“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
(Romans 8:18)

For I Reckeon

The Christian Post

There's a Good Chance God Will Almost Kill You

by Christian Post Guest Voices

By Stephen Altrogge

When someone is going through a tough time we like to say, “Don’t worry, God won’t give you more than you can handle.” It sounds nice and is semi-inspirational, kind of like saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger!” Kind of a Christian bootcamp, I’m in the Lord’s army, suck it up fella you’re gonna make it, saying. God won’t give you more than you can handle! You’re going to get through this! Bite the bullet, buckle down, suck it up, push through, dig deep, unleash your animal, huzzah, hip hip hooray.

One slight problem with this line of thinking: God will often give us more than we can handle. In fact, there will be times when God practically kills us.

In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 Paul said:

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

God nearly crushed Paul and his apostolic companions. He allowed them to be so afflicted, so burdened, so overrun, so overwhelmed, so beaten down that death seemed like a real possibility. He brought them to the end of their resources and then kept pushing and crushing and grinding until Paul and his friends felt they were under a sentence of death. Did God give Paul more than he could handle? Yeah, I guess you could say that. God nearly killed Paul, and there will be times when he does the same thing to us.

Why does God do this? Is he some sort of sick sadist who enjoys tormenting helpless men and women? No, not at all. God burdens us beyond our strength so that we will be forced to utterly and completely depend on him. God gives us way more than we can handle so that we’ll stop trying to live a self-sufficient life apart from God. He brings us to the brink of death so that we’ll rely on the One who can raise the dead.

When we’re overwhelmed, beaten down, and worn out, we’re in a good place. We’re finally seeing ourselves as we truly are: weak, helpless creatures who desperately need God. When we acknowledge our pervasive weakness we can then receive the overwhelming, sustaining, empowering, conquering grace of God. When we put our face in the dirt before God we’ll discover the spring of His grace running just under the surface.

If you feel overwhelmed don’t take comfort in your ability to handle it all. Don’t try to figure out how you’re going to make it through the darkness. On your own you won’t make it. You can’t handle life. It’s too hard and too heavy and too oppressive. But we serve a God who causes old women to give birth and gives life to dry bones and raises the dead. Run to God in your weakness and bone-tiredness and despair. Rely wholly on him. Throw aside any foolish confidence you have in yourself. Drink deeply of his overwhelming, overflowing grace.

Will God give you more than you can handle? You better believe it. In fact, he might almost kill you. But he brings us to the brink of death so that we’ll trust in his ability to raise the dead.

(A lot depends on what it takes to make us desperate in our dependency upon God. Ed)

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RaidersNewsNetwork Exclusive

BEAST TECH

Investigation into secret project aimed at 2017

Posted: November 14, 2013


PART 12: Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)...and the Religious People that will Promote the Mark

Most readers are undoubtedly familiar with the development of radio-frequency identification (rfid) technology that, under certain applications, is forecast to be connected to future human-enhancement technologies, especially neurosciences, brain-machine interfacing, and cybernetics.

This rfid tech employs tiny integrated circuits for storing and processing information using an antenna for receiving and transmitting the related data. This technology is most commonly applied as a “tag” for tracking inventory with radio waves at companies like Walmart, where consumer goods are embedded with “smart tags” that are read by handheld scanners for supply-chain management.

In recent years, rfid technology has been expanding within public and private firms as a method for verifying and tracking people as well. We first became aware of this trend a while back when a chief of police—Jack Schmidig of Bergen County, New Jersey, a member of the police force for more than thirty years—received a VeriChip (rfid chip) implant as part of Applied Digital Solution’s strategy of enlisting key regional leaders to accelerate adoption of its product.

Kevin H. McLaughlin (chief executive officer of VeriChip Corp. at the time) said of the event that “high-profile regional leaders are accepting the VeriChip, representing an excellent example of our approach to gaining adoption of the technology” (note that VeriChip Corp. was renamed to PositiveID Corp. on November 10, 2009, through the merger of VeriChip Corp. and Steel Vault Corp.). Through a new and aggressive indoctrination program called “Thought and Opinion Leaders to Play Key Role in Adoption of VeriChip,” the company set out to create exponential adoption of its FDA-cleared, human-implantable rfid tag. According to information released by the company, the implantable transceiver “sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) technology.” The transceiver’s power supply and actuation system are unlike anything ever created. When implanted within a body, the device is powered electromechanically through the movement of muscles and can be activated either by the “wearer” or by the monitoring facility. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, an information technology report highlighted the company’s additional plans to study implantable chips as a method of tracking terrorists. “We’ve changed our thinking since September 11 [2001],” a company spokesman said. “Now there’s more of a need to monitor evil activities” (“Will You Grin for the rifd Mark of the Beast?” Before It’s News, October 26, 2010, http://beforeitsnews.com/). As a result, PositiveID has been offering the company’s current incarnation of implantable rfid as “a tamper-proof means of identification for enhanced e-business security tracking, locating lost or missing individuals, tracking the location of valuable property [this includes humans], and monitoring the medical conditions of at-risk patients.” While PositiveID offers testimony that safeguards have been implemented to ensure privacy in connection with its implantable microchips, some believe privacy is the last thing internal radio transmitters will protect—that, in fact, the plan to microchip humanity smacks of the biblical Mark of the Beast. Has an end-times spirit indeed been pushing for adoption of this technology this generation?

Consider the following:

According to some Bible scholars, a biblical generation is forty years. This is interesting, given what we documented in our book, Zenith 2016: Did Something Begin in the Year 2012 that Will Reach Its Apex in 2016?, concerning the Jewish Calendar year 5773 (2012—2013), from which, counting backward forty years, one arrives at the year 1973, the very year Senior Scholastics began introducing school kids to the idea of buying and selling in the future using numbers inserted in their foreheads. In the September 20, 1973, feature “Who Is Watching You?” the secular high school journal speculated:

All buying and selling in the program will be done by computer. No currency, no change, no checks. In the program, people would receive a number that had been assigned them tattooed in their wrist or forehead. The number is put on by laser beam and cannot be felt. The number in the body is not seen with the naked eye and is as permanent as your fingerprints. All items of consumer goods will be marked with a computer mark. The computer outlet in the store which picks up the number on the items at the checkstand will also pick up the number in the person’s body and automatically total the price and deduct the amount from the person’s “Special Drawing Rights” account.

* The following year, the 1974 article, “The Specter of Eugenics,” had Charles Frankel documenting Nobel Prize-winner Linus Pauling’s suggestions that a mark be tattooed on the foot or forehead of every young person. Pauling envisioned a mark denoting genotype.

