“There is great gain in godliness with contentment.”
(1 Timothy 6:6)

Contentment

Dear Friends,

When did it all start and when did all the evil in the world begin. If you said, 'Satan' you are right . Another question to ask is 'why'. Why did Satan choose, and it was a choice, to bring the world to the state of evil that exists in the world today.

The answer is... envy or jealousy. In the book “The Wisdom of Solomon” which is part of the Apocrypha (Catholic and Orthodox Christians regard most of the books as fully canonical) chapter two, verses twenty three and twenty four, state: “For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.”

Of course, Isaiah 14, pinpoints the source as well: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”

Wanting to be what he could not be, he therefore has sought to destroy that which he envied, God and His creation.

If he could not have it, then no one could have it. Insane jealousy which would even prefer to destroy himself in pursuit of destroying that of which he was jealous.

Envy, as you may know, is one of the seven deadly sins in the Catholic Church.

Solomon points out in Proverbs 27:4, “Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” ESV Translated envy in the King James Version.

Lucifer is described in Ezekiel 28. “You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; “You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.”

Most of us would think that this sounds like a pretty glorious position, but even this was not enough to bring contentment.

The dictionary definition of contentment is a “state of happiness and satisfaction”.

So Lucifer became Satan, the destroyer. He could not find happiness and satisfaction because of his envy and his jealousy at not being number one, so unlike the apostle Paul who said; “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” Philippians 4:11

So, one of the main reasons the world is in the wreck it is today is because of discontentment, due to jealousy and envy.

“Jealousy is a form of pride, because you feel someone is treating you unfairly and you're being mistreated and abused. So jealousy is really a spirit of complaint and murmuring which is, of course, born of pride. You murmur because you feel like you deserve to be treated better. You're being mistreated. You're being abused. You don't deserve it. You're better than that.” David Berg

“ Through envy of the devil came death into the world.”

Thank God for Jesus!

We think you will find the first two articles below, Stories of life, death and faith: 'To Heaven and Back' and FOX NEWS ATHEIST DEMOCRAT: I MET JESUS, very inspiring.

Uproar Grows Over Forced C-section to Seize Child in U.K. is sure to rankle you as it did us, to see the abusive out of control powers the social services wield in the U.K.

In the meantime have a great week ahead.

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CNN

Stories of life, death and faith: 'To Heaven and Back'

By Randi Kaye and Chelsea J. Carter, CNN

November 30, 2013 -- Updated 0027 GMT (0827 HKT)

Doctor describes going to heaven and back

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Mary Neal "drowned" during a kayaking trip on January 14, 1999

She says when she saw her body, it was purple and her pupils were dilated

Anita Moorjani says she had end-stage cancer when she claims she left her body

Benjamin Breedlove suffered heart failure, and he says he left his body

(CNN) -- One woman is under water and without oxygen for 30 minutes after a kayaking accident. Another has end-stage cancer. A teenage boy suffers heart failure.

On the brink of death, all three tell stories of leaving their bodies, going to heaven and coming back.

For each, their story raises questions: Is heaven real? What does it feel like to die?

And for each, their answer -- airing Sunday on CNN's "To Heaven and Back" -- will be grounded in their experience. These are their accounts:

MARY NEAL

It was January 14, 1999, and Mary Neal, an orthopedic surgeon from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, had surprised her husband, Bill, with a week-long kayaking trip with friends in the Los Rios Region of Chile.

It had been a good trip. The couple spent the week enjoying people, the food and the culture.

But that morning, Neal's husband wasn't feeling well. So he stayed behind while she joined their friends on a section of river well known for its waterfalls and drops of 10 to 15 feet.

"When I first put (afloat) on the river, I didn't feel quite right," she said.

Neal crested at the top of the first big drop in the river. She looked down into what she later described as a bottomless pit.

Then she went over.

The front end of her boat got pinned in the rocks, submerging her in the water. The force of the current pinned her to the front deck of the boat.

Her friends began searching for her, knowing that the clock was ticking.

"Time is very important," Neal said. It determines "whether you are going to rescue somebody or recover the body."

Precious minutes ticked by. "I knew I was going to die," she said.

Neal had always worked -- worked to become a doctor, worked at her marriage of 26 years, worked at raising her four children.

But she admits she made very little time for her spiritual life.

"I did take my children to Sunday school, and I tried to incorporate spirituality into my daily life -- and then I would run out of time," she said.

Pinned in the boat and out of air, Neal started to give up.

"I really gave it all over to God, and I really said, 'Your will be done,'" she said.

At the same time, she remembers her brain doing a self-assessment exam. "I could still feel the boat. I could feel the current," she said.

On the surface above her, her friends were scrambling to try to free her.

It seemed hopeless, her friends would later say.

Then something shifted, and another rock was exposed. It was just enough for the group to shift the boat to free Neal, who was sucked out of the bottom of the boat by the current -- with her legs bending back over her knees.

"I could feel the bones breaking. I could feel the ligaments and the tissue tearing. I felt my spirit peeling away from my body, sort of like peeling two pieces of tape," Neal recounted.

As one of her friends grabbed her wrist to try to pull her out of the water, Neal realized she was outside her body watching the rescue effort.

"I could see them pull my body to the shore. I could see them start CPR," she said. "I had no pulse, and I wasn't breathing. One fellow was yelling at me to come back. ...My body was purple and bloated. My pupils were fixed and dilated."

She watched people work on her, but she felt none of it.

"When I saw my body, I actually thought 'Well, I guess I am dead. I guess I really did die,'" Neal said.

As she watched, she said she was met by "these people or these spirits" who started to guide her toward a brightly lit path toward what appeared to be a domed structure.

"It was exploding, not just with light and brilliance and color but with love," she said.

There, she spoke with the spirits. They told her it was not her time to die, that she still had a job to finish, Neal said.

One of the reasons she had to return, they told her, was because of her son Willie.

"I knew very specifically with regard to my son that he was going to die," Neal said. "We talked about how he already fulfilled his job. He'd really already done what he was meant to do."

Then she was back in her body, breathing again. Those involved estimate that Neal had been without oxygen for 30 minutes.

Her recovery would take months, but she no longer took time for granted. It is a journey she chronicled in her book "To Heaven and Back."

Each day took on a new meaning for Neal, who awoke every day wondering if it would be her son Willie's last day.

On June 21, 2009, 19-year-old Willie went out to roller ski with a friend.

He and the friend stopped on a road, near a ridge.

"Wouldn't this be an incredible last sight, if we could never see anything else," Willie told the friend.

Less than a minute later, he was hit by a car and killed.

"I am my own greatest skeptic," Neal said. "I am quite sure that I would not believe my life story had I not personally lived each and every day of it. I absolutely believe that every person can look at their life and see the hand of God."

Most miracles, Neal says, are quiet.

It's that person who calls you when you most need it, she said. It's that person who directs you to someone who changes your life.

ANITA MOORJANI

On February 2, 2006, Anita Moorjani was in a coma. With her body riddled with cancer, doctors told her husband that her organs were shutting down and she likely would not make it beyond the next 36 hours.

"I was just so tired of fighting to try to stay alive," she said.

Moorjani knew what cancer could do to the body. She had seen it ravage her best friend, Soni, eventually killing her.

So when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2002, she was afraid.

In a way, Moorjani had always been afraid -- of living and of dying.

Growing up in Hong Kong, she said she was bullied because of her Indian heritage. She went so far as to lighten her hair and bleach her skin to fit in at the British school she attended.

"I felt I had to apologize for being me," she said.

Then she was diagnosed with cancer, one of her biggest fears after seeing it take the life of Soni.

Slowly the cancer took its toll on Moorjani.

By February 1, 2006, sick and weak, she thought to herself: "Even death can't be worse than this."

So she said she let go.

The next morning, she didn't wake up. Her husband rushed her to the hospital, where the family was told the bad news: Moorjani was in a coma and not expected to wake again.

Moorjani can't put her finger on the exact minute that she says she left her body.

She saw her husband standing next to her hospital bed.

"He was very distraught. He was there by my bedside. I could feel he was willing me to come back," she said.

Moorjani could also hear conversations that took place between her husband and her doctors, far from her hospital room.

She heard them, she said, discuss her pending death. "Your wife's heart might be beating, but she's not really in there," a doctor told her husband -- a conversation, she said, he would later confirm to her after she asked.

Hovering between life and death, she said she was surrounded by people who loved her.

Her best friend, Soni, was there. So was her father, who had died years earlier from heart failure.

There were others there, too. She didn't recognize most of them. But she knew they loved her and cared for her.

It was a feeling unlike anything she says she had ever felt.

"At first, I did not want to come back. Why would I want to come back into this sick body?" she said.

Then, hovering between life and death, she had a moment of clarity -- a true understanding.

"All the years of beating myself up, of feeling flawed, had manifested itself and turned into cancer," she said.

About 30 hours after being hospitalized, Moorjani awoke.

Within days, she said, her organs began to function again. Within weeks, doctors could find no evidence of cancer in her body, she said.

"I'm not scared of death. Whenever that day comes, I'll feel I will have accomplished what I came here to do," Moorjani said. "I believe that all of us have only come here to realize who we are, and to be true to who we are."

She recounted her experience in her book, "Dying to Be Me: My Journey From Cancer, To Near Death, To True Healing."

Today, she remains cancer free.

BENJAMIN BREEDLOVE

It was December 18, 2011, a week before Christmas, and 18-year-old Benjamin Breedlove went to his bedroom.

He had spent the day with his family. They had held church at their home in Austin, Texas, because the teenager was ill. Since childhood he had battled hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a heart condition that posed a constant risk of sudden death.

In his short life, Benjamin -- Ben as he was known to family and friends -- had suffered three heart attacks, including an episode the night before.

Two weeks earlier he suffered heart failure while he was in school.

He collapsed on the campus commons, according to students and the school nurse.

For three minutes, his heart stopped.

Now, after two heart attacks in as many weeks, he and his family were holding church inside their house. The family read from the Bible and prayed for Ben.

"After we were finished, Ben prayed for us. He prayed that we wouldn't be sad or scared," his sister, Ally Breedlove said.

Then, on that day a week before Christmas, the teenager disappeared into his room where he made a two-part video titled "This Is My Life" that he posted to YouTube unbeknownst to his parents.

He used index cards to recount his collapse at the high school.

"I heard them say 'he's not breathing. His heart stopped, and he has no pulse,'" the cards read.

He said he saw a white light.

The teenager said he felt at peace. "I didn't want to leave that place," he said in his video.

Then Ben said he woke up on the floor of the school.

A week later, on Christmas Day, Ben opened presents with his family. They played a game of Monopoly. Then he went outside to watch his younger brother bounce on a trampoline.

"I looked outside my kitchen window, and I took a mental snapshot of Ben smiling," his mother, Deanne Breedlove, said. "That was the last time I saw Ben smile."

Minutes later, he suffered heart failure.

As Ben lay dying, the video he made had gone viral with hundreds of thousands watching it.

It's closing lines: "Do you believe in angels or God? I do."

***

WND

FOX NEWS ATHEIST DEMOCRAT: I MET JESUS

'I tried to write off the experience as misfiring synapses'

Published: 12/05/13

JOE KOVACS

She’s the intelligent, gorgeous, Democratic commentator at Fox News who has been an atheist for much of her life until she says she had a personal encounter with Jesus.

It was in 2006 during an overseas trip that Kirsten Powers says, “I woke up in what felt like a strange cross between a dream and reality. Jesus came to me and said, ‘Here I am.’”

