News for April 24, 2007

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Hate Bill Fast Forwarding To Vote In House (April 24, 2007) - The House version of the federal "anti-hate" bill, H.R. 1592, is scheduled for a last hearing in the Subcommittee on Crime on Tuesday, April 24. The next day the entire House Judiciary Committee will consider the marked-up version, making its own changes. If approved, the bill will be sent forward to the House to be voted on, perhaps immediately. Those who love free speech must respond NOW with unprecedented calling, not only to the member of the House from your district but to as many members of the House of Representatives as possible. All House members are listed at www.truthtellers.org. The toll-free number is 1-877-851-6437, or call toll 1-202-224-3121. Tell them: "Please don't vote for any hate crimes legislation. Hate laws have taken away free speech in Canada and many European Countries." Most persons who are concerned about imminent passage of the federal "anti-hate" bill don't realize that S. 1105 in the Senate and H.R. 1592 in the House are actually amendments to a federal hate law passed in 1969. During the height of the civil rights movement, "Title 18, U.S.C., Sec. 245" stipulated that no one could verbally "…attempt to…intimidate" another person (chiefly black) away from enjoyment of their federally protected right to equal employment, public services, housing, voting rights, jury privileges, etc. If the government finds such verbal "intimidation" in a state and state officials are not enforcing these guarantees, the federal government can invade states' rights in local law enforcement, upholding Title 18. Title 18 is considered a "hate crimes" law because it criminalizes bias-motivated, verbal attempts to "intimidate" blacks by persuading them that they are intellectually, hygienically, or morally inferior -- unfit to eat at the same lunch counter, attend the same church, work in the same business, get the same education, live in the same apartment complex, or serve on the same jury with whites. Fast forward from 1969 to 2007. Instead of guaranteeing such protection just for religion, race and gender, the present hate bill grants it to homosexuals, transvestites, and transsexuals. If the House passes H.R. 1592 this week, it will include not just the language of the present bills posted at the government website but also that of Title 18, making it federally indictable to "…attempt to…intimidate" a homosexual from believing that he (even if he has AIDS or hepatitis) has the right to work in a restaurant, be employed as a police officer or summer camp counselor, or has equal rights to housing and employment anywhere he wishes. A pastor, Christian broadcaster or publisher who verbally attempts to "intimidate" homosexuals by describing homosexuality as an abomination (Leviticus 18:22) are thus high-profile targets for indictment under this legislation. The federal hate bill, incorporating Title 18, is clearly much more than an attempt to put down violent hate crimes in the states. It is a speech crime bill that, if passed, could immediately outlaw not only discrimination against homosexuals in employment or housing but also public criticism of sodomy.
| America |

Hamas: Truce with Israel at end (April 24, 2007) - Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells toward Israel on its independence day Tuesday, and said they considered it the end of a five-month truce with Israel. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose Hamas-led government negotiated the cease-fire with its militant wing, blamed Israel: "We made great efforts at keeping the truce and there was a positive Palestinian position, but unfortunately this position was met by expanding the aggression and escalating it against the Palestinian people," he said. "It's not a Palestinian problem, it is an Israeli problem." Nine Palestinians were killed in fighting with Israel over the weekend, most of them militants, but also two civilians. The barrage, which came on Israel's 59th independence day, did not cause any damage or injury, but it marked the first time Hamas acknowledged firing shells toward Israel since agreeing to a cease-fire along the Gaza-Israel border in November. Hamas is tightly organized, and Israel says attacks from Gaza have the tacit approval from the militant group's political leaders. Israel Radio, citing military officials, said the rocket attack appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to create a diversion in order to capture an Israeli soldier posted at the Gaza border. In June, Hamas-allied militants had tunneled from Gaza into Israel and seized an Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who is still being held. In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his defense minister discussed a possible response. More security consultations were planned for Wednesday, government officials said. The Israeli military has warned of a Hamas arms buildup in Gaza, and has readied contingency plans for a large-scale invasion of the territory. However, Olmert said earlier this month that the time is not ripe for a major ground campaign. Hamas had held back attacks on Israel for months, especially during power-sharing talks with the Fatah movement of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas. A spokesman for the Islamic group's armed wing said the group considered the truce over. "The cease-fire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible for that," the spokesman, Abu Obeida, told the Voice of Palestine radio station. "We are ready to kidnap more and more, and kill more and more of your soldiers." Hamas-allied militants have demanded hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the release of Shalit, the captured Israeli soldier. On Monday, Olmert said freeing soldiers is important to the government, but that it would not repeat "mistakes made in the past" by releasing violent prisoners who then carried out more attacks against Israelis. But Olmert said there would be "no escape in the end from making a difficult decision" on trading prisoners for the captured troops. more...
| Israel | Islam |

The marketers have your ear: Beam of sound aims its messages (April 24, 2007) - Advertisers have a new way to get into your head. Marketers around the world are using innovative audio technology that sends sound in a narrow beam, just like light, making it possible to direct messages right into consumers' ears while they shop or sit in waiting rooms. The audio spotlight device, created by Watertown firm Holosonic Research Labs Inc., has been used to hawk everything from cereals in supermarket aisles to glasses at doctor's offices. The messages are often quick and targeted -- and a little creepy to the uninitiated. Court TV recently installed the audio spotlight in ceilings of bookstores to promote the network's new murder-mystery show. A voice, whispering, "Hey, you, can you hear me? Do you ever think about murder?" was beamed toward customers as they browsed the mystery section in several independent bookstores in New York. Unlike traditional speakers, which broadcast sound in every direction, sound from an audio spotlight speaker can be focused directly at one spot, so no one else can hear it, or projected against a surface so that sound appears to come from the surface itself. For example, a box of Fruity Pebbles can advertise its nutritional content, heard by shoppers only as they walk by boxes in the cereal aisle. The audio spotlight uses ultrasound to stimulate the air into making sound, which is emitted in focused, laser-like beams. more...
| Technology |

