July 16, 1945: Robert Spencer Shannon
Born - I am the Editor
and that is my name
July 16, 1945: Trinity Blast Opens Atomic Age
2 hours
after my birth 1945: The first atomic bomb
is tested successfully at
the Alamogordo Bombing
and Gunnery Range in a remote section of desert
near Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The instant the bomb detonated at 5:30
a.m. that Monday, the atomic age was
born, and the world changed
forever.
Los Alamos
Established during World War Two as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to
build the first atomic bomb, it remains one of the leading nuclear arms
manufacturing
facilities in the United States.
'The heaven which is over your
head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you iron.
And the Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust ...' (Deut
28.23,24)
As
Earth's climate warms, the permafrost is thawing. That means the ice
inside the permafrost melts,
leaving behind water and soil. ... However, thawing permafrost can destroy
houses, roads and other
infrastructure. When permafrost is frozen, plant material in the soil—called
organic carbon
—can't decompose, or rot away.
About
8,200 fires in California have burned about
2.5 million acres so far in 2021, according to
Calfire. 2020: In 2020 there were 58,950 wildfires compared with 50,477 in
2019, according to the
National Interagency Fire Center.
The ‘doomsday’ glacier is on the
brink of collapse
Something scary is brewing under the surface of Antarctica.
GOP
maps Biden probes, prelude to 2024 culture war
The lone Democrat holdout is West
Virginia Senator Joe Manchin
Massive
Explosion In Lebanon Kills Dozens
Monkeywrenching:
Ecotage, ecodefense, billboard bandits, desurveying, road reclamation,
tree
spiking, even fire. All of these terms describe the unlawful sabotage of
industrial extraction and
development equipment, as a means of striking at the Earth’s destroyers
where they commit their
crimes and hitting them where they feel it most—in their profit margins.
United States Corona
Coronavirus Cases:30,423,853
Deaths:554,007
Sick
President - No Stimulus
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell sharply and were down more than 2% in late
afternoon trading Tuesday after President
Donald Trump said he was calling off negotiations with Democratic lawmakers on
coronavirus relief legislation until after the election.
Stocks, which had been moderately higher, reversed course after the comments on
Twitter from Trump, who returned to
the White House late Monday after a three-day hospital stay where he received an
experimental treatment for the disease.
Trumps
decision deals a major blow to those hoping for more stimulus deal to help the
country get through this crisis.
For jobless Americans, it means they will have to make ends meet with less money
than at the start of the crisis, when
the government provided a $600 weekly supplement to boost benefits. These
benefits ran out at the end of July.
Earth's
glaciers are melting much faster than scientists thought. A
new study shows they are losing 369 billion tons
of snow and ice each year, more than half of that in North America
. ... Their melt is accelerating due to global warming, and adding more
water to already rising seas, the study found
Greenland's ice sheet is melting as fast as at any
time
in the last 12,000 years, study shows ___________________________________________________________________________________
The airbenders were born from chaos
because it helps the viewer understand that chaos is not
necessarily a bad thing and legitimizes the Red Lotus philosophy
Live updates: WHO warns 2 million deaths
‘not impossible’ as global fatalities approach
1 million
Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world,
and look, I'm guarding it until it blazes."
Gospel of Thomas
East (Yellow) - Wioheumpata
- The direction from which the sun comes. Light dawns in the morning
and spreads over the earth. This is the beginning of a new day. It is also the
beginning of understanding
because light helps us see things the way they really are. On a deeper level,
East stands for the wisdom
helping people live good lives. Traditional people rise in the morning to pray
facing the dawn, asking God
for wisdom and understanding.
South (White) - Itokaga
- Because the southern sky is when the sun is at its highest, this
direction
stands for warmth and growing. The sun's rays are powerful in drawing life
from the earth. It is said
the life of all things comes from the south. Also, warm and pleasant winds
come from the south. When
people pass into the spirit world, they travel the Milky Way's path back
to the south - returning from
where they came.
West (Black) - Wiyokpiyata
- To the west, the sun sets, and the day ends. For this reason, west
signifies the end of life. As Black Elk says, "... toward the setting sun
of his life." The great Thunderbird
lives in the west and sends thunder and rain from its direction. For this
reason, the west is also the
source of water: rain, lakes, streams and rivers. Nothing can live without
water, so the west is vital.
North (Red) - Waziyata
- North brings the cold, harsh winds of the winter season. These winds
are
cleansing. They cause the leaves to fall and the earth to rest under a blanket
of snow. If someone has
the ability to face these winds like the buffalo with its head into the storm,
they have learned patience
and endurance. Generally, this direction stands for hardships and discomfort
to people. Therefore, north
represents the trials people must ensure and the cleansing they must
undergo.
Aliens on Earth?
Ezekiel 1:1-28 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day
of the month, as I was among the exiles by the
Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. On the fifth
day of the month (it was
the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), the word of the Lord
came to Ezekiel the priest, the son
of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal, and the hand of the
Lord was upon him there.
As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud,
with brightness around it,
and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were
gleaming metal. And from the
midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their
appearance: they
had a human likeness, ...
Fires
flare at historic California observatory
as state approaches 4 million acres burned
Oregon wildfires: 9 people dead, more
than
2,200 homes destroyed ~Sept 2020
Fall with coronavirus and the flu ~Sept
2020
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane’s air quality has worsened, remaining
‘hazardous’ with the threat of progressing beyond the
Clean Air Agency’s index.*******The Spokane
Regional Clean Air Agency tracks Spokane’s
air quality, and
the last few days, the city has been between 300–500, meaning ‘hazardous’
air quality.As of
noon on Sunday, that index is at 499—just two points away from indexing out.
And in those days of wonder and
confusion
I saw great
signs in the sky. Rainbows and light shows. Living
-faces upon my closed eyes.
Brilliant white lights that gave me strength, and this while I
lay near the edge of the earth, where it gave way to the sea. Why ....Why is it thus I asked?
And
with great abundance the answers came. And as struggled to write them down
and pass them on, a voice came to me saying....
Do not disclose all that you
know. For those around you
will condemn you and scorn you.
Then I asked..."Wil1 I be allowed to
envision the future of these remaining souls.?" And the answer came that I
should indeed read the
scroll of the future as it was implanted in my spirit but that I would soon
be dismayed. Surely at first I would be greatly appeased that my Lord
was indeed coming....He would hold the sword of one edge, but to watch my
Lord as he swung his blade would soon wear my tolerance thin
for I
was still quite human. And the voice came to me....tel1ing me to
continue now ...
foreseeing events concerning nations, presidents and common
people.
Now the Spirit told me...to forget the
ones who have forsaken the Lord for only those who "know" the Spirit will be
counted, and He
admonished me to see that those who were in his fold we well
informed and taken care.
Jesus Christ, “
But
no man knows that day or hour. No, not even the
angels in heaven. But only the Father knows” (Matthew 24:36).
___________________________________________________________
The 2020 California wildfire season is a series of ongoing wildfires
that are burning
across the state of California.
As of September 11, 2020, a total of 7,718 fires have
burned 3,354,234 acres (1,357,410 ha), more than 3% of the state's roughly
100 million
acres of land, making 2020 the largest wildfire season
recorded in California history, according to the
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Fauci warns
4 states whose coronavirus numbers don't look good
Florida reports 4th day of record deaths
Fauci testifies 'highly contagious' virus won't disappear
WASHINGTON (AP) - A sharply
divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA
from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse
procedures like fingerprinting.
There's no assurance folks will be buying
insurance under Obamacare, and that could spell trouble for the Affordable Care
Act.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans who currently lack health insurance don't know
yet if they will purchase
that coverage by the Jan. 1 deadline set by the ACA, a new survey revealed
Monday.
The weather service issued a rare tornado warning as a line of
thunderstorms raced through New Hampshire into western Maine. It said a
...
'The heaven which is over your
head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you iron.
And the Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust ...' (Deut
28.23,24)
And in those days of wonder and
confusion
I saw great
signs in the sky. Rainbows and light shows. Living
-faces upon my closed eyes.
Brilliant white lights that gave me strength, and this while I
lay near the edge of the earth, where it gave way to the sea. Why ....Why is it thus I asked?
And
with great abundance the answers came. And as struggled to write them down
and pass them on, a voice came to me saying....
Do not disclose all that you
know. For those around you
will condemn you and scorn you.
Then I asked..."Wil1 I be allowed to
envision the future of these remaining souls.?" And the answer came that I
should indeed read the
scroll of the future as it was implanted in my spirit but that I would soon
be dismayed. Surely at first I would be greatly appeased that my Lord
was indeed coming....He would hold the sword of one edge, but to watch my
Lord as he swung his blade would soon wear my tolerance thin
for I
was still quite human. And the voice came to me....tel1ing me to
continue now ...
foreseeing events concerning nations, presidents and common
people.
Now the Spirit told me...to forget the
ones who have forsaken the Lord for only those who "know" the Spirit will be
counted, and He
admonished me to see that those who were in his fold we well
informed and taken care.
Jesus Christ, “
But
no man knows that day or hour. No, not even the
angels in heaven. But only the Father knows” (Matthew 24:36).
The same account in the Book of Mark adds,
“No man knows
that day or hour. No, not the angels in heaven and not even the
Son. Only the Father knows” (Mark
13:32).
So the answer to the disciples was that the timing was only
known by God the Father. This does not mean that God would
not reveal the timing of events at a later time
Nature is a very prestigious science journal. It is the oldest and
most respected science journal in the world.
The paper suggests that aftershocks of a 5.8 EQ in Virginia on 8/23/2011 may
have been triggered by Hurricane
Irene (Cat 2) that passed nearby it on August 28th, 2011.
“I wish I could have been there when they cut your long hair.” The
second letter was to Jack Anawak, the ... That's roughly one per cent
of the budget of what was, until April 1, the Department of Health and
Social Services. In that same year ...
A 6.2 quake near Russia/China/ North
Korea border several hours ago. Just now a M Class solar flare.
With everything that's going on in North Korea, we do not need more red aurora.
oh, dear God....here we go again!
BILLINGS-The Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office has released photographs of
the two men facing charges in connection to a Thursday mobile home fire in
Lockwood that killed four people.
www.examiner.com
Experts in the biotechnology field say that genetically modified (GM) wheat
currently in development could potentially silence human genes if ingested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QiSV_lrDQ&sns=em
Vaccine pioneer admits adding cancer-causing virus to Vaccine
In this interview Dr. Maurice Hilleman reveals some astounding revelations. He
admits that Merck drug company vaccines (Polio) .....
Unless the rice you buy is certified organic, or comes specifically from
a farm that tests its rice crops for genetically modified (GM)
traits, you could be eating rice tainted with human liver.
Al Gore says chemtrails might be being used to block the sun..US wants to
control weather.
http://youtu.be/SrrWXurroWw
SUBMIT A SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORT
to the New Mexico All Source Intelligence Center (NMASIC)
Call 911 to report all suspicious incidents or unusual activity that may
require immediate police response.
It only takes ONE CALL.
Reporting Suspicious Activity Questions and Answers
Q. What exactly is "suspicious" activity?
A. No one knows what goes on in your neighborhood better than you. You may see
things or hear things that seem out of the ordinary and may
indicate suspicious or illegal conduct. Law enforcement officials in New Mexico
often rely on the instincts and perceptions of citizens to detect activity that
is out of the ordinary.
Q. What kind of activity should I look for?
A. You should immediately report people who photograph,
videotape, sketch, ask detailed questions or seek blueprints for:
Sandy's toll: Dozens dead, millions without
power, $50 billion in losses
Hurricane Sandy -- the largest Atlantic
tropical system on record -- made landfall just
south of Atlantic City, New Jersey, bringing winds up to 90 mph (150 kph), and
pushing a massive
storm surge onto beaches and shorelines "The beast comes out of
the sea, from the abyss"
"There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These
are the beginning of birth pains."
One day on 1979, a miracle happened. I cannot go into it in too
much detail but to say that no earthly explanation was close. I and another man
met under the worst of circumstances after his boat, the Blessed Redeemer, a
crabbing boat, went down killing one and saving him for 4 days on the ocean. The
rest was a pact between God and I. I knew of the boat down but nothing else... I
knew not the owner, nor where it went in the Pacific but somewhere withing 200
miles of me and that he was considered lost and dead. There is a big blank which
I will not fill in because movie producers wanted to make a movie of it and it
was said they could not do it without me and my story... an I declined to tell
the whole story, only bits, because it was between Nick Lackey the boats captain
and God and I. Suffice it to say that two people who never met, meet face to
face hundreds of miles apart.. and the day he was saved the very first thing he
did was to find out where I lived and delivered a Christmas plant to us..and we
cried.
I made a promise to God, that if indeed there were some of the predicted tough
times ahead for mankind, then I would write it all down... and I have been doing
that for all these years ever since I have made that promise. the promise was
made in exchange for Nicks life to be spared.. even after the Coast Guard and US
Navy had given up in the roughest of the Pacific weather only days before
Christmas. How could a boat named the Blessed Redeemer go down right before
Christmas I thought... and the rest is in written words some of which I get
directly from God and others to which he directed my eyes..
WORLD ON FIRE:
AFGHAN SOLDIER KILLS 2 MORE AMERICAN TROOPS...
String of Iraq car bomb blasts kill at least 32...
Muslim protesters torch Buddhist temples in Bangladesh...
Militant group al Shabab attacks church in Kenya...
Bomb explodes near Islamic school in Nigeria...
Grenade attack on fair in Thailand injures 30...
Car bomb kills 4 in Syria... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Essentially, we're seeing here the entire globe become an aftershock zone
-Fred Pollitz of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Par++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MAT 16--"3 and in
the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.'
You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret
the signs of the times.
A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it
except the sign of Jonah."
Kari Bowerman, 27, and Cathy
Huynh, 26, were backpacking in Vietnam while on break from their jobs teaching
English in South Korea.
Two days later, Huynh was dead. What we don't know for sure is
what triggered their deaths.The travelers' stories are just
the latest in a string of mysterious
tourist deaths in Southeast Asia.
Investigators with the
World Health Organization suspect poisoning is to blame, but determining the
origin has
proven difficult. Meanwhile,
friends and family are desperate for answers.
Spy planes able to photograph
sunbathers in their back gardens are being deployed by Google and Apple.
The U.S. technology giants are racing to produce aerial maps so detailed they
can show up objects just four inches wide.
But campaigners say the technology is a sinister development that brings the
surveillance society a step closer.
‘The next generation of maps is taking us
over the garden fence,’ he warned. ‘You won’t be able to
sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing
overhead taking pictures.’
Maryland 2012 Hundreds of birds just dropped from the sky and landed onto
I-95
Wednesday, bringing afternoon rush hour traffic to a crawl. They were common Starlings, and while there were a few in the grass
and on the shoulders of the
highway, the vast majority landed right on the northbound travel lanes in
Laurel. “We were just kind
of curious about running them over and getting them stuck in your tires and all
that nastiness,” says
Tammy Johnson. “I travel this all the time and have never seen anything like
that before,” says Ray Wheltle.
A tornado has ripped through part of eastern Japan killing a teenage boy and
injuring dozens of other
people. The twister hit power lines in the city of Tsukuba just north of Tokyo.
Power is still out in around
20,000 homes and many other houses have been destroyed.
March 17, 2012
Dear Bob Shannon; To be highly
gifted in one area is such a blessing, to be highly gifted in several areas is
God's divine work,
He certainly has done amazing divine work on you my friend. The struggles,
trials, and tribulations you have
endured, have given you such wonderful insight, in many areas. Thank you for
your sharing and
friendship, it is a treasure to me.
A Friend
An end to modern medicine?
A warning by the head of WHO that antibiotic resistance is so
serious that it may lead to an end to modern medicine
should alert health authorities to contain this most serious health crisis.
LAST week, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) sounded a large
alarm bell on how antibiotics may in future not work anymore, due to resistance
of bacteria to the medicines.
"I promised Wray I would never give up the fight." It was a wife's final
pledge to her dying husband, who was
once identified as Medical Volunteer No. 6692 at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland.
In 1973, Army Pvt. Wray Forrest spent two months at Edgewood as a volunteer
human test subject in a top secret Cold War research program studying chemical
and biological weapons.
The men were sworn to secrecy and told to never discuss Edgewood Arsenal or the
experiments that went on there with anyone.
Asteroid to threaten Earth in 2013
To avert a possible catastrophe – this time set for February 2013 –
scientists suggest confronting asteroid
2012 DA14 with either paint or big guns. The stickler is that time has long run
out to build a spaceship to carry out the operation.
NASA's data shows the 60-meter asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in
February, will whistle by Earth in 11 months.
Its trajectory will bring it within a hair’s breadth of our planet, raising
fears of a possible collision.
U.N. Trying to Regulate the Web!!!
"And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the
world for a witness
unto all nations; and then shall the end come."
Matthew 24:14
|Gas Prices Soar Due To Tensions With Iran,
Refinery Closures
Mormons will say they "are Christians
in the truest sense. Like other Christians, Mormons believe Jesus Christ is the
divine Son of God" (Mormon
Web Site).
Mormonism teaches "false Christianity ... believed that God
was a being without form or substance" (LDS
GP Chap 16). "Mormons are not Christians ... Those
who deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity deny that Christ is God. Now if one
denies that Christ is God, he is denying an essential aspect of Christianity" (ETWN).
