(Church of Uganda) The Rev. Canon James William Robert Ssebagala has been elected the 4th Bishop of Mukono Diocese replacing Rt. Rev. Elia Paul Luzinda Kizito.

The election was made during the House of Bishops of the Church of the Province of Uganda sitting at Lweza Training and Conference Centre on 2nd July 2010. His consecration and enthronement will take place at Saints Philip and Andrew’s Cathedral, Mukono on the 19th September 2010.

(The) Rev. Canon Ssebaggala, 52, holds a Master of Arts in Organisational Leadership and Management Degree from Uganda Christian University, Mukono, a Bachelor of Divinity from Makerere University, Mukono, a Diploma in Theology from Bishop Tucker Theological College (now Uganda Christian University, Mukono) and a Diploma in Land Surveying. He has also attended a variety of Courses, trainings and workshops.

(The) Rev. Canon James William Ssebaggala worked as a Parish Priest, Youth Worker, Estates Officer and Diocesan Secretary in Mukono Diocese. He also served in many other capacities within Church related structures and served on various Boards.

Currently, he is the Executive Director ”“ Mission For All (MIFA) ”“ Uganda. He is married to Tezirah Nakimbugwe Ssebaggala and God has blessed them with four children.

Superb play by the Germans.

The United States added just 83,000 private sector jobs in June, according to the monthly statistical snapshot released by the Labor Department. The unemployment rate declined to 9.5 percent, from 9.7 percent in May. But that was a largely illusory decline, as 652,000 Americans left the work force.

Over all, the nation lost 125,000 jobs in June, but those losses came as temporary federal Census workers headed for the exits.

With the economy slowing ”” housing sales plummeted, while earnings and hours worked ticked downward last month ”” the stakes grow larger, economically and politically. The next few monthly unemployment reports will unfold during the run-up to the midterm Congressional elections this fall. Incumbents feel particularly precarious, and major economic decisions about financial reform, unemployment benefits, and aid to states still sit on their desks.

“We may have seen the best of employment for some time,” said Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Northern Trust. “In general the economy is downshifting, maybe to stall speed, or just above stall.”

Read it all, and for those of you so inclined David A. Rosenberg’s detailed analysis is very fine (9 pages of the pdf).

Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.

He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.

“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university ”” and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office.

Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”

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I hope the White House is paying attention to the latest annual Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook, which offers a truly frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt, with huge implications for the country’s future prosperity. According to the non-partisan CBO, “the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits, as a share of the economy, since the end of World War II”….

Read it all and follow the link to the important CBO report.

THE Archbishop of Canterbury (above) told the Methodist Conference on Tuesday that “a sense of urgency of who Jesus is” must be at the heart of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant.

Dr Williams said that the Covenant, signed in 2003, was “unfinished busi­ness”, and they were now working out how to “settle in for the long haul”.

It was the second time the Arch­bishop has addressed the Methodist Conference ”” the first was in 2004.

Dr Williams took the examples of St Peter and St Paul to show how the Church of England and the Methodist Church should handle disagreements. He contrasted St Peter’s willingness to compromise with St Paul’s confron­t­ational approach. The apostolic witness embraced both approaches, Dr Williams said. But, he went on, neither “compromise for the sake of a quiet life” nor “confrontation for the sake of feeling righteous” were fully biblical approaches.

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My goodness, what a terrible way for Ghana to have lost–KSH.

The Anglican Communion Office has announced that two new members will serve on the Standing Committee beginning with the July 23-27 meeting in London: Bishop Paul Sarker, moderator of the Church of Bangladesh and bishop of Dhaka; and the Rev. Canon Janet Trisk, rector of the parish of St. David, Prestbury, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

Trisk was elected at the last Standing Committee meeting to replace Nomfundo Walaza, also from South Africa, and Sarker is the elected alternate for Middle East President Bishop Mouneer Anis, who resigned his membership in February saying that his presence has “no value whatsoever” and that his voice is “like a useless cry in the wilderness.”

The July 2 release also confirmed that Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda and his elected alternate, Archbishop Justice Akrofi of West Africa, have resigned from the Standing Committee.

Read it all.