“It felt so real. I didn’t know what to make of it,” Powers explains in Christianity Today. “I called my boyfriend, but before I had time to tell him about it, he told me he had been praying the night before and felt we were supposed to break up. So we did. Honestly, while I was upset, I was more traumatized by Jesus visiting me.

“I tried to write off the experience as misfiring synapses, but I couldn’t shake it. When I returned to New York a few days later, I was lost. I suddenly felt God everywhere and it was terrifying. More important, it was unwelcome. It felt like an invasion. I started to fear I was going crazy.”

In a Fox News Channel interview with Howard Kurtz, Powers explained the revelation to her “wasn’t a one-moment-kind-of-thing. It was something that over a year probably of going to church and studying the Bible and a lot of different things.

“And I had this experience where I had a dream that sort of up-ended my world a little bit and that I, at first, just thought was just a dream, you know, because I didn’t really believe in things like that. And maybe it was just a dream, I don’t know, but it put me on a path of then sort of seeking out to learn more about it. I ended up in a Bible study and the rest is sort of history.”

The transformation of Powers is noteworthy, as the veteran of the Clinton administration felt certain she would never have anything to do with the God of the Bible.

“If there was one thing in which I was completely secure, it was that I would never adhere to any religion – especially to evangelical Christianity, which I held in particular contempt,” she wrote in Christianity Today.

In the beginning …

Kirsten grew up in the Episcopal Church in Alaska, but admits her belief was “superficial and flimsy.”

She absorbed it from her archaeologist father, and was able to get through high school by leaning on his faith. But by the time she was off to college, any ostensible presence of God had vanished, especially since her dad began confiding in her his own doubts.

“What little faith I had couldn’t withstand this revelation,” she explains. “From my early twenties on, I would waver between atheism and agnosticism, never coming close to considering that God could be real.”

After graduating from college, Powers worked with the Clinton team from 1992 to 1998, noting Democratic politics “was our religion, to a certain extent.”

“All my friends were secular, liberal,” she told Focus on the Family radio. “So I really got even more deeply into just an incredibly secular world. Now all my friends were basically atheists, or if they had any kind of spirituality, they were very hostile toward religion, Christianity in particular. So I didn’t really have any interest in it.”

Powers encountered Christians only in the news cycle, and didn’t feel she was missing much because “inevitably they were saying something about gay people or feminists.”

“So when I began dating a man who was into Jesus,” she writes, “I was not looking for God. In fact, the week before I met him, a friend had asked me if I had any deal breakers in dating. My response: ‘Just nobody who is religious.’”

A few months into their relationship, her boyfriend asked her point blank on her couch in New York City, “Do you believe Jesus is your Savior?”

“My stomach sank. I started to panic,” she recalls. “Oh no, was my first thought. He’s crazy.”

When Kirsten responded in the negative, her boyfriend then asked, “Do you think you could ever believe it?”

He was looking to get married, possibly to Kirsten, but stressed he couldn’t tie the knot with a non-Christian.

“I said I didn’t want to mislead him – that I would never believe in Jesus,” says Powers. “Then he said the magic words for a liberal: ‘Do you think you could keep an open mind about it?’ Well, of course. ‘I’m very open-minded!’ Even though I wasn’t at all. I derided Christians as anti-intellectual bigots who were too weak to face the reality that there is no rhyme or reason to the world. I had found this man’s church attendance an oddity to overlook, not a point in his favor.”

Powers admits feeling a conflict growing inside her as her boyfriend continued to talk.

“On the one hand, I was creeped out. On the other hand, I had enormous respect for him. He is smart, educated, and intellectually curious. I remember thinking, What if this is true, and I’m not even willing to consider it?”

Her curiosity got the best of her, and a few weeks later, she attended church with him.

“But I told him up front: I’ll never become a Christian. It’s never gonna happen.”

“I was so clueless about Christianity that I didn’t know that some Presbyterians were evangelicals. So when we arrived at the Upper East Side service of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, I was shocked and repelled by what I saw. I was used to the high-church liturgy of my youth. We were meeting in an auditorium with a band playing what I later learned was ‘praise music.’ I thought, How am I going to tell him I can never come back?”

Let there be light

That’s when she heard the preaching of pastor Tim Keller and became fascinated.

“I had never heard a pastor talk about the things he did, she says, explaining the message “was intellectually rigorous, weaving in art and history and philosophy. I decided to come back to hear him again. Soon, hearing Keller speak on Sunday became the highlight of my week. I thought of it as just an interesting lecture – not really church. I just tolerated the rest of it in order to hear him. Any person who is familiar with Keller’s preaching knows that he usually brings Jesus in at the end of the sermon to tie his points together. For the first few months, I left feeling frustrated: Why did he have to ruin a perfectly good talk with this Jesus nonsense?”

Week after week, Keller would make the case for Christianity and the case against atheism and agnosticism. It prompted Powers to start reading the Holy Bible and her boyfriend to pray with her for God to reveal Himself to the journalist.

After about eight months of listening to Keller, she concluded “the weight of evidence was on the side of Christianity. But I didn’t feel any connection to God, and frankly, I was fine with that. I continued to think that people who talked of hearing from God or experiencing God were either delusional or lying. In my most generous moments, I allowed that they were just imagining things that made them feel good.”

“I just intellectually actually I felt like it’s not even smart to reject this,” she elaborated to Focus on the Family. “It just doesn’t seem like a good intellectual decision. So I think I sort of nominally thought, ‘Yeah, I’m like that, but I’m not one of those crazies.’

It was at this point when, during her trip to Taiwan seven years ago, she had her meeting with the Creator who said, “Here I am,” and events just snowballed.

“It was just sort of like God sort of invading my life. It was very unwelcome and I didn’t like it and all of a sudden I started having a lot of different experiences where I just felt God doing a lot of things in my life. It’s kind of hard to describe but I did just have this moment of the scales falling off of my eyes, and just saying it’s just totally true. Like I don’t even have any doubt.

“And then, rather than what I would have thought it would be like which is the clouds part and the angels sing and it’s all so wonderful, it was horrible! Because all of a sudden I thought, ‘Well what I am I supposed to do now? I don’t want to be one of these people.’ I’m not a Republican and I just had nothing in common with them and I didn’t know any Christians. And so I was really quite freaked out and really resisted it, frankly, for a while and I thought maybe I’m having an episode or some sort of bad – I really thought this is like a phase and it’s gonna pass.”

It took Kirsten a couple of years to accept what was happening to her, as the world as she had known it was “imploding.”

She attended Kathy Keller’s Bible study to learn more, and remembers walking in for the first time, her stomach tied in knots.

“In my mind, only weirdoes and zealots went to Bible studies,” Powers writes. “I don’t remember what was said that day. All I know is that when I left, everything had changed. I’ll never forget standing outside that apartment on the Upper East Side and saying to myself, ‘It’s true. It’s completely true.’ The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy.

“The horror of the prospect of being a devout Christian crept back in almost immediately. I spent the next few months doing my best to wrestle away from God. It was pointless. Everywhere I turned, there he was. Slowly there was less fear and more joy. The Hound of Heaven had pursued me and caught me – whether I liked it or not.”

Powers, 44, says her family’s reaction to her Christian conversion has not been one of rejoicing.

“They were not very happy about it,” she told Kurtz. “I come from a very intellectual family, a very liberal family – my parents were professors – and they thought it was just extremely odd and didn’t really like it very much. And I remember I said to my mother, ‘I’m going to a Bible study,’ and she said, ‘OK … that’s good, that’s a nice education for literature and things like that.’ And I said, ‘No, I believe it!’”

However, reaction from others has been much more uplifting and welcoming.

“Very positive. I was surprised,” she said. “I got so many emails, and I even heard from some of my friends who are atheists who really were interested in it and appreciated it and were inspired by it.”

She says there was nothing courageous about making the jump from atheist to Christian.

I really don’t feel like I have any courage,” she told Focus on the Family.

“In even describing when I became a Christian, I just gave in. It wasn’t courageous. I didn’t have any choice. I kept trying to not believe and I kept just couldn’t avoid it. If I could have avoided it, I would have. There’s nothing convenient about it in my life in the world that I live in. It’s not like living in the South or living somewhere where everybody’s Christian. I live in a world where nobody’s a believer.”

She told Kurtz her metamorphosis was “a real culture shock for me, and still sometimes is, honestly.”

“It was a world that was completely new to me. It was a world where most of the people I came in contact with were conservative. If I had a dollar for every time somebody said, ‘I don’t understand: how can you be a Democrat and be a Christian?’ I’d be a millionaire.”

She added: “I think what they meant by that was an orthodox Christian. If I had been somebody who was sort of ‘Well, yes, I believe in God,’ and wasn’t too serious about it. But the fact that I was sort of this orthodox Christian – I felt a little bit like a fish out of water. I didn’t feel very comfortable there. It was many years until I started meeting other people who were like me: very progressive-minded politically but also very conservative theologically.”

In a cautionary note to fellow believers, Powers told Kurtz that while “the media is not the most Christian-friendly place in the world for the most part, at the same time, a lot of these Christians bring [poor public perception] on themselves.”

“You do have people coming out and saying 9/11 happened or Hurricane Katrina happened because of lesbians. So they are bringing it on themselves. Those people, of course, don’t necessarily represent the bulk of Christians – at least, as I know them. But there are people out there that think that way. And so I think when Christians say, ‘Oh we’re being unfairly persecuted,’ it’s like, ‘Well, stop saying things like that.’”

While Powers still leans left politically, she flayed her colleagues in the national news media in April for burying the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who ran an abortion-clinic horror in Philadelphia.

“Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news,” she wrote in a USA Today column. “When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria. The venerable NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams intoned, ‘A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh,’ as he teased a segment on the brouhaha. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed – a major human rights story if there ever was one – doesn’t make the cut.

“You don’t have to oppose abortion rights to find late-term abortion abhorrent or to find the Gosnell trial eminently newsworthy. This is not about being ‘pro-choice’ or ‘pro-life.’ It’s about basic human rights. The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.”

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CP World

Pope Francis: Christian Persecution, Prohibition of Worship Signs of the End Times

BY TYLER O'NEIL , CP REPORTER

November 29, 2013|1:25 pm

Christian persecution and the cultural fear of public expressions of faith are signs of the end times, Pope Francis declared in a homily on Thursday.

"You must obey the orders which come from worldly powers – You can do many things, beautiful things, but not adore God. Worship is prohibited – this is at the center of the end of time," Pope Francis said in his daily homily in the chapel of the Vatican's Saint Martha guesthouse. Once we "reach the fullness of this pagan attitude…truly the Son of Man will come in a cloud with great power and glory," Francis declared, according to the Albany Tribune.

The pope preached on Jesus' speech in Luke 21 about the end times. In that passage, Jesus foretells the destruction of Jerusalem, and trials and tribulations that precede the end times.

"Then he said to them, 'nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you…for my name's sake," the passage reads. "For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

Before Jesus comes, the pope explained, "it will be an abomination, it will be desolation and abomination" in the temple. "It will be like the triumph of the prince of this world: the defeat of God."

Pope Francis declared that the worldly powers which try to make religion "a private thing," truly seek to destroy God. In response, the pope called on all believers to have faith like the prophet Daniel. Christians must pursue "fidelity like Daniel, who was faithful to his God and adored God until the end, and patience, because the hairs of our heads will not fall out – the Lord has promised this," the pope declared.

Francis warned about a "universal temptation" to give in to the deceitful ways of those against God, and Christians must avoid it. "This week it will do us good to think about this general apostasy which is called a ban on worship," the pope said, according to Vatican Radio.

