On the other hand, the Jewish holidays of Passover and Sukkot are considered nights of the greatest protection of the Jews. The first night of Passover is referred to in Hebrew as leil shimurim, a night of guarding. Additionally, the outdoor booths in which Jews dwell during the holiday of Sukkot are meant as reminders of the fragile huts that protected the newly freed slaves during 40 years in the desert after the exodus from Egyptian slavery.

In essence, Kessin explains that the presence of a blood moon, which would otherwise have been a bad omen, is a good omen for the Jews whenever it falls in this sequence. “Every time a blood moon happens [on a Jewish holiday tetrad],” said Kessin, “there is messianic advancement.”

Kessin reminded Breaking Israel News that the threat from Iran is also messianic, which he says can be clearly seen from the 13th century Biblical rabbinic commentary known as the Yalkut Shimoni. Rabbinic scholar and author Rabbi Nachman Kahana translates the relevant section of the 800-year old commentary:

Paras (Persia-Iran) will be the dread of humanity. The world’s leaders will be frustrated in their futile efforts to save what they can, but to no avail. The people of Yisrael will also be petrified by the impending danger. And HaShem will say to us, “Why are you afraid? All of this I have done in order to bring you the awaited redemption. And this redemption will not be like the redemption from Egypt, which was followed by suffering. This redemption will be absolute, followed with peace.

“We have now entered the countdown to the messiah, which is unbelieveable,” Kessin told Breaking Israel News. “Based on the [verse from the Book of Joel cited above], based on what’s happening, something awesome seems to be in the works. Fascinating!”

***

BREAKINGISRAELNEWS

Recent Dead Sea Earthquake Ushering In End of Days Prophecy

By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz August 2, 2015 , 10:30 am

“Tremble, you earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.” (Psalms 114:7)

Dead Sea, Israel. (Photo: xta11/ Wiki Commons)

Thursday morning, at 5:39 local time, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake occurred in the Dead Sea region of Israel, an area that is the deepest depression on the face of the planet. Though there were no reports of injury or damage in Israel or neighboring Jordan, it is certainly worth considering the meaning of the event, especially in light of other recent earthquakes that have hit Israel and the catastrophic earthquake that hit a struck Nepal a few months ago.

Biblical scholars explain that the name of God, “Elohim”, refers to the aspect revealed through nature and linked to judgment. For early man, and even today, every natural phenomenon can be an awe inspiring experience, an occasionally fearsome reminder of our mortality. An earthquake is, quite literally, a moving experience.

Scientists have noted that the Dead Sea Rift has affected human civilization through time as well as the flora and fauna of the region, causing migrations and creating water sources. However, it should be noted that the location of Thursday’s earthquake is the precise region of Jericho, known for its city walls that came tumbling down, and also the area of Sodom and Gomorra. A biblical perspective certainly seems in order when considering occurrences of geological proportions.

The recent quake was a result of tensions in the Dead Sea Fault which is part of the Syrian-African Rift, extending from Syria to Mozambique. Experts have predicted that a major earthquake could occur in the near future and local authorities have begun projects to bolster building against such an event. Tectonic tension is building and most geologists consider a major event to be inevitable.

An earthquake in 1837 in the area killed as many as 5,000 people. The last major earthquake to hit the center of Israel was a 6.2 magnitude quake in 1927, killing over 500 people and damaging sites, like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and al-Aqsa Mosque. On March 22, 2012, a 3.7 earthquake hit the exact region as well.

Prophecies connected to earthquakes abound, seeming to emphasize their biblical significance, especially in regards to End of Days prophecy:

“Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south…You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.” (Zechariah 14:3-5)

“The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.” (Psalms 18:7)

“This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign LORD. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground.” (Ezekiel 38:18-20)

“I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away…” (Jeremiah 4:23-28)

“They will flee to caverns in the rocks and to the overhanging crags from the fearful presence of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth.” (Isaiah 2:21)

While Thursday’s earthquake caused no damage in Israel, the geological occurrence has served as a wakeup call for many. Dr. Shmuel Marco, who has spent many years studying the timeline of earthquakes in the region, told the Jerusalem Post that geological experts should take a hint from the Bible when predicting the next “big one.”

