Backlog: Big law firm uses fingerprint-scanning to track employees

As reported by Niamh Scallan of The Toronto Star, November 1, 2012:

The days of sneaking out for three-hour lunch breaks will soon be over at a Bay Street law firm after it decided to install fingerprint-scanning technology to monitor its employees’ whereabouts.

Last month, McCague Borlack LLP announced plans for a revamped security system that will require staff (except lawyers who spend much of their time with clients) to clock in and out of the office with a finger swipe, keeping track of morning late-comers or those who try to jump-start their weekends by slipping out early on a Friday.

“Some people were abusing the system,” said founding partner Howard Borlack, 58. “We had people taking two to three hours for lunch and we had no way of knowing. . . . Some people were complaining.”

Other Toronto firms use security passes and honour systems to keep track of time worked. McCague Borlack, which focuses mostly on insurance law and employs about 200 people, has gone a step further with a system that not only provides office access via fingerprint, but also records employees as they enter and leave.

Come mid-November, when the system is expected to go live, the office will be equipped with finger-scanning machines supplied by Utah-based Qqest, Inc. that will keep a rolling record of the time spent in the office.

It’s mostly about improved building security, said Borlack, a way to keep track of people coming in and out of the office and streamlining administrative tasks. But with concern within the firm that some people are working less than 40 hours a week, the monitoring feature is “a huge bonus.”

“I know we have people who probably work less than 35 hours a week and if I listen to all the griping about certain people, I’m sure it’s well less than that,” Borlack said.

A boon for productivity-conscious managers, the plan has drawn outrage among a group of bloggers who identify themselves as McCague Borlack secretaries.

On their “Finger Campaign” website, the group has accused the firm of singling out secretaries and copy-room staff (by exempting some lawyers from the program), and called the system an “insult to our human dignity” that has had a “very chilling effect on the secretaries’ psyche.”

“The indignant fingerprinting program does not seek to address any security concerns at all,” one post read. “It’s for the ‘mark ’em and track ’em’ purpose exclusively.”

Borlack admitted he “knew it would be uncomfortable” for some employees, but said he was careful to ensure the fingerprint technology would not violate privacy issues. He denounced the “Finger Campaign” as false, noting the new measure was intended mostly for security purposes and most staff seemed to be on board.

Rosa DeFrenza, a receptionist at the firm for five years, said she had not yet seen the “Finger Campaign” website, but said she thought the program could help to standardize work hours among her colleagues.

She added that diligent workers, herself included, had no reason to be concerned about the program. “No one should be working more than anyone else, no one should be working less than anyone else,” DeFrenza said.

But where to draw the line?

Carleton University law professor Michael MacNeil, who specializes in legal issues surrounding privacy and surveillance, said the fingerprinting system is just one example of the way workplaces are using technology to monitor and maximize productivity.

But legislation has lagged behind the trend, he said, leaving more questions than answers over what constitutes an invasion of privacy in the workplace.

“There’s a lot of it going on,” he said. “It’s an area where the law is underdeveloped.”

If a religious group used methods such as those described above, it would be considered evidence of the group's cultic character. Indeed, that comparison has already been made. Mary Otvos, a young woman who was quitting the practice of law after 10 years wrote an article titled Why I'm Leaving Law, which appeared on pages 12-17 of the February 1992 issue of Canadian Lawyer. Unfortunately, the magazine's online archives don't go back that far, and that article doesn't seem to be available online. One of the observations that Ms. Otvos made was that big law firms are like religious cults in their efforts to control their people. That article appeared 20 years before McCague Borlack began using fingerprint technology to monitor their employees' whereabouts; the use of surveillance technology has enabled the cult leaders to be even more controlling.

Backlog: Fossil of spider attacking wasp is preserved in amber

As reported by Cassie Ryan of The Epoch Times, October 9, 2012 (updated October 1, 2015):

A unique Early Cretaceous fossil found in Myanmar contains a spider poised to attack a wasp around 100 million years ago.

The orb weaver spider, the parasitic wasp, and at least 15 intact strands of spider silk, are all captured inside the Burmese piece of amber.

“This juvenile spider was going to make a meal out of a tiny parasitic wasp, but never quite got to it,” said George Poinar Jr., a professor emeritus at Oregon State University, in a press release.

“This was a male wasp that suddenly found itself trapped in a spider web.”

Interestingly, part of an adult spider is present in the fossil on the same web, which is the oldest known evidence of sociality in spiders.

Nowadays, social behavior in spiders is quite unusual with most species being solitary and even cannibalistic.

The resin engulfed the creatures in the split-second just before the juvenile spider was about to catch the wasp.

“This was the wasp’s worst nightmare, and it never ended,” said Poinar.

“The wasp was watching the spider just as it was about to be attacked, when tree resin flowed over and captured both of them.”

The research was published in Historical Biology.

Click on the link to see the abstract of the original article Predatory behaviour of the social orb-weaver spider, Geratonephila burmanica n. gen., n. sp. (Araneae: Nephilidae) with its wasp prey, Cascoscelio incassus n. gen., n. sp. (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) in Early Cretaceous Burmese amber by George Poinar and Ron Buckley in Historical Biology, Volume 24, Number 5, October 1, 2012 (pp. 519-525).

The photograph that accompanied the original print article--which, for some reason, doesn't appear in the online version--showed creatures that any modern person would recognize as a spider and a wasp. Just one question, Chief: If these creatures had evolved to such a state 100 million years ago, why haven't they evolved beyond that in the 100 million years since?

Self-driving Uber car runs down and kills pedestrian in Arizona

As Paul Harvey used to say, "If you don't have enough to worry about..." As reported by Gabrielle Olivera and Ryan Randazzo of the Arizona Republic, March 19, 2018 (links in original):

In what is believed to be the nation's first pedestrian death involving an autonomous vehicle, a 49-year-old woman was hit and killed by a self-driving Volvo operated by Uber while crossing a street in Tempe on Sunday night.

The woman was crossing Mill Avenue outside the crosswalk near the Marque Theatre at about 10 p.m. when she was hit, police said.

Sgt. Ronald Elcock, a Tempe police spokesman, said the car was on autonomous mode with a driver behind the wheel when it hit the pedestrian.

The woman, identified as Elaine Herzberg of Mesa, died at a hospital.

Uber said that its operations of self-driving cars have been "paused." The company did not dispute the police report of the vehicle operating in autonomous mode.

Uber has been carrying customers in the self-driving cars in limited parts of Tempe and Scottsdale.

"Our hearts go out to the victim’s family," Uber said. "We’re fully cooperating with local authorities as they investigate this incident."

The Phoenix area is among several sites where Uber, Waymo and other companies are testing autonomous vehicles. Nearly every accident involving autonomous cars so far has been the fault of other drivers. Sunday's fatality was the first.

In 2016, a man driving a Tesla car with partial automation was killed in Florida when he hit a truck. However, that vehicle was not intended to operate without an attentive driver, in contrast with the Uber and Waymo vehicles.

Uber and Waymo have drivers in their test cars in the Phoenix area to take control only when the cars encounter a traffic situation they can't negotiate, or if they are driving outside of areas the companies have mapped sufficiently enough to allow the cars to run on their own. Waymo has even taken operators out of the driver seat for some tests.

As of Monday afternoon, police were investigating what caused the collision and said that Uber was assisting.

Hollywood predicted this decades ago:





HT: Vox Popoli

Roman Catholic priest in Michigan embezzled $5 million in church offerings to build himself a mansion

As reported by Francis X. Donnelly of The Detroit News, March 14, 2018 (bold in original):

Williamston — The Rev. Jon Wehrle, who is proud of his prowess as a builder, constructed his masterpiece on the rural outskirts of this central Michigan town.

The two-story, stone-façade house has eight bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a library, wine cellar, indoor swimming pool and wood-paneled elevator. The 11,300-square-foot home boasts granite counter tops, limestone fireplaces, walnut hardwood floors, crystal chandeliers and stained-glass windows.

Wehrle, 67, who was pastor of St. Martha Church in Okemos, lived in the mansion, which a contractor said was worth $3 million to $4 million.

How could a Catholic priest who earned $42,000 a year afford such opulence?

Police officials argue the clergyman had stolen from the Sunday collection plate for at least 19 years. An audit found $5 million missing from church coffers, they said.

Wehrle was charged with six counts of embezzlement last year and forced to resign. His trial is scheduled for April 9 in Ingham County Circuit Court.

“It’s shocking, the whole thing,” said church member Reba Dean. “We’re all kind of upset about it.”

Wehrle declined comment. His attorneys didn’t respond to emails or phone calls.