40 Syrian Generals on Secret Mission to Tehran (April 23, 2007) - Led by Maj. Gen. Yahya L. Solayman, War Planning chief at the Syrian armed forces General Staff, the delegation represents all branches of the Syrian armed forces. On their arrival on April 18, the Syrian officers went straight into conference with Iranian defense minister Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, Revolutionary Commanders chief Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi and dep. chief of staff Maj. Gen. Hassani Sa’di, who is Iran’s chief of military war preparations. The Syrian visitors were taken around RG and armed forces training installations and given a display of the latest Iranian weapons systems, including stealth missiles, electronic warfare appliances and undersea missiles and torpedoes. They also visited the big Imam Ali training base in N. Tehran, where hundreds of Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami terrorists are taking courses. In Washington and Jerusalem, there is little doubt that the two allies timed the Syrian delegation’s mission to Tehran as a rejoinder to US defense secretary Robert Gates’ Middle East tour last week. Israel sees four causes for concern: 1. The unusually large size of the Syrian delegation and the presence of operations officers from the various army corps. 2. The elevated positions of the Iranian officials hosting the Syrians: the top men with responsibility for preparing the RGs and armed forces for armed conflict. US and Israeli intelligence experts agreed in their talks during Gates’ two-day visit to Israel last week on the object of the Syrian mission: to tighten operational coordination at the highest level between the Syria military and Iran’s armed forces and Revolutionary Guards. 3. The installations and weapons shown the Syrian officers. The intelligence estimate is that they saw the weapons systems soon to be consigned by Iran to the Syrian army and Hizballah, as well as the types of assistance pledged for Syria in the event of a military showdown with the United States or Israel. Syrian-Iranian consultations must also be presumed to have cleared the routes by which these weapons would reach Syria and Hizballah in a military contingency. During the 2006 Hizballah-Israel war, Iran ran an airlift to Damascus through Turkish airspace and over the Mediterranean. 4. The unusual length of the visit. Monday, April 23 the Syrian officers were still busy in Tehran after six days and showed no sign of leaving.
| Iran | Islam |

Syria Deploys Iranian Missiles (April 23, 2007) - Israel's military has assessed that Syria deployed an Iranian-origin cruise missile. Military sources said Syria has obtained and deployed the Iranian version of the Chinese-origin C-802 anti-ship missile. They said the missile was used successfully by Hizbullah during the war against Israel in mid-2006. "Syria has ordered scores, if not hundreds, of such missiles," a military source said. "The C-802 would keep the Israel Navy away from the Syrian coast in any future war." The C-802 employs a small turbojet engine and contains a range of 120 kilometers. The missile could be launched from aircraft, ships, submarines and land-based vehicles.
| Iran | Israel | Islam |

Abbas: Mideast peace can pacify 'all flash points in the world' (April 23, 2007) - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday said a resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict would pacify all major conflicts around the world. Speaking in Athens after talks Monday with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Abbas said, "Everyone recognizes that peace in the Middle East and a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can put out the fires at all the flash points in the world." Abbas also appealed to the international community to lift an aid embargo imposed on the Palestinian Authority after Hamas came into power, saying the sanctions hurt prospects for peace in the Middle East. "If the international community wants to help us, it must lift this embargo so that we can lead a normal life," Abbas said. "We are requesting that the embargo be lifted." "The Palestinian people have suffered in the past year because of this blockade," Abbas added. "They are living through a tragedy - on a social, economic and political level." Abbas' three-day visit to Greece, was part of a seven-nation tour of European Union countries. He also met Greek President Karolos Papoulias, and on Saturday he met Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. Greece has traditionally close ties with the Palestinians and with Arab nations. Direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority was frozen after Hamas swept to power in January 2006 elections, but Abbas has argued the restrictions should be lifted because a new unity government includes members of his more moderate Fatah party.
| Israel | Islam |

Vanishing honeybees mystify scientists (April 22, 2007) - Go to work, come home. Go to work, come home. Go to work -- and vanish without a trace. Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why. The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil. Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks. If the bees were dying of pesticide poisoning or freezing, their bodies would be expected to lie around the hive. And if they were absconding because of some threat -- which they have been known to do -- they wouldn't leave without the queen. Since about one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollination and most of that is performed by honeybees, this constitutes a serious problem, according to Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service. "They're the heavy lifters of agriculture," Pettis said of honeybees. "And the reason they are is they're so mobile and we can rear them in large numbers and move them to a crop when it's blooming." Honeybees are used to pollinate some of the tastiest parts of the American diet, Pettis said, including cherries, blueberries, apples, almonds, asparagus and macadamia nuts. "It's not the staples," he said. "If you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal every day with no fruit on it, that's what it would be like" without honeybee pollination. Pettis and other experts are gathering outside Washington for a two-day workshop starting on Monday to pool their knowledge and come up with a plan of action to combat what they call colony collapse disorder. "What we're describing as colony collapse disorder is the rapid loss of adult worker bees from the colony over a very short period of time, at a time in the season when we wouldn't expect a rapid die-off of workers: late fall and early spring," Pettis said. The problem has prompted a congressional hearing, a report by the National Research Council and a National Pollinator Week set for June 24-30 in Washington, but so far no clear idea of what is causing it. "The main hypotheses are based on the interpretation that the disappearances represent disruptions in orientation behavior and navigation," said May Berenbaum, an insect ecologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. There have been other fluctuations in the number of honeybees, going back to the 1880s, where there were "mysterious disappearances without bodies just as we're seeing now, but never at this magnitude," Berenbaum said in a telephone interview. In some cases, beekeepers are losing 50 percent of their bees to the disorder, with some suffering even higher losses. One beekeeper alone lost 40,000 bees, Pettis said. Nationally, some 27 states have reported the disorder, with billions of bees simply gone. more...
| Earth Changes |

I find this story interesting and it has been building for some time now. Given the timeline of Bible prophecy revealed in the HIStory, Our Future collection of Bible studies, I think it's possible that this massive disappearance of bees worldwide could help contribute to the coming famine of the third seal of Revelation. It would certainly fit the timeline.

