Check it out and there is a good image there. If you have java, the moving water vaper loop picture is fascinating.

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Picture this: You stop in front of a digital advertising display at a mall and suddenly an ad pops up touting makeup, followed by one for shoes and then one for butter pecan ice cream.

It seems to know you’re a woman in your late 20s and, in fact, it does. When you looked at the display, it scanned your facial features and tailored its messages to you.

Once the stuff of science fiction and high-tech crime fighting, facial recognition technology has become one of the newest tools in marketing, even though privacy concerns abound.

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Almighty and everlasting God, who hast received us into the fold of thy Church, and hast given us thy Holy Spirit to abide with us for ever: Keep us, we beseech thee, under thy fatherly care and protection; enrich us abundantly with thy heavenly grace; and lead us to witness a good confession, and to persevere therein to the end; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also dwells secure. For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit. Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.

–Psalm 16:8-11

Syrian security forces carried out military operations in several areas across the country on Thursday against pro-democracy protesters seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and activists and residents said nine people were killed.

Masked gunmen also severely beat the country’s best-known political cartoonist, Ali Farzat, leaving him to bleed along the side of a road, days after he published a cartoon showing Mr. Assad hitching a ride out of town with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. Since the start of the Syrian uprising in March, Mr. Farzat, renowned through the Arab world, has published cartoons critical of Mr. Assad and his brutal crackdown on protesters.

Activists and residents in Shuhail, a town southeast of the provincial capital of Deir ez-Zour, a tribal area in eastern Syria, said tanks and armored vehicles had entered. Shuhail, they said, has had daily protests against the government since the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

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Brian Young had big plans for his church’s IT strategy. But his vision suffered a serious setback this summer after Google Inc. altered its nonprofit program to prohibit all churches and religious organizations from participating.

For years, the search and software giant individually offered some of its products””including its office software and popular Gmail””for free or discounted use to qualifying nonprofits. Eligibility requirements varied by product, but churches and faith-based groups were welcome to use some.

All of that changed in mid-March when the company launched “Google for Nonprofits.” The new initiative united a robust set of Google’s tools into one program, but it also came with new guidelines that excluded numerous entities, including schools, political thinktanks, churches, proselytizing groups, and any organization that considers religion or sexual orientation in hiring decisions.

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Beatings and evictions of Anglican priests in Zimbabwe have caused the Church there to appeal a legal decision to give custody of its property to excommunicated bishop Dr Nolbert Kunonga.

The Church’s decision to instruct its lawyer to file a Constitutional appeal against the August 4 ruling by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku comes after a string of successful and attempted evictions left one priest homeless and another hospitalised with a head wound.

A press release from the Diocese said: “Clergy and members of the laity belonging to the Anglican Diocese of Harare (CPCA*) across Harare, Mashonaland West, East and Central have been receiving threats, constant harassment and lately severe beatings from Kunonga’s hooligans, masquerading as clergy, accompanied by ”˜certainly hired thugs’.

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They say that a dog is a man’s best friend, and for Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson, 35, and his beloved and loyal dog Hawkeye, not even death could break this powerful bond.

At Tumilson’s funeral in Rockford on Aug. 19, his beloved canine lay at the foot of the casket throughout the ceremony. Tumilson’s cousin Lisa Pembleton took the heart-wrenching photo of the devoted dog, known to Tumilson’s family and friends as his “son.”

“I took this picture and that was my view throughout the entire funeral. I couldn’t NOT take a picture,” Pembleton said. “It took several attempts since every time I wasn’t crying and could focus on taking it, there was a SEAL at the microphone and I didn’t want to take a picture with them for security and respect reasons. Our family is devastated to say the least.”

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All the pictures (and if you click on the “more” link all the names).

It’s a sign of desperation that the latest cure being suggested for the ailing economy is higher inflation. In the 1970s and early 1980s, inflation (peaking at 13 percent in 1979 and 1980) was a national curse. Now, it’s being advanced as an antidote to high unemployment and meager economic growth. It’s bad advice for the Federal Reserve, which holds its annual research retreat at Jackson Hole, Wyo., this week. What seems plausible in the classroom would probably backfire in the real world.