* In 1980, US News and World Report revealed that the federal government was plotting “National Identity Cards” without which no one could work or conduct business.

* The Denver Post Sun followed up in 1981, claiming that chip implants would replace the identification cards. The June 21, 1981, story read in part, “The chip is placed in a needle which is affixed to a simple syringe containing an anti-bacterial solution. The needle is capped and ready to forever identify something—or somebody” (“Will You Grin for the RFID Mark of the Beast?”).

* The May 7, 1996, Chicago Tribune questioned the technology, wondering aloud if we would be able to trust “Big Brother under our skin?”

* Then, in 1997, applications for patents of subcutaneous implant devices for “a person or an animal” were filed.

* In August 1998, the BBC covered the first-known human microchip implantation.

* That same month, the Sunday Portland Oregonian warned that proposed medical identifiers might erode privacy rights by tracking individuals through alphanumeric health-identifier technologies. The startling Oregonian feature depicted humans with barcodes in their foreheads

* Millions of Today Show viewers then watched in 2002 when an American family got “chipped” with Applied Digital Solution’s VeriChip live from a doctor’s office in Boca Raton, Florida.

Getting "Chipped" on the Today Show

* In November of the same year, IBM’s patent application for “identification and tracking of persons using rfid-tagged items” was recorded.

* Three years later, former secretary of the Health and Human Services department, Tommy Thompson, forged a lucrative partnership with VeriChip Corp. and began encouraging Americans “to get chipped” so that their medical records would be “inside them” in case of emergencies.

* The state of Wisconsin—where Thompson was governor before coming to Washington—promptly drew a line in the sand, passing a law prohibiting employers from mandating that their employees get “chipped.” Other states since have passed or are considering similar legislation. Despite this, in the last decade, an expanding number of companies and government agencies has started requiring the use of rfid for people identification. Unity Infraprojects, for example, one of the largest civil contractors in India, tracks its employees with rfid, as does the US Department of Homeland Security for workers involved in baggage handling at airports.

* Since September 11, 2001, the US government has proposed several versions of a national ID card that would use rfid technology.

* Since 2007, the US government began requiring all passports to include rfid chips that enable use of biometric features such as facial recognition.

* Hundreds of Alzheimer’s patients have been injected with implantable versions of rfid tags in recent years.

* Rfid bracelets are now being placed on newborns at a growing list of hospitals.

* Students are being required in some schools and universities to use biometric ID employing rfid for electronic monitoring.

* Thousands of celebrities and government officials around the world have had rfid radio chips implanted in them so that they can be identified—either for entry at secure sites or for identification if they are kidnapped or killed.

* Others, like Professor Kevin Warwick (a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom), have been microchipped for purposes of controlling keypads and external devices with the wave of a hand.

* Besides providing internal storage for individual-specific information like health records, banking and industry envisions a cashless society in the near future where all buying and selling could transpire using a version of the subdermal chips and wireless authentication. As mentioned above, in 1973, Senior Scholastics magazine introduced school-age children to the concept of buying and selling using numbers inserted in their foreheads. More recently, Time magazine, in its feature story, “The Big Bank Theory and What It Says about the Future of Money,” recognized that this type of banking and currency exchange would not require a laser tattoo. Rather, the writer said, “Your daughter can store the money any way she wants—on her laptop, on a debit card, even (in the not-too-distant future) on a chip implanted under her skin” (Joshua Ramo, “The Big Bank Theory,” Time, April 27, 1998).

* In 2007, PositiveID, which owns the Food and Drug Administration-approved VeriChip that electronically transmits patients’ health information whenever a scanner is passed over the body, ominously launched “Xmark” as its corporate identity for implantable healthcare products.

* Skip forward to the present, and suddenly the push for a national biometric identification system and rfid technology is all over the news and within industry trade reports. The Next Generation Biometric Market—Global Forecast & Analysis 2012–2017 noted that the global biometric identification market was surging toward the nearly $14 billion mark by 2017, with an estimated compound annual growth rate of 18.7 percent.

I * n February 2013, a report for the Competitive Enterprise Institute authored by David Bier (“The New National Identification System Is Coming”) documented how US lawmakers including Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham were advocating for a “super” identification system that would include biometrics.

* Three months later, in May, the Massachusetts-based engineering firm MC10 disclosed that it is developing a high-tech, biostamp, electronic “tattoo” that will replace all passwords. It is made of silicon and is sealed on the wearer’s body. As this book heads to the editor, MC10 hopes to have its first prototypes “affixed” to humans with the next few months.

Executives At MC10 With DARPA Representatives
Rolling Out High Tech Tattoos As Tomorrow's ID

* Simultaneously, Motorola Senior Vice President Regina Dugan announced that a project similar to MC10’s is now under development at the multinational telecommunications company. Called “The Proteus Digital Pill,” the project contains a computer chip and transmits an 18-bit, ECG-like signal that can communicate with mobile devices as well as serve as a biometric ID. The ingestible “pill” has already been approved for human use and tracking by the FDA in the United States as well as in Europe. Note that “Proteus” is a shape-shifter and primordial pagan god of ancient sages (seers) that can affect the “conscious” and is capable of mutating the host.

* No sooner had Motorola announced its plan for the “Proteus” swallowable marker than some in the secular media marched forward to brand any concerned or resistant religious types (such as the authors of this book) as inflexible shrills who do not represent true Christianity. As an example, Iain Thomson of The Register wrote on May 31, 2013:


One marketing problem Motorola may not have anticipated is the reaction of biblical literalists to its…authentication systems.

A surprising number of people in the US still adhere to an apparent literal translation of the current version of…the finale of the New Testament: The Book of Revelation—or, for you believers of the Catholic persuasion, The Apocalypse.

The text, thought to be written about 60 years after the biblical death of Christ, is regarded as either a description of the end times of humanity, a satirical pastiche on the increasingly subverted tenets of Christian bureaucracy, or a really bad mushroom trip on a Greek island. Nevertheless it contains the following warning:

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” 


Be reassured that the majority of people of faith in the US and elsewhere aren’t quite so inflexible. Those that aren’t may be shrill, particularly in the US, but do not form a representative sample of Christianity.

* In January, 2013, Robert A. Pastor, professor of international relations at American University, argued before the US Congress that the majority of Americans are now ready for—and need—a national ID based on head and hand biometrics. A centerpiece of the immigration bill imagines just such a scenario and would require all citizens to have a biometric card, without which no one would be approved for employment (effectively rendering him or her as a “non-person.”)

