LOVE WAXING COLD:Pastor spends 2 days lost in airport

The Rev. Kenneth Davis left Kansas on Monday in his finest attire, bound for a gospel-music convention in Orlando.He used a skycap's cell phone at Orlando International Airport to call his wife, Joyce, in Wichita, saying he had arrived safely and was waiting for his bags. Then the dapper 72-year-old pastor disappeared.Not until an alert went out Wednesday did one of the skycaps who ferried Davis to the luggage carousel realize the man was still in the airport.Michael Worsdale, an employee of Prospect Airport Services, found Davis asleep on the curb outside the airport, having remembered him from his shiny black and white spats."He doesn't look homeless.Supposedly security is at the airport moving all day long," said Davis' daughter, JoAnn Davis Redic of Sacramento, Calif. "How in the world could they miss him?"Airport officials had no explanation as to how Davis could have been left alone and stranded for so long, but spokesman Rod Johnson said the airport is investigating and reviewing surveillance tapes.AirTran Airways confirmed that Davis was a passenger, saying he did not request a wheelchair in advance but asked for one when his flight arrived in Orlando and an airport skycap provided wheelchair service.When Orlando police and fire crews responded, they found Davis aware that he had been in the airport for days but disoriented."He was very thirsty, and he answered 'yes' to everything," Orlando police Lt. Brian Gilliam said.Davis was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he remained in stable condition Friday. Another daughter and son had flown into town in the time he was missing, planning to track their father down themselves if necessary.Davis Redic said doctors told the family that Davis had suffered a stroke. It was unclear when the attack came, but it most likely played a role in his languishing at OIA for two days."The doctors said that he suffered a stroke in the front left of his brain and it affected his motor skills," Davis Redic said, adding that her father was unable to explain what exactly had happened to him.Davis was coming to Orlando to take part in the Gospel Music Workshop of America, a conference he helped start. Back home, he is pastor of Immanuel Outreach Centre Church of God in Christ and plays piano.His wife and seven children grew alarmed when Davis did not call again to tell of his trip or the conference. Although the children are scattered across the country, said they stay in touch, Davis Redic said.They used that closeness to hold family conference calls, to report Davis missing and to plan their own trips to Orlando.The closest child, son Kenneth Jr. in Tennessee, was in the air and ready to start the search for Davis in Orlando, when the skycap found him.The family is still talking about how Davis managed, disoriented, at a major airport without anyone noticing, Davis Redic said."We're still trying to put pieces together," she said. "That lapse of time, we don't know what happened."Davis' son and another daughter, Melinda Johnson, are at his side in Orlando.Now, the family is dealing with the relief that Davis was found and trying to focus on getting him well enough to return home."We are just trying to focus on what the doctors say," Davis Redic said. "He may not remember everything right away, so it may take time before we know what happened."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-languish1807aug18%2C0%2C200915.story

As in the days of Noah...

NY recognizes Canadian same-sex marriages

In a landmark case, an American court has ruled that gay couples who tie the knot in Canada can be treated as legally married in the state of New York.Justice Joan Lefkowitz of the New York Supreme Court ruled last week that same-sex marriages performed outside the country are valid, even though gay New Yorkers cannot be legally married in their home state.This is the first time Canadian same-sex marriage laws have triumphed in U.S. court, according to Alphonso David, a lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, which intervened in the case.“Couples can go to sleep at night without worrying about the security of their status,” says David.“I feel vindicated,” his client, Robert Voorheis, told reporters after the March 12 ruling. “When I say, `I'm married,' I'm married.”Voorheis and his partner, both of Yonkers, N.Y., were married in Niagara Falls, Ont., four years ago.“This is extremely important,” says Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University law professor and expert on the issue.If the ruling holds up on appeal, “it will mean for all practical purposes, same-sex marriage is legal in the state of New York,” because people can easily cross the border to get married, said Koppelman.

To read more go to:

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=7f7342bb-18fe-4704-bf96-0e894f058a62

As in the days of Noah...

Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change world

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.It was invented by an American chemist for a bet in 1931, but early versions were so brittle and costly that it was largely consigned to laboratories. It was not until a decade ago that Nasa started taking an interest in the substance and putting it to a more practical use.In 1999 the space agency fitted its Stardust space probe with a mitt packed full of aerogel to catch the dust from a comet’s tail. It returned with a rich collection of samples last year.In 2002 Aspen Aerogel, a company created by Nasa, produced a stronger and more flexible version of the gel. It is now being used to develop an insulated lining in space suits for the first manned mission to Mars, scheduled for 2018.Mark Krajewski, a senior scientist at the company, believes that an 18mm layer of aerogel will be sufficient to protect astronauts from temperatures as low as -130C. “It is the greatest insulator we’ve ever seen,” he said.Aerogel is also being tested for future bombproof housing and armour for military vehicles.In the laboratory, a metal plate coated in 6mm of aerogel was left almost unscathed by a direct dynamite blast.It also has green credentials. Aerogel is described by scientists as the “ultimate sponge”,with millions of tiny pores on its surface making it ideal for absorbing pollutants in water.

To read more go to:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2284349.ece

As in the days of Noah...

Cleansing the ACLU:Michigan and the case of Muslim footbaths

The latest battle of religion in the public square is unfolding in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with one of the highest Muslim populations in the country. At the University of Michigan's local campus, administrators have recently refitted several school bathrooms to include small footbaths in the corner-an accommodation for Muslim students who must perform ritual washing as part of their daily observance. The issue has more than a few of the usual suspects trying to explain their way out of their usual positions on the separation of church and state.The Detroit chapter of the ACLU has scrambled to find a way to recuse itself from the matter, claiming that the footbaths qualify as secular since they could be used by non-Muslims, and therefore don't cross the group's usual bright church-state line. Further, the ACLU explains, the university's decision to take on the $25,000 expense was motivated primarily "by health and safety" because some students didn't like washing their hands in the sinks after others students had washed their feet. If that hadn't been the case, the group says this religious accommodation would surely have merited greater investigation and criticism.Uh-huh.This is the same ACLU chapter that in 2005 objected to a high-school wrestling coach saying a prayer with his team before meets, calling the action "inherently coercive."And the ACLU of Michigan is already on the defensive for its non-action this time. In a letter explaining its silence regarding university footbaths, the ACLU notes that it "has often come to the defense of other religions when the state has attempted to interfere with their religious expression." The letter even includes a list of cases in which the group has defended Christian clients. Too bad none of the examples prove much of a parallel to the current recusal over state recognition of a religious practice....

To read more go to:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010492

As in the days of Noah...

Castro May Be Dead...

There is yet another rumor floating about that Fidel Castro may be dead. It may even be true this time.Terrible. Awful. Heh.Sorry, but this guy’s dictatorship has been directly responsible for the deaths of thousands who have tried to leave his miserable little “worker’s paradise” in search of a better life, lost at sea or in the loving arms of his intelligence services. Many of his people in Cuba at this very moment live in squalor with absolutely no hope of anything changing.Unless, of course, he finally went the way of all things. The “decomposing” look would look good on him. Then, at long last, his long suffering people may have some hope. But...the left’s spin on Castro and his ilk (Che and that lot) will have us believe that they are the true heroes, the rebels, the fighters.....Puh-leeze. I just don’t see many people risking their lives and the lives of their families to escape their home in the West for a better life under some third world dictator. They were and are the worst in humans, self centered politicos who want us to think that they are doing what’s best for us. Even if it kills us.But at least, according to Michael Moore, the Cuban health care system (unlike ours) can keep them alive to face years more of political oppression and misery.WHEW!!!! I’m sure that’s a relief for them! If they cut their finger butchering the one chicken the government gives them each week at least they’ll be taken care of while they await imprisonment in their jail system, a gulag that makes the very darkest of Solzhenistyn’s dreams come true. Anyway, sooner or later the rumor about Fidel’s demise will have to be true. Let’s hope it’s sooner.
Like now.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/castro_may_be_dead_rumor_number_sixty_two_concerning_his_untimely_demise/

As in the days of Noah...

Mexican Caribbean evacuations start as Dean looms

CANCUN,Mexico-Authorities began evacuating residents of the Mexican Caribbean on Saturday and tourists in Cancun cleared supermarkets shelves as the luxury resort braced for its second ferocious hurricane in two years.Hurricane Dean, which is on the verge of becoming a rare Category 5 storm,was expected to strike the Yucatan Peninsula late on Monday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.It has already killed at least three people in the Caribbean on its way toward Jamaica and the Gulf of Mexico.Mexican navy and army officers evacuated 2,500 people from the small island of Holbox and helped fishing communities to shelters on higher ground. Hotel owners and state officials in Cancun were to decide when to move some 40,000 tourists later on Saturday."We are not taking any chances with Hurricane Dean," Felix Gonzalez, governor for Cancun's Quintana Roo state, told reporters.Gulf ports were open on Saturday. State oil company Pemex said its operations in the Gulf of Mexico were normal and it would not take any decisions to evacuate staff until later in the weekend.Royal Dutch Shell said it was removing 300 more support workers from its U.S. Gulf of Mexico facilities on Saturday because of Dean. Shell said it has evacuated about 460 people since the start of the week.Tourists and locals stocked up on food and water, emptying the shelves at some stores."I came to see what I could get, but there's not much left in the supermarket," said Jorge Sanchez, 48, an airport worker shopping at a Wal-Mart store in Cancun.Cancun is still recovering from Hurricane Wilma, a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale that hit in October 2005 and killed at least seven people.Wilma howled over Cancun and nearby Cozumel Island for two days, sucking away entire white sand beaches, stranding tens of thousands of tourists and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and lost revenues.Quintana Roo issued storm alerts on local radio in Spanish, English and the local indigenous language Maya, while Mexico's national rescue service said it had 287 shelters ready across the state.A Cancun airport official told Reuters that airlines had agreed to cut the number of incoming flights and were prepared to fly out thousands of tourists before the hurricane neared.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N18232014.htm

As in the days of Noah....

CHEMICAL WEAPONS WATCH:Mustard Vapor Detected at Umatilla Chemical Depot

Workers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon detected minute levels of mustard vapor yesterday while inspecting a storage structure holding bulk containers, the U.S. Army announced (see GSN, July 27).Passive filter systems installed in the depot’s storage igloos prevent mustard gas from escaping into the environment.Depot workers placed a powered filter system on the igloo, and planned to find, inspect and decontaminate the leaking container (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Aug. 15).
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2007_8_16.html#DF7ED817

As in the days of Noah..

The Pope and Islam

The Pope’s visit to Turkey highlights the Muslim world's violent reaction to the Pontiff's comments about Islam several weeks ago. What did those comments, and the Muslim world’s response to them, really mean?The controversy over the Pope’s visit to Turkey, as we well know, has been ignited by the Muslim world’s violent reaction to the Pope’s statements several weeks ago. There were calls to kill the Pope, there was the burning of Christian Churches, there was the tragic murder of the nun in Somalia etc.Let’s begin with this question: if members of a religion are offended at the implication of their religion being violent, what is the logic of reacting with violence?And where are the “real” Muslims decrying the violent reactions that supposedly taint their "religion of peace"...???

To read more of this simposium go to:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=98A67641-BFAB-4853-8747-950D940C36CB

As in the days of Noah...

New York Islamist Day Parade

On September 9, 2007, a pre-9/11 celebration of sorts will be taking place in New York City, as Islamists from across the Tri-State area will congregate there for the 22nd Annual Muslim Day Parade. If past parades are any indication, law enforcement will need to be on high alert, as the participants have been amongst the most radical in the nation. Will the city allow thisdenigration of a very somber day to take place, or will it remember its many victims of terrorism and shut it down?The parade is being run by the Muslim Foundation of America (MFA), an organization located in the Astoria section of Queens that was founded in 1983, around the time of the first annual parade. In actuality, both the MFA and the parade appear to be the same entity with different names, as the MFA’s website, since it was first created in October of 2003, has been devoted almost entirely to discussing the parade. Thousands are expected to attend this year’s event. In the past, the number of parade-goers has varied. While some participants may be coming out to experience a day of fun with their fellow religionists, others have an alternative agenda.The Grand Marshal for the 2006 parade was Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam who is known for his fiery speeches, including those that have been considered threatening to the United States. In February of 1995, Wahhaj was named – along with such people as Osama bin Laden and bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam – as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.Another Grand Marshal of a past parade was Muzzamil Siddiqi, the former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a mosque umbrella organization that was recently named a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Siddiqi, like Wahhaj, has also verbally threatened the United States, stating in October of 2000, “America has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of G-d will come.” There are pictures of Siddiqi speaking at the parade, on the MFA site....

To read more go to:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=CA2E5C41-AD9A-4A79-8C35-54C4A34D73FA

PS:If you can please go to the link above and continue reading.....It's unbelievable!!!

As in the days of Noah...

China sounds retreat against encroaching deserts:Decades of flawed agricultural policies have led to rapid desertification.

Zhengxin,China-Behind the walled farmhouses, where fields of cotton and fennel bask in bright sunshine, the desert begins. Pale ochre sand dunes loom over rows of carefully tended crops that represent a lifetime of labor for the 21 families who live here.As the desert closes in, this community has been told to leave, so that their fields can be replanted with native grass. Local authorities say this will revive the parched land and halt the sand dunes, and have promised new land and housing to villagers. The forced move is an admission that China's grandiose plans to turn its arid land into farms have run dry. In recent years, China has met some success in slowing the sands by imposing curbs on grazing in Inner Mongolia and other measures.But with China's average annual land loss of about950 square miles to desertification, according to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in addition to vast swaths of land turned over to industry and housing, the amount of farmland available to feed a large population is being pinched.In all, more than 10,500 residents of Minqin County in northwest Gansu Province, along the ancient Silk Road, are due to be relocated over the next three years.It's a tactical retreat after decades of cropping that exhausted scarce water resources. What matters now, say experts, is preventing this and other marginal land from turning into vast dust bowls where nothing grows."Minqin is an example of what's happening all over China. If we lose villages here, we can expect to lose villages in other places," says Sun Qingwei, a researcher on desertification at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Lanzhou, the provincial capital.For decades, China has been trying to hold back the deserts that cover one-third of the country and produce seasonal sandstorms that scour Beijing and other northern cities. Experts say deforestation and overfarming are to blame for desertification, though global warming may become a greater factor in the future, as the Tibetan glaciers that feed China's waterways are melting.China has more than 20 percent of the world's population and only 7 percent of its arable land. China announced Monday that rising food prices pushed the inflation rate in July to 5.6 percent, a 10-year high. Adding to the pressure on farmland is rampant environmental degradation that has poisoned waterways and soil.

To read more go to:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0816/p01s03-wosc.html?S=wklyenv

As in the days of Noah...

Hurricane Dean moves toward Jamaica

SANTO DOMINGO,Dominican Republic - Alarmed tourists jammed Caribbean airports for flights out of Hurricane Dean's path Saturday as the monster storm began sweeping past the Dominican Republic and Haiti and threatened to engulf Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. In Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, a boy was pulled into the ocean and drowned while watching waves kicked up by the Category 4 storm strike an oceanfront boulevard, the emergency operations center reported. The rough waves also destroyed five houses and damaged 15 along the Dominican coast, emergency officials said.In Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, which stand directly in Dean's path, fear gripped many islanders and tourists alike.Bracing for the storm to hit on Sunday, Jamaica issued a hurricane warning and began evacuating people to more than 1,000 shelters nationwide. People jammed supermarkets and hardware stores in the capital of Kingston to stock up on canned food, bottled water, flashlights, batteries, lamps and plywood, while shop owners hammered wood over windows at malls in the city.Resident Elaine Russell said she was getting ready for the storm remembering Hurricane Ivan's destruction in 2004. "I can't take it," she said."The storm is bad enough but it's what happens afterward-there's no light, no water."Before dawn, tourists began lining up outside the Montego Bay airport in western Jamaica to book flights out. The storm, which had maximum sustained winds of 145 mph late Saturday, was expected to bring as much as 20 inches of rain to the island.Shante Morgan of Moorpark, Calif., said a lack of information about the severity of the storm was fueling the fear."People are freaking out because they're not getting answers at their hotel," said Morgan, 38, who got a Saturday flight after waiting several hours. "They're really playing down the potential influence of the hurricane."Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller called for a halt to campaigning for the Aug. 27 general elections, saying: "Let us band together and unite in the threat of this hurricane."Further west in the low-lying Cayman Islands, the government issued a hurricane warning late Saturday and ordered a mandatory evacuation by noon Sunday of Little Cayman, the smallest of the territory's three islands. The islands were expected to take a direct hit on Monday.Earlier in the day, lines of tourists waiting for flights snaked out of the international airport terminal and onto the lawn outside. Many tourists flopped under a tree to get out of the sun, surrounded by their luggage. Cayman Airways added 15 flights to Florida from the wealthy British territory, and they were quickly sold out.The scene was relatively calmer in the Dominican Republic. Residents ran errands at stores with fully stocked shelves, despite government advisories about heavy rains and possible flooding."Nothing's going to happen here-a lot of water but nothing else," said Pedro Alvajar, 61, as he sat in a doorway selling lottery tickets.The outer bands of the storm were expected to bring as much as 10 inches of rain to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola.In Haiti, the government issued radio alerts for people in the mountains and coastal areas. In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne brushed the impoverished and heavily deforested country, triggering massive floods that killed 1,900 people and left 900 others missing.Dean, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, gained strength over warm Caribbean waters after claiming six lives and devastating banana and sugar crops when it hit tiny islands in the eastern Caribbean on Friday as a Category 2 storm.As of 11 p.m. Saturday, Dean was centered about 170 miles south-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and 360 miles east-southeast of Kingston. It was moving west at 17 mph.The storm was expected to clip Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and enter the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.Authorities on Mexico's Caribbean coast began evacuating tourists and residents from low-lying Holbox island north of Cancun on Saturday. A total of 2,200 people, including some 250 Mexican and foreign tourists, were ordered to leave, state officials said.Forecasters said it was too soon to say whether the hurricane would strike the US.Worried the storm could disrupt operations at Mission Control in Houston, however, NASA shortened the last spacewalk for astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour and ordered the spacecraft to return to Earth a day early on Tuesday.President Bush, meanwhile, signed a pre-landfall emergency disaster declaration for Texas, allowing the federal government to immediately send people, equipment and supplies to the state if Dean makes landfall there.In Cuba, which could get rain from the outer bands of the storm, the government issued a tropical storm warning and said it was evacuating 50,000 people from three provinces.Dean passed near the islands of St. Lucia and Martinique early Friday as a Category 2 storm with winds near 100 mph.In St. Lucia, fierce winds tore corrugated metal roofs from dozens of homes and the pediatric ward of a hospital, whose patients had been evacuated hours earlier.Police spokeswoman Tamara Charles said a 62-year-old man drowned when he tried to retrieve a cow from a rain-swollen river.
In Dominica, a woman and her 7-year-old son were killed when a rain-soaked hillside gave way and crushed the home where they were sleeping, said Cecil Shillingford, the national disaster response coordinator. Dominica's government reported at least 150 homes were damaged.
Authorities said two people died on the French island of Martinique, including a woman who apparently fell and drowned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070819/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/tropical_weather

As in the days of Noah...