Marco noted that prophets became active a certain number of years after major earthquakes. Major earthquakes were recorded in the Jordan Valley in the years 31 BCE, 363 CE, 749 CE and 1033 CE. “So roughly,” says Marco, “we are talking about an interval of every 400 years. If we follow the patterns of nature, a major quake should be expected any time because almost a whole millennium has passed since the last strong earthquake.”

***

INHUMAN—PART 9: Neurosciences, Brain-Machine Interfacing, Cybernetics and the BORG

Posted By SkyWatch Editor On August 4, 2015 @ 5:48 am

Can a microscopic tag be implanted in a person’s body to track his every movement? There’s actual discussion about that. You will rule on that—mark my words—before your tenure is over. —U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, asked during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the Supreme Court

Although microchip implantation might be introduced as a voluntary procedure, in time, there will be pressure to make it mandatory. A 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. —Dr. Elaine M. Ramesh, patent attorney for Franklin Pierce Law Center

Now imagine a world in which every newborn baby immediately has a little capsule implanted under his armpit. Inside are monitors, tiny amounts of hormones, a wireless transmitter and receiver.From birth, no moment in a person’s life will go unmonitored. —Joseph Farah, Whistleblower magazine

[10]Unless you’ve been hidden under a rock for the past twenty years, you are probably familiar with the development of implantable devices using radio-frequency identification (rfid) technology that under certain applications is forecast to be connected to future Grin technologies, especially neurosciences, brain-machine interfacing, and cybernetics.

RFID chips employ 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 hand-held 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 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, VeriChip Corp.’s chief executive officer 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 and Washington, 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.” As a result, PositiveID began 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 [11] concerning the Jewish Calendar year 5773 (2012—2013 in the most commonly used Gregorian calendar), 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, S. News and World Report revealed how 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.”

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 bar codes 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.

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 Cor 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 have 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 U.S. Department of Homeland Security for workers involved in baggage handling at airports.

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has proposed several versions of a national id card that would use rfid

In 2007, the U.S. 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 Prof. 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 forehead. More recently, Time magazine, in its feature story, “The Big Bank Theory and What It Says about the Future of Money,” recognized how 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.”[i] [12]

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 Through 2017 noted how the global biometric identification market was surging toward the nearly fourteen billion dollar mark by 2017 with an estimated compound annual growth rate of 18.7%

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

Three months later in May, Massachusetts-based engineering firm MC10 disclosed 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 of the publication of this entry, MC10 has its first prototypes “affixed” to sports stars and others.

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,” which 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 producers of the upcoming documentary INHUMAN) 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 tenants 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 U.S. 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 them 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 them to carry digitalized finger (and/or palm) and facial recognition images (head and hand) to serve as the trend-setter for all levels of government and private industry identification. These cards will employ bar codes, 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 fifty-percent of consumers, with that percentage trending upward to 70+% in recent polling (see Revelation 13:17).

One month later in July, a special report conducted by Natural Security (a U.K. based authority in user-authentication) described nine-hundred consumers who had participated in a pilot program in which they used finger print based technology when purchasing products and services. 94% of them excited 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 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 “Nymi Bracelet” that is worn around the wrist. It monitors the heartbeat as a biometric signature and claims to be more accurate than facial recognition and about as accurate as fingerprint scanning.

As we move through the year 2015 dozens of science and technology related journals as well as news leaders are reporting that the time for humans to enter the next level of innovation through embedded smart tracking and monitoring devices has arrived, and that between now and 2018 real life versions of the BORG will materialize as mankind enters the next big revolution—a time already dubbed “The Hybrid Age.”

