“But
into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not
without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of
the people.” Hebrews 9:7 Once Every Year
Important
Differences in Solomon's and Herod's Temples
There were some extremely important
differences between the Solomon's Temple and Herod’s Temple.
Since
some of the original artifacts were, according to the biblical
account, lost after the destruction of the First Temple, the Second
Temple lacked the following holy articles:
The
Ark of the Covenant containing the Tablets of Stone, before which
were placed the pot of manna and Aaron's rod
The
Urim and Thummim (divination objects contained in the Hoshen)
The
holy oil
The
sacred fire.
In the Second Temple, the Kodesh
Hakodashim (Holy of Holies) was separated by curtains rather than a
wall as in the First Temple. Still, as in the Tabernacle, the Second
Temple included:
The
Menorah (golden lamp) for the Hekhal
The
Table of Showbread
The
golden altar of incense, with golden censers.
According to the Mishnah (Middot
iii. 6), the "Foundation Stone" stood where the Ark used to
be, and the High Priest put his censer on it on Yom Kippur.
The Second Temple also included
many of the original vessels of gold that had been taken by the
Babylonians but restored by Cyrus the Great. According to the
Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 22b),[2] however, “the Temple lacked the
Shekinah, the dwelling or settling divine presence of God, and the
Ruach HaKodesh, the Spirit of Holiness, present in the first. “
These
are major differences since the Ark of the Covenant was the heart and
soul of the Jewish faith.
This
was also how the Jews received forgiveness of sin when the high
priest went into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, The Day of
Atonement.
Some
interesting verses to ponder can be found in Ezekiel chapter 10 which
was written in approximately 594 BC just eight years before Jerusalem
was destroyed and the Ark of the Covenant disappeared. God had been
showing Ezekiel the abominations the elders of Israel were committing
in the Temple itself.
“Then the glory of the LORD went
up from the cherub, [and stood] over the threshold of the house; and
the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the
brightness of the LORD’S glory. Then the glory of the LORD departed
from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.
And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the
earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also [were] beside
them, and [every one] stood at the door of the east gate of the
LORD’S house; and the glory of the God of Israel [was] over them
above.” Ezekiel 10:4, 18-19
The
Spirit of God departed from the cherubims.
Day
of Atonement
Yom
Kippur
“The Holy of Holies was entered
once a year by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, to sprinkle
the blood of sacrificial animals (a bull offered as atonement for the
Priest and his household, and a goat offered as atonement for the
people) and offer incense upon the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy
seat which sat on top of the ark in the First Temple (the Second
Temple had no ark and the blood was sprinkled where the Ark would
have been and the incense was left on the Foundation Stone). The
animal was sacrificed on the Brazen Altar and the blood was carried
into the most holy place. The golden censers were also found in the
Most Holy Place.” Wikipedia
Since
sometime before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC these items
have been missing and there has really been no atonement for sin
although some Jews today say repentance and good works are what
really count.
***
WND
Dobson: N.Y. adopts 'pure barbarism rarely seen since Middle Ages'
Posted By Bob Unruh On
January 23, 2019
Dr. James Dobson
A new abortion law enacted by New York’s Democrat-led state legislature, signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for the first time permits abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, up to the very moment of birth, for almost any reason.
Conservative Christian author, radio broadcaster and leader of millions of families Dr. James Dobson is calling it “pure barbarism on a scale rarely seen since the Middle Ages.”
The new law permits abortions at any time, and for almost any reason, including mental-health reasons. To celebrate the new law, Cuomo ordered that landmarks like the spire of One World Trade Center be illuminated in pink.
The law also moves abortion violations from the state’s penal code to the health code.
Dobson, founder and president of Family Talk as well as the James Dobson Family Institute, is an author and psychologist, has written dozens of books, counseled multiple presidents and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008.
He released a statement addressing New York’s extreme abortion activism, which included his own recommendations for activism.
“It is not overstating the matter to say I am horrified by the New York State Senate’s vote to pass the euphemistic Reproductive Health Act (RHA). This bill is not about reproductive health at all. It is pure barbarism on a scale rarely seen since the Middle Ages,” he said.
“This legislation expands upon New York’s already liberal abortion laws, which allow for on demand abortion up until 24 weeks. The RHA’s main aim is to justify abortions throughout a pregnancy’s entire term based on the overly broad exceptions defined in Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, including such subjective measures as a woman’s emotional and psychological wellbeing. Late term abortions had only previously been authorized in New York if done to save the life of the mother.”
He warned that New York already was considered the abortion capital of the nation, but this bill “also allows non-physicians to commit abortions, and decriminalizes abortion by moving it from the criminal code to the public-health code. New York is symbolically doubling-down on the killing of the unborn on the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, casting an even darker shadow on a date already shrouded in tragedy and the loss of innocent life.
“This terrible news comes alongside an Iowa judge’s decision to strike down that state’s heartbeat bill, saying it violated the state’s constitution. In the exact opposite spirit to New York’s RHA, Iowa had prohibited abortions after a baby’s heartbeat is detectable, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy,” Dobson said.
“Make no mistake, these two setbacks only serve to further focus and energize our movement. I urge all pro-life Americans to call, write, and email your representatives and remind them that the majority of us in this country want the exact opposite of the RHA, a reduction — not an expansion — of abortion.