"Although Mormons certainly consider themselves to be
Christians, the Catholic Church does not consider them to be
Christians, either sacramentally or
theologically. The Church has ruled that Mormon baptism is not valid, which
means that Mormons are not Christians by baptism. Since Mormons believe in
a plurality of gods and do not believe in Christ's divinity (as it is understood
by orthodox Christians), they are not theological Christians either."
NILAH.COM, Tanjunguma - Local traditional markets
in Kampong gnats, Tanjunguma rob flooding.
As a result, the home resident of RT / RW 001/04 and RT / RW 002/03,
submerged in water.
As a result of flooding caused by high tides (rob), the activity of
paralyzed people. Similarly, access to transportation,
barely connected. According to residents, the tide of the sea that had flooded
the region since last Saturday (24/12).
Until Tuesday (27/12), flood rob it has not shown signs of going to recede.
Moreover, bad weather that plagued the region during December
Batam is expected to continue until early 2012
Rescue teams are continuing to search for up to 150 people thought to be
missing after a landslide struck a mining village in the southern Philippines. The landslide occurred on Thursday in Pantukan, Compostela Valley province,
on Mindanao island.
Occurring near the plate boundary, no doubt feeling the recent pressure from
the Pacific via the Mariana and Philippine plates.
Landslide in Norway in the middle of winter? What
exactly is happening there? On top of that, tons of herring
found dead north of Norway as per blog post below. It sounds like a stretch zone
to me. A picture made available
on 02 January 2012 shows an aerial view of a landslide that ripped through a
rural area outside Trondheim, Norway,
on 01 January 2012. Authorities in western Norway on 01 January 2012 issued an
alert and ordered an
evacuation following a landslide in a valley west of the city of Trondheim. At
least 20 people were evacuated
from their homes and farms in the rural area near Esp, but there were no initial
reports of injuries or damage, the
Norwegian news agency NTB reported.Kvaenes, Tons of Herring found Dead North of
Norway. The
nhabitants of resin in Troms could hardly believe his eyes on the morning of New
Year's Eve, the beach was a large
amount, an estimated tens of tons, dead herring, writes Northern Lights. No one
knows for sure what's happened
in the popular hiking area in Nordreisa municipality.
At Least 24 Die in Tunisian Protests (Jan. 11): At least
two dozen people, mainly young civilian men, are killed in government protests
in Tunisia. The protesters are unhappy with the chronic unemployment they are
facing in the country, as well as perceived police brutality. President Zine el-Abidine
Ben Ali ordered a night curfew, and schools and universities have been
temporarily closed. (Jan. 14): After 23 years of authoritarian
rule, President Ben Ali flees Tunisia for Saudi Arabia amid protests. Prime
Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi announces he will take over as interim protests. It
is the first time a President of an Arab country has been overthrown because of
widespread protesting.
11 Cabinet Members Resign, Toppling Lebanese Government (Jan. 12):
Hezbollah and its allies withdraw from the Lebanese government, breaking a unity
government that has been in place since 2009. Eleven of the 30 cabinet members
resign. The government has been in turmoil since 2005, when former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated.
Egyptian President Asks Army to Intervene After Days of Violent
Protest (Jan. 28): After days of violent protest in Cairo, Egypt,
President Hosni Mubarak calls the army into the streets to stop the
demonstrators, protesting over government corruption, the economy, and lack of
personal freedom. Those involved called the event a "day of wrath"; the protests
have stretched on for four days.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Among 17 Shot in Assassination Attempt,
Six Killed (Jan. 8): Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is
shot in an assassination attempt in Arizona. She is among at least 17 shot by
a gunman who opened fire on the congresswoman's constituent meeting outside a
local grocery store. Six people are fatally wounded, including United States
District Court Judge John Roll, and a young girl. The gunman, who police
identify as Jared Lee Loughner, is apprehended and remains in police custody.
Rep. Giffords, who was shot in the head, is hospitalized and in critical
condition. (Jan. 9): Loughner is charged with five federal
counts for the Arizona shooting spree, including attempted assasination of a
member of Congress. Rep. Giffords is still in critical condition, though her
doctors are optimistic about her recovery. Authorities believe Loughner acted
alone.
At Least 8 Die in Australian Flooding (Jan. 10): At least
8 people are dead and over 70 missing after massive flooding ravages Brisbane,
Australia. The area has seen weeks of heavy rain and flooding, killing at
least 18 people over the past two months. The region had been suffering from
drought for 10 years.
Bombing in Moscow Airport Kills At Least 35, Wounds 168 (Jan. 24):
A suicide bomber kills at least 35 and wounds at least 168 in an attack on a
Moscow aiport. The blast occured in the international arrivals section of the
airport. Authorities are as yet unsure who masterminded the bombing.
Sun Erupts With Most Powerful Solar Flare in Four Years (Feb.
14): An X-class solar flare, the most powerful form of solar flare,
erupts and jams radio communications in China. Such a solar blast has the
potential to disrupt electrical power grids and satellites used on Earth.
Northern Lights Enhanced by Solar Flare (Feb. 17): The
Aurora Borealis, commonly known as the northern lights, are more prominent
due to the recent solar flare eruption. Thanks to the solar flare, the
Aurora Borealis are visible farther south, even into the northern tier of
the United States.
Earthquake Strikes New Zealand's Second Largest City (Feb. 22):
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake hits Christchurch, New Zealand, killing at least
75 people. The U.S. Geological Survey reports the earthquake is part of an
aftershock sequence from a 7.1 earthquake that hit the same area last Sept.
Hawaiian Volcano Erupts (March 7): The Kilauea Volcano, thought to
be one of the most active in the world, erupts, spewing lava through new
cracks. The eruption causes more than 150 detectable earthquakes in the
area, but no damage is reported.
Massive 9.0 Magnitude Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Japan
(March 11): Japan is hit by an enormous earthquake that triggers
a deadly 23-foot tsunami in the country's north. The earthquake, Japan's
largest ever, hit about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo. The Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center issues warnings for Russia, Taiwan, Hawaii, Indonesia, the
Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the west coasts the
U.S., Mexico, Central America, and South America. Cooling systems in one
of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station fail
shortly after the earthquake, causing a nuclear crisis.
Earthquake of 6.8 Magnitude Hits Myanmar (March 24):
A powerful earthquake strikes northeastern Myanmar, toppling homes and
killing more than 70 people. Tremors from the earthquake are felt hundreds
of miles away, in cities as far away as Bangkok and Hanoi.
Gunman Opens Fire at Former School in Brazil (April 7):
A 23-year-old former student returns to his public elementary school and
begins firing, killing at least 12 children before shooting himself in the
head. It is the worst school shooting Brazil has ever seen.
Aftershocks Continue to Rattle Japan (April 11): A
second earthquake in five days hits Japan, this one a 6.6 magnitude. A
tsunami warning is issued, but later canceled. The earthquakes are seen as
aftershocks, coming just a month after the area was hit by the earthquake
and tsunami that have killed over 13,000 people and led to disaster at the
Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Japan Equates Nuclear Incident with Chernobyl (April 12):
Japan raises its assessment of the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant to Level 7, the worst rating on the international
scale, putting the disaster on par with the 1986 Chernobyl explosion.
Developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency along with countries
who use nuclear energy, the scale defines level 7 as a nuclear accident
that involves "widespread health and environmental effects" and the
"external release of a significant fraction of the reactor core
inventory."
Series of Tornadoes Devastate Southern States (April 27):
In one of the worst U.S. tornado seasons, 137 reported tornadoes sweep
through the south, killing nearly 300 people in six states. Most of the
fatalities occur in Alabama.
As many as a half-billion trees may have died
across Texas from the effects of the 2011 drought, the
state's forest service says.A survey released Monday by the Texas Forest
Service estimates 100 million
to 500 million trees, or 2% to 10% of the state's 4.9 billion trees, have been
killed by the severe drought.
USA’s 12 Billion
Dollar Extreme Weather Disasters of 2011 2011 had some pretty ridiculous weather and ended
up a historic extreme weather year.
811 inches of snow in
Squaw Valley, extreme drought, monster floods, EF-5
tornados, wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, & big snow in big cities;
There were 12 extreme weather situations in 2011 that caused $1 billion damages
or more.
The most being $10.2 billion, the least being right around $1 billion.
(Reuters) - NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts
in northwest Pakistan Saturday,
killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations deeper into
crisis.
Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into
Afghanistan - used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's
land shipments - in retaliation for the worst such incident since Islamabad
uneasily allied itself with Washington
|following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund,
warned Wednesday of the potential for a
"lost decade" if the world's nations do not join forces against the "dark
clouds" gathering on the horizon.
"The global economy has entered a dangerous and uncertain phase," she said,
addressing the 2011 International Finance Forum in Beijing.
"If we do not act, and act together, we could enter a downward spiral of
uncertainty, financial instability, and a collapse in global demand.
Ultimately, we could face a lost decade of low growth and high unemployment,"
Lagarde said.
World Bank President Admits Agenda For Global Government
World Bank President and Bilderberg elitist Robert Zoellick openly admitted the
plan to eliminate
national sovereignty and impose a global government during a speech on the eve
of the G20 summit.
A 46-year-old man
who told doctors he was hearing voices reportedly ripped out his own
eyeballs
during a Sunday church service in northern Italy, The Sun reports.
According to The
Daily Mail, Aldo Bianchini, who was born in the UK but spent most of his
life in Italy, used
his bare hands to tear out his eyeballs just as Rev. Lorenzo Tanganelli began conducting Mass.
He then collapsed on the floor in a pool of
his own blood.
NBC Bay Area
translated comments Rev. Tanganelli gave Corriere
Fiorentino, an Italian newspaper.
"This man at the back of the nave started tearing at his face and I
realized he was gouging out his eyes,
" Tanganelli told the paper. "I called
for assistance and the paramedics were quickly at the scene,
and he was taken
away and then I carried on celebrating Mass, but a lot of people had left
because they were so shocked by what they had seen."
Bianchini was
taken to the hospital for treatment, but doctors say he will never be able to
see again.
"In 26 years of
practicing medicine, I have never seen anything like it," Dr. Gino Barbacci, the
emergency
physician who treated Bianchini, told the Italian-language news site Bresciaoggi.it,
according to a HuffPost translation.
2011 began with a catastrophic flood in Australia, which was followed by
earthquakes in South America,
New Zealand, Pakistan and Argentina. The Japan earthquake was one of the
largest and most powerful
earthquakes ever recorded. Fifteen thousand people perished from the earthquake
and subsequent
tsunami that brought deadly waves over 100 feet high that swept away villages.
Five thousand people
are still missing and the full damage to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant and
the effects the
radiation will have on those in the area remains unknown. As the nation rushed
to provide aid
to those in Japan, the United States dealt with what has been referred to as the
2011 super Outbreak.
Tornadoes ripped through states leaving billions of damages, claiming lives and
claimed the lives of
159 people in Joplin, Missouri. If hurricanes, floods, mudslides, earthquakes
and tornadoes isn’t enough
to get man questioning what’s going on with the world, the economic earthquake
will. With
unemployment continuing to surge, the fear of a double dip recession and a
housing crisis many are
just as worried as the financial storm as they are physical ones.
A rare bug known as a “brain-eating amoeba” reportedly killed a 9-year-old
Virginia boy, making him the third person this
year to die from the infection. The boy, Christian Alexander Strickland, died
from meningitis on Aug. 5, and his aunt
Bonnie Strickland said doctors told the family that Naegleria
fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba, was the
suspected cause of his illness
A Fredericksburg cancer patient is recovering after
being brutally beaten during a robbery .Police said
three men knocked on 43-year-old Eddie Butler's door Monday night, in the 300
block of XXXXX Drive.
When the victim answered, the men pointed a gun at Butler and demanded money and
prescription drugs.
The state of Illinois has reached a new level of broke. Come
Monday, it won't have enough cash to bury its indigent dead.
Illinois officials sent a letter to more than 600 funeral directors around the
state to let
them know there's no money for funerals for individuals on public assistance.
Earth will become home to 7 billion people later this year, and most of the
planet's growth will affect the developing countries the most, straining those
regions' limited resources, a Harvard University professor said Thursday.
The world's growth has been dramatic: It was just in 1999 that the global
population reached 6 billion. United Nations projections call for the population
to reach 10.1 billion in 2100, according to David Bloom, a professor of
economics and demography at the Harvard School of Public Health, in an article
published in the July 29 issue of Science.
By 2050, about 2.3 billion more people will be added, nearly as many as the
total living on the globe as recently as 1950, Bloom said. Humanity grew slowly
through most of history, taking until 1800 for the population to hit 1 billion.
In the past half-century, the population grew from 3 billion to about 7
billion.
Forecasts call for the world's "demographic center of gravity" to shift from
more-developed to less-developed regions, Bloom wrote in his article, according
to a Harvard news release.
Abandoned Children Found Running Naked Through Jersey
City Streets... Luke 21:11 There will be great
earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events
and great signs from heaven. Mark 13:8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be earthquakes in
various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
(Reuters) - An outbreak of E.coli
cases in northeastern Tennessee and
southwestern Virginia has sickened 13 people and resulted in the death of
a young child, public health officials said
Rare Infection Strikes Victims of a Tornado in Missouri Several people who were injured when a tornado devastated Joplin,
Mo., last month have become
sickened by an uncommon, deadly fungal infection and at least three have died,
although public
health officials said Friday that a link between the infection and the deaths
was not certain.
More Than 600 Sickened by Lead Poisoning in China
BEIJING (AP) — More than 600 people, including 103 children, have been
sickened in China's latest
case of mass lead poisoning, state media reported Sunday.
China has suffered widespread problems in recent years from heavy metal
contamination, with thousands
of children affected by lead poisoning in several provinces in 2009 and 2010
because they lived near
metal smelters or battery factories.
Del. Robert G. Marshall,
R-Prince William, is asking the Richmond
Federal Reserve Bank to
remove the rainbow flag flying below the American flag
outside of the building, calling its presence
“a serious deficiency of judgment by your organization, one not limited to
social issues.”
In a letter to Richmond Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker, Marshall says the
homosexual
behavior “celebrated” by the bank
“undermines the American economy” and is a class six felony in Virginia.
New 'Superbug' Found In British Cow Milk
A new strain of the MRSA "superbug" has been found in
the milk of British cows and
is believed to be infecting humans.
An entirely new, and multiple-drug-resistant, strain of E.
coliappears to be responsible for the deadly
outbreak of the bacterium in Europe, scientists announced Thursday.
Called a mutant
form of two other
strains of the bacterium, the new bacterium seems to be more virulent and
toxin-producing than your
garden variety strains of E. coli. And
it appears to be giving E.
coli O157:H7 a run for its
money in the ability to alarm consumers. That's the strain most of us have
come to fear
after several outbreaks in this country. (CNN) -- Infectious disease detectives worldwide rushed
Thursday to find the cause of an outbreak
of a rare strain of E. coli that has spread to 10 countries and is blamed
for
at least 16 deaths and hundreds of illnesses.
“I will sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,”
declares the LORD. 3 “I will sweep away both
man and beast;
I will sweep away the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea—
and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble.
RARE
TORNADO HITS MASSACHUSETTS
Less than two hours after a tornado touched down in Springfield, The
Weather Channel (TWC)
has
confirmed a second tornado in nearby Westfield, Massachusetts.It was
on the ground as of 6:15 p.m.
Eastern Time and The Weather Channel has urged those nearby to "TAKE
COVER."
Westfield is located just west of Springfield and this tornado could
wreak havoc on the same
area affected earlier. While the tornado earlier this evening passed
through downtown Springfield,
this one is headed toward Chicopee and North Springfield.
In Joplin, there was no time to prepare
Sunday's tornado ripped into a hospital, a nursing home and
thousands
of other buildings, killing at least 116 in what's being called the worst
twister ever to hit Missouri.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland – An Icelandic volcano was flinging ash, smoke and
steam miles (kilometers)
into the air Sunday, dropping a thick layer of gray soot in an eruption
far more forceful than the one that grounded planes across Europe last
year.
The volcano, which lies beneath the ice of the uninhabited Vatnajokull
glacier in southeast Iceland, began erupting
Saturday for the first time since 2004. It was the volcano's largest
eruption in 100 years.
NASA Watches From 438 Miles as the Mississippi Floods
The Landsat Program, a series of Earth-observing satellites controlled by
the United States Geological Survey and NASA, recently
released these images of the Mississippi River from 438 miles above the
areas where the major waterway is flooding parts of the Midwest and the
South.
"The flood crest of 47.87 feet on May 10, is the second highest
rise in recent history," according to USA Today, "the highest being
48.7 feet in 1937.
Costs of the flooding are expected to approach $1 billion."
”MOBILE, Alabama (WALA)
- Alabama's April tornadoes have put the state in the
severe weather history books.
The historic number of tornadoes produced on April 27, 2011 were also historic
in their magnitude, intensity and path length.
Ninety-nine tornadoes touched down on April 27. Seven
were EF4 and two were EF5. This year, now holds
the record for
number of tornadoes and most EF4/EF5 tornadoes in a single year. The previous
number of tornadoes in a single year was 94 in 2008.
The National Weather Service says the numbers are still considered
preliminary.
New Zealand's prime minister says at
least 65 people have died after
a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch.
John Key said the toll was expected to rise further, adding: "We may be
witnessing New Zealand's darkest day."
The tremor caused widespread damage as it occurred at a shallow depth of 5km
(3.1 miles) during lunchtime when Christchurch was at its busiest.
