American Buddhist Net

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.

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A majority of bishops and dioceses of the Episcopal Church have approved the election of the church’s second openly gay bishop, the Rev. Mary D. Glasspool, a decision likely to increase the tension with fellow Anglican churches around the world that do not approve of homosexuality.

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The head of a new-age sect in Italy, said to have at least a thousand followers, has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing young girls and their mothers.

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Like many Americans, Doug Pagitt grew up outside the world of organized religion. Neither his parents nor his grandparents were churchgoers, and there was no expectation that he would be any different. Today, with his goatee, ear stud and funky clothes, he could easily pass for the sort of Gen X hipster who lives an entirely secular life.

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Latino population growth over the past two decades has boosted numbers in the Catholic Church, but a new, in-depth analysis shows Latinos' allegiance to Catholicism is waning as some move toward other Christian denominations or claim no religion at all.

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DUBLIN – It often starts as a voice in the wilderness, but can swell into an entire nation's demand for truth. From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons.

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By John Cooney
Saturday March 13 2010

A depressing week for Pope Benedict dramatically escalated last night into an unprecedented papal crisis when he was directly implicated in a cover-up of a German paedophile priest when he was Cardinal Archbishop of Munich 30 years ago.

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse and Google, the world’s largest search engine, is now “99.9 percent” certain to shut its Chinese search engine, the Financial Times said on Saturday.

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This is getting interesting. Whatever else, if Google leaves there will be a strong reaction in China. Dirty politics aside, the nub of this issue is an open Internet versus a closed one. Google is favored by better educated Chinese, who will probably still be able to access it on servers outside of China. Ultimately, I don't think China has a chance in this fight if the US plays its cards right, which so far it has been doing. Clinton's strong statements about Internet freedom last week and the FCC's proposals today greatly enhance Google's position. Clearly, these statements were made with an understanding of the Google-China dispute. I have had almost nothing but problems with US foreign and domestic policy for a long time, but this all looks fine to me. The Chinese model for the Internet has essentially no argument in its favor. At the same time, the US cannot easily abandon its own basic principles of free speech, so the two are natural adversaries on this front. Add to that the power of an open Internet on China's population and you have another reason for the US to take the position it has. Progressive Chinese should want China to lose this one. Ultimately, this matter comes down to technology, and that is one genie no one - not even China - will be able to put back in the bottle. ABN

We've recently seen the largest explosion ever recorded: a supergiant star two hundred times bigger than the sun utterly obliterated by runaway thermonuclear reactions triggered by gamma ray-driven antimatter production. The resulting blast was visible for months because it unleashed a cloud of radioactive material over fifty times the size of our own star, giving off a nuclear fission glow visible from galaxies away.

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Over the course of the last few weeks I have heard the following comments:

“I have had so many evening meetings lately, I haven’t eaten dinner with my family in 6 weeks.”

“I have gotten only 12 hours of sleep in the last 3 days.”

“I spent 35 hours working on my son’s science fair project last week.”

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Hanoi - Vietnam has officially allowed exceptions to its longstanding two-child policy under certain circumstances, a government official confirmed Wednesday. A new decree details seven scenarios in which couples are to have the right to a third child, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, director of the Hanoi Population Department, said.

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It took just minutes for Naila Farhat to be transformed from a bubbly 13-year-old with plump, rosy cheeks, full lips and a sweet smile into a half-blind, disfigured survivor of acid violence. A spurned suitor, Irshad Hussein, and his friend, Farhat's science teacher Mazhar Hussein, ambushed the girl on her way home from school in 2003 in the Pakistani town of Layyah in Punjab province, and splashed corrosive liquid on her face. "I felt it burning. I couldn't see clearly, but I could hear them laughing," she says. "I wanted justice."

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Third acid attack in same Hong Kong district in 6 months, serial attacker feared
Cambodia: Ninth acid attack in 2010 shows need for tighter laws
Singapore: Man jailed for acid attack

WASHINGTON — In a giant auction, the federal government has agreed to sell for pennies on the dollar most of the 120,000 formaldehyde-tainted trailers it bought nearly five years ago for Hurricane Katrina victims. But the sale of the units, perhaps the most visible symbol of the government's bungled response to the hurricane, has triggered a new round of charges that it is endangering future buyers for years to come.

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It's a haiku: Big storm, trailers, sold. ABN

Catholic church investigates 170 allegations in Germany; justice minister cites Vatican 'wall of silence' set up by Benedict

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A prostitution ring linked to alleged corruption in the awarding of public works contracts for the G8 summit in Italy involved as many as 350 women, investigating magistrates said yesterday.