The pope encouraged believers to ask themselves questions to check their spiritual strength. "Do I worship the Lord? Do I adore Jesus Christ the Lord? Do I in some measure play the game of the prince of this world?"

Pope Francis called the persecution of Christians – with great violence in places like Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan – a forecast for the whole world. "Christians who suffer times of persecution, times forbidding worship," form a prophetic sign for "what will happen to everyone."

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WND

TOPLESS, SWASTIKA-BEARING FEMINISTS ASSAULT PRAYING MEN

Vicious anti-church protest includes sexual molestation

Published: 11/05/13

JEROME R. CORSI

WARNING: Portions of the following video have been digitally altered because of graphic content, but viewer discretion still is strongly advised:

NEW YORK – Chanting, “Get your rosaries out of our ovaries,” a mob of pro-abortion feminists – many of whom were topless with Nazi swastikas on their chests and foreheads – attacked and sexually molested a group of Roman Catholic men who were praying as they stood outside a cathedral in Argentina to protect it from threats of vandalism.

Video by the Catholic news service Lifesitenews.com of the incident Sunday in San Juan shows the protesting women spitting on the rosary-praying men, pushing their breasts into the faces of the men and spray-painting them.

The savage protest was the culmination of an afternoon demonstration in which an estimated 17,000 militant feminists and their supporters marched through the streets chanting and carrying protest banners and signs as part of the 23rd National Meeting of Women held in the city Nov. 23-25.

David Kupelian, author of “The Marketing of Evil” and “How Evil Works” and managing editor of WND, noted that the “display of demonic fury outside a Catholic church in Argentina, though shocking, is nothing new.”

He recalled that the U.S. has seen similar “demonstrations,” including the 1989 attack on New York City’s famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in which hundreds of “gay” activists stormed the church and terrorized its parishioners during Mass.

“However, the homosexual activist movement in the U.S. has generally adopted a more media-savvy strategy for mainstreaming their sexual behavior and advancing their agenda,” Kupelian said.

“Unfortunately, when a society demonizes Christian values and glorifies perversion, both culturally and with the force of law, this is what you get.”

On Sunday, failing to break through the barrier of praying men, the feminists burned an effigy of Pope Francis while chanting, “If the pope were a woman, abortion would be legal.”

During the demonstration, some 700 parishioners remained inside the cathedral, accompanied by the bishop of San Juan, Alfonso Delgado.

Along with “abortion rights,” the protesting feminists called for support of lesbianism, economic and social justice, and more funding for “women’s health.”

In 2010, Argentina was the first country in the predominantly Roman Catholic region of Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit priest, was archbishop of Buenos Aires before being elected pope in March and taking the name of St. Francis of Assisi.

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RNN.com

Vatican Extraterrestrial Inquest?

Strategic Perspectives speaker raises eyebrows

By Donna Howell

I cannot help myself. I just have to share some of my thoughts on Dr. Thomas Horn’s 2013 Strategic Perspectives Conference Presentation.

And is it not strange that, until Thomas Horn and Cris Putnam finally addressed the issue in their book Petrus Romanus, nobody would think to publish a thorough investigation of the details surrounding a nine-hundred-year-old medieval prophecy that is at its end?

Reportedly, in the 1100s, Malachy O’Morgair penned “The Prophecy of the Popes,” which over the years was often eerily accurate in its predictions. Beginning with a cryptic warning of God bringing the ultimate future judgment upon His people, the prophecy proceeds to describe each pope subsequently from that time forward until the last and final pope. The current pope, according to the prophecy, is the last.

The ancient prophecy that had been kept in the Vatican’s vaults for hundreds of years (according to tradition) was revealed to the world in 1595, over 400 years after the writings were allegedly inscribed. Petrus Romanus author Tom Horn addressed this with profound simplicity and a refreshing non-bias in his lecture at the recent Strategic Perspectives Conference put on by the Koinonia Institute. “In 1595, a Benedictine historian by the name of Arnold Wion publishes the Prophecy of the Popes. He takes it out of the archives, puts it in his seventeen-hundred-page book Lignum Vitae…and it is now in the public forum. And here is the mystery. From that day, and forward, the Prophecy of the Popes often seemed to increase in terms of its accuracy. If it had been a fraud concocted in the 1590s [to make the first list of prophecies seem real], then you would expect it from that time forward, now that we can watch it, to fall apart, and it hasn’t.”

Horn explains that there are three approaches one can take upon observing for themselves the astounding precision of the Prophecy of the Popes. These are: 1) the prophecy was divinely inspired by God; 2) the prophecy was demonically inspired and is part of a great deception; or 3) that “for whatever reason, this document has held a place of importance in the minds of the cardinal electors, and they have only been electing popes that could be seen in one way or another as fulfilling their line in the prophecy, and therefore it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, whether or not it was ever originally given by God or the devil.”

Despite the argument surrounding what the driving force may be behind these ancient documents, the predictions have brought us to the worldwide popularity and leadership of the current, and according to the prophecy, final, pope. Yet, whether one regarded themselves as a believer or merely an observer thus far, our arrival at the end of the passage where “there will sit Peter the Roman…[and] the city of seven hills [Rome] will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people” has all eyes watching, waiting to see what God or the Church does with these circumstances, and Pope Francis’ role.

All this is made further intriguing by the fact that Horn and his co-author Cris Putnam were somehow able to predict the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the very month, and to do so a year before anybody else (including members of the Vatican government) knew he would—a papal event that had not happened in over 600 years. They also warned the public not to expect a literal “man named Peter” to be the final pope. This too they did in print and on television a year in advance. Did they have inside knowledge, which they haven't yet disclosed? Even the Italian media wants to know the answer to that question.

Nonetheless, and disturbingly so, Horn continues on to address the many varying ways that Bergoglio “has gone out of his way to attach himself to the literal title of ‘Peter the Roman.’” (These details include his choosing of a namesake, Francis of Assisi, who was born Giovanni and later changed his name to Francesco di Pietro [Peter] di Bernardone, which can be rendered “Peter the Roman,” and Francis’ own prophecies referring to an end-times pope as a great deceiver and destroyer. The list of amazing facts goes on, but it is simply too exhaustive to get into in depth in an editorial of this length.)

Turning his focus to a darker and, yes, more extraterrestrial angle here, Tom asks what in the world the Vatican is doing on Mt. Graham. And what are they looking at with the world’s largest binocular telescope and infrared instrument named “LUCIFER”?

This is one of those classic moments where, approaching things with fair journalism in mind, I have to implore my readers to understand that this article is not written for those who believe in aliens, or those who do not believe in aliens, or for that matter, those who are undecided. No, in fact, it does not matter what you believe about extraterrestrial life… Regarding all of the items I touch on below (including some ideas that will very likely shock you), it is what the Vatican is doing on Mt. Graham and what they believe, and what they are preparing to do with their research that will affect the globe.

As thoroughly researched and exposed in Exo-Vaticana by Tom Horn and Cris Putnam, on a mountain in southeastern Arizona, the Vatican is using the largest and some of the most sophisticated space equipment for more than just stargazing. As Horn relates in his Strategic Perspectives lecture, in an interview between Art Bell and Malachi Martin, this is “because at the highest levels of Vatican governance and geopolitics, they know what is approaching the Earth, and that it will be of the utmost importance in coming years.” Conferences and gatherings including personalities of the oldest, most prolifically intelligent scientific bodies in the world have come together to discuss “the detection of extraterrestrial life and the consequences for science and society.”

Personally, I am not interested in promoting the idea of attempting communication with potential life on other planets, but whether I like it or not, and whether you like it or not, this is a motion the Vatican is heading toward with breakneck speed. But to what end?

When the public began to react to the news of these conferences and what was being quite openly addressed, the Vatican responded by sending out Jose Gabriel Funes, the head director of the VORG (Vatican Observatory Research Group), to inform the media that these meetings were “just in case” because the Vatican had made mistakes before, and they didn’t want to trample on scientific thought. Funes struck a chord again when he added, “The extraterrestrial is our brother.” (Yes, you read that correctly.) “And furthermore, he said, it is not only [compatible] with Christianity to believe in extraterrestrial intelligence…if you do not believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, than that is the heresy, because, he said, it puts limits on God’s creative ability.”

I cannot recommend powerfully enough in the little space that I am given here how much every person should educate themselves on the implications of this movement among primarily Catholic theologians. (To say that materials like Horn’s Strategic Perspectives lecture is useful toward this cause is an understatement.) When Horn went on to describe the Vatican’s self-proclaimed confidence that the aliens do exist, and that the extraterrestrial intelligence discovery will not challenge the authority of the Church, I already knew what he was going to say next. With trepidation, I listened as Horn quoted Monsignor Corrado Balducci (an exorcist, theologian, personal friend of the pope, and the Vatican’s now deceased head spokesperson for things extraterrestrial): “They are not angels, and they are not demons… They are morally superior to us.” Following this, Horn states:

This is an argument that they continue to make and they’re becoming more and more adamant about it, that what we know about ourselves is that we are fallen, right? But we cannot necessarily assume the same thing about our space brethren, and if they’re unfallen, they’re closer to God than we are. Therefore they have a better understanding of the Gospel and of the Godhead and of the nature of God. And when they started out three years ago, Funes was saying “I’d like to baptize an alien into the Catholic faith.” Well that’s not what they’re saying today. What they’re saying now is that they [aliens] are coming here and they’re going to baptize us into their faith and it is going to require us to make changes to our knowledge, to our understanding, of the Gospel. In fact, some of their deepest theologians have said, “Perhaps everything we think we know about the Gospel is going to have to be thrown out.”

Excuse me? Thrown out?

The Gospel thrown out?

What are we even talking about here!?

Could it be that the world is far hungrier than I thought to usher in the Man of Sin? The ultimate “fixer” of our nations?  And furthermore, would it ever truly be in God’s will for the human race to transcend to some higher level where we no longer need His direct intervention through personal relationship and prayer, but the intervention of another superior being? These alien contact agendas would not surprise me if coming only from the scientific community, but from a body of people whose primary focus and claim is to be God-fearing?

Horn, speaking quickly and efficiently, yet making sure to cover all issues on the roster comprehensively, continues on to reveal even more startling themes of the current hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. His research is thorough and transparent (even referencing some hitherto unavailable documents, which he obtained directly from one of Rome's top astronomers) and quotes the works of select individuals within the Church who perpetuate the idea that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is a descendant of alien life and that Mary’s virgin birth was a direct result of an alien abduction scenario.

***

The Bragalia Files

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman: “Roswell was an ET Event”

Sunday, December 1, 2013

by Anthony Bragalia

Six weeks before he passed, the 4-star General who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Eisenhower (and who was the Commander of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field in July of 1947) confessed to his namesake son that the Roswell crash was an extraterrestrial event.

Even more astonishingly, he disclosed that one of the aliens had survived.

General Nathan Twining was a West Point grad who was born into a family that was long-associated with the military. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had risen to become the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. Armed Forces and principal military advisor to a President. Before retiring with over four decades of service, he was eligible to wear over 30 military medals.

Twining, concerned about the increasing rise in UFO reports during the summer of 1947, had advised the initiation of a formal study of the mysterious phenomenon. Known as Project Sign, this early official UFO study was authorized in December of 1947 by General Laurence Craige (Chief of Air Force R&D and implicated as Roswell-involved by Craige’s pilot, Ben Games.)

At the time of the Roswell incident Twining was at Wright Field (where the crash debris was flown) as Commander of the Air Materiel Command (AMC.) The AMC was charged with research, development, acquisition and flight testing of novel, prototype or foreign aircraft and weapons.