Peru quake survivors grow desperate

PISCO, Peru - The government sent the army Saturday to stop looting fueled by rising desperation in earthquake-shattered Peru, where tens of thousands were without fresh water and shivering families huddled in makeshift shelters at the center of the devastation. In a soccer stadium in the port city of Pisco, more than 500 people rushed a lone truck that ran out little packets of crackers, candy and toilet paper, screaming that they had not eaten and accusing rescue workers of keeping supplies for themselves.As many as 80% of the people in quake-hit urban areas may not have access to clean water and many rural communities still have not been reached to assess the damage, said Dominic Nutt, part of an emergency assessment team in Peru for the aid agency Save the Children."The situation is probably worse than first imagined,"Nutt said.
President Alan Garcia sent 1,000 troops to stop the looting."We're going to establish order, regardless of what it costs,"he said.Meanwhile,Defense Minister Allan Wagner told The AP in Pisco that the death toll from Wednesday's magnitude-8 quake had risen to 540, up from the previous figure of 510 provided by firefighters.Destruction from the quake,which also injured at least 1,500 people,was centered in the cities of Ica and Pisco in Peru's southern desert,about 125 miles southeast of the capital,Lima.Aftershocks continued in the area Saturday as a 5.8-magnitude temblor struck off the coast between Ica.Garcia said at least 80,000 people were affected in some way, mostly through the destruction or damage of homes.At one end of a soccer field in Pisco, families who had lost everything huddled in a half dozen makeshift shelters made of cardboard and blankets held up by wooden poles."We don't have water. The tents have not arrived," said Maria Tataja, 38, who shared an open-fronted shelter with nine other people. She shivered in the ocean breeze.Some people complained of price-gouging and said the cost of basic foods had doubled or tripled at the local market. Others arrived in Pisco's central square asking for canned milk and other goods but often left empty-handed.Soldiers stood guard at supply depots and tried to ensure that aid trucks made it to their destinations.Miguel Soto, a police officer standing guard in the Pisco stadium, said food donated by one Lima district had been raided on the traffic-clogged highway to Pisco. Many other food trucks simply weren't getting through, he said.Responding to criticism that aid was not arriving quickly enough, Jorge del Castillo, Garcia's Cabinet chief, told El Comerico newspaper said that all planes available were now being used to ferry supplies to the victims.Immediately after the quake, many of the aircraft were used to carry the injured to Lima, he said.Motorcycle taxi driver Marco Coila said he had moved his family out of Pisco to a village where they had hoped to find more food."There is nothing to eat.There is a lot of looting going on,"he said.Rescuers continued to pull bodies from the rubble of the San Clemente church in downtown Pisco, where hundreds had gathered for Mass when the quake struck Wednesday.Local media reported Saturday that a 10-month-old boy had been pulled alive from the ruins of the church hours after the earthquake-one of the more heartwarming stories to emerge in the aftermath of the disaster."It was a miracle that he had survived so many hours breathing only dust and death," Romulo Palomino told the state news agency Andina.Palomino said he had been searching frantically through the adobe and wood rubble of the church for his parents when he discovered the infant in a pile of broken timbers.The baby's parents have not been located and Palomino and his wife are taking care of him for now, Andina reported.Hopes of finding more survivors diminished on Saturday.Paul Wooster, coordinator of the Rapid UK Rescue team from Gloucester, England, said rescuers were using sound detectors and infrared cameras to search mountains of rubble.The latest survivor discovered, a man, was pulled from the rubble at midday Friday."We always work on a four-day window and I'm talking realistically. So we are still looking for survivors but there's not much more time," Wooster said.The U.S. dispatched medical teams, two mobile clinics and two helicopters, along with $150,000 to buy emergency supplies. S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, arrived in Pisco on Saturday to assess the needs of the people and how the U.S. can help.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070819/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/peru_quake


As in the days of Noah...

Monster Jellyfish Invade Gulf of Mexico

Australian jellyfish that invaded the Gulf of Mexico seven years ago have made a "vigorous reappearance" this summer and threaten to devour native fish, scientists announced Friday.And in the Gulf, with plenty to eat, they grow to monster size."In their native waters, they tend to be fist-sized," said Monty Graham of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab."Here in the Gulf, they can be a big as dinner plates.”The creatures can weigh up to 25 pounds.The Australian spotted jellyfish, Phyllorhiza punctata, are not dangerous to humans. But scientists say the invasion could pose a threat to the fishing and shrimping industries. The jellies foul trawling nets and eat eggs and larvae of other fish.The invasive jellyfish have been found in the Gulf since 2000 but in small numbers. This year, there are more of them, and their range has extended up to the Mid-Atlantic states.“Reports from the Panhandle of Florida and North Carolina indicate they’re pretty concentrated elsewhere,” Graham said. “We just started getting reports of Phyllorhiza appearing on the east coast of Florida and as far up as North Carolina this year."
Jellyfish can be carried around the globe when they attach to ships. Other studies have found that species of moon jellyfish are invading seas all over the planet. Another study finds jellyfish are opportunists, moving in and taking over regions of the sea that humans overfish.Officials encourage jellyfish sightings be reported to the Sea Lab's web site.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070818/sc_livescience/monsterjellyfishinvadegulfofmexico

As in the days of Noah...

Hundreds of Saudi camels die from mystery ailment

RIYADH-Hundreds of camels have died in Saudi Arabia this week from a mystery ailment.The Agriculture Ministry has said 232 camels died in the space of four days in the Dawasir Valley, 400 km (250 miles) south of Riyadh. King Abdullah has promised compensation for owners, who say the real number of deaths is far higher. Agriculture ministry officials have denied an infectious disease caused the deaths and blamed them on animal feed supplied by food storage authorities."The disease has to be limited to one place to prevent it spreading and then they have to find a serum," said camel breeder Hamad al-Harthy, who talked of hundreds of deaths."They need to bring in help from abroad to find a solution," said trader Turki Abdelaziz.Camels are big business in the desert kingdom and are traded by Bedouin tribes for thousands of dollars each. The animals are used for racing and their meat is also prized.Authorities have been on the lookout for signs of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu over the last year. The virus was found in birds in two instances, in March and last year.The Agriculture Ministry has lifted bans on poultry imports.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070818/sc_nm/saudi_camels_death_dc


As in the days of Noah...

Typhoon Sepat hits China after mass evacuation

BEIJING-Typhoon Sepat hammered into southeastern China early Sunday after officials had relocated nearly a million people to safer areas, state media reported.Sepat landed in Fujian province at 2:00 am (1800 GMT Saturday) packing winds of 119 kilometres (74 miles) per hour, Xinhua news agency said.The storm had pounded Taiwan on Saturday with torrential rain, powerful winds and mudslides.The typhoon brought heavy downpours to Fujian's Hui'an county, damaging some buildings, lifting roofs off houses and uprooting both trees and billboards, Xinhua said, citing a local flood control official.More damage was expected in the county, the official said, as weathermen reported heavy rain in a number of cities in Fujian.More than 900,000 people in southern and eastern Chinese provinces had earlier been relocated, including some 540,000 people in Fujian, Xinhua said, citing government officials.In Zhejiang Province, nearly 300,000 people had been evacuated to safety and 27,704 vessels called back to harbor. In Guangdong, around 70,000 people, including fishermen and residents in low-lying areas, had been evacuated.Chinese meteorologists have issued the highest-level warnings for Sepat, which was moving northwest at a speed of 15 to 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) per hour and was expected to hit Jiangxi province Sunday afternoon.Expressways in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian, were closed, while 109 domestic and international flights at the city's airport were cancelled on Saturday.Xiamen and Jinjiang cities also cancelled outbound flights, Xinhua said.The Ministry of Civil Affairs has sent 3,000 tents to evacuated people in Fujian.In Taiwan, four people suffered minor injuries in Taipei after the typhoon blew people off their motorcycles, the National Fire Agency said, adding one man was wounded by falling rocks.The storm disrupted power supply to more than 241,000 households, interrupted transport links and is estimated to have caused damage of at least 12.7 million dollars in Taiwan, officials said.Wide swathes of China have been plagued by near-constant torrential downpours since the summer rainy season began.Rains brought by tropical storm Pabuk in south China's Guangdong province earlier in August affected more than one million people and destroyed thousands of houses, Xinhua has said.According to the latest government figures, extreme weather killed 712 people and left 163 missing across China in July alone.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070818/sc_afp/chinaweathertyphoon

As in the days of Noah...

Ahmadinejad:Israel is bearer of satan

TEHRAN,Iran-Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Israel was the standard bearer of Satan and the Jewish state would soon fall apart,the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.The agency quoted Ahmadinejad as he spoke at a religious conference and did not elaborate on what he meant by Satan. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, however, Iran has regularly referred to the US as"the Great satan.""The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and satan," he said, predicting Israel's eventual demise."When the philosophy behind the establishment of a regime is in question, it is not unlikely that it will find itself on a course of decline and dissolution."Israel condemned Ahmadinejad's statements as harmful to international peace and stability."The Iranian president's comments are typical of his vociferous animosity towards Israel,"said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman."He threatens not only Israel but poses a clear and present danger to the international community as well."Ahmadinejad has made anti-Israel comments in the past. n October 2005, he caused outrage in the West when he said in a speech that Israel's"Zionist regime should be wiped off the map."His supporters have argued that Ahmadinejad's words were mistranslated and should have been better translated as "vanish from the pages of time"-implying Israel would vanish on its own rather be destroyed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070819/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_israel

PS:Mr Looney Toones keeps playing the same ole' broken record...The guy is a clear and present danger to the international community,no doubt about it...

As in the days of Noah...

MARK of the BEAST WATCH:VeriChip Parent Buys Out Animal Chipping Subsidiary

The corporate structure and relationship among Applied Digital, Digital Angel, and VeriChip has historically been confusing, but a merger between Applied Digital and Digital Angel announced last week may change that.Until now, Applied Digital of Delray Beach, Florida, had majority ownership positions in VeriChip, also based in Delray Beach, and Digital Angel of St. Paul, Minnesota. Applied Digital was effectively a holding company, with revenues generated by the subsidiaries. VeriChip is the provider of its namesake human-implantable RFID chip; Digital Angel provides similar chipping technology but targeted at the livestock and pet markets. All three companies were publicly traded: Applied Digital (ADSX) and VeriChip (CHIP) on the Nasdaq, and Digital Angel (DOC) on the American Stock Exchange.Last week Applied Digital and Digital Angel announced that they would effectively merge, with Applied Digital buying up the outstanding 45 percent of Digital Angel stock that it does not already own. The all-stock deal is valued at about $31 million. Digital Angel will no longer be traded on the American Stock Exchange, and the combined entity will be traded on the Nasdaq. A new CEO will be sought, and in the interim Digital Angel board member Barry M. Edelstein will serve as CEO and president.The merger will result in a streamlined, more efficient company by eliminating overlapping overhead and processes. The company projects that over $2 million will be saved per year. "In a single transaction, we will create a financially stronger, more robust and better capitalized company, and substantially reduce overhead costs," commented Applied Digital CEO Michael Krawitz. The merger will also see facilitated technology transfer and renewed focus on core opportunities.Part of the rationale for the merger appears to be eliminating the confusion that investors faced when considering investment in Digital Angel. "We also eliminate Applied Digital's majority ownership overhang position in Digital Angel, which has created uncertainty among investors and customers," Krawitz was quoted. According to Edelstein, "This transaction simplifies the capital structure ... and should make Digital Angel more attractive for investors."

To read more go to:

http://www.rfidupdate.com/news/08142007.html#article_1423

As in the days of Noah...

PA Education: Soccer Tournament Named After Senior Terrorist

A recently concluded soccer tournament in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Tulkarem, near Netanya, was named after a senior terrorist mastermind.The winning team was named for dead jihadists, as well.The tournament was held on the grounds of a PA school.According to Palestinian Media Watch, the tournament's outcome was reported in the PA-owned daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on August 15 under the headline:"The Team Named After the Martyrs of the Southern Quarter Wins the Tournament Cup Named After the Martyr Ziyad Da'as"The article said, "This tournament... commemorates one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance, whom the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood...."Da'as, a Fatah commander in Tulkarem, planned a shooting attack on a girl's Bat Mitzvah reception in Hadera on January 17, 2002. The terrorist, who also carried grenades, killed the security guard on duty at the hall where the reception was held, burst in on the 180 guests and opened fire with an automatic rifle. He succeeded in killing six people and injuring 25 before being pushed outside by determined guests. The Bat Mitzvah girl's step-grandfather, Edward Bakshayev, 48, was murdered in the attack.Among other terrorist activities, Da'as was also involved in the kidnapping and murder of two restaurateurs, Etgar Zeitouni and Moti Dayan, in January of 2001. The pair were seized as they sat down for lunch in Tulkarem with an Israeli Arab associate.Da'as was killed by IDF special forces in August 2002, when what he thought was a safe house was discovered by Israeli intelligence."At the end of the tournament," the Al-Hayat article concluded, "the [spectators] indicated that the tournament was on a level to suitably commemorate the brave shahid (martyr), the mercy of Allah be upon him, Ziyad Da'as, and that an annual tournament should take place on the anniversary of his death."This was not the first time a PA sporting event was named after a well-known terrorist, as PMW has repeatedly noted. A 2003 PA soccer tournament was named for the suicide bomber responsible for the 2003 Passover massacre, in which 31 Israelis were killed at a communal holiday meal. In January of this year, the Tulkarem municipality announced that its youth center would be holding a soccer tournament This was not the first time a PA sporting event was named after a well-known terrorist."named after the shahid and leader, Saddam Hussein." (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 10, 2007, as translated by PMW).Earlier this week, the PA's educational values were once again called into question when animals were abused on a children's TV show, ostensibly in order to teach viewers what not to do. The show's central character, a man in a bee comstume, picked up and swung a cat by its tail and threw rocks at a caged lion, accompanied by the laughter of children. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an America-based organization, condemned the Hamas tv station for the abuse.Excerpts of the show, translated by Palestinian Media Watch, can be viewed at
http://trailer.web-view.net/Links/0XBBF7AFDA5813E30AA43C94DCD618D3DD869FEFDF14150C742F93427B2A9228842C7174CFBC2446B248CEAB3567EB1D05B6C51DA25ED223288186735DBD637488.htm.
"It's shocking and sickening," said Martin Mersereau, of PETA. Saoud al-Shawa, a veterinarian at the Gaza Zoo, blamed Israeli and internecine Arab violence for aggression against animals among PA children.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
PS:It's so sad when the "ONLY HEROES" that a country or group of people can have is just a bunch of hateful and bitter thugs and criminals....It never ceases to amaze me the level of abuse that palestinian children are submitted to,on a DAILY BASIS....
As in the days of Noah...

Serbia Arbitrary legal status denials continue...

