Chick-fil-A Earns Double the Revenue of McDonalds Despite Closing on Sundays

August 02, 2019   CBN

Restaurant chain Chick-fil-A has once again recorded market-leading sales figures, despite sticking by its long-standing Sunday closure policy.

The chain, which is known for its caring staff strong Christian ethos, has become the fifth-largest fast-food company in the US, according to new data analyzed by investment banking company, Goldman Sachs.

Incredibly, despite shuttering its doors on the Lord’s day, the specialty chicken outlet has managed to generate over double the sales revenue of its well-known competitor, McDonald's. 

“Our brand survey shows that Chick-fil-A has had the most brand momentum across [fast-food restaurants] — supporting the most increase in total revenue (in dollar terms) in the US,” the Goldman analysts wrote in their report, according to Business Insider.

The firm also noted a word of advice in light of the restaurant’s meteoric rise — “steer clear from those in the fray of Chick-fil-A,” the analysts wrote. “Our 2,000 consumer brand survey suggests they will continue to take share and grow.”

Last year, Chick-fil-A generated a staggering $10 billion in sales, up from just $2 billion in 2005. Their location numbers are growing, too. Despite KFC shutting down 1% of all its outlets, Chick-fil-A has opened an additional 8%! Clearly, this restaurant chain is being blessed.

The restaurant’s popularity was clear to see in Mebane, N.C., Thursday as devoted customers camped out overnight to get a chance to win free chicken for an entire year.

And the loyal fans certainly received their reward — an electronic card which entitled them to some 52 Chick-fil-A meals over the next twelve months!

“Being involved in our community and mentoring our young team members is what is most important to us, so we are thrilled to develop new and existing relationships with the Mebane area,” branch manager Todd Perkins said in a news release, according to Fox 8. “My team and I are incredibly honored to expand our opportunity to serve and bring a new Chick-fil-A to our guests who can enjoy our delicious food and genuine hospitality.”

FBI document warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

August 1, 2019 Yahoo

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. (Read the document below.)

The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

Trump: ‘I could declare a national emergency’

August 25, 2019  NBC

SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ, France — President Donald Trump said Sunday he could declare the escalating U.S.-China trade war as a national emergency if he wanted to.
“In many ways this is an emergency,” Trump said at the G-7 leaders meeting of the ongoing trade battle between the world’s top two economies.
“I could declare a national emergency, I think when they steal and take out and intellectual property theft anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year and when we have a total lost of almost a trillion dollars a year for many years,” Trump said, adding that he had no plan right now to call for a national emergency.
“Actually we are getting along very well with China right now, we are talking. I think they want to make a deal much more than I do. I’m getting a lot of money in tariffs its coming in by the billions. We’ve never gotten 10 cents from China, so we will see what happens.”

The U.S. government is working hard to destabilize the nation.

August 21, 2019 Rutherford

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out ... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” — H. L. Mencken

The U.S. government is working hard to destabilize the nation.

No, this is not another conspiracy theory.

Although it is certainly not far-fetched to suggest that the government might be engaged in nefarious activities that run counter to the best interests of the American people, doing so will likely brand me a domestic terrorist under the FBI’s new classification system.

Observe for yourself what is happening right before our eyes.

Domestic terrorism fueled by government entrapment schemes. Civil unrest stoked to dangerous levels by polarizing political rhetoric. A growing intolerance for dissent that challenges the government’s power grabs. Police brutality tacitly encouraged by the executive branch, conveniently overlooked by the legislatures, and granted qualified immunity by the courts. A weakening economy exacerbated by government schemes that favor none but a select few. An overt embrace of domestic surveillance tactics if Congress goes along with the Trump Administration’s request to permanently re-authorize the NSA’s de-activated call records program. Heightened foreign tensions and blowback due to the military industrial complex’s profit-driven quest to police and occupy the globe.

The seeds of chaos are being sown, and it’s the U.S. government that will reap the harvest.

Mark my words, there’s trouble brewing.

Better yet, take a look at “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” a Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command.

The training video is only five minutes long, but it says a lot about the government’s mindset, the way its views the citizenry, and the so-called “problems” that the government must be prepared to address in the near future through the use of martial law.

