“Ask,
and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he
that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
(John 7:7-8)
Ask
CBN NEWS
Foretold in Scripture?
Ray Bentley
September 25, 2019
COMMENTARY
One of the latest, and frankly most alarming recent headlines is the news of missile attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia a week ago. These weren't just any oil facilities. They are the largest oil facilities in the nation that produces the most oil in the Middle East.
While it is still under investigation, it appears to be a very sophisticated and intentional operation, "an unprecedented attack on the world's oil supply," to quote Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. These attacks were carried out by drones and low flying cruise missiles, and the evidence thus far points to a well-known adversary of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East as the culprit: Iran.
Just hours before the attacks took place, U.S. intelligence officials were alerted to unusual activity at military bases in Iran that would be consistent with preparations for a strike. They also now state they are confident that the components used in the attack were Iranian technology. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, along with senior Saudi officials and Saudi military leaders are extremely concerned as various threats from Iran, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen aligned with them, have been looming and are now a reality that Saudi Arabia – and the rest of the world for that matter – has to address.
The escalation from threats to actual attacks has significant ramifications for the global oil market, and is deeply unsettling for millions of innocent civilians living peaceful lives within that region. This could unravel quickly. In fact, Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, explicitly warned an "all-out war" would result if the U.S. or Saudi Arabia retaliated with any sort of airstrike against Iran.
The story I'm after though is what these events mean for Christians. What are we to make of all this? How does this tie into our worldview and does Old Testament prophecy foretell these recent events?
I first want to remind our readers that our responsibility as Christians isn't to make predictions or to confirm fulfilled prophecy too quickly. Prophecy is not only about God making predictions, it is also about seeing prophetic patterns. We are to be watchful and stay informed. Jesus tells us in Matthew 24, "You will hear of wars and rumors of war." Yet He also tells us in the same chapter, "See to it that you are not alarmed." God won't be caught off guard by anything that comes to pass. So we must consider and ponder what's happening around us, but we have no reason to be afraid.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have been at odds for quite some time, but this latest saga in the ever-growing tension between the two has led me again to the passages of Ezekiel chapters 37, 38 and 39. There we find a 2,500-year-old prophecy that's quite specific. Ezekiel tells us that there will be a coming war. On one side of that war is Persia. Students of history will remember that Persia is the ancient name for the land now occupied by modern-day Iran. On the other side of that conflict, where God Himself will intervene, is what is referred to as Sheba and Dedan, which is now ruled by – you guessed it – Saudi Arabia.
So as you can imagine, Biblical scholars around the world are paying close attention to this. Are we living in the days when those ancient prophecies from Ezekiel are about to be fulfilled? Again, it's not our job to determine the definitive answer to that question. But current events certainly seem to be a pattern heading in that direction. We also don't need to fear when it appears prophecy may soon be fulfilled. Instead, we can look to these events as the reason to be hopeful.
Oftentimes prophecy can seem confusing, unclear, and even scary. Yet there are moments when I see what we were told thousands of years ago aligning with the complications our modern world is dealing with in the present day. I say I'm hopeful, not crippled by fear, because these moments serve as a reminder that God and His Word can indeed be trusted. And when I think about what the final days in this world mean for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I'm filled with joy at the thought of Jesus being at our side once again, restoring His creation to perfect unity with the Creator.
"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near," Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Luke. So we do not fear that day. We look forward to the completion of our redemption with great anticipation. We pray as the early Church did, "Maranatha!" which means as a declaration, "The Lord is coming!" and also as a prayer, "Oh Lord, come!"
ZeroHedge
Escobar: How Yemen's Houthis Are Bringing Down A Goliath
By Tyler Durden
September 25, 2019
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,
“It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.”
The statement above was not written by Franz Kafka. In fact, it was written by a Kafka derivative: Brussels-based European bureaucracy. The Merkel-Macron-Johnson trio, representing Germany, France and the UK, seems to know what no “ongoing investigation” has unearthed: that Tehran was definitively responsible for the twin aerial strikes on Saudi oil installations.
“There is no other plausible explanation” translates as the occultation of Yemen. Yemen only features as the pounding ground of a vicious Saudi war, de facto supported by Washington and London and conducted with US and UK weapons, which has generated a horrendous humanitarian crisis.
So Iran is the culprit, no evidence provided, end of story, even if the “investigation continues.”
An image taken from a video made available on July 7, 2019 by the press office of the Yemeni Shiite Houthi group shows ballistic missiles, labeled ‘Made in Yemen,’ at a recent exhibition of missiles and drones at an undisclosed location in Yemen. Footage showed models of at least 15 unmanned drones and missiles of different sizes and ranges. Photo: AFP/ Al-Houthi Group Media Office
Hassan Ali Al-Emad, Yemeni scholar and the son of a prominent tribal leader with ascendance over ten clans, begs to differ.
“From a military perspective, nobody ever took our forces in Yemen seriously. Perhaps they started understanding it when our missiles hit Aramco.”
Al-Emad said:
“Yemeni people have been encircled by an embargo. Why are Yemeni airports still closed? Children are dying without treatment. In this current war, the first door [to be closed against enemies] was Damascus. The second door is Yemen.”
Al-Emad considers that Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayed Nasrallah and the Houthis are involved in the same struggle.
Al-Emad was born in Sana’a in a Zaydi family influenced by Wahhabi practices. Yet when he was 20, in 1997, he converted to Ahlulbayat after comparative studies between Sunni, Zaydi and the Imamiyyah – the branch of Shi’ite Islam that believes in 12 imams. He abandoned Zaydi in what could be considered a Voltairean act: because the sect cannot withstand critical analysis.
I talked and broke bread – and hummus – with Al-Emad, in Beirut, during the New Horizon conference among scholars from Lebanon, Iran, Italy, Canada, Russia and Germany. Although he says he cannot get into detail about military secrets, he confirmed:
“Past Yemeni governments had missiles, but after 9/11 Yemen was banned from buying weapons from Russia. But we still had 400 missiles in warehouses in South Yemen. We used 200 Scuds – the rest is still there [laughs].”
Al-Emad breaks down Houthi weaponry into three categories: the old missile stock; cannibalized missiles using different spare parts (“transformation made in Yemen”); and those with new technology that use reverse engineering. He stressed: “We accept help from everybody,” which suggests that not only Tehran and Hezbollah are pitching in.
Al-Emad’s key demand is actually humanitarian: “We request that Sana’a airport be reopened for help to the Yemeni people.” And he has a message for global public opinion that the EU-3 are obviously not aware of: “Saudi is collapsing and America is embracing it in its fall.”
The real danger
On the energy front, Persian Gulf energy traders that I have relied upon as trustworthy sources for two decades confirm that, contrary to Saudi Oil Minister Abdulazziz bin Salman’s spin, the damage from the Houthi attack on Abqaiq could last not only “months” but even years.
As a Dubai-based trader put it:
“When an Iraqi pipeline was damaged in the mid-2000s the pumps were destroyed. It takes two years to replace a pump as the backlogs are long. The Saudis, to secure their pipelines, acquired spare pumps for this reason. But they did not dream that Abqaiq could be damaged. If you build a refinery it can take three to five years if not more. It could be done in a month if all the components and parts were available at once, as then it would be merely a task of assembling the components and parts.”
