TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — The government is scrapping a $20 million prototype of its highly touted “virtual fence” on the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is failing to adequately alert border patrol agents to illegal crossings, officials said.

The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co. The fence consists of nine electronic surveillance towers along a 28-mile section of border southwest of Tucson.

Boeing is to replace the so-called Project 28 prototype with a series of towers equipped with communications systems, cameras and radar capability, officials said.

Less than a week after Chertoff accepted Project 28 on February 22, the Government Accountability Office told Congress it “did not fully meet user needs and the project’s design will not be used as the basis for future” developments.

A glaring shortcoming of the project was the time lag between the electronic detection of movement along the border and the transmission of a camera image to agents patrolling the area, the GAO reported.

Although the fence continues to operate, it hasn’t come close to meeting the Border Patrol’s goals, said Kelly Good, deputy director of the Secure Border Initiative program office in Washington.

“Probably not to the level that Border Patrol agents on the ground thought that they were going to get. So it didn’t meet their expectations.”
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16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,

20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,

21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

26 Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler–not even to eat with such a one.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:

2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;

3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.

4 ‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

5 ‘Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.

6 ‘Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

7 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’

23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

…
While religion filled his life from the moment of his birth, as a young boy Joseph Ratzinger’s heart was set on becoming a painter and decorator.

“Ideas often change radically,” he said. “At some point, a house painter who painted a wall impressed me so much I wanted to emulate him. A child bases himself on what he sees.”

Soon, another sight dazzled the five-year-old Bavarian and diverted his path away from paintbrushes and towards becoming the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, in which capacity he is now on his first visit to the United States.

On a sun-dappled spring day in 1932, a black limousine swept into the square of Tittmoning, a small town near the Austrian border where young Joseph’s father, a policeman, had been stationed.

Inside the car was the man who would ordain the young German into the priesthood 19 years later, Cardinal Michael Faulhaber, then the Archbishop of Munich.

“He came home and told our father that night, ‘I want to be a cardinal’,” recalled his elder brother, Father Georg Ratzinger.

“It wasn’t so much the car, since we weren’t technically minded,” he said. “It was the way the cardinal looked, his bearing and the garments he was wearing that made such an impression.”
…

4 “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.

5 “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.

6 “They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues,

7 and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.

8 “But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.

9 “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.

10 “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.

11 “But the greatest among you shall be your servant.

12 “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

14 ["Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.]

15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Benedict Emerges as Virtual Fashion Celeb

Friday, December 23, 2005; Page C08

VATICAN CITY — Whether it’s Prada and Gucci, or just fancy ecclesiastical tailoring, Pope Benedict XVI is his own man when it comes to dressing.

Just days before Christmas, Benedict showed up at his weekly public audience in St. Peter’s Square wearing a fur-trimmed stocking cap that could have passed for a Santa Claus hat.

Earlier this month, he made another fashion statement — donning a red velvet cape trimmed in ermine for the traditional papal visit to the statue of the Madonna near the Spanish Steps that marks the beginning of Rome’s Christmas season.

Coming after gossip about his wearing Gucci sunglasses and bright red Prada loafers, the vintage styles have turned Benedict into something of a fashion celebrity.

“Those red shoes have made quite an impression,” said Vatican historian Alberto Melloni.

Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, had no use for fancy papal attire. Most often he put on the basic white cassock and white gold-trimmed sash. In winter, however, he enjoyed a crimson wool cloak trimmed in gold braid, at times allowing children to play hide and seek in its deep folds.

The 78-year-old Benedict lacks John Paul’s natural charisma, and the trappings of Vatican splendor may be a way to compensate.
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2 And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

3 explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”

22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,

24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

25 As He says also in Hosea,
“I WILL CALL THOSE WHO WERE NOT MY PEOPLE, ‘MY PEOPLE,’
AND HER WHO WAS NOT BELOVED, ‘BELOVED.’”
26 “AND IT SHALL BE THAT IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID TO THEM, ‘YOU ARE NOT MY PEOPLE,’
THERE THEY SHALL BE CALLED SONS OF THE LIVING GOD.”

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED;

28 FOR THE LORD WILL EXECUTE HIS WORD ON THE EARTH, THOROUGHLY AND QUICKLY.”

29 And just as Isaiah foretold,
“UNLESS THE LORD OF SABAOTH HAD LEFT TO US A POSTERITY,
WE WOULD HAVE BECOME LIKE SODOM, AND WOULD HAVE RESEMBLED GOMORRAH.”

30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith;

31 but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.

32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,

33 just as it is written,
“BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE,
AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.

3 For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

April 18 (Bloomberg) — Pope Benedict XVI, who angered Jewish groups this year when he revised a Good Friday prayer to include a call for Jews to recognize Jesus, will make the first trip by a pontiff to a U.S. synagogue today in New York.

After a speech to the United Nations, Benedict is scheduled to make a 20-minute visit to the Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The temple is led by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a native of Austria who lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest during World War II. The visit comes the day before the Jewish holiday of Passover.

“The environment in which he’s coming to the U.S. right now is one in which there’s been a little bit of a quarrel,” said Lawrence H. Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. “To make that special visit is intentional to signal his view that that quarrel should not be considered to be more than that.”

The pope, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a boy in Germany, has been reaching out to Jews around the world since taking office three years ago. He went to a synagogue in Cologne in 2005, the second such visit by a pope worldwide; toured the former death camp Auschwitz in 2006; and met with Jewish leaders in Washington yesterday.

“Particularly on the eve of Passover, it’s a message of goodwill to the Jewish community, the largest outside of Israel,” Schneier said in an interview. “We’re blessed in this country that Catholics and Jews, and for that matter all denominations, have learned how to live together.”

`Sign of Respect’

Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, executive vice president of the New York-based Rabbinical Assembly, a group of conservative Jewish clergy, said the Good Friday prayer debate isn’t likely to be discussed during the visit to Park East.

“The visit to the synagogue is a tribute to the relationship that exists between the work that Rabbi Schneier has done in interfaith relations and the Vatican,” Meyers, who met with the pontiff in Washington yesterday, said in a telephone interview. “It’s really a sign of respect and caring.”

February’s Good Friday prayer revision, to be used in the Latin Mass, called on Jews to recognize Jesus as “the savior of all men.” The grand rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, said the prayer “constitutes an obstacle to the continuation of dialogue between Jews and Christians,” Agence France-Presse reported.
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18 And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge;

20 for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

21 When they had threatened them further, they let them go (finding no basis on which to punish them) on account of the people, because they were all glorifying God for what had happened;

22 for the man was more than forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed.

23 When they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

24 And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM,

25 who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said,
‘WHY DID THE GENTILES RAGE,
AND THE PEOPLES DEVISE FUTILE THINGS?
26 ‘THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND,
AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER
AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST.’

27 “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,

28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

29 “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence,

30 while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”

31 And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

39 Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah,

40 and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.

41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

42 And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

43 “And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?

44 “For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.

45 “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”