“Donate, march, and post on social media and use every tool and resource at your disposal to affect the change for which we are all praying so fervently. There is a battle raging for millions of lives preordained by God himself, and it is we who must stand for them so that they might have a chance at life.”
Lila Rose, president of the national pro-life Live Action, which has done undercover video investigations revealing the misbehavior of abortion industry players, warned, “Convicted criminals aren’t subjected to the death penalty in New York state, but now children up until the ninth month of pregnancy can be given lethal injections and poisoned to death. This is no different than infanticide.”
She pointed out that pro-lifers in the state had fought – successfully – against the plan.
“But the November election put pro-abortion Democrats in control of both state houses, and Democrat politicians have made abortion on demand a priority. While the pro-abortion zealots in New York have won this battle, they will ultimately lose the war on abortion,” she said.
“New York’s law is barbaric and inhumane and rejects modern science and medical advancements that reveal the development and humanity of life in the womb. Millions of Americans are waking up to the barbaric reality of abortion and rejecting it. A recent Marist poll showed 75 percent of Americans believe abortion should be limited to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy. This includes 61 percent of those who identify as pro-choice, 60 percent of Democrats, and 78 percent of independents,” she said.
“One thing that this law reveals to the nation is the extent and the extremism of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which allows laws such as this one to exist. It was Roe that legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in this country. If Roe is not soon overturned, any state could follow New York’s monstrous example.”
***
LIFE SITE
New York legislature votes to legalize abortion up to birth, let non-doctors commit abortions
Calvin Freiburger
January 22, 2019
ALBANY, New York, January 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Both chambers of the New York state legislature voted Tuesday on legislation to enshrine a “fundamental right” to abortion in state law and eliminate protections for preborn babies until birth, in votes set to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
The state Senate voted 38-24 in favor of the so-called “Reproductive Health Act” Tuesday evening, the Albany Times-Union reports, a bill that has repeatedly cleared the state Assembly in years past but been blocked by the formerly-Republican Senate. Following the Senate vote, the Assembly passed it 92-47.
The bill declares that “Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion,” erases the state’s recognition of preborn babies older than 24 weeks as potential homicide victims, removes abortion from the penal code entirely, and allows licensed health practitioners other than full doctors to commit abortions.
“We have a president who's made it very, very clear that he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins declared before the vote. “Today, here in New York, we are saying no [...] and we're not just saying no. We're saying that here in New York, women's health matters. We're saying here in New York, women's lives matter. We're saying here in New York, women's decisions matter.”
The Times-Union suggests the bill would allow “late-stage” abortions only if the mother’s “health” is endangered or if the baby is deemed non-viable, but the New York State Right to Life Committee warns that the bill would go much further in practice.
Declaring abortion a “fundamental right” opens the door to invalidating “any limits on abortion” and “mandat[ing] that everyone take part in the culture of death,” the group warns. The bill would also prevent pregnant women whose babies are killed in violent attacks from seeing justice, and have the effect of “authorizing infanticide” by repealing the requirement that a second physician be on hand in the event that an attempted abortion past 20 weeks yields a live infant.
The bill is also part of a broader trend of left-wing states codifying a “right” to abortion in anticipation of a future Supreme Court ruling that could reverse Roe, restoring states’ ability to ban abortion themselves and automatically banning it in the handful of states with pre-Roe bans still on the books.
“To see New York pass a bill so that right is protected, is just a dream come true,” said Sarah Ragle Weddington, an attorney who represented Norma “Jane Roe” McCorvey in the original case. The Times-Union does not mention that Weddington’s former client became pro-life in 1995 and dedicated the rest of her life to opposing Roe.
New York’s Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has vowed to promote abortion as part of “the most progressive agenda this state have ever seen,” is expected to sign the bill.
(“Because they forsook me, and profaned this place, and burnt incense in it to strange gods, which they and their fathers knew not; and the kings of Juda have filled this place with innocent blood.” Jeremiah 19:4)
***
***
U.S. Catholic
Are women turning to witchcraft in the era of #MeToo?
Women are seeking spiritual practices that respect their wisdom, creativity, and leadership.
By Jessica Mesman
Christian witches? What’s next? Married bachelors? Square circles?
A combination of disbelief, mockery, and genuine concern for the souls of those who might claim such a label populated a friend’s Facebook thread when he referenced a rise in Christians who also identify as witches.
This is a contradiction of terms, isn’t it? The Bible explicitly condemns witches, one commenter replied. (In truth, no equivalent word for witch, derived from Old English, exists in Hebrew, so what the Bible condemns, in various places, is more properly translated as sorcery, divination, and/or mediumship.) Still, as early as Catholic grade school I learned to equate witchcraft with tarot cards and Ouija boards—all feared as portals to the demonic. To be sure, Wicca, a religion founded in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, was mixed into the same scary stew as the Salem Witch Trials and the green-faced Wicked Witch of the West.
In the popular imagination, the word witch has become so elastic as to encompass all of the above and then some. But really, there’s only one thing we can all agree about a witch: She’s a woman.
And women are reclaiming the term in so many different ways, it likely doesn’t mean to them what most Catholics think it means.
“They may not all recite spells or worship a moon goddess,” writes Kate Guadagnino in the New York Times, “but at a time when misogyny is rampant and women’s rights are on shaky ground, they relate to the witch as a feminist symbol. A witch, after all, is a woman with power.”
