| 1. Where is the United States in Prophecy? Spies Warn That Al Qaeda Aims for October Surprise
In the aftermath of two major terrorist attacks on Western targets, America's counterterrorism community is warning that Al Qaeda may launch more overseas operations to influence the presidential elections in November. Call it Osama bin Laden's "October surprise." In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America's military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda's leadership to intermediate members of the organization asking local cells to be prepared for imminent instructions. An official familiar with the new intelligence said the message was picked up in multiple settings, from couriers to encrypted electronic communications to other means. "These are generic orders," the source said — a distinction from the more specific intelligence about the location, time, and method of an attack. "It was, 'Be on notice. We may call upon you soon.' It was sent out on many channels." Mr. bin Laden has sought to influence democratic elections in the past. On March 11, 2004, Al Qaeda carried out a series of bombings on Madrid commuter trains. Three days later, the opposition and anti-Iraq war Socialist Workers Party was voted into power. ................ read more Americans concerned about loss of world standing: poll
Foreign policy could play a big role in November's presidential election according to a new poll that suggests 83 percent of Americans are most concerned about improving the nation's standing in the world. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll also showed majority support for Washington to take a new tack in foreign policy by talking to enemies like the leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar (Burma), Hamas and Hezbollah. Such a stand appeared closer to that of Democratic candidate Barack Obama than that of his Republican rival John McCain. Bipartisan concern about America's standing in the world topped the list of 14 goals presented in the survey to be officially released on Monday, even higher than protecting the jobs of US workers (80 percent). The survey was conducted in July, before the collapse of investment giant Lehman Brothers, the unprecedented government rescue of insurer American International Group and the seizure of mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sparked market panic. Eighty-three percent of Americans -- including 81 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats -- think that improving their nation's standing internationally should be a "very important" foreign policy goal, the poll said. Americans remained strongly committed to have Washington retain an active role in world affairs and maintain its global military presence................ read more Directives for Islamic terrorist attack in U.S. appear on the Internet
A posting uncovered in an Arabic language Internet forum is currently raising a few eyebrows in the intelligence community. The single posting, which is presently being scrutinized by intelligence officials, appears to provide detailed instructions for Muslims living within the United States, giving them specific actions to take before, during and after an upcoming attack in the U.S. The communication was discovered by "Archangel," a well-known independent intelligence analyst active within the intelligence community. The post was initially published on August 2, 2008 under the title “Commandments [Directives] Before the Strike,” and appears to be a sort of a conflict management guide, or instructions on what Muslims should do prior to the attack, actions that should be undertaken concurrent with the attack, and well as additional instructions following the attack. The text addressing the nature, location and timing of the planned attack, although specific to the U.S., appears otherwise ambiguous. For instance, the timing appears to focus on the Tuesday following the end of Ramadan, which would be October 7, 2008. The nature of the attack is less clear. Although the author appears to talk about a strike greater in magnitude than the 9/11 attacks and makes reference to the possibility of it being nuclear in nature, the text references to the nuclear aspect of the attack appear somewhat muddled. In terms of the location of the attack, it is clear that the author identifies both New York, as the financial capital of the U.S., and Washington, DC, as the nation’s capital, as being both desirable and affected. It is interesting that under analysis, the details of “the attack” referenced by the author are nestled within the text of instructions, rather than being prominently placed to serve as an overt warning as seen in the past. The relative subtlety in which the targets and type of attack was referenced is most interesting from a historical and analytical perspective.............. read more US ‘will lose financial superpower status... The world will never be the same again'
The US will lose its role as a global financial “superpower” in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said on Thursday, blaming Washington for failing to take the regulatory steps that might have averted the crisis. “The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. This world will become multipolar” with the emergence of stronger, better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament. “The world will never be the same again.” His were the most outspoken comments by a senior European government figure since Wall Street fell into chaos two weeks ago. He later told journalists: “When we look back 10 years from now, we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture. I am not saying the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, but it will become relative.”.............. read more
