Federal Reserve officials debated the risks of beginning an ambitious new stimulus policy before ultimately giving it a green light, according to minutes of the central bank’s September meeting released Thursday.

The minutes show officials concerned during their two-day meeting that without further action, the unemployment rate could remain stubbornly high. Officials were also troubled by signs of slowing growth abroad, including in China, and the possibility of a so-called fiscal cliff at home.

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“Keep Calm and Carry On?” Sorry, that was 2009.

Ever since the wartime British propaganda poster bearing those soothing words went viral a few years ago, ending up on iPhone cases and coffee mugs, design types have been searching for the next great hyperlinked homily.

Lately, the leading candidates are popping up in the most unlikely of places: Pinterest. The explosively popular image-sharing site has fallen under the spell of words ”” that is, quotes from the great minds that offer lessons to live by.

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O thou who hast taught us that we are most truly free when we lose our wills in thine: Help us to attain to this liberty by continual surrender unto thee; that walking in the way which thou hast prepared for us, we may find our life in doing thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Gelasian Sacramentary

For the LORD will build up Zion, he will appear in his glory; he will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their supplication.

–Psalm 102:16-17

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When a senior Iraqi intelligence official traveled to Tehran in the summer of 2007 to meet with the Iranian leadership, he quickly figured out who was in charge of Iran’s policy toward its neighbor to the west.

It was not the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was Qassim Suleimani, the shadowy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, who calmly explained that he was the “sole authority for Iranian actions in Iraq,” according to an account the Iraqi official later provided to American officials in Baghdad.

A soft-spoken, gray-haired operative who carries himself with the confidence that comes from having the backing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, General Suleimani is the antithesis of the bombastic Iranian president. Now a major general ”” the highest rank in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ”” after a promotion last year, he has been the mastermind behind two central Iranian foreign policy initiatives, exerting and expanding Tehran’s influence in the internal politics of Iraq and providing military support for the rule of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

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It has never been easier to become a cybercriminal, Foreign Secretary William Hague is to warn an international conference in Budapest.

He will tell delegates that cybercrime is “one of the greatest global and strategic challenges of our time.”

Mr Hague is highlighting the UK’s determination to be a world leader in cyber security – it is spending £2m setting up a cybercrime centre.

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Nairobi’s police commissioner Njoroge Ndirangu reported that an examination of the crime scene indicated a limpet mine or an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) containing nails, ball-bearings and other pieces of shrapnel was electronically detonated alongside the wall of the Christian education building of St Cyprian’s Anglican Church at approximately 10:30 local time. Shrapnel from the blast killed an eight year old boy and wounded several children attending a Bible study. Six children were taken in serious condition to the capital’s Kenyatta National Hospital for treatment.

Popular sentiment in Nairobi lays the blast on al Shabaab…the Somali terror group….

However, the use of an IED might have been a copycat attack designed to drive the church off its land….

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[Miguel] Cabrera produced the 17th Triple Crown in history, with the first in 1878. He joined Ty Cobb as the only Tigers to win it. Cobb won the Triple Crown in the Dead Ball Era in 1909 when he hit nine homers — all inside-the-park, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

Cabrera became virtually assured of the Triple Crown when Josh Hamilton, his closest pursuer in the home-run race, went homerless Wednesday afternoon in Texas’ meltdown loss to Oakland.

He won the RBI title with 139; Hamilton was second at 128.

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The reality is that pastors love stats– and, at LifeWay Research, we love pastors that love stats! We just want you to love them rightly. Here are a few interesting statistics from our research.

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Katie [Stagliano] said the most important things she learned at the CGI meeting were about other causes she did not know about and “how good we have it here in the U.S.”

To Katie, age is not something that should hinder youths from doing extraordinary things. “Follow your heart. If there are causes you believe in, you should work towards it no matter how old you are. You can make an impact,” she recommends to other youths interested in making a difference.

Katie’s mother agreed and said that parents cannot push their children to do these types of things ”” they should only provide support.

“I never would have imagined that this is where we’d be today. God led her down this path, and she has walked through with open arms,” Stagliano said. “Sometimes people underestimate the power of youth. When given the opportunity, they can do amazing things.”

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The cavernous space of the cathedral ”“ the largest in the UK ”“ was starting to return to its regular level of daily activity. Instead of the world’s media, there were hordes of foreign tourists pointing cameras and being led around in organised groups.

So does Dr Wilcox think he is prepared for the unique demands, pressures and high visibility of his new role after the comparatively relaxed surroundings of his previous appointment in the Staffordshire market town of Lichfield?