[13]

ONE EXAMPLE OF RECENT NEWS CONCERNING THE COMING “BORGIFICATION” OF MANKIND

The list above continues to accumulate, causing a growing number to wonder if implantable tech adoption will, for all practical purposes, result in every man, woman, boy, and girl in the developed world having an id chip inside them (like animals worldwide already do) sometime this century. 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 producers of INHUMAN believe the possibility that the mark of the Beast could arrive through a version of this technology increases. That is one reason we found the Discovery News report, “Part-Human, Part Machine Transistor Devised,” particularly disturbing:

Man and machine can now be linked more intimately than ever. Scientists have embedded a nano-sized transistor inside a cell-like membrane and powered it using the cell’s own fuel. The research could lead to new types of man-machine interactions where embedded devices could relay information about the inner workings of proteins inside the cell membrane, and eventually lead to new ways to read, and even influence, brain or nerve cells.

“This device is as close to the seamless marriage of biological and electronic structures as anything else that people did before,” said Aleksandr Noy, a scientist at the University of California, Merced, who is a co-author on the recent ACS Nano Letters. “We can take proteins, real biological machines, and make them part of a working microelectronic circuit.”[ii] [14]

A similar story (“Dna Logic Gates Herald Injectable Computers”) was published by New Scientist magazine the same month as the story above, and a few weeks earlier, an article by the Daily Mail (“Meet the Nano-Spiders: The dna Robots that Could One Day Be Walking through Your Body”) reported the creation by scientists of microscopic robots made of dna molecules that can walk, turn, and even create tiny products of their own on a nano-scale assembly line.

[i] [15] Joshua Ramo, “The Big Bank Theory,” Time (4/27/98) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,988228,00.html.

[ii] [16] Eric Bland, “Part-Human, Part-Machine Transistor Devised,” Discovery News (6/2/10) http://news.discovery.com/tech/transistor-cell-membrane-machine.html, emphasis added.

URLs in this post:

[10] Image: ‪http://skywatchtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/transhuman-apple.jpg‬

[11] Zenith 2016: ‪http://www.skywatchtvstore.com/searchresults.asp?Submit=Go&Search=zenith‬

[12] [i]: ‪#_edn1‬

[13] Image: ‪http://skywatchtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Forbes-Implantables.jpg‬

[14] [ii]: ‪#_edn2‬

[15] [i]: ‪#_ednref1‬

[16] [ii]: ‪#_ednref2‬

***

FEELguide

Neurotheology Team Proves “God Helmet” Is Real, Eliciting Mystic States, Visions & God-Like Presence

BY FEELGUIDE • JUNE 14, 2015

A team of neurotheology researchers have replicated and confirmed the results of the iconic “God Helmet” experiment. The apparatus, originally developed by renowned neuroscientists, Stanley Koren and Michael Persinger, generates weak magnetic fields around the test subject’s temporal lobes, and elicits a distinct set of experiential phenomena in the participant’s brain, including: altered mystic states, visions of God, and the feeling of a sensed God-like presence. This new independent study confirms that the effects from the God Helmet experiment are not due to suggestion or suggestibility in subjects, and provide the first scientific verification of the technique’s direct influence on the brain. 80% had feelings of a “sensed presence”, and the other 20% had either minor effects or none.

The authors of the study, which was published in the, write, “The God Helmet places four magnetic coils on each side of the head, above the temporal lobes. Some subjects exposed to these fields reported having ‘spiritual experiences’ during our tests. These subjects included atheists, as well as religious believers. 80% of the subjects reported the ‘presence’ of ‘nonphysical beings’ in the room where the experiments were conducted, including the ‘presence of God’ in a small number of subjects.”