2. Israel - God's Timepiece Are these our future allies? Iraq may execute MP for crime of visiting Israel
First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi's troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state - something Iraq's leaders refuse to consider. The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel - a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party's sole seat in parliament. Al-Alusi has a German passport, allowing him to travel without visa restrictions imposed on other Iraqis. Lawmakers accused him of humiliating the nation with a trip to the "enemy" state. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called the reaction to al-Arusi's visit "very distressing" and said it was sad this was the response to someone who merely visited Israel and was interested in a dialogue with it. "It is very unfortunate that the reaction was so violent and aggressive," he said. "It adds nothing." Palmor said Israel was appreciative of al-Alusi's "courage," and that the reactions to his visit were an example of the extremism that was plaguing that country and leading to so much bloodshed there. The uproar shows how far Iraq has moved from the early US goal of creating a democracy that would make peace with Israel and remove a critical force from the Arab-Israeli conflict.................. read more CBS census: 75.6% of Israelis Jews
The Central Bureau of Statistics published its census Wednesday, ahead of the High Holidays. According to the report, 2007 saw 7,243,600 residents living in Israel – a 1.8% increase from 2006. Some 75.6% are Jewish, and 20% are Arabs, other denominations make up 4.4% of the populous. Other figures in the report indicated that Israel welcomed 151,679 new babies in 2007 – a 2.4% increase. Jewish women have 3 children on average, while Arab women have four. About 247,000 people moved across Israel during 2007, with central Israel being the favorite destination of choice. The Judea and Samaria District was also popular, as 4,900 people relocated to it. Jerusalem and Haifa, however, did not fare as well, as 6,400 people left the former and 2,200 left the latter in favor of other cities.. ............... read more Israel on high alert for mass-casualty strikes
Israel's military has been placed on high alert following an airline bomb scare and reports of other threats. Officials said the intelligence community has warned of an imminent attack by either Al Qaida or Hizbullah against Israel. They said the Islamic insurgency could be planning the hijacking of an Israeli passenger jet that would then be crashed into an Israeli residential area. "There is an assessment that something very bad will take place over the next few weeks, perhaps over the Jewish holidays," an official said. Officials said Hizbullah was coordinating with Al Qaida and Hamas to abduct Israeli tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. They said the abduction plot was one of several Hizbullah options designed to avenge the assassination of operations chief Imad Mughniyeh in February 2008................... read more Hamas plotting West Bank takeover in early 2009
The Palestinian Authority has opted for a holding pattern rather than developing a strategy to block the opposition Hamas movement from seizing power in the West Bank. PA security sources said PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has refused to respond to appeals by senior officers to implement a range of measures to protect the Fatah-aligned regime from Hamas threats. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] is scared of Hamas," a senior source said. "He does not want to provoke Hamas." Security sources said Hamas could destabilize the PA to the point where senior officials either flee the West Bank or stay home. The sources said this could include Abbas, who has often threatened to quit. The sources said Hamas has been working with Iran and Syria in a campaign to undermine the Abbas regime in 2009. They said the Hamas effort was being planned in the Gaza Strip by military chief Ahmed Jaabari. The sources said Hamas was believed to have organized assassination and sabotage squads that could attack the PA after January 2009, when Abbas's term was scheduled to end. Abbas was said to have agreed to a U.S. request to remain in power after January ............... read more Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran
Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian. The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush's trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state's founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. "He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they were at the moment, and that the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office", they added. Bush's decision to refuse to offer any support for a strike on Iran appeared to be based on two factors, the sources said. One was US concern over Iran's likely retaliation, which would probably include a wave of attacks on US military and other personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as on shipping in the Persian Gulf. The other was US anxiety that Israel would not succeed in disabling Iran's nuclear facilities in a single assault even with the use of dozens of aircraft. It could not mount a series of attacks over several days without risking full-scale war. So the benefits would not outweigh the costs. Iran has repeatedly said it would react with force to any attack. Some western government analysts believe this could include asking Lebanon's Shia movement Hizbollah to strike at the US.................. read more
