Holy Smoke! The “New World” Finally Gets Its Pope

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Photo Credit: Sebástian Freire

The white smoke billowing out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaled a changing of the guard for the Catholic Church. Acknowledging the almost half billion Catholics who live in Latin America, the council of Cardinals finally recognized the “new world” by electing Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as the next Pope.

The 76 year old Argentinian, will be the first non European Pope to be elected in over 1,000 years. He will be known as Pope Francis from now on, indicating he plans to model his life in the same prayerful and humble role as St. Francis of Assissi.

If it’s any indication of his future humility, Cardinal Bergoglio once went to a hospital where sick aids patients lay. He washed and kissed their feet as he said prayers, blessing and expressing his love for them…..He is also well known for his compassion and outspokenness for the poor and downtrodden

Another first is that he is from the Jesuit order, the Church has never had a Jesuit as Pope before.

Other “new world” Cardinals were mentioned as possible candidates for Pope as well, including Irish American Cardinals: New York’s Timothy Dolan, and Boston’s Sean O’Malley.

Cardinal Dolan, particularly would have been well suited to head the Church as he has a stellar reputation for accomplishing tasks, can maneuver through the world of secular politics and is a master at communicating with the media…Strengths necessary as the Church is besieged by a bevy of problems, including outside secular forces and competition from other sects of Christianity….But many other problems the Church faces, are of their own making.

Rumors swirled around the idea of having an American Pope. Some people think too much power is already vested in America and to have an American Pope would be too much. Others said they would be suspicious that an American Pope would be working for the CIA.

Although Latin America accounts for almost half of the population of Catholics in the world, it only has 22 Cardinals out of the approximately 125 elector Cardinals worldwide. So this new Pope signals the recognition that the Churches future growth, for now, lies in the developing parts of the world.

In spite of its problems the Catholic Church is the single largest religion in the world with 1.2 billion members. It is the wellspring of world charity in places where little of that exists and has brought education to millions who would have otherwise been denied a chance to be educated. The Church was also instrumental, under the helm of Pope John Paul, in bringing down the Soviet Unions Iron Curtain that had enslaved millions around the world.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Exoskeleton Allows Anchorage Man to Walk (+video)

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Photo Credit: Ekso Bionics

The idea of “wearable robots” may seem like something out of a movie, but this technology is already being used in real life.

Started as a project for the military, the exoskeleton has transformed from a device designed to allow soldiers to lift heavy loads and walk further to one that enables people with disabilities to step out of wheelchairs and stand upright.

The “Ekso” is a bionic exoskeleton developed by Ekso Bionics that gives paraplegics upright mobility. While the commercial version of the Ekso has recently been made available to hospitals and rehabilitation centers, the company hopes to make the technology more accessible so that people can use it at home and in their everyday lives, with a personal version releasing in 2014.

CEO Eythor Bender sat down with CNN to talk about Ekso, the bionic exoskeleton he helped develop.

CNN: How many years have you been working on exoskeletons?

Bender: We have been working on exoskeletons for the last 10 years. It started as a project with the military and it was funded by DARPA, the same people who funded the Internet and GPS systems. So it was groundbreaking technology, and in the year 2005 we had a breakthrough in terms of making sure that the weight of the exoskeleton transfers all the way down to the ground. So the user who is wearing it — it usually weighs up to 50 pounds — doesn’t feel the weight at all. And that’s so important because obviously you are trying to make their lives easier, not more difficult.

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New Pope Francis Called Abortion the ‘Death Penalty for the Unborn’

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The archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has been selected to become the next Pope, leading the Catholic Church. Like his predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, he is a staunch pro-life advocate when it comes to abortion.

Last year, then-Cardinal Bergoglio stated, “Abortion is never a solution. We listen, support and understanding from our place to save two lives: respect the human being small and helpless, they can take steps to preserve your life, allow birth and then be creative in the search for ways to bring it to its full development.”

He once called abortion a “death sentence” for unborn children, during a 2007 speech and likening opposition to abortion to opposition to the death penalty.

In an October 2, 2007 speech Bergoglio said that “we aren’t in agreement with the death penalty,” but “in Argentina we have the death penalty. A child conceived by the rape of a mentally ill or retarded woman can be condemned to death.”