“Thus far, about 20 or so people have reported feeling the presence of Christ or even seeing him in the chamber (The acoustic chamber where the experimental sessions took place),” says Koren in a recent interview. “Most of these people used Christ and God interchangeably. Most of these individuals were older (30 years or more) and religious (Roman Catholic). One male, age about 35-years-old (alleged atheist but early childhood Roman Catholic training), saw a clear apparition (shoulders and head) of Christ staring him in the face. He was quite ‘shaken’ by the experience. I did not complete a follow-up re: his change in behavior. [What] we did find with one world-class psychic, who experiences Christ as a component of his abilities, was we could experimentally increase or decrease his numbers of his reported experiences by applying the LTP pattern (derived from the hippocampus) over the right hemisphere (without his awareness). The field on-response delay was about 10 to 20 sec. The optimal pattern, at least for this person, looked very right hippocampal. By far most presences are attributed to dead relatives, the Great Forces, a spirit, or something equivalent. The attribution towards along a devil to angel continuum appears strongly related to the affect (pleasant-terror) associated with the experience. I suspect most people would call the ‘vague, all-around-me’ sensations ‘God’ but they are reluctant to employ the label in a laboratory. The implicit is obvious. If the equipment and the experiment produced the presence that was God, then the extrapersonal, unreachable and independent characteristics of the god definition might be challenged.”

***

LifeNews.com

Is Planned Parenthood Selling “Fully Intact” Babies Born Alive and Left to Die?

NATIONAL STEVEN ERTELT JUL 31, 2015 | 10:04AM WASHINGTON, DC

In an interview with CNN this morning, the pro-life advocate behind the four shocking videos exposing Planned Parenthood selling the body parts of aborted babies for research made a startling claim. The claim makes it appear the Planned Parenthood abortion business may be selling the “fully intact” bodies of unborn babies purposefully born alive and left to die.

To set the stage, following the release of the first two shocking videos showing top Planned Parenthood doctors discussing and arranging the sale of aborted babies with actors posing as biotech firm officials, the bio0tech company StemExpress, which purchases aborted babies from Planned Parenthood to sell to research universities and other places, got a judge to issue a restraining order preventing the release of any more videos related to StemExpress.

Why?

Center for Medical Progress president David Daleiden, who coordinated the shocking undercover videos, explained to CNN this morning that StemExpress has something to hide — a secret that has significant bearing on Planned Parenthood:

“In a meeting with their top leadership where their leadership admitted that they sometimes get fully intact fetuses shipped to their laboratory from the abortion clinics they work with, and that could be prima facie evidence of born alive infants. And so that’s why they’re trying to suppress that videotape and they’re very scared of it,” Daleiden said.

What does that mean?

If true, that means Planned Parenthood could be breaking the federal law known as the Born Alive Infants Protection Act that requires abortion clinics, hospitals and other places that do abortions to provide appropriate medical care for a baby born alive after a failed abortion or purposefully birthed to “let die.” That would be one of the potential ways Planned Parenthood could produce a “fully intact” baby to sell to StemExpress for research. Most “crunchy” abortion methods would do damage to the baby’s body.

***

RT

‘Incredibly intrusive’: Windows 10 spies on you by default

Published time: 31 Jul, 2015 22:39

Edited time: 1 Aug, 2015 13:46

Microsoft’s new Windows 10 operating system is immensely popular, with 14 million downloads in just two days. The price of the free upgrade may just be your privacy, though, as changing Windows 10’s intrusive default settings is difficult.

Technology journalists and bloggers are singing Windows 10’s praises, often using the words such as “amazing,”“glorious” and “fantastic.” The operating system has been described as faster, smoother and more user-friendly than any previous version of Windows. According to Wired magazine, more than 14 million people have downloaded their upgrade since the system was released on Wednesday.

While the upgrade is currently free of charge to owners of licensed copies of Windows 8 and Windows 7, it does come at a price. Several tech bloggers have warned that the privacy settings in the operating system are invasive by default, and that changing them involves over a dozen different screens and an external website.

