“Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”
(John 18:37)
Every one That Is Of The Truth

Dear Friends,

Greetings! The dictionary definition of aggregater is “a website or program that collects related items of content and displays them or links to them.”

This is exactly what “People of the Keys” does.

We present articles every week, the majority focusing on current events, and often the relationship to their development and fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

As our lead article this week demonstrates the role of “aggregater” may soon become very difficult if not impossible. This is because of the implementation of copyright laws which would effectively make it a criminal offense to publish or link to any web site (which has not given explicit permission to use their material) even though it may be freely available on the Web.

What this would do, and this is the reason they want to do this, is to silence the alternative media and make the mainstream media the only source of information dissemination.

There are of course an untold number of sites that could be classified as an aggregater site.

One of the best known of these sites is “The Drudge Report” with approximately ninety million hits a month.

The following is a quote from a recent interview with Matt Drudge.

“I had a Supreme Court Justice tell me it’s over for me,” They’ve got the votes now to enforce copyright law, you’re out of there. They’re going to make it so you can’t even use headlines.”

“To have a Supreme Court Justice say to me it’s over, they’ve got the votes, which means time is limited,” he added.

Later on the same article points out that: “Already in the UK, essentially, to be a news or current affairs publisher you must be registered as such with a government regulatory body. That this is a despicable idea goes without saying...This effectively censors the entire world’s press and media in the United Kingdom.”

They may try to stop the truth from reaching the people, but we can be reassured that He will always have a voice as demonstrated in Revelation, chapter eleven, verse three.

“I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” right on through the darkest days of the Great Tribulation.

Have a great week ahead.

We also wanted to mention the documentary concerning the true location of Solomon's and Herod's Temple is still in the editing stage. It turned out to be much more material than we had originally envisioned and is taking longer to put together. We apologize for any inconvenience, but it is coming, God willing.

***

EXPRESS

Scientists at Large Hadron Collider hope to make contact with PARALLEL UNIVERSE in days

SCIENTISTS conducting a mindbending experiment at the Large Hadron Collider next week hope to connect with a PARALLEL UNIVERSE outside of our own.

By PAUL BALDWIN

PUBLISHED: 00:49, Sat, Oct 17, 2015 | UPDATED: 13:26, Sat, Oct 17, 2015

Collision course: Large Hadron Collider could discover parallel universe Getty

The staggeringly complex LHC ‘atom smasher’ at the CERN centre in Geneva, Switzerland, will be fired up to its highest energy levels ever in a bid to detect - or even create - miniature black holes.

If successful a completely new universe will be revealed – rewriting not only the physics books but the philosophy books too.

It is even possible that gravity from our own universe may ‘leak’ into this parallel universe, scientists at the LHC say.

The experiment is sure to inflame alarmist critics of the LHC, many of whom initially warned the high energy particle collider would spell the end of our universe with the creation a black hole of its own.

But so far Geneva remains intact and comfortably outside the event horizon.

Indeed the LHC has been spectacularly successful. First scientists proved the existence of the elusive Higgs boson ‘God particle’ - a key building block of the universe - and it is seemingly well on the way to nailing ‘dark matter’ - a previously undetectable theoretical possibility that is now thought to make up the majority of matter in the universe.

But next week’s experiment is considered to be a game changer.

Mir Faizal, one of the three-strong team of physicists behind the experiment, said: “Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two dimensional objects [breadth and length] can exist in a third dimension [height], parallel universes can also exist in higher dimensions.

“We predict that gravity can leak into extra dimensions, and if it does, then miniature black holes can be produced at the LHC.

"Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every possibility is actualised.

"This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science.

“This is not what we mean by parallel universes. What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions.

Atom art: An image of two protons smashed together at the LHC Getty

“As gravity can flow out of our universe into the extra dimensions, such a model can be tested by the detection of mini black holes at the LHC.

“We have calculated the energy at which we expect to detect these mini black holes in ‘gravity's rainbow’ [a new scientific theory].

“If we do detect mini black holes at this energy, then we will know that both gravity's rainbow and extra dimensions are correct."

When the LHC is fired up the energy is measured in Tera electron volts – a TeV is 1,000,000,000,000, or one trillion, electron Volts

So far, the LHC has searched for mini black holes at energy levels below 5.3 TeV.

But the latest study says this is too low.

Instead, the model predicts that black holes may form at energy levels of at least 9.5 TeV in six dimensions and 11.9 TeV in 10 dimensions.

***

TruePublica

Is The End Of Independent News In Sight?

12th October 2015

Is the end of the news aggregator, independent news and websites of bloggers in sight?

According to Matt Drudge it is. He is an American political commentator and the creator and editor of the Drudge Report, an online news aggregator.

His website, according to Alexa has a global website rank of 616 and ranks in the USA at 132 and according to Quantcast is receiving, we think around 3 million hits a day or 90 million a month.

In a startling unscheduled interview with Alex Jones on infowars.com Drudge warns “that the very foundation of the free Internet is under severe threat from copyright laws that could ban independent media outlets, revealing that he was told directly by a Supreme Court Justice, “It’s over for me.”