The mayor of New Zealand's second-biggest city says 120 people have been
rescued from the ruins.
Tohoku's tsunami death toll/missing persons lists changed little over the
past 48 hours.
Prime Minister Kan's promise of temporary housing for all shelter residents is
well underway.
Wanted by ICC prosecutor for 'crimes against humanity':
Qaddafi
The International Criminal Court's top prosecutor today asked judges to
issue arrest warrants for Qaddafi, his
eldest son, and his intelligence chief for 'crimes against humanity.'
The
National Police Agency (NPA) The NPA count of total dead attributed to the
Tohoku Great Earthquake
and Tsunami reported an increase of only 43 for May 16 and 17 together. That
increased the death toll from
15,069 to 15,112, continuing a constant increase in the number of bodies
found.
The country's deadliest natural disaster in 80 years struck
at 1251
(2351 GMT on Monday), 10km (6.2 miles) south-east of the city.
Aggressive new strains of wheat rust disease called stem rust and stripe rust
have decimated up to
40 percent of wheat fields threatening to wipe out wheat farming amid rising
food shortages in the
East African region. At a meeting of the International Wheat Stripe Rust
Symposium last week in
Aleppo Syria, scientists said unless serious and urgent measures were taken to
combat the rust, it
would adversely reduce wheat production in the world.
The strain of the deadly wheat pathogen will likely continue to affect Kenya,
Ethiopia, Morocco, North
Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, including Syria,
Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, Iran
and UzbekistanThe greatest threat emanates from the stem rust first discovered
in Uganda in 1999.
The death toll from Sunday's tsunamis has
jumped to more than 118,000 after Indonesia
reported nearly 80,000 people were killed in that country alone.
Estimates of the death toll are continuing to rise in most areas.
Sri Lanka reports more than 24,000 dead, and at least 10,000 were killed in
India.
In Thailand, more than 4,000 are feared dead and dozens of deaths are reported
in Malaysia, Myanmar, Maldives, Somalia and Tanzania.
Many who did survive are struggling to stay alive, and the World Health
Organization estimates that five million people are without basic needs.
Deuteronomy 32:24 I will send wasting famine against them, consuming
pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that
glide in the dust.
Australia’s pistachio farmers expected a
bumper crop this year 2011. Instead they had a
harvest of horrors, with nuts blackened by a fungus that had never before
caused an outbreak in pistachios.
From the department of "science proves the obvious":
exposure to neurotoxic pesticides in the womb
results in children with lower IQs, according to a
study
from the University of California at Berkeley
Isaiah 19:2 "I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian--brother
will fight
against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom
against kingdom.
Awoke this morning in terrible
mental confusion. This is VERY VERY typical of some sort of solar/earth/geomag
activity. In a normal situation I would await the calming period and then
predict. This is way too bad a feeling to wait. If I cannot accurately
predict, I can at very least make a note of this day and be very watchful on
both the sun for increased activity...especially that kind directed towards
earth. Also I have a power zone which needs to be watched carefully....a
line from the MTJ out say 100km and on land change to miles...about 200
miles to Lassen, then dips awkwardly down to Tahoe and then zigzags over to
50 miles S of San Jose then back up to the MTJ.
I must always remember my "new" location. Still working on that. I will now
go look at maps but to those who are sensitive...this is a wakeup
call...intense...very intense
Thanks a bunch, Bob. I got out of the market, at what I was
thinking was a bad time, because the day was down, but I sold out of every
position BEFORE the Japan earthquake because of what you said. If I had
stayed in, I would have lost thousands that I can ill afford to
lose...Thanks so much, but I am sorry it made you so ill...
== PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==
Region: NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Geographic coordinates: 38.322N, 142.369E
Magnitude: 8.8 M
Depth: 24 km
Universal Time (UTC): 11 Mar 2011 05:46:23
Time near the Epicenter: 11 Mar 2011 14:46:23
Local standard time in your area: 11 Mar 2011 05:46:23
Location with respect to nearby cities:
130 km (81 miles) E (86 degrees) of Sendai, Honshu, Japan
179 km (111 miles) ENE (68 degrees) of Fukushima, Honshu, Japan
188 km (117 miles) SE (145 degrees) of Morioka, Honshu, Japan
376 km (234 miles) NE (37 degrees) of TOKYO, Japan
On The Possibility of Living in Two Worlds
Spirituality starts as a small thing of amazement. Worldly follows a close
second in growth.
The Spirit rises to a plateau.
Materialism transcends the ridge and walks on water. The Spirit watches
quietly amused.
For one is not for all, and upward mobility is clouded.
Ignorance falls to the Earth Plane. While Spirit kindles a fire in the soul.
Grounded dualism looks to be united with Spirit. The Pilot shouts to AWAKE.
Man looks upwards to his Guide, leaving tangible behind. He struggles to
ascend the material plane.
Through the clouds without a future vision. The
Spirit calls his name...he follows. Comes the ONE!
Through the turbulence climbs and surpasses.
Easter seems far below. The two become one in a flame. Absent
material-Spirit One-Upward Mobile. To the ONE.
Global food prices have hit
record highs, and could rise even further, according to the United Nations.
The UN's Food Price Index rose 2.2% in February to the highest level since
the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began monitoring prices in
1990. It also warned that spikes in the oil price could make the "already
precarious" situation in the food market even worse.
Did Google just become evil? The search giant created an art contest for kids
called Doodle-4-Google, which sounds all cute and sweet and everything until you
realize that it might have been a
horrible ruse to get the Social Security numbers of thousands of our
nation's innocent youth!
Bob Bowdon, director of the education-corruption documentary The Cartel,
noticed that to enter the contest, parents had to fork over their kids'
birthday, city of birth, and last four digits of their Social Security number.
With those three pieces of data, it's apparently relatively easy to guess
someone's full number.
Google could make a lot of marketing money from that information, New York's
Nitasha Tiku writes, though Bowdon admits he has "no evidence that Google
will use or sell this information for marketing purposes." On the other hand,
Tiku notes, Google stopped asking for the last four digits a mere 26 hours after
the FTC was alerted. "Okay, class. Who wants to send in a doodle under the theme
'Be sort of evil until someone figures it out'?" Tiku says.
The incidentraises a lot of questions. Among them:
Why does Google need your "last four" for an art contest? Is this like
requiring an SSN to claim lottery winnings? (If so, perhaps this is
understandable?)
What would a hypothetically profit-driven evil Google do with the social
security numbers of a bunch of kids? It's not like they have credit cards or
something, right?
But what if it's an investment so future purchases can be tracked?!
Seriously, did parents really not understand they were giving out their
kids' social security numbers?
How long can Google continue to not be evil before it succumbs to
temptation???
Are we idiots for being so paranoid about technology or idiots because
we're not paranoid enough?!?!
“I
will sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,”
declares the LORD. 3 “I will sweep away both
man and beast;
I will sweep away the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea—
and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble.”
SEVASTOPOL, February 19 (Itar-Tass) --
Mass and still unexplained deaths of migratory blackbirds have been
reported in Sevastopol. Dozens of dead birds lie on the
Kamyshovskoye highway, in the Kazachya bay and other coastal areas.
"It's likely collision with Earth may occur on April 13, 2036,"
Professor Leonid Sokolov of St. Petersburg State University
concluded, according to UPI, which also reports an unrelated
4-foot-wide asteroid passed by Earth this week.Sokolov says while
the chances for impact are slim, it's important to plan for all
possible scenarios, per Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. He
added the asteroid is most likely to disintegrate into smaller
parts that could collide with Earth in following years.
Isaiah 19:1-4 parts) – Look! Adonai is riding a swift
Chariot (Heavenly Vimama) on his way Egypt…I will incite
Egypt against Egypt, brother against
brother, friend against friend, city against city…the courage of
Egypt will ebb away…They will consult idols, mediums, ghosts, and
spirits. I will hand over the Egyptians to a
cruel master. A harsh king will rule them.”
Nearly 500 fish were found dead in the
Arkansas River near Ozark late week…
The latest find occurred Friday in the
river near Ozark Lock and Dam, said Chris Racey, assistant chief
of fisheries with the commission.
More than 83,000 dead or dying fish
were found in the same area on Dec. 29.
In both cases the majority of the fish
discovered were freshwater drum.
3,000+ foot long mysterious black blob of killer
“toxic goo” found near Florida coast
— Appears to be GROWING
From a distance the toxic goo looks like oil,
but up close it smells like rotten eggs and wiggles like jelly.
Scientists have no idea what it is or how it wound up in the
northern Gulf of Mexico… [j]ust off the Florida Panhandle coastline,
within site of Perdido Key…[S]cientists have discovered an
underwater mass of dead sea life that appears to be growing
as microscopic algae and bacteria get trapped and die.
Early samples indicate the glob is at least three feet
thick and spans two-thirds of a mile parallel to
the coast. Tests also showed that tiny organisms
had been getting stuck to the blob and dying as a result.
Haiti cholera toll tops 3,750
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haiti's cholera
death toll has risen to 3,759, government figures
showed Thursday, but daily fatalities linked to the persistent
epidemic appeared
to trend downward in the first days of 2011
ABIJDAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - The head of UNICEF in Ivory Coast says
that a cholera outbreak in a neighborhood of Abidjan killed at least
seven people and sickened 35 others.
UNICEF country chief Sylvie
Dossou says the fatality rate of 20 percent in the Adjame neighborhood
is "unacceptably high."
CLIMATE | Although
scientists know what is causing the topsyturvy weather, the big
question is whether these patterns are linked to the changes global
warming is causing in the Arctic.
Dr.
Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern
Queensland, outlined the scenario to
news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, is
losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and
go
super-nova at any time.
When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we'd see a second sun,
Carter says. There may also be no night during that timeframe.
The Star Wars-esque scenario could happen by 2012, Carter says... or
it could take longer. The explosion could also cause a neutron star or
result in the formation of a black hole 1300 light years from Earth
January 14, 2011
- “Sittwe: An amazing rock mass has
emerged from the seawater near the offshore islands of Pharonga, located
20 miles south of Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State, report numerous
witnesses. A fishing boat owner said, “We have never seen a rock mass
before in the area near Pharonga Island. Now there is a rock mass
appearing from the sea and it is very strange and wonderful for all.”
The location of the rock mass is
seven miles south of Pharonga Island, 20 miles southeast of Sittwe. The
rock mass is 10 feet high when the tide is low, and remains five feet
above the sea when the tide is high. “All fishing boats have avoided
going near the strange rock mass out of fear there is danger underwater
near the rock. Many people believe the rock mass emerged from the water
due to a volcano eruption under water, but no on can tell exactly how
the rock mass formed,” he said. In the past, many fishing boats worked
in the area because it is rich in fish, but now boats do not dare go
near the rock mass to fish. According to biologist sources, there are
many extinct mud volcanos around the Pharonga Islands, and the emergence
of the rock mass is related to a volcano eruption in the area. However,
no government officials have come near the rock so far to investigate
how it appeared. -Narinjara
Submarine volcanic activity is inceasing under the world’s oceans. It’s
an indication that massive geological changes are already transforming
the planet we know as Earth. In November of 2010, an island arose from
the sea off the Balochistan coast of Pakistan.
The sun over Greenland has
risen two days early, baffling scientists and sparking fears that Arctic
icecaps are melting faster than previously thought. Experts say the sun
should have risen over the Arctic nation's most westerly town, Ilulissat,
yesterday, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness. But for the
first time in history light began creeping over the horizon at around
1pm on Tuesday - 48 hours ahead of the usual date of 13 January. The
mysterious sunrise has confused scientists, although it is believed the
most likely explanation is that it is down to the lower height of
melting icecaps allowing the sun's light to penetrate through earlier.
Jerusalem: a cauldron of
nationalistic and religious acrimony, a persistent flashpoint for global
crisis. Exactly where you want to put the world’s most notorious private
security firm.
But
that’s not all. According to Stein, Blackwater — ahem, sorry,
Xe Services – isn’t actually part of
International Development Solutions anymore. Xe, recently purchased by a
surprisingly crunchy group of investors, apparently offloaded U.S.
Training Center — although it’s likely that its personnel will continue
to train on the same Moyock, North Carolina facilities as Blackwater,
and “many of its operatives” are Blackwater people, Stein writes.
If so,
it would suggest that Blackwater’s new owners, known as USTC Holdings,
meant it when they played down Blackwater’s security tasks. “USTC
Holdings, LLC will acquire the Xe companies that provide domestic and
international training, as well as security services,” it said in a
statement last month. Message: we’re a training
company, not a mercenary firm infamous for
shooting Iraqi civilians and
taking guns intended for Afghan cops.
Vandals destroy Holy Thorn tree in Glastonbury
Vandals have destroyed a historic tree whose roots can be linked
back to the origins of Christianity nearly 2,000 years ago.
The Holy Thorn tree on Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury, Somerset, is
regarded as one of Britain’s most important symbols of Christendom,
and is said to be derived from the original planted by Joseph of
Arimathea.
The tree is one of several Holy Thorns located around Glastonbury but
is arguably the most significant because of its placing on the spot
where Joseph visited.
Each year a sprig from another Holy Thorn tree in the town is cut for
the Queen, a tradition which dates back more than 100 years. The Queen
places the sprig on her dining room table on Christmas Day. The
cutting ceremony took place on Wednesday, hours before the overnight
attack.
Police are trying to establish a motive for the attack, in which
vandals hacked off the branches of the tree, leaving only part of the
trunk remaining. They have not ruled out a religious motive.
Brisbane floods leave city centre deserted as thousands flee
• Officials warn that worst
is yet to come
• Death toll since weekend rises to 12
A mass of 700
turtle doves has fallen dead in Faenza, Italy, reports GeaPress, who
describe the scene (via Google Translate): "They are in heaps in the flower
beds, crushed by machinery in the streets, horribly hung from trees like
Christmas balls. Many, many more, say the property information in the fenced
land for industrial use."
The bird come
on the heels of a mass of bird and fish deaths on December 31 in Arkansas,
and followed by reports of several other mass animal deaths around the
world.
And while
conspiracy theorists have been busy trying to find explanations for the mass
deaths - from government testing to alien interference -, the answer to the
dead doves in Italy appears, at least in theory, to be straightforward: they
ate too much.
The Bible doesn't include HOW the birds and fish
die..In theory it could be cumulative, by over fishing, cold water, climate
change or disease or even pollution by us and by OIL!
As if thousands of
dead birds falling from the sky and millions of fish turning up dead
across the world in the last week weren't enough, the Thanet Coast in the UK
is now littered with tens of thousands of
dead crabs that have washed ashore. The events are likely unrelated,
however, and the BBC notes that this is the third year in a row thousands of
dead devil crabs, also known as velvet swimming crabs, have turned up on
the coastline near Kent, England. It is estimated that
40,000 of the dead crabs have washed up on the beaches this year. According to LiveScience, experts believe cold weather is to blame for
the
massive crab deaths. Tests conducted in past years have turned up no
results for disease or similar problems, leaving the cause an unexplained
mystery, though hypothermia is conjectured.
VENICE, FL - One Venice neighborhood had quite a shock Wednesday when
they met their newest neighbor. Resident's at Sorrento Woods say it's usually pretty quiet there, but
a new neighbor has people talking. “When I was coming back from work this morning I passed by, and I
thought I saw what I thought I saw, but I had to back up and come and look
again.” Sylvia Mythen says she barely believed her eyes. “It was indeed an
orange alligator.”
"It’s critical to understand the location and current
activity of the various faults which exist throughout the GOM and how they
connect to the New Madrid Fault Line, as well as other major faults at much
greater distance. There does appear to be a emerging uptick in earthquake
activity in the greater Louisiana area, as well as contiguous regions in the GOM
as demonstrated by unprecedented, albeit low level earthquakes."
-- An
overlooked female pinkie bone put in storage after it was discovered in a
Siberian cave two years ago points to the existence of a previously unknown
prehistoric human species, anthropologists say.
And the lineage of that species may survive today in some people in Papua
New Guinea and nearby islands, scientists say.
A report on the discovery of the finger was published in the December 23
edition of the scientific journal Nature.
Anthropologists say the 30,000- to 50,000-year-old finger is evidence of
a new population of hominids they call Denisovans. The name is derived from
the southern Siberian cave in which the finger bone was found.
Geneticists say the finger probably belonged to a 6- or 7-year-old girl.
"The whole story is incredible. It's like a surprising Christmas
present," said Carles Lalueza Fox, a Spanish paleontologist not involved in
the research who was quoted in the online article.
The 3 billion-letter nuclear genome derived from the child's finger shows
that the ice-age population of early humans was more diverse than previously
thought. Also, a comparison of the genome to modern humans indicates that
Melanesian inhabitants of Papua New Guinea and various South Pacific islands
inherited as much as 5 percent of their DNA from Denisovans.
EXPERTS LINK WARMING TO STEEP RISE IN FOOD PRICES
BY CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
CANCÚN, Mexico – Even if we stopped spewing global-warming gases today, the
world would face a steady rise in food prices this century. But on our
current emissions path, climate change becomes the “threat multiplier” that
could double grain prices by 2050 and leave millions more children
malnourished, global food experts reported Wednesday.
Beyond 2050, when climate scientists project temperatures might rise to as
much as 11.5 degrees over 20th-century levels, the planet grows “gloomy” for
agriculture, said senior research fellow Gerald Nelson of the International
Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The specialists of the authoritative, Washington, D.C.-based IFPRI said they
fed 15 scenarios of population and income growth into supercomputer models
of climate and found that “climate change worsens future human well-being,
especially among the world’s poorest people.”
