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MOSUL — Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, are working the latest phase of the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) by living among Iraqi citizens at Combat Outpost Knight in eastern Mosul, and gaining their trust by constant patrolling and interaction. “We conduct atmospherics gathering, talk to the local populace and see what their needs are, what their security level is,” said 1st Lt. Larry Gwinn, of Richmond, W. Va., a platoon leader with Delta Company, 1- 8 Inf. Regt. “We are working toward the next phase of operations where we bring projects into the local community and...

A task force drafting a statement on sexuality for the nation's largest Lutheran group said Thursday that the church should continue defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. However, the panel did not condemn same-gender relationships. The committee expressed regret that historic Lutheran teachings have been used to hurt gays and lesbians, and acknowledged that some congregations already accept same-sex couples. The report released by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is part of the denomination's yearslong effort to bridge internal differences over the Bible and homosexuality.

CHICAGO, March 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A convicted felon and abortionist responsible for the deaths of at least two women has been hired at a Chicago public school as the new principal. A spokesman from Mildred I. Lavizzo School in the greater Roseland area told a pro-life advocate that the Lavizzo school council were apprised of the full background of their new principal, Dr. Arnold Bickham. Jill Stanek, a Chicago area pro-life activist and nurse posted a letter on her website from an 8th grader at the school, who said that students and teachers "aren't comfortable with being around him...

The U.S. military said on Saturday it had hampered al Qaeda's ability to recruit new members in Iraq by capturing or killing many of the people who make slick videos used to attract disaffected young Muslims. U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said that in the past year, 39 al Qaeda members in Iraq responsible for producing and disseminating videos and other material to thousands of Internet Web sites had been captured or killed. "The power of this information is obvious. These guys are using material that is used on Web sites to recruit and raise money," Smith told...

Schism is not a "catastrophic" event and is preferable to placating those who do not treat gays as equal simply for the sake of unity, a Canadian Anglican theologian says. "There are moments when treating unity as kind of absolute virtue that's higher than anything else is not necessarily the right thing," Rev. Paul Gibson said in an interview, concerning an essay he wrote that was posted on the Anglican Church of Canada's Web site yesterday. He wrote the essay in relation to the present schism in the Anglican Church over same-sex blessings, and concluded that a unified church that...

One of the most despicable of Rev. Wright's comments is his assertion that the 9/11 attacks were America's "chickens coming home to roost," delivered on the Sunday after they occurred. Wright says that we deserved it because we were involved in the Middle East and because we had engaged in terrorism when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This assessment of history reveals a couple of things about Wright. Let's take a look: 1. Like an all-white segregation-era jury, Wright doesn't need facts to deliver a verdict. For a rundown of some reasons you may not have heard that the bombings...

March 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I had the privilege of attending and presenting to the Pontifical Academy for Life Congress, titled: “Close by the incurably sick person and the dying: scientific and ethical aspects,” from February 25 – 26. This was my third time I have had the opportunity to attend a Congress by the Pontifical Academy for Life since 2004. These meetings attempt to bring scientific knowledge, philosophical thought and theological reflection together to move the Catholic Church toward a greater understanding of the ethical issues of our time. This year’s congress was particularly interesting because some of the...

THE HAGUE, 22/03/08 - Policemen should develop more understanding for ethnic groups. Otherwise society is in danger of breaking down, the Council of Police Chiefs writes in a memo entitled 'Politie voor een ieder' (Police for everyone). Policemen should pay more attention to the sensitivities of different population groups. Police forces that do not invest in this may be faced with "unpleasant surprises". A spokesman for the Council of Police Chiefs confirmed the existence of the internal vision, which landed up in the possession of regional newspaper group GPD. The Council presses for "multicultural professionalism", the spokesman explained. Policemen should...

Dublin - The editor of an Irish Catholic weekly has called on the Catholic Church to show repentance and seek forgiveness from the people it had abused, national broadcaster RTE reported Thursday. Gary O'Sullivan, editor of The Irish Catholic, was responding to Cardinal Sean Brady's call on the faithful to return to the confessional. The church "cannot just dust itself off after the abuse scandals and carry on expecting everyone to move on," RTE quoted O'Sullivan as saying. O'Sullivan also called on the church to apologize for sermons that focused on sin and hell, for scaring mothers about Limbo where,...