Serbian religious communities are still being denied legal status, Forum 18 News Service has found. Under the controversial 2006 Religion Law, any "non-traditional" community that previously had legal status lost this unless they submitted a new registration application by 7 May 2007 lost their legal status.

To read more go to:

http://www.persecution.org/suffering/newsdetail.php?newscode=5835

As in the days of Noah...

Ethiopia Church packed with about 500 believers was attacked with bomb

On August 5, 2007 bomb exploded at Ethiopian Full Gospel Church in Jijiga town. Jijiga is the capital city of Somali Regional State, which is one of the nine States in Ethiopia. The majority of dwellers in Somali Regional State are ethnic Somalis who are followers of Islamic religion.

To read more go to:

http://www.persecution.org/suffering/newsdetail.php?newscode=5825

As in the days of Noah...

LAND FULL of VIOLENCE:Crime wave intensifies in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS-A crime wave is intensifying in this city already beset by a flagging recovery from Hurricane Katrina,and Hispanic immigrants helping to rebuild are common targets, according to police and to statistics released Thursday.Despite an infusion of money and manpower into the justice system, the number of homicides is climbing, and armed robbers are preying on Hispanic day laborers flush with cash from rebuilding jobs, the Police Department says.The city, which led the nation in murders per capita in 2006, is on track to do the same this year, according to data presented Thursday for April through June.The report shows a 14 percent increase in murders and 44 percent leap in armed robberies for the first half of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006."It's obviously not good," said police Superintendent Warren Riley.Crime has gotten so out of hand that Louisiana National Guard troops continue to patrol streets and the U.S. Justice Department has taken on a bigger role in fighting street crime, one that had largely been left to the city before Katrina.The increase in armed robberies correlates to a spate of muggings of Hispanic workers, many of them undocumented, in the city's devastated eastern section, Riley said. Much of the area, flooded by Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, remains a wasteland and is difficult to patrol.The workers are easy prey because they often don't have bank accounts and carry large amounts of cash, Riley said. A team of officers has been working on catching the robbers, he said.Katrina's damage to jails, court buildings, police facilities and a shortage of police officers have been blamed for the rise in crime. In January, a march on City Hall by as many as 5,000 people demanded action to stem a wave in killings. Police responded by putting more officers on the street and setting up checkpoints at high-crime hours.But Peter Scharf, a criminologist with the University of New Orleans, said Katrina-based arguments are harder to make now that the city has had time to repair damage and received so much support."The hurricane theories, morphing of drug groups, or that the NOPD is in a trailer, really don't make sense," Scharf said. "You look at the leadership in this city to the leadership in cities that have been reasonably successful, and it's night and day."Recently, Mayor Ray Nagin reignited complaints about his leadership when he said news of two killings, while sad, "keeps the New Orleans brand out there."Nagin's office did not return a message left after business hours Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070816/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_crime

As in the days of Noah...

Anglican Church in Jamaica to Add Bob Marley to Hymn Books

Anglican Church hymnals in Jamaica are set for a musical shake up with the addition of songs by homegrown reggae legends such as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.Church leaders said that Marley’s “One Love,” and Peter Tosh’s “Psalm 27” will be the first reggae tunes to be added to the collection of Anglican Church hymnals that will bring in a hybrid between reggae and traditional worship music from the island.The move has come despite the fact that the two musicians were against the Church.The Rev. Ernle Gordon said the two musicians may have been anti-church, but they weren't anti-God or anti-religion. He said the songs would help modernize the hymnals, according to Canada-based publication The Record.Marley and Tosh, who both died in the 1980s, practiced Rastafarianism, a religious movement founded by descendants of slaves in response to black oppression.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070818/28954.htm

As in the days of Noah...

Rescuers search for signs of life in southwestern Peru

PISCO,Peru-Rescuers dug through rubble in the towns of southwestern Peru on Friday, searching for signs of life following Wednesday's 8.0-magnitude earthquake.In Pisco, workers combed through the debris of a hotel where the owner said at least 35 of his guests were missing. The search for survivors on the site quickened earlier in the day, the owner said, when the brother of one of the guests received a text message from his missing sibling, still under the rubble.The quake killed more than 500 people and injured more than 1,000, Peruvians officials said. The death toll is likely to rise, they said.Aftershocks have rattled the ground each day since the collapse.The most recent-with a magnitude of 4.9-rattled the region at about 4:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. ET) on Friday. It came eight hours after a 5.9-magnitude aftershock. A 6.3-magnitude aftershock struck early Thursday, hours after the main quake.No injuries or damage from the aftershock were immediately reported, according to Reuters.Meanwhile, funeral processions-some serenaded by mariachi bands-passed through the streets behind the struggling workers.
At least 60 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the church and lined up in the city's plaza, the AP reported. As many as 200 people were in the church when it broke apart, the town's mayor told the AP.Earlier Thursday, Peruvian President Alan Garcia arrived by helicopter in Pisco, a city of 68,000, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) southeast of the capital,Lima.More than17,000 homes-85 percent of the town-collapsed.Residents yelled, "Help us, help us," as Garcia passed by them.At one point, the president saw several children wandering aimlessly.
"Oh, my God, who do these little children belong to?" he asked."The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets.We don't have lights, water,communications.Most houses have fallen.
Churches, stores, hotels-everything is destroyed,"Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN,according to the AP.Garcia declared a state of emergency and promised the government would "ensure that regional and local governments, civil defense institutions and ministries can spend what they need to, rapidly and immediately."Ica residents said they had received no aid or even visits from government or aid officials.The U.S. military said Friday it was dispatching a 30-member medical team from a base in Honduras to the quake-stricken area of Peru.More aid is available at the request of the Peruvian government, U.S. officials said.Peruvian authorities initially struggled to get relief supplies into the area because highways were damaged by the earthquake.However, a spokesman for the Peruvian Embassy in Washington said later that road links had been reopened into the quake zone, allowing supplies to flow south from Lima and north from Arequipa.Health Minister Carlos Vallejos described Pisco as "really in crisis.""There's aren't any buildings that are in good condition.Even the very modern buildings around the central plaza are totally destroyed," he told Andina Television.
Water and electricity were out, and telephone service was "very limited," he said.Television stations pleaded with viewers not to use cell phones for routine communications to keep the airwaves open for emergency use.The Peruvian Embassy spokesman, Vladimir Kocerha, said Peru probably will put out a call for international aid, "preferably monetary." The U.S. Agency for International Development offered $100,000 to meet immediate emergency needs.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/17/peru.earthquake/index.html


As in the days of Noah...

QUAKES DAILY....

-KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION

11 Aug 2007 00:26:51 UTC

Magnitude:5.0Mb

-OFF COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA

11 Aug 2007 05:50:13 UTC

Magnitude:4.6Mb

-FIJI REGION

10 Aug 2007 23:43:44 UTC

Magnitude:4.6Mb

-KURIL ISLANDS

11 Aug 2007 05:28:22 UTC

Magnitude:4.4Mb

-SALTA, ARGENTINA

11 Aug 2007 08:46:02 UTC

Magnitude:4.4Mb

-NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

11 Aug 2007 13:00:33 UTC

Magnitude:4.8Mb

-NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

11 Aug 2007 13:00:33 UTC

Magnitude:4.8Mb

-NEPAL

11 Aug 2007 14:35:51 UTC

Magnitude:4.8Mb

-SOUTHEAST OF RYUKYU ISLANDS

11 Aug 2007 16:48:27 UTC

Magnitude:4.9Mb

-SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS

11 Aug 2007 18:04:50 UTC

Magnitude:5.3Mb

-GUAM REGION

11 Aug 2007 20:12:27 UTC

Magnitude:4.6Mb

-MOROCCO

11 Aug 2007 20:46:01 UTC

Magnitude:4.8Mb

-OFFSHORE ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

9 Aug 2007 04:12:21 UTC

Magnitude:3.9Mb

-CENTRAL ALASKA

11 Aug 2007 21:58:31 UTC

Magnitude:4.2MI

-CENTRAL ITALY

12 Aug 2007 01:52:13 UTC

Magnitude:3.9Mb

As in the days of Noah.....

US to Close Eritrean Consulate Amid Diplomatic Dispute

The State Department said Friday it has ordered Eritrea to close its consulate in Oakland, California amid U.S. charges the East African country is aiding rebels in Somalia. Officials say additional punitive measures are being considered, including the possible listing of Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.The Bush administration has given Eritrea 90 days to close the diplomatic mission in Oakland in a tangible expression of U.S. concern over Eritrean behavior in Somalia, and interference with activities of the American embassy in Asmara.In a briefing for reporters, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said the consulate closure, to take effect in November, is reciprocal action for Eritrean violations of the Vienna convention on diplomatic conduct.She said tensions with Eritrea that pre-date the Bush administration have been escalating, with that country refusing to grant visas to U.S. officials assigned to the Asmara embassy for temporary duty, and demanding to inspect U.S. diplomatic pouches.That comes against a background of concern about the Eritrean activity in Somalia, where a new report from United Nations monitors says Eritrea has played a key role in financing and arming insurgents fighting the Somali interim government.Frazer said the US is not expelling any Eritrean diplomats, and that Eritreans in the US can still receive consular services from the country's embassy in Washington.But she also made clear that additional measures are possible if Eritrean behavior does not change."We're certainly going to consider additional bilateral steps,"she said."We're not trying to move towards a fundamental break in our relationship.We do believe that the activity of closing their consulate is a major signal to the government of our seriousness in terms of the activities they are carrying out in Somalia."
Frazer said one option for follow-on action would be listing Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, an action that would automatically trigger wide-ranging U.S. aid curbs and other sanctions against the Asmara government.She made clear the Bush administration is not eager to take such a drastic step but said information from the U.N. and elsewhere that Eritrea is helping foment terrorism in Somalia is, in her words, "fairly convincing.""We are collecting that data. And this U.N. monitoring report will certainly be part of that, but we have to do our independent verification. We do have intelligence that affirms what is in the monitoring report but we are still in the process of collecting that data. And, you know, it is an opportunity, before they are put on the state sponsor list, for them to change their behavior."Frazer said U.S. officials believe that taxes on the earnings of the estimated 200,000 Eritreans living in the US, collected by the Oakland consulate, have been used to finance weapons and training for insurgents in Somalia.She said Eritrean assistance has been going to, among others, the al-Shabab militias-remnants of the radical Islamic Courts Union which ran the most of country last year until being ousted by Ethiopian troops and the U.N.-recognized transitional administration.The chief U.S. African policy official said the United States had urged the Ethiopian military not to enter Somalia at the end of last year, and continues to work diplomatically to help field an east African peacekeeping force to replace the Ethiopians.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-08-17-voa38.cfm
PS:Eritrea is being persecuting and killing christians for the thousands,and yes they sponsor terrorism.
As in the days fo Noah...

Mob torches church building

Nairobi-A crowd burned a church compound on Friday in one of Africa's largest slums after a long-running land dispute flared into violence, witnesses and police said. Nobody was injured.Police officer Herbert Khaemba said that there was a dispute between the local Nubian community, which is mainly Muslim, and the Presbyterian church about who owned the land in the slum of Kibera on the outskirts of Nairobi.Local resident Abdullah Musa said that the attack was sparked when owners of the church compound, which mainly consisted of flimsy structures built with corrugated iron sheets, extended its perimeter fence over a disputed strip of land two days ago. Muslims had previously used the area to pray.Police officers watched as about 100 angry youths vandalised vehicles and pelted a fire truck with stones, smashing its windshield, after firefighters arrived on the scene.Musa said officers had fired shots in the air as they arrived to try to clear the crowd, but the angry Nubians had ignored them. Stone-throwing youths had earlier driven away a handful of guards inside the compound who had machetes, he said, but no one was injured.Later, the attackers seized the metal sheets that had been used to set up several temporary structures inside the compound.Population pressure, poverty and lack of infrastructure frequently contribute to tensions between communities in Kibera, which has about 1 million inhabitants.Nubians came to Kenya from Egypt and Sudan after serving with the British Army in the King's African Rifles regiment during World War I.The British settled them in Kibera, a maze of potholed tracks and ramshackle dwellings topped by rusting iron roofs.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2166683,00.html

PS:MUSLIM HATRED again.........!!!!!!!!

As in the days of Noah...

Billy Graham Hospitalized

Evangelist Billy Graham was hospitalized early Saturday for evaluation and treatment of an intestinal bleed.He was admitted to the Mission Health and Hospitals in Asheville, N.C., near his home and his condition had stabilized over the hours following admission and treatment, said hospital spokesman Merrel Gregory."The bleeding is not continuing," said Graham's spokesman,Larry Ross, according to The AP."It stopped as quickly as it began."Ross estimates the evangelist could be released from the hospital in a couple of days.Graham, 88, experienced similar intestinal bleeding during a 1995 crusade in Toronto,Ross said, and doctors say his condition did not appear to be life-threatening.Graham's wife, Ruth, died in June at the age of 87. She was buried at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway in the Prayer Garden at the newly opened Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., where the renowned evangelist will also be laid to rest.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070818/28966.htm

As in the days of Noah...

Grave fears for 180 Chinese miners in flooded shaft

TAI'AN,China-Rescuers battled Saturday to reach more than 180 miners trapped underground by flash flooding in eastern China, but officials warned the men had little chance of survival. Torrential rains triggered flooding which breached a river levee and sent water cascading into the mine in Shandong province via an old shaft, the official Xinhua news agency reported.Wang Ziqi,director of the Shandong coal mine safety administration board,said the trapped men had only slim chances of survival and relatives said they were expecting the worst. "There are very slim chances for them to survive because it has been flooded and it is very difficult to pump out the water," a relative of a miner at the colliery, surnamed Liu, told AFP in Beijing.
Liu, whose husband was involved in the rescue effort at the Zhangzhuang mine in the city of Xintai, added: "The relatives of people trapped have been waiting all night at the front door of the site".Officials said 756 miners had been underground when the water swept in.Of those,584 were rescued, leaving 172 trapped.They said another nine people were trapped in a nearby mine after similar flooding while 86 were able to escape.The flooding on Friday afternoon followed hours of downpours, and rescue work was hampered by further rains which fell during the evening and Saturday.By Saturday morning, according to rescue headquarters cited by Xinhua, all working places underground had been inundated.Senior officials from China's State Administration of Work Safety rushed to oversee rescue efforts at the mine in Xintai, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Beijing.Xinhua said 2,000 troops, armed police and miners had closed most of the breach in the Wen river levee, but flood waters in the area had risen to two metres (6.5 feet).More than 50 workers were installing pumps, as all underground pumps were no longer working, Xinhua said.One miner who usually works above the ground told AFP he was heading to the scene to help."I feel very sad... Such a disaster is very rare. By chance I was at home but now I am going to help with my workers," said the miner, who asked not to be named. The authorities ordered all mines in the area to stop work, while the work safety watchdog issued an emergency notice urging all mines to take preventive measures against possible flooding caused by the heavy rains.In Tai'an, about 40 kilometres northwest of Xintai, all major roads to the scene were sealed off for "an official matter," one toll booth operator told AFP.
Roadblocks were set up on several smaller roads in the area, an AFP reporter witnessed.
China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and fatal accidents happen almost every day.More than 4,700 workers died last year, according to official figures, but independent labour groups put the real toll at up to 20,000 annually, saying many accidents are covered up.
On Friday, 14 miners in the eastern province of Jiangxi were rescued after being trapped in a flooded pit for more than a day, Xinhua reported earlier.It was the second lucky escape for Chinese miners this month. On August 1, 69 men were trapped in a flooded mine in central Henan province for more than three days before being pulled out alive.China has been probing thousands of cases of unlicensed mining and closing down the notoriously dangerous smaller mines in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths.The problem is that even as small mines are being closed down, new ones are being opened at a rapid pace.Small mines, defined as those with annual production below 300,000 tonnes, make up 82.9 percent of all mines under construction, officials have said.China had set itself a target of slashing the number of smaller coal mines from the existing 24,000 to 10,000 by 2010.But officials have acknowledged this goal is very unlikely to be met as new small mines are established, driven by strong demand and large profit margins, according to previous reports.Coal currently accounts for some 70 percent of the nation's primary energy consumption, more than 40 percentage points higher than the world average.China is now keenly exploring clean and renewable energy resources such as wind power, bio-fuels and gas to reduce reliance on coal, although experts say wholesale conversion is unlikely for financial reasons and because of lack of technology.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070818/ts_afp/chinaminingaccident_070818145323

As in the days of Noah...

“Islam in Europe”

It’s Pat Condell, known to the blogosphere for his pointed YouTube criticisms of Islam — one of which left Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission in need of smelling salts — and less known for his pointed YouTube criticisms of Christianity. Here’s his YT page; “United States of Jesus” looks like a humdinger.The occasion for this rant is the almost unbelievable ban imposed by the mayor of Brussels on an anti-shari’a demonstration scheduled for 9/11 of this year. Not banned: a Truther demonstration scheduled for 9/9. Condell’s had about enough. Haven’t we all.
Here’s his video response to Berkeley from a few months back, in case you missed it at the time.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/18/video-islam-in-europe/
PS:I haven't seen the video mentioned here United States of Jesus yet,but I've seen this video response and he says a lot of thruth about the situation with Islam in Europe.