Israel: Syria readying for war (April 22, 2007) - The gist of the Israeli message in its recent talks with United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is that Syria is preparing for a military confrontation with Israel. The U.S. message to Israel on Syria, in contrast, remained unchanged: Israel should at present avoid diplomatic talks with Damascus because President Bashar Assad plans on using such talks to extricate Syria from its isolation. Israeli talks with Damascus would be a knife in the back of the government of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. No tangible evidence exists, Israel told the U.S., that Damascus is planning an all-out war with Israel. But it is believed that Damascus has concluded that Israel might respond to various Syrian actions and that would be the cause of a full-blown confrontation. Such an Israeli response might come following Syrian assistance to Hezbollah or Palestinian terror organizations like Islamic Jihad. Damascus would have no choice but to respond with a more extensive operation. Such evaluations have been made before and proven mistaken. However, facts on the ground show the Syrian army is increasing its battle readiness, munitions production (especially of rockets and missiles), emergency stores and is acquiring more weapons systems from Iran. It has purchased a large number of advanced anti-tank missiles from the Russians, with whom it also negotiating the purchase of Russia's latest anti-aircraft missiles. The Syrians have deployed Iranian naval missiles (originally Chinese), the C. 802. The destructive power and range of Syria's rockets and missiles has clearly grown in recent years. Israel does not rule out a possible Syrian grab for the Golan, assuming that if Israel counter-attacks the Syrian lines it will incur heavy losses. Thus, the IDF's power has also increased, especially that of the Israel Air Force. Like the Syrians, the Israelis are upgrading the training of their units and providing them with the latest equipment. more...
| Gog/Magog | Israel | Islam |

Hamas calls for new attacks on Israel (April 22, 2007) - Hamas on Sunday called for new attacks on Israel after nine Palestinians were killed in a surge of fighting over the weekend. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urged Palestinians to be prepared for a new round of confrontation. "The blood of our people is not cheap," he said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press. "Therefore we are calling on ... (Hamas's armed wing) and the Palestinian resistance groups to be united in the trench of resistance and to use all possible means of resistance and to respond to the massacres." Meanwhile, IDF troops on Sunday morning shot and killed a Palestinian youth near Ramallah as he prepared to throw a Molotov cocktail at the soldiers. Overnight Saturday, an IDF soldier was lightly wounded by gunfire during arrest operations in the West Bank city of Nablus, as troops killed two Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades operatives in the city. more...
| Israel | Islam |

The Control Cult (April 21, 2007) - In the aftermath of the murders of 32 people at Virginia Tech, we are witnessing the collective reaffirmation of the article of faith uniting all politically-minded persons: the belief that the state is capable of identifying and controlling the factors that produce undesirable behavior. Even before the killer was identified, the chant arose – in unison – from political chambers, academia, government offices, and the media: “there is something that those in authority can do to alleviate such problems.” The mantra often finds expression – without any break in established meter – in this form: “we will find out what went wrong and fix it, so that this doesn’t happen again.” This mindset is so out of touch with the harsh facts of reality that The Wall Street Journal carried a feature article asking: “Next Debate: Should Colleges Ban Firearms?” That firearms had been banned on the Virginia Tech campus before these atrocities took place apparently did not inform the judgments of this newspaper’s editors. Nor have I seen evidence of any rethinking on the part of a Virginia Tech spokesman who, in 2006, following the Virginia legislature’s enactment of a ban on guns on state university campuses, declared: “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.” This man might send such words of comfort to the families of these 32 victims! Whatever explanations or remedies various “experts” offer for the problems that beset mankind, the common thread connecting them is that both human and physical nature are capable of being causally understood and, therefore, subject to interventionist correction. Universities are the temples of faith in this proposition, with students enrolling for their stated purpose of “making the world a better place.” It is not surprising, therefore, that immediately following these atrocities, the Virginia Tech campus became an attractor for the proponents of this Weltanschauung. “If the university had intervened after this man turned in some disturbed writing to his English professor;” “if we can just control guns;” “if police had had access to his mental health records beforehand”: these were the oft-repeated concerns of those who are convinced that the world is predictable and, hence, controllable. In the latter vein, NBC news anchor, Brian Williams, reportedly vocalized the catechism in proposing a new federal program to monitor the mental health of all college students, in order to prevent occurrences such as this one. The true believers of the dogmas of control have insinuated themselves into all forms of institutions. Being ends in themselves, and with people serving as little more than resources for organizational purposes, institutions provide a fitting environment for such thinking. Government schools – unable to grasp the reality that children are, by nature, self-directed, spontaneous, and exploring people eager to devote their energies to what interests them – become upset when their conscripts refuse to suppress their inquisitiveness. The children get labeled “hyperactive” or “suffering” from “attention deficit disorder” (i.e., do not adhere to the teacher’s prescribed agenda) and must, therefore, have their energies controlled by drugs, counseling, and other “behavior modification” techniques that squeeze the childhood sense of personally-relevant curiosity from them. Children grow into adulthood, and go to work for an institutionalized employer who plays this same control game at their expense. The employee finds himself or herself under the thumb of what has got to be the most dehumanizing and vulgar job description anywhere: a “human resources manager.” For an individual to be labeled as nothing more than a “resource” – what one dictionary defines as “an available means” – is a glaring admission of the victory of institutions over the human spirit! ...Apostles of the control cult will focus their energies on any area of human activity that provides them the opportunity to advance what is central to their lives: the exercise of coercive power over other people. Whether any given issue involves gun ownership; global warming; discriminatory behavior; tobacco, drug, and alcohol usage; eating habits; educating or raising children; or any other expressions of human action that can be exploited for their purposes, the overall objective remains fixed. There is nothing this crowd fears more than the specter of ordinary people retaining decision-making authority over their own lives. more...
| America |

