When the envoy Richard Holbrooke arrives here Monday looking for ways to stop a runaway Islamist insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan, he will find a pro-American but weak civilian government, and a powerful army unaccustomed and averse to fighting a domestic enemy.

In a nuclear-armed nation regarded as an ally of the United States and considered pivotal by the Obama administration to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan, Holbrooke will face a surge of anti-American sentiment on clear display by private citizens, public officials and increasingly potent television talk shows.

Some remedies offered by his hosts are likely to be unappealing. On almost every front, Pakistani leaders are calling for less American involvement, or at least the appearance of it.

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The landing had to be perfect in several ways, he said.

“I needed to touch down with the wings exactly level,” he said. “I needed to touch down with the nose slightly up. I needed to touch down at a ”” at a descent rate that was survivable. And I needed to touch down just above our minimum flying speed, but not below it. And I needed to make all these things happen simultaneously.”

After the plane splashed down, he turned to his first officer. “We said, ”˜Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought,’ ” he said.

The plane was evacuated and Captain Sullenberger, “after bugging people for hours,” said he finally learned that all 155 people on board had survived.

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Our admiration for Obama is grounded in what he represents: fairness. He is the product of a just, democratic system that respects equal opportunity for education and work. This system allowed a black man, after centuries of racial discrimination, to become president. This fairness is precisely what we are missing in Egypt.

That is why the image of Obama meeting with his predecessors in the White House was so touching. Here in Egypt, we don’t have previous or future presidents, only the present head of state who seized power through sham elections and keeps it by force, and who will probably remain in power until the end of his days.

Accordingly, Egypt lacks a fair system that bases advancement on qualifications. Young people often get good jobs because they have connections. Ministers are not elected, but appointed by the president. Not surprisingly, this inequitable system often leads young people to frustration or religious extremism. Others flee the country at any cost, hoping to find justice elsewhere.

We saw Obama as a symbol of this justice. We welcomed him with almost total enthusiasm until he underwent his first real test: Gaza.

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About 400 delegates and overflow visitors who filled the 116-year-old Trinity Church and its parish hall on Fort Worth’s south side for a February 7 special organizing convention celebrated being “called to life” anew and getting back to the business of being the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

About 19 clergy and 62 lay delegates representing 31 congregations unanimously elected the Rt. Rev. Edwin “Ted” Gulick, bishop of Kentucky, as provisional bishop by a voice vote in clergy and lay orders. Gulick, who will serve as provisional bishop until at least mid-year while continuing to serve the Diocese of Kentucky, received a standing ovation and sustained applause.

“I cannot tell you how moved I am by your trust and how awed I am by this responsibility,” Gulick told the gathering. He offered thanks to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, as well as to the people of the Diocese of Kentucky.

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In a hearing Monday, Feb. 2, the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth took action under diocesan Canon 32 to release the property and assets of four parishes from the Corporation of the diocese. The rectors and elected wardens of the four parishes were notified of the hearing and invited to attend. The property of Trinity Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, Southlake, has been transferred into the name of the Rectors and Wardens of those parishes, respectively. The property of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Stephenville, will be transferred upon removal of financial encumberances in the form of building loans currently in the name of the Corporation.

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Almost thirty years ago I spent a memorable night at the Oxford Playhouse. The stage was bare except for a table and chair. As the performance began, Alec McCowen walked on and placed a copy of the King James’ Bible on the table, in case, he remarked with self-deprecating humour, he forgot his lines. And then he began to recite the Gospel according to St Mark. It was spellbinding. We may be familiar with much of the text, but probably from hearing passages read out in church, as they will often be this year; but to hear the text whole was another experience altogether.

More recently I read the text straight through again in a single sitting. It took me about two hours. Once more the experience was riveting. I would encourage anyone, whether Christian or not, to do the same. The text as a whole has a power we may miss when pondering just particular passages or sections.

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Israel’s chief Rabbinate is resuming dialogue with the Vatican after freezing ties over a Holocaust-denying bishop and the pope will meet major Jewish groups to try to make amends, a Church source said on Saturday.

The Rabbinate pulled out of a meeting with Vatican officials scheduled for March 1-4 in the midst of an international outcry over the Pope Benedict’s lifting of the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops, including Richard Williamson, who denies the full extent of the Holocaust.

The meeting will now take place in late February or mid-March and will most likely include a papal audience.

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DE SAM LAZARO: Despite the extremes of argument, many people of faith who are also scientists insist that evolution and religious belief need not conflict. For instance, they say God can work through evolution.