Drudge claimed that copyright laws will prevent websites such as Drudge Report from linking to news stories.

Drudge explained “I had a Supreme Court Justice tell me it’s over for me,” They’ve got the votes now to enforce copyright law, you’re out of there. They’re going to make it so you can’t even use headlines.”

“To have a Supreme Court Justice say to me it’s over, they’ve got the votes, which means time is limited,” he added.

Drudge ominously claimed that a day was coming soon when simply operating any independent website could be completely outlawed.

He also said in the 45 minute interview – “That will end it for me – fine – I’ve had a hell of a run,” mentioning as well that web users were being forced into the cyber “ghettos” of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Drudge went on to warn that the social media giants like Twitter and Facebook were literally devouring up content and strangling the organic growth of independent Internet news platforms. News aggregators like Google News was also mentioned; “Google News – hello anybody? The idiots reading that crap think there is actually a human there – there is no human there – you are being programmed to being automated even up to your news….a same corporate glaze over everything,” said Drudge.

“I’m just warning this country that yes, don’t get into this false sense that you are an individual when you’re on Facebook, no you’re not, you’re a pawn in their scheme,” said Drudge.

It’s an interesting battleground that has been fought over in the last few years that Drudge feels is already lost.

One of America’s most influential conservative judges, Richard Posner, has proposed a ban on linking to online content without permission. The idea, he said in a blog post, is to prevent aggregators and bloggers from linking to newspaper websites without paying.

“Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion”.

As The Guardian points out, not only would Posner stop online media dead in their tracks, but he would also overturn long-established rules of fair use, which, among others things, allow for the reproduction of short excerpts of copyrighted material for the purposes of commentary, parody and the like – precisely what bloggers and aggregators do all the time.

In the end, Posner has conveniently forgotten, or somehow wasn’t aware that bloggers and aggregators do in fact drive considerable traffic to news sites, resulting in many more users seeing that content and therefore seeing their advertising that in itself drives up revenue.

In the EU, the law seems more water-tight … for now. Websites can link to freely available content without the permission of the copyright holder, the European Court of Justice says.

In this case, the court’s decision came after a dispute in Sweden between journalists and a web company that had posted links on its site to online news articles. A Swedish court had asked the EU court to consider whether this broke copyright law.

It established that The “position would be different” for links that bypass a paywall but in this case there was no case to answer.

Then there was an appeal. The court had to consider whether, under EU copyright law, authors have the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit any communication to the public of their works.

The court ruled that the law had not been broken because the articles in question were on the website in question and therefore already “freely available”.

“If the decision had gone the other way it would have broken the internet,” said Susan Hall, technology lawyer at Clarke Willmott. “The way we communicate online is predicated on sharing material, whether that’s links to Robert Peston on Bank of England interest rates, decisions of the European court or pictures of otters who look like Benedict Cumberbatch,” she said.

In the case of Matt Drudge, he then warned the American public about such cases making their way up the court system.

“You thought Obamacare was shocking? You thought some of these other decisions were shocking? Wait until these copyright laws work their way up and the Supreme Court decides you cannot have a website with news headlines linking across the board.”

Drudge is thought to be worth something in the region of $90-100 million and if he thinks its not worth the fight, then nor will anyone else.

What could change the rules in the EU is the The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and a proposed US-EU trade agreement that, similar to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), is being negotiated behind closed doors and could have negative impacts on copyright and Intellectual Property (IP) rights for the European and American public. At the moment we really don’t know the details due to the highly dubious and suspicious nature of the secret agreement.

Already in the UK, essentially, to be a news or current affairs publisher you must be registered as such with a government regulatory body. That this is a despicable idea goes without saying: it’s a reversal of the past three hundred years of liberty where we’ve been allowed to say or print whatever we want to subject only to the laws of libel, incitement to violence and pressing concerns of national security.

If a news or current affairs publisher is taken to court, by anyone, including the state, and not registered then no matter the outcome, in all circumstances, win or lose, the publisher can’t claim costs.

Worse, it doesn’t matter where your servers are. For that’s not what defines publication. It also doesn’t matter who the material is aimed at: nor even what language it is in. Publication happens if someone in the UK downloads whatever it is. That, in itself, is the act of publication. This effectively censors the entire world’s press and media in the United Kingdom.

If the copyright laws in the US do go the way that Drudge says then one can only assume that the UK’s downloading rules will also apply there.

The three politicians in the UK in 2013 who dreamt up this suppression strategem were the Prime Minister- David Cameron, the Leader of the Opposition -Ed Miliband and the Deputy Prime Minister – Nick Clegg. In itself, that’s an interesting commentary on the quality of those individuals and what they think of democracy and freedom of speech more generally.

With a US supreme court judge openly threatening one of the worlds biggest websites that its days are over for linking news stories, it is very worrying that the interests of corporate media looks set to totally dominate the internet, dictate the debate and determine what you see and read.

GrahamVanbergen – TruePublica

***

AWDnews

Putin to Russian army officers: operation 'Salvation' shall begin soon, you must prepare to cleanse Syria from Obama's terrorists

16 September 2015

Addressing the Russian top brass on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin lambasted U.S. Middle-East policy for being 'disastrous' as Saudi-backed rebels vowed to purge Syria and Iraq from Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities.

