Sunday, October 30, 2005

My Way News - U.N. Council Divided Over Syria Resolution
AP reports, "The United States, France and Britain remained at odds with Russia and China Sunday on a tough U.N. resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with a probe into the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister or face possible sanctions." [Damascus & Rumors of War, Isaiah 17:1 & Matthew 24:6]
My Way News - Israelis, Palestinians to Cease Fighting
AP reports, "Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to halt nearly a week of fighting after militant groups pledged to halt rocket fire on southern Israeli towns, Palestinian officials said Sunday."

Saturday, October 29, 2005

My Way News - Three School Girls Beheaded in Indonesia
AP reports, "Unidentified assailants attacked a group of high school girls on Saturday in Indonesia's tense province of Central Sulawesi, beheading three and seriously wounding another, police said. The students from a private Christian high school were ambushed while walking...to class...the heads of three victims were found several miles from their bodies. Two were left near a police station and another in front of a newly built Christian church." [Persecution, Matthew 24:8]

Friday, October 28, 2005

Yahoo News - Iran Leader Reiterates Anti-Israel Stance
AP reports, "Iran's ultraconservative president — spurning international outrage over his remarks about Israel — joined more than a million demonstrators who flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities Friday to back his call for the destruction of the Jewish state." [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6; Persia, Ezekiel 38:5]"

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Miami Herald - 'Left Behind' screened in 3,200 churches
The latest installment in the film version of the blockbuster Left Behind book series is being screened in churches and will soon be available to consumers. Don't be left behind, see it today.
Yahoo News - Israel Wants Iran Expelled From U.N.
AP reports, "Israel's vice prime minister said Iran should be expelled from the United Nations after its new president said Israel should be "wiped off the map," and Britain summoned an Iranian diplomat Thursday to protest the remarks."

Yahoo News - Arab States Mum on Iran's Israel Remarks
AP reports, "Arab governments remained silent Thursday as international condemnation grew over a call by Iran's new president for Israel to be destroyed." :: I guess they are not so keen on the two-state solution after all. [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6; Persia, Ezekiel 38:5]

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Yahoo News - New Passports Will Have High-Tech Features
AP reports, "The State Department said Tuesday that it's adding two security features to the new electronic passports that it will start issuing in December...all new U.S. passports issued by the end of this year are supposed to have a microchip containing the holders' name, nationality, sex, birth date, place of birth, issuing office and a biometric identifier — a digital photograph." :: Ok, so this is not the MOTB (Rev 13:16-18), but mandatory identification is definitely something to keep an eye on.
Yahoo News - Blast Kills 5 Israelis, Erodes Peace Hopes
AP reports, "A 20-year-old Palestinian blacksmith blew himself up at a falafel stand in an open-air market Wednesday, killing five Israelis and wounding more than 30 in the deadliest attack in the country in more than three months." [Battle for Jerusalem, Ezekiel 38:8; Zechariah 12; Zechariah 14; Luke 21:2]
Space War - Iranian's 'Wipe Israel Off Map' Words Prompt Sharp World Response
AFP reports, "Widespread condemnation greeted remarks Wednesday by Iran's president that Israel should be wiped of the map, with Jerusalem seeing Teheran as a "clear and present danger" and Washington renewing concern about the Islamic Republic's nuclear aims." [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6; Persia, Ezekiel 38:5]
Remote Control Works on Humans

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/business/article.adp?id=20051025163809990030&ncid=NWS00010000000001

By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP

ATSUGI, Japan (Oct. 26) - We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots.

But manipulating humans?

Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was.

Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal'' weapons.

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head - either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved...

...Timothy Hullar, assistant professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., believes finding the right way to deliver an electromagnetic field to the ear at a distance could turn the technology into a weapon for situations where "killing isn't the best solution.''

"This would be the most logical situation for a nonlethal weapon that presumably would make your opponent dizzy,'' he said via e-mail. "If you find just the right frequency, energy, duration of application, you would hope to find something that doesn't permanently injure someone but would allow you to make someone temporarily off-balance.''

Indeed, a small defense contractor in Texas, Invocon Inc., is exploring whether precisely tuned electromagnetic pulses could be safely fired into people's ears to temporarily subdue them...