Twining would certainly have been well-positioned to have known about what had really happened at Roswell at the time of the crash. He likely garnered further details when he was later rewarded for his work by being named by a President to lead our nation’s Armed Forces as Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a formerly classified (and infamous) letter to Air Force General George Schulgen (known as the “Twining Memo”) Twining writes to the General that the flying disc phenomenon reported “is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” He went on to consider natural phenomenon and controlled, engineered objects as possibilities.

It now appears evident that Twining knew far more definitively what the phenomenon actually represented.

Buried at the Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, General Twining died in March of 1982 in Texas at the age of 84.

The General’s Son Reveals His Father’s Roswell Secret

Nathan Twining’s same-named son told investigators (including Tom Carey) that on UFOs, he had remembered that his father had mentioned to him that he was very concerned about the increasing number of pilots that were “lost” while scrambling for and chasing the illusive flying objects.

And a recent and very little-viewed video of testimony given by an unassuming Englishwoman suggests strongly that General Twining –and his son- knew far more about the true nature of Roswell crash than they had ever let on publicly.

In the video, released in September of this year by UK investigator Joanne Summerscales, a woman named Jo Walters (who is now is her 80s) relates that she had met Nathan Twining, Jr. during the 1997/1998 time frame. What he told her about his General father has left her startled to this day.

At the time, Jo was, along with two friends, considering retiring to the United States. She and her friends were members of a religion that was seeking to establish a community retreat there. It happened that one of her friends knew of Nathan Twining who was a member of the same faith in the US. She contacted him to let him know of their intentions- and to her delight he invited her, Jo Walters and another friend to spend some time at the guest quarters at his ranch. He would discuss placing a religious community on one of his expansive New Mexico land holdings. They accepted his invitation and arrived to a fine welcome.

Later in the visit, Nathan explained to Jo that he was the son of a military General. Given the ranch’s New Mexico location and his father’s time of service, the talk got around to the Roswell crash.

Nathan Jr. told Jo that his father and he had discussed the matter previously and that at the end of his life his father finally came forth on the true nature of the Roswell event.

Nathan said that his father believed that he was always ‘straight’ with his son and that he now wanted to set the record straight about the crash. General Twining was apparently sparing in what he told his son. But six weeks before he passed General Twining did confirm:

- The Roswell incident was in fact an event involving extraterrestrials

- A crew of beings had crashed in the desert

- One of these beings had survived, but later expired

- The General added that he had himself visited the being and had communicated with it telepathically while it was held at a secure government location in New Mexico.

***

MailOnline

Jewish activists press ahead with demands to pray at Jerusalem holy site prompting potentially explosive clash with Muslims over right to worship there

• The religious site is in the Old City of Jerusalem

• Site is one of the world's most contested religious locations

• Jews say it is the former site of Solomon's Temple

• Muslims say it is where the Prophet travelled before ascending to Heaven

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 06:42 EST, 3 December 2013 | UPDATED: 09:53 EST, 3 December 2013

Jewish activists are pressing ahead with demands to pray at a contested Jerusalem holy site prompting potentially explosive clash with Muslims over the right to worship there

The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif is one of the world's most contested religious locations because the 35 acre site has religious significance to both Jews and Muslims.

According to Jewish tradition, it is the former site of Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple.

Friction: Jewish activists have set their sights on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, prompting potentially explosive clash with Muslims over right to worship there

Its western flank contains the Wailing Wall and many Jews face the direction of the mount when praying.

The same area is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary).

The location is important to Muslims as they believe it is where the Prophet travelled to before ascending to Heaven - Jews are banned from public worship there.

For Palestinians, having their future capital in East Jerusalem is a fundamental element of any future state.

Each week, hundreds of Jews visit the site of their destroyed temple, in the heart of the disputed capital’s Old City.

Visitors are closely watched by both the police and the Muslim religious officials of the Waqf who administer the compound and keep an eye out to make sure no Jewish worship takes place.

Although they have police escorts they concoct elaborate ways to worship - some of them pretend to use a mobile phone to whisper forbidden prayers while others carry out banned bows by dropping coins and then bending to pick them up.

Israeli border policemen load their weapons before patrolling at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City

Anyone wearing Jewish religious dress is generally kept away from the Islamic holy tract.

But now a group of Jewish activists are pressing for an end to the effective ban and their proposals are now being debated in the Israeli parliament, although a November committee hearing on the matter in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament dissolved into a shouting match between legislators and Arab Israeli lawmakers

'Today, Jews realize the Western Wall is not enough. They want to go to the real thing.'

Wedged into the compound atop the ramparts of Jerusalem's walled Old City is al-Aqsa, originally erected 1,300 years ago, rebuilt in the 11th century after an earthquake and now Islam's third holiest site, and the 7th-century golden Dome of the Rock shrine, the oldest known Islamic monument.

The plaza, from which the Prophet Mohammed is traditionally believed to have ascended into heaven, has an explosive past as a core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel captured the area, along with the rest of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Middle East war.

The Jewish state then annexed East Jerusalem as part of its capital in a move never recognised internationally.

In 2000, Palestinian protests over a visit to the site by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon spiralled into deadly clashes and a five-year Palestinian uprising in which thousands died.

Palestinian Religious Affairs Minister Mahmoud al-Habash said in May the conflict over the plaza 'may lead to an explosion' and that Palestinian authorities had complained to the United States and other Western intermediaries.

Palestinian concerns have been heightened, however, by the fact that allies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are among the most vocal advocates of Jewish prayer at the site.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has denounced the Israeli visits as a part of a 'dangerous and an evil plot to demolish al-Aqsa' and build what he calls 'an alleged temple'.

Dispute: The Temple Mount is a religious site found in the old city in East Jerusalem, covering an area of 35 acres

Also in May, Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a Jewish settler in the occupied West Bank who is from the far-right Jewish Home Party, said in a largely tongue-in-cheek remark in parliament that he would 'definitely be happy' to be assigned the job of rebuilding a new holy temple.

While some Jewish zealots advocate such construction, such a project has never been on the agenda of Israeli governments.

However, one member of Netanyahu's Likud party, legislator Tzipi Hotovely, visited the compound on the eve of her wedding earlier this year. She said her pilgrimage was symbolic of a historic yearning 'to rebuild on the ruins of Jerusalem'.

A Likud colleague, Miri Regev, has said the site should be shared between Islam and Judaism so that Jews could pray there openly.

Israeli police have barred further visits by another Likud lawmaker, Moshe Feiglin, an ultra-rightist who has been arrested in the past for what police said were attempts to worship on the plaza. Officials said they feared Feiglin's presence could stir violent Palestinian protests.

Most of those campaigning for Jewish prayer in the compound represent a far-right minority, but many Muslims 'see a provocation, and blame the (Israeli) government, so we have a big problem", said Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Reiter.

Many Orthodox Jews once rejected the idea of praying in the compound, citing religious rules barring anyone not descended from one of the ancient priests from stepping on hallowed ground where holy scriptures were once kept.

Israel has held Jewish prayers instead at the nearby Western Wall remnant of one of the ancient temples.

But the idea of holding prayers inside the elevated compound as well has acquired more political significance over the years.

Pro-settler Israelis fear that yielding any control over the compound could lead to a withdrawal from other occupied territory they see as a biblical birthright and which Palestinians seek for a state.

'This isn't a religious issue at all" Feiglin told Reuters in a recent interview.

'The question is who does the mount belong to, the Jews or the Arabs?'

Friction at the site also looms over an Israeli plan to expand the concrete prayer plaza at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites, to try and accommodate Jews seeking more liberal prayer services than most Orthodox custom permits.

Currently Israel must deploy hundreds of police to prevent violence whenever angry ultra-Orthodox protesters confront women activists who hold monthly prayer sessions at the site.

Muslims reject any Israeli construction in the area, though, and worry that any expansion of the Western Wall plaza may involve moving the footbridge at what is known as the Moghrabi Gate entrance to the compound and its Islamic holy sites.

***

Arutz Sheva

Hanukkah at Temple Institute: Working to Rebuild the Temple

Temple Institute Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, in Hanukkah speech announces work on a 'Kohen' school, to be ready for rebuilt Temple.

11/28/2013

A representative from The Temple Institute, an organization in Jerusalem which works toward the rebuilding of the Third Temple, stated in a Hanukkah speech Wednesday that a Cohen-priest training program is in place in anticipation of its rededication.

Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, the Director of the Institute, told Arutz Sheva Radio that he was also using special olive oil from Judea and Samaria Jewish olive groves for the candle-lighting ceremonies this year. "Israel needs to wake up and do what the Hasmoneans did - to rebuild the Temple with their own hands," he stated.

Hanukkah is a particularly important time for the Institute; the Hanukkah story revolves around the rededication of the Second Temple by the Maccabees after waging a bloody war against Greek invaders and assimilated Hellenist Jews.

Rabbi Ariel also stated that the Institute is opening a special school for Cohen-priests, who would service the Third Temple - and that over 40 men with Cohen lineage have signed up.

"Great scholars and priests in Israel will learn at our school," he stated. "We already have forty signed up, who have priestly garments suitable to their sizes." The clothes include every component of the traditional priestly garments, and are reportedly worth over 3000 shekel (just under one thousand dollars) per garment.

"All of this is in the hope that we will soon, please G-d, erect the Third Temple with our own hands, and be able to perform these preistly services in the Temple courtyard," he concluded.

***

CP Church and Ministry

Are Jews More Open to Jesus? New Study Shows Fewer Jews Ostracizing Messianics

BY TYLER O'NEIL , CP REPORTER

December 2, 2013|5:33 pm

Jews for Jesus Executive Director David Brickner addressing the students at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS) campus in Kansas City, Mo.(Photo courtesy of MBTS)

A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that over a third of the Jewish community accepts those who believe in Jesus as still Jewish. Leaders of the Messianic church, however, disagree as to whether or not this shows that Jews are more open to Jesus than in the past.

"A less hostile climate, a more open-minded climate" is pervading American Jewry, Messianic Jew Mitch Glaser, president of Chosen People Ministries, told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday. While he said that this doesn't mean Jews are hungry for Jesus, he said that this shift represents a unique opportunity for Messianic Jews to spread the Gospel.

Glaser explained that, "more than anything, the number one objection Jewish people have to believing in Jesus is that if they do, they have to stop being Jewish." While more than half of American Jews still consider Christianity incompatible with Judaism, Pew found that 34 percent do not. That number is even higher among ultra-Orthodox Jews, at 35 percent, and among ages 18-49, at 38 percent.

Nevertheless, "Jewish people today are defining themselves in non-religious terms," Glaser added. 68 percent of Jews think that not believing in God is compatible with being Jewish, and 47 percent of Jews who practice no religion say worshipping Jesus is compatible with being Jewish. "Belief in God is not as important to being Jewish as identifying with the ethnic or cultural identity," the president of Chosen People Ministries said.

"In general, the Jewish community is becoming more secular, but no less spiritual," Glaser argued. He claimed that this presents an opportunity. "I would say that Jewish people – particularly the younger people – are searching for a more personal spirituality that is not bound to any traditional Jewish denomination," he explained.

That means, Glaser argued, that "the bulk of the Jewish community is open to a Gospel presented in a Jewish way." He pushed for American Christians to present "more of a first century, Messianic Jewish Gospel to the Jewish people," and credited the work of Messianic Jewish ministries like Chosen People for this opening of minds and hearts.

Thanks to his ministry and the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, the Messianic Jewish Alliance, and Jews for Jesus, congregations in the United States and Israel "are not just saying you can be Jewish and believe in Jesus, but they are living it.

