tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66002033930556276262024-02-07T22:13:33.588-06:00Armageddon AlertAmerica's economic crisis has lit the fuse, igniting the march toward ArmageddonUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger305125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-2733688798601182002015-04-25T09:47:00.002-05:002015-04-25T10:11:50.655-05:00Nepal Earthquake 2015: World's Deadliest Recent EarthquakesAn impressive list in the last few years. It would be interesting to know how the level of earthquake in the past few years has compared historically in terms of both activity and death toll. <br />
<br />
<h2 class="story-body__crosshead">
World's deadliest recent earthquakes - Short Version</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul class="story-body__unordered-list">
<li class="story-body__list-item">
<b>Iran, 2003:</b> More than 26,000 people killed in 6.6 earthquake near the city of Bam</li>
<li class="story-body__list-item">
<b>Indonesia, 2004</b>: Devastating 9.1 earthquake and ensuing
tsunami off the Sumatran province of Aceh kills more than 230,000
people in a dozen countries</li>
<li class="story-body__list-item">
<b>Pakistani-administered Kashmir, 2005</b>: 7.6 earthquake near Muzafferabad kills about 100,000 people</li>
<li class="story-body__list-item">
<b>China, 2008:</b> Nearly 90,000 killed in 7.9 earthquake in eastern Sichuan province</li>
<li class="story-body__list-item">
<b>Haiti, 2010:</b> More than 220,000 people killed in 7.0 magnitude earthquake</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
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<h2 class="story-body__crosshead">
<a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150425/as--nepal-earthquake-quakes_glance-5706bad2e9.html" target="_blank">World's deadliest recent earthquakes - Long Version</a></h2>
<span id="article" style="margin-top: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><span id="article"><span id="intelliTXT"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
A magnitude-7.8 earthquake shook Nepal's capital and the densely
populated Kathmandu Valley on Saturday, the worst quake in the Himalayan
nation in over 80 years.</span></span><br />
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The world's strongest earthquakes since 1900:</span></span><br />
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May 22, 1960: A magnitude-9.5 earthquake in southern Chile and ensuing tsunami kill at least 1,716 people.</span></span><br />
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March 28, 1964: A magnitude-9.2 quake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, kills 131 people, including 128 from a tsunami.</span></span><br />
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Dec. 26, 2004: A magnitude-9.1 quake in Indonesia triggers an Indian Ocean tsunami, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries.</span></span><br />
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March 11, 2011: A magnitude-9.0 quake off the northeast coast of Japan triggers a tsunami, killing more than 18,000 people.</span></span><br />
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Nov. 4, 1952: A magnitude-9.0 quake in Kamchatka in Russia's Far East
causes damage but no reported deaths despite setting off 9.1-meter
(30-foot) waves in Hawaii.</span></span><br />
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Feb. 27, 2010: A magnitude-8.8 quake shakes Chile, generating a tsunami and killing 524 people.</span></span><br />
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Jan. 31, 1906: A magnitude-8.8 quake off the coast of Ecuador generates a tsunami that kills at least 500 people.</span></span><br />
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Feb. 4, 1965: A magnitude-8.7 quake strikes Alaska's Rat Islands, causing an 11-meter (35-foot) -high tsunami.</span></span><br />
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March 28, 2005: A magnitude-8.6 quake in northern Sumatra in Indonesia kills about 1,300 people.</span></span><br />
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Aug. 15, 1950: A magnitude-8.6 earthquake in Tibet kills at least 780 people.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
April 11, 2012: A magnitude-8.6 quake off the west coast of northern
Sumatra in Indonesia triggers tsunami warnings in more than two dozen
nations.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
March 9, 1957: A magnitude-8.6 quake strikes the Andreanof Islands in Alaska triggers a 16-meter (52-foot) -high tsunami.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
Sept. 12, 2007: A magnitude-8.5 quake near Sumatra in Indonesia kills at least 25 people.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
Feb. 1, 1938: A magnitude-8.5 quake in Banda Sea, Indonesia, generates a small tsunami.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
Feb. 3, 1923: A magnitude-8.5 quake in Kamchatka in Russia's Far East triggers a tsunami.</span></span><br />
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__</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
Nov. 11, 1922: A magnitude-8.5 quake along the Chile-Argentina border triggers a tsunami that causes damage along Chile's coast.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">
Oct. 13, 1963: A magnitude-8.5 quake in the Kuril Islands triggers a tsunami.</span></span><br />
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<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul class="story-body__unordered-list">
</ul>
<img alt="People stand around damage caused by an earthquake at Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25, 2015" class="js-image-replace" src="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82559000/jpg/_82559579_026909637-1.jpg" height="351" width="624" /><br />
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<figure class="media-landscape full-width has-caption"><figcaption class="media-caption">
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</figcaption></figure><br />
<h2 class="story-body__crosshead">
<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32461019" target="_blank">Analysis: Navin Singh Khadka, BBC Nepali</a></h2>
Major
historic monuments in the Nepalese capital have been destroyed in the
powerful earthquake, eyewitnesses and officials have said.<br />
<br />
These
include a nine-storey tower, temples and some parts of what was once a
royal palace, all listed as Unesco world heritage sites.<br />
<br />
Pictures posted on social media show some of the monuments have been reduced to rubble.<br />
Eyewitnesses say several others now have cracks and could collapse.<br />
<br />
Officials have said some temples and monuments at other world heritage sites near Kathmandu have also been damaged.<br />
<br />
These sites are Nepal's major tourist attractions.<br />
<br />
Nepal had lost several such monuments during a major earthquake in 1934. <br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="media-landscape body-width no-caption"></figure>There are also reports of damage to Kathmandu airport which could hamper relief operations.<br />
With little known about the extent of the damage around the earthquake's epicentre, there are fears the death toll could rise.<br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="media-landscape full-width has-caption"></figure>Aftershocks continued to ripple through the region hours later.<br />
<br />
The
quake triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest, killing at least eight
people, and another five in Tibet, officials and reports say.<br />
<br />
"Running for life from my tent. Unhurt. Many many people up the mountain," <a class="story-body__link-external" href="https://twitter.com/AlexGAVAN/status/591852013698228224">tweeted</a> mountaineer Alex Gavan.</blockquote>
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<h1 class="passage-display">
<span class="passage-display-bcv"></span><span class="passage-display-version"></span></h1>
<h3>
<span class="text Matt-24-1" id="en-NIV-23959">The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times</span></h3>
<span class="text Matt-24-4" id="en-NIV-23962"><sup class="versenum">4 </sup>Jesus answered: <span class="woj">“Watch out that no one deceives you.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-24-5" id="en-NIV-23963"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">5 </sup>For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-24-6" id="en-NIV-23964"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">6 </sup>You
will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not
alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-24-7" id="en-NIV-23965"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">7 </sup>Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-24-8" id="en-NIV-23966"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">8 </sup>All these are the beginning of birth pains.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="text Matt-24-8" id="en-NIV-23966"><span class="woj">Matthew 24 </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-56435850085124802312015-03-25T17:23:00.000-05:002015-03-25T18:45:02.367-05:00My evolving list of topics/questions on religion.<br />
<div>
Hard questions. Hard answers. Understanding what one believes is not always as easy as just showing up to church on Sunday. </div>
<ol>
<li>So, you believe in Christianity. Why? Why not Islam?</li>
<li>Why is Jesus any better to believe in than Mohammad?</li>
<li>Religion has spread throughout history through violence. The reason the west is Christian and the east is Hindu/Buddhist has to do with Constantine institutionalizing religion and the Catholic church enforcing religion during the middle ages. </li>
<li>The appeal to natural law is an appeal to the baser instinct. Our feeling toward a perceived evil act is simply a biological response given our instinct to survive. We want to live, so we create laws to ensure that this 'evil' is controlled.</li>
<li>People are good by nature. People are indoctrinated, like those who believe in the Nazis, and as a result, do bad things.</li>
<li>What is truth?</li>
<li>How is believing in God any different than believing in pink elephants?</li>
<li>The Mayans believed in a number of odd rituals. Modern society no longer believes in the Mayan gods. Why? Because we have new information. Religion changes as new information is present. Fast forward 100 years and maybe we'll all believe differently. Were the Mayans wrong for believing what they believed? How are you confident that your religion will be any different than the Mayan religion over time?</li>
</ol>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-65619730050185118662015-03-16T23:16:00.000-05:002015-03-16T23:16:00.157-05:00Iran Nuclear Deal 2015, "End of the World" Would this treaty be considered if oil was at $140 and not $40 a barrel? I would doubt it. The best way to keep Iran on the ropes is to keep drilling for oil and becoming energy independent.<br />
<br />
The USA has also been to war for over a decade, spending north of 4 Trillion dollars on quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a different approach is needed and a more thoughtful, deliberate, approach will do some good. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /><a href="http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/122622-failure-to-clinch-nuclear-deal-will-not-be-end-of-world-larijani" target="_blank">Failure to clinch nuclear deal will not be ‘end of world’: Larijani</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /><strong style="margin: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px;">EHRAN -</strong> Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says the country’s legislature is not pessimistic about the prospect of the nuclear talks, and thinks that if the other party does not raise “excessive demands”, reaching a nuclear deal would be possible.<br /><br />However, a failure by Tehran and the world powers to reaching a final nuclear deal “would never mean the end of world”, Larijani told a press conference on Monday.<br /><br />“We are now living without such a comprehensive deal and if an agreement is not reached, we will go after other solutions.”<br /><br />Larijani, a former chief nuclear negotiator, also said the parliament “will supervise the negotiations’ dynamism with a supportive approach.”<br /><br /><strong style="margin: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px;">Iran nuclear deal would be no threat to neighbors</strong><br />Larijani also said any possible nuclear agreement between Tehran and the 5+1 group would not be a threat to the Arab countries at all.<br /><br />“Our nuclear topic is different from our relations with regional countries,” Larijani said.<br /><br />He reiterated Tehran’s position that that Iran’s capabilities will always be “at the service of regional countries”.<br /><br /><strong style="margin: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px;">Iran aiding Iraq in war on terrorism with full respect for Baghdad’s sovereignty</strong><br />Elsewhere in his remarks, Larijani said Tehran will continue giving military advice to Iraqis in their fight against terrorist groups, while showing full respect to the Iraqi sovereignty.<br /><br />“We are assisting Iraq because it is our friend and neighbor which today has been held captive by a terrorist group; of course the Iraqi people are brave and the advances that they have made in fight against the terrorists have been the result of their own efforts and our support.”<br /><br />He added, “Iran doesn’t have hegemonic plans or intentions for any country and has shown this approach ever since the revolution as fight against hegemony is a pillar of the Islamic Revolution.”<br /><br />Iran has been helping the Palestinians in their fight against the Zionist regime upon their demand, helping them to defend their country and stand against their enemies, Larijani pointed out.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-51646643228209060182014-05-06T18:48:00.002-05:002014-05-06T18:48:24.062-05:00Seeing that Morning Sun Shine Through the Clouds<span style="font-family: Trebuchet, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The good word for today....</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">"The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress: “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is… But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Francis I, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Evangelli Gaudium</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-65581415538032395552014-04-12T11:00:00.004-05:002014-04-12T11:02:27.903-05:004 Blood Red Moons: Coincidence? or Divine Revelation?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3QeMFYra_JgE2sNErENvFg7L7QOYIOWCqxrT7jeAxNZGuLrI0IW01x52F_8Spot74kEoFUPtWljLHdeV9XCQDhMIC6rf8_n_LAXiJU8Kcknnld5QU8JP0Ils0etK5YLiyxvMadK_UB2U/s1600/red-moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3QeMFYra_JgE2sNErENvFg7L7QOYIOWCqxrT7jeAxNZGuLrI0IW01x52F_8Spot74kEoFUPtWljLHdeV9XCQDhMIC6rf8_n_LAXiJU8Kcknnld5QU8JP0Ils0etK5YLiyxvMadK_UB2U/s1600/red-moon.jpg" height="189" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">
<span class="text Matt-24-29"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">
<span class="text Matt-24-29"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">
<span class="text Matt-24-29" id="en-NIV-23987"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">29 </span>“Immediately after the distress of those days</span></div>
<div class="poetry top-05" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 2.6em; position: relative;">
<div class="line">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
“‘the sun will be darkened,</div>
<span class="indent-1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks" style="font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.42em; line-height: 0;"> </span><span class="text Matt-24-29" style="position: relative;"><span class="woj">and the moon will not give its light;</span></span></span></div>
<span class="indent-1">
</span><span class="text Matt-24-29" style="position: relative;"></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text Matt-24-29" style="position: relative;">the stars will fall from the sky,</span></div>
<span class="text Matt-24-29" style="position: relative;">
</span><span class="indent-1"></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks" style="font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.42em; line-height: 0;"> </span><span class="text Matt-24-29" style="position: relative;"><span class="woj">and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’<span class="footnote" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-23987b" title="See footnote b">b</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24#fen-NIV-23987b" style="color: #b37162; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top;" title="See footnote b">b</a>]</span></span></span></span></div>
<span class="indent-1">
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<div class="top-05" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-top: -0.5em; text-align: center;">
<span class="text Matt-24-30" id="en-NIV-23988"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">30 </span>“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth<span class="footnote" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-23988c" title="See footnote c">c</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24#fen-NIV-23988c" style="color: #b37162; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top;" title="See footnote c">c</a>]</span> will mourn<span class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-23988AE" title="See cross-reference AE">AE</a>)"></span> when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven,<span class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-23988AF" title="See cross-reference AF">AF</a>)"></span> with power and great glory.<span class="footnote" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-23988d" title="See footnote d">d</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24#fen-NIV-23988d" style="color: #b37162; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top;" title="See footnote d">d</a>]</span></span> <span class="text Matt-24-31" id="en-NIV-23989"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">31 </span>And he will send his angels<span class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-23989AG" title="See cross-reference AG">AG</a>)"></span> with a loud trumpet call,<span class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-23989AH" title="See cross-reference AH">AH</a>)"></span> and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.</span></div>
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<span class="text Matt-24-31"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31">Matthew 24</span></div>
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<span class="text Matt-24-31"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="text Matt-24-31"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="text Matt-24-31"><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/469228/Four-blood-moons-Does-alignment-of-Mars-Earth-and-Sun-mean-the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh" target="_blank">From the Daily Express UK:</a></span></div>
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<section class="text-description" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31">Mars, Earth, and the Sun all aligned last night, a rare 'opposition of the planets' that only happens once every 778 days. </span></div>
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
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But what made this event so remarkable is that it occured precisely a week before everyone on earth will see the first of FOUR dark red 'blood moons', an extraordinary event some Christians believe represents the End of Days and the second coming of Christ.</div>
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<b>The King James Bible predicts: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD comes," [Joel 2:31]. </b></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
<b>And, according to NASA, a highly unusual 'Tetrad' - four successive total 'blood-red' lunar eclipses each followed by six full moons - will, indeed, start next Tuesday and finish on September 28 2015. </b></div>
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The incredible alignment has only happened a handful of times in the last two thousand years but, remarkably, on each of the last three occasions it has coincided with a globally significant religious event.</div>
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Pastor and author John Hagee, from San Antonio, Texas, has written a book on the phenomenon. He believes tonight marks the dawn of a 'hugely significant event' for the world.</div>
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He says: "This is not something that some religious think tank has put together. </div>
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"NASA has confirmed that the Tetrad has only happened three times in more than 500 years - and that it's going to happen now."</div>
</span></section><section class="photo" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px; position: relative;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31"><img alt="bible, end of the world, end of days, astrology, sun, moon, earth " src="http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/78/590x/secondary/145622.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: 590px;" title="bible, end of the world, end of days, astrology, sun, moon, earth " /><span class="photo-caption" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-image: url(http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/page/caption_t_fix.png); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; border: 0px; bottom: 0px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; font-size: 12px; left: 0px; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 10px; position: absolute; right: 0px; z-index: 2;">The King James Bible warns the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the 'moon into blood' [DEA]</span></span></div>
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</span></section><section class="text-description" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31">The first Tetrad since the Middle Ages, in 1493, saw the expulsion of Jews by the Catholic Spanish Inquisition, which rocked western Europe. </span></div>
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<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
The second coincided with the establishment of the State of Israel - after thousands of years of struggle - in 1949. </div>
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Strangely, the last one occurred in 1967 - far earlier than expected - precisely at the time of the Six-Day Arab–Israeli War.</div>
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A spokesman for NASA said: "This is the first eclipse of the year and is well placed for observers throughout the Western Hemisphere. </div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"It will occur at the lunar orbit's ascending node in Virgo. </div>
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"This is the first of four consecutive total lunar eclipses in 2014 and 2015 - a series known as a Tetrad."</div>
