[Link: money.cnn.com...]
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The "Flame" virus, the most complex computer bug ever discovered, has been lurking for years inside Iranian government computers, spying on the country's officials.
Publicly unveiled this week, the bug is one of the most potent cyber weapons ever spotted in the wild. Security professionals say it marks a new milestone in the escalating digital espionage battle.
Flame's complexity and power "exceed[s] those of all other cyber menaces known to date," research firm Kaspersky Lab wrote in a dispatch about its investigation into Flame.
The term "Judeo-Christian" has been thrown around with relative abandon by right wing politicians and commentators of all stripes and sizes.
Most commonly they say that America is a nation founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles and based on "Judeo-Christian" values. But what does this oft used term actually mean?
Although it sounds like something that's been around for centuries, the term "Judeo-Christian" did not come into use until the mid 19th century and at that time, it was simply meant to refer to a Jewish person who converted to Christianity.
A simple definition, as given by the wikipedia page for the term is:
Judeo-Christian (also Abrahamism) is a term used in a historical sense to refer to the connections between the precursors of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism in the Second Temple period.
A broader definition, derived from analysis of several different sources cited below, is that Judeo-Christian refers to a specific set of values and beliefs shared by followers of both Christianity and Judaism.
The most central of these are:
- A belief in the Abrahamic God of Israel as being the one and only Deity with dominion over the earth.
- A belief that the nation and people of Israel are "God's chosen people"
- A belief in the early Jewish messengers and prophets used by God, including Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Joseph
The Old Testament of the Christian bible is largely composed of translated Jewish Holy books. That being said, it is a bit simplistic to say: "Both Jews and Christians believe in the Old Testament".
While both groups may agree on the events that occurred and the people involved in them, there are different perceptions and reasoning for the purposes behind those events depending on who you talk to.
And then there's Jesus.
Many of the positions advocated by those who use the term "Judeo-Christian" are specifically Christian in nature and have little, if anything at all, to do with Judaism.
Consider this Jewish man's experience with "Judeo-Christian teachings":
As one who identifies with the 'Judeo' part of Judeo-Christian, I felt invited to click on my home state of Georgia to see whom I should vote for. The links directed me to Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and the American Family Association—a major player on the Christian right whose issues with racism and abuse Sarah Posner recently wrote about on RD. These groups, and numerous others, have moved from describing the values they fight for as 'Christian' to 'Judeo-Christian'—which is intended, presumably, to sound more inclusive.
Along with other students and scholars of Judaism I had to come to realize that this irksome and quintessentially American term had considerable political value, if not intellectual or spiritual weight.
When discussing the relationship between Christ and the Jewish faith, the above author quotes an essay by Arthur A. Cohen titled "The Myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition". In it, Cohen stated:
The Jews expected a redeemer to come out of Zion; Christianity affirmed that a redeemer had come out of Zion, but that he had come for all mankind. Judaism denied that claim.
On a simpler level it boils down to this: Jews (except for those who identify as Messianic Jews) reject the idea that Christ was the Messiah prophesised about in the Old Testament.
Christianity, on the other hand, is based on the exact opposite belief: Not only was Christ the Messiah, he was God in human form and he came not just for the nation of Israel but for all mankind.
The wikipedia entry for the term notes:
Some secularists reject the use of "Judeo-Christian" as a code-word for a particular kind of Christian America, with scant regard to modern Jewish, Catholic, or Christian traditions, including the liberal strains of different faiths, such as Reform Judaism and liberal Protestant Christianity.
This is where we find ourselves today. The current usage of "Judeo-Christian" is a misnomer. Conservatives use the term in an attempt to make their beliefs and philosophy seem more inclusive than it actually is while quietly offending many who are on the "Judeo" side of the term in the process.
It should come as a suprise to almost no one that it's primarily Christians who use the term "Judeo-Christian". Its usage by a Jewish person, except in the context of an analysis such as this article, is quite rare.
It's also pertinent to note the term takes on a certain level of absurdity when you consider that Christians and Jews have not exactly had the most friendly of relations for the past 2000 odd years.
As a matter of honesty and logic, "Judeo-Christian" should realistically ONLY be used in its one truthful context: The particular set of beliefs shared by Christians and Jews.
It's simply inappropriate and inaccurate anywhere else.
Source article here
[Link: www.nytimes.com...]
Sitting in a corner office high above K Street here, Dennis M. Kelleher, one of the most powerful lobbyists on financial regulatory reform, looks every bit the corporate lawyer and high-ranking Senate aide he formerly was: tailored suit, quick smile, assertive tone.
But Mr. Kelleher does not work for banks. He works against them.
"What is at stake is whether the American people are at risk of another Great Depression," Mr. Kelleher, who is 54, said in a recent interview. "We exist to fight back against the forces trying to make us forget just how bad it was."
Mr. Kelleher is the president of Better Markets, a nonprofit organization that pushes for a stringent interpretation of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law, which passed in 2010 but whose specific rules and regulations are currently the focus of an intense, complex and expensive behind-the-scenes battle.