As in the days of Noah....

German woman abducted in Kabul, talks for SKoreans over

Afghan authorities were grappling with a third hostage crisis involving foreigners Saturday after a German woman was abducted by armed men in the capital Kabul, officials and witnesses said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the woman's abduction, which one local police source said was the work of a criminal gang-not the Taliban militants holding 19 South Korean aid workers and a German engineer
elsewhere.Members of the hardline militia have also kidnapped four Afghan engineers working on a bridge project in the south of the central Asian country.In Kabul,Afghan officials confirmed the abduction of the German woman,but gave little details about the circumstances of the kidnapping."Today at 1:30 in the afternoon (0900 GMT), a German woman was abducted by unknown armed men in an alley," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.Police had cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen and their captive, Bashary and police said.A police official who asked not to be named said the woman was having lunch with a male companion at a pizza parlour on a quiet road in western Kabul when four men with pistols entered and forced her into their vehicle at gunpoint.The German foreign ministry in Berlin indicated there had been an abduction."We should work on the theory that there has been a kidnapping," said Julia Gross, a ministry spokesperson.Christian aid organisation Ora International said the woman kidnapped had worked in its Kabul office for the past year.
Ulf Baumann, Ora's spokesman, said the 31-year-old woman, whom he did not name, had been abducted while in a restaurant with her husband, who escaped.Ora International, based at Aumuehle, near Hamburg,describes itself on its website as "a non-denominational Christian relief and development organisation that serves people in need around the world."Earlier, a 12-year-old boy told AFP he had witnessed the abduction and that it had taken place as the couple crossed a road.Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police had pinpointed several areas where the kidnappers could be hiding."This is not the work of Taliban, this is a criminal case and abduction for ransom,"he said."We most probably will carry out a police raid of suspected compounds in a bid to release the hostage."The official said a taxi driver caught in crossfire between a police officer and the kidnappers as they sped from the scene had been killed.A taxi with a bullet hole in its rear window and blood stains on the driver's seat was parked in the area.The Taliban usually claim immediate responsibility for abductions, but have so far made no comment on the German woman's disappearance.The Taliban and their Al-Qaeda backers have said kidnapping foreigners is a new strategy in their aim of forcing the withdrawal of international troops from the country.Earlier Saturday, a spokesman for the hardline militia said the Taliban were deciding the fate of the Koreans, abducted in volatile southern Ghazni province nearly a month ago, as negotiations aimed at securing their release had failed.The Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said further negotiations seemed unlikely.
The extremists are also holding a German man, Rudolph Blechschmidt, 62, who was kidnapped with a colleague on July 18 in Wardak province.The other German man suffered circulatory failure a few days after his capture and was shot dead by his captors.And Kandahar police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said the four Afghan engineers were taken hostage on Friday when militants opened fire on a construction site in Shah Wali Kot district, killing one labourer in the process.
The Afghan government has said it will not bow to the Taliban demands as doing so would help create a kidnapping industry.The US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai was heavily criticised, notably by Washington, after it freed five Taliban in March in exchange for an Italian journalist.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070818184332.fl3o5gdy&show_article=1&catnum=0

As in the days of Noah...

Evangelist Hinn lands under a cloud:Benny Hinn readies for crusade and defends lavish healing ministry

Pastor Benny Hinn, in Toronto this weekend for two days of miracle cures and old-time gospel, makes no apologies for all the money his far-flung ministries take in each year."The gospels are free, but the means of delivering the gospels is really
expensive,"Hinn,who got his start in Toronto 30 years ago,told the Star.Tonight and tomorrow,Hinn brings his Texas-based Miracle Crusade to the Air Canada Centre,attracting up to 20,000 to each of his three shows.The shows are free but, as at all his crusades,donations will be sought and many buckets will be passed as the audience sings rousing hymns along with a mass choir amid a light show worthy of a rock concert. While Hinn acknowledges people come mainly to see and take part in the healing miracles, that is left to the feverish end-they will first hear him preach,pray and sing in his trademark white suit.But Hinn arrives under a cloud after the CBC's The Fifth Estate this week challenged his claims of miracle cures and described a lavish lifestyle of fancy cars, a 7,000-square-foot ocean-side mansion and luxury travel to five-star hotels on a private jet.In the show,reporter Bob McKeown estimates Benny Hinn Ministries takes in as much as $250 million a year in donations and proceeds from sales of such items as autographed bibles.Hinn,who keeps his finances private,doubts the show will hurt turnout at the ACC."They will never stop people from coming to meetings such as ours."Followers donate money,he says,to ensure his work, including curing the sick,continues."They believe that God heals and they want to see something like this go on.They also understand it takes money to rent stadiums."Hinn's sessions have gained a reputation for sudden miracle cures for cancer,blindness,diabetes and even AIDS over the past 30 years since his humble beginnings in a church hall at Bloor and Yonge.People dramatically fall to the floor proclaiming their health after a touch from Hinn's hand.Hinn, however,professes to having nothing to do with making anybody healthy."The Lord has not called me to heal people,"he says."He heals the people."After the prayers,songs and preaching from the charismatic minister,Hinn tells the crowd he is getting a message from God that people in the audience are being cured,and he asks them to come to the stage.The Fifth Estate used hidden cameras to show staff screening audience members coming forward,ensuring none with obvious physical ailment get near Hinn."It's always somebody that has some kind of illness that can't be readily seen"that makes it to the stage,Justin Peters a Baptist minister in Mississippi who studied Hinn,tells the CBC.Hinn says the cures take place in the audience,not on stage,so no one still in a wheelchair is allowed on stage.God,he says,has obviously not cured these people."I won't let them up,because they haven't been healed,"he says.The CBC tracked down some of the people claimed to have been cured, only to find that they were either still sick, never had the condition they were supposedly cured of, or had died.Speaking to the Star,Hinn says he is forced to rely on the word of those coming to his crusades to tell him they are cured."It's not my job to claim that they are healed.I have never done that,"he says."I'm not a doctor."Hinn defends his use of luxury hotels and a private Gulfstream jet detailed by the CBC,saying they offer greater efficiency and security."People in my position will have threats,"he told the Star."If you ask for a secure (hotel) floor,you're going to pay more money."Hinn also criticized the CBC for using hidden cameras and old footage he says depicts his wife just before she had a nervous
breakdown.
http://www.thestar.com/living/Religion/article/247207
PS:I just want to apologize with you all my readers that may think I sound mean sometimes,especially with so called"christians".
I just finished reading the whole article and I decided to post it,because it's a sad sample of how "Hollywood-Super Star- Christianity"is getting so low and so far from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I always had a problem with a "minister of the Gospel'living in a mansion.
The Bible says the opposite,that the servant of God should be "sober",that it should have "contentment with rainment and food.And also says in Timothy that if somebody has riches,he should share them with those that have none.Finally the Word of God admonishes us against the perils of love of money(1Timothy 6:7-10)
There is NO NEED for him to have a private jet,He could use regular airlines like anybody else.There is NO NEED also for him to ask for money thru emails,to purchase his new LEAR JET...(sigh)
There is NO NEED for a 7000sq ft house,unless he has a NEED for it.He's got 4 children,2 of which are at College...
The last thing that really appalled me is what he said about "SAFETY".
The Bible says that those that live godly shall suffer PERSECUTION.And what if we are killed because of the Gospel???
I think about my best friend preaching in El Salvador,my friend Mario that was attacked and kidnapped -along with other three friends that were back to the city from some ministry time -by thugs in Honduras,who beat them and threatened to kill them with AK-47's last week....I think about my friend and his family in Nepal,that are going thru lots of perils,sometimes without even water for their baby,just to preach the Gospel...I think about the christians in North Korea,Iran,Middle East,all Asia,in Chiapas,Colombia,in Europe...and the list goes on...
I think of how a high price we all had to pay to take the gospel to a foreign land.I think about the time when I had to face the possibility of my own death and even make arrangements for that....
What Benny Hinn said about his own personal SAFETY is CHEAP and is sad...
The Bible says that those who find their life shall lose it and those who lose their lives shall find it....(Matthew 10:38-39)
The Gospel is a humble walk of daily obedience to the Word of God and relationship and fellowship with Jesus.What is wrong with being sober...????
He GAVE IT ALL for us,and then in return we are concerned about getting the safest "hotel" in town...???Come on....!!!!
There are many that are giving a bad name to the True Gospel of the Lord JesusChrist...
The Gospel IS NOT EXPENSIVE...I understand where he is coming from,but I think he is making it expensive....
May the Lord help us not to stumble in our own walk because of money or greed or glory of men....
Let us follow Jesus example in the Bible.Let's live our lives with daily joy and gratitude,content with what we have...We brought nothing to this world and will take nothing out of it when we go...He will take care of us and provide and even give us unexpected, unmerited gifts and will save our loved ones...I'm a testimony of that.
Jesus is Coming Soon...
As in the days of Noah...

Cannibal tribe apologises for eating Methodists

A tribe in Papua New Guinea has apologised for killing and eating four 19th century missionaries under the command of a doughty British clergyman.The four Fijian missionaries were on a proselytising mission on the island of New Britain when they were massacred by Tolai tribesmen in 1878.They were murdered on the orders of a local warrior chief,Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten.The Fijians-a minister and three teachers-were under the leadership of the Reverend George Brown, an adventurous Wesleyan missionary who was born in Durham but spent most of his life spreading the word of God in the South Seas.Thousands of villagers attended a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul, the capital of East New Britain province, once notorious for the ferocity of its cannibals.Their leaders apologised for their forefather's taste for human flesh to Fiji's high commissioner to Papua New Guinea."We at this juncture are deeply touched and wish you the greatest joy of forgiveness as we finally end this record
disagreement,"said Ratu Isoa Tikoca, the high commissioner.Cannibalism was common in many parts of the South Pacific-Fiji was formerly known as the Cannibal Isles-and dozens of missionaries were killed by hostile islanders.Born at Barnard Castle, Durham, Rev Brown emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and served as a missionary in Samoa before moving with his wife and children to New Guinea.He was familiar with the cannibalistic traditions of the region and once described a visit to a village in which he counted 35 smoke-blackened human jaw bones dangling from the rafters of a hut."A human hand, smoke-dried, was hanging in the same house. And outside I counted 76 notches in a coconut tree, each notch of which, the natives told us, represented a human body which had been cooked and eaten there," he told the Royal Geographical Society.Even so, he was shocked when told that four of his staff had been cannibalised."They were killed simply because they were foreigners, and the natives who killed them did so for no other reason than their desire to eat them, and to get the little property they had with them," he wrote.He reluctantly agreed to launch a punitive expedition, ordering his men to burn down villages implicated in the murders and destroy wooden canoes.At least 10 tribe members blamed for the attack were killed in an area known as Blanche Bay. Rev Brown claimed the raids made the region safe for Europeans.In a letter to the general secretary of the London Missionary Society he wrote:"The natives respect us more than they did, and as they all acknowledge the justice of our cause they bear us no ill will."But the reprisals attracted fierce criticism from the press, particularly in Australia.The Australian newspaper said:"If missionary enterprise in such an island as this leads to wars of vengeance, which may readily develop into wars of extermination, the question may be raised whether it may not be better to withdraw the mission from savages who show so little appreciation of its benefits."However,an official investigation by British colonial authorities a year later exonerated Rev Brown.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/16/wpapua116.xml


As in the days of Noah...

New Orleans braces for levee test

Will the levees hold? The US Army Corps of Engineers hopes so, as it pumps water into a canal that burst its banks during Hurricane Katrina to test whether it can now help fight floods.
During Katrina, water flowed into the London Avenue canal in New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain, instead of the other way around, causing the concrete walls on top of the canal's soil levees to slip and fail. Since then, gates have been built in the lake to prevent water escaping. Currently, water in the canal is 1.2 metres deep, but from 17 August, the Army Corps of Engineers will begin raising the water level in an isolated a 46-metre section of the canal up to 1.5 metres, while monitoring the impact on nearby walls and soil. If the levees do not shift, water could be pumped from New Orleans to Lake Pontchartrain faster when a hurricane hits, minimising flooding in the city.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19526172.900-new-orleans-braces-for-levee-test.html

As in the days of Noah...

Dean strengthens as it whips across Caribbean;Winds rise to 150 mph-3 deaths so far

SANTO DOMINGO,Dominican Republic-Jamaica opened shelters nationwide on Saturday and Cuba declared a “state of alert” as the Caribbean’s warm waters fueled a strengthening Hurricane Dean, with forecasters predicting the storm could grow to a powerful Category 5.Now a Category 4 storm with sustained winds at 150 mph, Dean was expected to pass south of Hispaniola but dump as much as five inches of rain to the two countries on the island-Haiti and the Dominican Republic-which are both prone to devastating floods and mudslides.As dark clouds rolled in from the south and a light rain began to fall, residents of the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, calmly ran errands at stores with fully stocked shelves, despite government advisories about heavy rains and possible flooding.“Nothing’s going to happen here-a lot of water of nothing else,”said Pedro Alvajar, 61, as he sat in a doorway selling lottery tickets.Dean killed three people and devastated banana and sugar crops a day earlier as it crossed small eastern Caribbean islands. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds could surpass 155 mph as it approaches the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.By Thursday, there is a chance Dean could threaten the U.S., though it is expected to lose some strength as it travels over the Yucatan.In Jamaica, which expected to take a direct hit Sunday, tourists including Shante Morgan of Moor Park, Calif., began lining up outside the Montego Bay airport before dawn to book flights out ahead of the storm.“People are freaking out because they’re not getting answers at their hotel,”said Morgan, a 38-year-old freelance editor who got a Saturday flight after waiting several hours.“They’re really playing down the potential influence of the hurricane.”Haitian authorities issued an alert for coastal communities where thousands of people live in flimsy shacks. In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne brushed the impoverished and heavily deforested country, triggering massive floods that killed 1,900 people and left 900 others missing.All flights from the capital, Port-au-Prince, to southern Haiti were canceled Saturday and small boats were prohibited from leaving shore, the country’s disaster management agency said.Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller of Jamaica-where a direct hit is expected Sunday-ordered shelters opened across the island and called for a halt to campaigning for the Aug. 27 elections.The country issued a hurricane warning.“Let us band together and unite in the threat of this hurricane,”Simpson-Miller said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20289472

As in the days of Noah...

Russian ban on BBC a 'swipe at UK'

The BBC World Service has been banned from broadcasting on Russian FM radio in what is seen as the latest diplomatic swipe at the UK.The state licensing authorities ordered Bolshoye radio in Moscow to remove all BBC programming by 5pm tonight or face being taken off air.They claimed the station’s licence only allowed programmes to be produced by the radio station itself.But in the UK, it was interpreted as yet another breakdown in the increasingly frosty relationship between the two countries.The Foreign Office immediately called for the service to be re-instated while a defiant BBC said it would appeal the decision.Richard Sambrook, director of BBC Global News, said the Corporation was “extremely disappointed” that listeners would not be able to hear its “impartial and independent news and information programming”.“The BBC has invested a great deal of energy and resources into developing high quality programming for the station,” he said.“The BBC entered into the relationship with Bolshoye Radio in good faith, and the licence was won in a competitive tender in February 2006.“We cannot understand how the licence is now interpreted in a way that does not reflect the original and thorough concept documents.”Mr Sambrook said the BBC would appeal to Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and Protection of Culture Heritage.“We will ask for the decision to be reviewed and for the original concept of the station to be respected,” he added.The concept documents state 60pc of output must be original material from Bolshoye Radio and 18pc foreign content, the BBC claimed.A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We support the role of the BBC World service, it is a source of independent news, often in parts of the world where such independence is far from the norm.“It is important that the BBC World Service is able to continue to broadcast in Russia.”But Bolshoye Radio’s owners, financial group Finam, said the BBC’s output was “foreign propaganda”.Spokesman Igor Ermachenkov insisted management had taken the decision to remove BBC programming without outside interference.
“It’s no secret the BBC was established as a broadcaster of foreign propaganda,” he said.The Russian Service has been broadcasting current affairs news programmes in Russian as part of the commercial Bolshoye station since May.It aired for six hours a day, from 7-10am and 5-8pm, and covered news events around the world.Included in its coverage was the diplomatic row sparked by the murder of ex KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.He died on November 23 last year from polonium poisoning, allegedly administered in a cup of tea at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square.The Russian authorities refused a request to extradite prime suspect Andrei Lugovoy to the UK, leading to a meltdown in relations.In July, Britain expelled four diplomats from the Russian embassy in London, prompting Russia to retaliate by ejecting the same number from the British embassy in Moscow a few days later. Russia also announced it would cease cooperation on counter-terrorism.The BBC said 730,000 people listened to the Russian Service in Russia, with around 93,000 listening via FM. Approximately 20,000 of those were dedicated FM listeners.The Russian Service is still available on mediumwave frequencies, via satellite and online.Bolshoye Radio was the BBC’s last FM distribution partner station in the country after two other FM stations - Radio Arsenal in Moscow and Radio Leningrad in St Petersburg - stopped taking programmes in the last nine months.Critics have accused President Vladimir Putin’s government of stifling media freedom as part of a broader effort to increase the Kremlin’s control over Russian politics.Russian authorities last year dramatically curtailed the number of stations broadcasting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America news programmes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/17/wbbc117.xml

As in the days of Noah...