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<span class="text Matt-24-31"><img alt="nasa, nasa eclipse, nasa moon, nasa blood moon, nasa red moon, nasa blood moons" src="http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/78/590x/secondary/145635.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: 590px;" title="nasa, nasa eclipse, nasa moon, nasa blood moon, nasa red moon, nasa blood moons" /><span class="photo-caption" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-image: url(http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/page/caption_t_fix.png); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; border: 0px; bottom: 0px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; font-size: 12px; left: 0px; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 10px; position: absolute; right: 0px; z-index: 2;">NASA has confirmed four consecutive total lunar eclipses will occur in 2014 and 2015 [NASA]</span></span></div>
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</span></section><section class="text-description" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31">He added: "The frequency of Tetrads is variable over time. </span></div>
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli first pointed out that Tetrads were relatively plentiful during one 300-year interval, while none occurred at all during the next 300 years. </div>
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"The 565-year period of the Tetrad 'seasons' is tied to the slowly decreasing eccentricity of Earth's orbit. </div>
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"Consequently, the Tetrad period is gradually decreasing. </div>
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"In the distant future Tetrads will no longer be possible."</div>
</span></section><section class="photo" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px; position: relative;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31"><img alt="tedrad, six day war, bible, arab israeli war, end of the world, doomsday prediction" src="http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/78/590x/secondary/145632.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: 590px;" title="tedrad, six day war, bible, arab israeli war, end of the world, doomsday prediction" /><span class="photo-caption" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-image: url(http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/page/caption_t_fix.png); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; border: 0px; bottom: 0px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; font-size: 12px; left: 0px; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 10px; position: absolute; right: 0px; z-index: 2;">The last Tedrad occurred in 1967 during the Six-Day Arab–Israeli War [AFP]</span></span></div>
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
</span></section><section class="text-description" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31">Mr Hagee explains: "According to the Biblical prophecy, world history is about to change dramatically. </span></div>
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"To get four blood moons you need something absolutely extraordinary in astrological terms.</div>
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"Every time this has happened in the last 500 years, it has coincided with tragedy for the Jewish people followed by triumph. And once again, for Israel, the timing of this Tetrad is remarkable. </div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"The first of the four blood moons will come on April 15 this year, during Passover. The second will be on October 8, at the time of the Feast of the Tabernacles. </div>
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"On April 4 2015, during Passover, we will have another blood moon. Then finally, on September 28, during next year's Feast of the Tabernacles, the fourth blood and final moon will dawn." </div>
</span></section><section class="box related-articles clear" style="background-color: white; border-top-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 1px 0px 0px; position: relative; z-index: 1;"><header style="background-attachment: scroll; background-image: url(http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/page/box-header.png); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><h3 style="border: 0px; color: #292221; float: left; font-family: 'Open Sans Condensed', Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 10px 0px 1px;">
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
Related articles</span></h3>
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
</span></header><ul style="background-color: #f9f9f9; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1px solid rgb(212, 212, 212); list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; position: relative; top: -1px;"><span class="text Matt-24-31">
<li style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><var style="border-color: transparent transparent transparent rgb(41, 34, 33); border-style: dashed dashed dashed solid; border-width: 0.53em 0.53em 0.53em 9px; bottom: auto; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; left: auto; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -2px; vertical-align: middle; width: 0px;"></var><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/251154/The-Rapture-Is-this-what-the-end-of-the-world-will-look-like" style="border: 0px; color: #bb1a00; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">The Rapture: Is this what the end of the world will look like?</a></li>
<li style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><var style="border-color: transparent transparent transparent rgb(41, 34, 33); border-style: dashed dashed dashed solid; border-width: 0.53em 0.53em 0.53em 9px; bottom: auto; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; left: auto; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -2px; vertical-align: middle; width: 0px;"></var><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/278838/Rapture-Harold-Camping-says-the-world-will-end-today-maybe" style="border: 0px; color: #bb1a00; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Rapture: Harold Camping says the world will end today...maybe</a></li>
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<li style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><var style="border-color: transparent transparent transparent rgb(41, 34, 33); border-style: dashed dashed dashed solid; border-width: 0.53em 0.53em 0.53em 9px; bottom: auto; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; left: auto; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -2px; vertical-align: middle; width: 0px;"></var><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/science-technology/469460/Life-on-Mars-Mystery-light-seen-on-red-planet-surface-in-latest-NASA-snap-could-be-proof" style="border: 0px; color: #bb1a00; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Life on Mars! Mystery light seen on red planet surface in latest NASA snap could be proof</a></li>
</span></ul>
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<span class="text Matt-24-31">He adds: "To have four and have them fall on these exact dates is something that has to be beyond coincidental. </span></div>
<span class="text Matt-24-31">
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"What is so remarkable about these blood moons is that they specifically fulfill prophecies set out in the Bible. </div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"Joel Chapter Two also says the 'Day of the Lord will be as when the sun refuses to shine'.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"The really significant fact is that between these four blood moons there will be a total solar eclipse. </div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"Even Jesus himself, in the Book of Luke, states there 'will be signs in the sun, moon and stars' and to 'lift up your heads for redemption draws nigh'. </div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"There's a sequence of prophetic events that the Bible says will happen. It does not, ever, give a timeline.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"It just says 'when you see these signs' - and four blood moons is a very significant one - 'the end of this age is coming."</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
While NASA has confirmed the astrological validity behind some of the claims, not everyone is convinced the Tetrad means anything at all, let alone the End of Days. </div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Professor Gary Shogren, a former pastor who studied the New Testament at Aberdeen University, said: "You’ll never go broke predicting the apocalypse.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"An eclipse on Passover night seems wildly improbable, but we should remember that lunar eclipses only happen on full moons and that Passover by definition always takes place on a full moon. Sukkoth (The Feast of Tabernacles) also by definition coincides with a full moon.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"I thought in 2011 we all said we weren’t going to fall for this again, when Harold Camping twice missed the date of the Second Coming?</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
"It really is no different this time."</div>
</span></section></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-18871828694716294752014-03-09T16:05:00.000-05:002014-03-09T16:09:58.205-05:00China's September 11th<br />
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<span class="versenum" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">22 </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect</span><span class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-23980W" title="See cross-reference W">W</a>)"></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> those days will be shortened."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Matthew 24:22</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
Evil abounds everywhere. The difficulty is that so often it appears randomly, without warning, and attacks in places of peace or relative calm like a storm without warning. History could be described almost in terms of relative periods of peace amidst long periods of war and chaos. It never has really gone away and the damage we have done to each other, human to human, likely adds up to more than all the damage that naturals has inflicted throughout history. A link to a sad story is below, demonstrating yet another sad event that has been dubbed 'China's September 11th."<br />
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<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/27-dead-train-station-knife-attack-china-article-1.1707232#ixzz2vV6gbq6f" target="_blank">At least 33 dead, 143 wounded in train station 'terror' attack in China, authorities say</a></h1>
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The 'violent terror attack' at the Kunming Railway Station took place late Saturday, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. Four of the more than 10 knife-wielding attackers were shot dead, The country blames the attack on separatists from the country’s far west and vowed a harsh crackdown Sunday. </h2>
<h5 class="dates" content="2014-03-01T12:22:28" itemprop="datePublished" style="background-color: white; background-position: 0px 50%; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">
PUBLISHED: SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014, 12:22 PM</h5>
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A woman reacts at the train station in Kunming after a deadly attack. </div>
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KUNMING, China — Authorities blamed a slashing rampage that killed 29 people and wounded 143 at a train station in southern China on separatists from the country’s far west and vowed a harsh crackdown Sunday, while residents wondered why their laid-back city was targeted.</div>
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Police fatally shot four of the assailants — putting the overall death toll at 33 — and captured another after the attack late Saturday in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. But authorities were searching for at least five more of the black-clad attackers.</div>
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State broadcaster CCTV said two of the assailants were women, including one of the slain and the one detained.</div>
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“All-out efforts should be made to treat the injured people, severely punish terrorists according to the law, and prevent the occurrence of similar cases,” said China’s top police official, Politburo member Meng Jianzhu, who arrived in Kunming early Sunday, an indication of how seriously authorities viewed the attack.</div>
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Police officers investigate and protect the crime scene outside a railway station in southwestern China.</h4>
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The attackers’ identities have not been confirmed, but evidence at the scene showed that it was “a terrorist attack carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces,” Xinhua said. The far western region of Xinjiang is home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule by some members of the Muslim Uighur population, and the government has responded there with heavy-handed security.</div>
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Police in Kunming on Sunday were rounding up members of the city’s small Uighur community, believed to number no more than several dozen, for questioning in the attack and information about the assailants.</div>
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“How do we know them?” said a Uighur man who gave only his first name, Akpar. “We could not tell if the assailants were Uighurs as they were all dressed in black. We did not like the attack either.”</div>
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Most attacks blamed on Uighur separatists take place in Xinjiang, where clashes between Uighurs and police or members of China’s ethnic Han majority are frequent, but Saturday’s assault happened more than 1,500 kilometers (more than 900 miles) to the southeast in Yunnan, which has not had a history of such unrest.</div>
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<img alt="A man injured in the attack is treated at the First People's Hosptial of Kunming." src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1707455.1393708071!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/20140302-zaf-x99-023-jpg.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;" /><br />
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A man injured in the attack is treated at the First People's Hosptial of Kunming.</h4>
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Kunming residents expressed dismay at both the attack and the conditions within China that could have allowed it to happen.</div>
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Restaurant worker Xie Yulong said the attackers were “worse than animals.” But he also expressed sympathy toward ethnic Uighurs, saying their region has come under severe security crackdowns in recent months under the government of President Xi Jinping.</div>
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“It’s the pressure,” Xie said. “Beijing has put too much pressure on them since Xi Jinping took over. They are under so much pressure they do not want to live, and they did that.”</div>
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Another Kunming resident, Jiang Hua, said the attack has made people scared to go out at night.<br />
“I think we should chase off the Uighurs and let them be independent,” Jiang said. “And local authorities should be held accountable for providing public safety.”</div>
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<img alt="Police officers inspect the body of a victim. At least 28 people died in what Chinese authorities are calling 'organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack' in Kunming. " src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1707383.1393703653!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/aptopix-china-train-station-attack.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;" /><br />
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Police officers inspect the body of a victim. At least 28 people died in what Chinese authorities are calling 'organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack' in Kunming. </h4>
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Witnesses described assailants dressed in black storming the train station late Saturday evening and slashing people indiscriminately with large knives and machetes.</div>
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Student Qiao Yunao, 16, was waiting to catch a train at the station when people started crying out and running, and then saw a man cut another man’s neck, drawing blood.</div>
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“I was freaking out, and ran to a fast food store, and many people were running in there to take refuge,” she told The Associated Press via Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog. “I saw two attackers, both men, one with a watermelon knife and the other with a fruit knife. They were running and chopping whoever they could.”</div>
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Alarms over a possible spread of militant attacks to soft targets beyond the borders of Xinjiang were first raised in October when a suicide car attack blamed on three ethnic Uighurs killed five people, including the attackers, at Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate.<br />
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<img alt="Police stand near luggage left at the ticket office after a group of knife-wielding assailants attacked people at Kunming railway station." src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1707322.1393699341!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/china-attack.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;" /><br />
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Police stand near luggage left at the ticket office after a group of knife-wielding assailants attacked people at Kunming railway station.</h4>
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Sean Roberts, a cultural anthropologist at George Washington University who has studied Uighurs and China for two decades, said the Kunming violence would be a new kind of attack for ethnic Uighurs — premeditated, well-organized and outside Xinjiang — but still rudimentary in weaponry.</div>
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“If it is true that it was carried out by Uighurs, it’s much different than anything we’ve seen to date,” Roberts said by phone.</div>
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But he added that it is still unclear whether there is any organized Uighur militant group, and that attacks so far do not appear linked to any “global terrorist network, because we’re not seeing things like sophisticated explosives or essentially sophisticated tactics.”</div>
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The violence in Kunming came at a sensitive time, with political leaders in Beijing preparing for Wednesday’s opening of the annual legislature, where Xi’s government will deliver its first one-year work report.<br />
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<img alt="The exterior of Kunming Railway Station on March 1. At least 28 individuals are dead and another 113 are wounded after an unidentified group of people rushed into the station and started attacking bystanders, state media reported. " src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1707249.1393695260!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/20140302-zaf-x99-004-jpg.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;" /><br />
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The exterior of Kunming Railway Station on March 1. At least 28 individuals are dead and another 113 are wounded after an unidentified group of people rushed into the station and started attacking bystanders, state media reported. </h4>
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Willy Lam, a political observer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the attack coming so close to the National People’s Congress dented Xi’s message of a “Chinese Dream” coalescing under his rule.</div>
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“Pockets of dissatisfaction, groups of people with grievances, appear to be increasing. After 1 1/2 years of more heavy-handed control (in Xinjiang), the report card does not look good,” Lam said.</div>
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Xi called for “all-out efforts” to bring the culprits to justice. The Security Management Bureau, which is under the Ministry of Public Security, said in a statement that police would “crack down on the crimes in accordance with the law without any tolerance.”</div>
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The attack was the deadliest violence attributed to Uighur-Han conflicts since riots in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi in 2009, in which Uighurs stormed the streets of the city, targeting Han people in seemingly random violence that included the killing of women and children. A few days later, Han vigilante mobs armed with sticks and bats attacked Uighurs in the same city. Nearly 200 people died.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Weibo users took to the service to describe details of what happened, though many of the posts were quickly deleted by government censors, especially those that described the attackers, two of whom were identified by some as women.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">On a somewhat related topic, another quote summarizing how two separate cultures have differed in their response to the fallibility of man and natural inclinations for man to oppress their fellow man. America has its problems, but one is not the Constitution, which has remarkable stood the test of time and helped serve as a backbone to allowing individuals to rise above tyranny and express themselves, however difficult that has been at times. </span><span style="line-height: 17px;"> </span></span><br />