Think of Better Markets as Occupy Wall Street's suit-wearing cousin.
[Link: www.nytimes.com...]
The most important sporting event in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall begins June 8 with the European soccer championships co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine.
But a complicated racial issue has arisen as the families of two of England's black players have said they will probably not attend the 16-team tournament, fearing abuse or violence in Ukraine, where the team will play its first three matches. A BBC documentary depicting racist behavior at soccer games there has further inflamed emotions.
At the same time, one of England's top players, defender John Terry, faces a criminal charge after the tournament of racially abusing a black opponent during a club match last October in the English Premier League. The charge led to Terry's being stripped of his captaincy of the English national team.
While racism in soccer has been a continuing problem in England, Italy and Spain, it has by degree seemed to be more virulent at matches in Eastern Europe, with some fans making monkey chants and throwing bananas at black players, while others have given Nazi salutes and chanted, 'Sieg Heil.'
[Link: www.reuters.com...]
An Eagle Scout known for his defense of same-sex civil unions delivered on Wednesday a petition signed by 275,000 people to the Boy Scouts of America demanding an end to the group's exclusion of gays.
Zach Wahls, a 20-year-old engineering student at the University of Iowa who attained the organization's highest rank of Eagle Scout, has two lesbian mothers. He became an Internet sensation in January 2011 when his address to the Iowa House of Representatives supporting gay civil unions logged more than 2.5 million views on YouTube.
Dressed in full Eagle Scout regalia, he hand-delivered cardboard boxes containing 275,000 signed petitions to Boy Scouts of America leaders attending their national board meeting at Gaylord Palms, an Orlando-area resort and convention center.
The petition, challenging the century-old Scouts' policies against gay youth and leaders, was launched April 17 by Jane Tyrrell on Change.org, the web-based social change platform.
[Link: www.cbsnews.com...]
The secret to a long life may be linked to your personality. A study out Wednesday in the journal Aging looks at people who lived 100 years or more.
It found that they all tend to have a positive outlook. The study focused on a group of New Yorkers known as super-agers.
106-year-old Irving Kahn used to pass through Central Park on his way to school. Along the way he would see "things you would never see (today)... cows, sheep on the lawn."
Researchers discover optimism may lead to longevity
Kahn still goes to work every day, keeping tabs on the financial firm he built with his family. His sister named Happy, lived to be 109. His baby brother Peter is a 105. Tom, Irving's son, is 69.
"We think it's normal!" explained Tom Kahn. "All of you journalists and other people are coming and saying this is amazing. We've always lived with it so it doesn't appear to us to be so extraordinary."
But it is. The Kahns are part of a group of Ashkenazi Jews, those from Eastern Europe, who live unusually long, healthy lives.
[Link: www.voanews.com...]
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is warning that the most probable outcome of the current Syrian conflict is the escalation of violence and its spread to countries in the region. The meeting of the U.N. Security Council comes as U.N. monitors say 13 bodies have been discovered in northeastern Syria. The Council discussed the latest bloodshed in the 15-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice emerged from a closed-door meeting of the Security Council Wednesday and told reporters the most probable scenario in Syria is the worst case: a major crisis in Syria and in the region. "This becomes a proxy conflict with arms flowing in from all sides. And members of this Council and members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider whether they are prepared to take actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of this Council," he said.
Ambassador Rice said that scenario is the one that the 15-member Security Council has tried to avoid by its support for the Syrian peace plan of international envoy Kofi Annan.
[Link: www.bbc.co.uk...]
The largest volcanoes on our planet may take as little as a few hundred years to form and erupt.
These "supervolcanoes" were thought to exist for as much as 200,000 years before releasing their vast underground pools of molten rock.
Researchers reporting in Plos One have sampled the rock at the supervolcano site of Long Valley in California.
Their findings suggest that the magma pool beneath it erupted within as little as hundreds of years of forming.
That eruption is estimated to have happened about 760,000 years ago, and would have covered half of North America in its ash.
Such super-eruptions can release thousands of cubic kilometres of debris - hundreds of times larger than any eruption seen in the history of humanity.
Eruptions on this scale could release enough ash to influence the global weather for years, and one theory holds that the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia about 70,000 years ago had long-term effects that nearly wiped out humans altogether.
[Link: www.newdaydigital.com...]
Leona's Sister Gerri tells the dramatic story of Gerri Santoro, a mother of two and the "real person" in the now famous photo of an anoymous woman on a motel floor, dead from an illegal abortion. Reprinted thousands of times on placards, and in the media, this grisly photo became a pro-choice icon. Should the media have used this image? What circumstances led to Gerri's tragic death? Powerfully addressing issues of reproductive rights and domestic violence, this video is a moving portrait of Gerri Santoro's life and society's response to her death. "We knew the corpse, naked and abject, but we never knew the story, or we didn't until "Leona's Sister Gerri",