On top of this, the Saudis are now only offering heavier crudes to their customers in Asia.
“Then,” adds a trader, “We heard that the Saudis were buying 20,000,000 barrels of heavier crudes from Iraq. Now, the Saudis were supposed to have as much as 160 million barrels a day of stored crude. So what does this mean? Either there was no stored crude or that crude had to go through Abqaiq in order to be sold.”
Al-Emad explicitly told me that Houthi attacks are not over, and further drone swarms are inevitable.
Now compare it with analysis by one trader:
“If in the next wave of drone attacks 18 million barrels a day of Saudi crude are knocked out, it would represent a catastrophe of epic proportions. The US does not want the Houthi to believe that they have such power through such fourth generational warfare as drones that cannot be defended against. But they do. Here is where a tiny country can bring down not only a Goliath such as the US, but also the whole world.”
Asked about the consequences of a possible US attack against Iran – picking up on Robert Gates’ famous 2010 remark that “Saudis want to fight Iran to the last American” – the consensus among traders is that it would be another disaster.
“It would not be possible to bring Iranian crude on line for the world to replace the rest of what was destroyed,” said one.
He noted that Senator Lindsey Graham had said he “wanted to destroy the Iranian refineries but not the oil wells”. This is a very important point. The horror of horrors would be an oil war where everyone is destroying each others’ wells until there was nothing left.”
While the “horror of horrors” hangs by a thread, the blind leading the blind stick to the script: Blame Iran and ignore Yemen.
***
CHRISMANEWS
The Oracle Unveiled: Jonathan Cahn Reveals a Stunning End-Times Secret
JONATHAN CAHN September 2, 2019
This secret has stunning implications for the world. (Getty images/E+-FredFroese / Getty Images/iStock-Maxiphoto)
It's not just you. The sense that things are spinning out of control is shared by believers throughout the world—and not just by believers, but by unbelievers as well. But what if there was a master plan behind the key events of our times—past, present, future, America, Israel, the world, end-time prophecy and, yes, even Donald Trump? This is the revelation that came to me concerning The Oracle. I've been asked to give the readers of Charisma an advance glimpse into the mystery.
Is it possible that the events unfolding in the world right now are following the exact parameters of a 3,000-year old mystery? Is it possible that this mystery has determined the past, the present and will determine the future? Could this mystery have even ordained the outcome of American elections and the secret of a modern American president?
Is there an exact biblical template that foreordained events which will take place in our modern times and gives the exact years and even dates when they will transpire? Could this mystery be so big that it involves everyone from Moses to Mark Twain, from the prophet Daniel to Donald Trump? And could the mystery contain the master secret and plan of the age, of the end times, the coming of Messiah and even heaven and eternity?
It is this mystery that will be released in The Oracle. It lies behind the rise and fall of nations—including America—world wars, the resurrection of Israel, events that take place in the highest chambers of power, from ancient palaces to Capitol Hill, the changes and transformations that are taking place in our culture and much more. It has affected and continues to affect each of our lives.
The mystery begins in ancient times in a Middle Eastern desert and spans the ages to events taking place in this very hour. More than once, it has determined who would become president of the United States. It even unveils the ancient mysteries behind the presidency of Donald Trump. As with The Harbinger and The Paradigm, as I began to record the pieces of the mystery, the revelation kept growing larger and larger.
The mysteries of The Oracle are revealed (as in The Harbinger) through a narrative. A man must unlock the meaning of a vision in which he enters a hall of seven doors. Behind each door lies a stream of mysteries, part of an even larger revelation. In order to unlock them, he must find a man named "the Oracle." After a search and a journey into a desert, he encounters him. He will then be given the next vision and the next, each one containing one of the mysteries. In this way, the mysteries are revealed through the imagery of such visions as the "Man in the Black Robe," "The Angel's Coin," "The Awakening of the Dragon," "The Lost City," "The Jubilean Matrix" and many more. In the space I have here, I can only offer the briefest glimpses and samples of the revelations contained in The Oracle—but it will give you a taste.
The Stranger and the First Door
There can be no second coming without the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland and the rebirth of the nation of Israel. In the latter part of the 19th century, the land of Israel was a desolate wasteland under Islamic rule. But in one particular year, strange things began to happen in the land, prophetic events linked to ancient mysteries. These are revealed in "the first door."
One of these involves the biblical prophecy that a stranger would come to the land from far away to bear witness to its desolation. And after that, the Jewish people would begin to return.
It happened. The stranger's name was Mark Twain. He would do exactly as foretold in the prophecy: bear witness to the land's desolation. He would even use the same words and phrases that Moses, in the ancient prophecy, foretold he would use.
Following the stranger's journey, other prophetic events began to take place: the uncovering of "the Lost City" after 2,000 years, "The Man with the Measuring Line," "The Sultan's Code" (which fulfilled the word of the prophet Jeremiah) and the mystery of the Seventh Jubilee. All these things manifested at the same time: 1867. This prophetic year set in motion a stream of events which, over the following century, would shake the world.
The Jubilean Mysteries
One of the revelations opened up in The Oracle is that of the Jubilean mysteries. The Jubilee was the biblical year of restoration, the year of returning to your long-lost ancestral land. It was to manifest every 50 years.
Amazingly, the return and resurrection of Israel has followed the mystery of the Jubilee—exactly. Every 50 years, a central prophetic event having to do with the return and resurrection of Israel manifests in the world. In 1867, it began with a series of mystical events in the land that would bear fruit in the following years.
Count 50 years, and it brings you to the year 1917, the year of the next great prophetic event. It was then when, after nearly 2,000 years, the land of Israel was liberated from hostile powers—and given, in the Balfour Declaration, to the Jewish people for a homeland.
Count again 50 years later, and it brings you to the year 1967. It was in the year 1967 that the greatest prophetic event of the age concerning Jerusalem took place. 1967 was the year of the Six-Day War when, after 2,000 years of separation, the Jewish people returned to their holy city—and another piece of the puzzle required for the return of the Messiah was put in place.
Count again 50 more years, and it brings us to the year 2017. Did anything of prophetic significance take place in that year concerning the restoration of Israel or Jerusalem? It did—and it waited 50 years to happen. In 2017, America, under President Trump, became the first nation on earth to grant official recognition to the Jewish return to Jerusalem and to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish nation. This was the first time any major power had done so since ancient times.
Each prophetic event has taken place according to the ancient mystery in that appointed 50th year, like clockwork.
The Mystery of the Parashas
One of the mysteries I came upon was equally amazing and mind-blowing. I call it the "Parasha Mystery."It concerns two ancient scrolls from which certain Scriptures are appointed to be recited and chanted among the Jewish people. The amazing thing is that, over and over again, the appointed Scriptures actually match up with the events taking place in the world at the time that the appointed word is to be recited. Let me give some examples of what this mystery entails:
At the end of Mark Twain's pilgrimage, on his last full day in Jerusalem as the stranger from the faraway land, there was a Scripture appointed for that day. What was it? It was the prophecy of the stranger who comes to the land from far away. So as he walked the streets of Jerusalem, that very prophecy of his coming was being chanted throughout the city.