Prof. [LOREN] HAARSMA: I think Christians are very ”” even Christians who oppose the theory of evolution ”” are comfortable saying God works through natural, scientifically understandable processes. If the majority of Christians could come to the place where they say, “I might or might not believe in evolution, but it’s OK for Christians to believe in evolution,” that would take some of the weight off. On the other side, it would be very helpful if science educators could find better ways to discuss how different religious views might view evolution.

Dr. [FRANCIS] COLLINS: If God, who is outside space and time, chose to create a universe and populate it with creatures in his image with whom he could have fellowship, who are we to say that the process that we as scientists have uncovered ”” the Big Bang, the formation of stars and planets and the mechanism of evolution to create life and ultimately human life ”” is not the way we would have done it? I find that enormously satisfying. Nothing that I know as a scientist is in contradiction to that. Nothing that I know as a believer is in contradiction to that.

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[Robert] Duncan made no mention of the primates’ call for mediated talks in his official statement responding to the February 5 communiqué issued after the leaders or primates of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces ended their five day meeting in Alexandria, Egypt. Instead, in that statement, he portrayed the members of the proposed new “Anglican Church in North America” as people “who are attempting to remain faithful amidst vast pressures to acquiesce to beliefs and practices far outside of the Christian and Anglican mainstream.”

[Bonnie] Anderson told ENS that “the primates spoke in a new voice in their communiqué.” Anderson, who plans to issue a full statement next week, went on to say that “while I didn’t agree with everything they said, I appreciated their emphasis on relationships and their commitment to mission. The Windsor Continuation Group is another matter. They seem firmly anchored in the past, yearning for a centralized authority that can solve all of our problems. This is troubling, because centralization disenfranchises the laity, and diminishes the importance of the witness of the local church.”

In their communiqué, the primates called for the development of a “pastoral council” and Williams’ ability to appoint of “pastoral visitors” to assist in healing and reconciliation given the current “situation of tension” in the Anglican Communion. They also encouraged all parties in the current controversies to maintain “gracious restraint” with respect to actions that could exacerbate the tensions, such as same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.

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The Primates gave considerable attention to the report of the Windsor Continuation Group. It addressed the strained relationships within the Communion over matters of sexuality and unity, and provides recommendations for ways forward in deepening and in some cases restoring Communion. A very significant recommendation, which the Primates whole-heartedly affirmed, is to examine the Instruments of Communion, their respective roles and the manner in which they relate to one another.

The moratoria on the selection of Bishops in same-gender unions, rites of blessings for same-sex unions and cross-border interventions were much discussed. The Primate’s letter acknowledges that deep differences over these matters are held with great conviction. There was a continuing call for gracious restraint on all three fronts.

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A: Basically what happens is that after a period of time, economies go through a long-term debt cycle — a dynamic that is self-reinforcing, in which people finance their spending by borrowing and debts rise relative to incomes and, more accurately, debt-service payments rise relative to incomes. At cycle peaks, assets are bought on leverage at high-enough prices that the cash flows they produce aren’t adequate to service the debt. The incomes aren’t adequate to service the debt. Then begins the reversal process, and that becomes self-reinforcing, too. In the simplest sense, the country reaches the point when it needs a debt restructuring. General Motors is a metaphor for the United States.

Q: As goes GM, so goes the nation?
A: The process of bankruptcy or restructuring is necessary to its viability. One way or another, General Motors has to be restructured so that it is a self-sustaining, economically viable entity that people want to lend to again.

This has happened in Latin America regularly. Emerging countries default, and then restructure. It is an essential process to get them economically healthy.

We will go through a giant debt-restructuring, because we either have to bring debt-service payments down so they are low relative to incomes — the cash flows that are being produced to service them — or we are going to have to raise incomes by printing a lot of money.

It isn’t complicated. It is the same as all bankruptcies, but when it happens pervasively to a country, and the country has a lot of foreign debt denominated in its own currency, it is preferable to print money and devalue.

Q: Isn’t the process of restructuring under way in households and at corporations?

A: They are cutting costs to service the debt. But they haven’t yet done much restructuring. Last year, 2008, was the year of price declines; 2009 and 2010 will be the years of bankruptcies and restructurings. Loans will be written down and assets will be sold. It will be a very difficult time. It is going to surprise a lot of people because many people figure it is bad but still expect, as in all past post-World War II periods, we will come out of it OK. A lot of difficult questions will be asked of policy makers. The government decision-making mechanism is going to be tested, because different people will have different points of view about what should be done.