"We have nearly two million orthodox Christians in the Levant—Syria and Lebanon— and approximately 5 million Christians across Middle-East. Regardless of America's presidential election outcome, White House craves chaos in that oil-rich region by supporting fanatic Islamist organizations, i.e. ISIS and al-Nusra Front," Moskovskaya Pravda cited the Russian president as saying.

It is morally incumbent upon Russia to change this terrible status quo in the Middle-East , added Mr.Putin , prepare for operation 'Salvation' and with God almighty's aid , we shall cleanse Syria from Obama's ruthless terrorists.

Amid accusations from the United States that Moscow is beefing up its military presence in Syria, there are unconfirmed satellite pictures and intelligence reports about building several runways across Syria suitable for landing the giant Antonov An-225 Mriya , allegedly transferring battle tanks, heavy armored vehicles, offensive weapons and Russian elite forces to be deployed and then engaged directly with radical terrorist groups.

White House spokesperson criticized on Tuesday Russian military movement in Syria, suggesting Moscow tries to establish a central air base at an airfield south of Latakia Province – President Assad's stronghold– that has been at the heart of a recent Russian military buildup in Syria.

Russia has been providing arms to Damascus since Soviet times and Moscow has been the key international ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict that started with Islamist rebellion against Syria's secular system.

Over the past year, evidence has steadily emerged of a growing Russian military presence in Syria. As Syrian army struggles to defeat al-Qaeda rebels but according to Russian officials, the time has been arrived for Russia to save Middle-East.

***

Godreports

Russian Orthodox Church links arms with Putin, declares ‘holy war’ in Syria

October 8, 2015

By Mark Ellis

Putin with church officials

The Russian Orthodox Church is lending their support to Vladamir Putin’s ground and air campaign in Syria as a ‘holy war,’ echoing the refrain of bygone centuries in Christendom.

“The fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it,” said Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Church’s Public Affairs Department.

While many in the U.S. are wary of Putin’s actions in Syria, Iran and Iraq, he seems to have a loyal ally in the Russian Church. “The Russian Federation has made a responsible decision on the use of armed forces to defend the people of Syria from the sorrows caused by the arbitrariness of terrorists,” Chaplin continued.

“Christians are suffering in the region with the kidnapping of clerics and the destruction of churches. Muslims are suffering no less.”

In 2012, the Russian church brought to Putin’s attention the rising tide of persecution against Christians under Islam, according to Frontpage magazine.

A high official in the church told Putin that every five minutes one Christian was dying for his or her faith in some part of the world. The cleric asked Putin to make the protection of Christians one of his foreign policy priorities in the future.

“This is how it will be, have no doubt,” Putin told the church official, according to Frontpage magazine.

Russian Patriarch Kirill reportedly wrote a letter to President Obama, asking him to stop empowering those persecuting Christians. “I am deeply convinced that the countries which belong to the Christian civilization bear a special responsibility for the fate of Christians in the Middle East,” he wrote, according to Frontpage.

Ironically, Putin has assumed a position as a modern-day crusader, portraying Russia as the last defender of the Christian faith.”

This stands as a breathtaking contrast to the godless communist system that produced Putin, while many in the U.S. have ceased to view their country as having a Christian identity.

“We must protect Russia from that which has destroyed American society,” Putin said recently, referring to America’s anti-Christian drift and the decadence of Western culture.

Rev. Franklin Graham seemed to lend support to Russia’s military intervention in Syria, when he stated recently: “What Russia is doing may save the lives of Christians in the Middle East…. You understand that the Syrian government … has protected Christians, they have protected minorities from the Islamists.”

Graham foresees a horrible “bloodbath of Christians” in Syria, if the Jihadists gain control.

“The outcome of ousting the secular strongman of Syria will be more atrocities, more Christian persecution, more rapes and enslavement, and more bombed churches and destroyed antiquities,” wrote Raymond Ibrahim in Frontpage magazine. Despite the administration’s assurances of a “pluralistic” Syria once Assad is gone, it will lead to more terrorism for the West, he noted.

***

ARANEWS

Archbishop of Aleppo: Russian airstrikes ‘source of hope’ for Christians in Syria

October 9, 2015

GENEVA – Russia’s military buildup in Syria is “a source of hope” for the country’s Christians, the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo Jean-Clement Jeanbart said on Thursday.

Jeanbart welcomed the Russian military intervention in Syria, saying that the Russian President Vladimir Putin “serves the Christians’ cause”.

The archbishop said in an interview with Suisse Romande television that the Russian airstrikes on Islamists “renewed the confidence among Christians in Syria”.

Syrian Christians, among other minorities, have suffered suppression during the nearly five-year war, especially at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) radical group.

ISIS executed on Wednesday three Christian Assyrians who have been taken as hostages last February after a major offensive by the extremist group on Christian areas in Hasakah province in northeastern Syria.

“Putin is solving a problem,” archbishop Jeanbart said, in reference to the Russian raids in Syria.