According to Zach Epstein of BGR News, all of Windows 10’s features that could be considered invasions of privacy are enabled by default. Signing in with your Microsoft email account means Windows is reading your emails, contacts and calendar data. The new Edge browser serves you personalized ads. Solitaire now comes with ads. Using Cortana – the voice-driven assistant that represents Redmond’s answer to Apple’s Siri – reportedly “plays fast and loose with your data.”

“I am pretty surprised by the far-reaching data collection that Microsoft seems to want,” web developer Jonathan Porta wrote on his blog. “I am even more surprised by the fact that the settings all default to incredibly intrusive. I am certain that most individuals will just accept the defaults and have no idea how much information they are giving away.”

As examples, Porta cited Microsoft having access to contacts, calendar details, and “other associated input data” such as “typing and inking” by default. The operating system also wants access to user locations and location history, both of which could be provided not just to Microsoft, but to its “trusted partners.”

“Who are the trusted partners? By whom are they trusted? I am certainly not the one doing any trusting right now,” Porta wrote, describing the default privacy options as “vague and bordering on scary.”

Alec Meer of the ‘Rock, Paper, Shotgun’ blog pointed out this passage in Microsoft’s 12,000-word, 45-page terms of use agreement:

“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to.”

While most people are used to ads as the price of accessing free content, writes Meer, Microsoft is not making it clear enough that they are “gathering and storing vast amounts of data on your computing habits,” not just browser data.

Opting out of all these default settings requires navigating 13 different screens and a separate website, the bloggers have found.

Meer was underwhelmed with Microsoft executives’ claims of transparency and easily understandable terms of use. “There is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes ‘real transparency,’” he wrote.

Tracking and harvesting user data has been a business model for many tech giants. Privacy advocates have raised concerns over Google’s combing of emails, Apple’s Siri, and Facebook’s tracking cookies that keep monitoring people’s browser activity in order to personalize advertising and content.

***

EXPRESS

We'll LET all the migrants through: France threatens to punish UK over Calais insults

CALAIS officials have threatened to open the borders and "let the migrants through" as the refugee crisis reached boiling point.

By JAMES FIELDING IN CALAIS

PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Aug 2, 2015 | UPDATED: 06:18, Sun, Aug 2, 2015

French authorities have criticised David Cameron's efforts in tackling the Calais migrant crisis GETTY

Britain was accused of being deliberatly "provocative" towards the French, who mocked Prime Minister David Cameron's efforts to keep migrants from reaching the UK.

Refugees in Calais also sneered at proposed increased security measures, with one declaring: "Let them build fences 1,000 ft high, let them bring over 1,000 dogs, we'll still come. There will always be another way in."

Friday night saw a raft of further efforts to breach security at the Eurotunnel. There have been more than 4,000 attempts since the start of the week with at least 150 migrants reaching Britain.

As tempers rose, the French yesterday accused the British of 'outrageous provocation' - and threatened to end all security and passport checks in the port.

Responding to suggestions that British troops should be deployed, Emmanuel Agius, the deputy mayor of Calais, said: "If it continues like that, with such outrageous provocation, I believe that at a given moment, we ourselves are going to be provocative, and we will say 'let the migrants through', and Mr Cameron will have to deal with it.

"They will be on his territory, in the port of Dover. He poses as the savior of the situation, on a subject he is greatly mistaken about, just as he is mistaken about the men and women of Calais."

The camp where 3,000 migrants are living has sprung up underneath a motorway flyover in the French port town.

Piles of rotting food, discarded drinks cans and bin bags full of rubbish lie discarded between tents and makeshift shelters housing as many as 11 people each.

If it continues like that, with such outrageous provocation, I believe that at a given moment, we ourselves are going to be provocative, and we will say 'let the migrants through

Emmanuel Agius, deputy mayor of Calais

Dr Jean Francois Patry, of Medecins du monde, and a small team of medics provide clinics at the camp between 10am and 5pm Monday to Friday.

He said: "It's a desperate situation really because the more people who come here the more overcrowded it becomes and of course the dirtier it becomes.