The Catholic Diocese of Lansing may have missed several chances to stop the alleged pilfering, according to interviews, depositions, police reports, court records and trial testimony reviewed by The Detroit News.

During construction of the home in 2007, Wehrle was embroiled in a contentious lawsuit over his failure to pay one of the building contractors. The contractor, Russ Martin, told The News he had contacted the diocese back then and said Wehrle was using church money to pay for the construction.

During a 2007 deposition in the lawsuit, Wehrle said he used church checks to pay for the home. He said he switched money from his personal bank account to the church account and paid contractors from the church account, according to the deposition. He said he did so for “convenience” but didn’t elaborate.

Also, a church secretary recently told police she had been aware of Wehrle using church money for personal expenses, but it wasn’t clear whether she ever told anyone, according to investigative reports by the Michigan State Police.

“The home wasn’t a secret,” Martin said. “It was too big to be a secret. A priest building a $3 million-$4 million home is fishy.”

Diocese officials declined to discuss the matter.

As for the cleric, Wehrle, who goes by Father Jon, could be inscrutable, acquaintances said. He was a self-described curmudgeon who seemed to prefer his own company.

Between his gruff demeanor and bulky 6-foot-5 frame, he intimidated some church members, they said.

But, if you got to know him, he was quite likable, said friends. The bear of a man became a teddy bear. He was smart, kind, funny.

“He’s a decent wonderful man who built a beautiful parish for us,” said church member Patty McPhee.

Wehrle was a foster parent who adopted three boys in their early teens in 1986, 1993 and 1998, according to court records.

A drive for construction

One of the first things anyone who got close to Wehrle learned was his passion for building, friends said. He inherited it from his late dad, whom he revered.

Harold Wehrle was an electrical contractor in Adrian who was always looking for vacant lots where he could build a house, Jon Wehrle said in the 2007 deposition.

No sooner would the family move into a home than Harold would be finishing the next one, Jon said. The Wehrles moved 12 times in 15 years.

“The joke was, when the windows needed to be washed, it was time to move,” Jon said in the deposition.

As a child, he accompanied his father to work sites, drilling holes and pulling wire as they set up the house’s electrical system. an adult, he repeated his dad’s pattern of serial home building, he said in the deposition. It continued after he was ordained as a priest in 1978 and worked in three parishes in Hudson, Burton and Jackson.

By the time he arrived at St. Martha in 1988, he had built and lived in six homes.

Jon Wehrle said he would lie awake at night imagining the design of the next house. He sketched his ideas, gave them to an architect, bought a lot, hired subcontractors and oversaw their work, visiting the work site every day.

Wehrle knew his stuff, acquaintances said.

Retiree Ted Beekman, one of the founding members of St. Martha, said he was playing golf when he overheard several builders discuss the construction of St. Martha. Wehrle had apparently caught one of the contractors using substandard wiring and forced him to reinstall it.

“They said, don’t go to St. Martha and try to pull something over the priest. He knew what he was doing,” said Beekman.

Okemos building supervisor

Wehrle believed it was his acumen as a builder that got him tabbed to start a new church in Okemos, he said in the 2007 deposition. When he was pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Hudson, he supervised the renovation of its church.

In Okemos, he was involved in every phase of building the new church, from design through construction. It was built on the site of a former drive-in porn theater.

While the church was being built, the diocese allowed Wehrle to use parish money to pay the mortgage of a home he was building, the diocese told police. Once the church was done, he would sell the home and move into the rectory.

Werhle built a 6,000-square-foot home in Okemos, according to property records. He told the local paper he had built such a large house to prove to himself that he could. He said he had taken the best parts of his six earlier homes and combined them in this one.

“I don’t have to live in a house of this stature,” he said in the 1989 Lansing State Journal article.

He sold the home for $370,000 in 1990, according to property records. He sent the diocese a check for $25,000, saying it was reimbursement to the parish, according to a copy of the 1990 letter in diocese files, which was described in a state police report.

Then Bishop Ken Povish wrote back, asking Wehrle to describe all parish spending on the home to show how he had determined it was $25,000. The mortgage had been $190,000.

No other letters were in the diocese file, according to the police report.

Rural rectories

Wehrle never moved into the rectory.

Instead, after selling the 6,000-square-foot home, he bought a 3,600-square-foot home on 25 acres in Williamston, according to property records.

He said he had an agreement with Povish to continue living in private homes at church expense, but three bishops told police they weren’t aware of such a deal, according to the police report. Povish died in 2003.

One of the bishops, the Rev. Mike Murray, who was Povish’s chief of staff, flatly denied such an agreement existed. He said Wehrle was supposed to stop using church money after selling his Okemos home in 1990.

“I can say with certainty that neither I nor Bishop Povish knew of, or approved, payments from St. Martha’s Parish,” Murray said in an affidavit.

Wehrle was returning from Mass in 2000 when he spied a sale sign on an old farm house across the street from his Williamston home.

He pulled into the driveway and was instantly smitten, he said in the 2007 deposition. The 10-acre lot had a large pond that made it an ideal place to build a home.

And not just any home. Wehrle, who plays the organ, said he wanted to build a house big enough to hold three theater pipe organs he had bought from around the country. The living room had to be large enough to allow the sound from 32 sets of pipes to unfurl, he said.

He said the home needed just two bedrooms, but he built eight “to attain balance and scale,” according to his deposition.

Controlling church coffers

Wehrle had sole access to St. Martha’s finances, staffers told police. He was the only person allowed to open the mail, pay bills and handle payroll.

Members donated $1 million a year, based on weekly contributions described in church bulletins.

Christine Korpela, church secretary for 22 years, told police last year she wasn’t surprised they were looking into church finances.

She described Wehrle as a controlling micromanager who did everything by himself. Korpela said she knew he had used church checks to pay for personal expenses.

“Korpela stated there are many red flags including the fact Father Jon does everything alone,” said the police report.

Korpela declined to talk to The News.

Diocese officials told police they had little oversight over parish finances. The church was required to file a financial report every year, but the figures weren’t independently verified.

Audits were done whenever there was a change of leadership at a parish, but Wehrle was the only pastor at St. Martha during its first 29 years, according to the police report.

In fact, it was a tightening of financial controls that led to the discovery of the questionable spending at St. Martha.

When George Landolt became chief financial officer of the diocese in 2012, one the first things he did was hire an auditor to review spending by all of its parishes, he told police.

The auditor, Plante Moran, visited St. Martha the next year and recommended it hire a bookkeeper, spread financial duties among several people and use a software program that allowed the diocese to overview the spending.

But Wehrle balked at the changes over the next few years, Landolt said.

Relations between Wehrle and Landolt became so contentious Wehrle told Bishop Earl Boyea in 2015 he would deal only with Tom Pastula, a former chief financial officer who was still with the diocese.

But even with Pastula, Wehrle refused to allow anyone to see parish financial records or its general ledger, Landolt told police. At that point the diocese decided to do a full audit of St. Martha’s books.

What the audit found

The audit discovered Wehrle had written checks from St. Martha to pay for furnishings, work and materials at his home and his mother’s former home near Jackson. He also had written checks to himself and three family members, who weren’t identified.

In the number column of invoices, Wehrle attributed the spending to the rectory, parking lot, maintenance-parish and fringe benefits-parish, according to the police report.

His mansion seemed to be in a perpetual state of improvement, police said. In 2016 alone, $140,500 was spent on the home.

“It’s big and it’s beautiful,” said neighbor Marian Jurkowski. “We could never figure how a priest could afford it.”

An incomplete audit of 70 boxes of financial records seized from the church showed $4 million in expenditures stretching back to 1998, prosecutors said. Another $1 million is unaccounted for, they said.

Most of the money went for a home whose opulence begins at the entrance to the property, police said. A gate is bordered by two 15-foot stone pillars with statues of lions on them.

A stroll along the 10-acre property takes one past a four-tier fountain, three barns, a pond ringed by a stone balustrade and a Victorian-style gazebo with a cupola in a garden filled with statues, according to photos taken by police.

“(It’s) such a massive estate on a massive piece of land with massive barns and outbuildings,” said Andrew Stevens, assistant Ingham County prosecutor.

Inside the mansion, everything seems to be in duplicate: double stove, double fridge, double shower heads, two pianos, a two-floor library.

The house also has bidets, canopy beds, leather couches, hot tubs, 10 fireplaces, 12 flat-screen TVs and a doorway with 20 panels of stained glass, the photos show.

But not all the trimmings are secular. The throw pillows on one couch show the face of Jesus.

