FBI says it might be able to unlock San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone without Apple's help

he U.S. government said Monday that it might have a way to unlock  the phone of one of the assailants in December's terror attack in San Bernardino without the help of Apple.

In making the announcement, the government asked for and received a delay in a Tuesday court hearing that was billed as a showdown in the FBI's effort to force Apple to help unlock the phone.

In a filing Monday afternoon, the FBI said it now needs time to investigate another possible way to unlock Syed Rizwan Farook's phone.

"On Sunday, March 20, 2016, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking Farook’s iPhone," the U.S. attorney wrote in court papers. "Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone. If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc. set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case."

How the iPhone's security measures work

Prosecutors asked that the hearing in Riverside federal court be put on hold "to provide time for testing the method."

The case has become a battleground in a broader dispute between elected officials, law enforcement and technology executives over how far companies must go in aiding criminal investigations.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement that federal authorities had continued to seek an alternative way to access the phone's contents even during the heated litigation and public back-and-forth with Apple. If the new method works, it would help investigators to continue looking into the Dec. 2 terrorist attack that killed 14 people and wounded 22, said Melanie R. Newman, director of the Justice Department's office of public affairs.

"We must first test this method to ensure it doesn't destroy the data on the phone, but we remain cautiously optimistic," she said.

Although FBI agents have stitched together much about Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, who joined him in the attack, they say the confiscated phone might contain information that would help answer other questions, such as whether the killers had accomplices. Farook and Malik were killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack.

Prosecutors turned to the courts for help after Apple refused FBI requests that its engineers find a way to work around security measures built into the iPhone. Specifically, they wanted the company to write new software that, when uploaded to Farook’s phone, would bypass a security feature that renders the phone useless when more than 10 attempts are made to enter the phone’s four-digit pass code. 

Tim Cook jumps right into discussing Apple-FBI iPhone encryption fight

With this done, agents planned to use a computer program to churn through the 10,000 possible pass codes until hitting upon the right one.

Jonathan Zdziarski, a leading expert on iPhone security, put the highest odds on federal authorities now giving a shot to copying a portion of the phone's memory that controls the password-guess counter. By constantly restoring the original copy of that data after every nine guesses, the agency potentially could avoid triggering the feature that makes the phone's contents inaccessible after 10 failed tries.

At the crux of the legal fight has been the All Writs Act, a sweeping, centuries-old law intended to provide judges the authority to issue orders when other avenues are unavailable.

Prosecutors have insisted the act provides a solid legal foundation for the judge to compel Apple to write new software to allow FBI agents to circumvent security features built into the iPhone Farook had used.

Apple's fight with the FBI

In its latest filing, Apple repeated its assertion that applying the act in this case would be wrong because it does not permit judges to make rulings that go beyond the limits of existing law.

Congress, Apple wrote, has considered passing legislation that would force companies to develop software at the government's behest, but rejected the idea.            LATimes

Jesuit America Magazine Trashes Justice Scalia One Month After Death

Without even allowing grass to grow over the grave of the great Catholic Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13, the Jesuit flagship America Magazine has devoted a front-page article to trashing the justice’s legal theory in an effort to legitimize judicial activism.

The blunt instrument chosen by the magazine to do its dirty work was conveniently not a Jesuit but a Dominican friar named Anthony Giambrone, who contrasts Scalia’s legal theory with that of the medieval scholar and saint, Thomas Aquinas.

Giambrone claims that Scalia’s originalist approach to Constitutional law—which insisted on respecting the original and manifest intent of the writers of the Constitution rather than what modern interpreters think they should have said—stands in sharp contrast to Aquinas’ theory of law, which left room for disregarding “poorly written laws” in favor of natural law principles.

Scalia would have agreed that to be an originalist one must believe in the basic integrity and goodness of the law in question, and the justice did indeed believe in the U.S. Constitution as a document worthy of defense and, indeed, veneration. Above all, he advocated judicial restraint, a specific application of the Christian virtue of humility so often lacking among those commissioned to judge according to the law.

Americans have a legislature entrusted with the enactment of law, Scalia often reminded his hearers, and a judiciary commended with the task of interpreting the laws as they apply to particular circumstances. For a political system to function where the powers of government are thus divided, this division must be respected.

Whatever the author’s intent, his rambling essay, titled “Scalia v. Aquinas,” plays into a thinly veiled attempt to somehow legitimate the judicial activism that has been at the core of the worst decisions ever handed down by the United States Supreme Court, from Roe v. Wade to Obergefell v. Hodges.

While this dovetails nicely with the project of the Jesuits at America Magazine, it should deeply concern conservative Americans who care about the future of the Court.

Along with the utter crassness of trying to undermine the legacy of a great Catholic jurist while people are still mourning his passing, the essay proposes the worst possible formula for enabling the Court to accomplish the purpose for which it is constituted.

It is moreover ridiculous in the extreme to enlist the testimony of Thomas Aquinas to propose that U.S. justices should impose their own vision of social organization on the country’s most foundational document and its application to real-world situations and laws, a proposal that the angelic doctor would have found appalling.

With an unworthy and backhanded compliment, Giambrone expresses his hope that another “good man” like Scalia may be found to fill his chair on the Supreme Court, as long as he is unburdened with Scalia’s “problematic theory.”

For if you take away Scalia’s deep reverence for the Constitution as it was written and intended, and his respect for the critical but limited role that justices are called to play, all you are left with is another judicial activist legislating according to his best lights without a mandate to do so.         Breitbart

How Sunday stopped being special for the American worker

This month, workers who have been with Walmart for at least five years received a one-time bump in their paychecks. A couple hundred extra dollars is usually welcome, but this time, it actually symbolizes a loss: No longer will those workers receive premium pay for their Sunday shifts, as the idea of compensating people for toiling on what some consider a day of rest fades from American business.

Walmart discontinued Sunday premium pay, which had been $1 extra per hour, for new hires back in 2011. Those who had continued to receive it will receive a lump sum equal to half the amount of Sunday pay they received last year, according to a company release in January outlining a handful of adjustments that Walmart explained were a way of "simplifying its pay structure" — and reducing the overall cost of increasing base wages to $10 an hour across the board.

That hasn't worked out so well for more experienced employees like eight-year Walmart veteran Nancy Reynolds, a 69-year-old cashier in Merritt Island, Fla., who works Thursday through Monday. Her base pay was already slightly above $10 an hour, so she didn't get much of a raise, and the loss of a few extra Sunday dollars a week will hurt. "The younger people, the ones who haven’t been there that long, they got it, and I'm glad for them," Reynolds says. "But they did it at the expense of me and everybody who’s been there a long time."

In cutting Sunday pay, Walmart is actually behind most of the retail industry, which made that change as legal requirements to pay more on Sundays were stricken from state laws across the country. So-called "blue laws" once prohibited Sunday commerce altogether in 34 states in the 1960s. They were often weakened through compromise, with higher pay mandated in exchange for shopping being legalized. Even with no mandate, premium pay was often what the labor market demanded.

"To get people to work, when they’d never worked before, they started to pay Sunday pay," says Craig Rowley, a retail compensation consultant with Korn Ferry, who has done work for Walmart.

That changed over time as women entered the workforce, pushing more shopping from weekdays to the weekend. The labor market also loosened up, meaning workers couldn't pick and choose which days they wanted to work; Sunday shifts are now expected rather than optional. And meanwhile, the importance of Sunday as a universal day of rest started to recede from the American psyche.

"When I was growing up, Sundays were kind of family day, church day," Rowley says. "As we’ve gotten to be a more secular society, staying at home on Sunday is not necessarily expected. 'We’re all going to be here all day Sunday' is not as strong a cultural norm."

Rhode Island and Massachusetts are now two of the last states to require retailers to pay time and a half on Sundays, and the retail industry is pushing hard to get the requirement rolled back in Massachusetts. "Sundays in retail have become unaffordable in our state," wrote William Rennie, vice president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, in a Boston Globe op-ed.

Sunday premium pay hasn't disappeared as quickly from other sectors, such as manufacturing and transportation, which have held on to a more traditional five or six-day work schedule. Most federal employees are still entitled to time and a half on Sundays. But more and more of their neighbors in the private sector won't be so lucky.           Washington Post

Ancient Necropolis with 100 Tombs Discovered Near Biblical Bethlehem

by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   March 01, 2016 08:08am ET

The opening to two of the tombs at the Khalet al-Jam'a necropolis near the town of Bethlehem.