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Yahoo News - Egypt Police Guard Churches After Riots
"Thousands of police manned barricades around Christian churches in Egypt's second largest city Saturday, a day after Muslim rioters attacked churches and shops, leaving four people dead in the country's worst religious violence in five years." [Believers Persecuted, Matthew 24:8]

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Yahoo News - Bush Confident of Arab-Israeli Peace
According to this AP report, President Bush has conceded that a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement may not take place on his watch, but he will keep working toward that goal. [Covenant With Many, Daniel 9:27]

Friday, October 21, 2005

My Way News -
Bush Calls for U.N. Action Against Syria

"President Bush on Friday said the U.N. should deal quickly and seriously with a report implicating Syria in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, a killing that led to protests and withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after nearly 30 years as overlord...In Damascus, Syrian leaders dismissed the findings, and the government of President Bashar Assad prepared to fight growing Western sentiment to punish it with economic sanctions." [Damascus & Rumors of War, Isaiah 17:1 & Matthew 24:6]

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Yahoo News - Starbucks stirs things up with a God quote on cups
This USA Today report reveals the many surprising ways that Christian owned and operated businesses are adding a Bible based message with their products. Praise the Lord and pass the latte! [Gospel Preached to all Nations, Matthew 24:14]

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Yahoo News - 'God Bloggers' Head to National Conference
Christians are finding news ways to share the Good News: blogging. Yes, using blogs (just like this one) Christians have found yet another tool to present the message of salvation. This AP news report talks about the first national conference for "God bloggers" being held now at Biola University. More information on the conference can be found on the official "GodBlogCon 2005" website. [Gospel Preached to All Nations, Matthew 24:14]
Haaretz - Israel News - The Bible - a foreign language:
"The Bible - a foreign language

By Avirama GolanWhat a humiliating ping-pong High School Bible studies have undergone. First they were reduced, then they were turned into an optional subject, and this week, after protests erupted from all those appalled by the prospective disengagement between Jewish students and their culture's founding text, they were restored to the mandatory curriculum. Just as has happened with literature and other humanities...

...Now, in their time of crisis, the settlers are moving closer to ultra-Orthodoxy and abandoning the entire Israeli canon. The Bible, along with Natan Alterman, are giving way to the Talmud, and "faith-based" Hebrew is replacing the rich, multilayered Biblical tongue."
Las Vegas SUN: Vatican Moves to Oversee Gay Priests
: "Vatican Moves to Oversee Gay Priests


By BRIAN MURPHY
ASSOCIATED PRESS

For more than four decades, the Roman Catholic Church has followed both the rules and reality concerning gay priests.
The Vatican - as far back as 1961 - has made it clear they are not wanted. But many seminaries continued to tolerate what one conservative theologian calls a 'lavender subculture' that's brought perhaps thousands of homosexual men to ordination.
Now those parallel worlds are coming under new and uncomfortable scrutiny.
The Vatican is putting the finishing touches on a document that strengthens its view that gay orientation and the priesthood are essentially incompatible. But the text - which could be released as early as next month - reportedly will not impose a blanket ban on gay priests. Instead, it may demand years of chastity before entering seminary and prohibit any public acts deemed to support the sexually active gay community.
If true, the Congregation for Catholic Education will be mostly bolstering existing Vatican positions rather than shutting the door completely on gay clerics as many liberal Catholics have feared. The question then becomes: What message is the Vatican hoping to send?"
BREITBART.COM - Just The News: "Exorcism Course Continues at Vatican
Oct 14 11:20 AM US/Eastern

