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Government officials are investigating a mysterious company that has bought around 55,000 acres of dry farmland around a USAF base in California. Travis Air Force base, northeast of San Francisco, houses large transport aircraft used for refueling smaller planes and sending aid and munitions around the world. Starting in 2018, a company called Flannery Associates LLC has spent around $800million buying swathes of land around the base, leaving local, state and federal officials flummoxed as to who they are and what they want with it. An attorney representing Flannery told The Wall Street Journal the company is controlled by US...

Former Episcopal Priest Explores Christianity and Druidry in New Novel http://www.bloggernews.net/112455 December 17th, 2007 by suzanne evans On March 22nd 2005, The Rev Walter William Melnyk was forced out of the priesthood of the US Episcopal Church after facing charges of “holding private opinions inconsistent with the teachings of the Church.” This allegation, effectively a heresy charge, ended his 23 year-strong vocation as a priest, even though his only transgression was to look into Celtic Christianity and its connection with pre-Christian Druidry. Now, Walter William Melnyk has delved further into those links in a new novel written with Druid priestess...

DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. -- An Episcopal priest has renounced his ordination to lead a Druid order. W. William Melnyk, former rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Downingtown, Chester County, called his decision to become a Druid priest "a joyous occasion." Melnyk has formed the Llynhydd Grove of the Druid Order of the Yew, which he will lead under his Druid name, OakWyse.

According to IRD: You folks might like to know that I have renounced by ordination vows, and formed the Llynhydd Grove of the Druid Order of the Yew. You might want to take my forced letter of ‘recantation’ off your website.OakWyse (Bill Melnyk)Follow up: Lauren called Bill Melnyk to confirm this note was true.

Now that Father Bill and Mother Glyn Melnyk have done the right thing, it's time for the ECUSA's Office of Women's Ministries to do so as well. The fiction that the only problem with posting a Druid liturgy on the OWM Web site was a possible copyright violation isn't exactly passing muster with at least one Anglican archbishop: A fresh crisis has broken out in the Anglican Communion after the American Church published a liturgy for blessing divorce and a "women’s eucharist" promoting the worship of pagan deities. One of the Communion's leading figures, the West Indian Primate, Archbishop Drexel...

Count on the Web Elves at CaNN to go straight to the heart of the matter. They wrote to the Rev. Bill Melnyk and asked some fair and pointed questions: (1) Why were all the many personal websites connected with you and your wife removed post-haste after it was discovered that you both were rather interested in druidism? This move raises more questions than it prevents. (2) If there is nothing to hide on these websites, and all is a matter of misperception, when will these websites (including the 500+ re-named or half-dozen removed postings on the message-board at http://www.druidry.org/)...

Weblog: Episcopal Church Officially Promotes Idol Worship "Women's Eucharist" calls for worship of pagan deities specifically condemned in Scripture. Compiled by Ted Olsen | posted 10/26/2004 Imagine for one moment that you're a leader in the Episcopal Church USA. You know that within the next few days, a global commission is going to release a report on how the global Anglican Communion should respond to your church, and is likely to be critical of the ordination of an actively homosexual man as bishop. You know, and have said yourself, that the debate isn't just about sexuality: It's about how one...