In the era of #MeToo, the badge of “witch” is inspiring artists, pop stars, and entrepreneurs who claim it as a mark not of evil but of women’s wisdom, creative power, and self-agency. And yes, despite the well-known spiritual dangers of dabbling in any sort of occultism or practical magic, some of these witches also identify as Catholics.
In 2018 we saw the reboot of Suspiria, a 1977 horror film about a dance company that is really a murderous coven. On Neflix, Sabrina the teenage witch came back to the small screen, and this time she was “chilling.” Taisia Kitaiskaia and Katy Horan published Literary Witches, a collection of visionary women writers whom the authors deemed “figures of formidable creativity, empowerment, and general badassery.” Virginia Woolf, Mira Bai, and Toni Morrison were among those included in this “coven.”
We saw news stories of Lana Del Rey using witchcraft to hex Trump and women gathering to cast spells on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The #instawitches took to social media as e-commerce purveyors of hoodoo spellwork, healing crystals, and herbs. Makeup giant Sephora even got in on the trend, stocking a “Starter Witch Kit” with tarot cards and sage until witches called this religious appropriation and the company withdrew the product and apologized.
In a sense, “witchcraft” has been repackaged as a feel-good hobby, the natural convergence of self-care, green living, and new age spirituality, a slide down the slippery slope from the multi-level marketing of essential oils among Christian women to ordering hoodoo spellwork on the internet. But I suspect it also expresses a much deeper spiritual wound.
Among Catholic women, in particular, I see, at best, ambivalence to the male church hierarchy in the wake of so many disturbing revelations of abuse. We feel betrayed by those we trusted to lead us when we were not permitted to lead. With the wisdom of these men now called into question, we look to the wise women of history—so often dismissively, dangerously labeled “witches.”
“We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn,” read a sign at the Women’s March in 2016. Catholic women might hold up a sign that says “we are the children of Joan of Arc,” who was condemned a witch and sentenced to death before she was ever declared a saint.
In times of extreme anxiety, we turn to religion for comfort. Studies have shown healthy spiritual practice can be as effective as pharmaceuticals for calming anxiety. Columbia University psychologist Lisa Miller, who studies spirituality in children, has argued that each of us has “an innate capacity for transcendence.” She believes religious faith traditions, at their best, are “an embrace of this innate spiritual faculty.” But her research has shown that organized religion can be destructive to mental health when it contradicts something she calls “heart knowing” or “intuition.” In those cases, we may seek other avenues of protection for ourselves and those we love.
Maybe this is at the heart of why some Christian women, at this particular moment in history, are seeking alternate and even potentially dangerous spiritual paths. We are no longer willing to deny our gut feelings, that “heart knowing” that told us the truth when those who were in power did not.
Women are seeking spiritual practices and traditions that respect their intuition, wisdom, creativity, and leadership. And many of them are surprised to find it a short leap from St. Brigid, Catholic saint, to Bride the folkloric Celtic goddess, or from St. Hildegard of Bingen, the doctor of the church and expert in folk remedies and animal omens, whose Physika looks strikingly like a witch’s grimoire, to the modern day Christian insta “witches” who are lifting these women up as their heroes.
***
RT
IDF chief turned PM candidate touts body count & bombing Gaza into ‘stone age’ in campaign ad
Former Israeli Defense Forces chief turned political candidate Benny Gantz is touting the body count he racked up leading Operation Protective Edge with a campaign that boasts about bombing parts of Gaza “back to the Stone Age.”
Gantz has released a series of campaign ads for his “Hosen Le Yisrael” (Israel Resilience) party, glorifying the operation he oversaw as IDF commander as he attempts to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister in April’s election.
“Parts of Gaza were returned to the stone ages,” one clip boasts over footage of the bombed-out shells of Palestinian buildings. As chief of general staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Gantz led the offensive that bombarded Gaza for 51 days, killing – as the ad boasts – “1,364 terrorists” and bringing “3.5 years of quiet.”
The second ad in the series shows a running tally of deaths over scenes of Palestinian funerals, and a third shows the targeted assassination of a Hamas leader whose car explodes in a ball of flame.
Gantz, whose campaign slogan translates to “Israel Before Everything,” seems convinced that Israeli voters pick their leaders by evaluating their death-dealing prowess – though he may be onto something, as recent polls have him trailing Netanyahu by just ten points. Hosen le Yisrael would win less than half as many seats as Netanyahu’s Likud party if the elections were held today, according to that poll.
Palestinian and Israeli media have both taken issue with Gantz’s “terror” math. Using UN Human Rights Council figures, Electronic Intifada suggests that the ad tacitly admits that Gantz’s IDF targeted civilians, since less than 800 of those killed in Protective Edge were militants, while Haaretz notes that even the official Israeli military figures counts less than half of the Palestinian casualties as militants – meaning Gantz included close to 500 “uncategorized” casualties in his “terrorist” tally.
This accidental admission, EI points out, could help Palestinian-Dutch citizen Ismail Ziada in his lawsuit against Gantz – since Ziada’s suit alleges the bombing that killed his family was part of an official IDF policy to target civilian residences “in breach of international humanitarian law.”
“Only the strong win,” the videos proclaim, echoing Netanyahu’s own militaristic rhetoric – though a fourth campaign spot features shots of Gantz looking thoughtful and platitudes about “striving and working toward” peace, seemingly beamed in from a parallel universe or someone else’s campaign.