* By June, 2013, the Congress of the United States pushed forward on related mandates, demanding progress on advanced biometric smart cards for federal identification under the Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-12). The DHS wants these personal verification IDs immediately and for its employees to carry digitalized finger (and/or palm) and facial recognition images (head and hand) to serve as the trendsetter for all levels of government and private industry identification. These cards will employ barcodes, rfid tags, and onboard data processors that can transmit information and location to remote sites.

* Later the same month, the use of biometrics (hand and/or head-iris scanning) as a payment option for goods and services was documented as the method of choice for buying and selling among 50 percent of consumers, with that percentage trending upward (see Revelation 13:17).

* One month later, in July, a special report conducted by Natural Security (a UK-based authority in user-authentication) described nine hundred consumers who had participated in a pilot program in which they used fingerprint-based technology when purchasing products and services. Of that number, 94 percent of them were excited about the scheme, agreeing they are now ready to use biometrics and rfid technology for all buying and selling.

* By August of 2013, a new report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology confirmed the long-term viability of iris recognition as stable for biometric identification and that no distinguishing texture or degradation of the iris occurs for at least ten years, if not decades.

* A whole host of personal products began flooding the market at the same time, including jewelry, headgear, and glasses that boast GPS and rfid tracking capabilities, with promises of future payment integration for buying and selling via biometric signatures. One example is the new “Nymi Bracelet” that is worn around the wrist. It monitors the heartbeat as a biometric signature, claims to be more accurate than facial recognition, and is said to be about as accurate as fingerprint scanning.

* Also at the time Beast Tech was heading to the printer, nineteen US states have complied with the “Real ID Act,” an act of Congress that modifies US federal laws pertaining to authentication standards for driver’s licenses and identification cards with the goal of codifying a national—then international—biometric ID system.

* Concurrently making its way through Congress as part of an immigration reform bill is a provision to mandate universal biometric identification in the form of a national ID, without which nobody will be federally approved for employment (or, as it says in the book of Revelation 13:17, “that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark…”). It is called “E-Verify” and incredibly not only has bipartisan support among lawmakers but enthusiastic approval from notable Christian leaders (funded by George Soros, no less).

A version of E-Verify to be the law of the land...

Christian leaders that are lining up to support the national ID system include:

Ø Leith Anderson, President, National Association of Evangelicals

Ø Stephan Bauman, President and CEO, World Relief

Ø Jim Daly, President, Focus on the Family

Ø Noel Castellanos, CEO, Christian Community Development Association

Ø Luis Cortes, President, Esperanza

Ø Dr. Richard Land, President, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention

Ø Samuel Rodriguez, President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

Ø Dr. Carl Ruby, Vice President for Student Life, Cedarville University

Ø Gabriel Salguero, President, National Latino Evangelical Coalition

Ø Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel

Ø Jim Wallis, President and CEO, Sojourners

Ø The Catholic Church, which, in September 2013, announced a massive, coordinated effort to get the immigration reform bill passed by targeting sixty Catholic House Republicans and one hundred and thirty members of the House who are also Catholic

Ø In chorus, other evangelical pastors nationwide broadcast radio ads in fifty-six congressional districts in fourteen states at a cost of $400,000 in support of the plan.

The list above continues to exponentially increase, causing a growing number to wonder if a national ID system including rfid adoption will, for all practical purposes, result in every man, woman, boy, and girl in the developed world having an ID chip inside him or her (like animals worldwide already do) sometime soon. Makers of implantable microchips like to state that the process is voluntary, but a report by Elaine M. Ramish for the Franklin Pierce Law Center says:

A [mandatory] national identification system via microchip implants could be achieved in two stages: Upon introduction as a voluntary system, the microchip implantation will appear to be palatable. After there is a familiarity with the procedure and a knowledge of its benefits, implantation would be mandatory.

George Getz, the communications director for the Libertarian Party at the time, agreed, saying:

After all, the government has never forced anyone to have a [driver’s] license, [but] try getting along without one, when everyone from your local banker to the car rental man to the hotel operator to the grocery store requires one in order for you to take advantage of their services, that amounts to a de facto mandate. If the government can force you to surrender your fingerprints to get a driver’s license, why can’t it force you to get a computer chip implant?

Students of eschatology (the study of end-times events) find it increasingly difficult to dismiss how this all looks and feels like movement toward fulfilling Revelation 13:16–17: “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

As newer versions of rfid-like transmitters become even more sophisticated—adding other “prophetic” components such as merging human biological matter with transistors to create living, implantable machines—the authors of Beast Tech have determined the possibility that the Mark of the Beast is set to arrive through a version of smart-chip technology is beyond doubt.

For those who may question whether investigators Tom Horn and Terry Cook are overstating these facts, below are video clips to watch (with trepidation), especially the first one with former Director of DARPA (the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and current executives at Google discussing this very technology (smart tattoos and injestable biochips) on national TV as THE system that will soon provide authentication / personal identification for humans worldwide.

The mark IS coming, and we all need to get educated on the facts as soon as possible in order to be a source of information to our loved ones, a light in the darkness while there is still time.

Audience applauds as Regina E. Dugan -- former Director of DARPA and current executive at Google -- describes with excitement the coming BEAST TECH smart tattoos and ingestible biochips that are ALREADY FDA APPROVED and that people will want to receive (and then be REQUIRED to receive) by 2017. She glows about the "super powers" the PROTEUS MARK (Proteus was a Shape-Shifter in Greek Mythology) will give her and says today's generation are going to want them too. Unfortunately, she is right.

IBM ALSO CELEBRATING THE MARK OF THE BEAST IMBEDDED BUYING SYSTEM OF TOMORROW

***

MOTHERBOARD

This Display Lets You Touch and Move Physical Objects Without Actually Being There

By Meghan Neal

A team of engineers at MIT have invented a tactical display that translates motion into physical reality. In other words, it lets users touch and move a 3D object from behind a screen, even from the other side of the world.

The concept is called inFORM, and the team just released a video of it in action. It basically looks like magic. The display itself is a surface area made up of many of digitized pins. From behind the screen—called a "Dynamic Shape Display"—and with the help a hacked Kinect camera, the user's hand gestures can create and manipulate 3D objects as if they were really touching them. It’s a physical manifestation of digital information.

Remember that sweet toy we all had in the 90s where you press your hand against a bunch of little pins and it makes the shape of a hand? It's just like that, only the 21st century version.