The Russian military operations in Syria started last week under the pretext of combatting ISIS militants. However, opposition activists and Western leaders said that Russia mainly targets anti-Assad moderate rebels in its strikes. Reporting by: Lorin Silo

***

WND

PASTOR SPEECH-CONTROL PLAN SUDDENLY DROPPED

Threatened to turn back religious freedom 'more than 300 years'

Published: October 9, 2015

BOB UNRUH

A U.K. government plan, uncovered by the London Telegraph, to ensure that religious teaching conforms to “British values” through a national registry of religious leaders has been dropped abruptly.

As part of the government’s “anti-extremism” program, the leaders would have been subject to government-specified training and security checks.

“British values” are defined as ideas and actions that are democratic and non-discriminatory.

WND reported last month when Ciaran Kelly, a spokesman for the Christian Institute, warned, “If the reports are accurate, what the government is proposing turns the clock back on religious freedom more than 300 years.”

However, the institute now reports that the government has dropped the idea, citing a U.K. Home Office official who responded to letters from institute supporters.

Member of Parliament Mike Penning and other members of the Conservative Party confirmed the government has scrapped the plan.

“The government will publish its counter-extremism strategy in the near future,” Penning told constituents. But he said there are “no plans for a national register of faith leaders.”

Christian Institute Director Colin Hart welcomed the news but said the government’s anti-extremism policy still poses dangers.

“Creating a secret database of religious leaders would be completely over the top. It is shocking that civil servants would even consider the idea,” he said in a statement posted on the institute’s website,” he said.

“However, although this particular proposal seems to have been dropped, other aspects of the counter-extremism agenda, particularly the plans for Extremism Disruption Orders, remain a cause for deep concern.”

Critics argued the national-registry plan could have forced a Christian school, for example, to teach Islam with the same emphasis it teaches Christianity.

WND reported when the Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan obtained a copy of the plan.

“Not since the days of the notorious Test and Corporation Acts have we seen such a concerted attempt by a British government to restrict religious practice,” Kelly said in an institute report at the time. “We don’t want to go back to those darker days of religious intolerance.”

“Imams, priests, rabbis and other religious figures will have to enroll in a ‘national register of faith leaders’ and be subject to government-specified training and security checks in the Home Office’s latest action on extremism,” he reported then.

The plan, he said, would have made registration compulsory for “all faith leaders who wish to work with the public sector, including universities.”

In practice, he noted, “most faith leaders have some dealings with the public sector and the requirement will cover the great majority.”

At the time, Protestants, Catholics and Muslims all said they couldn’t support the idea.

***

THE DAILY BEAST

Russia’s New Mega-Missile Stuns the Globe

Putin’s latest weapons were mostly unknown to the outside world—until they began slamming into Syria.

10.09.15

On Oct. 7, Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired 26 high-tech cruise missiles at rebel targets in Syria—a staggering 1,000 miles away.

The missiles in question, which the Pentagon calls SS-N-30s, were mostly unknown to the outside world before the Oct. 7 raid. Even close watchers of the Russian military were surprised to see them. The missile attack was also highly visible. In many ways, it was an announcement to the world, and America in particular, that the once-dilapidated Russian navy is back in action—and that Putin’s missileers are now among the planet’s most advanced.

Planning for the missile attack began on Oct. 5, six days after Moscow’s warplanes conducted their first bombing runs on rebel holdouts in western Syria. Russia is intervening in Syria ostensibly to help the Damascus regime defeat the so-called Islamic State widely known as ISIS, but the Russian attacks seem to be hitting ISIS’s enemies more than the terror army itself. What’s more, critics point out, Syria provides Moscow strategic access to the Mediterranean Sea.

“Russian reconnaissance had discovered a number of important objects of militants, which were to be destroyed immediately,” the Russian Defense Ministry explained in a statement. Drones, surveillance satellites, radio interception, and human spies on the ground helped planners select the targets, the ministry added.

“The strikes engaged plants producing ammunition and explosives, command centers, storages of munitions, armament, and [oil], as well as a training camp of terrorists on the territory of Raqqa, Idlib, and Aleppo,” according to the ministry. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the missiles struck all 11 planned targets.

The Russian military celebrated the raid with a press release and an official video, and Shoigu went on national TV to praise the operation. Kurdish militiamen shot video they claimed depicted the missiles flying over northern Iraq. And the U.S. military apparently closely tracked the rocket-powered, guided munitions—and later claimed that several malfunctioned and crashed in Iran.

The media coverage was at least as important as the destruction of the alleged rebel facilities, U.S. defense officials told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “This is Russia demonstrating on a global stage that it has a lot of reach,” one official explained.

Eric Wertheim, an independent U.S. naval analyst and author of the definitive Combat Fleets of the World, a reference guide to warships and their weapons, agrees, saying of the missile volley: “I think it was a demonstration to the world.”

Wertheim and other foreign analysts were familiar with an earlier version of the SS-N-30 called the SS-N-27, but the latter is an anti-ship missile and the analysts assumed it could only fly 150 miles or so—a fraction of the roughly thousand miles the rockets traveled during the recent raid.