Children play Israeli-killers in bloody new computer game

Raid Israel to capture soldiers, battle tanks in the valleys of south Lebanon and launch Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns-a new Hezbollah computer game puts players on the frontline of war with the Jewish state."Special Force 2" is based on last year's 34-day conflict between the Lebanese guerrilla group and Israel. It was launched yesterday at a special exhibit south of Beirut by Hezbollah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan. "It is not only a game, it is an education and culture and it is part of the confrontation because the American and the Western companies created games featuring us as terrorists and it is widespread on the market.This achievement is an addition to the tools of resistance and confrontation,"said Hassan."This game presents the culture of the resistance to children: that occupation must be resisted and that land and the nation must be guarded," Hezbollah media official Sheikh Ali Daher said.Designed by Hezbollah computer experts, players of "Special Force 2" take the role of a Hezbollah fighter, or Mujahid. Weapons and points are accumulated by killing Israeli soldiers.The game recreates key phases of the conflict, which was triggered when Hezbollah raided northern Israel and captured two soldiers, saying they wanted to negotiate a prisoner swap."The game has high tech and three dimensional technology. It explains the operations that took place during the battles in the last July war,'' said Mahmoud Rayya a Hezbollah IT engineer. Hezbollah takes huge pride in its military performance in the war, which killed 158 Israelis, mainly soldiers. Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Lebanon.Israel says Hezbollah was weakened in the conflict, in which the group was forced out of its strongholds along the Israeli border and an expanded international peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon under a U.N.-brokered ceasefire.A Shi'ite Muslim group backed by Iran and Syria, Hezbollah declared the outcome of the conflict as a "divine victory"."Through this game the child can build an idea of some of...the most prominent battles and the idea that this enemy can be defeated,"Daher said.Retailing at around $10 (£5) in Lebanon and produced by volunteers,Hezbollah is expecting strong demand for the game at home and abroad.
Hundreds of copies have been reserved in advance in Lebanon.The 3-D game forces players to think and use their resources wisely, reflecting the way Hezbollah fights, Daher said."The features which are the secret of resistance's victory in the south, have moved to this game so that the child can understand that fighting the enemy does not only require the gun."It requires readiness, supplies, armament, attentiveness, tactics.""Special Force" was the first video game to be launched by the group in 2003, three years after Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon, ending an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon after a guerrilla war of attrition.Its creators at the time said they relied on maps, films and other material from the group's media archives to make its graphics true-to-life. They said the aim is to counter the "invasion" of Arab markets by foreign games.The new game, like the first, can be played in Arabic, English and Farsi.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=475966&in_page_id=1811
PS:It's not enough with Nahoul the FREAKY KILLER bee that we watched at MEMRI TV,it's not enough with the Kinder "graduation" with little children dressed as suicide bombers,it's not enough with all these tactics of indoctrination....now they have gone far and made a War game...
I wondered a couple of posts ago why,muslims wouldn't be much of a contribution for society anywhere in the west where they went(and to be honest Im not sure about the Middle East,either...)Now we know the contribution that muslim doctors can be to England,but I think I have the answer....They are LURKING EVIL against the rest of the world and planning and dreaming where is gonna be the next spot where they can murder jews and christians and infidels in general....They don't have time for anything else...!!!!They have an EVIL AGENDA and that is to RULE THE WORLD,ALLAH STYLE.....That is SPILLING THE BLOOD OF INNOCENT PEOPLE for their Blood thristy Allah-Moon God of Babylon....People WAKE UP...!ISLAM is the biggest THREAT for human kind that we are facing and will face till the Lord comes....!!!!


As in the days of Noah...

MARTIAL LAW WATCH:Clergy to be used to quell dissent;Program trains leaders to convince people to obey emergency orders

A government plan to use members of the clergy to quell dissent and objections to government orders during a time of national emergency has been revealed by a Shreveport, La., television station.The story by reporter Jeff Ferrell on television station KSLA says such "Clergy Response Teams" already have been used-following the hit on New Orleans by hurricane Katrina.The station's video is available on a link on its website, and also available on YouTube. It asks if martial law ever could become reality in the United States, following a nuclear, biological or chemical attack. "KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us," the report said.The teams were used to help with the management of the masses following Katrina, according to Durell Tuberville.He serves as chaplain of the Shreveport Fire Department and the Caddo sheriff's office, and said the clergy team's mission was to express the sentiment:"Let's cooperate and get this thing over with and then we'll settle the differences once the crisis is over."Sandy Davis, director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said there are several advantages, but primarily, "these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they're helping to diffuse that situation."So government orders to abandon homes, turn over guns, leave livestock behind, or whatever would come to the minds of various officials during an "emergency," would be easier for people to accept, the report indicated.The report said one of the biggest tools the clergy members would use would be the Bible itself, specifically Romans 13, where Tuberville said the Bible states "the government's established by the Lord, you know. And, that's what we believe in the Christian faith. That's what's stated in the Scripture."Civil rights advocates have raised questions about the idea of using clergy in such a fashion, noting the balance clergy would have to maintain when asked to do what the government wants under color of their status as a religious leader.A blogger for the Christian education site, Chalcedon noted that the training has been going on in secret for over a year already."The clergy are being advised to use Romans 13 to encourage parishioners to submit to the sudden and massive expansion of government control that takes place during martial law,"the writer said.WND already has documented a series of executive orders by the president, that so far give the government broad new powers to address private property if it's related to any one of several issues, all of which are foreign so far.One recent order, for example, gives Bush the power to freeze the assets of people who threaten Iraq's stability. A former Reagan administration officials says the wording is so broad it could be applied to any domestic opponent of the Iraq war who has assets in the U.S.White House press secretary Tony Snow explained the order targets terrorist and insurgent groups not covered by existing authorities who come across the border from countries such as Iran and Syria.But constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein charged the order violates the 5th Amendment's requirement that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law. Fein, associate deputy attorney general under Reagan, asserts it "empowers the president to destroy anyone he says plays a significant risk of undermining the rehabilitation or political reform in Iraq.""The order is a stunning assertion of executive power that creates a Sword of Damocles over anyone opposed to the war or who might otherwise come under the umbrage of the president," Fein told WND.That order follows a series of orders Bush has issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which so far have similarly cited "blocking the property" of people who threaten stability in Darfur, Zimbabwe , Ivory Coast , Syria , Belarus , Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Of these countries, the only one in which the U.S. is directly involved in a war is Iraq.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57219

As in the days of Noah...

NORTH AMERICAN UNION...???Plan to Allow Some Mexican Trucks Full U.S. Highway Access Nears Approval

WASHINGTON-Some Mexican trucks will be allowed to carry cargo anywhere in the US as soon as a federal inspector general certifies safety and inspection plans, the Bush administration announced FridayThe latest step toward implementing a controversial provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement drew instant condemnation from labor and driver-owner groups that fear the program will erode highway safety and eliminate U.S. jobs.The decision was announced by a Transportation Department notice in the Federal Register, a dry, daily compendium of new federal rules read mostly by lobbyists and lawyers.A one-year demonstration project allowing 100 Mexican motor carriers full access to U.S. roads will begin as soon as the department's inspector general certifies that safety and inspection plans and facilities are sufficient to ensure the Mexican trucks are at least as safe as U.S.
trucks.That requirement was imposed by Congress.Mexican trucks are now confined to commercial zones within about 25 miles of the border.The inspector general's report to Congress is expected soon. The agency said it would complete any remedial actions he requested before beginning the program.Teamster Union president Jim Hoffa questioned the timing-during Congress' August recess-of the administration's decision "to move forward with its hugely unpopular program to throw open our borders to unsafe Mexican trucks."Hoffa noted that the House voted last month to cut off funding for the program but that the Senate has yet to vote.Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the administration had only minimally complied with congressional directives but not with "the spirit of what Republicans and Democrats in Congress intended."The Transportation Department acknowledged that most of the 2,300 public comments on the project challenged its safety and economic effects.But the agency concluded the demonstration, involving about 10 percent of the Mexican truckers who applied,"is sufficient to determine whether the safety oversight program" can ensure there will be no erosion of highway safety.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C293660%2C00.html
As in the days of Noah....

NWO WATCH:China to install sensors along NAFTA highway;Documents reveal NASCO plan to militarize I-35

Radio sensing stations to track traffic and cargo up and down the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway corridor are being installed by Communist China, operating through a port operator subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and the North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc.The idea is that RFID chips placed in containers where manufactured goods are shipped from China will be able to be tracked to the Mexican ports on the Pacific where the containers are unloaded onto Mexican trucks and trains for
transportation on the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway to destinations within the US. NASCO, a trade association based in Dallas, Texas, has teamed with Lockheed Martin to use RFID tracking technology Lockheed Martin developed for the U.S. Department of Defense's projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at U.S. military stations throughout the world. China has a central position in applying the RFID technology on I-35, given Hutchinson Port Holdings' 49 percent ownership of Savi Networks, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that will get the job of placing the sensors all up and down the NAFTA Superhighway.Nathan Hansen, a Minnesota attorney, has archived on his blog a series of NASCO documents obtained under a Minnesota Data Practices Act.Among these documents released by Hansen is a Letter of Intent between NASCO and Savi Networks which details how NASCO and Lockheed Martin intend to implement NAFTRACS.
The letter calls for Savi Networks to establish RFID sensors along the I-35 NAFTA trade corridor, with tracking designed to begin at Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, and include "inland points of data capture" positioned at Laredo, San Antonio, Dallas, Kansas City, the Ambassador Bridge, and Winnipeg.Data captured by the RFID sensors would be sent to a data collection center that NASCO has named "The Center of Excellence."The Center of Excellence data collection center will be integrated into Lockheed Martin's militarized Global Transport Network Command and Control Center that is installed and operating at the Lockheed Martin Center for Innovation or "Lighthouse" facility in Suffolk, Virginia.Lockheed Martin's GTN was developed for the U.S. Department of Defense as an electronic system used to support supply shipments and defense logistics to U.S. armed forces deployed worldwide.GTN is operated by the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.In releasing to the public the NASCO internal documents, Hansen characterized NASCO's Total Domain Awareness as "an Orwellian nightmare," commenting that, "At least Orwell's tyrants had the dignity to be creative with the names of their various maniacal bureaucracies."NASCO documents describe Total Domain Awareness as the ability to "automatically gather, correlate, and interpret fragments of multi-source data," including data received from radar, Automatic Identification System shipboard radar, Global Positioning System, open source data including weather reports, military intelligence data, law enforcement data, bioterrorism data, plus video surveillance and security cameras.Hansen comments about the NASCO Total Awareness Domain that, "Truly, a major defense contractor tracking our every move here in our own country is undoubtedly a threat to our liberties."As WND has previously reported, Hutchison Port Holdings owns 49 percent of Savi Networks, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin's wholly-owned subsidiary Savi Technology.A contract signed with NASCO authorizes Savi Networks to place a system of RFID sensors along the entire length of I-35 to track RFID equipped containers which travel the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway, including those Chinese containers that enter the continent through the Mexican ports of Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas.The Federal Highway Administration website is currently archiving a slide show presentation by Tiffany Melvin, NASCO’s executive director, containing a discussion of the North American Facilitation of Transportation, Trade, Reduced Congestion and Security, designed to track containers along I-35 with Savi RFID technology and to provide the information to "various federal and state DOT (Department of Transportation) participants."Hutchison Ports Holding operates the ports at Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, as well as both ends of the Panama Canal.Savi Technology spokesmen refused to return WND calls after messages were left at the company for three consecutive days.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57190


As in the days of Noah....

Terror Ties Shock Ex-District Officials

He was a well-dressed, soft-spoken man who was devoted to his large family and seemed knowledgeable about ways to repair Washington's broken down public schools.Kifah W. Jayyousi's chief problem as a D.C. school official appeared to be a reckless determination to get the job done, those who knew him said. He lasted less than two years before he was booted out, but no one suspected that the mild-mannered naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan might be associated with terrorists.On Thursday, a federal jury in Miami convicted the former chief of facilities for D.C. public schools of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim overseas; conspiring to provide material support for terrorists; and providing that support.He was convicted along with former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla,whom the government has accused of plotting a radiological dirty bomb attack, and a Lebanese-born Palestinian, Adham Hassoun.Prosecutors accused Jayyousi of participating in a support cell with Padilla. Jayyousi, they said, promoted jihad as a religious obligation through a newsletter called the Islam Report.The newsletter also delivered updates on mujaheddin fighters and solicited donations,prosecutors alleged.As part of the murder conspiracy,according to prosecutors,Jayyousi helped arrange to send fighters to conflicts involving Muslims around the world....

To read more go to:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081702149.html

As in the days of Noah...

Redefining Islam

"Apologists for Islam argue that “moderate” Muslims will eventually discredit and defeat extremist Jihadi terrorists so that “peaceful” Muslims can then happily integrate into advanced Western societies.FSM Contributing Editor Paul Hollrah calls these views unrealistic, and perhaps dangerous..."

In an August 2006 column I wrote about current efforts by the Vatican to obtain reciprocity in Islamic states for religious practice by Christians and Jews.Unfortunately, the Islamic approach to religious tolerance is totally incompatible with Western traditions, and always will be. Hence, there is nothing the Vatican can do through a more confrontational approach that will in any way slow the Islamic invasion of Christendom or convince Muslims that they must allow Christians and Jews the freedom to practice openly their religious beliefs in Islamic states.That battle was lost before it began, although a few liberal daydreamers and left wing nutcases cling to the fantasy that moderate and liberal Muslims will one day rise up and confront radical Islam. For those who are betting their lives (and mine) on that forlorn hope, I would remind them of seven simple words: “Those who cure you will kill you.”That cryptic warning was related to an Anglican priest, Andrew White, during an inter-faith conference in Jordan a short time before an eight-member Islamic terror cell, which included seven medical doctors, staged an attack on public facilities in London and Glasgow… an attack that was intended to murder and maim large numbers of innocent men, women, and children.So, what are the chances that Muslims can, or ever will, assimilate into Western society? Is it possible that we ever can live in peace and harmony with people who are taught that it is their duty to kill Christians and Jews and to kill any and all who criticize their religion? If the Vatican expects to find “reciprocity” with such people they are engaging in some very foolish wishful thinking.There are those who insist that radical Islam represents only a small minority of Muslims… perhaps only one in ten… but ten percent of 1.5 billion amounts to 150 million people, about half of the entire population of the US. In all of America’s previous wars, from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam and Desert Storm, we have not faced even 20 million enemy combatants. Now we face nearly eight times that number. Yet, they are not separated from us by battle lines or national frontiers. Many of them are here, living and traveling freely among us. And, unlike previous enemies, they do not fear death, they wear no uniforms, they recognize no rules of war, and they willingly slaughter women and children...

To read more go to:

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=1238390

As in the days of Noah...

The evolution of apostasy

I get regular email from a man named Matt Barber, whose opinions I have discussed from time to time.In his latest mailing, he makes a strong claim that seems worthy of discussion that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is guilty of apostasy:
Washington, D.C.-At a recent meeting of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), the decision was made that the ELCA would ignore the Bible's unequivocal condemnation of homosexual behavior as sinful and permit openly homosexual clergy to pastor ELCA churches. This has stirred up tension between the ELCA and other more Biblically sound factions within the Lutheran denomination.In a statement, Gerald B. Kieschnick, president of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS), noted,"This goes contrary to the historic and universal understanding of the Christian Church regarding what the Holy Scriptures teach about homosexual behavior as contrary to God's will and about the Biblical qualifications for holding the pastoral office."Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America (CWA), said, "The word apostasy is a strong one.It shouldn't be used lightly.
Unfortunately,the ELCA's decision to endorse the sin of homosexuality,which Scripture clearly calls an 'abomination to God,' represents nothing short of apostasy."We're witnessing a growing trend within certain liberal sects of Christendom wherein leftist church leaders are pushing new-age, Bible-ala-carte spiritualism. The mindset is, 'If God's Word doesn't comport with my view on morality, then I'm right and God is wrong. He needs to get with the program. Murder pre-born children with abortion - Sure why not? Celebrate sexual deviancy? No problem.'
"This is America, and people are generally free to say and do what they want," continued Barber, "But if a formal church collective such as the ELCA is going to call itself Christian, the least it can do is honor the Bible, not rip out and trash the pages it doesn't like. There's nothing Christian about that."
To read more go to:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/08/the_evolution_o.html
As in the days of Noah...