He said: “Although I’ve spent the past six years on the staff of Lichfield Cathedral, I’ve also been in the urban parishes of Gateshead, Walsall and Teesside. Liverpool is much more the kind of place I’ve been used to living in….

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Many American Christians are ambivalent about their homeland. We are citizens of another kingdom, after all, so sometimes it’s hard to work up enthusiasm for this one. Besides, we’re told the church is called to take a prophetic stance against the culture, pointing out its immorality and injustice. We certainly don’t want to be caught celebrating America””we may be accused of mixing God and country.

Irishman Os Guinness suggests a fresh path to this conundrum in his A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future (IVP, August). Perhaps we can celebrate the American experiment and hold it accountable to its founding ideals in a way that doesn’t compromise our loyalty to the kingdom of God. CT senior managing editor Mark Galli sat down with Guinness in the Christianity Today offices to explore themes from his latest book.

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While it is not a new thing to suffer as a Copt, the raised expectations of better treatment after the revolution turned to be a big frustration. It is not simply about complaining; the goal of the article is to highlight the Copts’ plight and how to overcome those sufferings.

This article will highlight some recent incidents that support my argument of the Copts’ dilemma. It will also examine the weak reaction by the current regime, the lack of effort to seriously tackle those issues, and it will provide some suggestions for ways forward.

Bishoy Kameel, a Coptic teacher in Sohag, was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting Islam and defaming President Morsi on his Facebook page. This sentence was confirmed by an appeal court in Sohag, and the whole process happened in a matter of days.

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Christian doctrine has always drawn a distinction between “free will” and “freedom”. The former is the faculty to make a choice. The latter is the concrete choice for good. In fact, whomsoever chooses evil is no longer free, even if his free will remains the same. It can be said that such a person becomes a slave to himself. The choice of good, that being the exercise of true freedom, can be made in the light of reason. Pertaining to Revelation is the idea that man has this faculty: in his rational conscience he finds the light of good and evil. This light, however, often wanes, and in the wake of the fall of our distant forefathers it falls into error and leaves the straight road. Without the Christian faith it is lost. In other words, reason on its own is not able to give man that freedom he has by virtue of his selfsame nature. Needed in order for this to take place are revelation and the faith.

As we see, it isn’t possible for religions to be equivalent in their ability to confirm and bolster true human freedom. Preserved in the choice of one religion over another is the exercise of free will, but not true freedom. This is because not all religions are equally true, and only one of them is “true”. And this alone truly permits man to be free. In fact, we are free only according to truth.

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Maria Miller told the Telegraph it was “common sense” to lower the legal limit at which a pregnancy can be terminated in order to “reflect the way science has moved on”.

Thanks to advances in care for children born very prematurely, it is now possible for doctors in some cases to save the lives of babies born before 24 weeks.

The medical advance raises the moral dilemma of whether it is right to end pregnancies which could result in a healthy child, or to lower the window and rob some women of the right to make their own choice.

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The older Americans get, the more likely they are to suffer cognitive decline. Roughly 14 per cent of people over 71 have some level of dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For those in their 90s, the rate rises to 37.4 per cent.

Many older folks have spent a lifetime managing their finances and take pride in it. They may hold onto their checkbooks and brokerage statements more tightly than they do their car keys.

Take the parents of John M. Smartt Jr., a Knoxville, Tennessee certified public accountant and investment adviser, who have been married for almost 70 years. Just last week they finally agreed to merge their separate checking accounts and allow Mr. Smartt to write checks for them.

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Unidentified gunmen massacred at least two dozen university students in northern Nigeria Monday night in the city of Mubi near the border with Cameroon. The attacks lasted more than an hour, with gunmen targeting specific students by name rather than indiscriminately firing.

Suspicion fell immediately on Boko Haram, a violent Islamist organization in northern Nigeria that has typically attacked Christian churches and security forces. Student leaders, meanwhile, suggested that the killings may have been tied to internal student political campaigns. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aside from Boko Haram’s history of bloody attacks on civilians, the very name of the group ”“ which means “Western education is a sin” ”“ stokes suspicion of their involvement. But even if the group is found to be involved, the purpose of such an attack would not be part of some global jihad.

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An experimental drug appears to preserve and possibly even improve the ability of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy to walk, according to the results of a clinical trial announced on Wednesday, raising hopes that the first effective treatment for the disease may be on the horizon.