3. A Revived Roman Empire? Juncker rules out Lisbon treaty before 2010
The European Union's Lisbon Treaty will not enter into force before the European Parliament elections in June 2009, as was initially hoped, and is unlikely to do so before 1 January 2010 either, Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels on Wednesday. "I don't think that the treaty will be in place in June 2009, when the next European elections will take place," Mr Juncker, who is also the president of the eurogroup - gathering the finance ministers of the eurozone - said at a conference organised by the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC). In order for the document to be in place by June 2009, it would have to be ratified by all 27 EU member states by February - something which according to Luxembourg's premier is "not realistic." "It's not possible to have this treaty enter into force before the year 2010," he stressed. Mr Juncker is the first high-level politician to publicly state the Lisbon treaty may be impossible to adopt next year. Originally, the document - aimed to replace the failed European Constitution and to provide for a better and more efficient functioning of the EU - was planned to enter into force in January 2009. But Irish citizens voted No in a referendum on the treaty in June, casting a doubt over the possibility to reach the goal.................. read more
4. The Gog/Magog War "Dangerous gulf" opens between Russia and West
The West's pillorying of Moscow over last month's invasion of Georgia has kindled a fierce Russian resentment that poses dangers for security in Europe and in trouble spots beyond. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lectured Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a United Nations gathering in New York, telling him Russia was now isolated. Lavrov countered that his appointment book for the meeting had never been fuller. Behind the studiedly gentle riposte lay a sense, echoed on the streets in Russia, that the West was not granting resurgent Russia the respect it feels it merits. Animosities ascribed in earlier times to ideological schism between communism and capitalism are proving hardier than many might have expected. Russia's sense of grievance over the Georgian war stems from Western governments' unwillingness to acknowledge publicly what many say privately -- that Tbilisi started the conflict. Adding insult to injury for the Russians is strong Western support for Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili -- loathed by Moscow -- and Western media coverage which has overwhelmingly favored Georgia during the conflict. "Never in the past quarter century have Russia and the West differed so much over the interpretation of the same event," wrote political commentator Georgy Bovt in an opinion piece entitled "Divorce with the West" on the gazeta.ru news site. "Never before has the behavior of Russia been presented in Western media in such a diametrically opposite way to the way that behavior is perceived in Russian public opinion." Further stoking resentment is a string of recent Western moves seen as hostile by Moscow. Now Russia's patience has snapped. ................. read more
5. Apostate Christianity Episcopal Church Ousts Pittsburgh Bishop For Holding To Bible As Literal Word Of God
Conservative Anglicans have expressed their “great sadness” at the decision of The Episcopal Church to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh. The Episcopal House of Bishops voted 88 to 35 in a closed meeting in Salt Lake City on Thursday to remove Bishop Robert Duncan from ordained ministry on the grounds of “abandonment of the communion of this church.” There were four abstentions. Duncan, who has led the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh for 11 years, is the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, a network of Anglicans in North America disenchanted with the The Episcopal Church's pro-homosexual agenda and moving to break away from the liberal denomination. His deposition comes ahead of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s vote on October 4 on whether to secede from the The Episcopal Church and align instead with the more conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. The Pittsburgh diocese said it will move ahead with the secession vote despite Duncan's removal. In a joint statement, Dr. Philip Giddings, convenor of the conservative Anglican Mainstream, and Canon Dr. Chris Sugden, the group’s executive secretary, said: “To take such action is hardly in the spirit of the reflections at this year’s Lambeth Conference or the Archbishop of Canterbury’s final presidential address. "We see this vote as further evidence that The Episcopal Church in the USA in its formal decisions and structures 'have denied orthodox faith.'"................ read more Christians & Jews Protest Dinner by Mennonites, Quakers & World Council of Churches to "Honor" Ahmadinejad