The study, issued at the annual U.N. climate conference in Cancún, said
prices will be driven up by a combination of factors: a slowdown in
productivity in some places caused by warming and shifting rain patterns,
and an increase in demand because of population and income growth.Change
apparently already is under way. Returning from northern India, agricultural
scientist Andrew Jarvis said wheat farmers there were finding warming was
maturing their crops too quickly.
“The temperatures are high and they’re getting reduced yields,” Jarvis, of
the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture, told
reporters last month.
For most farmers, trying to adapt to these changes “will pose major
challenges,” the report said.
Even with “perfect mitigation,” the implausible complete elimination
immediately of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions, it said
real prices for grain would rise because of growing demand and other factors
— by 18 percent for rice by 2050 under the most optimistic scenario, to up
to 34 percent for corn in the most pessimistic, a scenario envisioning high
population growth.
With climate change factored in, the increases in real prices by 2050 could
range from 31 percent for rice in the most optimistic scenario, to 100
percent for corn in the most pessimistic. And IFPRI has estimated that such
prices could boost the global number of undernourished children by 20
percent — 25 million more children.
Up until 2050, endpoint of the experts’ projections, some of the impact
could be offset by research and development of higher-yielding varieties of
corn, wheat and other crops, and by freer, more flexible global trade in
food commodities, IFPRI said.
Only deep reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions and billions spent to help
farmers adapt to a changing climate can head off serious food shortages,
Nelson said.
IFPRI, which is supported by world governments, estimates that at least $7
billion additional spending a year is needed for crop research and improved
irrigation, roads and other upgrades of agricultural infrastructure.
(CNN) -- Spawning at least 24 possible
tornadoes, mostly in the Midwest, a giant storm system stretched Tuesday
night from Alabama to Maryland, bringing new watches and warnings.
The system unleashed its wrath on several communities in northern Alabama,
Tennessee and North Carolina on Tuesday night.
At one time, it had stretched a staggering 1,200 miles from north to south.
Tornado watches were in effect for several counties near Charlotte, North
Carolina, and forecasters say some areas will see continued strong winds
Wednesday.
In Lincoln County, North Carolina, five homes were damaged and two of them
destroyed, said spokesman Dion Burleson. Five people were hurt; one has
life-threatening injuries. Several cars were overturned in Catawba County,
according to the National Weather Service.
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a possible tornado struck a fence near
Chickamauga Dam and threw debris into a roadway, police said. Seven cars
lost control and crashed, with five people suffering injuries.
Deputies were assessing damage near the town of Geraldine in DeKalb County,
Alabama, and in Marshall County, said Lauree Ashcom, spokeswoman for the
Alabama Emergency Management Agency. Marshall includes the lake resort city
of Guntersville. A tornado may have touched down southwest of Geraldine, she
said.
Video: Storms tear through Midwest
Downed trees are making it difficult to reach residents and determine any
injuries, said DeKalb County emergency official Michael Leath. "We're having
to batten down the hatches for another system coming in." No injuries had
been reported late Tuesday.
A tornado watch was in effect for the District of Columbia until 3 a.m. ET
Wednesday.
Wind, rather than flooding, appeared to be the biggest danger, with gusts
exceeding 70 mph in some places. The National Weather Service's Storm
Prediction Center said there were 258 reports of wind damage by mid-evening
Tuesday.
No deaths had been reported to state emergency officials by early evening.
Extensive damage from the high winds and possible tornadoes was reported in
a band from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast.
Six tornadoes were confirmed in Indiana, three in Ohio and another in
Wisconsin.
Up to 200,000 residents lost electrical power.
A tornado smashed into a business in LaPorte County, Indiana.
Dan Hill, general manager of Hoosier Machinery Solutions, heard a weather
siren and went to check.
He turned to another employee after spying an odd cloud formation outside
the business door. " 'Does that look like a tornado?' I asked. As soon as I
said that, it touched down."
The twister tore a roof off a pole barn, damaged some reconditioned
recycling equipment and employees cars. No one was hurt. The 10 employees
"all ran for [heavy] equipment and got inside," Hill told CNN.
All 48 floors of the Chase Tower in downtown Indianapolis were evacuated for
a short time at the height of the storm. People took refuge in the
building's fallout shelter, according to CNN affiliate WRTV.
The system appears to have made weather history. Preliminary readings
indicate that a new record was set for the lowest pressure in a nontropical
storm in the mainland United States, said Chris Vaccaro of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The minimum central pressure of 28.22 inches of mercury was equivalent to
the pressure of a major Category 3 hurricane, without the corresponding wind
scale, he said. If confirmed, the reading would break the current record of
28.28 inches, set on January 26, 1978, during what became known as the
Blizzard of 1978.
Storms caused extensive damage to buildings
near Racine, Wisconsin, and Peotone, Illinois, Tuesday morning.
A Peotone youth who was with his brother at a farm that was damaged
described to CNN affiliate WLS-TV in Chicago what it was like in the middle
of the tempest.
"All of a sudden, the wind kicked up," Justin Schroeder said. He said the
force of the wind "sent us back into the foyer about five feet. It was like
a bomb went off. You didn't hear a tornado. You didn't hear a whistle. It
was a like an explosion of glass."
Some experts told WLS that the storms might be
the most powerful to hit Illinois in more than 70 years. The CNN Severe
Weather Center reported the storm was moving quickly eastward at more than
50 mph.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport reduced air traffic from three runways to
one runway for landings and takeoffs Tuesday mid-afternoon because of high
winds. About 50 flights had been canceled or delayed, a spokesman said.
Conditions may still be difficult in the region Wednesday.
O'Hare International Airport in Chicago reported that 500 flights had been
canceled as of 3:35 p.m. Some delays were reported at Chicago Midway
Airport. Indianapolis International Airport reported some delays for flights
to Detroit, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; and
Minneapolis, Minnesota, while Detroit Metro Airport said most flights were
on time with the most significant delays to O'Hare.
Indiana and Illinois each had at least 60,000 power outages and 38,000 were
reported in Ohio. Other states reported smaller figures.
Gabrielle Torres and her husband experienced extreme weather in Corydon,
Indiana.
"There were extremely strong winds that were even rocking my husband's
semi-truck side to side," she said. "The tornado sirens were sounding but we
could barely hear them over the pounding rain."
In St. Louis, Missouri, two reported partial building collapses were blamed
on the extreme weather, according to Officer Donna Wisdom of the St. Louis
Police Department. Video from CNN affiliate KSDK-TV in St. Louis showed
downed trees, damage to homes and thick rubble on a sidewalk beside a
building damaged in the storm. Wisdom said no serious injuries were reported
from the partial collapses.
A National Weather Service damage assessment team confirmed that an tornado
touched down near Somers, Wisconsin, causing two injuries.
Numerous uprooted trees, snapped and downed power poles and roof damage to
several buildings was reported. Several parked tractor-trailers were also
tipped over, according to the National Weather Service.
Severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches popped up throughout
central Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee around midday Tuesday as the intense
band of storms began to push through Indiana.
At least one tornado was reported to have severely damaged a house in Howard
County, northeast of Kokomo, according to CNN affiliate WRTV in
Indianapolis.
Witnesses gave accounts that underscored the fury of the storm. Several said
they'd never seen anything like it.
CNN iReporter Trey Sturgeon, 23, of Connersville, Indiana, described the
wind and rain as "a little bit scary."
"Where I live in Indiana, we don't get winds and possible tornadoes," said
Sturgeon, a musician who was at home when he looked out the window to see
the storm.
"The first thing I thought of was my family," he said.
"When the winds came, it was a lot more like a dense fog than rain -- from
the wind pushing the rain sideways," he said.
"On a tree right down the road, a big tree limb was broken off and it blew
across the street before it hit the ground, and we're talking maybe a 200-,
250-pound tree limb. There were reports on my police scanner of tree limbs
falling and landing on power lines in the northern part of the county."
All 48 floors of the Chase Tower in downtown Indianapolis were evacuated
briefly at the height of the storm, and occupants took refuge in the
building's fallout shelter, WRTV reported.
"It was pretty bad up there," Nick Hoetmer, who works in the building, told
WRTV. "The windows were moving back and forth, so it was nasty."
Huge earth changes are taking place at this time. L.A.
had a record cool summer and a few days after summer is over, they shoot up
to a record high 113 degrees. Parts of Brazil and Bolivia shattered record
cold temps and were colder than Antarctica for much of July, killing
millions of fish, and many alligators and fresh water dolphins! Weather is
going crazy around the world and all the mainstream media talks about is
"climate change" "global warming"...etc. But they won't touch upon the True
Cause, because for them it is too alarming.
An increasing number of people around the world have witnessed amazing
changes in the location of Sun rise and set in summer and winter. Apparently
this is being caused by the earth moving below the old ecliptic plane in
summer and above it in winter! The moon is also playing rodeo all over the
sky....and the media says nothing. I have read of reports (as yet
unsubstantiated) that a "gag order" is in place and professionals dealing
with the subject have had to sign non-disclosure agreements regarding these
facts. The Inuit peoples of the high arctic have published several stories
regarding the changes in sun position at their locations and were told by a
meteorologist that it is an "optical phenomenon unique to the extremely high
horizon". Yet these changes are visible all over the world. Ordinary
citizens from all over the world are reporting their observations regarding
the sun and moon changing their positions in the sky. And we're not just
talking inches here. The changes are amazing to say the least! The furthest
north the sun traditionally appeared for thousands of years, was the tropic
of cancer which passes through central mexico, yet now, at the beginning of
summer, it can be witnessed to rise in the direction of maine and set in the
direction of seattle.
And according to the universities, the highest latitude that the moon
reaches, is 28.5 degrees, yet for the last couple years at least, it has
transgressed that number by a significant margin! One can watch the moon
rise low in the south east and set in the southwest, at least from my
position at 41 degrees north in the midwest U.S. and then, within two weeks
time, it will rise high in the northeast and set in the northwest!
According to WIRED magazine and others, scientists are perplexed at the
mysterious high tides, and reports of "giant rogue waves" coming out of the
clear blue, and Tsunami are on the increase, as are earthquakes in populated
areas around the world. Changes in the sun are being documented at a
dizzying pace these days as well, and on the same day that a large asteroid
hit jupiter this summer, something impacted Venus. These were observed on
the same day!
One can easily observe the sun rising too far north in summer and too far
south in winter and these changes are, themselves, in a state of change.
Catholic bishops: More exorcists needed
CLERGY GIVEN TRAINING TO DISCERN POSSESSION
Skepticism high in U.S., but many ask for help
BY RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
NEW YORK – Citing a shortage of priests who can perform the rite, the
nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are holding a conference on how to conduct
exorcisms.
The two-day training, which ends Saturday in Baltimore, is to outline the
scriptural basis of evil, instruct clergy on evaluating whether a person is
truly possessed and review the prayers and rituals that comprise an
exorcism. Among the speakers will be Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of
Galveston-Houston, Texas, and a priestassistant to New York Archbishop
Timothy Dolan.More than 50 bishops and 60 priests signed up to attend,
according to Catholic News Service, which first reported the event. The
conference was scheduled for just ahead of the fall meeting of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops, which starts Monday in Baltimore.
Skepticism about the rite persists within the American church. Organizers of
the event are keenly aware of the ridicule that can accompany discussion of
the subject. Exorcists in U.S. dioceses keep a very low profile.
In 1999, the church updated the Rite of Exorcism, cautioning that “all must
be done to avoid the perception that exorcism is magic or superstition.”
The practice is much more accepted by Catholics in parts of Europe and
elsewhere overseas. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, longtime private secretary
to Pope John Paul II, revealed a few years after the pontiff’s death that
John Paul had performed an exorcism on a woman who was brought into the
Vatican writhing and screaming in what Dziwisz said was a case of possession
by the devil.
“Learning the liturgical rite is not difficult,” DiNardo said in a phone
interview before the conference, which is open to clergy only. “The problem
is the discernment that the exorcist needs before he would ever attempt the
rite.”
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., who organized the conference,
said only a few U.S. priests have enough training and knowledge to perform
an exorcism. Dioceses nationwide have been relying solely on these clergy,
who have been overwhelmed with requests to evaluate claims.
The Rev. James LeBar, the official exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York
under the late Cardinal John O’Connor, had faced a similar level of demand,
traveling the country in response to the many requests for his expertise.
The rite is performed rarely. Neal Lozano, a Catholic writer and author of
the book “Unbound: A Practical Guide to Deliverance” about combating evil
spirits, said he knows an exorcist in the church who receives about 400
inquiries a year, but determines that of that number, two or three cases
require an exorcism.
No one knows why more people seem to be seeking the rite. Paprocki said one
reason could be the growing interest among Americans in exploring general
spirituality, as opposed to participating in organized religion.
Exorcism has deep roots in Christianity . The New Testament contains several
examples of Jesus casting out evil spirits from people, and the church notes
these acts in the Catholic catechism.
Whether or not individual Catholics realize it, each undergoes what the
church calls a minor exorcism at baptism that includes prayers renouncing
Satan and seeking freedom from original sin.
A major exorcism can be performed only by a priest with the permission of
his bishop after a thorough evaluation, including consulting with physicians
or psychiatrists to rule out any psychological or physical illness behind
the person’s behavior.
The full exorcism is held in private and includes sprinkling holy water,
reciting Psalms, reading aloud from the Gospel, laying on of hands and
reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Some adaptations are allowed for different
circumstances.
The exorcist can invoke the Holy Spirit and blow in the face of the
possessed person, trace the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead and
command the devil to leave.
Whooping cough is on the rise in industrialised countries, despite
long-standing vaccination programmes. Now researchers from the University of New
South Wales in Sydney, Australia, have an explanation for why: at least two
strains of the bacteria that cause the infection have evolved to evade today's
vaccines.
According to
The Daily Telegraph of Sydney, "the research team analysed more than 200
samples of the bacterium collected over the past 40 years in Australia and
compared them with samples from Japan, Canada, USA and Finland". They found that
there are at least two strains that the vaccine may not protect against - known
as MT27 and MT70.
At least in rich countries, many people may think that whooping cough - also
known as pertussis - is a killer from a pre-vaccination era.
The new study, which
is published in this month's edition of the journal Emerging Infectious
Diseases, emphasises that incidence rates have been recently increasing in
many industrialised countries. Prior to this study,
scientists were unsure why.
.(Oct. 5) -- Hungary is in a state of emergency and
at least four people have died from a toxic sludge that is flooding the area
around Ajka, 100 miles southwest of Budapest. The red mud, which poured out of a
containment pond at an aluminum plant, contains heavy metals that are toxic if
ingested and that can burn through skin,
The Associated Press reports.
One man reported that his uncle had been burned "to the bone."
The "father of the test tube baby," Robert G. Edwards, won the Nobel Prize
for medicine on Monday, the awards committee announced. His contributions to developing in vitro fertilization (IVF) "represent a
milestone in the development of modern medicine," the committee said.
A State Patrol detective sergeant shot and wounded a pregnant woman
while serving a search warrant in Spokane Friday. The officer is with the
Quad City Drug Task Force, which was serving a search warrant about 8:15
a.m. at 1405 N. Lincoln, according to the Spokane County Sheriff's Office,
which is investigating the shooting. The woman, who investigators said is 39
weeks pregnant, was taken to a hospital for treatment of
non-life-threatening injuries, according to Sgt. Dave Reagan of the
sheriff's office.
We are a nation that is out of step with other
industrialized countries when it comes to the issue of kids and guns. While most nations recognize that absolutely no good can come of
exposing children to guns at a young age, we live in a gun culture that
promotes romantic notions of generations of families hunting and shooting
together.
In light of the recent tragic death of an 8-year-old boy, Christopher
Bizilj, who unintentionally killed himself while shooting an Uzi at the
Westfield Sportsmen’s Club Machine Gun Shoot in western, Massachusetts, we
decided to check out YouTube to see what other examples we could find of
young children blasting away with machine guns and other weapons at similar
shoots.Sadly, it took us no longer than 5 minutes to find a broad range of
videos, showing what could be considered in some cases to be blatant child
endangerment. There is no telling how many more of these videos exist on the
internet or how many other children have participated in or been exposed to
these kinds of events– but no doubt it’s expansive if you have the time to
do the research.
The government has your baby's DNA
When Annie Brown's daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked
Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them:
Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis. While grateful
to have the information -- Isabel received further testing and she doesn't have
the disease -- the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about
Isabel's genes in the first place. After all, they'd never consented to genetic
testing. It's simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United
States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing
is mandated by the government, it's often done without the parents' consent,
according to Brad Therrell, director of the
National Newborn Screening & Genetics
Resource Center. In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born,
babies' DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center. Many
parents don't realize their baby's DNA is being stored in a government lab, but
sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in
Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents' concerns are
sparking a new debate about whether it's appropriate for a baby's genetic
blueprint to be in the government's possession. "We were appalled when we found
out," says Brown, who's a registered nurse. "Why do they need to store my baby's
DNA indefinitely? Something on there could affect her ability to get a job later
on, or get health insurance." According to the state of Minnesota's Web site,
samples are kept so that tests can be repeated, if necessary, and in case the
DNA is ever need to help parents identify a missing or deceased child. The
samples are also used for medical research. Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the
University of Pennsylvania, says he understands why states don't first ask
permission to screen babies for genetic diseases. "It's paternalistic, but the
state has an overriding interest in protecting these babies," he says. However,
he added that storage of DNA for long periods of time is a different matter. "I
don't see any reason to do that kind of storage," Caplan says. "If it's
anonymous, then I don't care. I don't have an issue with that. But if you keep
names attached to those samples, that makes me nervous." DNA given to outside
researchers Genetic testing for newborns started in the 1960s with testing for
diseases and conditions that, if undetected, could kill a child or cause severe
problems, such as mental retardation. Since then, the screening has helped save
countless newborns. Over the years, many other tests were added to the list.