***
STRANGE SOUNDS
It’s BIBLICAL in Australia right now! MILLIONS OF ANIMALS DIE due to ongoing extreme temperatures and dry weather
NASA detects ‘MASSIVE anomaly’ below Antarctica sparking SHOCK Nazi WW2 claim
A NASA satellite detected a “gravity anomaly” below the ice of Antarctica, sparking outrageous conspiracies of a secret underground Nazi base from World War Two.
Scientists experimenting on an Antarctic lake hidden deep under glacial cover made a surprising discovery when mud scrapped from an instrument lowered into its dark, icy depths revealed ancient signs of life.
The startling discovery was made in December, after a team from the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) expedition drilled a hole through a kilometer-thick slab of ice on Lake Mercer, located under an ice sheet some 600km from the South Pole.
The muddy haul first revealed the remains of photosynthetic algae that lived in the area millions of years ago, when the area now called the Antarctic was much warmer.
The researchers were then thrilled to uncover a collection of higher lifeforms: crustaceans, the tendril of a plant or fungus, and an eight-legged tardigrade. Known as “water bear,” this micro-animal is an ultimate survivor, with experiments in the past seeing it withstand desiccation (total drying up of the body), solar radiation, both boiling and freezing temperatures, and even living over a week in outer space.
A previous drilling expedition at Lake Whillans in 2013, some 50km from Lake Mercer, found an environment brimming with microbes, but no signs of more complex life. Thinking that the specimens may have been initially introduced on contaminated equipment, the team cleaned the instruments and repeated the process only to find more ancient lifeforms in the mud.
Calling the discovery “fully unexpected,” David Harwood, a micropaleontologist with the SALSA team, told Nature magazine that the discovered remains were in excellent condition.
“It looked really fresh,” he said of one crustacean found with tiny, delicate hairs still attached. “Like something that had been living.”Another shrimp-like crustacean was found with legs still hanging from it and discolored “like an old leaf that’s been sitting on the ground for a season,” Harwood added.
Theories are now sprouting as to how the organisms came to be in the lake. Some suggest they may have lived in nearby ponds and streams during warm periods of glacial retreat between 10,000 and 120,000 years ago, before being washed into the lake through underground rivers deep beneath the ice or a moving glacier.
After covering up the bored hole in January, the SALSA team are now using carbon dating and attempts to sequence the creatures’ DNA in a bid to date them accurately and compare them to modern specimens. This may provide answers to how far the continent’s glaciers retreated millennia ago.
However, the surprise discovery may also inspire hope for those waiting on future exploration of extraterrestrial subglacial worlds. NASA is planning to drill into the frozen crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa in search for alien life, while closer to home on Mars stunning photos of a crater filled with water ice have teased space lovers worldwide.
UK: Hate Crime Police Investigate Man’s “Thinking” After He Criticized Transgenderism
Humberside authorities warn him he could be fired for “hate speech”
Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars.com - JANUARY 23, 2019
A man in the United Kingdom was subjected to a thought police investigation by authorities in Humberside after he criticized transgenderism.
The individual, who goes by the name “Harry the Owl” on Twitter, previously tweeted “trans women are not women”.
In a 10 tweet threat on the incident, Harry explains how he first got a call from his boss informing him that the police wished to speak with him.
After calling the police, Harry was told by an officer “representing the LGBTQ community” that someone had reported him for hate speech and it was the duty of the police to check if he employed any trans people because they would not be in a safe working environment.
After admitting that the “30 tweets” being investigated were not criminal in any way, the officer then bizarrely read a limerick before labeling the matter a “hate incident” and asserting that there was a victim (despite no crime having been committed).
“This is where it gets incredibly sinister,” writes Harry. “The cop told me that he needed to speak with me because, even though I’d committed no crime whatsoever, he needed (and I quote) ‘to check my THINKING!’ Seriously. Honestly.”
“Finally, he lectured me. Said, ‘Sometimes, a woman’s brain grows a man’s body in the womb and that is what transgender is.’ You can imagine my response,” said Harry.
The officer then told Harry to watch his language otherwise he would be fired from his job for hate speech.
In the United Kingdom, so-called “hate incidents” are recorded as such if the offended person perceives themselves to be a victim, a standard which does not require any crime or misdemeanor to have taken place.
As I document in the video below, despite the UK being hit by soaring violent crime rates and only 9% of actual crimes ending with suspects being charged, more police resources are being devoted to patrolling online speech.
Recently reported & investigated ‘hate crimes’ in the UK include;
– A dog pooping outside someone’s house. – A dog barking at someone. – A bus driver’s “racist look”. – A dispute over a parking spot. – Someone losing a tennis match.
Zero Hedge
China Starts "Debt Shaming": New App Warns Users If They Are Walking Near Someone In Debt
Tyler Durden
January 22, 2019
Authorities in the northern Chinese province of Hebei have rolled out an app over WeChat which can tell people if they're walking near someone in debt, according to China Daily.
The program, aptly named "map of deadbeat debtors," flashes a warning if someone in debt is within a 500-meter radius - showing their exact location according to a screenshot of the app.
Whether the app reveals the debtors' names or photos is unknown, nor does China Daily mention how much money is owed or to whom - but according to paper the app allows people to "whistle-blow on debtors capable of paying their debts."