Credit: ®ROSAPAJ - Sapienza University Rome View full size image

An ancient necropolis that once held more than 100 tombs from as far back as 4,000 years ago has been discovered near the Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the West Bank.

The burial ground was discovered in spring 2013 during the construction of an industrial park. In 2014 a team from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Palestine excavated some of the tombs, and in 2015 a joint Italian-Palestinian team surveyed the necropolis and created a plan for future exploration. The archaeologists found that the necropolis covered 3 hectares (more than 7 acres) and originally contained more than 100 tombs in use between roughly 2200 B.C. and 650 B.C.

Located on the side of a hill, the archaeological site — now called Khalet al-Jam'a — was likely a burial ground for a nearby settlement whose location is unknown. [See Photos of the Necropolis at Khalet al-Jam'a]

The site's "long-lasting utilization, over a millennium and a half or more, and the large number of tombs, suggest that Khalet al-Jam'a was the necropolis of a major settlement in the area, possibly a town," Lorenzo Nigro, professor at Sapienza University of Rome, wrote in an article published recently in the journal Vicino Oriente.

Nigro said that finds from the necropolis indicate that the settlement was a wealthy place, with access to trade routes. Ancient texts refer to a "Beth-Lehem" that flourished in the area.

"Typical pieces of the burial sets are finely executed carinated bowls, small shouldered jars/bowls with everted rim[s], one-spouted lamps, huge and well-refined Canaanite jars with two or four handles, as well as bronze daggers and spearheads," Nigro wrote.

Ancient finds

Though the necropolis has been partly destroyed by looting and construction, the archaeologists were able to identify at least 30 tombs. "The necropolis of Khalet al-Jam'a is mainly characterized by shaft tombs with single or multiple rock-cut chambers," the team wrote in another paper published in Vicino Oriente, noting that the builders enlarged and renovated natural cavities on the hillside.

In one tomb, the remains of a man, woman and child were found buried with two bronze daggers and a variety of ceramics, including twin vases attached together. Archaeologists found that the tomb dated to the Middle Bronze Age, more than 3,500 years ago.

Another tomb at Khalet al-Jam'a contained a nearly complete male skeleton buried with a ceramic lamp that had four sides folded into spouts. Archaeologists said this particular tomb may date to an earlier point in the Bronze Age more than 4,000 years ago.

Another intriguing tomb contained two Egyptian-like amulets, known as scarabs, which were mounted on rings made of bronze or gold. It’s possible that, rather than being imported from Egypt, the scarabs were made locally.

The scarabs date to the 13th dynasty of Egypt (1802 B.C. to 1640 B.C.), Nigro said. One of the scarabs contains a series of circular decorations, while the other has swirling designs and what appears to be hieroglyphic writing. Two of the hieroglyphic symbols are written within an oval circle known as a cartouche. The Egyptians often wrote royal names in cartouches, and archaeologists are studying the scarabs for these types of details.

Egyptian scarabs have been found at many other sites in the eastern Mediterranean. Ancient records say the Egyptians were very active in the region, trading for goods and, at times, conquering territory.

Ancient crisis?

The necropolis stopped being used around 650 B.C., Nigro wrote, adding that the name Bethlehem stopped appearing in ancient documents for several centuries until reappearing around the time of Christ.

"It seems that the town suffered a crisis," Nigro wrote. What exactly happened in Bethlehem around 650 B.C. is unclear. However, Nigro noted that around this time, the Assyrian and Babylonian empires launched a series of military campaigns in which they captured land in the region. Stories of these campaigns were told in biblical literature.                    Live Science

How Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey seduced Hollywood

Helen O'Hara 15 March 2016 • 7:00pm

Religious zealots and Illuminati-conspiracy theorists often claim that Hollywood is in league with the Devil, and that most or all of its stars sold their soul to get ahead. They’re wrong, at least in the literal sense (a few souls may have been traded metaphorically). While Satan is a constant onscreen – most recently in this week’s Puritan-era horror The Witch – there’s little evidence that he, she or it is any more popular in Hollywood than, say, carbs.
But that wasn’t always the case. For a brief period in the late Sixties, a man called Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, made inroads in the town and named film stars among his ranks. Hollywood has always attracted ambitious dreamers and open minds, and the combination proved fertile ground for Chicago-born Anton Szandor LaVey when he founded the Church of Satan in 1966. LaVey was an outsize figure in more ways than one, standing 6ft with a cleanly shaven head and a Mephistophelean goatee like a wannabe Ming the Merciless. A high-school dropout, he had travelled with the Clyde Beatty Circus, feeding tigers and leopards as a "cage boy" before graduating to stage magic and hypnosis.
According to his church’s official biography, he “became well-versed in the many rackets to separate the rubes from their money” – which, as training for the founder of a religion goes, is relevant training. A gifted musician, LaVey would play piano at the bawdy shows on Saturday nights and then see much of the same audience when he played at the tent revival meetings the following morning, reinforcing an existing cynicism towards human nature. Eventually he went to college, studied criminology and became a forensic photographer with the San Francisco Police Department. But a growing interest in the supernatural led him towards ghost hunting, rituals and eventually to found his church.
LaVey owned an extremely ugly Victorian house on San Francisco’s California Street, which he painted entirely black and established as his new headquarters. He adopted the motto of British occultist Aleister Crowley, "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" (also a line from Rabelais) and put this solipsistic sentiment at the heart of his new church. He then accessorised with rituals that were largely of his own invention, involving lots in the way of naked women, who lay down and became "altars" for "High Mass", celebrated on a Friday night.
 An early attempt to ignite interest in the church saw LaVey put on nightclub shows with topless "witches" and a bikini-clad "Inquisitioner", something too few religions have tried. Gradually LaVey reduced the theatrics and tried to strike a more dignified pose, or as dignified a pose as one can when wearing a satin-and-horns headdress. Meanwhile he courted publicity relentlessly, granting interviews frequently and keeping his church in the public eye.

Anton LaVey, in a photograph taken from the Church of Satan's Archives Credit: Church of Satan

There were still, according to the accounts of former members, orgies and services of a sexual nature, but it wasn’t just the nudity that attracted newcomers. As with many religions the congregants would plead for intercession, wishing calamity on an enemy or rival, or attempting to invoke financial or sexual success. The crowd tended to be young, well-heeled and curious, as with other new religions growing at the time. For LaVey, Satan was not the adversary to a true God, but the creator himself, and all mankind's other religions merely delusions that hid the true nature of the world, and humanity.
And converts did trickle in. Sammy Davis Jr, the singer, actor and Rat Pack member whose own philosophy of life drove him to try just about everything that presented itself - women, men, religion, drugs - became involved in 1968. He had noticed a gang of lively young people each with a single red-painted nail at The Factory, a nightclub he co-owned, and was invited to go with them to a party he described as “dungeons, dragons and debauchery”.
He was, in other words, introduced to the church at an orgy, of course, and surrounded by writhing bodies the prospect of a religion promoting freedom and the complete absence of guilt must have chimed with the adventurous performer.
During his flirtation with the religion Davis held seats for adherents at gigs, and even tried to launch a Satan-friendly sitcom, 1973’s Poor Devil, which never went beyond the pilot stage. There, Davis played a minor demon offered the chance to move up the ranks if he could win a soul for hell, with Christopher Lee in his full Hammer Horror flow as Old Nick himself. Despite Davis’ best efforts, however, he repeatedly bungled the deal, and eventually let the sinner and his soul alone.
The pilot was terrible, which might have been enough to ensure it never went to series, but protests from religious groups sealed its fate. Soon after Davis took out the nail polish remover, wiped away his own red nail and left the church in 1974, though he maintained friendships there.
The actress Jayne Mansfield, too, was an associate of LaVey. In 1966 Mansfield’s star was on the wane, because what had been boundary-pushing sexuality in the 1950s looked impossibly old-hat to young people who would soon be part of the Summer of Love. At the San Francisco Film Festival, Mansfield heard about LaVey and, always interested in the supernatural, went along to meet him. He was impressed by her charms and invited her to become his High Priestess, later visiting her in Hollywood where they posed for pictures and hung her certificate of membership in her bedroom.