Even more troubling, however, is what this military video doesn’t say about the Constitution, about the rights of the citizenry, and about the dangers of locking down the nation and using the military to address political and social problems.

The training video anticipates that all hell will break loose by 2030—that’s barely ten short years away—but the future is here ahead of schedule.

We’re already witnessing a breakdown of society on virtually every front.

By waging endless wars abroad, by bringing the instruments of war home, by transforming police into extensions of the military, by turning a free society into a suspect society, by treating American citizens like enemy combatants, by discouraging and criminalizing a free exchange of ideas, by making violence its calling card through SWAT team raids and militarized police, by fomenting division and strife among the citizenry, by acclimating the citizenry to the sights and sounds of war, and by generally making peaceful revolution all but impossible, the government has engineered an environment in which domestic violence is becoming almost inevitable.    More

Misinformation and hysteria over wildfires in the Amazon

August 25, 2019 Blaze
While climate change alarmists spread fear over wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, data from NASA shows there is no reason for concern — or there should have been concern in past years.

 

From media outlets to politicians, the wildfires have sparked a wave of misinformation and hysteria. The wildfires are so frightening because the Amazon produces 20 percent of the world's oxygen, they claim. Others alleged the fires could speed up climate change. 

 

However, the panic appears to be completely overblown.

According to NASA, fires are common in the Amazon due to the arrival of a dry season in July. Fire activity typically peaks in September before ending in November.

And even though fires are common, NASA analysis shows that current fire activity is at or below average.
 

Google vanishing alternative medicine content

August 25th 2019 Greenmed

With about 1 billion health searches happening on Google every day, it's not hard to understand why censoring natural health information serves a multitude of interests, not the least of which is Big Pharma's bottom line.

A new analysis released by Bob Troia, Twitter handle Quantified Bob, reveals how health sites have been decimated by Google in the period tracked from April 15th, 2018 to August 15th, 2019.

He posted the following graphic on Twitter on August 25th, 2019, showing as high as a 99.87% decrease in visibility through Google search results, and a 81.14% drop for Greenmedinfo.com. 

Mayo Clinic and WebMD, on the other hand, saw a 59.98% and 30.71% increase, respectively. The difference in treatment between natural and conventional health websites has lead many to speculate that this was a manually executed penalty targeting the alternative medicine space. One of our colleagues, a Google SEO expert, posted his opinion on the matter here: “Google Takes Position in Controversial Vaccine Safety Debate.”  Be forewarned, the rabbit hole goes deep. Google’s motivations and bias stretch all the way to election manipulation, as we discuss here: "Google Just Scrubbed Natural Health Websites From Its Search Results; Whistleblower Explains How and Why."

However, you don’t have to fall into the stereotypes of a health freedom advocate, vaccine choice, or natural health obsessed organization to feel the pain of Google’s purge. Examine.com, for instance, which prides itself on being entirely science-based, and who has written about how “you do not need to worry about MSG,” “Curcumin is not a panacea,” and “Diet soda is unlikely to hurt your health,” also got hit hard. The founder recently wrote an article to answer the question: “Why has Examine.com disappeared from search results?” He and his organization played by Google’s rules, yet have all but disappeared from the search results. The same happened to Joe Cohen, founder of Self-Hacked, who wrote an excellent article on the subject here: “Google Is Taking Censorship of Health Websites to The Next Level.”

Prove all things

¹¹ Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.

¹² And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;

¹³ And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.

¹⁴ Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.

¹⁵ See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.

¹⁶ Rejoice evermore.

¹⁷ Pray without ceasing.

¹⁸ In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

¹⁹ Quench not the Spirit.

²⁰ Despise not prophesyings.

²¹ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

²² Abstain from all appearance of evil.

²³ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁴ Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

²⁵ Brethren, pray for us.

²⁶ Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.

²⁷ I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.