The very day when the United Nations gathered together to vote on the return of Israel into the world—thus giving back of the promised land to the Jewish people—was Scripture-appointed from ages past. It was the Scripture of the return to the land of Israel. It even revealed the name of the new Jewish nation that would only be revealed months later. The appointed Scripture revealed it would be called "Israel."
The following year, when the nation of Israel was actually raised from the dead to become a nation, there was an appointed Scripture for that day. It was the Scripture that prophesied the end of the Jewish exile and the resurrection of the nation of Israel. So on the day that Israel was raised from the dead, the appointed Scripture was the prophecy that Israel would be raised from the dead!
In the Six-Day War, Israel mobilized all its men up to the age of 50, then made the decision to go to war. The appointed Scripture for those days was that which contained the words "go to war,"and told Israel how to mobilize its men for battle. At the end of those days, it even revealed the age limit for the mobilization: 50 years of age.
The prophetic events of 2017 heavily involved President Trump. The Oracle reveals the amazing Scripture appointed for the day of Donald Trump's birth—it was read on that day and would reveal the mystery of his life.
While there isn't space here to go into details regarding these revelations, each of them shows the stunning presence and power of God's hand in all human events.
Mysteries Behind Our Times and Leading to the End of the Age
There are still other streams of mysteries in The Oracle behind our times and leading to the end of the age. They include:
"The Jubilean Code": Embedded in the ancient law of Jubilee is a command for the Jewish people to return to their ancestral land. The amazing thing is that the ancient Hebrew word command actually reveals the exact year Israel would return to its land.
"The Prophecy Coin": This coin bears a biblical and prophetic number, which appeared to signal the fall of an empire and the end of an age the very year it first appeared.
"The Masada Mystery": Hidden for 2,000 years on an ancient mountaintop, this amazing mystery contained a prophecy and revealed the exact day Israel's return to Jerusalem would take place.
"The President's Secret and the 70-Year Mystery": Meet the ancient king who holds the secret behind President Trump (beyond what is revealed in The Paradigm) and how it led him to take an action at the end of a prophetic 70-year period—on the exact Hebrew day ordained by an ancient prophecy.
Other mysteries revealed in The Oracle include "The Day of the Lions," "The Land of Seven Wells," "The Stained-Glass Metamorphosis," "The Babylonian Code," "The Final Mystery" and many more than I can begin to fit into these pages.
The Master Secret of the End Times
Though the fifth door, The Oracle reveals the mystery behind current events. But behind the sixth door lies that which is yet to come. The Jubilean mysteries contain the master secret of the end times. In a section called "The Dark Jubilee," they reveal the reason behind the transformation that is now taking place in our culture and nation and where it's all heading. Another opens up the prophetic mystery behind the church and God's people and the revelation of what we are to do and become in the days ahead—and how every one of these revelations is connected to the return of the Messiah.
And then there's the seventh door, which opens up the ultimate mystery. It has to do with each life, each soul, each heart and each destiny. And it leads to the ultimate Jubilee. Even heaven is part of the revelation.
What do the mysteries revealed in The Oracle tell you? God is awesome and His ways are amazing. You are truly living in the most prophetic of times and, most definitely, in the end times. The hand of God is moving powerfully in every event, working and weaving all things together for redemption. God is inarguably real—more real than the world. His word is absolutely true and will prevail. His promises are good and will all come to pass. And just as God's plan for the world is amazingly precise, so too is His plan and calling for your life amazingly precise. Let us be aware of the signs of the most critical time in which we live. Let us stand confident in His power, stronger than ever. And let us live in a manner worthy of the calling He has given us—for such a time as this!
***
***
End Of The American Dream
Theology Students Are Being Taught To Confess Their “Climate Sins” While Sitting In Front Of A Bunch Of Potted Plants…
By Michael Snyder
The folks at Union Theological Seminary are taking the concept of “talking to your plants” to a frightening new level. Each year, students at the seminary pay a ridiculous amount of money to go to the school, and they are there to be trained to be the Christian leaders of tomorrow. But instead, they are being taught to confess their “climate sins” to potted plants, and eventually these impressionable young minds will be leading churches and Christian institutions all over America. I realize that this story is so bizarre that it sounds like somebody made it up, but it is actually true. The following was posted by the official Twitter account of Union Theological Seminary last week…
Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.
What do you confess to the plants in your life?
Needless to say, this tweet got a tremendous amount of attention, and the following are some of the more interesting responses…
–That “you’d probably taste good simmering in butter.”
–Those plants think you’re all morons.
–“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator …” — Romans 1:25
–How every day, there’s a match and lighter fluid within 5 steps of them
–My confession: I am judgmental toward Larry the cucumber for exercising green privilege over Bob the tomato.
Of course a lot of very confused parents probably contacted the school as well, because this was definitely not what most of them had in mind when they heard that their child was going to attend “seminary”.
But instead of backing down, Union Theological Seminary posted a ten part response on Twitter in which they defended this new practice. The following are the first five parts of their response…
We’ve had many questions about yesterday’s chapel, conducted as part of @ccarvalhaes’ class, “Extractivism: A Ritual/Liturgical Response.” In worship, our community confessed the harm we’ve done to plants, speaking directly in repentance.
This is a beautiful ritual. /1
We are in the throes of a climate emergency, a crisis created by humanity’s arrogance, our disregard for Creation.
Far too often, we see the natural world only as resources to be extracted for our use, not divinely created in their own right—worthy of honor, thanks and care. /2
We need to unlearn habits of sin and death. And part of that work must be building new bridges to the natural world.
And that means creating new spiritual and intellectual frameworks by which we understand and relate to the plants and animals with whom we share the planet. /3
Churches have a huge role to play in this endeavor. Theologies that encourage humans to dominate and master the Earth have played a deplorable role in degrading God’s creation.
We must birth new theology, new liturgy to heal and sow, replacing ones that reap and destroy. /4
When Robin Wall Kimmerer spoke at Union last year, she concluded her lecture by tasking us—and all faith communities—to develop new liturgies by which to mourn, grieve, heal and change in response to our climate emergency.
We couldn’t be prouder to participate in this work. /5
Without a doubt, humanity is destroying the planet. In fact, I just wrote an entire article in which I discussed the fact that nearly 30 percent of all birds in North America have been wiped out since 1970. But the theory that if we just pull enough carbon dioxide out of the air that everything is going to be okay again is absolutely ludicrous.
Plants need carbon dioxide, and scientists tell us that there have been times in the history of the planet when the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere were far, far higher than they are today. During those times, life on our planet greatly thrived.
So instead of “confessing their climate sins”, what those students at Union Theological Seminary should really be doing is apologizing to those poor wilting plants for trying to take their carbon dioxide away.
And Union Theological Seminary is not the only one promoting this sort of wackiness. In fact, NBC News recently put up an entire page where people are being encouraged to confess their climate sins…
Even those who care deeply about the planet’s future can slip up now and then. Tell us: Where do you fall short in preventing climate change? Do you blast the A/C? Throw out half your lunch? Grill a steak every week? Share your anonymous confession with NBC News.
