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A group of about 150 Mormons quit their church in a mass resignation ceremony in Salt Lake City on Saturday in a rare display of defiance ending decades of disagreement for some over issues ranging from polygamy to gay marriage. Participants from Utah, Arizona, Idaho and elsewhere gathered in a public park to sign a “Declaration of Independence from Mormonism.” “This feels awesome,” said Alison Lucas, from West Jordan, Utah, who took part in the rally amid soaring temperatures. “I don’t know if I would have had the courage except in a group.” The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of...

For Tom Cruise, 33 is an unlucky number when it comes to love. All three of Tom Cruise’s ill-fated marriages have come to an end when his wives were 33, which just happens to be a significant number for the actor’s Church of Scientology. The original membership organization for the controversial religious group, the Hubbard Association of Scientologists, was founded in Phoenix, Arizona, which lies on the 33rd parallel, Perez Hilton reports. The number is also the known as the “Master Teacher,” which represents altruism and raising mankind’s positive energy in numerology, according to Seven Life Path. The characteristics of...

As part of Exercise Malabar 2012, the U.S. 7th Fleet is visiting Chennai, where they have been warmly received by the Indian Navy. Sailors from the fleet have also been participating in volunteer events around the city. NOTICE: Bandwidth-heavy images below. INDIAN OCEAN (Apr. 12, 2012) Indian Sailors assigned to the Visit, Board Search and Seizure (VBSS) team aboard Indian Navy Ship Satpura (F-48) transit toward guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey (DDG 97) via rigid hull inflatable boat during a VBSS training exercise. Halsey and Satpura are participating in Malabar, a regularly scheduled naval field training exercise conducted to advance multinational...

“It’s a Gift!” (2 Corinthians 8:1-9, 13-15)There was a lot of talk this past week about how the federal government can force you to buy a product that maybe you don’t want to buy, and they do that by extracting money from you if you don’t comply. But what do we call that? Is it a “mandate”? Is it a “penalty”? Is it a “fine”? No, the Supreme Court ruled, it’s a “tax.” Well, whether you call it a mandate, a penalty, a fine, or a tax, it still is a matter of compulsion and coercion and force. That’s how...

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said the issue of Hezbollah's arms can only be resolved via the National Dialogue and without resorting to sectarian partisanship, in remarks published Saturday. Commenting on the Sidon sit-in demanding the demilitarization of the resistance party, Jumblatt told An-Nahar: "The defense strategy should be formulated in a stable atmosphere away from tensions and sectarian partisanship." "This issue [Hezbollah's arms] cannot be resolved by blocking roads and disrupting people's lives in Sidon, the south and other areas," he added. On Wednesday, Sheikh Ahmad Assir, a Sidon-based Islamist and critic of Hezbollah's arsenal, blocked the...

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning enforcement of the Federal Communications Commission's indecency regulation reaches beyond the broadcast industry into the telecom sector.

NEW DELHI: Noting that the South China Sea was witnessing "competing claims", India today strongly pitched for co-operation instead of competition in the seas and oceans at a trilateral meeting with Japan and South Korea. Asserting that India, Japan and Republic of Korea depend heavily on the Sea Lanes of Communications (SLOCs) for their energy security which are also the mainstay for trade and connectivity, Sanjay Singh, Secretary (East) in Ministry of External Affairs, said "there is indeed a compelling case for us to cooperate on maritime security." "India has a valued geostrategic location straddling the SLOCs. The Indian Ocean...

On June 28, 2012, Americans learned many things. We learned that the same thing can be a tax, not a penalty, in one part of a law, but is a penalty, not a tax, elsewhere in the same law. We learned that a Yes vote is not political but a No vote is, on this case, but a No vote is not political, and a Yes vote is, on another case. And we learned that a constitutionally limited government is a dusty old historic artifact, not just in the minds of socialists, but even in the minds of justices whom...

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has raised more than $1 million this year in his bid for a sixth term. The Republican remains far ahead of his opponents in fundraising and has $4.1 million on hand when his earlier contributions are factored in. Democrat Paul Penzone’s campaign says it has raised $148,000 this year. Independent Mike Stauffer’s campaign says it has raised more than $43,000 so far this year and much of the money came from Stauffer himself. Democrat John Rowan’s campaign reports under $20,000 raised since January. Arpaio received numerous donations from people living outside Arizona. Nearly all of...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) goes a long way toward simplifying Medicaid eligibility. Go try and figure it out from the legislative language and you’re not likely to believe me. Fortunately, Joy Johnson Wilson, Health Policy Director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, has done the dirty work. In a handy document Wilson summarizes Medicaid and CHIP provisions in the new law and compares them to current law. In particular, on page 8 Wilson notes that the ACA “[r]equires states to use a net income standard (no asset or resource test, no income disregards) to determine [Medicaid] eligibility.” Yep,...