²⁸ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.                 1 Thessalonians 5:11-28

Starvation to the poorer classes will result in a civil war

There are men in the church and in the world who have educated themselves to practice fraud, and for this they will be brought into judgment.... Men have chosen to stand, not under the blood-stained banner of Prince Immanuel, but under the rebel flag to do the works of a rebellious prince. They may have sold their souls for money. They may have taken their Lord's money to purchase wheat and the facilities whereby poor men live, that they may extort from the Lord's creatures the highest prices. They make for themselves princely fortunes.  

But for all this the Lord says He will bring them into judgment. In God's sight such a man has made himself an outcast. He has sold his soul for that which he may lose at any time. He has worshiped an idol; covetousness was his sin, and the means needed to bless humanity has become to him the greatest curse.—Letter 89, 1898, pp. 9, 10. (To J. E. White, October 30, 1898.)  

God does not design that men shall appropriate all that the earth produces for their own selfish purposes. He calls upon them to bring their tithes and offerings into His storehouse, that there may be meat in His house.  

In India, China, Russia, and the cities of America, thousands of men and women are dying of starvation. The monied men, because they have the power, control the market. They purchase at low rates all they can obtain, and then sell at greatly increased prices. This means starvation to the poorer classes, and will result in a civil war. There will be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation. “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.... Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.”         5MR 305

Cancer is a germ and can be received by infected meat

Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculous and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated.    

Child Guidance page 385

The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

² For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

³ For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

⁴ But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

⁵ Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

⁶ Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

⁷ For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

⁸ But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

⁹ For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

¹⁰ Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.                      1 Thessalonians 5:1-10

The open space in Orion

“Dark, heavy clouds came up and clashed against each other. The atmosphere parted and rolled back; then we could look up through the open space in Orion, whence came the voice of God. The Holy City will come down through that open space. I saw that the powers of earth are now being shaken and that events come in order. War, and rumors of war, sword, famine, and pestilence are first to shake the powers of earth, then the voice of God will shake the sun, moon, and stars, and this earth also. I saw that the shaking of the powers in Europe is not, as some teach, the shaking of the powers of heaven, but it is the shaking of the angry nations.” Early Writings page 41

Ezekiel 16

Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I am poor and needy

Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy.

² Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.

³ Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.

⁴ Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

⁵ For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

⁶ Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.

⁷ In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.

⁸ Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works.

⁹ All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.

¹⁰ For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.

¹¹ Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

¹² I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.

¹³ For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

¹⁴ O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; and have not set thee before them.

¹⁵ But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

¹⁶ O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thine handmaid.

¹⁷ Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me.       Psalm 86

Who are the Jesuits?

The benefits of plant based ingredients

Wanderlust 

We’ve all heard to avoid harmful chemicals when it comes to skincare—but what are the benefits of botanicals, and how can you include them in your daily routine?

It’s everywhere. The notion of swapping out toxic chemicals has permeated the entire consumer goods industry, ranging from beauty products to mattresses, and everything in between.

But with this increased awareness of what’s in the products we use every day, comes an even greater responsibility for consumers to be able to decipher the ingredient list on their labels. Many synthetic organic chemicals and their replacements are disguised within hard-to-pronounce words like “dibutyl phthalate” and “propylparaben”—and we’ve heard the advice to avoid the ingredients we don’t recognize. So what should we be looking for in our products?

Enter plant-based ingredients.

You’ve likely heard of plant-based botanicals, and it’s no secret that herbalism and nature-based products are trending. But it’s when we dig a little deeper and begin to uncover the benefits of plant-based ingredients that we’re able to begin to cultivate a holistic lifestyle that lasts. When we understand the “why” behind the choices we make, they become even more powerful.

Biblical City of Ziklag Where Philistines Gave Refuge to David Found

Haaretz Jul 08, 2019

The biblical town of Ziklag may have been found, a team of Israeli and Australian archaeologists announced on Monday. The ruins were found near the southern town of Kiryat Gat in Israel and have been dated to the early 10th century B.C.E. – the time associated with King David. 

If they're right, it would bolster the theory that David was more than just a local hilltop chieftain as some researchers claim, and support the theory that he indeed ruled over a united kingdom in the area of Judea, say the researchers, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Macquarie University, in Sydney, Australia. But the kingdom doesn't seem to have been the mighty entity in antiquity that some envision.