—Ray Dalio, Chief Investment Officer, Bridgewater Associates in this weekend’s Barrons (full content limited to subscribers)

Desperation has moved into this once-middle-class exurb of Fort Myers, where hammers used to pound.

Its straight-ahead stare was hidden amid the chatter of 221 families waiting for free bread at Faith Lutheran Church on a recent Friday morning, and it had appeared a block away a few days earlier, as laid-off construction workers in flannel shirts scavenged through trash bags at a home foreclosure, grabbing wires, CDs, anything that could be sold.

“I knew it was coming,” said Gloria Chilson, 56, the former owner of the house, as she watched strangers pick through her belongings. “You take what you can; you try not to care.”

Welcome to the American dream in high reverse. Lehigh Acres is one of countless sprawling exurbs that the housing boom drastically reshaped, and now, the bust is testing whether the experience of shared struggle will pull people together or tear them apart.

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The “massive overhaul” of the banking bailout will be announced a day later than expected.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was originally scheduled to give full details about the changes to the rescue plan in a speech midday Monday. But the Treasury Department said Sunday that the plan will be announced Tuesday instead, in order for Geithner to focus on the stimulus bill that is being debated in the Senate.

“With record high job losses, and weakening economic forecasts, we’re focused on working with Congress to pass an economic recovery bill so we can create the jobs and make the investments necessary to get our economy moving again,” said Treasury spokesperson Isaac Baker in a statement. “Economic officials administration wide will be working and consulting with senators throughout the day.”

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This week, at their meeting in Alexandria, the primates have been debating the Covenant, a new document that is at the heart of the solution and sets out a Bible-based orthodoxy that the provinces will be invited to sign up to. Some provinces may well refuse to do so. These include Canada, where one diocese, New Westminster, has already authorised same-sex blessings, and another, Toronto, is expected to follow suit within a year.

The Episcopal Church of the US might also have difficulty giving full support to a document that does not do full justice to the ministry of clerics such as Bishop Robinson, now an establishment figure who is friendly with President Obama ”” he prayed the invocation at the start of the inauguration celebrations last month.

The result will be not schism but a two-tier communion, with all provinces in communion with the “mother church” in England and its primate, Dr Rowan Williams, primus inter pares or first among equals, but some having a lesser status and not being in full communion with each other.

At the same time the new “church” formed by conservative evangelicals in the US, led by the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan, which is seeking recognition as a new province, is likely to be granted some extra-provincial status allowing the thousands of Anglicans it represents to remain within the Communion. This would lead to two parallel Anglican provinces operating in the US, one free to pursue its mission of inclusivity including the consecration of bishops of different sexualities, the other mandated to preach its own gospel of what it believes to be “orthodoxy”.

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It began as a subprime surprise, became a credit crunch and then a global financial crisis. At last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Russia and China blamed America, everyone blamed the bankers, and the bankers blamed you and me. From where I sat, the majority of the attendees were stuck in the Great Repression: deeply anxious but fundamentally in denial about the nature and magnitude of the problem….

[Leaders] need to grow up and face the harsh reality: The Western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness. Governments, corporations and households are groaning under unprecedented debt burdens. Average household debt has reached 141% of disposable income in the United States and 177% in Britain. Worst of all are the banks. Some of the best-known names in American and European finance have liabilities 40, 60 or even 100 times the amount of their capital.

The delusion that a crisis of excess debt can be solved by creating more debt is at the heart of the Great Repression. Yet that is precisely what most governments propose to do.

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In 2003, when he won the American League home run title and the AL Most Valuable Player award as a shortstop for the Texas Rangers, Alex Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids, four sources have independently told Sports Illustrated.

Rodriguez’s name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball’s ’03 survey testing, SI’s sources say. As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004.

When approached by an SI reporter on Thursday at a gym in Miami, Rodriguez declined to discuss his 2003 test results. “You’ll have to talk to the union,” said Rodriguez, the Yankees’ third baseman since his trade to New York in February 2004. When asked if there was an explanation for his positive test, he said, “I’m not saying anything.”

SI has too much of a reputation and this is too well sourced not to be taken seriously.Read it all–KSH.

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Torah commands, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In Islam, there is a hadith that reads “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule ”“ the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do ”“ to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.

In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I’m announcing later today.

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President Obama…[Thursday] announced the creation of his faith-based outreach office, expanding its agenda beyond funding social programs to work on policies aimed at strengthening family life and reducing abortion.