The tectonic plates of Middle East politics are shifting fast. Egypt’s Arab spring may have run into the sand of anti-democratic Islamism, but the days when oil-rich Arab sheikhs colluded to hold Western economies to ransom will soon end. Massive shale oil and gas discoveries across the West, Israel’s rising status as a Middle East energy powerhouse and a deepening internal rift over strategic policy are all colluding to hasten OPEC’s demise. In June, Kuwaiti oil minister Hani Hussein’s commented, “Oil from the Middle East will always find a home. And we have to see more research to get a...

The world's oldest purse may have been found in Germany -- and its owner apparently had a sharp sense of Stone Age style. Excavators at a site near Leipzig (map) uncovered more than a hundred dog teeth arranged close together in a grave dated to between 2,500 and 2,200 B.C. According to archaeologist Susanne Friederich, the teeth were likely decorations for the outer flap of a handbag... The dog teeth were found during excavations of the 250-acre (100-hectare) Profen (map) site, which is slated to become an open-pit coal mine in 2015. So far the project has uncovered evidence of...

By and large, the American culture is aggressively promoting the sinful lifestyle of homosexuality. In the midst of such pressure, many people who call themselves Christians are caving in and accepting this perverted lifestyle in spite of God’s clear teachings against it (Butt, 2003). Just recently, the country singer Carrie Underwood stated that her Christian faith lead her to support gay marriage (Nilles, 2012). In truth, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ could never be accurately understood to lead a person to conclude that homosexual marriage is moral (Miller and Harrub, 2004). One of the most common arguments made...

Aboriginal groups want bones of the extinct Beothuk people to be removed from museum vaults and brought back to Newfoundland. A woman named Shanawdithit was the last known member of her people, with her 1829 death in St. John's marking the end of the Beothuk. Disease, persecution and the Beothuk's decision to withdraw from coastal communities have been cited as causes of wiping out the Beothuk. The location of Shanawdithit's grave is not known, but the skulls of her aunt and uncle -- a chief -- languish in a museum in Edinburgh, Scotland. The remains of at least 22 Beothuk...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Republicans in at least four states want to abandon an expansion of Medicaid in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, and more than a dozen other states are considering it in the wake of the Supreme Court decision removing the threat of federal penalties. ... The states considering whether to withdraw from the expansion include presidential battlegrounds Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado. "One thing is clear, state legislatures will play a big role in the future of Obamacare," said Republican state Rep. Todd Richardson of Missouri. For elected officials, the high court decision presented a...

Meteorologist Dr. Wolfgang Thüne Calls Potsdam Institute’s Science “Pure Voodoo Magic For Spreading Fear Among The Public” By P Gosselin on 29. Juni 2012 Dr. Wolfgand Thüne As the science of the warmists gets exposed as woefully inadequate, slipshod and flawed, all they can do now is give each other awards in pompous ceremonies in an effort to generate a (fake) sense of achievement and contribution. They’ve been reduced to a pretend world.One example is the Technical University of Berlin recently awarding Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber an honorary doctorate. Schellnhuber is Director of the infamously über-alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi could soon become the only state without an abortion clinic because of a new law taking effect this weekend. Critics say the law would force women to drive hours across the state line to obtain a constitutionally protected procedure, or could even force some to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

If Florida proceeds with the program as envisioned under the law, it could provide a boost to the state’s economy. Florida could gain about $2 billion a year in federal money for health care if it expands the Medicaid rolls as called for in the law. That does not include any added state spending for doctors, hospitals, home care and other segments of the state’s already sizable health care industry. Health care is a significant component in Florida’s economy. Of the state’s 7.4 million non-agricultural workers, 12 percent, or 855,400, are in the health care field. From May 2011 to...

It's no secret there's a health-care crisis in Texas. The state has the biggest uninsured population in the country with around 6.2 million—or a quarter of all residents—lacking insurance. As a Kaiser Health News report highlighted, poor and uninsured Texans must sometimes wait more than 24 hours in emergency rooms, where treatment is most expensive, while more cost-effective health-care options, like preventative care, are out of reach. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to change all that. It offered new avenues for health-care coverage to people at all income levels by expanding Medicaid. But yesterday's Supreme Court decision made it...

Discipline Decided In North Central Cheating Scandal1 Teacher Resigns, 5 Others Suspended Without Pay UPDATED: 9:37 pm EDT June 29, 2012 INDIANAPOLIS -- Disciplinary action has been decided for the six North Central High School biology teachers involved in an ISTEP cheating scandal. The Washington Township School District and the Indiana Department of Education conducted an investigation that found that a North Central biology teacher took extensive handwritten notes on the test's questions while students completed the online exam in 2009 and 2010. **SNIP** "Teacher A" shared the typed document with four other biology teachers at the school, one of...