The SS-N-30 obviously boasts a much greater range than its predecessors and can also strike targets on dry land. That makes it broadly similar to the American Tomahawk missile, which the U.S. military traditionally fires in large numbers from ships and submarines in order to wipe out enemy air defenses before conducting aerial bombing campaigns. The U.S. Navy fired Tomahawks to hit the most heavily defended ISIS targets at the beginning of the American-led air war over Syria in September 2014.

Very few countries posses Tomahawks or similar munitions—and only the United States and Great Britain have ever successfully used them in combat. Now Russia has joined that exclusive club of global military powers. And that should worry the Pentagon, Wertheim said: “It should be a wakeup call that we don’t have a monopoly on the capability.”

What’s particularly striking is that Moscow has been able to build this long-range naval strike capability with much smaller vessels than anyone thought possible. In the U.S. Navy, large destroyers, cruisers, and submarines carry Tomahawk cruise missiles—and those vessels are typically at least 500 feet long and displace as many as 9,000 tons of water.

The four brand-new warships that launched the SS-N-30s were much, much smaller—ranging in length from 200 to 330 feet and displacing no more than 1,500 tons of water. “Small ships, big firepower,” Wertheim commented.

***

21stCENTURYWIRE

ANKARA BLASTS: War on Kurds, ISIS Terrorism, or, False Flag?

OCTOBER 10, 2015

Stuart J. Hooper

21st Century Wire

We can interpret today’s tragic events in a few different ways.

Two blasts hit a peace rally in Turkey’s capital Ankara today.

The attacks killed at least 30 people and injured over 120 others. Footage shows a group of people holding hands and singing before the first blast erupts behind them.

Kurdish fighters ready to engage ISIS back in June 2014. (Photo Credit: Boris Niehaus)

The continuing war on the Kurds?

A pro-Kurdish party, the HDP, was in attendance at the peace rally and believe they were the target of the attacks.

The Kurds in Turkey have suffered decades of official discrimination and denial of their culture’s existence, which led to a rebellion in the 1970s dominated by a socialist, secular group known as the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.

Evidence of this ‘official’ policy continuing today is widely available, because when the Turkish finally joined the Western campaign against ISIS they used the opportunity to bomb Kurdish fighters; one of the most effective anti-ISIS forces in the region.

Former US Ambassador to Turkey Eric S. Edelman said that attack represented “… a new wave of repression aimed at Kurds in Turkey, which risks plunging the country into civil war.“

Blowback from supporting ISIS?

However, it is also possible that this is Turkey’s support for ISIS coming back to haunt them in the worst possible way.

A spokesman from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Soner Cagaptay, said: “Turkey’s policy from 2011 and until mid-2014 was that anyone and everyone who wanted to fight Assad was welcome to go to Syria and do so.”

US Vice President Joe Biden even said that “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons” were made available by Turkey to anyone who wanted to fight Assad; leading to calls for an apology from the Turkish President.

Turkish PM Davutoglu has said, “This is an unfair assessment and accusation against Turkey for which there is no ground at all“.

Yet, it is understood that there was a “secret operation inside Libya to funnel arms through Turkey into the Syrian opposition“, and “Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria“… to be used against Assad.

Davutoglu – caught in the act. (Photo Credit: Marc Muller)

A false flag incident?

Adding to the puzzle is a secret recording that was released on YouTube last year containing the voice of Davutoglu and other Turkish officials. The wanted to “make up a cause of war” , saying to one another that “what you’re going to do is a direct cause of war”. In other words, they wanted to create a false flag scenario that could be used to directly attack Syria. In what may be the world’s greatest expression of guilt, Turkey subsequently banned access to YouTube after the incident.

Blasts at a peace rally in the country’s capital is definitely a scenario that hawkish politicians could use to start a wider war. The timing for a fully fledged Turkish intervention could also not be any better.

Now that Russia has eradicated 40% of the terrorist infrastructure in Syria in just one week, it will take a standing army, not a ragtag bunch of jihadists, to remove Assad if Turkey still wishes to pursue that policy goal.

Which of these three explanations makes the most sense to you? The continued war on the Kurds, blowback from support of ISIS, or a false flag to ignite a wider war?

***

ENENEWS

“Mind-blowing” die off of seabirds underway from California to Alaska — Experts: “This is unprecedented… Worst I’ve ever seen… Why they’re dying, I’m still baffled” — “Every bird we’re seeing is starving to death… Basically withering away” — “Catastrophic molting” due to unknown cause

Published: October 15th, 2015 at 4:47 pm ET

San Francisco Chronicle, Oct 15, 2015 (emphasis added): [T]housands of common murres… have been found dead… “all signs point to starvation from a lack of forage fish,” [Marine ecologist Kirsten Lindquist] said, adding that the same problem has been documented along the Oregon, Washington and Alaska coastlines… many endemic marine birds and mammals are suffering.