Ziklag is mentioned in the Books of Joshua and Samuel as a Philistine town abutting the city of Gath (after which the modern city of Kiryat Gat is named).

In this context, the archaeologists point out that the very name Ziklag stands out in the biblical record because it isn’t Semitic or Canaanite, but apparently a Philistine one. Apropos of that, recent genetic studies on skeletons discovered in a Philistine cemetery in Ashkelon, on Israel’s coast, have proved once and for all who these mysterious Philistines were: They originated in Europe.

Our right to know if it’s GMO is officially under attack—again.

Organic Consumers July 24, 2019

Our right to know if it’s GMO is officially under attack—again.

On June 6, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed to overhaul longstanding regulations governing genetically modified organisms (GMO). The  proposed new rule would revise the agency's current method for regulating genetically modified plants, and would exclude newer so-called “gene-edited” GMOs. 

In a statement, the USDA said the new rule came "in response to advances in genetic engineering." 

A week later, in the political equivalent of a one-two-punch, President Trump bolstered the USDA’s proposal by signing an executive order directing the USDA, as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, to "streamline" GMO regulations in the U.S. for agricultural biotechnology, including for genetically modified livestock and seeds. 

The full import of these two moves, and specifically the threat that they represent to consumer freedom, is only just starting to sink in—and the need for consumer action has become urgent. Contact the USDA here.

Thousands of bones were unearthed at the Vatican

Insider Jul. 22, 2019

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A genetics expert retained by the family of a girl who went missing in 1983 said Saturday that a cavernous underground space near a Vatican cemetery holds thousands of bones that appear to be from dozens of individuals, both "adult and non-adult." 

The expert, Giorgio Portera, said the "enormous" size of the collection under the Teutonic College was revealed when Vatican-appointed experts began cataloging the remains, which were discovered last week .

"We didn't expect such an enormous number" of bones and other remains which "had been thrown into a cavity," Portera said. "We want to know why and how" the bones ended up there.

Fragments were also found, complicating the forensic experts' work, he said.

Portera is working on behalf of the family of Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican citizen who vanished at age 15 after she left her family's Vatican City apartment for a music lesson in Rome. What became of her is one of Italy's most enduring mysteries.

Some have theorized the girl was kidnapped in an unsuccessful ransom bid to win freedom for the Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in 1981.

A Vatican statement Saturday made no mention of the number of remains in the newly discovered space near the Teutonic Cemetery but said the forensic work would resume on July 27. 

Orlandi's family previously received an anonymous tip to search near the 19th century tombs of two German princesses in the tiny graveyard.

'Never accept' separation of faith from political engagement

Catholic Herald 10 July, 2019

Christians are called to win the battle of ideas and values in secular society, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said on Tuesday.

In a speech delivered to the Alliance Defending Freedom Summit on Religious Liberty on July 9, the archbishop said authentic religious freedom is essential in shaping a society of love, “the animating spirit of all authentically Christian political action.”

“I mean love in the biblical sense: love with a heart of courage, love determined to build justice in society and focused on the true good of the whole human person, body and soul.”

Chaput told the audience of lawyers from around the world that Christians must work to build an authentic vision of society built around the common good, and that “human progress means more than getting more stuff, more entitlements, and more personal license.”

“Real human progress satisfies the human hunger for solidarity and communion,” Chaput said. 

“When our leaders and their slogans tell us to move ‘forward into the future,’ we need to take a very hard look at the road we’re on, where ‘forward’ leads, and whether it ennobles the human soul or just aggravates our selfishness, our isolation, and our appetite for things.”

True religious freedom is crucial to serving real human progress, the archbishop said, drawing a distinction between it and “the half-starved copy of the real thing called ‘freedom of worship.’”

“We can never accept a separation of our religious faith and moral convictions from our public ministries or our political engagement. It’s impossible. And even trying to do so is evil because it forces us to live two different lives, worshiping God at home and in our churches; and worshiping the latest version of Caesar everywhere else.”

Thousands of bees have been shown dead on the ground after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck California

NST July 8, 2019

Thousands of bees have been shown dead on the ground after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck California on Saturday.

