Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Wary of Attack With Smallpox, U.S. Buys Up a Costly Drug
Mar 13th, 2013
Daily NewsNew York Times
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

The United States government is buying enough of a new smallpox medicine to treat two million people in the event of a bioterrorism attack, and took delivery of the first shipment of it last week. But the purchase has set off a debate about the lucrative contract, with some experts saying the government is buying too much of the drug at too high a price.

Smallpox was eradicated by 1980, and the only known remaining virus is in government laboratories in the United States and Russia. But there have long been rumors of renegade stocks that could be sprayed in airports or sports stadiums. Experts say the virus could also be re-engineered into existence in a sophisticated genetics lab.

As part of its efforts to prepare for a possible bioterrorism attack, the government is paying more than $200 for each course of treatment.

Unpredictable, ‘Belligerent’ and Nuclear Armed, North Korea Poses Serious Threat to U.S.: Officials
Mar 13th, 2013
Daily NewsNational Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

WASHINGTON — An unpredictable North Korea, with its nuclear weapons and missile programs, stands as a serious threat to the United States and East Asia nations, the director of National Intelligence warned Tuesday in a sober assessment of worldwide threats.

Testifying before a Senate panel, James R. Clapper delivered the U.S. intelligence community’s overview of global threats posed by terrorism, cyber attacks, weapons of mass destruction, the months-long civil war in Syria and the unsettled situation in post-Arab Spring nations.

The outlook on North Korea comes as the communist regime announced that it was “completely scrapping” the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and has maintained peace on the peninsula for more than half a century. The Obama administration on Monday slapped new sanctions against North Korea’s primary exchange bank and several senior government officials as it expressed concern about the North’s “bellicose rhetoric.”

“The Intelligence community has long assessed that, in Pyongyang’s view, its nuclear capabilities are intended for deterrence, international prestige and coercive diplomacy. We do not know Pyongyang’s nuclear doctrine or employment concepts,” Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Although we assess with low confidence that the North would only attempt to use nuclear weapons against U.S. forces or allies to preserve the Kim regime, we do not know what would constitute, from the North’s perspective, crossing that threshold.”

North Korea, led by its young leader Kim Jong Un, has defied the international community in the last three months, testing an intercontinental ballistic missile and a third nuclear bomb.

Pressed on North Korea, Clapper said he was “very concerned about the actions of the new young leader.” He described the talk emanating from Pyongyang as “very belligerent.”

Report: Netanyahu Party Members Threaten New Elections
Mar 13th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Chana Yaar
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud allies are threatening to abandon coalition talks, and instead to move for new elections.

Negotiations between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Yesh Atid have stalled over the issue of who will get the Education portfolio.

Despite numerous concessions by the prime minister to political newcomer Yair Lapid, the Yesh Atid chairman has refused to budge on his demand for the ministry. And Netanyahu is insisting on keeping current Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who has done a good job, in the position.

"Yair Lapid does not understand that that he is entering as a partner in the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. This is not new politics, it's old extortion. Likud MK Danny Danon, a senior party member said bluntly in an interview Wednesday on Army Radio.

"The number of mandates for Shas and United Torah Judaism together is similar to that of Yesh Atid. If he doesn't understand this he will find himself outside of the government," Danon pointed out. "If we are extorted today on the small things we will find ourselves facing much bigger extortion in the future," he added, warning, "Lapid cannot dictate all of the developments that he desires."

Danon went on to explain, “There are other alternatives, such as forming a government with hareidi-religious parties – or calling new elections.”

A third option, unpleasant though it may be for Likud to contemplate, is that of failure: should Netanyahu miss the March 16 deadline and be unable to form a coalition, it is President Shimon Peres’s decision whether to hand the task to someone else for another try, or to call new elections.

Lapid already has been given the Finance Ministry, and deep concessions were made on a host of other issues as well during the past five weeks of talks. But Netanyahu is clearly reaching the end of his patience and his begun to review other options.

In the past 24 hours he has met with current Interior Minister Eli Yishai, one of the three co-chairmen of the hareidi-religious Sephardic Shas party that is presently slated to head to the Opposition with United Torah Judaism and Labor.

Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) chairman Naftali Bennett, who formerly was at odds with the prime minister, has since become the middleman in trying to smooth out the relationship between Netanyahu and Lapid, his own partner in a bloc they formed heading into coalition negotiations. But Bennett has also found himself beginning to have doubts about the alliance with Lapid, with the differences between the two becoming highlighted as the talks continue.

With U.S. President Barack Obama set to arrive in Jerusalem on March 20 and the deadline for formation of the coalition just three days away, time is running out.

Let the Headlines Speak
Mar 13th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Black smoke indicates no pope after 2 votes today
Black smoke emerged from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel at 11:40 a.m. local time in Rome today, indicating no successor to Benedict XVI has been elected as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The cardinals voted twice in the famous frescoed chapel in the morning, having failed during the first vote on Tuesday — as expected — to agree on who should lead the church.-The 115 cardinals will vote up to four times a day, twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon, until a new pope is selected.

lStar Trek's Faster-Than-Light Warp Drive a Reality?
Star Trek's Faster-Than-Light Warp Drive a Reality (Video).

Canada’s Fast Says Momentum Building for EU Trade Accord
Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast said negotiations on a free trade pact with the European Union have built momentum and he’s optimistic the two sides are near an agreement.

PM: Yielding Temple Mount would be a fatal mistake
Addressing the Knesset plenum at a special session held to honor Jerusalem Day, Netanyahu said that taking the Temple Mount out of Israeli hands, would bring decline, and the rise of radical Islam in the region and in the world. "Only under Israeli control, will this accessibility... and freedom of religion continue," he said. "The Temple Mount is in our hands and ... it shall remain in our hands,"

Former Rep. Giffords' husband Mark Kelly's purchase of rifle draws online criticism
It didn't take long for gun-rights supporters to accuse Kelly of being a hypocrite for buying an AR-15-style rifle and a 45.-caliber handgun. Many of the Facebook comments focused on his motivations and the rules for purchasing such guns.

Blizzard hits England, France and Belgium
Hundreds of drivers got stuck in southeastern England as a blizzard fouled roads Tuesday on both sides of the English Channel, police said. Cross-Channel service on the Eurostar trains was suspended, The Guardian reported. Many other trains were canceled.

New swarm of locusts plagues southern Israel
The Agriculture Ministry launched a major crop-dusting campaign Wednesday to combat a large swarm of locusts that entered the country from Egypt. The campaign was set to focus on the Har Keren, Ashalim and Ruhama regions in the south of the country. The ministry fears warm weather will see additional swarms of locusts cross the border from the Sinai Peninsula.

On the Temple Mount, a battle brews over Jewish prayer
The desire to pray on the Mount, also the site of Islam’s third-holiest shrine, has found more acceptance among mainstream rabbis in Israel over the past decade, spreading gradually from a tiny fringe to a broader religious public. The numbers of Jews actually visiting the Mount for religious reasons is still tiny — no more than several thousand a year, according to police estimates — but inching upward...

What's up in space
NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on March 15th when a CME might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field. The CME was launched by a filament of solar magnetism that erupted on March 12th.

Holy smoke! Is this final pope before Jesus?
Tom Horn, co-author of the book “Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here,” told WND he has a list of 10 men among the 115 sequestered in the Sistine Chapel who best fit St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” said to be based on a prophetic vision of the 112 popes following Pope Celestine II, who died in 1144.

Worst gold sell-off on record, including Soros, fuels fears that 12-year bull run is dead
Investors sold 106.2 metric tonnes valued at US$5.4 billion from exchange-traded products in February, the most since their creation in 2003, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Another 26.1 tonnes was cut since then.

Japan Pioneers Gas Extraction From Seafloor Methane Hydrate
Japan has become the first country in the world to extract natural gas from underwater deposits of methane hydrate - a development that can be potentially threatening for Russia whose budget depends heavily on revenues from the export of hydrocarbons.

Russia to Complete Asteroid Shield Plan by Yearend
Russia will complete a plan for a program to protect itself against threats from space by the end of this year, Civil Defense and Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov said on Tuesday. That comes a month after a meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere undetected by existing space-monitoring systems and slammed into Russia’s Urals on February 15.

AP Exclusive: Applying for health care not easy
Applying for benefits under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul could be as daunting as doing your taxes. The government's draft application is now on the Internet. It runs 15 pages for a three-person family. The online version has 21 steps, some with added questions. At least three major federal agencies, including the IRS, will scrutinize your application.