The problem, I believe is a spiritual one. Because there is so much iniquity and sin, the love of many has grown cold. Many in Western scientific thought deny the spirit world for lack of physical evidence when the very nature of the spiritual has no physical dimensions. However, even though we live in the spirit daily, it's never really addressed in terms that make sense. This is where Thought: Voice of the Spirit Realm comes in. We need to understand that God put laws in place so that love would dominate our lives and actions. It is when that spirit of God's love is deficient that we get the kind of situation the world is in today. Guns don't kill people, people who have no regard for anyone but themselves kill people. Given the direction of Bible prophecy, I wouldn't expect the situation to get better until Christ returns. There is a definite truth to this article that I believe exposes the subtle design of the enemy to keep the population under his control. It's even more subtle because it has occurred over generations slowly to bring the kind of lax culture we're seeing emerge today. We are seeing the results of rejection of God's ways. Send In The Clowns

Dry Australia Faces Food Imports (April 21, 2007) - Australia's Prime Minister says some food may have to be imported, if there is no water for farm irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin this year. John Howard has said that without heavy rain in the coming weeks there may be no permits given for irrigating agricultural land. He says it might be possible in some areas to import the foodstuffs that would otherwise come from Australian sources. And Australia's National Farmers Federation also says some foods may need to be imported if there is not good rain.
| 3rd Seal |

Russian President Putin says Turkey is a reliable partner (April 21, 2007) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview for a special edition of the Rodina-Da magazine, said that Turkey was a reliable partner for Russia. The magazine Da, which is published in Eurasia by the Dialogue Eurasia Platform, and the Rodina magazine published in Russia, brought together Russian and Turkish leaders in a special edition, Rodina-Da, where they discussed views about bilateral relations. Putin explained that it was important to develop Turkish-Russian relations further as he said, “There are lots of projects which a Turkish-Russian partnership can realize together.” The Russian president pointed out that there were similarities between both countries’ efforts towards modernization and economic development, asking the Turkish government to create more appropriate grounds for investments and provide support for exports. Putin went on to say that Russia was willing to make new openings with Turkey in the fields of nuclear energy, transportation, chemical industry and advanced technology. “It is evident that the obstacles hindering our partnership’s improvement should be removed,” Putin said. Putin also mentioned that effective results can be obtained in many fields with a strong Turkish-Russia partnership. In this context, he said that Turkey and Russia may give a joint fight against terror. “Establishing a dialogue to be between cultures and religious groups will help taking a joint stance against terrorism and all sorts of radical acts,” he remarked. Underlining that developing economic and commercial relations between Turkey and Russia will bolster democracy and transparence principle as well as strengthening political and cultural relations, Putin said, “The Turkish-Russian partnership relies on mutual trust, respect and equality. We wish that our relations will improve more. I personally believe that the ‘Year of Russia’ that is marked in Turkey in 2007 and the “Year of Turkey” that will be marked in Russia in 2008, will make a significant contribution to our bilateral relations.” more...
| Gog/Magog | Islam |

Police force abortions on Christian women (April 20, 2007) - Dozens of unborn babies have been killed in a sweep by Chinese authorities of the Guangxi province that snared pregnant women and brought them against their will to a hospital for fatal abortion injections, according to a Christian ministry that monitors the district and ministers to those in need. "After 41 women were forced to have abortions on [Tuesday], China Aid Association has learned that the Youjiang District People's Hospital of Baise City performed forced abortions for at least 20 more pregnant women on [Wednesday]," an alert from the organization said. China Aid, which has its U.S. offices in Midland, Texas, confirmed that eyewitnesses are reporting that the latest roundup of pregnant women involved more than 20, who were transported to a hospital by government "Family Planning" authorities. "Within 30 minutes, about 10 of them were injected forcefully for an abortion. This means within [the] last 24 hours, at least 61 babies were killed by forced abortions," the sources within China told CAA. "At bed Number 37, Ms. He Caigan was nine months pregnant. Officials injected her baby's head and 20 minutes later, her baby stopped moving and died," the sources confirmed. Many of those targeted in the killing rampage were Christians, CAA said. "About 6 a.m. on [Wednesday], Pastor James Liang's wife Ms. Wei Linrong gave birth to a boy, but he was dead because of the injection. She received three injections – one is to induce the birth and the other two to kill the baby in the womb," CAA's sources reported. Liang formerly was a pastor in the government-sanctioned Three-Self church before he became a House church pastor a year ago, according to information from China Aid Association's Bob Fu. Eyewitnesses told CAA that the couple wanted to keep their child because of their Christian faith. Officers from the government surrounded the section of the hospital where the women were being held, the report said. "CAA urges the international community to register your protest and concern with letters and phone calls to the chairman of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, Party Secretary of Baise City, Mr. Liang Chunlu, and the Youjiang District People's Hospital," CAA said. First exposed by WND in 1997, what has come to be known as "gendercide" in China – due to a cultural preference for boys – has resulted in the deaths of at least 50 million girls. more...
| Signs of the Times |