The shocking footage shows social media influencer Khalil Underwood outside his house, amid a mass of the dead insects on July 6.

He zooms close to the ground to reveal the plight of the bees and the masses of carcasses that cover much of the ground in front of him.

“This is crazy. I've never witnessed anything like this,' Underwood exclaims. 'Look how many f***ing bees are on the f***ing floor from the earthquake.”

He pointed to some that were still alive, appearing to shake and buzz on the ground as well as the struggle he had while moving his car.

Underwood claims the bees “vibrated, buzzed and died” as a result of the earthquakes.

Scientists have previously noted that animals and insects act strangely in the lead up to an earthquake, but do not know why, according to the US Geological Survey.

While scientists know creatures are able to recognise earthquakes before humans, the mechanisms explaining how and why they happen “still elude us” they wrote...

The unusual event occurred after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck southern California, the worst the state has experienced in two decades.

The second consecutive day of earthquakes caused fires to break-out in Ridgecrest.

The earthquake struck 11 miles off the north-northeast of Ridgecrest at 8.19pm PST on Friday, close to where a 6.4 earthquake had hit the morning before.

More than 250 smaller magnitude aftershocks had also hit during the 36 hours between earthquakes according to the US Geological Survey.

U.S. religious leaders issue “Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency”

Yale May 9, 2019

What is an emergency? Merriam-Webster defines emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.” Does climate change count as an emergency? Not if an “emergency” is necessarily “unforeseen,” for when it comes to climate change, scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, telling us that burning massive quantities of fossil fuels would lead to catastrophe. Of course, the fossil fuel industry (see #ExxonKnew) has spent millions of dollars trying to make the climate emergency as “unforeseen” as possible, for as long as possible, to as many people as possible. But the clock has run out. The time of reckoning is at hand. Foreseen or unforeseen, the climate crisis is upon us and it calls for immediate action.

In the same week that the U.K. became the first country to declare “an environment and climate emergency,” and in the same week that the Anglican Communion became, as far as I know, the first global religious body to recognize a climate emergency, National Religious Coalition for Creation gathered for its 20^th annual prayer breakfast in Washington, DC. NRCCC is a group composed of members of major faith groups in America, including Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Orthodox Christians, and Jews. After opening prayers, a lively presentation by Chad Hanson (Director of the John Muir Project) on forest protection as an essential aspect of addressing climate change, and the bestowal of the 2019 Steward of God’s Creation award to two outstanding climate champions – the Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley and the Rev. Dr. Jim Antal – we moved outside to announce the release of Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Climate Emergency.

Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency clarifies two essential facts: humanity has an extremely short window of time in which to avert irreversible climate chaos, and religions around the world consider protecting God’s Creation a moral and spiritual imperative.

Perhaps it was fitting that the Religious Declaration was publicly announced in Pershing Park, a National World War I Memorial. Just as William James and Jimmy Carter spoke of “the moral equivalent of war,” so, too, are increasing numbers of citizens realizing that we need to address climate change with the same focus, fervor and self-sacrifice of a nation that is mobilized to fight a war.

The stakes are high. As stated in the opening lines of the Religious Declaration, climate change is unlike any other challenge that confronts humanity, “because it is largely irreversible ‘for 1,000 years after emissions stop’ with ‘profound impacts on global climate, ecosystems and human societies for the next ten millennia and beyond.’¹ The shocking truth is that decisions we make now could, in the words of climate economist Ross Garnaut, ‘haunt humanity until the end of time.’² Nuclear war, while also irreversible, is only a possibility. Human-induced climate change is underway now, and its impacts are greater and more extensive than scientific models predicted. We will significantly alter the future of civilization as we know it and may eventually cause its collapse if we continue down this path.”

The Declaration calls for bold, concerted action: “Decades of delay on climate action have made small corrective measures and incremental approaches useless. Those who are invested in maintaining the status quo, or who put forth proposals that are clearly incompatible with what climate science demands, are condemning innocent young people – including their own children and generations to come – to a future of unimaginable suffering: the mass death of human populations and the extinction of species.