The apparent scale of the “sex for favours” affair, which was previously said to involve three or four women, is a further blow to the centre-Right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

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...But, to focus on sex and spirituality, ever since Osho Rajneesh's extraordinary success in teaching that sex could be transcended only through experience and not through its renunciation, many "swamis" appear to have rampantly and readily misunderstood what he said. Rajneesh's take on sex - he wrote the controversial book Sambhog se Samadhi (From Sex to Superconsciousness) - was backed by a cogently argued philosophy.

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BEIJING — One of China’s top Internet regulators warned bluntly on Friday that any move by Google to stop censoring its Chinese search engine would be “irresponsible” and would draw a response from Beijing.

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The issue, simply stated, is Internet freedom or not. The Chinese model of a closed and restricted Internet is horrible. I hope they utterly and completely fail. I hope Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Europe also fail in their short-sighted and cowardly attempts at censorship. Right now, the USA is the only major voice in the world supporting an open, uncensored Internet. Americans should be paying attention to world trends and domestic ones and never allow anyone to abridge our freedom of speech. Do not give an inch on this matter because all of world history stands in the balance. ABN

BANGKOK - THOUSANDS of supporters of deposed Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra gathered near ministry buildings in Bankgkok on Saturday to rally against the government, sporting their signature red shirts.

Police said about 12,000 Red Shirts had arrived at a stage rigged up near a Bangkok bridge, while some 50,000 protesters had passed through military checkpoints set up at entry points to the capital throughout the day.

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IPOH: There is a growing trend of youths being hired as hit men in exchange for monthly salaries, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk T. Murugiah said.

These youths, he said, were also given assignments to injure their targets and also to rob or steal from others.

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The Federal Communications Commission is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will reimagine the nation’s media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network.

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This is a must-read and something we have to pay attention to. From what I see in this short piece, the plan looks very good. The devil will come in details that grant too much power to corporations or that permit censorship. ABN

Rainbow trout with six-pack abs and burly shoulders have emerged from a University of Rhode Island laboratory, and could someday find their way to humans' dinner tables. That's assuming diners don't panic at the sight of the muscular ichthyoid awaiting their knives and forks.

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Kushinagar is set for one of the biggest Buddha statues in the world, a 500-ft structure that would dwarf the Taj Mahal and the Bamiyan carvings.

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Tarpley makes some good points, but he is missing the crucial point that we have to take sides--either an open Internet or a closed one. For now, the US is far more supportive of an open Internet than China. The Obama administration seems to have made this position clear. I hope they stick to it. An open Internet is BOTH in the best interests of the USA and the world. IF the US abuses the principle of an open Internet, which they may very well do, I will oppose that 100%. But let's wait for that to happen before we oppose it. As for the partnership between Google and the NSA, same difference--it comes down to which side is more pro-open Internet. Yes, it's all dirty politics but there is no way to avoid that, so the US is the best bet again. I do not see anything worth supporting in the Chinese position. I am putting my money on the USA on this one. ABN

Tibetans living in-exile in India staged a protest demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy here on Friday to mark the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan Women's Uprising Day which came two days after an uprising led by the Dalai Lama against Chinese rule in 1959.

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In the wake of the latest sex abuse claims in the Catholic Church in Germany, a number of senior clergy have called for a debate on the issue of celibacy in the priesthood.

The Archbishop of Vienna called for a thorough examination of the link between celibacy and child sex abuse by priests and the Archbishop of Salzburg asked whether it was an appropriate way of life for priests today.

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Celibacy vow

There are two sorts of protectors, enlightened protectors and oath bound protectors, who are in their retinue. Ritual offerings are usually made to protectors around sunset asking for the removal of obstacles to practice.

In general, there are both mundane and supra?mundane Dharma protectors who dispel practitioners' inner and outer hindrances. Each of those is also divided into father?lineage and mother?lineage types.

Jesse Ventura on AlJazeera w/ Riz Khan (part 2)

Tokyo - The Japanese government has come under fire for a tuition-fee-waiver programme approved Friday, which critics say would discriminate against Korean students if North Korean schools in the country are excluded. A House of Representatives committee approved the bill to waive educational fees at public high schools. The bill would also allow private schools to be granted 120,000 yen to 240,000 yen (1,330 to 2,660 dollars) per student depending on the student's household income.

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MUAR: Police yesterday nabbed a suspected mental patient who tried to burn down a Buddhist temple, but quickly ruled him out as the suspect involved in the kindergarten attack.

The 48-year-old man was nabbed as he tried to set fire to the 30-year-old Buddhist temple in Jalan Muar-Yong Peng yesterday morning.

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A fairly large part of Indonesia's Aceh society feels ill-at-ease with the presence of transvestites. Religious circles even link them to the fable of Sodom and Gomorrah, a biblical story about the destruction of the towns because of their moral decadence, as indicated, among other things, by the emergence of transvestites, homosexuals and lesbians.

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