A broad coalition of Jewish, Christian and secular human rights and political groups plan to demonstrate Thursday outside the Manhattan hotel where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be the guest of honor at a dinner reception. "If there is a common thread uniting all of those groups, it's opposition to Ahmadinejad and his exclusionary policies, and we're all promoting freedom, whether it's religious freedom or personal freedom,". Invited guests include representatives from an array of Christian groups, including the World Council of Churches, whose United Nations liaison office is co-hosting the dinner. Opposition to the dinner, to be held at the Grand Hyatt next to Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street, has been growing over the past two weeks, particularly among groups with ties to the evangelical Christian movement. One, the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, sponsored a flood of critical e-mails to the dinner's organizers. The messages were sent under the banner of "Stand for Israel," an offshoot group that mobilizes Christian support for Israel. "The cause of peace will in no way be furthered by breaking bread with this tyrant," said the form letter, which also claimed that Ahmadinejad compared "Zionists" to Satan during a trip to Sudan, just days after a meeting last year with American Mennonite and Quaker leaders. The event has already drawn ire from Jewish groups, starting with the Anti-Defamation League, whose leader, Abraham Foxman, accused those who participate of "tarnishing" their reputations................. read more
6. The Rise of Islam Islam, Secularism and the Gospel
While Britons may think of America as its juvenile and impetuous offspring, Great Britain has surely become our senile grandmother. Through repeated acts of self-condemnation and political correctness, the British are systematically capitulating to all things Islamic. In essence, our British forbearers are committing cultural suicide. In what may appear to be deferential considerations to their growing Muslim population, British authorities are slowly conforming to the demands of an increasingly outspoken minority. Already in Britain, Muslim men with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long government review. Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the decision by British authorities means that polygamous marriages can now be recognized formally (not to mentioned subsidized) by the state, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is legal. And yes, polygamy remains a norm in the Muslim world. The Research, Information and Communication Unit, a division of the British Home Office, established for the purpose of countering al-Qaeda’s influence in the UK, is actually instructing civil servants not to use terms such as “Islamist extremism” or “jihadi fundamentalist.” Instead, they are to use phrases such as “violent extremism” or “criminal murderers” to avoid any implication that there is connection between Islam and terrorism. Closer to home, the US government also issued guidelines earlier this year for the Department of Homeland Security suggesting such terms as “jihad” and “Islamic terrorism” not be used................. read more Christian converts remain under persecution from Islamic militants
Egypt’s most well-known convert to Christianity is still hiding a year after he filed the landmark case to become the first Egyptian Muslim to sue the government for rejecting his application to officially change his religion. Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, 25, had lost his case in January when an Egyptian judge ruled that a Muslim who converted to Christianity cannot legally change his religious status. Now, eight months after his case was closed and a year after he filed the case, Hegazy is still hiding for his life. Since Jan. 29 when the court ruled against him, Hegazy and his wife and baby daughter has had to move five times, according to the persecution watchdog agency, Compass Direct News. “The verdict for my case was discriminatory [on the part] of the judge,” Hegazy told Compass in an interview last month. The judge had based his decision on Islamic law that says someone can convert “up,” or to more recent religions, such as from Judaism and Christianity to Islam, but not vice versa. But even after the media stopped reporting on his case, Hegazy said he still remains a target – as all converts do – of Islamic militants.................. read more Distribution of 28 million copies of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" stirs discussion across the nation
Abdiamar Bare, 21, walks up to the nondescript mosque in Greeley for noon prayers and pauses a moment to talk about his faith. He is asked by a visitor if he's seen the DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." No, he says. He's asked if the principles of Islam allow other religions to coexist with it. "Every religion is the same. No religion is better than another religion," Bare says. Bare is one of about 120 Muslim workers recently fired by JBS Swift & Co. for walking off the job after a disagreement on prayer breaks. He enters the mosque, off 8th Avenue near the University of Northern Colorado campus, to join dozens more for prayer. It's a low-profile, unmarked building in which Greeley Muslims come to practice their faith, which again finds itself in the crosshairs of scrutiny locally and nationally. In Greeley, the dispute continues on prayer breaks for Muslim workers at the meatpacking plant. Sentiment has spread among some in the community that the newcomers are pushing too much, exhibiting a desire not to assimilate but rather impose their religion on others. Nationally, the DVD arrived on 28 million doorsteps as rhetoric on homeland security heats up in the presidential race. The confluence of recent events -- the Muslim workers' dispute and, on its heels, the "Obsession" DVD -- is the talk of the town. Many Greeley residents have noticed the 400 mostly Somali refugees who've arrived in the past 18 months to take jobs at JBS Swift. The workers say they are here to escape the oppression of their war-torn homeland, build a new life and peacefully practice their religion. What to make of these newcomers and their religion, which is indelibly linked to 9/11 and other violent acts across the globe, has sparked a variety of views. The DVD alone prompts widely different opinions. A Greeley woman calls the disc "neo-con propaganda," while a history professor at Colorado State University says the film is factually accurate and shows it in his classes. Meanwhile, in the day-to-day operation of the Greeley meatpacking plant, the African refugees' religion is at odds, especially during Ramadan, with the assembly line production................... read more Moderate Algeria, Jordan New Spots of Islamic Fundamentalism
Two Muslim-majority countries that traditionally have been respectful of minority faiths were highlighted by the U.S. State Department for their growing religious intolerance. Sunni-dominated Algeria in northern Africa and Jordan in the Middle East had several reported cases of government imposed restriction on religious freedom, said U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, John Hanford, last Friday at the release of the 10th Annual State Department Report on International Religious Freedom. In Algeria, there were several arrests and sentences of converts to Christianity, according to Hanford. Also, the government began enforcing a 2006 law that required non-Muslim congregations to hold a permit in order to operate, resulting in a series of forced church closure. Meanwhile in Jordan this past year, a Shari’a court found a convert to Christianity from Islam guilty of apostasy. The judge then annulled his marriage and declared him to have no religious identity. Hanford, during the event, agreed with the suggestion that Islamic fundamentalists at the grassroots level are having an impact on the two countries.................. read more
7. Increase in Knowledge/New Technologies Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind
Baggage searches are Soooo early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind. Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror. MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers. It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye — signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack. But this is no polygraph test. Subjects do not get hooked up or strapped down for a careful reading; those sensors do all the work without any actual physical contact. It's like an X-ray for bad intentions......................... read more The New Tower Of Babel - Japan's Elevator To The Stars
From cyborg housemaids and waterpowered cars to dog translators and rocket boots, Japanese boffins have racked up plenty of near-misses in the quest to turn science fiction into reality. Now the finest scientific minds of Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all: the space elevator. Man has so far conquered space by painfully and inefficiently blasting himself out of the atmosphere but the 21st century should bring a more leisurely ride to the final frontier. For chemists, physicists, material scientists, astronauts and dreamers across the globe, the space elevator represents the most tantalising of concepts: cables stronger and lighter than any fibre yet woven, tethered to the ground and disappearing beyond the atmosphere to a satellite docking station in geosynchronous orbit above Earth. Up and down the 22,000 mile-long (36,000km) cables — or flat ribbons — will run the elevator carriages, themselves requiring huge breakthroughs in engineering to which the biggest Japanese companies and universities have turned their collective attention. In the carriages, the scientists behind the idea told The Times, could be any number of cargoes. A space elevator could carry people, huge solar-powered generators or even casks of radioactive waste. The point is that breaking free of Earth's gravity will no longer require so much energy — perhaps 100 times less than launching the space shuttle. “Just like travelling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into space,” Shuichi Ono, chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association, said. The vision has inspired scientists around the world and government organisations including Nasa. Several competing space elevator projects are gathering pace as various groups vie to build practical carriages, tethers and the hundreds of other parts required to carry out the plan. There are prizes offered by space elevator-related scientific organisations for breakthroughs and competitions for the best and fastest design of carriage........................ read more Lethal Micro Air Vehicles & the Locusts of Revelation