May 8, 2018 update: As reported by Francis X. Donnelly of The Detroit News, April 30, 2018 (updated May 1, 2018):

Okemos — An investigation of a Catholic priest had focused on a $3 million mansion he built in 2007, but new records show the alleged pilfering began long before then.

The purported embezzlement started shortly after the Rev. Jon Wehrle founded St. Martha Church in 1988 and continued for 26 years, according to an audit by Plante Moran. In all, the priest is accused of taking $5.4 million from the church from 1991 to 2017, the audit shows.

Wehrle was charged with six counts of embezzlement last year and forced to resign as pastor of St. Martha. He is scheduled to be tried June 11 in Ingham County Circuit Court.

Church members, already shocked by earlier accounts of the alleged chicanery, are beginning to wonder whether they knew the priest at all.

“It’s shocking. I had no idea,” said former member Kathy Flynn.

Wehrle, 67, who used to make $42,000 a year, originally was accused of embezzling to pay for his 11,300-square-foot home, which has eight bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a wine cellar, wood-paneled elevator and indoor swimming pool.

But the money also was spent on an earlier, 3,600-square-foot home on 25 acres, according to the audit, which was described in a recent lawsuit by the Catholic Diocese of Lansing’s insurance company.

Wehrle’s sons Kevin and Christopher received $48,000 for tuition, medical bills and moving costs from 1992 to 2017, according to the audit. His daughter-in-law, Sherry Wehrle, received $170,000 for housecleaning of the priest’s homes from 2010 to 2017.

Wehrle was a foster parent who adopted three boys.

He also allegedly used church money for bills, taxes, insurance and farming expenses, according to the audit.

St. Martha has been reimbursed $2.5 million so far, according to the Catholic Diocese of Lansing.

Wehrle, 67, and his attorneys didn’t respond to emails or phone calls asking for comment.

Some church members continued to stand by the priest.

Retiree Ted Beekman, one of the founding members of the church, said he wanted to wait until the trial is over before passing judgment on his friend and former pastor.

“A lot has been said, but you’re innocent until proven guilty,” Beekman said.

Princeton Excess & Surplus Lines Insurance filed a lawsuit last month seeking to prevent Wehrle from selling or transferring his Okemos home.

It also asked a judge to place the home in receivership so it could be maintained.

Wehrle, whose financial accounts have been seized by authorities, had told the Catholic Diocese of Lansing he couldn’t afford to pay taxes, insurance or for maintenance of the property, according to the lawsuit.

Farm Bureau Insurance notified Wehrle in January it wouldn’t renew his homeowners’ insurance because he was a “poor moral risk,” the lawsuit said.

An Ingham County Circuit judge appointed a receiver last month who will ensure that taxes are paid and insurance procured. Princeton Excess will pay those expenses.

Wehrle is being allowed to live in the home as he awaits trial.

As for the audit by Plante Moran, it showed Wehrle allegedly began stealing money in 1991, three years after he arrived in Okemos to start St. Martha.

While the church was being built, the diocese allowed Wehrle to use church money to pay the mortgage of a 6,000-square-foot home he was building, according to an investigation by the Michigan State Police. When the church was done, he was supposed to sell the home and move into the rectory.

But Wehrle never moved into the rectory. Instead, after selling the home in 1990, he bought the 3,600-square-foot home.

He has said he had an agreement with then-Bishop Ken Povish to continue living in private homes at church expense. But three subsequent bishops and Povish’s chief of state denied such an agreement existed, according to an investigative report by the state police. Povish died in 2003.

Wehrle was proud of his prowess as a builder, having constructed six homes before arriving in Okemos. The size of the homes grew dramatically toward the end, culminating in the $3 million mansion.

The audit accuses Wehrle of spending $3 million of church money on his homes and property, including $1.5 million on the mansion.

About $451,000 was spent on mortgage payments from 1995 to 2012, the audit showed. Another $134,000 went for landscaping expenses from 1995 to 2016.

Paraguay and Honduras are reported to be ready "in principle" to move their Israeli embassies to Jerusalem

As reported by Jewish News Service, March 12, 2018 (links in original):

Following on the heels of the United States and Guatemala, Paraguay and Honduras have announced that they are ready “in principle” to relocate their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to Israel’s Army Radio.

The countries have conditioned their moves on an official visit to their countries by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu visited Latin America in September, but did not stop in Paraguay. During Netanyahu’s trip, Paraguay’s President Horacio Cartes traveled to Buenos Aires to meet with Netanyahu.

At the recent AIPAC Policy Conference, President Jimmy Morales announced that Guatemala would move its embassy to Jerusalem “two days after the United States moves its embassy,” tentatively scheduled for May 14.

In December, following the announcement that the United States would move its embassy and officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the U.N. General Assembly voted to condemn America’s announcement.

The nine countries to vote against were Israel, the United States, Honduras, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo. Paraguay was one of 35 countries to abstain, while another 21 countries did not participate in the vote.

President Milos Zeman has also expressed his desire to move the Czech Republic’s embassy to Jerusalem.

May 8, 2018 update: As reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 8, 2018 (link in original):

JERUSALEM — Paraguay is moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from its current position near Tel Aviv.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry made the announcement in a statement issued on Monday. Reuters also verified the move with a Paraguay government spokesman.

Paraguay will be the third country to move its embassy to Jerusalem. The United States will dedicate its temporary Jerusalem embassy on May 14, followed two days later by Guatemala.

Paraguay’s president, Horacio Cartes, will come to Israel later this month, on May 21 or May 22 to open the country’s new Jerusalem embassy, Reuters reported citing a Paraguay government spokesman.

The Paraguayan embassy is currently located in the coastal city of Herzliya.

Cartes, who will leave office in mid-August when a new government takes over, announced late last month during an event in the capital Asuncion marking Israel’s 70th Independence Day that he planned to move the embassy before the end of his term. It is not known if Cartes consulted with President-elect Mario Abdo Benítez before announcing the move.

May 22, 2018 update: As reported by Tazpit Press Service, May 21, 2018:

Paraguay officially moved its embassy to Jerusalem Monday, becoming the third country to make the move in the past week, after the United States and Guatemala moved their embassies to the capital on May 14 and 16, respectively.

Thanking Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the move “a great day for Israel, a great day for Paraguay, a great day for our friendship.”

Netanyahu said Israel would “never forget” that Paraguay had helped Jews escape Nazi Germany during the second World War and that it had supported the creation of Israel and the recognition of the State of Israel in the United Nations.

Paraguay, Netanyahu added, had, under Cartes’ leadership, taken a “bold stance” in international affairs and had “refused to cooperate with the lies directed against Israel.”

“We always remember that. Thank you Horacio. Thank you, and thank you Paraguay.” Netanyahu said.

Cartes said that moving the embassy to Jerusalem “expresses the sincere friendship and brave solidarity between Paraguay and Israel.”

“From the depth of my heart, I appreciate this country that courageously defends its right to live in peace and it is building a praiseworthy economically prosperous state that ensures its future and that of its children,” the Paraguayan president said.

Later Monday, Netanyahu will host Cartes at a reception at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Ahead of the opening of the embassy, foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon tweeted “These are extraordinary times in which our beloved capital receives its due international recognition. A great time for Israeli diplomacy and many more to come.

Backlog: Plastinated fetuses for sale in China

This item is very bizarre, and I can't verify its truth, but as reported by Lu Chen and Matthew Robertson of The Epoch Times, October 16, 2013 (bold, links in original):

A screenshot from the website of the Beijing Overseas Star Science & Technology Development Co. shows a variety of plastinated fetus specimens for order.

In the annals of all strange things to emerge from China, the wares for sale — but not really for sale — on the website of the Beijing Overseas Star Science & Technology Development Co. must rank among the strangest.

That is, plastinated fetuses. Or more simply: dead unborn babies that have been pumped full of plastic, which preserves them for medical research.

They’re available for sale from between $10,000 and $12,000, according to an English-language advertisement on Alibaba.com, the equivalent of Ebay in China. The company can supply 5,000 of them per year, the ad says.

According to Chen Guoxin, the director of the company reached by telephone, the plastic babies are not actually for sale. On his own website, the price next to them is 0 yuan. This is because, he said, “it’s illegal to traffic human bodies in China.”

‘Donations’
Instead, Chen said, “We donate the fetus to medical institutes for research, and they can donate money to us in return. We can negotiate a price for compensation or support to us to avoid legal risk.”

When asked by a reporter how much would be expected as donation, he said “around $10,000.”

Multiple strands of very China-specific developments were required to make way for this possibility. These include an abundance of aborted, dead fetuses as a result of the one-child policy, and secondly, the technical ability to plastinate human specimens, brought to China in the 1990s by the German impresario Gunther von Hagens, who built a multimillion dollar empire by charging people to view his works.