"It's a part of our measures to enforce our rulings and create a socially credible environment," said a spokesman for the Higher People's Court of Hebei - which is behind the app.
The "map of deadbeat debtors" is yet the latest in China's push towards a shame-based "social credit score" system which has already been deployed in several parts of the country. According to a November report, Beijing has an ambitious plan to control China's citizens through a system of social scoring that punishes behavior it does not approve.
Some critics warn the new system is fraught with risks and could reduce humans to little more than a report card, said Bloomberg.
Hangzhou, the capital city of China’s Zhejiang province, rolled out its social credit system earlier this year, rewarding "pro-social behaviors" such as blood donations, healthy lifestyles, and volunteer work while punishing those who violate traffic laws, smoke and drink, and speak poorly about government.
By mid-Q2, China had blocked more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips for people who had poor social credit scores, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
According to the Beijing plan, different agencies will link databases to get a more detailed picture of every resident’s interactions across a multitude of financial and social platforms.
In March, we reported that China had rolled out an advanced facial recognition system over 16 provinces, cities and autonomous regions ominously called "SkyNet" for the "security and protection" of the country, reports Workers' Daily.
"The system is able to identify 40 facial features, regardless of angles and lighting, at an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent," reported the People's Daily. "It can also scan faces and compare them with its database of criminal suspects at large at a speed of 3 billion times a second, indicating that all Chinese people can be compared in the system within only one second."
Between debt-shaming and skynet, China's future is looking more and more dystopian as time goes on.
***
EXPLAIN LIFE
Vaccine Skepticism In Australia Now Punishable By 10 Years In Jail
January 4, 2019
Australian nurses and midwives who dare to speak out against the dangers of vaccinations on social media or in person will be prosecuted, the Australian government has warned, urging members of the public to report vaccine skeptics to the authorities.
Medical professional face a jail sentence of 10 years for expressing doubt about the effectiveness of vaccinations or urging further studies into vaccine safety. Opponents of the new law claim free speech and scientific integrity is under attack in Australia by a government that has been bought and paid for by Big Pharma.
“With no exceptions we expect all registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives to use the best available evidence in making practice decisions. This includes providing information to the public about public health issues,” Chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) Dr. Lynette Cusack said in a statement.
The NMBA has called on Australians to report nurses or midwives promoting anti-vaccination – ‘anti-vaxxers’, as they’re known colloquially.
“The board will consider whether the nurse or midwife has breached their professional obligations and will treat these matters seriously,” the statement said.
“Any published anti-vaccination material and/or advice which is false, misleading or deceptive which is being distributed by a registered nurse, enrolled nurse or midwife (including via social media) may also constitute a summary offence under the National Law and could result in prosecution by AHPRA [Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.]”
One of the strongest supporters of vaccination, Victoria’s Health Minister Jill Hennessy, has no time for parents who believe vaccine safety requires further study in order to ensure they are safe for our children.
Describing vaccine skeptics as “brain dead sheep“, the politician said:
“They are an organized movement, largely stemming from the United States of America that are hell bent on misleading parents that vaccinations are unsafe.
“That’s a dangerous message and one I’m going to continue to fight. Vaccinations save lives,” the minister concluded.
***
MailOnline
Mike Pompeo warns Nicolas Maduro the US will take 'appropriate action' to DEFEND its diplomats in Venezuela after they were ordered to leave following Trump's recognition of opposition leader Juan Guiado as president
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, 35, declared himself interim president in front of demonstrators in Caracas on Wednesday
Almost immediately, the White House said it recognized him as 'interim president' in a move intended to force out Nicolas Maduro
Trump said 'all options are on the table' and officials said oil sanctions could be in place this week which would further hit the socialist country's economy
Maduro, who was only sworn in for his second term this month, defiantly spoke from presidential palace to accuse U.S. of a coup and expelled its diplomats
Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and Peru also all recognized opposition leader
Move came after huge protests swept the country in the wake of Maduro being sworn in as president earlier this month
Demonstrations have swept the country over frustration at Maduro keeping power in election widely seen as rigged and at food shortages
Maduro appeared at balcony without defense and armed forces ministers at time when military's support is all that is keeping him in power
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and REUTERS
PUBLISHED: 05:02, 23 January 2019 | UPDATED: 02:47, 24 January 2019
***
RT
Venezuelan army disavows self-proclaimed leader, will defend national sovereignty – defense minister
The Venezuelan military will not accept a president imposed by “dark interests,” Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said after Washington and a number of its allies recognized a lawmaker as the new leader in Caracas.
The army will continue to defend the constitution and national sovereignty, Padrino said on Wednesday afternoon, hours after opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido was proclaimed interim president by the National Assembly, in a direct challenge to President Nicolas Maduro.
The US quickly recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, with the Organization of American States (OAS) following Washington’s lead. Canada and France have also recognized Guaido, while Mexico has declined to do so “for now.”
Bolivia declared "solidarity with the people of Venezuela and brother Nicolas Maduro" in resisting the "claws of imperialism" in South America, President Evo Morales tweeted.
Maduro responded to the US announcement by cutting diplomatic ties with Washington and giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave Venezuela.
Guaido, however, countermanded that in a tweet and promised that Venezuela “will continue to maintain diplomatic relations with all the countries of the world.”