At the Air Force Research Laboratory near Dayton, Ohio, civilian researchers and military developers have set a 2015 deadline for the first battlefield ready, lethal generation of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The first armada of tiny flying death machines will be the size of small birds and will be able to operate several days without recharging. On the heels of these lethal mini-drones, bug-sized swarms of GPS-guided soldiers will flitter, slither and creep into enemy war zones to spy, provide real-time intelligence reporting, and, when ordered to do so, kill adversaries. "It may look like a futuristic arcade game," says Aamer Madhani for the Chicago Tribune, "but it's a scene from an official Air Force animated video: Bad guys of indiscernible origin being shadowed, from a careful distance, by small robotic drones designed to resemble birds and insects. "When one of the bad guys opens his apartment door, a tiny robo-bug, looking like a garage door opener with wings, sneaks in to spy. In another scene, a bug—the Air Force calls them Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs—creeps into a sniper's roost and delivers a deadly shot to the back of his head. "It might sound far-fetched. But top Air Force officials believe that MAVs could be a significant part of the Defense Department's arsenal in the not-so-distant future." A report by Jim Wilson in Popular Mechanics a while back presented evidence supporting the army's MAV rollout timeline for operational insect sized killer robots. "The future of warfare isn't pressing on the trigger of a laser death ray or button of a doomsday device," he wrote, "It's holding a stubby-winged mechanical bug." The Pentagon agrees and has been feverishly working with engineers and biologists to create a lethal arsenal of micro-mechanical fighting bugs that combine insect aerodynamics with GPS navigation and molecular electronics......................... read more
8. Christian Worldview/Issues Supernatural Experiences Common Among America's Religious
Nearly half of Americans report having at least two supernatural encounters, with conservative Protestants more likely than religious liberals to say they had such experiences, according to a survey recently published in a new book. Among the most common religious and mystical experiences reported by Americans include protection from harm by a guardian angel (55 percent); calling by God to do something (44 percent); witnessing a miraculous, physical healing (23 percent); and hearing the voice of God (20 percent), according to the second part of the Baylor Religion Survey. Researchers say they did not expect to find such high numbers of Americans reporting supernatural experiences, in particular, the guardian angel result. “It was the biggest surprise to me in our findings,” sociologist Christopher Bader of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said on Thursday. When examining results by denominations, respondents belonging to conservative Protestant churches were more likely than those in liberal Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and Jewish respondents to report religious and mystical experiences. Those belonging to the Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, and Baptist denominations were the most likely to cite having religious and mystical experiences. Meanwhile Jewish and those in the Unitarian and United Church of Christ were least likely to report such experiences.... ............. read more A Christian View of the Economic Crisis
The headlines tell the story as recent days have seen the American economy and its financial system buffeted by seismic failures and the virtual disappearance of major investment banks. The debate raging in Washington these days concerns the form and extent of government intervention that will be required in order to restore stability to the financial markets. More than anything else, this crisis has to do with what happens when the markets come to term with excessive valuations. Put bluntly, wildly inflated valuations led to risky financial adventures and worse. The sub-prime mortgage collapse came as more realistic real estate valuations forced market corrections. The vast global financial system has accepted the inflated valuations as real and traded in the risky mortgages as if the game would go on forever. This was a fool's errand. There were other causes of the current distress in the markets and other forces at work within the economy at large. The slide of the dollar and the rising price of oil both played a part, as did more fundamental shifts having to do with a globalized economy and the continuing shift toward a knowledge-based economy in a technological age. Is this all about greed? Yes and no. In the movie "Wall Street," the character Gordon Gekko famously declares that "greed is good." But is the economy really driven by greed?. ............. read more Dangerous Trends: Environmentalism leading many to endorse one child policy and now "Sterilization for Women"
A popular women’s magazine in the UK recently featured an article entitled, Young, Single and Sterilized, in which women in their 20’s discussed why they had undergone an operation to prevent them from ever having children. The article is little more than PR for a “women’s charity” called Marie Stopes International, an organization that carries out abortions and sterilizations and was founded by a Nazi eugenicist who advocated compulsory sterilization of non-whites and “those of bad character”. The story appears in a weekly magazine called Love It. One of the women featured in the article, Chloe, explains why she decided to have herself sterilized at the age of just 20. “By the time I was 18, I knew I was never going to change. I couldn’t imagine letting something take over my body and then my whole life.” “I couldn’t even look at a baby without feeling uncomfortable.” Following the sterilization procedure, Chloe celebrates the fact that “I’ve got a lifetime of going out ahead of me now,” presumably meaning going out, getting mindlessly drunk and having sex with random strangers, as is British culture, while not having to worry about the risk of pregnancy or the responsibility of looking after