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<b style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;">Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, writing in 1835:</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">"There are two great peoples on the earth today who, starting from different points, seem to advance toward the same goal: these are the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">Both have grown larger in obscurity; and while men's regards were occupied elsewhere, they have suddenly taken their place in the first rank of nations, and the world has learned of their birth and of their greatness almost at the same time. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">All other peoples appear to have nearly reached the limits that nature has drawn and to have nothing more to do than preserve themselves; but these are growing: all the others have halted or advance only with a thousand efforts; these alone march ahead at an easy and rapid pace on a course whose bounds the eye cannot yet perceive. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">The American struggles against the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the Russian grapples with men. The one combats the wilderness and barbarism, the other, civilization vested with all its arms: thus the conquests of the American are made with the plowshare of the laborer, those of the Russian with the sword of the soldier. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">To attain his goal, the first relies on personal interest and allows the force and the reason of individuals to act, without directing them. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">The second in a way concentrates all the power of society in one man. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">The one has freedom for his principal mans of action; the other servitude. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">Their point of departure is different, their ways are diverse; nonetheless, each of them seems called by a secret design of Providence to hold the destinies of half the world in its hands one day."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 17px;">-Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop translation, at the end of Vol. I: p 395-96.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-74431964676852041872014-02-16T11:55:00.002-06:002014-02-16T11:55:39.832-06:00Tracking your DNA via a Bio-signatureAs if we are not being tracked enough.....on the heels of a recent article documenting how law enforcement is trying to use <a href="http://armageddonalert.blogspot.com/2014/02/police-state-la-americana-style.html" target="_blank">street lights to track you down</a>, we get this article documenting attempts to track us via DNA. The article is vague and details lack, so it appears to be more fear mongering by the WND staff, which published this article. Nevertheless, biotechnology tracking systems are being developed, particularly of interest is the likes of an implantable device like 'veri-chip.' <br />
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<a href="http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/feds-want-to-track-your-dna-like-a-license-plate/#oAogf9Wc5cdt4Pw3.99" target="_blank">FEDS WANT TO TRACK YOUR DNA LIKE A LICENSE PLATE</a></h1>
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<a href="http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/feds-want-to-track-your-dna-like-a-license-plate/#oAogf9Wc5cdt4Pw3.99" target="_blank">Seek 'biosignature' spying ability to 'identify, locate specific individuals'</a></h2>
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The federal government doesn’t just want the ability to track down your car; it wants to be able to track down your <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">body</em> as well.</div>
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Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals. The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”</div>
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According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”</div>
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Documents WND located through routine database research reveal the ability to follow people by detecting “certain characteristics of operational interest” is designed for U.S. military and intelligence-gathering superiority.</div>
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It remains unknown when such capabilities might transition to the realm of domestic counterterrorism or law enforcement operations; however, the feds – through the Air Force Research Lab, or AFRL – are recruiting private-sector assistance in order to make this “biosignature” spying a reality.</div>
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Existing ISR systems are “ideal for identifying and tracking entities such as aircraft and vehicles, but are less capable of identifying and tracking the human,” the lab says in a planning document known as a Broad Agency Announcement, or BAA.</div>
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The Human-Centered ISR Leveraged Science & Technology Program will seek to develop, with outside help, technologies that the government can use “to identify, locate and track humans of interest within the operational environment,” <a href="https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5469a30147db9b109703e8deca8a3700&tab=core&_cview=0" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153) !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">according to solicitation No. BAA-HPW-RHX-2014-0001</a>.</div>
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Research specific to fusing and analyzing sensor data has undergone consistent growth, but such efforts have been “system-centric” and fail to “adequately address the human element.”</div>
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This new research scheme seeks to strengthen the ability of intelligence analysts by placing the human component at the forefront of their efforts.</div>
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AFRL’s research could have implications for a variety of domains, such as air, space and cyberspace, it says. The program’s outcome also will broadly apply to other U.S. Department of Defense organizations and the intelligence community.</div>
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A second component of the AFRL initiative is the Human Trust and Interaction Program, which will conduct research into human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions.</div>
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This program segment entails several sub-areas, including Trust and Suspicion, which will focus on “the recognition of suspicious activities in the cyberspace realm.”</div>
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This segment will examine open-source data such as social media. It also will continue to leverage “more traditional intelligence sources.”</div>
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AFRL says it anticipates awarding three or four initial contracts for the overall initiative, which has an estimated program value of about $50 million.</div>
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The goal of this and other AFLR programs typically start out as largely theoretical, similar to the approach taken by the more widely known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which created ARPANET, the defense-system predecessor to the Internet.</div>
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The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, merely has to solicit bids from industry for a National License Plate Recognition, or NLPR, database system.</div>
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While DHS is soliciting this service specifically for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, functions, the breadth of this NLPR service encompasses the gathering of transportation-movement data from major metropolitan areas nationwide.</div>
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This database, which would be fed with information gleaned from multiple sources, would “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system,” according to the program solicitation.</div>
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The vehicle tracking-data then would be <a href="https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=41e27c3974b199abd503304080e791b2&tab=core&_cview=0" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153) !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“uploaded to share with law enforcement.”</a></div>
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The database will be compatible with smart phone technology, enabling law enforcement offices to download thousands of listings – as well as close-up photos – of vehicle license plates.</div>
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Once DHS secures this service, the contractor must retain and make available data from previous months, as well as update the system with “new and unique” data monthly.</div>
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DHS anticipates awarding a one-year contract with four one-year options by May 14. It did not disclose the estimated cost.</div>
<br style="font-family: Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Read more at <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/feds-want-to-track-your-dna-like-a-license-plate/#oAogf9Wc5cdt4Pw3.99" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153) !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/feds-want-to-track-your-dna-like-a-license-plate/#oAogf9Wc5cdt4Pw3.99</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-91963045335109001292014-02-15T20:08:00.003-06:002014-02-15T20:08:12.319-06:00Police State: La Americana style<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The DHS also </span><a href="http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/02/10/mbta-buses-get-live-video-technology/" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">recently awarded</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority $7 million dollars to outfit its buses with high tech 360 degree surveillance cameras. <b>The federal agency is </b></span><b><a href="http://www.infowars.com/talking-surveillance-cameras-coming-to-u-s-streets/" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">simultaneously supporting the rollout of ‘Intellistreets’</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> lighting systems that double as surveillance hubs which can record conversations.</span></b></blockquote>
The large leaks by NSA contractor Edward Snowden shook the world and gave the public a glimpse into just what enormous amount of surveillance is being performed on the unsuspecting public. There has always been a trade off between liberty and security; however, in today's digital age, the line has been blurred to the point of in-distinction. There's so much data and surveillance everywhere , one practically doesn't even know where it starts and stops. <br />
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The Department of Homeland Security has been building a national database of information for some time, of course under the notion to track terrorists around the globe. The ability to use this database in real time though takes on a new dimension if a police officer can simply use their smart phone, take a picture of a car's plates, and then immediately know who you are. The newest technology in google glasses apparently can do the same thing. Additionally, as this article points out, cameras and listening devices are also now being incorporated into street lights!<br />
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Forget about anonymity! <br />
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<a href="http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-to-activate-national-license-plate-recognition-database/" target="_blank">Homeland Security to Activate ‘National </a></h1>
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<a href="http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-to-activate-national-license-plate-recognition-database/" target="_blank">License Plate Recognition Database’</a></h1>
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The Department of Homeland Security is set to activate a national license plate tracking system that will be shared with law enforcement, allowing DHS officers to take photos of any license plate using their smartphone and upload it to a database which will include a “hot list” of “target vehicles”.<br /><img alt="" height="270" src="http://static.prisonplanet.com/p/images/february2014/130214cam.jpg" style="border: none; outline: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-top: 10px;" width="400" /><br />Image: License Plate Scanning Camera (Wikimedia Commons). </blockquote>
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The details are included in a PDF attachment uploaded yesterday to the <a href="https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=41e27c3974b199abd503304080e791b2&tab=core&_cview=0" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Federal Business Opportunities</a> website under a solicitation entitled “National License Plate Recognition Database.” </blockquote>
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The system will “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) and uploaded to share with law enforcement” in order to help locate “criminal aliens and absconders.” </blockquote>
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In other countries that have activated license plate tracking networks, such as the United Kingdom, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/whos_watching_you/8064333.stm" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">political activists have been targeted</a> by having their vehicles added to a “hotlist” after attending protests. One example led to a man being questioned under anti-terror laws after he traveled to take part in an anti-war demonstration. </blockquote>
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As the image above illustrates, the cameras are also used by local governments in Australia to keep records of people who violate parking restrictions. <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-automatic-number-plate-recognition-allows-police-to-track-drivers8217-movements-further-eroding-our-civil-liberties/story-fnihsr9v-1226719544697" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Critics of the system in Australia</a> have condemned it as “a Pandora’s box for abuse of power, mistakes and illegal disclosure,” stressing that the technology allows authorities to record “your number plate at a certain time and location,” allowing police to “compile an extraordinary amount of data about you. This includes your name, address, contact details, driving history and licence status.” </blockquote>
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“Innocent people are increasingly being treated with suspicion due to the tiny chance that some offence may be committed,” writes David Jancik. </blockquote>
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The DHS’ database will allow authorities “to determine where and when the vehicle has traveled,” using data compiled “from a variety of sources nationwide,” including “metropolitan areas” within the United States, suggesting the system may be linked in with regular surveillance cameras as it is in the UK. </blockquote>
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The system will also allow DHS officials to take a picture of any license plate via their smartphone, upload it to the database and immediately receive an alert if the plate is on the watchlist.<br />“The NLPR data service should provide details on clarity of photos provided. The Government would prefer a close-up of the plate and a zoomed out image of the vehicle,” states the solicitation. </blockquote>
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The system must also have the capability to “flag license plates and conduct searches anonymously so that other law enforcement agencies may not have access.”<br />Given rampant concerns that the Department of Homeland Security, which is ostensibly introducing this system in the name of catching illegal aliens, is in fact an increasingly bloated federal bureaucracy designed to target the American people, the notion of the DHS enjoying access to a fully integrated nationwide license plate tracking grid is chilling, especially given the fact that the agency has <a href="http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-report-lists-liberty-lovers-as-terrorists/" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">funded reports which characterize “liberty lovers” as potential terrorists.</a> </blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-report-lists-liberty-lovers-as-terrorists/" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"></a>The DHS also <a href="http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/02/10/mbta-buses-get-live-video-technology/" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">recently awarded</a> the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority $7 million dollars to outfit its buses with high tech 360 degree surveillance cameras. The federal agency is <a href="http://www.infowars.com/talking-surveillance-cameras-coming-to-u-s-streets/" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">simultaneously supporting the rollout of ‘Intellistreets’</a> lighting systems that double as surveillance hubs which can record conversations. </blockquote>
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“Do not kid yourself. This is tracking of an individual that can be accessed at a whim,” <a href="http://www.prepperpodcast.com/warning-homeland-security-set-to-purchase-license-plate-tracking/" style="color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">writes James Smith</a>. “Yearly, officers are terminated for accessing the LEDS/NCIC database for looking into the histories of ex-lovers, future spouses, and potential sons/daughters-in-law. And with license plate tracking toy (not a tool), they will know where you are, as long as you have driven into the cross hairs of this new weapon for tyranny.”</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-79502972142953569622013-05-21T21:33:00.003-05:002014-02-15T20:08:26.220-06:00Immigration Bill includes Universal Biometric Security System Another call for a massive biometric database from a member of congress:<br />
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<a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56337597-90/hatch-airports-bill-biometric.html.csp" target="_blank">Hatch Calls for Fingerprints</a><br />
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Washington » The federal government
would start collecting fingerprints from foreigners at the nation’s
busiest airports under a plan sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch.</div>
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The Senate Judiciary Committee accepted the Utah Republican’s amendment to a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/senate-gang-of-8-immigration-reform-bill-full-text-90192.html" target="_blank">broad immigration reform bill</a> Monday, saying it is a financially feasible step toward a universal <a href="http://www.immihelp.com/immigration/fingerprints.html" target="_blank">biometric security system</a> at all land, air and sea ports.</div>
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<span class="sqq">“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" ---Ben Franklin</span></div>
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<span class="sqq">A previous article and commentary <a href="http://armageddonalert.blogspot.com/2013/05/biometric-database-being-created-in-usa.html" target="_blank">also pointed this out</a>: </span></div>
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Buried in the more than <a href="http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/legislation/EAS13500toMDM13313redline.pdf">800 pages of the bipartisan legislation</a> (.pdf)
<b>is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo
tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of
Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers
and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or
other state-issued photo ID.</b></blockquote>
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Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.</div>
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If you thought the PATRIOT act, in response to 9/11 destroyed what was left of privacy, wait until a national database with your fingerprint, iris, and other biometrics are put into some massive database. Credit cards and other payment forms could, who knows how soon, be replaced by fingerprints as a form of payment. We already have cameras practically everywhere monitoring our every move and smart phones with GPS tracking technology integrated with our everyday life. It may not be too long in the future when a system like this gets created.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-14992828899789506232013-05-12T13:10:00.004-05:002014-02-15T20:08:31.200-06:00Biometric Database Being Created in USAFor the inquiring mind:<br />
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Although still in its infant development stage, this type of database has the potential to forever change how society is monitored---technology on this level would do more damage to the Constitution and personal freedoms than any political party could muster. Combining a database like this with law enforcement along with surveillance cameras would give government an unprecedented power to watch over the lives of its citizens. <br />
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Any future 'mark of the beast' that the Revelator John prophesied about long ago, will almost certainly include some sort of bio-metric integration. <br />
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--On this topic: Much of the world is ditching the metalic strip on credit purchases in favor of RFID technology. Can you see a world in 10 years using a combination of RFID and Biometric technology for everyday purchases? It seemed like science fiction 50 years ago, but today it doesn't seem so far fetched.<br />
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<a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/" target="_blank">Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform</a></h1>
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<li class="author">By <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/author/davidkravets/">David Kravets</a></li>
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<a href="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/05/biometrics.jpg"><img alt="" class="size-large wp-image-56680" data-lazy-loaded="true" height="880" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/05/biometrics-660x880.jpg" style="display: inline;" title="biometrics" width="660" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
<em>Illustration: National Institutes of Health</em></div>
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The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday
would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in
the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a
ubiquitous national identification system.<br />
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Buried in the more than <a href="http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/legislation/EAS13500toMDM13313redline.pdf">800 pages of the bipartisan legislation</a> (.pdf)
is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo
tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of
Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers
and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or
other state-issued photo ID.<br />
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.<br />
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This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and
Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of
undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable
mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling
places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit,
board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet.
Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother
cataloging every check-in.<br />
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“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state,
you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a
congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More
fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”<br />
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For now, the legislation allows the database to be used solely for
employment purposes. But historically such limitations don’t last. The
Social Security card, for example, was created to track your government
retirement benefits. Now you need it to purchase health insurance.<br />
“The Social Security number itself, it’s pretty ubiquitous in your life,” Calabrese said.<br />
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David Bier, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agrees with the ACLU’s fears.<br />
“The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of
permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to
restrict activities,” he said. “It’s like a national ID system without
the card.”<br />
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For the moment, the debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee is
focused on the parameters of legalization for unauthorized immigrants, a
border fence and legal immigration in the future.<br />
The committee is scheduled to resume debate on the package Tuesday.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-63072177913353764622013-03-28T21:27:00.000-05:002013-03-28T21:27:17.641-05:00Pope Francis: Malachy Prophecy: Connection?
Pope Francis History's Final Pontiff: Intriguing article from WND. Worth a read. SO far however, the connection between the final pope and the new pope Francis is sketchy at best. <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
From the <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/pope-francis-historys-final-pontiff/" target="_blank">WND</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
St. Malachy, an Irish saint and the archbishop of Armagh, who lived
from 1094 to 1148, described the “final pope” this way: “In the extreme
persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman,
who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished,
the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will
judge his peopl<br />
<br />
His book examines St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” said to be
based on a prophetic vision of the 112 popes following Pope Celestine
II, who died in 1144.<br />
Malachy’s prophecies, first published in 1595, culminate with the
“final pope,” “Petrus Romanus,” or “Peter the Roman,” whose reign ends
with the destruction of Rome and the judgment of Christ. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Horn has said a pope of Italian descent would fulfill the prophecy, noting Bergoglio is the son of Italian parents and a Jesuit.<br />
<br />
“Being a Jesuit is a very important aspect of our prediction in our book,” Horn told WND in an email. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Citing his book, Horn said the name “Petrus Romanus” in the prophecy
“implies this pope will reaffirm the authority of the Roman Pontiff over
the Church and will emphasize the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Faith
and the Roman Catholic Church above all other religions and
denominations, and its authority over all Christians and all peoples of
the world.”<br />
<br />
<u><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Horn pointed out the Jesuits order was organized “to stop
Protestantism from spreading and to preserve communion with Rome and the
successor of Peter.”</span></u><br />
<u><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">He also sees significance in Bergoglio naming himself after Francis
of Assisi, an Italian, or Roman, priest whose original name was
Francesco di Pietro (Peter) di Bernardone, “literally, Peter the Roman.”</span></u><br />
<br />
As <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/final-pope-authors-predicted-benedict-would-resign/">WND reported</a>, Horn and his co-author, Cris Putnam, predicted in their book Benedict would step down, making way for history’s “final pope.”</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-33869264940921499142013-03-28T20:36:00.001-05:002013-03-28T21:12:49.304-05:00GK on Gay Marriage: It's not Gay or Marriage. Supreme Court rules on Gay Marriage.The battle for marriage is the pressing issue of the moment. The Supreme Court has been debating this week the arguments for and against Proposition 8, which amended the CA constitution to define marriage as one man and one woman, and the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which is a federal act prohibiting same sex couples from receiving marriage benefits.<br />
<br />
<br />
The marriage issue has gone political, as seemingly most important issues are of the day, and the whole question as to whether homosexuality is in fact normal is lost in the bickering of whether the government should be involved with defining marriage, states rights, or some other issue. An article below summarizing the old English theologian, GK Chesterton's take on the matter puts things into perspective. A quote from the article below.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But Chesterton's prophecy remains:
We will not be able to destroy the family. We will merely destroy
ourselves by disregarding the family. </blockquote>
<br />
Homosexuality, Birth Control, Divorce, State-sponsored education: all these issues are related and attack the basic order of the family. What is right and what is wrong? Is that not the question we should be asking? These issues deal with morality and what determines morality, when God is removed from the equation, is whatever we feel like at the moment. And at the moment, we live in a culture that is forgetting more and more about God and accepting more and more formally abnormal behaviors as normal. <br />
<br />
Thus, the debate becomes superficial and does not really address the underlying important issue. As GK points out, just because marriage between gays is legalized, this does not mean it is right or normal. The culture needs to be changed in order for these laws to be changed as the laws on the books really reflect cultures view on morality, ethics, what's right and wrong. Ones view on morality ultimately depends on how one sees Truth, ones internal compass, view of God and religion, etc.<br />
<br />
Many on the right and in the faith try to defend marriage, but have removed themselves from culture and have allowed Hollywood to the Media to define what is normal behavior, thus their voice is being drowned out of the picture. Society has forgotten God over time and has instituted a self-centered morality, with free love, no-fault divorce, and birth control pills removing any need for love or responsibility from sex. <br />
<br />
Sure the court may rule in favor of homosexuality. But even if they legalize it, that doesn't mean it is right. The battle for Truth continues. Faith in God and responsiveness to faith and virtue will need to take place first before we can expect to see change in our laws. In the meantime, culture continues to become more and more secular and Christian ethics and norms continue to be eroded and replaced with more secular versions of morality.<br />
<br />
<br />
From the WSJ: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324105204578383130230471720.html" target="_blank">Court Weighs Gay Marriage</a><br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the order. And the
Catholic Church teaches that it is a sacramental order, with divine
implications. The world has made a mockery of marriage that has now
culminated with homosexual unions. But it was heterosexual men and
women who paved the way to this decay. Divorce, which is an abnormal
thing, is now treated as normal. Contraception, another abnormal thing,
is now treated as normal. Abortion is still not normal, but it is
legal. Making homosexual "marriage" legal will not make it normal, but
it will add to the confusion of the times. And it will add to the
downward spiral of our civilization. But Chesterton's prophecy remains:
We will not be able to destroy the family. We will merely destroy
ourselves by disregarding the family.<br />
</blockquote>
Good read from <a href="http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/marriage/mf0167.htm" target="_blank">CatholicEducation</a><br />
<br />
<h1 class="content">
G.K. Chesterton: It's Not Gay, and It's Not Marriage</h1>
<strong>DALE AHLQUIST</strong><h2 class="content">
Chesterton
was so consistently right in his pronouncements and prophecies because
he understood that anything that attacked the family was bad for
society.</h2>
<table align="right" style="width: 50px;">
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<td><div align="center">
<span>G.K. Chesterton<br />
1874-1936</span></div>
<hr size="1" />
</td>
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</tbody></table>
One of the pressing issues of Chesterton's time was "birth control." He
not only objected to the idea, he objected to the very term because it
meant the opposite of what it said. It meant no birth and no control. I
can only imagine he would have the same objections about "gay
marriage." The idea is wrong, but so is the name. It is not gay and it
is not marriage.<br />
<br />
Chesterton was so consistently right in his pronouncements and
prophecies because he understood that anything that attacked the family
was bad for society. That is why he spoke out against eugenics and
contraception, against divorce and "free love" (another term he disliked
because of its dishonesty), but also against wage slavery and
compulsory state-sponsored education and mothers hiring other people to
do what mothers were designed to do themselves. It is safe to say that
Chesterton stood up against every trend and fad that plagues us today
because every one of those trends and fads undermines the family. Big
Government tries to replace the family's authority, and Big Business
tries to replace the family's autonomy. There is a constant commercial
and cultural pressure on father, mother, and child. They are minimized
and marginalized and, yes, mocked. But as Chesterton says, "This
triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed;
it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it."<br />
This latest attack on the family is neither the latest nor the
worst. <br />
<br />
But it has a shock value to it, in spite of the process of
de-sensitization that the information and entertainment industries have
been putting us through the past several years. Those who have tried to
speak out against the normalization of the abnormal have been met with
"either slanging or silence," as Chesterton was when he attempted to
argue against the faddish philosophies that were promoted by the major
newspapers in his day. In 1926, he warned, "The next great heresy will
be an attack on morality, especially sexual morality." His warning has
gone unheeded, and sexual morality has decayed progressively. But let
us remember that it began with birth control, which is an attempt to
create sex for sex's sake, changing the act of love into an act of
selfishness. The promotion and acceptance of lifeless, barren, selfish
sex has logically progressed to homosexuality.<br />
<br />
Chesterton shows that the problem of homosexuality as an enemy of civilization is quite old. In <i>The Everlasting Man</i>,
he describes the nature-worship and "mere mythology" that produced a
perversion among the Greeks. "Just as they became unnatural by
worshipping nature, so they actually became unmanly by worshipping
man." Any young man, he says, "who has the luck to grow up sane and
simple" is naturally repulsed by homosexuality because "it is not true
to human nature or to common sense." He argues that if we attempt to
act indifferent about it, we are fooling ourselves. It is "the illusion
of familiarity," when "a perversion become[s] a convention."<br />
<div align="center">
<img height="6" src="http://www.catholiceducation.org/images/CERC/space.jpg" width="96" /></div>
<br />In <i>Heretics</i>, Chesterton almost makes a prophecy of the
misuse of the word "gay." He writes of "the very powerful and very
desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the <i>carpe diem</i> religion." <i>Carpe diem</i> means "seize the day," do whatever you want and don't think about the consequences, live only for the moment. "But the <i>carpe diem</i>
religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy
people." There is a hopelessness as well as a haplessness to it. When
sex is only a momentary pleasure, when it offers nothing beyond itself,
it brings no fulfillment. It is literally lifeless. And as Chesterton
writes in his book <i>St. Francis of Assisi,</i> the minute sex ceases
to be a servant, it becomes a tyrant. This is perhaps the most profound
analysis of the problem of homosexuals: they are slaves to sex. They
are trying to "pervert the future and unmake the past." They need to be
set free.<br />
<br />
<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="10" style="width: 222px;">
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<td><img height="4" src="http://www.catholiceducation.org/images/CERC/blue.gif" width="175" />
Chesterton points out that balance that our truth must not be pitiless, but neither can our pity be untruthful.<br />
<img height="4" src="http://www.catholiceducation.org/images/CERC/blue.gif" width="175" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Sin has consequences. Yet Chesterton always maintains that we must
condemn the sin and not the sinner. And no one shows more compassion
for the fallen than G.K. Chesterton. Of Oscar Wilde, whom he calls "the
Chief of the Decadents," he says that Wilde committed "a monstrous
wrong" but also suffered monstrously for it, going to an awful prison,
where he was forgotten by all the people who had earlier toasted his
cavalier rebelliousness. "His was a complete life, in that awful sense
in which your life and mine are incomplete; since we have not yet paid
for our sins. In that sense one might call it a perfect life, as one
speaks of a perfect equation; it cancels out. On the one hand we have
the healthy horror of the evil; on the other the healthy horror of the
punishment."<br />
<br />
Chesterton referred to Wilde's homosexual behavior as a "highly
civilized" sin, something that was a worse affliction among the wealthy
and cultured classes. It was a sin that was never a temptation for
Chesterton, and he says that it is no great virtue for us never to
commit a sin for which we are not tempted. That is another reason we
must treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with compassion. We know
our own sins and weaknesses well enough. Philo of Alexandria said, "Be
kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a terrible battle." But
compassion must never compromise with evil. Chesterton points out that
balance that our truth must not be pitiless, but neither can our pity be
untruthful. Homosexuality <i>is</i> a disorder. It is contrary to
order. Homosexual acts are sinful, that is, they are contrary to God's
order. They can never be normal. And worse yet, they can never even be
even. As Chesterton's great detective Father Brown says: "Men may
keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on
one level of evil. That road goes down and down."<br />
<br />
Marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the order. And the
Catholic Church teaches that it is a sacramental order, with divine
implications. The world has made a mockery of marriage that has now
culminated with homosexual unions. But it was heterosexual men and
women who paved the way to this decay. Divorce, which is an abnormal
thing, is now treated as normal. Contraception, another abnormal thing,
is now treated as normal. Abortion is still not normal, but it is
legal. Making homosexual "marriage" legal will not make it normal, but
it will add to the confusion of the times. And it will add to the
downward spiral of our civilization. But Chesterton's prophecy remains:
