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Pope Francis describes 'ideological Christians' as a 'serious illness' within the Church

Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
Tue, 22 Oct 2013 16:25 UTC
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Speaking at daily Mass last Thursday, Pope Francis warned Christians against turning their faith into a rigid ideology.

"The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology," he said, according to Radio Vatican. "And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.

"And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought... For this reason Jesus said to them: 'You have taken away the key of knowledge.' The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements."
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Bomb

Japan's depopulation time bomb


Japan Times
Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:09 UTC
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The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research on March 27 announced a population estimate for Japan in 2040. As expected, what emerges out of this is a nation with an unprecedented rapidly aging and declining population. The implications of the estimate must be taken very seriously and preparations made to ameliorate the impact of this situation.

The estimate shows population trends in 2040 for each municipality. It is imperative that both the central and local governments design a sustainable social security system in time as well as to consider ways to secure a sufficient number of workers to prevent a decline in industrial capability. Local governments also need to work out measures aimed at maintaining and stabilizing people's lives in local communities by foreseeing what will happen to their industries, social services, transportation and so on.

The estimate shows that Japan's population in 2040 will stand at 107.276 million, a decline of about 20 million from 2010′s 128.057 million. A January 2012 estimate by the same institute had shown that in 2060, Japan's population will number 86.737 million, about 30 percent less from the 2010 level.
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Megaphone

Victims to get louder voice in legal system, Justice Minister says

Sean Fine
The Globe and Mail
Mon, 21 Oct 2013 15:57 UTC
Image
© Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
A new victims’ bill of rights put ‘victims in a better place, their more rightful place, which is at the heart of the system,’ Justice Minister Peter MacKay says.
The Conservative government is seeking to give victims of crime a more active role in the legal process.

A bill will be put forward this fall that extends victim involvement "from the time of the offence to the final disposition of the sentence," Justice Minister Peter MacKay said in an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail. A new victims' bill of rights would attempt to include them "at all levels and at all points in the process."

It would put "victims in a better place, their more rightful place, which is at the heart of the system," he said. "They're not just another Crown witness. They want a more effective voice."

In June, Canada's Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Sue O'Sullivan, suggested giving victims the right to a speaking role in the plea-bargaining process - a system already in place in Arizona. Mr. MacKay would not say whether this would be part of his bill. What he did say was that it would have substantive and wide-ranging meaning for victims.
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Red Flag

Alberta train derailment renews fears over moving oil by rail

Carrie Tait and Kim Mackrael
The Globe and Mail
Sun, 20 Oct 2013 15:44 UTC
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© Dan Riedlhuber/Reuters
Investigators survey the site of a train derailment near Gainford, Alta., west of Edmonton, on Oct. 20, 2013. About 100 people were forced to evacuate their homes after the derailment, which resulted in two explosions.
Nine blackened tankers are scattered around the site. Part of the rail is mangled, warped, and burned black.

A train carrying propane and crude that crashed in the hamlet of Gainford, Alta., early Saturday morning is once again raising questions about the safety of moving oil by rail in Canada, particularly in the wake of July's fatal rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Que. No one was hurt in Gainford, but it was Canadian National Railway Co.'s third notable derailment in the past month involving hazardous materials, and it caused explosions and fire on both sides of a four-line highway.

Alberta's oil industry is a key reason rail has become a popular shipping method. As oil-sands production climbs, the amount of available space on North America's pipeline network declines. The province's energy industry could stall if shipping by rail came off the table.

"The system is safe," Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said in an interview Saturday. "Although we will see derailments, we've never seen an accident or an incident like Lac-Mégantic, that's for sure. But the system is safe.
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Vader

Dominican court ruling renders hundreds of thousands stateless

Ricardo Rojas
Reuters
Sat, 12 Oct 2013 15:24 UTC
Image
© REUTERS/Ricardo Rojas
Sentilia Igsema (2nd R, seated), born in 1930 in the Dominican Republic to Haitian immigrants, poses with four generations of her family outside their home in Batey La Higuera, in the eastern Seibo province, October 7, 2013.
For four generations Banesa Blemi's family, descendants of Haitian immigrants, put down roots as low-wage sugar cane cutters in their adopted homeland, and came to consider themselves Dominicans.

Then, last month the country's Constitutional Court issued a decision effectively denationalizing Blemi and her family, along with an estimated 250,000 fellow immigrants born after 1929.

"I have no country. What will become of me?" said Blemi, 27, standing with relatives outside the family's wooden shack near La Romana, the heart of the Dominican Republic's sugar cane industry and one of the Caribbean's top tourist resorts.

"We are Dominicans - we have never been to Haiti. We were born and raised here. We don't even speak Creole," she said, referring to Haiti's native tongue.
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Nuke

Fukushima plant area had collapse and subsidence due to the last Typhoon, no press release

Mochizuki
Fukushima Diary
Mon, 21 Oct 2013 13:22 UTC
Fukushima nuclear plant
© REUTERS/ Air Photo Service
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
Two Fukushima workers commented on Twitter that the previous Typhoon "WIPHA" caused a slope in Fukushima plant area to collapse.