Rare polio-like illness marked worst year ever in 2018, CDC says

Inquirer July 9, 2019 

A mysterious disease marked by muscle weakness or paralysis struck 233 people in 2018, most of them children — marking the worst year since the federal government started tracking the illness in 2014.

The number of confirmed cases of acute flaccid myelitis included 11 each in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The year’s total was announced Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The cause is thought to be a virus, leading to damage to the spinal cord, but much about the illness remains unclear, CDC physicians said in a conference call. A prime suspect is a type of enterovirus called D68, yet most people who become infected with it do not develop muscle weakness.

The disease has struck 11 people so far this year, the agency said. That number is not expected to go much higher, as the illness so far has followed a biannual pattern, spiking in 2014, 2016, and 2018.

No Exceptions: New York, Washington, Maine Abolish Religious Exemptions for Measles Vaccine

The74million June 17, 2019

Update, June 18: California Sen. Richard Pan updated the proposed legislation there to expand the list of medical conditions for vaccine exemptions and loosen the role of government oversight in granting exemptions. The state Assembly Health Committee is expected to vote on the measure Thursday, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The measles outbreaks that have spread through different parts of the country this year are causing lawmakers and advocates in several states to rethink their policies about vaccinations, despite ongoing skepticism and sometimes-fierce political pushback from anti-vaxxers.

New York, Maine and Washington state have all taken steps to restrict vaccine exemptions based on religious beliefs this year, and California is considering a measure to tighten up its existing policy governing medical exemptions.

Since Jan. 1, 1,044 cases of measles have been reported in the United States. The disease was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, but the Centers for Disease Control warned in May that if the outbreaks continue through the summer and fall, the United States could lose its status as a country that has eradicated measles.

The most recent measles death in the U.S. occurred in 2015, but before the vaccine was common, the disease killed hundreds of children each year, according to the CDC.

Putin wondering after the beast

Archaeologists discovered mosaics depicting four beasts described in Chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel

Fox July 2, 2019

Archaeologists have uncovered a stunning 1,600-year-old biblical mosaic in northern Israel.

The mosaic, which depicts a scene from the book of Exodus, was found at the site of a fifth-century synagogue in Huqoq.

Excavation director Jodi Magness, a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the mosaic was the first depiction of the episode of Elim from Exodus 15:27 ever found in ancient Jewish art. “Elim is where the Israelites camped after leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness without water,” she explained in a statement, noting that the mosaic is separated into three registers or horizontal strips.

One register showed clusters of dates being harvested by loincloth-clad agricultural workers while another showed a row of wells and date palms, she explained. “On the left side of the panel, a man in a short tunic is carrying a water jar and entering the arched gate of a city flanked by crenellated towers. An inscription above the gate reads, ‘And they came to Elim’,” Magness added.

Archaeologists also discovered mosaics depicting four beasts described in Chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel. The beasts represented four kingdoms preceding the end of days.

“The Daniel panel is interesting because it points to eschatological, or end of day, expectations among this congregation,” said Magness, in the statement. “The Elim panel is interesting as it is generally considered a fairly minor episode in the Israelites’ desert wanderings ­­– which raises the question of why it was significant to this Jewish congregation in Lower Galilee.”

The Three Ds of Doom: Debt, Default, Depression

Charles Hughs Wednesday, July 17, 2019

"Borrowing our way out of debt" generates the three Ds of Doom: debt leads to default which ushers in Depression.

Let's start by defining Economic Depression: a Depression is a Recession that isn't fixed by conventional fiscal and monetary stimulus. In other words, when a recession drags on despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus being thrown into the economy, then the stimulus-resistant stagnation is called a Depression.

Here's why we're heading into a Depression: debt exhaustion. As the charts below illustrate, the U.S. (and global) economy has only "grown" in the 21st century by expanding debt roughly four times faster than GDP or earned income.

Costs for big-ticket essentials such as housing, healthcare and government services are soaring while wages stagnate or decline in purchasing power.What's purchasing power? Rather than get caught in the endless thicket of defining inflation, ask yourself this: how much of X does one hour of labor buy now compared to 20 years ago? For example, how much healthcare does an hour of labor buy now? How many days of rent does an hour of labor buy now compared to 1999? How many hours of labor are required to pay a parking ticket now compared to 1999?

