Many of LinkedIn’s 161 million members worldwide, who use the site to form professional connections, were also bombarded Wednesday by e-mail from unfamiliar parties urging them to click on links to verify e-mail addresses. LinkedIn and eHarmony join the list of several major websites, including retailer Zappos.com, that were hacked in recent months.

Wednesday’s cyberattack on LinkedIn, which affects as many as 6.5 million users, came on the heels of a discovery that LinkedIn’s mobile app on Apple devices tracked users’ calendar events and synched them to its server without users’ knowledge, a practice that could violate Apple’s privacy regulations.

The encrypted password hash codes, which can be deciphered to uncover users’ passwords, could give the hacker access to users’ accounts once the codes are cracked, according to IDC tech industry analyst Al Hilwa.

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Read it all (16 page pdf).

You may find the link there should you wish to use it.

Saying he was sending a message of deterrence to Massachusetts drivers, District Court Judge Stephen Abany today imposed maximum sentences on Haverhill teen Aaron Deveau for causing a fatal crash by texting while driving.

The judge sentenced Deveau, who was 17 at the time of the crash, to concurrent sentences of 2½-years on a charge of motor vehicle homicide and 2 years for a charge of negligent operation of a motor vehicle causing serious injury while texting.

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This is an important video because it represents the prevailing theology among the TEC elite. It is something you need to be aware of as illustrated by the fact that it is planning on being screened at General Convention 2012, and that it contains two members of the House of Bishops in its content. You, however, need to make your own decisions about whether to view it since the theology advocated will cause major dissonance–KSH.

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The debate about the latest advance will reopen many debates that are familiar in reproductive science. When can abortion be justified? What do we mean by “normal”, and how far from genetic norms ”“ whatever they are – does the DNA of an unborn child have to stray before a pregnancy can be terminated?

Can it be right to abort a foetus at risk of a disease that will only strike in middle age or old age? One of the pioneers of the field, Dr Dennis Lo, has said it would not be ethical to screen for like Alzheimer’s or cardiovascular illnesses. But once the technical issues have been ironed out in the next few years, that could become routine.

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For the first time, researchers have determined virtually the entire genome of a fetus using only a blood sample from the pregnant woman and a saliva specimen from the father.

The accomplishment heralds an era in which parents might find it easier to know the complete DNA blueprint of a child months before it is born….

“It’s an extraordinary piece of technology, really quite remarkable,” said Peter Benn, professor of genetics and developmental biology at the University of Connecticut, who was not involved in the work. “What I see in this paper is a glance into the future.”

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The eurozone sovereign debt emergency showed no signs of abating yesterday as the Spanish government desperately haggled over the terms of its expected bailout and the European Central Bank refused to ease monetary policy for the currency bloc, despite signs of stricken European economies sinking still deeper into recession.

Madrid’s Economy Minister, Luis de Guindos, insisted once again he was not making any plans to follow Greece, Portugal and Ireland in requesting a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. But, behind the scenes, Spanish ministers accept that an external rescue of the country’s beleaguered banking sector is now necessary. Spain is trying to persuade its European partners to allow the European bailout fund to inject capital directly into its banks, rather than diverting the money through the state. Madrid fears that a full-blown national bailout would be accompanied by an onerous EU/IMF inspection system.

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An essential element of Greece’s recovery plan has been to collect more taxes from a population that has long engaged in tax avoidance. The government is owed 45 billion euros in back taxes, tax officials in Athens said, only a fraction of which will ever be recovered.

To understand the difficulty, just talk to Nikos Maitos, a longtime official in Greece’s financial crimes investigation unit.

When he and a team of inspectors recently prowled the recession-hit island of Naxos for tax evaders, a local radio station broadcast his license plate number to warn residents.

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Should the Episcopal Cathedral of Philadelphia be allowed to destroy two historically recognized buildings it owns, and build a 25-story apartment, office, and retail complex in their place, in order to finance cathedral repairs and expand its ministry?

That is the question coming Friday before the Philadelphia Historical Commission, which deadlocked on the issue May 11 when it first arose. The four representatives of the Nutter administration voted in favor of demolition of the properties on the 3700 block of Chestnut Street, while all four independent members opposed the plan.

In an unusual step, Alan Greenberger, deputy mayor for economic development, endorsed the demolition and development in a letter passed out to commissioners just before the hearing.

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Maybe the economy is a political black hole, sucking every other issue into an impossibly dense void.

Maybe Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are just private, cautious men by nature.

For whatever reason, neither President Obama nor his Republican challenger is talking much about religion these days ”” neither about his own faith nor that of his opponent, or the social issues that motivate religious voters.

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Lord Jesus, as God’s Spirit came down and rested upon you,
May the same Spirit rest on us,
Bestowing his sevenfold gifts.
First, grant us the gift of understanding,
By which your precepts may enlighten our minds.
Second, grant us counsel, by which we may follow
in your footsteps on the path of righteousness.
Third, grant us courage,
by which we may ward off the enemy’s attacks.
Fourth, grant us knowledge,
by which we can distinguish good from evil.
Fifth, grant us piety,
by which we may acquire compassionate hearts.
Sixth, grant us fear,
by which we may draw back from evil
and submit to what is good.
Seventh, grant us wisdom,
that we may taste fully the life-giving sweetness of your love.

–Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274)

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain? –if it really is in vain. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Thus Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”; but the law does not rest on faith, for “He who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree” — that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

–Galatians 3:1-14

“Germany should reflect quickly but deeply, and act,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said late last week.

Few Germans, however, share that sense of urgency. With German unemployment at a 20-year low and falling, and the country’s economy continuing to grow despite the debt crisis, not many Germans see the crisis as a threat to their way of life.

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Our burdens of shame and guilt have been nailed to the cross. Evangelicals have always insisted on that message as central to proclaiming the gospel. Again, a variety of images capture this emphasis””debt-repaying, ransom, sacrifice, enduring divine wrath against sin. But all these images have this in common: They point us to the fact that on the cross of Calvary, Jesus did something for us that we could never do for ourselves as sinners. He engaged in a transaction that has eternal consequences for our standing before a righteous God. N. T. Wright is well known for prodding evangelicals to think new thoughts about Pauline theology, but he is very clear on the need to preserve the classic evangelical emphasis on the meaning of the Atonement for individual sinners. At Calvary, Wright says in The Crown and the Fire: Meditations on the Cross and the Life of the Spirit, “Jesus, the innocent one, was drawing on to himself the holy wrath of God against human sin in general, so that human sinners like you and me can find, as we look at the cross, that the load of sin and guilt we have been carrying is taken away from us.”

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The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is preparing to publish its daily liturgical prayer book, as part of its mission to incorporate Anglican traditions within the Catholic Church.

Father James Bradley, communications officer for the jurisdiction, told CNA on June 5 that the “Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham,” which contains the order of daily prayer and readings, “shows a deep respect for the Anglican tradition, and gives it space to flourish” in the Catholic Church.

Announced in the ordinariate’s “Portal” publication on June 1, the book is due out “in a month or two” according to Monsignor Andrew Burnham, Assistant to the Ordinary.

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