ROME

A Vatican-recognized university is offering a course in exorcism and demonic possession for a second year, concerned about the devil's lure _ particularly among young Italians. Standing in solemn prayer, around 120 priests, lay people and theology students began the course that is intended to clear up misconceptions and understand what makes people turn to the occult. The opening class of the 'Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation' on Thursday at the Pontifical Academy Regina Apostolorum featured lectures about liturgical and spiritual aspects of Satanism and problems related to exorcism. 'The aim of this course is to express a clear vision of the phenomenon,' said Italian Bishop Andrea Gemma, a leading exorcist who delivered the opening lecture. 'Exorcism ... is an important prayer of the church to help those who believe to be, or who really are suffering from a diabolic infestation,' he told his audience. Lectures, which will be broadcast via video to other pontifical institutes, focus on subjects that range from theological and historical aspects of Satanism to legal and medical issues. The course is being offered for the second year, after an introductory session was held on February. Pope Benedict XVI welcomed a large group of Italian exorcists who visited the Vatican on Sept. 14 and encouraged them to carry on in their work 'in the service of the church.' Exorcism, the Roman Catholic rite in which demons are expelled from 'possessed' persons, is usually administered by priests with the permission of a bishop. 'Devil's action is much more common than people may think,' Gemma said, adding that he performs at least four exorcisms a week. He also said that youngsters were particularly at risk. A former papal aide, the late Cardinal Jacques Martin, wrote in his memoirs that Pope John Paul II performed the exorcism rite in 1982, on an Italian woman who was screaming and writhing. When the first course opened in February, Italy was gripped by a gruesome case in which members of a Satanic sect being investigated in the deaths of three people. Two people were later convicted in the murders, which occurred in woods near Milan. In recent years, police have discovered sites in the Castelli hill towns outside Rome where they say Satanic cult followers hold black Masses. The Rev. Gabriele Nanni, an exorcist and lecturer of the course, told The Associated Press that there are four widely accepted signs of possession, such as 'speaking in unknown languages, showing a disproportionate physical strength beyond one's natural capacity, the repulsion to sacred things such as crucifix and prayers and knowledge of events that have happened far away, in terms of times and places.' Some of the signs were depicted in the 1973 movie, 'The Exorcist.' Students received a paper detailing a 10-point guide to recognize and prevent interest in the occult. It included a suggestion to parents to monitor whether their children were wearing strange pendants or T- shirts, if they listen to loud music on their home stereos, or watch too many horror movies. "
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/12/rfid_protest

Texans battle RFID-driven black helicopters

Anti-RFID protestors will on Saturday descend on a Dallas Wal-Mart to protest against the company's use of RFID chips and alleged corporate plans to use the technology to secretly track consumers.

Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN) reckons that, contrary to business claims that RFID is simply a way of improving stock control and warehousing procedures, 'companies like Procter & Gamble, BellSouth, NCR, Phillips, Intel, Accenture, Texas Instruments, and IBM have blueprinted ways to track consumers and their purchases through 'spychips' in everyday objects slated for the shelves of retailers like Wal-Mart'."

Good Lord. That, at least, is according to CASPIAN founder and director Katherine Albrecht, whose snappily-titled book, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, issues dire warnings over potential abuses of RFID.

Albrecht explains: "This technology poses serious risks to privacy and civil liberties. We have evidence that major corporations have developed ways to register products to individuals and secretly track them after purchase. Businesses have dismissed consumer concerns by characterizing RFID as an 'improved bar code,' but RFID is far more dangerous.

"These RFID spychips can be read silently from a distance, right through your clothes, wallet, backpack or purse by anyone with the right reader device. Already these companies have developed ways to use RFID tags embedded in credit cards and sewn into clothing to identify and track people."
My Way News - Tests Confirm Deadly Bird Flu in Romania
"Tests have confirmed a link between the bird flu found in Romania and the deadly virus that has devastated flocks in Asia and turned up in Turkey, the European Commission said Saturday." :: I think it's important to stress that no one has died from bird flu in Romania, they are just following the progress of the outbreak in birds. [Pestilence, Luke 21:11]

Thursday, October 13, 2005

SpaceWar - China's Space Ambitions Potential Threat To US: Analysts
AFP reports, "With China on the eve of launching its second manned spaceflight, Washington sees Beijing's space ambitions as an emerging security concern, with the potential for the Asian giant to boost its military capabilities and eventually challenge US dominance in space." [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6]
My Way News - Team Searches Turkish Village for Poultry
"A team in white, full-body protective suits scoured a village in western Turkey Thursday for any poultry farmers might be hiding or that could have escaped destruction after the European Union confirmed a virulent strain of bird flu had been detected in the region." [Pestilence, Luke 21:11]
Reuters - World may have to live with nuclear Iran -US study
Iran plays a pivotal role in the final end times and I think we can say, based on Ezekiel 38:5, that Iran's military might will not be challenged until that country attacks Israel. It is not surprising then to find the crisis over Iran's nuclear program suddenly cooling and the U.S. and the E.U. seeking some way of living with a nuclear Iran.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