Fetuses are available in sets of 5, from 12 to 20 weeks old; those who need to can also purchase an embryo set (running from 4 to 8 weeks of gestation) complete with placenta and umbilical cord.

Fetus Source
Mr. Chen was coy on the conditions of how the fetuses are obtained. He said they came from hospitals, but could not explain why so many were available, and repeatedly cautioned that no money changed hands. Buying and selling fetuses would be illegal in China, he said several times.

He said that his company works with a third party — whose name he would not disclose — that performs the plastination and works with the hospital to obtain fetuses.

Aside from Mr. Chen’s cautions, the rate of abortions and forced abortions in China is known to be extremely high, due to the Chinese Communist Party’s birth control policies, which typically restrict families to one child. The result is a documented, enormous number of abortions, forced and otherwise: an average of 7 million a year, according to official data.

Hospitals have been known to drown or strangle babies in front of their parents, and in one case that stirred public outrage in 2012, a killed fetus at seven months of development was simply placed on a hospital bed next to its distraught mother. It is likely that fetuses of this sort make their way into the ranks of the plastinated.

A Legal Question
Mr. Chen was adamant in his discussion with a reporter that the company followed all applicable laws in its processing of plastinated fetuses and other human specimens. He did not explain why they were advertised for sale on Alibaba, where that was supposed to be illegal, however.

The company lists an impressive number of registration certificates and licenses on its website, but phone calls to several of the groups referred to did not clarify matters.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ), and the China Quality Certification Centre, both of whom are listed on Beijing Overseas Star Science & Technology’s website, said that human specimens are not in their bailiwick.

GAQSIQ recommended a reporter call the Ministry of Health’s consultation hotline. A staff member there, after being apprised of the situation, was surprised and said: “A medical device company like that shouldn’t have the qualification to do research on human specimens. Of course it’s illegal.”

She added: “Doing research on human specimens needs to go through organ donation institutes via legal procedures. A medical device company has nothing to do with human specimens.”

Plastination and its Abuses
The technique of plastination has a checkered history in China. It was pioneered by Gunther von Hagens, who found that China — the city of Dalian, in particular, when it was the stomping ground of disgraced Chinese official Bo Xilai in the 1990s — was particularly accommodating to his line of work.

Von Hagens and, later, a former employee who took von Hagen’s techniques to establish his own plastination empire, were able to obtain bodies with relative ease. Von Hagen’s former partner, Sui Hongjin, is suspected of having used executed prisoners, including the bodies of killed Falun Gong practitioners, among his plastinations, given that the area in which he operated was a key center for the persecution of the practice and the suspected organ harvesting of adherents.

Chen Guoxin’s company sells adult specimens, too — not just babies. One can purchase plastinated thymuses, bisected brains, urinary tracts, and even sliced-open faces.

A whole specimen of the human body is around $30,000 to $40,000 — donated, not purchased, of course, Chen said. He assured the reporter proudly: “The quality won’t change in 1,000 years.”

New head of European Roman Catholic bishops' commission opposes European nationalism

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth...

...And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Revelation 17:1-9, 18

It comes as no surprise to this blogger that those who suspected that the European Union would be dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and would be used to serve her interests are increasingly being proven right. It's God Himself who split people into nations (see, for example, Acts 17:26), and nowhere in the Bible do you see Him bringing the world together. I can think of only three places in the Bible where the world comes together as one, and in all three instances it's the world coming together in rebellion against God: The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9); at the end of the Tribulation (Revelation 19:19); and at the end of the Millennium (Revelation 20:7-9). In all three cases, the rebellion is unsuccessful. The Roman Catholic Church has decided to put herself on the side that's opposing God--while claiming to represent Him.

As reported by Catholic News Service, March 10, 2018 (link in original):

BRUSSELS – The new head of a commission representing Europe's Catholic bishops pledged to combat populism and promote European unity.

"The European Union is a gain for the common good, and this is why the church should be in constant dialogue with it," said Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, elected president of the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community March 8.

"But certain citizens have their own preoccupations, and there's now a growing populism. Combating this needn't mean adopting populism's adages, but engaging in a true dialogue of depth and friendship, where everything can be said," he said.

Archbishop Hollerich said he was ready to work with everyone "dedicated to respecting and protecting human dignity" and believed COMECE, as the commission is known, played a vital role in placing people at the center of EU policies.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich-Freising, outgoing president of the commission, also urged church leaders to "get the forces of dialogue going," rather than thinking they had "an answer to everything."

"We need this more than ever in Europe – not to talk about each other, but with each other," Cardinal Marx told Germany's Catholic news agency, KNA, March 8.

"There are different perceptions now of what the EU is, what a free society and open democracy are – and we have to talk about this," he said.

Former Archdruidbishop of Canterbury sides with atheist leader against religious schools in Britain

Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:
That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged...
...And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Deuteronomy 6:1-2, 6-7

When the former Archbishop of Canterbury (who also happens to be an ordained Druid) sides with the leader of the secular humanists, that alone should be enough to tell you that there's something wrong with this position. The United Kingdom didn't have to worry about "social cohesion" before it adopted the suicidal policies of multiculturalism and mass immigration, particularly of Muslims. As reported by Olivia Rudgard of the London Daily Telegraph, March 5, 2018 (link in original):

Faith schools must not be allowed to admit more children on the basis of religion, leaders have warned.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph a group of 70 faith leaders, politicians and academics warned that lifting a cap which stops new faith schools admitting more than 50 per cent of children on the basis of religion would be "deleterious to social cohesion and respect".

The signatories, led by former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, warn that the policy, promised in the Conservative manifesto, "allows schools to label children at the start of their lives with certain beliefs and then divide them up on that basis".

"The Government rightly identifies the promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance for those of different religions and beliefs as one of the most important roles for schools. As we are all aware, children are blind to the differences and immune to the prejudices that so often divide society.

"The duty of the education system, therefore, should not be to highlight and entrench such differences in the eyes and minds of young people, but to emphasise instead the common values that we all share.

"Removing the 50 per cent cap on religious selection at faith-based free schools runs entirely counter to this ambition," the letter, also signed by Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party, Professor Richard Dawkins and Baroness Joan Bakewell says.

It adds that opinion polls showed that 80 per cent of the public opposed a change in policy.

The rule, introduced in 2010, requires oversubscribed, newly-established religious schools to keep at least half of their places open for applicants who are admitted without reference to their faith.

The policy, first announced in November 2016, has not yet been implemented.

Last month new Education Secretary Damien Hinds said he would follow through on the manifesto commitment to abolish the ban on schools taking more than 50 per cent of pupils on the basis of religion.

The Catholic Church has supported the removal of the cap, choosing not to establish any new schools as long as it was in place.

In the past the Catholic Education Service has argued that it goes against the church's rules to turn away Catholics as it has a duty to educate them.

This is despite significant demand for new places in the schools.

At the end of last year it encouraged parents to write to the Government asking it to lift the cap.

However, the Church of England has said that the cap does not affect its work.

Earlier this year its chief education officer Nigel Genders said: “Neither the removal nor the retention of the faith cap will impact on our existing schools or any new ones we open.”

A spokesman for the Catholic Education Service said: “Existing Catholic schools, which can allocate all places on the grounds of faith, are the most socially and ethnically diverse schools in the country. They also educate more than 300,000 non-Catholics including 27,000 Muslims.

“All credible evidence, including the Government’s own analysis, points to the fact that the 50 per cent cap hasn’t created diversity. This is because minority faith schools are only popular with their respective community. Catholic schools on the other hand are extremely popular with parents of all faiths and none.

“All the cap achieves is that it prevents Catholic parents from having the same choice of schools enjoyed by other parents.”

Former Israelite House of David member launches--and loses--lawsuit over the sect's remaining assets

As reported by Mike Martindale of the Detroit News, March 6, 2018 (bold in original):

Pontiac — An excommunicated member of a century-old west Michigan religious group is alleging a few “interlopers” have conspired to loot more than $50 million in assets from the organization.

Charles W. Ferrel, 59, who lives in Hawaii, claims in his 27-page Oakland Circuit Court lawsuit that a few members of the Benton Harbor-based Israelite House of David have diverted funds from the organization’s purpose, endangered its favored federal tax status as a nonprofit and exposed it to potential tax liabilities.

Ferrel, a former trustee and director of IHOD, said he was wrongfully excommunicated five years ago but is still faithful to the church’s doctrines and wants to prevent its destruction. Ferrel seeks reinstatement and control of assets he alleges have been diverted to at least 10 limited liability companies.