International Bird Rescue, Sep 22, 2015: An unprecedented number of exhausted, hungry seabirds continue to flood International Bird Rescue’s San Francisco Bay Center… The sight of so many starving seabirds has raised red flags among seabird scientists…

Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sep 25, 2015: A troubling number of starved and weak seabirds are washing ashore on beaches from the Monterey Bay to Alaska… “There’s been die-offs in the past, but this is one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen,” said Lupin Egan, an animal technician… “it’s been really crazy,” said spokesman Russ Curtis. “They’re really sick — just feather and bone.”… “At Waddell and Greyhound (Rock) beaches, I saw the most murres I’ve ever seen in 10 years,” said Cori Gibble, seabird health coordinator with the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center in Santa Cruz. “You see them on the tide line. They’re kind of strewn all over the beaches… It’s been a really strange year“…

ABC San Francisco, Sep 22, 2015: The number of birds being delivered to the rescue center daily is the number that usually comes over the entirety of a month, center officials said. “The sheer number of birds we’re seeing is pretty mind-blowing“… Curtis said. “This is unprecedented. Sometimes we get spikes and it dissipates. But it has not stopped.”

***

WND

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that orders faith-based organizations to refer women to abortionists, even though the same idea was tried in New York and failed.

Brown’s signature on AB 775 already has triggered a series of lawsuits, because it forces religious pregnancy clinics to tell women and girls that California has public programs to provide immediate, free or low-cost abortions.

The Pacific Justice Institute announced Monday the filing of lawsuits in both Southern and Northern California on behalf of clinics.

The organizations provide free medical services and counseling “as an alternative option to abortion to women facing unwanted pregnancies,” the organization said.

“Forcing a religious pro-life charity to proclaim a pro-abortion declaration is on its face an egregious violation of both the free speech and free exercises clauses of the First Amendment,” said Brad Dacus, president of the institute.

“We will not rest until this government mandate is completely halted,” he said.

The complaint argues the law forces Christian medical clinics to issue messages that violate their beliefs.

“The content of the government message memorialized in AB 775 directly contradicts the foundational religious principles upon which A Woman’s Friend operates, as well as the message it conveys to its clients regarding abortion,” the complaint explains. “As a result, A Woman’s Friend is subject to imminent adverse enforcement action against it by defendant.”

The law’s message is: “California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including allocating FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women. To determine whether you qualify, contact the county social services office at (insert the telephone number].”

It also requires that the message not only be handed out but also posted on the walls of waiting rooms on signs with specified dimensions.

The clinic, A Woman’s Friend, “offers, and will continue to offer, to women and girls a variety of services at its clinic.”

“Said services include medical consultations, pregnancy testing, ultrasound examinations and medical referrals. The plaintiff also provides education related to sexually transmitted diseases and infections, information and abortion procedures, prenatal education, nutrition information and fetal development education.

“They also provide Bible-based post abortion emotional and spiritual healing and recovery courses, and other practical support related to pregnancy,” he said.

It does not, the complaint explains, “counsel girls and women to obtain abortions.”

“A Woman’s Friend holds the biblically based conviction that human life is a precious gift of immeasurable value given by God and that the taking of innocent human life by abortion is evil and a sin.”

The second organization cited in the complaint is the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Northern California, which offers services similar to A Woman’s Friend.

For both, the complaint states: “The requirement that plaintiffs disseminate the state of California’s message for which the clinic disagrees violates its rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the state through the Fourteenth Amendment. The law mandates speech that plaintiffs would not otherwise make.”

It continues, “At a minimum, the act unconstitutionally compels plaintiffs to speak [a] message that they have not chosen, with which they do not agree, and that distract, and detract from, the messages they have chosen to speak.”

The lawsuit seeks a judgment that the law is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced.

“The context of delivering this government message is the center of a public debate over the morality and efficacy of abortion, for which these clinics provide alternatives,” the lawsuit reads.

WND reported the resolution to a similar case in New York.

At the time, constitutional attorney Herbert W. Titus of William J. Olson, P.C. told WND that according to the First Amendment, you “can’t be forced to carry someone else’s message.”

In New York, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said the state could require crisis pregnancy centers to disclose whether they have a licensed medical provider on staff but not whether the center provides abortions or referrals, because that runs afoul of the First Amendment.

The ruling was left untouched by the Supreme Court.

Titus, who has taught constitutional law, common law and other subjects for decades at several universities, said it’s “not the government’s business to force anybody to carry the message of anyone else.”

“That is certainly what’s being done here.”

Thomas Jefferson, he noted, described that very action as “sinful and tyrannical.”

“It’s fairly typical of California, [which is] always on the cutting edge of making us more and more like a fascist country, in which the state determines what we can say and what we can’t say,” Titus told WND.

Titus also has served as a trial attorney and special assistant U.S. attorney with the Department of Justice. He holds degrees from Harvard and the University of Oregon and for several years had his own daily radio program. He has testified on constitutional issues before Congress and state legislatures.

The California bill makes no attempt at accommodation.

***

Capital Gazette

Naval Academy Reinstates Celestial Navigation: “After All, You Can’t Hack a Sextant”

October 14th, 2015 by Kevin

Officials reinstated brief lessons in celestial navigation this year, nearly two decades after the full class was determined outdated and cut from the curriculum.