Ismail Ax: The Shooter Was Another 'Son of Sacrifice' (April 19, 2007) - First it was Johnny Muhammad, now it was Cho Sueng Hui aka Ismail Ax. Precisely how many mass shooters have to turn out to have adopted Muslim names before we get it? Islam has become the tribe of choice of those who hate American society. I'm not talking about people who grew up as Muslims, confident and secure in their faith, good fathers, sons and neighbors. I'm talking about the angry, malignant, narcissist loners who want to reject their community utterly, to throw off their 'slave name' and represent the downtrodden of the earth by shooting their friends and neighbors. This morning I read that the Virginia Tech shooter died with the name Ismail Ax written in red ink on his arm. The mainstream press doesn't seem to have a clue as to what this might mean. To quote Indiana Jones, "Didn't any of you guys go to Sunday School?" The story starts with a man named Abraham. He is the father of the Jews, the Muslims and the Christians. He was born in Iraq, the son of a wealthy idol manufacturer. He came to believe that there was only one true God and, according to tradition, took up his ax and destroyed his father's idols. Eventually he left Iraq and moved to what is now known as Israel. He had a son with his concubine whom she named Ishmael. The Muslim world prefers the Arabic spelling of the name: Ismail. Eventually Abraham had a son by his rightful wife and named the son Isaac. Ishmael and his mother were disinherited and sent out into what is now Saudi Arabia. Isaac became the heir. Eventually, God decided to test Abraham by telling him to kill his son, Isaac. Abraham took up the knife, but God stopped him at the last moment. Isaac lived and eventually became a man of great wealth. Ishmael became a desert warrior chieftain. The Jews are the descendants of Isaac, the Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael. In the 7th Century, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, re-wrote the story, claiming that Ismail was the true faithful descendant of Abraham and that it was he, not Isaac, who God told Abraham to sacrifice. Ismail was the one saved. For Muslims, Ismail (not Isaac) was the true 'Son of Sacrifice.' In the original version of the story, Abraham used a knife, in some of the later Muslim versions, he used an Ax. Flash forward 1,400 years: a sullen, angry young man who rages against rich people and apparently against Christians, writes a play in which a mother and son try to kill his step-father, but in the end the boy (age about 13, the age many think Ismail was when he was exiled) is murdered by the step-father with 'a deadly blow'. Father issues? Yeah, I think so. Cho Sueng-hui cum Ismail Ax hated the American society to which he had been brought 15 years earlier. His play McBeef (a poor pun from an English Lit major on Macbeth) is one endless screed against the corruption of American culture. A cheesy re-telling of Shakespeare's Hamlet, it involves a young man abused by his step-father, a former NFL football player. The son, throws epithets at his father calling him a 'Catholic priest'. And makes derisive comments about McDonalds. It seems that none of the foundational structures of Western Civilization, Christianity, capitalism, family, are spared his rage. In other words, he really meant what he said in his last words: "you (that is us, America) made me do this."

Colombia Volcano Erupts, Thousands Flee (April 19, 2007) - Thousands of people were evacuated after a long-dormant volcano erupted late Tuesday and again early Wednesday, provoking avalanches and floods that swept away houses and bridges. The Nevado del Huila volcano's eruptions were its first on record since Colombia was colonized by the Spanish 500 years ago. There are about 10,000 people living in the area around the volcano, and about 3,500 had been evacuated, Luz Amanda Pulido, director of the national disaster office, told The Associated Press after flying over the volcano in southwest Colombia. There were no reports of deaths or injuries. The eruption sent an avalanche of rocks down the volcano's sides and into the Paez and Simbola rivers, causing them to flood. "The bridges were swept away, the highway used by the indigenous in the zone was destroyed for various kilometers (miles) and the problem we have now is the lack of a route to deliver goods and medicines to the population," Police Gen. Orlando Paez said. Experts were not ruling out more eruptions. more...
| Earth Changes |

Sun's Atmosphere Sings (April 19, 2007) - Astronomers have recorded heavenly music bellowed out by the Sun's atmosphere. Snagging orchestra seats for this solar symphony would be fruitless, however, as the frequency of the sound waves is below the human hearing threshold. While humans can make out sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, the solar sound waves are on the order of milli-hertz--a thousandth of a hertz. The study, presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Lancashire, England, reveals that the looping magnetic fields along the Sun's outer regions, called the corona, carry magnetic sound waves in a similar manner to musical instruments such as guitars or pipe organs. Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen of the Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Center at the University of Sheffield and his colleagues combined information gleaned from sun-orbiting satellites with theoretical models of solar processes, such as coronal mass ejections. They found that explosive events at the Sun's surface appear to trigger acoustic waves that bounce back and forth between both ends of the loops, a phenomenon known as a standing wave. "These magnetic loops are analogous to a simple guitar string," von Fay-Siebenburgen explained. "If you pluck a guitar string, you will hear the music." In the cosmic equivalent of a guitar pick, so-called microflares at the base of loops could be plucking the magnetic loops and setting the sound waves in motion, the researchers speculate. While solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system, microflares are a million times smaller but much more frequent; both phenomena are now thought to funnel heat into the Sun's outer atmosphere. The acoustic waves can be extremely energetic, reaching heights of tens of miles, and can travel at rapid speeds of 45,000 to 90,000 miles per hour. "These [explosions] release energy equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs," von Fay-Siebenburgen said. more...