The issue of diplomats has raised the stakes in the US-Venezuela confrontation, as Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) – one of the driving forces behind the recognition of Guaido – argued that US diplomats should stay put, since leaving would mean recognition of Maduro’s legitimacy.
RT
Maduro orders ‘total revision’ of Venezuela-US diplomatic ties after Pence calls for regime change
January 23, 2019
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered a revision of diplomatic relations with the US after the White House has openly urged the opposition to unite and overthrow the “dictator with no legitimate claim to power.”
Ahead of the mass street protests against Maduro on Wednesday, called by the opposition-led National Assembly, US Vice President Mike Pence released a video message reaffirming unwavering support for a regime change in Venezuela. Denouncing Maduro as “a dictator with no legitimate claim to power” who has “never won the presidency in a free and fair election,” Pence declared that time has come for the Venezuelan people to take the matters into their own hands, in a speech peppered with Spanish phrases.
“The United States supports the courageous decision by Juan Guaidó, the president of National Assembly, to assert that body’s constitutional powers, declare Maduro a usurper and call for the establishment of a transitional government,” Pence said.
Slamming the speech as shameless US meddling in his country’s internal affairs, Maduro in response promised his supporters to announce specific measures against Washington in the coming hours.
“Enough of aggressions and conspiracies, enough is enough!” said Maduro, rejecting the “imperialist interventionism”and open calls for coup d'état that he called unprecedented in the 200-year history of US-Venezuela relations.
“Nobody in Latin America believes seriously that the US government is interested in democracy and freedom...because they have supported all the dictatorships that we had suffered in Latin America for decades,” Atilio Borón, professor of political science in the University of Buenos Aires, told RT.
They are creating a humanitarian crisis and then they want to appear as the ones who can solve all the problems.
“This is a desperate move, because they cannot defeat Maduro at the ballot box and they are promoting a sort of public insurrection which may backfire,” Boron added. “If they want to help, the first thing they should do is stop blocking the foreign relations with Venezuela and other countries which are ready to sell their goods to Venezuela.”
“It is so ironic that the US political establishment has been crying wolf over Russia and president Trump being in cahoots with the Russians, but when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to US imperialism and intervention – especially Latin America – there is consensus amongst the corporate elite in our political establishment, under the guise of spreading democracy and freedom,” noted Andrew King, PhD candidate in public policy at the University of Massachusetts.
Recognizing Guaidó as a legitimate president and saying that the democratically elected president Maduro has the illegitimate power, that would be akin to a foreign nation saying that [the US] president is illegitimate and they will recognize the Senate or the House leader as the president.
Maduro was inaugurated for a second six-year term earlier this month, prompting Guaidó to declare his presidency illegitimate. While calling on the country to mobilize, and urging the military to defect, the opposition leader has also been seeking international support to topple Maduro.
Venezuela has already descended into violence ahead of the mass opposition-led protest due to take place on Wednesday, marking the 61st anniversary of the military uprising that toppled the dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
On Tuesday, police used tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters who staged rallies throughout Caracas in response to the Supreme Court decision that declared all acts of the National Assembly null and void. Confrontations with authorities were also fueled by the detention of a group of the National Guard soldiers on Monday, who stole weapons and called for an uprising against the 56-year-old president.
Maduro and his government believe that the crisis and discontent in Venezuela have been deliberately fueled by foreign powers. The president has repeatedly accused the US of collaborating with Venezuelan neighbors and the opposition to oust him from power. US economic pressure and the decline of oil prices in recent years have contributed to the severe social and economic crisis in Venezuela. Hit by hyperinflation and a shortage of basic necessities, millions of people have been forced to leave the country in search of a better life elsewhere in Latin America.
(5G starts at 6:55 mark)
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RT
French people ‘can do better’ than ‘terrible’ Macron – Italy’s Salvini
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s opinionated deputy PM, said that he hopes the French people can rid themselves of the “terrible” leadership of President Emmanuel Macron. Salvini’s jibe is the latest salvo in an ongoing feud with Paris.
"I hope that the French will be able to free themselves from a terrible president," the populist leader said in a Facebook video posted on Tuesday. "The opportunity will come on May 26 [the European Parliament elections] when finally the French people will be able to take back control of its future, destiny, pride, which are poorly represented by a character like Macron.”
While French voters will not be exactly replacing Macron in the upcoming elections, his En Marche! movement is expected to lose ground to right-wing rival Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party. The more nationalists France sends to the European Parliament, the bigger the blow to Macron’s Europhilic ambitions, which include sharing of sovereignty with France’s neighbors and an EU army.
Speaking in Poland earlier this month, Salvini called on fellow nationalists to take part in a “renaissance of European values” to bring an end to the “German-French axis” on the continent. The elections, he said, are a chance to steer away from a Europe “run by bureaucrats.
Macron’s situation at home is precarious. The president, who once described his aloof style of rule as “Jupiterian,” has faced an outpouring of public anger from the Gillets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement. Protests that began as a response to a fuel tax hike evolved into a broad rejection of his economic policies, and thousands of rioters have been arrested in ten consecutive weekends of unrest.
Salvini has cheered on the protests. “I support honest citizens who protest against a governing president [who is] against his people,” he said earlier this month. Salvini’s coalition partner, Luigi Di Maio of the Five-Star Movement (M5S) added that politics in Europe "has become deaf to the needs of citizens who have been kept out of the most important decisions affecting the people."