Minor Quake in Utah, Miles From Mine

MINERSVILLE,Utah-A minor 3.9 magnitude earthquake early Saturday shook southwestern Utah,150 miles from the collapsed coal mine where six men are missing.The quake hit in a remote area and was unlikely to have caused any damage,said Relu Burlacu,a seismologist with the University of Utah.Burlacu said there are several faults in the area,and it was not immediately clear which one was involved.The epicenter near Minersville was about 150 miles southwest of Huntington,where the Crandall Canyon Mine collapsed on Aug. 6,trapping six miners.Coincidentally,a 3.9 magnitude seismic event occurred near Huntington on the morning of the mine collapse.The mine's co-owner,Bob Murray,believes that was a natural earthquake,but seismologists contend it was produced by the mine collapse itself.Another collapse at the mine Thursday killed three rescue workers.Eight quakes of magnitude 3 or higher have occurred since 1962 within 15 miles of the epicenter of Saturday's tremor.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8R3HSK80&show_article=1&catnum=0

As in the days of Noah...

Iran's Guards: We'll 'Punch' US

TEHRAN,Iran-Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they would not bow to pressure and threatened to "punch" the U.S., in their first response to Washington's plan to list them as a terrorist organization, newspapers reported Saturday.Local press in the Iranian capital of Tehran quoted Revolutionary Guards leader Gen.Yahya Rahim Safavi saying that he could understand Washington's ire toward the group because of their "leverage" against the U.S.
"America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future," he was quoted as saying in the conservative daily Kayhan. "We will never remain silent in the face of U.S. pressure and we will use our leverage against them."There was no elaboration on what Safavi meant by the punch or the organization's "leverage."Washington has accused the Guards of supporting militias and insurgent groups attacking U.S. forces in Iraq - charges Iran denies.The fact that the remarks, made on Thursday in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, appeared in local newspapers rather than the official state news outlets suggest the comments are for domestic consumption.Meanwhile, other Iranian officials continued to speak out against Washington's move to register the group as a terrorist organization, with a government spokesman calling the claims "baseless," on the Web site of the state broadcasting company."The claims of the U.S. are baseless and have no takers around the world," he said Saturday, noting that "the U.S. has endangered the world many times under the excuse of fighting against terrorism."On Tuesday, an unnamed official in the Bush administration said the U.S. planned to list the Guards as terrorist group in order to squeeze Iran.The move was seen as an effort to pressure businesses the corps is thought to control, from construction to oil sectors. It would be the first time the U.S. would put a foreign government's military agency on the list, which includes the al-Qaida network and the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Iranian armed forces spokesman Gen. Ali Reza Afshar hit out precisely against this attempt to declare a state body terrorist in an editorial Saturday in the country's largest circulation newspaper, calling it illegal."America's long time hostility against the Guard is clear and understandable, but this move against organization that is part of Iran's armed forces is illegal," he wrote in the daily Hamshahri.The estimated 200,000-strong Revolutionary Guards is an elite force separate from Iran's regular military and has its own ground, naval and air units.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070818/D8R3BUIO0.html

As in the days of Noah...

AL QAEDA Hijacks Turkish Airliner on Way from Cyprus to Istanbul

ISTANBUL,Turkey-Hijackers claiming to have bombs and to be members of Al Qaeda hijacked a Turkish passenger plane on Saturday as it was heading from northern Cyprus to Istanbul, officials and passengers said.The hijackers had asked that the Atlastjet Airlines plane be diverted to Iran or Syria but the pilots landed the plane at Antalya airport in southwestern Turkey, said Tuncay Doganer, CEO of Atlasjet.Most of the passengers managed to escape from the rear exit of the plane while the hijackers were releasing the women from the front exit, one passenger told the private Turkish television station NTV.
Doganer said only crew and "a small number" of passengers were left on board. CNN-Turk television said two crew- possibly the pilots-and nine passengers were still inside.It was not clear how many hijackers were on board. The passenger, who was not identified, said the hijackers were speaking Arabic among themselves.Doganer said there were 136 passengers on board when the plane left Ercan airport in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.Another passenger said anti-terror teams surrounded the plane.Cyprus has been divided between a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish-occupied north since 1974, when Turkey invaded after an abortive Athens-backed coup by supporters of union with Greece.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293672,00.html

As in the days of Noah...

SIGN of the TIMES:Brazil to provide free sex changes

RIO DE JANEIRO-Brazil's public-health system will begin providing free sex-change operations in compliance with a court order, the Health Ministry said Friday.Ministry spokesman Edmilson Oliveira da Silva said the government would not appeal Wednesday's ruling by a panel of federal judges giving the government 30 days to offer the procedure or face fines of $5,000 a day.'The health minister was prompted by the judges' decision,'' Silva said."But we already had a technical group studying the procedure with the idea of including it among the procedures that are covered.''Federal prosecutors from Rio Grande do Sul state had argued that sexual-reassignment surgery is covered under a
constitutional clause guaranteeing medical care as a basic right.On Wednesday, the Fourth Regional Federal Court agreed, saying in its ruling that"from the biomedical perspective, transsexuality can be described as a sexual identity disturbance where individuals need to change their sexual designation or face serious consequences in their lives,including intense suffering, mutilation and suicide.''The Health Ministry said it would be up to local health officials to decide who qualifies for the surgery.Gay activists applauded the decision.''Transsexuals represent about 0.001 percent of the Brazilian population,but for this minority,sexual-reassignment surgery is a question of life and death,'' said Luiz Mott, founder of the Bahia Gay Group."It is unjust and cruel to argue that the health system should concern itself with other priorities.''Brazil's public-health system offers free care to all Brazilians,including a variety of surgeries and AIDS medication. But long lines and poorly equipped facilities mean that those who can afford it usually choose to pay for private hospitals and clinics.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/207029.html
PS:IT's very UNFORTUNATE that a "PANEL of FEDERAL JUDGES"have made this "surgery" mandatory for whoever wants it.They are regulating on matter of BIOETHICS,with no Moral Basis...Well I guess thousands will flock there to have their bodies"legally mutilated" an changes into something God didn't created them to be.
The pic,I posted with this news actually is from the walls of Sodom and Gomorrah....as you can see it's just dust...I touched and smelled the sulfur balls,scattered all over those plains,which are the silent witness of the judgement of God upon these wicked cities,full of depraved men...homosexuals,by the way.....Don't get upset with me it's recorded in the Bible and it's still there in the plains for everybody to see...
As in the days of Noah...

Hurricane Dean Gains Power in Caribbean

CASTRIES,St. Lucia-Hurricane Dean roared into the eastern Caribbean on Friday, tearing away roofs, flooding streets and causing at least three deaths. Winds hit 150 mph as it headed on a collision course with Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula,where it is forecast to become a Category 5 storm.The Atlantic season's first hurricane built to a powerful Category 4 storm Friday night after crossing over the warm waters of the Caribbean. The National Hurricane Center in Miami forecast that Dean would become a Category 5 storm,with winds surpassing 155 mph,as it approaches Yucatan on Monday.Dean could threaten the US by Wednesday,forecasters said and Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office suggested people get ready.On tiny St. Lucia, fierce winds tore corrugated metal roofs from dozens of houses and a hospital's pediatric ward, whose patients had been evacuated hours earlier.Police said a 62-year-old man drowned when he tried to retrieve a cow from a rain-swollen river.The government on Dominica reported that a woman and her 7-year-old son died when a hillside soaked by Dean's rains gave way and crushed the house where they were sleeping.French authorities on the nearby island of Martinique said a 90-year- old man had died of a heart attack during the storm but it was unclear whether it was a factor.Dean was forecast to brush the southern coast of Haiti late Saturday, then hit Jamaica on Sunday before clipping Yucatan two days later.In Washington, the State Department said it would allow some U.S. diplomats in Jamaica to leave the island to avoid the storm.Jamaican officials said Kingston's national arena will serve as one of several shelters, and they drafted a plan to move inmates at two maximum security prisons if needed.Evacuation plans, especially for the flood-prone eastern region, were finalized, said Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.About a dozen cruise ships were altering their itineraries to avoid the hurricane and its aftermath, according to cruisecritic.com, a Web site devoted to cruise travel information.On Yucatan, Mexican authorities broadcast radio alerts, including in the Yucatec Maya language, warning people to "be prepared." Some people boarded up windows and stocked up on supplies, while officials prepared some 570 schools, gymnasiums and public buildings as shelters.People on Martinique, St. Lucia and Dominica mostly stayed indoors Friday while the hurricane swept the islands with heavy rain and wind. People who ventured out said the islands seemed to have escaped serious damage. At 2 a.m. EDT, Dean was centered about 700 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 240 miles south of San Juan,Puerto Rico.It was moving west at 18 mph.The storm's maximum sustained winds were near 150 mph.Forecasters said it was too early to tell whether the storm would eventually strike the U.S. coast somewhere, but officials were getting ready just in case."It's so far out, but it's not too early to start preparing," said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas's governor.Energy futures rose Friday on the news that Dean could move into the Gulf of Mexico,which produces roughly 25 percent of the US' oil and 15 percent of its natural gas. Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it would evacuate 275 nonessential personnel from the Gulf, adding to the 188 who left earlier this week before another tropical storm struck Texas.In Mexico, government emergency officials on Yucatan made plans for dealing with the region's 60,000 domestic and foreign tourists. If Dean continued on its track toward the peninsula, which includes the resort of Cancun, State Tourism Secretary Gabriela Rodriguez said the government would advise the U.S., Canada and Europe to warn tourists to postpone visits.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8R38RSO0&show_article=1&catnum=0

As in the days of Noah...

Reopening of Oklahoma Pregnancy Center:New clinic in college town will meet emotional, physical, medical needs.

This is not your mother's pregnancy resource center.Care Net's new clinic in Norman, Okla., is on MySpace and soon will be on Facebook. Staff will meet with sororities and fraternities at nearby University of Oklahoma. Text messages with a toll-free number will be sent to students. And free ultrasounds will be offered, thanks to Focus on the Family's Option Ultrasound Program.
Dr. Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator representing Oklahoma, strongly endorsed the clinic's efforts."They make such a difference in so many women's lives-women who are hurting and feel caught and trapped," Coburn told CitizenLink."They come and support both their emotional needs and physical needs and medical needs.It's just a great service to women who feel the results of being vulnerable and have consequences to their action."There's no judgment with it. There's just love and caring. That's really the model of Christ that we're supposed to be exemplifying."Coburn, who has delivered more than 4,000 babies, will be at the clinic Tuesday for its grand reopening.
"The clinic is great," he said. "It's going to be the first clinic in Oklahoma that becomes a full clinic, does STD screening, and ultrasound, the whole works."It's tremendous, because once you see a beating heart and moving limbs and wiggling baby in a uterus, no longer is this an obscure nothing, but rather something very real and significant."Executive Director Crystal Drwenski came onboard at a low point for the ministry."What's been so exciting for me about this, this center … was on the verge of closing its doors," she said. "We have a brand-new building across the street from a hospital, in a college town."Before, we were in a fallen-down building that wasn't a blessing to anyone. In our partnership with Focus on the Family, with Option Ultrasound … we can reach this demographic."Who better to help us deliver that message than Dr. Coburn?"Drwenski said Care Net will not cede territory to Planned Parenthood anymore. She plans to meet with the fraternities and sororities at the 20,000-student university."We cannot sit around and expect girls to come to our centers because there's a free pregnancy test," she said. "We've got to have services that girls need. We've got to be more relevant in their world, in their community."You're going to see a very hip, cool brand."The 2,600-square-foot clinic is expected to open in early September.It will offer post-abortive healing retreats,
counseling, testing for sexually transmitted infections (STI), pregnancy counseling, ultrasounds, and abstinence and STI education.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit Care Net and Option Ultrasound online.
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000005241.cfm
As in the days of Noah...

Bible surplus earmarked for Europe's missionaries

Europe-Europe has followed a secular path and, in some places, apathy is slowly strangling the church to death. Recent statistics show that roughly 21% of Europeans feel that religion is "very important."The conflict between the continent's faith roots and it's current pull toward humanism and atheism has broadened to a rift. As people respond to the rift by seeking distraction, it has grown into a void that's left the door wide open for Islam.
The challenge of the field has many believers responding to the call. But once they get to Europe, they are faced with isolation, discouragement and social discrimination. Sometimes that's compounded by lack of resources.Christian Resources International's Fred Palmerton says that's why they're looking at a fall campaign for 'Operation: Bare Your Bookshelf' to help."Islam is really taking Europe by storm and we want to combat that.What we're going to be seeking are the names and addresses of missionaries who are currently serving in Europe who are in need of receiving free Bibles and Christian books in English."Participants send their excess Bibles,commentaries and other help books to CRI,who will then distribute them.Palmerton says this is a clarion call."Islam is just the rage in Europe.We have to do something in Europe.Christianity is disappearing rapidly there, and I think 'Bare Your Bookshelf' is going to lend itself nicely to that."

Source:MNN

As in the days of Noah....

Russian church:School must teach morals

MOSCOW-A Russian Orthodox Church spokesman said Wednesday that the country's schools should teach religious principles and moral values, and he accused some leading scientists of trying to impose the "ideology of science" on the education system.Father Vsevolod Chaplin was responding to a group of prominent scientists who recently protested the church's growing influence on society.Chaplin urged teachers to instruct children not to follow the examples of "homosexuals and prostitutes."
His remarks come after 10 leading academics wrote to President Vladimir Putin last month to protest the introduction of a class on Orthodox Christian culture. The group also opposed an initiative to give universities the power to award degrees in theology."The scientific viewpoint cannot be a state ideology," Chaplin told journalists at a discussion between clerics and scientists. "It never made anybody happy and failed to answer fundamental questions of human existence."The church, he said, should play a leading role in setting moral standards for youths."We have to show them an unhappy homosexual in his 40s and an aging prostitute," he said. "Otherwise, in 30 years our children will turn into animals influenced by the cult of glamour and debauchery."The Russian church has experienced a revival since the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union in 1991. It now claims more than 27,000 parishes and 700 monasteries throughout the former U.S.S.R.Government and religion are separated under Russia's post-Soviet constitution, but some Russians atheists claim that religious symbolism is as omnipresent and oppressive as atheism was during Soviet times.An outspoken Orthodox cleric at Wednesday's conference called on the government to exercise more control over religious affairs and help the church fight superstitions spread on its behalf by poorly educated priests."We are ready to put part of our life under government control," said theology professor Andrei Kuraev."The church has been living without censorship for too long."
The revival of the Orthodox church's centuries-old ties to the state, meanwhile, have prompted concern among religious minorities and scientists."Education of schoolchildren should be based on teaching scientifically proven knowledge," said Andrei Vorobyev, a leading medical researcher and one of the authors of the letter to Putin."Interference of the church in government affairs (has) always been deplorable in Russian history."Administrators at dozens of Russian schools say the class on Orthodox Christian culture will be taught in the new academic year,but attendance will be voluntary.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070808/ap_on_re_eu/russia_religion

As in the days of Noah...

PESTILENCE WATCH:Sudan vaccinates 4.9 million after neighbors report polio

KHARTOUM-Sudan has vaccinated 4.9 million children in the north after reports of polio cases in neighboring Chad triggered fear of transmission across the border, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. The U.N. children's agency (UNIECF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) funded and trained some 40,000 personnel to vaccinate children under the age of five, Edward Cawardine, a senior UNICEF official said."What's unique is it's an additional campaign that we've put together with the ministry of health because of the reports of some cases in Chad," Cawardine told Reuters, adding it was a swift three-day campaign.Sudan's Darfur region, hit by a four-year-old revolt, borders Chad. Heavy rains and floods throughout the country have also raised fears that epidemics could spread.There have not been any reported cases of polio in Sudan since 2005 but UNICEF and WHO carry out regular mass vaccination campaigns in the country, Cawardine added.Polio, which is typically spread from contact with feces, is incurable and can lead to irreversible paralysis. Death occurs in about 5-10 percent of paralyzed patients when their breathing muscles are immobilized.The flooding, which has affected some 500,000 people and killed 64, may have prevented the immunization campaign from reaching up to 20 percent of the children targeted, Cawardine said. The campaign will return to those areas when the flooding subsides, he added.Cawardine said the campaign was also unable to reach the region of Adila in South Darfur due to heavy fighting.The WHO says its Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988, has reduced the number of polio cases worldwide from 350,000 in 125 endemic countries in 1951 to 337 reported cases so far in 2007.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070808/hl_nm/sudan_polio_dc

As in the days of Noah...

PERSECUTION WATCH:Pakistani Jail Officials Beat Christian,Halt Bible Classes...

Pakistani officials have stopped all Bible classes for Christian prisoners in a Punjab jail, isolating an inmate who taught the classes and barring a local pastor from his weekly visits. Compass Direct News reports, "Protestant Pastor Munir Phool has been refused entry to Kasur city's district jail for his weekly visits since June 25, when Catholic prisoner Dil Awaiz was put in a high-security cell and tortured. Awaiz told Phool that Muslim inmates became angry when a Christian prisoner drank from one of their water glasses. The authorities retaliated by forcing the Christian prisoner to drink out of a glass used for cleaning toilets.Later, the authorities had Awaiz beaten and thrown in a high-security cell and deprived contact with other Christian prisoners."