So what exactly does a “climate sin” look like?
The following are some of the “anonymous confessions” that NBC has posted so far…
-I’ve been using plastic golf tees from time to time. I will never use plastic golf tees again.
-As ‘green’ as I try to be, I print all my documents at work because I’m better able to edit that way vs. on a computer screen.
-I work less than two miles from where I live. I drive to work nearly every single day.
-Normal people can’t afford electric cars so until the cost come back to earth I’ll keep driving my combustion engine car.
-I can live without many things to help our planet, but I must draw the line at air conditioning. I would wilt!
-I have a mobile boarding pass, still I get to the airport and run to a printing machine… paper makes me feel safe, and I’m sorry
-I use a lot of Q-tips, I can’t find a better alternative.
Oh the humanity!
At a time when our nation is facing historic crisis after historic crisis, they want us to be obsessed about how many Q-tips we are using?
Sadly, our world is getting stranger with each passing day. The people running things appear to be completely losing it, and meanwhile those that offer common sense solutions to our problems are being completely shunned.
I know that a group of theology students “confessing their climate sins” to a bunch of potted plants is not one of the biggest issues that we are facing, but it is emblematic of a larger trend.
At this point our entire education system from top to bottom is swirling down the tubes, and things just get worse with each passing year.
(“They said to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou has begotten me: and they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: yet in the time of their afflictions they will say, Arise, and save us.” Jeremiah 2:27)
***
BREITBART
Pope Francis Endorses Essay Trashing U.S. Conservative Christians
by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. September 27, 2019
ROME — Pope Francis has publicly endorsed an essay that appeared in 2017 criticizing relations between Evangelicals and Catholics in the United States as an “ecumenism of hate.”
On Thursday, La Civiltà Cattolica journal released the transcript of a meeting between Pope Francis and a group of 24 Jesuits on September 5, 2019, during his recent trip to Mozambique in which the pope suggested that certain Evangelical Protestants in the United States “cannot really be defined as Christian.”
“Two important articles in Civiltà Cattolica have been published in this regard. I recommend them to you. They were written by Father Spadaro and the Argentinean Presbyterian pastor, Marcelo Figueroa. The first article spoke of the ‘ecumenism of hatred.’ The second was on the ‘theology of prosperity,’” the pontiff said.
“Reading them you will see that there are sects that cannot really be defined as Christian. They preach Christ, yes, but their message is not Christian,” the pope said. “It has nothing to do with the preaching of a Lutheran or any other serious evangelical Christianity.”
In the first essay recommended by the pope, the authors, who are both friends of Francis, slammed conservative Christians in the U.S. as ignorant, theocratic, Manichean, war-mongering fanatics.
For the “Evangelical right,” the authors proposed, the panorama of threats to the American way of life “have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on. And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims.”
The authors did not hesitate to suggest that many Evangelicals are southern racists who reject climate change.
“Another interesting aspect is the relationship with creation of these religious groups that are composed mainly of whites from the deep American South,” the article stated. “There is a sort of ‘anesthetic’ with regard to ecological disasters and problems generated by climate change. They profess ‘dominionism’ and consider ecologists as people who are against the Christian faith.”
Throughout the essay, the authors criticize a string of exclusively Republican presidents as being tainted by the teachings of Evangelical Protestantism. The list of those mentioned includes Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and, of course, Donald Trump.
One of the most serious evils of American Evangelical Christians, the article stated, is “the defense of religious liberty,’” which takes the form of “a direct virtual challenge to the secularity of the state.”
The authors went on to denounce the ecumenical alliance between conservative Catholics and Evangelical Christians who align behind certain moral issues in the public square.
“Some who profess themselves to be Catholic express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to Evangelicals. They are defined as value voters as far as attracting electoral mass support is concerned,” the article asserted.
This poisonous alliance over shared objectives “happens around such themes as abortion, same-sex marriage, religious education in schools and other matters generally considered moral or tied to values,” the essay claimed, which unite Catholics and Evangelicals in “the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.”
At the time of its publication, the article triggered an avalanche of critical responses denouncing the ignorance and political ill-will underlying the essay.
Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, for instance, wrote a sharp criticism of the essay, saying that the authors were guilty of “dumbing down and inadequately presenting the nature of Catholic/evangelical cooperation on religious freedom and other key issues.”
“Dismissing today’s attacks on religious liberty as a ‘narrative of fear,’” as the La Civiltà Cattolica article does, Chaput said, “sounds willfully ignorant.”
In his critique of the article, Dr. Samuel Gregg called the article “disturbing,” while lamenting the tacit anti-Americanism and “distinctly amateur grasp of American religious history.”
As Dr. Gregg noted, to describe “Marxism-Leninism, Islamist jihadism, or National Socialism” as evil is not evidence of a Manichaean worldview. “It is simply recognition that some ideas are indeed wicked and lead to many people, even nations, engaging in gravely evil acts.”
Moreover, Gregg wrote, if one looks at statements put together by various scholars and intellectuals involved in movements such as Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “they contain not a shred of theocratic aspiration.”
“The ecumenical discussion between those involved in these endeavors have led over time to genuine fruit in terms of clarification of points in common, removing misconceptions, identifying real doctrinal road-blocks, and identifying areas where practical work to promote the common good can be pursued together,” Gregg observed.
It is not a theocratic nostalgia that leads Evangelical and Catholic Christians in America to make the argument that “unborn human beings are entitled to the same protections from the unjust use of lethal force as any other human being, or that religious liberty is more than just freedom of worship, or that parents are entitled to insist that their children not be subjected to the nonsense of ‘gender theory’ at school,” Gregg added.
The published criticisms of the original article by serious scholars, both Christian and secular, ended up being so numerous they could fill a book. The article was eventually dismissed as simply an embarrassing attempt at political propaganda by overly zealous Italian and Argentinian clerics who were completely out of their depth.
Which could lead one to wonder what Pope Francis could possibly be thinking when he dredges up this ill-begotten essay out of the swamp of oblivion to recommend it as a useful aid for understanding America’s complex religious landscape.
***
ZeroHedge
Netanyahu Tapped By Israel's President To Form Government After Deadlocked Election
By Tyler Durden
September 25, 2019
It looks like he's held on after last week's deadlocked election, prior rumors of his political death notwithstanding. Longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been tapped by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday to form a new government.
The longest serving prime minister in Israel's history has now been given 42 days to form the country's next government; and if he fails, the opportunity will fall to his rival - Blue and White Party centrist Benny Ganz. Rivlin said that Israel doesn’t want more elections, something which could theoretically happen for a third time in only a year should neither Netanyahu nor Ganz be successful.
Via The Times of Israel: President Reuven Rivlin meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu and Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz at the President's Residence in Jerusalem on September 23, 2019.
Facing three different allegations of corruption, Netanyahu is fighting for more than just his political future — but serious potential criminal charges which can go away only if he remains in the prime minister's seat.
The president tapped the Likud leader after talks with Gantz to form a broad unity government broke down in the wake of the inconclusive election, and after both failed to agree on a power-sharing pact.