Short of that, he believes the organization’s sizeable assets should be turned over to the state of Michigan.

“It is the most bizarre lawsuit I have seen in my entire career,” said Ferrel’s attorney, David M. Black, who has been practicing law for 43 years. “The group itself is a very interesting chapter in Michigan’s history involving communal life, even an entombed leader. There was the purchase of Australian real estate, and a way station in Hawaii.

“And now persons here who have had little to do with the church are now attempting to enrich themselves with its assets.”

Ferrel names Gregory Eversole of Bridgewater and Brian Ziebart of St. Joseph as part of the alleged conspiracy.

Eversole, 66, could not be reached for comment. A social media posting described him as a retired accountant from St. Joseph who had taught college-level accounting classes.

When reached for comment, Ziebart, 55, described himself as an “employee of the House of David” but declined to elaborate. Ziebart, who on a personal website listed his work history as a “scooper” at an ice cream business, is now described as an IHOD archivist and historian.

He referred questions to his attorney, Eric Nemeth, a Novi tax attorney and resident agent for the IHOD companies.

“No one has even been served with this (lawsuit) yet but from what I know Ferrel is making some exaggerated, fabricated, inaccurate accusations and we will be vigorously defending our clients, including Eversole and Ziebart,” Nemeth said.

“It baffles me why (Ferrel) is doing this,” Nemeth said. “He signed an agreement several years ago in which he irrevocably surrendered his membership and interests. Irrevocable is irrevocable.”

Nemeth declined to detail the 2013 agreement or confidential settlement made out of court to Ferrel, whose attorney, Black, described it only as a “large check.”

Ferrel was living on the island of Maui in Hawaii, which had been envisioned as a “way station” between Benton Harbor and Australia, a country that figured prominently in IHOD’s formation and present-day finances.

Ferrel was partly responsible for managing the church’s Hawaiian center and overseeing assets in Australia between 2010 and 2013, when he, his mother and Ferrel’s male partner were excommunicated by IHOD.

How it began

To help understand complex matters with the IHOD group, it is helpful to review its colorful history. A thriving Christian communal colony, the Israelite House of David was started in southwestern Michigan in 1903 by Benjamin and Mary Purnell, two Ohio preachers who joined the “Visitation Movement.”

According to court and historical records, by 1906, the IHOD colony owned about 1,000 acres where members harvested fruit and grain. By 1916, the group numbered around 1,000 members who lived communally, shared property, practiced vegetarianism and abstained from tobacco and alcohol.

The colony had its own carpentry shop, cannery and orchestras. It created a miniature railroad, zoo, amusement park and traveling baseball team with players who sported long hair and beards.

Because of such nonreligious activities, the IHOD drew the attention of the Michigan attorney general, who in 1907 determined it was holding and using real estate in excess of its charter.

This led to the original corporation being dissolved and a new group being formed under the leadership of Brother Benjamin Purnell.

According to the Ferrel lawsuit, in 1904, Brother Benjamin had traveled to Australia to recruit IHOD members and obtain property.

An Australian colony was envisioned, where IHOD members would “ingather” as the world collapsed as predicted in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. The faithful would live on vast tracts of Australian property outside Sydney before returning to Benton Harbor and repopulating the world.

According to court records, after allegations of financial impropriety were made against Brother Benjamin, IHOD split into two factions in the 1930s — one led by Purnell, another by his wife, Mary — and property was set aside in a trust for the benefit of members.

The membership of the Australian group was largely forgotten and by the early 2000s, according to the lawsuit, only one member survived: a trustee named Joyce Jones who kept the financial affairs of the colony confidential.

Jones died in 2010 and according to the lawsuit, the Australian financial assets amounted to a fortune. The land acquired in Australia had appreciated in value over generations and accountants there had sold off the property and reinvested the proceeds.

While membership back in the U.S. had also shrunk, a few members remained in the Benton Harbor area, including Wilma Estes, who had befriended Ferrel and his mother, according to the lawsuit. Both of the Ferrels became IHOD members in 2010.

‘They are almost all gone’

Chris Siriano is the founder and owner of the House of David Museum on Main Street in St. Joseph, and has spent 30 years collecting, preserving and displaying the history of the group. The museum contains more than 10,000 photographs of residents of the commune and thousands of pieces of historical memorabilia – from musical instruments to amusement rides.

Siriano, a local historian, has written two books on IHOD and produced a documentary, “The History of the House of David, A Compelling Curiosity.”

Siriano also has taught classes on IHOD, which built more than 100 structures on church property, including a 32,000-square-foot, 102-room mansion where only one member lives today. Church members had interests in gold and diamond mines, Siriano said.

“They were a fascinating, creative, very intelligent group,” said Siriano, who has also reopened the IHOD amusement park, complete with a miniature train, which was closed for decades.

“They had a semi-pro baseball team that was the only white team to play in the Negro league. ... They had a female pitcher who struck Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig out in the same game.

“What I could never understand is with all their knowledge and vision, how they couldn’t see they were killing themselves off — I call it race suicide.”

The IHOD congregants were celibate, he explained. And in time, members died off.

“They felt that if they followed their own rules, they would live forever,” he said. “But they didn’t believe in procreating their families.”

Siriano said he has talked with several IHOD members over the past five years and local banks that received fund transfers from Australia. He speculates assets exceed $217 million.

“Sad that they (members) are almost all gone now,” he said. “There is only one member who has been here since the ’40s and he is nearly 100 years old and in very poor health.”

The last ‘true believer’?

According to the lawsuit, Eversole was part of a group that “conspired and hatched a plan” under which Eversole, who taught accounting at a local college, ingratiated himself with Estes.

An IHOD tenet called for each incoming member to transfer his worldly goods to the community.

“Mr. Eversole did no such thing,” the lawsuit alleges. “Rather, he transferred his property and business to his family to keep it from IHOD, the very antithesis of the communal community that defines IHOD.” The lawsuit said Eversole does not live communally, refrain from alcohol or practice vegetarianism.

According to the lawsuit, Estes died in May 2016 and just three members of the sect remain: Eversole, Ziebart and an elderly man who possibly suffers from dementia.

Eversole made Ziebart, “who was or is a Baptist,” a trustee and member of IHOD, according to the complaint, which alleges Ziebart does not ascribe to the tenets of IHOD nor did he contribute his worldly goods.

“It’s our theory that (Eversole and Ziebart) learned of the assets while Ferrel was in Hawaii and convinced Estes to excommunicate him and his mother,” said Black.

Nemeth, who represents Eversole and Ziebart, disputes the suit’s contention that Ziebart is an IHOD member.

The lawsuit alleges IHOD does not conduct services nor do its remaining active members live communally. Both Eversole and Ziebart have separate addresses, neither at the group’s Benton Harbor headquarters.

According to the complaint, Eversole and others have created 10 limited liability companies “presumably to conduct secular business, or in an attempt to protect assets from forfeiture.”

Black said a copy of the complaint was just sent to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for review.

“Our hope is that the AG will look into this matter as well,” said Black. “While no one has said any crimes have been committed, the state may take interest in funds that might rightfully belong to the taxpayers of Michigan.”

The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

Black said Ferrel is concerned that “he is witnessing the destruction of a religion he believes in.” Ferrel may be the only living person who is a “true believer” to IHOD tenets and the only qualified person “with the capacity to manage its assets to advance its religious purposes.”

The lawsuit, assigned to Judge Shalina Kumar, seeks an injunction against any diversion of funds. It requests that Ferrel be returned to control of IHOD assets and property, or that a receiver be appointed to liquidate the church’s assets and turn over proceeds to the state for disposal as provided by law.

The lawsuit also seeks judgment in excess of $25,000 against the IHOD LLCs, Eversole and Ziebart.

Siriano said he was not surprised by the lawsuit because he has heard rumblings for years from different people that “something needed to be done to save the House of David.”

He’s hoping his museum can at least preserve the church’s heritage.

“Maybe this is it — I think the place is a treasure,” Siriano said. “My hope would be for someone to take it over and make it a Greenfield Village-like destination. It is a large piece of the state’s history.”

See my post See my post 90 years ago: The death of Israelite House of David leader Benjamin Purnell (December 16, 2017)

September 9, 2018 update: As reported by Mike Martindale of the Detroit News, September 5, 2018:

Pontiac — A man who argues his former church is being looted by its director of more than $50 million has no legal standing to bring a lawsuit in the matter, an Oakland County Circuit judge ruled Wednesday in dismissing the complaint.

In March, Charles W. Ferrel sued the Israelite House of David, a Christian Benton Harbor-based voluntary religious association, alleging “interlopers” had taken over the century-old church and conspired to excommunicate him and his partner and evict them from a church-owned property in Hawaii.