"Conditions here are awful, there are piles of litter festering on the roads with people living just feet away.

"Over the last three weeks we have seen a significant rise in scabies and fleas because of such unsanitary conditions and it's only going to get worse.

Since the start of the year, the migrant camp has grown from a small collection of tents to a fully functioning town with shops selling food, sanitary supplies and water to a church, mosque and even a school.

Afghan Shirgul Ahmadza, 25, has been living in the camp for the last 22 days but dreams of making it to the UK to live for a second time.

He entered the country illegally on the back of a lorry in 2007 as a 17-year-old and lived for four years, working as a builder in Bristol, Birmingham and Derby before being deported in 2011.

However he is so determined to return that he has travelled several thousand miles from Afghanistan through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Italy and finally to France.

He said: "There is nothing here for me in Calais, look at how we live, and in Afghanistan my town has been taken over by the Taliban, it isn't safe.

"I have been travelling for more than a year and a half and my goal is to reach Britain.

"It's a country that I know well because I was there between 2007 and 2011 when I got deported.

"The people are friendly and I can get work there, I'm a good builder and want to work on construction sites again like I did before."

As night fell last night, a procession of about 100 migrants lined the road leading to the Channel tunnel.

They are becoming increasingly desperate to reach Britain before more fencing and tighter security is installed along the rail tracks.

The migrants shrugged off David Cameron's warnings of extra security yesterday.

Afghan Ahmadi Mahmoodjan said: "It doesn't put me off at all, I've tried many times to reach England and will continue to do so until I'm there.

"Let them build fences 1000 ft high, let them being over 1000 dogs, we'll still come.

"There will always be another way in.

Debora Tadem, 27, whose family paid for her to be trafficked into Europe from Eritrea, crossed the Sahara into Libya.

She said she was determined to reach the UK, saying: "England offers the fish, we will take the fish."

Last night, a UKIP MEP told how he had travelled to Calais himself, and declared security around the Eurotunnel Terminal "a joke" after scaling a 10-feet fence intended to stop migrants.

Mike Hookem, Ukip's defence spokesman and MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, also uncovered five gaping breaches which had remained unfixed for two days.

"We spotted at least five major security breaches and we saw migrants pouring through. Some were carrying wire cutters," he said.

"And it's not just holes. I'm 61 and I climbed over the fence. At 61 years of age, I could have been through that tunnel. These lads are in their early twenties, they're a lot fitter than me. That fence is not going to stop them.

"They are determined to get across, no matter what it takes.

"One of them boasted: Calais belongs to us. They will not be stopped."

Meanwhile, Interim Labour Leader Harriet Harman accused Mr Cameron of mishandling the situation.

In a letter she said: "Over the last few days, your approach has been devoid of any serious solution to the crisis. You have failed to initiate any diplomatic pressure on the French Government to assess asylum claims and make sure proper immigration procedures are followed."

Calling for compensation to be paid to Britons affected by the chaos at Calais she told Mr Cameron: " Your discussions with the French Government should include a request for compensation backed up by any diplomatic pressure that may become necessary. Compensation should cover all losses."

Her letter came as the Home Office announced it is looking at ways of withdrawing benefits from thousands of failed asylum seekers "to send out a very clear message . . . that Britain is not a soft touch on asylum".

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WUFYS

Power-Mad Erdogan Launches War in Attempt to Become Turkey’s Supreme Leader

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lost his bid to become Turkey’s supreme leader in last month’s elections. So he’s taken the country to war to increase his popularity and improve his chances of victory in snap elections in November.

