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….the Massachusetts vote is a loud and clear signal that the American people hate this legislation. Barack Obama came into office assuming that economic distress would move most Americans to favor big-government legislation. It turns out that’s not so. Not when Democratic bills would take away the health insurance most of them are content with. Not when it’s the product of backroom deals and blatant political bribery.

But Scott Brown’s victory was not just a rejection of Democrats’ health care plans. Brown also stoutly opposed the Democrats’ cap-and-trade legislation to reduce carbon emissions. He spoke out strongly for trying terrorists like the Christmas bomber in military tribunals, not in the civil court system where lawyers would advise them to quit talking. He talked about cutting taxes rather than raising them as Democrats are preparing to do.

Brown’s victory represents a rejection of Obama administration policies that were a departure from those of the Bush administration. In contrast, on Afghanistan, where Obama is stepping up the fight, Brown backed Obama while his hapless left-wing opponent Martha Coakley was forced (her word) to oppose it to win dovish votes in the Democratic primary.

Democrats will be tempted to dismiss Brown’s victory as a triumph of an appealing candidate and the rejection of an opponent who proved to be a dud. But Brown would never have been competitive if Americans generally favored the policies of the Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders. In that case, even a dud would have trounced the man who drives a truck.

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Voter anxiety and resentment, building for months in a troubled economy, exploded like a match on dry kindling in the final days of the special election for US Senate. In arguably the most liberal state in the nation, a Republican – and a conservative one at that – won and will crash the Bay State’s all-Democratic delegation with a mandate to kill the health care overhaul pending in Congress.

It is difficult to overstate the significance of Scott Brown’s victory because so much was at stake. From the agenda of President Obama and the legacy of the late Edward M. Kennedy to a referendum on the Democratic monopolies of power on Capitol and Beacon hills, voters in a lopsidedly Democratic state flooded the polls on a dreary winter day to turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Brown, an obscure state senator with an unremarkable record when he entered the race four months ago, was a household name across the country by the end of the abbrevi ated campaign. Running a vigorous, smart, and error-free campaign, he became a vessel into which cranky and worried voters poured their frustrations and fears, ending the Democrats’ grip on a Senate seat the party has held for 58 years, nearly all by two brothers named Kennedy.

Voters were demonstrably unsentimental about keeping alive the spirit of the late Ted Kennedy in electing the next senator. His widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, tried to bolster the sagging candidacy of Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley in the closing days, to little effect.

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The Democratic Party’s defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday — the loss of a single, crucial Senate seat — will force President Obama and his congressional allies to downscale their legislative ambitions and rethink their political strategy.

The most immediate challenge facing Democrats after Republican Scott Brown’s victory is how to salvage healthcare legislation now that they no longer have the 60 votes needed to break GOP filibusters.

But even as Massachusetts voters streamed to the polls to anoint Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s successor, Democratic leaders showed no signs of standing down.

“We’re right on course,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said after meeting with her leadership team. “We will have a healthcare reform bill, and it will be soon.”

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Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary.

With all precincts counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

“Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken,” Mr. Brown told his cheering supporters in a victory speech, standing in front of a backdrop that said “The People’s Seat.”

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Republican Scott P. Brown pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Massachusetts political history last night, defeating Democrat Martha Coakley to become the state’s next US senator and potentially derailing President Obama’s hopes for a health care overhaul.

The stunning, come-from-behind victory caps a dramatic surge in recent days as Brown, a state lawmaker from Wrentham once thought to have little chance of beating a popular attorney general, roared ahead of Coakley to become the first Republican senator elected from Massachusetts since 1972.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Brown had won 51.9 percent to Coakley’s 47.1 percent. Independent Joseph L. Kennedy received 1 percent.

Coakley called Brown to concede a little more than an hour after polls closed, and the Brown campaign party erupted into jubilant cheers soon after.

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Humans are meaning-seeking creatures. We search for patterns and, if we don’t see them, we imagine them. We put all sorts of pieces together, whether by instinct, sentiment or scientific evidence.

Now, the biggest pattern of all ”” God ”” has come within our scientific purview.

Neuroscientists such as Andrew Newberg are telling us that we are “wired for God.” That belief is part of our brain structure, which is an often heard but still controversial point of view.

There’s even a term that has been invented for this type of researcher: neurotheologians.

They are St. Augustines with medical degrees and brain scanners. They take religion seriously, as a research project.

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Over the last week several friends have inquired into the background of a marketing campaign now airing on television networks called Catholics Come Home. Perhaps you’ve seen it. If so, you were likely impressed, or even intrigued. And maybe, like me, you even paused for a moment and wondered, “Why did I leave the Catholic Church again?”

The Catholics Come Home campaign was founded by its president, Tom Petersen. Twelve years ago Tom returned to the Catholic Church following a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ at a men’s retreat. Sensing God’s call, Tom consecrated his 25 years of experience in the advertizing field to the task of promoting spiritual renewal among Catholics. This “apostolate” (or what evangelicals might call a parachurch ministry) is dedicated to reversing the tide of lapsed Catholics, calling them, with the warmest intonation and most technologically savvy forms of media, to “come home.”