Netanyahu will have to cobble together 61 seats in order to form a majority government, even as he faces a pretrial hearing next week related to the attorney general's bribery and fraud allegations.
The WSJ summarizes the newly published final results to last week's elections as follows:
Israel’s Central Elections Committee on Wednesday released the final results of the Sept. 17 vote, in which Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party won 32 seats and Mr. Gantz’s Blue and White party won 33 seats in the 120-member parliament, the Knesset. But Mr. Netanyahu won the pledges of 55 parliamentary members to be prime minister, while Mr. Gantz garnered 54.
The secular and nationalist politician, Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party, remains kingmaker with eight seats; however, he's consistently refused to back Netanyahu given the latter's backing from religious parties.
Given Netanyahu's failing to lure Lieberman also after the April vote, and with the major parties characteristically ensconced in their positions, Netanyahu's new mandate to attempt a new government may just prove an act of kicking the can further down the road.
ODDITYCENTRAL
Chinese Company Develops New Recognition System Based on Veins in the Human Hand
By Spooky on September 23rd, 2019
While most human identification technology companies choose to focus on facial recognition, one Chinese startup claims to have developed much more accurate identification system based on micro traits of veins within human hand.
Developed by MELUX, AirWave is an incredibly efficient identification system that is said to be a million times more accurate than facial recognition technology. There are only 80 to 280 feature points on the face that artificial intelligence can asses when scanning an individual, but AirWave is able to scan more than a million micro-feature points in the palm of the hand in under 0.3 seconds, making it virtually impossible to cheat. A simple swipe of the palm over a special sensor is all that’s required to get an ultra-accurate authentication and/or authorization in real time.
“The AirWave full-hand-vein technology, based on artificial intelligence, is capable of sensing millions of dimensional micro-feature characteristic points, from major veins to capillaries, with just a single wave of the hand, enabling users to remain in motion while being identified and authorized,” Xie Qinglu, founder and chairman of MELUX, recently told China Daily.
“The major veins and capillaries under skin are individually unique, and they are at the five- micrometer level and even more sophisticated than road systems in a metropolis,” Xie added. “The AirWave technology can identify one hand out of a billion accurately in less than three-tenths of a second.”
Right now, China’s cashless society relies on facial recognition, QR codes and password systems to authorize mobile payments. MELUX considers current options to be either exploitable by cybercrime experts, or unfriendly to senior citizens. Privacy concerns are also well-founded, especially where facial recognition is concerned, so AirWave is considered much more efficient and secure, easy to use by anyone, and less intrusive.
Unveiled in 2018, AirWave technology has been making waves in China over the past year, and is already being in several cafeterias and government public service areas in South China’s Guangdong province. MELUX is reportedly in talks with a metro operator in Guangzhou to implement Airwave as a seamless authentication method.
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WND
China orders 10 Commandments replaced with Xi's quotes
Latest move to take Christianity out of society
September 21, 2019
There have a number of times around the United States in recent years that the 10 Commandments have been ordered to be taken down.
Like in the judicial building in the state of Alabama. And sometimes in schools.
Wouldn't want those children reading something like "Thou shalt not steal." Who knows, they might remember it and follow it.
Actually, under the law in most cases, the biblical injunctions are considered part of the history of the nation and can be posted as long as there are other historical documents or sayings posted with them.
Now, however, another government has ordered the 10 Commandments taken down.
According to a report from the worldwide Christian ministry to persecuted church members, Barnabas Aid, China's authorities have said they have to come down.
And they'll be replaced with quotations from President Xi.
The report said the move already is taking effect for churches in China's central province of Henan.
"Every state-registered 'three-self' church and meeting venue in one county of Luoyang, a prefecture-level city, received an order to remove the ten biblical commandments from display as part of the authorities' on-going campaign to 'sinicise' (make Chinese) Christianity," the report said.
"Some churches that refused to obey have been shut down and other congregations have been told their members will be 'blacklisted,' meaning the travel, education and employment options of Christians will be restricted by the authorities," the report continued.
The ministry, which is at work in more than 60 nations around the globe, mostly where Christianity is marginalized or persecuted, said a pastor from a state-registered church told the Bitter Winter publication the replacement is a copy of excerpts from Xi Jinping's speeches.
The churches also have faced orders to replace their crosses with the Chinese flag and the installation of surveillance cameras to spy on members.
China's efforts to exorcise "God" from society haven't stopped with actions against churches, although in one extreme case "authorities ordered a registered church in Dongcun village, Henan province to erase the First Commandment, 'You shall have no other gods before me,' from the Ten Commandments on display in front of the pulpit, saying it was 'national policy.'"
The country also has ordered the words "Bible, "God" and "Christ" removed from classic novels such as Robinson Crusoe.
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RT
Ghost post! Google creates world’s most powerful computer, NASA ‘accidentally reveals’ ...and then publication vanishes
Published time: 21 Sep, 2019 15:27 Edited time: 22 Sep, 2019 10:03
FILE PHOTO © Pete Linforth / Pixabay
Google’s new quantum computer reportedly spends mere minutes on the tasks the world’s top supercomputers would need several millennia to perform. The media found out about this after NASA “accidentally” shared the firm’s research.
The software engineers at Google have built the world’s most powerful computer, the Financial Times and Fortune magazine reported on Friday, citing the company’s now-removed research paper. The paper is said to have been posted on a website hosted by NASA, which partners with Google, but later quietly taken down, without explanation.
Google and NASA have refused to comment on the matter. A source within the IT giant, however, told Fortune that NASA had “accidentally” published the paper before its team could verify its findings.
In the research, Google reportedly claimed that it takes their new quantum processor just around 200 seconds to make calculations that existing supercomputers would require around 10,000 years to perform. They also said the processor requires mere 30 seconds to complete a task the Google Cloud server would need 50 trillion hours to do.
Quantum computing allows evaluating multiple possibilities at once and performing complex calculations not possible on normal computers. So, if proven true, Google’s new processor would be a real breakthrough, propelling the firm way ahead of giants like Microsoft, IBM and Intel, all of whom compete in building quantum processors.
Quantum processors will help create new, advanced chemicals and develop next-level artificial intelligence, among other things.
The Telegraph
Microsoft chief Brad Smith says rise of killer robots is 'unstoppable'
The technology which enables robots to kill is likely to spread to many countries in time CREDIT:WARNER BR
By Robin Pagnamenta
September 21, 2019
In an interview with The Telegraph, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said the use of 'lethal autonomous weapon systems' poses a host of new ethical questions which need to be considered by governments as a matter of urgency.
He said the rapidly advancing technology, in which flying, swimming or walking drones can be equipped with lethal weapons systems – missiles, bombs or guns – which could be programmed to operate entirely or partially autonomously, "ultimately will spread… to many countries".
The US, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia and the UK are all developing weapon systems with a significant degree of autonomy in the critical functions of selecting and attacking targets.
The technology is a growing focus for many militaries because replacing troops with machines can make the decision to go to war easier.
But it remains unclear who is responsible for deaths or injuries caused by a machine – the developer, manufacturer, commander or the device itself.