Our earnings are buying less of every big-ticket expense that's essential, and we've covered the gigantic hole in our budget with debt. The only way the status quo could continue conjuring an illusion of "prosperity" is by borrowing fantastic sums of money, all to be paid with future earnings and taxes.

At some point, the borrower is unable to borrow more. Even at 0.1% rate of interest, borrowers can't borrow more because they can't even manage the principal payment, never mind the interest. That's debt exhaustion: borrowers can't borrow more without ramping up the risk of default.

When wages are stagnant and big-ticket items are soaring in cost, that leaves less available to service more debt. We can cover expenses by borrowing more for a while, but there's an endgame to this trick: even at zero interest, servicing the debt exceeds income.

Marginal borrowers default, and the resulting losses collapse marginal lenders.Recall that every debt is somebody else's asset and income stream. When a student defaults on a student loan, that erases the asset and income stream of a mutual fund, pension fund, etc.

In other words, defaults are not cost free. They wipe out assets and income streams, never to return.

For the past 20 years, the trick to escaping recessions has been to lower interest rates and flood the financial system with new credit. If everyone would just borrow more and spend every cent of the new money, the economy will start "growing" again.

But we've reached the point where most wage earners can't borrow more, corporations shouldn't borrow more and the top tier of earners no longer want to borrow more. Governments can always borrow more, but eventually servicing the ballooning debt starts crowding out other spending, and the solution--borrowing more to cover the interest payments--spirals out of control.

Lowering interest rates and giving banks and financiers "free money" doesn't increase wages or household incomes or corporate profits. Nor do these monetary tricks magically turn marginal borrowers into creditworthy risks.

Borrowing more to fill the hole left by declining purchasing power only works in the short-term. We've burned the 20 years that this trickery can work, and now we face the endgame: borrowing more only increases defaults, which trigger losses in wealth and income that will be measured in the trillions.      More..

A Bank With 49 Trillion Dollars In Exposure To Derivatives Is Melting Down Right In Front Of Our Eyes

TECB July 18, 2019

Could it be possible that we are on the verge of the next “Lehman Brothers moment”?  Deutsche Bank is the most important bank in all of Europe, it has 49 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives, and most of the largest “too big to fail banks” in the United States have very deep financial connections to the bank.  In other words, the global financial system simply cannot afford for Deutsche Bank to fail, and right now it is literally melting down right in front of our eyes.  For years I have been warning that this day would come, and even though it has been hit by scandal after scandal, somehow Deutsche Bank was able to survive until now.  But after what we have witnessed in recent days, many now believe that the end is near for Deutsche Bank.  On July 7th, they really shook up investors all over the globe when they laid off 18,000 employees and announced that they would be completely exiting their global equities trading business…

It takes a lot to rattle Wall Street.
But Deutsche Bank managed to. The beleaguered German giant announced on July 7 that it is laying off 18,000 employees—roughly one-fifth of its global workforce—and pursuing a vast restructuring plan that most notably includes shutting down its global equities trading business.
Though Deutsche’s Bloody Sunday seemed to come out of the blue, it’s actually the culmination of a years-long—some would say decades-long—descent into unprofitability and scandal for the bank, which in the early 1990s set out to make itself into a universal banking powerhouse to rival the behemoths of Wall Street.

These moves may delay Deutsche Bank’s inexorable march into oblivion, but not by much.

And as Deutsche Bank collapses, it could take a whole lot of others down with it at the same time.  According to Wall Street On Parade, the bank had 49 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives as of the end of last year…

During 2018, the serially troubled Deutsche Bank – which still has a vast derivatives footprint in the U.S. as counterparty to some of the largest banks on Wall Street – trimmed its exposure to derivatives from a notional €48.266 trillion to a notional €43.459 trillion (49 trillion U.S. dollars) according to its 2018 annual report. A derivatives book of $49 trillion notional puts Deutsche Bank in the same league as the bank holding companies of U.S. juggernauts JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, which logged in at $48 trillion, $47 trillion and $42 trillion, respectively, at the end of December 2018 according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). (See Table 2 in the Appendix at this link.)