The church’s attorney, Kenneth Neuman, described the lawsuit during the hearing as a “shakedown” and “attempted money grab.”

Ferrel and Gregory Furstenwerth, both church members for nearly four years, obtained a $2.4 million settlement, two vehicles and property from the church after they were excommunicated in 2014. Each man and their attorney, David Black, received separate $800,000 shares.

“He (Ferrel) doesn’t have (legal) standing,” said Judge Shalina Kumar, noting how Ferrel had signed a confidential settlement agreement in 2014 with a clause he relinquished his church membership and position and any future legal claims with the House of David.

Ferrel was a former trustee and director at the church who moved to Hawaii on instructions from a previous director, now deceased.

The lawsuit alleged money had been diverted from the communal colony’s original purpose, endangered its favored federal tax status as a nonprofit and exposed it to potential tax liabilities.

The lawsuit named House of David Director Gregory Eversole of Bridgewater and Brian Ziebart of St. Joseph as part of the alleged conspiracy. Ziebert, 55, is believed to have been brought into the House of David by Eversole, 66, a retired St. Joseph accountant, but he describes himself as an “employee of the House of David.”

Both Eversole and Ziebert were in court Wednesday but did not speak during or after the hearing.

Ferrel attorney David Black argued Wednesday that the original lawsuit concerned changes and circumstances in the church — now with “all the earmarks of a corporation” — which did not exist at the time of the settlement, so the clause was not applicable.

He described Eversole as a “Johnny Come Lately” who worked his way into the church and diverted money donated by members over the years to 10 limited liability companies. Black argued Everole turned the church into nothing more than a “holding company” destined to be sold off.

Black had asked Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office to look into the House of David. If his client were not reinstated to the church, Black said he hoped the state would attach all assets of the church for the taxpayers of Michigan.

Without any explanation, Schuette's office declined to get involved in the case.

The church’s members, which once numbered in the hundreds and who lived together in a communal setting, are celibate and have all nearly died off, Ferrel said. The church has allegedly stopped taking new members, holding any meetings or conducting church services.

Ferrel did not appear at Wednesday’s hearing but outside the courtroom Black expressed disappointment at Kumar’s ruling.

“We thought we had a made a good argument,” said Black, who said they have not decided whether they will appeal.

“My client and I are pleased at the ruling by Judge Kumar,” Neuman said after the hearing. “This dismisses the complaint.”

Neuman also requested Kumarto order arbitration for $10,000 in penalties and violations of the agreement he argues he and his client are due, including more than $20,000 in legal fees.

The House of David was started in southwestern Michigan in 1903. According to historical records, it owned about 1,000 acres where members harvested fruit and grain. By 1916 the church had around 1,000 members who practiced vegetarianism and abstained from tobacco and alcohol.

The group built more than 100 structures on church property, including a 102-room mansion. It also operated several commercial ventures, including an amusement park and zoo, and fielded a travelling baseball team.

The group envisioned a colony in Australia where members would gather as the world collapsed as predicted in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. After the “ingather,” the members would return to Benton Harbor and repopulate the world.

It is believed the funds, especially from Australian real estate deals, amounted to a fortune.

Jerusalem suspends plan to tax church property

As reported by Nebi Qena of Associated Press, February 27, 2018:

Jerusalem – Jerusalem’s mayor on Tuesday suspended a plan to impose taxes on properties owned by Christian churches, backing away from a move that had enraged religious leaders and led to the closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a professional team was being established to negotiate with church officials to “formulate a solution.”

“As a result, the Jerusalem Municipality is suspending the collection actions it has taken in recent weeks,” it said.

There was no immediate reaction from church leaders, and it was unclear whether the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would reopen.

Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and leaders of other Christian denominations closed the famed church on Sunday to protest an order by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to begin taxing their properties.

The church is revered as the site where Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and the decision closed one of Jerusalem’s most visited holy sites just ahead of the busy Easter season.

Barkat said his decision affected only commercial properties, such as hotels, restaurants and offices, and not houses of worship. He said other cities followed similar practices worldwide.

“As the mayor of the city of Jerusalem, my goal and role is to make sure people pay their taxes,” he said in an interview earlier Tuesday. “We have no negative or bad intentions here.”

The churches accused Barkat of acting in bad faith and undermining a longstanding status quo. They say their non-church properties still serve religious purposes by providing services to pilgrims and local flocks.

In Tuesday’s announcement, Netanyahu said Cabinet Minister Tzachi Hanegbi would head the new negotiating committee, which will include representatives from the city, and the finance, foreign and interior ministries.

“The team will negotiate with the representatives of the churches to resolve the issue,” it said.

In addition to suspending tax collection, Netanyahu’s office said that proposed legislation governing the sale of church lands in Jerusalem was also being suspended.

70 years ago: U.S. Supreme Court rules against religious instruction in public schools

On March 8, 1948, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 8-1 in McCollum v. Board of Education that public school involvement in religious instruction was unconstitutional. The case was brought by Vashti McCollum, an atheist, against the school board of Champaign, Illinois. Champaign, like some other cities, had a practice in its schools called "release time," in which class time was set aside for religious instruction--Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish. Mrs. McCollum complained that her son James was being ostracized for not attending.

The Supreme Court's ruling in McCollum v. Board of Education was one of a series of such decisions that began in the 1940s and culminated with the rulings in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) against compulsory prayer and Bible reading, respectively, in American public schools. The Supreme Court hadn't moved in that direction before, so it's curious that from the 1940s through the '60s it acted in a consistently anti-Christian direction. A Roman Catholic writer, Paul A. Fisher, perceived a definite anti-Catholic bias in the Supreme Court's actions, and attempted to find why this was. His research, which included examination of judges' diaries and papers, comprised much of the content in his book Behind the Lodge Door (1988, 1989, 1994).

Mr. Fisher discovered that Supreme Court became composed disproportionately of Unitarians and Universalists, with considerable crossover between that and membership in Scottish Rite Freemasonry. From 1941-1971, at least five of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court were Freemasons, with the number rising to 7 from 1946-1949; 8 from 1949-1956; 7 from 1956-1957; and 6 from 1957-1969. Mr. Fisher was particularly outraged by the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Everson v. Board of Education (February 10, 1947), where the Court ruled that it was a violation of the separation of church and state to have public financing of transportation of children to private religious schools.

In the case of McCollum v. Board of Education, Hugo Black wrote the majority opinion, joined by Fred Vinson, Frank Murphy, William O. Douglas, Wiley Rutledge, and Harold Burton. Felix Frankfurter wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Robert Jackson, and Justices Rutledge and Burton. Justice Jackson also wrote his own concurring opinion. Stanley Reed wrote a dissenting opinion. Justices Black, Vinson, Douglas, Rutledge, Burton, Jackson, and Reed were Freemasons. Justices Frankfurter and Murphy were not Masons, but Mr. Fisher argues that their thinking parallelled that of Freemasonry, and that the Court's rulings reflected a Masonic or unitarian/universalist point of view.

It's worth noting the groups that supported Mrs. McCollum's petition: American Unitarian Association; Synagogue Council of America; General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists; and Baptist Joint Committee of Religious Liberty. The Baptist Joint Committee of Religious Liberty might strike the reader as an odd name to be part of this, but this is an organization of liberal Baptist denominations--the kind that produced people such as Tony Campolo and Ron Sider. The presence of the Synagogue Council of America is also worth noting; the Synagogue Council of America was also involved in the Engel v. Vitale case in 1962. It might come as a shock to those who talk about America's "Judeo-Christian" values to see the extent to which Jewish organizations have been at the forefront in trying to eradicate the public influence of Christianity in the United States.

The reader may conclude--especially in light of recent events--whether the Supreme Court's rulings against religious instruction in public schools has been good for the schools or for American society.

75 years ago: U.S. Supreme Court rules against Texas ordinances restricting propagation of religious materials on the street

On March 8, 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 9-0 in the case of Jamison v. Texas that a city ordinance in Dallas prohibiting the distribution of handbills on the street violated violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because the material being distributed was religious in its nature. In the similar case of Largent v. Texas, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that a city ordinance in Paris, Texas that required a permit in order to solicit orders for books was unconstitutional as applied to the distribution of religious publications. The plaintiffs in both cases were Jehovah's Witnesses.

These two decisions in favour of religious freedom in light of subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, but that's a subject for another post.