The slope faces the main street, and the earth and sand blockaded the street. Also, there was a part to have had a subsidence.

Those workers are surprised because there was no press release from Tepco about this.

The worker added there are more slopes in the area and they may collapse due to the next Typhoon that may hit eastern Japan this weekend.

(cf, Next typhoon to hit eastern Japan this weekend / "Very strong" again [URL 2])
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Eye 2

Nearly 100 snakes seized from Ohio home

Timothy Weisberg
nbcwashington.com
Wed, 16 Oct 2013 12:54 UTC
Owner found breeding and selling snakes out of home
Image
© Josh Keppe
The owner was bitten by a rattlesnake, which led police to his home and the discovery of nearly 100 snakes.

It was snakes galore at an Ohio home. Inside cages, others slithering across the floor, police found nearly 100 snakes that were eventually confiscated and taken to an Ohio sanctuary.

The snakes were seized after police say the home owner, Joseph McCollum, was bitten by a rattlesnake and had not seeked proper treatment, NBC affiliate WXLY reported.That's when police found the snakes and a 12-year-old boy living in the home.

Four of the snakes - a western diamondback, a cobra, an asian cobra and copperhead - were venomous and taken to a reptile zoo in Kentucky, WXLY reported.

"It concerns me there were venomous snakes in a home [in the] same building another family was in, they were not aware of the situation," Reptile Zoo employee Kristen Wiley told WXLY.

McCollom was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and operating a business from his home.

Comment: See also.Snakes alive! Countless reports of snakes turning up in weird places

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Arrow Down

Undercover video shows 'shocking' cruelty at Alberta chicken farm

Brett Wilkins
Digital Journal
Mon, 21 Oct 2013 17:23 UTC

A leading Canadian animal rights group has released secretly-shot video footage of cruelty and abuse of chickens at two Alberta farms.

Canadian Press reports Mercy For Animals Canada recorded the undercover video footage at Creekside Grove Farms in Spruce Grove and Ku-Ku Farms near Edmonton. The video, which was aired on CTV's W5 program last week, shows hens cruelly crowded into battery cages, where they spend their entire lives, as well as chicks having their heads smashed before being thrown into garbage bags to suffocate to death, often while still conscious. The footage also shows dead hens rotting in cages and chicks covered in feces.

The battery cages shown in the video are considered so inhumane that they have been banned in the entire European Union, New Zealand and the US states of California and Michigan, Mercy For Animals Canada said.
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Question

Atlanta man's body found in California missing organs

George Franco
MyFoxAtlanta
Tue, 22 Oct 2013 02:59 UTC
Victim
© MyFoxAtlanta
Mableton, Georgia - A potential and unusual murder mystery two thousand miles away has left an Atlanta family with a lot of heart-breaking questions.

A Mableton mother is searching for answers about her son's death, including why internal organs were missing from his body.

24-year-old Ryan Singleton left metro Atlanta in early July to chase his dream of becoming an actor or model in Hollywood.

Instead of dreams coming true, his mother is now living a nightmare, wondering about her son whose body turned up near one of the most inhospitable places on earth in Death Valley, California.

Iris Flowers told FOX 5'S George Franco, "He (her son) went to Las Vegas during a weekend visit and got missing in Baker, California on the way back."

Ms. Flowers learned joggers discovered Singletons' body on September 21st in the desert near Baker, California, between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

She says she'll never forget the call from police.

Ms. Flowers said. "There were no organs. He said ma'am, there were no eyes, there was no heart, there was no lungs, there was no liver, there were no kidneys."
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Airplane

Laser pointer attacks on airplane pilots have jumped 1100% since 2005

Roberto A. Ferdman
Quartz
Mon, 21 Oct 2013 01:49 UTC
Cockpit
© Reuters/Guillermo Granja
Bright lights can blind pilots and jeopardize otherwise routine landings.
As if airplane pilots didn't already have enough to worry about, they're now facing record levels of attacks from laser pointers while landing their planes.

The FBI's terrorism unit is investigating two incidents last week at New York City's LaGuardia airport in which airplane pilots were temporarily blinded by green lights shone from several miles away. They are thought to have come from small, handheld laser pointers, such as the battery-powered ones often used in classrooms. Laser lights that hit at a particular angle can illuminate the whole cockpit with a bright green or red light, and blind the pilots as they're trying to land.

Things are so bad that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) even has a webpage about the problem, explaining how pilots can mitigate its effects, and laying out its potential costs. The lasers have never caused a crash, but they can disorient pilots at crucial moments. "It can blur the vision basically, it can fog the vision of the cockpit when you're looking out the glass so it's much harder to look out the glass and identify locations where you're going," FBI special agent Rich Frankel told CBS.
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