That decision, in the late 1990s, made national news and caused a stir among the old guard of navigators.

Maritime nostalgia, however, isn’t behind the return.

Rather, it’s the escalating threat of cyber attacks that has led the Navy to dust off its tools to measure the angles of stars.

After all, you can’t hack a sextant.

***

EricMargolis.Com

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN – “We need a new name,” a senior official in Kazakhstan told me. “People keep confusing us with all the other crazy “stans.” We are not like them.

Quite right. Compared to neighboring Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan is an island of tranquility and quiet development.

Kazakhstan is the world’s 9th largest nation in size, some 2.7 million sq. kilometers, but has only a modest population of some 18 million people spread from the Caspian Sea in the west (from where Russia just launched missile strikes at Syria) to the border of China in the east. To its north is Siberia and to the south, India and Pakistan. Snow-capped mountains border the old capitol, Almaty, known in Soviet days as Alma-Ata.

The Kazakhs, unlike their neighbors, have been fortunate to have good government. Former senior Communist Party official Nursultan Nazarbeyev became leader of Kazakhstan in 1991 after the break-up of the Soviet Union and has ruled it ever since.

Interestingly, I recall when covering Moscow in 1990-91 that the widely admired Nazarbayev was called the best political leader of any Soviet republic and expected to succeed his friend, Mikhail Gorbachev. But the Union collapsed before Nazarbeyev could take charge. Instead, he held on to the USSR for as long as possible, then became the last republic to leave and go independent.

Ever since, the wily Nazarbeyev, known as “the leader,” has ruled his nation with a firm hand and wise head. He has kept on good terms with Moscow and Washington and even his unruly neighbors. Money from the nation’s moderate oil reserves has gone into infrastructure development, education, modernization and the glitzy new-built capitol, Astana.

The leader routinely wins theatrical elections by more than 95%. Unlike his neighboring rulers, he is actually quite popular among Kazakhs as a sort of national father figure. He is equally popular among the nation’s ethnic Russians, 20% of the population.

Russian remains the lingua franca of business. Kazakhs are happy to speak both languages. I saw no evidence of linguistic or religious tensions. The border with Russia barely exists as the two nations are much closer than, say, the US and Canada.

But like too many other strong rulers, the 75-year old Nazarbeyev has not allowed a new generation of leaders to grow up around him. The youthful prime minister, Karim Massimov, is capable and popular, but lacks deep roots among the nation’s tribal society or urban elite. As Kazakhstan seeks large amounts of foreign investment the troublesome question remains, “what will happen after Nazarbeyev departs the scene?” No one knows. This makes foreign investors very nervous.

Kazakhs can look south at Turkmenistan, long ruled by the late Sapurmurat Niyazov, one of my favorite nutty dictators, who had gold statues of him erected across the country and proclaimed him a demi-deity. To war-torn Afghanistan. To scary, US-backed Uzbekistan where political opponents are boiled to death. To tiny Kyrgyzstan, which has been rent by civil war for two decades. And to Iranian-speaking Tajikistan, the main opium and heroin corridor to the north.

The US, India, China and Russia all vie for influence in this vast Central Asian region where once the fabled Silk Road ran from China to the Black Sea.

It’s hard to believe that out of these endless kilometers of emptiness came the closest thing the world has ever seen to nuclear war: Genghis Khan and the great Mongol invasions of the 13th century that extended from the Great Wall of China to Germany and Gaza.Two tribes of the Kazakh steppe, the Cumans and Kipchaks, combined and joined the Mongol horde that terrified and ravaged Europe and the Muslim world. Today, there is no overt sign of the nomads who terrified the globe. Today’s Kazakhs are invariably kind, friendly and often charming as I found after days in a nomad camp in a yurt. But they still have a hard core that makes them a formidable people.

***

news.com.au

This lake in India is straight out of a horror movie

Kate Schneider

October 8, 2015

A canal which once carried water from Bellandur Lake to Varthur Lake.

AT FIRST glance this photo may appear to show snow covering a mountain. But the reality of what’s going on here is horrifying.

This is actually an incredibly rare and very unnatural phenomenon. It’s a lake in India that’s so toxic that it froths over and even bursts into flames. It’s a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Located in the bustling hi-tech hub of Bangalore, the 36 kilometre Bellandur Lake is the largest — and most polluted — one in the city.

The foam is a result of the toxic water which contains a high content of ammonia and phosphate and very low dissolved oxygen. This has been put down to decades worth of untreated chemical waste being pumped into it.

If that wasn’t bad enough, sewage from many parts of the city is also released into the lake, leaving it extremely polluted.

During heavy rain, the foam spills onto the road, causing a traffic pile and spreading an unbearable stench in the air in the neighbourhood.

And at times, due to the grease, oil and detergents that can be found in the froth, it catches on fire.

Look out! Picture: A TripAdvisor traveller

The lake catches fire when the toxic water mixes with grease and oil.Source:Supplied

“Every time it rains and the water flows, the froth raises and navigating this stretch becomes risky,” Vishruth, a resident who lives about 30 metres away from the lake, told the NewIndianExpress.

