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Presbyterians Collapsing, or “Settling Into The New Thing God is Creating”? The 2014 numbers reveal the PCUSA's largest statistical decline to date. A slimmed-down Presbyterian Church (USA) is apparently getting ready for beach season after shedding unwanted excess members, according to a cheery report by the denomination’s top official. “The PC(USA) is a church made up of vibrant congregations doing their best to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ in their communities and in the world,” an apparently unfazed Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PCUSA, soothed. “Membership declines continue, but on a whole the...

I detect a pattern in the challenges hurled at (genuine) liberals on nearly every issue. The opponent of liberalism describes a problem, invariably with roots in a government infringement of freedom. In response, he prescribes more government interference with freedom, at which point the liberal interjects that the best and only just solution is the repeal of the culpable state power. The statist replies that this will not do because the liberal's proposal won't solve every related problem and may even reveal hitherto overlooked problems. Undo still more government action, the liberal replies. But this brings the same criticism. Here's...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday that Indian states are vying with each other to attract more foreign direct investment, with the improvement in the investment climate and the reduction in bureaucratic and ideological hurdles. He was speaking to the media at the East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur. To this end, he cited the example of West Bengal and its progressive chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. He said that even though West Bengal is ruled by a Leftist government, the state chief minister is pulling out all stops to bring in big investment to the state. "Nobody would say...

/begin my translationWorld's Big Financial Players Flocking to India-- Market Liberalization Accelerates --On 14th of last March, American investment firm Warburg Pincus put on sale  its 6% holding of an Indian telecom company, Bharti, at Indian stock market.  Buy orders had instantly poured in and were all sold out in 26 minutes. The sale price was $560 million, the largest in Indian stock market history, and the whopping 477% earning ratio for the company.Major financial players of the world are converging to India. Global private equity fund, the Carlyle Group, and the Blackstone Group of U.S. recently opened their Indian...

Romania hits back at French 'lecturing'By George Parker in BucharestPublished: April 18 2005 21:38 | Last updated: April 18 2005 21:38 Romania's president has warned France to stop lecturing his country over its close links with London and Washington as he prepares to sign the treaty to join the European Union.  Traian Basescu (pictured) says he wants to form a "special relationship" with the US and Britain to improve security in the Black Sea region, and he also aligns himself with London's liberal economic policies.Mr Basescu's stance has infuriated France, Romania's biggest supporter in the EU, and could exacerbate...

The Great Engine of China Is Low on Fuel By KEITH BRADSHER Published: April 19, 2005 Nelson Ching for The New York TimesThe Sinopec service station nearest the Canton Trade Fair had signs on all its diesel pumps last Friday saying they were sold out of fuel, though the gasoline pumps were still flowing. UANGZHOU, China, April 15 - Service stations across China are starting to run short on diesel this spring, while electricity blackouts here in southeastern China are growing worse as power stations cut back on purchases of fuel oil.For truckers and factory owners, the diesel and electricity...

The Betrayal of Checks and Balances The philosophy of Ayn Rand has taught me and numerous other thinkers of the new intellectual Renaissance the moral groundwork for laissez-faire capitalism as the sole economic system which fully and unequivocally recognizes the individual’s objective prerequisites to survival, his natural rights of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and property. With slight loopholes, this was the implicit philosophy behind the founding of America, and the principal force in its first one hundred fifty years of development. Yet, in the words of Aristotle, "The least initial deviation from the truth gets multiplied later a thousandfold.”...

Nation Busting The trouble with globalismBy Robert Locke Globalism is a central issue of our time, but its definition has become slippery. It is confused with globalization, an error that globalists deliberately encourage. The two are fundamentally different: globalization is an historical process, a fact of how things are, but globalism is an ideology, a set of opinions about how things ought to be. Globalism is the ideology that advocates the liquidation of nations. Its opposite is nationalism. Globalization, on the other hand, is not an ideology at all. Ultimately, it is just the growth of communications and trade, and...

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge… – Hosea 4:6 The Catholic church in the U.S. has finally admitted the continuing homosexual abuse of young boys by some priests. They´ve now admitted to first calling it ‘pedophilia,´ then sending guilty priests to counseling and re-assigning them, only to have the same thing happen elsewhere. Instead of then removing that priest, they simply repeated the erroneous ‘solution ´…over and over again. For that failure of responsibility, the Catholic church is now deservedly suffering a major scandal…but it is the men who made those choices who...