My Way News - Israel Forces Capture Hamas Operative

"Israeli forces disguised as vegetable vendors captured a senior Hamas operative who had been on the run for eight years, while others caught a 14-year-old boy whom militants tried to push into becoming a suicide bomber, the army said Wednesday."
My Way News - Aftershock Hits Pakistan As Aid Pours In
"As rescue efforts gave way to aid relief, a strong aftershock shook Pakistan early Thursday morning, five days after an earthquake killed tens of thousands and left millions homeless. Still, miracles emerged amid the misery: A Russian team rescued a 5-year-old girl trapped for nearly 100 hours under the rubble of her family home." [Quakes, Matthing 24:7]

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

My Way News - Biometric ATMs Not Being Used in U.S.
"Scanning fingerprints or irises to verify an ATM customer's identity has yet to penetrate the U.S. banking market because of concerns about expense and privacy." :: Fingerprints are so 20th Century.[Mark, Rev 13:16-18]
My Way News - Al-Qaida No. 2: Get Set to Fill Iraq Void
"In a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader said the United States 'ran and left their agents' in Vietnam and the jihadists must have a plan ready to fill the void if the Americans suddenly leave Iraq." [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6]

Monday, October 10, 2005

WorldNetDaily: Robertson: Disasters point to 2nd Coming

Robertson cites the Great Sumatra Earthquake and Tsunami, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the Great Indo-Pakistani Earthquake of 2005 as typical of the "beginnings of birth pangs" that Jesus spoke of, as taken down by Matthew and Luke.

In this regard, the National Hurricane Center has nearly run out of names for tropical storms. Hurricane Vince was, at last report, off the coast of Portugal. And the season is not over yet. Only one name, beginning with W, remains, after which the World Meteorological Organization will have to assign Greek alphabetical letters to every storm that forms for the rest of the season.

What is also worthy of note is that Pat Robertson, in his previous 700 Club broadcasts, does not accept the notion of a seven-year period of war, famine, plague, and one-world governmental oppression. Why he has studiously ignored the detailed description in Revelation 13 concerning the Beast (actually the word Therion means Murderous, Ravening Monster, from Teras, Teratos a wondrous creature), the False (literally, Lying) Prophet, the image of the Beast, the mark, the spectacle of warfare against the saints, or the enforcement-to-death of worship of the Beast and his image, I don't know. But I would agree with him that so many disasters, coupled with a coming foretaste of the Fourth Horseman in the form of Influenza H5N1, do portend the play-out of the Famous Last Words of the Bible.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

My Way News - Gaza Border Security Agreement Nears
"Israel and the Palestinians were moving toward agreement on new security arrangements for Gaza's border with Egypt, officials from both sides said Saturday, a deal that could allow Palestinian residents of the coastal strip relatively free movement for the first time. The signs of progress came days before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas were to meet for the first time since Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip."
My Way News - Quake Kills More Than 3,000 in South Asia
"A huge earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and flattened villages of mud-brick homes Saturday, killing more than 3,000 people across a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan." [Quakes, Matthew 24:7]

Thursday, October 06, 2005

MyWay News - Containing Bird Flu Abroad Key to U.S
"The Bush administration's top health official said Thursday that 'no one in the world is ready' for a potentially catastrophic outbreak of Avian bird flu. But Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt also said that U.S. officials and their counterparts around the globe recognize that a pandemic is possible and are working hard on ways to protect people from it." [Pestilence, Luke 21:11]
My Way News - Bush: U.S. Foiled at Least 10 Terror Plots
"President Bush said Thursday the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts." [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6]
SpaceWar - Japan To Stage Mock Cyberattacks
UPI reports, "Japan will conduct nationwide exercises next year to prepare effectively for cyberattacks on computer networks." [Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6]

Saturday, October 01, 2005

My Way News - Scientists Discover 10th Planet's Moon
"The astronomers who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the solar system have another intriguing announcement: It has a moon." [Signs & Wonders in the Heavens, Luke 21:11]
My Way News - Bali Terror Bombings Kill 25, Injure 100
"Terrorists targeted the Indonesian tropical resort of Bali for the second time in three years Saturday with coordinated bombings that devastated seafood and noodle restaurants packed with foreigners, killing at least 25 people." [Wars & Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6]
My Way News - U.S. Launches Military Offensive in Iraq
"About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters, swarmed into a tiny Iraqi village near the Syrian border Saturday in a new offensive aimed at rooting out fighters from the country's most feared militant group, the military said." [Wars & Rumors of War, Matthew 24:6]