At one point in the video, the guy testing the display actually picks up and turns on a flashlight. And since it works remotely, you could play with a prototype of a 3D object that's sitting on a desk in New York from your hotel room in Tokyo.

The idea is to create a virtual world in which we don't lose touch, so to speak, with our natural human need for tactile interaction. MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group believes that the future of computers will pivot away from today’s graphical user interfaces to tactical user interfaces, TUIs, like this one.

We're already headed in that direction. A few new gadgets are making the rounds on Kickstarter that let you users touch people remotely—you tap a wristband device and your long distance lover feels it. The web, too, is moving beyond the visual and audio world. Motherboard recently interviewed Adrian Cheok, director of Singapore's Mixed Reality Lab, about the coming multi-sensory internet—a cyberspace where you can smell, taste, and touch.

But enough dancing about architecture. Watch the video, and behold the future for yourself.

***

***

Washington's Blog

Leaked Treaty: Worse Than SOPA and ACTA

We noted last year:

An international treaty being negotiated in secret which would not only crack down on Internet privacy much more than SOPA or ACTA, but would actually destroy the sovereignty of the U.S. and all other signatories.

It is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

We also noted that even Congressmen are furious that the bill was being kept secret from the American public.

And that the TPP is an anti-American power grab by big corporations.

Wikileaks has now leaked the intellectual property chapter of the secret treaty … and it’s as bad as we feared.

Public Citizen explains how the TPP would limit people’s access to affordable medicine.

And International Business Times explains:

The TPP’s chapter on IP deals with a host of issues, but its potential impacts on basic Internet freedom and usage are perhaps the ones that would directly impact the most people in the short term. One of the biggest concerns about the agreement raised by the Internet freedom advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation centers around the concept of “temporary copies.” Here’s the text of the relevant section of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter leaked Wednesday:

“Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form).”

The EFF wrote in a July analysis of the language – which has not been amended in the intervening months — that the provision “reveals a profound disconnect with the reality of the modern computer,” which relies on temporary copies to perform routine operations, during which it must create temporary copies of programs and files in order to carry out basic functions. This is particularly so while a computer is connected to the Internet, when it will use temporary copies to buffer videos, store cache files to ensure websites load quickly and more.

“Since it’s technically necessary to download a temporary version of everything we see on our devices, does that mean—under the US proposed language—that anyone who ever views content on their device could potentially be found liable of infringement?” the EFF wrote. “For other countries signing on to the TPP, the answer would be most likely yes.”

And see this.

TPP would literally act to destroy the sovereignty of the U.S. and the other nations which sign the bill.

Postscript: Will the powers-that-be renew their labeling of Wikileaks as criminals for leaking an anti-American bill which would gut our nation’s sovereignty?

***

CNN

Bush's plans to address Messianic Jewish group irks former aides

By Jessica Ravitz

(CNN) - Of course Tevi Troy has heard the hubbub.

He knows full well that his onetime boss, former President George W. Bush, plans to speak Thursday at a Dallas fundraiser for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute – a group dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity.

“I have yet to meet a Jewish person who hasn’t heard about this,” says Troy, who served as a Bush administration liaison to the Jewish community and was a former deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The topic of conversion can prompt a visceral reaction for Jews whose darker times have been marred by persecution, expulsion and forced conversions. Millions have died for and because of their faith.

“There’s good historical reason for the Jewish discomfort,” Troy says.

But before Troy, an Orthodox Jew, will tread into this controversy, he wants to discuss the Jewish value of hakarat hatov, or “recognizing the good.”

He says people should remember and appreciate that Bush was “a very good president to the Jewish people.”

He was a friend to Israel during the Second Intifada, Troy says. He was an outspoken opponent of anti-Semitism. And in the wake of the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl by al Qaeda in Pakistan in 2002, when Jews felt like targets, Troy says Bush took on terrorism.

That said, when it comes to Bush’s decision to speak at the annual banquet for this messianic group, one that believes Jews like this former aide need to be saved, Troy admits, “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.”

CNN tried to speak with five other former Bush administration liaisons to the Jewish community, but only two of those responded. Both suggested Troy could speak for them, too.

His words, though, are tempered. Others, such as Rabbi David Wolpe, who was dubbed America’s most influential rabbi by Newsweek in 2012, called Bush’s decision “infuriating.”

The Messianic Jewish Bible Institute is representative of a longstanding effort to convert Jews, one that dates back to Paul in the New Testament who said, in Romans 1:16, that the Gospel should be taken “to the Jew first.”

The institute's website features a menorah in its logo. Its chairman is listed as Rabbi Jonathan Bernis, a man who heads up another organization called Jewish Voice Ministries International, where an “Ask the Rabbi” feature includes an image of him wearing a yarmulke and Jewish prayer shawl.

CNN reached out to Bernis at Jewish Voice Ministries but was told by a spokeswoman that he was not allowed to comment on the upcoming fundraiser.

Then CNN asked where he had been ordained as a rabbi, and the spokeswoman hung up the phone.

We also called the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, which pulled down from its website any references to Bush’s upcoming appearance soon after Mother Jones broke the story. An institute spokeswoman said there would be no comment.

A source close to Bush, who didn't want to be named, confirmed to CNN on Wednesday afternoon that the former president still plans to speak at Thursday’s banquet, where tickets reportedly range in price from $100 to $100,000.

The source also said that Bush addresses all sorts of groups, secular and religious of varying stripes. Bush tells stories from the White House and speaks about his love for America, which includes a commitment to religious freedom and tolerance, according to the source.

Had Bush’s onetime liaison to the Jewish community still been working with the former president or been asked, Troy said he certainly would have advised against such an appearance.

Troy says the problem is most people don’t understand why talk of converting Jews stirs up such strong feelings in the Jewish community.

“It dates back to a time when forced conversion was a serious issue, when the church was imbued with the power of state,” he says.

Troy points to the Spanish Inquisition as an example, explaining how under duress and torture, Jews had to convert to Christianity or face expulsion from Spain in 1492. Those who stayed and exhibited any shred of Jewish observance were persecuted.

The Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, founded in the mid-1990s, includes in its mission the goal to "educate Christians in their role to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy and thus save some of them."

The institute's statement of faith also says that those who are born Jewish and "place their faith in Messiah Yeshua," Jesus, "have not disowned or separated themselves from their race and Judaic heritage, but remain sons and daughters of Israel."

Missionary outreach to Jews in America isn't new. It dates back to the 19th century. A Hungarian man who called himself a "rabbi" established a ministry in 1894 to target Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, offering them assistance, education and New Testaments translated into Yiddish.