Source:VOM

As in the days of Noah...

GOOD NEWS:Teen Makes Money Just to Give It Away

Henderson -Shannon Hatchel spends her summer the same way many 17-year-olds do-working.But that’s where the similarity stops.Shannon works at CVS in Henderson and brings home a good chunk of change.The difference is, she donates most of it to charity.“I just think people that don’t have it, they need it,” she said. “Why use it on me when people really need it, when I already have all I need?”Since October, Shannon said, she has donated close to $2,000 to various charities. She learned the importance of giving back from her uncle, she said. He died of lung cancer last October. “He was always going out of his way to help somebody out who had a need,” said John Hatchel, Shannon’s father. Shannon now carries that legacy.“As long as I have money, whoever asks, I will donate,” she said. Shannon's most recent donation was to Jesica's Hope Chest, a non-profit that raises funds for critically ill children. And for the girl who said she doesn't deserve any type of recognition, Shannon got something back in return recently.Mack Mahoney, with Jesica’s Hope Chest, presented her with four box-seat tickets to a Carolina Mudcats game.“I’ve got grandchildren and daughters,” Mahoney said. “I raised some girls, and I know what they do with their money. And usually, it’s not giving it away to charities.”Shannon said she doesn’t give away all her money. She keeps just enough to make her car payments.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1664169/

As in the days of Noah...

PESTILENCE WATCH:Test for Mad Cow Disease will discourage potential blood donors....

THE number of blood donors in Scotland is expected to plummet when a test for the human form of mad cow disease is introduced, experts predict.Donor numbers are already at a record low, with shortages in some key blood groups. Yesterday, a report predicted that a test for vCJD could be introduced for blood donations as early as 2009 to reduce the danger of the infection spreading.But experts estimate that donor numbers could drop by 10 per cent as a result - and 20 per cent in the worst-case scenario-as people fear finding out they may develop a disease for which there is no cure.The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service yesterday set out its plans to increase donor numbers. But it admitted that without a rise in donors, the impact of the vCJD test on blood supplies could be significant, potentially affecting surgery in hospitals and delaying operations.In June, the service said it had only had three days' supply of blood in some groups.Of eight main blood groups, only two were above the six-day recommended minimum stock level.During the past two years, only 750 donations a day have been collected - the service needs 1,000.Concerns about donor shortages were raised at the annual review of National Services Scotland - the blood service's parent body - where officials were questioned by the health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon.Its report said that in 2006-7 it had almost 179,000 blood donors - a shortfall of 12,000.The service said it needed 217,000 by 2009 - an increase of 21 per cent - which it admitted was a "major challenge".Professor Ian Franklin, national medical and scientific director of the service, said an increase in the number of donors was essential to cope with an expected 10 per cent drop in people coming forward after the introduction of vCJD testing.There is currently no reliable test for the deadly brain disease, which was passed to humans in the 1980s in infected beef.But scientists are developing new methods and a test to identify those who may go on to develop vCJD could be ready by 2009.It is feared donors will be put off giving blood by the test, which could tell them they are at risk of a disease which they can do nothing to prevent or treat, and which may never develop.Prof Franklin said: "While nobody can be sure what impact a test might have, we have to plan for the fact that some donors will be lost to the service."He said few people were likely to test positive for vCJD.Prevalence of the infection is unknown. It has a long incubation period, which may vary according to an individual's genetic make-up.

To read more go to:

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1247202007

As in the days of Noah....

Global warming will step up after 2009: scientists

WASHINGTON-Global warming is forecast to set in with a vengeance after 2009, with at least half of the five following years expected to be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record, scientists reported on Thursday.Climate experts have long predicted a general warming trend over the 21st century spurred by the greenhouse effect, but this new study gets more specific about what is likely to happen in the decade that started in 2005.To make this kind of prediction, researchers at Britain's Met Office-which deals with meteorology-made a computer model that takes into account such natural phenomena as the El Nino pattern in the Pacific Ocean and other fluctuations in ocean circulation and heat content.A forecast of the next decade is particularly useful, because climate could be dominated over this period by these natural changes, rather than human-caused global warming, study author Douglas Smith said by telephone.In research published in the journal Science, Smith and his colleagues predicted that the next three or four years would show little warming despite an overall forecast that saw warming over the decade."There is...particular interest in the coming decade,which represents a key planning horizon for infrastructure upgrades, insurance, energy policy and business development," Smith and his co-authors noted.The real heat will start after 2009, they said.
Until then, the natural forces will offset the expected warming caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

To read more go to:

http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSN0837368420070809

As in the days of Noah...

QUAKES DAILY....

-ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS.
10 Aug 2007 13:31:26 UTC
Magnitude:5.0Mb
-AZORES ISLANDS REGION
10 Aug 2007 17:20:40 UTC
Magnitude:4.8Mb
-FIJI REGION
10 Aug 2007 17:31:02 UTC
Magnitude:4.4Mb
-GUAM REGION
10 Aug 2007 20:11:31 UTC
Magnitude:5.2Mb
-KAMCHATKA PENINSULA, RUSSIA
8 Aug 2007 02:00:48 UTC
Magnitude:4.1Mb
-BALLENY ISLANDS REGION
8 Aug 2007 02:21:34 UTC
Magnitude:4.1Mb
-SOUTHEAST OF LOYALTY ISLANDS
8 Aug 2007 02:23:59 UTC
Magnitude:4.9Mb
-ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS.
11 Aug 2007 02:23:31 UTC
Magnitude:4.0MI
-MOLUCCA SEA
11 Aug 2007 04:05:57 UTC
Magnitude:5.4Mb
-CENTRAL ALASKA
11 Aug 2007 04:21:21 UTC
Magnitude:4.2MI
-KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
11 Aug 2007 00:26:52 UTC
Magnitude:5.0Mb
-KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA
11 Aug 2007 04:32:16 UTC
Magnitude:3.5MI
As in the days of Noah....

Does God care what He's called?

The very first news story I read yesterday morning was about a Dutch Roman Catholic bishop who is advocating that Christians rename "God" to "Allah."Bishop Martinus Petrus Maria Muskens, (also known as "Tiny") told Dutch TV: "Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will call God 'Allah'?"My mouth was still hanging open when I read the last part of his statement: "God doesn't care what we call Him."If one doesn't believe that God is real, then it really doesn't matter what name one chooses.It's like naming your 6-foot tall invisible white rabbit.You can call him "Harvey."Or you can name him"Peter Cottontail."He won't object either way-since he isn't real.But if you try to rename your friend Fred from down the street,he may not be so pleased about being called George.Because Fred is a real person,you wouldn't think about calling him George simply because somebody else likes that name better.Because God is as real as you or I,it isn't up to us to rename Him like He was a stray basset hound.God has many names;most of them are names of praise and worship,rather than names in the sense of a personal name.They include Elohim, El Shaddai, Adonai, Jehovah (YHWH), Shepherd, Judge, Father, Counselor, Comforter, Advocate, or simply "Lord" or "Almighty God."One name that has never been ascribed to Him in Scripture is "Allah."Bishop Muskens' comments found an immediate audience in America.Council on Islamic American Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper thinks it is a great idea."It reinforces the fact that Muslims,Christians and Jews all worship the same God," Hooper told FoxNews.com."I don't think the name is as important as the belief in God and following God's moral principles.I think that's true for all faiths."According to the God of the Bible, God's Name is very important to Him."Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain" (Exodus 20:7).God's unique identity as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is very important to Him, as well."And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee:Behold,I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful,and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation...But My covenant will I establish with Isaac"(Genesis 17:21).Have you ever noticed that it is Allah who is seeking to be identified with God, and not the other way around? There is no effort among Christians and Jews to declare God another name for Allah (with the exception of Bishop Muskens.)Being worshiped as God is Satan's No. 1 objective to the exclusion of all else.Everything Scripture reveals about Satan exposes his agenda.He tempted Jesus in the wilderness, demanding that Jesus bow down and worship him. Paul says he will sit "as God, in the Temple of God" during the Tribulation. John says he will demand worship as a condition of participating in his economic/religious system.Notice this very important spiritual clue: It isn't God that wants to be worshiped as Allah, but Allah who wants to be worshiped as God.It is both a distinction and a difference.Christians and Jews worship a Living God.As a living entity, God cannot be "reinvented" to suit somebody else, since He already is Who He is.The Scriptures were given us to reveal God for Who He is, rather than some impersonal, nameless spiritual entity "up there" somewhere.The doctrine of Satan is that all religions are equally valid, that all paths lead to God, that God is impersonal, unknowable, and it is therefore irrelevant to Him what we call Him or how we worship Him.If Allah and God are one and the same, then wouldn't the worship of the Hindu chief gods,Vishnu and Shiva, also be the worship Allah and God, only by a different name? Pretty soon,everybody is God.Which is the same as saying that nobody is.

By Hal Lindsey

http://www.hallindsey.com/

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/

As in the days of Noah...

US Envoy to Prepare for Rice Visit to Libya

A senior State Department envoy will visit Libya next week to lay groundwork for a visit to the North African country by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A Rice visit would highlight the dramatic improvement in relations that began when Libya renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2003. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.State Department officials say Rice has decided in principle to make the ground-breaking Libyan visit, and that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch will discuss specific plans for the trip when he goes to Tripoli next week.U.S.-Libyan relations went into a tailspin after Muammar Gadhafi took power in 1969 and they were formally severed in 1980 amid charges the Gadhafi government was supporting terrorism.The recovery began in 2003 when Libya,after secret talks with the US and Britain,announced it was abandoning weapons of mass destruction programs.It also accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a U.S. Pan Am jumbo jet over Scotland that killed nearly 300 people,and agreed to pay nearly $3 billion to families of the victims. Bilateral relations were fully normalized more than a year ago, though some problem issues relating to Pan Am compensation and other matters remain.A senior U.S. diplomat who spoke to reporters here said Libya's release last month of six Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian docto-held for eight years on disputed charges of infecting Libyan children with the HIV/AIDS virus-"changed the atmosphere" of international dealings with Tripoli, and influenced Rice's decision to visit.

To read more go to:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-08-16-voa54.cfm

As in the days of Noah...

RUMOURS of WARS:U.S. actions against Iran raise war risk, many fear

WASHINGTON-As President Bush escalates the US' confrontation with Iran across a broad front, U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East are growing worried that the steps will achieve little, but will undercut diplomacy and increase the chances of war. In the latest step, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are considering designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , the elite military force that serves as the guardian of Iran's Islamic state, as a foreign terrorist organization.News of the decision was leaked to newspapers in what a senior State Department official and Washington -based diplomats said was a sign of an intensifying internal struggle within the U.S. government between proponents of military action and opponents, led by Rice.State Department officials and foreign diplomats see Rice's push for the declaration against the Revolutionary Guards as an effort to blunt arguments by Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies for air strikes on Iran . By making the declaration, they feel, Rice can strike out at a key Iranian institution without resorting to military action while still pushing for sanctions in the UN.Partisans of military force argue that Rice's strategy has failed to change Tehran's behavior."It really does seem this is more tied to the internal debate that is going on in the administration on Iran,rather than a serious attempt to influence Iranian behavior," said an Arab diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity."How that debate will play out is what's concerning" Arab and European countries, he said.Designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group "is the State Department trying to do something short of war," said former U.S. diplomat Charles Dunbar,a professor of international relations at Boston University."What else can we do?" said Dunbar, who worked for the State Department in Tehran from 1963 to 1967.The Revolutionary Guard would be the first military unit of a sovereign government ever placed on the department's list of terrorist organizations. The move would allow the Treasury Department to go after the group's finances and those of its reputed business network inside and outside Iran.The Bush administration has been engaging Iran in a increasingly strident war of words since the spring, when the Bush administration demanded tougher U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear energy program.The White House says that Bush remains committed to diplomatic and financial actions to persuade Iran to stop enriching nuclear fuel, which the U.S. says can be made into a bomb but that Iran insists is intended only for electricity generation.Recently, the administration has stepped up the rhetoric, accusing Iran of providing Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq with particularly deadly roadside bombs that have killed dozens of U.S. service members.
To read more go to:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20070817bcusiran_attn_national_foreign_editors_ytop
As in the days of Noah...

JESUS IMAGES POPPING EVERYWHERE...!!!!

Jesus's images are popping everywhere:in trees,fridges,candles,cement floors,morning toasts and now on a cabinet!!!!

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=ea50519a-0b2e-46a1-9839-57e1197b40d0&f=00&fg=email

It's so sad that people actually believe that these are some sort of especial miracle!!!

People will believe whatever they choose to believe.The Bible warns us that satan "transforms" himself into an angel of light...(2Cor.11:14)!!!

As in the days of Noah....

KNOWLEDGE SHALL INCREASE:Weizmann Research May Alow Memories to be Erased,Strengthened

A new study at Israel’s Weizmann Institute reveals the mechanism by which the brain stores memories, and may have found a way to erase unwanted memories as well.Prof. Yadin Dudai, Head of the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department, and his colleagues are challenging the prevalent view that memories are recorded in a static, semi-permanent manner.They recently discovered that the process of storing long-term memories is much more dynamic, involving a miniature molecular “machine” that must run constantly to keep memories going. They also found that jamming said “machine” briefly can erase long-term memories. Their findings, which appeared Thursday in the journal Science, may pave the way to future treatments for memory problems.Dudai and research student Reut Shema, together with Todd Sacktor of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, trained rats to avoid certain tastes.They then injected a drug to block a specific protein into the taste cortex – an area of the brain associated with taste memory. They hypothesized, on the basis of earlier research by Sacktor, that this protein, an enzyme called PKMzeta (protein kinas M zeta), acts as the miniature memory “machine” that keeps memory up and running.PKMzeta is located in the synapses – the functional contact points between nerve cells – and changes some facets of the structure of synaptic contacts.Since the PKMzeta must be persistently active to maintain the change in synaptic contact brought about by learning, the researchers posited that silencing PKMzeta should reverse the change in the synapse.“That is exactly what happened,” they reported. “Regardless of the taste the rats were trained to avoid, they forget their learned aversion after a single application of the drug. The technique worked as successfully a month after the memories were formed (in terms of life span, more or less analogous to years in humans) and all signs so far indicate that the affected unpleasant memories of the taste had indeed disappeared. This is the first time that memories in the brain were shown to be capable of erasure so long after their formation.”Dr. Dudai says that the experiment proves that memories are not engraved, but are constantly maintained.“This drug is a molecular version of jamming the operation of the machine,” he said. “When the machine stops, the memories stop as well. Our results show that memories require continuous activity of an enzyme, and the minute that enzyme is blocked, memory may collapse.What we do with our inhibitor resembles placing a stick in the wheels of a miniature molecular machine;when the machine stops running, the taste associations that rat has learned quickly disappear.“In other words, long-term memory is not a one-time inscription on the nerve network, but an ongoing process which the brain must continuously fuel and maintain…New items in memory do not consolidate into an amnesia-resistant form within hours or days after their encoding, as was thought so far, but remain sensitive to an amnesic agents long time after learning…These findings raise the possibility of developing future, drug-based approaches for boosting and stabilizing memory.”The researchers say that the future applications of the technology may also be able to help erase memories associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

As in the days of Noah...

UK reviews Zim evacuation plans

London-Military officials are reviewing evacuation plans for up to 22 000 British nationals in former colony Zimbabwe,The Times reported in its Friday paper.A spokesperson for the defence ministry declined to comment on the validity of the report, saying: "As you would expect, the MOD constantly reviews contingency plans for troublespots around the world where Britons are living."
According to the newspaper, which cited unnamed diplomatic sources, the review was focused on a "civil contingency plan" which would rely on help from neighbouring countries.The Times said that under current plans, Britons in Zimbabwe would be instructed to leave the country into South Africa and meet at a military base there.At that point, they would either be airlifted to Britain by defence aircraft, or chartered commercial planes."At the last count, there were between 17 500 and 22 000 British nationals still living in Zimbabwe," an unidentified official told the daily."If there was an evacuation they would be entitled to bring their families and dependents with them, which is what happened when we evacuated British passport holders from Lebanon last year."Britain evacuated thousands of nationals from Lebanon last summer in the midst of Israeli bombing of the country.Britain has been accused of seeking regime change by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.Mugabe has blamed sanctions for his country's economic downspiral characterised by inflation exceeding 5 000%, 80% unemployment and a critical shortage of food, fuel and other basic commodities.
But critics say the problems started with his controversial land reforms in 2000, which saw the government seize at least 4 000 farms from white commercial farmers for reallocation to landless blacks and state cronies.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2166460,00.html

As in the days of Noah...