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Bishops, clergy and lay members of the General Synod will vote on whether to demand that the state broadcaster explain why its coverage of Christianity on television has declined so steeply in recent years.

Output has fallen from 177 hours of religious programming on BBC television in 1987-88 to 155 hours in 2007-08, while the number of general programmes has doubled.

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And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6:11,12

A key debate on women bishops has been delayed until the summer after the Church of England received an “avalanche” of submissions about the subject, it was announced today.

The Church said more than 100 submissions had been received by a legislative drafting group working on the issue of women bishops.

It had been hoped that the legislation could be debated by the General Synod, the church’s ruling body, meeting in London next month but this will not now take place until it meets at York in July.

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Today Liberty returns to court. After the victory last week of personal privacy over blanket stop-and- search powers in the Court of Human Rights, we go to the Court of Appeal to protect freedom of thought, conscience and religion from unjustified intrusion and prejudice.

You may remember the story of Nadia Eweida, the British Airways check-in worker who was banned from wearing a small cross on a chain. This modest manifestation of her faith was as important to her as a turban or hijab to other workers. Yet the airline accommodated these other items without, perhaps, embracing the underlying values that would have protected Ms Eweida and anyone else from the blundering assertion that “rules is rules is rules”.

After a public outcry that included secular, religious and political voices from across the spectrum, the airline modified its uniform policy. But not before Ms Eweida had been off work for months without pay, and crucially, without accepting the ethical and legal principle that would protect her and others of all faiths and none in the future. Worse still, BA instructed an international law firm strenuously to resist her claim of religious discrimination.

What followed was an extremely disappointing employment appeal tribunal that found no discrimination, because “Christians generally” do not consider wearing a cross as a religious “requirement”. This fundamentally misunderstands the idea of individual rights and freedoms, which do not depend on how many people agree with your conscience or speech. It also opens up secular courts to lengthy arguments as to what is a theological necessity. Making windows into men’s souls is as pointlessly complex as it is dangerous.

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The institution of marriage has undergone significant changes in recent decades as women have outpaced men in education and earnings growth. These unequal gains have been accompanied by gender role reversals in both the spousal characteristics and the economic benefits of marriage.

A larger share of men in 2007, compared with their 1970 counterparts, are married to women whose education and income exceed their own, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of demographic and economic trend data. A larger share of women are married to men with less education and income.

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When Barack Obama took the oath of office before a shimmering wave of humanity a year ago today with his approval rating at 70 per cent, he and the Democrats controlling Congress believed that history beckoned ”” and that they had the clout and popular support to shape it.

Yesterday the President and his party were scrambling to avoid losing Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat ”” an unthinkable development even a month ago ”” and are bracing themselves for a bloodbath in congressional elections this November. It shows just what a debilitating first year they have suffered, and what a perilous 2010 beckons.

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Republicans scored an historic victory overnight that put President Barack Obama’s agenda in jeopardy exactly a year after he took power – and could kill health-care reform.

A little-known Republican state legislator came from a 30-percentage point deficit to win Edward Kennedy’s old seat in the US Senate in Massachusetts in what appeared to be a massive protest vote against the party that controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.

“This is a huge wake-up call for the Democrats, for the Obama Administration and the country. America is fed up of the arrogance coming from Washington,” said Andy Card, White House chief of staff in the George W. Bush Administration.

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From here:

In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.

I am speechless–this is huge.

Turnout was heavy Tuesday as Massachusetts voters trudged through a light snow to choose their next U.S. senator, one who could determine the fate of the Democrats’ health care overhaul plan and much of President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.

Late polling by the campaigns indicated the race between Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley and Republican state Sen. Scott Brown was too close to call. However, a Suffolk University poll of three key towns Saturday and Sunday ”” Fitchburg, Gardner and Peabody ”” gave Brown a comfortable lead in each.

Read it all. Brown at 81.8 on Intrade at present, Coakley at 20.0.

“Scott Brown has turned this into a referendum on what’s going on in Washington, especially with health care. His campaign began to gain traction when he said that, ‘I am going to be the 41st senator, the one who can stop a lot of this,’ ” [David] Gergen said.

—CNN

An interesting list–we shall see.

Three days of Muslim-Christian clashes in the Nigerian city of Jos have left around 300 people dead, clerics and a paramedic said Tuesday, as troops were deployed to control the unrest.

Authorities placed the central city under a 24-hour curfew amid reports of continuing armed clashes, with terrified residents saying they could hear gunshots and smoke was billowing from parts of the Plateau State capital.

Nigeria’s Vice President Goodluck Jonathan sent in troops and ordered security chiefs to “proceed to Jos immediately to assess the situation and advise on further steps,” his office said.

All flights to the city were suspended, aviation sources said.