Jayne Mansfield in the Fifties Credit: Rex

Mansfield’s  lawyer and partner, Sam Brody, reportedly mocked the ceremony and was reputedly cursed by LaVey. It’s worth noting that there is no public record or mention of this curse before the car accident where both Brody and Mansfield lost their lives in 1967, but LaVey’s talent for publicity ensured that the legend has lingered.
LaVey's next breakthrough seemed to come with Roman Polanski's film of Rosemary's Baby in 1968, where he played the Devil himself in the rape of Rosemary. It's an uncredited role, but it fuelled widespread curiosity with his church. Ironically the Satanists themselves were sniffy about its storyline: while parts of Ira Levin's book had been informed or inspired by some of LaVey's press – so the latter claimed – the church did not endorse the film's plot. Rosemary's Baby was denounced by the Catholic League Of Decency, and became a huge box-office success.

John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby Credit: Everett Collection / Rex Feature

Suddenly LaVey was besieged by reporters, occult researches and potential adherents. He released a record album, The Satanic Mass, with audio extracts from his then-forthcoming "Satanic Bible" and clips from the "Satanic baptism" he had performed for his 3 year-old daughter Zeena the previous year (she not only left the church in adulthood but denounced it and established a charity to help former cult members, the Sethian Liberation Movement).
The following year, however, the terrifying, ritualistic murder of Polanski's wife Sharon Tate by the Manson cult put paid to any notion that Satanism might become mainstream. One of the killers, Susan Atkins, had danced as a topless vampire in a LaVey show called the Witches' Sabbath before joining the Manson family.
Another of the victims of that bloody night was celebrity hairdresser, Jay Sebring, who had attended LaVey’s church around the same time as Davis. The sad aftermath of the murders left the church looking pathetic rather than dangerous. While LaVey continued his work and publicity efforts, expansion slowed, and the free-wheeling Sixties attitudes that had tolerated and even welcomed satanism seemed to vanish.

Charles Manson leaves the courtroom in Los Angeles after being found guilty of first degree murder

When LaVey stopped publicising his adherents’ numbers he counted just 7,000 members in the US nationwide, and it seems likely that that was a high point. Yet in the late 1980s and 1990s American society was terrified of a Satanist menace, which met hysteria in cases like the trial of the West Memphis Three. The church wheeled out spokespeople (including Zeena, then a high priestess) to defend their cause, but really to stoke the fires of their waning publicity efforts. Such Satanic noise can only have hurt the case of those three teenage heavy metal fans wrongly convicted of child murder.
A few hard rock stars, notably Marilyn Manson, associated with LaVey in these later years – he didn’t enjoy their music and preferred by this point to stay at home playing classic 40s love songs on his organ – but his organisation was a shadow of even its limited height.
LaVey died in 1997, in a Catholic hospital, and his home was demolished by developers in 2001. The church he founded still exists, though its headquarters were moved to New York's Hell's Kitchen. One of LaVey's successors as High Priest, Peter H Gilmore, now plays down the more outrageous trappings of his predecessor and describes the organisation's membership as "sceptical atheists". That echoes the similarly named and increasingly talked-about Satanic Temple, which focuses on women’s reproductive rights, free speech and counter-protesting the Westboro Baptist Church rather than wearing horns and satin.

That organisation also recently endorsed The Witch for its empowerment of women “under the hammer of theocracy”. Still, the Church of Satan is still active: a website post this week marked International Womens Day with the greeting, “Hail our passionate Satanic witches around the world!”. It may never be a mainstream religion, but LaVey’s brand of boundary-pushing Satanic self-interest lingers on.                     Telegraph

2016: Lights go out worldwide in demonstration against increasing climate change

On the evening of 19 March the lights went out not just all over Europe, but throughout the world. But far from being a harbinger of doom – as in Sir Edward Grey’s celebrated observation on the eve of the First World War – it was a sign that one of the world’s most perilous, impending problems might yet be solved. 

Scores of millions of people in a record 178 countries switched off at 8.30pm last night, to mark this year’s Earth Hour, participating in the world’s biggest ever demonstration to stop climate change escalating out of control. 

But for the first time in the event’s 10-year history – and despite new alarming evidence of warming last week – they were pushing at an opening door. For last December the world reached an unexpectedly ambitious agreement in Paris to address the problem.

Some 366 landmarks around the world – ranging from the Sydney Opera House to Big Ben, from the Gherkin in London to the Colosseum in Rome, from Salisbury Cathedral to the Empire State Building – went dark last night. And so did Buckingham Palace, home to a remarkably green activist royal family (even the Queen has quietly indicated her concern about climate change).

Restaurants laid on special candle-lit dinners, the Forestry Commission organised night-time explorations and WWF, the event’s organisers, issued a list of “60 things to do in the dark, including going stargazing, wearing fluorescent fancy dress and telling scary stories” – but not the activity that, perhaps, first springs to mind.

One no-no, however, was to light candles – unless they were “100 per cent beeswax or soy”: normal ones, made of petroleum products, could release more carbon pollution than keeping the lights on.

Studies have shown that past Earth Hours have reduced electricity consumption by four per cent. But it is designed to be symbolic action, rather than an exercise in energy reduction. This year there is more to demonstrate about than ever. Last month, it was revealed on 14 March, was not merely the warmest February ever, but witnessed the biggest month-on-month jump in temperatures ever recorded – and by a big margin. Normally cautious climate scientists called it “jawdropping” “terrifying”, and “a true shocker”. 

Worse, the previous record rise occurred just the month before, in January. This has been the warmest winter ever worldwide, and February was the tenth successive record-breaking month.

Arctic sea ice – as exclusively predicted in The Independent on Sunday last month – is at its lowest ever winter maximum after what the blue-chip US National Snow and Ice Data Centre calls a season of “unrelenting heat”, while the extreme weather is also contributing to record droughts in Africa and Vietnam, and helped cause the biggest cyclone ever to hit Fiji, costing the country a tenth of its GDP. 

Scientists are already predicting that 2016 will be the hottest on record, for the third year running, finally exploding sceptics’ claims that global warming has stopped. Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, of Germany’s Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, says the world is in “a completely unprecedented climate emergency”, while Deke Arndt, of the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, describes it as moving to a “new and hotter neighbourhood”.

And yet, Earth Hour had something to celebrate. Last week it was revealed that, for the second successive year, carbon emissions failed to increase in 2015 , even though the world economy grew – something that had not happened, even once, in four decades. China’s emissions actually fell by 1.5 per cent, as the world’s biggest polluter cut its use of coal and increased renewables. 

Fireworks heralded the start of Earth Hour in Sydney (AFP/Getty)

For years the world has been investing more money in building power stations generating electricity from renewable sources than in ones fired by fossil fuels. Last year these provided a staggering 90 per cent of the world’s new power.

And in December in Paris the world’s governments unexpectedly agreed to phase out carbon emissions altogether by the second half of the century, committing themselves to meet every five years to set ever more ambitious intermediate targets, with the aim of holding the increase in the earth’s temperature since pre-industrial times to ”well below” the 2C since pre-industrial times long regarded as the threshold for dangerous climate change 

Present reduction plans fall well short of this, but there is now at least a chance of averting disaster. And last week a paper by Michael Jacobs of the Institute for Public Policy Research – who was at the heart of both the Paris and failed Copenhagen summits – concluded that the agreement was “the outcome of an unprecedented show of political power by a broad and diverse coalition of forces from civil society”. 

Earth Hour will have played a part – and, with many other actions – may help ensure eventual success.              Independent

The US Department of Justice has been considering whether people should be prosecuted for the offense of climate change denial.

by James Delingpole10 Mar 2016

The US Department of Justice has been considering whether people should be prosecuted for the offense of climate change denial. “This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch, responding to a question from green activist

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

4%

at a Senate Judiciary Hearing. Whitehouse said:

“The similarities between the mischief of the tobacco industry pretending that the science of tobacco’s dangers was unsettled and the fossil fuel industry pretending that the science of carbon emissions’ dangers is unsettled has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who study the climate denial apparatus that the fossil fuel industry has erected.”
“Under President Clinton, the Department of Justice brought and won a civil RICO action against the tobacco industry for its fraud. Under President Obama, the Department of Justice has done nothing so far about the climate denial scheme,”

Perhaps the kind of RICO action Whitehouse has in mind is similar to the one proposed to President Obama a few months ago by a number of key climate scientists, led by one Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University.
However this campaign appears to have gone mysteriously quiet of late.
Could it perhaps be that having become embroiled in “the largest science scandal in US history” and now being under investigation for “double-dipping” and the potential misuse of $63 million worth of taxpayer funded grants, Shukla feels somewhat less confident of holding the moral high ground?     Beitbart

More doctors prescribing exercise instead of medication

By The Associated Press Originally published March 15, 2016 at 1:17 am Updated March 15, 2016 at 9:32 am

BOSTON (AP) — When Dr. Michelle Johnson scribbles out prescriptions, the next stop for many of her patients is the gym, not the pharmacy.