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‘I’m Ready To Rain Bullets On The Enemy’: Boy-Leader Kim Jong Un Gets ‘Hard Man’ Makeover As He Poses With Tanks and Threatens US

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

North Korea has issued yet another set of apocalyptic threats as the rogue state refuses to back down in the face of war games between the U.S. and South Korea. An official newspaper has quoted a war veteran vowing to ‘rain bullets on the enemy’ while leader Kim Jong Un urged his troops to ‘cut their windpipes’. The 20-something leader has been seen looking increasingly warlike in recent pictures posing next to tanks and guns, prompting speculation he is trying to project a ‘hard man’ image to shore up his authority ahead of a possible new offensive.

North Korea’s army this week officially cancelled an armistice it signed with the South at the end of Korean War. The move makes it more likely that recent tensions, prompted by new UN sanctions as well as the joint military exercises which started yesterday, could bubble over into all-out warfare.

Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of Kim’s Workers’ Party, quoted an 80-year-old veteran of the Korean War supposedly expressed the national mood.

‘I am still keeping a bullet that I failed to fire at a trench in the 1950s because the U.S. imperialists and their stooges signed an armistice agreement,’ he apparently said. ‘Send me to the trench. Give me a rifle. I want to rain bullets on the enemy to my heart’s content.’

Kim himself issued a direct threat to the U.S. and South Korea over their long-scheduled drills on the Korean Peninsula. ‘As the saying goes, a guy who is fond of playing with fire is bound to perish in flames,’ he told troops. ‘All the enemies quite often playing with fire in the sensitive hotspot should be thrown into a cauldron once I issue an order.

‘Once an order is issued you should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes and thus clearly show them what a real war is like.’

The leader’s martial attitude in recent photographs is in stark contrast to the laid-back image he attempted to project during the recent visit of former basketball star Dennis Rodman to the pariah nation.

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H&R Block Error May Delay Hundreds of Thousands of Tax Returns

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Photo Credit: cnycentral

If you haven’t received your tax refund, it could be due to an issue by the nation’s biggest tax preparer.

According to the Wall Street Journal, H&R Block “bungled more than 600,000 tax returns, delaying refunds by as much as six weeks.”

The website MarketWatch reports H&R Block “improperly filed Form 8863, leaving a mandatory field blank.” The form is used to claim educational credits. The error apparently impacts about 10 percent of the 6.6 million tax returns containing Form 8863.

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Biden: ‘I’d Rather Have An Ex-Felon Have Access To A Weapon’ Than A Fugitive

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Photo Credit: CNSNews

Vice President Joe Biden told city leaders in his pitch for new gun control laws on Tuesday that he would prefer an ex-felon over a fugitive have access to a weapon.

“The one person I don’t want to have a weapon is a fugitive from justice,” Biden said. “I rather have an ex-felon have access to a weapon than someone fleeing the justice system.”

Biden, speaking at the annual meeting for the National League of Cities in Washington, D.C., told attendees that he and President Barack Obama want Congress to pass a “universal background check” so that “every single gun sale must first go through a check to see if the buyer can legally have a gun.”

“And by the way, some of you know in your states – we’ve gotten into this – there’s somewhere in the order of 2 million people who’ve been adjudicated in your home state as not being able to own a weapon, Biden said.

“Yet their names are not in the national information system that people have to check when they sell you a gun at a gun show,” Biden said.

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‘Killing Jews Is Worship That Brings Us Closer To Allah’: Outrage Over Anti-Islamic Ad Campaign Launched In San Francisco

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail

Several anti-Islamic ads featuring the photographs and quotes of Osama bin Laden, the Times Square Bomber, and the alleged Fort Hood shooter have caused outrage in San Francisco after their release today.

The ads, which will run for the next month, are featured on 10 buses in the Bay Area and have caused a stir in the community, sparking a fierce debate between free speech and hate speech.

The ads were paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. One of the spots contains a quote attributed to Hamas, the militant Islamic group, and reads: ‘Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.’

Another ad features Osama bin Laden’s explanation of why he decided to take down the Twin Towers on 9/11. ‘The first thing we are calling you to is Islam,’ the quote reads.

It is accompanied by a picture of the former Al Qaeda leader, who was killed in a covert operation a year and a half ago.

Yet another shows would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and says how jihad involving ‘weaponry’ is an ‘obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim.’

San Francisco civil officials and Arab and Muslim leaders alike were quick to denounce what they said was ‘racist’ and offensive ads.

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Venezuela Opening Investigation Into Whether Chavez Given Cancer By US

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

The Venezuelan government announced Monday that it will open an inquiry into the conspiracy theory that the cancer that helped kill Hugo Chavez last week was implanted by his American imperialist enemies, but doctors say such a scenario is impossible.