Palestinians disavow 'right of return' (April 18, 2007) - A large and growing number of young Palestinians born abroad have no interest in coming to the Palestinian Authority or Israel, Palestinians in London have told Ynetnews. They expressed anger at Palestinian leaders for continuing to trumpet a "right of return," a call which is neither desirable nor realistic, the men said, adding that the demand is merely an attempt to force concessions out of Israel during peace talks. Seeking a good standard of living, Palestinians born in Lebanon have left for Europe and North America to escape the state-imposed discrimination placed on them by the Lebanese government which does not grant them citizenship or basic rights, the men say. "Most Palestinian refugees who live in Lebanon are not concerned about returning to Palestine or to Israel because we have been outside of Palestine for 60 years," Rami Abdel Rahim, a 26 year-old Palestinian living in London, said. "If we returned to the Palestinian territories, we would feel like second class citizens," he added. "We have different accents. We don't have any homes in West Bank and Gaza. For us, it will be more desirable to live in Arab countries and Europe," he explained. "No one wants to live there, not because we don't like our country Palestine, but because we can't live there," Rahim added. "If we all went, it would destroy the Palestinian economy. If we got an opportunity to live in Europe, we would enjoy a good standard of life. We can visit Palestine," he said. more...
| Israel | Islam |

Netanyahu Going Into Action to Topple Olmert (April 18, 2007) - Likud Chairman and head of the Opposition Binyamin Netanyahu has decided to abandon his wait-and-see strategy and to launch a public campaign for toppling Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government. In a rally held Tuesday at the Likud headquarters building 'Metzudat Ze'ev' in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu reportedly told his supporters "this government has to go home and we need to start acting to make this happen." He told them to begin holding weekly protest vigils every Friday in busy intersections throughout Israel as well as street demonstrations. "The slogan is simple," he said: "'You've Failed – Go Home'." According to NRG, the meeting was attended by dozens of Likud branch chairmen and other central activists from all parts of Israel. Netanyahu informed them of a working plan for country-wide protest vigils with the intention of creating an atmosphere conducive to bringing down the government. Netanyahu assured the activists that he would be joining the protests on a regular basis. Netanyahu's move appears to be timed with precision, as the date of release of the interim report by the Winograd Commission approaches. The Winograd Commission was appointed to investigate failures in the conduct of the Second Lebanon War last summer and is expected to have harsh criticism for the government and its heads. Prime Minister Olmert has received record-setting low marks of support in the polls, one of which recently gave him an amazingly low 3% support level – less than the margin of error. more...
| Israel |

Iraq: Baghdad Christians Flee Forced Conversion to Islam (April 18, 2007) - Iraqi Christians fled their homes over the weekend after armed Sunni extremists threatened to kill them if they did not convert to Islam within 24 hours, Christian sources said. Six Christian families from the Mualimien neighborhood of Baghdad’s Dora district have relocated to a church elsewhere in the city, said a Baghdad source who requested that the families’ location and identity remain anonymous. Armed Sunnis told the families on Saturday (April 14) that an amir (independent Muslim prince or ruler) had issued a fatwa or judgment based on Islamic law against Dora’s Christians, the source said. “They called the Christians infidels and told them, ‘If you don’t convert to Islam or leave your homes in 24 hours, we will kill you,’” the source told Compass after speaking with a member of the church helping the displaced Christians. The source was unable to confirm an April 15 report from the news website Iraq Slogger that militants had printed the fatwa on fliers distributed throughout the neighborhood. According to Ainkawa.com, an Arabic-language Christian website that first reported the news on Saturday evening (April 14), the extremists prevented fleeing Christian families from taking any personal belongings with them. A Baghdad pastor and priest each independently confirmed that Christians had fled the area in response to the fatwa. “Most of the Christian people have now left Mualimien,” said a pastor, who himself recently moved away from Dora to escape the daily violence. “No one was injured, they just all got out.” The pastor said that several of the fleeing families relocated to the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. He also confirmed reports that militants had removed the cross from the top of St. John the Baptist Chaldean church in Dora. more...
| Islam |

Just wait until all Islam becomes radical. Don't think it's possible? We have no idea what kind of spiritual changes will happen between now and the coming antichrist's reign. Nor do we fully understand what kind of influence the 12th Mahdi (or someone claiming to be him) could have. Bible prophecy is pretty specific that both the antichrist and false prophet will do signs and wonders that deceive the world. The false prophet can call fire from heaven. What will Islam become once these things begin? Will there be a non-radical element of Islam? Beheading is the form of execution by the antichrist for those that refuse to worship him. All we need to do is see the reaction to Islam with their executions to see the similarity there. There is much more, just click here.

A New Global Constitution And A New Internet? (April 18, 2007) - For background in reading this, you may want to visit my blogspot, and read the last seven articles which are my ongoing series on Javier Solana and his relationship to the rest of the world. I have included relevant click on links either in the body of those articles, or by footnote. Javier Solana was griping a few months ago. In his speeches, he complained of the protagonists, a/k/a “fundamentalists,” presumably religious ones. Purposely including religious attitudes (refusal to syncretize) along with ethnic conflicts, Solana said of “the protagonists,” “they use the Global Village” to full advantage,” he said. He was amazed at their sophistication. So, it wasn’t only the New Agers “evolved” enough to figure out how to use modern communication technologies. I guess he thought us “Old Agers” would communicate with tom-toms and carrier pigeons – certainly not fax machines and the internet! Dr. Solana has raised his global profile considerably since the beginning of 2007. He has been considerably more modest in the global press than on his own press releases. I made a fortuitous accidental discovery of Stanford University’s February 16th conference on “Global Constitutionalism,” I rather suspect that the January NewsWithViews column published on it gave its organizers more free unwanted publicity than they had ever counted on. I also suspect that they scrambled for cover. In that column, I speculated that both Javier Solana and New York University were somewhere lurking. It was not all Stanford, even though some of the hierarchy at that institution and its related think tanks, such as the Hoover Institution, were obviously players. New York University and many other intellectuals and wannabes were also on board. I didn’t have to wait long to get confirmation on my January hunch. Two days before the Stanford Conference opened, Javier Solana spent Valentine’s Day evening in New York City with German-American journalists. They were all in attendance at the Arthur Burns Fellowship Dinner. Solana was introduced by the German Ambassador as “the face and voice of Europe.” “The Face and Voice of Europe” went clearly beyond those geophysical boundaries that same evening, hinting broadly of new global machinery in the works. If you clicked on the hyperlinks just preceding this sentence, you will find direct links in those older stores to the source documents, provided they have not now been removed in what I have found to be a favorite “New Age” game over the years – now you see us, now you don’t. Or, to put it as Marilyn Ferguson expressed it, they were self-camouflaging networks! Well, a few short weeks later, he was again on American soil, this time in Washington, D.C. at the Brookings Institution. At a meeting chaired by Brookings president, a former World Federalist chief, Strobe Talbott, Javier Solana announced that like Dean Acheson, he had been present at the creation of a new global order. He said he played a “modest role” in its creation. He confirmed my suspicions as he thanked both Stanford University and New York University for helping to pull it together. His own European headlines announced that he, Javier Solana, had “launched” the new ‘global security initiative.’ Don’t ask me, “Does the President know?” The United States State Department, evidently hungry for words of affection from Senor Solana, effusively praised the effort. You may read all about it here. more...