Now, states mandate that newborns be tested for anywhere between 28 and 54
different conditions, and the DNA samples are stored in state labs for anywhere
from three months to indefinitely, depending on the state. (To find out how long
your baby's DNA is stored, see
this
state-by-state list.) Brad Therrell, who runs the federally funded genetic
resource consortium, says parents don't need to worry about the privacy of their
babies' DNA. "The states have in place very rigid controls on those specimens,"
Therrell says. "If my children's DNA were in one of these state labs, I wouldn't
be worried a bit." The specimens don't always stay in the state labs. They're
often given to outside researchers -- sometimes with the baby's name attached.
According to a study done by the state of Minnesota, more than 20 scientific
papers have been published in the United States since 2000 using newborn blood
samples. The researchers do not have to have parental consent to obtain samples
as long as the baby's name is not attached, according to Amy Gaviglio, one of
the authors of the Minnesota report. However, she says it's her understanding
that if a researcher wants a sample with a baby's name attached, consent first
must be obtained from the parent
200,000
Dead and 1.5 Million Homeless after the Haiti Earthquake Devastation
It has now been a week since the devastating quake has
struck Haiti, but the number of people dead is still uncertain. There are
earthquake death statistics put forward by various aid organizations and
Haitian government, but the estimates are not in agreement. The latest
estimate offered by the European Union citing Haitian authorities stands at
200,000 people dead.
Haiti Earthquake Displaces 300,000
In its first estimate, the United Nations reports
about 10 percent of the housing in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince has
been destroyed, leaving some 300,000 people homeless. The UN says a full
assessment of the damages inflicted by the powerful earthquake will take
several days to complete.
stevebruskCNNRare Tornado Warning
in effect for south central Los Angeles County
Houston
elects openly gay mayor Houston, Texas (CNN) -- Annise Parker made history Saturday as
Houston's first openly gay mayor.
Parker,
who served five years as city controller, beat former city attorney
Gene Locke with 53.6 percent of the vote in a runoff election.
Giant iceberg heading for Australia
A
giant iceberg double the size of Sydney Harbour is on a slow but steady
collision course with Australia, scientists have said.
WASHINGTON. -
When you turn on the tap, you expect your water to be
safe to drink, but testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday revealed
there
are serious problems, especially in America's small towns and
cities."The concentration of chemicals in some places are so high that
you
can literally light the water on fire," said Senator Frank Lautenber
(D-NJ)The Environmental Protection Agency told Congress 96 percent of
the
problems are in small communities and the agency needs more money to
help them. Schools are a big concern as the Associated Press reported
one in five schools with their own water supply have violated standards.
While only six
percent of violators have been punished, according to
the New York Times, the EPA is promising a crackdown beginning in
January, though lawmakers said the EPA's new plan must be more than
just words on paper. "The vast majority of this committee
expects you to take action to protect our children and families.
Anything else, we'll consider a stall. We expect action," said
California Senator Barbara Boxer, (D-CA).The New York Times estimated nearly 50
million Americans have consumed unsafe water in the past five years and that
review found violations in every state
COPENHAGEN –
Decisions being made here at the 192-nation climate conference will
affect people in far away corners of the globe. In the case of Peru,
the South American nation 6,800 miles away, negotiations here could
have an impact on the country’s shrinking supply of life’s
most basic
resource: water. The United
Nations says 80 percent of the
water that flows to Peru's highly populated Pacific coast originates in
the Andes Mountains. The Andes hold the world's biggest collection of
tropical glaciers – glaciers that are disappearing.
Russia to supply India with nuclear
reactors
By James Lamont and Alexandra Stevenson in New Delhi
Published: December 7 2009
Russia
became the latest country to strike a civil nuclear deal with
energy-hungry India on Monday when it agreed to supply reactors to
Asia’s third largest economy.
International power companies from
Russia, France, the UK, the US and Canada are flocking to India seeking
opportunities to help one of the world’s fastest-growing
economies meet
its energy demands. The contribution of nuclear energy in India is
forecast to rise from 4,000MW to as much as 470,000MW over the next 40
years.
Sumatra, Indonesia (-- The land still smolders, tinted
with a depressing gray. Twisted hulks of tree trunks take on abnormal
shapes. A dark black canal cuts through the wasted landscape.
It
looks like a scene from an apocalyptic movie where an unknown force has
obliterated all life. But this is the reality of Sumatra, Indonesia's
largest island.
The Kampar Peninsula was once virgin rainforest,
some of the most biodiverse in the world. The region has now been
transformed into a lifeless plain, soon to be replanted with
monocultures.
Environmental groups describe the degradation as
rampant pillaging -- the work of multibillion dollar paper, pulp and
palm oil conglomerates.
Already 85 percent of Sumatra's forests
are gone. What is left is vanishing at an alarming rate -- an area the
size of 50 football fields disappears every hour, according to
Greenpeace and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations.
Lovers of weather
statistics keep one eye on the sky and the other
on your watches: We're on the cusp of an itty-bitty weather record.If
we make it to midnight without a flake this will be the first time in
Toronto in more than 160 years we have enjoyed snow-free skies before
December"Lack of snow is even more spectacular when you look at the
downtown
stations with records back to 1847 ... first time even without a flake
of snow in October or November," wrote David Phillips, senior
climatologist with Environment Canada in an email.
MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food
stamp use at record highs and climbing
every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now
helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.It has grown
so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly
as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use
inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese,
swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with
foreclosure signs.
Food banks go high-tech to feed the
hungry
SEATTLE (AP) - Food banks across the
country are undergoing a high-tech
revolution, adopting sophisticated databases, bar coding, GPS tracking,
automated warehouses and other technologies used in the food industry
that increasingly supplies their goods.
Nov 25 09
HONG KONG
(Reuters) - China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the
behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird
flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert
said. Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory
Diseases in China's southern Guangdong province, said the presence of
both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous
hybrid -- a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit
efficiently among people.
WASHINGTON -- The government insurance fund that protects more than
$4.5 trillion of U.S. bank deposits slipped into the red at the end of
September, after fifty banks collapsed during the third quarter.
The deposit insurance fund dropped by $18.6 billion during the third
quarter of 2009 to negative $8.2 billion, as the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. set aside $21.7 billion in provisions for additional
bank failures. This is the second time in the agency's history that the
balance has fallen into negative territory.
The FDIC has already called on the industry to prepay $45 billion in
assessments at the end of the year that will be set aside to cover the
cost of bank failures in 2010.
Hindu sacrifice of 250,000 animals begins
11-24-2009
The world's biggest animal sacrifice began in Nepal today with the
killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu
festival in the village of Bariyapur, near the border with India.
The event,
which happens every five years, began with the decapitation of
thousands of buffalo, killed in honour of Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of
power.
With
up to a million worshippers on the roads near the festival grounds,
this year's fair seems more popular than ever, despite vocal protests
from animals rights groups who have called for it to be banned. "It is
the traditional way, " explained 45-year old Manoj Shah, a Nepali
driver who has been attending the event since he was six, "If we want
anything, and we come here with an offering to the goddess, within five
years all our dreams will be fulfilled." .
New York (CNN) -- The New York Police Department executed
search warrants Tuesday at some offices of The New York Times, The New
York Daily News, The New York Post and El Diario newspapers and at a
labor union, with authorities saying they were conducting
investigations into "business activity."
Local media reports
categorized the action as searches of the newspapers' circulation
offices in connection with an investigation of the Newspaper and Mail
Deliverers' Union of New York.Deputy Police Commissioner Paul
J. Browne confirmed the searches to CNN but neither he nor other city
officials would elaborate on the investigation or discuss Tuesday's
actions.
(IDNs),
in one of the most significant steps to making the Internet more
accessible around the globe.
The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
has opened the application process, ending the exclusive use of Latin
characters for website addresses.
On the first day, "we have already received six applications from
around the world for three different scripts," ICANN
CEO Rod Beckstrom told an Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm
el-Sheikh.
He said that while ICANN could not reveal the names of those
applying, Egypt
-- with .misr, meaning Egypt in Arabic
-- and Russia
had already made public their applications for country code top level
domains in their scripts.
"O
Lord...You have stricken
them, but they have not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have
refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than
rock." Jeremiah 5:3
Rare virus poses new threat to troops
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | U.S. military officials sent a medical team to
a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood
samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died
from an Ebola-like virus.
Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious
diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The
Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls,
Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo
hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is
transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The UN's nuclear watchdog has
asked Iran
to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have
experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has
learned.
The very existence of the
technology, known as a
"two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and
Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a
dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the
design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as
"breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic
solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
The sophisticated
technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and
simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a
warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.
Documentation
referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part
of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and
presented to Iran for its response.
The dossier, titled "Possible
Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program", is drawn in part from
reports submitted to it by western intelligence agencies.
The
agency has in the past treated such reports with scepticism,
particularly after the Iraq war. But its director general, Mohamed
ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation "appears to
have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time,
appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive
and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".
“Behold, I
am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone
according to what he has done.
13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning
and the End.
The giant pattern - thought to represent a traditional Mayan head-dress
- appeared next to the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe
last week.
Members of the crop circle community believe the mystic symbol is a
signal of the end of the 5,126-year Mayan 'Long Count' calendar on
December 21, 2012.
Karen Alexander, a crop circle enthusiast, said: "This is one of the
most interesting crop circles I have ever seen. It is definitely a
Mayan symbol and we are sure it is linked to the Mayan calendar, which
ends in 2012.
"It appears to be a warning about the world coming to an end when the
calendar does. For the ancient Maya, reaching the end of a cycle was a
momentous event, so we are taking this crop circle very seriously as an
indicator of a possibly huge event in 2012."
Last month a 400-foot crop circle depicting a phoenix rising from the
flames appeared in a barley field in Yatesbury near Devizes, Wiltshire. Crop circle theorists believe the
patterns are created by UFOs during nocturnal visits, or caused by
natural phenomena such as unusual forms of lightning striking the earth.
Reports
circulating in the Kremlin today are saying that Russian Air
Force Commanders have issued warnings to all of their aircraft to
exercise “extreme caution”
during flights “in and around” an area
defined as Latitude 17 North [North Atlantic Ocean] Latitude 3 South
[South Atlantic Ocean] to Latitude 8 North [Indian Ocean] Latitude 19
South [Indian Ocean] between the Longitudes of 46 West, 33 West, 46
East and 33 East, and which covers the greater part of the African
Tectonic Plate.
The reason for this unprecedented warning, these
reports state, are the rapid formations of “geomagnetic
storms”
emanating from the boundaries of the African Tectonic Plate that due to
their intensity have caused the loss of two major passenger aircraft
during the past month leaving nearly 300 men, women and children dead.
The
first aircraft to be downed by this phenomenon was Air France passenger
flight 447, and which these reports say that upon encountering one of
these geomagnetic storms, on June 1st, near the western boundary of the
African Tectonic Plate close to Brazil’s Fernando de Noronha
Islands,
was “completely annihilated” causing the deaths of 216
passengers and
12 crew members as their plane plunged in pieces into the Atlantic
Ocean.
NEW YORK (AP) - Sting isn't a religious man,
but he says President Barack Obama might be a divine answer to the
world's problems."In many ways, he's sent from God," he joked in an
interview, "because the world's a mess."
But Sting is serious in his belief that Obama is the best leader to
navigate the world's problems. In an interview on Wednesday, the former
Police frontman said that he spent some time with Obama and "found him
to be very genuine, very present, clearly super-smart, and exactly what
we need in the world
Chicago and Cook County residents
aren’t the only ones about to get shocking tax news; the
city is debuting a “tax whistle-blower” plan that could
turn neighbor against neighbor in Chicago’s
business community.The
folks at city hall will pay cash bounties to informants who turn in
business tax cheats around the city. The reward would amount to some
sort of percentage of the tax money that the city recovers.
"It's just another way of bringing people into compliance," Revenue
Department spokesman Ed Walsh
..."And Jesus
answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled
at him."
No men OR women needed: Scientists create sperm and eggs from stem
cells
Human eggs and sperm have been grown in the laboratory in research
which could change the face of parenthood. It
paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left
sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their
own.
But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns.
These include the possibility of children being born through entirely
artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of
making babies.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama declared the swine
flu
outbreak a national emergency and empowered his health secretary to
suspend federal requirements and speed treatment for thousands of
infected people.
The declaration that Obama signed late Friday authorized Health and
Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal rules so
health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which has
killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.
The goal is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for
sick people to seek treatment and medical providers to provide it
immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid
or health privacy regulations.
“As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government,
and as
individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the
emerging pandemic,” Obama wrote in the declaration, which the
White
House announced Saturday.
He said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising
rapidly in many areas and there’s a potential “to
overburden health
care resources.”
"A
nation healed, a world repaired. We are the ones that we've been
waiting for." Barrack Obama
All US passports issued
since October 2006 also have
RFID chips in them. The chip contains all the data that is on the first
page including your photo. It has been shown that hackers can determine
what country a passport has been issued from without even reading all
the data on it simply by recognizing the way the chip responds to
certain scans.A growing number of states (New York,
Michigan, Washington,
and Vermont, to name a few) are now issuing special driver"s licenses
"enhanced" with long range RFID chips. Enhanced Driver"s Licenses
(EDLs) can be scanned from your wallet, while you are still in your
car. They make travel across the border a little easier, and if not
kept in a shielding privacy sleeve, unwanted invasion of your privacy
much more convenient.
President
of Europe???
Did I Miss Something?
Tony Blair could be crowned first President of Europe at a special
summit of EU leaders next month.
Diplomatic sources say French President Nicolas
Sarkozy is
pushing for an extraordinary meeting in Brussels to install the former
prime minister in the new £275,000-a-year post.Mr Blair was the
first
European leader to meet Mr Obama after he became President, and was
lavished with praise.If he lands the job, Mr Blair can expect 20 staff,
a chauffeur
and generous entertainment expenses. But he will almost certainly be
forced to ditch outside interests said to have earned him
£12million
since leaving Downing Street.
------ "The
Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him, and showed unto
His servants things which must shortly come to pass, and signified it.
Blessed are they who read and hear the words of this prophecy, and keep
the things which are written." The beginning of the book promises
blessing to
him that reads and hears and keeps, that he who takes pains about the
reading may thence learn to do works, and may keep the precepts.
1983
by Bob Shannon on a C64 with Dot Matrix
.
"He
will
descend from the sky."
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and
enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say
coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every
25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely
to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy,
Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History
Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and
asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero
days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent
decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or
"Planet
X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction
in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was
largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the
date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to
occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated
with both war and creation.
However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in
the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous
University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will
descend from the sky."
Half of GPs refuse swine flu vaccine over testing fears
Up to half of family doctors do not want to be vaccinated against
swine flu.
EthiopiaThere have been warnings of drought and impending
famine for several months, but now the situation is reaching crisis
level.
EritreaThe
prolonged drought which is bringing hunger on a vast
scale to Ethiopia has also hit its northern neighbour Eritrea with
devastating effect.
MauritaniaIn
West Africa, Mauritania is facing severe food shortages after six poor
harvests in a row.
Angola
The medical relief organisation Medecins sans Frontieres
(MSF) estimates that at least 1.5 million people are suffering from
acute malnutrition.
Zambia
The Zambian Government has declared the country's food shortage a
national disaster.
Zimbabwe
In September, the Southern African Development Community
Regional Early Warning Unit said that Zimbabwe needed more food aid
than any other country in the region facing famine.
It is estimated that six million people - half the
population - are in need of food aid following the combination of poor
rains and the adverse effects of the seizure of most white-owned farms.
As U.S. health officials consider rolling out a plan to
inoculate the
nation against swine flu in the next several months, they are haunted
by the events that unfolded the last time the government stepped in to
head off a surprise flu outbreak.In the fall of 1976, dozens of
Americans died within 48 hours of
receiving a swine flu vaccine. To allay the public fears that
threatened to unravel the mass inoculation program, President Gerald
Ford rolled up his shirtsleeve and received his shot in front of
television cameras.
More than 40 million others followed his lead. But two months later,
the campaign was abruptly stopped: More deaths had followed, and
hundreds were reporting serious side effects, including paralysis.
Already, medical experts and vaccine watchdog groups are urging the
Obama administration to apply the lessons learned 33 years ago. In a
public statement last week, former health and human services secretary
Mike Leavitt recommended that officials study the federal investigation
of the 1976 program. Administration officials said they are keenly
aware of the history.
MORE
--------------------------------------------------------END California’s Budget
Suffers ‘Major Blow’ as Debt Sales Loom California’s revenue collections
trailed its forecasts by $1.1 billion during the first three
months of the fiscal year, showing new deficits are emerging in
the budget Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger signed July 28.
Revenue was 5.3 percent less than was assumed in the
$85 billion annual budget during the three months ended Sept.
30. Income tax receipts led the shortfall, as unemploymentreached
as high as 12.2 percent in August.