Smith said killer robots must "not be allowed to decide on their own to engage in combat and who to kill" and argued that a new international convention needed to be drawn up to govern the use of the technology.
“The safety of civilians is at risk today. We need more urgent action, and we need it in the form of a digital Geneva Convention, rules that will protect civilians and soldiers.”
Speaking at the launch of his new book, Tools and Weapons, at the Microsoft store in London’s Oxford Circus, Smith said there was also a need for stricter international rules over the use of facial recognition technology and other emerging forms of artificial intelligence.
“There needs to be there needs to be a new law in this space, we need regulation in the world of facial recognition in order to protect against potential abuse.”
He expressed optimism about the UK’s exit from the European Union and said the economy had so far remained resilient.
But he said Britain’s Brexit saga was like the fourth season of a TV boxed set drama series which is going on too long and needs to end soon.
“Regardless of how one feels about Brexit, it's not necessarily an issue that benefits from year after year of debate.
"It's a little bit like now entering the fourth season of a TV series that hit its most suspenseful point long ago. At some point, you just want the season to conclude. It will be good to have an ending and hopefully a happier one.”
The technology to develop lethal autonomous weapons is facing a growing public backlash.
Thousands of Google employees have signed a pledge not to develop AI for use in weapons.
The international Campaign to Stop Killer Robots has doubled in size over the past year to include 113 NGOs in 57 countries.
BATR
There is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia
BERTRAND DE JOUVENEL, Sovereignty: An Inquiry Into the Political Good
From a God of Revelations to a Belief in Cosmos Aliens
According to the nihilist popular culture, the lack of faith in revelations of the Bible has become the standard in the godless world that rules this planet. Hubris societies view themselves far too sophisticated and enlightened to accept the preaching of prophets or the gospels of Christ. They willingly reject the promise of salvation for the secular pleasure of worshiping their own creation of heaven on earth. The further the human race distances itself from the almighty, the greater the inhumanity against your fellow man intensifies. The hunt for ET is simply a search for a substitute to a GOD that provided a code of commandments and the Sermon on the Mount moral teachings. As long as no direct contact from a Close Encounter of the Third Kind is empirically validated, situation ethics can remain the dominant method for character behavior.
It would be easy to dismiss the 'Pathetic' Storm Area 51 event in search of evidence of alien presence at Groom Lake. However to reject a widening perspective that believers in extraterrestrial beings as a metempsychosis of the Heaven's Gate cult, would be a serious error. Michael Snyder pens another insightful analysis in More Americans Believe Aliens Have Visited Earth Than Believe That Jesus Is The Son Of God.
"According to a National Geographic survey, 77 percent of all Americans “believe there are signs that aliens have visited Earth”, and according to a recent Harris pollonly 68 percent of all Americans believe that Jesus is God or the Son of God. That means that the number of Americans that believe that UFOs have visited us is now greater than the number of Americans that believe what the Bible has to say about Jesus Christ."
Reconcile this seeming gap in these attitudes fall to David J. Stewart, who provides a valid viewpoint in Biblical Evidence Of Alien Life.
"The Bible is God's inspired Words. There is overwhelming, concrete, verifiable and abundant evidence to prove this TRUTH. The very manner in which the Bible was assembled—penned by 40 different writers used of God, all from umpteen different nations, having lived over a 1,500-year span, is evidence enough that what I say is true. It is astronomically impossible for such odds as this to be mere chance. The Bible wasn't written by one man, nor by a group of men at one time. God purposely gave us the Bible piece by piece, man by man, nation by nation, century by century, so that we could plainly see that it is supernatural in origin. Over 5,000 manuscripts have been unearthed of various portions of the Bible over the past two centuries. Clearly, this is no ordinary Book we are dealing with. The Bible is God's Word.
God is an alien from another dimension of time and space (eternity), and most people won't have anything to do with Him because he is a holy (morally perfect) God. If you are desperately hoping to find alien life, then open your Bible and meet your Maker. For He is the Author of the universe which contains an unknown number of galaxies."
While this assessment is historically accurate, the non-religious population scorns any notion that God of the Bible is real and especially rejects and repudiates the divinity of Jesus Christ. These contemporary Pharisees carry on the same malice towards Christian teachings, by just substituting the New World Order for Rome.
"His popularity, His talk of the kingdom, His affirmation that He was in fact the Messiah, this threatened the uneasy peace. If the people got behind Joseph’s son, Rome would awake, and start killing Jews indiscriminately, not bothering to distinguish the Pharisee party from the Jesus party. This is how Caiaphas came, in a moment of treachery, to speak a gospel truth when he said, “nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50). The Pharisees hated Jesus not because He made them look bad with the people, but because He made them all look bad to Rome."
Yet the ardent fans of alien mysteries are a significant audience of programs such as The History Channel series, Ancient Astronaut Theorist with Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, who will be featured at the latest Alien Con convention. The popularity of the subject has grown over recent years. Nevertheless, after stripping all the scrutiny from the speculation, the true perspective is provided by Steve Quayle – The Big Lie – Aliens Are Saviors and Not Jesus.
"Quayle says dark powers are wanting humanity to believe a huge lie–that aliens created us. Quayle says, “They say the aliens created us. Ancient alien theory is that the aliens, through a process called panspermia basically dumped DNA in the primordial goo and out popped man and me and you. I categorically reject that. When people tell me we were created by aliens and Jesus was alien, I say I’ve got news for you. You say god was an alien, then why all of the recorded ancient records always talking about the aliens with male and female sexual reproduction? . . . The big lie is the ancient aliens created us. The reason why they want us to believe the aliens created us is because it takes away from the thought of hell, it takes away from the need for salvation and it absolutely minimalizes the most important being in the universe, and that is Jesus. It teaches in the Bible that through Jesus and by Jesus all things exist. It is really hard for people to accept that. Now, the fallen angels are getting people to embrace Satan. . . . What you are seeing is a post-Christian culture in America. The enemy, the devil, is running wild with every form of perversion, every form of genetic mutation and every form of doing away with mankind."
Be prepared for being deceived by an archangel alien hologram.
SARTRE - September 24, 2019
USAWatchdog.com
Greg Hunter, "First Ever Triple Bubble in Stocks, Real Estate & Bonds"
“First Ever Triple Bubble in Stocks, Real Estate & Bonds”
By Greg Hunter
September 23, 2019
“We are living in an age of records in the financial world. The stock market is in its longest bull market in history and near all-time highs. The world has more debt than ever before while interest rates are near record lows, and some are negative in many countries for the first time ever. Nick Barisheff, CEO of Bullion Management Group (BMG), is seeing a dark ending for the era of financial records. Barisheff explains, “I have been in the business for 40 years, and this is the first time we have had a simultaneous triple bubble, a bubble in real estate, stocks and bonds all at the same time. In 1999, it was a stock bubble. In 2007, it was a real estate bubble. This time, we’ve got a triple simultaneous bubble. So, when we have the correction, it’s going to be massive. Value calculations on equities say it’s worse than 1999, and in some cases worse than 1929. The big problem is this triple bubble is sitting on a mountain of debt like never before.”