The economy’s central problem today is lack of confidence – fear – reflecting enormous uncertainty. Business managers and consumers don’t know what to expect. Facing stubborn joblessness, falling home values and volatile stock prices, they have become reflexively defensive. They hoard and hold back. A deliberate policy of higher inflation risks compounding the uncertainty and poisoning psychology even more.

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A problematic new end-of-life medical form is rapidly gaining ascendency in U.S. healthcare. It is called the “POLST” document. (In my own state of Colorado, it’s called a MOST document.) The acronym stands for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment….

The POLST-type legislation removes the condition that a patient is terminally ill or diagnosed in a PVS before a refusal order is actionable. In other words, the new law permits any adult patient to refuse any treatment at any time for any reason in the event they lack decisional capacity; and health care professionals, directed by a doctor’s medical order, ordinarily would be (and are) required to carry out the order. Although the law for strategic purposes is rhetorically formulated as bearing upon end-of-lifemedical decisions, it sets forth no requirement that a patient’s refusal of life-support must be limited to end-of-life conditions.

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Like a lot of other people in the haze and confusion of the 9/11 attacks, Johannah Segarich asked herself: “What kind of religion is this that could inspire people to do this?”

She had studied other religions, but never Islam. So she bought a copy of the Quran, wondering if her notions of Islam as a patriarchal and now seemingly violent religion, would be confirmed.

Then she got to the first chapter, with its seven-line message about seeking guidance from a merciful creator. She finished the Quran a few weeks later, then started reading it again. About half way through, barely 10 weeks after 9/11, “I came to the realization,” she said, “that I had a decision to make.”

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New signs of stress are piling up in the ailing European banking system.

Commercial banks boosted their reliance on the European Central Bank, borrowing €2.82 billion ($4.07 billion) from an emergency lending facility on Tuesday, while other banks continue to park unusually large amounts with the central bank, according to data released Wednesday.

While the amount of borrowing is tiny relative to the multitrillion-euro European banking system, it, and the increase from €555 million a day earlier, nonetheless suggest that some lenders are struggling to borrow from traditional funding sources, such as the capital markets or other banks.

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Hagelin finished with classic Billy Graham-type exhortations to ”commit with me to this battle for God’s best today . . . to testify that God’s design for marriage is perfect, to show that marriage under any other definition is a lie . . . Will you . . . stand for marriage?”

And there you have it. It’s all there in a couple of sentences: the presumption of personal access to God’s will, the vilification of any other take on that and the arrogated right to impose that judgment not just on your own life, but universally.

It’s an elision to do any dictator proud. The logic goes like this: I’m right. Not just right for me, but right, period. You are therefore wrong, period. So you must do what I believe to be right, because anything else amounts to an attack by you on my command of divine truth, and therefore on God.

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The Obama administration is considering further actions to strengthen the housing market, but the bar is high: plans must help a broad swath of homeowners, stimulate the economy and cost next to nothing.

One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent, according to two people briefed on the administration’s discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk about the information.

A wave of refinancing could be a strong stimulus to the economy, because it would lower consumers’ mortgage bills right away and allow them to spend elsewhere. But such a sweeping change could face opposition from the regulator who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and from investors in government-backed mortgage bonds.

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Binge drinking among teenage girls has become a serious public health problem for the UK and a source of public disorder, a report compiled by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University has concluded. It warned that Britain’s alcohol culture was spawning a violent and promiscuous generation with 30 per cent of teenagers bingeing at least weekly.

The study of over 11,000 15 and 16-year-old teenagers in the North West found that 88 per cent of teen girls had consumed alcohol, as compared to 80 per cent of boys. “Compared to European neighbours, 15 and 16-year-olds [British teens] are far more likely to drink alcohol and do so more frequently,” the report found.

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I like it for its rootedness also and that it takes people seriously. I like it’s theology (but by no means all of it) or should I say it’s approach to theology.

– First, its diversity, tolerance and the most important : freedom of thought. Second, having TS Eliott and CS Lewis but also John Shelby Spong, Paul van Buren and Don Cupitt….