ENVIRO CRAZE WATCH:Protesters glued to building

London - A group of environmental activists protesting the airline industry's effect on the world's climate glued themselves to the door of a government building on Friday.Police said about six people glued their hands to the door of the Department for Transport in central London, while several more chained themselves to doors and two climbed onto a roof.Ten people were arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass or criminal damage, the Metropolitan Police said.Hundreds of activists are holding a weeklong "climate camp" at London's Heathrow Airport to oppose a proposed new runway and highlight what scientists say is air travel's damage to the environment.The protests are due to culminate on Sunday in a day of unspecified "direct action".On Thursday, small groups of protesters tried to block access to two airports near London used by private planes. Police also arrested 10 people at that protest on suspicion of aggravated trespass.A fifth terminal is scheduled to open at Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, in March 2008, and the government has proposed a new runway there for about 2020.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2166628,00.html

As in the days of Noah...

SADC announces new peace force

Lusaka-Southern African leaders meeting in the Zambian capital on Friday announced the creation of a rapid intervention force to boost peacekeeping efforts in the region.The Southern African Development Community (SADC) force, which had been in the pipeline for several years, would be integrated into the African Union's Standby Force.Later on Friday, President Thabo Mbeki was due to report to the summit on his efforts to broker a stalemate between Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.The 14-member regional bloc was under renewed pressure to find a solution to Zimbabwe's woes, characterised by an inflation rate exceeding 5 000%, 80 unemployment and widespread poverty.The situation had caused thousands of Zimbabweans to flee daily to neighbouring countries.At the opening of the two-day summit on Thursday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was given a rousing hero's welcome, despite the economic and political crises facing his country.SADC leaders were more critical of Angolan President Eduardo Dos Santos, demanding that democratic elections be held in his country, the only one in the region not to have staged a democratic poll since gaining independence in 1975.Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa assumed the chairmanship of the bloc on Friday.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2166585,00.html

As in the days of Noah...

Minor earthquake rattles LA

Los Angeles - A small earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Moment Magnitude scale rattled parts of Los Angeles on Thursday but there were no reports of damage or injuries, officials said.
The United States Geological Survey said the quake struck at 12:23 about seven kilometres north of Chatsworth, in the northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles.The quake came one week after a stronger tremor in the same region shook Los Angeles, triggering alarms and waking up residents but not causing any damage.Scientists believe there is a chance California will suffer a major earthquake due to movement in the nearby San Andreas fault, which runs close by the city of Los Angeles.Experts say the fault line causes a massive quake every 150 years. The last such disaster struck San Francisco in 1906. A 6.7 magnitude quake in Northridge, near Chatsworth, killed about 60 people in 1994.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2166649,00.html

PS:California is long time overdue for a major earthquake.We've seen what happened in Peru yesterday...I'll post later the daily quakes we've had....The plates are still moving and there's a lot of accumulated stress in them.There are warnings of volcanoes going off in the Pacific"ring of Fire"even indonesia and Japan shook today...We've got to watch out and be prayerful.

The Bible said all these things would be just the "BEGINNING OF SORROWS"...

As in the days of Noah...

Dean strengthens to Category 4 hurricane, heads to Gulf of Mexico

Dean strengthened yet again Friday, becoming a Category 4 hurricane with dangerous 135-mph winds as it pounded Caribbean islands and headed toward the Gulf of Mexico.It's on track to brush southern Hispaniola on Saturday and bear down on Jamaica on Sunday, forecasters said.
By Monday morning, as Dean nears the Yucatan, its maximum sustained winds are forecast to reach 150 mph, CNN Meteorologist Bonnie Schneider reported.That's just under the 155-mph threshold that would make it a Category 5, the most intense category on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity used by meteorologists.It was too soon to tell whether Dean would strike Texas, but Gov. Rick Perry declared the storm an imminent threat to the state.He's begun activating personnel and resources to prepare for a possible hit, including 250 state Parks and Wildlife Department crews with boats. Meanwhile, the state Department of Transportation began planning for possible evacuations.At 8 p.m. ET Friday, Dean's center was about 255 miles south-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, moving west at about 19 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.Earlier, Dean pounded the islands of Dominica, St. Lucia and Martinique. The hurricane has claimed at least three lives so far, including a 7-year-old boy and his mother on Dominica who were crushed in their home when rains from the storm caused a landslide, The Associated Press reported.Another storm system, remnants of Tropical Storm Erin,triggered widespread flooding in Texas that contributed to at least seven deaths, according to local news reports.Dean crossed the 111-mph Category 3 threshold Friday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.Dangerous winds ripped a corrugated metal roof off a pediatric ward at Victoria Hospital in St. Lucia's capital, Castries, AP reported.No injuries were reported, AP said, and patients had been evacuated.Flooding and wind-swept debris have turned St. Lucia into "a total mess,"state radio reported,according to AP.Storm surges shoved sea-wall boulders onto roads, AP reported, and a boat was seen sitting on a road after forces of nature carried it from the sea.Dean is forecast to dump up to 2 inches of rain on Puerto Rico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with isolated amounts of up to 5 inches. Forecasters posted tropical storm warnings for the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico the islands of Montserrat, Antigua, Nevis, St. Kitts, Barbuda, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.A tropical storm warning was also issued Friday morning for the south coast of the island of Hispaniola, from from Cabo Engano, Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.A tropical storm warning means that tropical storm conditions, including winds of at least 39 mph, are expected within 24 hours.A hurricane watch was issued from Cabo Beata, Dominican Republic, to Port-au-Prince.Josephine Marcelus of Morne Rouge, Martinique, described the storm to The AP as it slammed the island."We don't have a roof...everything is exposed.We tried to save what we could,"she said."We sealed ourselves in one room, praying that the hurricane stops blowing over Martinique."Forecasters said the storm could dump as much as 10 inches of rain in some mountainous areas,which could trigger flash floods and mudslides.Storm surge flooding as high as 4 feet was also forecast,with battering waves.

To read more go to:

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/08/17/storms/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

As in the days of Noah...

Ex-hostages arrive in South Korea

SEOUL,South Korea-A pair of South Koreans,held hostage for nearly a month by the Taliban in Afghanistan, returned home Friday, arriving in Seoul in the early afternoon.The two women,Kim Kyung-ja and Kim Ji-na,appeared briefly before reporters, looking subdued and tentative."I am sorry for causing such concern and I am thankful for being released,"Kim Kyung-ja said."My greatest concern is for the safe release of our remaining group," said Kim Ji-na.The women were then taken by ambulance to a military hospital in the outskirts of Seoul for a medical examination and psychiatric counseling.The South Korean Foreign Ministry said the women would remain under government care so as not to adversely affect the ongoing talks for the release of the remaining hostages.They were released from Taliban custody on Monday and left the country Thursday, according to the South Korean Foreign Minister's office.Twenty-three Koreans,church volunteers,were kidnapped on July 19 when they were traveling on a bus from Kabul to Kandahar.The Taliban killed two male hostages and have long said they would kill others unless their demands were met. But the two women, said to be ill, were released in a "gesture of goodwill."Nineteen other hostages,14 women and five men,are still being held.
Taliban and South Korean officials held talks on Thursday over their fate, a Red Cross official told CNN.Carla Haddad, a media-relations officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross,confirmed to CNN that the talks took place in the office of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Ghazni province.Last week, negotiators touched on demands for prisoner swaps. Another demand is the pullout of Korean troops from Afghanistan.Yonhap News Agency in South Korea quoted a tribal elder as saying the Taliban and the South Koreans have been in contact by telephone in the last five days.NATO troops, U.S.-led coalition forces, and Afghan security forces have been battling Taliban militants in Afghanistan, particularly in the east and the south of the country. The group, which harbored the al Qaeda terror network when it ran the country's government before the U.S. invasion in 2001, has been making a comeback.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/17/taliban.hostages/index.html


As in the days of Noah...

Typhoon Sepat tears into Taiwan

TAIPEI,Taiwan-A super-strength typhoon that brought flooding to parts of the Philippines tore into Taiwan on Friday, forcing the cancellation of flights and sending coastal residents rushing to secure their homes.Waves swelled, winds picked up and rain battered the north of the island as Typhoon Sepat made landfall, a disaster-relief official and local media said. Two counties ordered class and work stoppages effective Friday afternoon, TV stations reported.
"There's already a huge wind, and waves hitting the coast pose a danger," said Fei Yu, a resident of coastal Taitung County."Most people living here are making preparations at home to ride out the storm."
In the southern city of Kaohsiung, 16 domestic flights and one international flight were canceled. All flights from Taipei's domestic airport were due to stop in the evening. The Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, near Taipei, also canceled southbound flights to avoid the storm.Sepat will probably smack into the cities of Kaohsiung and Taichung, both with populations of more than 1 million, early on Saturday and then pummel the Chinese coast, according to Tropical Storm Risk.The eye of the category 5 typhoon was 320 km (200 miles) off the coast of Taiwan as of 0500 GMT, packing sustained winds of 184 kph (114 mph) and gusts up to 227 kph (141 mph).China's southeastern province of Fujian was bracing for the typhoon to make landfall on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, the official Xinhua news agency said.Typhoons draw strength from warm waters of the South Pacific and South China Sea, regularly targeting the Philippines, Japan, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong over the summer, sometimes with catastrophic effect.Rains exacerbated by Typhoon Sepat continued to soak Manila and surrounding provinces on Friday after the cyclone brought the Philippine capital to a near standstill two days earlier with major roads near Manila under water up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep in places.Schools remained shut in the capital and the north of the country, while the government suspended work in public offices from 1 p.m. (0500 GMT) to let employees get home before flooding made roads impassable.Some areas of the city were already submerged in waist-deep waters. Power failed in parts of the capital due to the strong winds and rains. In neighboring Rizal province, authorities urged residents in landslide-prone areas to evacuate their homes.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/17/taiwan.typhoon.reut/index.html

As in the days of Noah...

India proposes collaborating with Israel on a new unmanned combat helicopter to counter Chinese C-802 missile

Israel’s outgoing Navy commander Maj. Gen. Dan Bashat discussed the project during his talks with his opposite number Adm. Sureesh Mehta in India last week, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Adm. Mehta estimated that the Indian Navy could use 40-50 helicopters of this kind.Although Indian-Israeli defense relations have been expanding for the past eight years, this was the first visit to New Delhi by an Israeli Navy commander. The helicopter project would be a revolutionary step for the Indian and Israelis Navies, providing them both with their first independent air arms.This capability was sorely wanting in the 2006 Lebanon War, when the Israeli missile vessel Hanit was hit and crippled by a C-802 shore-to-sea missile opposite Beirut. This incident brought home to the navies or Israel and other nations that their advanced air defense systems against missiles, such as the Israeli Barak, were not proof against the C-802 missiles acquired by Iran, Syria and Hizballah and their exceptional features.The C-802, designed in China, has a range of 8 km and its ability to gain altitude on its way to target turns it into a kind of cruise missile which can fly out of range of the vessel’s electronic defenses. This shore-to-ship weapon is also armed with superior navigation, guidance and jamming capabilities. Since the Hanit was hit, on July 14, 2006, Israeli warships have kept their distance from the Lebanese shore. This seriously detracts from their ability to monitor the Lebanese and Syrian coasts for hostile weaponry.In a war, Israeli would be stuck with the sole options of intelligence for detecting Syrian and Hizballah missile batteries, and chancy, dangerous and expensive air strikes to destroy them. Attacking Israeli bombers would have to come in low to hit anti-ship missile batteries deployed on the Lebanese waterline and be exposed to fire from their protective array of anti-aircraft missiles.This imbalance could be radically altered by providing the warships with a capability for launching against enemy shores unmanned helicopters which would be equipped with electronic instruments to detect the presence of hostile anti-ship missiles and the weapons to destroy them.Indian and Israeli warships face the same threat since Pakistan acquired C-802 shore-to-sea missiles from China. Both have therefore opted for the same antidote, a sophisticated unmanned combat helicopter.On May 11, 2006, DEBKAfile’s military sources disclosed exclusively that Syria had recently supplied Hizballah with large numbers of C-802s. Since then they have been deployed with new mobile radar stations along the Lebanese coast as far south as Tyre, from which Israeli warships in Israeli territorial waters are in range opposite the seaside towns of Nahariya and Acre. A year ago, Hizballah had to commandeer Lebanese Navy coastal radar stations to fire the C-802. Equipped now with mobile radar systems, the Shiite terror group can operate the missile independently.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4489

As in the days of Noah...

India’s leading imam heads a delegation of prominent Muslim leaders on first visit to Israel.Their peace mission stirs protest at home

Maulana Jameel Ahmed Ilyasi is the President of the All India Organization of Imams of Mosques, who supervises over 250,00 imams serving an estimated 200 million Indian Muslims.The visitors arrived Wednesday for a six-day visit to meet the two chief rabbis, President Shimon Peres and foreign minister Tzipi Livni.Urging the Indian tradition of solving issues through dialogue, Maulan Ilyasi said:“Interaction with both Palestinian and Jewish sisters and brothers and their religious leadership will lay a solid foundation for future engagement.”He delayed his arrival in Israel to Saturday to face Muslim demonstrations against the visit at Friday prayers.The visit is sponsored by the Project Interchange Institute of the American Jewish Committee and the Australian-Israeli Council.Its other members are Dr. Khwaja Iftikhar Ahmed, Founder President of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Shoora national consultative body of Indian Muslims, and inter Faith Harmony Foundation of India; Shri Aziz Burney, editor of the Urdu Daily Rashtriya Sahara and Indian government minister of state; Sheikh Manzour Ahmed, a former Jammu and Kashmir politician and ex-national vice president of the national Janata party; and Professor Siddiq Wahid, Vice Chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology of Jammu and Kashmir.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4501

As in the days of Noah...

TERROR WATCH:Al Qaeda Dislocates US Security Plan by Genocidal Massacre

This time, Al Qaeda in Iraq selected a tiny, isolated, unprotected community of some 150,000 Yazidi Kurds, persecuted by Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike, as the victims of its barbarity.Tuesday, Aug. 14, within minutes, three oil tankers driven by suicide bombers had murdered at least 500 people, injured more than 1,000 and transformed an ancient indigenous Iraqi sect into a humanitarian problem.
While rescuers were still digging bodies out of the rubble of their destroyed homes in Qataniya and Adnaniya near Mosul, tens of thousands snatched their remaining belongings and streamed to the Syrian border.
Exchanges among al Qaeda’s adherents in Iraq 4, picked up by DEBKAfile’s special monitors, disclosed method behind the savagery. The jihadists had made an example of the Yazidis of Mt. Sinjar, holding them up as the first complete community they had succeeded in driving out of Iraq. They even urged harassing the refugees to speed the removal of every last Yazidi Kurd from Iraq.Al Qaeda timed its brutal attack for maximum disruption of the latest American operations in the framework of the US-Iraqi overall Phantom Strike offensive to secure Iraq against insurgents and terrorists.Lightning Hammer brought 16,000 US and Iraqi troops to the Diyala northeast of Baghdad province Aug. 14 to purge the area between Baquba and Balad and open up the main routes linking Baghdad to Kurdistan in the north for safe travel.Marne Husky was launched the next day by 4,000 troops as an aviation-based offensive. Infantry drops by helicopter are targeting Sunni insurgents and terrorist sanctuaries in southeastern Baghdad and choking off bombs and weapons smuggling into the capital.To defeat the US-led security campaign, al Qaeda appears to have opted for meting out death and destruction among large groups of civilians, aimed at forcing them out of their homes and causing hundreds of thousands of displaced people to wander hither and thither in search of safety, strangling communications and generating mayhem across the country.Blocked roads are intended to snarl the US offensives and compel the troops to turn to the immediate task of locating the deadly fuel trucks hurtling down the highways before they explode and inflict carnage.DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that al Qaeda employed two revealing methods of operation this week:
1. Singled out as a soft targeted for the suicide bombers at the wheels of oil trucks was an isolated sect living in a remote community, which was easily accessible and unprotected by American or Iraqi forces or local security resources. The Yazidis live in communities of 5,000 to 20,000 which are clearly defined by religion and ethnic, tribal and clan kinship.
2. It looks as though Qaeda is bent on reusing its method of attack against the Yazidis for additional sections of the population – in particular the highly inflammable oil trucks driven by suicide bombers.
Intelligence source estimate that each the trucks operating against the Yazidi villages was packed with between 250 and 300 tons of explosives. Two reached their targets and blew up, while the third is believed to have exploded prematurely on the way. The force of the third blast was such that dozens of cars and buildings by the wayside were shattered and sent up flames visible to witnesses 2 kilometers away.The war in Iraq is thus raging on two planes.On one, coalition and Iraqi forces are launching offensive after offensive to scotch the al Qaeda-Sunni insurgent threat to Iraq’s security; on the second, al Qaeda is seeking to drive masses of terrified civilians out of their homes in chaotic flight.If they are allowed to persist in this tactic, the report the US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and US ambassador Ryan Crocker are preparing to submit to Congress on Sept 10 will have to be limited to American military successes up until Tuesday, Aug. 14. The security crisis in Iraq thereafter turned a fresh deadly page.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1297

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