What is going to be the reaction to this record bubble in everything crashing? Barisheff says, “I think you are going to be getting riots in the streets. It’s already happening in California. CalPERS is the pension fund administrator for a lot of the pension funds in California. So, already retired teachers, firefighters and policemen that are sitting in retirement getting their pension checks all got letters saying sorry, your pension checks from now on are going to be reduced by 60%. How do you get by then?”
What happens if the meltdown picks up speed and casualties? Barisheff says, “I think the only option will be for the government is to print more money and postpone the problem yet a little bit longer, but that leads to massive inflation and eventually hyperinflation. Every fiat currency that has ever existed has always ended in hyperinflation, every single one. Since 1800, there have been 56 hyperinflations. Hyperinflation is defined as 50% inflation per month. That’s where we are going and what other choice is there?”
So, what do you do? Barisheff says, “In the U.S. dollar since 2000, gold is up an average of 9.4% per year. In some countries, it’s up 14% and so on. If you take the overall average of all the countries, the average increase is 10% a year. Every time Warren Buffett is on CNBC, he seems to go out of his way to disparage gold, but if you look at a chart of Berkshire Hathaway and gold, gold has outperformed Berkshire Hathaway. Everybody worships Warren Buffett as the best investor in the world, and gold has outperformed his fund in U.S. dollars. I would not disparage gold if I were him. I’d keep quiet about it.”
There is a first for Barisheff, too, in this financial environment. He says for the first time ever, he’s “100% invested in gold” as a percentage of his portfolio. He says the bottom “is in for gold,” and “the bottom is in for silver, too.” Barisheff contends that with the record bubbles and the record debt, both gold and silver will be setting new all-time high records as well in the not-so-distant future.”
The Economic Collapse
Goldman Sachs Has Just Issued An Ominous Warning About Stock Market Chaos In October
By Michael Snyder
September 20, 2019
Are we about to see U.S. financial markets go crazy? That is what Goldman Sachs seems to think, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that great financial chaos has been unleashed during the month of October. When the stock market crashed in October 1929, it started the worst economic depression that we have ever witnessed. In October 1987, the largest single day percentage decline in U.S. stock market history rocked the entire planet. And the nightmarish events of October 2008 set the stage for a “Great Recession” that we still haven’t fully recovered from. So could it be possible that something similar may happen in October 2019? According to CNBC, Goldman Sachs is warning that the stock market could soon “go crazy again”…
For investors taking a breather from the chaos in August, buckle up as the market is about to go crazy again, Goldman Sachs warned.
Wall Street is now inches away from reclaiming its record highs, but a rockier ride could be around the corner as stock volatility has been 25% higher in October on average since 1928, according to Goldman. Big price swings have been seen in each major stock benchmark and sector in October over the past 30 years, with technology and health care being the most volatile groups, Goldman said.
Goldman derivatives strategist John Marshall is the man behind this new warning, and he believes that there are some fundamental reasons why the month of October is often so volatile…
“We believe high October volatility is more than just a coincidence,” John Marshall, equity derivatives strategist at Goldman, said in a note Friday. “We believe it is a critical period for many investors and companies that manage performance to calendar year-end.”
And even though October hasn’t arrived yet, we are already starting to see some things that we haven’t witnessed since the last financial crisis.
For example, the Federal Reserve had not intervened in the repo market since 2008, but this week the liquidity crunch was so bad that the Fed felt forced to conduct emergency overnight repurchase agreement operations on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
And then on Friday the Fed announced that it will continue to conduct emergency interventions “on a daily basis for the next three weeks”…
The New York Federal Reserve Bank said Friday it will inject billions into the US financial plumbing on a daily basis for the next three weeks in an effort to prevent a spike in short-term interest rates.
The Fed will offer up to $75 billion a day in repurchase agreements — exchanging secure assets for cash for very short periods — through October 10, it said in a statement.
In addition, it will offer three 14-day “repo” operations of at least $30 billion each.
In essence, the “plumbing” of our financial system has gotten all jammed up, and calling out Roto-Rooter is simply not going to get the job done.
Of course Fed officials are trying to assure us that this is no big deal and that they have everything under control.
But if all this is no big deal, why haven’t they had to conduct such emergency interventions for the last 11 years?
And this comes at a time when the deterioration of the U.S. economy appears to be accelerating. In fact, on Friday St. Louis Fed President James Bullard publicly admitted that the U.S. manufacturing industry appears to already be in a recession…
The US manufacturing sector “already appears in recession”and overall economic growth is expected to slow “in the near horizon,” St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president James Bullard said on Friday, explaining why he dissented at a recent Fed meeting and wanted a deeper, half-percentage-point rate cut.
That is a stunning admission, because normally Fed officials try very hard to maintain the narrative that everything is wonderful because they are doing such a great job of manipulating the economy.
The American people as a whole are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economy as well, and Gallup just released some very alarming numbers…
Americans’ confidence in the economy has become less rosy this month as Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index fell to +17 from August’s +24 reading, marking the lowest level since the government shutdown ended in January.
At the same time, the public is evenly divided over the likelihood of a recession in the next year. The current expectation of a recession is nine points higher than it was in October 2007, just two months before the Great Recession began but slightly below a February 2001 reading, one month before that eight-month-long recession.
Every economic indicator that we have is telling us that big trouble is heading our way, but most Americans are partying instead of preparing.
U.S. financial markets have never been more primed for a crash than they are at this moment, and so many of the exact same patterns that we witnessed just prior to the last recession are happening again right now.
Over the past few months, my wife and I have felt a sense of urgency unlike anything that we have ever felt before. You may have noticed a difference in our tone and in the types of stories that we have been sharing. Everything that we have been doing has been leading up to this. The time of “the perfect storm” is here, and most Americans won’t understand what is happening.
The storm clouds are looming and disaster could strike at any time. This is one of the most critical times in the history of our nation, and most Americans are completely unprepared for what is going to happen next.
***
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DW
UK travel giant Thomas Cook collapses, cancels all bookings
The world's oldest travel agency has ceased trading. The UK government has stated it has plans "in place" to rescue stranded holidaymakers, while Germany will allow insurance companies to take charge.
Thomas Cook collapsed Monday, leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded around the globe.
The UK's Civil Aviation Authority said the world's oldest travel agency had now ceased trading after 178 years in business, as frantic efforts began to repatriate holidaymakers.
"Due to the significant scale of the situation, some disruption is inevitable, but the Civil Aviation Authority will endeavor to get people home as close as possible to their planned dates," the authority said in a statement.
"Thomas Cook has ceased trading so all Thomas Cook flights are now canceled," it added.
Last minute talks founder
The company's chief executive apologized, adding that all attempts were made to avoid liquidation. The operator had been looking for €226 million ($250 million) from investors to save it from insolvency.
Peter Fankhauser said: "We have worked exhaustively in the past few days to resolve the outstanding issues on an agreement to secure Thomas Cook's future. Although a deal had been largely agreed, an additional facility requested in the last few days of negotiations presented a challenge that ultimately proved insurmountable."
He added: "It is a matter of profound regret to me and the rest of the board that we were not successful. I would like to apologize to our millions of customers, and thousands of employees, suppliers and partners."