David Brickner, executive director for Jews for Jesus, disagreed that this recognition translates into more openness to the Gospel. Brickner acknowledged that "the 34 percent figure demonstrates that Messianic Jews have now just become more recognizable as part of the Jewish landscape," and he admitted that it is a positive sign. However, he warned that the numbers are easy to misunderstand.

"You know that phrase about statistics," Brickner quipped. "The 34 percent, that's wonderful in that it means we're on the map, but I don't think it means that 34 percent of the Jewish community are ready to receive Jesus."

Brickner reported on the work of Richard Harvey, visiting lecturer on the Hebrew Bible at All Nations Christian College in the United Kingdom. Harvey worked with the Pew researchers behind the poll, and he gave a more nuanced view of the 34 percent figure.

"The less affiliated the Jewish person is, the less educated they are, the more likely they are willing to acknowledge that there are Jews who believe in Jesus and that doesn't conflict with Jewish identity," Brickner explained. While a growing percentage of Jews welcome Messianics, they form the least connected, least educated, least influential sort. "The more engaged someone is with the Jewish community, the less likely they are to say that belief in Jesus is compatible with Jewish identity."

Even among the ultra-Orthodox, 35 percent of whom acknowledge Messianic Jews, still consider believers in Jesus as "absolutely not a part of the community."

Nevertheless, Brickner did share good news as well. Looking back, he mentioned two "amazing waves of the Holy Spirit." In the 1960s and 1970s, he noted, thousands of American Jews turned to Jesus. In the 1980s and 1990s, tens of thousands of Russian Jews came to Christ.

"Now we're witnessing the start of a third wave – in Israel among Israelis," Brickner argued. He recalled over 800 Israeli Jews who signed up to receive a Hebrew New Testament at an evangelistic campaign in Beersheba. "Israelis are hungry for the New Testament – it's almost like a pre-evangelized community," Brickner said.

***

CNN

Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid icon and father of modern South Africa, dies

December 6, 2013

***

Fox News

Bob Dylan charged in France for remarks about Croats in Rolling Stone interview

Published December 03, 2013FoxNews.com

FILE - This July 22, 2012 file photo shows U.S. singer-songwriter Bob Dylan performing on at "Les Vieilles Charrues" Festival in Carhaix, western France. (AP Photo)


Legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan has been charged with "public insult and inciting hate" in France following a complaint by a Croatian group based in that country over remarks made in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

Dylan, 72, was notified that he was under judicial investigation last month, when he was in Paris to receive the prestigious Legion d'Honneur award from the French government. Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre told the Associated Press Tuesday that the charges were filed in mid-November.

The interview in question was published by Rolling Stone in September 2012. At one point, Dylan said that racism was holding America back, saying "Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery – that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or (a Ku Klux) Klan (member) in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."

A group called the Council of Croats in France (CRICCF) filed a complaint with the French authorities in November 2012, claiming Dylan's remarks amounted to stirring up racial hatred against Croats.

"We have nothing against Rolling Stone magazine or Bob Dylan as a singer," CRICCF spokesman Vlatko Maric told the Guardian. "[But] you cannot equate Croatian [war] criminals with all Croats."

A lawyer for the group, Ivan Jurasinovic, told the Associated Press that they are not seeking monetary damages but only want the legendary singer to apologize to the Croatian people for the comments.

He did not say why they filed the case in France. France has strict laws punishing hate speech and racist remarks.

Representatives for Dylan could not immediately be reached for comment.

In the years prior to and during World War II, the Croation facist organization Ustashe killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, and other groups in death camps. More recently, Serbs and Croats fought on opposite sides during the break-up of Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995, a conflict that left an estimated 20,000 people dead. Dylan played concerts in both countries in 2010, and visited Belgrade in 1991, two weeks before Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia.

***

New American

Mass Unrest in Ukraine Amid Supposed Tug of War Between EU, Russia

In the midst of a supposed tug-of-war between two giant powers — the emerging Brussels-based European Union super-state and Vladimir Putin’s Russian government — massive protests rocked the streets of Ukraine and its capital, Kiev, in recent days. The oftentimes violent demonstrations, elements of which are aimed at deposing the current regime, came after Ukrainian authorities ditched controversial negotiations for closer trade relations with the EU in favor of an even more controversial tighter alliance with Moscow.

Amid the escalating turmoil, some analysts have suggested that there is mass deception at work — an effort to mislead the people of Ukraine with two orchestrated alternatives: closer links with Moscow, or deeper ties with the increasingly out-of-control entity ruling over much of Europe. Apparently being a sovereign nation and trading with all willing partners is not on the menu. Meanwhile, as part of a long-running trend in geopolitics, Kremlin-linked globalist voices are again calling for more “integration” between Russian authorities and the EU.

The latest round of unrest in Ukraine, the worst in almost a decade, began late last month when President Viktor Yanukovych’s government announced that it was backing out of talks with the EU. Yanukovych, a former member of the Communist Party during the Soviet era, remains closely affiliated with Moscow, which reportedly exerted strong pressure on Ukrainian officials to scrap the EU deal. Shortly after the announcement, though, tens of thousands of furious protesters swamped government buildings and clashed with police.

The so-called “Association Agreement” between the Ukrainian government and the sovereignty-crushing European bloc would have, among other developments, eased trade restrictions while showering IMF and EU taxpayer funds on Ukraine — with “strings” attached, of course. While it was not guaranteed, supporters of “integration” with the super-state in Brussels hoped the apparently defunct deal would have put the Ukrainian government on the road to full EU membership. Authorities in numerous other former Soviet-controlled Eastern European nations have already joined.

Instead of the EU deal, however, Yanukovych and his allies decided to pursue closer alignment with the Kremlin, which is working to build its own “Customs Union” transnational integration scheme with former Soviet-dominated countries. After the massive protests, Yanukovych said he was willing to “reconsider” talks with the EU, but analysts broadly suspect that unless his regime resigns or is ousted from power, Kiev will remain under Russian influence — at least for the foreseeable future. A bid in Parliament to oust the current Ukrainian leadership was narrowly rejected this week.

As the unrest escalated, Yanukovych took off for an official visit to the communist dictatorship ruling mainland China. Under heavy financial pressure and crushing debt, analysts claim the Ukrainian government and the nation itself need to borrow more money — whether from the West, Russia, or China, which has already lent it billions. Banks and ratings agencies commenting on the growing uproar in Ukraine largely warned of further risks to the economy, government bonds, and the hryvnia currency.

Russian officials have stood by Ukrainian authorities amid the escalating unrest after threatening to retaliate if the EU deal went forward. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, for example, said Moscow was watching events closely and that Kiev was an “important strategic partner” during meetings with a high-level Ukrainian delegation in the Russian capital. “We’re watching what’s happening in your country,” Medvedev was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti. “It’s an internal affair of Ukraine, though it’s really important to have stability and order there.”

Western officials, meanwhile, offered mixed reactions. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen blasted what he called the “excessive” use of force against protesters and called for an end to the violence from all sides. “Obviously we fully respect Ukrainian decisions on their alliance affiliations and to which organizations they want to belong or with which organizations they want to cooperate,” he claimed. “But I would expect such decision-making processes to be truly democratic.”

Polls cited in media reports suggest about 45 percent of Ukrainians supported the deal with the EU, while some 15 percent would prefer to join the Moscow-led “Customs Union” with the governments and regimes ruling Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The rest reportedly either rejected both integration schemes or were undecided. Other polls, however, have suggested that the public is more evenly split between the EU and the Customs Union.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in Brussels for a NATO summit at the time, cancelled a planned visit to Kiev and claimed there was “very powerful evidence” that the Ukrainian public wanted closer associations with the EU. “We stand with the vast majority of the Ukrainians who want to see this future for their country,” he told journalists, adding that he looked forward to visiting Ukraine “when it too gets back on the path of European integration and economic responsibility.” The Obama administration has also been threatening the British with “consequences” if, as polls suggest, they vote to secede from Brussels.

While the ongoing saga has largely been portrayed in the establishment press as a battle over Ukraine between the two behemoths — the EU and the Kremlin — some analysts are expressing suspicions about the narrative. “Ukrainian enthusiasm for the EU seems a kind of manipulated reality,” noted a staff analysis report about the situation in the market-oriented Daily Bell, adding that “whether the Ukraine stays within Russia’s ambit or crosses over is probably not going to make much of a difference in the long run.”

Noting that regional tensions between “East” and “West” reminiscent of the Cold War era were being reignited, the Daily Bellanalysts suggested that “the re-imposition of the dialectic is part of a larger manipulation now taking place throughout the world.” The idea, the analysis continued, is to foment largely bogus polarization as a tool to advance a broader agenda — something the establishment has long exploited to advance its aims.

“At the top of the ‘pyramid,’ elites use similar techniques and have similar goals and objectives,” they noted, dismissing the portrayal of Putin and his “mafia” as some sort of heroes ready to save the world from an out-of-control Western establishment. “And given the way the power elite works, we wouldn’t be surprised if there were ‘understandings’ at the top that transcended the evident hostilities between the BRICs and the West…. The current conflict in the Ukraine may be presented as one that pits East against West, but in reality the goal is always the same.”

Indeed, as The New American has documented even recently, the goal of eventually achieving “convergence” between “East” and “West” is now openly discussed even by top government officials. With the ongoing crisis in Kiev, the same mantra is back in the headlines yet again. In a Moscow Times column dubbed “How Russia and EU Can Build a Greater Europe,” for instance, veteran Putin apparatchik Sergei Markov described the vision clearly.

“Russia would like to build good relations with Europe, and it has proposed the Greater Europe project with that goal in mind,” Markov wrote, highlighting Moscow’s efforts to build a “Eurasian Union” after the Customs Union scheme. “At that point, the Eurasian Union could join with the EU to create a Greater Europe, gradually formalizing common economic and humanitarian practices, establishing a unified set of rules and the free flow of trade, capital, people and ideas. That would make for a very strong Europe.” At the same time, the Obama administration is working on an “integration” deal with the EU, too.

Strategically located in the heart of Eastern Europe, Ukraine has suffered from more than its fair share of government terror and brutality over the last century — particularly under Soviet rule, when Communist autocrats exterminated resisters and deliberately starved millions of Ukrainians into submission in the early 1930s as part of what many experts refer to as genocide. The New York Times and the establishment, of course, tried fiendishly to cover up and sugar-coat the horrors, but the facts slowly emerged anyway. National Socialist (Nazi) rule a decade later was brutal as well.

After Ukraine re-emerged as a supposed independent nation in 1991 after the “collapse” of the USSR, turmoil continued, but conditions seemed to be improving — even if slightly and slowly. Eventually, amid allegations of election fraud and corruption, mass political chaos and protests that analysts refer to as the “Orange Revolution” rocked Ukraine in late 2004. The latest demonstrations are reportedly the largest since then, and few expect the crisis to blow over any time soon.

As The New American has documented extensively, despite the apparent effort to create an impression of division and competition between the socialist and communist regimes ruling the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) against the Western establishment, even a brief perusal of official documents and statements would expose the purported split as largely manufactured for public consumption. In reality, Western leaders and the BRICS are all openly calling for an empowered United Nations, a global currency, and what many top officials from “East” and “West” have described as a “New World Order.”

Meanwhile, more than a few prominent voices have drawn parallels between the EU and communist totalitarianism. Former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev even approvingly described the Brussels-based super-state as “the new European Soviet” during a 2000 visit to Britain. Additionally, numerous top figures in the EU served barbaric communist dictatorships and were members of communist parties before joining the new and improved party in Brussels.