On the opposite coast in San Francisco in 1973, a Baptist minister - who was born Jewish - founded a proselytizing organization called Jews for Jesus. His small army has been knocking on doors and pounding the pavement ever since.

A less aggressive approach, preferred by others who might call themselves Messianic Jews or Hebrew Christians, has been the establishment of Messianic “synagogues” and organizations. They’re sponsored by Christians, and they incorporate Jewish symbols and modified Jewish rituals. They’re often led by leaders who call themselves rabbis, use Hebrew phrases and wear traditional Jewish accessories.

Critics cry false advertising, subterfuge and bemoan how such outfits, including the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, which built its base in the former Soviet Union, often target Jews who don’t know better – what Rob Eshman of the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles called, “the low-hanging fruit of Jewish identity.”

While Messianic Jews believe it’s possible to be Jewish while believing Jesus is the Messiah, others say this makes as much sense as a vegetarian who believes in scarfing down steak.

The historical concern may have been rooted in forced conversions, but Troy knows that's not an issue today.

In fact, the group Bush will address - and others like it - don’t really worry him. He’s more concerned about a recent Pew study that showed how a growing number of American Jews don’t identify with any faith, let alone their own.

About a third of American Jews born after 2000 answered “none” when asked about their religious affiliation, the survey showed. Of everyone surveyed who was raised Jewish, according to the researchers, 6% now describe themselves as Christian - mostly as Catholics, Protestants or "just Christian."

Messianic Jews, Pew said, constitute a very small group. Meantime, though, the Pew survey also showed that 34% of those asked believe a person can be Jewish and believe Jesus was the messiah.

But the fundraiser in Dallas, even if it features the likes of a former U.S. president, isn’t what’s hurting American Jews, Troy says.

Judaism he says, "has other and bigger problems."

***

The Times Of Israel

‘Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius’

Paris legislator Meyer Habib, a friend of Netanyahu, called his FM in Geneva to warn of likely response should accord be signed, Israeli TV reports

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF November 10, 2013, 8:53

“I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.”

France’s Fabius is widely reported to have scuppered the finalizing of the emerging deal late Saturday, leading to the halting of the negotiations with Iran, and an agreement to reconvene on November 20.

Explaining his concerns to reporters in Geneva, Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium.

Habib, the deputy president of the Jewish umbrella organization in France, was elected to the National Assembly in Paris in June, to represent the district of southern Europe, which includes French nationals residing in Israel.

“I have known Meyer Habib for many years and he is a good friend to me and to Israel,” Netanyahu said in French in a video of endorsement posted on YouTube in May. Standing next to Habib, Netanyahu continued in Hebrew: “He fights a lot for Israel, for public opinion, and cares intensely about the Land of Israel and Jerusalem, and he has helped me over the years deepen Israeli-French relations.”

The TV report on Sunday said Jerusalem believed that Netanyahu’s angry public criticism of the emerging deal, and his phone conversations with world leaders — including Presidents Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Francois Hollande, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister David Cameron — had played a crucial role in stalling the deal, but that Israel was well aware that an agreement would be reached very soon. Netanyahu himself said Sunday that he was aware of the “strong desire” for a deal on the part of the P5+1 negotiators, and had asked the various leaders in his calls, “What’s the hurry?”

The report, quoting sources in Jerusalem, said Netanyahu and ministers close to him were castigating the United States for its “radical eagerness” in seeking a deal, and saying that Washington appeared fearful of confrontation with Iran. “This is no way to run a negotiation,” the sources were quoted as saying. The Americans “are giving up all of their pressure points, and the Iranians recognize the Americans’ weakness.”

At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu expressed outrage that under the terms of the emerging deal, “not a single centrifuge would be dismantled, not one.”

Israel believes the imminent deal will leave Iran with uranium enrichment capabilities, and thus enable it to become a nuclear breakout state at a time of its choosing.

Secretary of State John Kerry hit back at Netanyahu on Sunday, declaring, “I’m not sure that the prime minister, who I have great respect for, knows exactly what the amount or the terms are going to be because we haven’t arrived at them all yet. That’s what we’re negotiating.”

After the talks broke up in Geneva after midnight Saturday, Kerry complained about critics who were “jumping to conclusions” about the terms of the accord on the basis of “rumors or other parcels of information that somebody pretends to know.”

Netanyahu on Friday publicly pleaded with Kerry not to rush to sign what he called a “very, very bad deal.”

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By Washington's Blog

America and Israel Created a Monster Computer Virus Threatening Nuclear Reactors Worldwide

Global Research, November 12, 2013

Washington's Blog

Even Threatens the International Space Station

In their obsession to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israel created a computer virus (called “Stuxnet”) to take out Iran’s nuclear reactors.

The virus appears to have spread to other countries.

One of the world’s top computer security experts – Eugene Kaspersky – said this week that the virus has attacked a Russian nuclear reactor.   As The Register notes:

The infamous Stuxnet malware thought to have been developed by the US and Israel to disrupt Iran’s nuclear facilities, also managed to cause chaos at a Russian nuclear plant, according to Eugene Kaspersky.

The revelation came during a Q&A session after a speech at Australia’s National Press Club last week, in which he argued that those spooks responsible for “offensive technologies” don’t realise the unintended consequences of releasing malware into the wild.

“Everything you do is a boomerang,” he added. “It will get back to you.”

+++

“Unfortunately, it’s very possible that other nations which are not in a conflict will be victims of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure,” said Kaspersky.

“It’s cyber space. [There are] no borders, [and many facilities share the] same systems.”

Not finished there, Kaspersky also claimed to have heard from “Russian space guys” in the know that even machines on the International Space Station had been infected “from time to time” after scientists arrived aboard with infected USBs.

Other security experts agree.

As British security website V3 – in an article entitled “Stuxnet: UK and US nuclear plants at risk as malware spreads outside Russia” – reports:

Experts from FireEye [background] and F-Secure [background] told V3 the nature of Stuxnet means it is likely many power plants have fallen victim to the malware ….

F-Secure security analyst Sean Sullivan told V3 Stuxnet’s unpredictable nature means it has likely spread to other facilities outside of the plant mentioned by Kaspersky.

“It didn’t spread via the internet. It spread outside of its target due to a bug and so it started traveling via USB. Given the community targeted, I would not be surprised if other countries had nuclear plants with infected PCs,” he said.

Director of security strategy at FireEye, Jason Steer, mirrored Sullivan’s sentiment, adding the insecure nature of most critical infrastructure systems would make them an ideal breeding ground for Stuxnet.