Doctors treating chronic health problems increasingly are prescribing exercise for their patients — and encouraging them to think of physical activity as their new medication.

In one such program run by a health center in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, primary care physicians, internists and psychologists prescribe access to a gym for $10 a month, including free child care, classes and kids programs. Providing affordable gym access for patients ensures compliance, said Gibbs Saunders of Healthworks Community Fitness, a nonprofit gym in Dorchester that has partnered with several health care providers to help low-income residents fill their exercise prescriptions.

Life expectancy in Roxbury is 59 years — well below the national average of 78.8 years.

“Exercise is not a new medicine. It’s really an old medicine,” said Johnson, who prescribes exercise to patients at the Roxbury-based health center. “But you know, I think we’re now coming to the point of understanding how important it is.”

Monisha Long, who is morbidly obese and suffers from hypertension, got a doctor’s prescription for exercise and says she’s gotten visible and dramatic results after more than two years of regular workouts.

“I lost well over 150 pounds, and I’ve been keeping it off for the past couple of years,” she said after working out on an elliptical machine at Healthworks.

And Long cites other, less-visible benefits.

“I’m more energized,” she said. “As far as my energy, I feel like I’m stronger. I feel like I’m less tired. I feel like I can do almost anything now.”

People who are physically active tend to live longer and are at lower risk of heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, depression and some cancers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. Yet fewer than one in four American adults exercises enough to reap those benefits, the agency says.

Dr. Edward Phillips, a Boston physician, is so sold on exercise he pedals on a stationary bike that’s integrated into his office desk. Phillips said exercise is “like taking a little bit of Prozac — an antidepressant — and a little bit of Ritalin, which is a stimulant.”

“Our bodies are meant to move,” he said. “Integrating movement into our day allows the system to work optimally. Part of the system that needs to work is our brain, and includes sleep, mood, cognition, ability to concentrate.”

A prescription for exercise is a bargain, said Stephanie Dennis, who works out on a treadmill to stay fit.

“$10 a month is what? $2 a week, $2-$2.50 a week,” she said. “A lot of people pay that every day for coffee. It’s not a big sacrifice for something that you get big rewards from.”            Seattle Times

A glass of milk can contain a cocktail of up to 20 painkillers, antibiotics and growth hormones, scientists have shown.

A glass of milk can contain a cocktail of up to 20 painkillers, antibiotics and growth hormones, scientists have shown.

Using a highly sensitive test, they found a host of chemicals used to treat illnesses in animals and people in samples of cow, goat and human breast milk.

The doses of drugs were far too small to have an effect on anyone drinking them, but the results highlight how man-made chemicals are now found throughout the food chain.

the highest quantities of medicines were found in cow’s milk.

Researchers believe some of the drugs and growth promoters were given to the cattle, or got into milk through cattle feed or contamination on the farm.

The Spanish-Moroccan team analysed 20 samples of cow’s milk bought in Spain and Morocco, along with samples of goat and breast milk.

Their breakdown, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, revealed that cow’s milk contained traces of anti-inflammatory drugs niflumic acid, mefenamic acid and ketoprofen – commonly used as painkillers in animals and people.

It also contained the hormone 17-beta-estradiol, a form of the sex hormone oestrogen. The hormone was detected at three millionths of a gram in every kilogram of milk, while the highest dose of niflumic acid was less than one millionth of a gram per kilogram of milk.

However, the scientists, led by Dr Evaristo Ballesteros, from the University of Jaen in Spain, say their technique could be used to check the safety of other types of food.

Dr Ballesteros said: ‘We believe the new methodology will help to provide a more effective way of determining the presence of these kinds of contaminants in milk or other products.

‘Food quality control laboratories could use this new tool to detect these drugs before they enter the food chain. This would raise consumers’ awareness and give them the knowledge that food is… harmless, pure, genuine, beneficial to health and free of toxic residues,’ he added.

Net result: Compounds manufactured and used by humans are showing up in all parts of the food chain

The tests also found niflumic acid in goat’s milk, while breast milk contained traces of painkillers ibuprofen and naproxen, along with the antibiotic triclosan and some hormones.

The researchers say their new 30-minute test is the most sensitive of its kind. If the findings are true for Spanish and Moroccan milk, they could equally be true for milk produced in Britain and northern Europe.

Last year Portsmouth University scientists found that fish were being contaminated with the anti-depressant Prozac.

The drug enters rivers from the sewer system and tinkers with the brain chemistry of fish, the researchers claimed.

Previous studies have shown that caffeine is released into our waterways after surviving the sewage treatment process. 

The hormones from the contraceptive pill and HRT have been blamed for feminising fish, leading to male fish producing eggs.

The effects of antibiotics, blood pressure drugs and cholesterol-lowering drugs on wildlife are also being studied around the world.                DailyMail

Urban Danger

Digging for Truth

 

Published on May 26, 2015

Like it or not, its a fact... life in urban areas is about to radically change due to developments most people are not aware of. Find out what the issues are and what YOU can do to not only survive but also thrive.

Far from a “survivalist” film, Urban Danger takes a common-sense look at our roots, finding practical solutions to problems we face today. You will meet many people from all walks of life who show you the common-sense preparations they are making for difficult times ahead. And in the process, they have found a superior quality of life. They have found what “real living” is all about.

Preparation for the Time of Refreshing

I saw that many were neglecting the preparation so needful and were looking to the time of "refreshing" and the "latter rain" to fit them to stand in the day of the Lord and to live in His sight. Oh, how many I saw in the time of trouble without a shelter! They had neglected the needful preparation; therefore they could not receive the refreshing that all must have to fit them to live in the sight of a holy God. Those who refuse to be hewed by the prophets and fail to purify their souls in obeying the whole truth, and who are willing to believe that their condition is far better than it really is, will come up to the time of the falling of the plagues, and then see that they needed to be hewed and squared for the building. But there will be no time then to do it and no Mediator to plead their cause before the Father. Before this time the awfully solemn declaration has gone forth, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." I saw that none could share the "refreshing" unless they obtain the victory over every besetment, over pride, selfishness, love of the world, and over every wrong word and action. We should, therefore, be drawing nearer and nearer to the Lord and be earnestly seeking that preparation necessary to enable us to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Let all remember that God is holy and that none but holy beings can ever dwell in His presence.

.

Early Writings, p.71.

Idaho Shooting Suspect Arrested Outside The White House

On Tuesday evening, as tourists snapped photos in front of the White House, a young man with blond hair and blue eyes approached the black iron fence.

Kyle Odom wasn’t there to take pictures, though.

He was there to deliver a message to the president.

A Secret Service agent spotted Odom tossing something over the fence and approached him. When the agent ran his name through a law enforcement database, a red flag popped up: an arrest warrant issued just two days earlier on the other side of the country.

The charge: attempted murder.

Arriving seemingly out of nowhere, Odom was arrested at the White House, bringing a sudden end to a two-day hunt for the Marine veteran.

It also provided a bizarre coda to an already baffling crime saga, one that stretched from rural Idaho to the nation’s capital and potentially threatened the lives of 50 members of Congress.

[What happened outside the White House]

When Secret Service agents unwittingly stopped Odom, the 30-year-old was the only suspect in the shooting of an Evangelical pastor in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Sunday. According to authorities, Odom had ambushed Tim Remington in his church parking lot, shooting the popular pastor in the head and back before he vanished.

Remington, who survived the point-blank shooting in what one church member called a “miracle,” had appeared a day earlier with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) at an event hosted by his presidential campaign. That led to speculation that the shooting was politically motivated.

But Odom’s manifesto suggests that the shooting, if he did it, was something else entirely: the act of an unraveling mind.

The 21-page manifesto, which authorities say Odom sent to his parents as well as several Idaho television stations, is a window into what he was thinking.

According to Coeur d’Alene police, Odom has a history of mental illness. In his manifesto, he outlined his path to Sunday’s shooting in clear but increasingly paranoid prose.

He admitted to plotting to shoot Remington. He also claimed that the pastor was part of a vast alien conspiracy to enslave the human race — a conspiracy that Odom believed extended to Congress.

