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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As the 2009 meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion concludes in Egypt today, we can be assured that the world’s Anglican leaders have resumed what they’re best at after last year’s blood-letting. And what Anglican bishops are really good at in conference is being quite, well, boring.

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Here’s the panicky statement by the Anglican Primates: “We commit ourselves to support these processes [ie, professional mediation] and to participate as appropriate. We earnestly desire reconciliation with these dear sisters and brothers [nice PC touch] for whom we understand membership of the Anglican Communion is profoundly important. We recognise that these processes cannot be rushed, but neither should they be postponed.”

Is this the first example in history of a Church calling in professional mediators? I rather think it might be. And who will they be? I should be careful what I say, given what a hash the Vatican has just made of mediating with the SSPX, but that dispute is on a very small scale compared to this hydra-headed schism. The Primates say this one “cannot be rushed”. Well, you can bet it won’t be, once the professionals are involved. Someone is going to make a lot of money out of this “mediation”.

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The rift in the Anglican Communion over same-sex marriage blessings and gay clergy is being sent to mediation.

“It’s out of a commitment to reconciliation that this whole process is emerging,” Anglican Church of Canada Primate Fred Hiltz told the Star in a phone interview from Cairo.

Hiltz was among Anglican leaders from around the world meeting in Egypt this week, where a proposal by conservative Anglicans in Canada and the U.S. to set up an orthodox church operating parallel to the more liberal churches of the two countries was discussed.

“There was really no consensus among the primates over that matter,” said Hiltz, who opposes establishing a parallel church.

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