We will not be able to destroy the family. We will merely destroy
ourselves by disregarding the family.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-57488845985800357162013-03-16T15:39:00.002-05:002013-03-16T15:39:20.400-05:00America's Divison of Labor: Congress & Wall Street<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAI1rFidov5YdsTw7npdXoR_hEgqw0A1PlW_423iyWU24okrNQ5Zltyu4LZL2v-iOzylgZN_vWukGzNaEkQjp0fvYluMCgbQnOjlAXFZWXaiPIrcWsxO9ZnbTTY3xksMvUOo7oVfc24bU/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-03-14+at+8.40.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAI1rFidov5YdsTw7npdXoR_hEgqw0A1PlW_423iyWU24okrNQ5Zltyu4LZL2v-iOzylgZN_vWukGzNaEkQjp0fvYluMCgbQnOjlAXFZWXaiPIrcWsxO9ZnbTTY3xksMvUOo7oVfc24bU/s400/Screen+shot+2012-03-14+at+8.40.17+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-67613497766933260832013-03-13T18:29:00.000-05:002013-03-14T17:50:29.945-05:00Jorge Bergoglio and Malachy Pope ProphecyIt's official. White smoke and a new pope. The race now to determine how <span class="entry-content"> Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina fits into the St. Malachy pope prediction now begins. More questions than answers right now....</span><br />
<br />
<span class="entry-content">The prophecy can best be summarized as follows: </span>St. Malachy was visiting Rome in 1139 when he went into a trance and
received a vision. Malachy wrote down this extraordinary vision in which
he claims to have foreseen all of the popes from the death of Innocent
II until the destruction of the church and the return of Christ. St. Malachy wrote briefly, in Latin, on each succeeding pope of the
future, and then gave the document to Pope Innocent II, who had it
placed in Vatican archives where it remained for several centuries. It
was rediscovered in 1590 and published.<br />
<span class="entry-content"><br /></span>
<span class="entry-content">Here is the official wordage of the final prophecy:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinV5_9dMhblzQbZk1bpRK1ceBE3DP9JpWsdS2nidw1qGUN5Vwq6EHtSyqyIduEkS08cl-WgVoAzqtCY5noPL1CcE28EOhMCcYBQERDVvqV3eCjyxyXdjHQQyaw3ZVvqX_kEBGHYXgaUtU/s1600/Malachy_pope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinV5_9dMhblzQbZk1bpRK1ceBE3DP9JpWsdS2nidw1qGUN5Vwq6EHtSyqyIduEkS08cl-WgVoAzqtCY5noPL1CcE28EOhMCcYBQERDVvqV3eCjyxyXdjHQQyaw3ZVvqX_kEBGHYXgaUtU/s320/Malachy_pope.jpg" width="283" /></a>In
the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter
the Roman, who will feed his flock among many tribulations; after which
the seven-hilled city (Rome, the seat of the Vatican) will be destroyed
and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. <span style="font-weight: bold;">THE END.</span></blockquote>
<span class="entry-content">Questions:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span class="entry-content">He's not from Rome, but Argentina</span></li>
<li><span class="entry-content">He also took the Francis Papal name, not sure how this connects</span></li>
<li><span class="entry-content">He's 76. Speaks spanish, italian, german. </span></li>
<li><span class="entry-content">First Jesuit pope. </span></li>
</ul>
<span class="entry-content"> Answers:</span><br />
<span class="entry-content"><br /></span>
<span class="entry-content">Not a whole lot. Here's one hilarious attempt.</span><br />
<span class="entry-content"><br /></span>
<br />
Argentina. From the Latin Argentum -- "silver".<br />
Silver is a metal, dug out of rocky mines.<br />
Malachy said that the last Pope would be Peter. <br />
Peter comes from the Latin Petrus -- "rock"<br />
Rock in a mineral.<br />
The man from Argentina is the man from minerals/rocks.<br />
<br />
An ongoing blog can be found here at the <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2996507/posts?page=150" target="_blank">freerepublic</a> regarding the discussion of what this all means........ <br />
<br />
<a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_VATICAN_POPE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-13-14-10-46" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_VATICAN_POPE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-13-14-10-46" target="_blank"><span class="headline entry-title">Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis </span></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<span class="entry-content"></span><br />
<div class="ap-story-p">
VATICAN CITY
(AP) -- Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday,
becoming the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside
Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Francis, associating
himself with the humble 13th-century Italian preacher who lived a life
of poverty.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Looking stunned, Francis shyly
waved to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered in St.
Peter's Square for the announcement, marveling that the cardinals needed
to look to "the end of the earth" to find a bishop of Rome.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
In
choosing a 76-year-old pope, the cardinals clearly decided that they
didn't need a vigorous, young pope who would reign for decades but
rather a seasoned, popular and humble pastor who would draw followers to
the faith. The cardinal electors overcame deep divisions to select the
266th pontiff in a remarkably fast, five-ballot conclave.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Francis
asked for prayers for himself, and for retired Pope Benedict XVI, whose
surprising resignation paved the way for the conclave that brought the
first Jesuit to the papacy. Francis also spoke by phone with Benedict
after his election and plans to see him in the coming days, the Vatican
said.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
"Brothers and sisters, good evening,"
Francis said to wild cheers in his first public remarks as pontiff from
the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
"You know
that the work of the conclave is to give a bishop to Rome. It seems as
if my brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth, but
here we are. Thank you for the welcome," he said.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Across
the planet, Latin Americans burst into tears and jubilation at news
that the region, which counts 40 percent of the world's Catholics,
finally had a pope to call its own.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
"It's a
huge gift for all of Latin America. We waited 20 centuries. It was worth
the wait," said Jose Antonio Cruz, a Franciscan friar at the St.
Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district in Puerto
Rico.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Bergoglio had reportedly finished
second in the 2005 conclave that produced Benedict - who last month
became the first pope to resign in 600 years. The speed with which he
was elected pope this time around indicates that - even though he is 76
and has slowed down - he still had the trust of cardinals to do the job.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
After
announcing `'Habemus Papam" - `'We have a pope!" - a cardinal standing
on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday revealed the
identity of the new pontiff, using his Latin name, and announced he
would be called Francis.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
The longtime
archbishop of Buenos Aires is the son of middle-class Italian immigrants
and is known as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that
previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
He
often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited
the slums that ring Argentina's capital. He considers social outreach,
rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the
church.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Catholics are still buzzing over his
speech last year accusing fellow church officials of hypocrisy for
forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Bergoglio has slowed a bit with age and is feeling the effects of having a lung removed due to infection when he was a teenager.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
In
a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has
the largest share of the world's Catholics, Bergoglio has also shown a
keen political sensibility as well as the kind of self-effacing humility
that fellow cardinals value highly, according to his official
biographer, Sergio Rubin.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
He showed that
humility on Wednesday, saying that before he blessed the crowd he wanted
their prayers for him and then he bowed his head amid the silence from
the crowd.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
"Good night, and have a good rest," he said before going back into the palace.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
In
choosing to call himself Francis, the new pope was associating himself
with the much-loved Italian saint associated with peace, poverty and
simplicity. St. Francis was born to a wealthy family but later renounced
his wealth and founded the Franciscan order of friars; he wandered
about the countryside preaching to the people in very simple language.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
He was so famed for his sanctity that he was canonized just two years after his death in 1226.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Francis
will celebrate his first Mass as pope in the Sistine Chapel on
Thursday, and will be installed officially as pope on Tuesday, according
to the Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Lombardi,
also a Jesuit, said he was particularly stunned by the election given
that Jesuits typically shun positions of authority in the church,
instead offering their work in service to those in power.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
But
Lombardi said that in accepting the election, Francis must have felt it
"a strong call to service," an antidote to all those who speculated
that the papacy was about a search for power.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Tens
of thousands of people who braved cold rain to watch the smokestack
atop the Sistine Chapel jumped in joy when white smoke poured out a few
minutes past 7 p.m., many shouting "Habemus Papam!" or "We have a pope!"
- as the bells of St. Peter's Basilica and churches across Rome pealed.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
They cheered again when the doors to the loggia opened, and again when Bergoglio's name was announced.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
"I can't explain how happy I am right now," said Ben Canete, a 32-year-old Filipino, jumping up and down in excitement.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Elected
on the fifth ballot, Francis was chosen in one of the fastest conclaves
in years, remarkable given there was no clear front-runner going into
the vote and that the church had been in turmoil following the upheaval
unleashed by Benedict's surprise resignation.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
A winner must receive 77 votes, or two-thirds of the 115, to be named pope.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
For
comparison's sake, Benedict was elected on the fourth ballot in 2005 -
but he was the clear front-runner going into the vote. Pope John Paul II
was elected on the eighth ballot in 1978 to become the first
non-Italian pope in 455 years.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Patrizia Rizzo
ran down the main boulevard to the piazza with her two children as soon
as she heard the news on the car radio. "I parked the car ... and dashed
to the square, she said. "It's so exciting, as Romans we had to come."</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Bergoglio's
legacy as cardinal includes his efforts to repair the reputation of a
church that lost many followers by failing to openly challenge
Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Many
Argentines remain angry over the church's acknowledged failure to
openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and killing thousands of
people as it sought to eliminate "subversive elements" in society. It's
one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe themselves as
Catholic, but fewer than 10 percent regularly attend mass.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Under
Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a collective apology
in October 2012 for the church's failures to protect its flock. But the
statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal measure on both
the junta and its enemies.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
"Bergoglio has been
very critical of human rights violations during the dictatorship, but
he has always also criticized the leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget
that side," Rubin said.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Unlike the confusion
that reigned during the 2005 conclave, the smoke this time around has
been clear: black during the first two rounds of burned ballots, and
then a clear white on Wednesday night - thanks to special smoke flares
akin to those used in soccer matches or protests that were lit in the
chapel ovens.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
The Vatican on Wednesday
divulged the secret recipe used: potassium perchlorate, anthracene,
which is a derivative of coal tar, and sulfur for the black smoke;
potassium chlorate, lactose and a pine resin for the white smoke.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
<br /></div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
The
chemicals are contained in five units of a cartridge that is placed
inside the stove of the Sistine Chapel. When activated, the five blocks
ignite one after another for about a minute apiece, creating the steady
stream of smoke that accompanies the natural smoke from the burned
ballot papers.</div>
<div class="ap-story-p">
Despite the great plumes of
smoke that poured out of the chimney, neither the Sistine frescoes nor
the cardinals inside the chapel suffered any smoke damage, Lombardi
said.</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
From St. Malachy's Pope Predictions<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<a href="http://armageddonalert.blogspot.com/">111 popes prophetically predicted in succession. </a>
What are the odds that one man predicted them all correctly in
succession? This man's vision was not serendipitous fantasy, but Spirit
inspired revelation.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwZit98Bna_c9LMTZnAKRj9tQbH8Ikcugbu6vrMzbudY6NyKakeGHmgQw6LNQZvUbIJsxbJM0ODvDVxvJQycYLPx9Bm53AcODEzS8w6h-1lYn_RWwsz5JCAQiWzrnHuvf3FGVacDixL8/s1600-h/pope-new2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293565838342719410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwZit98Bna_c9LMTZnAKRj9tQbH8Ikcugbu6vrMzbudY6NyKakeGHmgQw6LNQZvUbIJsxbJM0ODvDVxvJQycYLPx9Bm53AcODEzS8w6h-1lYn_RWwsz5JCAQiWzrnHuvf3FGVacDixL8/s200/pope-new2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 173px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=215560">St. Malachy</a>
was a Catholic Archbishop of the 12th century who wrote a startling
accurate list of every pope until the end of time. St. Malachy was a
bishop who lived in Ireland and on a trip in Rome in 1139 AD he was
struck by a vision of the future. In it the long list of illustrious
pontiffs who were to rule the Church until the end of time were
revealed. His writings of each pope were succinct, spelled out in latin,
and written in symbolic representation. <br />
<br />
Many of these
prophecies are considered to be way too precise to be mere coincidence.
Look at these examples: (The prophecy's English translation in
parenthesis) <br />
<br />
1. Religion Laid Waste (Religio Depopulata). BENEDICT XV. 1914-1922. <br />
During
this Pope's reign we saw Communism move into Russia where religious
life was laid waste, and World War I with the death of millions of
Christians who were carnage in Flanders Field and elsewhere.<br />
2. Pastor Et Nautam (Pastor & Sailor) John XXIII. 28 Oct.1958 – 3 June 1963.<br />
Before becoming Pope in 1958 he was the patriarch of Venice--a marine city. <br />
3.