Chavez died last week from a heart attack while suffering from cancer. Even before his death, conspiracy theorists suggested that the anti-American leader’s cancer was the product of an American plot to kill him. Even Chavez gave voice to the conspiracy.

“It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,” Chavez said in 2011, speaking of several Latin American leaders who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, including himself. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”

“We will seek the truth,” Chavez disciple and acting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Monday while announcing the investigation, according to Reuters. “We have the intuition that our Commander Chavez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted him out of the way.”

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What Kind of Gun For A Woman (+video)

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Photo Credit: The Well Armed Woman

Sadly, the myth that women are somehow less able or too weak to shoot a powerful handgun exists; it exists in gun stores, on the web or anywhere a woman might go to purchase a firearm. I was at a gun show recently and approached one of the vendors to look at the guns he had for sale. The first thing he said to me was “so, you are looking for a smaller, lower caliber handgun that you can handle, right?” I gave him a “look” maybe “stare” is a better word, and walked away.. What we WANT is a gun that will do what a gun needs to do….stop an attacker in his tracks. The best size and caliber of that gun depends on the same factors it would for a man looking for a gun for self protection. Most agree that a small caliber handgun like a .22 revolver or a .25 or .32 caliber automatic just isn’t powerful enough to stop a 250lb attacker, who might be high on drugs, which makes it less of a deterrent or even worse, make him even angrier. So a larger caliber gun is really more of a necessity than of choice.

So what type of handgun is best for self defense? There are two choices, a revolver or a semiautomatic pistol. Your decision will be based on your specific and unique needs, physical traits and your likes and dislikes.

Revolvers and semi-automatic pistols each have their own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. The one best for you will be based on how you prioritize or rank these advantages and disadvantages. The size of your firearm must be considered if you plan on concealed carry. It has been shown that the smaller the gun, the harder it is to grab away from you, but you want the accuracy and power necessary to stop an attacker. Hand strength and your tolerance for recoil are other issues to consider. There are smaller barreled options in both revolvers and semiautomatic pistols available in the recommended self defense calibers.

For some reason many people recommend that a woman start off with a revolver and then “grow into” an automatic. This is illogical and you should resist the urge to accept this chauvinistic advice. A beginner is a beginner and there is no reason you cannot learn to shoot a semi-automatic pistol as easily as a revolver. I believe this logic is sadly based simply on the fact that semi-automatic pistols are a more complex machine and that somehow women are not comfortable with complex machines. Of course, I have no comment! If you feel that a semi-automatic pistol is your choice for personal defense then go for it! If you like the simplicity of a revolver, then that is the right choice for you. I personally chose a semi-automatic pistol as my first gun.

I am a FIRM believer that each woman should choose their own gun. Just like a pair of good shoes – feel, fit and wearability are things that only you can know. You wouldn’t have your husband or boyfriend choose and buy a special pair of shoes would you? If possible get to a range that rents firearms and get a chance to hold, feel and fire different models.

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Baseless: Insecure NASCAR Announcers Pick On Palin For Comments She Never Made

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Photo Credit: AP

During Fox’s telecast of the Kobalt Tools 400 NASCAR race in Las Vegas on Sunday, Fox’s NASCAR commentator Michael Waltrip and studio host Chris Myers displayed their ignorance by ridiculing former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin over words she never even said or that have never even been associated with her.

After getting tongue-tied on live television when attempting to say that Brad Keselowski’s crew chief Paul Wolfe was a master strategist, Waltrip mistakenly said Wolfe was a “master strategery.” Clearly embarrassed, Waltrip, like any insecure man, then immediately tried to make himself feel better by referring to Wolfe as someone who had “Palin strategery,” linking “strategery” to Palin.

One huge problem.

Waltrip made a fool of himself again, for Palin has never been accused of making up the word “strategery.” Will Ferrell, in a Saturday Night Live episode in October of 2000, used “strategery” in a skit about the presidential debate between Bush and Al Gore to mock Bush.

What Ferrell did to Bush was similar to what Tina Fey did to Palin when Fey, playing Palin in a Saturday Night Live skit during the 2008 election, said she “could see Russia from my house.”

Palin never said those words, but the NASCAR commentators apparently believed she did as well, for Waltrip (@mw55) and Myers (@The_ChrisMyers) then brought up that reference while they laughed at Palin’s expense when they should have been laughing at themselves.

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