France’s Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau gave Salvini and Di Maio a telling-off for commenting on her nation’s state of affairs, but in a speech to corporate executives at Versailles on Monday, Macron unexpectedly told the suits that he is willing to reform. Speaking to his guests 226 years to the day since French King Louis XVI was guillotined, Macron said historical leaders who failed to listen to the people “ended up like that.”
However, Macron pledged not to roll back the labor and tax reforms that sparked the Yellow Vest protests, and Salvini and Di Maio poured more criticism on the French leader for his country’s past offenses as well as his present predicament.
"I don't take lessons on humanity and generosity from Macron,”Salvini said on Monday, before blaming France’s oil interests in Libya for Paris’ alleged lack of interest in “stabilizing the situation” there.
Di Maio blamed France for impoverishing Africa, with the anti-establishment leader reportedly saying on Sunday “In order to keep the Africans in Africa, it would be enough for the French to stay home.”
“If today people are leaving Africa it is because some European countries, with France taking the lead, have never stopped colonizing Africa in their heads,” Di Maio continued, in a rant that reportedly earned Italy’s ambassador to France a summons to explain the comments.
Macron has clashed with the Italians on migration before, with Macron calling Rome’s refusal to pick up migrants from the Mediterranean Sea “sickening,” and “unacceptable.” Salvini in turn called Macron an “international embarrassment,” after French policemen were spotted dropping apprehended migrants off in an Italian forest along the border with France.
Macron and Salvini’s diametrically opposed views on immigration the future of the EU could see this feud drag on up to and beyond the May elections.
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MailOnline
The horrors Zimbabwe doesn't want the world to see: Hundreds are beaten and killed in protest crackdown by Mugabe's successor 'The Crocodile' that has been hidden behind a news blackout
Estimates say at least 200 are dead while hospital staff said the morgue is 'full'
Children as young as ten have been injured in the state backed violence
Protests began after a Government fuel price hike by more than 200 per cent
The new president, Robert Mugabe's right hand man, Emmerson Mnangagwa has caused outrage after promising a new way for Zimbabwe and not delivering
By ZOIE O'BRIEN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:17, 20 January 2019 | UPDATED: 15:27, 20 January 2019
Family members of a 22-year-old footballer killed in Zimbabwe cry at his funeral as violence rocks the country which hoped for change with its new president
In an effort to end appalling sexism, bigotry and inequality, two peak global electrical bodies have announced that they are putting an end to discriminatory male and female electrical connections. This courageous and long overdue move has just been announced throughout the global media.
The International Electrical Association (IEA) and the Electrical Engineering Control Kabal (EECK) have taken the unprecedented step of jointly issuing a public denunciation of such sexist, racist and outdated practices. In their joint statement they said this in part:
While in the past such hate-filled and discriminatory practices were allowed to continue, we no longer live in those dark and dangerous times. In our progressive and enlightened era, we know how hurtful and bigoted it is to insist that electrical plugs be labelled as being either male or female.
Not only do we now understand that there are far more possibilities than just male and female, but how dare we assume the identity of any of these poor plugs, outlets, and so on. That sort of narrow-minded prejudice and intolerance must stop now. It may once have been allowed, but it will no longer be given a free run from here on in.
All these damaging, hurtful and discriminatory practices will from henceforth be prohibited worldwide, and electrical connection police will be out in force, looking for any violations of the new legislation. Those caught continuing with these old and discredited practices will face the full weight of the law.
The declaration went on to say this:
Numerous male plugs who identify as female – or something else – have long experienced the pain of such narrow-minded bigotry and insensitivity. And countless female plugs have endured centuries of oppression and hate. From now on they will decide for themselves what sort of end they will be, and no one will be able to put them in their narrow little pigeonhole. This is indeed a day of fantastic liberation and tremendous excitement.
This global declaration – issued in 113 languages and beamed around the world by the global media – was instantly affirmed and ratified by the UN. A new, special office of the UN was also created to monitor all this, assuring that complete compliance will be the order of the day. Any recaltitrants will be swiftly and harshly dealt with.
And in some breaking news, the World Hose Manufacturing Association (WHMA), in association with the Plumbers United Against Discrimination (PUAD) and the Plumber’s Union of Kosher Endings (PUKE) have also come out on this, saying that from now on there will be no more male and female hose fittings, nozzles and the like.
The CEOs of these three bodies issued a joint statement saying that this day was “long coming, and the days of discriminatory and bigoted hoses have at last come to an end. We now will celebrate the liberation of all hoses and plumbing fittings and connections, bringing us in line with progressive values and principles throughout the world.”
Satire alert
Um, hopefully it is obvious that everything said above was a bit of satire and a bit of humour. Whether it brought any laughs – or just tears – is another matter. But of course the thing about satire is that it comes so very close to the truth. Really good satire can often be quite difficult to distinguish from reality.
But such is the world that we now live in with reality itself under attack, that half the time we read a news headline we have to ask if it is real or just satire. And we all know that a major war has been declared on sex, on male and female, on family, on marriage, on biology, and on reality itself.
The sheer madness of it all would be utterly laughable if it were not so serious. I have now penned many hundreds of articles on radical feminism, the androgyny movement, the homosexual lobby, and the loony trans agenda. Every day it seems to get worse, and each new headline looks like another piece straight out of a satire site.