De Laboris Solis (The Sun's Eclipse, the sun's labor) 1978 - 2 April
2005. Amazingly, Pope John Paul II was the only pope who was both
born the day of an eclipse of the sun, and entombed the day the sun was
eclipsed.<br />
<br />
The final pope on the list. 111th: Gloria Olivae. (From the Glory of the Olives) This is the current pope, Benedict XVI<br />
<br />
Then, after short latin prophetic sayings throughout his prophecies, he utters an ominous closing latin phrase.<br />
<br />
In
the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter
the Roman, who will feed his flock among many tribulations; after which
the seven-hilled city (Rome, the seat of the Vatican) will be destroyed
and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. <span style="font-weight: bold;">THE END.</span><br />
<br />
Is
it mere coincidence that prophesies from multiple sources: the Bible,
Mayans, Nostradamus, and even St. Malachy are all coming together at the
same time? <br />
<br />
LINKS:<br />
A whole list of the incredible Prophecies about the last 10 popes can be found <a href="http://bibleprobe.com/last10popes.htm">at this site.</a><br />
Other good sites include: <a href="http://www.catholic-pages.com/grabbag/malachy.asp">St Malachy's Prophecy</a> of the Pope and the <a href="http://www.logon.org/english/s/p288.html">Last Pope.</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"For
I know that the Lord is great and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever
the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth. In the seas and in
all deep places He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the
earth; He makes lightning for the rain; He brings the wind out of His
treasuries." Psalm 135: 5-7.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-44575103988055636752013-01-12T19:26:00.001-06:002013-01-12T19:26:42.397-06:00Fourth Horseman (death) Egyptian riots. Full Original Video This video presents a unique image, that appears to be an apparition of some sort---IF you think it is a real. It could be a fine video editing job.
<br />
<blockquote>
Fourth Horseman (death) Egyptian riots. Full Original Video
A mysterious, pale green figure seen in televised news coverage of the Egyptian riots has prompted some viewers to ask, “Could this be the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse?”
The footage, provided by Euronews and subsequently seen on MSNBC, CNN and uploaded over a dozen times to the popular video sharing site YouTube, captures the fiery, violent protests in Cairo this past week … and something else.
Between the crowds of protesters and barricades, the video shows a flowing, pale green image that resembles an erect rider atop a horse in Medieval-like barding. The ethereal figure remains for a few moments before floating over protesters’ heads and off the screen.
The last of the biblical Book of Revelation’s Four Horseman of the Apocalyse, the “pale rider” is said to be the bringer of death and the forerunner of “hell” on earth.
Are all these events the natural order of things, or warnings of the end times described in the Bible? This DVD probes the answer …
The strange image can be seen beginning at the 1:19 mark of the following video:
</blockquote>
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3UKz3GVrHI8" width="420"></iframe>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-76541177400106554962013-01-12T19:15:00.001-06:002013-01-12T19:15:33.219-06:00Fall of the Republic Full Length VideoRather lengthy, but a great documentary of demise of the financial and political system in the USA. Multiple interviews from scholars intertwined with chaotic footage of financial and social collapse.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VebOTc-7shU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-29960915864024919712013-01-12T17:59:00.002-06:002013-01-12T17:59:57.081-06:00Currency Wars Simulation: Jim RickardsA fascinating analysis of scenarios, that surprisingly seem more plausible than you might think, that forecasts how the world could descend into financial chaos within 10 days. With a fractional reserve system, constant printing of money, and fiat currencies, the system is already set up for its future demise. Must watch.
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kdPkaCTdxBU" width="560"></iframe><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-89367478173740910202012-12-24T10:01:00.001-06:002012-12-24T10:03:34.437-06:00Persecution Wiping Out Christians: Christianophobia, Rupert Shortt Study<br />
<div class="cl">
</div>
<div id="mainBodyArea">
<div class="firstPar">
<span class="versetext" id="mt24-9" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum">Pray for those who suffer persecution in the middle east. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="versetext" id="mt24-9" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum">9</span>
"Then they will hand you over for persecution, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6600203393055627626" name="a"></a> and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of My name. </span><br />
<span class="versetext" id="mt24-9" style="display: inline;"> Matthew 24:9 </span><br />
<br />
<img alt="EGYPT Coptic Orthodox Christian's at the saint Bishoi church in Port Said, famous for it's icon of Mary which oozes a holy oil" height="387" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02435/egyptChristians_2435301b.jpg" width="620" /><br />
<h1>
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9762745/Christianity-close-to-extinction-in-Middle-East.html" target="_blank">Christianity 'close to extinction' in Middle East</a></h1>
<h2>
Christianity faces being wiped out of the “biblical heartlands” in the Middle
East because of mounting persecution of worshippers, according to a new
report.
</h2>
<br />
<br />
The study warns that Christians suffer greater hostility across the world than
any other religious group.</div>
<div class="secondPar">
And it claims politicians have been “blind” to the extent of violence faced by
Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.</div>
<div class="thirdPar">
The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam, it says,
claiming that oppression in Muslim countries is often ignored because of a
fear that criticism will be seen as “racism”.
</div>
<div class="fourthPar">
It warns that converts from Islam face being killed in Saudi Arabia,
Mauritania and Iran and risk severe legal penalties in other countries
across the Middle East.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="related_links_inline" id="tmg-related-links">
<div class="headerOne styleOne">
<h2>
Related Articles</h2>
</div>
<ul>
<li class="bullet">
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8356278/Pakistans-only-Christian-minister-assassinated-over-blasphemy-row.html">Pakistan's only Christian minister shot dead</a>
<br />
<span class="relContDate">02 Mar 2011</span>
</li>
<li class="bullet">
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9105996/Britain-failing-to-stand-up-for-Christians-say-MPs.html">Britain failing to stand up for Christians, say MPs</a>
<br />
<span class="relContDate">26 Feb 2012</span>
</li>
<li class="bullet">
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8224841/Christians-celebrate-Christmas-against-the-odds-in-China.html">Christians celebrate Christmas against the odds in China</a>
<br />
<span class="relContDate">25 Dec 2010</span>
</li>
<li class="bullet">
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9640825/Christians-persecuted-throughout-the-world.html">Christians now persecuted all over the world</a>
<br />
<span class="relContDate">29 Oct 2012</span>
</li>
<li class="bullet">
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/9762607/Christians-in-Bethlehem-will-celebrate-midnight-Mass-on-Christmas-Eve-but-dream-of-living-elsewhere.html">Christians in Bethlehem will celebrate midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, but dream of living elsewhere</a>
<br />
<span class="relContDate">23 Dec 2012</span>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="body">
"A far less widely grasped fact is that Christians are targeted more than
any other body of believers.” </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
It cites estimates that 200 million Christians, or 10 per cent of Christians
worldwide, are “socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for
their beliefs.” </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
“Exposing and combating the problem ought in my view to be political
priorities across large areas of the world. That this is not the case tells
us much about a questionable hierarchy of victimhood,” says the author,
Rupert Shortt, a journalist and visiting fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
He adds: “The blind spot displayed by governments and other influential
players is causing them to squander a broader opportunity. Religious freedom
is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.” </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
The report, entitled Christianophobia, highlights a fear among oppressive
regimes that Christianity is a “Western creed” which can be used to
undermine them. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
State hostility towards Christianity is particularly rife in China, where more
Christians are imprisoned than in any other country in the world, according
to the report. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
It quotes Ma Hucheng, an advisor to the Chinese government, who claimed in an
article last year that the US has backed the growth of the Protestant Church
in China as a vehicle for political dissidence. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
“Western powers, with America at their head, deliberately export Christianity
to China and carry out all kinds of illegal evangelistic activities,” he
wrote in the <i>China Social Sciences Press</i>.
<br />
“Their basic aim is to use Christianity to change the character of the
regime...in China and overturn it,” he added. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
The “lion’s share” of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries
where Islam is the dominant faith, the report says, quoting estimates that
between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the
region or been killed in the past century.
<br />
“There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its
biblical heartlands,” it claims. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
The report shows that “Muslim-majority” states make up 12 of the 20 countries
judged to be “unfree” on the grounds of religious tolerance by Freedom
House, the human rights think tank.
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
It catalogues hundreds of attacks on Christians by religious fanatics over
recent years, focusing on seven countries: Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria,
India, Burma and China.
<br />
It claims George Bush’s use of the word “crusade” after the September 11
attacks on New York created the impression for Muslims in the Middle East of
a “Christian assault on the Muslim world”. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
“But however the motivation for violence is measured, the early twenty-first
century has seen a steady rise in the strife endured by Christians,” the
report says. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
The 2003 invasion of Iraq left Iraqi Christians “more vulnerable than ever”,
highlighted by the 2006 beheading of a kidnapped Orthodox priest, Fr Boulos
Iskander, and the kidnapping of 17 further priests and two bishops between
2006 and 2010. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
“In most cases, those responsible declared that they wanted all Christians to
be expelled from the country,” the report says. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
In Pakistan, the murder last year of Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s Catholic
minister for minorities, “vividly reflected” religious intolerance in
Pakistan. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
Shortly after his death it emerged that Mr Bhatti had recorded a video in
which he declared: “I am living for my community and for suffering people
and I will die to defend their rights. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
"I prefer to die for my principles and for the justice of my community
rather than to compromise. I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ,
who has given his own life for us.” </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
The report also warns that Christians in India have faced years of violence
from Hindu extremists. In 2010 scores of attacks on Christians and church
property were carried out in Karnataka, a state in south west India. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
And while many people are aware of the oppression faced in Burma by Aung San
Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy activists, targeted abuse of Christians in
the country has been given little exposure, the report says. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
In some areas of Burma the government has clamped down on Christian protesters
by restricting the building of new churches. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="body">
“Openly professing Christians employed in government service find it virtually
impossible to get promotion,” it adds.
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-50145327080212373572012-12-15T21:54:00.001-06:002012-12-15T21:54:43.426-06:00RFID Chips and Schools: Texas School Forces Students to Wear RFID TechnologyRFID Chips continue to become the norm in many areas of society. With the most recent school shooting in Connecticut, how much longer before this technology goes mainstream? Biotechnology continues to warm up the police state government's notion of security at all costs.<br />
<br />
RFID chips and GPS technology is becoming more and more
apart of our society, think iPhone and other smart phones which embed
these chips and allow users to find locations of interest near them at
the click of a button. Sure, they may be great to use in a 'free'
society, but what happens if that democracy goes away? Governments,
Americas and others especially communist China, are already implementing
massive tracking programs to monitor activity of identified 'suspect'
individuals that are viewed as a threat to the country. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h1 class="title-news">
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/suit-targets-locator-chip_n_2204822.html" target="_blank"> Texas School Tracking IDs Face Lawsuit Against 'Locator' Chips</a>
</h1>
<div class="news_main_info">
<div class="like_box_news margin_bottom_10 clearfix">
<div class="margin_bottom_10 clearfix relative">
<img alt="Texas Tracking Id" class="pinit" id="img_caption_2204822" src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/880984/thumbs/r-TEXAS-TRACKING-ID-large570.jpg?4" width="570" />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="float_left">
</div>
AUSTIN, Texas -- To 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez, the
tracking microchip embedded in her student ID card is a "mark of the
beast," sacrilege to her Christian faith – not to mention how it
pinpoints her location, even in the school bathroom.<br />
But to her budget-reeling San Antonio school district, those chips carry a potential $1.7 million in classroom funds.<br />
<br />
Starting this fall, the fourth-largest school district in
Texas is experimenting with "locator" chips in student ID badges on two
of its campuses, allowing administrators to track the whereabouts of
4,200 students with GPS-like precision. Hernandez's refusal to
participate isn't a twist on teenage rebellion, but has launched a
debate over privacy and religion that has forged a rare like-mindedness
between typically opposing groups.<br />
<br />
When Hernandez and her parents balked at the so-called SmartID, the
school agreed to remove the chip but still required her to wear the
badge. The family refused on religious grounds, stating in a lawsuit
that even wearing the badge was tantamount to "submission of a false
god" because the card still indicated her participation.<br />
<br />
A state district judge had been expected to decide Wednesday whether
Northside Independent School District could transfer Hernandez to a
different campus. But the family's attorney said late Tuesday that the
hearing was cancelled after the school district asked that the case be
moved to federal court.<br />
A new hearing hasn't been set.<br />
<br />
"How often do you see an issue where the ACLU and Christian
fundamentalists come together? It's unusual," said Chris Steinbach, the
chief of staff for a Republican state lawmaker who has filed a bill to
outlaw the technology in Texas schools.<br />
<br />
The concept isn't new, but hasn't exactly caught on nationwide. In
2005, the American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns about a similar
initiative at a California school. That same year, a suburban Houston
school district began putting the chips in its student IDs, and served
as the blueprint for Northside's pilot program that began this fall.<br />
<br />
Ronald Stephens, executive director of the nonprofit National School
Safety Center, said he didn't believe the technology to be widespread
but predicted "it'll be the next wave" in schools. The chips use
radio-frequency identification (RFID) transmitters and only work on
campus.<br />
<br />
The
Northside school district spent roughly $261,000 to equip students at
one high school and one middle school with SmartIDs, a decision made
with safety and efficiency in mind, said district spokesman Pascual
Gonzalez. Imagine quickly accounting for students in the event of a
lockdown, he said, or cafeteria lines moving faster as scanners
instantly identify who's picking up that lunch tray.<br />
Yet the biggest motivation was financial. In Texas, school funding is
based on daily attendance. The more students seated in homeroom when
the first bell rings, the more state dollars the school receives. If a
student is lingering in the hallway or the library when roll is called,
the marked absence hurts the school's bottom line.<br />
<br />
But with the locator chips – the district doesn't like to call them
"tracking" – a clerk in the main office can find out if a student is
elsewhere on campus, and if so, include them in the attendance count.