+++

Steer added the atypical way Stuxnet spreads and behaves, means traditional defences are ill equipped to stop, or even accurately track the malware’s movements.

“It’s highly likely that other plants globally are infected and will continue to be infected as it’s in the wild and we will see on a weekly basis businesses trying to figure out how to secure the risk of infected USB flash drives,” he said.

+++

The use of XP in power plants is set to become even more dangerous as Microsoft has confirmed it will officially cut support for the 12-year-old OS in less than a year. The lack of support means XP systems will no longer receive critical security updates from Microsoft.

That’s almost as brilliant as waging a global war on terror in such an idiotic way that it is increasing terrorism …

***

Arutz Sheva

Islamists Threaten: Al Aqsa is 'a Volcano'

Islamic Movement concerned Israel will divide the Temple Mount to Jewish and Arab areas, opposed to equal prayer rights on the Mount.

First Publish: 11/10/2013

The Islamic Movement in Israel warned Sunday against an alleged Israeli plan that, it says, will divide the Temple Mount between Jews and Muslims in a way that allows Jews to pray regularly, similar to current arrangements at the Cave of Machpela in Hevron.

Sheikh Kamal al-Hatib, Deputy Head of the movement headed by radical preacher Raed Salah, said that this is “a great danger,” and that political and technical preparations have already been readied. Now, he claims – all that is need is “a halakhic [Jewish legal] decree” in order to go ahead with implementation of the plan.

This is the last step before Jews declare that work has begun on building the Third Temple, he claimed.

Hatib said “The Palestinian people will rise up to defend Al Aqsa as it did after Ariel Sharon tried to defile it in 2000.” He called the Al Aqsa Mosque “the mouth of a volcano” that is “about to explode.”

The warning was likely relating to a bill, tabled by Religious Affairs Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan (Jewish Home), which would allow Jews equal prayer rights on the Temple Mount. That bill has already drawn anger from Arab MKs, many of whom oppose the presence of Jews on the Mount altogether.

The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site, where the two holy Temples of Israel stood prior to their destruction, and where some Jewish traditions teach that the creation of the world began. 

But despite that fact, Jewish visitors to the Mount are subject to severe restrictions, including a complete ban on prayers or the performance of any other religious rituals, due to the presence of an Islamic complex there that is built on the ruins of the two Jewish Temples. This despite court orders rejecting such bans as illegally infringing on the right to freedom of religion.

Temple Mount activists have often cited such restrictions as an added imperative for Jews to frequent the Temple Mount, as a way of asserting Jewish rights at the holiest site in Israel. They also fear the "abandonment" of the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf trust, which administers the Islamic Al Aqsa complex, and which stands accused of the systematic destruction of Jewish artifacts on the Mount.

***

WND

VA SUED FOR HARASSING CHRISTIAN CHAPLAINS

Military pastors ordered to stop quoting Bible, leave Jesus at home

Published: November 10,2013

DREW ZAHN

Two military chaplains are suing Eric Shinseki, secretary of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, or VA, for allegedly being harassed and drummed out of a training and placement program because of their Christian faith.

Chaplains Major Steven Firtko, U.S. Army (Retired) and Lieutenant Commander Dan Klender, U.S. Navy, claim they were mocked, scolded and threatened for their faith while enrolled in the San Diego VA-DOD Clinical Pastoral Education Center program, which trains and distributes chaplains to military and VA medical centers in the San Diego area.

According to their lawsuit, Firtko and Klender allege the Center’s supervisor, Ms. Nancy Dietsch, a VA employee, derided them in classrooms and even had one of them dismissed for failing to renounce his Christian beliefs.

For example, on Sept. 24, 2012, the lawsuit claims, during a classroom discussion, Dietsch asked Firtko what he “believed faith was.”

Firtko responded by quoting Hebrews 11:1 – “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Dietsch told Firtko, on the first of several such instances according to the lawsuit, that he was not to quote the Bible in the chaplaincy program classroom.

On another incident in October, Dietsch allegedly shouted at Firtko for quoting Scripture again, banging her fist on the table and stating “it made her feel like she had been pounded over her head with a sledge hammer.”

The lawsuit also claims Dietsch told her students that the VA in general and she in particular do not allow chaplains to pray “in Jesus’ name” in public ceremonies.

Dietsch is also accused of allowing other students to deride Firtko and Klender, mocking them in front of the class and telling Firtko if he held to his beliefs on such things as evolution, salvation and homosexuality, he “did not belong in this program.” Eventually, the lawsuit states, she threatened to dismiss Firtko for refusing to recant his Christian doctrine and ordered he serve a six-week probation.

The lawsuit claims Chaplain Klender’s superior even encouraged him to challenge Dietsch for her “bias against evangelicals.”

Klender later left the program voluntarily, citing Dietsch’s alleged abuse.

Firtko, however, according to the lawsuit, was ejected from the program through a letter, signed by Dietsch, which stated his probation period was not “yielding the results” desired.

In July, Firtko, Klender and their sponsoring organization, the Conservative Baptist Association of America, filed formal complaint against Dietsch and the VA.

Now the lawsuit, filed with the help of Military-Veterans Advocacy, explains that Firtko and Klender have exhausted all administrative options and that the harassment the chaplains endured violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Administrative Procedures Act and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“No American choosing to serve in the armed forces should be openly ridiculed for his Christian faith, and that is most obviously true for chaplains participating in a chaplain training program,” said Commander J.B. Wells, U. S. Navy (Ret.), executive director of Military-Veterans Advocacy. “Not only was the treatment these men received inappropriate, it was also a violation of federal law and the religious freedom guarantees of the First Amendment.”

The lawsuit, Conservative Baptist Association of America v. Shinseki, has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

***

‘Gays’ Admit ENDA Game To 
Outlaw Christian Morality

By Matt Barber 11-10-13

The religious liberty death spiral continues.

One of the most dangerous and discriminatory pieces of legislation in modern times the ironically tagged “Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” or ENDA passed the U.S. Senate on Thursday by a vote of 64-32. Ten Republicans disgracefully joined liberal Democrats in this effort to ultimately outlaw the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

According to its leftist proponents, ENDA would merely insulate people who choose to engage in homosexual conduct (sexual orientation) or those who suffer from gender confusion (gender identity) against employment intolerance. In truth, however, this legislation effectively would codify the very thing it purports to combat: workplace discrimination.