From the "Clean Slate" whitepaper, "So as to involve the whole research community in clean-slate design, in 2006 NSF funded the FIND (Future Internet Network Design http://find.isi.edu/). FIND is a precursor to the proposed and much larger NSF GENI program (http://www.nsf.gov/cise/geni). GENI plans to build a nationwide programmable network – a research platform upon which experimenters can create, deploy and use whole new network architectures across a nationwide network. GENI is ambitious: the programmable network would support hundreds of simultaneous experiments, all running on the same virtualizable platform. If deployed (it will require about $250M from NSF), GENI will not be operational before about 2010." Chalk up another event for the 2009/2010 global transition list. Here's another excerpt stating one of the desired characteristics of this new Internet, "Support mobile end-hosts. Laptops, Wi-Fi and cellular telephones make mobility commonplace, rather than an exception. A new Internet should support mobility (and all the associated security, naming, routing and privileges) as seamlessly as it supports wired end-hosts today. It should also support future small sensor and ad-hoc networks, as well as RFID." If you don't know anything about RFID, I would recommend doing some research on it here. It uses radio frequency to remotely identify a tag with a unique ID number. Some stores are already using it on a limited basis to track inventory, etc. According to the Bible, the antichrist will force the population of the world to take a mark on the forehead or hand. Without this mark you cannot buy or sell and if you refuse the mark, you are killed. I personally believe that the bride of Christ will be removed before that point, but it behooves us to understand the possibilities anyways. I also believe that the RFID chip may not necessarily be THE mark, but an aspect of it to force the population to join the club or rely on God. This is why those who take the mark of the beast will not enter heaven, because they have chosen the antichrist over God. I believe the taking of the mark will be a pledge of allegiance, not just a technology. If this new Internet had RFID capabilities built in, anyone with the RFID chip could be located anywhere on the globe instantaneously via the world-wide RFID/Internet network. And if there was no more paper currency and this is the only way to buy or sell, it is impossible to fake the mark to buy or sell because your unique ID must be in the database. If there is no longer an infrastructure of paper currency, then those who refuse the mark would be left out in the cold without a way to buy food or anything else. Those who refuse the mark will be looked down upon and hated by those who have as non-conformists and against the state.

NYC police search for torturer-rapist (April 19, 2007) - It was an ordeal that lasted 19 hours. In that span, a man bound a Columbia University graduate student in her apartment, raped her, doused her with hot water and bleach, slit her eyelids and finally set a fire before fleeing, police said. Police pressed a manhunt for the assailant in the April 13 attack, with investigators hoping any surviving DNA and a $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest would produce fresh leads. The victim, who managed to free herself before the fire spread, was still in the hospital Thursday, police said. The woman was nearing her degree at the Graduate School of Journalism when the attack occurred at her apartment more than 20 blocks north of the Ivy League campus in upper Manhattan, classmates have said. Dozens paid tribute to her Monday with a candlelight vigil. Female students throughout the school were rattled, especially because the attacker was is still on the loose, said Lindsay Miller, 23, an architecture student who, like the victim, lives several blocks from the campus. "It makes you nervous," she said. "I find I'm walking faster and looking over my shoulder." Witnesses told police they had spotted the attacker loitering around the victim's building on the night of the attack. At about 9:30 p.m., he slipped inside, got on an elevator with her and pushed a button for a different floor than hers, police said. He followed her out of the elevator and pretended like he was lost, police said. Then he followed her to her apartment door and forced his way inside, where he beat her. more...
| Signs of the Times |

The love of many is very cold. This kind of influence has Satan written all over it. The physical manifestations of spiritual darkness are apparent everywhere. We need to manifest the spirit of Love through Yeshua the Christ.

1 of 4 NYC men reported binge drinking (April 18, 2007) - One in four men in New York City reported binge drinking in 2005, or having five or more drinks on one occasion during the previous month, city Health Department said in a report released Wednesday. The statistics — the latest available — are contained in the agency's annual community health survey of 10,000 New Yorkers, who were randomly selected and interviewed by phone throughout 2005. The survey found that men over the age of 18 were more than three times as likely as women to binge drink. The report said that about one in four Hispanic and white males indulged in binge drinking, compared to about one in six black men and one in eight Asian men. It also found that white women were more likely to binge drink than black, Hispanic or Asian women, but still half as likely than men. "Alcoholism is a disease, but recovery is possible," Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a statement. "Drinking too much can lead to liver damage, injuries, cancer and death." He recommended that people who regularly drink in excess seek a doctor's help or call the city's 311 non-emergency hotline and ask for LifeNet. more...

This goes in line with They Sold Their Souls For Rock 'N Roll series. Alcohol is one way that self-control is given over to other influence. When you understand that thought is the voice of the spirit realm, it's easy to see why alcoholism is so damaging spiritually to the drinker and those around them. Much of the culture of today lives on the sex, drugs, and rock n' roll philosophy. It is a materialistic, physical-driven fulfillment of the desires of the flesh that is built upon the foundation of Aleister Crowley, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and promotion of self above all others. This is 180 degree opposite to God's love, which is selfless giving of oneself to others and treating them as you would be treated.