Pastor in Texas resigns after being arrested in prostitution investigation

and be sure your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:23b

I have my criticisms of Billy Graham, but I've always been grateful for a message he delivered on the passage above when he was in Edmonton in August 1980. I hadn't read that before, but Mr. Graham's message made me aware of it, and that brief passage of scripture has both prevented sin and stopped sin in my life. If more people would heed this passage, there would be fewer occurrences such as the following, as reported by Kristin Hoppa of the Waco Tribune, March 1, 2018 (links in original):

A pastor resigned from a local church that has taken a vocal role in preventing human trafficking. The resignation came amid a prostitution investigation in December, and the pastor turned himself in to law enforcement on a prostitution charge Thursday.

Edward Ignacio Espinosa, 41, was arrested on a Class B misdemeanor prostitution charge after he paid for sexual acts at a local massage parlor last year, according to an arrest affidavit.

Espinosa was a community outreach pastor at Antioch Community Church when he told his supervisor Dec. 7 he had visited the business in October, Senior Pastor Jimmy Seibert said.

"Once he confessed his sin, he was placed on administrative leave," Seibert said. "We were doing our own investigation about the incident, and he later turned in his resignation to us."

Espinosa was a pastor at Antioch for eight years and passed multiple background checks, Seibert said. He said he is praying for mercy and compassion for Espinosa, and his family will not be turned away by the congregation.

Espinosa's charge stems from a massage parlor targeted by undercover McLennan County Sheriff's Office investigators last year. Hundreds of men engaged in prostitution at two massage parlors in Waco between September and November, prompting investigators to raid the businesses in December.

Investigators found videos of men who paid for sex acts during massages, according to arrest affidavits for the business operator, Chun Yang Zhang, 47, of Austin. She was arrested Dec. 8 on a second-degree felony charge of human trafficking and arrested again Feb. 20, accused of running a third massage business where she forced women to engage in prostitution.

"Even now, it's surreal and I am heartbroken. We love Ed and we love his family," Seibert said.

Espinosa wrote a letter to church leaders asking for forgiveness after his resignation, he said.

“Ed’s conduct was not only inappropriate but directly against our values and policy as a church and as the people of God," he said. "We continue to be committed to helping heal whatever is broken, whether on behalf of the victim or the victimizer, we believe restoration is still possible through Jesus Christ.”

Daniel Henderson, the owner of Uncle Dan's Bar-B-Que & Catering and a former McLennan County Sheriff's Office deputy Stephen Johnson were arrested Wednesday on prostitution charges stemming from the videos found at the massage parlors. Authorities said additional arrests are forthcoming, including possible sexual assault charges based on actions observed in the videos.

Women who were rescued from the human trafficking ring were assisted by UnBound, a nonprofit mission of Antioch Community Church that raises public awareness and provides services to trafficking victims. Church officials said Espinosa had no direct involvement with UnBound.

UnBound director Susan Peters said the organization and church were shaken with Espinosa's arrest. She said the women who were working at the massage parlors were victims of human trafficking and were made to provide "commercial sex" for clients.

"All these women were Asian women who did not speak English, were flown in and brought to different massage parlors, moved every few weeks, because by their statements they believe American men want different women," Peters said. "They don't have access to (immigration) papers, they live on the premises, there are cameras inside, and are watched 24 hours by live feed.

"Everything about their lives are very controlled, so they are not consenting adults who can walk away. This is a criminal activity to harbor human trafficking."

She said UnBound will continue to help law enforcement combat human trafficking crimes.

Espinosa was booked into McLennan County Jail on Thursday afternoon and released on $1,000 bond by Thursday night.

Mr. Espinosa did the correct thing by resigning, and the church seems to be dealing with the situation correctly. He's no longer qualified for a position of leadership in the church, since an overseer must be, according to I Timothy 3:2, "blameless" (KJV) or "above reproach" (NIV). However, a Christian who has fallen can be restored to fellowship and a position of service in the body of Christ; let's pray that this will happen in the case of Mr. Espinosa.

Backlog: Roman Catholic bishops in Germany punish Catholics who refuse to pay religious taxes

This is the sort of thing that can happen when there isn't a separation between church and state. As reported by Associated Press, September 24, 2012:

The road to heaven is paved with more than good intentions for Germany's 24m Catholics. If they don't pay their religious taxes, they will be denied sacraments, including weddings, baptisms and funerals.

A decree issued last week by the country's bishops cast a spotlight on the longstanding practice in Germany and a handful of other European countries in which governments tax registered believers and then hand over the money to the religious institutions.

In Germany, the surcharge for Catholics, Protestants and Jews is up to 9pc on their income tax bills - or about €56 (£45) a month for a single person earning a pre-tax monthly salary of about €3,500, AP reported.

For religious institutions, struggling to maintain their congregations in a secular society where the Protestant Reformation began 500 years ago, the tax revenues are vital.

The Catholic Church in Germany receives about €5bn annually from the surcharge. For Protestants, the total is just above €4bn. Donations, in turn, represent a far smaller share of the churches' income than in the US.

With rising prices and economic uncertainty, however, more and more Catholics and Protestants are opting to save their money and declare to tax authorities they are no longer church members, even if they still consider themselves believers.

"I quit the church already in 2007," Manfred Gonschor, a Munich-based IT-consultant, said. "It was when I got a bonus payment and realized that I could have paid myself a nice holiday alone on the amount of church tax that I was paying on it."

Gonschor added he was also "really fed up with the institution and its failures".

Such defections have hit the Catholic Church especially hard — it has lost about 181,000 tax-paying members in 2010 and 126,000 a year later, according to official figures. Protestants, who number about 24m nationwide, lost 145,000 registered members in Germany in 2010, the most recent year from which figures are available.

But the figures include some people who still want to baptize their children, take communion on major religious holidays, marry in a religious ceremony and receive Christian burials.

The group We are Church, which claims to represent tens of thousands of grassroots Catholics, said many Germans stop paying the tax because they disagree with the church's policies or simply want to save money - not because they have lost their faith.

"I haven't quit because I still think that I might want to get married in a church one day, even though I know that's absurd," said Anna Ainsley, a 31-old-year banker and a Protestant from Frankfurt. "But when I see my tax declaration, then I think every year that I should finally quit."

Those are the people who Germany's Catholic bishops had in mind when they decreed on September 20 that stopping the payment of religious taxes was "a serious lapse" and those who did so would then be excluded from a range of church activities.

"This decree makes clear that one cannot partly leave the Church," the bishops said in a statement. "It is not possible to separate the spiritual community of the Church from the institutional Church."

Wavering Catholics will now be sent letters reminding them of the consequences of avoiding the church tax, including losing access to all sacraments.

"Maybe you haven't considered the consequences of your decision and would like to reverse this step," a draft of the letter states.

Protestants have taken a less stern position, saying non-taxpayers are still welcome to attend services and take communion. But becoming a godparent, getting married in a church or taking a job in church-affiliated institutions such as hospitals or kindergartens are off-limits to those who stop paying their taxes.

Switzerland and Austria also tax Catholic and Protestant church members. In Denmark, the State Lutheran church collects a tax from its members. Members of Sweden's Lutheran Church pay around 1pc of their income, collected by the national tax authorities, just as in Finland.

In Italy, taxpayers have the choice of diverting a small part of their income taxes to religious institutions, including the Catholic Church and the country's Jewish community, but the contribution is voluntary.

So far German courts have stood by the bishops' decision. This week the country's top administrative court threw out a lawsuit against the archdiocese of Freiburg by retired theologian Hartmut Zapp, who has spent years fighting the Catholic church over the tax.

Zapp argued that a Catholic should be free to stop paying but remain a member of the spiritual community and that his religious beliefs could not possibly be tied to a tax payment.

The archdiocese responded in a statement that "those who lack solidarity bid farewell to the community of believers".

The tax issue presents moral and ethical dilemmas to millions of German believers, even dividing couples.

Sonja Trott, a 34-year-old teacher from Munich, said she quit the Catholic Church 15 years ago because she no longer believed in its teachings.

"Now I'd like to convince my husband that he also should quit, that would save us a lot of money," she said.

But her husband Christoph, a sales executive, says he cannot imagine refusing to pay on moral grounds because it would seem like a betrayal of his faith. "I don't like paying it, but I do because I fear the step of quitting the church."

He would prefer to donate part of the money to charities "but in Germany the payment determines whether I'm allowed to consider myself a Catholic or not".

For other Germans, it's unethical to stop paying the tax but continue to use the church when it suits them.

Christine Solf, a Munich-based consultant, says she doesn't attend services regularly but appreciates the church's charitable work. For her, church membership is also a family tradition.

"I know people who quit for financial reasons but then still want their children to be baptized. That's not OK in my opinion," she said.