“Revenues more than $1 billion under estimates and recent
adverse court rulings are dealing a major blow to a budget that
is barely 10-weeks old,” Controller John Chiang
said in a
statement. “While there are encouraging signs that
California’s
economy is preparing for a comeback, the recession continues to
drag state revenues down.”
The latest figures show that California is facing resurgent
fiscal strains brought on by the U.S. recession. Since February,
Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have cut $32 billion from spending,
raised taxes by $12.5 billion and covered $6 billion more with
accounting gimmicks and borrowing.
'I will make a
violent wind break out in My wrath ... flooding rain and hailstones
...' (Ezek 13.13)
'The earth will be completely laid waste ... the earth mourns and
withers, the world fades and withers...'(Isa 24.3,4)
'The fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to
it to scorch men with fire. Men were scorched with fierce heat ...'
(Rev 16.8,9)
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that
fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007,
but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase
in global temperatures.
And
our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon
dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has
continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
In a graphic
illustration of the new world order,
Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to
stop using the US currency for oil trading
In the most profound financial change in recent
Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China,
Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving
instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and
Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for
nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu
Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings
have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors
in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will
mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
By digging in the muck of Rocky
Mountain ponds and lakes, scientists
have been able to establish an accurate historic record of how human
activities have increased the amount of dust falling on high country
snowpack.Using satellite images and analyzing the dust, other
researchers have been able to pinpoint specific sources, including
off-road vehicle disturbances, livestock grazing and oil and gas
development on the Colorado Plateau.
“It's profound,” said
researcher Tom Painter, director of the snow optics laboratory at the
University of Utah. “Areas that are actively disturbed release
1,000
times more dust,” Painter said, adding that dust layers in 2009
caused
the snow pack to melt 45 to 48 days earlier than normal.Areas that
haven't been disturbed by human activities release very little dust,
Painter said.“This
has huge impacts on hydrology and snow cover,” Painter said,
explaining
that water managers have to account for changes in runoff as they plan
the operation of reservoirs and diversions.“For us, the bottom
line is, how much water are we going to get, and when do we get
it,”
said Grand Junction-based Dan Crabtree, water management group chief
with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The federal agency manages most of
the region's major water projects.
PHOENIX
— Bartender Randy Shields was serving British brews and
Arizona ambers as usual at Shady's bar in east Phoenix when he saw a
customer walk in with a hunting knife strapped to his hip.A disturbing
image flashed through his mind — "that knife sliding between my
ribs."
The
customer willingly turned over the knife while he was in the bar, but
Shields still worries about a new Arizona law that goes into effect
Wednesday that will allow guns into Arizona bars and restaurants that
serve alcohol.Under the law, backed by the National Rifle
Association, the 138,350 people with concealed-weapons permits in
Arizona will be allowed to bring their guns into bars and restaurants
that haven't posted signs banning them.
The
new law has Shields and other bar owners and workers wondering: What's
going to happen when guns are allowed in an atmosphere filled with
booze and people with impaired judgment?"Somebody can pull the
trigger, then a bullet comes out, and people get hurt and killed," said
Brad Henrich, owner of Shady's, a popular neighborhood bar that sees
occasional minor scuffles. "The idea of anyone coming in with guns in a
place that serves alcohol just seems ludicrous."
The U.S. Northeast may have the
coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming
current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers,
a
forecaster at Commodity Weather Group. “Weak El Ninos are
notorious for cold and snowy weather on
the Eastern seaboard,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television
interview from Washington. “About 70 percent to 75 percent of
the time a weak El Nino will deliver the goods in terms of
above-normal heating demand and cold weather. It’s pretty good
odds.”
Warming in the Pacific often means
fewer Atlantic
hurricanes and higher temperatures in the U.S. Northeast during
January, February and March, according to the National Weather
Service. El Nino occurs every two to five years, on average, and
lasts about 12 months, according to the service.Hedge-fund managers and
other large speculators increased
their net-long positions, or bets prices will rise, in New York
heating oil futures in the week ended Sep. 22, according to U.S.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission data Sept. 25.
“It could be one of the coldest
winters, or the coldest,
winter of the decade,” Rogers said.U.S. inventories of distillate
fuels, which include heating
oil, are at their highest since January 1983, the U.S. Energy
Department said Sept. 23. Stockpiles
of 170.8 million barrels in
the week ended Sept. 18 are 28 percent above the five-year
average.Heating oil for October delivery rose 1.38 cents, or 0.8
percent, to settle at $1.6909 a gallon on the New York
Mercantile Exchange.
A
mystery creature’s body found by a group of teenagers, while
playing in the town of Cerro Arul north of Panama City CNN reports,
18-September, 2009. The creature with rubber like skin, 150cm length,
with weird and ugly features and without any hair on the body was
spotted by the group, according to reports kids got scared from that
Gollum-like thing in the lake.
Panamanian news service Telemetry
reports, that the kids screamed when creature emerged from a cave and
started hip hopping over rocks towards them as if intended to attack
them, according to that group of teenagers they then stoned the mystery
creature to death. Their parents returned to the lake the following day
and were surprised to see the phenomenon. Later a team of researchers
took out the body from the canal, photographed and was taken for
forensic testing and research.
China adds more Web surveillance
BEIJING – News Web sites in China,
complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users
log on under their true identities to post comments, a shift in policy
that the country’s Internet users and media have opposed in the
past.
Until recently, users could weigh in on news items on many
of the affected sites more anonymously, often without registering at
all, though the sites were obligated to screen all posts, and the posts
could be traced via Internet protocol addresses.
But early last month, without
notification, news portals such as Sina, Netease, Sohu and scores of
other sites began asking unregistered users to sign in under their real
names and identification
, top editors at two of the major portals affected. A Sina
staff member also confirmed the change.
The editors said the sites were putting into
effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State
Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies
responsible for supervising the Internet in China
The
new step is not foolproof, the editors acknowledged. It was possible
for a reporter to register successfully on several major sites under
falsified names and ID and cellphone numbers.
But the requirement adds a critical new layer of
surveillance to mainstream sites in China, which were already heavily
policed.
And while the authorities called the measure part of a
drive to forge greater “social responsibility” and
“civility” among users, they moved forward surreptitiously
and suppressed reports about it, said the editors and others in the
media industry familiar with the measure, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Standing 8 meters (26 feet) high, the wall of huge cut stones
is a marvel to archaeologists.
"To build straight walls up 8 meters ... I don't know how to
do it
today without mechanical equipment," said the excavation's director,
Ronny Reich. "I don't think that any engineer today without electrical
power [could] do it."
Archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel
Antiquities Authority added, "You see all the big boulders -- all the
boulders are 4 to 5 tons."
The discovered section is 24 meters
(79 feet) long. "However, it is thought the fortification is much
longer because it continues west beyond the part that was exposed," the
Israel Antiquities Authority said in a news release.
It was found inside the City of David, an archaeological
excavation
site outside the Old City of East Jerusalem on a slope of the Silwan
Valley.
The wall is believed to have been built by the Canaanites, an ancient
pagan people who the Bible says inhabited Jerusalem and other parts of
the Middle East before the advent of monotheism.
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die
prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading
doctors warn today.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the
terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as
close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and
medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and
drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass
away.
UK
teenagers accused of plotting 'greatest massacre ever'
"There are Demons among us even as we speak" Church
attendance is declining, and not only in Canada or the Western World
but all over the planet. We seem to be entering a Secular Age.
Organized religion is dying a quiet death. But why is it dying, and
what are the possible cures – if any?
The
Church is dying, “not with a bang but a whimper,”
as T.S. Eliot said
the world will end. I think the Church is dying a gradual
“Death by
Doctrine.” The various Christian doctrines such as The Triune
God, The
Transubstantiation, The Immaculate Conception, The Virgin Birth, The
Physical Death and Resurrection of Jesus, The Infallibility of the
Bible, and others, are regarded as “superstitious
absurdities” by the
majority of modern people.
A third of
mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and
the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- Greek firefighters planned to continue to work
through the night to contain dozens of wildfires, including a massive
blaze outside Athens, authorities said.
Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis called for calm on
Saturday
and said ground forces "will continue their superhuman efforts" until
dawn, when air operations and water drops will resume.
Authorities reported 75 fires across the country.
"What I want to emphasize is the sacrifice of all those
fighting under
extremely difficult circumstances that complicate the task of fighting
these fires," he said in a statement.
The fires began late
Friday in Grammatiko, 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the
capital, said journalist Anthee Carassava. Wind whipped a single blaze
into three fires, which joined again Saturday.
Artificial life will be created 'within months'
as genome experts claim vital breakthrough
Scientists are only months away from creating
artificial life, it was claimed yesterday.
Dr
Craig Venter – one of the world’s most famous and
controversial
biologists – said his U.S. researchers have overcome one of
the last
big hurdles to making a synthetic organism.
The first artificial lifeform is likely to be a simple
man-made bacterium that proves that the technology can work.
A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly
nerve
disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a
confidential letter.
The letter from the Health Protection
Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked
to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information
has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of
people, including children, begins.
It tells the neurologists
that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called
Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.
27
MILLION AMERICANS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS... 28"And
why do you worry about
clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or
spin. 29Yet I
tell you that not even
Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If
that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and
tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O
you of little faith? 31So
do not worry, saying, 'What
shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For
the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows
that you need them. 33But
seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each
day has enough trouble of its own.
The world is heading for a
catastrophic energy
crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of
the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a
leading energy economist has warned.
Higher oil prices brought on by a
rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply
could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief
economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris,
which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by
OECD countries.
New HIV strain
discovered in woman from Cameroon
WASHINGTON – A new strain of the virus that causes
AIDS has
been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It
differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus
and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently
discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday's edition of
the journal Nature Medicine.
The finding "highlights the continuing need to watch closely
for the
emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central
Africa," said the researchers, led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the
University of Rouen, France.
The three previously known HIV strains are related to the
simian virus that occurs in chimpanzees.
The
most likely explanation for the new find is gorilla-to-human
transmission, Plantier's team said. But they added they cannot rule out
the possibility that the new strain started in chimpanzees and moved
into gorillas and then humans, or moved directly from chimpanzees to
both gorillas and humans.
TEHRAN,
Iran (CNN)
-- The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard
said Saturday that Iran will strike Israel's nuclear facilities if the
Jewish state attacks Iran, a semi-official news agency reported. "If
the Zionist regime attacks Iran, we will surely strike its
nuclear facilities with our missile capabilities," said Gen. Mohammed
Ali Jaafari, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency, referring to
Israel. "Our missile
capability puts all
of the Zionist regime within Iran's reach to attack," Jaafari said,
according to ILNA. The military chief said criticisms of Iran's nuclear
program -- which
Tehran maintains is for peaceful purposes -- are part of the
"psychological war that the West has launched against Iran."
Iran
has refused international calls to suspend its production of enriched
uranium, which it insists will be used to fuel civilian nuclear power
plants.
A few years ago, when I was working at Electronic Arts, a coworker of
mine had a problem. He spent much of his time playing Sony's massively
multiplayer on-line roleplaying game EverQuest,
and when he wasn't playing it, he was talking about it, posting to
online forums about it, or dreaming about the next time he could log
on. He played obsessively, often signing on as soon as he got home from
work. Predictably, his behavior had a negative impact on his family and
social life, and eventually cost him his job.
Many of us have known people like my coworker. The problems of online
gaming addiction date back to the days of text-based MUDs,
but in more recent years terms like "Evercrack" and "World of Warcrack"
have entered the popular lexicon. Now, Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, a
clinical psychologist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, has come
forward to claim that up to 40
percent of World of Warcraft players are addicted to the game.
Sodomy is defined in scripture by
two things, the first being
that of where it began: Sodom. In Genesis 13:13 we have the first
mention of the men of Sodom, pronouncing that they “were
wicked and
sinners before the Lord exceedingly.” Their saga is continued
in
chapters 18 and 19 with their sin being so great that not only does God
say that it “is very grievous,” but he himself
comes down to destroy
them with fire, the rubble of which still stands as a warning to us
today.
"Lack
of snow is even more spectacular when you look at the downtown
stations with records back to 1847 ... first time even without a flake
of snow in October or November," wrote David Phillips, senior
climatologist with Environment Canada in an email.
There's
battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
COMPLETE
DESCRIPTION OF THE ARAL SEA THIS IS A ONSITE LINK
The fact that the Pishon and the Gihon rivers cannot now be identified
means the Deluge itself may well have contributed to eliminating or
changing the courses of the Pishon and Gihon Rivers. So the world wide
flood of Noah's day destroyed Eden and the tree of life which was in a
mountainous area SW of Mount Ararat and a few kilometers S of Lake Van,
in the eastern part of Turkey.
The garden of Eden with this tree had this natural barrier of
mountains from which point Adam and Eve made their
exit,cherubs are
stated to have been stationed only at the E of the garden.
(Genesis 3:24) 24 And so he drove the man out and posted at
the east of
the garden of E´den the cherubs and the flaming blade of a
sword that
was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life. The racialist ideas
that were developing independently in India and Europe fused in
esoterica. In The Secret Doctrine (1888), Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
saw the "Aryans" as the fifth of her seven "Root
Races",
dating them to about a million years ago, and tracing them to Atlantis.
She considered "Abraham" to be a corruption of a word meaning "No
Brahmin", from whom the Semites
– "degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality"
– had
descended, and who were one rung down on the Root Race scale. The Jews,
according to Blavatsky, were a "tribe descended from the Tchandalas of
India, the outcasts". Abraham was the
tenth generation from Noah and the 20th from Adam.
His father was Terah, and his brothers were Nahor and Haran. According
to Genesis, Abraham was sent by God from his home in Ur Kasdim
and Harran to Canaan, the land promised to his descendants by Yahweh.
There Abraham entered into a covenant: in exchange for recognition of
YHWH as his God, Abraham will be blessed with innumerable progeny and
the land would belong to his descendants.
LONDON (Reuters) - Fourteen Britons who had contracted H1N1
flu have died and the rapid spread of infection in two areas of the
country is close to epidemic level, health officials said on Thursday.The Department of Health
said Britain now had 9,718
laboratory-confirmed cases, the third most in the world behind the
United States and Mexico.
Britain's Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said the actual
number of cases was likely to be higher.All 14 who have died had
underlying health issues and it was not
clear in how many cases the patients had died as a direct result of the
virus, known as swine flu."In
London and the West Midlands we are getting pretty close to epidemic
levels. We've seen big surges there," Donaldson tol BBC TV."For the country as a whole,
the average is about the level of the
flu season but in some parts of the country the levels are getting
pretty big."
Pope
Calls for 'New World Order'
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict on Tuesday called for a
“world
political authority” to manage the global economy and for
more
government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of
the current crisis and avoid a repeat.
The pope’s call for a re-think of the way the world
economy is run
came in new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but
whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected
both rich and poor nations.
Called “Charity in Truth,” parts of the
encyclical appeared bound to
upset conservatives because of its underlying rejection of unbridled
capitalism and unregulated market forces, which he said had led to
“thoroughly destructive” abuse of the system
ABOUT 50 swans are believed to have died at the Lough in Cork
city over recent days, with ducks and fish also dying.The
kill has
sparked fears over a pollution virus at the lake, which is a
nature reserve and is regarded as one of the city’s most
striking
natural features.
Animal welfare experts at the scene yesterday were awaiting
the results of scientific tests on the dead birds. Lough
area resident Annie Hoey said that people began to notice deaths in
early June and that the numbers have been increasing ever since.
Internet addiction is becoming a problem in China, as more than 250
million Chinese are now connected to the World Wide Web. An estimated
four to ten million of these users are addicted.
China’s
law kills little babies
The Chinese government imposed a limit on birth in 1979:
for the law every family can have up to a child (in the city) or two
(in rural areas); in all other cases abortion is required.Every day
they abandon just over 1000 girls born.
People abandon or kill their children to be not discovered by the
chinese government.
There are abortion teams that catch women who refuse to abort and keep
them in prison until they decide to do so.
Otherwise, the children “outlaw” won’t
have right to
medical care, to education or any kind of social assistance.
For this reason, many families sell their children to other couples.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Health experts are fond of saying any new
disease is just a flight away from anywhere, and a report published on
Monday shows the new strain of H1N1 flu followed the airline route map
as it spread around the globe.
The swine flu virus
spread first and quickest in March and April in
the United States and Canada -- where 80 percent of airline passengers
traveled in March and April of 2008, researchers at St. Michael's
Hospital in Toronto found.
Dr. Kamram Khan of St.
Michael's and colleagues used International
Air Transport Association data for their study. They said travel
patterns were also similar in 2007 and therefore likely to be similar
in 2009.
Deficit forces California to issue IOUs
Published: June 29 2009 19:26 | Last updated: June 29 2009
19:26
California
is preparing to issue IOUs to its creditors this week as it grapples
with an unprecedented cash crunch and prepares to begin its
new fiscal year deep in the red. Once the US’s richest state,
California
now has the dubious
distinction of having the worst credit rating in the country.
Genetic
condition had ruined his lungs and left him unable to sing
He became so
skeletal, doctors believed he was anorexic
He had
nightmares about being murdered – and wanted to die
He used swine
flu as an excuse to avoid coming to England
He thought he
was agreeing to 10 concerts – it was 50
Whatever
the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael
Jackson. Had he not been driven – by a cabal of bankers,
agents,
doctors and advisers – to commit to the gruelling 50 concerts
in
London’s O2 Arena, I believe he would still be alive today.