So if you open the papers tomorrow and find a declaration has been made to ban male and female electrical or plumbing ends, don’t laugh – it just might be real. Indeed, I really do not doubt that someone somewhere has already seriously proposed such things.
We live in times of great moonbattery, and unless something intervenes and quick, it will get worse and worse until we come to the end of the West. Lord have mercy.
Oh, and as I was just about to post this on my website, an email with this headline just popped into my inbox: “California state senator bans use of ‘he’ and ‘she’ during committee hearings.” And no, it was not from a satire site.
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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
This is the world's most beautiful bookstore
Inside a converted theater, travelers discover a temple of books.
BY BRIAN CLARK HOWARD
On a bustling commercial street in the fashionable Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, you can visit a serene temple of books. The lighting is soft, with accents that showcase the best in early 20th-century craftsmanship. Conversations are hushed, as if in a grand library, yet the space is so warm and welcoming that the raised café at the back of the cavernous room is filled with patrons reading and sipping cappuccinos and chocolate submarinos.
You’ve entered the Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore, which blogs and guidebooks often dub “the world’s most beautiful bookstore.” They may not be wrong. The sprawling shop is housed in a beautifully preserved antique theater. Only instead of tango dancers and singers, the stars are now the printed word.
The building opened as a theater in 1919, when Buenos Aires was booming as a major port and center of commerce. A flood of recent immigrants, particularly from Europe, helped fuel a rich cultural and arts scene, including the birth of tango. Like the surrounding blocks and the city itself, the theater brims with both old world flourishes—such as the gorgeous frescoes on the soaring ceiling—and Latin flair, such as the friendly staff, great coffee, and relaxed pace.
Ateneo Grand Splendid opened in the space at the start of the 2000s. It offers up thousands of books, CDs, DVDs, and more to the more than one million people who drop in a year. Travelers find a wonderful experience browsing the colorful shelves arranged artfully in the former orchestra and mezzanine sections. Former luxury boxes offer quiet nooks, with stunning views, to peruse a book or take it all in. The café is actually set on the theater’s former stage, so you can imagine your name in lights as you tuck into a pastry.
Argentina is a famously literary country, publishing tens of thousands of titles a year. Buenos Aires is among the cities with the highest number of bookstores per person in the world, with more than 700 brick-and-mortar establishments. Ateneo Grand Splendid is worth a visit as an attraction in its own right, though the city has many other inviting bookstores to browse.
***
Zero Hedge
Johns Hopkins, Bristol-Myers Face $1 Billion Suit For Infecting Guatemalan Hookers With Syphilis
January 19, 2019
A federal judge in Maryland said Johns Hopkins University, pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Rockefeller Foundation must face a $1 billion lawsuit over their roles in a top-secret program in the 1940s ran by the US government that injected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis, reported Reuters.
Several doctors from Hopkins and the Rockefeller Foundation were involved in the government program, as well as four executives from Bristol-Myers' predecessors, Bristol Laboratories and the Squibb Institute, according to the complaint.
"The overall purpose of the study was to test out whether antibiotics could be used to prevent syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections before its symptoms appeared in someone who was exposed to them. So the researchers initially recruited sex workers with syphilis to have sex with prisoners.
Later on, they directly infected volunteers without their informed consent or knowledge of what was really happening.
In many cases, though, infected people were left untreated. In total, 83 deaths were linked to the study, though it’s not entirely certain whether the infections were the direct cause (That said, late-stage syphilis is often fatal)," reported Gizmodo.
In a January 3 decision, US District Judge Theodore Chuang denied the defendants’ argument that a recent Supreme Court decision shielding foreign businesses from lawsuits in US courts over human rights abuses abroad also applied to domestic firms absent Congressional authorization.
Chuang’s decision was a big victory for 444 victims (all mostly dead) and their relatives suing over the experiment.
The experiment was concealed until a professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts discovered the files in 2010.
Chuang said lawsuits against US businesses under the federal Alien Tort Statute were not “categorically foreclosed” by the Supreme Court decision last April 24 in Jesner v Arab Bank Plc covering foreign corporations.
He said the “need for judicial caution” was “markedly reduced” where US businesses were defendants because there was no significant threat of diplomatic tensions from foreign governments.
The federal judge said letting the Guatemala case proceed would “promote harmony” by giving foreign plaintiffs a chance at a remedy in the American court system.
“Johns Hopkins expresses profound sympathy for individuals and families impacted by the deplorable 1940s syphilis study funded and conducted by the U.S. government in Guatemala,” the university said in a statement. “We respect the legal process, and we will continue to vigorously defend the lawsuit.”
Hopkins, Bristol-Myers, and the Rockefeller Foundation and their lawyers did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for a statement.
Paul Bekman, a lawyer for the 444 Guatemalans, said his clients would proceed with discovery, including the exchange of decades-old documents.
An earlier decision found no statute of limitations arguments could be made since the plaintiffs did not learn about the experiment until 2010.
Infecting Guatemalan hookers with sexually transmitted diseases was one of many eugenic programs the US government conducted during the 1940s and Post–World War II era. Now the academic institutions and corporations involved in these horrific government experiments are being served with massive lawsuits that could be financially devastating.
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Until
next week...keep on believing. Almondtree Productions
“Lying
lips are a abomination to the Lord; but he that deals faithfully is
accepted with him.” (Proverbs 12:22)