Image Credit: Thierry Ehrmann/Flickr

Turkish bombers continued to pound Kurdish positions in Northern Iraq early Thursday after killing an estimated 100 Kurds a day earlier. Erdogan broke off peace talks with the Kurdish militias and launched this latest assault after failing to win enough seats in Parliament to change the constitution. The ambitious Erdogan needed 330 deputies to make sweeping changes to the constitution that would give the president unlimited executive power making Erdogan de facto emperor of Turkey. His plan was frustrated by the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) that won an unprecedented 13 percent of the vote. The HDP is determined to prevent Erdogan from realizing his dream of becoming Turkey’s imperial sultan . The current war against the Kurds in Syria and Iraq is designed to whip up nationalist sentiment in order to put Erdogan “over the top” in elections that could come as early as this Fall.

Here’s more from Huffington Post:

“Last month, only after losing his party’s parliamentary majority, President Erdogan realized that there are dangerous terrorists in neighboring Syria who are a threat to Turkey’s security … Rather than intending to fight ISIS terrorists or cooperate with United States military operations in Syria and Iraq, Erdogan’s real purpose is to consolidate his own hold on power and accomplish the following self-serving objectives:

1) Turkey’s President realizes that should his ruling party fail to form a coalition government by the end of August, he would be obliged to call a new round of parliamentary elections in November. Therefore, by taking bold actions against ISIS and Kurdish fighters, Erdogan hopes that Turkish voters would give his party the few extra seats needed to regain a majority in Parliament.

…The Turkish President’s self-serving fake war against terrorism could have the tragic consequence of escalating the violence throughout Turkey and neighboring countries. If Ankara is truly interested in countering the Jihadists, it should have done that long ago, instead of arming and abetting ISIS and other terror groups.” (Erdogan Is Pursuing Turkish Self-Interests, Under the Guise of Fighting ISIS, Harut Sassounian, Huffington Post)

Here’s more from Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, David L. Phillips:

“Erdogan is angling for new elections. He is trying to discredit the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish party which received 13.1% of the votes and will be seated in parliament for the first time. Erdogan is furious with the HDP for its strong showing, which denied the AKP enough support to change the constitution and establish an executive imperial presidency. In retaliation, Erdogan is threatening to lift the parliamentary immunity of HDP legislators. He’s even intimated at closing the HDP for supporting the PKK.” (Turkey’s Dark Future, David L. Phillips, Huffington Post)

Are we saying that Erdogan has started a war with the Kurds with the sole intention of enhancing his own political power?

Yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying. This is a story about a power-hungry megalomaniac, not a struggle against Kurdish militias and certainly not a war against ISIS. In fact, Erdogan has been ISIS greatest friend as this blurb from the UK Independent points out:

“There is no doubt that ability to move backwards and forwards across the 550-mile long Syrian-Turkish border has been crucial to the growth of the jihadi movements in Syria since 2011. The thousands of foreign volunteers who have flooded into Syria have almost all come from Turkey. Even those unable to speak Turkish or Arabic have had little difficulty in making their way across. In many respects, Turkey has provided a safe sanctuary for Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, playing a similar role as Pakistan does in support of providing safe haven for the Taliban in Afghanistan.” “A Syrian rebel offensive led by Jabhat al-Nusra was allegedly masterminded from an operational headquarters inside Turkey and was the outcome of a closer understanding between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.” (Suruc suicide attack: Bombing shows Turkey is being sucked into the violence in Syria, Patrick Cockburn, Independent)

And then there’s this from the Front Page:

“Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s claim that “Turkey and AKP governments have never had any direct or indirect connection with any terrorist organization” flies in the face of last November’s report from the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Monitoring Team, which identifies Turkey as the primary route for weaponry smuggled to ISIL and the Al-Nusrah Front.

The State Department’s briefing at the beginning of June also stated Turkey is the main route for more than 22,000 fighters who have flocked to Syria to join extremist organizations, mainly ISIL. There are numerous other sources” (Turkey into the Abyss, Robert Ellis, Front Page)

Erdogan has pulled out all the stops in his attempt to consolidate his power and become Turkey’s supreme leader, which is why he’s trying to have pro-Kurdish members of parliament (HDP) stripped of immunity and prosecuted as criminals under Turkey’s stringent terrorism laws. (So far, more than 1,300 mostly Kurdish nationalist supporters and leftists have been swept up in a massive government dragnet since the bombing in Suruc two weeks ago. None of these people have yet been charged with a crime. The government has dropped all pretense that it is carrying out a war on ISIS. The roundup is clearly politically motivated.)