During
the last weeks and months of his life, Jackson made desperate attempts
to prepare for the concert series scheduled for next month –
a
series
that would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but
which he could never have completed, not mentally, and not
physically. Ailing: Michael Jackson may have worn a mask in
public
to protect his diseased lungs
JUNE 22, 2009
Numbers on Welfare See Sharp Increase
Welfare rolls, which were slow to rise and actually fell in many states
early in the recession, now are climbing across the country for the
first time since President Bill Clinton signed legislation pledging "to
end welfare as we know it" more than a decade ago.Twenty-three of the
30 largest states, which account for more than 88%
of the nation's total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago
levels, according to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and
the National Conference of State Legislatures. As more people run out
of unemployment compensation, many are turning to welfare as a stopgap.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- In the midst of the ongoing
culture wars, can
it be a good idea to put out a comedy about two Stone Age men who
wander into the Bible?
"Year One," which he directed, concerns two men -- played by Jack Black
and Michael Cera -- who leave their home and, in their travels, meet
biblical characters such as Cain, Abel, Abraham and Isaac. Among the
locales: ancient Sodom, which "didn't seem worse than Las Vegas to me.
Sodom (Hebrew
Name|סְדוֹם|Sədom|Səḏôm, Arabic:
سدوم Sadūm, Greek
Σόδομα) and Gomorrah
(Hebrew Name|עֲמוֹרָה|ʿAmora|Ġəmôrāh / ʿĂmôrāh, {{Arabic: عمورة ʿAmūrah,
}} Greek
Γόμορρα) were
two cities in the Bible
which were destroyed by God.
For the sins of their inhabitants Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim were destroyed by
"brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 19:24-25).
In Christianity and Islam, their names have become synonymous with
impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of God's
wrath (Jude1:7, Qur'an
Swine
flu 'could infect up to half the population'
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Primary care trusts are to set up anti-viral drug distribution
centres and swine flu testing clinics amid fears that the infection
could spread out of control.
The Chief Medical Officer, Sir
Liam Donaldson, wrote to health authorities last week urging hospitals
to test all patients who show signs of flu-like symptoms. He wrote:
"Transmission from person to person in this country is increasingly
common. There is evidence that sporadic cases are arising with no
apparent link either to cases elsewhere in the UK or to travel abroad."
The letter followed an earlier warning from Sir Liam that
millions of Britons could fall victim to swine flu in the coming
months. Government officials admitted last night that illness rates
from the virus could reach 50 per cent.
Treasury to Auction $104 Billion In Debt Next Week, a Record
The Treasury announced Thursday
a record $104 billion worth of bond
auctions for next week, part of its herculean efforts to finance a
rescue of the world's largest economy.The sales will exceed the
previous record of
$101 billion set in auctions that took place in the last week of April
and consist of two-year, five-year and seven-year securities. That
record was matched by another $101 billion week in May.
Though
next week's total was broadly in line with expectations, worries about
supply have weighed on the U.S. government bond market, which will see
a mammoth $2 trillion worth of new debt issued this year.
Oregon woman possessed by rabbits arrested again
TIGARD,
Ore. (AP) -
Authorities said a woman possessed with rabbits is in trouble again: In
violation of probation terms, she was found holed up in a hotel room
with more than a dozen rabbits. Officers said they had to break into
the room Tuesday and found eight adults and half a dozen baby rabbits,
one dead. The police say some were caged, some roaming. They
arrested 47-year-old Miriam Sakewitz.
Libya records 13 cases of bubonic plague Thirteen
cases of bubonic plague have been recorded in eastern Libya, near the
border with Egypt, Health Minister Mohamad Hijazi told AFP on
Wednesday, stressing the situation was under control.
"Thirteen cases of the plague have been recorded
in a
village 30 kilometres (20 miles) away from Tobruk. Eleven people have
already (been treated and) left hospital," he said, without reporting
any deaths.
Carter warns US and Israel on collision course Israel
is headed for a clash with main ally the United
States over the issue of Jewish settlements, former US
president Jimmy
Carter said in an interview on Sunday.
Asked by the liberal Haaretz newspaper whether
the Jewish state was
looking at a "head-on collision" with the United States if it doesn't
comply with Washington's demands, Carter said "Yes."
The former president, who brokered the historic
peace treaty between Israel and Egypt
in 1979, said Israeli settlements in the occupied West
Bank were the biggest hurdle in the hobbled Middle East peace
process, saying they were "illegal and (an) obstacle to
peace
NKorea warns of nuclear war
amid rising tensions SEOUL,
South Korea (AP) - North Korea's communist regime has warned of
a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its
atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.
The North's defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache
for
President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South
Korean counterpart on the North's missile and nuclear programs.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told security-related ministers
during an unscheduled meeting Sunday to "resolutely and squarely" cope
with the North's latest threat, his office said. Lee is to leave for
the U.S. on Monday morning.
A commentary Sunday in the North's main state-run Rodong Sinmun
newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed
the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary
published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the
U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea
and Japan.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian riot police on motorcycles beat
supporters of presidential challenger Mirhossein Mousavi who were
protesting on Saturday against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed
election win. A Reuters reporter said she and others were beaten by
police with
batons as police chased and arrested demonstrators staging a sit-in at
Tehran's Vanak Square, one of the capital's busiest intersections.
At least three people were injured in the clash, which broke
out
after the Interior Ministry announced the hardline incumbent's
resounding victory in Friday's vote. Mousavi, a moderate, protested
against what he called violations and
vote-rigging during the election. Interior Ministry officials rejected
the allegations.
He said in a separate statement that members of his election
headquarters had been beaten "with batons, wooden sticks and electrical
rods." Tehran's deputy police chief, Mohsen Khancharli, said the force
would "strongly confront" any gathering or rally held without
permission. He said people protesting against the election outcome had
damaged cars."Police are not confronting people but only those who are
disturbing
public order or who make damage to public places," he told the official
IRNA news agency. Up to 2,000 Mousavi supporters took part in the
sit-in in the middle
of the road, chanting: "Mousavi take back our vote!
Tehran, Iran (AHN) - Thousands of protesters clashed with riot police
in Iran on Saturday after incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was
declared winner in the Islamic Republic's elections.
Police used batons and tear gas on the streets of Tehran to disperse
supporters of opposition and presidential candidate Mir-Hossein
Moussavi, who said that he will "strongly protest" the election results.
The reports said that the clashes were the worst post-election violence
experienced by the country as some expected a run-off in the polls. The
number of people injured is not immediately known.
Iran's Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli announced that Ahmadinejad
secured 62.6 percent and Mousavi gained 33.75 percent in the nation's
10th presidential election.
The number of invalid votes was at 409,389 or 1.04 percent of the
total, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asked the opposition to
avoid any provocative and suspicious actions and speech, according to
IRNA.
Moussavi, who served as the last Iranian prime minister in the 1980s,
is considered to be a strong critic of Ahmadinejad and his policies.
Several analysts expect the re-election of Ahmadinejad to pose a
serious challenge to the Obama administration.
Oil price leaps to year's high
Predictions
of $250 a barrel on fears for oil reserves, hopes of economic recovery
and hedging against weak dollar
Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, put some of the rise down to
signs of recovery in Asia but warned that overall demand was still
weaker than last year. Opec would not raise supply at current oil
prices but did not rule it out "if it reached $100", he said.
Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian energy
group Gazprom, raised the stakes further when he reiterated last year's
estimates of $250 a barrel. "This forecast has not become reality yet,
given that the [credit] crisis gained momentum and exerted a powerful
impact on the global energy market. But does this mean that our
forecast was unrealistic? Not at all."
World Health Organization Raises Pandemic Alert
Level to Phase 6
Following today’s decision by the World Health Organization
(WHO) to
raise its H1N1 influenza pandemic alert to Phase 6, its highest level,
Marsh, the world's leading insurance broker and risk advisor, is
recommending that all organizations continue to focus on potential
economic and jurisdictional issues in shaping their response to the
current pandemic.
WHO declares global swine flu pandemic
and says virus is 'unstoppable'
“The (swine flu) virus is now unstoppable," said Dr Margaret
Chan, the WHO chief.
A disease is classed as a pandemic when transmission between humans
becomes widespread in at least two regions of the world.
The last global flu pandemic came in 1968 over the so-called
“Hong Kong” flu, which killed about 1 million
people worldwide.
WASHINGTON —
Stephen Tyrone Johns kindly opened a door of the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday afternoon, witnesses
said, probably thinking that James W. von Brunn was just another
elderly visitor needing help to get inside.
Museum Gunman Charged With Murder
Instead, Mr. von Brunn, 88, whose anti-Semitic and white
supremacist views were known to federal authorities, strode quickly
into the museum lobby, immediately raised a .22-caliber rifle at Mr.
Johns and unloaded at least one round of ammunition, striking the guard
at close range, law-enforcement officials said at a news conference
here on Thursday. Mr. Johns died a few hours later.
Armed
security guards fired back, wounding Mr. von Brunn and sending panicked
tourists, including groups of schoolchildren, diving for cover.
The police on Thursday charged Mr. von Brunn, who was in critical
condition at George
Washington University
Hospital, with murder in the death of Mr. Johns, 39, from Temple Hills,
Md. The victim, who worked for a private security company, had been
assigned to the museum for six years.3
North Korea would use nuclear weapons in a 'merciless
offensive'
Associated Press
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
North Korea today said it would use nuclear weapons in a "merciless
offensive" if provoked — its latest bellicose rhetoric
apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its
recent atomic test blast.
The tensions emanating from Pyongyang are beginning
to hit nascent business ties with the South: a Seoul-based fur
manufacturer became the first South Korean company to announce Monday
it was pulling out of an industrial complex in the North's border town
of Kaesong.
The complex, which opened in 2004, is a key symbol of rapprochement
between the two Koreas but the goodwill is evaporating quickly in the
wake of North Korea's nuclear test on May 25 and subsequent missile
tests.
Pyongyang raised tensions a notch by reviving its rhetoric in a
commentary in the state-run Minju Joson newspaper today.
"Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means...as well as a
merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those
who touch the country's dignity and sovereignty even a bit," said the
commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Influenza A(H1N1) - update 45
8 June 2009 -- As
of 06:00 GMT, 8 June 2009, 73 countries have officially reported 25,288
cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection, including 139 deaths.
The breakdown of the number of
laboratory-confirmed cases by country is given in the following table
and map.
Laboratory-confirmed cases of new
influenza
A(H1N1) as officially reported to WHO by States Parties to the
International Health Regulations (2005)
2008-2009 Influenza Season Week 21
ending May 30, 2009
All data are preliminary and may change as more reports are
received.
(Due to the response to the novel influenza A (H1N1) investigation,
surveillance regions were changed from Census Divisions to Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) Regions.)
Synopsis:
During week 21 (May 24 - 30, 2009), influenza activity
decreased in
the United States, however, there are still higher levels of
influenza-like illness than is normal for this time of year.
Two thousand seventy-four (31.1%) specimens tested by
U.S. World Health Organization (WHO) and National Respiratory and
Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) collaborating laboratories
and reported to CDC/Influenza Division were positive for influenza.
The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and
influenza (P&I) was below the epidemic threshold.
Five influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported.
The
proportion of outpatient visits for influenza-like illness (ILI) was
below the national baseline. Three of the 10 surveillance regions
reported ILI at or above their region-specific baseline.
Five
states reported geographically widespread influenza activity, 10 states
reported regional influenza activity, the District of Columbia and 14
states reported local influenza activity, and 21 states reported
sporadic influenza activity.
American capitalism gone with a whimper..
Article from Russias Pravda
It must be said, that like the breaking of a
great dam,
the American
decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the
back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant
people.True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the
past
century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds
was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we
Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our
souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of
the Marxists.Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the
American
populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of
their elites and betters.First, the population was dumbed down through
a politicized and
substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the
classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the
drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their
"right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than
for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us
about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the
foolish.Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches,
all tens
of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the
most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and
top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their
souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist
politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained
that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so
quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy
Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America. These past
two weeks have been the most breath
taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the
American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to
bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of
dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then
ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our
own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel started its
biggest emergency
drill in
the nation's history Sunday to prepare civilians, soldiers and rescue
crews for the possibility of war, the defense force said in a
statement. The five-day drill, nicknamed Turning Point 3, comes amid
the nation's rising tensions with Iran.
It will be conducted in public facilities,
including schools,
military
bases and government offices. Students, soldiers and other civilians
will practice how to gather at protected places during an emergency.
Officials said the drill will include simulated rockets, air raids and
other attacks on infrastructure and essential facilities, and use of
weapons on civilians.
Everyone is expected to go to a protected
place at the sound of sirens, the defense force said, adding that more
instructions will be broadcast on a public channel. "It is of
great importance that every civilian, institute and workplace will
seriously practice in order to improve our preparedness and national
resilience," Maj. Gen. Yair Golan of the Home Front Command said in a
news statement.
The move comes amid tension between Israel and
Tehran. The Israeli government considers Iran's nuclear program as the
dominant threat facing the country. Israel is publicly supportive of
President Barack Obama administration's outreach to the Islamic state.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli
Army Radio
last week
that he believes "that the chance the dialogue has of stopping Iran's
nuclear efforts is very low." Barak's views are keeping with the
majority of his countrymen. An Israeli poll released this month found
that 74 percent believe that
the U.S. policy of engagement with Iran will fail and 81 percent think
Iran will develop a nuclear weapon capability. Israel has conducted
emergency drills the past two years, but officials said this is the
biggest so far.
WHO chief warns H1N1 swine flu likely to worsen
GENEVA, May 22 (Reuters) - The world must be ready for H1N1 swine flu
to become more severe and kill more people, World Health Organization
chief Dr. Margaret Chan said on Friday.
A genetic analysis of
the new virus showed it must have been circulating undetected for some
time, in pigs or perhaps in other animals. The WHO is poised
to
declare a full pandemic of the virus, which has infected more than
11,000 people in 42 countries and killed 86. And U.S. health officials
released $1 billion for companies to get started on a vaccine in case
it is needed. The virus must be closely monitored in the
southern hemisphere, as it could mix with ordinary seasonal influenza
and change in unpredictable ways, Chan told the WHO annual congress in
Geneva. [ID:nLM945575] "In cases where the H1N1 virus is
widespread and circulating within the general community, countries must
expect to see more cases of severe and fatal infections," she said.
"This is a subtle, sneaky virus."
GM
shares drop to lowest level since 1933 If you can make one
heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
GM,
Chrysler to cut up to 3,000 dealers... If
you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
LOS ANGELES (CNN)
-- The tears begin and her voice trembles as Ruth Martinez remembers
the first few days of her new world.
Heat
wave delays tiger relocation in Sariska
New Delhi (PTI)
Unrelenting heat wave
in Northern India has put a halt on Rajasthan government's plan to
relocate a tiger from Rathambore National park to Sariska sanctuary
with state officials preferring to wait till monsoon to execute the
task.
"There was a proposal to
shift second
male tiger in the beginning of this month in the park. But it is now
not advisable in view of intense heat conditions in the Northern state.
The plan has been put on hold for at least next two months till
monsoon," National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) member secretary
Rajesh Gopal told PTI.
Pointing to the reason
behind the move,
he said: "Tigers can suffer sunstroke or die if we try to trap them for
translocation purpose. We also don't want to disturb its habitat as it
can be fatal given the animal has to be darted and tranquilised before
it is airlifted. It will also be taxing for our men to do the work
successfully in this heat wave condition," he said.
"Last time, we had
executed the task
during monsoon when the weather was favourable for the animal. We will
again wait for rains as the onset of summer this year has witnessed
temperatures soaring beyond 43 degrees Celsius," Mr. Gopal added.
At present there are three
big cats --
a male and two females -- in the wilds of Sariska as part of the
government efforts to revive the population of the endangered species.
A total of five predators,
three males
and two females, have to be introduced by the end of this year as
suggested by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
Amid the worst
global slump since World War II, many Asian economies
are in free fall as demand for their exports -- the region's main
growth engine -- evaporates in big Western markets.
The ADB has
warned that 61 million people will remain trapped in
extreme poverty this year because of the global slump. That figure
could increase to nearly 160 million if slow growth continues next
year, it said. The bank's president, Haruhiko Kuroda, said the collapse
in global trade has "gathered momentum" as export markets contract.
Revelation 13:1 Revelation
is largely written in symbols. When used as a metaphor in the Bible,
water can represent good or bad realities. Especially in large amounts,
it can represent masses of people. Thus in this verse, the Beast is
understood to be rising either from a heavily populated area or from
the majority of all dwelling on earth.
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of
the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten
crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
Former King Hussein of Jordan –
that ‘the next war in the Middle East will be over
water’. In many
cases,
these comments are little more than media hype; in
others, statements have been made for political reasons. Yet,
regardless ofthe source, or the reason, water is clearly a scarce
resource in some regions. Tensions exist over water use, water
ownership and water rights – and are likely to increase in
the future.
The Middle East and Africa provoke perhaps the greatest concern about
water shortage: by 2025, 40 countries in the regions are expected to
experience water stress or scarcity.
Water
scarcity is a
function of supply and demand. Demand is increasing at an alarming rate
in some regions, through population growth and increasing per capita
use. In many water-scarce countries, such as Jordan and Israel, there
is no obvious and inexpensive way to increase water supply, and
tensions among different water users are likely to result. In other
countries, such as Egypt, improvements in water efficiency, moving away
from water-intensive crops, or importing water from nearby countries
may offer reasonable solutions.