Writing in the Huffington Post, popular homosexual radio personality Michelangelo Signorile confessed that, of any potential ENDA legislation that might reach President Obama’s desk for his pledged signature, “none should include any religious exemptions” whatsoever.

If Signorile and other “LGBT” activists get their way, this would mean that churches, mosques, synagogues, religious schools, Bible bookstores, as well as any and every other business in America with 15 or more employees, would be forced, under penalty of law, to abandon the biblical and traditional-values viewpoint on human sexuality, and hire (and otherwise not offend) those who openly flaunt expressly sinful and demonstrably self-destructive sexual behaviors.

Though in its current form ENDA contains an extremely weak religious exemption that might and I mean might partially protect some churches and religious organizations (until they’re sued by “gay” activists), this so-called exemption would leave most others such as the aforementioned Bible bookstores and many Christian schools and para-church organizations entirely unprotected. It would additionally crush individual business owners’ guaranteed First Amendment rights.

Although Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., attempted to amend the bill to strengthen religious protections, his amendment was shot down 55-43. Unbelievably, he voted for ENDA anyway.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on the other hand, wasn’t even considerate enough to feign concern for the First Amendment. He promised homosexual pressure groups that Democrats would remove all protections for Christians and other people of faith on the flipside after ENDA passed.

The homosexual news site Washington Blade reports that homosexual activist Derek Washington of “GetEqual” confirmed Reid’s promise. In a conference call with homosexual activists a week earlier, Washington admitted that Reid vowed, as goes any religious exemption, “the main thing to do was get the vote taken care of, and then deal with it later. As often times happens, you don’t get something perfect the first time around, you go back and fix it later, so that was basically his take on it.”

According to the Blade, “That account was corroborated by Faiz Shakir, a Reid spokesperson, who said the Democratic leader understands the concerns, but wants to get the bill passed first, then go back and address the exemptions.”

They’ve stopped pretending, folks. This is about criminalizing Christianity.

Still, there is a little good news. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said that, for now at least, he opposes the law and will block it because it is both unnecessary and will result in “frivolous lawsuits.” He agrees with constitutional think tanks like the Heritage Foundation that have conclusively demonstrated the threat ENDA poses to First Amendment freedoms.

“The speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

ENDA represents government-sanctioned viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple. It is no different from forcing a deeply religious business owner to hire and accommodate an “out and proud” adulterous “swinger.” It directly alienates the unalienable rights of people of faith. It pits the government directly against the free exercise of religion and is, therefore, unconstitutional on its face.

During his second term, President George W. Bush issued a Statement of Administration Policy on ENDA, highlighting its unconstitutionality: “[ENDA] is inconsistent with the right to the free exercise of religion as codified by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”

President Obama, however who never met a Constitution he didn’t violate has vociferously endorsed the bill and promises to sign it into law should it pass both houses of Congress. This is in perfect keeping with his demonstrated belief that the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers are more of a suggestion than a requirement.

Chai Feldblum is a lesbian activist and sexual nihilist lawyer who, in the past, has publicly supported legalized polygamy and bisexual polyamory. She is Obama’s recess-appointed commissioner to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). As ENDA’s chief framer, Ms. Feldblum would be charged with its primary enforcement. This is the classic fox-guarding-the-hen-house scenario.

In the past, Ms. Feldblum has repeatedly and candidly summed up the mindset behind the bill. She has publicly stated that the battle between religious freedom and unfettered sexual license (aka “gay rights”) is a “zero-sum game,” meaning the two cannot possibly coexist in harmony. It’s a “winner takes all” approach.

When asked about the Christian business owner or religious organization that morally objects to hiring people openly engaged in the homosexual lifestyle, Ms. Feldblum snapped: “Gays win, Christians lose.” And where Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to religious liberty comes into conflict with the postmodern concept of homosexual “rights,” Ms. Feldblum has admitted having “a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Of course, her analysis is entirely arbitrary and completely unsupported by any reasonable constitutional interpretation or federal precedent. But to Ms. Feldblum, Comrade Obama and his kooky cadre of revolutionary advisers, little things like the U.S. Constitution and federal precedent are but obnoxious speed bumps on the fast track to a brave new world.

Speaker Boehner, you alone stand between these torch-wielding nutters and a highly flammable U.S. Constitution.

Please stand your ground, sir. Under Obama, liberty has suffered quite enough, thank you.

Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war.

***

***

The Telegraph

Labour made a 'spectacular mistake' on immigration, admits Jack Straw

Former Home Secretary admits opening Britain's borders to migrants in 2004 was a 'spectacular mistake'

Jack Straw Photo: GEOFF PUGH

By Alice Philipson

7:00AM GMT 13 Nov 2013

Jack Straw has admitted that opening Britain's borders to Eastern European migrants was a "spectacular mistake".

The former Labour Home Secretary said his party's decision to allow migrants from Poland and Hungary to work in Britain from 2004 was a ‘"well-intentioned policy we messed up".

It comes a day after David Blunkett, Mr Straw's successor as Home secretary, warned British cities could face riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates "frictions" with local people.

The last Labour government predicted that only 13,000 would move to Britain from Poland and other eastern European countries after 2004.

However, more than one million arrived in one of the biggest waves of immigration seen in this country.

Almost every other EU state, apart from Ireland and Sweden, prevented migrants from working for the seven years permitted.

Mr Straw, who is MP for Blackburn, told the Lancashire Telegraph: "One spectacular mistake in which I participated (not alone) was in lifting the transitional restrictions on the Eastern European states like Poland and Hungary which joined the EU in mid-2004.

"Other existing EU members, notably France and Germany, decided to stick to the general rule which prevented migrants from these new states from working until 2011.

"'But we thought that it would be good for Britain if these folk could come and work here from 2004.

"Thorough research by the Home Office suggested that the impact of this benevolence would in any event be 'relatively small, at between 5,000 and 13,000 immigrants per year up to 2010'. Events proved these forecasts worthless.

"Net migration reached close to a quarter of a million at its peak in 2010. Lots of red faces, mine included."

His comments are the furthest any senior Labour figure has gone in admitting the party made a mistake on immigration policy.

On Monday Mr Blunkett said anti-social behaviour by Roma people in his Sheffield constituency has resulted in “understandable tensions” among the indigenous community, and the conflict must be addressed to avert disorder.

Britain is now home to 200,000 Roma migrants, one of the largest populations in Western Europe.

Mr Blunkett said: "We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming Roma community – because there's going to be an explosion otherwise.

"We have got to be tough and robust in saying to people, “you are not living in a downtrodden village or woodland” – because many of them don’t live in areas where there are toilets or refuse collection facilities."