“What they did is they recreated the very evil system that the people in Eastern Europe had lived under before, but the incredible thing was that many of the new [EU] bosses had also worked for that same evil system before,” observed U.K. Independence Party leader and popular Member of the European Parliament Nigel Farage. He was referring, of course, to the Soviet-backed regimes ruling much of the region just two decades ago.

“The common denominator with the (EU) Commission is the sheer number of them that were communists or were very close to communism,” Farage said in a separate speech, pointing to EU commission boss José Manuel Barroso, a former Maoist revolutionary, and other known current or former communists in power at the EU. “We have at least 10 communists in this commission, and it must feel like a return to the good old days.”

More than a few analysts and political leaders, including the last president of the formerly communist-ruled Czech Republic, haveechoed those concerns. With the public narrative around Ukraine trying to portray the issue as some sort of “East vs. West” brouhaha, however, reality and the facts have been largely overlooked. In essence, it appears that Ukrainians are being bamboozled into embracing one of two bad options.

Better alternatives — independence and freedom, for example — have hardly even been mentioned amid the uproar.

***

Press TV

China plan to quit dollar infuriates US: Analyst

China is dropping the US dollar for other currencies.

Sun Dec 1, 2013

The decision by the Central Bank of China to no longer accumulate foreign exchange reserves in dollar has infuriated the United States, an analyst says.

Finian Cunningham made the remark in a Sunday column for Press TV amid escalation of tensions between US and China over Beijing's enforcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).

“The escalation of military tensions between Washington and Beijing in the East China Sea is superficially over China’s unilateral declaration of an air defense zone. But the real reason for Washington’s ire is the recent Chinese announcement that it is planning to reduce its holdings of the US dollar,” he wrote.

Cunningham said China “move to offload some of its 3.5 trillion in US dollar reserves” poses “a mortal threat to the American petrodollar and the entire American economy.”

“China - the second biggest economy in the world and a top importer of oil - has or is seeking oil trading arrangements with its major suppliers, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, which will involve the exchange of national currencies,” he wrote, warning that the development threatens “the petrodollar and its global reserve status.”

Cunningham said Beijing’s November 20 notice about plan to “shift its risky foreign exchange holdings” in US dollars for other currencies “is a harbinger that the American economy’s days are numbered.”

“But, in the imperialist, megalomaniac mindset of Washington, the ‘threat’ to the US economy and indebted way of life is perceived as a tacit act of war. That is why Washington is reacting so furiously and desperately to China’s newly declared air corridor. It is a pretext for the US to clench an iron fist,” concluded the analyst.

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Press TV

China daily calls UK ‘fallen power’ amid Cameron tour

British Prime Minister David Cameron (R) and Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang are seen here in this photo.

Tue Dec 3, 2013 2:20PM GMT

A Chinese state-run newspaper has taken the opportunity during the UK premier’s visit to the Asian country to slam Britain as a “fallen power only good as a destination for tourism and studying.”

“Britain is no longer any kind of 'big country', but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams," wrote the Global Times Chinese edition in its editorial.

David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, is leading Britain's largest trade mission to China, with more than 100 leaders from business, education, and cultural fields, along with six government ministers in attendance.

The Global Times also criticized Cameron for putting his weight behind calls for more democracy in Hong Kong, Britain’s former colony, and said “Britain is colluding with France and Germany to provoke China over the Dalai Lama.”

"We've discovered that Britain is easily replaceable in China's European foreign policy," said the editorial.

A similar editorial in the newspaper's English edition called Britain "just an old European country apt for travel and study."

***

New American

Uproar Grows Over Forced C-section to Seize Child in U.K.

Alex Newman
New American
December 4, 2013

After a pregnant Italian woman allegedly suffered from a “panic attack” during a two-week trip to the United Kingdom, government officials detained her in a psychiatric hospital, forcibly sedated her, cut the unborn child out of her womb via C-section, and then seized the newborn baby girl. More than a year later, U.K. authorities are still refusing to return the child to her mother. Now, however, the story is making headlines around the world, with critics and commentators up in arms, and British officials under global scrutiny for what is being called an “outrageous” abuse of power.

Some lawmakers are also seizing on the escalating outrage in a bid to rein in what they view as an out-of-control and dangerous system ripe for abuse. The issue is reportedly even set to be brought up in Parliament this week. After news of the forced C-section and child seizure sparked a global outcry, one Member of Parliament, or MP, was even quoted in the U.K. Daily Maildescribing social workers as “dictators” who are “unaccountable and out of control.” More than a few critics of the latest alleged abuse to hit the headlines have blasted it as “totalitarian,” too — with many analysts saying it is just one extreme example in a troubling pattern that is becoming increasingly serious.

Lawmakers from multiple parties across the political spectrum have already expressed outrage and serious concerns about the most recent case to come to light — as well as the social-services bureaucracy more broadly. “As an Essex MP, I have serious concerns about Essex children’s services,” Conservative “Tory” Parliamentarian Douglas Carswell was quoted as saying in British news reports. “They are unaccountable and out of control. These people are dictators who abuse their powers. They are arrogant bullies and people are frightened of them. They operate in secret, they have great powers, and they are unaccountable.”

MP John Hemming, meanwhile, a Liberal Democrat who chairs the Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign, has also seized on the latest horror story to emerge from Britain’s secret family courts. “I have seen a number of cases of abuses of people’s rights in the family courts, but this has to be one of the more extreme,” said the longtime campaigner for openness and reform in family court proceedings. Hemming is reportedly expected to raise the issue in Parliament this week as the public furor in Britain and around the world continues to grow louder.

Speaking to reporters from various media outlets, MP Hemming also suggested something even more sinister might be afoot — that officials are setting quotas for the number of children who must be seized from their parents in order to keep the lucrative “child-protection” machine running. “It is hard to avoid the suspicion that adoption targets set for Essex may have come into play,” he said, echoing widespread concerns expressed by analysts and commentators. “We do not know whether she was held in the U.K. as a favor for Essex social workers. We cannot know because of the disgraceful secrecy of the courts.”

The “Court of Protection,” a deeply controversial entity established in 2007 that decides individuals’ fates in secret, purportedly “authorized” the C-section to be performed without the victim even being made aware of what was being proposed, MP Hemming continued. “I worry about the way these decisions about a person’s mental capacity are being taken without any apparent concern as to the effect on the individual being affected,” he added. Now, calls for wide-ranging reforms are growing.

According to media accounts, the 35-year-old woman in the case — whose name has not been released due to secrecy laws surrounding such actions — traveled to Essex, England, while pregnant last summer for a work-related training course. During what was supposed to be a two-week stay, the mother reportedly could not find the passports of her two older daughters, which led to what is being described as a “panic attack.” Next, she called the police amid the incident before calling her mother in Italy. Officers arrived at her hotel shortly afterward and spoke with the woman’s mother in Italy over the phone, who suggested that her daughter was under stress from a “bipolar” condition and needed her medication.

The police at the scene then said they were taking the woman to the hospital simply “to make sure the baby was OK,” according to news reports. Instead of the hospital, however, the officers took the pregnant mother to a psychiatric facility, where she was detained against her will under the British so-called Mental Health Act. About five weeks later, local officials with the Essex social services sought, and obtained, a “High Court” order demanding that the woman be forcibly sedated and forced to deliver the child via surgical caesarean section. As soon as the baby girl was born, she was seized by authorities and taken into government care.

The child is 15 months old now, still trapped in the U.K. and separated from her mother. Despite the Italian mom’s desperate efforts to be reunited with her young daughter, officials in the shadowy and secret proceedings refuse to budge. In February, according to news reports, the mother had a court hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court, where her lawyers explained that she had resumed her medication. While the judge apparently “formed a favorable opinion of her,” he still ruled that the young girl should be placed for adoption, citing a “risk” that the mother could “relapse.”

“It is not a case where I can accede to the mother’s wishes even though I understand, not just the strength of feeling that she has, but it is rare to have it articulated in such a forceful and coherent form,”noted Judge Roderick Newton with Chelmsford County Court, the official who ruled that the child should be put up for adoption. “She begged the court not to agree to the care and placement orders being made so that she lost her daughter forever.” However, despite the mother’s desperate pleas, the judge agreed with social workers that the mother might possibly stop taking her medication again.

An Italian court, meanwhile, reportedly raised serious questions about the case and the draconian measures, expressing concerns about U.K. authorities taking such drastic actions without even working with the woman’s family or authorities in Italy. The mother’s relatives have even agreed to do everything they can, including care for the young girl, if officials insist on keeping the family torn apart. So far, however, Italian authorities have reportedly been powerless to help in the ongoing case.

Local Essex Council officials have refused to comment on the “ongoing” case. In a statement released this week, though, the council suggested it was all for the “best interest” of the child. “The long-term safety and well-being of children is always Essex County Council’s priority,” claimed the statement, quoted in news reports around the world. “Adoption is never considered until we have exhausted all other options and is never pursued lightly.”

However, the extraordinary case, which legal experts are calling “unprecedented,” is not over yet. The Italian woman’s British lawyer, Brendan Fleming, has vowed to keep fighting. “I have never heard of anything like this in all my 40 years in the job,” the attorney told The Sunday Telegraph. “I can understand if someone is very ill that they may not be able to consent to a medical procedure, but a forced caesarean is unprecedented. If there were concerns about the care of this child by an Italian mother, then the better plan would have been for the authorities here to have notified social services in Italy and for the child to have been taken back there.”

The deeply controversial case is now set to be transferred to a higher court, according to news reports. “The proceedings are not yet concluded,” a spokesman for the judiciary was quoted as saying. “The president [Sir James Munby] has ordered that the matter be transferred to the high court and any further applications in respect of the child are to be heard by him.” This will likely be the mother’s final chance to be reunited with her young daughter, according to her supporters.

As the case moves forward and public outrage grows, numerous high-profile charities, individuals, and organizations are joining the battle on behalf of the embattled mother — human-rights groups, patient advocates, prominent newspaper columnists, experts, lawmakers, and more. This particular tragedy might yet have a semi-happy ending, analysts have suggested. Still, critics of the broader system and its unbridled powers to rip families apart on a whim say it illustrates the urgent need for serious reform and accountability.

Korea Times

Dec. 2, 2013:

More than two and a half years have passed since the “meltdown” at Fukushima nuclear power plant but the exact extent of the damage remains uncertain. Worse, it has been left unrepaired. Thus, experts and citizens worry about the catastrophic impacts on health and safety. [...] Kim Ik-joong, a biology professor from Dongguk University, said that radiation at Fukushima nuclear power plant was at least seven times as much as that at Chernobyl [...]
More from microbiology Professor Kim Ik-joong: As the tainted water is spread over the ocean, we cannot rule out radioactive materials in fish from outside the eight prefectures, especially those from Hokkaido and Tokyo [...] It is true that about 70 percent of Japan’s territory is polluted [...] According to PNAS, a scientific journal published by Japanese scholars, about 20 percent of Japanese land, including Tokyo, is contaminated with highly toxic radiation. It is obvious that agricultural products are also contaminated as the land is polluted with radioactive materials. The contamination on land will last approximately 300 years.

The Japan Times

Japan: The new Uzbekistan of press freedom in Asia

BY JAKE ADELSTEIN

If you’re living in Japan, you may be surprised to know that your right to know has been replaced by the right to remain silent. Shhh … don’t protest. It’s practically a done deal.

The first rule of the pending state secrets bill is that a secret is a secret. The second rule is that anyone who leaks a secret and/or a reporter who makes it public via a published report or broadcast can face up to 10 years in prison. The third rule is that there are no rules as to which government agencies can declare information to be a state secret and no checks on them to determine that they don’t abuse the privilege; even defunct agencies can rule their information to be secret. The fourth rule is that anything pertaining to nuclear energy is a state secret, which means there will no longer be any problems with nuclear power in this country because we won’t know anything about it. And what we don’t know can’t hurt us.