Boys with the disease who received the highest dose of the drug had a slightly improved ability to walk after 48 weeks of treatment, the drug’s developer, Sarepta Therapeutics, announced. By contrast, the boys who received a placebo suffered a sharp decline in how well they could walk.

The drug, called eteplirsen, also appeared to restore levels of the key protein that muscular dystrophy patients lack to about half of normal levels, Sarepta said.

Read it all. The blog has been following this story for a while now–keep your eye on it, it is a potnetially once in a lifetime event; KSH.

Before the debate, Barack Obama to be re-elected President in the Fall of 2012–70.5, this morning it has moved to 66.5 at my last check.

Take a look at the one week chart and also a three day chart. First, go here. Then on the left hand tab (colored blue, at the top you will see “Show:”) and go down to where it says “time period,” and click on the arrow to the right of time period where you see the word “Lifeitme” and you will see two choices, “last month” and “custom.” Choose “custom” and then enter the time period you wish, in this case 7 days and then 3 days.

If interested, you may find a lot more here. We have been over this many times–there is no flawless indicator, but Intrade has one of the best; it is just a tool, use it as such.

BBC–Romney ‘wins’ US election debate

FT–Romney dominates presidential debate

Washington Post–Rejuvenated Romney hammers Obama on his economic record

New York Times–Obama and Romney Tangle on Economy

[London] Times–Combative Romney wins first debate

Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant unto thy people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world; that, following the way of blessed Francis, we may for love of thee delight in thy whole creation with perfectness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty God, in whom we live and move and have our being, who hast made us for thyself, so that our hearts are restless till they rest in thee: Grant us purity of heart and strength of purpose, that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing thy will, no weakness from doing it; but that in thy light we may see light clearly, and in thy service find our perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Saint Augustine (354-430)

On a sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath?” And Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of man is lord of the sabbath.” On another sabbath, when he entered the synagogue and taught, a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And he looked around on them all, and said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

–Luke 6:1-11

After decades of conflict and displacement, returnees from Sudan to South Sudan are facing huge difficulties to restart their lives. According to the United Nation Office for the Organisation of Humanitarian Affairs, around 123.000 people have returned this year (Humanitarian Bulletin 3 ”“ 9 September).

Despite the raising of hopes for going back home, the situation for people arriving is very complicated. The relief and development coordinator of the Diocese of Rejaf, Episcopal Church of Sudan, Mr Bullen Pitya, explains how returnees could not bring along their things, as they were flown from Sudan to Juba with minimum personal belongings.

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A former Anglican minister with a wife and young family is the first in Liverpool to be ordained a Catholic priest.

Father Jonathan Brown needed special permission – known as a “dispensation” – from Pope Benedict XVI to be exempted from the traditional vow of celibacy.

And there is nothing to stop him from having more children if he wishes. Only if Fr Jonathan outlives his wife will he have to follow the strict rule of celibacy to which all Catholic priests are bound.

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With participants from Church of England dioceses, pilgrimage tour operators and Christian organisations linked to the Holy Land, the conference aimed to share ideas, resources and connections to help deepen the pilgrimage experience. The day sought to foster pilgrimages that make connections, using the resources and landmarks of the past to engage with the present, and encountering the present to transform understanding of the Bible.

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Shiites…make up about 15 percent of Muslims globally and in America…[and] until recently, differences [between Shiites and other Muslims such as Sunnis] mattered little in the United States, where the two groups bonded as Muslim minorities and prayed in the same mosques.

“There weren’t enough of either to justify the cost of building sectarian mosques, and because in general, early generation immigrants were less focused on establishing formal houses of worship,” said Andrea Stanton, a religious studies professor at the University of Denver.

That is changing, however, as American Shiites are increasingly establishing their own mosques. According to “The American Mosque 2011,” a survey sponsored by several Muslim American organizations, 7 percent of roughly 2,100 mosques in America are Shiite, and most have been built in the last 20 years.

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The Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, Bishop of Meath and Kildare, has been elected Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland by the House of Bishops of the Church of Ireland, following the retirement of Archbishop Alan Harper on 30 September.

Making the announcement in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, the Archbishop designate said: ”˜I would like first to express my sincere gratitude for the huge trust that my fellow”“bishops have placed in me by appointing me to the Archbishopric of Armagh. I truly feel neither worthy of the heritage into which I am to enter nor adequate for the tasks that lie ahead. The God of Christian belief is, however, a God of grace rather than a god who looks for human self”“sufficiency. All I can pledge is that I will give this task the very best of which I am capable, and the prayer of all of us must be that God in his grace will enable some good to come from this.’

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