California Seizes Guns as Owners Lose Right to Keep Arms
...California is the only state that tracks and disarms people with legally registered guns who have lost the right to own them, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris. Almost 20,000 gun owners in the state are prohibited from possessing firearms, including convicted felons, those under a domestic violence restraining order or deemed mentally unstable.

‘Killing Jews Is Worship’ Ad Campaign Rolled Out On SF Muni Buses
A controversy has been re-ignited this week as ten new ads go up on San Francisco Muni buses containing quotes used by terrorists. “Killing Jews is worship that draws us closer to Allah,” reads one of the ads, which has people debating the line between free speech and hate speech.

Wary of Attack With Smallpox, U.S. Buys Up a Costly Drug
The United States government is buying enough of a new smallpox medicine to treat two million people in the event of a bioterrorism attack, and took delivery of the first shipment of it last week. But the purchase has set off a debate about the lucrative contract, with some experts saying the government is buying too much of the drug at too high a price.

Member of EU Syria delegation killed in Damascus suburb
A member of the European Union's delegation in Syria has been killed in a rocket attack in a Damascus suburb. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Ahmad Shihadeh, an EU policy officer, was killed in Darayya, to the south-west of the capital. He lived in the area and was killed while providing humanitarian help to the community, she said in a statement.

China pulls nearly 6,000 dead pigs from Shanghai river
Officials say the number of pig carcasses found in Shanghai's Huangpu River has risen to nearly 6,000. In a statement, Shanghai authorities said that 5,916 dead pigs had been removed from the river by Tuesday. But they said water from the river was safe, with water quality meeting government-set standards.

Earthquake hits BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells
An earthquake registering a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale hit the Coachella Valley on Monday morning, the two-year anniversary of the massive Tohuko earthquake in Japan. The quake was centered about 15 miles from the Indian Wells Tennis Garden at 9:55 a.m., about an hour before play was set to begin at the BNP Paribas Open.

Los Angeles archdiocese pays $10m to settle abuse cases
The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles is to pay out nearly $10m (£6.7m) to settle four cases of sexual abuse by a former priest, Father Michael Baker. Recently released files show Cardinal Roger Mahony knew the priest had abused but put him back into ministry, where he is alleged to have abused again.

Moderate earthquake – Panama-costa Rica Border Region on March 12, 2013
It passed through the house like a wave. All the windows shook for about 10 seconds. Quick but violent...may be around a 4.8 to 5.1.

UK asserts right to 'independent foreign policy'
British leader David Cameron has said he might send arms to rebels in Syria whether fellow EU countries like it or not. Speaking to the House of Commons liaison committee on Tuesday (12 March), he said: "I would like to continue with an EU approach … But if we cannot, it is not out of the question. We might have to do things in our own way."

Canadian Supreme Court Rules Biblical Speech Opposing Homosexual Behavior is a ‘Hate Crime’
Mar 13th, 2013
Daily NewsChristian News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline;Contemporary Issues

Ottawa, Ontario – The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Biblical speech opposing homosexual behavior, including in written form, is essentially a hate crime.

On Wednesday, the court upheld the conviction of activist William Whatcott, who found himself in hot water after distributing flyers regarding the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexuality throughout the Saskatoon and Regina neighborhoods in 2001 and 2002.

“The Bible is clear that homosexuality is an abomination,” one flyer that was found to be in violation stated, citing 1 Corinthians 6:9. “Scripture records that Sodom and Gomorrah was given over completely to homosexual perversion and as a result destroyed by God’s wrath.”

Another flyer, entitled Keep Homosexuality Out of Saskatoon’s Public Schools, was written in response to the recommendation of the Saskatoon School Board that homosexuality be included in school curriculum. The Supreme Court declared the document to be unlawful because it called the homosexual acts that would be taught to children “filthy,” and contended that children are more interested in playing Ken and Barbie than “learning how wonderful it is for two men to sodomize each other.” The justices ruled that because the use of the word “sodomy” only referred to “two men” and not also the sex acts of heterosexuals, it was a direct target against a specific group of people.

Two other flyers that expressed outrage at the male solicitation of sex with boys in a local publication were not found to be in violation of the statute, in part because Whatcott’s citation of Luke 17:2 was not clear on whether it only referred to homosexuals. The verse, which he had handwritten on the handouts, quotes from Jesus Christ.