“My last resort was to take actions to bring this to the public’s attention,” Odom wrote in the manifesto. “I hope that something good comes of it. Just realize that I’m a good person, and I’m completely innocent. Also realize that the ‘people’ I killed are not what you think.”

Left, a photo of Kyle Odom (Coeur d’Alene Police Department via The Spokesman-Review via AP). Right, a drawing of an alien included in Odom’s manifesto (Facebook).

‘Who is Kyle Odom?’

The manifesto opens with the question on the minds of many Americans: “Who is Kyle Odom?”

“Born and raised in North Idaho,” Odom wrote. “Grew up in a loving family. Joined the Marine Corps after high school. Developed an interest in science. Went to school for a degree in Biochemistry. Won numerous scholarships and awards. Graduated Magna Cum Laude then got invited to prestigious university to work on genetics.

“Check my personal documents,” Odom continued. “As you can see, I’m pretty smart. I’m also 100% sane, 0% crazy.”

But the documents Odom sent to local media reveal an intense and dangerous paranoia, as well as an obsession over “hypersexual,” mind-controlling Martians.

“Everything started while I was at University of Idaho,” Odom wrote. “Spring 2014 was my final semester and was taking a heavy course load. I was very stressed due to the intensity of my schedule, so I searched for a way to cope. I discovered meditation, which seemed to help, so it became part of my daily routine. As I learned more about meditation, I became interested in consciousness and our ability to affect it. I kept working on my meditation techniques and began achieving extreme states of consciousness.”

One night in February 2014, Odom was meditating when he said he had an out-of-body experience.

“I entered a space that was completely dark and had no awareness of my physical boundaries/orientation,” he wrote. “I felt very peaceful there until a blue light began to approach me. As the blue light got closer, I realized that it was another being.”

When Odom awoke, he had tears in his eyes, according to his manifesto.

At first, the alleged alien encounter seemed like a blessing for Odom. “The remainder of the semester became exceedingly easy for me,” he wrote. “It felt like I had tapped into some kind of power. I was exerting no mental effort even though the classes had been extremely difficult before.”

But Odom’s close encounter would prove to be the beginning of his nightmare.

Odom accepted an offer from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, to work on a PhD in human genetics, but he quickly dropped out because the work was too easy, thanks to his alien awakening, he wrote.

“The day after I decided to leave, my life became a living hell,” Odom wrote. He couldn’t sleep. After a few days, aliens posing as classmates tried to provoke him to become “the next school shooter,” he wrote, so he left Texas and returned to his home town of Coeur d’Alene.

“This is where the story gets weird,” he wrote. On a flight home after a job interview, Odom began to suspect that strangers were sending him secret messages. Newspaper headlines had hidden meanings.

“It was blatantly obvious they were doing something to me, but I didn’t know what,” he wrote. “I had applied to several government agencies before this happened, so I thought this might be their way of contacting me.”

Back in Idaho, a friendly text message would put a beloved local pastor in Odom’s path.

‘Whoever I was dealing with was extraterrestrial’

In Coeur d’Alene, Odom received a text message from John Padula, the Altar Church’s outreach pastor, inviting him to attend service, he wrote. When Odom first went to the church, though, “something felt very wrong,” he wrote. “I felt as if my life were in danger and I became so uncomfortable I had to leave.”

Odom began receiving text messages from Remington, but he saw them as something more menacing.

“At first they were innocuous bible messages, but then he started threatening me,” Odom wrote. “He sent messages talking about ‘their power’ and other things. He did all of this through bible verses so it would not look suspicious.”

Tim Remington leads the prayer during a rally for Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on March 5. (Kathy Plonka/Spokesman-Review via AP)

When Remington allegedly sent Odom a text reading “angels,” the Marine veteran saw helicopters flying around his house. “At this point, I knew I was in trouble.”

Odom then began to experience strange sexual feelings — “it felt like someone was manually pumping blood into my penis” — and he heard suggestive songs inside his head, he wrote.

Soon the songs gave way to a voice telling him that he was going to be “sacrificed like Jesus and get beheaded,” he said. When a man knocked on his door with a religious pamphlet, Odom “became completely delirious” and “thought for sure I was going to die.”

He bought a one-way ticket to see his family in Albuquerque, and he said he thought the man next to him on the flight was reading his mind. At the baggage claim, Odom believed he was “surrounded” by aliens, whom he could detect by their constant “sniffing.”

“The sniff is something they do all the time,” he wrote. “I think it has to do with dominance.”

Odom thought he saw the aliens everywhere. They disguised themselves as humans but really looked like giant green frogs with proboscises on the top of their heads, he wrote.

“As time went on, they started coaxing me to go outside alone,” he wrote. “I was scared to death they would kill me, so I refused. Eventually, they threatened to harm my family, which caused me to give in to them. I told them I would do whatever they want if they left my family alone. They responded by saying ‘Go to church.’ I knew they meant The Altar, so I agreed to go when I got back.”

At The Altar, Odom smelled something like “a reptile and vinegar,” he wrote. “I realized that whoever I was dealing with was extraterrestrial, so I became very scared.”

At times, Odom’s manifesto appears to acknowledge that he is delusional. “I began to hear voices more often and I began to hallucinate things that I knew weren’t real,” he wrote. But he blames the voices and visions not on his own mind but on telepathic aliens.

Part of his alien obsession appears to have been sexual.

“They also started playing with me sexually,” he wrote of his Martian tormentors, who he labeled “hypersexual.” “Both the males and the females would play out their sexual fantasies in my mind.”

Once, in a grocery bakery, Odom believed he was “surrounded by a bunch of old men” who were actually aliens.

“They started stimulating” him and ordering him to perform sexual favors, he wrote.

Odom’s tormenting visions caused him to attempt suicide twice, he said in his manifesto.

“I filled a charcoal grill with lit coals, put it in my car and rolled up the windows,” he wrote. “I reclined my seat, laid there calmly, then fell asleep.”

But the aliens didn’t allow him to die, Odom wrote.

“They woke me up in an extreme panic, which caused me to get out of the car,” he wrote.

According to his manifesto, Odom then checked himself into the local Veterans Affairs hospital. A VA spokesman was not available Tuesday night to confirm whether Odom received treatment at the center.

After leaving the hospital, Odom returned to the Altar Church, where he eventually found himself face to face with pastor Remington.

‘My life was ruined’

It’s unclear whether Odom actually met with Remington, who emerged from a coma Monday and has not spoken publicly of the shooting. In Odom’s manifesto, however, the Marine veteran describes sitting down with the pastor sometime around August of last year.

“We were in mid conversation when he suddenly revealed himself to me,” Odom wrote. “I have no clue how he did it, but it looked as if his human face became his real face. … His eyes … were huge and bulging, the eyelids were darker green, and the irises were yellow/brown with slit pupils.”

Odom thought the church was going to turn him into a “sex slave,” he wrote, but when that didn’t happen, he left and didn’t return, allegedly until the shooting Sunday.

For a while, it appeared as if his nightmare might be ending. He returned to school, studying pharmacology at North Idaho College, he said.

“I began to recover,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, they followed me to school,” he said of the aliens. “There were several of them in every class I took. They made it impossible for me to study, and they continually harassed me especially while I took tests.”

Odom wrote that he was targeted because of his knowledge of genetics and because the aliens had a hard time controlling his mind.

“I was too smart for my own good, so they decided to remove me from society,” he wrote. “They were worried I might change the way other people think, which could lead to problems. Problems in the form of a scientific revolution.”

After trying to kill himself twice, Odom felt that his only option was to go after the aliens, he wrote.

“My life was ruined,” he explained. “Ruined by an intelligent species of amphibian-humanoid from Mars.”

The manifesto doesn’t discuss why, exactly, Odom allegedly went after pastor Remington, only that Remington and Padula were supposedly aliens or the aliens’ “puppets.”

But the manifesto helps explain why Odom traveled to Washington after the shooting and tried to communicate with the president.

On Tuesday night, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said that Odom drove from his home town to Boise, Idaho, where he boarded a flight to the nation’s capital. White said it was not clear how Odom was allowed to travel, but he might have boarded before he was identified as a suspect.

The manifesto suggests that Odom traveled to Washington to deliver a message to Obama. Part of his letter is addressed to the president.

“I want to thank you for your sacrifice to this country,” it begins, before suggesting that the president is controlled by aliens.

“They brag to me about what they do to you,” Odom wrote. “… I hope you stop letting them humiliate you. … It’s time someone took a stand to end this nonsense. Can you think of a better legacy than that?”

