’s unlikely that we will have El Paso/Dayton-style mass shootings every 48 hours. It’s precisely the fact that such mass shootings are rare (although, of course, not nearly rare enough) that leads to the publicity they get.

Google Is Burying Alternative Health Sites to Protect People from “Dangerous” Medical Advice
For their unorthodox views, some physicians are being treated as medical heretics. Google’s search engine algorithm has essentially ended traffic to their websites. There are good reasons to be concerned that we are losing access to information with which to evaluate opposing sides of health issues. Google’s search engine algorithm has essentially ended traffic to many websites that question the medical orthodoxy.

Both the US and China Are Being Harmed by Trump's Never-Ending Trade War
America’s negotiating credibility has become yet another casualty of its polarized politics. China’s economic growth has slowed to a 27-year low of 6.2 percent. The problem for the U.S. is that Americans are also increasingly feeling the pinch. Perhaps most notably, farmers—many of whom continue to support Trump—are beginning to tire of the sacrifices they are making for his uncompromising positions.

“Free Everything” and the First Law of Politics
Entrepreneurs do a much better job than politicians at alleviating scarcity through efficient, value-creating production. The economist Thomas Sowell once observed that the first lesson of economics is scarcity: there's never enough to fully satisfy human wants. He also observed that the first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics, a lesson many presidential candidates appear to have learned all too well.

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from Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
Nonprofit Organization in New York, New York

If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig
Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of plastic. Democrats dream of powering society entirely with wind and solar farms combined with massive batteries. Realizing this dream would require the biggest expansion in mining the world has seen and would produce huge quantities of waste.

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from Miami Herald

Nine people shot dead in Dayton, 13 hours after 22 shot dead in El Paso, six days after three shot dead in Gilroy. And tears and disbelief and funeral preparations, candlelight vigils and a search for meaning, and talking heads on cable news and T-shirts and hashtags touting resilience in the face of pain: “Dayton Strong,” “El Paso Strong,” “Gilroy Strong.” And people asking “Why?” and Republican officials trotting out explanations noteworthy mainly for their uselessness. They blame mental illness, Colin Kaepernick, Barack Obama, video games, drag queens, gay marriage, TV zombies, immigrants and recreational marijuana. Everything except the gun, everything except the fact that this is a country where the angry and disaffected can buy weapons of mass destruction more easily and with less regulation than you could buy a car.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from WND (World Net Daily)
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]

Typical mass shooter a white male? Think again
Photo montage shows every suspect in 2019 attacks

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In the news, Monday, August 5, 2019


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AUG 04      INDEX      AUG 06
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from ABC News (& affiliates)
TV Network in New York, New York

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Shootings across the city of Chicago this past weekend have left seven people dead and another 52 people wounded. This past weekend left Chicago police officers and city-wide emergency rooms stretched to the limit. Mt. Sinai Hospital in Douglas Park was forced to go on bypass for several hours. Sunday night, an additional 50 officers were brought into the 10th District alone.

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from American Policy Center

POVERTY, THE COMPASSION CARTEL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM
On socialism vs capitalism and the impact of environmental racism and the compassion cartel on world poverty

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from AP  Associated Press - Media/News Company

Putin urges arms talks with US after nuclear pact demise
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia would only deploy new intermediate-range missiles if the United States does and called for urgent arms control talks to prevent a chaotic arms race following the demise of a key nuclear pact.

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from Ars Technica

Microsoft catches Russian state hackers using IoT devices to breach networks
Fancy Bear servers are communicating with compromised devices inside corporate networks. Hackers working for the Russian government have been using printers, video decoders, and other so-called Internet-of-things devices as a beachhead to penetrate targeted computer networks, Microsoft officials warned on Monday. “These devices became points of ingress from which the actor established a presence on the network and continued looking for further access,” officials with the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center wrote in a post. “Once the actor had successfully established access to the network, a simple network scan to look for other insecure devices allowed them to discover and move across the network in search of higher-privileged accounts that would grant access to higher-value data.”

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from Psephizo  (blog)

Is being saved about entering a ‘wide open space’?
I have often heard it said that when God delivers us, he leads us from a sense of being trapped, hemmed in and confined to a sense of being in a ‘wide open space.’ I think I have probably said this myself in a talk or sermon on more than one occasion. I remember, many years ago, reading about it in relation to the story of Jacob and his meeting with Esau in Genesis 33; Jacob, who has relied on his wits all his life to get his own way—with other people and with God—finds himself at his wit’s end as he finally meets Esau again. But instead of judgement, he finds graciousness, and the graciousness of Esau he takes to be the graciousness of God, and he moves from the sense of being hemmed in by fear and dread to the open space of grace and peace.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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