Yes, the actual credit risk to Deutsche Bank is much, much lower than the notional value of its derivatives contracts, but we are still talking about an obscene amount of exposure.

And this is especially true when we consider the state of Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet.  According to Nasdaq.com, as of the end of last year the bank had total assets of 1.541 trillion dollars and total liabilities of 1.469 trillion dollars.

In other words, there wasn’t much equity there at the end of December, and things have deteriorated rapidly since that time.  In fact, it is being reported that a billion dollars a day is being pulled out of the bank at this point.

I know that most Americans don’t really care if Deutsche Bank lives or dies, but as the New York Post has pointed out, the failure of Deutsche Bank could quickly become a major crisis for the entire global financial system…

The battle over heritable genome editing

Evolution NewsJuly 23, 2019

Genetic engineering is among the most powerful human technologies ever invented. It holds great hope for everything from medical uses to cleaning up the environment. But it could also unleash a deadly pandemic or lead to a “new eugenics” with very sharp teeth.

The last time we witnessed something like this was the splitting of the atom. At that time, we had a sufficiently cohesive and responsible world community to enact meaningful legal and regulatory restrictions to govern the technology’s development, which have been generally successful — with some obvious exceptions. Imagine where we would be if atomic energy had developed under an “anything goes” paradigm.

Anything Goes?   

We are apparently no longer sufficiently cohesive or responsible to similarly come to grips with the vast power of biotechnology. As a consequence, experiments are going forward that are both unwise and potentially unsafe. For example, even though the biotech world was in a supposed uproar about the birth of the first germ-line genetically engineered babies (meaning the changes will flow down the generations), nothing has been done to stifle supposedly rogue scientists from continuing to pursue such unethical human experimentation.

And now, two influential bioethicists take to the venerable Journal of the American Medical Association to ask: “Heritable Genome Editing: Is a Moratorium Needed?” You can guess what their answer is: no.

No Principled Opposition

Indeed, the Brave New Worlders candidly reveal that within the biotech/bioethics community, there is essentially no moral or principled opposition to engaging in germ-line human engineering:

The battle lines over heritable genome editing currently pit those who choose to ask “whether” to proceed against those who ask “how” to press on.
The latter hold that the collective ethical good is best served by a “responsible path” toward the prevention of crippling monogenic disorders; they are willing to trust that regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will hold applications for heritable genome editing to rigorous demonstrations of safety and efficacy before they garner agency approval.

The “latter” approach is rank subterfuge. Without an enforceable, international legal ban on these experiments in humans to allow the regulations to catch up with the technology — which these authors and many other heavy hitters in the sector oppose — experimenters will simply do what they want. If U.S. agencies won’t give the green light, some will simply resort to “outsourcing ethics” (a term coined by my friend, the Stanford bioethicist, William Hurlbut) and conduct research in other countries, particularly China or Africa. I suspect that is already going on.

YouTube ad policy bans keyword ‘Christian’

RT26 Jul, 2019

When the founder of a Christian veterans group tried to upload a YouTube ad for his organization, he received an odd rejection, informing him the keyword “Christian” was no longer acceptable under the site’s ad targeting policy.

Chad Robichaux, founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, a charitable group that helps veterans overcome wartime trauma, took to Twitter with a screenshot detailing his encounter with the tech giant.

“This is the first time we'd seen this,” Robichaux told Faithwire in an interview. Within hours of Robichaux’s post, YouTube attempted to explain the situation in a tweet of its own.

“We know that religious beliefs are personal, so we don’t allow advertisers to target users on the basis of religion,” the Google-owned platform said. “Beyond that, we don’t have policies against advertising that includes religious terms like ‘Christian.’”

The veteran fired back, arguing the company’s statement was demonstrably false and that he had used the same keyword in previous ads without problems “for years.” Moreover, he claims when he tried running the same ad but with the keyword “Muslim” instead, there was no issue.