The manifesto also includes a list of “noteworthy Martians.” On the list are 50 members of Congress — belonging to both parties — as well as roughly three dozen members of the “Israeli leadership,” including “every single Prime Minister since 1948.”

“This is by no means an all-inclusive list,” Odom wrote. “Martians are ubiquitous. They exist at every level of society in every nation. Some have blue collar jobs, while other occupy positions of power. They control our government, our military, and Corporate America as well. They keep track of every ‘wild’ human on the planet and manage us like animals in a zoo. Our ‘freedom’ is a carefully crafted illusion.”

It’s unclear what Odom was trying to deliver to Obama when he was arrested Tuesday night, although it could have been flash drives with his manifesto on them, similar to those he sent to his parents and Idaho media.

White, the Coeur d’Alene police chief, said the manifesto had “definitely played a part in raising our awareness and concern” about Odom as a fugitive. He said that authorities were stumped about where Odom had gone until he emerged on social media Tuesday.

“Things are not what they appear to be. The world is ruled by [an] ancient civilization from Mars. Pastor Tim was one of them, and he was the reason my life was ruined,” Odom wrote in a Facebook post, changing his profile photo to a picture of an alien. “I will be sharing my story with as many people as possible. I don’t have time right now, they are chasing me.

“I shot Pastor Tim 12 times,” he said. “There is no way any human could have survived that event. Anyway, I have sent my story to all the major news organizations. I have no time, I have to go.”

He was arrested a few hours later.                      Washington Post

Out of the Cities

We have at times made the statement before that there are some things we are supposed to be doing, but we are not, and that this neglect is going to cause us more trouble and perplexity than we can imagine. What are we supposed to be doing? Well one part has already been revealed. We are actually supposed to be doing three basic things. Here is the SUM-TOTAL of what must be done aside from everything else that we are normally expected to do.

1. We must tell the world about the Jesuit infiltration.

We HAVE to do this! In the process, we must not be too elaborate, going into many deep studies or controversial themes. Those who can show what is going on with the least technicality, and can reveal the signs of what is happening around us by alerting the people to strange things taking place that they can see and confirm for themselves every day will be the most successful. This MUST be done in conjunction with Net 98, 99, etc. It must be shown that much more has been done than any change of the Sabbath by Rome. We have to do this because it will explain calamities that will suddenly hit, and from which no logical explanation will be found in the near future except against Seventh-day Adventists and their message. If this is not done, all that will be left will be circumstantial evidence pointing to Adventists as the cause of these calamities.

2. Fight against the concept of DIVERSITY which has brought in all the confusion. Explain what is the true meaning of, "DIVERSITY is the secret of OUR strength!" Explain why debating was a prerequisite for the destruction of our society. Show that the bible does not support this and raise up inquiry why our national and religious leaders called for this. This is a major secret to the destruction and transformation of our society.

3. WE MUST PREPARE TO MOVE OUT OF THE CITIES, OR AWAY FROM PLACES WHERE THERE IS HEAVY POPULATION. In other words, WE MUST PREPARE FOR A CRISIS, and we must do this VISIBLY so that others can see.

That is the sum-total of what we are trying to show. Beyond this and aside from what you normally do, there is nothing else. There is no new doctrine. There is nothing that you have to join or remove your membership from, or anything of the like. You should prevent people from tinkering to change your church structure-especially those who pretended that they were too timid to deal with controversial issues in the church, but that is automatically assumed.

Yet the issue at hand must be dealt with. We are supposed to prepare dwellings outside the cities for ourselves. This is not supposed to be done covertly nor rashly. We are supposed to do it with MUCH NOISE. We are to do it with urgency, BUT NOT WITH PANIC. We are supposed to do it orderly, with a measure of patience, actually mirroring Noah as he constructed the ark. It was said that Noah invested all that he had in building the ark. Every blow struck upon the ark by Noah and those who helped him was a witness to the people. They saw that what Noah and his helpers were doing was no frivolous project. It made the people to know and understand quite visually that something cataclysmic was about to happen. We are supposed to do what we are able to do, and we are to do it in such a way that our neighbors see us and understand what we are doing and why. We are supposed to do it in such a way where it is portrayed as actually what it is: FUN!! THIS IS A MISSION OF LOVE!!

But there is a great deal of argument about this very topic, about the third point. Many tell us that we should not move out of the cities. They portray some seemingly good reasons for staying also. They tell us that we are supposed to stay here, but we are to make sure that our hearts are not here. They tell us that we have much work to do in the cities. That is a true statement. They tell us that just so long as our hearts are right with Christ, there is no need to do any or all of these things.

Part of what we are trying to show is that great trouble and distress is coming. We are trying to show that it does not matter how holy or close to Christ you are. The situation that is coming is going to make you wish you were never born, because the circumstances will come in an angle you most probably had not anticipated. Why say that you just have to be right with Christ? You think that you will merely be filled with peace while these things will be taking place? Historically that has happened where Christians rode the waves of terror around them with a peace shining forth! THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN THIS TIME when the real brunt of the calamities hit! You think that persecution and death is the main or only issue and that is all we are concerned about? You do not understand! It doesn't matter how holy you are or how close to Christ you are! The distress that is coming upon you can be depicted as the Titanic resting upon your little heart the size of a man's fist! We do not believe that we are exaggerating either! It is not a matter of mere death and persecution. Death and persecution will be welcomed in comparison to the distress that is coming. NO ONE WILL ESCAPE THIS DISTRESS NO MATTER HOW HOLY YOU ARE! It is yet not all bad news! Some good times and great moments of victory will come. If you understand what is coming and take action, you will minimize the effects and possibly make the difference for yourselves between mere distress and eternal despair! Much sorrow will be spared you if you understand and move!

The arguments against leaving do have some weight, don't they? Yet even for the very reasons stated about the necessity of doing work in the cities and all, by refusing to undergo the process of moving out, we are doing harm that we scarcely realize. In time, those who do not make motions to leave will ultimately view that they have committed a great crime against humanity.

Some time in late 1999 while we were at work, we met up with a lady who brought up the subject of Y2K and what she plans to do about it. What we are telling you is no lie. Why did she bring it up? She told us that one day recently this year as she was walking down one of the streets of her city where she lived, she stumbled upon a synagogue. She began to explain to us that she went inside the synagogue. She said that she could not understand why she did that. She felt as if the Lord actually guided her in there. Some Jews inside saw her, but did not stop her. She then, as if guided, stumbled upon a door on the inside, and opened it. She then laid out a yell of surprise.

The yell that she gave out alerted a rabbi who was near by. He confronted the woman and asked her what she was doing there. What the lady saw was canned and other goods of food and supplies stocked high up in that room. She humbly apologized and told the rabbi that she could not understand how she just wandered in there. She then quickly interrupted the thought and got to the question at hand. She asked, "Why do you have all this stocked up in here." The rabbi then pulled her to the side and began to speak. She told me that he told her to the tenor of:

"We are stocking up on food because we know that the government is going to betray the people. Soon great trouble will be everywhere."

The rabbi therefore continued:

"When you go to the supermarket, make sure that when you buy one bottle of water, buy two. Use one bottle to drink and use the other bottle to store up for yourself."

Understand that MANY are catching the WAVE! It was predominantly Adventists who were supposed to report these things to the people. Instead of that, other Christians and even some who are not, are either warning the people of what is going on, or are physically preparing for themselves. Their warnings are not reaching everyone by far!

Beyond that, the lady told me that the rabbi told her that they had been alerted to do these things, because God's children (the Jews) are special, and have been given special information. The lady told me that since that day, she has been preparing to stock up on food and she told me that she is going to acquire a gun and ammunition in order to protect her babies when the time comes. The lady has children, and her highest ambition is to make sure that they are safe and well fed during times of emergency.

We quickly told her that both she and the rabbi are making a terrible mistake. We have to say it plainly:

ANYONE WHO ENDEAVORS TO MERELY STOCK UP ON FOOD OR SUPPLIES WHILE REMAINING IN PLACES OF POPULATION WILL FACE THE MUSIC!! They will probably face the music MORESO THAN THOSE WHO DID NOT STOCK UP!!

When we told her that, she gave me her phone number determined to know what we knew. She is telling me that we MUST tell her what we know about this. She then stated again, "I have to do whatever it takes to protect my babies!"