a child. The article includes an advertisement that encourages women to seek “more information about sterilization” by contacting Marie Stopes International. We read that, “Over the past year, a quarter of the women who booked a sterilisation consultation with women’s charity Marie Stopes were aged 30 or under.” While the issue of abortion is an entirely different argument, most would agree that no matter how extreme it sounds, a woman has the right to sterilize herself if she so chooses, just as a man has the right to a vasectomy. But when a magazine aimed primarily at young women all but encourages girls as young as 20 to have their fallopian tubes tied in order to prevent the “irritation” of children entering their lives and then advertises an organization founded by a Nazi eugenicist that can perform the operation, something has to be amiss.............. read more 'The Shack' Author to Face Fans, Critics via Chat
Next month, the author of The Shack will be joining a public online chatroom to discuss his No. 1 New York Times best-selling book, which has received strong praise from some Christian circles and strong criticism from others. Both fans and critics of William P. Young’s surprise best-seller will get the opportunity to submit questions to the author as part of Abunga.com’s bi-weekly “Authors at Abunga” chat, which connects avid book readers with their favorite authors. And with all the buzz that has surrounded The Shack since its rise to success, the questions will likely be pouring in ahead of the high-anticipated Oct. 22 chat. Though Young had not originally intended the novel to be for public consumption, since its debut on the market last year, The Shack has reaped in a surprising amount of success, generating a large amount of buzz – both positive and negative – within Christian circles. “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his,” stated Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus Of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, in a published endorsement for the book. “It’s that good!” The Shack tells the fictional redemptive story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips, whose daughter is tragically abducted and murdered during a family vacation. Four years after the tragedy, Phillips receives a note, supposedly from “God,” inviting him back to the abandoned shack where evidence of his daughter’s murder had been found. When Phillips accepts the offer and returns to the shack, he enters into a kind of spiritual therapy session with “God,” who appears in the form of a jolly African-American woman and calls herself “Papa;” Jesus, who appears as a Jewish workman; and Sarayu, an indeterminately Asian woman who incarnates the Holy Spirit. Among the book’s critics are several conservative Protestant heavyweights, including R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.; Chuck Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship Ministries; Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle; and influential blogger Tim Challies, who wrote a downloadable 17-page review/guide on The Shack that compares the novel’s assertions to Scripture. “Much of what Young writes is good and even helpful (again, assuming that the reader can see past the human personifications of God),” wrote Challies in his extensive review. “He affirms the absolute nature of what is good and teaches that evil exists only in relation to what is good; he challenges the reader to understand that God is inherently good and that we can only truly trust God if we believe Him to be good; he acknowledges the human tendency to create our image of God by looking at human qualities and assuming that God is simply the same but more so; he attempts to portray the loving relationships within the Trinity; and so on. For these areas I am grateful as they provided helpful correctives to many false understandings of God." “But the book also raised several concerns,” he continued before addressing the issues of the Trinity, submission, free will, forgiveness, scripture and revelation, and salvation. In his conclusion, Challies said it was clear to him that The Shack is a mix of good and bad............... read more
9. Other World Events To Watch Emergence of Islamic Single Currency
On Wednesday, finance chiefs of five of the six-member, oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council approved a proposal to create a monetary union as a move toward adopting a single currency, according to the AFP. The six Islamic states constituting the Gulf Cooperation Council are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Oman pulled out of the agreement last year. Five states in the compact have agreed to set 2010 as the target date for the creation of a monetary union and the adoption of common currency. The emergence of an Islamic single currency among these oil-rich Middle Eastern countries marks a significant step in the emerging worldwide movement to abandon national currencies in favor of regional currencies, along the model where the EU states have abandoned their national currencies in favor of the European Central Bank and the euro. The monetary union will entail the creation of a central bank to issue the single currency. At the Wednesday meeting in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah, the finance and economy ministers reviewed the European Union's response to the council's view on eliminating obstacles that have blocked a long-stalled free trade agreement with the EU.. ............. read more |
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