Want Middle East Stability? Move UN to Iraq (April 9, 2007) - “Get the U.S. out of the U.N.!,” a sign near Gettysburg shouts. “The United Nations sabotages America’s security,” author Eric Shawn declared in his book The U.N. Exposed. Iranian spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham told reporters that the U.N. “must be relocated from the U.S.” And a few days after Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s rant before a U.N. audience, a New York Daily News editorial encouraged Chavez to “take the atrophied, self-abasing remains of a global idea 2,100 miles to Caracas!” The idea of moving U.N. headquarters seems to resonate with many—those who believe that the U.S. is being manipulated by anti-American and anti-Israeli elements within the U.N., as well as those who feel that the U.S. is doing the manipulation. For Americans, it would of course mean the loss of a global status symbol—but it would also mean the reacquisition of valuable New York real estate, fewer cases of diplomatic immunity for the legal systems, and perhaps a reduction of anti-American sentiment worldwide. Where should it go? Try Iraq. While moving the U.N. headquarters to Venezuela or Iran is probably not wise, moving it to Iraq might be a strategic coup. There is even a ready-made location for it—Saddam Hussein’s 600-room palace and compound constructed over the remains of the ancient city of Babylon. Americans might even consider footing the bill for the relocation. Think about it. If the U.S. should be forced to abruptly withdraw from Iraq, a peacekeeping force—something similar to the International Security Assistance Force now in Afghanistan—would probably be deployed. Yet peacekeeping forces under temporary mandates, with all the associated communications problems, functional restrictions, and managerial arguments that so often spring from ego or nationalist pride, generally don’t work. They would be even less viable in a region like Iraq, where the threat of kidnapping and indescribable torture would keep many countries from participating. Relocating U.N. headquarters to Iraq, however, might actually be a reasonable alternative. Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed with member states’ demands for the U.S. to leave Iraq. Yet he admitted that any force reductions would have to be planned so as not to lead to greater violence and instability. Moving the U.N. to Iraq might be the only method of ensuring that a departure of U.S. forces would not leave the country and the region in chaos. Considering the severe cutbacks in U.N. personnel within Iraq following the 2004 truck bombing of its Baghdad compound, the idea might seem ridiculous; but the mission of the U.N. is to promote and preserve peace. In order to maintain its fledgling democracy, Iraq needs international commitment, an inducement to stop factional violence, and a stable form of income not subject to the terrorists’ reprisals. It is hard to imagine a more visible and binding form of commitment than a change of such magnitude. The prestige factor alone might guarantee stability. Middle East leaders may seize upon the move as recognition of the region’s importance, thus stimulating their sense of self- and nationalist esteem while gaining further incentive for dealing with internecine conflict. more...
| EU/UN / 4th Kingdom |

Yes that's right, it is being suggested that the UN move into Babylon. Wouldn't that just fit Bible prophecy perfectly? Keep watching!

Eurocrat empire building (March 28, 2007) - On Sunday, the European Union celebrated its 50th anniversary. The EU was established on March 25, 1957, when its six founding states (Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg) signed the Treaty of Rome. They solemnly declared that they would aim for "an ever closer union." As a first step towards the goal of political unification the six states decided to integrate their economies. They have meanwhile been joined by 21 other European countries, Economic activities, however, cannot result in achieving a predetermined political goal without strict economic controls and centralist planning. The controlling and planning body of the EU is the European Commission, based in Brussels. The commissioners are not elected and are accountable to no one. This deliberate democratic deficit was built in as a structural feature of the EU. An unelected and unaccountable structure makes it easier to impose centrally driven change on a society. Some of the EU's founding fathers claimed that political unification was needed to prevent European nations from going to war again. Others, such as Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian foreign minister who authored the Rome treaty, dreamed of a European superstate. He hoped that such a state might one day become as powerful as the United States. Robert Rothschild, Mr. Spaak's chef de cabinet, recalled later how Mr. Spaak told him in 1957: "I think we have re-established the Roman Empire without a single shot being fired." Washington foolishly supported the European unification project. It failed to see that democratization and decentralization are far more likely to preserve peace than unification and centralization. Washington also thought that without the gradual obliteration of the former European nation-states the Europeans were bound to wage war on each other again. America became the EU's midwife. "Without the Americans we would not have gotten anywhere," Mr. Rothschild acknowledged. Empires, however, are carnivorous monsters. They have to keep growing in order to avoid unraveling. Hence, they inevitably grow ever more totalitarian and expansionist. The EU is interfering more and more in the daily lives of its subjects. At the same time, its territory continues to expand, from the original six members to the present 27. By definition, there is no end to this process. The Leviathan has to be fed. With the accession of Romania and Bulgaria on Jan. 1, the EU's territory has reached the outer boundaries of the European continent. Since the European Empire by definition has to expand, it has to move into Asia and Africa. The preparation for this crossing of the Rubicon -- in this case the crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bosporus -- has been going on for years. Five years ago, Louis Michel, then the Belgian minister of foreign affairs and at present a member of the European Commission, told the Belgian parliament that eventually the EU will encompass the entire Mediterranean basin, including North Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Michel also posited that only by incorporating both Israel and Palestine into the EU will there be peace between them. The European-Mediterranean ("Euro-Med") partnership between the EU and the countries of the Maghreb (an Arab word meaning "the West" and denoting Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya -- the North African Muslim countries to the west of Egypt) was established specifically to promote the economic, cultural and political integration of the EU and the Maghreb countries. The Brussels bureaucrats embrace Islam because they want the EU to expand into the Muslim east and south. They think that eventually the Maghreb will become part of Europe, but many ordinary Europeans fear that Europe is on its way to becoming the Maghreb, the Muslim "West." more...
| EU/UN / 4th Kingdom |