In an article that appeared in the Turkish daily, Hurriyet, statistician Emer Deliveli asks “Is Erdoğan warmongering for political power?” Here’s what he says:

“After showing that “political stability indicators at an all-time low”, Deliveli says, “my analyses showed that, indeed, support for the AKP (Erdogan’s party) increased after episodes of rising political violence.”… “one cannot prove that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is warmongering for political power … However, both conspiracy theories are in fact variants of the same theme- Erdoğan doing all it takes to become an all-powerful president. And when evidence piles up like this, one cannot help but think, “what if.” (Is Erdoğan warmongering for political power?, Hurriyet)

Erdogan wouldn’t be the first leader to start a war to boost his popularity at home, or the last. But it’s a risky strategy all the same, especially since his erratic and self-serving policies have already alienated a broad cross-section of the electorate that used to comprise his base. Check out this blurb from Foreign Policy magazine:

“Erdogan’s weakness in perceiving and acting on the militant Islamist threat has not won him extra friends on the security-first right. His autocratic Islamist style is losing him support on the left. And as for the Kurdish vote, well, he can just forget about it. History has also shown that seemingly invincible leaders can be forced to go gently — or not so gently — into that good night. The mighty Ottomans, after all, did not last forever. There’s no reason why a neo-Ottoman would either.” (The Sultan of Swing’s Dangerous Gamble, Leela Jacinto, Foreign Policy)

The biggest threat facing Erdogan in the short-term is that the Turkish people will see what he’s up to and cast their ballots accordingly in the November elections. But that will require restraint on the part of the Kurdish militias who will have to silence their guns to win the support of the people.

The only way the Kurds can beat a power-drunk, right-wing fanatic like Erdogan, is by giving peace a chance. Until the votes are counted, that is.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

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PRESSTV

India, Bangladesh swap tens of disputed islets

Sat Aug 1, 2015 7:42AM

In this photograph taken early August 1, 2015, former Indian enclave residents carry torches and a Bangladesh flag as they take part in a procession at Dasiarchhara, Kurigram in Bangladesh. (© AFP)

India and Bangladesh have swapped tens of parcels of land previously claimed by both countries, ending one of the world’s most stubborn border disputes, which has left tens of thousands stateless.

A total of 162 landlocked tiny islands of land -- 111 in Bangladesh and 51 in India -- were officially handed over to the countries surrounding them on Saturday, with their residents being able to choose between staying and changing their nationalities or moving.

Some 50,000 residents of these enclaves will finally gain a proper identity after having remained virtually stateless for over six decades.

The landmark accord signed between the two countries in June of this year came into effect at midnight local time on Friday.

Jubilant crowds numbering in the thousands of people from both countries erupted in cheers of celebration for their new citizenship, according to local media reports.

“We have been in dark for 68 years,” Said Russel Khandaker, a 20-year-old man in the Dashiar Chhara enclave, which belonged to India but has now became part of Bangladesh, adding, “We’ve finally seen the light.”

Thousands of people defied monsoon rains to celebrate, marching through rain-soaked muddy roads singing the Bangladeshi national anthem. Others lit 68 candles to mark the end of what they called “68 years of endless pain and indignity.”

Officials from Bangladesh and India hoisted their respective national flags over their new territories on Saturday morning in formal ceremonies.

The enclaves date back to ownership arrangements made centuries ago between local princes.

The parcels of land survived partition of the subcontinent in 1947 after British rule and Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.

Bangladesh endorsed a deal with India in 1974 in a bid to dissolve the pockets, but India only signed a final agreement in June when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Dhaka earlier this year.

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

“For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”
(Hebrews 11:14-16)