“Due to the froth, visibility is reduced and the area also smells bad.”

Just a week ago, he said the froth had risen to more than a metre high.

“Cars and bikes that pass this area get covered with froth,” he said.

Earlier this year, Indian Institute of Sciences Bio-engineering expert Durga Madhab Mahapatra told NewsMinute that contaminated air particles from the river were causing a burning feeling in people’s eyes.

The lake is often hazy, even when it’s not on fire. Picture: Anoop Kumar

Locals are so desperate to save the lake, they set up a Facebook page to bring attention to the problem

Software executive and environmental activist Nagesh Aras told the LATimes that disaster is looming if urgent action isn’t taken.

“We need to change course, but it’s like trying to turn the Titanic around,” Mr Aras said. “There’s an iceberg ahead, but the captain hasn’t even seen it. And that’s the tragedy with the fires. We’re trying to explain that they’re just the tip of the iceberg.”

The lake is in Bangalore, which is India’s technology hub, home to 8.5 million people. Picture: Anoop Kumar

***

NaturalBlaze

Self Heal Herb Used For Centuries For About Every Ailment Known To Man

By Mae Chan

POSTED ON OCTOBER 11, 2015 2

Prunella Vulgaris has a long history of medicinal use. It shows antiviral and antibacterial properties, and in China it is used as an anti-cancer drug. It can also be used for the prevention and treatment of cognitive impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease or schizophrenia.

Prunella vulgaris var. lilacina Nakai (Labiatae) is commonly known as the ‘self-heal‘ herb or heal-all. It is widely distributed in Europe, Asia and North America.

Daily consumption of extracts from Prunella vulgaris var. lilacina may enhance cognitive function in lab mice, says a new study from South Korea. It is often found growing in waste ground, grassland, woodland edges, usually on basic and neutral soils.

Once proclaimed to be a Holy herb and thought to be sent by God to cure all ailments of man or beast, and said to drive away the devil, which lead to the belief that Heal-All was grown in the Witches garden as a disguise. The root was used to make a tea to drink in ceremonies before going hunting by one Native American tribe to sharpened the powers of observation.

Heal-All is edible and medicinal, can be used in salads, soups, stews, or boiled as a pot herb. Used as an alternative medicine for centuries on just about every continent in the world, and for just about every ailment known to man.

Prior to World War II, it was used to staunch bleeding and for treating heart disease. A decoction of the leaves was used to treat sore throats and internal bleeding. Although in western medicine it is used externally for treating minor injuries, sores, burns, bruises, it has far more powerful applications therapeutically.

The plants most useful constituents are Betulinic-acid, D-Camphor, Delphinidin, Hyperoside, Manganese, Oleanolic-acid, Rosmarinic-acid, Rutin, Ursolic-acid, and Tannins. The whole plant is medicinal as alterative, antibacterial, antipyretic, antiseptic, antispasmodic, astringent, carminative, diuretic, febrifuge, hypotensive, stomachic, styptic, tonic, vermifuge and vulnerary.

A cold water infusion of the freshly chopped or dried and powdered leaves is a very tasty and refreshing beverage, weak infusion of the plant is an excellent medicinal eye wash for sties and pinkeye.

It is taken internally as a medicinal tea in the treatment of fevers, diarrhoea, sore mouth and

throat, internal bleeding, and weaknesses of the liver and heart. Clinical analysis shows it to have an antibacterial action, inhibiting the growth of pseudomonas, Bacillus typhi, E. coli, Mycobacterium tuberculi, which supports its use as an alternative medicine internally and externally as an antibiotic and for hard to heal wounds and diseases. It is showing promise in research for cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and many other maladies.

Cognitive Enhancements

New data from scientists from Kyung Hee University and CJ Foods R&D indicated that two weeks of intake of the ‘heal-all’ extract was found to directly or indirectly activate the NMDA receptor in nerve cells, which is linked to synaptic plasticity changes.

“The results of present study demonstrate that the sub-chronic administration of [the standardized ethanolic extract of Prunella vulgaris var. lilacina] EEPV enhanced cognitive performance in the passive avoidance task in normal naive mice,” they wrote in Phytotherapy Research .

“To our knowledge, the present study marks the first report of the role of EEPV in cognitive improvement resulting from adult hippocampal neurogenesis and the activation of various signaling cascades.”

Commenting on the potential bio-actives, the researchers point to rosmarinic acid as the key mediator of cognitive improvement.

Sources:

wiley.com

altnature.com

kew.org

Editor’s note: Self-Heal (aka Woudwart, Heal All) is a strong tincture and you can also purchase the dried herbs. This herb is so strong that it often shows up in herpes remedies (shingles, cold sores, STD). But did you know that Self-Heal is also a flower essence remedy? That’s where the plant particles aren’t in the liquid but the energy signature is – similar to homeopathy. Self-Heal essence works on an energetic level down to your emotions too in order to kick start your consciousness into healing. It too shows up in creams and balms to promote rapid relief.

***

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

“And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”
(Ezekiel 47:12)