The
second crisis
is deteriorating water quality. Agriculture is the biggest polluter:
increased use of fertilizer and pesticides has contaminated both
groundwater and surface water supplies. Domestic and industrial
pollution is also increasing, and the problem affects both developed
and developing countries.
Finally,
the use of
water has a geopolitical dimension. Water moves from upstream to
downstream users, and withdrawals and type of use in one place may
affect the quantity or quality of supplies downstream. There are also
historical, cultural, economic and social aspects of water use. To
some, water is a gift from God, and should not be priced, while others,
such as the World Bank, have pushed for full marginal cost pricing of
water.
The
lack of a
suitable legal framework for resolving international water resource
disputes presents another problem. Sovereignty over international
rivers generally invokes one of four doctrines: absolute territorial
sovereignty, which implies that riparian states may use water resources
in any way they please, even to the detriment of other nations;
absolute territorial integrity, which suggests that riparian use of a
river should not negatively affect downstream riparians; limited
territorial sovereignty, which invokes a combination of the two within
a framework of equitable use by all parties; and community of
co-riparian states, which promotes integrated management of river
basins.
HEAT
WAVE In Drought Stricken India
Orissa
heat wave toll rises to 84
New Delhi: Sweltering summer conditions
claimed six more
lives in
Orissa on Saturday, taking the State’s casualty figures to an
alarming
84.Most tracts of north India reeled under a hot sun.Dust haze over the
national capital, however, turned out to be a
blessing in disguise, as the maximum temperature dipped by about three
degrees from Friday’s season’s highest of 44.2
degrees.A
blazing sun kept Punjab on the boil, as temperature soared four notches
in Patiala to settle at 42.7 degrees.Ludhiana baked under 42.5 degrees
and Chandigarh at 41.8 degrees as
Ambala topped the temperature chart in Haryana with a scorching 41.6
degrees.
NKorea
threatens nuclear, missile tests... SEOUL,
South Korea (AP) - North Korea
threatened Wednesday to conduct nuclear and missile tests and start an
uranium-enrichment program in addition to its existing plutonium-based
one, unless the U.N. apologizes for criticizing its recent rocket
launch, dramatically raising its stake in the worsening standoff over
its atomic programs.
Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a
statement the country "will be compelled to take additional
self-defensive measures" unless the U.N. Security Council apologizes
immediately. "The measures will include nuclear tests and test-firings
of intercontinental ballistic missiles."
HONG
KONG, April 29 (Reuters) - Alarmed by the spread of a new swine
flu virus, airports around the world have rushed to install temperature
scanners to pick out the sick, but the microbe is proving too clever
for modern technology.Experts
say an infected person can easily
pass through these heat sensors without detection as the incubation
period for influenza ranges anywhere between one and three days."The
scanners won't pick up everyone (with flu), especially if they are
too early in the infection ... People who have been infected very, very
recently wouldn't show up on the scanner," Mark von Itzstein, director
of the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University in Queensland,
Australia, told Reuters."You can imagine somebody who is just
infected boards the plane in Singapore and heads towards Hong Kong.
There would not be enough time for the apparatus to pick it up because
he would not have developed significant fever."The new H1N1
swine flu virus, which has killed 159 people in Mexico, has been found
in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Britain, Israel and Spain,
but there have been no deaths outside Mexico so far.
SNAP
ANALYSIS-Flu could boost gov't intervention further
27 Apr 2009 12:13:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent
LONDON,
April 27
(Reuters) - The spread of a possible flu pandemic could see an increase
in already heightened levels of government intervention in economies
and financial markets as a result of the global financial crisis. In
the short term, it might serve to give governments an easy
justification to impose protectionist measures that could further
stifle slumping trade flows. Doctors and officials around the world are
moving to contain the spread of a swine flu outbreak that has already
killed more than 100 people in Mexico and spread to countries around
the world, with markets already reacting nervously.
"At
the moment,
markets are still making the assumption this will not be that serious,"
said Dresdner Kleinwort emerging foreign exchange strategist Jon
Harrison. "But if it were to turn out much worse you would see a rise
in government spending and government intervention. This sort of crisis
would be too big for anything other than governments." Governments have
poured unprecedented amounts of money into capital markets in recent
months supporting, and in some cases nationalising, banks to try and
stimulate lending as economic output and trade around the world dried
up particularly after the demise of Lehman Brothers in December
Revelation
The
great day of their 15 wrath has come and who can withstand it?"
Then I watched while the Lamb broke open the first of the
seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures cry out in a
voice like thunder, "Come forward." I looked, and there was a white
horse, and its rider had a bow. He was given a crown, and he
rode forth victorious to further his victories. When he broke open the
second seal, I heard the second living creature cry out, "Come forward."
Another horse came out, a red one. Its rider was given power to take
peace away from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another.
And he was given a huge sword. When he broke open the third seal, I
heard the third living creature cry out, "Come forward." I looked, and
there was a black horse, and its rider held a scale in his
hand. I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living
creatures. It said, "A ration of wheat costs a day's pay, and three
rations of barley cost a day's pay. But do not damage the olive oil or
the wine."When he broke open the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the
fourth living creature cry out, "Come forward."
I looked, and there was a
pale green horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades
accompanied him. They were given authority over a quarter of the earth,
to kill with sword, famine, and plague, and by
means of the beasts of the earth.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mexican Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said
on Sunday the outbreak of swine flu
could have a big impact on Mexico's economy, although it was too soon
to say how significant the effect might be.
"This issue can have an important impact on the economy,
although
the most important impact is the one on human life and human well
being," Finance Minister Agustin Carstens told reporters.
"At this stage, without ignoring that this is a very serious
matter
and that it has a high potential for disruption, I would say that it's
early to give a more concrete opinion," he said.
NEW YORK -- Tests
have confirmed that eight students at a New York
Catholic high school have contracted swine flu, after some students at
the school had visited Mexico over spring break two weeks ago.
About 100
students at St. Francis Preparatory School had complained
of flu-like symptoms, and eight were confirmed with mild cases of the
flu, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) told reporters today at a news
conference.
Swine
flu could mutate to 'more dangerous' strain... It is "quite
possible" that the swine
flu virus that has killed dozens in Mexico
will mutate into a "more dangerous" strain, a senior World Health
Organization official said Sunday.
Fatal swine
flu breaks out in Mexico
MEXICO CITY, April 24 (Reuters) - A deadly swine flu never seen before
has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears
of a possible pandemic.
The World Health
Organization said it
was concerned at what it called 800 "influenza-like" cases in Mexico,
and also about a confirmed outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in the
United States. Mexico canceled classes for millions of children
in its sprawling capital city and surrounding area on Friday after
authorities noticed a higher number of flu-like deaths than normal in
recent weeks. "It is a virus that mutated from pigs and then at
some point was transmitted to humans," Health Minister Jose Angel
Cordova told the Televisa network.
He put the death
toll at 16
confirmed cases and dozens of other suspected deaths. WHO said about 60
people have died in the country. The Geneva-based U.N. agency
said it was in daily contact with U.S., Canadian and Mexican
authorities and had activated its Strategic Health Operations Center
(SHOC) -- its command and control center for acute public health
events.
U.S. health officials said on Thursday that seven people had been
diagnosed with a new and unusual H1N1 swine flu virus, different from
seasonal flu, but all had recovered.
The
following is a list of debilitating diseasesfor
which medical science has no cure. This list is incomplete.
Acute lymphocytic
leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia
acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), see also
HIV
SCIENTISTS
AND ETHICISTS UNITE TO ATTACK DOCTOR'S HUMAN CLONE PLAN...
Scientists and medical ethicists yesterday condemned the
controversial fertility doctor Panayiotis Zavos for transferring cloned
human embryos into the wombs of four women.
Dr Zavos claimed in an interview with The Independent that
he had created 14 cloned human embryos and transferred 11 of them into
the wombs of the four women, who wanted to give birth to cloned babies,
although none of them had become pregnant.
Children
tracked by satellite to stop bad behavior The
beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear
and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power
and his throne and great authority. One
of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the
fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and
followed the beast.Men
worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and
they also worshiped the beast and asked, "Who is like the beast? Who
can make war against him?"
ATLANTA (AP) - Health officials alerted
doctors Tuesday to a unique type of swine flu diagnosed in two
California children, but it's unclear whether many people will be
susceptible to the infection.The children were diagnosed last
week. One was a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County, and the other a
9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County. Both recovered.
U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said there's no
reason for the public to take unusual measures against it.
"CDC is concerned, but that's our job," said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.
He who
has an ear, let him hear. 1If
anyone is to go into captivity, into
captivity he will go. If
anyone is to be killed with the sword, with
the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and
faithfulness on the part of the saints.
The
21st century has continued the bloodshed, with 1.1 million deaths in
Iraq since early 2003.
Current conflicts:
Afghanistan War
Baluchistan War
Burundi Civil War
Central African Republic Army Mutiny
Chad Rebellion
Chechen War
Colombian Civil War
Darfur War
The Ethiopia-Somalia War
India-Bangladesh Border Conflict
Iraq War
Israel-Palestinian War
Israel-Syrian Conflict
Cote de Ivorie (Ivory Coast) Civil War
Korean Conflict
Nepal Civil War
Thai Muslim Rebellion
Waziristan War
An
international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday
that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in
marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of
catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses.
The
paper,
published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution
and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around
the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter
nutrients and resist the spread of disease.
WASHINGTON
(CNN) -- Missing vials of a potentially dangerous
virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a
lab in Maryland.
The
vials contained samples of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, a virus
that sickens horses and can be spread to humans by mosquitoes. In 97
percent of cases, humans with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms, but
it can be deadly in about 1 out of 100 cases, according to Caree Vander
Linden, a spokeswoman for the Army's Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases. There is an effective vaccine for the disease and
there hasn't been an outbreak in the United States since 1971. Rainforest
clash in Panama signals larger debate
KUNA YALA, Panama (CNN) -- Hunched over
a campfire in eastern
Panama, Embera tribesman Raul Mezua chanted a song his grandfather
taught him when he was a boy.
The words are memorized, passed down from an aging generation
to a new group of tribal youths.
"The song means a lot to me," Mezua told CNN, the fire's dying embers
splashing a red glow across his face. "But I don't know what it means."
It's not just the song but their language and culture that Mezua and
his tribe fear losing as deforestation from logging and cattle ranching
threatens the rainforest that is part of their identity.
But
recent trends could usher in a welcome reversal for Mezua and his
tribe. Rural workers are migrating toward cities in search of jobs, and
forests are re-emerging where now abandoned farms and cattle ranches
once flourished, according to a 2009 report from the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization.
Such "secondary" forests in the
tropics can rapidly grow in areas once cleared for logging and cattle
ranching if left alone, said Joseph Wright, senior scientist at the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. "After about 20
years (of being left alone) the forest will be about 60 feet tall," he
said. Watch
Mezua sing a traditional tribal song »
Deforestation and re-growth in Panama may reflect a snapshot of a
bigger picture involving rainforests throughout Central America. With
more than three-quarters of people across the region now living in
urban centers, the United Nations expects rural farming and population
growth -- the usual culprits behind deforestation -- to
dwindle.
PAPER:
'SLUMDOG' STAR FOR SALE...
THE poverty-stricken father of Slumdog Millionaire child star Rubina
Ali plans to become a millionaire himself-by SELLING his nine-year-old
daughter. In a bid to escape India's real-life slums, Rafiq Qureshi put
angel-faced darling of the Oscars Rubina up for adoption, demanding
millions of rupees worth £200,000. As he offered the shocking
deal to the News of the World's undercover fake sheik this week, Rafiq
declared: "I have to consider what's best for me, my family and
Rubina's future."Rafiq tried to blame Hollywood bosses for forcing him
to put his daughter up for SALE.
1 Timothy 4
Instructions to Timothy 1The
Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and
follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2Such teachings
come through
hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot
iron. 3They
forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods,
which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe
and who know the truth.
Police
officers in riot gear detain activists of Natalia Vitrenko's
Progressive Socialist Party who tried to break a cordon of a rally to
mark the 65th anniversary of the anti-Soviet Ukrainian Insurgent Army
in downtown Kiev on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007.
In
deed!! Change is the one constant that we have
faced in the last 10,000 years!! (If not for global warming,
most of North America would still be under ice) We are the
direct product of change over the last billions of
years!! Why we should think that anything
in the natural world should be a constant, is a mystery to
me??? Every generation somehow thinks their generation
represents a utopia of life, and every generation deals with natural as
well as social change, either in the form of progress or
disaster! The peace we seek in a world of constant
contentment can not be found in the natural world! It will
change, and if we can not embrace it, we find disaster!
(Unfortunately man has many times been at the root of
disaster,, either in the form of disease, social upheaval, or
building in the wrong place) I am always amazed at those who
go through a disaster and find blessings in their lives and go about
rebuilding with renewed enthusiasm, and others give up and spend their
energy looking for someone to blame! They act more like
children who have been caught in a lie, rather than like adults who go
about changing and improving their condition and lives!! Man
can for a moment tame a few of the natural wonders and have them serve
us with power, water and other conveniences, but to believe we can
control the wild beast forever, is incredibly naive! Some
places seem more prone than others for disaster, but I can't think of
any place on earth that is 100% free from some natural, or social
disaster,, the secret of contentment can only come from deep
within!! The idea of this group and the possibility of being
sensitive to earth changes and being able to share warnings with others
does bring a small sense of hope and satisfaction!
oops, I'll go back to lurking,, ha!!
F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases
Law enforcement officials are vastly
expanding their
collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been
arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help
solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty
offenders and people who are presumed innocent.Until now, the federal
government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect
DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will collect DNA from
detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of
genetic
registrants.
The F.B.I., with a DNA database of 6.7 million profiles, expects to
accelerate its growth rate from 80,000 new entries a year to 1.2
million by 2012 — a 17-fold increase. F.B.I. officials say
they
expect DNA processing backlogs — which now stand at more than
500,000 cases — to increase. You
ARE Being WATCHED
Nearly
half the world’s fishing catch is either thrown back dead or
sold
without regard to whether the fish stock is endangered, according to a
report released today. Every year more than 38 million tonnes of marine
life is taken from the sea
without having been the intended target of the fishing vessels. As the
numbers of the most popular species fall, unwanted fish that used to be
discarded before returning to port, traditionally referred to as
bycatch,
are now being taken to market. Traditional fishery management plans
focus
only on target species, leaving bycatch species heavily exploited and
without any scientific control or monitoring
Zephaniah
1
3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the
fowls of
the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the
stumbling blocks
with the wicked: and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the
LORD. CLICK
HERE TO READ OT ZEPHANIAH
(CNN)
-- A Maryland man apparently
killed his wife and three
young children, then shot and killed himself at the foot of the bed
where his wife and 2-year-old daughter's bodies lay, authorities said
Saturday. Christopher Wood, 34, may have slashed at least some of his
family
members in the killings in Middletown. Frederick County (Md.) Sheriff
Charles Jenkins said some of the victims had "severe lacerations and
cut wounds."
"These are
horrific incidents,"
said Jenkins, who
said he couldn't remember another homicide in the past 20 years in the
small town northwest of Baltimore. "No one should ever have to be
exposed to this." Wood's sons were 5 and 4 years old, authorities said.
His wife, Francie Billotti Wood, was 33 The boys were found
in
their beds in a single bedroom, the sheriff said. Authorities did not
release the names of the children.
Father Kills Five
Children in Third U.S. Multiple Shooting
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. father killed his five
children and then shot himself after learning his wife was
leaving him. The children, ranging in age from 7 to 16, may have been
shot dead with a rifle by Washington state man James Harrison
early on April 4, said Pierce County Sherriff’s Department
spokesman Ed Troyer in a telephone interview. Four of the children were
found in their beds in the
family’s mobile home near Graham, about 25 miles (40
kilometers)
southeast of Tacoma. The fifth, a girl, was found in a bathroom,
after what appeared to have been a struggle, Troyer said.
US gunman
kills 13 at immigrant counselling centre
The small upstate
New York
town of Binghamton became the latest community to suffer the horror of
gun rampage in America when a man yesterday killed 13 people at an
immigrant counselling centre where many of his victims were studying to
become US citizens.
The carnage at
the American Civic
Association, a language and help centre for immigrants from all over
the world settled in New York state, had all the hallmarks of being
premeditated. The gunman, believed to be a Vietnamese immigrant, drove
his car to the back of the building and parked it tight against the
rear door – preventing those inside from escaping.
The
Oklahoma City bombing was
a domestic terrorist attack on April 19, 1995
aimed at the U.S. government in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma, was bombed. The attack claimed
168 lives and left over 800 people injured. It was
the largest terrorist attack
on American soil in history before the September 11 attacks. It remains
the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history.
The very existence of the
technology, known as a
"two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and
Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a
dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the
design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as
"breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic
solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
“extreme caution”
during flights “in and around” an area
defined as Latitude 17 North [North Atlantic Ocean] Latitude 3 South
[South Atlantic Ocean] to Latitude 8 North [Indian Ocean] Latitude 19
South [Indian Ocean] between the Longitudes of 46 West, 33 West, 46
East and 33 East, and which covers the greater part of the African
Tectonic Plate.