What we are telling you is not a matter of debate. The statement we had made about those who endeavor to stock up and remain in centers of population is commonsense truth and fact! This statement is confirmed through prophecy, history, sociology, a knowledge of current events, and even military and law-enforcement knowledge. If you stock up and stay in the great centers of population, you will face the music moreso than those who do not! And the reason why we make this catastrophic statement can be acquired through the subject header of this email: CONTAINMENT! There will be containment. This is confirmed not only through prophecy, but through what courageous military and law enforcement officials are even revealing to us now underground!

Most every prophecy that relates to the terrors of the end time gives us not the slightest picture that we are supposed to stay in populated places or in places where the judgments of God are about to fall.


Matthew 24: 37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.


Luke 18: 27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.


In both cases we see and notice that all who chose to remain where the judgments were to fall, perished themselves. In the example of Lot, we realize that they HAD to actually leave the city of Sodom. If there was no necessity for this, the Lord would not have told them. If the Lord doesn't say anything, then we can stay realizing that God will work miracles in our behalf and make us even float in the air above all the trouble if He has to. If He tells us to prepare and to leave, then we must not expect that we can stay and that we would be protected. Yet we can see through these scriptures that they are telling us that the conditions that existed back then will be repeated just before the Lord returns.

Yet the prime example used to illustrate what is about to take place, and which speaks to us is Matthew 24. In that chapter it says:


Matt. 24: 15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

20 But pray ye that your FLIGHT be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.


Look closely at the advice given. It tells all to FLEE OUT! Nowhere is anyone given the comfort or assurance that they are to stay within. It tells us to pray that our FLIGHT shall not be in the Winter, neither upon the Sabbath day. This is not talking about a commercial round trip flight to Hawaii. It is talking about a crucial exodus in order to save lives, especially YOUR OWN!

This prophecy was most specifically referring to the destruction of Jerusalem which took place some forty years after Jesus spoke. Yet Ellen White, in conjunction with MANY theologians and commentators have correctly predicted that these words also refer to our day.

The first chapter of The Great Controversy, by Ellen White expounds upon Matthew 24 where Jesus prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem. That crucial chapter is pointed out as also referring to what will take place globally in the near future. It is an immense chapter that goes graphically into details in order to, in a conservative way, explain what will happen to most of our neighbors and friends, and maybe even ourselves if we do not heed what has been revealed to us. That chapter starts out by saying:

"If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." Luke 19:42-44. - GC pg. 17.

Already the chapter starts dealing with what we are talking about: CONTAINMENT. It states that our enemies will "compass thee round" or surround us. It also tells us that we do not realize the time when these things will take place.

From this statement to page 23, Ellen White deals with the condition of the Jewish people and why judgments were about to fall upon them. She deals with the fact that although great trouble was pronounced upon them, there was nothing they saw taking place around them which revealed this. They even believed that God would always protect them. They didn't see any sign of danger.

On page 18 it shows that while the Jews were waving palm branches before Jesus and crying Hosannas before Him as they anticipated making Him king, instead of receiving these praises, Jesus suddenly broke down in tears and terrible agony. It is described that this happened because Christ saw the future. On page 21 was shown that He, while in tears, saw the soldiers and people taking the city apart as partly described by the direct statement:

"From the ridge of Olivet, the very spot afterward occupied by Titus and his army, He looked across the valley upon the sacred courts and porticoes, and with tear-dimmed eyes He saw, in awful perspective, the walls surrounded by alien hosts. He heard the tread of armies marshaling for war. He heard the voice of mothers and children crying for bread in the besieged city. He saw her holy and beautiful house, her palaces and towers, given to the flames, and where once they stood, only a heap of smoldering ruins."

Here now we constantly see the words, "surrounded," "beseiged" and all. This relates heavily upon the question as to whether or not we are supposed to stay or live in the cities. Should we live or stay in the cities and then even think to stock up on food? Will stocking up on food or supplies while living in the city help us? The answer is no!

We have read that crucial first chapter of The Great Controversy and understood how it expounded upon Matthew 24. That chapter revealed the starvation that resulted from the siege. No one was allowed either to go in or come out of the city. The supplies that were inside were destroyed. The narration showed how even mothers and fathers cooked and ate their own children to survive, and how children would steal food which belonged to their aging parents. It stated that the pangs of hunger were so fierce that men would gnaw the leather of their belts. It showed how they fought each other in order to steal what they had.

It was thence remarkable that we received information from patriotic people who were and are involved in the military and law enforcement that expounded on what was going on today behind the scenes through the workings of treacherous people. The military is also heavily infiltrated. Law enforcement is infiltrated. In their literature they did everything they could to reveal the seriousness of the situation that America and the rest of the world finds themselves in today. The only real physical and visible reason for why the system has not capsized yet today is because there are so many good people still in the military, still in law enforcement and still in church whose influence holds everything back. Yet we were absolutely surprised to find that much of what these patriotic people were saying in their literature was coinciding exactly with what Ellen White said in The Great Controversy, to the point that we wondered whether or not they were Adventists.

A not so known radio show host named Steven Quayle has interviewed many people who do not reveal their identities for their own protection to show us what is taking place in government, law enforcement and the military out of our view. One such person is a Southern California police officer whose name is "George." That is all he has left for us to identify him.

In an interview with "George" in 1995, Steven Quayle was able to extract some very shocking words. The general theme of what officer "George" was trying to portray can be more forcefully stated by his interviewer, Steven Quayle:

"If you're undecided about the reality of the coming tribulations, A Cop from Southern California gives You a Cold Hard Slap in the Face: Do Something Now, or Kiss Your "Buts" Goodbye."

"George" was revealing the foreign troops he noticed coming upon the shores of America. He revealed the Soviet military machines he saw entering cities in Southern California by rail transport. He remarked that he understood what they were, but that the general public, once viewing these things would not have a clue about what they were nor what was their purpose. He ultimately remarked about places he had witnessed where the government is concentrating military supplies. He remarked about the fact that the American military and those of many other nations have gone into training for "civilian" or "urban" combat. They are being trained not to deal with other soldiers, but how to deal with the common people in order to put down disorder and riots. He remarked about the fact that law enforcement was becoming more militarized, and that they were more and more being outfitted with clothes and gear designed to withstand shrapnel and bullets instead of what law enforcement currently and commonly wears. He therefore asked the question of what was going on.

One thing he remarked about was what he called, "sticky strips." His exact words about these were:

"We have seen warehouses stacked with M-60s, hand grenades, MP-5s, M-16s, .40 caliber sidearms, pepper foam and sticky strips all designated for local law enforcement. (Sticky strips are something that the military uses; you lay out about a twenty foot strip across the street, and anyone that runs across it sticks to it. You had better untie your shoes, because nothing comes off of it. It's a form of epoxy.)"

What he is saying is that sticky strips are a means of containment to prevent people from either going in a area or leaving it. He is therefore revealing that the military and law-enforcement possess as part of their agenda, measures and means to make sure that no one either leaves or enters any populated area when the full brunt of the calamities hit. The big and absorbing question therefore to us is the following: What good will stocking up on supplies do if you happen to live in a place which is under siege?

Police officer "George" in dialogue with Steven Quayle continues with where he left off about the sticky strips by saying:

"When you see all this stuff coming into law enforcement, you had better question why they need this kind of parity for the criminal element--and you better wonder what they're going to use on you."

Steven Quayle: What's your gut feeling as to the increasing activity and frequency of all this? Obviously, they are building up for a confrontation.


GEORGE: Yes. We're hearing that there will be massive civil unrest, due to either economic collapse, racial issues or food riots. Any of those things would set something off. However, racial issues generally don't generate enough hatred long enough to cause the kind of destruction that these people are preparing for. The kind of destruction, carnage and confrontation that is being planned for by the powers-that-be would be on a NATIONWIDE SCALE FOR MANY MONTHS. This will not be something that will happen for ten minutes and then go away. Most police departments are now mini-forts. Janet Reno did quite an exercise back in August, and increased the security of all federal buildings 180%. This has got to tell you something, people: If you don't wake up, you're going to get run over by the Bradleys because you're too stupid to see it.

The "Bradleys" that officer George is talking about is heavy military equipment. Yet he is trying to tell us that many of our major cities will be placed under siege. Jerusalem was placed under seige in A.D. 70. The seige did not go away in one day, nor three, nor thirty. People were literally starving. You cannot starve a person in a day, in three days or even a week. He may be extremely hungry and all, but he would not look like a skeleton by then. How is it then that people can think that they can store food or supplies while living inside a place that will ultimately be placed under siege?

