Vatican irked by `blasphemous’ Israel TV show

*I wonder what would happen if it was the other way around?? Oh wait…we know what would happen, right??*

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican said Friday it has formally complained to the Israeli government about a private Israeli TV show that ridiculed and blasphemed Jesus and Mary.

In the program, the host farcically denied Christian traditions — that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus walked on water — saying he would do so as a “lesson” to Christians who deny the Holocaust.

It was a reference to the Vatican’s recent lifting of the excommunication of a bishop who denied 6 million Jews were killed during World War II. The rehabilitation sparked outrage among Jews.

A statement from the Vatican press office said its representative in Israel complained to the government about the show, which was broadcast recently on private Channel 10, one of Israel’s three main TV stations.

The statement said the government quickly assured the Holy See that it would intervene to interrupt the transmission and get the broadcaster to publicly apologize. But it wasn’t immediately clear how the government could do so since Channel 10 is a private station and is not subject to government censorship, except in matters of security.

Calls to Channel 10 seeking comment weren’t successful Friday. The Israeli foreign ministry had no comment.

The Vatican said that in the clip, Mary and Joseph were “ridiculed with blasphemous words and images” that amounted to a “vulgar and offensive act of intolerance toward the religious sentiments of the believers in Christ.”

In the show, hosted by well-known Israeli comedian Lior Shlein, Mary is said to have become pregnant at 15, thanks to a schoolmate. It said Jesus could never have walked on water because “he was so fat he was ashamed to leave the house, let alone go to the Sea of Galilee with a bathing suit.”

The clip was a sarcastic response to the Vatican’s rehabilitation of Bishop Richard Williamson, who said in an interview broadcast on Swedish state TV that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust and that only 200,000 or 300,000 Jews were killed.

The Vatican’s rehabilitation of Williamson sparked outrage that only abated after Pope Benedict XVI met with Jewish leaders at the Vatican last week. During his audience, the German-born pope issued a strong denunciation of anti-Semitism and said it was unacceptable for anyone — particularly a clergyman — to deny or minimize the Holocaust.

The Vatican has demanded that Williamson, a member of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, recant before he can be admitted as a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. On Thursday, the government of Argentina, where Williamson had been living, ordered him expelled within 10 days. It cited an immigration problem but also said his comments about the Holocaust had profoundly insulted Argentina, Jews and all of humanity.

The British-born Williamson had already been removed as director of the society’s La Reja seminary. He has apologized for causing distress to the pope but has not recanted. He has said he would only correct himself if he is satisfied after a review of the evidence, but has said that would take time.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_israel_2

Chicago Cameras On Every Corner??

*I won’t be going back to Chicago anytime soon *

Mayor Daley has argued that security and terrorism won’t be an issue if his Olympic dreams come true because, by 2016, there will be a surveillance camera on every street corner in Chicago.

But even before that blanket coverage begins, the “Big Brother’’ network is being put to better use.

Call takers and dispatchers now see real-time video if there is a surveillance cameras within 150 feet of a 911 call, thanks to a $6 million upgrade to the city’s “computer-aided dispatch” system.

When live video appears, call takers can pan, tilt and zoom those cameras to get the best possible view of a crime or disaster scene.

“As a first responder, I can’t tell you how important it is to have a set of eyes on an emergency scene prior to your arrival. The valuable information they provide from the camera network can ultimately mean the difference between life and death,” said Ray Orozco, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

“Whether you send one ambulance or three, two squad cars or four, it all depends upon the information we are able to gather from the 911 caller,” said Orozco, a former fire commissioner.

During a December test, live video was used to catch a petty thief in the act of sticking his hand in a Salvation Army kettle outside Macy’s on State Street.

But, the crime-fighting potential is “limitless,” said Police Superintendent Jody Weis.

“You know what the suspect’s vehicle might be. It can give us instant leads. . . . We may get some information from that where we may not even respond to that location. We could actually get ahead of it and go to a place where that vehicle maybe was last seen or the individual might be running to,” Weis said.

And, “If we can warn our officers of any dangers they’re facing ahead of time, it’s a tremendous advantage.”

Although the city’s vast surveillance network includes cameras installed at private businesses, universities and homes, Orozco said civil libertarians have nothing to fear.

“We do not and we will not take access to any camera inside of a building,’’ he said. When the city accesses private cameras, workers only see “what you would see if you were sitting on a park bench in front of that building,” he said.

In 2004, City Hall used a $5.1 million federal homeland security grant to install 250 cameras at locations thought to be at high risk of a terrorist attack and link them and 2,000 existing city cameras to the 911 center.

Chicago then launched “Operation Virtual Shield,’’ by linking 1,000 miles of fiber cable to a unified “homeland security grid’’ — complete with hundreds of additional cameras and sensors to monitor the city’s water supply and detect chemical and biological weapons.

On Thursday, Orozco refused to say how many cameras are currently linked to the 911 center. But, he reiterated Daley’s earlier promise.

“We’re going to grow the system until we eventually cover one end of the city to the other,” he said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1440402,mayor-daley-emergency-surveillance-cameras.article

Fireball lights up sky and causes jaws to drop

“Look out!” shouted Gregory McCartney, who runs astronomy education programs at Ko Olina, as a fireball flew overhead.

He thought his group of 18 was about to be hit, but the mysterious object suddenly disappeared.

Another isle resident who saw the green fireball in the sky the night of Feb. 9 “thought the world was coming to an end.”

Joanna Spofford, walking with her 3-year-old daughter in Kalama Valley, said, “It was the scariest thing in the world.”

Astronomers said the celestial apparition could have been a new meteor, possibly from “a clump of cometary material that hadn’t dispersed enough to become an annual shower.”

One thing it was not: debris from the collision of U.S. and Russian satellites. That collision did not happen until the next day.

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090220_Fireball_lights_up_sky_and_causes_jaws_to_drop.html?page=all&c=y