Huma Abedin the top confident and closest aide for Hillary Clinton is an assistant editor to an Islamic Journal called “Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs” http://www.imma.org.uk/editorialboard.htmIn fact the “Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs” and its “Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs” were founded by Huma Abedin father Syed Z. Abedin was a famous Islamic scholar but died when Huma was 17, and now both the Islamic institute and its journal are headed by her mother Saleha Mahmood Abedin also known as Saleha S Mahmood a famous Islamic scholar and deputy dean of an Islamic school in Saudi Arabia called Dar Al-Hekma...

ALTON, Ill. - Banished to the basement, the 29-year-old mother with a childlike mind and another baby on the way had little more than a thin rug and a mattress to call her own on the chilly concrete floor, police say. Dixon ate what she could forage from the refrigerator upstairs, where housemates used her for target practice with BBs, burned her with a glue gun, and doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin. They torched what few clothes she had, so she walked around naked. They often pummeled her with an aluminum bat or metal handle....

This guy seriously needs new handlers. All of this "new politics" is beginning to exhaust the public, and I suspect it is because its beginning to sound alot like the old politics. All of it culminating with race baiting and black resentment all crammed into one speech meant to, in the words of Charles Krauthammer, play to "intellectual flattery and white guilt". And as if throwing his own grandmother under the bus wasn't enough (she is still alive), today he called her "a typical white person". What?

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness." (Jeremiah 31:3)

SANDERSON, Florida — Deputies in Baker County arrested a couple caught having sex in a church. Baker County Sheriff's Deputies say they received a call about a suspicious person outside the Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church, on the night of March 11th. Deputies say they found a red Toyota pick-up truck and went inside the church. "Her drawers [were] in the stands. Her brazier was over on the outside the stands," Deacon Lonzie Altman recalled from his conversation with deputies. According to the offense report, deputies found Crystal Rowland, 24, behind the altar. Rowland was taken into custody. She told...

The region of the ocean known as "the desert of the sea" has expanded dramatically over the past decade, according to a new study. Scientists looking at the color of the ocean from space have found that vast areas that were once green with plankton have been turning blue, as marine life becomes scarcer. If it's linked to global warming, as they suspect, this could be another blow for the world's fisheries. Just as plants make up the base of the food web on land, tiny green phytoplankton in the ocean are a critical foodstuff for life in the oceans....

A nurse at a leading independent girls school was sacked after smacking her 10 year old son at home because he swore at her.

Beyond Politics: Black Liberation Theology, America and the Question of Race RFFM.org Commentary by Daniel T. Zanoza For a while, I had decided not to write anything on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama controversy. After all, it's all been said, hasn't it? Every newspaper had the story on its front page and the commentary sections overflowed with all too wise speculation on the issue. Why would Barack Obama attend a church where such hate was fomented from the pulpit for 20 years? Did Obama allay concerns many had with him, after the junior senator from Illinois gave his speech on the...

The New Park Street Pulpit The Destroyer Destroyed A Sermon (No. 166) Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 6, 1857, by the REV. C.H. SPURGEON at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens. "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil"— Hbr 2:14IN GOD'S ORIGINAL empire everything was happiness, and joy, and peace. If there be any evil, any suffering and pain, that is not God's work. God may permit it, overrule it, and out of it educe much good; but the evil cometh not of God. He himself standeth pure and perfect,...

NEW YORK - Knife-wielding muggers attacked a jogger running in Central Park to prepare for an Army physical fitness test, police and his family said. "I'm in a lot of pain," Johnny Reberon, 23, said as he returned from a hospital Friday to his Manhattan home. He was slashed in the arm and leg by two men who accosted him around 8:45 p.m. Thursday, police said. His mugging was near the park road where a 28-year-old investment banker was found after being attacked while jogging on April 19, 1989. She became known worldwide as "the Central Park jogger." Reberon's attackers...

"The Canadian government has ordered a Christian ministry that teaches doctrine and the differences between Christians and cults shut down because its reference materials were "critical" of the beliefs of those who are not Christian, WND has learned."..... For example, the ministry addresses the issue of "fads," including a "creeping Eastern mysticism" appearing in some churches, "turning meaningful prayer meetings into mind-emptying rituals called contemplative prayer promising experiences of a spiritual nature." "Feelings have often replaced the solid word of God," the website warns. "Numerous churches have become 'seeker' churches, disposing of the parts of the Gospel message that might...