And of course, current problems surfaced and one said ”“ Sadly, what attracts me most in the Anglican Church are all the things we would lose if we were to adopt the Anglican Covenant….

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William Oddie makes very hostile comments about York Minster in protest at the entry charge, and many other things. He does not say how otherwise we are to maintain this gigantic building, which is not subsidised by the state, and which employs (proudly) numerous skilled workers in stone and glass, and music and teaching, to maintain York Minster for the nation and the world at large. We are not profiteers, but a charity. We take pains to make our references to our constant worship and Christian witness such that non-Christians will not be put off, but his sneers fail to mention that we give free entry to acts of worship or the fact that hundreds attend Evensong each day….

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The Anglican Church of Korea has lent its voice of opposition to a plan for a new naval base on Jeju island that has prompted protests from other religious and environmental groups.

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The economy will grow by less than 3% through 2012, and unemployment will remain above 8% until 2014, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects.

In its semiannual update of budget and economic data, the agency ”” which serves as the official scorekeeper for President Obama and Congress ”” projects painfully slow progress on the economic front through next year’s election and beyond.

Economic growth will remain slow but steady, it says, increasing by 2.3% this year and 2.7% next year. In a blog post on the agency’s website, director Douglas Elmendorf notes those projections were made in early July ”” before financial market gyrations and some lackluster economic indicators.

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O God, who didst call thy servant Louis of France to an earthly throne that he might advance thy heavenly kingdom, and didst give him zeal for thy Church and love for thy people: Mercifully grant that we who commemorate him this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of thy saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty God, give us grace to do the work to which thou hast called us with reverence and godly fear; not with eye-service as pleasers of men, but with singleness of heart as in thy sight; and do thou so direct all our thoughts, words and deeds by thy Holy Spirit, that we may set thy will ever before us, and give ourselves to thee, to spend and be spent in thy service; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food; it will give you strength, since not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you.” And when he had said this, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat. Then they all were encouraged and ate some food themselves.

–Acts 27:33-37

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who built the world’s most valuable technology company, resigned. He is succeeded by Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

Jobs took a medical leave of absence Jan. 17 as a rare form of cancer he’s been battling since 2004 and a more recent liver transplant worsened his health, a person with knowledge of the matter said at the time.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs said in a statement. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

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Historic churches in Washington, Maryland and Virginia were among buildings with the most serious damage after the unusual Aug. 23 magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook the region.

The temblor could be felt as far away as Detroit, north of Toronto and into Florida.

The archdioceses of Washington and Baltimore each reported damage to several churches. But in the Diocese of Richmond, Va., where the quake was centered near the town of Mineral, that town’s St. Jude Church had the only reported damage in the diocese, and that was relatively minor, according to its pastor, Father Michael Duffy.

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Boeing’s aircraft assembly has long been done by its unionized labor force in Puget Sound, Wash. Most of the new Dreamliners will be built in Puget Sound as well. But with the plane so far behind schedule, Boeing decided to spend $750 million to open the South Carolina facility. Between the two plants, the company hopes to build 10 Dreamliners a month.

That’s the plan, at least. The Obama administration, however, has a different plan. In April, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing, accusing it of opening the South Carolina plant to retaliate against the union, which has a history of striking at contract time. The N.L.R.B.’s proposed solution, believe it or not, is to move all the Dreamliner production back to Puget Sound, leaving those 5,000 workers in South Carolina twiddling their thumbs.

Seriously, when has a government agency ever tried to dictate where a company makes its products? I can’t ever remember it happening.

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Nearly one in 10 midsize or large employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a survey from a large benefits consultant.

Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20 percent of companies are unsure about what they will do.

Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either “likely” or “very likely” to end health benefits once the exchanges start.

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The next time you walk into church, or your synagogue or mosque, say a little thanks to God for our founding principles. There’s a lot for which to be grateful, after all, and the freedom to worship is among our greatest blessings.

But a new report by Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has revealed a disturbing pattern: Nearly a third of the globe’s population ”” 2.2 billion people ”” live in countries where religious persecution increased between 2006 and 2009.

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