Earlier this year, Chris Bryant, Labour's immigration spokesman, said it was wrong to ditch controls on migrants in 2004 and claimed far more workers came to Britain "than anybody had anticipated".

The admission came a year after spin doctors for Ed Miliband suggested the Labour leader would admit in a speech that the party's failures on immigration had increased community tensions in Britain. However, the comments were later dropped.

He had been expected to say: "We did too little to tackle the realities of segregation in communities that were struggling to cope."

But the admission was dropped in favour of a vague statement that the party had made "mistakes".

***

The Australian


Australia To The UN: No More “Socialism Masquerading As Environmentalism”

November 11, 2013

FEDERAL cabinet has ruled that Australia will not sign up to any new contributions, taxes or charges at this week’s global summit on climate change, in a significant toughening of its stance as it plans to move within days to repeal the carbon tax.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Cabinet ministers have decided to reject any measures of “socialism masquerading as environmentalism” after meeting last week to consider a submission on the position the government would take to the Warsaw conference.

A further document was produced after the meeting that outlines the government’s position.

The Australian has seen part of the document and it declares that, while Australia will remain “a good international citizen” and remains “committed to achieving the 5 per cent reduction” by 2020 of the 2000 levels of emissions, it will not sign up to any new agreement that involves spending money or levying taxes.

This rules out Australia playing any role in a wealth transfer from rich countries to developing nations to pay them to decrease their carbon emissions.

Depression: ‘Second biggest cause of disability’ in world

By Helen Briggs, BBC News, 5 Nov 2013

Depression is the second most common cause of disability worldwide after back pain, according to a review of research.

The disease must be treated as a global public health priority, experts report in the journal PLOS Medicine.

The study compared clinical depression with more than 200 other diseases and injuries as a cause of disability.

Depression was ranked at number two as a global cause of disability, but its impact varied in different countries and regions. For example, rates of major depression were highest in Afghanistan and lowest in Japan. In the UK, depression was ranked at number three in terms of years lived with a disability.

Dr Alize Ferrari from the University of Queensland’s School of Population Health led the study.

"Depression is a big problem and we definitely need to pay more attention to it than we are now," she told BBC News.

The data—for the year 2010—follows similar studies in 1990 and 2000 looking at the global burden of depression.

Commenting on the study, Dr Daniel Chisholm, a health economist at the department for mental health and substance abuse at the World Health Organization said depression was a very disabling condition.

"It’s a big public health challenge and a big problem to be reckoned with but not enough is being done.

"Around the world only a tiny proportion of people get any sort of treatment or diagnosis."

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NaturalNews

FDA declares trans fats no longer safe to eat; partially-hydrogenated oils to be banned from nearly all foods

Sunday, November 10, 2013

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Editor of NaturalNews.com

1(NaturalNews) The FDA is on a roll. Barely two weeks after announcing new quality control standards for pet food manufacturers, the agency has declared that trans fats are no longer safe to consume. A ban of the toxic substance is in the works, and the FDA will spearhead the eventual removal of this disease-promoting ingredient from the food supply.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods, are not 'generally recognized as safe' for use in food," the FDA has now announced. "If the FDA finalizes its preliminary determination, PHOs would be considered 'food additives' and could not be used in food unless authorized by regulation."

I can hardly believe my own ears when I hear myself saying the FDA has now done two incredibly positive things back-to-back. But as a long-time critic of the FDA, I've also earned the right to applaud them when they do something right, and removing trans fats from the food supply is hugely important to public health.

Partially-hydrogenated oils have been killing Americans for decades

Trans fats (found in partially-hydrogenated oils) cause heart disease, diabetes and many other chronic degenerative conditions. They exist only for the convenience of junk food manufacturers who want a shelf-stable fat that won't liquefy and leak out of their junk processed foods. Trans fats -- which are usually made from genetically modified soybean oil -- are the perfect junk food ingredient because they taste fatty yet they are shelf-stable and resist rancidity. Some people refer to them as "plasticized" fats.

Nearly all so-called "vegetable shortening" products are almost entirely made from partially-hydrogenated oils (and are therefore loaded with trans fats).

For decades, the junk food industry has poisoned its own customers with trans fats, sodium nitrite, MSG, aspartame, toxic heavy metals, toxic preservative chemicals, artificial food colors and much more. Eventually, all these poisons need to come out of the food supply, and the FDA has surprisingly taken a huge, positive step in that direction by removing trans fats from the GRAS list.

The food companies will despise this decision, by the way, making it one of the very few decisions the FDA makes that is not in the interests of big business.

Banning toxic food ingredients is a proper role of government

In the debate about the proper role of government, this kind of food safety decision by the FDA demonstrates the appropriate, limited role of centralized authority. My philosophy has always been that government needs to stop regulating individuals (stop telling me what insurance to buy!) and start regulating global corporations (stop dumping mercury into the river!).

Even among those of us who believe in small, decentralized government, when it comes to food safety and environmental safety, there is a legitimate role for a central authority to force corporations to stop poisoning the people and the planet. Without that authority, food companies never would have even agreed to list ingredients on food labels! And they would still be using every deadly chemical, coloring agent and preservative that has already been banned by the FDA. So in these limited situations, government authority really can help protect the public, if applied responsibly and in the public interest.

But the FDA, of course, often goes too far with its censorship of truthful health claims for dietary supplements. The damage FDA does to public health from those actions may even be greater than the help FDA provides to the public by banning toxic ingredients. If we really hope to experience a leap forward in public health, we must end the FDA-enforced censorship of truthful health claims for foods, superfoods, herbs and dietary supplements. If a health benefit for a vitamin is true, why can't a vitamin company simply tell the truth?

The FDA's current position, as a matter of fact, is that there is no such thing as any vitamin, mineral, herb or natural substance that has any ability whatsoever to prevent, cure or treat any disease or health condition. That's not merely absurd; it's hopelessly outdated. Everybody knows that vitamin C cures scurvy, or that vitamin D prevents and cures rickets. There are thousands of natural foods and substances with genuine curative properties, yet the FDA recognizes none of them.

So while on one hand the FDA is making this decision to ban trans fats from the food supply -- a GOOD thing! -- the agency is simultaneously enforcing a "thought monopoly" on the entire nation by silencing dietary supplement companies from stating scientifically-validated truths about beneficial nutrients and supplements.

If only we could get the FDA to act in the interests of the public all the time, eh?

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

“And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”
(1 Timothy 6:8)