Every student found amounts to another $30 in funding, based on the
school's calculations. In that way, those moving red dots that represent
students on the clerk's computer screen are like finding change in the
couch cushions.<br />
<br />
Gonzalez said the district has estimated another $1.7 million in
funding if the program delivers on expectations, somewhat lessening the
sting of losing $61.5 million after state lawmakers cut public school
funding in Texas by nearly $5 billion last year.<br />
<br />
"Nobody is sitting at a bank of monitors looking for the whereabouts
of 3,000 students," Gonzalez said. "We don't have the personnel for it,
nor do we have the need to do that. But when I need to find (a student),
I can enter his random number and I can find him somewhere as a red dot
on that computer screen. `Oh, there he is, in Science Room 22' or
whatever. So we can locate students, but it's not about tracking them."<br />
<br />
Hernandez's family isn't convinced. Nor is a Virginia-based civil
rights group, The Rutherford Institute, which took up Hernandez's cause
and filed the lawsuit against the district.<br />
The organization declined to make the Hernandez family available for
an interview Tuesday, before the Wednesday court hearing had been
cancelled.<br />
<br />
John Whitehead, the organization's founder, believes the religious
component of the lawsuit makes it stronger than if it only objected on
grounds of privacy. The lawsuit cites scriptures in the book of
Revelation, stating that "acceptance of a certain code ... from a
secular ruling authority" is a form of idolatry.<br />
<br />
Wearing the badge, the family argues, takes it a step further.<br />
<br />
"It starts with that religious concern," Whitehead said. "There is a
large mark of Evangelicals that believe in the `mark of the beast.'<br />
<br />
Republican state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst has filed bills since 2005 to
ban the chips in Texas public schools. Steinbach, her chief of staff, is
hopeful the bill will now get more traction with the attention
surrounding Hernandez's case.<br />
<br />
Yet despite the lawsuit, proposed legislation and concern from
outside groups, there are no signs of a groundswell of opposition in San
Antonio from parents whose children have the chips in their campus IDs.<br />
<br />
Gonzalez said that of the 4,200 students, the Hernandez family is the only one who has asked out of the program.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-9602705744288369522012-12-15T21:42:00.002-06:002012-12-15T21:43:26.418-06:00National Counterterrorism Center: Holder Gives Order to Record your Online Activity It's happening all around us. Everything we do. Everything we say. All being stored, recorded, and Used----for our good use of course. I mean what could possibly go wrong here with a little more information on innocent Americans? <br />
<br />
<h1>
Holder order gives feds access to citizens' data</h1>
From the <a href="http://times247.com/articles/holder-order-gives-feds-access-to-citizens-data#ixzz2FBNuAEON" target="_blank">Washington Times</a>:
<br />
<div class="thumbnail-233x156" style="float: left; margin-right: 15px;">
<img alt="Holder order gives feds access to citizens' data " height="156" src="http://cdn.times247.com/media/pictures/5069636cf2a8bd75af0020b8/rn1_holder1.jpg?1349084012" width="233" />
<br />
<div class="caption">
Attorney General Eric Holder<span class="article-photo-credit"> Photo Credit:<span class="credit">AP</span></span>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Remember when government needed something called a warrant or even
probable cause to look at your records? Good times, good times. I’m
nostalgic for the halcyon days of, er, February of this year, before the
Attorney General of the United States signed off on an order allowing
the government to access pretty much everything it wanted in the name of
counterterrorism.<br />
<br />
The Wall Street Journal found out about the order and got a FOIA
request to force its exposure: "Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered
in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial
proposal. <b>Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government
dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people
suspected of no crime.…</b><br />
<br />
The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center …
can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee
lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many
others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S.
citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns
of behavior.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-88331885922242321812012-12-15T21:35:00.001-06:002012-12-15T21:35:31.757-06:00Atheism ExplainedIt's either in the beginning....GOD<br />
or<br />
it's in the beginning..............NOTHING<br />
<br />
Belief Systems<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUjHDQmDj0q8_wWzPcBPmj7UCbAz_Bm9dUDDf5HdL2923lxOIEGa03mqcorTUn10F5h5YPqmioULpe0mtqUkRbq6wFyuxnRPx93O4TG_aXOw4tQt9Neqdnk6IiAoNCDNynWz749vsS_g/s1600/atheism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUjHDQmDj0q8_wWzPcBPmj7UCbAz_Bm9dUDDf5HdL2923lxOIEGa03mqcorTUn10F5h5YPqmioULpe0mtqUkRbq6wFyuxnRPx93O4TG_aXOw4tQt9Neqdnk6IiAoNCDNynWz749vsS_g/s640/atheism.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-49533517125935948872012-12-15T21:26:00.003-06:002012-12-15T21:26:27.642-06:00Evil & Suffering: School Shooting Leaves 27 DEAD at Elementary School<blockquote>
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we
have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the
people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not
to be violated but with his wrath? <br />
<br />
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever. <br />
<br />
Thomas Jefferson, <i>Notes on the State of Virginia</i>, Chap. XVIII</blockquote>
<br />
When evil happens, we question about everything from the goodness of God to the goodness of man. Death happens, but death is supposed to only happen when you're 85 and living in a retirement community in Florida, right? It is not easy to deal with pain, suffering, and evil. It's all around us though, so we have no choice but to recognize it and deal with it. The first question is always why. Why an elementary school? Why the killing of innocent children of all people? The questions remarkable, for the most part, appeal to some sense of justice, both an injustice of the lives that were taken and a desire for justice to be brought on the individual who committed this act of evil. <br />
<br />
This appeal to justice is natural, within our conscious being, and demonstrates the fact that this world cannot be operating like it should, there is something wrong. <br />
<br />
CS Lewis spoke on the conflict between Justice and Mercy, saying the following on our desire to see people brought to justice or to put another way, kept from injustice. He said that 'if evil is present, pain at recognition of this evil, a kind of knowledge, is relatively good; for the <i>alternative</i> is that the soul should be ignorant of the evil, or ignorant that the evil is contrary to its nature, 'either of which', is manifestly bad. Or to put another way, We don't want to believe that the killing of innocent children is natural and also want to believe that retributive punishment on the person responsible will happen. We're not ignorant that evil is contrary to our nature at least when it comes to evil so obvious as school shootings at an elementary school.<br />
<br />
A summary below with a couple links on the topic of evil and suffering. <br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h2 class="pagetitle">
<a href="http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/20-children-6-adults-and-shooter-dead-in-connecticut-school-massacre/" target="_blank">20 children, 6 adults, and shooter dead in Connecticut school massacre</a></h2>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Americans tonight are facing more tragic <span style="color: black;">evidence of <a href="http://www.joelrosenberg.com/implosion.asp"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: underline;"><b>cultural implosion</b></span></a>.
Please pray. This story is heart-breaking, and still developing.
“There’s been a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut,” <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/14/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school/?hpt=hp_t1"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: underline;"><b>reports CNN</b></span></a>.
“20 children, six adults and the shooter are dead, police say. Below
are the latest updates as they come to us or you can read our story of
the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/us/connecticut-school-shooting/index.html"><span style="color: black;"><b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Connecticut school shooting</span></b></span></a>….Police
did not discharge their weapons at any time when responding at the
school, police spokesman Lt. Paul Vance told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
However, he could not confirm whether the suspected shooter — who died
at the scene — killed himself, saying that would have to be determined
by the medical examiner.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">“Twenty-seven people, including 20
children, were killed Friday when a gunman clad in black military gear
opened fire inside his mother’s kindergarten class at a Connecticut
elementary school,” <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/14/police-respond-to-shooting-at-connecticut-elementary-school/"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: underline;"><b>reports Fox News</b></span></a>.
“The shooter, who sources identified as Adam Lanza, 20, gunned down
his mother and her entire class at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., according to sources. Lanza was found dead inside the
school, according to officials. Eighteen of the children and six more
adults were dead at the school and two more children died later,
according to Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance. Vance would not
confirm the shooter’s name, and earlier in the day there were
conflicting reports over the gunman’s identity. Law enforcement sources
told FoxNews.com the shooter was Lanza. His brother, Ryan Lanza, 24,
was in custody, but it was not sure if he faced charges. ‘It is not a
simplistic scene,’ Vance told reporters. An official with knowledge of
the situation said the shooter was armed with a .223-caliber rifle.
Four weapons in total were recovered from the scene. The motive is not
yet known.” </span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gQ0whlNNWsM" width="560"></iframe></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://armageddonalert.blogspot.com/2012/04/here-is-ultimate-question-that-is-often.html" target="_blank">Why would God allow Evil & Suffering in this World?</a></h3>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A practical application from <a href="http://www.rzim.org/slice/slicearticleprint.aspx?aid=9010">a site by apologist Ravi Zacharias</a>: </span><br />
“There cannot possibly be a God,” he said, “with all the evil and suffering that exists in the world!” <br />
<br />
I asked, “When you say there is such a thing as evil, are you not assuming that there is such a thing as good?” <br />
<br />
“Of course,” he retorted. <br />
<br />
“But
when you assume there is such a thing as good, are you not also
assuming that there is such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which
to distinguish between good and evil?” <br />
<br />
“I suppose so,” came the hesitant and much softer reply. <br />
<br />
“If,
then, there is a moral law,” I said, “you must also posit a moral law
giver. But that is who you are trying to disprove and not prove. If
there is no transcendent moral law giver, there is no absolute moral
law. If there is no moral law, there really is no good. If there is no
good there is no evil. I am not sure what your question is!” <br />
<br />
There was silence and then he said, “What, then, am I asking you?</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-40657956284142224492012-12-10T17:00:00.001-06:002012-12-10T17:00:38.918-06:00Humility: John Henry Newman and Why Faith MattersHumility is a learned trait, often through trial, struggle, and hardship. But for those of us who have been there, in the darkest of days, and come out to see the sun still shining, come out all the better, as individuals forever changed with a different perspective on life. A worthy quote and post found on a thoughtful blog <a href="http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/12/rabbi-david-j-wolpe-why-faith-matters.html" target="_blank">JessesCafe</a>, speaks to that creative, unique, YOU that emerges appreciative of life and grateful.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather, that it shall
never have had a beginning. For that is to choose a darkness and an
emptiness without end or fulfillment. <br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
God beholds you. He calls you by your name. He sees you and
understands you as He made you. He knows what is in you, all your
peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your
strengths and your weaknesses. He views you in your day of rejoicing and
in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your
temptations. He interests Himself in all your anxieties and
remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.<br />
<br />
He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms. He notes your very
countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He
hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing.
You do not love yourself better than He loves you.<br />
<br />
You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and
if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you
would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.<br />
<br />
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed
some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission
-- I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.<br />
<br />
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.<br />
<br />
I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a
preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but
keep His commandments.<br />
<br />
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my
perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.<br />
<br />
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.<br />
<br />
He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may
make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me --
still He knows what He is about.<br />
<br />
Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us
simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our
eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show
us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.<br />
<br />
Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have had a beginning.<br />
<br />
May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and
the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life
is over, and our work is done.<br />
<br />
John Henry Newman</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pdkJFn353p0" width="420"></iframe> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-91087431402418957502012-12-09T21:43:00.002-06:002012-12-09T21:46:27.600-06:00Mayan Anticipation: December Doomsday: What's this all about?Panic spreads and Doomsayers await the end of the world with each passing day. Could this be another 'Y2K' false panic or something more serious? It is anyone's best guess, but the fact that many prophecies such as <a href="http://armageddonalert.blogspot.com/2009/01/st-malachys-pope-predictions.html" target="_blank">Pope Malachy's Pope Prediction</a> among other end of the world prophecies are all coming about at the same time cannot be overlooked as mere coincidence. These are fascinating days we live in. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Who are the Mayans?</b></span><br />
<br />
An excerpt from <a href="http://armageddonalert.blogspot.com/2009/01/mayans-2012-prediction.html" target="_blank">Mayans 2012 Prediction</a>: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Mayan Indians were advanced in mathematics, writing, and
astronomy. They lived in Mexico and built a famous pyramid in the
Yucatan peninsula during the year 1050 BC. This pyramid had 365 steps
leading to the top of the pyramid which marked the solar year. However,
<a href="http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-mayan.html">their most famous invention was their calender.</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>
The long calender on the Mayan calender begins August 11, 3114 BC
and will be completed on December 21, 2012. This will mark the end of a
major 5126 year cycle on the long count calender. <br />
<br />
The reason
many are interested in this is the fact that during the year 2012, the
sun will be aligned with the center of the milky way galaxy during the
winter solstice for the first time in 26,000 years! THIS MEANS: Whatever
energy typically stems to the earth from the center of the milky way
will be disrupted on <span style="font-weight: bold;">12/21/2012 at 11:11 PM.</span>
Coincidence? Some believe that the sun spots could wreck havoc on the
earth during this time causing power outages, earthquakes, etc. </blockquote>
<br />
Recall the words of Jesus in Matthew 24: "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. <b>And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.</b> All these are the beginning of sorrows."<br />
<br />
There is coming a great time of trouble in which the world has never seen before or will see again. Whether this major time of trouble comes in our lifetimes makes no difference whether or not one should be prepared to face God in the life to come. We will die. That is sure.<br />
<br />
Exciting days though are here now. The middle east is a lit firecracker, prophecy is coming true, and technology has lurched the world forward toward eventual war using nuclear weapons. <br />
<br />
<div class="storyHead">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h1>
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9730618/Mayan-apocalypse-panic-spreads-as-December-21-nears.html" target="_blank">Mayan apocalypse: panic spreads as December 21 nears</a></h1>
<h2>
Fears that the end of the world is nigh have spread across the world with only
days until the end of the Mayan calendar, with doomsday-mongers predicting a
cataclysmic end to the history of Earth.