You can predict what will happen to that rabbi and that lady who are thinking of stocking up without relocating. They may be able to survive after a time. Immediately when calamity strikes, people will go out to take what they cannot receive otherwise. They will not care how they are to acquire what they need. If anyone is seen even trying to defend a dwelling with gunfire, it will be automatically assumed that they have some supplies to protect. If you have food or supplies being stored through more prudent aforethought, it would not help you, because you will not be able to conceal that fact for very long. People will notice all the people around you becoming thinner and thinner while you and your children remain normal. That will be a dead giveaway. Your house or dwelling will then awaken attention and you will soon find yourselves surrounded. People will even go pillaging houses and dwellings just to check to see if they would find food. Those who stock up with food will be made examples of. They will be cleaned out fast and furiously, and they will be lucky to retain their lives.

There is far more information that was given in that interview and discourse. It took place in 1995, after it was already predicted that everything should have fallen through by 1997. The efforts of these people have contributed to the fact that these events have again and again been delayed. The patriotic network in America today, though immense, is nothing in comparison to the forces determined to shut down our system and erect a new global and papal order.

We must stop dreaming to think that all we are supposed to do is to merely take our hearts out of the cities. All prophecy tells us we are supposed to move our bodies as well. Ellen White said:

"If we place ourselves under objectionable influences, can we expect God to work a miracle to undo the results of our wrong course? --No indeed. Get out of the cities as soon as possible, and purchase a little piece of land, where you can have a garden, where your children can watch the flowers growing, and learn from them lessons of simplicity and purity." -- GC Bulletin, March 30, 1903.

At the time those warnings were written, Ellen White thought that the predicted calamities would take place in her day. Delay after delay after delay has conditioned us into meshing with the story of the boy who cried wolf. Will these prophecies be delayed forever? Not one HUNDREDTH of the things that are happening now were happening in Ellen White's day! These warnings were meant for our day. In that, Ellen White stated:

"There are reasons why we should not build in the cities. On these cities, God's judgments are soon to fall." --Letter 158, 902.

"The time is near when large cities will be swept away, and all should be warned of these coming judgments."--Evangleism, p. 29. (1910)

"Our restaurants must be in the cities, for otherwise the workers in these restaurants could not reach the people and teach them the principles of right living. And for the present we shall have to occupy meetinghouses in the cities. But erelong there will be such strife and confusion in the cities, THAT THOSE WHO WISH TO LEAVE THEM WILL NOT BE ABLE. We must be preparing for these issues. This is the light that is given me."--GC Bulletin, April, 6, 1903.

"In harmony with the light given me, I am urging people to come out from the great centers of population. Our cities are increasing in wickedness, and it is becoming more and more evident that those who remain in them unnecessarily DO SO AT THE PERIL OF THEIR SOUL'S SALVATION."--Manuscript 115, 1907.

This must be done prudently. The further out you go will be the least frequently you can travel to and from where you live into the cities. It is not wise to merely stay out there all the time. You have to work in the cities, but we are told that we are to have places prepared at the very least beyond the outskirts of cities. They will likely ultimately be cordoned off. You will have to plan and work to be safely away from your neighbors and also from law enforcement. Though many good people are still in law enforcement, THEY WILL OBEY ORDERS when that day arrives. They will be given commands by those in the higher echelons, many of whom, unknowing to you, believe in depopulation!

If we do not listen to the warnings given to alert the people about Jesuit Infiltration and to systematically tell them that they need to make the preparations to move out by precept and example, we will soon not only find ourselves in similar danger, but will find ourselves under titanic sorrow and eternal despair! As we see the conflagration taking place around us and see the carnage, our hearts will sink within us. If we are not involved in the carnage ourselves, we will notice our friends whom we have related to perishing because we didn't move by example and worked to tell them that terrible calamities are coming by voice and by physical preparation.


5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?

7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. -- Jeremiah 30:5-7


These are the Saints in anguish and terror. Why? Why doesn't it matter that they are holy? Because they are also smarting because of much neglect.

In the example of Jacob, he was fleeing from his brother Esau. He was already in anguish because of his sins, when, in the night, a strange visitor confronted him, and then ensued the struggle and battle of his life. He wrestled with this strange person all night in terrible anguish. He used all his strength and cried in terror as he fought on without stopping. Why? Because it was understood to him at the time that he was not merely fighting for his physical life, but for his eternity. He felt that if the attacker he was wrestling with killed him, that would be it. He would die in his sins and he would be eternally cut off from God. Jacob was not just in physical pain and struggle then at that time, but was in terrible mental agony.

In that story, the major emphasis was the fact that THE TROUBLE JACOB WAS IN WAS BROUGHT ABOUT BY HIS OWN ACTIONS. Is the situation the same with us? Will a terrible situation be brought about by our actions, or by our INACTION? Will there be something similar in just the near future? How will it be in the near future called, "the time of Jacob's trouble?" (Jer. 30:7). The reference is showing that they (we) were asleep while the enemy was advancing. They are then experiencing a rude awakening by viewing the results of their neglect: destruction EVERYWHERE: Men, women, children dying like flies! They are also hated and are being pursued, and they are wondering how they stand in the judgment and can possibly be saved after witnessing the results of not heeding God's instructions for so long.

"The deadly lethargy of the world is paralyzing your senses. Sin no longer appears repulsive because you are blinded by Satan. The judgments of God are soon to be poured out upon the earth. "Escape for thy life" is the warning from the angels of God. Other voices are heard saying: "Do not become excited; there is no cause for special alarm." Those who are at ease in Zion cry "Peace and safety," while heaven declares that swift destruction is about to come upon the transgressor. The young, the frivolous, the pleasure loving, consider these warnings as idle tales and turn from them with a jest. Parents are inclined to think their children about right in the matter, and all sleep on at ease. Thus it was at the destruction of the old world and when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed by fire. On the night prior to their destruction the
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cities of the plain rioted in pleasure. Lot was derided for his fears and warnings. But it was these scoffers that perished in the flames. That very night the door of mercy was forever closed to the wicked, careless inhabitants of Sodom.

It is God who holds in His hands the destiny of souls. He will not always be mocked; He will not always be trifled with. Already His judgments are in the land. Fierce and awful tempests leave destruction and death in their wake. The devouring fire lays low the desolate forest and the crowded city. Storm and shipwreck await those who journey upon the deep. Accident and calamity threaten all who travel upon the land. Hurricanes, earthquakes, sword and famine, follow in quick succession. Yet the hearts of men are hardened. They recognize not the warning voice of God. They will not flee to the only refuge from the gathering storm.

Many who have been placed upon the walls of Zion, to watch with eagle eye for the approach of danger and lift the voice of warning, are themselves asleep. The very ones who should be most active and vigilant in this hour of peril are neglecting their duty and bringing upon themselves the blood of souls.

My brethren, beware of the evil heart of unbelief. The word of God is plain and close in its restrictions; it interferes with your selfish indulgence; therefore you do not obey it. The testimonies of His Spirit call your attention to the Scriptures, point out your defects of character, and rebuke your sins; therefore you do not heed them. And to justify your carnal, ease-loving course you begin to doubt whether the testimonies are from God. If you would obey their teachings you would be assured of their divine origin. Remember, your unbelief does not affect their truthfulness. If they are from God they will stand. Those who seek to lessen the faith of God's people in these testimonies, which have been in the church for the last thirty-six years, are fighting against God.
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It is not the instrument whom you slight and insult, but God, who has spoken to you in these warnings and reproofs. In the instruction given by our Saviour to His disciples are words of admonition especially applicable to us: "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." Watch, pray, work--this is the true life of faith. "Pray always;" that is, be ever in the spirit of prayer, and then you will be in readiness for your Lord's coming." - 5T p. 233

When the force of responsibility and eternal despair hits, these following last words will become very keen and cutting:

"In the balances of the sanctuary the Seventh-day Adventist church is to be weighed. She will be judged by the privileges and advantages that she has had. If her spiritual experience does not correspond to the advantages that Christ, at infinite cost, has bestowed on her, if the blessings conferred have not qualified her to do the work entrusted to her, on her will be pronounced the sentence: "Found wanting." By the light bestowed, the opportunities given, will she be judged." -- 8T 247.

"Unless the church, which is now being leavened with her own backsliding, shall repent and be converted, SHE WILL EAT OF THE FRUIT OF HER OWN DOING,

UNTIL SHE SHALL ABHOR HERSELF." -- 8T 250.     More