As reported by Tom Heneghan of Reuters, September 26, 2012:

PARIS - Germany’s top administrative court agreed with Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday that German believers who refuse to pay a special church tax could be shut out of Catholic worship.

The verdict, based on German corporate law, upheld the system by which the state collects religious taxes from registered Catholics, Protestants and Jews with their monthly returns and distributes them to the religious communities.

Reformist Catholics have decried the tax, introduced in the 19th century to compensate for confiscated church properties, as a “pay to pray” system. Conservative critics have asked why tax opt-outs are shut out but dissenting theologians are not.

“Whoever wants to officially leave a religious community that is registered as a statutory corporation cannot limit this withdrawal to the statutory corporation and remain a member of the faith community,” said the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, the top appeals court in such issues.

The Church hailed the verdict as confirmation of its tax rule, which the bishops reconfirmed last week with a decree saying members who opted out of the tax could not receive sacraments, work in the Church or have a religious burial.

“The Church is a community of faith that exists in Germany in the form of a statutory corporation - they cannot be separated,” Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the bishops’ conference, said after the verdict was announced.

The legal challenge to the tax began in 2007 when a retired professor of canon law told his local tax authority that he wanted to quit the institutional Catholic Church and stop paying its tax, but continue to practice the religion.

If the Leipzig court had ruled against the Church, it could have prompted a wave of departures from the religions that charge the tax, which amounts to 8 or 9 percent of earnings.

Church taxes brought in about 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion) for the Roman Catholic Church and 4.3 billion euros for the Protestant churches in 2010, according to official statistics.

Those funds have helped both churches to run large networks of schools, hospitals and charitable works in Germany and contribute to churches abroad, but an exodus of members has lowered total revenues in recent years.

The annual total of Catholic church leavers, usually around 120,000, jumped to 181,193 two years ago as news of decades of sexual abuse of children by priests shamed the hierarchy and prompted an apology from the German-born Pope Benedict.

Zollitsch defended the tax decree during a meeting of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Fulda this week.

“Our concern is to show that whoever wants to belong to the Church must contribute to what the Church needs to do its work,” he said on Tuesday. “There must be consequences.”

German media have dubbed the new tax decree “excommunication lite” because it bars those who refuse to pay from almost all church activities - including becoming godparents or joining a church-run club - without saying they have been excommunicated.

The Catholic reform movement We Are Church said the tax decree was questionable under Church law because it had not been approved by the proper Vatican department.

“The bishops still have to explain theologically and legally what status these sanctions have,” it said in a statement.

Canada's Rebel Media produces documentary film about the persecution of Iraq's Christians

My friend Ezra Levant is the "commander" of The Rebel Media, which is the only real opposition, media or otherwise, that seems to exist in Trudeaupia Canada. According to this announcement from Mr. Levant, circa February 28, 2018 (links in original):

I’m so excited to announce that it’s finally time to show you our documentary called Save the Christians!

Last July, me and a team travelled to northern Iraq to tell the stories of what’s happening to Christians in Iraq.

They’re the oldest Christian community in the world, but they were driven out of their homes by the Islamic State.

I want to invite you to our premiere of our documentary, Save The Christians, in Toronto on March 8. Will you come?

We will show you the real stories of Christians in Iraq. Like the newly married couple who are expecting their first child. They escaped together but they’re still living in an internally displaced persons camp. We heard from so many Iraqi Christians with similar stories. We saw churches and homes that were torched and destroyed.

Have you heard about the plight of Christians in Iraq from other media? I bet you haven’t.

Tickets for the premiere screening are $29.95 plus tax and a special rate for students of $14.95 plus tax.

Plus we are having a special reception after the screening where you can chat with me and the filmmakers. Those VIP tickets are $74.95 plus tax.

All the information is at SaveTheChristians.com.

This is an important story to share. I hope you can make it!

As reported by Susan Korah in The Epoch Times, January 18, 2018 (bold in original):

They survived a slow-motion genocide during the twilight of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, then outbursts of brutality by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Iran’s Khomeinists.

In 2014, when ISIS extremists invaded their ancestral homeland, the Plains of Niveveh in Northern Iraq, and went on a murderous rampage, it was the last straw for these Assyrians (not to be confused with Syrians, and also known by other names such as Chaldeans and Syriacs). They were forced to stare the darkest forces of inhumanity in the eye and to suffer agonies of imprisonment, torment, and torture.

They witnessed their loved ones being massacred, their churches desecrated, and their ancient monuments destroyed.

Descendants of a warrior race of ancient Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers (currently the Middle East), these native speakers of Aramaic—the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke—once controlled a series of mighty empires. Later, they were among the first people in the world to convert to Christianity.

Today, their very survival hangs in the balance, while the world in general is unaware of their plight. Attacked by fellow refugees in U.N. refugee camps because of their religion, they are often forced to seek shelter in churches and private homes. Returning to their home countries is not an option for most because of the fragile security situation there.

Christians in the Middle East now comprise just 3–4 percent of the population, down from 20 percent a century ago, with much of that reduction occurring in the last 15 years.

After the fall of Mosul

On that fateful day in June 2014 when Mosul fell to ISIS, an estimated 500,000 civilians fled the city in a terrified exodus, among them 200,000 Christians and 200,000 Yazidis, another minority religious group targeted by ISIS.

This was a turning point for several people. One was Nuri Seyhan Kino, 53, a journalist and filmmaker from Sodertalje, Sweden. A descendant of genocide survivors himself, Kino and his family had been fortunate to escape to Europe and to rebuild their lives when Turkish-Cypriot turbulence shook their hometown of Midyat, Turkey, in the 1970s.

Kino had foreseen this latest catastrophe that would befall his people and had warned the international community through his writing and documentary films. But few in power took heed, and almost none came to the aid of his people facing an ongoing crisis.

“Struggle has always been part of my life,” he says, as he narrates his family story of persecution and survival.

In June 2014, determined not to let his people go down the black hole of history without at least one more do-or-die battle, Kino mobilized a team of 25 volunteers from around the world. They simultaneously launched a massive social media campaign, sending over 15,000 emails alerting the international community to the pending tragedy, and coordinated protests around the world.

“I remember that day,” says Helma Adde, a Chicago-born Assyrian-American schoolteacher, one of the volunteers Kino recruited. “We staged a protest in front of the U.N. headquarters.”

Adde said the initiative forever changed her quiet, family-focused life. She became an activist, and eventually the protagonist of a documentary called “Our Last Stand,” a moving portrayal of the plight of her people in Iraq and Syria

The initiative was the genesis of A Demand for Action (ADFA), now incorporated as an NGO in Sweden, with representatives in cities with significant Middle Eastern Christian populations, such as Washington, Toronto, Melbourne, and Berlin. Its mandate is to protect all Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs as well as other Middle Eastern minorities.

Composed entirely of volunteers and funded by Middle Eastern Christians of all denominations in the worldwide diaspora, ADFA has taken on a variety of projects in support of all minorities from the Middle East regardless of their faith and ethnicity. The projects range from lobbying governments and speaking to international media, to bringing medical relief to refugee camps.

ADFA’s impact

Has this grassroots initiative, with scarce funds and few resources, changed anything for the better?

“It’s difficult to measure the [legislative] impact we’ve had,” Kino says, but he cites a few examples that highlight the credibility ADFA has achieved in the forums of power. He has been invited to address the United Nations as well as the United States and British parliaments, where he pleaded the cause of people largely ignored—even by human rights-defending governments.

When Knox Thames, special adviser for religious freedom at the U.S. State Department recently visited Sweden, ADFA was one of the only two organizations he met with. At the meeting, they discussed the recent U.S. State Department decision to send aid directly to Christian refugees without intermediaries.

Results of the other aspect of ADFA’s work—bringing supplies (such as sleeping bags) and medical relief to refugee camps—are more visible.

Kino is perpetually on high alert. If there is trouble in a refugee camp or injustice done to asylum seekers in any country, he is instantly on the case—informing the world through his journalism and deploying his troop of volunteers to bring immediate relief to the victims, regardless of whether they are from Christian, Yazidi, or other Middle Eastern minority backgrounds.

“Nobody sleeps until the job is done,” he says.

Something seems to have happened within the last 15 years to increase the persecution of Iraq's Christian population, who were largely left alone under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Oh, yes, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, under the command of President George W. Bush, an alleged Christian. Mr. Bush and his leadership in this unnecessary and disastrous war, which led to the persecution of Iraqi Christians, was disproportionately supported by American "Christians," especially those of the dominionist variety, who equate American military adventures with advancing the Kingdom of God. See for example, Jim Rutz's column The Real Reason We're in Iraq, in WorldNet Daily, January 10, 2006.