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The Episcopal Church of the Philippines has called for swift government action in prosecuting those responsible for the election-related massacre of 57 people in the Philippine province of Maguindanao on the southern island of Mindanao.

The murder of 57 people by gunmen was “totally unacceptable, unlawful, unjust, and inhuman,” the Bishop of the Diocese of the Southern Philippines said.

On Nov 23 a convoy of six vehicles left the town of Buluan proceeding to the provincial capital of Shariff Aguak. The vice-mayor of Buluan, Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu had invited 37 journalists to accompany his family and campaign workers to cover his filing of papers in the provincial capital to stand for election as governor.

Andal Ampatuan Jr, son of the outgoing governor, Andal Ampatuan Sr., and a candidate for election to his father’s post, allegedly threatened Mangudadatu — the scion of a rival political clan — with death if he contested the governor’s position. The presence of the journalists and his family, Mangudadatu believed, would prevent attempts at blocking the filing of candidacy papers.

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The White House’s announcement yesterday that it will schedule its State of the Union address for next Wednesday, January 27th, an earlier date than most insiders expected, is surely not coincidental and reflects a desire to pressure the House into voting for the Senate’s version of the health care bill almost immediately, assuming that Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in Massachusetts tonight.

The pitch that the White House and Nancy Pelosi will make to the Democratic members of the House is a difficult one and will need to be extremely well executed, but is likely to consist of one or more of the following arguments….

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Interesting stuff on the Special Massachsuetts Senate Election. Also, if you want there is a way to follow it in live chat.

Right now Brown is in the 70’s on Intrade. I am remaining cautious.

In the face of the tragedy in Haiti, I want to make a proposal. It’s not a realistic proposal, I grant; but it is a serious one. My proposal is this: that all those Anglicans involved in litigation amongst one another in North America ”” both in the Episcopal Church and those outside of TEC; in the Anglican Church of Canada, and those outside ”” herewith cease all court battles over property. And, having done this, they do two further things:

a. devote the forecast amount they were planning to spend on such litigation to the rebuilding of the Episcopal Church and its people in Haiti; and

b. sit down with one another, prayerfully and for however long it takes, and with whatever mediating and facilitating presence they accept, and agree to a mutually agreed process for dealing with contested property.

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A professor at Columbia University, Mr. Stiglitz uses his experience teaching to give the lay reader a lucid account of how overleveraged banks, a shoddy mortgage industry, predatory lending and unregulated trading contributed to the meltdown, and how, in his opinion, ill-conceived rescue efforts may have halted the freefall but have failed to grapple with more fundamental problems.

He is eloquent on how the American economy was sustained before the crisis by “a debt-financed consumption binge supported by a housing bubble” and impassioned in describing what he sees as the government’s failure to make substantial reforms to the economic system: though “excesses of leverage will be curbed,” he writes, “the too-big-to-fail banks will be allowed to continue much as before, over-the-counter derivatives that cost taxpayers so much will continue almost unabated, and finance executives will continue to receive outsized bonuses.” In each case, he writes, “something cosmetic will be done, but it will fall far short of what is needed.”

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Each year, about 16,000 people are processed through the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton, and about 85 percent of them have lived lives twisted and broken by drug abuse.For many, their stay in the county jail becomes an impromptu trip to detox and an opportunity to craft a new kind of life. That is where Annie Rose comes in.

When Rose, 29, the executive director of JUST (Justice, Understanding, Service and Teaching) of DuPage, first meets her clients, many have gone through rehab at the jail and are “thinking clearly for the first time in a very long time,” she said.

“It seems like every week I hear at least one inmate say they are grateful that they ended up in jail because they wouldn’t have walked into rehab on their own. They are glad to get this chance to get on track,” said Rose, an Ohio native who settled in the Chicago area after graduating from Wheaton College. She has been director of JUST since February.

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Mr. Obama this month presented his government’s findings on how the plot went undetected. But a detailed review of the episode by The New York Times, including more than two dozen interviews with White House and American intelligence officials and with counterterrorism officials in Europe and Yemen, shows that there were far more warning signs than the administration has acknowledged.

The officials also cited lapses and misjudgments that were not disclosed in the declassified government report released Jan. 7 about what went wrong inside the nation’s counterterrorism network.

In September, for example, a United Nations expert on Al Qaeda warned policy makers in Washington that the type of explosive device used by a Yemeni militant in an assassination attempt in Saudi Arabia could be carried aboard an airliner….

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Rejecting offers to evacuate him from Port-au-Prince, Episcopal Diocese of Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin said Jan. 18 that he must remain in the Haitian capital.

“No, I will stay with my people,” the Rev. Lauren Stanley, one of four Episcopal Church missionaries assigned to the Haitian diocese, told ENS the bishop said in response to the evacuation offer.

Stanley was home in Virginia when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck just before 5:00 p.m. local time Jan. 12 and has been monitoring diocesan reports from there.

“The people are strong,” Duracin told Stanley, echoing messages she has received from other priests. “We still have our people, and they are strong. We need to help them.”

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