Obama’s office leaves in place rules that allow faith-based groups receiving federal funding to hire only people of their own faith, but White House aides said the hiring rules would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis when there are complaints and that the Justice Department will provide legal assistance.

Obama’s move more fully formalizes the partnerships between the federal government and faith groups that first began under President Bill Clinton and was expanded by President George W. Bush. But where Bush used the faith office primarily for funding programs — drawing criticism that he was mainly assisting his political supporters — Obama said he wants to use the office for policy guidance, as well.

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton Washington yesterday, Obama said the goal of the initiative “will not be to favor one religious group over another — or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line our Founders wisely drew between church and state.”

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The Chicago Consultation issued this statement from its co-convener, Ruth Meyers, in response to the communiqué of the Anglican primates on the final day of their meeting in Egypt:

“Christ calls us to practice both compassion and justice. We reject the false choice suggested by the Primates communiqué that God asks Episcopalians to deny either faithful mission with the worldwide Anglican Communion or full inclusion of our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered sisters and brothers,” said Meyers, who is professor of liturgics at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

“We look toward General Convention 2009, where we will work with a broad coalition of allies to achieve full inclusion of all the baptized in The Episcopal Church and to be a voice of witness with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people across the Anglican Communion,” continued Meyers.

“The Chicago Consultation believes that the Anglican Communion is, at its best, a manifestation of the body of Christ in which the Holy Spirit blesses members from different cultures and contexts with various gifts. As Christians, we are called to live in communion with one another, but also to embrace all of the Spirit’s gifts””graciously and fearlessly.”

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i have been getting a bunch of emails from people who haven’t seen this or who can’t find it. Please take the time to read it all.

A totally fascinating article from the business section of today’s New York Times. My favorite part describes a pilot program they (United Health) tried that didn’t work. Guess why? Wait for it….The insurer did not closely consult with the doctors in designing the pilot program. Read that carefully and think about it a few times. We are becoming a country where common sense is going out the window in too many areas. Read it all.

For all the annoyance of being crammed into an aluminum tube at 35,000 feet with a bunch of strangers, air travel has offered one benefit: the ability to tell bosses and colleagues, “I’ll be on a flight, so you won’t be able to reach me.”

So much for that excuse.

Wireless Internet service is starting to spread among airlines in the United States ”” Delta and American have installed it on more than a dozen planes each, and several other carriers are planning to test it.

For the airlines, always desperate for new sources of revenue, offering the service ”” about $10 for three hours and more for longer flights ”” was an easy call. And many passengers will cheer the development as an end to Web withdrawal.

But this new frill is hardly as benign as a bag of pretzels….

Please note that the title above is the one given in the print edition (the web title is different). I caught this today on the front page of the New York Times while waiting at the dentist’s office. I have to admit that even the possibility of this being used by terrorists never even entered my mind–ugh. Read it all–KSH.

The Senate agreement on a roughly $827 billion economic stimulus bill sets up tough negotiations with the House primarily over tens of billions of dollars in aid to states and local governments, tax provisions, and education, health and renewable energy programs.

Congress is racing to finalize the legislation this week, with the price tag for the Senate plan now only slightly more than the $820 billion measure adopted by the House. Both plans are intended to blunt the recession with a combination of quick-acting tax cuts to help increase spending by consumers and businesses, and slower long-term government spending on public works projects and other programs to create more than 3 million jobs.

But the competing bills now reflect substantially different approaches. The House puts greater emphasis on helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts in services and layoffs of public employees, while the Senate cut $40 billion of that type of aid from its bill.

The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday night between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps. To help allay Republican concerns about cost, the Senate proposal even scales back President Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut.

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In a telephone interview at the end of the primates’ meeting, held Feb. 1 to 5 in Alexandria, Egypt, Archbishop Hiltz also said that it appeared relationships among church leaders, which had been ruptured because of bitter divisions over the issue, were being repaired. “I think we’re on the way toward healing within the communion,” he said, describing the mood at the meeting as “generous and gracious.” The past two meetings in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, had been chilly and emotionally-charged, with some primates either boycotting the eucharist or refusing to take holy communion with their fellow church leaders as a symbol of the Anglican Communion’s “brokenness.”

Archbishop Hiltz said that although he was disappointed that there had not been a “focused conversation” among primates involved in cross-border interventions right at the meeting, he was nonetheless “encouraged” that the primates chose to adopt a recommendation made by the Windsor Continuation Group for a mediated dialogue.

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