“If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better that a millstone was tied around your neck and you were cast into the sea,” it read.

The court insinuated that the Scripture could have been an issue like the other references if used in a way to pertain solely to homosexual persons.

Whatcott had distributed the flyers over a decade ago to raise awareness of his concerns about both the homosexual parades in Canada, as well as the vulnerability of children in a culture that promotes homosexuality. However, when Canada’s Human Rights Commission found out about the matter, they took him to court, citing him with a hate crime.

The Supreme Court noted in its opinion, among other concerns, that Whatcott’s use of the Bible to target homosexuals was a problem.

“[Whatcott's] expression portrays the targeted group as a menace that could threaten the safety and well-being of others, makes reference to respected sources (in this case the Bible) to lend credibility to the negative generalizations, and uses vilifying and derogatory representations to create a tone of hatred,” the panel ruled on Wednesday.

It pointed back to the lower court ruling, which asserted, “While the courts cannot be drawn into the business of attempting to authoritatively interpret sacred texts such as the Bible, those texts will typically have characteristics which cannot be ignored if they are to be properly assessed in relation to … the [Hate Crimes] Code.”

The judges did note, however, that “it would only be unusual circumstances and context that could transform a simple reading or publication of a religion’s holy text into what could objectively be viewed as hate speech.”

Commentator Andrew Coyne noted that the wording of Canada’s hate crimes law is problematic because it leaves much discretion in the hands of law enforcement.

“The code itself outlaws material that ‘exposes or tends to expose to hatred’ any person or group, on the usual list of prohibited grounds. It is not necessary, that is, to show the material in question actually exposes anyone to hatred — only that it might,” he advised. “The Court then upholds the ban on the grounds that the hatred to which individuals might or might not be exposed might in turn lead others to believe things that might cause them to act in certain unspecified but clearly prejudicial ways: it ‘has the potential to incite or inspire discriminatory treatment,’ or ‘risks’ doing so, or is ‘likely’ to, or at any rate ‘can.’”

Whatcott has now been ordered to pay $7,500 to two homosexuals who took offense at his flyers, as well as to pay the legal fees of the Human Rights Commission — which could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The ruling and the reasoning [of the court] is terrible,” he told reporters. “They actually used the concept that truth is not a defense.”

“It’s worse than I expected,” Whatcott added. “What it means is that my life is over as I know it.”

A much different ruling came out of the Alberta Court of Appeals last October, as Pastor Stephen Boissoin was likewise facing hate crimes charges for submitting an op-ed to a local newspaper that outlined his beliefs about homosexual behavior. In releasing its opinion, the court said that Boissoin had a right to express his beliefs on matters such as homosexuality as long as they were focused on a behavior and not a specific person.

“Matters of morality, including the perceived morality of certain types of sexual behavior, are topics for discussion in the public forum. Frequently, expression on these topics arises from deep seated religious conviction, and is not always temperate,” the panel advised. “Boissoin and others have the freedom to think, whether stemming from their religious convictions or not, that homosexuality is sinful and morally wrong. In my view, it follows that they have the right to express that thought to others.”

However, the Supreme Court of Canada declared Wednesday that oftentimes, it is impossible to say that one loves the sinner and hates the sin. It asserted that the hatred of the act was inseparable from hating the person or person group.

“I agree that sexual orientation and sexual behaviour can be differentiated for certain purposes,” the court outlined. “However, in instances where hate speech is directed toward behaviour in an effort to mask the true target, the vulnerable group, this distinction should not serve to avoid [the hate-crime clause of the Code].”

While speech opposing homosexuality remains legal in the United States, some note that the nation is heading in the same direction as Canada, as discrimination laws are being enforced by state Human Rights Commissions across the country.

A number of incidents have made headlines in recent years where American businesses have been punished for their refusal to accommodate the homosexual lifestyle, such as the story of a photographer in New Mexico that was forced to pay $700 in fines for declining to shoot a same-sex commitment service, to the Vermont bed and breakfast owners who settled a lawsuit with two lesbians who were told by an employee that they could not hold their commitment service on the property. A Kentucky t-shirt screening company was also recently punished for declining to complete a work order involving t-shirts that were to be worn at a local homosexual pride parade.