The right to know has now officially been superseded by the right of the government to make sure you don’t know what they don’t want you to know.

Welcome to the new Dark Ages of Japan, brought to you by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and Your Party. If the economy and the actions of the government and its politicians seemed opaque up to now, the ruling bloc is making sure that it’s very solid obsidian. Every major news organization in Japan opposes the bill. Last week, thousands of ordinary citizens took to the street to protest the proposed legislation.

The LDP — ever sensitive to the will of the people — took decisive action to address the issue last Tuesday. A debate was held in the morning and televised by state broadcaster NHK. As soon as NHK cut off the broadcast, the LDP ended the debate and rammed the bill through the Lower House. Democracy in action. Only the Upper House remains.

The law has been compared to the pre-World War II Peace Preservation Law, which was used to arrest and jail any individual who opposed the government party line. “Japan already has a very weak freedom of information act which this will cripple,” said Yutaka Saito, a member of the Japan In-House Lawyers Association task force. “The bill takes everything bad about national security laws in the U.S. and then removes all the safeguards and checks.”

According to one survey, more than 80 percent of the public feels that the new law will be misused by the government to coverup scandals, corruption and troubling information. That mistrust in the government is well founded: the Minamata disease coverup on behalf of corporate interests in the ’60s; the HIV-tainted blood scandal in the ’90s; Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s moves to bury a whistle-blower report on nuclear safety problems at Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants in 2000.

Abe has assured us that the regulations for the bill clearly state that a third party organization should be put in place to keep checks on the system.

Should.

Should is an interesting word. You should brush your teeth. You should pay your taxes.

You should believe Prime Minister Abe when he tells that he doesn’t know notorious yakuza financier Icchu Nagamoto — even though he had his photo taken with him in 2008.

We should believe Abe and yet I don’t. Japan should have a society where people have a right to know what their government is doing and where freedom of the press is guaranteed.

Abe’s suggestion that there should be oversight does not mean that there will be. And judging by recent history, even if a token oversight committee is created, it will be about as effective as protecting the public’s right to know as the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency was in preventing a triple nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

On Nov. 27, Reporters Without Borders condemned the legislation cogently. “How can the government respond to growing demands for transparency from a public outraged by the consequences of the Fukushima nuclear accident if it enacts a law that gives it a free hand to classify any information considered too sensitive as a ‘state secret’?” the organization said. “By imposing heavy penalties on those who obtain classified information . . . and then publish it, Parliament is making investigative journalism illegal, and is trampling on the fundamental principles of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and ‘public interest.’ ”

Reporters Without Borders also noted that Japan’s ranking in the press freedom index had taken a record fall of 31 places from its position in 2012 to a new low of 53 out of 179 countries.

If the state secrets law is passed, Japan’s press freedom ranking next year is expected to sink to nearly Uzbekistan or China levels. Welcome to the land of the setting sun. Let’s see how much darker it will get.

***

Mediaite

Expert Testifies to Congress that Obama’s ‘Ignoring Laws’ Could Lead to Overthrow of Government

Noah Rothman
Mediaite
December 4, 2013

During a congressional committee hearing about the constitutional limits imposed on the presidency and the implications of President Barack Obama’s disregard for implementing the Affordable Care Act as written, one expert testified that the consequences of the president’s behavior were potentially grave. He said that the precedent set by Obama could eventually lead to an armed revolt against the federal government.

On Tuesday, Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, testified before a congressional committee about the dangers of the president’s legal behavior.

“There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restrains that the constitution places on the government,” Cannon said. “Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

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SHTFplan.com

VAPORIZED: Detroit Obliterates Retirement Funds: 80% Cuts to Pensioners: “This Is Going to Affect Everyone”

Mac Slavo

December 3rd, 2013

Though a decade ago civil servants and union members would never have believed it could happen, the stark reality of the situation came to pass this morning.

We now know the answer to the question: What happens when a government makes promises it can’t keep and borrows so much money it can never be repaid?

This morning a judge overseeing the City of Detroit’s fiscal sustainability ruled that the City can be afforded bankruptcy protection, meaning that all 100,000 of its creditors now stand to lose a significant portion of monies owed to them.

The most notable victims are the tens of thousands of retirees living off of pensions – many of whom will see an 80% obliteration of the retirement funds they believed they’d receive until they died.

Creditor attorneys have repeatedly speculated they expect Orr’s plan of adjustment to mirror the June 14 proposal he offered creditors to avoid bankruptcy. That deal proposed giving unsecured creditors such as pensioners and bondholders a $2 billion note for $11.5 billion in estimated debts — or less than 18 cents for every dollar owed.

Most of those affected assumed the government would simply find a way to borrow more money or fabricate it out of thin air. They were wrong and now they are paying the price:

“Oh my, oh my. Everyone is worried. When we think about what could happen, it’s scary,” said Larsen, 85, who moved to Palm Harbor, Fla., outside of Tampa after he retired in 1976.

“If they take our health insurance? Oh god. Cutting pensions? It’s terrible. The city of Detroit was our pride. Honest to goodness. We loved it.”

…

“We are all worried,” said Nancy Schmidt, the group’s secretary. “This is going to affect everyone in different ways. If it comes to fruition, I’ve got two empty bedrooms and I may end up having to rent them out.”

…

“My net pension is $2,300 a month,” said Kammer, 77, who moved to Englewood, Fla., not long after retiring with a disability in 1977.

“I could make it for a while, go through savings, but pretty soon, I’d end up in bankruptcy.”

…

“(Retirees) feel like something that they’ve earned and were promised is being taken away from when they’re not in a position in their lives to plan for it and fight back,” Plecha said. “They’re at a time in their lives when they’re most vulnerable.”

Detroit is the first and they have now set a precedent for other cities in similar situations. You can be assured that more will follow.

First it will be the cities. Then the states will go under. And finally, the Grand-Poobah – our own Federal government. Detroit’s debts are pocket change compared to the $200 trillion in future liabilities owed by the United States of America.

If you are depending on a government retirement package to be there for you for the rest of your life, you’d better think again. Over twenty thousand Detroit retirees thought the same thing – and as of today they have been wiped out.

When this crisis hits the Federal Government – and it will – you’d better be ready for them to take drastic measures. This means they’ll be forced to not only cut retirement benefits promised to federal employees, but will make the case that if they have to give up their retirement funds, you’ll have to give up your 401k, IRA or personal savings.

Sounds impossible, right? Congressional members have already gotten the ball rolling on a nationalization of America’s retirement funds, and when they are ready to do it they’ll pass the legislation just like they did when they seized 1/6th of our economy by nationalizing health care.

They are coming for the money – YOUR money – because they will be left with no other choice.

If you’re not planning on a secondary income stream or preserving wealth in the form of gold and silver, productive land, or other tangible assets, you’ll end up just like the retirees from Detroit. Having additional resources, like a well stocked long-term pantry and a preparedness plan for financial disaster, can mean the difference between living in poverty or thriving when best laid plans fall apart.

Plan for the worst, because that’s what’s coming.

***

Time Magazine

The 25 Best Inventions of the Year 2013

The Edible Password Pill

By TIME Staff Nov. 13

Maintaining complicated passwords is imperative if you want to avoid getting hacked, but memorizing them can be a daunting task. Enter Motorola’s Edible Password Pill, which is exactly as dystopian as it sounds. Swallowed once daily, the pill consists of a tiny chip that uses the acid in your stomach to power it on. Once activated, it emits a specific 18-bit EKG-like signal that can be detected by your phone or computer, essentially turning your body into a password. Though the pill has cleared the major hurdle of acquiring FDA approval, it’s not scheduled to hit shelves anytime soon. Motorola, however, is owned by Google, so perhaps sometime in the future, logging in to Gmail will be as easy as swallowing a pill.

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WND

STUNNINGLY HUGE CANCER THREAT UNCOVERED

Dozens of studies result in 'a real game-changer'

Published: 12/04/13

BOB UNRUH

A new meta-analysis of studies concludes that a single abortion raises the risk of breast cancer for a woman by an astonishing 44 percent.

Professor Joel Brind, a science adviser for the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer who reached a similar conclusion in 1996, called the finding a “real game-changer” in the controversy over the link between abortion and breast cancer.

The new study’s conclusion comes amid legal battles against Obamcare’s requirement that employers pay for abortifacients and steroid drugs, commonly known as birth control pills.

The analysis by Yubei Huang, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Causes and Control, looked at all 36 studies that have been done in China regarding the risk of developing breast cancer for women who have had at least one induced abortion.

The risk rocketed 44 percent, Huang found, after one abortion. After two, the risk rose to 76 percent. After three, it climbed to 89 percent.

Brind said his 1996 study was attacked by abortion advocates “entrenched in universities, medical societies, breast cancer charities, journals, and especially, government agencies like the National Cancer Institute,” the NCI.

“In reality, the NCI is just another corrupt federal agency like the IRS and the NSA,” he asserted.

Brind said that despite the evidence, abortion advocates “have viciously been attacking pro-life pregnancy resources centers (PRCs) for ‘lying’ to women by telling them about the ABC link as a reality.”

But now comes the confirming Chinese study.

“Not only does it validate the earlier findings from 1996, but its findings are even stronger,” he said.

First, it documents a 44 percent breast cancer risk increase with a single abortion.

It also confirms the “dose effect,” that more abortions results in a higher risk, he said.

“Risk factors that show such a dose effect have more credibility in terms of actually causing the disease,” he noted.

Third, he pointed out the China study’s statement that the “lack of a social stigmas associated with induced abortion in China may limit the amount of underreporting.”

Other studies, she said, have been attacked based on the assumption that many women have abortions but won’t admit it, keeping their healthy results out of the study tabulations.

That “line of attack,” he said, “has now been neutralized.”

And he noted studies from India and Bangladesh earlier this year “reported breast cancer risk increases of unprecedented magnitude: over 600 percent and over 2,000 percent, respectively, among women who had any induced abortions.”

Americans must pay attention, he said, because of the pending U.S. Supreme Court cases over Obamacare’s required coverage of abortion and contraceptives.

He noted the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer and the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute have filed briefs in the cases.

‘Women do want to know’

Dr. Jane Orient, a spokeswoman for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, told WND it is outrageous that American health care providers are not more aggressive and deliberate in warning women of the risk of a fatal cancer if they choose to abort.

“Women do want to know,” she said. “The abortion interests do not want them to know this. The medical establishment has been behind the effort to conceal it [the link].”

Reggie Littlejohn, whose organization Womens Rights Without Frontiers focuses on China’s forced-abortion policy, said the warning to women around the world is clear.

“Obviously this does not simply apply to Chinese women, but to all women. When we’re talking about informed consent in the U.S., women need to be informed of the very strong link between abortion and breast cancer,” she said.

She said the documentation turns the Chinese policy of one-child limits and forced abortion into secondary women’s rights violations. The first violation is when hundreds of thousands of unborn girls are aborted each year in a society that stands on the primacy of males. The second is when an aborted baby girl’s mother faces the much higher risk of breast cancer.

Her organization noted the Chinese work was done by a team of epidemiologists from Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital.

The study found induced abortion “significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases.”

Historically, China had had a low breast cancer rate compared to Western nations, but over the last two decades the rate has “increased at an alarming rate,” the study said.

The increase was parallel to China’s one-child policy, which includes forced abortions, the report said.