Plans to rescue stranded holidaymakers
Some 600,000 people, including 150,000 from Britain, were estimated to be currently on holiday with Thomas Cook, which employs more than 20,000 staff worldwide.
The UK government and the aviation regulator had drawn up a plan to use other airlines to bring Britons home, triggering the country's biggest repatriation effort since World War II.
In Germany, one of Thomas Cook's biggest markets, insurance companies will help repatriate customers, according to an official.
German charter airline Condor, which comes under the insolvent travel operator's umbrella, has applied for a bridging loan from the government. The carrier also said that, for now, flights will remain operational.
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egypt today
Hawass: I will announce how Tutankhamun died in 2020
By: Angy Essam
September 16, 2019
CAIRO – 16 September 2019: Acclaimed Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass stated that the DNA tests will reveal a lot of information about the death of Tutankhamun and that he will announce to the whole world in 2020 how the golden king died.
Hawass said in an interview with Italia 1 Channel that the temporary exhibition of King Tutankhamun currently on display at the Grande Halle La Villette in Paris broke records of turnout of the French cultural exhibitions.
It is the most visited exhibition in France, where the total number of registered visitors so far has reached 1.5 million as recounted by Hawass.
In his interview with the Italian channel Hawass revealed a number of important facts about the family of the Golden Pharaoh, announcing that his father is King Akhenaten and the mummy of his mother is located at tomb number 35 where the grandmother of Tutankhamun, Tiye was buried.
Hawass added that Tutankhamun was suffering from lack of blood reaching the feet, and that he had flatfoot and malaria.
Moreover, Hawass revealed that he prepared the script of Opera Tutankhamun to be presented in tandem with the opening of the great Egyptian Museum.
November 4, 2022 will be the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun tomb, who is an important king to the whole world not Egypt only.
Tutankhamun was born in the 18th Dynasty, around 1341 B.C., and was the 12th pharaoh of that period.
Tutankhamun did not accomplish much himself; he was placed on the throne when he was a child, and Egypt’s prosperous era was beginning to decline with the rise of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his new cult.
Sir Howard Carter, British archaeologist and Egyptologist, had made it his life’s quest to find the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
When Carter had begun to work in Egypt in 1891, most of the documented Pharaohs had their tombs discovered. One, however, proved to be elusive; King Tutankhamun, whose resting place had yet to be found and who Egyptologists knew very little about.
With the end of World War I, Carter made it his goal to be the first to uncover the tomb of Tutankhamun. Carter had worked in Egypt for 31 years since he was 17, using his skills as an artist to copy inscriptions from walls.
He would then become appointed inspector-general of monuments in Upper Egypt. In 1907, he started to work for George Herbert, the fifth earl of Carnarvon, who would aid him in his quest to uncover the lost tomb of Tutankhamun.
Carter was certainly dedicated, spending massive amounts of money and time in order to track down where the tomb might lie.
With Lord Carnarvon as his sponsor, he began working earnestly at excavating the Valley of Kings. Alas, even after five years of work, Carter wasn’t able to report back on anything substantial.
He refused to give up however, tirelessly working to fulfil his quest, and soon enough, Carter would be rewarded beyond his imagination.
The discovery of steps beneath the sand on November 1, 1922 was a breakthrough for Carter. At long last, his tireless search for Tutankhamun would finally bear fruit.
Carter announced the discovery on November 6, and it took three weeks until he could begin work on excavating into the tomb.
Workers exposed all of the steps and the sealed doorway into the tomb, which at one point had been broken in by tomb robbers but resealed again, leading to hope that the contents had not been plundered.
Carter finally entered on November 25, finding evidence of resealed holes but noting that it had likely been thousands of years since anyone had entered again.
When Carter made a hole inside the sealed door and peeked inside, he was left astounded. Gold flooded his senses, and animal statues, rich perfumes, piles of ebony, childhood toys and the Pharaoh himself adorned the room alongside countless other treasures.
It was a bounty of riches the likes of which had never been seen before. Carter couldn’t have anticipated this finding in his wildest dreams.
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WND
Look what's happening to Chick-fil-A amid vicious attacks
'People don't easily forget these acts of kindness'
September 22, 2019
Extra Chick-fil-A attendants took orders from customers waiting in long lines of cars in Stuart, Fla. on Aug. 1, 2012 (WND photo / Joe Kovacs)
Eight years ago, boycotts were launched against Chick-fil-A restaurants after gay-rights activists protested the company's support of a pro-family group and the son of the founder made a statement in support of traditional marriage.
The result?
The chain's sales have more than doubled to $10.5 billion in 2018, up nearly 17% percent from the year before, making it the third largest fast-food restaurant, behind only Starbucks and McDonald's.
The Washington Examiner said the chain has opened nearly 700 more locations in recent years.
The controversy began when a gay-issues blog, Towleroad, posted the headline "If you're eating Chick-fil-A, you're eating anti-gay." It was in response to the company's support of a seminar hosted by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which opposes same-sex marriage.
A short time later, Dan T. Cathy, the son of the founder of Chick-fil-A, said he was "guilty as charged" when asked about his opposition to same-sex marriage.
WND commentator Michael Brown wrote recently that the success of the company creates consternation for "the haters and anti-Christian bigots."
"And Chick-fil-A did this despite of an unrelenting campaign of hate from its critics," he wrote, including attempts to ban Chick-fil-A from college campuses, cities and airports, and regular calls for boycotts.
The "animus," he said, is simply because "1) Chick-fil-A is Christian owned and operated, to the point of not doing business on Sundays; 2) Chick-fil-A executives had the audacity to state their disagreement with same-sex 'marriage'; 3) Chick-fil-A donates money to Christian ministries that uphold biblical morality, like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; and 4) worse still, some of the ministries Chick-fil-A have supported believe homosexuals can change. Oh, the crime!"
He listed the reasons for its success.
"A first reason would have to be the food and the price. People enjoy the menu; otherwise they wouldn't be there," he said.
Then there's the "legendary customer service."
"That's why, in the category of Staff Friendliness, they crushed the competition, beating their nearest competitor by 11 percentage points and their next nearest competitor by a staggering 30 percentage points. Those are huge margins in a survey like this."
Then there's the company's generosity.
Its stores delivered food to rescue workers fighting this week's flooding in Houston. Brown wrote, "Chick-fil-A restaurants have even been known to go the extra mile for their communities, like giving away free food to motorists stuck in a snowstorm and even opening up on a Sunday to help feed hurricane victims.
"People don't easily forget these acts of kindness," he said.
But he also believes the company is "blessed by God."
"The founders and owners sought to honor the Lord, which, in their minds, meant not opening on Sunday, which they understood to be the Christian Sabbath. For them, this day was to be holy to the Lord, not a day for buying and selling, and not a day for their employees to be working.
"And so, despite pundits saying they are losing billions of dollars by closing on Sunday, it might just be they have made billions more by following their convictions."
There are several cities and airports that currently are being investigated after they banned the chain over its conservative beliefs. That's because federal law doesn't allow discrimination based on religion.
***
Until
next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions
“Some
indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good
will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing
to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I
am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding,
every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and
I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”
(Philippians
1:15-18)