</h2>
<div class="artIntro">
<div id="storyEmbSlide">
<div class="slideshow ssIntro">
<div class="nextPrevLayer">
<div class="ssImg" style="display: block;">
<img alt="Cubans participate in a Mayan ritual at Bacuranao beach in eastern Havana." height="387" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02421/CUBA-MAYAN_CEREMON_2421941b.jpg" width="620" />
<br />
<div class="artImageExtras">
<div class="ingCaptionCredit">
<span class="caption">Cubans participate in a Mayan ritual at Bacuranao beach in eastern Havana.</span> <span class="credit">Photo: AFP/Getty</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="cl">
</div>
<div class="bylineComments">
<div>
<div class="bylineBody">
By <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/nick-allen/" rel="author" title="Nick Allen">
Nick Allen</a>, Los Angeles, Malcolm Moore in Beijing and Tom Parfitt in Moscow</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="cl">
</div>
</div>
<div class="firstPar">
Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year "Long
Count" Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been
reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival
shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a
mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.</div>
<div class="secondPar">
The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic
celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known
as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of
civilisation by a giant solar storm.</div>
<div class="thirdPar">
In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival
shelters, has seen his business explode.</div>
<div class="fourthPar">
"We've gone from one a month to one a day," he said. "I don't
have an opinion on the Mayan calendar but, when astrophysicists come to me,
buy my shelters and tell me to be prepared for solar flares, radiation, EMPs
(electromagnetic pulses) ... I'm going underground on the 19th and coming
out on the 23rd. It's just in case anybody's right."</div>
<div class="fifthPar">
In the French Pyrenees the mayor of Bugarach, population 179, has attempted to
prevent pandemonium by banning UFO watchers and light aircraft from the flat
topped mount Pic de Bugarach.</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="body">
<blockquote>
According to New Age lore it as an "alien garage" where
extraterrestrials are waiting to abandon Earth, taking a lucky few humans
with them.
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9729820/Russian-residents-buy-up-tinned-goods-and-matches-ahead-of-apocalypse.html">Russia
saw people in Omutninsk, in Kirov region</a></b>, rushing to buy kerosene
and supplies after a newspaper article, supposedly written by a Tibetan
monk, confirmed the end of the world.<br />
<br />
The city of Novokuznetsk faced a run on salt. In Barnaul, close to the Altai
Mountains, panic-buyers snapped up all the torches and Thermos flasks.
<br />
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, even addressed the situation.
<br />
"I don't believe in the end of the world," before adding somewhat
disconcertingly: "At least, not this year."<br />
<br />
In China, which has no history of preoccupation with the end of the world, a
wave of paranoia about the apocalypse can be traced to the 2009 Hollywood
blockbuster "2012".
<br />
The film, starring John Cusack, was a smash hit in China, as viewers were
seduced by a plot that saw the Chinese military building arks to save
humanity.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9729270/China-fears-end-of-the-world-is-nigh.html">Some
in China are taking the prospect of Armageddon seriously</a></b> with panic
buying of candles reported in Sichuan province.<br />
<br />
The source of the panic was traced to a post on Sina Weibo, China's version of
Twitter, predicting that there will be three days of darkness when the
apocalypse arrives.
<br />
One grocery store owner said: "At first, we had no idea why. But then we
heard someone muttering about the continuous darkness."<br />
<br />
Shanghai police said scam artists had been convincing pensioners to hand over
savings in a last act of charity.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile in Mexico, where the ancient Mayan civilisation flourished, the end
time has been seen as an opportunity. The country has organised hundreds of
Maya-themed events, and tourism is expected to have doubled this year.<br />
<br />
Nasa has been aggressively seeking to dispel doomsday fears. It says there is
no evidence Nibiru exists, and rumours it could be hiding behind the sun are
unfounded.<br />
<br />
"It can't hide behind the sun forever, and we would've seen it years ago,"
a Nasa scientist said.
<br />
The space agency also rejected apocalyptic theories about unusual alignments
of the planets, or that the Earth's magnetic poles could suddenly "flip."<br />
<br />
Conspiracy theorists contend that the space agency is involved in an elaborate
cover up to prevent panic.<br />
<br />
But David Morrison, an astronomer at Nasa, said: "At least once a week I
get a message from a young person, as young as 11, who says they are ill
and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday. I think it's
evil for people to propagate rumours on the internet to frighten children."
<br />
<br />
Mayans themselves reject any notion that the world will end. Pedro Celestino
Yac Noj, a Mayan sage, burned seeds and fruits to mark the end of the old
calender at a ceremony in Cuba. He said: "The 21st is for giving thanks
and gratitude and the 22nd welcomes the new cycle, a new dawn." </blockquote>
<br />
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<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/doomsayers-await-the-end-of-the-world--in-12-days-time-8395863.html" target="_blank">Doomsayers await the end of the world – in 12 days' time</a></h1>
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Related articles</h5>
The end of the world is nigh, or so apocalypse observers would have
you believe. The Mayan and Hopi Mesoamerican Long Count calendar may
have begun in 3114BC and continued unerringly ever since, but it comes
to an abrupt halt on 21 December 2012. Hence, the belief gaining ground
among those who fall for this kind of thing that the cosmos will cease
to exist in 12 days' time.</div>
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Although it may not yet have taken root in Britain's Acacia Avenues,
the idea of an approaching cataclysm is troubling folk from Moscow to
France, and the US to Brazil. The New York Times has reported that some
spooked Russians have been panic-buying matches, fuel and sugar to
prepare for the post-apocalypse. And they are not alone. A poll by Ipsos
recently found that one in seven people believe the world will end
during their lifetime (or, presumably, just after it). The same poll
suggests that one in 10 people have experienced fear and/or anxiety
about the eschatological implications of Friday week.<br />
<br />
But
reassurance is at hand. Governments around the world are taking the
prophesied threat seriously enough to inform their citizens that they
are not taking it seriously at all. Here in the United States, for
example, an official government blog entry was posted on Monday,
reassuring Americans that "Scary rumors about the world ending in 2012
are just rumors".<br />
<br />
Nasa itself has waged a campaign of facts to
combat the fear-mongering, releasing a 6.5-minute YouTube video, in
which David Morrison, astronomer and Nasa scientist, personally debunked
the Doomsday theories. Last month, the space agency published detailed
rebuttals of five separate apocalyptic scenarios on its website,
including a meteor strike, a solar flare and the so-called polar shift,
whereby the Earth's magnetic and rotational poles would reverse, with
devastating<br />
consequences. While magnetic reversals do take place
approximately every 400,000 years, admits Nasa, "As far as we know, such
a magnetic reversal doesn't cause any harm to life on Earth. Scientists
believe a magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few
millennia."<br />
<br />
A few days ago, the Australian Prime Minister, Julia
Gillard, tackled the Mayan predictions in a spoof television appearance
for the radio station Triple J. Acknowledging that "The end of the world
is coming", she grimly intoned, "It turns out the Mayan calendar was
true … Whether the final blow comes from flesh-eating zombies, demonic
hell beasts or from the total triumph of K-Pop, if you know one thing
about me, it's this: I will always fight for you to the very end." Some
Australian commentators wondered aloud whether such a light-hearted
intervention was becoming of the PM. In Russia, meanwhile, the Minister
of Emergency Situations, Vladimir Puchkov, issued a statement insisting
that the world would not end this month, a sentiment echoed by senior
clerics from the nation's Orthodox Church.<br />
<br />
Experts in Mayan
culture – which flourished in what is now Central America between AD250
and 900 – have dismissed the doomsayers, claiming the 2012 phenomenon
misrepresents the Long Count calendar, and is unsupported by any
surviving Mayan texts. The internet, with its capacity for sustaining
conspiracy theories, is thought to be to blame.<br />
<br />
One such theory is
the "Nibiru cataclysm", which posits that the Earth will collide with a
planet by that name. The notion originated in the 1990s, with an
American woman called Nancy Lieder, who claims she is a "contactee" with
an implant in her brain that allows her to communicate with aliens from
the Zeta Reticuli star system, 39 light years away. Ms Lieder, who has a
website and a Twitter account, says she was chosen to warn mankind of
the interplanetary danger that awaits us.<br />
<br />
In South and Central
America, where the original prophecy was allegedly made, responses are
mixed. The mayor of the mountain town San Francisco de Paula, in the far
south of Brazil, has urged local residents to stock up on supplies in
preparation for the worst. But in Yucatan, Mexico, which still has a
large Mayan population, a cultural festival is planned for 21 December.
Any British people still concerned about the Long Count's conclusion
could perhaps seek refuge in Bugarach, a tiny French village in the
Pyrenean foothills, which the web has inexplicably agreed will be spared
the ravages of Armageddon – possibly due to a nearby mountain, which
resembles the alien landing site from Close Encounters of the Third
Kind.<br />
<br />
Or they could do what most of us do when our calendars run out: buy a new one.</blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600203393055627626.post-13955478601992950682012-12-01T10:41:00.001-06:002012-12-01T10:41:55.234-06:00Barna Research: 'Christian' closer to 8%, not 40% in the USA.Approximately 40%, according to Barna's recent research in late 2011, identified themselves as Christians according to his <a href="http://www.barna.org/faith-spirituality/514-barna-study-of-religious-change-since-1991-shows-significant-changes-by-faith-group?q=religious" target="_blank">press release found here</a>. Given that high percentage of self proclaimed Christians, one has to wonder why God and Jesus are continually getting pushed out of schools, government, and culture. The answer apparently lies when one drills down further in his research. I read the following on <a href="http://www.armageddonangelsufos.com/new_page_54.htm" target="_blank">another blog</a> as to Barna's further line of questioning on his religious survey. The results are more in line with what you would expect for a declining impact of Christian principals on behavior. <br />
<br />
When Barna asked those same 40% to identify themselves as defined by the following 9 points, the answer he got, was only about 8% do indeed affirm all 9 basic Christian principals. My guess is that a majority of 'Christians' have a problem with point 8, which asks one to believe in the infallibility of the Bible. 8% is more what you'd expect, given the faith v. secular battle raging in the USA.<br />
<br />
Thus, the answer to the question of why 'Christians' have a declining relevance in today's post modern society. If one cannot affirm basic tenants of scripture and disagree among themselves over what they believe in, it becomes difficult to convince skeptics your view is the right view. <br />
<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">He chose to determine who exactly was an
"Evangelical" rather than simply a "Christian" because Evangelicals were
<em><b>supposed</b></em> to be closer to the definition of someone who
practiced what they preached rather than merely being a cultural
Christian in name only or someone who just "goes to church".<b> Barna
developed a set of criteria he calls "the 9-point evangelical". Such
people are defined according to the following rules:</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">1. They say they have made a personal
commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">2. They believe when they die they will go to
Heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Christ as
Savior.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">3. They say their faith is very important in
their life today.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">4. They believe they have a personal
responsibility to share their beliefs with non-Christians.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">5. They believe Satan exists.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">6. They believe eternal salvation is possible
only through grace, not works.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">7. They believe Jesus Christ lived a sinless
life on earth.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">8. They assert that the Bible is accurate in
all it teaches.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">9. They describe God as the all-knowing,
all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it
today.</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">In other words, if you ask everyone in a given
room if they consider themselves to be a "Christian", practically all
the hands will instinctively go up. If you then ask, "How many of you
are 'Evangelical' Christians?" the majority drop their arms and only 38%
of hands are still in the air. But if you ask everyone to keep their
hand in the air to affirm they believe in each of the above nine points
as they are read one by one, the end result will be that only about 8%
of the room will still be holding up a hand to affirm <em><b>all nine</b></em>
of the basic criteria. By what standard do <em><b>you</b></em> determine
whether or not someone or something is "Christian"? If Barna hasn't
provided the minimum requirements for the members of the faithful
remnant, what would you add or change? I think these are minimally
basic.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">For a long time many of us have followed the
work of
<a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=azwev8bab&et=1104775343833&s=6458&e=001prtUERJmGyIgwixOV63AA2Tw8cshC3TpIqut-Rnf85qhe7qZVcRugk3OB-UIZMUivLt1cQPKrg6-agNbTI7L7dy5RxUb_uIoGMNM64HeTYE=" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;" title="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=azwev8bab&et=1104775343833&s=64 ">
George Barna</a>, the Christian researcher who knew that there was
something wrong when most Americans identified themselves as
"Christian". Common sense tells us something is wrong with that kind of
response because if the majority were truly "Christian" then how could
we be experiencing so many moral and spiritual problems today? Why
wouldn't every law passed in America conform to scriptural standards?
How could America not obviously be anything other than "Christian" if
such a majority claimed to be so? Why would we ban prayer in school, the
Ten Commandments from courtrooms, or promote Islamic practices in our
schools? Barna realized that he had to narrow the requirements in order
to uncover the truth.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Barna also documents other statistics among the so called 'born agains'. Behavior has changed in America over time, and like most cultures the move has been away from Christ and the Church as wealth and prosperity has become more prevalent. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<strong>Born Again Christians</strong><br /> This category is comprised
of people whose beliefs characterize them as born again; it is not
based on people calling themselves “born again.” This segment, which now
stands at 40% of all adults in the U.S., experienced significant
changes in relation to all six <span class="highlight">religious</span> behaviors tracked by the Barna Group.<br />
<ul>
<li>The largest shifts in behavior pertained to the 14-point decline in
adult Sunday school attendance (now 26%) and the 12-point drop in
volunteering at church (down to 29%).</li>
<li>Attendance at church services in any given week decreased by seven
percentage points over the last two decades among born again Christians,
falling from 66% to 59%.</li>
<li>The proportion of born again adults who read the Bible during a
typical week, not including when they are at a church event, has
decreased by nine percentage points since 1991. The weekly average now
resides at 62%.</li>
<li>Two behavioral statistics increased since 1991, one for the worse
and the other of little consequence. The unfortunate shift is the
increase in the unchurched among born again adults, which has risen by
five percentage points to 19%. The neutral transition is the eight-point
increase in born again adults who attend a large church (600 or more
people).</li>
</ul>
Only one of the seven <span class="highlight">religious</span>
beliefs measured among born agains shifted significantly in the last two
decades. That was the nine-point drop in the percentage of those who
firmly believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the
principles it teaches. In 1991, three-quarters of born again adults held
that view, but it has declined to two-thirds of them today (65%).</blockquote>
<br />
Check out the rest of <a href="http://www.barna.org/faith-spirituality/514-barna-study-of-religious-change-since-1991-shows-significant-changes-by-faith-group?q=religious" target="_blank">Barna's survey here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0