“This groundbreaking study reveals yet another human rights violation in connection with China’s one-child policy: Forcibly aborted women are also at significantly higher risk of breast cancer,” Littlejohn said.

“Not only do the women of China have to endure the tremendous trauma of late-term forced abortion, taking their babies from them; but also, years later, breast cancer, taking their health and even their lives from them,” she said.

Littlejohn said the strong association of abortion and breast cancer established by the new study “brings the women’s rights violations under the one child policy to a new level: a woman pregnant in China without a birth permit is subjected to both government-imposed forced abortion, and also breast cancer as a result of it.”

“Where abortion is forced, the subsequent development of breast cancer becomes a violation of women’s rights in itself,” she said.

The study looked at 36 articles (two cohort studies and 34 case-control studies) covering 14 provinces in China.

Just months ago, the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, published a study showing the rate of metastatic breast cancer in women ages 25 to 39 nearly doubled between 1976 and 2009, from 1.53 to 2.9 per 100,000.

The American Council on Science and Health calls the increase “slight.” But at the time, Orient pointed out there has been no corresponding increase in older women.

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said it was “utterly stunning” that lead author Rebecca Johnson’s team called the increased incidence in advanced cancers among young women “small.”

“That’s a nearly doubled increase in the incidence of a disease with a mean five-year fatality rate of 69 percent,” she said. “By contrast, the mean five-year fatality rate among women with breast cancers that have not spread to distant sites is 13.2 percent.”

And what distinguishes the younger women from the older? The sexual revolution, said Orient.

“Young women in huge numbers have taken higher doses of hormones than their menopausal sisters – in birth-control pills,” she said.

It was in 2005 when the World Health Organization classified oral contraceptives as Class-1 carcinogens, one of only about 100 substances found to be “carcinogenic in humans.”

Orient said breast cancer is generally hormone sensitive and is often treated with anti-estrogens. Pregnancy is the most important cause of a high estrogen level.

She noted estrogen increases by 2,000 percent by the end of the first trimester, increasing cancer vulnerability. However, by the end of pregnancy, 85 percent of breast-cancer tissue has become cancer-resistant because of hormones made by the fetal-placenta presence.

That means a completed pregnancy protects against breast cancer. The protection is lost when a pregnancy is aborted, making a woman even more vulnerable to breast cancer.

Buried by politics

Orient said there have been dozens of studies that have shown a significant increase in breast cancer in women who have had an abortion.

In 2010, Bradley Mattes, executive director of the Life Issues Institute told WND that for years, major research institutes have denied any link between abortion and breast cancer because the issue has been “politicized.”

“It’s not politically correct to acknowledge that,” said Mattes. “It took many years for the link between smoking and lung cancer to be acknowledged.”

“They deny there’s a link between abortion and breast cancer,” Mattes told WND at the time. “Even if the media came down and hit them in the head, I don’t believe that they’d change their mind because they believe abortion is a positive.”

WND reported in 2007 a study showed abortions could be classified as carcinogens, because the number of breast cancer cases could be predicted reasonably accurately based on the number of abortions in a given population.

The study, “The Breast Cancer Epidemic: Modeling and Forecasts Based on Abortion and Other Risk Factors,” was done by Patrick S. Carroll of London-based research institute PAPRI. The results were published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The study showed that among risk factors, abortion is the “best predictor of breast cancer.”

WND reported in 2005 that for the first time, an abortion clinic had accepted an order of judgment for performing the procedure without informing the patient of psychological risks and increased risk of breast cancer.

The lawsuit against the All Women’s Health Services clinic in Portland, Ore., was the second of its kind in the U.S. to be successfully prosecuted but the first to obtain a judgment.

Jonathan Clark, attorney for the 19-year-old plaintiff, told WND he believed the judgment “makes a pretty powerful statement about the science,” indicating the clinic was not willing to argue against the claim that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer.

In 2010, WND columnist Jill Stanek, a pro-life activist, also reported on the link between birth control and breast cancer.

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer has posted online links to various studies on the subject, and Stanek wrote about a 2009 study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

The 2009 study found a 40 percent increased risk of contracting breast cancer under the age of 40 if a woman has had an abortion.

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Waking Times

Study Exposes The Exact Effect of Energy Drinks On The Heart

December 3, 2013
Natasha Longo, Prevent Disease
Waking Times

Energy Drinks have been found to cause irreversible damage to tooth enamel and detrimentally affect the contraction of the heart. According to an ongoing study reported at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the popular drinks consumed by millions not only increase contractility of the heart, but they may cause long-term health risks.

At the annual Chicago meeting Jonas Dorner MD from the University of Bonn’s cardiovascular imaging section, who is working on the study, said that until now, no-one had worked out the exact effects of energy drinks on heart functioning.

Citing concerns over possible adverse side effects of energy drinks on heart function, especially in adolescents and young adults, Dorner said there was “little or no regulation” of the US market.

A recent study published in the May/June 2012 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry, found that an alarming increase in the consumption of sports and energy drinks, especially among adolescents, is causing irreversible damage to teeth–specifically, the high acidity levels in the drinks erode tooth enamel, the glossy outer layer of the tooth.

3 Times Higher Caffeine

Noting that caffeine levels in energy drinks are up to three times higher than in other caffeinated drinks including coffee or cola, Dorner said known side-effects included a rapid heart rate, palpitations, a rise in blood pressure “and in the most severe cases, seizures or sudden death”.

Manufactured by the chemical industry, synthetic caffeine is big business in many drinks that contain the drug.

NATURAL CAFFEINE: Natural, real caffeine comes from various plant species. Caffeine content within these plants will vary throughout the year depending on weather, soil conditions, time of year harvested, etc. So caffeine content is impossible and impractical to determine for labeling on products like coffee or tea. They have constantly changing amounts. Naturally caffeinated products will not have caffeine as an ingredient or measurement on the label.

SYNTHETIC CAFFEINE: The first sign the caffeine in your drink is synthetic is it is listed on the label and has an exact measurement. This is the cheapest & most common added caffeine source. The processes & compounds may vary between chemical companies, but they are all disturbing.

FORTIFIED CAFFEINE: Still usually synthetic, caffeine can be obtained from the coffee decaffeination industry, although it is substantially pricier and rarely used. This will also note caffeine on the label with a measurement. Caffeine supplies from this industry use methylene chloride, formaldehyde or ethyl acetone for it’s removal. There is no such thing as removing the caffeine with just water.

Significantly Higher Peak Strain

Dorner and colleagues used cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the effect of energy drink consumption on heart function in 18 healthy volunteers — 15 men and three women with an average age of 27.5 years.

Each subject was given one cardiac MRI before consuming an energy drink containing taurine (400mg/100ml) and caffeine (32mg/100ml), and another one hour after consumption.

The second MRI scan showed significantly higher peak strain and peak systolic strain rates (measures of ‘contractility’ or level of heart contraction) in the heart’s left ventricle.

This receives oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumps it to the aorta, which then distributes it throughout the rest of the body.

Toxic Preservatives and Sweeteners

All energy drinks including Nos, Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster, Full Throttle and several others all contain many of the following toxic ingredients.

SUCRALOSE
Splenda/sucralose is simply chlorinated sugar; a chlorocarbon. Common chlorocarbons include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene and methylene chloride, all deadly. Chlorine is nature’s Doberman attack dog, a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WWI poison gas and hydrochloric acid. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 11 to 27 percent of ingested sucralose is absorbed by the human body (FDA 1998). Research published by the manufacturer of sucralose (Roberts 2000) shows that when 8 healthy male adults where given sucralose (in 1 mg/kg amounts), between 10.4% and 30.6% of the sucralose was absorbed. In addition, 1.6% to 12.2% of the sucralose accumulates in the body.

ASPARTAME
Aspartame is a multi-potential carcinogen, even consumed daily at 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. That is a lower quantity than the maximum recommended by the FDA (50 mg/kg of body weight) and the European Union (40 mg/kg).

It increases the incidence of malignant tumours in rats. In the females it increases leukaemia and lymphomas, as well as cancerous cells in the pelvis and urethra. In the males, it especially increases the incidence of malignant tumours in peripheral nerves. How Deadly is Aspartame?

ACE-K
Acesulfame-K(Potassium) represents one of the food additives used for sweetening aliments and drinks. It is approved by the FDA, but there are several potential problems correlated with consumption of this food additive. Even though there are many studies that attest its safety, acesulfame potassium is still suspected of causing benign thyroid tumors. In rats, the development of such tumors took only 3 months, a period in which the concentration of this additive in the consumed food was between 1 and 5 percent. This is a very short period of time, so the substance is believed to have significant carcinogenic properties. Methylene chloride, a solvent used in the manufacture of acesulfame potassium, is the substance that may give the food additive its potential carcinogenic characteristics.

POTASSIUM BENZOATE
Benzoate damages an important area of DNA in the “power station” of cells known as the mitochondria. This chemical has the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether. It is an artificial color and considered a carcinogenic poison used to make foods and other products more visually appealing or appetizing.

POTASSIUM PHOSPHATE
There are dozens of different phosphate-containing food additives used in hundreds of processed foods. Studies show that even among healthy adults, people with higher phosphate levels have higher mortality rates. Phosphates cause a more rapid progression of the specific ailments such as chronic kidney disease. Phosphate additives have also been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and they’re linked to accelerated aging and interfering with the way your body activates vitamin D.

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP

High fructose corn syrup causes insulin resistance, diabetes,hypertension, increased weight gain, and not to mention is manufactured from genetically modified corn.

Results recently presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting showed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) also cause behavioural reactions similar to those produced by drugs of abuse such as cocaine.

Increased consumption of HFCS also results in depletion of chromium in the body, which is important is helping glucose pass from the bloodstream into the cells.

According to two recent U.S. studies, almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient.

POTASSIUM SORBATE
Food and chemical toxicology reports have labeled potassium sorbate as a carcinogen, showing postive mutation results in the cells of mammals. Other studies have shown broad systemic and toxic effects on non-reproductive organs in animals. No long term studies have ever been initiated on either animals or humans, so there is simply not enough evidence to theorize what could happen after years of ingesting this preservative. However, based on short-term carcinogenic and toxic effects, is it worth the risk to find out?

Long-Term Health Risks ‘Unknown’

Dorner said further studies are needed to understand how higher heart contractility affects daily activities or athletic performance, and to discover how long the effect of the drink lasts.

Dorner said that the long-term heart health risks linked to energy drinks are unknown, but advises that children and people with known cardiac arrhythmias, and says new studies are needed to assess the risk posed by energy drinks in tandem with alcohol.

Heart Foundations are refusing to comment on the unpublished research or whether greater heart contractility is necessarily a bad thing.

The RSNA represents 53,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists and publishes two peer-reviewed journals, Radiology and RadioGraphics.

About the Author

Natasha Longo has a master’s degree in nutrition and is a certified fitness and nutritional counselor. She has consulted on public health policy and procurement in Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany.

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Healthy Debates

What A Week Of Groceries Looks Like Around The World

Written by | December 2, 2013

(Thomas Ingersoll) It seems as a people, we have a fascination with photographing our food. From Henry’s series of riders, to looking on instagram we cant help but document what we consume. Photographer Peter Menzel started this intriguing series of one weeks of groceries from around the world, taking traditional food photography to a much larger scale.


Mexico

Great Britain

USA

Australia

Germany

Italy

Canada

France

Japan

China

Poland

Kuwait

Mongolia

Turkey

Mali

India

Bhutan

Chad

Ecuador

Guatemala

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Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“A man that hath travelled knoweth many things; and he that hath much experience will declare wisdom.”
(Ecclesiasticus 34:9)